#especially with the limitations of certain dialogue options

[adinafay]

Okay, Astarion origin run.

We're all well-versed in getting his approval and romance arc, but what are we collectively thinking he'd be most-likely to do without Tav/Durge around? As, himself, the de-facto leader of the group? With Tav/Durge around he really only needs them on his side; they'll protect him from the rest of the party and he's pretty free to be as honest as he wants to be with his approval/disapproval of things. Then, obviously, as things progress we see the growth from or cyclic regression into his trauma and the ways in which we, as the player, have influenced his outcome.

But, without Tav/Durge, I'm thinking without that, yes, he'd still be trying to manipulate his way into everyone's good graces BUT, as not just another member of the group but its LEADER, he's now going to have to be MUCH more mindful of what everyone else thinks of him.

All those snarky, naughty, murder-laced quips we love so much? The constant angst against helping other people? The impulses to instigate or kill instead of talking things through with anyone that annoys him? Power-hungry interest in the tadpoles/Absolute? He's going to have to try his 10 CHA best to tone ALL that shit down if he wants to befriend everyone instead of focusing on a single source of protection.

He's gana be both mentally and physically exhausted, more-so than he would have been otherwise, and he's going to be even more scared of all the things to come because he's gotta be the face spear-heading the group - the meat-shields don't work as well if they're behind you, after all.

Alao: the big Feelings revelation, positive or negative, he can have post-Araj? Entirely moot because the other companions don't seem to comment at all -it's solely, 100%, his choice.

So, if he has a turning point in an origin run, what/where would it be? Is it an even slower story than the one we love from romancing him as a player? One that starts from the beginning, when he, suddenly free of Cazador's immediately influence, is thrust into the position of group leader and everyone just... goes along with it?

Is it him eventually realizing that he cares some amount for ALL of these people? Maybe because they all respect his autonomy? Respect it so much, in fact, that they seem to follow him near-blindly?

Or would there not be as much personal growth for him, being in charge of this haggard band? Would he find security in having “followers” that defer to him and be even more sure of his need to accumulate power?

[kirkwallguy]

i rly think DA's companions peaked with rivalries lol, like that can create such interesting dynamics, when rivaled these people are still following hawke and you can still romance them, Interesting!! THat's cool! why are they doing that, staying with someone who's disagreed with them the whole time or done things they find objectionable - you get different dialogue in cutscenes too, they react to how you treat them (thinking with Merrill you can just chose to not give her the thing to fix the eluvian and you get a different scene after the quest) You can be mean, you can support them or not and they respond to that, it feels like your choices are affecting the characters around you. (diff game but alistair confronts you about Isolde and if you killed her, the kid, or got help, i'd have loved more of that!! more characters going "hey this was fucked up of you, why???" or "I'm glad you handled this" and then you can talk about it more, the companions having Thoughts on your good or bad behavior and actions and voicing it!) also I think not being able to just chat with the companions was a silly choice, especially with the fact that rook can be a crow or shadow dragon etc, wdym we cant just talk about that with the gang??? ask for their thoughts on it all and they ask for rooks, rook could voice support or question what the group is and what they're doing (kinda like with Wynne and mage warden, you can talk about the circles and voice your dislike or support for them), rook could ask for more information and if they know they could share, or they won't if rook isn't a part of that group and it's all meant to be secret or something - and maybe if you ask again when they have high approval they'll tell you anyway cause they trust you, more opportunities for lore and worldbuilding as well as exploring the characters a little more??

idk im :/ rambling lol, i just really enjoyed how much you could say and do in other games, dav feels limited? And like nothing was perfect in the other games but I feel like there were so many more opportunities to learn about everything and the characters felt so much more involved? I do love that the companions talk to each other at the lighthouse like thats great we get to see those dynamics more outside of party banter!

i LOVE the rivalry dynamic and it really helps with each playthrough feeling unique, a hawke who is besties with merril is so different emotionally to a hawke who rivals merril, and it feels like there's a near-endless number of combos? also being able to push back on companions is something people have been complaining about a LOT in dai and dav, being able to spend the entire game disagreeing with a character and still see their entire story (WITH extra dialogue and sometimes entirely different cutscenes to acknowledge the fact that you don't have a good relationship?) it solves such a fundamental problem with relationships in rpgs and i don't get why it isn't more frequently used lol

and yeah i can understand if they wanted to save money not doing chats in the lighthouse (tbh. the inquisition skyhold dialogue options were just annoying and useless to me especially when you had to exhaust them to trigger certain quests), but it just feels like it creates a distance between you and the companions when they can all have conversations with each other at the lighthouse but you can't speak to them? it just feels like such an important feature for the genre and the only other game in the series that doesn't have it is the one that was made in like a year

[my-current-obsession]

I am overall very much enjoying Guardians of Azuma, but I'm torn about some things.

In theory I LIKE that every love interest has a story/subplot dedicated to them, but the fact that nearly ALL of them are gated by the main story compels me to race through the game rather than taking my time. Literally my favorite thing about previous Rune Factory games is the laidback pace, slowly raising affection with and getting to know your love interests as you tackle the plot and dungeons at your own pace. In 3, you have a limited number of quests you can do in a day, which translates to HAVING to take things slow to get through more girls' stories before the end. In 4 I was in no rush because I was at the whims of RNG with town events, so waiting longer just gave me more days to potentially get events. With 5, I don't believe any of the love interests' events were story-locked (and if they were the game didn't SHOW it so I had no reason to rush looking for more content), so you could just breeze through them as they showed up.

But in this game? I have several love interests that are TECHNICALLY available from the very start (or at least early on) and it's starting to look like I have to outright beat the game to unlock the rest of their stories so I can actually potentially date them. And that's not even addressing that a good chunk of love interests only become available AT ALL near the very end of the game. Considering how much the advertising promoted the romance aspect of this game you'd think it would be possible to see it BEFORE beating the game and having only minor incentive to keep playing.

Beyond that... I really enjoy the combat and exploration of this game, but I think it was focused on to the detriment of the usual core formula of RF games. With the town building mechanic, it's changed farming into something you basically either leave entirely to the villagers, or spend A LOT of time carefully micromanaging four towns' farms yourself while assigning all the villagers to other jobs. There's no happy medium. Try to do A BIT of farming, focusing on raising certain crops or leveling certain things, and the villagers will inevitably get in your way by harvesting something before you can reap it or sowing seeds in field space you wanted to use another way. But it really is so much effort and time to spend doing all the farm work yourself. Especially since the very necessary fire sword to get higher level seeds is slow and clunky.

For most of the game I have tried to do some farming, mostly to level up my crops, but it's been a frustrating experience trying to work around the villagers. Now that I'm near the end I'm leaving it all to them as I race for the finish line (literally just so I can unlock all my love interests and date who I want), and I plan to manage the farming entirely by myself after beating the game, since I'll have the time instead of spending all my time chipping away at a new dungeon.

Monster allies feel entirely superflous in this game, tbh. Not only does it take forever to unlock them compared to other games, but they seem to all be "attackers" in a game that actually has roles for your party, encouraging a diverse team. This game also has some amazing banter between characters in the field, so using a slot for a monster is a slot taken away from a character who could have a more useful role and at the very least has entertaining dialogue.

Rapidly losing your health starting at midnight to "encourage" you to go to bed is a bit much. At least when paired with the fact that "hang out" options (as in, how you actually gain a good amount of points with people each day) take up time. You either need to be incredibly selective about who you hang out with so you have more time, OR you only have around six hours a day to actually get shit done. I understand and even agree that SOME sort of limit forcing you to sleep is good. But midnight is too soon. 2 am seems more reasonable, giving players a few more hours to work with while still meaning Kaguya/Suburu gets at least 3 hours a night.

Finally, I wish fishing was unlocked way earlier (again, as it usually is). Fishing has always been a good way to spend the last few hours of a day if you have nothing better to do in RF, but here I had to get deep into the game to get that luxury.

I want to stress that despite my complaints I really do love this game. But I've heard some others express the sentiment that this doesn't quite feel like Rune Factory, and I kind of agree. The things I like about it and how I play are so different from the core series. It's a side game/spinoff, so I can understand the differences. And I honestly love the story, it's my favorite of all the games I've played thus far. While the stories of the love interests that I've actually been able to play so far have been a tad hit or miss for me, the main story is SO good and the six gods individually and as a group are great.

But when I inevitably come back to this game, it won't be for the relaxing experience I love from other RF games. It will be because I specifically miss and want to re-experience these characters and this story, or because I enjoy the exploration and party banter. As far as actual farming and romance go I'd probably stick with other RF games.

[bettydice]

I have finished Veilguard. A bunch of thoughts under the cut!

The Companions: Loved all of them and all the banter and their interactions. I thought the companion quests were fantastic and there was a lot of content there and I enjoyed it all. Voice acting was fantastic and some line deliveries made me tear up. And while it was honestly nice to have everyone get along well and be respectful with each other, I did miss some... bite and conflict. Like you get all those delicious conversations with Solas and questioning of motives and I wanted more of that sort of thing. Also I'd die for Assan and Manfred. The Environments: This is definitely one of the strongest parts of the game for me. Everything is gorgeous and I loved just walking around, exploring. I thought they found a great balance of streamlined and exploration! Puzzles were at a difficulty that I can still enjoy (thus very simple, I'm sure other people are annoyed by that) and it made exploring satisfying and relaxing instead of a chore. And I loved seeing changes in the environments after certain events or NPCs moving into places that I'd cleared. I rarely fast travelled because I loved walking through the Crossroads so much.

Rook: Overall, I enjoyed Rook. I chose Erika Ishii's voice for my first playthrough and thought it was fantastic. Also loved every Mourn Watch dialogue option. However... Rook has a loooot of auto dialogue and the dialogue options feel quite limited, so I'm worried about replays and being able to make different Rooks actually feel different. Also hate to say this, but Rook could smile a little less in cutscenes... I also don't think you can play a Rook that antagonizes any companions or is just plain shit at conflict resolution.

Combat: Even though I never felt like I fully mastered it, I enjoyed it. And especially after recently replaying all the other games - the dragon fights were so much cooler (though as a mage, they were also 80% running around screaming). I didn't miss being able to control my companions, except for taking screenshots. Romance: I romanced Bellara and I love her, she is my beautiful wife. I do wish there'd been more romance specific content, especially because you get to see soo much of your companions getting together and being together and you're just there like... what about me? Spare romance banter for Rook pls? I didn't even get a romance specific greeting! Though ultimately, I'm really happy with the romance and the ending added some welcome drama, because Bellara was the one that got abducted by the blight/Elgarnan and yesss! The drama! The fade statues guilt trip! She's so smart and fierce when she returns! And the last scene was super sweet. <3

Story: Overall I'd say... Yay? Loved all the Lore drops and actual answers. Thought the side quests were well done and interesting. Another shout out to the companion quests! All in all, I'm satisfied with the ending, I think. HOWEVER! You can feel the Things We Didn't Import all over the game. There were so many moments where I was like, okay they COULD have mentioned xyz here easily, but no, they have to go out of their way to be vague or not let you talk to this character much. I don't need actual cameos (Isabela you deserve better) but there's so many missed opportunities for simple mentions or codex entries and it's such a shame. Because this IS the culmination of the story and why can't we see that reflected in little moments, so that we can truly feel the depth of the story once more? But I do love the Codex! There's so much good stuff in there! I might even go back and read all the Codex entries I haven't yet. Oh, why do we see no Elves working for Solas? Did he manage to get his entire spy network killed before the game? Classic Solas. Music: Soundtrack was fine, better than I expected tbh though a few scenes had some really awkward whimsical music that made me go ?????????? The Varric thing is dumb. The 'twist' only works because I guess nobody ever mentioned his death ever again. I hate sacrificing character development or People Behaving Normally for twists.

Why is the Inquisitor still wearing FUCKING PYJAMAS. Really wish there was an option to dye armour. The decision between Minrathous and Treviso is a cool concept and loved (though hated) seeing the fallout but what.... Rook and their two buddies are the only thing standing between a city and complete ruin???? I do not think so.

That's all for now.

[coral-nerd]

i need

i need you to rant about coral island

please

what do you like/not like about the game it's v important to me (i wanna know and none of my friends play so i cant bother them)

I WILL TAKE ANY OPPORTUNITY TO RANT!!!

In exchange, I hope to recieve a rant in return!!

Recently the lack of updates is starting to worry me. I don't mind waiting years to reach the Final Version, but the save I specifically have to test out new features has maxed everything out and been untouched for a while. There used to be a roadmap of when we could expect certain updates, so the radio silence in comparison is troubling.

I think the one thing I would change about the game is the character customization. They have a great variety of hairs (though they could use more curly options), and I love having a color wheel (even if it is hard for me to use) but the 3 body types are incredibly limiting, and the facial features don't make much difference when you only see the farmer from above at an angle. I also just don't really like any of the clothing options. If you want hoodies, you're covered! Sneakers? Sure thing! Sweatpants? They got 20! Anything else? Ehhhhhhhhhhhggg....

The thing the game does best is the npcs. Every single one has such a DISTINCT personality! Everyone goes on an on about how Hot everyone is, but I love that you could take any character and quickly learn what their Goal in life is. What they love, Who they love, where they like to be... and for such a large cast, the variety is spectacular!

But by far my favorite thing about Coral Island is Coral Island itself. The fact that every single home and shop has been decorated with such detail and care! The beauty of the plants, the pathways, the little critters that pop up here and there. When I'm having a hard day, I like to just run around the island and Look at it. And if I had time I could spend a full real day just poking around the islander's homes. I think about a year back I had a series of posts that was just me finding easter eggs in people's homes; there's a lot of great stuff!

I like that I can take it slow; nothing horroble happens if I miss a day, or forget an event, or if a store is closed on a day I wanted it open. I can always come back later, and just take my time. Sure it's fun to clean the ocean and clear the mines year one, but you don't Have to.

I like how you progress through time, especially that you can really see the Impact you have. Purwo forest changes every year (and so do the baby owls!), new shops open, the Hot Springs and Temple become so gorgeous, dialogue changes, and... well I don't want to spoil some of the rank S changes XD

I like that year one you basically Can't win any of the festival minigames, but you come back the next year stronger than ever and can really see just how far your abilities and stamina have changed. Year one you learn the lay of the land, year two you are Part of it.

I do think it's a bit weird that you unlock the full hotspring experience and all the cooking items so late into the game that there's nothing that takes your stamina away to the level you Need energy boosters. It's a bit of a wasted mechanics opportunity. Not that I can think of a way to do it differently.

I'm not currently enamored with the merfolk side of the game, but I'm hopeful that more updates will get me invested in that as well.

The unlockable areas kinda scare me with how Vast and empty they are. Irl I'm terrified of wide open spaces, so in game I tend to avoid the new places. I also kinda thought there would be more Lore attached to those places, but maybe that's a later update.

One of the things I secretly love is how you can tell the game wasn't made by Europeans, Americans, what have you. There's much more focus on familial duty and community than I've seen in most media. Some of the dialogue is clanky and frankly janky. Definitely not written by a native English speaker.

I like when dialogue glitches and you can see <npc name> {item name} because it really makes me appreciate how every single tiny detail had to be thought out, planned for, and executed by a person out there who I hope had a lot of fun creating something they could share.

I know this is the only game I play besides the sims, and clearly I don't know anything about gaming or have anything to compare Coral Island to, but I wish other gamers didn't try to just Rush the game and then compare it's mechanics to other things they've played.

I had a weird moment showing Coral Island to 2 of my gamer buddies, and they were accurately calling out every mechanic before it happened, and seemed so Bored before giving it a chance. Like, "yep, there's the typical 'giving you your farming tools' scene." "Duh, the shipping bin." "The ax animation is so weird." "What do I gain from talking to npcs?" "This town is too big, I don't think I'm ever gonna get it." "Rancher, store owner, disguised character customization, yeah yeah."

And that's just not at all the Point of the game I fear. And I don't ever want to get to the point where I don't think it's cool for games to have built-in mechanics to give you what you need, no strings attached. Or think talking to the npcs isn't Interesting enough to do for it's own sake.

In a world where everyone's going fast, I like the opportunity to choose to take it slow. To like things just because they're pretty. And to watch a game change over time because I gave it a chance before it was ready.

I'm not going to get another gaming experience like this, and I'm so glad I did.

Thank you so so much for inviting me to rant, and I'm looking forward to hearing other people's thoughts!

[yersina]

a linguist plays chants of sennaar (pt 5)

[pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3] [pt 4]

the home stretch!!

disclaimer: can't promise that i'll have any insights that a layperson wouldn't have, this is kinda just me thinking through the grammar of the language out loud haha.

this post covers the fifth and last language in chants of sennaar and will contain spoilers for both the language and the endgame! it also assumes you know what the symbols mean already.

i.... to be completely honest with you, i did not enjoy this language 😂 i think the experience of deciphering it got lost in favor of the storyline, which isn't necessarily a bad thing for everyone, but hey, i am the one going through each of these languages like a linguistic bloodhound here lol. because of that, i'm not as familiar with these words as i am with the other languages.

before we get into anything else, and also because i imagine that this will be a shorter post because the game itself tells you what patterns to look for, i do want to say that this language strikes me as being incredibly artificial. which is a good thing! it emulates the digital apocalypse vibe that exile gives. but a language that leans so heavily into being constructed and recombined and modulated so easily really gives me the impression that it was created and not organically developed. the only other irl example that comes to mind at the moment is korean hangeul, which was purposefully created by king sejong and is an alphabet, not a logography. like, this is a language that i would make for fun in high school (which is to say, it gives a kind of overly grammatically strict, awkwardly too regular vibe?).

it's kind of funny that this language is where i'm starting to get reminded of conlangs, especially when, well, everything in this game is a conlang. but if we take each of the radicals in this language as affixes/morphemes when they're being combined into one character, then this actually reminds me of a specific conlang (ithkuil, i think?) where you can convey incredibly complex ideas through very few words.

the language of the anchorites isn't quite this complex, but hopefully the comparison gets my point across?

i’m curious if only certain elements can be combined with each other or if there’s a certain order to them, but it’s hard to tell when there’s such limited evidence in the game. interestingly, i believe the anchorites’ language is the only one in this game that makes a distinction between “die” and “death/dead” by combining the noun with the verb “go”. not sure why the developers suddenly made that decision haha.

this language, like most in the game, is an SVO language, which we can see below:

but i think also they (the developers) were trying to convey more complex sentence structures than their language was designed to communicate??? so then you end up w smth like below:

which, if you translated literally, would actually be “you man i wait”. again, super interesting bc i think an actual, more accurate anchorite sentence should be “i wait you man”. they have a more complex sentence here bc of the predicate (“you’re the one”) and the dative (“for”), but really the sense that they’re trying to go for is “i was awaiting the one [who is you]”. i guess it’s possible that different grammatical cases are treated differently in this language, or that, like english, word order is occasionally variable (even tho that option seems iffy bc we haven’t really seen evidence of it before), but tbh i suspect that really it’s that the developers wrote the dialogue and then brute forced it into the anchorite language haha. no shade! (and also impossible to confirm either way lol) just kinda amusing and also it makes sense when it’s p obvious their focus shifted from the language to the story.

this trend continues throughout all of the anchorite dialogue (imo) and makes it kinda slow and awkward to read if you don’t have all of the characters translated. in my opinion, the way that the language functions in the last part of this game makes it pretty clear that the developers meant for you to rely on the given translations during this potion of the game, especially when the translation mechanic is mostly through the matching terminals in exile, rather than speaking with people.

annoyingly, the anchorites’ language is also the only one in the game that doesn’t have words for the other people/cultures in the game (demonyms), which also doesn’t give much to work off of in terms of cultural context, relationships, etc.

again, i’ve decided not to get into an in-depth orthographic analysis of this particular language bc the game itself introduces you to them. one that i noticed that wasn’t specifically addressed in-game is the similarity between “open” and “key”, which is something that i actually also noted before in the devotees’ language. i’m sure there are others, but i’m also sure you can find them yourself!

all in all, a strange ending to this game. if you’ve made it this far in all of my posts—thanks for hanging around! hope you were able to learn smth new :)

[reliquiaen]

Thoughts about the Veilguard gameplay:

Would have liked to see some companion combat. It mentioned that the command system was locked at that point in the story, but I would’ve appreciated seeing how it works. Can you give orders like ‘go there’ and ‘focus that guy’? Can you set them up with tactics like in Origins? (I miss the tactics menu.)

I noticed Neve got in close a couple of times to do some melee shenanigans, is that a Neve-specific quirk or are we getting some more in depth sexy close quarters mage stuff?

Rook had a limited arrow pool which is fine, I have no issue with that. What I’m wondering is if rogues as a class will have less reliance on the bow? Or will it be possible to spec further into that? How does it work for Varric and Harding who are archer based? Will there be a dedicated archer class? Can I play bow and arrow main weapon is my question.

I would’ve liked to see more of the magic system. What kinda spells and spell classes will we have this time around? Neve seems very ice-centric, which is neat, but can I cast fireball? Chain lightning? Can I spec someone into the dedicated spirit healer? Is shapeshifting coming back? What about blood magic? We’re in Tevinter please give me blood magic.

What ARE the classes going to be and how will the system work? Is it locked in from the start? Do we have a bit more flexibility with it? Can I respec skill points? Are there class masteries?

How does equipping weapons work? Can you have a main loadout and swap to a secondary loadout like in Origins? Do weapons come in sets, or can I mix and match this sword with this offhand weapon? Am I locked to certain weapons? Are there any cross class things going on? That rogue Rook we saw, is that bow an ability or a weapon he can swap out? How does it work?

How does companion levelling work? Can I spec Harding into daggers? Like how in Origins you could take a perfectly good dagger-wielding rogue in Zevran and say ‘here’s a bow, shoot stuff’ can I do that again? Or are classes more locked down?

Will I be able to see companion health bars (and other statuses) when they’re in my party?

Intrigued by the ‘which companion you take will have consequences’ bit too. ‘Harding will go with you into greater danger’, does that mean… what? Permanent injuries? Relationship status changes? Unique dialogue? If you take a companion into a situation they don’t want will they leave the group? Do companions have the chance for perma death???

Is that dialogue system similar to DA2 and will it have some of the same effect on ambient dialogue?

I don’t think we’ve ever had a romanceable dwarf? Do we get two this time? Harding and Varric? Please??

Is Rook locked to human? I don’t want that. After we finally got to be Qunari in Inquisition, please don’t give us less options now.

The two shapes that rise up behind Solas at the end have some vague resemblance to the Architect and Corypheus, any chance they are some more of the Magisters? Could we get some more lore about the Black City? Especially considering all the differing opinions about whether the Maker lived there or the Old Elven Gods or whatever. Would be nice if it really does have something to do with the taint because I am STILL WAITING to find out if my Warden and the Architect figured something out, and we left someone in the Fade in Inquisition… now is the time okay. Bring it all home.

I know there’s that thing going on about how they want only names and faces Solas doesn’t know, but like… if the Fade is being torn asunder… will Hawke/Alistair/Other Guy make a return? Have the Veiljumpers found them? If there is something about the calling (which I’m hoping given we have a new Warden), will our DAO Warden be making a reappearance? Is this gonna be like… all the old PCs joining the new one to Ultrazord punch Solas in the face?

Elluvian appearance: I know Tevinter is Just Like That but please??? News about Merrill???

Just in general, how many of my faves will be brought back and done dirty this time? I need to know so I can brace myself.

[four-loose-screws]

Hi! I've never been able to find good sources on what's actually missing in the Radiant Dawn "extended script" compared to the vanilla localization. In particular, I wanted to ask about Ludveck, the main antagonist of Part 2. I was told he loses a lot of screentime especially and his character gets neutered down, so I wanted to ask about him.. Love the blog by the way, it's great! Thank you!

Hi! Thank you for enjoying and getting lots out of my blog! =)

Quick reference to all links I share in this post:

What is the Radiant Dawn "extended script?" Summary from amielleon in 2017.

Radiant Dawn extended script, side-by-side with full fan translation. Completed in 2024, first posted to Reddit w/ a mediafire link to download the translation.

Link to the localized Radiant Dawn script, for side-by-side comparison with the fan translated extended script.

First, allow me to start with a short summary of what the Radiant Dawn "extended script" is, for those who may not know. The Japanese version of Radiant Dawn has 2 scripts. 1 for normal mode (the easiest difficulty), and 1 for hard and maniac mode. Only the main script is different - no base convos, support convos, etc. have any differences. No one knows exactly why there are 2 scripts. But the prevailing theory is the game devs wanted an easier to read script for children, casual players, and those who did not play Path of Radiance.

The English localized script is based on the normal mode script, meaning there's tons of little details left out all across the game, that overseas fans would never know about without fan translations and online resources! (There's also some scenes here and there that have dialogue unique to the localization, but that's another discussion of its own.) Why didn't the localization get the extended script? No statement has been made for certain. Seems like the kind of thing that would happen due to a time crunch, but that's also just a theory.

For a more lengthy summary of what the extended script is, this post done in 2017 by amielleon is fantastic for that.

Now for my full response to anon:

The Radiant Dawn "extended script," as it is commonly referred to as, is one of the few times in my FE translation efforts when I will realize my human limits. RD is a big, long game, and to think that there's an even longer version of the script, that was never localized...? Oh, and there's small chunks of script here and there that are unique to the localization, and not in the short or extended JP script? Yeah, that's a can of worms I wouldn't open unless I was willing to set aside all my other translations for a while.

The good news: I did some sleuthing, and confirmed that someone recently finished a complete fan translation of RD's extended script! It is beautifully presented in an easy to download file to boot. Click here for a link to their Reddit post, which includes a mediafire link to download the full translation.

The downside: the fan translation is only the JP extended script and fan translation side-by-side. If you want to know exactly what's different, you also have to bring up the localization script and read that side-by-side all by yourself. Not a bad scenario by any means, and probably the only practical option, as the extended script changes so many little things here and there that making an exhaustive list of changes would be, well, exhausting. But it would be neat if there was one definitive reference guide to the differences between the localization, shorter JP script, and extended JP script.

As for the best place to access the localized RD script for side-by-side comparison, Serenes Forest never 100% updated the site to include the entire script, so my current answer is fandom.com. Click here for the link to the RD scripts on fandom.com.

In conclusion, anon, sorry to not address your question directly... but I hope that providing all the resources to compare any part of Radiant Dawn's localized script side-by-side with the extended script is an equivalent exchange!

[therollinkaagenda]

Kalinka navigation notes from Mega Man 4

The GameCube MegaMan anniversary collection included a few unique features, one of which was adding optional 'navigaters'- hint systems introduced in X5(?) That involve a character calling you at certain points when enabled in the settings - in this case similar to calling Roll in Megaman and Bass, being activated by simply pausing.

What is most exciting about this feature is that in mm4, it gives a ton of new dialogue to one of my favorite characters and one of the series most criminally underutilized: Kalinka Cossack. I intend to analyze and overanalyze every one of these calls over the course of my playthrough; after all, this is debatably canon and probably contains more lines for her than all of the other classic series games combined.

This is NOT a transcript, just notes on what Kalinka is saying during my playthrough and my occasional thoughts about it, and I will be skipping over repeated advice or otherwise uninteresting dialogue, and condensing similar points into one note.

General:

-Kalinka is likely responsible for establishing this call, despite being captured by Dr. Wily. This likely involved creating a communication device compatible with Rock's receivers, masking it's signal, and making it a video call for fun I guess, all under her genius captor's nose. It's possible that she had help from protoman, but i suspect that she did most of the mechanical stuff - after all this game puts her intelligence on full display

- another major point is that Kalinka can see where MegaMan is, what he is doing, and what obstacles are ahead of him- I'm not sure whether she somehow is receiving feedback from Rock's sensors, hacking security cameras and other equipment, or some other third thing,, but either way is impressive in it's own right

- Kalinka seems to know how the vast majority of robots work, but often doesn't know the actual names of enemies. Because of this, it seems she doesn't seem to be reading from any type of manual or guide, and limited prior knowledge - meaning she is likely coming up with the majority of her advice on the spot. This makes the accuracy of her statements quite impressive.

- this will become more apparent as I recount more examples, but this game paints Kalinka as a sort of genius prodigy - seems like she learned a lot from her father, but she is brilliant in her own right too

- Kalinka will occasionally speak as if she was fighting instead of Megaman, especially later in the game (ex: 'what if I used X weapon). This is most likely a series of typos, but I feel like it's worth mentioning

Toad Man:

-Kalinka is immediately able to tell for certain that the wind is strong enough to push Rock around despite him being a robot, before he ever tries to jump; same mostly applies to the effects of water flows later in the level.

-Kalinka knows that the snail miniboss is vulnerable when it's eyes are open

-Kalinka not only has a general idea of what Toad Man's weakness is, but also knows that he's freaking pathetic

Bright Man:

- I don't know why Kalinka is introducing herself now, but I guess that the Dev's thought most people would start with Bright Man??? Toad man is right there???

-Kalinka seems to already know how the enemies in bright Man's stage affect the lighting

-Kalinka not only knows how dangerous spikes are, but that the grasshopper robots are safe to ride on and will move in a predictable pattern

- upon seeing the split path in the stage, she knows that nothing to important is on the bottom path, and when exploring the bottom path she wants you that you may not be able to return if you don't have energy for Rush

- on the main path, she will warn you about hitting the lightbulb enemies and about the falling red platforms

-Kalinka knows that Bright Man is weak to water, and that being in the air during the time freeze makes you less vulnerable to his attacks

Pharaoh Man:

- Kalinka will immediately warn Rock about the quicksand

-Kalinka will once again inform you that jumping on certain enemies is necessary to proceed, with some additional caution reflecting that these robots have projectiles. During the final section, she will advise you to take the higher platforms

- Kalinka pretty much successfully deduces Pharaoh Man's weakness, in this case it's made clear that she is coming up with this on the spot.

Ring Man

- Kalinka knows how the rainbow platforms (and their alternative later in the level) work

- Kalinka explains how to deal with the hippo minibosses, and later that the rain flush ruins them

- Kalinka explains how to defeat the Whopper minibosses, and later that they can bet skipped with a time freeze

- Kalinka knows that the mono loaders will be one-shot by charge shots

- Kalinka knows that Ring Man is weaked by heat, and advises you on how to avoid his attacks

Dust Man

- Kalinka immediately tells Mega Man to hit sheild attackers from behind

- Kalinka warns Rock about enemies launched from bottomless pits

- Kalinka informed Rock of appearing platforms

- Kalinka warns Rock about the Press

- Kalinka tells Rock how to deal with breakable blocks, and seems to be working with Beat (Beat acts as a series of arrow signs in this game)

- Kalinka gives a detailed idea of how to avoid Dust Man's attacks, but only has a vague idea about his weakness

Skull Man

- Kalinka tells Mega Man to use charge shots against Zato, and that only charge shots work on Skeleton Joes

- Kalinka tells Rock that one enemy is only vulnerable from the front

- Kalinka warns Rock about caterpillar enemies

- Kalinka seems to know relatively little about Skull Man compared to the other robot masters, as both her idea of what his weakness is and her advice for fighting him, while accurate, are rather short. This seems to support the idea that skull man was built specifically for fighting MegaMan as per Wily's demands

Dive Man

- Kalinka warns of enemies in the water

- Kalinka states that uncharged attacks are more effective against moby, and that it's vulnerable to flash stopper

- knows that mega man can't defeat the jellyfish robots

- Kalinka knows how mega man operates in water

- Kalinka gives Rock advice about dodging dive man's attacks. Interestingly, she recommends using the normal buster- this may be more evidence that she doesn't know Skull Man, or perhaps she just knows that using the skull barrier against Dive Man is very risky

Drill Man

- Kalinka tells Megaman about the map

- Kalinka advices that Rock defeats a crusher enemy with rapid fire

- Kalinka recommends using charge shots against the blue enemies

- Kalinka gives Rock advice about dealing with the dust shoots that drop rocks

- Kalinka tells Rock how to use the switchs

- Kalinka tells Rock to move when Drill Man is underground, and recommends using a weapon that is 'sure to capture', an odd but useful hint towards his weakness

IMPORTANT: Kalinka seems to acknowledge that Drill Man is the final stage in my playthrough - unsurprisingly, it seems likely that her dialogue may change slightly depending on the order the stages are completed. However, I have yet to confirm this and do not know the extent to which it happens if true.

Cossack Fortress 1

- Kalinka advises Megaman on how he can deal with the local ice physics. She also admits that they caused her to slip once

- Kalinka tells Rock when he needs to use Rush Coil or Balloon to proceed, and recommends using the Rush jet

- Kalinka tells Rock how avoid the moth bosses attacks and counterattack

Cossack Fortress 2

- Kalinka shows excitement when MegaMan enters the fortress proper, and asks him to help her and her father

- Kalinka tells Rock when the Rush jet is nessisary, saying 'all I have is a Rush Jet...', which i assume is a figure of speech but it's really funny to imagine that she just. Has a rush jet. No Rush, just the jet for Rush. And has somehow used that for everything she does in this game

- Kalinka tells Rock how to traverse the spike blocks, and that he can skip some with a balloon

- Kalinka tells Rock that certain walls can be destroyed by the drill bomb

- Kalinka tells Rock how to damage the room boss

Cossack Fortress 3

- Kalinka directly addresses the auto scrolling segment, ('here the background moves by itself') breaking the fourth wall

- Kalinka tells Megaman to defeat an otherwise invulnerable enemy with Dust Crusher (there seems to be a typo)

- Kalinka tells Rock how the golden platforms work, and how to use them

- Kalinka knows that this boss is weak to pharaoh shot, and asks mega man to defeat it quickly

Cossack Fortress 4

- Kalinka tells Megaman about a shortcut

- Kalinka states that Rock is the only one who can save her father...

- unlike any previous bosses, Kalinka gives no advice about fighting Dr. Cossack at all, and doesn't contact you during the battle. This is likely because she is being saved by Protoman

Wily fortress 1

- Kalinka thanks Megaman and promises to use the data she got from Wily's base to continue supporting him

- Kalinka warns Rock that the stage has a large number of metaurs

- Kalinka advises Rock on how best to deal with the disappearing blocks

- Kalinka gives advice on avoiding attacks from the metaur boss

Wily fortress 2

- Kalinka warns Megaman about the large number of spikes in the stage

- Kalinka gives a detailed description of how to deal with the boss

Wily fortress 3

- Kalinka states that Megaman is close to Wily and offers encouragement

- Kalinka affirms the the robot masters have the same weaknesses in the rematches

- Kalinka tells Rock how to use the Drill Bomb against the boss (it's worded poorly but I'll chalk it up to a typo)

Wily fortress 4

- Kalinka losses connection with Megaman, which smells like the Devs wanted to troll players by not telling them that the final boss can only be hurt by the fully charged Pharoh Shot, which would have been the single best thing for the hint system added in the remake to tell you. For shame devs, for shame.

------

If anyone has additional information or caught something I missed, it would be appreciated. While this project may have not been a direct addition to Rollinka, it's still greatly reaffirms much of what I already knew about Kalinka's character, and may be a useful resource for anyone writing Kalinka - which is like, half of writing Rollinka, so I think it's worth posting here.

[darkfictionjude]

💌

📨

📜 ➡️ 🔍 ⤵️

Hello! It's been a while since I last played We Wretched Creatures, and I instinctively hovered to the left expecting to find the back button, only to realize…it wasn't there 🙉.

Personally, I rely on it to save on save slots. I use the saves at the beginning of new episodes, for critical choices or events. The back button is when I want to see how a character reacts to a different dialogue option than what my MC would normally choose, or when I need to backtrack because this time I picked a choice that didn't reflect my character well ( non self-inserting readers will understand ). It's handy for non native speakers and for those who have trouble grasping the real meaning/ intention behind a choice or even for those who restarted the game, breezing through it, picking their usual choices and accidentally end up misclicking another, without the need to redo the episode. For example, when we got to pick a clothing style only the name of the style was listed but the actual clothes were detailed once the style chosen, I didn’t like what I ended up with and I didn’t save for a while before that so I had to restart the chapter.

Without the back button, I find myself saving at flavour/ aesthetic choices like these in addition to the beginning of an episode and at major decisions. However, the limited number of save slots means I resort to unnamed disk saves ( multiple ), which I then have to search for in my countless downloads and try each of them to end up with the one I am looking for ( run game -> load disk save -> downloads pop up -> search for the save -> wrong one -> go back to browser -> load disk save -> downloads pop up -> search for the save -> wrong one ->… ). When I could just “ turn back a page “, now I have to search for that particular page among dozens because no matter what “ the bookmarks “ always end up scattered which honestly makes what was supposed to be a leisure reading feels like a chore.

Believe me when I say horror was the last genre I thought I would end up liking, but playing 💪🥊 WWC 🥊💪 made me realize it wasn’t so bad. I was in literal tears when we had to hide from the white draped mouth blower ( the vivid description of that scene made it incredibly easy to visualize, especially the way the "ghost" breathed. I find that this applies to the whole IF, the words used to describe what's going on are as straightforward as can be, which removes nothing of the horror element. I am also fond of the ads that serve as interludes ). I still randomly get mental images of the cheese rats ? mice ? that spill blood when hurt ( instead of liquified cheese ?! ) and I have never felt more disgusted when I think of cheese. I never thought that reading horror would make me actually feel the fear and enjoy it, but you did, and I still get caught by surprise even with the back button. 

I have been meaning to continue where I left off, but just thinking about the amount of work saving and loading will require I feel discouraged. Please bring back^2 button-kun 🙊💗. Also 👀, Nia is of Algerian🇩🇿 descent ? ( glad to see some representation in IF format ).

So I’ve had this question before and I’ve said the say thing: I’m sorry but I don’t want to do that 😭 it’s a choice I made and there’s nothing I see wrong with it given many ifs have the same thing and no one says anything. I’m a non-native English speaker too so I get it but I can’t think of every problem every player can have, that’s not fair to me.

The very reason I made this choice is for the reason you stated, that there are certain critical choices I want to actually be felt. What’s the point in me making choices that I want to have an impact and not be taken back and someone can just click the back button and undo it? To me that just means the choices don’t matter and that there’s no point in me caring about what I write to get myself and you guys excited because it can be so easily undone. In video games the thrill is sometimes messing up or saving to try again, not clicking back immediately. In books main character make choices that will have consequences. IF blends these two things together. I guess maybe on the other side as a reader, you not understand what I mean but since I put so much work in this already can’t I have it matter in-game? It’s not too much to ask for. Given that I put so much work in (300,000+ words) is it awful for me to ask the readers to be slightly inconvenienced?

I hope I don’t sound offended or angry at you nonnie, I swear I’m not. It’s just when people ask me this I feel they think I did this just be an asshole and not because I had a reason. I’m trying to give my pov. You can dislike the choice but please don’t ask me to undo it because then all it ends up doing is making me feel bad and then I’ll add it against my own wishes and that will motivate me to just stop really caring about what I’m writing if it can so easily be undone and this will be just another IF that gets abandoned

Although for the clothing options I will end a return button like I did for the faking dating side quest countries section.

Thank you for your kind words on the game itself though, I tried my best to have the ROs have background not that common and I’m so happy people liked the morgue scene I was really doubting it’s potential when I wrote it 💜

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

Ok I will accept that the far more nefarious and vindictive and outwardly conniving Solas is in fact a legitimate side of Solas that we see as Rook and not a slapdash flanderization/butchering of his character. He was hiding that part of himself during Inquisition (because he is not so toxic as to inflict that on a dear friend/romanced Lavellan). My problem lies in the extent of how cartoonishly one-note singlemindedly evil he has become—how you cannot interact meaningfully with that evil path he has committed to (even just to hear him do his spiel again. 10 years is a long time for him to have become firmly entrenched in his path, but a futile debate with him as Rook, especially an elf Rook!!!!!!!!!!!! who could trigger special dialogue where he would try to convince you to see his perspective, and you convince him to stop, would have been nice!!) or him as a person except with extremely limited dialogue options sparsely interspersed throughout the game—and how IT WOULD BE GOOD RPING if the fact you had a romanced Lavellan factored far more into Solas’s feelings toward Rook or even his dialogue. “Can’t account or factor in all the different world states” my ass. Then don’t make a game series where you encourage players for 15 years to explore and commit to world-changing choices that affect the universe’s politics and cultural shifts and even individual fates and actions of certain characters. BOO. Boo I say. SO MUCH WASTED OPPORTUNITY.

[chi-the-idiot]

HUGE SCARLET HOLLOW SPOLERS FOR CHAPTER 4 UNDER THE CUT

Just me being incredibly freaked out about something people arent really talking about.

So is it just me or is Sybil the so-called cat in thr situation?

For the uninformed, in chapter 4 Sybil (Kaneeka's mother) invites you for some tea, where she performs a reading of leaves. She basically predicts all of the usual (danger, race against time, etc) but also says that "There's a central figure here. A cat. An enemy, lurking in plain sight.", basically establishing that someone is setting up these events on purpose.

You get the option to speculate on which of the characters you've met thus far might be the cat. Stella, Kaneeka, Tabitha, Avery, Oscar, Reese, Wayne, the creppy church pastor, and even Reese's mom.

But there's an option that stands out: Sybil herself.

In most cyrcumstances, it seems like the game itself tells you "don't be dumb, choose someone else". But if you have chosen the Mystical trait, you get to still ask her "what if it is you". She shuts it down, saying that it would be dumb for her to warn you if she really was the traitor.

However, if you then try and get Kaneeka to come with you to Reese's house, Sybil will interrupt you two, saying that her daughter needs rest for her "cold". She especially puts emphasis on how she needs her to "hold the family together".

Your own narrating dialogue seems to agree that you are in the wrong, until your mystical nature oposes it, saying that something isnt right.

You eventually leave alone, Sybil's eyes following you.

...

SO AGAIN, MAD SUS, RIGHT?!

And you may ask: "But why would she warn you then? It doesn't make sense."

Yet I raise you: it is not a coincidence that a cat was chosen to potray this enemy of sorts.

According to a quick search, cats tend to play with their prey once they are caught. Research proposes that this is done so that the animal is more confused and tired, thus being easier to kill for the cat.

Then, think for a minute, about how much Sybil seems to know. She knew about Wayne, and let him roam freely. She has limited herself to be cryptic about what is going on, when it feels like she knows much more than she lets off. And not to mention her attitude towards Kaneeka is so strange.

Personally, im certain that she is the evil hidden in plain sight, and this warning was given to confuse you and tire you out.

---

Also I don't think the pastor is the one. Like, yeah he's REALLY weird, and he has done wrong things (like that stuff at Kaneeka's dad's funeral), but it feels more like a red herring to me than anything. Maybe it's setting up a future chapter. But he's not evil to me at least.

[couslandofhighever]

Rosamunde Cousland - DAO again 4 years later

CW: Mentions of IRL parent death.

Dragon Age Origins was the thing that I sank into during 2020 while the world was much slower for all of us. While there were terrible things happening in the world and in my own life, the fact that I was able to simply just be for a lot of the time was cathartic to me on an imaginative and creative level. The Alistair/Morrigan fic I wrote during that time remains one of my favorite fics I have ever completed and one of the only chapter fics I've ever completed. I also wrote several other one-shots for the fandom.

I was really into Dragon Age 2 as well, but then my mother took a turn for the worse, and my headspace constricted to a point that I didn't have much time or emotional energy for playing anymore. And, on a lighter note, I found the rivalry prospects in DA2 a little more intimidating, though I even made myself a little guide to deal with it on Google Sheets, back during the time I didn't have a job to take all of my problem-solving energy and then some.

Knowing that Veilguard was coming (though I still wish it had been called Dread Wolf, lol, but what even is theming, BioWare), I wanted to get back into Dragon Age. I knew it had been such a long time that if I wanted a sense of my world state that I needed to play DAO again.

One thing I think I might like a little more about Dragon Age 2 as opposed to DAO is that Hawke is a little bit more solid as a character. While you choose a "voice" for your character in DAO, it has very limited use cases, and a lot of the time the voice choices are really just a matter of choosing the least cringe option. For example, I end up choosing the aggressive voice for the Female Cousland character that is to be Rosamunde for me, but the actual lines almost never fit her. I just pick that voice because it's the least objectionable to me. Hawke, on the other hand, follows the BioWare logic of red/purple/blue personality and class where they're different flavors of a basic character you can choose.

I really struggle with whole-cloth OC generation. I'm very attached to the other characters, but I kept floundering a little bit with my Warden, especially when I tried to write her. One of the best things I can do when writing is to capture a character's voice, and it's really hard to do when I am tasked with imagining around the limited voicing and dialogue options provided by DAO for the Warden, as a product of its time.

I had a vague idea of who and what my Warden was four years ago, but having played her again and with a bit more perspective, I think I have a slightly better grasp of her now. I think grounding her to certain touch stones in other media has helped without completely attaching her to a reinterpretation of an extant fictional character.

Way back then, I fancasted her as Adelaide Kane, but I haven't ever watched the period piece or anything much the actress has been in. It was more just a visual vibe upon which to base her.

I can't remember if I found the actress before or after I made my original Rosamunde model in the game.

The above is what she looked like back in the DLC the first time I played.

Now, I've come full circle and am back to beginning of playing awakening, and here's a screenshot of what she looks like now:

She feels much more organic now. Fits the game better.

As I was playing this time, I tried to imagine, at times, how I would intone or rewrite the dialogue choices to fit how I view her as a character.

This time around, I found myself thinking about Rose Tyler, particularly if she'd grown up to be a noblewoman as she fantasized about. It was never on purpose, but I really just needed somewhere to ground my thinking in how she might think about things, and I think there's... some thread there that I am pulling on as I try to help myself feel like my Warden is even half as developed as some of the rest of you guys can make yours.

I'm not quite sure what the vibe is that I'm picking up on here after all this time. I guess it's just a combination of:

A sense of justice while also being willing to be a bit ruthless. Good not being nice always.

Despite the fact that Rosamunde is a Cousland, a noble, and she takes that aspect of her life and role seriously -- that she has a responsibility to people -- her mama was a pirate, so I guess there's supposed to be a mix of a potential for street smarts mixed with a youthful naivete of never having really tested what she's been prepared for prior to Howe murdering her family.

[quaddmgd]

ever since I made Evie in cyberpunk, she was mostly vibes. i've said it before, but i just wanted to recreate my red dead oc in cyberpunk, but due to limitations of its character creator i had to take some liberties. she did look different and gave off totally different vibes, so i decided to make her largely the opposite of red dead Evie.

since then i only shot pics of her and i was mostly focusing on her vibes, even though i've quickly started to consider her my canon V. Still, when Phantom Liberty came out, i played through it as Crystal. Evie got some posts referring to V only at the start of this year.

still, i saw potential in developing her, especially emotionally. i love V's story in cyberpunk and certain stort bits hit me really hard the first time i was playing it. some of them i even tried to capture in the posts i mentioned earlier

at the start of november i decided to finally begin my second playthrough of the game, after 2 years and nearly 400 hours of playtime (on a console alone). this time i was playing as my canon V.

since i've started, i've been writing a document focusing mostly on her feelings throughout the game, the reasons she left for Atlanta (her ex - the OC i still haven't introduced ;-;), her relationships with supporting characters etc. it kinda evolved into a full psychological evaluation of her, since her early years, through her young adulthood, up to 2077. the doc also includes analysis of certain events and Evie's choices/thoughts about them. there's a detailed description of her combat style, her motivation, her early cyberpsychosis symptoms, ways in which relic affects her daily life and how she deals with slowly dying and getting weaker over time.

this time, instead of developing an oc from the ground up, i decided to take as much canon information and additional dialogue possible, and add my own context to it, which ironically makes it my most developed cyberpunk oc.

of course she's from Heywood, she's street smart, always knew how to fight, hated cops, had her first kill defending a friend when she was 13, she had always wanted to become a legend.

but she's also an orphan, she was mostly raised by Heywood itself, she always loved tinkering with technology, played music and wanted to become a rockergirl. her reasons for leaving NC were personal and the reason for coming back even more. when she had learned that she was dying, she initially wanted to off herself, but shortly after was running around NC doing gigs, just to not think about death. she had bonded with Claire over things they had in common, like hobbies and loss. and many more tbh.

i used so many little details from V's story and expanded on them greatly, making them mine and often key in shaping Evie as a person (like that small mention of working backstage for a band she can say to Kerry in an optional dialogue requiring high technical ability).

and not that long ago she really was mostly vibes and i wasn't in a hurry to change that. now the doc about her has 11.5k words and i still have some stuff to cover.

this second playthrough is arguably even better than the first one, not only because of updates and me adjusting V to my playstyle perfectly this time around, but mostly because of how much development Evie got and how i got immersed into her story, constantly coming up with new things to add to her doc.

seasonal depression hit with full force this year. playing cyberpunk again let me focus on something much more pleasant and creative.

now that i made her 10 years younger self from back when she was still making music and committing small-time crimes, it's a total brainrot for me.

just in case anyone wondered why i've been posting so much about cyberpunk lately

[edgepunk]

Cyberpunk 2077 Question(s) cos I've played it about 7 times already and I wanna hear your thoughts on stuff:

So...I hope I'm not the only one who may have noticed this but like...doesn't it seem odd that V, despite all that they can do and develop to, and all that they are capable of, through whichever lifepath the player chooses that like...V doesn't have the full character agency that they should have?

Like instead of "they wouldn't not say that", V actually would...and it's just...not there? For example: there's some dialogue choices that are in line with how V is, but it feels like...some of those choices and the way they're worded like...could've been more, or like...where V would've really said something that like...would've been like "Yes! They would say That! Why aren't they saying that?" And I'm not talking about like getting really aggressive, both physically and verbally (though there's moments where I would rather see that happening), but like... there's times where I feel like V should've used their background on the topic to resolve of what they need even if it still the answer or reciprocation of what V said turned up useless.

I widely generally know there was a lot cut from the game, but like...with 2.0+ showing what the devs wanted out the game...I kinda wished the dialogue was something they'd flesh out even more, for better or worse for V's predicament with the Inevitable.

Thoughts?

If I understand this right, you'd want more dialogue options for better role-play? Because I agree.

While I think the writing is one of the strongest aspects of this game (not free of criticism, of course) the role-playing part is very limited. Similarly to Mass Effect, choosing your background has little impact on your character besides a couple of extra dialogue options and some side quests. I feel like V's background should've opened up more unique dialogue options that could've lead to certain quests ending up slightly differently. I dunno, I felt little difference between playing a Nomad and a Street Kid. Ironically, I noticed that Corpo has the most dialogue options that do make small differences and can even benefit you during certain quests.

I think some of the skills should also have more impact on the dialogue options. I'm currently playing a Netrunner build with maxed Tech and Intelligence, and sometimes V doesn't get the option to say "yeah I know how this works" instead I'm given dialogue options that make V seem like they've never touched a computer. It's kinda sad.

And I get it's difficult to write a character with so many dialogue options, especially when it's a voiced character, which comes with a heap of limitations because time and money. You get much more freedom with silent protagonists like The Courier from Fallout: New Vegas, which gives you an insane amount of freedom in terms of role-playing, and the majority of your skills unlock brand new dialogue options that can drastically change how a quest ends or how characters respond to you.

It might also come to the fact that CDPR isn't used to writing a fully customizable character, and didn't know how exactly to approach V compared to Geralt who already has an established history and personality. Though, I'd be lying if I said that game Geralt is 100% in character with book Geralt. They had to take some liberties with him for role-playing reasons, which is why some of the choices are very OOC for book Geralt. But the point is that they don't seem to have enough experience with a customizable protagonist, or perhaps it can also be chalked up to the horrid working conditions and impossible deadlines. Maybe if the execs weren't putting so much pressure on them, they could've had more time to develop a story with more paths and branching storylines.

[kyndaris]

Upholding the Masquerade

From having a vampire (correction dhampyr) as a team member in my superhero line-up, it was clear that the next game I played would need to feature a vampire. This it did in spades. Enter: Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong, where I would play as three different vampires in the Boston Camarilla court over the course of three nights following a Code Red incident. Thrust into the shoes of Emem, Leysha and Galeb, I would need to figure out the events of the incident AND put a stop to the machinations of those that would put the Camarilla in danger.

Unlike the other Vampire: The Masquerade games that I have played before (just putting it out there that I've never played the cult classic Bloodlines that released in the early 2000s although I am tepidly excited for Bloodlines II), which were dialogue-heavy visual novel-esque games, Swansong was much more action heavy with 3D character models and fully realised locations that the game plays out in.

Additionally, it helped introduce me to much more of the World of Darkness mechanics that were absent in the other games I played. In Swansong, I was greeted by character sheets and having to select certain abilities and skills to level-up after each chapter. These included, but were not limited to, dialogue options, environmental skills and vampiric abilities such as dominate and presence.

Another change from the New York games was that all of the characters had been vampires for a significant number of decades, if not centuries. These were not recently embraced fledglings, unsure of their place in the world of vampires, oh no. These were vampires that had made their mark on the world of the Camarilla and were familiar with the ins and outs of court machinations.

But getting back to the game mechanics, Swansong even included in-game dice rolls to see if certain dialogue options succeeded or not based on a percentage. This meant that I could save-scum certain dialogue choices with the hope of a success.

Yet, even if a dialogue option were to fail, Emem, Leysha and Galeb could still level up their traits, which would allow for a more favourable result in the future.

Beyond dialogue, characters could also pick locks and hack into computers and telephones. To do so, they would need to expend willpower. Often, though, I found it easier to look for a key or a code to unlock something that I wanted to gain access to rather than expend willpower as it was the only real resource that I struggled to manage as items that could replenish it were not as plentiful as I would hope and it was always easy to accidentally waste precious willpower on frivolous conversations that provided no additional information of use.

The other skills they had were deduction and education While they didn't offer much in practical use, I enjoyed certain dialogue options that cropped up that occasionally helped guide me to what would be the appropriate response in a given situation. That and the fact that certain 'education' checks were better able to flesh out the world that I found myself thrust into.

Gameplay aside, the story of Swansong was an intriguing romp through Boston as each of the three characters completed their missions for the Prince. As they pieced together the events of the Code Red incident, they stumbled upon members of the Second Inquisition that were attempting to eradicate, as well as eliminate, all supernatural threats.

This culminated in a series of missions that had Emem looking for allies among the Anarchs (a rival faction to the Camarilla) before infiltrating the base of the Second Inquisition to wipe out any and all information about the existence of vampires, to Leysha trying to rescue her daughter, and Galeb on the hunt for the leader of the Second Inquisition.

All of it was quite fascinating and there were many hard choices that I had to make - especially when it came to Emem seeking the aid of the Anarchs to help her. In all honesty, I probably shouldn't have followed through with the Prince's plan but I wanted to keep Emem safe, especially after her encounter with the Hartford Chantry made me very protective of the Clan Toreador vampire.

But while I would have preferred playing through the game blind, I often found myself stymied by poor game design choices such as a lack of guidance. True, not all games need a minimap or a HUD indicator telling one where they need to go but the fact that the default movement speed was a leisurely saunter had me fuming. It was only when I was in Chapter 4 and struggling to get past slowed down gates that I learned that the ability to 'run' was a toggle feature that activated when pressing CIRCLE of all things.

Also, the volume was initially so low on my TV that I was forced to head into settings and change it.

Without a guide, I doubt I would have been able to have enjoyed my time with Swansong as much as I would have liked. And yet, by using a guide, I removed some of the wonder and splendour that would have come from a blind playthrough. The fact that one needed specific abilities in order to advance only served to mire my enjoyment of the game - as well as learning that if you released the werewolf, poor Leysha had a chance of being killed before she could save her daughter, Halsey.

Despite my misgivings with several aspects of the game, Swansong was a nice dip once again into the World of Darkness, serving to whet my appetite for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines II, which, surprisingly enough is now being developed by The Chinese Room with a possibility of release in 2024.

It is still concerning that the game has had such troubled development but here's hoping that it will turn out good and I can dive right into the complex world of intrigue, blood and vampires.

And even though I was always Team Jacob (granted, I never actually read anything past New Moon), I have to say I'm glad that VAMPIRES ARE BACK, BABY!