#then I also wanna give dr stone a chance (yes dragon that was you)

[haasegawa]

I did not think that when I came back to tumblr you guys would actually make me put a thousand anime on my watchlist

[eloarei]

Okay, I’m going to babble about Greedfall under a cut. I just have to.  tl;dr, you should have been able to romance Petrus and Constantin, no I am not taking critique.  Under the cut: 1500 words of basic Greedfall explanation, and then me lamenting ships that didn’t happen; includes spoilers (noted). 

So. Greedfall. Basically, I had never heard of this game until it was free on Playstation Plus a few months ago, and I was like “yeah okay sure, I’m not doing anything else”, so I played it. I had no idea what to expect. I don’t recall watching the trailer. From the icon, I expected maybe pirates? As it turned out, no pirates ...exactly? But kinda. They’re mostly just colonists with pistols and big hats. Lots of big hats. There are a faction of characters that live on ships, but they’re not pirates. I don’t think they’d appreciate being referred to as such.  Anyway, it’s a rather Dragon Age-like game. I don’t mind saying so, since everyone else has. It has its similarities and differences, but it definitely feels familiar in that way. It’s definitely not a copy, just... inspired, I guess.  You play as Lord or Lady de Sardet, (that’s a silent t, btw), who’s tasked with representing her people on the ‘new continent’ of Tir Fradi-- mostly to the other countries that settled there in the past few years, but also to the natives, who’ve lived there for ever and ever and actually respect the land, unlike you dumb colonizers.  The factions are real pains in the ass, but in a way that’s a litttttle bit charming. Theleme is full of propagandizing Catholics who aren’t above a little witch hunt now and again. The Bridge Alliance are all science-obsessed atheists who think progress is more important than basic morals. The natives are VERY in touch with nature, and have cool Russian accents, skull-like face paint, and sometimes branches growing out of their heads. (The natives have the most diverse opinions, so they’re the least annoying. In fact, they’re rather likeable, except that sometimes they hate you, and don’t bother with pretending they don’t for diplomacy’s sake.)  There’s also the Nauts (the pirates), the Coin Guard (mercenaries, but they kind of work for your country?), and the Congregation of Merchants, aka your country, which are basically neutral ground capitalists that everyone sort of doesn’t hate. (Theleme and Bridge Alliance despise each other, roughly a little more than they hate the natives.)  You’ve got one companion from every faction:  Siora from the natives, Kurt from the Coin Guard, Vasco from the Nauts, Petrus from Theleme, and Aphra from Bridge Alliance. They’re all representatives of their people, but also (as you might guess) non-extremists. Because otherwise you’d want to murder them.  Siora isn’t desperate to kick out the foreigners, she just wants her people to be safe and respected. Kurt and Vasco are basically just following you because it’s Kurt’s job and Vasco’s boss told him to. Petrus is a conniving old man, but he doesn’t shove God down your throat too much and seems to respect the natives, sort of. And Aphra has enough morals to agree that killing for science ain’t cool, and maybe the natives aren’t just savages. All in all, they’re all pretty reasonable.  Compared to Dragon Age, none of your companions (or other NPCs) have a ton of personality, but somehow they still manage to have a good bit, and I ended up really liking them.  SO LETS TALK ABOUT SHIPPING You can romance Kurt if you’re playing a woman, Aphra if you’re playing a man, and Vasco and Siora in either case. But, oh my god?, getting the romance to happen is practically impossible. Save first. I romanced both Kurt and Siora (in different saves; can’t do ‘em both in one), using a guide, but by the time I had thought about romancing, I’d already said one wrong thing to Vasco and screwed my chances hahaha. There’s basically 3 specific conversations you have to have with them, and each time you have to pick the right thing to say, out of three choices. If you offend them at all, there’s no going back. Wow. They’re not very intuitive, either.  ANYWAY. The romances aren’t all that interesting, but they add a bit to their stories, so it’s cool. I think my ship preferences with these four characters are Kurt, Siora, Vasco, and Aphra, in that order.  But you KNOW WHAT? I wanna romance Petrus. Yes, the old man. The bishop. And yeah, I know why you can’t.  (It’s spoiler time!)  You can’t romance him basically for the exact reason you should be able to romance him: he was in love with your mom. Your birth mom, who was a native, which you never knew about. He pined for her after she was captured and taken from her land, and when she was in pain and wanted to die, he didn’t help, and now he’s like “woe is me, I’m flooded with guilt”. Which is partly why he’s following you/ de Sardet around.  So you can’t romance him because he sees you as his kid... kinda?... ish?... I guess? Sure. Ok. I mean, that’s cute. I like it. He makes a pretty bad dad, to be honest, because he’s more like that one slightly morally corrupt uncle who lets you drink hard alcohol when you’re a teenager but only under his supervision. But he cares, and that’s the important thing. I don’t dislike dad-Petrus at all.  But you should still be able to romance him because of the good old classic “you’re so much like your mother”. Problematic? MAYBE. =D But a real missed opportunity. Also he’s my favorite companion. He’s a real manipulator. Gets excited about blackmailing politicians. Sounds like he’s smoked a pack a day. I just like the guy a lot. (And you know how much fanart he has? Like none. Le sigh.)  (Also very few ship fics with him; I’m not surprised, but of course I must remedy this. I’m 4k in already and it’s a lot of de Sardet thinking, and her friends poking at her.)  BUT ALSO, to move on from Petrus.  There’s a character I neglected to mention at all, because he’s not a playable companion (except for a tiny while in the beginning, iirc). He’s perhaps my real favorite character... or maybe tied with Petrus.  Yes, it’s Constantin, de Sardet’s “dear cousin”. Oh my lord, Constantin. What a cutie??? He’s basically the prince. He’s been appointed as the governor of their city on the new island, and he’s precious. Genuinely a puppy.  And I think you should be able to romance him. (It’s less crazy than you might think!)  MORE SPOILERS TIME  So, as it turns out (well, I already sort of spoiled it up there), because de Sardet is actually a native, s/he and Constantin are not actually cousins. They love each other immensely. The game makes no mistake about this. They’re absolutely besties. I think Constantin calls you his lucky star. He’s always so flattering, and seeing de Sardet just makes his day. And since it turns out you’re not really cousins, you should be able to romance him.  And do you know why?  I mean, because they love each other, clearly. But also, that ending. Good lord that ending. I mean, if you didn’t think that they loved each other that much, the ending basically says, “HEY ACTUALLY they totally love each other more than anything”, which makes it terribly depressing either way, because you can either... well, stay with him forever, to the detriment of literally everyone else, or, you know, not stay with him, in order to kind of save everyone. It’s already very heart-wrenching, but letting them literally be in love? GAWD. Talk about pulling heartstrings. It would have made the ending like... an actual choice.  (BIG SPOILER BELOW although you probably already guessed.)  Yeah so you have to kill Constantin to save the island. OR, you two can become the new gods, and everyone fears you and it’s terrible. Lordy. Just terrible either way, because there’s no way you played the game and didn’t end up loving Constantin somewhere along the way, even when the red flags started going up that he’d gone power mad. (Because even when he’s power mad, he still obviously loves de Sardet SO MUCH,  OH my god...)  So. As I said. You should be able to romance Petrus because, well, I want to. Need me that problematic ship, c’mon! And you should be able to romance Constantin because the whole plot is literally written that way??? It’s like the romance that is set in stone, you know? And it literally drives the plot.  The whole “Constantin gets native powers and decides he wants to be a god” thing was sort of predictable (as soon as it started happening, because shit, I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen before!), but overall I thought the game and story were pretty good. I recommend playing it if you’re got 40 hours free and it’s really on sale or something. I give it an 8.2 out of 10. (Higher if it didn’t start to feel kind of grindy at points. Lower if I’d had to pay for it. Much higher if they let you romance your pseudo-dad or pseudo-cousin, hahaha.)