#and the backtracking and maps are just in general very fun

[chibishortdeath]

OH I AM BEING SO INCREDIBLY NORMAL ABOUT CORDOVA TOWN RN—

[meggannn]

finished clair obscur!

please note i have just finished the main game but haven't done all of the side content yet, don't spoil for any story stuff in the open world exploration! (like i know there's stuff about clea in the sky islands?)

really enjoyed it, though i'm not sure how i feel about the ending/s. let me get my other general thoughts out of the way first. this is very rambly and not structured at all, and i apologize if i repeat myself cause i'm sort of combining two separate conversations here:

music and art are gorgeous, of course. line-by-line writing felt a little goofy at times (not the intentionally silly parts themselves, the humor was cute, just the actual lines written sometimes didn't feel natural, but i chalk it up to maybe translation). the way information is revealed and teased throughout was well done. i love stories that you only fully understand on a second playthrough.

levels were the perfect size and gameplay loop was easy to get into. each character having their own unique fighting system felt overwhelming at first but quickly becomes manageable. i like that when monoco is introduced you're kinda like "ANOTHER one??" but his skill system is so different that you're immediately encouraged to mess with him and include him to learn more skills. playing them all together and stacking their buffs on top of each other for weird combinations was awesome.

love the idea of letting the main characters switch seamlessly between transportation methods in the gorgeous overworld, and you can clearly still see where you're going, where the collectibles are, and what enemy you're about to bump into. (i think this is inspired by final fantasy?)

i've never played a soulslike so this honestly took some time to get used to. the idea that in a turn-based game, you can avoid taking ANY damage if you're good enough at dodging or parrying, is conceptually really cool, but to then make the combat based on one of the most frustrating genres in the medium is an... interesting choice, i guess. it's like playing chess except every other move you have to jump inside the double dutch ropes and do a cool trick. (except what if i'm not good at double dutch???)

this is a game that wears its inspiration on its sleeves (persona/metaphor, sekiro, god of war, etc) and maybe four times out of five, it clicks, but of the mechanics, imo one thing they could've easily wiped without losing anything is the platforming. i don't think the game really benefited from it, but that also could just be because i don't like platformers and didn't sign up for one, so i felt kinda at a loss why that was there. it's like going to a very nice sushi restaurant and ordering a delicious platter for the table, then being told your meal is also coming with a side of curly fries but to eat them you have to catch the curly fries in your mouth first. just felt like a very jarring gameplay switch i wasn't fully onboard with. at least it is relegated to side challenges though.

i don't really care what the devs say about exploring on my own (and i DID explore every corner on my own, this isn't me being lazy): i still needed a map. it's a QOL thing, because i need maps to be able to tell where i've picked up collectibles before so i don't keep wasting my time looking for them, but i also wasted SO much time running around lost. especially when after beating an enemy it would respawn or reload me facing the wrong direction. there were also several times i'd flip flop between "i can't tell which fucking path is progress," run in a direction for a minute, change my mind, backtrack, then realize oh wait i was right the first time, wait was i right the first time??. it got really old after a while.

more exploration thoughts: map complaints aside, i can't think of a single game i've looked forward to 100%ing the map the most! it's just SO much fun to run around and turn a corner to discover a new boss waiting and wondering oh god how will this one kick my ass. an online guide suggested doing the ending before all the sky exploration, and i was like "psh no way, i gotta grind/level up!" but the exploration side bosses were fucking so brutal they basically bitch-slapped me like "go back to the baby levels in the main story, runt"

i want more games like this! even though there were some misses, i think it was the perfect size, the boundaries make it easy to note what you can and can't do, and these polished AA-type games that focus on quality over quantity are where i hope the industry goes moving forward.

the ending:

i'm so torn on the endings, partly because what the ending choice was trying to say isn't what i think COE33 was actually building up to. on the one hand, no truly happy endings feels very appropriate. but on the other, this game was sold/advertised to me as an ensemble cast banding together standing up to an indifferent world and cruel god(s) to fight for their small but meaningful lives. but in the last few main missions, the game shifts to say "ACTUALLY i'm really about just a few specific people not being able to process grief very well." i can vibe with that, i can even vibe with the reveal that the TRUE main characters are just a few very specific people instead of the ensemble cast. but i feel a little miffed in how the "ordinary people standing up to gods controlling them" angle never truly gets resolved, because to me, that's still an equally valuable theme worth seeing through to its conclusion. both endings are unsatisfying in regard to letting the canvas inhabitants decide their fate; i flip flop on how i feel about them, though. the shift to JUST focus on maelle and verso at the end instead of the ensemble cast felt... hmm. they clearly didn't FORGET about lune and sciel and monoco and esquie. but i dislike that they basically became NPCs in a dollhouse when i invested in and viewed them all as equally important from the beginning, something renoir (and imo verso) never do. tldr, i feel hoodwinked! bamboozled!

i picked maelle's ending (for reasons i'll get into below), but the last few shots of poor verso playing piano didn't feel great, obviously. i'm okay okay with her dying in there, because her situation isn't like aline's—she literally belongs there too—and she probably sees it as "a short good life in the canvas compared to a long miserable life outside," and even if it's tragic, i think she deserves the right to make the choice of a life with love over a life in a broken family. i'm kinda bittersweet about her reviving everyone (if you were a god with the power to eliminate death, wouldn't you?) but her reviving verso specifically stings obviously after what he asked of her. his last words were haunting. i thought the last shot of verso playing piano was meant to imply he just didn't want to be doing this, and knew something was wrong, but my friend thought it meant maelle was literally controlling him to force him to play, which is super fucked up, even if she made a verso that didn't have his memories again. i guess the kindest reading is that maybe she painted an old man verso to life just for ONE concert (everyone does look young and she did say he'd be her FIRST concert, right, so why would she wait decades years to do the concert? or did she just make everyone immortal but let verso grow old because her verso never got to? just a few logistical things i haven't really figured out.) still, though, obviously not a great ending, and i don't think it's the ending the game "wants" you to pick.

that said, i'm not convinced verso's ending is really the "better" ending the way a lot of the fans (and i think the writers) are trying to argue. for a few reasons, but one main one is this: even putting aside wiping out the canvas world full of living breathing people (that was my main hangup), i read the dessendres as borderline abusive to alicia post-verso's death, certainly verbally cruel (clea). so sending maelle back to a household that didn't respect her autonomy, value her life as maelle, and might force her to fight in a war, to live with a family she was dependent on to survive as a disabled girl, felt like a genuinely disturbing prospect to me and i couldn't stomach it. alicia/maelle, a lonely girl for whom the canvas is not fantasy but a world in which she equally belongs (i don't think renoir and verso ever fully appreciated), all but begs us not to let her go back there, and verso gong "you'll be ok, you're a great painter!" felt very much like Cope because he doesn't know how bad things are in the real world for her since he died, and cannot promise those things at all. do we really believe maelle "only one small painting on the wall" will be respected equally out there? maybe by aline! but imo not by clea, and if dad is willing to disregard her wishes and destroy the canvas as soon as he leaves, i mean shit, i think he got what he wanted! he doesn't have to bend on anything anymore so why wouldn't he wrap alicia up in wool for the rest of her life? we've all heard of controlling parents but renoir feels to me like the "even if you're miserable and hate me, i'll lock you in your room forever so i can have my perfect family again" type. (imo he was also living in a fantasy that life would just go back to normal after he got aline and alicia back; destroying the canvas might prevent people from reentering it, but i also gather it's a representation of how he dealt with his grief: bury it and don't look at it again. Suffer For The Family and then guilt trip them into what YOU want because YOU'RE the head of the household so what you say goes. i really fucking hate those types especially when it's the "stoic logical men" vs the "silly women with their heads in the clouds" so part of me really rebelled against this messaging. verso repeating renoir's logic at the end made me :/ because i think that neither of them are the unbiased, stoic, rational "voice of reason" they pretend to be. verso had every right to die, but even he didn't recognize that maelle deserved to exist in this world as much as alicia deserved to grieve her brother properly in the outside.)

i also admit part of my resistance toward verso's ending is because i dislike being literally told by characters This Is What The Theme of The Game Is. like, i want to make that decision for myself! for most of the game the "stop living in fantasy" theme only affected aline, who we don't really get to know as well as we do lune and sciel and gustave, who deal more with the "live well, just live as yourself" theme. like actually, game, i think a huge theme of the game is also that people should get to decide what to do with their life and death, no matter how small or inconsequential. that's literally what the gommage introduces and we see gustave using his death to protect maelle, we see verso using his life to try to finally die. their choices should be respected, and so should maelle's. what makes BOTH endings tragic is that the fate of the canvas is still determined by gods, and in her ending, she decides for them who lives and dies.

"you can't live in a fantasy world, wake up and live in the awful nightmare world like the rest of us for MATURITY" stories very rarely hit their mark for me, largely in part because ALL media is fantasy, and the writers and designers and artists have just spent countless hours convincing me to get invested in this specific fantasy just to yank the rug out and go "ok, time to blow it all up now for one of the characters to learn their lesson" (it's extra weird in a video game that then subsequently dumps you back into the game world so you can keep playing the game). in this case, it felt like two characters were repeating this moral as a genuine reaction to their trauma (verso) and watching their family poorly cope (reonir), but this was also very much what renoir and verso wanted to believe the moral was. for renoir and verso, the canvas is fantasy: but for the audience, COE33 introduced TWO fantasy worlds to me (the canvas and the outer world) but both of them felt very much real: they grew largely independently from each other, but still had impact on the other. the canvas had human characters who lived full lives, even if their gods didn't recognize them.

tangent, it BOGGLED MY MIND when renoir said they'd made hundreds of canvases. like bitch, i can't imagine just making HUNDREDS of universes and treating them like playgrounds and not recognizing you're literally creating life and destroying it on a whim over and over to settle a family squabble. it really is greek myth all over again. like imo the best ending is the canvas(es) gets liberated from its creators, maybe with maelle maintaining verso's so she knows they can at least be happy there, but that obviously isn't happening. i was kinda hoping she'd find a balance between two worlds but her insistence her dad would destroy it as soon as she left, implying he didn't mean the words he'd said and didn't learn anything about her in this whole saga, felt like a frustrating bait-and-switch at the end to force a dramatic choice.

another tangent about renoir: he's a great villain! i can understand his sorrow with aline and maelle, how he feels betrayed that she taught him a lesson she's not imparting herself, it's a very real tragedy to watch someone you love go somewhere you can't follow. he's just so insane and controlling and patronizing and the epitome of Patriarch Who WILL Make You Miserable To Grow Stronger But You'll Thank Him One Day that i hate him, and i do think he is meant to be a parallel to gustave, who let maelle on the expedition despite it not being safe, because if maelle is going to die then she wants to die next to someone she loves. renoir going "i will not lose you!!" bites at me because he already lost her. do you think maelle would want to stay in the canvas if she thought you were enough to make the manor worth going back to?

so that was a hangup for me in the end: as someone who's spent the past several months obsessed with cyberpunk 2077, one of its themes was "you're gonna die in this messed-up world one day, so however it comes for you, own it/stay true to your fucking self and only you should decide how you go out." which i felt also resonated with the doomed expeditioners and the idea of "we live such short lives trying to change our fate in a world inherently hostile to us, but they matter, and it may not mean much to the forces above us, but let me decide this small piece, we deserve at least that dignity." so it felt odd and hypocritical to me to jump into COE33 and decide FOR maelle "ok child, pack up the toys and go back home now. i know the barbies FEEL real to you, but as the Smart Adult, you can't live in the dollhouse anymore." which... well. renoir and verso never considered the canvas and the people in it to be real people, and verso even lived inside it; renoir is a god who barely acknowledged sciel and lune's existence in their scenes together (i never got over that!), and verso, who understandably wanted to die after bearing the weight of the family's grief, was willing to take down the whole canvas with him for the sake of his not-sister. it's understandable, but we see how reserved verso is even among people he considers "long-term friends" like monoco and esquie which makes me think he's checked out for a long time. and of course don't get me started on how he can sleep with sciel (and lune?) under false pretenses. i wasn't even bothered when sciel was like "yeah i'm mad. i'm over it now. because you're helping me get my husband back now that that's an option :)" i was like fair play girl

anyway in case it wasn't obvious, i do consider the lives of everyone in the canvas to be real and in an ideal world, they would decide their own fate, not have it be left up to the gods painting them in and out of reality. in fact, sciel and lune felt more real to me than aline and clea just because i'd spent so much time with them and i found their struggles way more relatable as a 30-ish woman in the workforce, and when it came down to the big choice, it didn't feel the outcome of a single person (maelle/alicia) should factor more than the continued existence of what i see as an entirely unique and should-probably-be autonomous universe i was HOPING that the ending was gonna result in the canvas gaining independence from the painters, or breaking the link so the dessendres can't meddle again, so i picked maelle's ending also hoping she'd become more of a like, kind godly figure who'd fix the damage her family did to this world, even if she couldn't stay for long, but that is sadly not what happened lmao.

"but megan, this means you're letting the basement kid from omelas suffer just play with your toys! what about the shadowy kid!verso stuck painting the canvas forever?" i interpreted that kid's existence differently. i think verso's "aren't you tired?" is him speaking to himself, not the kid, and the kid was more a visual representation of canvas's continued existence, not that the kid was literally chained to the floor forever. but if that is a literal piece of verso's soul trapped in there, if that's how in it works in this universe, if we're gonna wipe the canvas For The Sake Of Letting Verso's Memory Rest, then why bother keeping any childhood artwork at all? do they have to destroy all their older canvases then? renoir said he painted HUNDREDS. do they have to destroy all artwork by dead Painters (or Writers)? just raised a lot of questions. if it's just because this one is special because it's verso's the dessendres were using to avoid facing their grief... well, those other canvas kids are stuck forever too, so if we're confirming this shadow kid is suffering, then shouldn't the next goal be destroying verso's other canvases so his painterly soul pieces don't linger on in misery forever? but where does it end, are you really gonna destroy all of his artwork and a bunch of fully-realized worlds with possibly sentient people just because your family can't get therapy? it just raises fewer questions to me if the kid is a straight-up metaphor, questions i don't think the game actually wanted me to ask about the world.

one thing i noticed about the endings is that maelle's ending starts positively (everyone's alive) and then ends bleakly (the reveal she forced verso back to life while haunting music plays). verso's ending starts bleakly (everyone in the canvas dies) and arguably ends a bit more bittersweet (standing over her brother's grave while gentle music plays). this is why i think the writers are trying to tell us the verso ending is better for her, because the final sentence of a story, the last shot of the film, is powerful, it's your closing argument, and well, bittersweet music is imo preferable to haunting music in this case lol. i'm just not entirely sure i'm convinced alicia will really "move on" from this the way we move on from grief in the real world. one of her lives was just destroyed and the family members who unconditionally loved her, enough to respect that she's two people at once, are all dead. i'm not trying to say life as a disabled girl isn't worth living, but i thought it sort of noteworthy that in the outer world she's literally voiceless and her painting skills aren't respected, but in the canvas, they are. some people might see that as running away from "real life," but i was never convinced the canvas was anything other than real, too. idk.

again though i'm not arguing the maelle ending is better. it's genuinely fuckin bleak to the point that i was like, was verso really necessary lol?? lol i again i'll repeat i wish they hadn't gone for the "the silly women lost in fantasy need to be saved by the rational stoic men who know how to deal with grief the Right Way" angle. but whatever. renoir and verso doing all this "for her" while not LISTENING to her never sits right with me, so i'm with her on that; it doesn't hit as hard when it comes in the form of lectures by men who aren't listening to what maelle needs: love and support, which she isn't getting in the outer world. but she's not learning the lesson she needs to; sadly if she didn't have alicia's memories i think it would've been easier to let verso go, because maelle saw gustave as her true north, and with him i think she'd be ok, but well, she's a young woman with the powers of a god, and the grief of two lifetimes, i do i understand why she did what she did. just sucks! there really are no happy endings in night city

"this entire world bears the weight of your family's grief" is a chilling line. and ngl i don't blame him for chasing death! he's lived a really shitty life and was LITERALLY created to bear the weight of their grief! but imo verso's fate doesn't have to be the canvas's fate, the game sets you off on this grand fantasy of underdogs fighting to survive in a world that hates them. it's a shame they never got to decide for themselves the world they lived in.

[micalpixel]

May Game - February 2025 Progress Report

Another month has passed! Here's the progress report on my game for February 2025!

Ability Ramifications

Towards the end of January, the gameplay underwent a major change: the main character (May) would now have two abilities: jumping, and whistling. She could now jump over (most) enemies. And she can whistle to "stun" most enemies. These would complement the game's cozy nonviolent theme. And gave players more agency and options than just "walk around the enemies."

This change had major ramifications:

Enemies had to be re-balanced with stunning and jumping in mind.

The game needed a tutorial where these abilities could be taught.

All maps needed to be reworked (ie, deep water was no longer impassable - May could now jump over water.)

The game could be a bit longer, since these abilities will keep the gameplay fresher for longer.

Due to #2 and #4, the world map has been enlarged (from 6x6 rooms to 8x8). The old world map (shown below, in an unfinished state) was no longer needed.

I've been working on the above throughout February, and oh it's been a lot. I started calling this "Version 0.3" internally, because it's such a different game now. "Version 0.2" lasted about a week - a period where jumping and stunning was possible, but not Bits - another major change which is discussed below:

Bits

Since May cannot kill enemies, and therefore, cannot collect "spoils" from them, this game lacked a collecting-mechanic that is common to lots of games similar to this. This also meant backtracking was not going to be fun. If you got nothing from dealing with all those enemies again, then it would be repetitive and tedious.

So, I added Bits: A currency. Bits look like tiny green squares. They can appear in the following two main ways:

1. Static Bits. Maps will have lots of Bits sprinkled around the ground, similar to coins in Mario or gems in Spyro. Once a Bit is collected, it's yours, and won't appear in that spot again. Some Bits will be easy to collect, some harder. You don't need to get them all, but you do need to get a bunch to beat the game. There are several kinds of static Bits:

Regular: Just walk into it to collect it.

Floaty: You must jump to collect it.

Deadly: You must whistle at it turn it onto a Regular Bit, then you can collect it.

Deadly Floaty: You must whistle at it, AND jump to get it.

2. Random Bits: Enemies will sometimes spawn with a Bit on them:

If a Bit is on an enemy's head, you can jump over the enemy to get it.

If a Bit is afflicting the enemy, you can whistle at it to get the Bit off of them.

Bits should make maps must more fun to explore, and let players decide whether which ones are worth getting or not.

Playable Demo

I started working on a demo to use for an initial internal playtesting period. This will consist of about 1/2 the final game. Enough to get feedback on the gameplay and initial impressions from playtesters. All of the following were worked on in February towards that end:

Created a new 8x8-room overworld concept map, with general layouts, plus a new list of all other maps and their layouts.

The underground cave tileset was improved significantly.

Lots of changes to the overworld tileset (especially tall grass, water, and dirt paths)

An indoor house tileset was added.

Started working on a "garden" tileset.

Lots of changes to main quests, NPCs, and sidequests.

Lots of bugfixes.

Switched to Godot 4.4.rc1 for the game engine, to make sure everything still works before they do an official release.

Improved the minimap.

Overhauled the main village area to be 3x3 rooms in size, including a tutorial on abilities and enemies.

TL;DR The concept layouts for maps are basically done, and now I need to put them in the game, add the updated enemies and NPCs, and quests. The game's world can be fully explored, but it's very bare.

This has been a very productive month for me, which seems crazy because it's also been very stressful for other reasons. But being able to work on this game in the afternoons has been very calming yet energizing.

Games Played In February

I continue to try new games for inspiration:

Spyro Reignited: Spyro 2 and 3: Solid games and very relaxing 3D platformers. Spyro's abilities give these games a very different feel from many other 3D platformers, where jumping is the main focus. But here, it's more about charging, flame breath, and gliding. It's nice.

Chico and the Magic Orchards DX: A short but sweet GameBoy-Color themed game about a squirrel who rolls a large walnut around to solve puzzles. I love the GameBoy, and squirrels, so this was a must-play. :D

Song of Nunu: A story-driven 3D-puzzle-platformer. Made by the same devs as RiME - another game I enjoyed. Despite being a spinoff game, this game is very, VERY good. A lot of love and care went into it, and the result is beautiful. If you like puzzle-platformer games, especially ones with dual-protagonists like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, or you like Ghibli-like stories about a kid and their magic beast friend, you'll like this too.

Ending

That's my February dev log. Thanks for reading! I am hoping that the demo-version of this game will be in a playable state by the end of March, but we'll see.

[yzafre]

Finished Ender Magnolia, some final thoughts:

As I was approaching the half-way point of the game, I had this feeling of "the gameplay feels better in this one, but I don't think they're executing the narrative as well". And, having completed the game… yes, essentially.

It is a far more polished game, but the longer it went on the more I came to the conclusion that I just don't like it as much as Lilies (perhaps, even, because of the polish).

Before I go to far into my critique, I want to be clear: the game was fun. I had a lot of fun. But I also enjoy understanding and articulating why I do or do not enjoy things, and given this is a sequel game it was inviting comparisons.

I watched a retrospective on the original Spyro trilogy recently, comparing the originals and the remake, and there was a comment in there that struck me - that games of that time period had a particular charm due to developers… not fully knowing what they were doing, that is extremely difficult to replicate now-a-days, due to the growing skill of the industry. There weren't the rules and expectations there are now, and beginning developers were more willing to try things out and take risks.

In some ways, that applies to these two games. Magnolia is far more polished - not just from quality of life features, but from the flow of the game. And yet...

For example: let's talk about a core of the MetroidVania genre - movement upgrades and back-tracking.

Both Lilies and Magnolia have Big Movement Upgrades used to progress in new areas - swimming, wall hook, grapple. Standard fare - and this goes much smoother in Magnolia, due to the more detailed maps (which I am a fan of, to be clear).

However, in Magnolia those big upgrades are the only things you need for both progression and backtracking to pick up a small handful of extra collectibles. As I very clearly remember (from having to look it up in guides), Lilies relied on the extra movement affects on the minor abilities to preform some creative platforming to pick up some tricky hidden items. In Magnolia, I can only think of two pick-ups that require you to do that (and because it hadn't been used frequently throughout, I'd forgotten to consider my abilities' movement capabilities by that point, despite being excited to find those kinds of items when I went into the game).

It can be argued that this kind of obscure platforming is a bit janky, a bit of a mess, unapproachable… but it gave Lilies a very distinct flavor that was very memorable.

I do think Magnolia had some untapped potential, though, because it more tightly refined its movement abilities. While the Upper Stratum felt a bit anti-climactic as a final area, I did actually enjoy it. Particularly, I found the side-dash puzzle rooms were very fun to navigate. I feel like if they had more areas that extended your movement abilities into this kind of crafted puzzle, I would have been more affectionate towards the system.

Combat, I'll might give Magnolia props on. While it felt easier, I can't really say if it's because the game is actually easier, I understood it better from having played Lilies, or because parrying is powerful and I learned how to do that in Nine Sols. At minimum, sub attacks are no longer a limited resource which makes combat during traversal SO much nice. So so so much nicer. That trumps any concerns I may have... such as certain builds feeling very unbalanced.

What it comes to is that, objectively, Magnolia is better gameplay-wise. It's polished, it's clean. There was no where near the frustrations I remember from Lilies. It's nice not having to worry about limited attack numbers. Exploration has enough quality of life to keep you from getting frustrated. It's a slick, satisfying experience… but it's not particularly memorable, for exactly that reason.

Magnolia also felt much more linear than the first game, to me. Now, a MetroidVania can be more or less linear, depending on what it wants to do - but I think generally we expect less, unless something about the game's intention or design is served by it becoming more linear. Nine Sols, for example, was a very linear experience - but that was in service to the story it wanted to tell, which was gripping and moving.

Which leads us to my second disappointment with Magnolia. Because the longer it went on… the more its story seemed to spiral out of control. There is… quite a bit going on here, but I do not find it all to be well connected.

It started solid. Your very first point is trying to find Lilia. Good, cool. The next several encounters focus on how Homunculi are treated and thrown away - the question of what does and does not make a human, with a twist on the corruption theme through them going "mutant". The note that connected blighted humans and the creation of homonculi, as well, had some interesting parallels to, say, the immortal knights or the priestesses in the first game.

After that… well, you start meeting more people. And the NPCs are… they're not strong. None of them stuck with me, none of them got me attached. Even with your tuned Homonculi, while I liked the little dialogues at the respites in theory, in practice they were fairly bland.

Another issue with the NPCs is that they pretty quickly become irrelevant after whatever brief encounter you have with them. Where theoretically the NPCs should have made the world feel more vibrant and alive compared to Lilies, in the end they just felt like… bland set dressing.

Levy kept showing up in the WILDEST places, to the extent that I thought there had to be something up with them... nope.

Motley, seeing both Declan and Gilroy in his memory, I thought he'd talk to them when we encounter them as bosses - nope.

The most we get is the group that used to be on the Survey Team together occasionally - but they weren't used in the narrative quite enough for me to really understand their place in the past.

And that's really the issue with including the NPCs at large - they added them in, allowing for "happening now and to you" narrative... but then they didn't use them ENOUGH, clinging to the method of exposing the past used in Lilies, leaving the story in this very bland middle-area.

Anyways, as we go on, more things are added onto the "things the game seems us to want to care about" list:

Finding Lilia

The treatment of the Homunculi (early on, assumed to be a major theme for the game)

Uncovering your/Nola's past

The Blight/Fumes in the kingdom, and how its affecting the

humans and homunculi

Whatever's going on with Gilroy

The Millius/Frost feud

Whatever's going on with Abelia????

And this is where Magnolia fails compared to Lilies.

In Lilies, you get little scraps of information, little vignettes of different character's views of the world, of how everything went down. They had different personal tragedies (which were very poignant), but they also all contributed to the Singular Picture you were trying to put together of how this all happened, while also contributing to the themes of despair, desperation, the balance of selflessness and selfishness in love, and most of all it's question about sacrifice that Lilies was building up.

Magnolia does not satisfactorily bring its various plot threads together.

The biggest sin, I think is that most of them have nothing to do with the choice you make at the beginning of the game. What does people's treatment of Homunculi have to do with whether you move to maintain the Parasol, or destroy it? You'll deal with the blight as well, true, but I never fully understood the impact of it on the land.

The Frosts, and Abelia especially - who have most to do with the Ancients/Priestesses brought over from the first game - honestly contribute nothing by the end. They have little to nothing to do with the actual end-game. And it did genuinely seem like an interesting thread! But when it was never meaningfully looped back into the main narrative and/or theme...

Even Lilia, the very first goal you're introduced to is functionally nothing more than a maguffin. She has no narrative weight.

Even in the final ending - you want to save Lilia from her suffering, but I never fully felt what Lilia's suffering meant, or why it happened. I don't really feel the weight of the choice we're making.

There were so many interesting threads and potential themes, but by leaving them scattered and failing to fully commit to anything, I was just left feeling... unsatisfied.

Not to mention the pacing is off - I didn't realize I was at the endgame till I was stumbling into the Final Boss. The land of Origin - the magical land everyone talks about and contains the things you need to get ending B - is honestly very easy and underwhelming. And what you have to do to get that ending….

Getting ending C in Lilies felt like effort. Like you really had to put in the work, puzzle together all the details of what happened, how we got here, and what need to be done to change it. It felt like you earned it. This game…. kinda just felt like it handed it to you, honestly. It was significantly less satisfying.

((That being said, the true ending final boss was quite fun, even if I did stick with what felt like a slightly cheesy double-pressure+hp while attacking+lots of parrying method.))

To be clear: Ender Magnolia is a good game, it's very solid. Not quite at the level I would put Hollow Knight or Nine Sols on, but it's good. Movement felt good, exploring was fun, and it was absolutely gorgeous.

It's just that it doesn't have all the unique quirks Lilies had to make it memorable to make up for the ways that it's kind of average, and that hurts it in my estimation.

[fulgursmediaanalysisdrama]

Hot take, but after replaying it again I think Majoras Mask kinda sucks

The three day time limit feature does not aid it very well, the game is too large making the time insufficient, but the time is also too much and too long for you to wait out the times where you can do nothing not even explore.

The bombers handbook is kinda helpful, but the timeframes given in it are unhelpful without clear objectives. And all objectives are purposely unclear. I know I can always run back to the Sheikah stone, but I wanna be able to play the game not have another Rotomdex. At least the handbook notes when something is finished, but mostly I wanna reset my days quick which just seems like a waste of time. Generally I don't appreciate having quests split into three parts separated by nothing but waiting, unless you know what else to do. I'm sure if you know everything that's to do and how the game is quite satisfying to optimize, but figuring it out is awful for me. I never finished it as a kid after getting stuck with the Gorons

The map is horrible to navigate, large and mostly useless. You can't even find hints for when exactly to come back later to get into inaccessible areas.

The Witch in the woods requires a healing item, but there's no way to gain any heals.

All the minigames are frustrating to outright unfair, even beyond the waiting to do all three instances of them element, like at least don't make me do them on the same cycle if you can give me the handbook without catching the bombers a second time already. The bombchu one sucks and is unskillful as the bombchus can just veer off and move randomly, the fishing one is useless, the deku one with the moving platforms is hard to practice burns through your money fast as the 3D isn't great so it's easy to miss platforms as you don't cast a shadow on the stones. And it's not just time intensive through retries or like all the other games because it suffers from not giving more money than you earn so you have to keep farming but your rupee bag is also small so you can't carry many tries and- but also because its gameplay is waiting. Waiting is never good gameplay, it makes tedious tasks full of trial and error feel even slower than they already are, and once again this one is already hard to practice. Falling down would mean the end even without the time restriction, it does not make much sense to pretend like it's carnival game where you have a loss condition. The loss condition is not getting the time, you need to play again.

And the one with the "maze" of walls that move up and down. Terribly disorienting, you end up boxed in by three walls all the time and if you ever need to backtrack it means you've lost, the timers to short and there's no strategy to employ. (Yes hugging the wall and always turning the same way, like any other maze, but that's too slow you can't finish this way)

Another thing is I have notes about when to speak to Anju, but I can't. She doesn't react.

I have info about that madams missing son, I don't have info for her because apparently the only info will be having found him? I have been given a deadline but I can't interact with him in that deadline despite having talked to any npc I can find with the mask on. Including the shopowner of the place where he's hiding.

I can't reach any spirit, I can't reach any dungeon, nothing. Idk maybe I can use the bombs in the ice area? But that one had the strongest enemies, it should be last, haven't yet tried this though.

I've been playing for 6-7 hours, I should be much further, like fr it sucks. There's no wonder, no fun, it's just bad. Nothing I have "figured out" so far has felt smart, it's definitely not challenging and it doesn't feel rewarding. The most fun I had so far was getting the heartcointainers from trade quests and such, because they didn't waste time beyond the actions I had to take and aren't limited to very specific time frames or other anti-gameplay-limitations

I'll come back if I find a dungeon and they're better. Or worse, then I'll come back too.

I don't think playing the ds version matters, I can only think of upsides the different hardware would have. And I will not purchase a GameCube just to reexperience this game

[syrupspinner]

i just beat the messenger

there's a joke about shooting the messenger in there somewhere

so this is one of those games with a very specific thought process. let's add a unique and enticing gimmick, but make it a surprise reveal! I always thought this was a bit silly. like, if you're a fan of horror, then you have no reason to play doki doki literature club, because it's just a normal dating sim. but if you do know it's a horror game, then you just had half the game ruined for you, because so much of the presentation and writing and atmosphere and... EVERYTHING is done with the intention that you're going in blind. it's a weird conundrum between trying to market the thing that makes your game stand out and trying to maintain a cool subversive reveal.

the messenger has that in two parts. the first reveal is the time travel gimmick. you start off in an 8bit ninja gaiden-like platformer, and eventually upgrade into a 16bit ninja gaiden-like platformer, complete with world swapping puzzles. yeah, I love world swapping puzzles! link between worlds was my shit back on 3ds

the second part is that the game has a minor genre shift, going from a straightforward platformer to... a nonlinear platformer. I know that all the advertising says a metroidvania, and you can call me a genre snob for this, but I'm not sure if it really counts. sure there's some overlap, like the hub area, but like... you unlock all your cool new movement abilities during the platforming bit, so once the "metroidvania" part starts you don't unlock any new abilities, which is kinda stupid to say out loud. that's like saying you're playing as a roguelike without random generation, I think we lost the plot here.

don't get me wrong, just because it's not a metroidvania doesn't mean it's not fun. act 1 (the platformer) is already a fantastic retro platformer, reasonable difficulty that's juuuuust tough enough to keep you engaged without making you feel like you're being asked for too much, great controls and a good kit that gels with the level design really well, it's good shit. I don't play a lot of retro platformers, so I dunno if saying it's one of the best I've played holds much weight, but damn

act 2 (the not-metroidvania) is also fun! like I said, slut for world swaps. I'm VERY lucky that I was saving up my currency (gems?) so I could get all the map upgrades at once, I would have a very unfun time fumbling for all the collectables without the sparkles. there's also the prerequisite of backtracking through earlier areas, but I think the hub teleporters being in unique spots and the time travel make it more fun that it would've been

WAIT. RED ALERT. so as a peak behind the curtain, I usually write these as I play. maybe not the most professional form, but it helps me collect my feeling in the moment so I don't forget shit. I played like an hour and a half of act two, getting those green coin things and even got a few music notes, the one from the colosusses which was just a world swap puzzle and the yellow one that was just a platforming challenge. also, the fact that I could traverse what I thought was the whole world with my normal moveset made me complacent. but uh. I just got the Lightfoot tabi and I can now walk on water. so never fucking mind I guess! this is a certified metroidvania

ironically, I think the game is at its best with the linear design. when the game opens up, there are a lot of points that feel... easy to lose. there isn't that feeling of exploring for cool new movement tech, feeling your character get objectively more skilled and having that reflected in the map. there are spots like that, like the seashell and the candle. but just as much is like, talking to someone and then being like "don't worry I'll do the thing" and then they do the thing and you get a macguffin, which is much less satisfying in my opinion. like, there's the big where you have to go to an out-of-the-way spot to talk to a monk, and she just opens a path for you in another location. it's fine to have a progression system that isn't based on movement, but the genre shift makes it feel less... impactful. it feels like the game is caught between being a tradplat and a metroidvania, and suffers from trying to fit into both molds at once

so all in all, it's not a perfect 10/10, but it's still a great game that is absolutely worth your time. personally, I'd love to check out a full retro platformer from this team without the mid-game shift, something in the vein of Primal Light

also, there's this whole wrap-around thing when act 2 begins, where Manfred takes you so far east you wrap around west. then it's revealed that you're part of a time cycle thing, but... is Manfred part of it too, or is it like a different dragon every time? and if there's been a bunch of messangers before me, how come my village is still standing? and if the implication is that Manfred flew us around the literal whole world, like... why? why not just... oh fuck it it's not that important

[somethingwittyandweird]

So I finished Sea of Stars today (as anyone with me on their dash will find out as soon as they scroll past this post). Long story short, I loved it! It was a really solid experience from start to finish, and I'm going to take a moment here to sing some praises.

Early on the first thing that charmed me was the environment design- it felt like I could follow my character's journey visually on the world map through the zones when I entered and exited them, which just testifies to how well made the overworld map is. The environment designs were just great in general- every place was visually interesting and some of the backgrounds were absolutely jaw dropping.

I liked the combat system! It's not hard by any means but it's fun. It starts out slow to ramp up the interesting features and many times in the early game I felt like combats were over before I got to use any cool moves, but by the time you unlock all the mechanics it's a really dynamic system. I like the choice to flatten the MP bars and skill costs and put an emphasis on alternating spending MP on two-three skills and then basic attacking to replenish it. The live mana system gives another dynamic angle that ended up feeling a lot like Octopath's BP system in execution (again, setting up a cadence of small attacks to charge -> big damage attack -> repeat) but also interacted well with the lock system. The combo attacks are a highlight and the elemental lock system encourages nearly all of them to enter the rotation. The only gripe I have is that the Obligatory Indie RPG Timed Hits Like Paper Mario, while they do have good feel once you get them down, *really* could have used a timing example on first appearance, or someplace to practice using them. When a new party member showed up with a completely different attack pattern, it took me several fights of pressing A at random times during the animation to figure out where the right timing window was. Turning on the modifier that gave feedback on perfect timing was helpful to know when I had it, but I didn't like having to guess what part of the animation I was aiming at in the first place.

The characters were excellent- though I don't have much to say about some of them, others of them felt like they were aimed directly at me and the types of character I like. There were multiple times that I was delighted to see a new character get to join the ensemble and not just remain in place. I think they were all treated well by the story and most importantly, all had their moments to shine. On that, the story in this one was also excellent- some good twists and some *really* heartfelt plot beats that will stick with me. One visually shattering moment in the middle gave me that awe-struck "oh to experience that again for the first time" feeling whenever I passed through that area thereafter. Just an overall good story well told.

Like I said in my last post, I enjoyed the gamefeel of traversal, which is surprising since JRPGs aren't really a movement focused genre. But again, with the addition of verticality, climbing up ledges and rock walls, and later on the grapple hook to cross gaps, I was pretty engaged even when backtracking- though there was very little backtracking, since the world and environments were designed as very straightforward and easy to navigate. The collectibles and sidequests were at a good challenge level where they weren't free but they also didn't take dozens of hours to scour the world for the hidden door, etc. The game also gives you a modifier that gives a radar for collectibles too making it easy to get that nice shiny completion star. And the sidequests were all worthwhile too, especially the late game character-specific questlines. The full completion reward true ending surprised me at first, but I settled into it once the feelings started to flow.

It wouldn't be fair to the game to not mention the way it wears its love for Chrono Trigger and other SNES-era JRPGs on its sleeve. If "Guest Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda" wasn't enough of a clue, the story is tucked full of easter eggs and references, combo attacks and enemies and environments and plot beats that fans of Chrono Trigger would identify easily. But I think it handles the inspiration well, being an homage that still keeps up its own identity. The lore tying it to the studio's other game, The Messenger, helps with that. It's not just "hey let's remake this game we're all nostalgic for beat for beat" and more "hey let's do our own thing but throw in a lot of nods for us and for other people who are nostalgic for this."

Overall, playing the game was great to end 2023 and finishing the game is a killer start to 2024! A very hearty recommend from me.

[blacktowbarony]

Wilderness Travel - As a dungeon

End of last session, I gave my players *A Quest*. Whole nine yards, given to them by Baron Blacktow himself at their first meeting. High stakes, potential for action and diplomacy. Yes, very fantasy template, but I'm not writing alternative fiction here, I'm rolling dice with some blokes in a pub after work. Basic-bitch tropes save time and get everyone on the same level straight away. Anyway.

Here's the situation:

A dragon has started hostilities against the borderlands territory of Blacktow.

Baron Blacktow, an experienced monster slayer, needs dwarf-made flameproof armour.

Make contact with the lost dwarf civilisation of this country. Commission the creation of this armour as the start of the trade agreement.

Here's the map of the Blacktow Barony, in the borderlands of Nurea:

I've ran overland travel in Knave 2e before, when the players travelled between Ill Cave and the 'frogmen' dungeon and Fief Sudley. Hexes are 6 miles across, 4 hours (or a 'watch') to cross. So that's three a day.

I was not enjoying it, honestly. First watch: Roll, nothing happens. Second watch: Roll, nothing happens. Third: Roll, encounter! Its a yeti. It hasn't spotted you. Oh, you guys wanna hide? Uh, you're in the wilderness so you can climb a tree and get away easy enough.

So in the end, quite often, nothing happens.

Conversely, in the dungeon, procedures add tension and introduce danger, but threats in the wilderness are just feel more like an unnecessary obstacle. I think this is because of these reasons:

In the Dungeon, you're in a limited space with the threat. It's immediate.

In the Dungeon, this room also has a function, trap, treasure, or some kind of dressing to make it more interesting and set the context of any random encounters that crop up.

In the Dungeon, you can't rest unless you find somewhere that's explicitly safe. In the wilderness, you can camp anywhere. This means you have to push forward into a new room, or backtrack, which can be skipped through.

I frikkin love dungeons. It just distils everything you could possibly want from a RPG game into it's purest form. It's easy to write as a GM, and every moment is gameable. When I'm not in a dungeon, I find I'm letting sentences hang, or asking, "what do you want to do?" a lot more. Killing time. In a dungeon, it's a much more natural feedback loop of situation > player reaction > new situation > player reaction. So good.

So I think the solution here is to try recontextualising the hex map as a dungeon. Each hex is a room, and it takes 4 hours to travel from one room to the next.

That means I need to populate each hex. I can't stand by and let the encounter table (or even the overloaded encounter die, sorry Ben) do the heavy lifting. It gets stale, repetitive. I can't always cobble together great encounter ideas on the fly. And rolling dice several times in a row waiting for something to happen kills me as a GM. I think in a rpg procedure that involves die rolling, maybe a good policy would be to disallow consecutive die rolls. Each roll should be punctuated with some kind of new information or decision required from the players. And no, "nothing happens" is not new information.

My number one way to populate dungeons with this blog post. Here's the short version: you can average out the procedural generation rules in D&D B/X (1981) to construct the average 6-room (or multiple of 6 room) dungeon that has basically the perfect balance of peril, intrigue, and reward. This is a great tool for automating this by the way. It's so much fun using this, and takes out a lot of the headache and paralysis when you're looking at a blank map. Running the generator, we have:

Treasure, trapped.

Empty.

Monster.

Interactive, Entrance.

Empty, Entrance.

Monster & treasure.

What does "entrance" equate to in this context, I wonder? Dungeon entrance? Monster lair? Maybe a secret that isn't easily found. Let's log this as something that can be found with a 4 hour "search" action but isn't apparent when you walk through it. You gotta have some secrets after all. Bonus points if the obvious element gives a clue that the element can be found in this hex. Now we're gaming!

Okay, let's execute this. Rockhome is East of the Blacktow Barony. Let's flesh out Eastwood! I've no idea what's there yet, let's pick the closest 6 hexes and fill them as if they were rooms.

Woodland treasure? Uh, it's near Fief Sudley. How about an upturned cart with some treasure in there? But how much?

An method I've considered adopting for 18 or 24 room dungeons (multiples of 6, so just run the generator 3-4 times and connect them) is that you should calculate how much gold is required for all members of your party to level up, and fill out the rooms with that. Half that treasure goes to the main hoard or is kept by the dungeon boss. The rest is divvied out in varied amounts.

But if the wilderness was overflowing with treasure, why would anyone enter a dungeon? No good. Let's be sparing with the treasure in those results that come up.

An upturned woodcutter's cart. 50c worth of fine Eastwood lumber (superficially treasure), rations (immediately useful "treasure") Signs of a struggle.

Hey, awesome! And now there's someone in Fief Sudley who lost a relative and is torn up about it. And a monster in one of the hexes we're about to populate has blood on their hands. Don't you love when fleshing out one thing adds a whole new dimension to another?

2. Empty.

When this comes up, I usually pick a room function like "torture chamber" or "kitchen" to make it something. Since we're in the wilderness, let's roll some results from some of the great d100 tables in Knave 2e. eggs, spring, shadowy. A shadowy spring with some eggs. Let's make them harmless animals, since we're not in monster territory yet.

2. Dense tree cover shadows over a natural spring. The air over the spring is thick with flycatchers skimming flies from the surface of the spring. Many can be seen nesting in the trees.

Extra rations, anyone?

3. Monster.

Yikes! Since this is rooted in one location, it's almost certainly a lair. Let's roll an OSE monster from the forest encounter table.

3. A devastated clearing a mile wide is in the centre of this forest hex, trees shorn down to the roots. Not a scrap of green or leaf litter remains. In the epicentre of this desolation is a large earthen burrow. 2d4 Driver Ants patrol around, 4d6 in the burrows feed anything they can find underneath to a ravenous fungus.

Monsters we roll lairs for will definitely appear on our encounter table, when we make it.

4. Interactive, entrance.

There's a good set of landmarks in the Sandbox Generator, let's pick one out. Riddle bridge. Fuck yes. But a bridge over what? Let's roll this into the 'entrance', which suggests something hidden: how about a massive fissure in the ground? Goes down, down, down. I've had a few of these bottomless pits appear before in dungeons, so they must be connected somehow. All I know right now is that flail snails crawl out of them. Anyway:

4. A massive fissure in the earth blocks the path from west to east. A makeshift bridge has been constructed by a fairy being. Entertain him with a game of riddles and he'll allow you to pass. Rappel down the fissure reveals a flail snail egg clutch, from which tame flail snails can be hatched and raised.

The best fairy statblock and description I've ever found has been in The Monster Overhaul by skerples. I won't spoil it, but I'll be using it for this. The Sphynx riddles in the same book will be good riddle fodder, but I don't know if a fey would think so... linearly. We'll see if I can think of anything better in the coming days.

5. Empty, entrance.

Again, Knave tables are my friend. Middens, desolate, overgrown. What can be found? A warehouse. I imagine that hidden rum cache from Pirates of the Caribbean.

5. A midden, piles of refuse. Deer carcasses, broken tools, broken glass and pottery, torn clothing. The artefacts are hand made, no machinery or advanced forging required. (GM note: a dumping ground for the Nurean rangers. There is a hidden cache of ancient Nurean weaponry in this hex, a watch of searching will reveal it. 100 swords, 100 shields, 200 spears, 200 unstrung shortbows, 100 gambesons, 100 helmets. This is the war cache of the Nurean rangers. The midden is here because twice a year they have a training festival).

6. Monster and treasure.

Since this seems like a bit of a boss monster, as it has a big hoard, let's reroll encounters until I get a big one. It's a catoblepas, which I'll flesh out with The Monster Overhaul.

6. Catoblepas pond. Ox/warthog with a long bristled neck, oily fur, reeks of noxious sludge. It has an expensive sword lodged in its back that it doesn't seem to care about. An unfortunate Foloressan knight is floating face-down in the pond, above a sack containing 1,800 coins.

Fantastic! I'll keep going and fleshing out Eastwood as a dungeon, but that's good enough for now. But the whole of Eastwood needs an encounter table. I'll populate it informed by the hexes I've just described, and a few OSE random forest encounters. As I add hexes to Eastwood, the encounter table may grow. I might be tempted to reduce the encounter chances from 1 in 6 to 1 in 8, as each watch has an encounter chance and it's easier to avoid notice in the forest.

The stinking catoblepas is truffling for mushrooms. Ox/warthog with a long bristled neck, oily fur, reeks of noxious sludge. It has a expensive sword lodged in its back that it doesn't seem to care about.

Nurean Rangers. They're on patrol, and will observe from a distance for several days until they can ascertain your intent/allegiance. 1 in 6 chance per day of them blowing their cover.

Fairies.

Driver ants, cutting down all in their path.

A Foloressan Knight, hunting the Questing Beast.

The Questing Beast. It will lead you to your doom.

Brigands.

Ogre.

Okay! Now I need to do that several more times for the biomes in the easterly direction from Blacktow, as that's the direction they'll be travelling in.

[sonosvegliato]

asking you because i seriously consider u one of the best writers i have. read? known exists? anyways im asking how much do u plan when u write? ik uve talked abt ur process (v funny i love how ur mind works id love to poke around [affectionately]) but like. how much do u Plan in Advance? ive been sitting on some ideas for a while and im trying to think down to the SLIGHTEST things and im jus v curious as to? how much you think abt urs b4 sitting down2 write?

I am glad you think I am funny because I think I am funny too.

(Haha but for real I literally jumped into the air. Thank you!)

Here is where I get shifty because I am not an artist, I never have been, I have never quite gotten a handle on the patience required to color inside the lines. Likewise...I am not a plotter.

In general, an Idea Arrives, and then I sit down and write. A lot of the time it starts out as a scene I'd like to read, and I write that scene for 20 minutes or two hours, and after that I roll the dice in the air. If I poke around it long enough, I am morally required to construct everything that had to happen to get me to the Inciting Scene. My favorite thing to write is dialogue, and to convey how someone said something/why they said it, then I have to know the characters a little more. Sort of like eavesdropping on a conversation, and then getting to know a stranger from it.

I have never plotted anything start to finish. I normally have an end or something close to the end, a few enticing snippets, and that's my map. I don't finish original work too often, but it's not abandoned, it's just reworked, reworked, reworked. I have a friend that has original work that won a big well known editing/pitch contest and now has her work in the Query Trenches, and if she was the writing FBI she would lock me in jail for disorderly conduct and missing plotting documents. She says I should try to at least write a first draft through and let that be my guide, but I'm like. Nah. I start a story and I keep writing it and backtracking and rewriting and backtracking and rewriting, but theoretically at the end I have a story I'm satisfied with--- and not a draft I thought was bad a quarter of the way in but kept mudslogging through it. It's not losing progress, it's just rerouting yourself the longer way home so you avoid future traffic.

"Kill your darlings" is a very famous piece of writing advice, and when I was starting out I thought it meant, like, literally killing your characters for the Drama. Now I understand it as if there's a scene I really like or really want to include...sometimes she just has to get sidelined. And that's okay. We can harvest her organs for later. Frankenstein that bitch.

Fanfiction is different. It's fun and loose and I entertain myself. Now you will not swell the rout was a bit more thoughtfully done, that is, I spent more time on it than just being awake at midnight because I thought of something funny. It was not plotted. I didn't know the story was there. I missed martial arts, and then happened to listen in on a conversation about the poem "To an Athlete Dying Young" (A.E. Housman). I didn't come up with Now you will not swell the rout as a fully-fleshed story then, I just added onto a snippet (literally the first three little paragraphs) and stuff connected and then two weeks went by in a mad haze and I had 30,000 words or whatever it was. After that, I've spoken previously that in hold the low lintel up (and now WIP#3) had some "plot" which are events in the comics I want to include, but I think that is more worldbuilding/keeping somewhat adjacent to the source material. Everything original is just up in my head or stored in a random line I want to remember to use later.

(Literally my "plot" bookmark in my google doc is Plot hey here’s a good line and then I proceed to write one very good sentence and seven disembodied dialogue fragments that don't belong together at all).

In the spirit of honesty, I wrote the last line of Now you will not swell the rout and that was supposed to be it. But the fic had such a lovely reception, and I really felt like I grew while I wrote it, and like look there was one big glaring unanswered question just sitting there, right, so. Now I have a series. And 100% of the reason I'm not uploading chapter by chapter is because I know I am not a plotter, I know I'll change things, and I really want to take my time with this and use it as experience for my original work.

So that was way more than you probably meant to ask for, but. In sum: no, I don't plan in advance, I just take a stab and commit literary medical malpractice. Some writing books will have whole sections on plotting, and will have you detail your characters' birthdate, favorite song, food, music, what's the name of their first dog, etc. A lot of people have to have that solid basis ("organization" my writer friend calls it, pfft). I know, personally, that if I go down that rabbit hole I will not get anything done. I will get stuck.

So if you are honest with yourself and won't get stuck making the ideal macaroni map, send plotting advice for the rest of us homies out there ✌️

SVEG OUT

[c7thetumbler]

Quick Game Reviews March 2024

3 month combo hell yeah

I'm reusing last months banner because I got super lazy

Image taken from my switch. We fist bumped.

Splatoon 3 [Revisited] (Switch)

I previously "reviewed" this in 2022, and here were my thoughts on that:

While it doesn't break much ground in comparison to the previous game, it's definitely worth a go if you've enjoyed the first 2 entries.

Now that the DLC and a number of updates are out, I went ahead and revisited this for about a whole months worth of eveneings just to see how far it's come.

And it's doing pretty well! I"m still utter trash at pvp, but that's not stopped me from enjoying it. Additionally all of the new Salmon Run content, including Big Run, is really fun to continue grinding away at for hours on end. The level of customization the game has is great as well, and the badges being hidden is a solid way of doing achievements. Again, It's a very solid Splatoon experience and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in it, though you've probably gotten it already if you are.

That being said, it + the expansion pack are a little pricey for what you're getting, at least so far. Nintendo hasn't announced a 3rd wave of DLC, but the 1st wave consisted of just some more cosmetics and an optional hub world, which wasn't a whole lot to go off of, and the 2nd, Side Order (reviewed last month) is great but not $30 great. The game seems to be getting gameplay and Splatfest updates still at least, so I'll probably be sticking with it for a while cuz it's just a fun romp while listening to podcasts and chillin with the cat in the lap.

Image from the B3313 fandom wiki

B3313 (N64 Rom hack)

B3313 is a Mario 64 Rom Hack that thrives off of your previous experiences with SM64 and SM64DS and twists it with dream-like surreal changes and a vast degree of inception-like complexity. It is near impossible to map out its worlds, and around every corner, death, door, or even successful star you will often find yourself thrown into a completely new, slightly twisted version of somewhere you may recognize.

I had a really good time at first divng straight into it and navigating my way through the worlds, trying to maker cohesive sense of it, and managed to get ~40 stars before I got bored of it. I know there's a whole lot more there, but its fatal flaw is when you get this complex, your levels really have to be engaging or interesting in and of themselves, and most of the time they just aren't. You'll spend a lot of time running around big, empty levels looking for a silver star or red coinv, or in a lot of cases replaying the same start of a level to get to a sub area within a sub area that your previously died at only to get thrown off by the game's camera and miss a jump and then thrown back out into Peach's castle as imagine by MC Escher.

It's a fun romhack, and a lot of love was thrown into it, but as a "game" or for-fun experience it doesn't really hold up there. I would more recommend it just to see if it's something you enjoy, but prepare for some frustration and backtracking.

Image from Dreamsweeper's steam page

Dreamsweeper (Steam Demo)

I saw GirlDM (wholesome catgirl vtuber) playing this on my feed once and decided to give it a go. It's basically like if Crypt of the Necrodancer replace the music mechanics with Minesweeper instead, which I'm down for.

The core loop is good; I had a lot of fun applying Minesweeper logic in a new way, as well as the aesthetics really bringing out the comfy, lofi dream look they were really going for, so that's a huge plus. That being said, it's still got some growing to do. I'm a little confused as to how you would expand this into a full game, and sometimes the generation can just make it impossible to logic out some areas. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing; the difference between Minesweeper and a logic complete puzzle game like Sudoku is occasionally you do run into guesses. It's like dealing with real mines!

Additionally, the combat is a bit out of place. That's not to say the DDR-esque (or like Undyne from Undertale) minigame isn't good, but it doesn't really fit with the minesweeper or even dream look in and of itself, and just serves to take you out of it rather than add to it. I would've preferred something like a logic puzzle, or even another variation or callback to a different old windows pc minigame everyone had just to kinda keep it cohesive.

That being said, I enjoyed my time time with and am looking forward to seeing how they expand on it in the future!

Image from the steam page

Megaman X Dive Offline (Steam)

You get mad props in my book for turning your mobile game from a F2P gacha game to a cohesive, single-purchase experience. Even more so, when you take the servers down you release that as its own offline game so that it's accessible to anyone who may have missed out.

This was an impulse purchase alongside the Battle Network Legacy collections, and honestly? Kind of regret it. Not because the game is bad exactly, but because I realized that I don't actually like Mega Man X that much to begin with so me getting the whole deal didn't make a lot of sense. The levels are fine and the gameplay is too, however I can already tell that because of how the Gacha works it's a grindfest to get any character up to par, and there's as a result a bunch of inventory management between levels to ensure your stuff remains good. I'm glad they did it, but it exemplifies why adding mechanics that meld with microtransactions inherently makes the core experience worse and the game's not for me.

Image taken from the Sonic Triple Trouble 16 bit website

Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit (Fan game)

I saw an article that the Noah Copeland was hopping off of the Sonic Drift 16-bit project to make his own game with his own characters. His reasoning was he had two goals: Make a Sonic fan game and make his own games, and now that he had done the former with Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit, he wanted to start on the latter. That's completely fair and understandable, and I wish him the best and hope the Sonic Drift 16-bit project continues with the current devs because it looks really good!

I'd be lying if my initial reaction wasn't actually me being like "Wait, there's a really good remake of Sonic Triple Trouble?" Though.

And it is really good! It remakes Sonic Triple Trouble into a "modern" classic Sonic game w3hile adding new levels, playable characters, and layouts and expanding on the story to make it cohesive and fun. Sonic's drop dash returns from Mania, and again it really brings his moveset together and makes him the most fun character to play in my opinion. Tails is also playable at the same time as Sonic, and you can swap to him on the fly with a single button press, which is a welcome change over just having him be around. In Free play mode you can unlock 3 more characters as well, which is always fun.

Overall this is, like Mania, peak classic Sonic gameplay. This is what Sonic Superstars should've been, and its quality is higher than a lot of official Sonic releases as of late (looking at you, Origins and Forces). If you're a fan of Classic Sonic, this is a well designed and excellent experience you need to give a try! And it won't cost you a cent!

Image taken from the steam store page

Insaniquarium Deluxe (Steam)

This was a fun revisit. I Hadn't played this since way back in the day when they had the original, much more pixelated version and it was nice to revisit.

Just some quick notes on this one: PvZ definitely aged a lot better. While I appreciate that large amount of modes and variety in levels, the gameplay itself is very one note. It's addictive fore sure, but as soon as you get into the habit of it there really isn't much variety between the different tanks other than figuring out how to ramp up production.

Additionally the game has you clicking a lot, and the speed at which you can click is very much ingrained into its core mechanics. If this were made today, that would not go well given how utterly painful play sessions can get. I opted to use a mouse clicker, because I wanted to have fun and also be able to work tomorrow without dying.

All that being said, it's still a fantastic game in its own right! Sure, it's not the deepest gameplay you've ever seen, but not all games have to have deep, complex interweaving mechanics to be a grand old time. It's a great time to play for an hour or so while you're listening to a video or podcast, and honestly I recommend it for just being a fun, nostalgic clicker game. But wait for a sale.

And it's more enjoyable than cookie clicker, imo

Image from my switch

Princess Peach: Showtime!

As of the time of this writing I haven't beaten it yet, so my story & gameplay assessment may change by that time. If that does, I'll update this in my reviews next month, but I think I'm still pretty on point.

I'll go into this saying I had pretty high hopes for this one. Nintendo has a great track record when it comes to making spin-offs based off of other Mario characters; Yoshi games offer a different but still engaging platforming experience to the basic Mario platformers. Wario Land games are for the most part all great, ranging from platformers that test your wits and abilities to the iconic WL4/Shake it gameplay that would give rise to Pizza Tower. Luigi's mansion took a character whose only feature was being Green Mario and made it into a successful franchise with completely unique gameplay.

And sure, Peach has had a platformer before with Super Princess Peach. I haven't played it, but I heard it was fun. But when this game was announced I will say I was excited to see another Mario spin-off but with Peach as the leading lady.

And it's definitely not bad! I want to make sure that's clear; I don't dislike the game. It's difficult to describe the gameplay in a way that encompasses everything though. The best comparison would be a puzzle platformer but with a large amount of minigames interspersed, along with hidden collectibles all throughout the levels. To go with probably the worst possible game mashup I can think of, It's like Wario: Master of Disguise mixed with Luigi's Mansion 2 and a Spin-off Kirby game.

I will also say that I'm not the target audience for it, for sure, so I'm keeping that in mind when I say this. It's just, I'm kind of disappointed in it myself. It's not challenging, kinda like how Yoshi's Crafted World and most modern Kirby's aren't, but the gameplay isn't really engaging me enough to want to progress that frequently. Additionally most of the challenge seems to be from collecting the green sparkles scattered throughout the level, and for the most part it's not so much a skill challenge as a "Oh did you find the right part of the screen to stand on and pose" sort of thing.

The setting and story kind of irks me as well. The theatre aesthetic isn't foreign to Mario games, with Paper Mario and SMB3 even embracing it, but it feels inconsistent here. Peach is put through a variety of different plays where she assumes the main role in order to complete the stage and overcome the main antagonist: Grape and the Sour Bunch, and bring order back to the play. But it feels like they couldn't decide whether the game was trying to be like "Hey this is you actually helping people in need" and "This is all an act for your amusement", and bouncing back between those constantly and clumsily does it a disservice.

Performance wise the game's not doing so hot either. I know it's on switch, but with how smooth Mario Kart 8 DX and Splatoon 3 run, the game doesn't really have an excuse to be dropping frames. Most of the game is a fixed perspective with models made to look like theater props, but I find it's actually pretty common to see things operating at a lower framerate or stuttering. They also didn't even stick 100% with the theater aesthetic, with a lot of transitions looking almost voxel and digital in nature rather than actively moving set pieces like a performance, which is a shame because if they went all in on it it would've been cool to see them nail it like modern Paper Mario hits the paper aesthetic really well.

All in all, I'd say this a fairly decent game that has some issues finding what it's supposed to be. There's definitely fun to have here, but the variety of costumes and performances which for the most part don't mix together make the game feel like a mini-game collection more than a cohesive experience. So, it's alright, but in my opinion I'd wait for a big sale before picking it up. If you're looking for a challenge, consider this to be like a Kirby game before you buy

[no-rest-for-the-doomed]

#45: TNT: Evilution (1996)

Well, this is going to be a bit of a weird one. I'll preface TNT with the quote - "Too weird to live, too rare to die."

Indeed, TNT Evilution is the redheaded-stepchild of Final Doom and the IWADs (unless you're factoring in the Master Levels). It was embroiled in controversy upon release, it was bundled with the far more enjoyable 'Plutonia Experiment' as a part of Final Doom, and almost no one looks back on it with 100% enthusiasm. I can understand why, and I'm not "of" the camp that TNT is a good megaWAD, but I do think it is sort of a misunderstood 'Frankenstein's Monster' of a WAD that, when holding a lens of its time to it as well as what it actually did accomplish will reveal its true merits (and maybe some flaws on top of that).

As far as mappers go, this isn't like Doom 2 where you can say you hate Sandy Petersen or American McGee or whoever you want - TNT's mapping roster is wide and varied; heck, even Dario Casali of Plutonia fame makes the secret maps and I think 1 or 2 other maps in this WAD! It is the result of TeamTNT, one of the internet's earliest Doom mapping coalitions, so obviously results will vary from map to map. You almost have to admire how consistent TNT is, at least from a broad perspective, given the primitive nature of communication on the web at the time and the fact that TNT generally has a common vision across maps.

What is said vision, you may ask? Experimentalism, in a sense. I get the feeling someone at TeamTNT cooked up a plot draft and they just built the maps around that, and the ultimate downfall of this WAD is that the tools we have now - they didn't have back then, resulting in what some may call endearing and old-timey and others may call... well, let's just say not so good.

The first half of the WAD (and secret maps) is pretty consistent in its quality. Combat is a little more spiced up, more emphasis on spaced-out monster placement in favor of puzzles, confusing secrets, and backtracking. Hitscanners are aplenty and each map has its own sense of adventure to it, due in part to the WAD's shiny new textures that - yes, they are a bit of a hackjob - they convey it well enough.

After around MAP17 or so though, things take a gradual and steady decline, peaking at MAP22's "Habitat", one of the worst IWAD maps to ever disgrace a Doom source port IMO. The clever ideas such as early Doomcute and mechanisms get scrapped in favor of labyrinthe areas that are no fun to navigate, somehow *even more* confusing progression, and puzzles that will make first-timers wonder what the hell was going on in some of these mapper's heads. It doesn't help the Hell portion of the WAD is also very weak, with a kind of nothingburger MAP30 that, while it is preferable to D2's, doesn't feel satisfying.

So yeah, that's TNT. I guess this just kinda lined up with WAD #45 for the blog pretty well. I have plans for 49 and 50, as for what lies between I'm just gonna play what interests me - although I do have some ideas. 2 more IWADs to go - Plutonia and Master Levels.

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm Gonna Play: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

I've seen Ys pop up often as people's top JRPGs. I've never played them before, so I jumped into the latest entry blind to what this series offers.

Talking of combat first, the first thing this game reminded me of was Tales of Arise; having skills by pressing button combinations, dodging, on screen encounters, and having a party based system where you could switch characters. It felt extremely snappy and satisfying, and I loved unlocking new skills be it from getting them as I fight, or from shops. It's an easy system that's fast-paced which is also great when you want to play something simple and shut your brain off for a bit.

There are also raids included, which have a tower defense mechanism to ensure you survive hordes of enemies while protecting a crystal, or to collect X number of item in a time limit. It gets quite chaotic but is manageable with the use of upgrades. This adds a nice variety to combat so that it does not get monotonous. Aside from that, the game seems to have a superpower motif going on, allowing you to traverse in different ways such as parkouring or gliding, or accessing hard to get places, as well as some combat abilities. It was an unexpected but fun touch.

The best qualities I've seen in this game are more finer details that add to the overall Quality of Life. One being how the map system functions. You're able to get a view of your current area AND look at the region map, in which you can look at other area maps because why not, all with the press of a button or two. . The game really encourages exploration in a great way by rewarding you with fast travel unlocks, and new shops or quests. What surprised me the most was that the minimap leaves a decently sized trail as you move around, making backtracking easy as well as marking where you've already been in case the dungeons or areas look the same-ish (or if you're feeling a bit forgetful at the time of playing). It's spoiled the way I see maps for JRPGs in a good way, and I'd love to see more games like this. The second detail I loved was the amount of customization in settings, ranging from gameplay to HUDs, giving the player freedom to truly explore or to be guided. And lastly, being able to save at anytime is quite a game-changer. It's not always easy to find time to game, and priorities are there to handle in real life, so having this feature came in super handy.

The story seems somewhat simple and straightforward. It's quite innocent and doesn't get too deep until the latter half of the game. I'm actually quite surprised how deep the game gets into its lore and politics, and it was simple enough to understand without playing the previous games. There's a nice variety in cast, and side quests actually add lore to them rather than being usual fetch or escort quests.

I also find the character designs to be a plus, most of them are designed quite well without the reliance of fanservice. It was a breath of fresh air! However I did find Renegade's design to be underwhelming with such a muted colour palette. It does fit his personality a bit, perhaps.

Some negatives are the graphical quality of this game. It's the latest entry released just a few years ago, yet it looks much older, and very bland in terms of colour. I had fun exploring the city of Balduq and was amazed at the size and depth of the place, but it definitely lacked some colour or variety that made the place truly interesting. Midway I stopped to look at previous entries' graphics and felt that Ys 8 somehow looked better, but I also read a bit about the developer and didn't realize their impact towards the genre, and that they seem to make more budgeted titles, so I can give this a pass.

Another negative is the music, most songs fit, but only about 2 tracks truly caught my ears, while the rest sound quite generic and akin to typical melodies I would hear in budget JRPGs.

Overall, the game was truly an enjoyable adventure to experience, and I even felt a little sad as I reached the end, bonding with the cast and the city. I'm looking forward to future titles and may check out 8!

[beevean]

Thoughts on Castlevania: A teenager Dracula's isekai adventure against the Idea of Evil feat. the power of friendship?

Not even the Dark Lord is safe from The Power of Friendship :P

So this is technically the second time I play Aria of Sorrow. The first time, I got to Graham without all the prerequisite souls, and the idea of backtracking made me abandon the game lmao. So that says something.

The second time was much more fun :P

AoS is a good game. It didn’t wow me like PoR, it wasn’t as intriguing as OoE, but I had a good, consistent time. You know I'm having a good time when I don't write much beforehand :P

The level design of the castle is what left me the most impressed. It's pretty big, and you have to backtrack quite a few times, but I never felt lost, because I could easily remember places I couldn’t go to and why. Oh, I have the double jump, well there were some high platforms there; oh, I can walk on water, I remember a place that I couldn’t jump to when I could only float. Only one time I felt like wasting time, and it was when I got the sliding ability and I remembered an Ancient Book I couldn’t get in the Inner Study; that Book is near an area I couldn’t access yet, and I had to backtrack all the way back out of the Study and out of the Chapel. Thankfully, the teleporters are smartly placed everywhere else. There was a lot of thought behind it. As for the areas, I like some more than others, but I never thought "oh no, now I have to go through here". The Floating Gardens are where I struggled the most due to the unconventional way of navigating them, but they're cool so it's okay.

The Underground Reservoir is an odd area too. It’s, by far, the biggest map in the game:

(for comparison, a standard map)

But that entire upper right part? Completely optional. You just need to drop to the exist in the lower left corner. I don’t think you even need to defeat Legion! You only use the power of Galamoth to find the second Ancient Book. Technically, if you already know what you have to do, you can skip it! Only SOTN did a similar thing with the Clock Tower. I don't know how to feel about optional areas lol.

The big drawing point of this game is the Soul System, and... how do I say this? The thing is that, unlike Shanoa who takes the whole game before becoming powerful, Soma is pretty strong from the beginning  and he finds some very cool weapons throughout the game. Simply put, I rarely felt the need to use anything other than my strongest sword (although the temptation to use a gun was strong ngl). It doesn’t help that some souls take a long time to farm - to get into the Forbidden Area, I spent 5 minutes grinding for the soul of a Curly (an enemy you find early on in the game - I guess that it should be called Kali like the Hindu goddess?), and let me tell you, it’s not fun. It was the same reason I dropped AoS on my first playthrough. (the Curly Soul is pretty sick though, ngl, and the trip was worth it, because Claimh Solais is the Crissaegrim of this game <3)

I think my favorite souls are the Flame Demon, Baur, Death, Succubus, Triton and Headhunter :) and of course the bat lol, little white Soma bat is so cute

The way to unlock the good ending is slightly cryptic until you understand the logic. You need to fight Graham equipped with the Giant Bat soul (which you gain automatically), the Flame Demon soul (which you find either in the optional Underground Cemetery or the secret Forbidden Area), and the Succubus soul (which you find in the the Top Floor or in one room in the Arena... uhm, "chilling" with a Lilith?). The idea is that these three Souls have Dracula’s powers: turning into a bat, firing three fireballs, and absorbing enemies’ HP, a power displayed by Alucard and Dracula in later games. Once you understand, it makes perfect sense, and you even find three books hinting at this, but it still requires some intuition and a general amount of farming. I'd say it's pretty balanced and rewards your intelligence, but I hope your LCK status is high enough.

As for the second half of the game? Sorry, but after the joy that the Dracula Castle was in OoE, this one was disappointing. The Chaotic Realm, ironically, is a pretty boring place. It’s all washed out, the map is pretty much a spiral to the center, and there aren’t any new enemies. I can't help but seeing the mishmash of rooms all over the castle as assets recycling. The music is pretty bland too, it wants to be creepy but it just reminds me of Behind the Gaze from PoR.

However, Julius’ boss fight slaps (almost literally lol) and it’s the highlight of the game. No wonder people turned him into a badass! Also man, that bad ending! Short, but effective.

As for the story, it's interesting enough. Poor Soma went from being a random guy with an outrageous amount of drip to being the reincarnation of Dracula himself! I really, really like his design, all white, which can be seen as pure or deathly depending on your culture. I also felt for him when he insisted that he wanted nothing to do with Dracula and his castle and his powers. I can't wait to see what he will do in DoS :)

Difficulty wise, I also think it's well balanced. Soma is more resilient than you might think, he levels up pretty fast, and as I said many weapons are very strong. However I never felt like I was breaking the game. I probably can, but I'd need to grind more :P

The graphics are pretty! I don't have much to say. It's a nice, detailed artstyle that tries to replicate the one in SOTN with the more limited resources. Love all the shots with the big moon! I appreciate how there's no screen crunch at all, which was a common issue in GBA games: Soma's sprite is small enough, and the speed is fast enough.

Not super fond of the OST, though. The soundfont isn’t the best the GBA can produce, to say the least, even at the time - in the same year, Megaman Zero 2 came out, and I mean. Some of the tracks stuck in my head, like Castle Corridor, Clock Tower and Top Floor, all super catchy, but others slid off my head until I replayed, like Study or Dance Hall. The boss theme is annoying too :\ I rediscovered Chapel and Undeground Reservoir, though, they're very pleasant to listen to. And Heart of Fire is the good shit <3

So, I don't have much else to add. I had fun, and that's really it! I bet that it would have looked even more impressive had I played Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance before, but even without them on my belt, I can tell that this was an impressive game, and one built on replayability thanks to the Soul system. So yeah, I see why it's so beloved.

[lewa358]

Game Retrospective: Metroid Dread

Over the last few years, I’ve been growing colder towards 2D platformers, and "search-action games" (that is, metroidvanias) in particular. I just got tired of feeling lost, I guess, and of trying to navigate the same sequence of tiny floating blocks over and over again while getting lost. I used to adore the genre, and how exploration (generally my favorite part of video games) would be rewarded with surprising and interesting new abilities (my second favorite part of video games). But after dropping games like Hollow Knight (with its boring movement and endless, boring vertical hallways) and Symphony of the Night (with its combination of clunky movement and absurd difficulty) despite them being hailed as exemplary examples of their genre, I was worried that said genre had left me behind. Looking back, the only ones I really loved are, like, Robot Wants Ice Cream, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, and Metroid Zero Mission, not counting 3D ones like the Metroid Prime games and Batman Arkham Asylum.

Well, Metroid Dread came out, and it proved me wrong…and right.

Simply put, this game is a blast. Movement is snappy and precise. Puzzles are always fun to solve. Combat, with the parry mechanic and ever-more-powerful abilities, is just fun. The story, while still very minimalist, has surprising depth for a 2D Metroid, and plenty of fascinating callbacks to previous games. Boss battles in particular are a great selling point; all of their designs and attacks are uniquely menacing and brutal—but at the same time, those attacks are all clearly telegraphed, so that every time I died (and I died a lot) I felt like I learned something that would make my next attempt significantly less deadly. Every time I faced a new boss, I quickly went from getting trounced in seconds to expertly dodging all of its attacks, and there really isn’t anything else I want from a boss fight.

Even the new EMMI encounters—segmented areas with only one, completely invincible enemy that stalks you and kills you in one hit—were fun to get through, and a nice change of pace from the usual running and gunning. I particularly liked the little game of chicken that you have to play with a slow-charging gun that is the only thing that can hurt them.

All of this fun is thanks to two significant changes to the Metroid formula: frequent checkpoints, and constant railroading.

The first of those is unambiguously a good thing, and something that every Search-Action game or platformer or whatever should steal. Yes, I died a lot to bosses and EMMIs, but I always respawned right outside the boss room or EMMI zone (not at the last save point, though those are plentiful too). I was always mere seconds away from my next attempt against a challenging foe, with no need to trawl through filler rooms or stress out about missing a save point.

The second change, the railroading, is arguably a bit less positive. Every time I tried to backtrack in Dread—ostensibly the main way of exploring in a Metroid game—I would hit some sort of wall. Maybe it was a one-way door. Maybe a new obstacle appeared from nowhere. Either way, the amount of actual exploration I could do in this game that is arguably about exploration was always strictly limited, until basically right up to the final boss. I think I went from 34% of items to my final total of 88% once I finally realized that I had every ability in the game and would no longer be stopped by all those arbitrary roadblocks.

There’s an upside to this limitation, of course. This is the best-paced Metroid game since the Prime games. Since I never really spent much time being lost or just walking from one end of the map to another, there was always something new and exciting around the corner. And unlike, say, Super Metroid, the controls are actually good, so I never had to juggle between different weapons or fail to execute a finicky wall-jump to get out of a kaizo trap.

Fortunately, as someone who is getting tired of the clunkier aspects of metroidvanias, I welcome this forced linearity. I’d happily play this game again, even if I might not ever get all the secret endings or find the items hidden behind particularly devious Speed Boost Block puzzles.

Strong recommend to anyone who is decent at games, unless you’re some kinda metroidvania purist.

Details:

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: MercurySteam

Release date: October 8, 2021

Played on Nintendo Switch via physical cartridge

Beat the game in 10 hrs 26 minutes (by in-game counter) with 88% completion

Image source: Nintendo.com

[starcrossedkaiju]

Kingslayer AU: Chapter Five

If you remember that post I made about the Red Resistance you’re a real one.

Notes: this one is very short. It’s just to move the plot along and blah blah blah. Next chapter is a good one I think.

The next time Scott showed up to the Red Desert it was for a petty fight that Scar had instigated by trying to steal directly from the Renchanting base. The situation made Scott face palm, and he contemplated not even showing up. However, when Jimmy offered to go in place of him, he told him not to bother. That he would be back in less than a day and night cycle.

Scott walked into the meeting just as the Red Army crested a hill. Which they stayed on. Scar yawned exaggeratedly and trekked up to his opponent, who was wearing a bandage on his left arm.

Cleo was also there. She seemed to be focused on drawing shapes in the cracked sand with the tip of her sword. Most likely feeling bitter about her former ally, Tango, joining Dogwarts. Everyone was paying as little attention as possible while Scar fired off false promises and white lies. Grian busied himself with apologizing to the nearest members of the Red Army for Scar’s embarrassment.

Scott was nearly falling asleep on his feet when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Tango.

“Hey Major, you got a minute?” he whispered.

“So many,” Scott responded, gesturing to the desolate state of their meeting.

The two of them quietly excused themselves from the group to speak in private. Scott didn’t know why he didn’t tell Tango to just leave him alone. Maybe it was because Tango had a certain air of reluctance about him, Scott was certain he pulled his punches. Maybe it was shear boredom.

“So, nice weather,” Tango observed the arid desert sky.

“Uh huh..” Scott provided, unimpressed.

Tango stared at him blankly. Awkwardly.

He cleared his throat, “so I heard about your battle with Skiz and Ren. Impressive,” Tango said.

“What is with you people and beating around the bush? We’re not friends,” Scott pushed Tango away by the middle of his chest, “Tango,” he reminded.

Tango looked hurt for a second, “ouch Major. Fine, I wanted to ask you to join me,” he said.

Scott burst out laughing, to which Tango scolded him and shook him by the shoulders. That shut him up, it also earned Tango a slap.

“Don’t touch me,” Scott ordered.

Tango put his hands up, “no touching here! But be quiet. I brought you over here alone for a reason,” he pointed out.

Scott glanced at his allies. Blissfully unaware of the possible treason he may have been about to commit.

“Nobody knows this yet,” Tango whispered, “but I’m spying on the Red Army,” he said.

“What?” Scott asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, I have a plan. It involves you,” Tango responded.

Scott paused to consider if he was really about to entertain whatever was about to come out of Tango’s mouth.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to get close to me and then kill me on behalf of him,” Scott pointed at Ren, who was rolling his eyes at Scar and animatedly conversing with him about something Scott forgot about a long time ago.

“You remember the cow farm right?” he said.

“Yes,” Scott nodded suspiciously.

“I let you take my cow, on the promise that you and Jimmy wouldn’t tell anyone,” Tango recited.

“And we didn’t,” Scott said.

“Exactly. I know I can trust you, and I can’t trust them, Etho tried to kill me remember?” Tango pointed at Etho and Ren.

“So I want you to join me. Not the Red Army, me. Impulse is doing the same thing,” he concluded.

“Didn’t Impulse actually kill you?” Scott pointed out.

Tango waved his hand, water under the bridge.

Scott drifted off into contemplation. Everything about joining a coup against the Red Army screamed danger. More than usual. Dogwarts was a force to be reckoned with. They had superior gear, defenses, players, and alliances. Maybe Scott could cheap shot Martyn and Skizzle, but he could not promise that same luck against Etho or anyone else for that matter. The thought of even trying made his stomach turn.

And then there was Jimmy. If their plan didn’t work, what would happen to Jimmy? The Crastle? Or the Red Desert for that matter? The target on their backs was large enough. Scott had to take a step back. Since when did he get himself involved in a war?

Since he started defending himself, his mind provided.

Since he started standing up for his own freedom. For their freedom.

“Okay,” Scott said.

“Really? You’re in?” Tango’s eyes lit up, his joy was a bit loud for Scott’s new predilection for secrecy.

“Shh!” Scott put a finger in front of his face, “that’s not what I said…” he averted his eyes.

“I want to, believe me, I do,” he said, “but I can’t.”

Tango’s smile faded instantly, his red eyes grew disappointed, “Why not?” he seemed hurt.

“I have too much to lose. I can’t risk this,” Scott held the charm of his necklace up, it’s gemstone still shimmered bright green.

“Scott, I admire your devotion, I really do; but this is a bit bigger than that,” Tango said.

Scott’s expression fell into shock and reproach.

That seemed like enough of an answer for Tango, who backtracked as he realized he’d struck a nerve.

“I mean!” he corrected, “I mean nothing will happen to Jimmy. Cross my heart, he will be under the Red Resistance’s finest protection,” Tango stood up straight and crossed his heart.

Scott decided that was satisfactory. He made a face that said the opposite though, just to make sure Tango’s pride wasn’t too uplifted.

“Fine. I’ll join you Tango, but if I get even the slightest inclination of funny business, I’m out,” Scott cautioned, but he agreed.

“Terms and Conditions, I get it. The Red Resistance will not indenture any of its members,” Tango responded with a gleeful grin.

“You guys and your red themed names,” Scott teased, but held his hand out. They ought to make it official before everyone stopped snoring.

Tango shook it enthusiastically. The two called it done and Scott returned to his side, and Tango returned to the Red Army.

*****

Scott traveled back home that day. No fighting had taken place, although Scar had decidedly talked himself into a hole and ended up giving Ren access to any sand Dogwarts and their affiliates needed for the next week. It was no skin off Scott’s back, he didn’t care. Not his sand.

Wearing so much armor and standing in place for two hours gets on ones nerves. Taking off his heavy diamond chestplate felt like enough liberation for the day. He expected to hear from Tango or Impulse at some point, preferably soon.

Jimmy asked him how the meeting went when he returned, holding out a cup of coffee.

Unsure of whether or not to tell the truth, Scott lied, he said nothing happened and made fun of Scar for running his mouth so much. He said he was tired.

*****

“Scott? That you?” Tango’s voice came through a small door in his abandoned cow farm. It wasn’t needed anymore.

Scott pointed his torch towards the voice, illuminating a door, which Tango had crafted into the side of the underground farm.

“Yes it’s me. Why’s it so dark in here?” he asked.

“I don’t want people to know I’m still using this place, that’s why,” Tango motioned for Scott to come to him.

Tango silently listened for any sign that Scott had been followed, then pushed a stone slab in front of the hidden door with a silent thud.

On the other side of the door was a short hallway, then a very small room with some pillows on the floor and a table. A map of the server that included all the structures and members was pinned up on the wall. There was also a well loved notebook on the table.

“Where’s Impulse?” Scott asked, sitting down on one of the pillows.

“Ren needed him for something, he’ll probably be here next time,” Tango explained. He sat down and lit a candle to make more light.

“I thought we would start by going over the basics today,” Tango picked up the notebook and flipped through some of the pages absently.

Scott looked away and then back, “okay, shoot,” he said.

The “plan” centered around infiltrating the Red Army, convincing them (mainly Ren) that Scott had decided to switch sides. Then, him, Tango, and Impulse would eventually build their trust. Somewhere in there they would convince the Red Army to stop messing with people and come to an agreement with the rest of the server. Something about working together instead of against each other.

“We still have to work some stuff out,” Tango concluded with confidence.

“That’s the plan? You really think this’ll work?” Scott crossed his arms.

“If you can insult Scar convincingly enough, yes,” Tango said.

“Oh this’ll be easy!” Scott laughed, mostly to cover up his nerves.

Tango chuckled with him, then became serious once more, “I’m glad you have a sense of humor going into this. Even after what they did to you,” Tango said.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he apologized.

Scott’s hands stung a bit in response, but he nodded a silent “thanks”.

They were quiet. Scott nervously fiddled with the hem of his coat, lost in thought, mostly regret.

Impulse did show up the next time. He arrived just after Scott did. Everyone sat awkwardly in the little room for a while and Scott was wrapped in nostalgia for a similar time. A time where the only threat was an obscene number of phantoms.

Over the course of their meetings, Scott observed his teammates and their actions. A far cry from who they used to be, including him. Scott’s hair had grown past his ears and turned purple at the tips, and he’d become rather paranoid about always wearing armor.

Tango spent much of their interactions lost in thought. The ghost of whatever was eating at him weighed visibly on his shoulders in the way his head was always bowed in a perpetual staring contest with the ground. He was irritable.

Impulse was a wild card to Scott, they’d never really met before; but it was clear he’d been changed as well. Illustrated by his long “mining” trips, which he only returned from to attend their weekly meetups with no resources to show for it, and a general aura of depression.

His mind was drawn back to the picture Cleo had taken of almost all his server-mates, together in front of the Vibe Machine. He’d studied everyone’s faces countless times. Mostly wondering where everything had gone wrong.

Had they ever truly been friends in the first place? Or was camaraderie a comfort when everyone else was just as weak as one another.

[h-worksrambles]

The two versions of Sonic Unleashed are so interesting to me because I honestly can’t decide which one I like more.

The HD Unleashed on Xbox 360 and PS3 always struck me as having some of the highest highs in the Sonic series but also some of the lowest lows. It looks gorgeous, especially for the time it came out and the art direction does a splendid job selling the vibe of an adventure round the world. It has some of the most spectacle heavy, fast paced levels of all the Boost games. It’s also probably the hardest Boost game which is probably why it tends to score better with die hard Sonic fans who are more patient and looking for a challenge, than it does with newbies or general audience who come to it with no idea what to expect, get their butts kicked three levels in and bounce off. When everything clicks, it looks and feels amazing. And when you couple that with the gorgeous cutscenes, possible one of the best OSTs in the entire franchise and a simple but surprisingly wholesome story, it makes for a really fun and sprawling adventure.

On the other hand, while it’s exhilarating at its best, at its worst this game makes me want to put my head through a wall. The biggest offender is obviously medal collection. Making the player grind to a halt to pick up mandatory collectibles is just aggravating. It’s not so bad in the night stages where taking your time is encouraged, but in the day stages it’s insufferable. I find it always spikes around Adabat/Jungle Joyride where you get the 6th Chaos Emerald. No matter how diligent I am on any given replay, I always find myself having to stop and backtrack for medals here. Which adds insult to injury because I don’t even like Jungle Joyride. It encapsulates a lot of the worst traits of Unleashed’s levels. Specifically, they’re are often too long, especially the later night levels. I’m less encouraged to practice them to work up to a S Rank because one slip up means restating and doing several minutes of progress again. The day stages are shorter of course but levels like Jungle Joyride Act 1 are still longer than anything in Colours or Generations, which makes replaying for S Ranks a real chore. And I personally don’t think the level design is on par with Generations. There’s a lot more cheap deaths you don’t see coming and the controls (especially the drift) are much looser. I put a lot down to this being the first Boost game (unless you count Rush). So Unleashed is very experimental in figuring out what works. And not all of it does.

And your reward for all of this is the worst final level and final boss of the mainline series (at least in my opinion). HD Unleashed is pretty great for a lot of its runtime but you have to put up with some real BS to get there and it really falls off near the end. A lot of the minute issues worsen near the endgame and all the worst levels are packed together there too. Whenever I replay HD Unleashed, I’m always super into it at the start but by the time I reach the final levels, I just kind of want it to be over.

And then there’s the Wii/PS2 version. Getting it out of the way, the worst part of this is how cut down it feels compared to the HD version. It naturally looks worse. Empire City and Savannah Citadel are cut for no real reason. And the charming huh words are replaced with these ugly point and click maps that look like something out of a smartphone game. It’s naturally very stripped down and lacks a lot of the flavour…

And yet, some of those cuts are actually good? Medals being optional rewards that get you extra lives and other bonuses is so much more palatable than making them progression gates. Plus, they’re now rewards for good ranks rather than forcing you to stop and look for them so they encourage you to actually get better at the game. I also think the daytime levels actually fix some of the problems in the HD counterpart. Assuming you play with a GameCube/Classic Controller to circumvent the annoying motion controls, then the drift feels much tighter, the homing attack and boost aren’t mapped to same button anymore, and, hot take here, but the level design is actually better in some ways than the HD version. Less cheap deaths and bottomless pits you can’t see coming because the camera’s zoomed in too close.The length is also closer to Generations. Not so short that you’re done in a minute but also not so long that replaying for S ranks is a chore.

The Werehog levels are definitely worse of due to a downgraded combat system that robs them of any depth the HD version might have had, but between having less annoying QTEs, and being split into shorter, but more numerous acts, (which again, makes S rank replays more manageable), there’s still some pros even here. Plus, the EXP system is much less grindy here. Maxing out the Werehog is so much less tedious.

I still admittedly don’t care for the Secret Rings esque missions, but I’ll take them over the Hot Dog Challenges or the unfair optional acts and DLC levels in the HD version. Couple that with a final level and boss fight that isn’t awful this time, and the fact that the fun story and cutscenes are still intact, and Unwiished is..actually pretty great. It’s definitely missing a lot of the HD version’s charm and that game is still certainly more complete. But when you remove a lot of the bloat from that version it’s a lot easier to enjoy the best parts of Unleashed.

I guess I just wanted to ruminate on my feelings on the two versions of Unleashed because I have a complicated relationship with the game. Like I said, to me, of all the Boost games it’s always been the one with the highest highs and the lowest lows. I don’t go back to it as much as Colours or Generations even though there are parts I think eclipse either of those two games. I always liked it, but it was never one of my absolute favourites, so while I was really happy to see it gain more of a following in recent years, I wasn’t exactly stanning the game myself, especially when the praise tends to revolve almost entirely around the HD version, where as I think both versions have their pros and cons. The Wii version fixes a lot of the problems I have with the HD one, but it also lacks a lot of the flavour and many of the cuts feel like a step too far. They definitely complement each other and I’d recommend both to series’ fans, but it all serves to make them very interesting titles to reflect on.