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Natlan: A land of contrasts

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Alba: a wildlife adventure

Maybe it wasn't obvious, but boy do i love taking screenshots. And this game is perfect for that

We play as Alba, a little girl with a big mission - saving an island, no less. A big evil dude with load of money wants to build a luxury hotel, destroying parks and natural habitats of animals and birds. So we gotta stop him.

Gameplay is extremely enjoyable yet simple - our main activity is taking pictures. And i love it. i have very limited experience of taking pictures of birds in real life, but it felt familiar - it is a matter of positioning and patience. You have a book, where you can track your progress of finding every animal on island. (some of them locked behind quests, so don't panic if u cant find barn owl, like i did)

Besides that, we collect garbage, fix stairs, birdhouses and bird feeders. And it sooo nice to see scenery change, to watch arriving birds. This game is full of life, animals are always around you.

There are also quests, that usually resolve with discovering new types of wildlife. And you get to met inhabitants of this island, and they are all sweethearts. I was impressed with attention to details in this game - after some major events npc will have different lines of dialog, every day most of them move to different locations. They have their own stories, which are short, but believable and consistent. And animations of birds are nice as well - they fly around, sit on the trees, ducks are diving, owls scratch themselves.

In conclusion, that is a really pretty game with fun gameplay, environmental message and really nice scenery. I guess that is what they call a "cozy game"

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prettiest region who

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How the fear works (and how it doesn't)

There will be major spoilers for the game

Guess what? I played Firewatch and I was absolutely terrified. But the point is, the game isn't actually about fear. I think it's about acceptance, about need to keep moving forward. But that is not what I'm trying to express here.

Before I begin, I want to explain a few things: I never played a horror game or watched a horror movie, and I didn't know what kind of game I am playing. I prefer to go into games almost blindfolded.

First of all, Firewatch is downright beautiful. The way it uses light and color is astonishingly perfect. Water, forest, sunsets - the scenery in early hours of game is charming. It has its haunting moments in that cave, but other than that - all is well. And, to no one's surprise, when things start to change - we have a major shift in environment. And we spend more time during night hours. Works for storytelling and for atmosphere.

Music is, in a way, simple, but charming. I enjoyed it a lot during calm scenes, and it becomes haunting during tense scenes.

But the main reason why Firewatch was so scary to me - except my easy-frightened personality - just how realistic the game really is. Not talking about style here - hyperrealistic graphics are quite boring imo, and it is not the case here anyway. I'm talking about story and characters.

Firewatch is a first-person game, where you play as Henry - middle-aged not so fit white man. He is kind of depressed, he has some problems he'd like to avoid, so he takes job in the woods. Every time you climb, you can see his body - and he is no superman. He is vulnerable, he can fall and hurt himself, and every time he is scared - it feels genuine. He behaves like a normal human.

So when you find out that you are being watched, that is rather terrifying. We are lured out by someone from our tower, we find scripts of our talks with another firewatcher, and eventually we are knocked out from the back. It is genuinely scary to know how fragile we are - Henry is no fighter, he doesn't have any weapon, we are in danger, and the culprit and his motives are unknown.

And that is the moment when your fear at its peak - because as soon as you find that geological station - it is gone. Maybe Henry doesn't really know what he is looking at - but I do. And that is not scary. The horrific unknown is gone, it is destroyed, and all that's left - some sci-fi-ish bullshit. And because previous act was full of realism - the absurdity of ''experiment'' that Henry thinks he was subject of kills any fear whatsoever.

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I was thinking a lot recently - what makes both Jessica and Jiu Niangzi feel so unique? I mean, it isn't the fist time when playable characters portrayed as villains - Childe and Wanderer did that long before reverse1999.

I have a few ideas.

Firstly, both Jessica and Jiu Niangzi don't have any external influence. No one is forcing them to do that. No orders from god, no evil organization, no manipulation, no greed for power. They are by themselves, all alone (except for wooden dolls). They actions are product of their inner conflict, not external one. (that does not mean they don't have trauma tho)

Secondly, their goal isn't a bad one. Jessica wants to have fun and to replay a horror film in a real life, Jiu Niangzi wants to help people. Their obsession leads to harming people, but they don't realize or care. They are not humans, so they lack ability to understand their emotions and needs.

And finally, interesting enough, both of them think of themselves as a part of the community they are hurting. While Childe and Wanderer clearly apart from Sumeru and Liyue citizens, this characters act as part of their group. No one explained to them what shouldn't be done and how their actions affect those around them. They are judged by the rules unknown to them. Jessica didn't care at all, Jiu Niangzi cared too much, and they both failed to accommodate.

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A PROBLEM WITH REVERSE1999

so, half-universery events have ended, and I am surprisingly wasn't happy with them. This is not about the story part tho, I liked story a lot, I love Getian, I really enjoy the way reverse1999 treats their villains, but I'll talk about it in other posts

Lets start with my least favorite decision design-wise - they changed the main screen for the events. Before 1.6 it looked like this

Sadly, I am not educated enough to explain why this is better. It just had everything in one place, it was colorful, it felt collected. And it was easier to navigate and to keep track of different events - I genuinely forgot about Mane's Bulletin. And seeing how this style continues in new version - it is just sad. But this change is not major, and I suppose it has its purpose - maybe it is better for mobile players, I dunno

Secondly - they returned the rimet cup event - I again don't know if it was full story or just battles - I finished it on it's first run. But this is really good, cause players had the chance to get rewards they missed. Sadly, they didn't returned first Uttu challenge - at that time i had zero build characters and wasn't able to beat even 18 stage

And here is the part that really saddens me - all of 1.6 events are combat-based. In main event - we fight, in side-storyies (Getian and Jiu Niangzi) we fight, mane bulletin - we are still fighting, in UTTU - you can guess what we are doing.

The only one that tries to bring something different - Echoes in the mountain, but all that it is actually changing - we can choose buffs for fighting, and our characters are downgraded. Problem is - this event is extremely repetitive. It was so boring I failed to finish it - and that is rare.

From 1.1 we always had some gameplay variety - in 1.1 we were stealing from museum and talking to a dog, in 1.2 we had event with multiple endings - almost a full visual novel, in 1.3 we had puzzles in Shamane and Kaalaa Baunaa stories and we repaired Shamanes arm, in 1.4 we again has puzzles in 37s story, in 1.5 - Ezra concurred mountain. The last one is similar to Echoes - but in Ezras quest we were told stories through gameplay, and some repetitiveness were compensated by new data. And there were no combat - it was choise-based progression. It was not hard at all.

Story and gameplay were interesting and unique and worked with each other. Now there is no gameplay aside from combat - and combat turned into a chore. What a bummer.

I dunno, maybe it's just me, and everyone else had their fun - but I sure didn't

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Jiyan has the best quest in the game. Period.

it started with a guy who i can only describe as a matchmaker

he insist Jiyan has some fun with us on a local games, but he is only convinced when some dudes don't have enough teammates to participate (and look at him, how is he handsome and cute at the same time)

and he is ready to help us, i'm melting. anyway, turns out he was participating in the last games, and his previous team was sent to war and killed there short after

ever worse, after solders die they turn into TDs', becoming a threat to people they protected. in a touching scene we are shown that some consciousness of the fallen soldiers were resisting to form a TD, and they still were caring about others even they are gone

and then Jiyan took us to the local graveyard and told about flowers he plants as a memory of fallen soldiers. he asks Rover to plant flower for him if he dies

and we are given a photo of our team as a gift

so, in the end - Jiyan is extremely likable. He is so pretty, he is also caring and he shoulders a lot of responsibilities. The story itself is good too - it is cohesive and rather emotional, it is telling a little more about this world. and the dialog leaves a bitter-sweet feeling - wuwa is post-apocalyptical world, life can be rough. we are important to Jiyan and he trusts us to fulfill his wish (i adore him, he is soooo fine)

And yes, his domain was extremely pretty as well

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so I finished first act in wuwa, and i have new characters to thirst for

First of all, Scar. Honey, you are literally chained up, is it really time to be this flirty

btw, how can you not love a man who can turn into this. this is so dope

Secondly, Jinshi. Oh my god, a female in wuwa with decent voice acting? Couldn't see this coming. And she is sooo pretty, look at her

SHE IS LITERALLY GLOWING IN THE MOONLIGHT

but lets not stop there, cause after they took my precious criminal away, i was almost immediately introduced to my new nemesis/romantic interest

now rover is officially has her very own stalker. i am obsessed with phrasing here, like wuwa is bisexual paradise at this point

then we meet some children, some weirdos and this beautiful scene happens. like i said, my sense of humor is questionable

this is Encore, a cute little gremlin who has the same va as Regulus from reverse1999. kinda interesting that all new characters sound normal, sometimes even great. but Yangyang will be as emotional as a rock all the way

Encore and Aalto are from mysterious organization that we seems to be part of, so we help them out. we go to abandoned lab where people tried to recreate god they once met. spooky dialogs, creepy-looking boss - that story was really good

But while that was happening this gorgeous lady summoned a lot of TDs' and the city is under attack

Threnodian is awakening, and we need to fight it. There are some pleasant moments in this last bit - seeing all playable characters unite is quite cool. Lingyang has some memory loss here, but that's alright

General Jiyan is introduced in incredibly cool cutscene. he is stunning, he is such a good guy, he has gone through shit in the past. He is also really pretty

And he is connected to some really bad decisions.

First of all, we are tossed around between him and rover a few times, and that was unnecessary. it would be cool to play as him at frontlines, then come back to the base and see all stuff with previous general in one sequence. interrupting it was a bad choice, that ruined the momentum. there could be a surprise of him saving rover from crownless if we didn't know he was going to look for us.

After that there was really upsetting scene with him asking us where to put soldiers. It is his job, he should not ask Rover this. and you can't fail here either, so that was pointless

After that we went to beat big bad boss with a power of friendship

I liked a lot in this quest, it was not perfect, but beautiful people do make even questionable moments bearable

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why is he kinda....

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just what kind of fever dream am I having

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btw, I finished Lingyang story quest and it was ...good?

I mean, i wasn't expecting much since main story so far wasn't really grasping, so it was a pleasant surprise

The intrigue was non existing, and it was painfully obvious what happened after like 5 minutes into story, but still, the cutscene was pretty nice (it was not comparing to Gaming's dance tho, and wuwa is not winning here) and Lingyang is such a cutie pie, it was impossible not to like him

Like he is ADORABLE, I want to hug him sooo much (the ears!!! they are so cute!)

and some moments were genuinely funny (that, or my sense of humor is broken)

The only thing I found underwhelming was Lingyang trying to scare some angry enemies. Without any cutscenes it was really not impressive, and it was in dissociation with voice actor trying his best

In the end, i liked Lingyang enough to pull for him, so good job, game. Now I have only one problem. How do you actually play this guy?

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this can't be a coincidence, right? genshin and star rail reference in one sentence in wuwa

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cutest shit I've ever seen