#LIKE. IT'S SOLID. AS IF IT WAS ACTUALLY VOICED. IT SOUNDS THE SAME EVERY PLAYTHROUGH

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Heroes was never really enough to go by, but Greg just reaaally isn't doing it for me with Ike with how monotone and lifeless he sounds. ;~;

[robotslenderman]

I was talking with @ryttu3k and ended up developing Maddy’s sire a bit, off-the-cuff.

Recap -- my headcanon (and obviously this only works for a Malkavian Fledgling) is that the Cabbie was not actually Caine, he was a Malkavian Methuselah suffering delusions that he was Caine.

So during my playthrough of VTMB he decides he’s going to create a new Second Generation of Kindred to make their own new Antediluvians. He Embraces Maddy, literally gets bored and wanders off, and then joins up with Jack to prank all the Kindred in LA with the Sarcophagus. He gets bored again while waiting for it to pay off, and ends up LARPing a cab driver.

The reason why all the Kindred in LA are on edge is because he constantly emits a very mild Dementation aura.

(I figured that a Malk pranking people and being delusional made more sense than “Caine is literally your personal cab driver because of... Reasons, I guess?” although obviously it only works with a Malk Fledgling.)

So, stuff about this particular Methuselah, whom I will just refer to as “Cabbie”:

He has a very tenuous grasp on reality -- a lot of the time, he is intensely brain foggy, although he very rarely ever seems like it if you talk to him.

His brainfog, combined with his delusions, is why he has such a short attention span. He basically feels stoned all the time, even if his body and brain are perfectly imitating whoever he’s having delusions about.

These delusions can last from a few seconds to decades at a time, and some of them are recurring. Some of them are random, some come back in specific contexts.

He just has this constant sensation of being crowded by other people, like he’s standing in the middle of a packed crowd, and their ideas and personas blend and leak into him. 

But it’s also very psychic -- when he’s in a delusion, he essentially acts exactly as the real person does with no foreknowledge of them whatsoever. Speaks the same, knows the same languages, acts the same, etc.

Due to this he keeps accidentally advancing other Kindred’s and Methuselahs’ plans, thinking they’re his and having psychic knowledge of them. The Methuselah that are still around (such as Marcus Vitel and Mithras) know him well enough they just let him do it and consider it a stroke of good luck when he shows up.

But it always freaks out the younger Elders when this random person turns up, pretends to be them, makes their life easier for them (or makes the same mistakes said Elder was about to make and therefore makes things harder for them), and then vanishes again.

So yeah, Marcus Vitel, Mithras, et al know him. He doesn’t know them (his brain is too fried most of the time to really remember any of them except when he has a rare lucid moment), but when he shows upthey’re like “ah yes, it’s that guy, may as well take a few nights off and let him handle things for me until he wanders off again.” They often take notes on what he does, what results he gets, and whether he incorporates other delusions and what those personas then do -- it can be very illuminating and he often speeds up their plans for them if he’s playing a whole cast of people when he drops by. (”Ah, he thinks he’s Queen Anne now, so I’ll be able to find out if she’s plotting something based on how he acts!”) They usually don’t even get mad if he blows things up in their faces because that’s just sort of a consequence of it, and he wasn’t going to do anything they weren’t anyway -- they just treat it as a warning that they were about to make a mistake. His presense is usually only a problem when he shows up thinking he’s their enemy, in which case they just point him somewhere else or distract him until he moves on.

Every now and then, every few decades to a century or so, he’ll suddenly end up lucid and it’s like waking up from a multi-decade drug and alcohol binge. “I did what? wtf.”

He accepted long ago that he’s completely out of his mind 99% of the time. He just goes with it. He’s just relieved he somehow manages to survive.

He’s the most dangerous when one delusion lasts long enough to see a payoff on a scheme.

When he’s not delusional he’s usually in some kind of dementia.

Sometimes even when he’s delusional he can deliberately invoke his delusions to advance the plans of... whoever his chief delusion is at that moment. Say he thinks he’s Mithras and Mithras wants an artefact, some part of his consciousness is present enough that he can then invoke, say, Beckett. He then logs into all of Beckett’s shit, acts completely like Beckett, gets the Thing in a Beckett-y manner, and oh look now he’s Mithras again.

Maddy inherited a lot of his traits, although they might manifest differently:

Maddy is constantly overwhelmed with voices. Cabbie is overwhelmed by feelings and sensations of other people, like his consciousness is crowded by ghosts. He is simultaneously aware and unaware of this.

Because of this, both of them are quite spaced out a lot even if they don’t seem to be, and have short attention spans. Maddy often can’t hear other people (or even her own thoughts) over the voices and so never has any idea what’s going on and has trouble doing anything that requires active thinking and mental problem-solving, and for the Cabbie the feelings of these other people are a lot more solid and real to him than actual reality and so dominate his perception.

Both of them struggle to absorb information because of this, and both heavily rely on their oracular abilities to compensate for it. If they have to deliver a message, it’s fine they didn’t hear the actual message because they’ll just... magically be able to deliver it anyway. Handy!

Both are oracles; Maddy gets her info from voices that sound like the people who know that information, or through just talking and channeling the information. Cabbie gets his info from these spectre-like “people” he feels crowded by, and channels the information through thinking he actually is them.

Cabbie usually takes on the speech patterns of whoever he thinks he is, but when he’s lucid he speaks in exactly the same way Maddy does.

Both enter full-on psychosis/dementia when tired and hungry.

[retphienix]

Ah. What a game this has been so far.

Now I had a million thoughts I wanted to share as this played out, lord knows I’ll forget a good portion of them but that’s the nature of my own ineptitude- plenty of things I’ll remember MILES after this post or only if prompted in a specific way and that’s just how it is.

To start- this isn’t the end of DQ11 for the blog just yet. I usually don’t dive into post game unless it feels right or people ask and I’m convinced- and more or less both happened this time. It does feel right- I have definite goals I want to tackle before saying I’m happy with what I did here- and more than one person has mentioned that the post game is worth touching so I’ll be doing that.

Also, for those unfamiliar with my long winded utter mess of a finale post style I go for- this is a lot of rambling as I try my best to touch on my thoughts on the game overall because I like to share. Feel free to just press “J” on your keyboard and skip right passed this- I know **I** struggle to focus my eyes to read long winded posts so I won’t blame you.

Also also, in order to try and spark some of those thoughts I had during this recording the first bit is gonna be me re-watching it as I wait on the video to finish processing and saying what comes up.

To start- really wish there was a save point there lol. I get that it’s a painfully easy backtrack to the save point at the start of the castle- but still, I like convenience.

The Dark Lord’s first form is a huge step up from his form before absorbing Yggdrasil and this first form fight was fun and had me itching to say some good things about it but honestly? I want to save praise for the fight that deserves it- phase 2.

PHASE TWO THOUGH!? GOD TIER RPG FIGHT.

I’ve seen better, sure, but come on, we’ve ALL seen better at all times on all things especially considering preferences coming into it- this was a 10/10 boss fight, top to bottom.

Design? Beautiful. Even continued the DQ obsession with puns with his tail being Mordragon, that is so PERFECT so ‘chef kiss’ flawless and it’s just a name. I LOVE how he looks. I LOVE how he moves around the arena changing which head you’re facing.

I love how each had different strengths to contend with (which I abruptly fucked up, don’t call me out, I’ll prove I know what was going on right here and right now-). The dragon had strong melee and breath attacks while the dark lord himself had magic aplenty.

I even utilized swapping out for the first time ever not because I hadn’t seen the value beforehand (I’ve spoken on how interesting a strategic option it was seeing as every unit has unique moves to bring to the table and it costs nothing but ATB for that unit to do).

Now, I fucked that up, but I did it purely because this is the first fight up to this point that felt right to do so. It’s the first time the tactical value of switching out to buff defenses with Hendrik outvalued ignoring that option and maintaining my ATB on whomever I would switch out. THAT FELT SO GOOD! And then I let my braindead fingers buff defense on a magic phase and you see the point. It was brilliant but I was not!

I did end up ignoring the option after a few turns not because the value wasn’t there, but because he ALSO spams stat neutralizing moves which made me reconsider focusing so heavily on buffs and instead focusing on maintaining steady heals (mostly with Hustle dance).

This fight? Beautiful. I loved every second of it. I loved adjusting my playstyle on the fly, I loved finding my footing. I just loved it.

Beyond that- the ending. I got a chuckle out of how abrupt the credits come in. It seems to wind up for an end sequence only for Erik to say “Well, let’s go home” and it cuts to the credits- but THEN the credits ARE the end sequence so it wasn’t ACTUALLY as abrupt as it seemed, but it got a laugh out of me.

Now those credit scenes? I’m a sucker for games that make you fall in love with the characters and this was an ending catering to those characters. Not too much to say outside of “I was smiling the entire time” which is true.

There were a couple moments in that sequence that I said aloud “JUST HUG HIM YOU COWARD” to various characters, like Hero and Rab, or the two dorks (hero and Gemma), etc.

And they played on the mystique of the post game’s content well enough to pull people in I’d say- certainly more than what I recall DQ8 doing with the dragon trials.

I am probably wrong, but I recall the game drawing next to no attention to that post game content aside from a few moments in the game dragging you to the location only to not let you access it (hinting at more being there).

Anyway.

Honestly, after rambling about the video itself I feel a lot of what I wanted to say about DQ11 was said during the playthrough just fine. I rarely feel that way.

DQ11 was fun.

As a DQ fan, you can best believe I had fun.

As a stick in the mud who is disillusioned toward the game industry and doesn’t like a lot of the filth that accumulates within it- I obviously have a few negative thoughts on the game, but there really aren’t perfect games so much as perfect experiences based on how it affected you.

And I’ve voiced those annoyances plenty I think. For completion sake there are cut corners on animations that seem off when other places have a ton of attention to detail, that’s like bottom rung “I don’t actually give a shit” stuff though.

The bigger problems were Sugiyama is a horrible piece of human garbage and the game is lesser because of his influence on it. There are plenty of reasons behind that both big and small. Big- it feels gross having a human shitsack touching this game after having been so vocal for years- there are replacements at the ready and we still have his LGBT hating, war crime denying fingers handling the music? Shameful.

Small (but man did it fucking suck) being that every five minutes I was annoyed at the music in this game. It sounds Bad. And I mean both orchestral and midi, it’s not great compared to anything he made before for DQ, but the fact that it’s midi in this is EAR BLISTERING.

I’m not one to listen close to most music while playing for whatever reason- and I admit that knowing who’s responsible is half of why my ears tuned it in instead of tuning it out, but man I couldn’t help it and it sucks.

The same 3 second ear rattling loops are ALL OVER THE PLACE. Grandiose moments are cut short by bland midi tunes. MAIN STORY MOMENTS ARE LACKING MUSIC ALTOGETHER FOR SOME REASON? When the hero gets the flute and plays it for the first time it just DIDN’T MAKE A NOISE? Subsequent uses of the flute made a noise, but not the main first cutscene?

It’s a whole thing.

And don’t make me get that dirty capitalist pain in my chest over the fact the S version was released 2 months after this and includes so much content that SCREAMS “This already existed and we diced and quartered it specifically to create the illusion of ‘value’ for this release”. Disgusting, man. :/

Gameplay wise, the biggest complaint I have is so loaded and half hearted but I have to say it anyway.

DQ is good because it’s simple.

DQ can also be a little lacking because it’s simple.

This was the second most fun I’ve had playing a main series DQ game (DQIII just hits right), and it definitely has better gameplay (so my opinion is subjective) than the one I prefer to this. But it was also a bit too simple... But you can’t change that and be DQ, it’s complicated.

To just say it- other than the final boss every encounter was a bit too easy. And I know I overlevel, I know that’s the point, I know there’s a hard mode modifier- I KNOW, but the final boss was REALLY GOOD AND still not too hard, so the fact that most every other encounter did the minimum or the minimum +1 is a little tiny (just a bit) disappointing because the gameplay could have been that much better.

But. That could just be my head spinning tales and being a biased asshole especially since I’m not offering any solution here and I’m admitting it’s both “better than my favorite gameplay in the main series” and “probably can’t be made more involved without losing DQ simplicity”.

But I’d kill for some different or new systems on top of this- dual and triple techs from Chrono instead of RNG pep, bosses with more varied strategies instead of “stun 2-3 and do raid wide attack”.

A reason to care about elemental damage (both incoming and outgoing), plenty of little things that would just make the already solid as hell combat more interesting to participate in.

Story was honestly fantastic. I didn’t know how I was going to end that until I just let it come. It was. This is the best DQ story thus far, and not to limit it to that scope- this was a GOOD DAMNED STORY overall and I’ve played a fuckload of games with good stories.

Before this I was a sucker for the original trilogy’s overarching story, which is unfair because that’s 3 games and that’s an old story and it’s only “good” because it’s unprecedented. But this is just plain great.

It writes such beautiful characters- it tackles a variety of conflicts both big and small- you have Sylv and his dad, you have a possessed king declaring his daughter Jade dead and Jade knowingly betraying him without knowing he’s possessed, you have Erik giving up on life and only putting himself so deeply into this adventure as a means of escape, you have Hendrik’s loyalty being- I can’t pretend Hendrik fits in he’s fucking stupid and needs to ask questions because loyalty for the sake of loyalty isn’t interesting at all lol.

You have Rab believing the world is doomed and doing all he can with Jade up until they find you are alive. You have the INCREDIBLE story of Veronica and Serena- you have all these intensely lovable and understandable characters (and Hendrik) and the story is so much more about them than just about the dark lord and the hero.

It’s so much more about each of their conflicts and growth because all of that is HOW the hero will defeat the dark lord.

It’s just so much more... investing than any of the stories I’ve had in DQ before and strong as hell amongst stories beyond just DQ.

I loved this. It was emotional at times, it was downright depressing at times which I wouldn’t expect DQ to successfully hit, it was downright rewarding getting to know these characters and I feel fantastic having beaten this.

This game is fucking good. I finally understand why some people have told me this is their favorite DQ now. It... yeah I think it might be mine too.

I’d be much more likely to revisit DQ3 than this because it’s shorter and has a specific kind of RPG (class based with freely recruited partners instead of named party members) I find more fun to revisit, but yeah, I think I agree.

I think for main-series DQs this is it, this is my favorite. It has to be, right? It’s got so many INCREDIBLE story moments and it’s pretty and it plays great- yeah. Hell, Sylvando as a character and Serena and Veronica’s arc BY THEMSELVES convince me of that.

Still got nothing on DWM and DWM 2 on the GBC, WOOOOT! Didn’t expect this post to divert from a serious closing thoughts (despite there being a few more posts to come) topic to posting this did you?

Behold the true faces of DQ perfection.

[modernagesomniari]

Fic - ‘The Wrong Game’

Part 15 (15!?!?!) of my Mala Suledin Nadas series, which follows my playthrough of Ellana Lavellan.  All the stories can pretty much be read on their own, but there is continuity through them.  You can check out the whole series here or read this chapter in isolation on AO3 here.

So, I'd just finished Hushed Whispers and done the rounds back at Haven, which meant that Eli and Vivienne's relationship by this point basically involved two flaming rows about the status of mages. However, the next thing I did was complete Viv's first war table quest, which rewards you with her approval. This didn't make sense to me, so I wrote a thing that made it make sense i.e. Eli is crap at politics and asks Viv's advice despite disagreeing with her. This speaks of a practicality and humility Vivienne approves of (plus we get a sneak peak of how Eli may or may not SLAY the Winter Palace).

*********************

After their second strong disagreement about the status of mages, Vivienne is dismayed to see Herald coming in her direction again.

The Wrong Game

It had been quite some time since Vivienne had needed to calm herself down this way.  Intellectually, she knew why this was different, but that neither made the anger less potent nor curbed the irritation at being made to feel it.  Perhaps she had been at court for too long - she was getting lazy.

It wasn’t just that she disagreed with this new Herald of Andraste - she had disagreed with many people before.  Nor was it that the Herald existed outside of the Game - Vivienne had taken great pleasure in instructing many scholars from all over Thedas of their academic failings.  No, this particular woman was infuriating because her logic had no bearing to the Game at all.  Nor to the Chantry.  Vivienne was more than adept at wielding her learning to point out the flaws in most foolish arguments like Lavellan’s, but her reasoning meant nothing to this girl.  On the contrary, they had barely made it to the more mainstream discussions around mage rights, so busy had they been questioning the fundamental definition of mages that made those discussions relevant.

Lack of preparation, that was what was making her so angry, Vivienne realised.  When Lavellan had rebutted any question of the necessity of mage towers using the Dalish as an example of a society that needed no such thing, Vivienne did not have the tools available to argue the point.  As such she was reduced to simply dismissing the point outright, which felt beneath her.  She was no novice, of course. As soon as she had found out that the Herald was both a mage and a Dalish elf she had combed the library of the Winter Palace for every useful tome on the culture she hadn’t yet read.  That, she quickly learned, was precious few.  Not because she had read them all, but because every account of elven culture that was available was either monstrously out of date or so steeped in mind-numbingly simplified Chantry rhetoric she felt momentarily ashamed for the entirety of the Orlesian academic elite.

Thus, she had come to an argument she was not expecting, that had turned in a direction she should have foreseen, woefully unprepared.  This was not a situation she cared to repeat, although she was slightly at a loss for how not to.  The Herald clearly distrusted her greatly now - there was a defensiveness in her last few sentences that precluded a rather dull mental attitude suggesting any further actual intellectual debate was going to turn predictably cumbersome and personally affronted.  How exceedingly dull.  She was aware she could not blame the Herald for such an attitude.  It seemed to be true that the Dalish did not have the space to carry books with them, so Lavellan couldn’t be accustomed to truly rigorous intellectual discourse, but Vivienne would have appreciated a little more time to gather the information about Dalish culture she needed before they got to the bullish stage.

She had developed just enough of a headache that the sight of the Herald darting out of the war room at the back of the Chantry had her sigh and turn to her books, away from the main body of the building.  She did not wish to get into this discussion again, so did rather hope that the girl would pass her on her way out.

“Madame Vivienne?”

No such luck, it would seem.

“I am rather busy, darling.  Perhaps we can pick this up another time.”

“Oh.  It will only take a moment, I’m sure.  I was wondering if I could ask your advice.”

Well that was unexpected.  Vivienne turned, shrewd eyes skirting over the Herald’s crude (if rather fetching) attire to her face, where she noticed a slight rise of colour to her cheeks, a distinct widening of the eyes.  Something had shaken her, clearly.  

“My advice?” she asked, knowing that for all the frost in her voice she might as well be standing back with her arms crossed.  Lavellan did not look reassured.  Good. “I believe we just established that my advice is not particularly welcome.”

“Not on magic.  I think we’ve discussed that enough for today.” Lavellan said quietly, adding a rather surprisingly self-deprecating chuckle before looking directly up into Vivienne’s eyes.  She had courage, Vivienne had to give her that much.  

Those big green eyes still slightly panicky, the Herald took a step towards her and her words all came out in a rush.  “I was in the war room and they’re asking me to make some decisions because they can’t agree, which is fine.  But there’s a problem just south of Val Royeux to do with the letter your friend sent and it’s to do with some nobles?  Of different families?  That I can’t remember the names of?  And they’re having some disagreements about…about…um…something and the advisors want me to help them decide what to do.  Me.  Me, Madame Vivienne.  Ellana Lavellan, First of Clan Lavellan.  Being, as that name suggests, Dalish.  And I thought to myself ‘why on earth invite an expert on the Orlesian court to join the Inquisition if you’re not going to use her’?  Because, for some reason, they seem to think I’m qualified.”

There was something unavoidably charming about the genuine panic in her face that Vivienne was fighting a losing battle not to be swayed by.  Apparently, however, the Herald wasn’t finished.  “I know we don’t see eye to eye on some things.  And I’m not stupid, so your advice wouldn’t be wasted.  It’s just not my area of expertise and I know it’s yours.  Will you advise me?”

Vivienne considered her and Lavellan, rather surprisingly, let her do it.  She had to admit, she was rather taken aback by this approach.  She had assumed that Lavellan would have taken such offence to their earlier disagreement that Vivienne would now be spurned to the Herald’s detriment.  Still.

“You are aware we come from very different backgrounds, my dear?”

“That’s sort of the point, Madame Vivienne, yes. No one knows woods better than those who have had to survive in them except those who have learned to thrive in them.  My woods are made up of actual trees.  Yours are noble families with bewilderingly similar names.”

Vivienne resolved not to let the Herald see her smile at that particular comment, though from the sparkle of mischief in those same eyes that were so wide a moment ago, she perceived she had possibly failed.

“And you trust me to help you navigate these woods?”

Lavellan cocked her head, something like a smile on her face.  Vivienne realised, not pleasantly, that it seemed she herself was being considered now.  Whatever Lavellan had decided made her nod to herself, the grin widening.  Goodness but she would never survive the Game.

“No.”

Vivienne’s eyebrows raised, pausing her own assumption in its tracks.  Never say that Madame de Fer did not learn from the scant few mistakes she made.

“No?”

“No.  However, I do trust that you have your own ideas about what is best in this situation and how best to resolve it so I think I can learn a lot from listening and watching you hunt in these woods.  I also trust that you will see this as an opportunity to further any agenda you have yourself, which will be just as educational for me.  You can learn just as much about hunting by being hunted as you can by hunting something yourself.”

Well.  It had been a long time since anyone had stood in front of Vivienne and accused her to her face of planning to manipulate them.  Oh, plenty of inferences and innuendo, but never flat out.  She found it rather invigorating.

“What made you be honest with me?”

Lavellan was surprised enough by her choice of question that she laughed.  A little too loudly, so the sound echoed in the Chantry proper and she flinched a little, coming closer with a conspiratorial smile like they’d both just been nearly caught filching chocolates from a Senior Enchanter’s desk.

“I don’t have much experience with the Game,” she admitted in an almost whisper.  “But I do get the impression that plain talking isn’t part of it.  Which made me wonder whether it wasn’t then actually quite a good weapon if used right.  The huntmaster never let me go on hunts because he thought I’d be no use,” she explained at Vivienne’s questioning look.  “Then I helped my brother win a contest by freezing a deer solid so it wouldn’t run from his bow and the look on his face was like he’d just swallowed a wasps’ nest!”

“Wasn’t that cheating, my dear?”

“Not at all,” Lavellan replied, affecting an extremely convincing innocent look.  It was the touch of affronted, Vivienne thought, that sold it.  “My brother was allowed to pick a second to help him.  He picked me.  The fact that the huntmaster had already decided I was useless was his mistake, not ours.”

Vivienne had underestimated this apostate.  She had underestimated her greatly.  A small approving smile graced her lips and she watched Lavellan notice, hope and challenge in her smirk.  Vivienne could not find it in herself to care, impressed very much by Lavellan’s clear attitude to her assets and resources.  That her pride after an argument was not going to get in the way of her practicality was an aspect to her personality Vivienne very much appreciated.  Perhaps, despite their differences, she could still get her to listen, to make sure that no more damage was done to Vivienne’s people.  This war was taking its toll and the stakes had never been so high.  She couldn’t begin to forgive herself if she didn’t use every talent and skill the Maker had entrusted her to develop to protect and elevate those people who now so desperately needed someone on their side.  Whether they could see it or not.

Which meant keeping the Herald sweet.  The Herald who had just proved that she might be a lot more useful as an ally and dangerous as an enemy than Vivienne had initially predicted.  It was rather delicious being wrong.  Not that the Herald needed to know anything of the sort.

“I assume,” She began, moving away towards the open doors and expecting Lavellan to follow (which she did), “That you refer to the rumours that the Divine is not, in fact, dead?”

“Yes!” Lavellan replied, relief evident in her voice as it appeared that Vivienne was indeed going to help.  “Only apparently just refuting it doesn’t work and we need to choose carefully what we say to who and when?”

Vivienne looked down at her, seeing nothing but an earnest desire to learn in Lavellan’s upturned eyes.  She didn’t trust that look for a second.  This assignment she’d given herself had just got significantly more interesting.

How marvellous.  

[gotarcher94]

The Witcher

So I’ve watched the first season of the Witcher on Netflix and all I can say is holy motherfucking shit. That was a good season. 

I wanted to jot down a few things that I liked about the season, bearing in mind that I haven’t yet read the books and have only played the Witcher 2 and 3. I will be using spoilers so consider this a spoiler warning.

(Also this will be a long post)

OK? OK

Henry Cavill

When Henry was announced I gotta admit I had some doubts over the casting. Not because I don’t rate him as an actor but I just couldn't picture him as Geralt. My personal pick was Zach McGowan, known for playing Charles Vane in Black Sails. He had the gruff voice, he looked like the game version of Geralt, and he even had similar hair. Just dye it white and he was good. 

But having seen the show... I recant every syllable of my foolishness.  

Henry Cavill is perfect as Geralt. He perfectly embodies the White Wolf. From his sarcastic sense of humour, to the subtle emotion on his face to the conflict he has while making the decisions he does. Absolutely perfect casting.

Anya Chalotra

Speaking of perfect casting, Anya is an incredible Yennefer of Vengerberg. Like Henry she perfectly embodies Yennefer. Anya plays the evolution of Yen superbly, from her beaten down and almost broken early days to the immensely powerful and confident sorceress she becomes later, she performs both absolutely perfectly.

And to all those who say that Anya is wrong to play Yennefer because she doesn’t “look like her”.... I cannot say shut the hell up loud enough. She was incredible and deserves all the accolades that should be sent her way.

Freya Allan

And rounding out the three main characters, the show is three for three in terms of perfect casting. I loved her independent and driven nature, continuing to keep going on despite all the trouble going her way despite only been about 11 or 12 (i think, not 100%). Her strong bond with both Queen Calanthe and Mousesack is evident, despite the relative lack of screentime devoted to it. I can’t wait to see how both the character and actress evolves over the (hopefully) seasons to come.

Geralt and Ciri

I loved the “the girl in the woods will be with you always” transition in the first episode, that eventually came full circle in the finale with the two finally meeting (with the run and hug scene!). Having seen their bond fully established in the games (I know they aren’t canon) I cant wait to see it develop on screen

Queen Calanthe

Is a badass. End of story. Ruling a kingdom, fighting at the front of every battle, effectively flipping off destiny and law of Surprise and being an incredible role model for Ciri. Absolute awesome character and Jodhi May did such an incredible job playing her.

Yennefer’s backstory

As a game only fan in terms of knowing much about the characters when I went into this season, my knowledge of Yen’s backstory was pretty much nonexistent, as I can’t remember it even being mentioned in the two games I played (of which Yen was only physically present for one). However, the show delved deep into it, and I’m glad they did. It simultaneously made us empathise fully with Yennefer but also established the basis for her desire to grow stronger and be in control of her own destiny and future, and why she was then so frustrated being in the mire of courtly intrigue, not able to grow higher.

The Yennefer and Tissaia dynamic

One of the most unexpected but welcome events of the show was the dynamic that they two shared. It was not the typical mentor and apprentice relationship and I appreciated the change from the norm. From Tissaia’s initial attempts to bring Yennefer to heel before eventually being the one to tell Yennefer to unleash her chaos during the battle at Sodden was great. 

The striga episode

I mean..... just wow. As soon as they mentioned Temeria I had a feeling that it would be the striga, as it was one of the few things that I knew about from the books. And holy shit they did not disappoint. From the investigation aspect, to the fight scene, to the music. It was incredible episode and one that I cannot wait to get back to when I re-watch the series

Battle of Sodden

The main focus of the incredible finale. I had heard of the Battle of Sodden during the games but to see it was something else. A great battle scene combined great fights, solid battle plans and incredibly cool magical skills. And also,during the night scenes, you could actually see what the fuck was happening. See GoT! It isn't hard!!

Vilgevortz

As soon as his name was revealed in the episode, I’m not gonna lie but i may have gone full fanboy. I know a little from what was mentioned in the books and have read a little from other sources about his story in the books and was immensely excited when he showed up. And I cannot wait to see his story unfold on the show and see him interact more with Yennefer and meet Geralt and Ciri.

Jaskier

From what I know, calling him Jaskier (his original name in the Polish stories) instead of the English name of Dandelion was one of the problems people had with the show. And I have to ask... does it really matter? He still acts like him, talks like him, annoys Geralt like him. He is the same character, the showrunners are just honouring his roots. 

And he brought some comic relief to the series in just the right ways, especially in the djinn and dragon hunt episodes. Joey Batey was great.

Music and Cinematography 

Both of them were absolutely fantastic. Every episode looked and sounded phenomenal. I’ve been listening to a few tracks from the soundtrack that have made it onto YouTube on repeat for a while, most notably “Toss a Coin to your Witcher”. However, one track that I really liked but haven't been able to find is the battle theme from the striga fight. If anyone could send me a link to it, I would be incredibly grateful

Fight choreography 

All of the fights this season were absolutely fantastic. Both the human fights and the monster battles. Geralt and Duny vs the Cintrian soldiers, Vilgevortz vs Cahir and (my personal favourites) Geralt vs Renfri and her gang from episode 1. All of them superb and I couldn't have asked for more from the fight scenes. 

Magic

I really like the magic system they set up in this series. Not only is it incredibly diverse (with the finale alone showing us Vilgevortz constantly creating swords, Triss making poison mushrooms grow beneath the feet of the army and Coral wiping out a whole section of the Nilgaardian army) but I really like the idea that it isn't just them tapping into a great power, that there can be a great cost to performing these spells. Not something that a lot of fantasy series do.

Cahir

He was a great antagonist throughout the season and again I know little in specifics about him but I know that he is important to Ciri’s story, so I am looking forward to seeing that develop further.

Geralt and Visenna

I loved the scene of the two of them in the finale, even if it proved to only be a dream/hallucination. The “How do you like my eyes?” line legit gave me chills. Incredible acting by Henry there

Geralt and Yennefer (Yenneralt?, I think certain parts of the fandom have settled upon)

Now, as a game only fan prior to this, my exposure to the relationship between the two of them was limited, as the games only touched upon it in the Witcher 3. Before then it was told that Geralt and Yennefer had an epic love but it was very much tell and don’t show, as Yennefer didn't appear in person until the Witcher 3 and by then CDPR had developed the Geralt and Triss romance story in the Witcher 2. And I’m not gonna lie, I was fully into their romance during my playthroughs. Not that I didn't like Yennefer but I just didn't have the same basis into their bond that the book fans did. 

After Season 1, however, I am fully onto the Geralt and Yennefer ship, having seen it develop as it did.

Methinks it may be time for another playthrough, as well as buying the books.

Things I’m looking forward to seeing on the show in the future 

1. Yennefer and Ciri meeting

2. Seeing Geralt and Ciri bonding more, with some time together at Kaer Morhen

3. Thanedd Island (eventually)

4. Zoltan! 

5. Regis!

6. Vesemir!

[fallingin-like]

november 21

push to talk by @alexjosten​ [requested by @nikothespoonklepto]

see which other fics i’m reviewing this month! / my review request post!

this is a delightfully engaging fic based on the game firewatch that follows neil as he spends a summer as a fire lookout, isolated except for radio communication with andrew, a fire lookout in the adjacent sector of the park. this is such an intense, fun, beautiful, and humorous fic.

i remember enjoying this so much as it came out, eagerly awaiting each new chapter. you drew me in so easily and deeply that i watched a whole playthrough of this game. i can fully appreciate how well you were able to translate the plot, gameplay, interactions between characters, and the stunning visuals so so seamlessly and have it aftg so well.

some parts that stood out to me:

”dusk settles on the trees like clay powder, dusting the evergreens with a red tint” woah this is such a gorgeous way of starting off this fic.

”the moon extends her helping hand to guide him out into a clearing. here, neil can see. but also, he can be seen” i love these descriptions, and our introduction to neil. 

”he ignores his sleeping bag and the strict instructions to camp at nightfall and continue during the day” ah yes, Neil I Do What I Want Josten strikes again, with little regard for what people tell him to do

”if he’s not careful, the black dirt beneath his feet could bleed crimson. the exact combination of colours he came out here to avoid” this is stunning. i am immediately drawn into this fic, wanting to know what or who exactly neil is running from, and where he’s going

”buttermilk rays whisk the shadows of leaves into a dance on the forest floor beneath his feet” !! buttermilk?? somehow that works so so well

”the irony of calling it that in his head isn’t lost on him, and he vows to avoid that comparison again” what a subtle detail, but so telling! i am pretty bad with reading tags a lot of the time, so this was a great introduction to raven!neil

”it’s as exposing as it is freeing. he can’t feel trapped when he can see for miles every way he turns” wow it’s still so early in the fic, but you’ve already done an exceptional job at justifying neil choosing to come here, to escape.

foxtrot tower is such a cute name! i love that it’s not something directly taken from the books, this name seems to fit this au so well. i know that you likely had the game as reference for the tower, but i really liked the way you describe it, you were able to establish the same tone that exists in the game, but you did it through words instead of visuals and audio, something that really impresses me

”glad to hear you’re literate enough to have read the dossier” ohmygoodness ANDREW

”andrew’s tone is playful. neil thinks it might even be flirtatious, but he doesn’t care enough right now to find out” as much as i enjoy oblivious!neil, i appreciate that this version of neil is more aware, he seems more in tune with things around him. it fits better with this story, with the isolation and only communication being through the radio

”the sky slips into a more comfortable pink, the sun laying down to rest amongst the mountains” am i ever going to get over your descriptions of the environment? i don’t think so

of course neil goes for a run, basically right after doing a super intense two day hike in one day

”andrew sounds agitated” I LOVE THIS

oh dang, neil’s panic is so sudden, i’m so immersed that i immediately felt nervous too

”it’s our job to watch the horizon, neil. it’s not my fault you’re on mine” oh this is so good

”neil doesn’t believe in coincidences. he believes in traps and ill intentions, because that’s all his life has been until now”  it’s honestly amazing how quickly the atmosphere of this fic has turned to something a little bit darker, kind of scary. we know neil as a runner, but the idea of someone finding him so soon and trying to lure him out? gives me chills

“he doesn’t realise his hands are shaking until he struggles to press the push-to-talk button” PUSH TO TALK I AM SO FOND OF FICS THAT INCLUDE THE TITLE OF THE FIC IN THEIR FIC. also shaky hands are my kryptonite

”he also takes the cleaver from the kitchen counter” NEIL I- I AM SPEECHLESS

”a small sensible part of his brain tries to convince him that there are much easier ways to kill him than leading him out in the middle of nowhere, in a forest that he told nobody from his past life that he would be living in, where he uses a new name that nobody knows” !! good to hear that neil has a sensible part of his brain LOL

”but underestimating his enemies and their taste for dramatics would be a mistake” neil of all people does have a good reason for being paranoid. i love that you have this separated as a different paragraph, i read it differently because of it and i think that it adds more gravity to the sentence

”there, he finds a lipstick-red tent, zipper teeth yawning open to reveal two pink sleeping bag tongues” the imagery!!! incredible

”he feels like a walking timebomb” yeah i am definitely nervous for neil

”’girls don’t do it for you?’ andrew’s curiosity has a hopeful slant” OHMYGOODNESS ANDREW

”andrew’s voice is a firm, solid reassurance” bless andrew

”neil never thought he’d be relieved to meet someone who didn’t like exy” i also never thought that. neil you are a changed man

ooh the backstory to the fireworks is so good! i was also thinking it was a little out of character, but this is the perfect reason that renee would let it slide!

”the stars are withering in the purpling sky” i could cry because i love your writing so much

A MAN I AM FREAKING OUT. WHO IS HE

the easygoing banter between andrew and neil is so great, their conversation is interesting and flows really well

”he’s almost home” it amazes me and really shows something about this version of neil that he’s so quick to call this tower his home

”i know i needed to do this, but i am not sure i am ready to be so alone” woah break my heart why don’t you? this hits really close to home,, how dare you make me feel emotions

”i usually take a more straightforward approach” andrew never lies, but this is the truest thing he has ever said

”they’ll probably never meet, because neil intends on spending the rest of his summer without meeting another soul, andrew included” hmmm why do i have the sneaking suspicion that this will not be the case?

”neil’s not sure what grindr is but his face heats up all the same” this sentence is a MOOD (except i do know what grindr is)

”andrew’s response is sharp like a blade. ‘why? because one of the girls called you scarface?’ neil feels himself flinch” hhh i am secretly a very big fan of scenes that include neil’s scars, so you got me here

”andrew keeps neil company on the hour hike up to the north of his sector, but his usual commentary seems a bit strained today” uhH what’s going on, i’m getting scared

DID ANDREW BRING NEIL OVER JUST SO HE CAN SEE WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE? 

ohmygoodness, neil leaving andrew pictures and a sweatshirt? so so so cute

”he imagines the fear they felt when they saw him holding it wasn’t too unlike the fear that used to paralyse him when his father, or lola, would threaten him back home” woah this is good

i would bet that allison was the one to write that letter haha i can imagine that renee is likely kind of shaken by the incident, otherwise she might not have let allison leave it behind

andrew is such a good companion for neil, calming him both by his presence and by logically explaining what could have happened to the tent. he’s an anchor

”he feels like the cleaver he had attempted to defend himself with on his first day now carries a foreboding aura” YEAH I’M GETTING PRETTY NERVOUS TOO

WAIT NATHAN IS DEAD? THANK GOODNESS

woah so interesting to learn about neil’s backstory and his reason for not going pro “his offers to join pro teams curled up like dead leaves in a fire” dang, referencing both his burns and his new job? so good

ANDREW MINYARD IMITATING A VALLEY GIRL I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE PLEASE

oo that subtle way of mentioning andrew’s memory

i am so emotional, andrew is just so so good. makes me feel all the feelings ;-;

”andrew sounds like a bristled up cat tail” CUTE!!

i am dying to know what is going on in andrew’s head, during this conversation, when he left his tower to see neil, and really, just throughout this whole fic

woah i really like the way that you had neil describe his asexuality. it’s something that i recognize in myself and i like the way that you handled it.

 >:C 

them drawing each other?? peak cute. i want that to happen to me (have someone who doesn’t know what i look like try and draw me)

”neil waits for him to say more. he doesn’t. oh. that’s why. ‘heh’” LOLOL

you know what, i actually,,, only recognized the name draco malfoy LOL

ANDREW PRETENDING THAT HE DOESN’T ACTUALLY KNOW AARON OH MY GOODNESS. I CANNOT BELIEVE HE PRETENDED TO GET HIS NAME WRONG. “i look like him. but hotter and better dressed” ANDREW HOW GOOD TO YOU DRESS YOU LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREST. this whole section is hilarious and really helps lighten the tone and keep things playful

”’why would i wear that?’ andrew’s response is too quick and defensive” *unintelligible screaming*

ANDREW DRAWING NEIL IN TINY RUNNING SHORTS. THIS! MAN! I CAN’T HANDLE HIM

”neil gets into the routine of falling asleep next to his radio, talking to andrew deep into the night, far past his ability to keep his eyes open. they take turns drifting off mid conversation…” this is the softest thing ever

”considering neil’s job is to prevent forest fires, there’s a certain irony in how beautiful the park is when painted the colours of flames” oh (like a good oh)

ANDREW REJECTING NEIL REALLY JUST BROKE MY HEART WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME

”his heart tumbles from his chest and falls to the bottom of the ravine. he doesn’t understand why it was so close to the railings of his ribcage in the first place” this is so so beautiful even though it’s describing something so sad. makes me feel achy

drunk andrew. how is it that you, alexjosten, seem to know everything that i love in a fic?

”neil’s cabin floods with light. how real is neil josten without nathaniel wesninski filling his shell? with a snap, it’s gone.” uh this is so incredible, i love how you split everything up into its own paragraph, their conversation so similar to the storm. ugh i can’t get enough

”still, neil feels the change: the undeniable part of him where his branches have been torn asunder and his bark has been scorched away to expose his core” every time i think that this sentence is the best, and every time you blow me away again. i can’t describe how this sentence makes me feel

the scene of neil rescuing allison and renee fills me with adrenaline, it’s so intense

having the girls recognize neil was like being trapped in a nightmare, there was nothing i could do but read on and see how it ends. dajsflks. but also i really hope that neil got back his jacket and sweater lol

WHAT IN THE WORLD NEIL HAVING TO PLAY A GAME ON CODEINE, RIKO TRYING TO KILL NEIL ON TV, THIS IS SO INTENSE. also, i love what you’ve done with this

dang, how does andrew know kevin?

andrew’s gifts for neil are so cute. i am here just freaking out!!!!

A PUFFBALL DANDELION 

“you sweet, sheltered city child” oh my goodness adorable

”you’re going to go nuts when i tell you what a caterpillar turns into” ANDREW

THE BEAR. THE JUMP

honestly, i’m a little surprised that neil wasn’t supplied with bear spray

”’andrew, i don’t think they’re coming for me.’ ‘of course they’re not.’ neil’s heart sinks. ‘they’re not?’ ‘i am’” KFAJSDFJPOJAFD THIS GLORIOUS INTERACTION WILL FOREVER BE WITH ME

THEM TRAVELLING AND EVERYTHING WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE BECAUSE OF THE DARK. ALSO ANDREW BEING SUPER BUFF AND PICKING NEIL UP NO BIG DEAL

”we had your face on a dart board in the break room” AHHHH

”the only consolation is it smells of the andrew who just walked two hours to rescue him from the side of a cliff, and then spent another two hours carrying him here” i don’t even know what to say

wait andrew knew who neil was the whole time oh my goodness

THE GAME IS ANIMAL CROSSING. this is now and forevermore considered canon! 

ANDREW DROPPING THE GAME HE’S SO TIRED. ANDREW MY BABY

ANDREW’S DRAWING OF NEIL

”half of andrew’s sandwich is in his mouth, and he kind of looks like a hamster” adorable!

okay okay jean and jeremy being the two trading letters? so so good.

THE ENDING WITH ANDREW TELLING STORIES ABOUT NEIL BEING DEAD

the last chapter was amazing, i loved the way that you wrote the interactions between andrew and neil, they fit so well together. i also appreciate that you deviated from the game and had them meet! it is infinitely more satisfying. this was such an easy fic to read, everything felt right. i love your characterization of both of them. to have andrew treat neil the way that he did, knowing who neil was? amazing

also, can i just say that the moodboards that you include at the beginning of each chapter are amazing? they really helped with establishing the tone of the fic.

this fic is so intense, i was constantly amazed by how i was so fully immersed in it. everything that neil felt, i felt. your descriptions were gorgeous and i could not get enough of them. there were so many small details, sentences that were pure gems, that rereading this was just as, if not more, enjoyable than the first time. i really cannot put to words how much i loved reading this. thank you so so much for writing it!

[faitomato]

A BUNCH OF RANDOM FACTS ABT MY OCS MOSTLY FOR MY OWN REFERENCE

Elder Scrolls

in beta stages Drelas was originally called Dreval or Draylin. i had to change it cause it sounded too much like Naelin and Dreval didnt fit :U

HOWEVER, there is actually an NPC in Skyrim who is ALSO named Drelas, and i had no idea when i was naming him. so i guess i might have named him the dunmer equivalent of John  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mull was originally a Nord in the concept stages

technically Mull’s voiceclaim is Kilowog from GLTAS, but its very similar to the orcs in-game so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Naelin was less morally upstanding at first (not that shes perfect now lol) because she was based much more around how i actually played the game (with reckless abandon and no morals)

Naelin was also the oc that triggered my Oc Renaissance TM, with my second skyrim playthrough and my sister encouraging me to actually put thought into her name and character. thank u Nat i owe u my life 

An-Ra has a big ol thirsty crush on Mull and he doesnt quite know how to deal with that lol

An-Ra’s voiceclaim is Nina Blackwood! (originally it was Amethyst from Steven/Universe but it sounded too young)

Filgan was only made story important because i needed someone to fill in the Dawnguard quests since they are canon and i love them but Naelin is way too busy, and im glad i did because i Lov Him

Razei started out purely as a joke that came from a funny voice i put on while playing Morrowind with my sisters, but she quickly developed into my sister’s Nerevarine companion!

Razei’s name was originally Am-Razei, but i changed it to Pu-Razei because it had the same A-R rhythm as An-Ra

i still dont have anyone to do the College quests but i want to someday!

Misc

Talba’s name came out of nowhere for me and wouldnt leave me alone, but it works because i was basing her features on East Indian ones and a tabla is a kind of Indian drum

Rhode’s voiceclaim is Ryuko Matoi! (spoilers for KLK)

Shinkou’s voicelaim is Veronica from Heathers!

despite popular conception, Archer’s faceclaim is not Chris Pratt! he doesnt have one and i dont know how he ended up looking like him! i did this to myself!

Archer was also a semi-joke at first and he only ended up getting a name (which was ALSO a joke) a month or two in lol

Ryujin was also a joke in the beginning but about 10 seconds in we were already in hot water

in that short lived joke stage, he was literally Raiden’s opposite in every way, with even his organic-to-machine ratio being reversed. so 90% flesh and bone and %10 machine, which was almost entirely concentrated in his SKULL and SPINE. once we got a little more serious we had to scrap that for obvious reasons lol

Kurt is lowkey named after Kurt Russel, who played Snake Plisskin in the “Escape From” movies who Solid Snake, Kurt’s “brother” was based on lol

[rosecorcoranwrites]

Video Games as Interactive Storytelling

As I previously established, video games are a worthwhile form of storytelling, combining the best aspects of books, movies, and comics. They are unique among mediums, however, for being a truly interactive form of media. They are games, after all, and thus incorporate aspects play and choice.

Environment

Because you, the player, control the character, you experience the world as if you were in it, much more than in any other medium. You explore the environment. You fight the boss, and experience the struggle of battle. You help various NPCs, or non-player characters, with tasks. You make friends and allies, and fight alongside them. Although I never like my favorite characters getting hurt in any medium, when people attack my allies in video games, it's personal.

And that's what video games do: offer an incredibly personal experience. Unlike books, movies and comics, where you have to read from start to finish, video games let you meander and spend time in the setting. In games like Zelda, Okami, or Dark Souls, you can discover secrets that aren't necessarily part of the main plot. These can include hidden areas or side quests. Sometimes these add to your understanding of the story or make the main plot more emotionally impactful. For instance, I actually did all those side quests for people in Okami, so the cutscene during the final boss fight was personal to me. I helped those people; they were lending their strength to me.

You can also gawk at the extra details of the world. One of my favorite examples of this is in Skyrim, where you can read books of short stories or admire intricately carved Nordic architecture, neither of which are important to the story or gameplay, but which make the experience more complete and immersive. I like to wonder at the fact that some person was paid to write those stories and design those carvings; they’re neat little details that someone at the studio thought were important enough to put into the game.

Even a game as linear and straightforward as the Ace Attorney series allows for a sort of exploration. Though you can only "move" through a series of set-like locations during the investigation stages, you can click on almost every object in order to hear banter between you and your assistant. While this doesn't generally offer much in the way of world or story building (unless the object turns out to be a crucial piece of evidence) it does let us experience more chemistry between the characters, endearing them to us even more.

Choice

Games in which the player’s choices effect the story obviously offer an interesting experience. Certain games have binary choices—send this character to the safety of the cathedral, or to be experimented on in a laboratory!—while others have branching trees and dozens or hundreds of possible endings. Many games incorporate a morality system, where the more bad choices one makes make for a darker ending, with the best result being the “Good ending” and the worst result, the “Bad ending”; many games opt for multiple bittersweet conclusions.

While some such games have fairly blank-slate, player-insert characters as protagonists (that is, they don’t have too much personality, because the player can fill that in), others have very specific motivations, while still offering choice. My sister was describing her initial frustration, in Red Dead Redemption 2, that she could only make not-so-good choices in some of the side quests. This makes sense, given that you are playing as an outlaw in a gang, but was still annoying in a game that claimed to give one choices. She was later delighted, though, after something important happens to the character (spoiler: they find out they have tuberculosis, which not only makes them sympathize with one of their former victims of the same condition, but also forces them to come to terms with their decisions, as time is running out), and good options start opening up. The way the game presented choices made sense for that individual character while still giving the player the freedom to reject certain choices if they want. Masterful!

Happenstance

I will say, however, that player choice is not totally unique to games, as Choose Your Own Adventure books were and occasionally still are a thing. Programmers can program in more possible choices than can be contained in a physical book, but the storytelling principal is the same. More interesting, I think, is video games’ ability to create random happenstance. What do I mean? Depending on what the player does when, they might stumble onto a part of a game in a different way than other players.

For example, in Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, musical themes for each location play during the day, while nighttime has only sound effects. As anyone who has played Ocarina can tell you, the Gerudo Valley theme is some of the coolest, most adventurous music in the franchise, and it starts playing in the canyon, before you arrive at the desert. In order to get to the desert the first time, you jump your horse over a broken bridge, which feels pretty awesome to a first time player. But for me, it was more. I arrived on horseback at the canyon at dawn, rode to the edge as the castanets of the Gerudo Valley theme started playing. Just as I jumped, the sun came over the horizon and the guitar began! I could have sworn there was even a lens flare, but that might have been my imagination reacting to the epicness of what was happening. It was a totally random, unrepeatable event, and I’ll never forget it.

In Okami, I never knew that going through some torii gates led into mystical areas while going around them led to ordinary shrines, because I always went a certain way. Thus, my mind was blown when I discovered, after following a little sparrow girl through a gate, that what had once been a solid wall was actually a pathway. It wasn't until my second play through that I went around the gate of the first shrine, which led to a glowing portal to a celestial world, and discovered nothing but an ordinary statue in a moss-covered cave. I never knew!

In another Zelda example, every player had a different experience of their first Blood Moon in Breath of the Wild. Blood Moons are events that serve to replenish the enemies in the area, but in-game are meant to be the malice of the main enemy infecting the environment and causing monsters to resurrect. They happen at random, and are preceded by the music changing, the light dimming, black wisps issuing out of the ground, and, of course, the full moon turning red. My brother first experienced it while looking at some goats in a pasture outside an inn, while my sister experienced it after climbing up a tower to reach a treasure chest. Never having heard that Blood Moons were a thing, their thoughts, respectively, were, “What the HECK is wrong with these goats!?” and “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry! I’ll put it back!” I’m sure others have their own fun stories of their initial horror at what was happening.

Social Interaction

Cast your mind back to when this whole diatribe of mine began (many weeks ago), when I mentioned a coworker of mine saying that video games don’t inspire social interaction. Just the opposite is true, and it always has been.

One of the first, if not the first video games was the two-player game, pong. Though not actually a story game, this led the way for more two player, and then multiplayer games. Kids used to go to each other's houses and play Mario Brothers or Bubble Bobble; now, they interact with friends and strangers across the country in online, multiplayer games. There are even games that have “emotes”, special moves you can do to communicate with other players without voice chat. Others let you vote for another player as the MVP of each round to show your appreciation. Lest you think it’s all online, Nintendo is keeping in-person multiplay alive and well with games like Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Smash Brothers.

Single player games, too, invite interaction. Pre-internet, people would spread hints and strategy and cheat codes by word of mouth. “How did we know how to do that move without reading the manual?” my sister asked, recalling some odd special move in an older game. “I think a friend must have told me, and they probably heard it from one of their friends.” Nowadays, internet forums and Let’s Play videos serve the same purpose: a community of gamers helping each other out and spreading information about games.

I myself have talked repeatedly about what my brothers and sister experienced in their playthroughs. Some of this is because some games are too hard for me (like, every game FromSoft will ever make), but a lot of it is just because there was one TV and not enough time for me to start my own game. I’ve never actually played Sekiro or Bloodborne or Last Guardian, but I’ve watched people play all of them from start to finish, so I still have that experience. My brother and I both gasped when we first encountered a Mist Noble and its enchantment in Sekiro (and my advice, “Kill it with fire!” worked like a charm). My sister and I squeed over the griffin-dog-thing’s cute antics in Last Guardian. Unlike books, comics, and movies, which are best enjoyed in silence, video games invite conversation during play.

Online streams offer a similar experience. Even here, choice rears its head. Some streamers play it straight, from start-to-finish, with little editorializing. Others derp around doing a lot of nonsense, or add hilarious commentary, often adding their own layer of storytelling to the mix. Viewers of said streams can type comments in real-time, so that the streamer interacts not only with the game but with his viewers, and the entire experience is like one big conversation. Who said video games don’t inspire social interaction?

Community

Right about now is when I connect this new form of storytelling to something ancient. Books are the new songs and poems, movies are the new plays, and comics are the new tapestries and hieroglyphics. What, then, are video games? As I said before, they take elements from all of these other mediums: video games are the new bard adding their own lyric to a song, or the actor playing a well-known role a different way, perhaps due to choice or happenstance.

But mostly, video games are the new play, that most primal and primordial of all human storytelling. We play as soon as we can think, and play act as soon as we can walk. Children assign themselves roles and act them out together. Humans are communal creatures, after all, who process narratives by interacting with other humans.

To some extent, all storytelling is like this, as it is one human telling something to another rather than keeping it in their head. Video games, though, bring back the communal aspect of storytelling. Wanting to take part in stories—whether as a child going on adventures with friends, or an adult participating in a narrative ceremony, or anyone telling a story around a fire to a group of rapt and responding listeners—is part of being human.

At some point, however, that part of life got chopped off and shunted to the corner, as if adults shouldn’t desire narrative play unless they are writers. Thus, video games are put down as childish, or geeky, or not as valid as books. Oddly, they are stereotyped as being something beloved by loners, which ignores the vibrant and vocal gaming community.

I’m not sure where the animus towards gaming comes from. Why is immersing oneself in an imaginary world while staring at a book is considered high-brow, but doing the same while staring at a screen considered low? I don’t know, nor do I want to. What I do know is that some of the most unique, innovative, and emotional, stories I’ve ever seen have been those in video games, and I hope that in the future, more people give them a chance.

And those, dear readers, gamers, viewers, and story lovers of all stripes, are my thoughts on video games.

[theultimateegghead-blog]

Modest Media Game Reviews InFamous

Game - InFamous Year of Release - 2009 Developer – Sucker Punch Productions Publisher – Sony Compute Entertainment Rated - Teen Genre – action adventure open world Platform – Ps3

InFamous is a critically acclaimed action game for the Ps3. Considered by many to be one of the essential classics for the system. The game takes an open world concept of a city and adds a super hero element to it as well. While this was not the only super human themed open world game, as Crackdown and Spider man 2 also fits that bill, this game is often considered one of the best superhero games out there. Is this game worth playing now? Nearly 10 years later? Let’s find out.

Gameplay – The main gimmick of the game is Cole’s power and parkour ability. Cole can climb and use a variety of powers to navigate and explore the city. While these powers are unlocked gradually it does give a sense of freedom. As I was exploring however, there are times where Cole becomes somewhat unresponsive with his jump timing, making some climbing awkward and stiff, though this is not a very common occurrence. Cole can use his powers to fight enemies, but he is not invincible. Cole will go down fast if he charges a large group head on. This game is not hard, but it can have some really tough moments. Enemies are plentiful and usually armed to the teeth, so combat is frequent in areas that have not been cleared out. Areas can be rendered safe by doing side missions. Some side missions can be rather annoying, such as one where you must reach a checkpoint under a strict time limit or one where you must follow an enemy without being seen. These can be a nuisance. Boss fights are more unique but are at the same time rare, with only three actual boss battles in the game. A big component of this game is Cole’s moral compass, he can make actions in the game the affect his karma, his alignment, it is up to the player if Cole is good or bad. Cole’s karma can dictate the powers he gets. Some powers include lighting rockets, grenades, a shield and so on. Powers can be leveled up by acquiring exp. Exp is obtained mostly be completing missions and defeating enemies. Another challenge in the game is stunts, stuns are usually special ways to take enemies down. Some stunts are easy while others can be notoriously difficult, so tread with caution down that road. While the game might have some mild issues and annoying moments here and there, it is overall a very good, solid game. I had fun playing through it again for this review. Score - 17/20

Graphics – This game is impressive graphically. The city is open and houses multiple landmarks, it feels unique and not extremely repetitive. While it is a dirty place, it only further proves how bad of a state the city is in. Character models for main characters look wonderful, with them even changing appearance as the game progresses, especially Cole. The electric powers are cool as well and can look very stunning when Cole unleashes his full potential. Generic NPCs look a little bland, but it isn’t to bad, and some buildings look like they can be climbed but ultimately cannot. Overall, aside a few graphical hiccups, this game is just fine, though it can be rather flashy at points so take heed if flashing lights are a potential health risk. Score - 8/10

Story – InFamous is a tale about up and coming superhero, or supervillain, Cole. Cole was transformed into a man with electric based powers after a package he was delivering exploded. Shortly after the explosion the city was placed under quarantine and descended into anarchy. After attempting to escape the city, Cole is forced into a somewhat forced cooperation with the FBI. The main bulk of the game covers the area of three islands. These islands are wrought with violence and each one is run by a major villain. These crime lords are not allies and are fighting for control of the entire city. Each one has their own gripes with one another, but then Cole shows up and begins to take them down. The story has various chooses that affect whether Col is perceived as good or evil. Some of these choices do have a sense of realism in it, such as taking all the rationed food he fought for as opposed to sharing it to ensure he and his friends don’t starve. Though at the same time there are some more decisions that seem unnecessarily mean. Such as to either tell a scared man his wife is dead or just murder him. The story really kicks up when the main antagonist comes around and begins to mess with Cole in some nasty ways. To save spoilers I cannot go further into detail regarding the big bad, but I will say he is a good nemesis of Cole even if his backstory is somewhat convoluted. Overall the story is good, but it has some odd moments. Score - 8/10

Replay Value – Very high, if not mandatory for the full experience. Due to the games somewhat branching story, there is effectively two playthroughs, a good and bad playthrough. Each playthrough has its own missions and trophies to collect. A word of advice would be to choose one side and stick to it, as switching up good and bad choices can be more detrimental to the game progression. The game offers a plethora of neutral side missions as well alongside collectables scattered through the open world. This game can offer many hours of free roaming and non-story mission-based gameplay and by doing so the player is rewarded with various power ups, lore and an overall safer overworld. InFamous is a game you should at least play twice for the full experience. Score - 5/5

Music – The music is good. It can be atmospheric, and action packed, almost akin to a movie. It doesn’t seem to play that much while you are simply exploring the city, as it is more so constricted to missions and story points. Voice acting is good with Cole and Zeke standing out as the most developed character out of all of them, this is compounded by the fact they have the most screen time. So overall sound design is done well, and it makes the game livelier, it also helps enforce the chaotic state the city is in. Score - 4/5

Overall – This is a good game and I would recommend you play it. It may have a difficulty spike or a frustrating mission every so often, but it is a good game at the end of the day. It would go on to spawn not only a sequel, but an entire series of super hero games. Infamous is probably one of the best games you can get on the PlayStation 3. Final Score – 8.4/10 - Superb

[leftwriteb]

LeftWriteB's Loot Box: Original Game Soundtrack Discs & Their Stories

“LeftWriteB’s Loot Box” is a series that highlights the stranger parts of our gaming collection. Whether it be collectables, merchandise, custom creations or more, we aim to bring you a look at some items you probably won’t see on the shelves of every retailer. Today’s focus: a collection of the more interesting original game soundtracks.

A soundtrack can make or break a game. Just as solid gameplay can help you gloss over the other issues a game may throw at you, a solid game soundtrack can stay with you for years after you finish it. While many special editions of games now include a soundtrack CD or a digital download for the music, physical discs for game soundtracks aren’t exactly a common occurrence. Over the years I’ve been able to acquire a good amount of them for games that have left a lasting impression on me. Sure, many of them were rewards from Club Nintendo, but the likes of The Sexy Brutale, Little Nightmares, Bioshock Infinite, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and The Witcher 3 don’t have as much of a backstory as the collected ones we are going to look at.

The Last of Us Original Score

The Last of Us is a game that many consider the best of the last decade, or one of them at the very least. Many aspects of the game were masterfully crafted; the story, the visuals, the voice-acting, the soundtrack. My lord, that score was something. The games main theme, which is retooled in various ways through the course of the game, is a haunting and beautiful piece of music that has stayed with me since the day I heard it but so too have other pieces. I didn’t own a PS3 at the time of the original launch, and instead went straight to a friends house on the day of the games release so I could simply sit and and watch him play. Months after, I watched the entire game via a YouTube playthrough and enjoyed it even more. The world captivated me even though I was yet to sit and play it properly myself.

It wasn’t until I bought a PS4 during the initial year of the consoles lifespan that I finally got to play it for myself and it remains one of the finest games I’ve ever had the joy to play. It is one of the most memorable experiences I will ever have and the lasting impression it left on me years after I’d concluded the story is certainly in large part because of the score. Thank you, Gustavo Santaolalla and those who helped make such compelling music.

Animal Crossing: Your Favourite Songs

A slightly more chipper soundtrack, this is actually an accidental favourite of mine. Animal Crossing is a series I’ve sunk literally hundreds of hours into over the years. I played plenty of Wild World on DS and, over the course of many years, had quite the time with New Leaf. I’d find myself glued to the latter solidly for months at a time before hitting a brick wall and putting it down. I’d tire of it and trade the game in. But, of course, 6 months later I’d want to play it again and would buy it yet again to eventually repeat this same cycle five times in the space of five years. Finally, I learnt that I should just keep it and not be such an idiot. One thing that remained pleasing through each binge I went through though was the ambient soundtrack that adjusted according to season, time of day and weather. Through countless hours playing, I always marvelled at how delightful the music was and how it always fit the mood.

When Club Nintendo were offering a whole CD of the ambient music, I jumped at the chance to grab myself a copy. Of course, I probably should have taken a second to think about it and read things properly. As it turns out, the CD was not a selection of the beautiful ambient soundtrack but instead a selection of K.K. Slider singing. Rest assured, his voice is not quite as soothing as tranquil tunes of a starry New Leaf midnight. Even still, the disc being covered in a cutesy Animal Crossing leaf pattern is a nice touch.

Super Smash Bros. Premium Sound Selection

Another item from Club Nintendo, the premium sound selection taken from Super Smash Bros. for WiiU and 3DS offered fans two discs of the finest pieces of music Smash Bros. had to offer. Having been introduced to the series so many years ago, Smash Bros. Melee was a cornerstone of the gaming time spent between me, my brother and our two cousins when we were kids. I stuck with the series for every iteration since and each one provided hours of friendship straining fun.

Not only was the artwork on this case great, but the two discs had a nice blue and red contrast with the Smash logo cutting through them. Given this was a selection from the WiiU and 3DS versions, these colours were undoubtedly chosen as they were the ones associated with the two console platforms. With Smash Bros. Ultimate having just been released, we’ve been treated to even more spectacular music and these two discs are just a small taste of what players get to listen to in the latest instalment in the series. More importantly though, Smash Bros. for WiiU and 3DS had the finest arrangements for Zelda and Luigi you’ll find.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D Soundtrack

Ocarina of Time is widely considered one of the best games ever created. It’s also one of my favourite games of all time and that might sound a little stereotypical but my reasons behind this are less typical. While I didn’t get to play it on the Nintendo 64 because of my age, the game still managed to take over a huge portion of my childhood. Having had a copy of the Zelda Collection thrown in to our bundle when we bought the Gamecube, I jumped into Ocarina after I’d replayed the Wind Waker demo roughly 700 times. The game completely hooked me but, as I was so about nine years old, it was a difficult game for me to conquer. In fact, it took me about 3 years to beat it. Every time I got stuck, I’d abandon the game for 6 months before eventually returning to it and miraculously solving what had stumped me for so long before. After a good few instances of this happening, I eventually defeated Ganon. Maybe I should’ve learned my lesson from this approach to games before picking up Animal Crossing: New Leaf years later - I should’ve just stuck with ‘em.

When the 3DS first launched and I was one of the few that bought them on day one and the news this was coming to the handheld in reimagined 3D made me just a smidge excited. To this day, the entire soundtrack holds a special place in my heart as the game was so present in my younger gaming years. This soundtrack came to Club Nintendo and was an instant acquisition. It was worth it just for the memories that the Hyrule Field theme can conjure, but the inclusion of everything else (and the Windmill Hut music) shows that the soundtrack is just as good now as it ever was.

The Legends of Zelda: Majora’s Mask Soundtrack (Japanese Import)

Also included on this Zelda Gamcube collection was the entirety of Majora’s Mask, the infamous Zelda release that followed Ocarina. I played this game in a very similar way, finding roadblocks that stumped me for what seemed like an eternity. I never actually got that far into Majora’s Mask and didn’t even manage to get past the first dungeon; the timing constraints were something I couldn’t overcome as a kid. What did baffle me though was how different Termina was to Hyrule. Everything was in a state of impending doom, people went about their days instead of standing still forever and the horrifying and mentally scarring image of the Moon hovered above you judging your life choices.

It was an experience, though small, that stayed with me. I’d never felt that kind of dread in a game as a kid, apart from perhaps seeing Ganon on horseback outside Hyrule Castle for the first time. Once again, when the game came to 3DS, I found myself eager to jump in and tackle the game with a brain that (as far as I could tell) was a little more well versed in puzzles, combat and gaming. But even having only scratched the surface years ago, the main title theme and clock tower theme still play in my head almost far too often. Having kept an eye on the soundtracks listed on eBay, I finally got to buying this Japanese import of the games soundtrack. While the music alone was a treat, the eerie artwork on the case and discs was so encapsulating of my feelings towards the game that it was a must-have when I saw it.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Sound Selection

The thunderous success of the original Wii was what helped catapult the console into so many homes. While many, myself included, found themselves hooked on Wii Sports, the main reason I wanted a Wii was for Twilight Princess. As we’d already discussed, I had fallen in love with the series thanks to the collection I had on Gamecube and couldn’t wait to transition from wrapping up Wind Waker to a new adventure. I’d been nagging my parents to get me a copy for Gamecube before I owned a Wii but the scarcity and price made that a slightly unrealistic dream.

When we managed to get a Wii for my birthday (but opened it a month early because I couldn’t contain my excitement) I got a copy of Twilight Princess too. I only played through the game the once, but strolling through the shootout at the Hidden Village and taking part in the jousting match on the Bridge of Eldin were unforgettable in the most detailed Zelda game to date (at the time). When the pack rereleased in HD for WiiU and came with a soundtrack and awesome Wolf Link amiibo, I picked it up on day one. Sure, I didn’t own a WiiU at the time but the soundtrack and amiibo were worth it anyway.

The Legends of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds Original Soundtrack

Confession time: I’ve never played A Link Between Worlds. I bought a copy some time ago. I was and still am excited to play it. The thing is, my game library continues to expand as my time to play through it continues to shrink. Having enjoyed The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, a game that was a little controversial, I couldn’t wait to jump in to a new handheld Zelda game that was getting far more positive buzz. I actually lost track of how long I’ve had this game in my to-do list and with the Switch now having taken my 3DS’ place, I may never get around to playing it at all.

That said, I’ve had a great time with every Zelda game I’ve ever played and had confidence in Between Worlds. When Club Nintendo had the soundtrack available, I nabbed it before it was too late in preparation. At the very least, the artwork for the soundtrack was absolutely gorgeous and two whole discs worth of music is something no sensible person would turn down for what was effectively free. Like the Smash discs, it came with two of alternating colours though this time for to reflect the worlds of Hyrule and Lorule. With the Master Sword sitting peacefully in the Lost Woods adorning the cover, it’s just as great to look at as it is to listen to.

For more gaming oddities, stay tuned to “LeftWriteB’s Loot Box” for more gaming oddities.

[tezsaltblogsrhpc]

A Cup of Decaf Chai: Back to the Actual Damn Plot

LAST TIME on “Tez Saltblogs Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology,” I yelled a lot about sidequests and provided some helpful and friendly constructive criticism on how to improve one they added. With the sidequest marathon done and Liese's creeper boyfriend saved, it is now time to fight a gazillion enemies.

...It belatedly occurs to me in the process of doubling back that I have probably missed hearing a lot of “enemy aggroed” voice clips because I either a) knock everything out or b) feather Vanish on when I get close so nothing actually sees and chases me. How I wish they had a voice clip gallery like EO2U instead of just “HERE YOU CAN LOOK AT THE CG OF RAYNIE’S BOOBS POPPING OUT OF HER TOP WHILE SHE’S DEAD WHENEVER YOU WANT.”

Original: "Ah, Stocke. We've found a brand new member for our entertainment troupe. He was once a captain in Granorg. His sword dancing skills are on par with yours." PC: "Ah, Stocke. We've found a new member for our troupe. He was once a captain back in Granorg. You know, his sword dancing skills may be on par with even yours." Stocke, in both: *desperately trying not to betray that he knows exactly one (1) sword dance*

Anyway,

Changes I Don’t Hate: 127

because that just generally sound better and more natural.

Original: ""Humans and Beastkind can live together in peace." If you hadn't said that, Stocke, I wouldn't be with him now." PC: "If you hadn't insisted that humans and Beastkind can live together in peace... I doubt I'd be with him now." Also sounds more natural.

Changes I Don’t Hate: 128

Nameless Boyfriend's voice is changing mid-conversation again, I note.

Original: "I still have a lot to learn about the life and customs of the Beastkind. I learned that most Beastkind hate humans… But I believe that there's no reason that Beastkind and humans can't live in peace." PC: "I still have a lot to learn about the Beastkind... For example, I only just found out that most of them harbor a deep hatred for humans. Even so, I don't see any reason why the two races can't live in peace." Another solid edit.

Changes I Don’t Hate: 129

Anyway, now to Burst-Light-spam my way through Abyssia.

Tiger country here is one of the places where taking away the walk function actually hurts, especially because unlike the blob monsters in the sewers, the aggro radius is the same as in vanilla. ...Wonder if you can still get stuck on falling enemies in PC if you Vanish in the split-second before they land on you.

Things I've noticed before and they definitely haven't changed: you can catch aggroed enemies behind barrels and impassable scenery like mana crystals and hit them with Strike at will because they'll keep trying to run towards you in a straight line, through the impassable obstacle.

Gaia Blade, like the rest of the HP-bonus sword line, has had a severe nerf to its attack stats.

(Fun fact: it took me several playthroughs to find the chest with the Gaia Blade because of how well the barrel in the area is hidden, and I was so confused why there were explodable rocks but nothing to explode them with until I did. :::PPP)

I am also perpetually astonished that there isn't a tiger that jumps on you on the switchback heading up to Holff Ruins. Something deep in my soul insists there should be.

Just Video Game Things: casually doubling back like 300 miles in the middle of an urgent mission because there's free healing in the town you left from.

Original: "Otherwise the people of Forgia won't trust us." PC: "Let's get crackin'. We've gotta earn the trust of the people of Forgia." I'd like this better if EVERY SINGLE TIME Raynie shortened a word did not sound PROFOUNDLY fake in the voice-acting.

...Huh, they dropped the first two Gutral guards from the entrance of Holff Ruins. Not getting aggroed the minute you step inside is definitely fairer, especially with the reduction in "remove other enemies from the screen" radius.

Handy-dandy gameplay changes: 25

...Aaand the Gutral voice clips, naturally, have accents that don't remotely resemble Gafka or Bergas.

Wow, the Magus enemies have even more ear-splitting noises than most goblins.

Annoying Sound Effects: 35

Gutral: *uses Storm Wind Fist on full-health Aht* Aht: *left with 6 HP* Same Gutral: *uses Storm Wind Fist on Stocke in Baroque* Stocke: *takes 1 damage from each hit* Moirae Manteau, man.

I cannot believe Raynie didn't learn End Frost until level 45.

Giant crab: *uses Regenerate so it restores full health at the end of every turn* Me: "Thanks, that'll make it much easier to keep you alive long enough to steal from you."

Nerf on the Skull Cape, which is probably a good idea because it was actually Aht's third-best armor in the entire game, with one of the only ones outclassing its DEF bonus being a rare drop in the Imperial Ruins.

Snow White has had its attack stats buffed and the massive MDF bonus that Eruca emphatically does not need reduced to... still being absolutely massive. I have, for the record, yet to see a single article of armor for Gafka that has half the MDF bonus this gun has, even adjusted down.

Gutrals in the front room, every time I go past them because I decided to double back to Cygnus to heal because the crab really didn't want to let go of that cape and I used up a lot of MP: "YOU WON'T ESCAPE!!!" Me: *runs back in, aggros them, and runs back out again, just to spite them*

More moving Gafka's weapons around- besides the one I got as a rare drop in Abyssia, they changed one in a treasure chest from Expert Fist to Bloody Claw.

There's a ton of curse and paralysis weakness in here, which would be great IF I HAD ANY VIABLE WAY TO INFLICT THEM.

Seriously, this is driving me crazy. For all the other status weaknesses they've added, it's still functionally impossible to use them with the amount of reliability you can get from poison and sleep. There's no skills that inflict the curse, paralysis, and stone statuses, so the only way to exploit these weaknesses is to use a single-target one-use non-damaging item you have to spend money on, because surprise! They're still not in the loot tables to find or steal. (It also means you can't inflict those statuses in the Vault of Grinding, at all, ever.) It's not like there aren't some completely useless skills they could swap or change- Raynie's single-target MDF buff, for instance, or Aht's AOE physicals. Or, you know, just stick 'em in the dead-level gaps like they did with support skills.

Grumble grumble at least they moved the Gutrals in the save point room so you won't get aggroed immediately when you load a save.

Handy-dandy gameplay changes: 26

Me, at the start of this playthrough: "Oh, they nerfed magic! That'll probably render a lot of my old tactics less useful." Me, right now: *casts Will-o-Wisp and does 732 damage to an Ice Tail*

Speaking of, Ice Tail death hiss? Extremely annoying.

Annoying Sound Effects: 36

As with Stocke saying "You okay?" while healing himself, Raynie going "You can do it!" while buffing herself is... weird.

Original: "This switch seems to work the same way the last one did." PC: "This switch will likely do the same thing as the one from earlier." I'd need Blingee sparkle-text to convey the level of "what was the point of this" I'm feeling at this one.

Why was this changed? 290

...They added a Dramatic Black Chronicle Warp In before Marco says "There's something over there!" I guess it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation in that since the wider screen showed a lot more of the room, it would have been super-obvious he was there, but a) the warp animation and sound effect happening in the corner of the screen while nothing else is moving looks pretty silly, and b) it makes Marco's line unnecessary. (I probably would have centered the camera on the pillar while Shadow Victor warped in and made Marco's line something like, "What's that up there!?")

The Gutral Shadow's weakness has been changed from fire to ice to match the ice weakness added to the other Gutrals, which at least means Flame Star Trap doesn't completely vaporize it anymore. ...Of course, it does still do 500 - 600 damage M-Boosted.

Killing the spider got me S. G-Frost, which would sound like a very exciting thing to have except that Eruca N E V E R leaves my party when she's available once I have access to her bonus skills.The fact that Marco's battle-start support buffs heavily support a squishy spellcaster party while not benefiting a phys party much at all is not discouraging me from this.

Original: "I am certain Forgia's Gutrals will stand by your side." PC: "My Gutral brethren would be proud to join the fight." No real opinion either way on this one.

...Seriously? They take the stutters out of almost every bit of dialogue text containing them up to this point, usually altering the tone of the written line so wildly that anyone who's playing with the voices/sound off won't get the line accurately conveyed to them, and then LEAVE the stutter on "W-we did indeed," where I have literally no idea why it's there?

Stocke: "I need a moment to think this through." Bergas: "Very well. But do not tarry." Stocke: *runs 300 miles back to Cygnus to take a nap in the free inn*

This bad end is suffering badly from the "much bigger screen and unchanged NPC locations" problem. Stocke looks a lot less overwhelmed when there are huge expanses of empty space visible on all sides of the precisely four soldiers on either side of him.

How Do I Visual Storytelling: 46

(It's also got the thing going on that I always notice but I doubt most other players would where everyone spends several seconds longer awkwardly standing in one place not moving while nothing happens because it takes way longer for people to walk on or off the screen now.)

Stocke's text line: "Everyone... no! Stocke's voice line: "No!"

Oops: 41

...Aaand Stocke's shiny new diagonal-running animation doesn't activate when he runs diagonally in cutscenes.

Oops: 42

Original: "Otto was a leader... Pierre was so intelligent... and Will was a master swordsman…" PC: "Otto was the leader... Pierre was so intelligent... and Will was a master swordsman…" Uhhh... I was under the impression you were the leader, Eruca.

Why was this changed? 291

Wow, uh, Eruca's VA having her sobbing while her face is just u_u is. Kind of a mismatch. ...This is really going to screw over most of her endgame conversations with Stocke, isn't it.

Original: "I'll come with." PC: "I'll come too." This is, admittedly, more of a Raynie turn of phrase than an Aht one, but NO SLANG ALLOWED.

Original: "It will add the Beastkind's power to the power of Flux. Well? Are you ready?" PC: "It will add the Beastkind's power to your own. Are you ready?" While I find the game's repetition of the phrase "power of Flux" in late-game pretty obnoxious, this is one of the earliest ones of the flood, and not somewhere I would have prioritized if I was trying to make it less obnoxious. Still, I guess it is smoother.

*exasperated fast-forwarding through Raul's dialogue at the New Alliance node for like the fifth time*

Weeeeeeeee, no skip button on the first chunk of Gafka's exposition that we've seen twice now. There really is zero consistency about what PC does and doesn't let you skip; there was a skip button on the first half of Rosch's dialogue before the boss fight, which was both MUCH more interesting and a lot more necessary to the tone of the ensuing Dramatic Scene(TM).

Gafka's voice acting doesn't sound NEARLY astonished enough about the Beast Mark thing, considering there is absolutely no plausible way Stocke could have it.

"But regardless of an alliance, the impending crisis must be conveyed to Forgia." ^This line was actually cut out of vanilla by a coding glitch! It's in the file, but there's a missing line break/advance, so it treats two lines of dialogue as one, runs out of space in the text box, and then goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and doesn't display the second half.

Thanks to our old friend the tile size glitch, it's gone from the party standing in a group close together to Raynie and Aht clinging to Stocke while Gafka stands like two feet in front of him.

Game still straight-up lies to you in this cutscene by pretending you can't stop in Skalla, I note.

Plus side, I appreciate both that Rosch's voice acting has him trying to whisper when he asks Stocke why the hell Aht is coming, and Aht not being 100% prepared to pronounce the word "ambassador."

Level gap update: Rosch is currently 24 levels behind Stocke. This is less than in my benchmark (Stocke at 49, Rosch at 23), but in the benchmark, I finished SH6 before I went back to AH, and the SH party all gained a solid 3-4 levels doing that. So it's still pretty much equivalent.

*abruptly realizes I forgot to buy Rosch a Goldy Lance back in Cygnus, groans, does so, has to fast-forward through that Raul dialogue and then skip all those cutscenes YET AGAIN*

*remembers there's still skill books for Eruca and Gafka up for purchase in the Vault of Grinding, groans louder, goes off to do that*

And, of course, the third floor is full of Magus enemies, because I didn't hear enough "NYRAGH NRAGH NRAAAHHH" noises yet today, I guess.

Marco keeps casting Last Stand on Stocke, who is currently indestructible. I am Annoyed.

Apparently there is a giant block glowing green in front of the stairs from floor 4 to floor 5, because of course there is. Being able to go as deep as you want as early as you want might make the place marginally less boring.

Whatever. Gafka now can punch things other people have been punching and make them turn to stone. But only if he's not in the party.

Welp, that's a lot of murderizing random monsters. Next time, I murderize still more random monsters, get Stocke trapped in an alternate dimension, murderize even more random monsters, and possibly get to Forgia.

And after that... Well. Let's just say the end-of-chapter Nemesia Nonsense is the thing I'm dreading far, far less.

(...Of course, now that I've said that, it's probably going to be heinous.)

Tally:

Why was this changed? 291

Changes I Don’t Hate: 129

Poor choice of expressions/voice clips/sound effects: 76

How Do I Art: 46

Oops: 42

Annoying Sound Effects: 36

Handy-dandy gameplay changes: 26

Nyarlamesia: 19

Great budget priorities: 12

Let Stocke Say Ass: 12

The monkey's paw is flipping me off: 12

FUCK YOU AND THE HELL SPIDER YOU RODE IN ON: 8 (+1 provisional)

Save Me From Fanservice: 4

[sternbilder]

the games i played to completion in 2017, ranked in order of how much i liked them

mostly for my own reference and i’m gonna try to keep this out of the tags but read on if you want to read about me getting super excited about video games i guess

p/ersona 5 - look i know this wasn’t a perfect game like there are Several Large Complaints i would like to file regarding plot and pacing and premise even but this was. still my favorite game of 2017 and just such an enjoyable 120 hours to have spent holy fuck?? like everyone’s always talking about how stylish p5 is and goddamn are they right like it’s such a gorgeous game!! the loving detail they put into every aspect of the UI, the beautiful character sprites, that effortlessly cool contemporary tokyo vibe that oozes into every aspect of the game!! and the gameplay (which i played on normal difficulty, being a series beginner) was both challenging and rewarding and both the dungeons and the school life segments (considering the sheer variety of Shit You Could Do not to mention all the charming-ass characters with compelling sideplots) were just. an absolute treat?? plus the soundtrack to this game was just killer so there’s also that

n/ier: automata - SPEAKING OF GAMES WITH GR8 SOUNDTRACKS. i think this game’s soundtrack probably ranks up there with my favorite video game OSTs of ALL TIME FOREVER like seriously. it is so so good. anyway friends it took me four (4) days to beat this game and another full 24 hours just to process this game like. y’all know i’m always a slut for sad robots and BOY HOWDY did this game have that thing. not only is the game itself gorgeous but i’m pretty much in love with the Entire cast (but especially 9S, who is my special son) and i’m crying,, eternally,, about the c/d/e routes and even though it probably wasn’t the Most impressive and best written game Ever it had a lot of good twists and revelations and a real sense of weight and suspense esp. in the later playthroughs which i am ALL ABOUT. not being much of an action RPG person i never really fell in love w/ the combat but it was fun enough even though it got kind of repetitive and too hack-and-slashy for my taste after a while?? actually fuck the bullet hell hacking minigame tho if i’m gonna be real

f/ire emblem fates (birthright, conquest, and revelation) - listen i know this game was like objectively garbage but i’m still trying to justify having spent a literal 1/3 of my year playing it so bear with me for just 2 hot seconds. first of all hi yes there’s a running theme here bc i dig the shit out of fe14′s OST?? also even though the plot was kind of a mess the characters and supports still grew on me a lot after a while and actually the gameplay was really fun?? maybe it’s bc i played it on hard/classic (as opposed to fea which i played on normal/casual) but i really enjoyed the combat a lot more in these games than fea--actually i do think there’s actually a lot of actual improvements here, especially with all the new classes, the improved dual guard/dual strike rules, and no fucking weapon durability, etc. as well as a lot of the more unusual victory conditions (in conquest and revelation, not so much in birthright) like i feel like there were a lot of highlights and i genuinely enjoyed the battles in fe14 a lot and sure the whole waifu nintendogs concept is creepy as hell and babyrealm is a fucking joke but i still thought this was a Pretty good or at least enjoyable game so you can fight me on that front

d/anganronpa v3 - ok let me me the first to admit that i honestly?? don’t really like dr as a franchise very much and the only real reason i got into it in the first place is to fill the ace attorney-shaped hole in my heart in between releases thereof (as well as superficial similarities to other games i like, like ze) and while i still enjoy the gameplay and investigating and mystery-solving parts of it and those aspects i still find very enjoyable and well-written a lot of the rest of the games really kind of fall flat for me?? like tbh i’m not a huge fan of the art style, the sense of humor and localization don’t really do it for me, the characters are cute but kind of over-the-top and not super relatable to me personally, and honestly the whole ~evil mastermind did it for the lulz~ trope being played super straight disappointed me a lot about the first game especially?? that being said i know this is a bit of a base breaker but i actually really liked the direction that sdr2 took with its ending and it made me hopeful for the sequel, which brings me to drv3 which surprised me in a lot of pleasant ways?? like personally i think it’s the best dr yet and while i can see why people would be disappointed with the ending and feel like it may be a cop-out i think it was still clever enough that i appreciate it for trying?? or maybe it’s just bc i didn’t like the original so much and the departure from that felt like kind of a breath of relief but that’s just me idk

f/inal fantasy x - guess who was late to the party and played her first final fantasy in this year of the lord 2017!!! it’s me!!! honestly i was expecting more from this game overall in terms of plot just because it’s such a Classic and all but fwiw i still liked it?? i didn’t super love any of the main characters and the story was a little predictable and even though i played the remaster it’s still an obviously dated game but NEVERTHELESS it was still just a solid RPG and i genuinely enjoyed playing it!! i should play the sequel sometime but. i’ll get to it after i clear out this massive backlog i have currently as we speak sobs

the witness - i don’t talk about this game enough bc honestly it isn’t the kind of game that can have a real fanbase (no real characters or plot, etc.) but i still enjoyed the fuck out of this, holy hell. i mean it’s i guess kind of an open-world exploration-slash-puzzle concept which sounds kind of boring but the world is gorgeous and the way the game presents these puzzles for you to solve and teaches you the rules in a way that’s entirely self-explanatory and intuitive but still super difficult and ultimately rewarding is just so gratifying and i was just so so impressed at how creative they got with these puzzle designs and the way the world seems to unfold itself the more you unlock its secrets?? anyway i know this is near the bottom bc i do love me a video game story and this particular game doesn’t have that but PLAY THIS GAME IF YOU LIKE PUZZLES IT IS JUST SO COOL AND FUN AND GOOD

the n/onary games (999 only) - this is a replay but still worth mentioning i think?? obviously 999 is one of my favorite games of all time and i was super pumped about the remake and while i didn’t quite enjoy it as much as the very first time i played 999 on my DS it was still a good game!! tbh i mostly just played this game for the voice acting which i was pretty impressed with, and also i got to pick up a lot of the bilingual bonuses i obviously missed while playing my localized copy of the original game which was cool!! i wasn’t as impressed with the updated sprites unfortunately, i felt like their quality was inconsistent and some of them looked like kind of a rush job to me but ymmv i guess?? i think overall i still prefer the DS version even with improvements like the flow chart in the newer version, mostly because 1. i actually appreciated having to literally replay parts of the game in the former bc i feel like it’s more in the spirit of the game if you know what i mean, and 2. some details near the ending that they changed, which you definitely know what i mean if you played the game. still, i appreciate that it’s made the game more widely accessible and if you haven’t played the game pls go play this game i’m literally begging u,,

u/mineko (question arcs only) - ok the only reason i have this 8th on this list is just bc i haven’t technically finished it yet and BOY am i the kind of person who lives entirely for that sweet sweet payoff but there really isn’t THAT much i can say?? like thanks to the ps3 patch the art is pretty decent i guess?? i’m liking all the characters so far?? there’s a whole lot of Bullshit that doesn’t make any sense at this point but i’ve been promised metagame and mindfuck in due time so i guess i’ll just have to see?? yeah this is more of a tbd review than anything i don’t really know what to say besides i’m just so eager to play the other half of this game and get the answers to all these gotdamn MYSTERIES already

braid - i mostly just played this bc i knew it was made by the same person?? studio?? as the witness and while i liked braid and i really enjoyed the puzzles it was just too short for it to have really made an impression on me?? like i know that there is a story and a Twist but it didn’t really do much for me with how abstract it was and just in terms of sheer volume of content it doesn’t quite compare to the other games on this list like don’t get me wrong it was still good!! and if you need a way to kill an afternoon i still highly recommend it but it just wasn’t as memorable to me as p5 or nier was unfort

[chikelo]

what Prompto’s thinking when the guys make body comments

This is an excerpt from my fic Salad Days. Check it out, if you’d like!

TW for eating disorders.

Gladio is always the most subtle about it. His perception of body-image is probably the healthiest of the four, considering he subscribes to fitness as the ideal, but he still manages to hurt Prompto indirectly.

Once, during a break in training, Noctis threw his arms up and whined, “This room is so hot, Gladio! I can’t focus!”

“Just take your shirt off,” was all Gladio said, gruff and casual - in fact, his own had disappeared before they’d even begun.

Noctis looked mortified. “Like you? No way.”

“What, too embarrassed to show your scrawny body?” Gladio laughed, inexplicably throwing a pointed, raised-eyebrow look toward Prompto’s general direction.

“Hey!” Noctis stammered, sounding embarrassed. “I got muscle! You… just can’t see it.”

Gladio simply mussed up the blushing prince’s hair, instructing him to get back into position. And if Noctis had refused to make eye contact with Prompto for a solid half-hour, the blond barely registered it.

Because his mind had just kept repeating the word scrawny, over and over and over and over.

It felt like the most beautiful word in the universe.

Experimentally, at the next session, Prompto made a comment about being hot before his defense training started. Gladio only barked at Noctis to turn the AC up.

Right. Of course.

He didn’t have a scrawny body. He didn’t even have a fit-passing one. That day, he went through the motions half-heartedly, walked straight home, and cried in the shower.

Sometimes Noctis was rude. Prompto knew he didn’t mean it, but coming from the same boy who called him heavy all those years ago, he knew he should at least expect it.

It didn’t stop it from hurting, though.

Once, during the week, he’d been on Noct’s couch - routine, at this point. Noctis had been playing Assassin’s Creed, getting excited as the plot started to thicken (despite the fact that this was his twenty-seventh playthrough). Prompto was watching and purposefully giving him bad advice, which, in the heat of the moment, had led to some very funny slip-ups and a very irate Noctis.

When that got boring, he’d whipped out his camera and started to photograph everything - the view from the large windows, the back of Noct’s head, artsy closeups of a salt shaker. During a loading screen, Prompto had even flipped the camera around to take a selfie of the pair. It was something new he’d started doing, and, while it was scary to breach that boundary, he loved having pictures of the two of them.

He looked at the photo immediately, which was probably a mistake, because Noctis leaned in over his shoulder to look too.

A mocking chuckle. “Hah,” Noctis huffed, smiling. “Why’s your face so fat?”

What?

“Uh… it’s not fat!” Prompto responded, quick on the ball despite how his entire heart was sinking into his shoes. “Selfies make it look that way!”

Noctis only laughed again and refocused his attention on the game, the entirety of Roma having loaded. It was then that the full impact of his comment hit Prompto.

Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. He called me fat. Why is your face so fat. Why are you so fat. Why do you take up this much space. Why. Why. Why, Prompto?

His throat was burning and his eyes were prickling and his right hand was gripping his pants hard enough to turn the knuckles white. Noctis walked across a ledge, assassinated a Templar from above, and whooped. Prompto felt like he was going to be sick.

Then - he started to lose feeling in his brain, as if that was possible, but it was. It was. His eyes suddenly couldn’t focus on the TV anymore, and it tickled the space between them a little bit, but that was the least of his issues. He went forty-five seconds without blinking, mind both silent and in utter chaos all at once.

You can’t disassociate here. Stop. Get up. Move. Astral’s sake - at least BLINK!

He forcibly re-focused his vision, which actually hurt a little bit, and then got up to go to the bathroom while trying not to stumble. There, he fought off the wave of desolation threatening to crash over him, splashing cold water in his eyes to stop the red rims from growing redder.

Prompto couldn’t afford to think about it. Not now, not with Noctis happily tittering away in the other room. So, he forced his emotional reactions to a distant part of his brain, banishing them from thought.

Feelings sufficiently oppressed, he simply returned to the couch and yelled out Triangle! when Noctis was meant to press square, smile forced onto his face.

Ignis always cut him the deepest. Prompto supposed that made sense, considering that the man had always been blunt and honest with him in their interactions - but still.

The worst of it had occurred that past Sunday. Noctis hadn’t been able to hang out until nighttime, so, as a result, Prompto hadn’t eaten all day. He’d been saving his calories for when they would, assuming the prince would want to grab dinner.

But, amazingly, he hadn’t suggested eating at all. The pair had simply gone to the movies, and were picked up by Ignis straight after.

“Sorry we couldn’t do more,” Noctis yawned on the drive, next to Prompto in the backseat. “I got homework tonight.”

“Dude, no problem,” Prompto reassured, smile on his face. His stomach was aching, sure, but the heated seats of Ignis’s Benz were really cozy, and he liked seeing his friend happy.

He turned his gaze out the window, humming and watching the world fly by. Nine minutes into their trip, he spotted the familiar mint green and faded red paint of Noct’s favorite establishment, glowing softly in the night.

“Hey, wanna hit up The Crow’s Nest?” Prompto asked immediately, jumping at any opportunity to initiate food, to appear as healthy-minded as possible.

And he was really fucking hungry, at that point.

But he heard no response from Noctis except a light snore. Instead, Ignis merely remarked, “If you wish to put on weight? Certainly.”

Prompto’s limbs turned cold and numb almost instantaneously, and his chest felt like it’d been stabbed clean through. His heart pounded thickly, like he’d been called out for doing something wrong - for being the gigantic monster he is. His skin went cold, then hot, then damp, then cold again. Dimly, a part of his mind felt grateful that at least Noctis hadn’t heard that.

“Yeah, I know,” he responded, in a tiny and defeated voice.

He knew. Everyone knew. His fat is on display 24/7, a constant reminder to all of society that Prompto Argentum habitually makes extremely poor, unhealthy decisions. And Ignis was probably just trying to help, but fuck if he hadn’t gut Prompto like a fish with that comment.

That time he hadn’t been able to stop the tears. Three lone, solitary drops slipped down his cheeks, hidden by the cover of darkness.

Thankfully, by the time they’d parked to let Prompto out, all evidence of his weak disposition had been long-dried. He simply let out a cheerful bye, guys! and bounced into his apartment, waving them off as he stepped in.

In his bed that night, in the middle of his breakdown, his brain kept replaying the comment over and over and over. It was paired with a different comment -

The comment that occurred every time Noctis sighed about wanting to crash right here, and Ignis gently commanded that he remain awake long enough to eat.

Which only made him cry harder in comparison to what Ignis had told him that night. It was so unfair, yet perfectly warranted. He didn’t deserve food, not like Noctis did.

Prompto had furiously pinched at his thighs until he fell asleep, spent of tears and utterly exhausted. It was only in the morning that he realized he’d accidentally fasted for a day, and the realization hadn’t been an unwelcome one.

[modernagesomniari]

Mala Suledin Nadas - “Falon’Din Enal Enaste”

Part 4 of the Mala Suledin Nadas series, which follows Eli Lavellan through my current, ongoing playthrough of her.  You can read it on AO3 here

This wasn’t actually inspired by anything in-game, but because I’d created Ghila and Yerevan to be with her at the Conclave, their loss hit me quite hard once Eli got to Haven.  She is never given a chance to say goodbye.  So I gave her one and made myself cry and probably got very self indulgent.

What we have learned from this - Varric is the Best Friend of all best friends, the ladies are good hearted to a woman, Cullen is more perceptive than he initially appears and Solas is a little scary sometimes.

~1900 words

Falon’Din Enal Enaste

It had been Varric’s idea.

She’d made charms for them both, in the hours spent sat in the cold, enclosed space of the Chantry temple, waiting for the shemlen to do whatever it was they had to do.  From their hushed voices and frightened gazes, whatever they were doing was momentous.  So she had used the time to scavenge what she could and sat there near a lantern, weaving and braiding.  Her heart was very, very heavy.

The charms had been complete within a few days, before most of the recruits had been organised into the row of tents outside the gates.  She had tucked them reverently into the pouch at her belt, because she hadn’t known what to do with them and was afraid someone would see them and decide that they were not what the ‘Herald of Andraste’ should have in their possession.  She knew, if she had been brought to task on it, that she would have caused a fuss.  It would probably have involved fire.  Cassandra would not have been pleased.  It was later that day, after standing in front of that throng of people feeling monumentally out of place next to a templar, of all things, that Varric had come to her.  He had gently taken her hand, his eyes soft and kind and she had let him lead her to a small clearing just to the right of the temple.  A little track led away from the stone and ended in a small clearing within the tress, a natural mound in its centre.  At the top of the mound were too newly moved stones, their edges round and uneven, but someone had roughly carved their tops to be mostly flat.  When she had looked down at him, her breath catching in her throat, he’d looked away from her to where the stone stood and told her, in his gentle, deep voice, that he’d had a Dalish friend who’d had to bury a member of her Clan away from the usual tradition.  He only hoped that Eli wouldn’t be offended by how crude the shaping was - he was a surface dwarf, after all.

She had knelt by him in the snow and thrown her arms around his neck.  The great mass of his arms was strange around her back, but he’d held her until she could breathe again and then allowed her to pretend it hadn’t happened.  He’d just asked her what she needed and when she wanted it to be.  She’d told him and when she’d started to wonder how she was going to get everything she needed he’d held up a big hand to stop her.

“I’ll get it done, Firefly.  You concentrate on the important stuff.”

So here she was, standing on a foreign hill merely feet away from more shemlen than she’d ever been around in her life, with the first dwarf she had ever met quiet and solid beside her.  Clasping the charms within her palms, fingers grasping at her own hands, she closed her eyes and opened her heart to the forest, to their Gods, to the two people she had lost.  The tears immediately began to flow freely and she let them, taking slow and pained steps up the mound to the stones.

For Ghila she had woven leather died dark blue, found at the back of smithy, for her practicality in the hunt. Into this she had crudely carved a hare out of a piece of wood from the ruined houses, dotted the eyes with the red clay of the valley.  This was for her ferocity and her passion for protecting her people, like her beloved Andruil.  Finally, she had woven it all together with lamsbwool, for the softness in her when she allowed it and the gentle love she would have given her children had she been allowed to bear them.  Eli’s tears fell hot onto the stone, quick hot splashes of grief on the ice that covered it.

For Yerevan she had started with that same leather, cut in half to have their last remnant of this world come from the same place.  The piece of leather had been long, but it had come from the same beast.  He and Ghila would be together in death the way that had pledged to be together in life.  For the bright sun of Elgar’nan she had taken a smooth stone from the shores of the lake and carved his vengeful symbol into one side, reflected in the moon of the other.  Yerevan had been so angry for so long after he ran from the alienage.  His vallaslin ceremony had been intense and poignant - they had all wept for him and with him.  And then they had all got uproariously drunk.  The last was silk, strong and beautiful, like he had dedicated himself to his new family.  All of them.

She took a few steps away and let herself cry a little, felt a like a child and wished desperately that Bri were here.  The stones just looked so empty with just two charm bracelets on them.  At home they would be piled high with offerings.  The sight of the cold grey stone cut her heart almost deeper than their deaths.  They had been so alone here.  And now, without them…

After some time, a warm hand came down on her shoulder.

“I hope you don’t mind, Firefly, but honestly they all wanted to.”

She turned to him, frowning, then stood in her surprise.  At the place where the line of trees ended, there were three shemlen women.  Cassandra was there, as was Lady Montilyet and Lady Leliana.  For a moment she was irrationally angry with every single one of them and it must have showed, because Cassandra took a step towards her, her dark eyes open and strangely vulnerable.

“You are not the only one to have lost those you love at that Temple, Herald.  I hope you do not mind, but when Varric said that you needed time to honour them, we wanted to pay our own respects.”

“They carried you here and without you, there would be no hope.  If your clan is anything like the ones I have seen, knowing them has made you who you are.  As we honour you, so we wish to honour them.”

This came from Lady Leliana, who sounded so painfully earnest, like she held her soul tight to herself to not betray her own grief, that Eli found herself nodding mutely.  Varric’s arm around her drew her away from Ghila and Yerevan’s stones, to the edge of the mound where he held her, waiting.

Cassandra walked with purpose, setting down a heavy amulet between the stones.  Eli hadn’t had not come across the words of this prayer, but what she heard was well-wishing, respect and sorrow.  That Cassandra used her own god meant nothing in the face of that.

Leliana came with grace, her fingers trailing over the stones.  She laid small bouquets of elfroot and some flower Eli didn’t recognise on each of the stones.  The first sentence she uttered was in what Eli assumed was Orlesian, but the second made her hold her stomach to keep herself from sobbing.

“”Falon’Din enasal enaste.”

Lady Montilyet struggled a little with the snow, but once she was at the top of the mound she knelt fully, placing her dark hand on each of the stones with a firmness and reverence that Eli could have sworn she felt on her own heart.  She took in her hands a necklace of different coloured beads and a dagger with silver inlaid on the hilt and then turned to look at Eli.

“Which should I put where, my lady?”

Eli had to take a moment to speak, grief and gratitude pushing against her lips.

“Give the necklace to Yerevan.  Ghila would have loved that blade.”

There was a wetness to Lady Montilyet’s eyes as she smiled, but she brought each to her lips, kissing it before offering it to the sky, the lyrical notes of Antivan soft from her lips in her prayers.  After laying both, she stood and turned again.

“Commander Cullen also wished to be here, but he thought perhaps it would not be appropriate given the circumstances.  He hopes, however, that you might accept these small tokens for your Clan members?”

At Eli’s nod, she reached into her bag and took out two pieces of paper, rolled and tied with simple ribbon.  She placed one on each of the stones, then walked backwards, somewhat awkwardly, back to the trees.

It still wasn’t much, but both stones were more covered now and it gave her the strength to stand tall, away from Varric.

Her voice, when it came, started small and timid, but as she sang, it grew with the weightless mass of grief that lifted from her chest outwards, reaching for the stones.  She engraved the images of the rock with gifts placed upon them into her mind, let her song hit the clear sky and banish all thoughts of those charred horrors up at the temple, the clanging doubt of whether she’d inadvertently passed one of them but not been able to tell through the ruin of their bodies.  She looked up to the cloudless sky and let her grief soar up into it.  It was hard not to find it heartbreaking how alone she sounded, until she heard a voice from behind her join her own.  Lady Leliana, it sounded like.  A hand clad in cold leather joined hers and it was strangely easy to let a shemlen join her in her song.  They stood and they sang until their voices were hoarse, until the silence was loud and strange at the moment they stopped.

They didn’t speak afterwards, but each one of them laid a hand on her before they left, be it on her shoulder, the crook of her arm, even Lady Montliyet’s soft hand on her cheek.  Then she was alone and the world was very still.

Only, not quite.  Broken from her vigil over her friends’ stones, she noticed something in the woods beside her.  Solas stood within the trees, the rough brown of his clothing almost blending him in to the winter bleached trunks of the trees.  He was standing very tall and straight, his eyes fixed on the stones.  She couldn’t read his face, couldn’t find any emotion she could recognise, but there was something very cold about him.  Not cruel in any way, not even disdainful, which was what she might expect.  Just aloof and very far away.  She felt a moment of nervousness when his head turned so that he might look back at her, almost like she had forgotten he could move, that he wasn’t some sort of statue.  The cold melted away from his face as he glanced at the only graves her friends would ever have before looking back.  He bowed slightly, his eyelids fluttering closed and then he turned away and she watched his back disappear into the trees, feeling strangely ill at ease.

When she turned back, she gasped slightly, her fingers coming to her lips.  Flitting above the stones, dancing slow and calm, were small orbs of lights.  Some would morph into hawks, hares, a pulsing ebb of flame, or rays of a tiny sun that struck the silver on the hilt of the dagger or illuminate the dark of the wool.

This time, her knees hit the snow and she let the tears take her.  Tomorrow she would be what the world needed her to be.  Today, she would mourn.

[game-refraction]

Game Review: The Legend of Zelda - Breath Of The Wild (Switch)

“It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” was the only instructions given to Link when we were first introduced to the character, and series, back on the original NES. That all too brief bit of advice actually told us quite a bit. The world was in peril from some sort of evil, and that Link would need to be well prepared for it. It is that same underlying message of being prepared that is introduced to us all over again in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and it couldn’t be truer. Breath of the Wild is not only the most wildly ambitious and incredibly polished entry in the Legend of Zelda series, it’s quite possibly the greatest Legend of Zelda game to date.

I consider myself a fairly big Legend of Zelda fan, despite not fully completing a few entries in the series. My favorite, up until Breath of the Wild, was Wind Waker as not only was it as near perfect to an adventure game as you can get, it just had a level of polish that most developers can only dream of having in their games.

Right from the beginning of Breath of the Wild, you are told very little. You are given a few hints on the plot and then set on your path. You know that Princess Zelda is out there somewhere and that Ganon, or as he is called here; Calamity Ganon, has taken over the kingdom. You’ll come across a few gameplay hints via the loading screens or from various NPC’s that litter the world, but a lot of it, and I mean a lot of the what’s and how’s, are left up to you to figure out, and the creative fun that comes with doing so.

I’ve heard a few stories about how some players tackled certain objectives, despite how complex or simple the more traditional methods would be. One such example left me rather impressed. During one of the Dungeons, a player couldn’t find a second power node to open a door. They noticed that both platforms required electricity to run and they, in an act of desperation, came up with a rather impressive trick. When Link is out in a rain storm you have to be worried about wearing metal when you hear thunder about as you can get struck by lightning. Using this logic, they placed metal weapons from one node platform to the next. Upon placing the node on the platform, it transferred enough power to the adjoining platform and powered the door. During my playthrough, I had no problem finding that second node, but it’s nice to know that no matter the player, you can find your own way. I lost track of how many times I had an idea and it paid off, with the game at no point telling me I could play that way or forcing me down one direct path of reasoning.

It is in this creative ingenuity that makes the open world of Breath of the Wild so fresh and original. Sure, the world abides by a few open world gameplay designs like collectibles strung everywhere and points of interest allowing for fast travel and map revealing, but it is the way in which you interact with this world that is unlike anything I have ever seen. Want to bake apples? Hold a torch under an apple tree. Want to cook some fish or sear a steak? Throw it on the ground while visiting Death Mountain. You can freeze meat with an ice arrow or throw a metal weapon at an enemy in a storm to have lightning finish the job. There are so many different ways that the environment will affect either Link or the materials of his weapons or items that I could just go on and on, but I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own.

As you explore the massive open world around you, you’ll often rely on your paraglider, an item you’ll earn within an hour of starting the game, should you stick to the main path. The paraglider allows you to glide on the wind currents to essentially fly around the map. Should you need to reach a higher location you can simply just scale the surface. These feats of exploration are held in check via a upgradeable stamina system that also limits how far you can run without becoming winded or swim without drowning. The wall climbing is also limited to outdoor areas as climbing up walls in dungeons or shrines are just not possible, it’s also worth noting that rain will prevent you from scaling surfaces as well, but oh, we shall talk more about the “rain” later on, don’t you worry. The game also has a 24 minute day and night cycle that changes the locations of various NPC’s, merchants and even what types of items and enemies you can find nearby. Even certain side quests and various shrines are only accessible at key hours in the day.

Before I get too involved talking about the story, weapons and various other systems the game has to offer, I want to take a moment and talk about how gorgeous this game is. While I am playing on the Nintendo Switch, the game still looks rather impressive on the WiiU. As I mentioned above, Wind Waker was my favorite pre-Breath of the Wild Zelda game and a lot of that had to do with the art direction. Breath of the Wild grabs ahold of the look that Wind Waker contained and finds a nice middle ground between that and the previous Skyward Sword. The game has an almost anime inspired look to it, with characters looking fully animated and having remarkable detail even among how simple their designs can be.

Regardless of traversing cliffsides above lakes of lava or racing through the forests of Hyrule on the back of Epona, the widespread environments of Breath of the Wild are stunning in their beauty as well as the secrets that hide around almost every corner. The lighting and shadows that come with the day and night cycles can drastically change the look and feel of your surroundings and standing on a mountaintop to see the fog creep over the mountains is something else.

The Switch runs the game at a modest 900p, while both the WiiU and the handheld nature of the Switch run it at 720p. The WiiU version does have a bit of slow down even at 720p and the Switch, while docked on the tv at 900p has comparable slow down as well, mostly in areas that have lots of shadows in play. I never noticed any slow down while playing via the handheld mode of the Switch, but this could be due to the game running on Switch hardware at 720p. I also noted that playing Breath of the Wild via the WiiU gamepad’s screen is mostly blurry and I would recommend sticking to the TV mode for that console if at all possible.

The Legend of Zelda has always had tremendous sound design and Breath of the Wild ranks up there with the best of them. Each selection of music or sound effect is absolutely perfect and they even throw in a few classic sounds in some really interesting places. I love the musical melody that plays when your Sheikah Slate is scanning the map, or the ping your arrow makes when you get that critical headshot. Several characters of the game also feature some terrific voice acting that I wish happened more often throughout your journey.

As the characters you’ll interact with all have remarkable animation and detail, so do the various enemies you’ll encounter during your 60+ hours with the game. While there isn’t a staggering variety in types of enemies, the small details that encompass them will make you enjoy each encounter despite how repetitive it can get. Should you disarm your foe and then pick up their weapon, they will lash out with surprise and anger, pointing at you and shocked at what just occurred. I had an enemy retreat to set his wooden club on fire to attempt a better tactic against me, except I threw an explosive barrel at his face and he flew off the cliff. The personality given to many of the game’s foes is fascinating and can lead to some rather fun ways of dealing with them. One of my favorite moments was when I took a Cucco from a nearby village and caused a Lizalfos to indirectly hit the Cucco four times causing a massive army of Cuccos to unleash chicken hell on it, he didn’t last long.

After you break away from the basic Bokoblin’s and Moblin’s, you’ll start to encounter the Guardians, giant pillar looking enemies that can be stationary or mobile, should they still retain their spider-like legs. At first, they can be incredibly intimidating, but once you figure out a neat trick you can do with your shield, I started to go on a killing spree collecting all the rare items they would drop upon their destruction. Also, upon upgrading my stasis rune to freeze enemies, I found that I could halt them in their tracks for a few precious seconds and start chopping off their legs, crippling them in sheer delight.

There has been some talk about the weapons in Breath of the Wild as for the first time in the franchise, we have weapons that can break during combat. Each weapon has a variable limit to how many fights it can withstand and this can make or break your experience. Early on you will find weapons that will break after an enemy or two and later on you can find weapons that can outlive dozens of foes with even the Master Sword needing a small recharge after a certain amount of abuse. Eventually, you’ll find weapons that can be repaired, but I didn’t find them to be that much better than the disposable ones littering each and every battle. I often would revisit shrines to grab a few more Guardian weapons; glowing blue spears, axes, swords, and shields, as they can last fairly long and deal out some nice damage, plus it helps that they look really cool. Breath of the Wild has a vast amount of weapons for Link to wield, which is a huge change of pace from prior entries. I never found myself bored with combat as there was just a tremendous amount of variety in how to dish out damage to an unsuspecting foe and attempting to master the dodge and parry systems can be rewarding as well.

With the world being much bigger than anything else Nintendo has ever made, closing the gap between you and a nasty little Bokoblin can be made much easier with a solid arrow to the face. Link’s bow is far more essential this time around than ever before in a Legend of Zelda game. Arrows come in regular, fire, ice, shock, bomb and the ancient Guardian arrows that can one-shot almost anything. Jumping in the air and unleashing your bow will freeze time as long as your stamina holds out. I approached a small Moblin camp that had 2 of them sleeping while another kept guard. I paraglided in from a nearby mountain and dropped from the sky with my bow at the ready. The added time the slow down mechanic gave me allowed me to headshot the guard and fire off two arrows at explosive barrels that were just a few feet from the sleeping duo. Needless to say, the camp exploded in a flash of yellow and orange.

Working alongside your arsenal of swords, axes and bows, are Runes. These are special abilities that Link has access to via the Sheikah Slate, an ancient tablet that can learn new skills and be upgraded later on. These Runes are all available within the first few hours of the game so that you can freely tackle any of the Dungeons or Shrines in whatever order you see fit. The Runes that Link will have access to are Bombs, Magnesis, Cryonis, and Stasis. Bombs are pretty self-explanatory, but it’s the other three that really shake up the Puzzle dynamics here. Magnesis lets you lift and move metal objects around, Stasis lets you stop time to objects and enemies, and Cryonis creates ice platforms out of bodies of water. Several areas of the game force you to use these powers in tandem to one another and can lead to some very creative methods to solving puzzles. Later on, you will use the Sheikah Slate to take pictures or utilize the Amiibo compatibility.

Breath of the Wild’s large open world has a lot to explore and you’re going to be picking up a ridiculous amount of items and resources everywhere you go. The room you have for weapons is fairly small early on but can be upgraded to allow more space, which is great considering how fast some of your weapons can break. The resources you gather like fruit and meat can be used to cook meals that grant more health, temporary hearts and other buffs like extra stealth or boosted stamina. You can use monster parts like tentacles and bat eyes to create Elixers that do roughly the same things but without the health recovery. The cooking is incredibly addictive and the music and charm of the food bouncing around in the pot makes this a system that you’ll want to use, rather than need to. You will also outfit Link in a variety of outfits that have some sort of stat like extra defense, better stealth, or surviving harsh climates. Several outfits and weapons are also locked behind the use of Amiibo’s, which also work as a method of collecting resources as well.

Breath of the Wild changes up the themed Dungeons of Zelda’s past by making them giant mobile animal shaped mechs from a long passed civilization. These animal shaped fortresses are called Divine Beasts and there are four of them. As you progress from the start of the game, you’ll find that Link shares a history with the custodians of these Beasts, a group of warriors that attempted to help Link and Zelda stop Calamity Ganon 100 years ago. Considering the world is currently ruled by said evil gives us a clue as to how well this attack went.

While the Dungeons are very creative and well designed, they sadly don’t last too long and can be cleared in well under an hour. Once you discover the map in each Dungeon, you can alter sections of the Beast to allow access to sections of the Dungeon that are normally blocked. The Divine Beast Vah Medoh, the Bird, as an example, can tilt left, right, or just remain straight flat. Despite the disappointing length to these locations, they are still very engaging experiences that I still rather enjoyed. I would say that my biggest complaint regarding them is their lack of variety inside each of the Divine Beasts as they look nearly identical from one to the next.

While the Divine Beasts were once used to destroy Ganon, here they are actually tools to be used by Ganon himself and conclude with a boss battle with one of his minions. Each Boss has an elemental effect that is paired with the type of Divine Beast they inhabit. While these encounters are fun and engaging, I had harder battles with some of the Lizard enemies found in various areas of the map. Each boss has a few phases that are rather easy to figure out and I honestly can’t remember if I died once during these encounters, or had much of a challenge provided to me. I still think they are rather entertaining, I just wish the fights were a little more challenging.

Despite the short length to the Dungeons and somewhat disappointing Boss battles, the real stars of the show in Breath of the Wild have got to be the Shrines. These 120 locations offer up combat challenges, puzzle rooms or just a simple room containing a chest. The combat challenges range in difficulty while the puzzle rooms are where the Shrines truly shine. These elaborate puzzles make great use of the motion controls that Nintendo has perfected here. I’ve had to tilt my controller almost entirely around to solve a few rolling ball puzzles or swung it like a golf club to send an orb flying. I’ve been stumped by a few puzzles like one where I had to transport an Ice Block from the start of the Shrine to the end, carrying it in my arms until I had to drop it to use Magnesis to block a wall of fire. I sat there wondering how I could move the Ice Block with my hands full using Magnesis until I figured out that I had to fail certain aspects of the objective to succeed.

I wish I could say that the underwhelming Dungeons and Bosses were the only issues I had with this near perfect masterpiece, but sadly, no, there are a few more problems with the game I need to mention. I’ll start with the biggest problem I had with the game; the rain. While I really loved the elemental effects that the game can offer with regards to creative game design, the rain can become more bothersome than anything else in the game. See, you can’t climb during the rain and often upon nearing the top of a mountain or needing to climb to find a Shrine or some other motivation for the tough climb, I’ve had rain storms show up suddenly and cause Link to just slip and fall off the mountain. While I didn’t find this to be game-breaking, it did lead to much frustration and often I would just give up on that area and move on to something else. Had some type of climbing claws or a climb-during-rain perk for the upgraded Climbing gear been made available later on in the game, I could have dealt with it, but as it stands now, rain can put a damper on how fun this game can be.

As for Link himself, he can be quite the problem as well. I’ve had to run away from various enemies and have had him auto-climb a tree or a rock or if you got too close to the camera and initiated the auto-climb, it can be a split second mistake that can cost you your life. While the auto-climb is great when you’re falling to your death and glide into a wall, it can be disastrous during a combat encounter, especially against enemies that can one-shot you. I also had an issue with the recovery speed of Link when he gets knocked down. Many times I would be knocked down by a Guardian or one of the Lion flavored Minotaurs, and before I could get up I’d be blasted or hit all over again. I don’t mind challenging combat, but at least let me get back up and get injured due to my own mistakes and not poor game design.

I’ve spent the better part of three days writing this review and wondered if I would award a perfect score to this game or not. While it has its flaws, it still is a game that I constantly think about and count the minutes in my work day till I can get home to play it again. I converse with friends and co-workers endlessly about this moment or the next, eager to see how someone tackled a particular foe or puzzle. Yes, the rain can be bothersome and yes Link can cling to a tree or rock during a crucial battle, but in the end, Breath of the Wild is a fantastic experience and worthy of the highest score I can possibly give. A game like this, one that raises the bar in so many areas, needs to be awarded praise and recognition. This is a game very untypical of Nintendo and it can be rare to see this type of genre redefined. Even after beating the game and tackling every Shrine the game has to offer, I am only just getting started, and until then, you’ll catch me east of Hebra Tower playing Snowball bowling for another 300 Rupees.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was reviewed on a retail copy of the game, and comments regarding the WiiU version were from observations of seeing it in action. All screen captures were taken from the Nintendo Switch via its upload to Twitter function.

  Game Review: The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild (Switch) was originally published on Game-Refraction