#but i wanted there to be potential for replayability at least

[northern-passage]

oho, air you say? perhaps being able to remove the air from peoples lungs? or air pressure manipulation? maybe air based projectiles that can pierce, or air blades that can slash? or more general use, being able to fling shit around with air! Mini tornadoes or blasts of air that can knock people/things back!

i've used all of these so far 🤧 except for air pressure! that's a good one, i didn't think of that :-)

i'm trying really hard to make each path different from the other, including within the specializations, i actually have an entire document specifically for writing down potential combat moves for each specialty so i will be adding air pressure to the list.

it's definitely been... challenging writing it this way. there's only so many ways you can do this or that. but i think i've managed to keep it interesting across all choices, so it's not necessarily a direct copy-pasting of the same moves over and over again. i'm definitely expecting feedback once the update is published regarding the combat, since that was something i got a lot of criticism/feedback on previously when i first published the demo. it's definitely different this time and i hope yall will like the "new" combat, i feel like i'm more comfortable with it and actually know what direction i want to take it in.

[catgirltoofies]

related to previous reblog. the most important thing i have found about playing video games with too much free time is that they have to earn my time. i have a thousand games i can be playing, if yours happens to be the one i picked, then at least for a moment, if only for the novelty, I'm having fun with it. the moment the novelty wears off, or when i stop having fun, i stop playing and find something else. sometimes I'll keep playing for a bit every day and kinda wean off it, but when that happens it doesn't look good.

so, how do you retain my interest? there's a few ways.

first. novelty. i love new things. i love playing around with stuff i don't understand and figuring out how it works. that's important, however; i like figuring out how it works. once i understand it, it becomes a lot less interesting, and unfortunately my brain doesn't work in a way that lets me just allow things to go un-understood, i need to figure out why things work the way they do, unless the complexity is out of scope of my interest; eg i wouldn't bother trying to catalogue every planet in starfield, I'm not that interested in the game.

second. fun. if the game is fun i will play it. if the game is not fun i will not play it. obviously fun is subjective, and everyone has different amounts of fun with every activity. but fun is the reason i will play picross for hours, it's why I'll play tons of games that give me checklists to fill out (recent examples: pokemon legends arceus and power wash simulator) because i greatly enjoy filling out checklists. it's why i tend to lose interest in a lot of turn based games; the mechanics are simple enough that i grasp them quickly and the execution isn't very interesting once i know what's going on under the hood. little things that break up the mechanics and make them work a little differently, such as most of pokemon's gimmicks, are extremely interesting - for a time. once i find a meta, i stick with it. why would i do something worse for no benefit? the obvious exception to this would be challenge runs, which i tend to not be very interested in doing, because they're usually just "do the worse thing for the whole game". in the case of action and shooter games, i need to have weapon variety and enemy variety. there's a longer post i could make about the types of games, but out of scope for this one; in general, i need to have options and i need to have different potential challenges. if I'm just given a sword and basic attack, it doesn't matter how many enemies you put in front of me, they all die to my sword or are invulnerable. if I'm given a million different and unique guns, it doesn't matter when there's only three enemy types, my interest will only last as long as i keep trying new and mechanically unique weapons; that is to say, all full auto guns are functionally the same, they just differ in attack speed and damage output. give me a machine pistol at the start and an lmg at the end, they're used the same way. just changing the stats isn't mechanically unique.

third. story. obviously, a good story will hook me, as it would hook most people. and obviously, different people like different stories. once i get hooked on a story, i need to see it through, and that will keep me playing a game - it's why i finished starfield, it's why i finished horizon. at the same time, a mediocre story that doesn't hook me but gets in the way of me having more fun - such is the case with disgaea - tends to turn me off, because i don't particularly want to do the story i don't care about, especially - as is the case with disgaea - when I'm far more powerful than the story expects me to be.

fourth. replayability. this one is really complicated for me, as a lot of infinitely replayable games don't interest me, such as the entire roguelite genre, while a lot of infinitely replayable games do interest me, such as a large portion of the roguelike genre and most 4X games. i think, for me, the replayability comes from starting from nothing and building up to something great based on what's currently available on that run. this is the draw of the rogue derivatives, but roguelites tack on meta progression, so i can unlock items or characters or mechanics or whatever, but i really really really hate it when things are arbitrarily locked away from me. if I'm playing cataclysm and i see a gun store with a really cool rifle in the window, i know i probably can't get it just yet, until i find a hacksaw to break through the window, or a jackhammer or pickaxe to break through the wall, or a lockpick to get in through the back door, or some heavy bashing thing like a sledgehammer to break through the doors, and so on so forth. the important thing at that point i see it is that i know that i can get it, i just need to get some other key item first. with roguelites, i don't get that experience - unlockables are silhouetted behind arbitrary challenges, and then added to the random pool of items. that's not interesting. i don't want to kill fifty enemies with a certain damage type to unlock something i don't know the effect of. it's a checklist with no clear reward - it's a weapon, or an item, but what does it do? why would i want it over my current weapon which I've been using for the whole game so far? if i end up wasting my time doing the challenge to get something worse - which then reduces the odds I'll get a weapon i like more - that feels awful. it's a similar but different thing with 4X games; in those games, i have immediate access to a small pool of resources, and as i explore and expand, i gradually get more, and the resources i get in abundance inform how I'll grow my empire; this is especially noticeable in games such as the endless series, where unique resources tend to have two opposite paths, and you decide which path to follow depending on which resources you have greater access to. and, of course, it's different with every game, so i can't plan ahead knowing I'll have access to a particular material, or i need to specifically seek out that material if i really really want it and expand to them (or conquer over them) when they are revealed.

fifth. graphics. personally, i don't care about fancy graphics. i need to know what I'm looking at, i need to be able to reasonably interact with the world, and ideally i don't hate what I'm seeing. i tend to play roguelikes with tilesets so i can more easily understand what's what, and i don't much like the appearance of ascii, as pretty as it can be when done right. i like stylized graphics a lot - borderlands, team fortress 2, disgaea up to 5, pokemon up to gen 5 - they have particular styles that stand out and make me like them a lot. it's especially noticeable once those styles are uprooted - as in disgaea 6 and pokemon gen 6 - and the artists have to figure out how to emulate the old style with a new medium that just can't match the old style. i think so far pokemon still hasn't recovered from the switch to 3D models, but from what I've seen, they are actually starting to improve. a lot of gen 9 models look a lot better than the models in gen 6. one game series which i think has fully recovered - or, indeed, never failed - from the switch from 2D sprites to 3D models is dragon quest. dragon quest 11 looks fantastic, and the 3D models look incredible and just as stylised as the 2D sprites. even in dragon quest 9, on the DS, the models look incredible. according to a bit of research, the 2D->3D change happened in dragon quest 7, and even in that game the models looked great. the point I'm making here is, stylization and some intangible Thing makes graphics great, not realism; i refer to that intangible thing as soul, but it's what makes a particular game's appearance read as that game's. for example, you can look at the models of link in the 3D Zelda games, and as long as you have a bit of familiarity, you can instantly recognize which game he's from based solely on his model. the main exceptions are the sequel games which use a very similar model and the same stylization. when we get the next Zelda game, i bet it's going to be an entirely different style from all the prior 3D zeldas.

what's my point with all this? i dunno. there's a lot of potential in a lot of games, and there's always so much done so right, and most often the reason a game fails is because they did so many things so wrong. i predict the avatar game is going to flop because a lot of people are starting to get bored of the ubisoft formula, i expect it won't be mechanically interesting enough for me, and it's seventy fucking dollars. I'm probably gonna enjoy it once i get it on sale for like twenty bucks in a few months, because i still tend to like the ubisoft formula (checklist of towers to unlock and outposts to clear!) but it's gonna otherwise be pretty underwhelming. and I'll probably get bored before i finish it and play something more entertaining.

[starlightandetherealshadows]

you're the author and the story is in your hands, and I hope you can write the story you like

just a heads up that whatever I list here is a personal opinion and in no way indicates how others may feel about this. I don't want to be seen as someone who speaks for the majority because I do not engage with IF community at all except sending an ask or two per month anonymously.

i personally feel like if Z/MC/V poly will have all of stats you mentioned it will simply be near impossible to enter (which is really discouraging cause there's very few poly routes in games). I can see at least optimistic and Impulsive personality stats in that post being the ones go check, which is literally half of MCs personality stats already.

plus, you mentioned that route locks will be early in game, when the stats a very much unstable. you make one choice and you're suddenly flung to the other end of the stat bar.

I already dislike personality stats in IFs, so ig my ask is pretty much biased already. I don't like having to go to the stat menu in games at all cause that just breaks the immersion for me. its one thing to check your combat stat once every few chapters to see if you have a chance to beat up a guy and the other is having to check every single choice you make in the stat screen to make sure you won't accidentally lock yourself out of the routes you're interested in just cause you wanted MC to have one more scar/not be a brooding mess/show less emotion in this segment.

idk if you're going for that too, but I can't see stat locked routes being that replayable (unless someone wants to reread what they've read before), because the more stat checks it takes the more MC feels like literally the same person in the route replay. wanting to explore a different choice which was decided to give some personality bonus will possibly make you unable to enter the route at all because one number/a couple of percents on the stats were a bit too low/high for that character to see you as an option.

also with injuries being a thing I feel like poly route will be cutting off the possibility of players to explore more about this feature cause we will have to be avoiding it to not be impulsive/needed to be protected.

I have no idea how the code works for you, but the only compromise I can really see is making more flavor text based on mcs personality, making ROs a bit more judgmental towards an MC with the stat they don't like. that for me makes more sense than just making a whole 180 from being optimistic to being a cynic because V said they don't like that in MCs. also that feels like MCs is being actively put through "Not everyone will cater to you" (which is a nice thing to explore btw, I have nothing against it as long as it isn't literally making the player have to worry about every single choice they make) while ROs are literally fine with reshaping MCs personality just so they can see them romantically.

tldr: the decision is yours to make as an author. persinal opinion is that having stat checks on routes feels discouraging, makes the routes less repayable, having to monitor your stats is really immersion breaking, and poly potentially locks us out of exploring an in-game function.

Hi honeybee!

Firstly, thank you for expressing your opinion in such a respectful way, I appreciate it.

A clarification on the stat checks! So the current stat list is as follows:

Physical Status: Health: 0-100  

Skills (will increase or decrease by increments of 5, 3, 2,

Combat:

Science/Technology:

Charisma/People: 

Deduction/Perception:

Medical:

Alien Knowledge:

Personality: (depends on interactions with people)

Friendly or Stoic

Charming or Intimidating

Passive or Stubborn

Genuine or Sarcastic

Traits: (depends on actions/decisions)

Violent or Merciful

Selfish or Selfless

Optimistic or Cynical

Cautious or Impulsive

All stats start off at 50 (except for skills, those will start lower depending on what you choose your major to be). The stat checks will not be difficult by any stretch of the imagination. As long as you stay consistent with the type of skilled MC you're playing, you'll pass 99% of them. (Example being, if your MC is combat oriented with low science/tech, then if you pick the science based decision, you're more likely to fail that)

I'm not big on constantly checking stats myself. Failures in stat checks will allow you to try again for a better outcome, and failures in that may lead to a non-fatal injury of yourself or someone else.

Within the first few chapters, you'll have many opportunities to increase or decrease personality and trait stats. When I say you'd be locked out of the poly or C's route, that would mean that by chapter 4, you might have an MC that is above 70 in Optimistic and Friendly (for the poly) or below 30 for Friendly and above 70 for Selfish for C.

To get your stats that high, you would need to choose a lot of options that align with those traits. Like...80% of the choices you make have to align with those traits.

I think I've written the stat checks to be more complicated/intense than they are. The game itself is pretty linear in terms of major events that occur. You can't "fail" the overall missions. You won't have to check and double check your stats; make decisions that feel real for your MC and everything will be fine! MC's personality affects how they react to things, how they interact with other people and how people view them.

I hope this offers some clarification, anon.

All my love,

Cheye

[tremendouskoalachild]

Jedi Survivor bingo!

decided to make my own, inspired by this post. went with all different options, except for the ponchos for obvious reasons. they're a combination of things i think will happen, things i want to happen, things i desperately don't want to happen and random wildcards. elaboration under the cut :)

merrical kiss - pretty sure this one is not 100% confirmed, but it feels like a safe choice. unless multiple devs and writers have been lying to us that is

imperial deserter - type of storyline unexplored by the first game, maaaybe set up by the tie-in book?

greez kidnapped - guy still has gambling debts as per the book and i think it would be funny, as well as a rescue mission serving as a cool inversion of the arena escape in fo

trilla mention - they fucking better

cere leaves - from the book and trailers it kinda seems like that might be a direction they're going with her story. could be an impactful ending (other than her straight up dying)

coruscant mission endgame - going to the imperial capital reminds me of the nur mission in the ballsiness department. at the very least i doubt that part will be replayable

ninth sister return - my girl got dropped off a tree and we never saw the body. i have a good feeling about this one

new eno message - maybe something triggers bd's memory banks, idk

merrin makes a friend - she deserves it and so do i

cal dead - yeah 99% not gonna happen but what's a bingo card without batshit options. i live on the edge

reference to obiwan show - takes place at the same-ish time and the show ripped off was inspired by the first game's ending. maybe a mention of why vader's too busy for us?

merrin-centric mission - she deserves it and so do i

ponchos - free space basically. there's no way they don't give us ponchos (right??)

ilyana mention - she's only mentioned in a couple voice lines so idk. but if they're going for the merrical romance then i could see merrin talking to cal in a cutscene

take back mantis mission - could be cool. maybe the ship gets stolen by pirates or taken by the empire idk. fun gameplay potential

bounty hunter nemesis - we've had inquisitors as recurring antagonists. maybe set up by the book

jaro flashback - feels safe. probably not the traumatic survivor's guilt visions from the first game though

alderaan - not extremely likely but i love visiting in swtor and obviously it is not an option in a lot of the timeline. it's a beautiful planet and the first game was so great with exploring pretty environments

dathomir discussion - merrin development please. also the planet's cool by itself. we kinda killed everyone in fo so what's up now

new inquisitor - i always want new cringefail darksiders. but it seems the second game is moving away from that so idk

section without bd - feels safe just for the gameplay variety. but maybe they won't wanna retread the arena mission from fo

koboh is done - having a safe haven under the empire can't last long

the crew gets along - i can hope right

greez gets a new hobby - i love the plants but is the garden gonna be enough for our recovering gambling addict? can we make collectibles out of recipe ingredients?

cere discusses the jedi - seems important to her story. hoping for a cere/merrin cutscene or several gameplay scenes

[dragonchris]

Game Review: Backbone

Have you ever wanted to be a raccoon? Have you ever wanted to be a raccoon in a trench coat that can say “Fuck”? I know I have! This game lets you do that! Backbone dives into a Detective Noir-style game while also asking questions about community and solitude, what defines who we are and what defines what we become and other big brain shit like that. This game is not recommended for kids.

Story:

Play as Private Investigator Howard Lotor, who stumbles upon a dark secret and has a chance to make a difference in the world. You explore a dystopian world full of interesting characters and environments. The plot is engaging and kept me hooked through the whole story, though pacing can be a little slow in some scenes. Not counting any scene in particular (the one where I had to sit and couldn’t move while listening to a whole-ass song-the song was nice but at least let me move around pls). There were also a few plot points in the story that I feel like were not introduced enough through the game or were introduced and not expanded upon to their full potential.

Gameplay and Controls:

Backbone is a very linear game that has more of a focus on storytelling than on gameplay. You navigate different 2D environments, piecing together the mystery that you’re solving. The game gives you multiple choices on how to speak to other players and cultivate your own interpretation of the detective that you play as, though ultimately it all leads to a singular end. The controls themselves are pretty simple and are mostly “walk to this place, talk to this person” with a few puzzles occasionally scattered through the game.

Sound:

God damn the music in this game really helps to set the tone. Chefs kiss. Beyond that, the ambience is masterfully done. 👌

Art:

The art is gorgeous. The pixel style is beautiful, the anthropomorphic animal designs are all nice to look at, and the colors are all striking. On top of that, I really liked how smooth the animations are. One small detail that I really enjoyed was that when you were in an environment that was raining, there would be little rain droplets on your screen. It really helped with the immersion of the game.

Playable, Replayable, or Unplayable?

I enjoyed playing it. If you don’t mind the many heavy themes that the game thankfully warns you about before you play, then I would highly recommend it. And despite its linear progression, the branching dialogue choices also offer a little bit of replayability, too. I’m curious to go back and see how things might have changed if I had played as more of an asshole. A great game with only a few minor flaws. 9/10.

Steam

[salsalvador]

I love no mans sky’s story and a lot of that love origionates from spite, let me explain

No mans sky’s story is very similar in terms of objective to another game, that being Starbound, by objective I don’t mean they share the same story beats or themes or anything like that, instead I mean that they both attempt to fit a somewhat linear story into a procedurally generated, “infinate”, sandbox game, a style of game that is inherently nonlinear, and both of them go about it in different ways, and obviously I think one of them does a much, much better job then the other

But first, let’s take a quick look into the storylines of both games, at least what I remember from them, because I have to get up early-ish for work tomorrow and I can’t be assed to research starbounds shitty ass story, if it means that one of starbounds two fans roast the hell out of me for it then so be it, anyways…

(Spoilers for both games ahead, duh)

Let’s start with the shitty one, starbounds story is oftentimes considered to be when the games popularity began to take a turn for the worse, as this story literally came out of nowhere and basically gave the player a god or savior or chosen one complex, they and only they could defeat the giant hentai meatball that killed earth, even though said hentai meatball is apparently locked in some alternate dimension or whatever the fuck, and how exactly this fucker killed earth is never really explained, the story attempts to incentivize exploration by forcing the player to go to different structures of the different races and scan some shit to unlock the boss challanges, witch was just a really bad way to incentivize exploration, as it’s less like a gentle or even moderate nudge in a certain direction (like how subnauticas radio incentivizes the player to get further and further from their safety pod, and thus into more areas with more content) and as such it’s probably the biggest gripe a lot of people had with the story iirc, then you have the bosses and the characters associated with them, most of witch are fine, nuru fucks tho, but If you know Starbound you probably already knew that, the thing is, tho, in the early early betas, the bosses were something you summoned on your own planets and thus on your own terms, and as such you kinda had these really cool potential encounters where you can build terraria ass style platforms in order to combat the bosses, and comparing that to the less manipulatible and more story centered boss arenas is kinda dissapointing, I know it probably won’t work with all of them, the ape one and the dope ass bone spider are such examples, but even excluding them why does the UFO have to be locked behind an arena? Why the penguin mech? Why the bone dragon? Why the funni cult leader? I’m obviously not saying that bosses with their own dedicated arenas are bad, I’m saying that transferring between one and the other is a whiplash that isn’t likely to be good for your audiance, you are basically shifting genres, but that’s not even my biggest Issue with the story, the biggest issue is how the savior complex the story forces on the player hampers the roleplay aspect of it, likely the main thing a lot of people are playing the game for, an exact same critique I have with fallout 4, both games story tries to force your character to be a certain archetype, witch means you can no longer be whatever the hell you want, a concept that similar games like Minecraft or terraria, or even other story based games like new Vegas or skyrim, take massive advantage of, as the ability to play as different archetypes inherently helps with replayability and immersion

Now for the good game, no mans sky, hopefully this is a lot shorter then my tired ass 12am Starbound hate rant, the two stories are very different outside of the objective I outlined at the start, so it’s kinda hard to compare the two directly, but while it’s fresh on everyone’s minds, how does no mans sky handle player choice regarding backstory and roleplaying within their story based game? It basically makes it so there’s not much inherent information about the player themself, the player character is a traveler, something that’s slightly more special then the common geks or korvax’s to some extent, but are still largely indistinguishable, the story seems to take pains to reiterate that the traveler is one among millions or billions, countless others have come before and after them, somewhat making the player largely unspecial, a minor footnote as the main character, and I think that’s great, the only really required thing for backstories is that the player character crashed on a planet and lost their memory, and that they are a traveler, that’s kinda it, compare that to how fallout four forces do much into the player characters backstory, they were married, they have a child, they were a pre-war veteran, they got frozen and skipped two centuries, their spouse died during the freezing process because of some asshole, there’s a lot here that’s forced into the players backstory witch hamstrings what you can use with the playable character as a roleplaying tool

There’s also another thing I really commemorate no mans sky’s setting for, and that is it’s greater setting, it’s set in a simulation, a failing one at that, witch allows there to be a crushing twist that dosent directly force your character to act a certain way, and also fits for all potential player orientations, if your character is on the greedier side, them helping the atlas could very easily be seen as an act of self preservation, If they are on the more noble side, then it’s a more cut and dry “for the greater good”. It also helps a singular, nonlinear story work in a setting that potentially allows for multiplayer, the main multiplayer hub is the Anomaly, something that’s set up outside of the direct control of the atlas, and two players interacting is kinda like two universes coming together temporarily, witch allows both of their stories to be equally canon without hamstringing the story in the process to accommodate for multiple potential people

What if you wanted to ignore no mans sky’s story tho? Well good news! You can! After the atlas there are basically nothing major the game locks behind the story, iirc you have the potential to get glyphs without going through the story, by finding special npcs and talking to them, and there’s like a largely insignificant tech or two that is used as a reward or trophy for ending the story, and it dosent hamstring content either, you can still get most of the tech and whatever else you want at a similar-ish rate, there are even other substories that arnt attached to the main one, like the living ship or the Laylaps/Minotaur upgrade story, or the colony one where you find people to work for you, or the one where you become mayor of a settlement

Is the story of no mans sky perfect? Nah, I’d like there to be more areas that take advantage of roleplaying, for instance, to really take advantage of no mans sky’s unique oppertunity in player freedom in tandem with its story, like just smaller villages that mostly act as areas to “vibe” or maybe small cities in space, the space stations we have now mostly feel like glorified gas stations or supermarkets, and in general just kinda roleplay as a drifter or vagabond without the need of a freighter, or have more of a roleplay planned route with populated areas to hit and sell too

Anyways, enough of unhinged 12:30 neurodivergant rant, goodnight Tri-state area

[dlamp-dictator]

Quick Thoughts on Blazblue Entropy Effect

Most of what I said in my last post about Entropy Effect still stands, but since the full game came out about a month ago and I "finished" up the game's story (I got the bad end by the way), I figured I'd talk about the game a bit more in a more... quickfire method. So with that said.

The Gameplay

Almost everything I said last time still applies, this game is very fun and very easy to pick up. It's amazingly impressive how 91Act was able to translate so much of each Blazblue character's moveset into an action-platformer roguelite. If I'm just talking about this game as a game and the experience playing it this gets an outright 5 Stars. The gameplay is smooth, there's little if any bugs in terms of casual play, and the game's been getting a slew of bug fixes and optimizations as the month has went on. The team at 91 really is working to make this game a fun and enjoyable experience and if you want to play a good-ass roguelite for only 20 bucks then you owe it to yourself to get this game. I'd argue this game could be priced at 30 bucks and still worth it's price if it came down to it. That's how confident I feel about this game. I'd go into detail, but these are my quick thoughts, I'll save the details for tomorrow.

The Story

The story... I can't give the same glowing praise. Like I said in my original post on the early access version, the concept of these characters going through a loop of the same stages and bosses with only minor differences in between is a very lore-friendly Blazblue idea that could easily be put in a side game as a canon event, but this game instead has a sort of cyberpunk conspiracy story with Blazblue characters on the side that makes the Blazblue elements feel more like third-party assets that ASW gave 91Act and they slotted that square shape into the round hole as best they could, refusing to change up the story to fit the new assets. To keep things brief, I personally find the conspiracy of SkysEyes and ACE to be uninteresting due to a lack of initial context about the world of Entropy Effect and lacking/dismissive characterization of several figures like the Phenomena Orb and our main character. Very little in the setting has me interested in learning about the world.

The Changes

I'll do this one rapidfire since the changes aren't too big in the grand scheme of things unless you've been playing since early access and I personally think those making a big deal out of those changes are being more whiny than constructive. In short, the game got a lot more streamlined and for the better, minus one or two changes.

Potentials, the best part of the game, are now more accessible and can be rerolled to an extent. This is good.

You can use Mind Implants to give yourself more varied buffs per run, which is good for replayability.

Toxin/Miasma Tactics were more or less nerfed with their new effects and I don't know how to feel about this.

Light feels like a new tactic and it's... interesting, working best with Hakumen from what I've played around with.

You can customize your little robot, which is... nice, but overall something I feel very neutral about.

Entropy/Difficulty select has been reworked. I haven't played around with it much yet but it seems to be liked overall.

And... that's really everything I have to say on the matter. At least as a soundbite. I'll give a full view of my thoughts later on. Ideally tomorrow.

[thorongil82]

Update + Schedule

Hey guys, no video today. What I was wanting to get up is taking a bit longer than I'd hoped to edit, so just gonna put a pin in it and try to get it up next Sunday. However, now might very well be a good time to give an update on what the plan is. As I'm sure you've seen, I've been posting links to YouTube videos that I've started uploading. I've been wanting to get back to that for a while but have either been missing the time to do it or have been having technical issues interfering. So, no real dice until now.

For my current schedule, what I'm looking to do is have one main series running three videos a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday); at this stage my Pokémon Diamond Nuzlocke, and another set of three videos (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) aroun a game that can be either shorter runs or have a decent amount of replayability. This week was PlateUp!, and that's going to also continue for at least another three videos before possibly changing it up due to their Halloween update just coming out. Sundays were going to be longer videos that can be a bit more relaxing and could switch from game to game each week.

However, that could all change depending on how things go further down the line. A different potential schedule would still have one series running three videos a week, with another two series running two vids a week. For now, we're sticking to the above. As for writing, I am going to get back into it. Just juggling a bunch of uni work along with other background work and planning (am setting up a D&D campaign for a group of friends on top of other things). Of the stories I've currently got started, I'm more likely to continue on with Forgotten But Not Gone, though - as I'm sure any fellow writers are aware - there are more new ideas cooking around as well. There's a short -probably one-shot - Mech Cadets story I've been thinking of for a bit, plus the foundation of a Total Drama fic that's been in planning for a few years.

Anyway, that should be it for now. Just wanted to give you all an idea of what's going on.

Until next time!

[niuttuc]

Lorwyn

Lorwyn: Your favorite color of mana

All of them. Any of them. Be it mechanically or philosophically, in my case, variety is the spice of life.

White is my favorite color of all, the fairest of all, capable of answering anything and of being answered cleanly. The primary color of blinking for value, of tokens. The core of the lifegain synergies that are the introduction to many players to the concept of a synergistic deck, with pieces that come together to be greater than the sum of their parts. White is the color of helping one another, the color of egality and equity, the color of fortunate helping unfortunate, the color of knights and angel. People might each be inconsequential in the bigger picture, but together, they can reshape worlds. If there's no mercy, no justice, no meaning, people will bring them into existence, together.

Blue is my favorite color of all, the tricksiest of all. Among the many folds of this strategy game, you'll find no more intriguing strategies than in blue. Immensely strong... If you can line things up properly, otherwise crumbling under its own weight. The primary color of control and tempo, of counterspells and clones. The card-drawing color above all. The color of mill, the introduction to many players to the concept of an alternate win-condition that doesn't rely on attacking your opponent. The most polarizing color, love it or hate it. The overpowered glue that holds together older formats. Blue is the color of thinking ahead, of learning from your mistakes. The color of progress and turning a bunch of math and a bunch of rocks into a computer that can do anything. The color of being able to do anything you want if you work hard enough, the color of infinite potential. The color of wizards and illusions. Of the fluidity of water and of thoughts alike.

Black is my favorite color of all, the most calculating and capable of all. Black is the color of exchanging resources, your own or others. The primary color of discard and graveyard shenanigans aplenty. The color that'll pay life for cards, discard those cards, reanimate them, then will sacrifice them, furthering its plan at every single step of the way. No waste, no regrets. Everything is a nail, and everything is a hammer, you just have to be ready to get nailed or hammered along the way. Black is the color of seeing the world as it is, and making it what you want it to be. The color of individuality, of persistence and of self-determination. Of life and undeath. Of excess and sacrifices. If I'm in troubles, Black is the color I want most at my side, and least to face.

Red is my favorite color of all, the most streamlined of all. But not easy by any stretch. The color of time management, of racing and steering the fastest. The color of capitalizing on temporary effects and turning them in permanent advantages and furthering of its goals. The color of direct damage, of aggro and combo, the color in which the inches gained from sequencing feel like miles. Red decks win. Temporary mana, temporary card advantage, one-time damage. When to get them, which to use, and how, and which to let go? The color that most embraces the chaos and variance that makes the game fun and replayable, and uses it to its advantage. The color of passion and empathy. Of love and anger. Of fire, of balancing its warmth that preserves life and its deadly excess. Of embers rekindled like old feeling forgotten. Of proud dragons and impulsive goblins. Red is the color that live the life to its fullest, appreciating as much as possible every single fleeting moment of it.

Green is my favorite color of all, the simplest of all. The color of ramp and big creatures, with its potential unlocked through ramp and big creatures. Go big AND go home. If the battlefield is the most important zone, and using mana to cast spells is the most fundamental action, Green will simply dominate the board and use more mana to cast more or bigger spells. Green is the color that knows itself, that knows the world it lives in, accepts it, and plays by its rules. The color of nature and family, of knowing your past and your fate. The color of elves and beasts. Of stability, and the peace that comes with it. The serenity of seeing a world bigger than you, of which you're only an infinitesimal part. You're the world experiencing itself in one of uncalculable ways. Time will heal all wounds, and life will endure.

They're all true, at all times.

[princess-stabbity]

anyway ive played thru act 1 of tyranny at least four times now bc its kind of a mess and its starting to piss me off

[self-loving-vampire]

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

Ultima 4 is a very historically-significant game, as well as being where the Ultima series cemented itself as something truly unique. Where the previous games in the series (as well as the RPG genre in general) often dealt with defeating some kind of evil overlord, Ultima 4 has no antagonist and instead calls on you to perfect yourself and embody a set of eight moral virtues.

Summary

You start the game by answering several moral dilemmas to determine your class and starting location. You are then transported to the fantasy land of Britannia to embark on a spiritual quest to become the Avatar of virtue and read the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the Abyss.

To do this, you must master eight virtues and understand the three principles involved in them.

The game has been widely ported but I will be reviewing the free version available from GOG.

Freedom

Ultima 4 is an extremely open game in many ways. There are eight possible classes and each is rather different, with a unique starting location. Most importantly, all of the many tasks the game asks you to complete prior to the final descent into the Abyss can be done in any order you desire.

You can maximize your virtues in any order, explore dungeons in any order, travel the world as you wish, find the runes in any order, and etc.

So all in all, this game is very non-linear when it comes to exploration and objective order.

Note, however, that due to the way this game is designed it is not actually very replayable. Even if the initial experience is different for each class and you can complete the game’s many objectives in any order, those objectives are still the same and they all do need to be completed by the end. There are no alternate ways to complete any objectives.

By the end of the game, you will be playing largely the same way regardless of what your initial class was or what order you did things in.

This is made worse by the fact that ranged weapons completely dominate the game. There is little reason to use melee if you have the option to use ranged weapons.

Character Creation/Customization

Besides your name, gender, and choice of class, you cannot really decide anything about your character. Once in-game, you also don’t have that many options for upgrading your party besides obtaining better equipment and finding magical orbs in dungeons.

That said, the game does get some points for the variety of classes and for how radically some of them can affect your experience, particularly in the early game. 

The most striking example is the Shepherd class, which you get for having humility as your favored virtue during the character creation questions. Shepherds are terrible at everything. They can’t use magic at all (most other classes can to varying degrees) and are awful at combat, having a very limited selection of weapons and armor available. They also start in a ruined island populated by monsters. It is basically the game’s “hard mode.”

You can answer these same questions and find your class here (the link says Ultima VI but it’s really the same ones as far as I can tell, or at least close).

Story/Setting

The game world is reasonably large and memorable, but to be honest the setting of the Ultima games has always been on the more generic side, even if some of the games in the series are pretty immersive. The virtues introduced in this game are really the primary spice on the game world.

It is a medieval fantasy setting with all the staples: Fireballs, orcs, dragons, liches, skeletons, and so on. It does have a few less common creatures as well (like balrons and zorns).

A generic fantasy setting is not necessarily bad, but it is not particularly good either. It is just the baseline as far as I am concerned, and can be boring on its own if you are not drawn in by anything else a game offers.

In this case, the setting is not really the game’s selling point so much as its unique objective. It is also still a massive improvement over some of the earlier games in the series, which feature things like space travel and time travel.

Another point in favor is that the towns scattered throughout the land are not just generic fantasy towns, they are dedicated to specific virtues. Those virtues seem to be particularly alive in the minds of their inhabitants in this game as well. The virtues are so embedded in the setting for the rest of the series that it does give it more of an identity.

The story itself is, as previously mentioned, unique among all RPGs I know of. While there is a lot of combat and dungeons to explore, there is no big antagonist for you to defeat.

Your behavior is tracked from beginning to end. You will need to do things like donating money to the needy, donating blood at the healer, and letting non-evil creatures (generally animals) flee in order to become the avatar. I also do not recommend “grinding” out these virtues unless you really need to, as I found that as long as you know how to raise them you can easily achieve avatarhood in several of them just by playing the game normally, talking to everyone and visiting Hawkwind every time you’re in the castle.

In addition to maximizing your virtues and then meditating at the proper shrines, your quest will see you travel throughout the entire world to collect the artifacts you will need for your descent into the abyss. 

You will need the eight stones of virtue (most of which are within dungeons), the Key of Three Parts, the three artifacts of the principles, the word of power, and more. You will also need to recruit seven party members to aid you in your quest, each representing one of the virtues (you are the representative of the eighth).

Immersion

I know it’s probably not that bad by the standards of its time, but I can’t say the game’s immersion is all that good. It does gain some points in some areas such as the way the manuals work and how you need to actually do things like keep track of the phases of the world’s two moons (clearly not something you’d see in our world!) to make proper use of moongates, but overall it is definitely not on the same level as other RPGs I have played. As was sadly the case for the technically-limited time period the game was made in, the world does not really react very much to your actions even though your virtues are tracked.

I do like the initial character creation questions, however. Trying to answer them honestly based on your own moral principles can be a good way to get started. It is also good that the whole virtue angle requires you to actually roleplay the quest of the avatar in order to win.

Gameplay

Playing the game is extremely simple as long as you reference your keys as needed and read the manuals (perhaps it is even too simple, with only one type of non-spell attack action and relatively few and uninteresting equipment options). Talking to every NPC you meet is also recommended, as they not only have a lot of advice but also several vital clues that you will need if you plan to complete the game without a walkthrough, as the whole thing is rather obscure about certain aspects of your quest.

The magic system is a mixed bag. You have to gather and mix reagents to cast spells. The reagents must be mixed ahead of time and are consumed. You must also know which reagents to mix. The spell manual that comes with the game explains most of the combinations, but there are some that you must discover on your own within the game, and they are for some of the most potent spells too (such as Resurrect).

On one hand, I like how the game invites you to actually learn its magic system in order to make use of it, with many reagents having consistent qualities that can let you guess what kinds of spells they may be used for. On the other, it can be a bit time-consuming to manually mix these reagents every single time you want to prepare a spell.

However, the thing that really kills the second half of the game is the combat.

The combat is initially a bit simple but functional. You can press one of the arrow keys to move in one of four directions, you can press A followed by a direction to attack in that direction, or you can press C to cast one of your prepared spells.

With such simplicity, combat in the early game doesn’t take very long, especially since as far as I can tell there are less/weaker enemies early on (though there’s enough encounters to make it a bit of a pain still). However, as you gather more companions (and you must have a party of 8 before venturing into the final dungeon and completing the game) combat starts to drag on as you have to manually command each of your eight party members.

It’s especially bad in that one party member in particular (Katrina the Shepherd) is, to put it bluntly, a complete burden on the party as you might expect from a shepherd. She will be missing every single attack against the stronger enemies that populate the late game, and not hitting very hard when she does hit due to the awful weapon selection shepherds get. I wish you did not need to recruit everyone.

This would have been a bit of a pain on its own, but not that bad. No, the real problem is one single spell: Sleep.

A handful of late game enemies (such as gazers, but especially reapers, and balrons) will spam this one spell without mercy, even if your entire party is already sleeping.

This is a spell that can incapacitate multiple characters, potentially half your party or more, for several turns. The Awaken spell is pointless as a counter to it, as it affects a single target and the enemy can spam Sleep every round while you will quickly run out of Awaken even if your spellcasters somehow manage to avoid the sleep themselves.

Your characters do not wake up if they take damage, and there seems to be no limit to how often the enemy can use Sleep.

This is still manageable when fighting only one or two of these enemies in reasonably open ground, but in tight spaces where sleeping characters can block the way for the rest of the party or in dungeons where you face half a dozen or more of these enemies in a single room it can make for an experience that is just painful.

It is not even that this makes the game difficult either, the enemies do very little damage even when they are not spending all their turns casting Sleep over and over again, but it does make some dungeon rooms feel like they exist merely to waste your time.

The single worst offender was this room at the bottom of the Abyss.

10 Balrons that you can’t even reach due to a wall of force (central blue square) in the way. They can Sleep half your party despite this, regardless of where anyone is in the room. I timed it and it literally took me about 20 minutes just to walk everyone east at this one turn. There are other rooms that have this same issue as well.

While there’s annoying things like that, the game is actually extremely easy in terms of combat, at least once you get over the initial hump.

Aesthetics

As noted in the setting section, the game is on the more generic side aesthetically. That said, the simple graphics are at least readable for the most part (magical fields and the like aside) and the unique main quest gives the game a very distinct feel.

Accessibility

Surprisingly high due to its simplicity. Combat is about as mindless as you could ask for in an RPG other than making it completely automatic like Ultima 7 did, and there are not actually that many keys to remember.

However, there are still a couple of things that modern players will have to adapt to. Chief among them are consulting the manuals throughout the game and taking notes.

The game has no quest log to record all the clues the game’s many, many NPCs provide you with. You have to actually write those things down together with things like the mantras for meditating at the shrines, the visions you get as you achieve partial avatarhoods, and etc.

Your knowledge of the virtues will be tested at the very end.

Conclusion

I would not blame anyone for jumping ship once the late game begins, as things become slow and repetitive at that point. However, I believe that this game is worth trying regardless (especially now that it is given out for free).

This is an RPG unlike any other I have seen, demanding its players to not only live up to heroic (and largely secular) moral principles but also encouraging them bring them out of the game and applying them to their lives and become better people.

While its combat can become a bit of a pain later on, the game’s ideas remain interesting at the very least. It is also possible to import one’s Ultima 4 save into Ultima 5, and then from that game to Ultima 6. Both of those games also have rather interesting premises that I will talk about in time.

In the end, I think you should at least try it if you are interested in the history of RPGs. This is the point where Ultima really “gets good” and ditches the nonsense that plagued the early games, though Ultima 7 is still likely a much better starting point for modern players.

The game ends with a call to action. The Quest of the Avatar is a lifelong journey that does not end with the game. You are told to return to your own world and put the virtues you have learned into practice and live as an example to your people, to truly be the avatar.

In the future, other games in the series will challenge and twist these ideals in various ways, but I like the heroic idealism on display here.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Character Study: Braham (Part 4: Culture Clash and Friendship)

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Another instalment of Character Study: Braham! (Featuring Taimi's introduction to the Living World... XD)

~oOoOo~

We left off after Braham helped a bit with the Tower of Nightmares, and afterwards the fight against the Twisted Marionette (which, for those who don't know, is now replayable in-game through the Scrying Pool in the Eye of the North!) wherein Braham led one of the lanes.

After that exhilarating fight, everyone returns to Lion's Arch to rest and recover.

Braham: Rox, your devourer - Rox: Chewed on your axe handle. I know. Sorry. Listen. You won't believe what Rytlock just said. If I kill Scarlet, I'm in the warband. Definitely. Braham: Oh. I see. Rox: What's the matter? I thought you'd be happy for me. Braham: I just... don't understand why you need some warband you don't even know. I mean, you've got me. And we've got a team of our own. Look around. They're all here, with you.

This is a child of Wolf speaking - family and togetherness. That's a norn thing. But also, Braham lost all his friends when Cragstead was destroyed. Rox was the one who got him through breaking up with Ottilia. And they've both been through a lot with you, Jory, and Kas. Rox is part of the team.

Rox: It's a charr thing. You wouldn't understand. Braham: A charr thing? You'd rather be in your fancy warband than with people who've been beside you all this time? Rox: That's not what I said. It's a big deal to get into the Stone Warband. Braham: Why? Because it'll make you special? You're already special. At least, to me.

Braham has a good heart. That's all I can say about this argument. He just doesn't understand the culture of charr. And I think, just a bit, he might feel as if Rox is replacing him.

Rox: (sigh) You'll still see me after I get in. Braham: Uh huh. Rox: You will. Sometimes. Braham: -walks away- Rox: Braham? Braham! We have to talk about it sooner or later. Braham, over his shoulder: I have to go clean my gear. Rox: Braham! (growl)

Remember earlier, after the Tower of Nightmares in the Dead End bar, when Braham was annoyed at Rytlock because he perceived that Rytlock was holding Rox back from her true potential?

Braham and Rox in S1 are a very well-done example of a culture clash. Braham doesn't understand warbands and Rox doesn't really understand the worldview that Braham is coming from, especially with his background as an adherent of Wolf.

But also, I want to point out that Braham, quite aside from seeing Rox as his friend and not wanting to lose her, is also concerned for Rox herself. For a norn, it's a life well lived to rise to one's full potential, to break all chains and become a legend. Braham perceives Rytlock to be one of those chains, and Rox isn't willing to break them. What would this mean in the context of norn culture? It's no wonder Braham is mad. He's upset at Rox, but he's also upset for Rox because he knows she's missing the point of living. To make the most of life on one's own terms. To be immortalized in legend.

Braham's feeling frustrated already when he hears his name called by an unfamiliar voice -

Asura on a Golem: Braham! There you are. Human in Armor: Somebody care to tell me why this child was on the battlefield? Braham: Hey! I'm not a child! Human in Armor: Not you. This asuran girl. I found her out there, trying to get to Scarlet's twisted marionette. Who does she belong to? Braham: Oh. Her. Asura on a Golem: Help! Help! Save me from this creepy human! Human in Armor: It's okay. I'm a Krytan Seraph. The kid's in no danger. Asura on a Golem: Braham! Don't let him take me away! Please! Human in Armor Seraph Human: Are you her guardian? Braham (very annoyed now by these strangers): Who me? Wolf's teeth, no! I've never seen her before in my life. Asura on a Golem: Braham, you're so mean. Can't we just go home now? Seraph Human: Listen, buddy. I don't know what your game is, but you better get this kid to safety. She's got no business on a battlefield. Braham: What? I swear I've never seen her before in my life. Seraph Human: -leaves- Braham: Hey! Where's he going? You're not my responsibility!

Remember that line! She's not his responsibility.

Asura on a Golem: It's okay, Braham. You can take me home now. I live in Rata Sum. Braham: Huh? (scoff) What? Asura on a Golem: Where do you live? Maybe we could go there instead. Braham: No. You found your way here. You can find your way back. Asura on a Golem: Fine! Here I go. By myself. Off into the big city. You'll probably never see me again, Braham. Braham, wearily: Good luck, kid.

(side note: you NEED to listen to the voice acting on this. It's hilarious.)

So, on the one hand, Braham just left a random asuran child in Lion's Arch, city of pirates. On the other hand, Braham just left a complete stranger (who was maybe stalking him??) - don't forget she's an asura, so pretty smart too - in Lion's Arch, literally the best place to be lost in because you're only one asura gate from home. And she said she lived in Rata Sum.

Either way, the Commander speaks to Braham about this!

Commander: So, what's going on with you and your little friend? Braham: My little... oh, the asuran ragamuffin? I've never seen her before. She must have heard Rox say my name. She tricked that Seraph into thinking I was her guardian. Commander: You're not? Braham: No. I've never seen her before. She's not my...

Braham: Aw, crud. Not you too. All right. I'll make sure she gets home safe. But just this once. Commander: You're a good friend. Braham: She's not my friend. Commander: Uh-huh.

I mean, look at that! Braham just agreed to be responsible for someone he literally just met. He doesn't even know her name! And it wasn't because of the Commander - it was because he felt convicted and responsible. "She's not my... aw crud" was supposed to be "she's not my responsibility."

This random asura had given him no reason to care about her. There is no room for undocumented dialogue - Braham up and walked away from her and ignored her the rest of the time. This is pure virtue on Braham's part.

The following is an attempt to string together the events discussed in ambient dialogues from Edge of the Mists.

After speaking to the Commander, Braham goes back and tells her he'll bring her home, but only if she tells him her name, since she already knows his. She cheerfully agrees and introduces herself as Tiny, of the College of Synergetics.

But before they can go anywhere, Braham sees Aetherblades going toward the jail where Captain Mai Trin is being held.

Braham, attacking: Kuh-bam!

I'm not sure how long the fight was or who else was involved, but the Aetherblades broke Mai Trin out of jail and then escaped.

They run, and Braham follows them until he rounds a corner to see them disappearing through a portal that leads who-knows-where. Braham would have turned back then, but he sees Tiny in her golem, running toward the portal. Toward the Aetherblades.

Braham: Tiny, stop! It's dangerous! Tiny: Leave me alone! I know what I'm doing!

Tiny doesn't stop - in fact, she makes her golem run even faster - but Braham had given his word to look after her, so he sighs and follows all of them. By the time he gets there, the Aetherblades and Mai Trin have vanished, and Tiny's golem is sitting in a few pieces on the floor, with the asura herself tinkering with them.

Braham has no clue why the golem is broken (Aetherblades??) but he rushes, panting, to catch up with her. The Aetherblades are gone, and Tiny doesn't seem to be hurt or injured, so, after a moment to recover, he manages to ask:

Braham: What's your story anyway, Tiny? How does a little thing like you get into such big trouble? Tiny, without looking up from her tinkering: It's Taimi. And I'm a progeny prodigy. I've got important people fighting for the right to be my teacher. Braham: Important people, huh? Are they real people, or just big-eared figments of your overactive imagination? Tiny Taimi: They're real, but they all want to tell me what to learn. I'd rather be like Scarlet and pick my own courses. Braham: Wolf's tail, girl! Don't be too much like Scarlet, okay? One's way too many.

Taimi ignores him and continues tinkering with Scruffy, and Braham begins fishing for information.

Braham: Surprised to find you sitting still, short-pants. The way you took off, I figured you'd be halfway to Mount Maelstrom by now. Taimi: Scruffy - my golem - broke down. And I still learned more in the short time I've been here than you have in your whole life. Braham: What happened? Why did your silly magical machine man stop working? Taimi: I was studying that strange device -points to a ley energy probe- but every time I got too close, it zapped me and knocked me back.

For those who may be confused (as I was): she was not just trying to touch it over and over. She was being careful and trying to observe from a distance, but careful doesn't always work.

Taimi: Eventually, Scruffy's power cells shorted out and pieces of him fell off. That activated his emergency mode. So he followed protocol like he's supposed to: he carried me here, spit me out, and then powered down. And you've got a lot of nerve calling Scruffy "silly" - with those clothes and that haircut. Braham (irritated at her and grouchy he has to stay here and watch her): So your golem's dead. Why don't you just walk out of here? Taimi (annoyed): Same reason you don't fly out: because I can't. My ears, how thick are you? See these legs? They don't work right. I can't walk very far unassisted. Braham: Uh... I uh... sorry. I didn't know!

Awkward silence ensues as Taimi goes back to tinkering with Scruffy. Braham is still irritated at her and perhaps even thinks of just leaving her; but he'd given his word that he'd look after her, so he has to stay. Especially since she'd just told him she can't even walk.

Eventually, Taimi announces that she is missing some parts she needs to repair Scruffy, and asks Braham if he can go get them.

Braham would love to go get the parts and get the both of them out of there so he can get back to kuh-bamming baddies with the Commander, but he still can't just walk away and leave Taimi defenseless. Especially since the Aetherblades could come back at any time.

He explains this to Taimi, and they both proceed to have a lot of time on their hands until they can tell somebody else to get the lost pieces of Scruffy.

Braham: What'd you learn about those... um... things you were studying before your golem broke? Taimi: As if you'd understand. All right, I've got nothing but time, so let's give it a go. They appear to be survey probes for the purpose of identifying high-energy thaumic channels and matrices. Braham: So it's like magical energy is a swirling storm and these things are mapping it. Taimi: A trifle simplistic, but yes, that's exactly the case.

Overlook this 'trifle simplistic' bit and focus on the 'yes, that's exactly the case.' From an asura. From Taimi. To Braham. Tell me, do YOU understand what in Tyria a "high-energy thaumic channel and matrice" is?! Braham does!

Braham: So, will... what was your golem's name again? Taimi: Scruffy. Braham: Will Scruffy work again if you get the stuff you need? I'd get it for you, but I can't leave you unprotected. Taimi: You're sweet. And absolutely. I built him for maximum ease of maintenance. All he needs are some replacements parts. He may be rough around the edges, but when he's whole, Scruffy is as reliable as an entropic crystal regulator. Braham: Ah. That's good, then. Right?

There's no documented dialogue that shows Taimi answering, so I'm going to assume (since they got this chunk) that she doesn't answer (typical of ambient dialogue, not finishing the conversation - ) but Braham maybe gets a little grouchy about this.

Braham: Okay, truth time: Why did you run away from me? Why did you come here in the first place? Taimi: It's not personal. I just wanted to see Scarlet's handiwork up close. Her marionette was amazing. Inspiring. I intended to examine Scarlet's probes, which would allow me to explore two subjects at once. What is Scarlet up to, and how does she create such fantastic equipment? When I saw her minions running through a portal, I followed them. Braham: You were supposed to stay with me. I told you to stop. Taimi: Zojja tells me to do stuff all the time. So does Vorpp. I don't listen to them, either. Braham, thoughtfully: Tell me more about the probes you examined. Taimi: They're well designed. They emit pulsed eldritch waves that register the relative strength of all local ambient magic. Braham: Like the way bats hunt? They let out a chirp and react to what that chirp bounces off of. Taimi: Right again. I am clearly a good influence on you. Braham: What do you think those probes of Scarlet's are looking for? Taimi: Best guess? Um... The transcendent magic channels that span the globe. Old-fashioned Synergetics texts call them ley lines. Normally you can't see them or touch them, but they're real. Magic finds its own path, like rivers running to the sea. The probes are trying to identify the biggest and strongest of those ley lines, but I'm not sure why. Not yet.

They are stuck here with literally nothing to do to fill the time but talk. (Until the Commander someone comes along and collects Taimi's golem parts.) They're both bored.

Taimi: I hate sitting still. I need to be studying those probes. There's so much I can learn from them.

Their conversations tend to go like this:

Braham: Listen, Taimi, if I see Scarlet, I'm going to scoop you up with one hand and beat her bloody with the other, okay? Taimi: Did you know Scarlet attended each of the three colleges? And that she worked with the Inquest? Ooh, and that she - Braham: If you believe the rumors. I talked with an asura named Vorpp, and he says it was all bunk. I'm inclined to agree. Taimi: I know what Vorpp says, but her twisted creatures weren't bunk. The holo-pirates either. Some asura are just jealous. Braham: That's enough about Scarlet for now. Jormag's tooth, you really need a new hero. Taimi: Well, do something heroic enough and I might change my mind.

It's also hard to have a conversation when the one thing you have in common is that you're trying to figure out what Scarlet is up to, but whenever Braham mentions Scarlet, Taimi goes off and won't stop talking about her. Remember that until now, Braham was helping the Commander solve the mystery of Scarlet, but now he's promised to look after Taimi and he's honor-bound to that. I can see him being incredibly frustrated.

Taimi: Braham, will you tell me a story while we wait? Braham: After you ran off on me? And all the abuse you heaped on me since we got here? I get plenty of that back in Cragstead. Taimi: You don't spent much time around asura, do you? We only abuse people we like. Or those we're trying to improve. Braham: Fine. I'll assume you like me. Ahem! "Once upon a time, there was a brave and handsome norn named Braham..." Taimi: Aww, I've heard this one already. ...From you. ...Twice.

They've been sitting here a long time if Braham tried to tell the same story thrice. (I bet that story is about the time Cragstead was attacked by Molten Alliance and Braham heroically saved the town. But I'd like to hear Braham's rendition.)

But notice the line "you don't spend much time around asura, do you?" And also remember the culture-clash between Braham and Rox? This is a minor-scale, low-stakes version of that.

Also notice that Taimi said she'd stop hero-worshipping Scarlet if Braham did something heroic enough; but apparently his feats at Cragstead aren't enough. This conversation has probably fired up Braham's desire to prove himself - the motivation behind why he's been helping us with things like the Tower of Nightmares, and he's itching to get back into the fight. But he gave his word to look after Taimi.

Taimi: Braham? Are we still going to be friends when we get back? Braham: Wait - are we friends now? Taimi: I think so. You don't boss me around as much as other adults. And when you ask a question, you let me answer it. Braham: Well, I'm friends with Frostbite and he can't even talk. So yes, Tiny. We'll still be friends. Taimi: Not if you keep calling me "Tiny."

But these two interactions show Braham how different cultures - and even different individuals - relate differently to each other. He might not be thinking about this in connection to Rox yet, but he will.

Eventually, the Commander wanders into the Mists investigating the probes and the Aetherblades, and Taimi and Braham make you go get the spare parts.

Braham: Good to see a friendly face, <Character name>. I'm stuck here minding this asura kid, so I appreciate the company. If you want to go exploring, though, I'd understand. Commander: I've got news from Lion's Arch. Scarlet's probe has changed color. Braham: I don't like the sound of that. It means Scarlet's machines are doing something, and that something is never good. Taimi was investigating the probes around here. She might have info you can use.

This is more than you simply dropping in and exchanging news - this is the two of you conferring and trying to figure out a difficult problem. But there isn't much more to be done and you want Braham back, so you go get Taimi's golem parts.

Braham: I'm dying to get back into the action with Rox and the others, but I'm stuck minding Taimi here until she fixes her golem. She'll tell you all about it if you let her. Commander: Where are your friends? Braham: Not sure, but I'm looking forward to finding them at the Dead End bar when this is all over. I need a drink and I like the stories Jory tells. She's got a voice some skaalds would kill for.

(This concludes my - rather successful, I'd say - attempt to string together the ambient dialogues into a coherent chronological narrative. Some points were only referred to but didn't have any dialogue for them, and the lines I did have were all out-of-order, which made everything more difficult.)

I'd also like to throw in this piece of dialogue, the Commander possibly wanting to hear the latest about their old friend:

Commander: How is your mom? Braham: What? Listen, friend, the less you talk about Eir Stegalkin, the better we'll get along.

That was fast. Like, given the relationship we know Braham has with the Commander, he shouldn't have gotten that angry, that fast, to threaten how well the two of you get along as friends. More likely, though, he's just really good at setting boundaries, at least in this area. He probably has people asking him this question all the time, and he's had to learn to be firm that this topic is not allowed. He's not angry, he's just setting expectations. He still calls you 'friend.'

Anyway, Commander returns to the Dead End bar to confer with Kas and Jory about the probe changing color, and then, using all the intel they've collected so far, they figure out Scarlet is planning an attack on Lion's Arch.

Meanwhile, Taimi finally repairs Scruffy, and she and Braham presumably leave the Mists, on the way to Rata Sum (finally). Whether they got there or not, I don't know, but then Scarlet attacks Lion's Arch. Taimi heads to the Vigil Keep, and Braham and Rox meet up and head to Lion's Arch ahead of the Commander to help the Lionguard evacuate civilians.

After at least one skirmish with Scarlet's forces in Lion's Arch:

Rox: Aaargh! Could that have been any worse? Braham: We saved some, but how many people are still in there? (huff) I'm going to break Scarlet in half. Rox: Hold that thought. It won't be long before we get another chance to go back in. Braham: Next time, we save as many as we can. I'm not stopping until they have to carry me out.

When the Commander arrives in LA, they explain the situation:

Braham: Just taking the time to rest before diving back in. Lion's Arch can use all the help it can get. Rox: This could've been much worse if you hadn't figured out that her target was Lion's Arch. Commander: I'm glad I could help. Rox: Braham and I were ready because you warned us. We evacuated a lot of citizens who'd be dead now. Between Scarlet's thugs' murdering and the miasma choking them to death, it's ugly in there.

Commander rarely arrives late to a battle, but when they does... it's really, really bad. XD.

Rox: Rawr! Braham: Why are you so jumpy? Rox: Can't you hear those explosions?

Rox was genuinely traumatized by the deaths of her warband. It's obvious all throughout S1 (she hates explosions, esp. in caves, and even years later, on Dragonfall, she's jumpy just because she's in a cave) but here, it makes Braham realize that his friends are vulnerable, as oppose to his usual perspective:

Braham: Well, if we don't get blown up, then the miasma will probably kill us. Rox: Or the clockworks. Braham: Or those thrice-damned Aetherblades. Rox: And don't forget the krait. Braham: I'm already hearing the song they'll sing about us.

Braham says this, of course, because that's his attitude at things that can kill him, but I think it got Braham thinking about Rox's perspective. She's genuinely afraid of the explosions, and Braham knows her backstory. He starts wondering about the others, too:

Braham: I wonder if Marjory and Kasmeer are still in one piece. They aren't as battle hardened as we are. Rox: They'll be fine. Marjory's got a keen eye for trouble, and Kasmeer can hold her own with illusions, surprisingly. Braham: That won't help them if they're too busy making lovey eyes at each other. Rox, teasing: Hey, I remember not so long ago when you were in love too. Braham, grouchily: Yeah, and I regret every minute of it.

Maybe that bit there also reminds Braham that they've been through a lot together, and that won't change. Braham can be sure that, no matter what happens, he and Rox will always be friends.

Braham: Is it time yet? Rox: No, Braham. Be patient. We can't go in too soon. The miasma has to dissipate first. Braham: How come Marjory's antidote isn't working anymore? Rox: Seems Scarlet improved her recipe. She's an impressive alchemist. Braham: Is there anything she doesn't do well? Rox: Make friends? Braham: Good point.

And now, Braham can't help but think of Rox's desire to be in the Stone Warband. Rox lost all her friends, too - she needs a group. But Braham might believe her, now, when she says they'll still see each other. I think he didn't really, before - he felt as if she was trying to replace him - but at this point he realizes she does care about him and she will make an effort to see him.

And, also thinking about different cultures and all, Braham might realize that she thinks breaking the chains that bind her isn't as important as having somewhere to belong.

Eventually, your allies and the Lionguard start working on breaking the attackers' morale and pressing into the city from all three accessible directions in order to keep evacuating civilians.

Braham and Rox come in from the north, at Trader's Forum - and Braham is secretly hoping to see the Commander. I don't think he quite knows how to handle the whole 'different culture, different values' thing, but the Commander is an expert at this. He finds the Commander successfully, but he doesn't really want to talk about his troubles, and thinks maybe watching the Commander interact with others will help.

Braham, to Commander: I figured I'd see you up here fighting these Aether-dregs. This situation is so serious, though. I'm almost not having any fun taking them down. Commander: She's been working toward this for over a year. Braham: That's a long time. I wish we could have predicted this back when we were fighting the Molten Alliance - back in those early days. I'd have hunted her down and pulled her out like the weed she is. Commander: We all wish that. She's gotten extremely powerful. Braham: I understand how burgled and bluffed these alliances together, but I don't get why. What could she possibly want? Commander: The answer to that lies with the green probe. Braham: Yeah, Taimi thinks she's mapping ley lines so she can tap them for their energy. Commander: Where is your little buddy? Braham: She's not MY buddy. But she was heading toward the camp outside the Vigil fort to annoy the refugees there. If we're lucky, they'll toss her off a mountain. Commander: You don't mean that. Braham: (laugh) No. I don't guess I do. Commander, smiling: Uh-huh. That's what I thought.

Later, after the fighting starts again, Braham and Rox are back to their usual banter. And then you join them to help take down some Aetherblades.

Rox, to Commander: Now that you're here, the enemy's in trouble. Braham: Hey, friend. I've got your back.

Braham is officially the Commander's second-best friend, especially at this time-period when you're not too close to Taimi yet. There's only one other person who takes the time to say brief but genuinely nice and meaningful things to the Commander, and meanwhile everyone else just takes them for granted. No, really, Braham does this all the time. In every fight it's some form of "it's you and me, friend" or "we're in it together!" or "I've got your back."

Maybe Braham also recognizes that Rox isn't his only friend. He won't be alone if - when - she leaves. Braham admits that he can't stop her, and he also can't, in good conscience, hold Rox back from the Stone Warband when this is what she needs - people like her, a place to belong, friends to fight with.

And so, after pushing back Scarlet's forces in Lion's Arch and taking down her deployed champions, Braham is with you, the Commander, in the second-to-last phase of the battle, which is one of Scarlet's giant holograms.

It took a ton of clicking obscure links for me to find this, but I'd always wondered what it was that injured Scarlet just before you enter the instance to kill her, and it turns out that it's the Prime Hologram: you fight it on top of the Breachmaker, and Scarlet participates in the fight a little, and killing it apparently injures her somehow (maybe it explodes).

Anyway, Scarlet retreats and the whole team chases after her, all with their different goals but the same way of getting there: Marjory is insanely interested in this mystery; Kasmeer, aside from sticking with Marjory, is aghast at the devastation and wants to help any way she can; Rox wants to get in Rytlock's warband, and Braham is trying to build his legend.

Braham: You're about to get your wish, Rox. Looks like the Stone Warband's within your grasp. Rox: As is glory for you, Braham. We'll do this together.

Braham demonstrates here that he's finally accepted that Rox's desire to join the Stone Warband doesn't mean that she won't be his friend, and she isn't trying to replace him, and he should be happy for her.

Meanwhile, Scarlet, lying injured on the floor, is threatening them all with death and destruction, but they all take it for bluffing. Braham and Marjory step forward to finish her (with the others warning caution), but Scarlet throws them both back somehow, hurting Braham and knocking Marjory unconscious.

Rox: Braham! Talk to me! Your leg... Braham: ...is broken. I know. (groan) I'll be okay. Go get her. Rox: What? Go? No. I can't leave you here like this. It's too dangerous. We have to get you out of here. Braham: Go, Rox. It's your chance to get in the warband. You have to. Rox: I don't have to do anything. I'm not leaving you alone in such a vulnerable position.

Unable to convince Rox, Braham turns to you:

Braham: Urgh. Don't worry about me. Finish her! Commander: Hold on there, buddy, I've got this.

Meanwhile, Kas has flipped out in an impressive display of anger at Scarlet for supposedly killing Marjory. With her aid, you defeat Scarlet, Rox stays behind and acts as medic to Braham and also tends to Marjory, who isn't quite dead. After the battle:

Kasmeer: Jory! Oh, Jory, I thought you were... I thought... (sob) Marjory: Hush, love. I'm okay. Rox worked some battlefield magic on me. It's okay, honey. I'm going to be okay. Braham: Guess it's a good thing you stayed behind, huh? Rox, thinking about how upset Rytlock is going to be: Definitely a good thing, my friend. Definitely a good thing.

Scarlet has been defeated, but the fight isn't over yet: Scarlet's forces are still all over Lion's Arch, so you get back on out there to help the Lionguard mop them up.

Rox: I'm not sure what has me snarling loudest: This attack on Lion's Arch or Braham's bullheadedness. Commander: What do you mean? Rox: He's insisting on fighting, even though his leg is broken. I'm not leaving his side for one second. Commander: Good for you.

Talking to Braham about it:

Braham: You look better than I feel. Commander: What are you doing? Braham: I'm building my legend! And helping the folks who live here. Commander, skeptical: On a broken leg? Braham: Look, I can't slink away like some injured animal. I was no help in the Scarlet fight. I can do some good here. My leg will heal, eventually. Right now, it's the least of our worries. Commander: Just be careful or you'll end up lame.

And, sure enough, back at the Dead End bar:

Braham: Ngg. Ow. Rox: Will you relax, Braham? Sit down. If you keep standing on that leg... Marjory: Better ease up on that leg, B, or it won't heal right. Braham: It doesn't hurt anymore. Kasmeer: Is that why you make that bear noise every time you sit down? Braham: That's just... the Spirit, moving in me.

No it's not. This is a serious thing: in IBS, it's revealed that Braham can't Become the Wolf. And probably not any other Spirits, either. I've been thinking that this is perhaps a sore point with him, and this is one of the few dialogues pre-IBS that touch on the topic. Food for thought.

Also, the nickname "B" that Marjory uses here should have stuck. That's an amazing nickname. (Maybe someone can say their Commander kept it up or something.)

Taimi arrives at this point, and brings up the subject of the dragon's roar that was heard after Scarlet's death.

Braham: I'm not afraid of no dragon. Rox: Braham. (sigh) I'll have to take you to the Brand sometime. No single warrior can stand alone against a dragon.

Braham's still a young, overconfident norn at this stage. He hasn't ever faced a dragon and doesn't understand their power. This is also probably why he still has no respect for Eir, and also a part of why his attitude toward Eir changes so drastically in S2. But also, look at this:

Braham (to Taimi): Did you get in trouble for roaming the camp? Taimi: No. Yes. Zojja gave me extra calculations as a punishment, and I never got to see Scarlet. Braham: Sounds like Zojja cares about you.

Braham clearly understands what care looks like. Not many teens his age would have the perspective that punishment equates to care and concern. He clearly has an understanding of how parents operate. (Or perhaps he just takes any kind of attention as a good thing, but Braham doesn't strike me as someone who had that kind of upbringing.) His father, Borje, must have taken good care of him, and his friends/foster parents, too, after Borje's death.

Taimi: No, she doesn't. She cares about her record. If I do well, it reflects positively on her as my college mentor. (pause)

Taimi, now - she's closer to a typical teen than Braham in this regard. And Braham doesn't want to get into it (and he also has experience with her stubbornness, so he probably doesn't bother to try to convince her).

Braham: So you don't like Zojja's college? Taimi: I was not designed to be in Synergetics. I was designed for Statics. Braham: I don't know what that means.

He's a good fighter and he can admit when he doesn't know things. Get you a man who can do both, why don't you?

Also, here's a tactic he learned in the Mists:

Taimi: Hey, Braham. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: You wanna hear about the new aetherphaser I invented for my golem? I modeled it after Scarlet's tech. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: It works just fine, but I have to keep adjusting the gorometer. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: I had to shave down the minious array wheel in order to get it to fit on Scruffy, but I got it. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: Next, I'm gonna make him a panmetric listening device so he can warn me in advance if someone's sneaking up on me. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: Hey, Braham. Braham: Uh-huh. Taimi: I like you because you're big... and dumb. Braham: Uh-huh. ... (laugh) Shut up! Taimi: (giggle)

She was sharing her progress! And he was ignoring her! They really are friends! (or maybe annoying siblings XD) And, for the record, that bit at the end was just her baiting him. She didn't mean it - not after she called him smart for understanding some of her technobabble earlier.

Braham (to Commander): You really believe that stuff about Scarlet poking the dragon? Commander: Yeah, I do. I think she was more practical than she let on. Braham: Or more crazy. I'm gonna guess she was hoping to make a dragon or two mad so they would attack. Don't matter. All that matters is she's dead now.

Another example of Braham underestimating the dragons: he just casually tosses out "a dragon or two" and then follows up with "don't matter."

Commander: How's your leg? Braham: It's okay. Better. I'm ignoring it. My legend is in the bog, and I can't believe I have to wait for this leg to get better. It's making me as crazy as Scarlet. Commander: Your legend isn't in the bog. Braham: Sure it is. I might as well be starting from scratch. I'll go down in history as the guy who couldn't hold his own in the fight against Scarlet. Commander: Not true. One fight doesn't make or break a legend.

And people have the nerve to say Braham isn't young? This conversation typifies teenagers: angsting about something that isn't even a problem. But I guess if you're a norn, you have to take every threat to your legend seriously.

But anyway, after Scarlet is defeated, the Zephyrites return to offer support for the struggling city of Lion's Arch and set up the Festival of the Four Winds.

Rox: Well, our mission is to enjoy ourselves and be seen doing it. How's the leg? Braham: It's fine. And before you ask again, no, I don't want one of your good luck charms. Rox: You know one of mine won't work. It has to be personal. I wish you'd let me help you pick one out. Otherwise, you're going to get injured again. Once misfortune finds you, it doesn't just go away. You have to counter it. Braham: Wolf's tail, is this what they mean by being mothered? I'm suddenly glad mine was never around. Rox: Somebody's in a sour mood. But I know a cure for crankiness: bashing things to benefit Lion's Arch! Taimi: So, do I get to come along this time, or are you going to sideline me in some camp again? Braham, sighing: Nobody sidelined you. With all the miasma and Aetherblades and whatnot, we were trying to get people out, not bring them in. Taimi: You should have known better. I followed Scarlet's progress for months. Did you really think I'd miss her big finish? Braham, sourly: Be glad you did. Some of us were there and still didn't get to see it through.

Taimi leaves with Kas and Jory (and Rox wanders off, as well).

Commander: How's the leg? Braham: Did Rox tell you to say that? Nevermind - my leg is fine. Scarlet broke my bones, but I'm still on my feet. And I'm getting stronger every day.

~oOoOo~

And that's where Season 1 ends! (For now - I'm going to post an S1 recap next XD.)

Again, thanks to the Guild Wars 2 Wiki for all the dialogues, especially Braham's and Taimi's time in the Edge of the Mists and the second-to-last phase of the Battle of Lion's Arch, the Prime Hologram, which is hard to find if you're just navigating internal wiki links.

First | Prev | Part 4: Friendships | Next - S1 recap

[maydaymemer]

Hitman 3 - First Impressions w/ Spoilers

I’m posting this just after I’ve beaten Hitman 3, and I wanted to do something productive with my experiences playing it both for when I look back on my first time playing this game and also to do something more than just play video games like a degenerate

If you want my basic yay or nay opinion I think Hitman 3’s great, maybe the best of the trilogy but I might just be burnt out on replaying 2’s levels and am not thinking right, but keep in mind this is after playing thru each level once. Not to say these levels don’t make good or bad first impressions for a reason but I know not to trust myself when I say I enjoy or dislike something especially a Hitman level after only a little time with it. Keep in mind I didn’t like Sapienza and liked Colorado at first, but at the same time my opinion of Whittleton Creek and Marrakesh either haven’t changed much or only gotten more positive with time. So it’s a roll of a dice

Anyway I’ve written down my notes on every level I’ve played right after finishing it, which I’ve put below. There are going to be spoilers of elements like mission stories (which I dabbled a little bit in) and objectives and I’d recommend going in as blind as possible with Hitman. I don’t mind spoilers myself but I think you feel smarter when you stumbled on half the shit you do in these games

Dubai: very strong opener. I think that some of the shortcut design, one of the few new features of 3, kind of limits up front exploration but I still really liked the verticality and how climbing up pipes could take you up like two floors. Targets seem to have the appropriate amount of blind spots, tho I’m not sure how I’d tackle Marcus in that big open area. To me this level reminds me of House of Cards but better, out of the other first levels of the trilogy (Paris, Hawke’s Bay and Dubai) I choose this as my favourite so far. I killed Marcus by snapping his neck after knocking him out in that white room near the elevator, I got caught and killed some witnesses only for Omar to find the bodies. I killed Carl by throwing him off the building, sacrificing his waiter to do so

Dartmoor: Actually managed to SA this one, I didn’t go forward with the murder mystery just yet as I wanted to see 1) if it could be cheesed since it’s a one target mission and b) to see how well it holds up without doing that. To see if it’s just a gimmick or not. Turns out? Pretty darn well. I did encounter some of the stuff I didn’t like about the Hitman 2 AI with Alexa, namely if you have a weapon out and she gets a slight glance at you she goes into lockdown and while trying to cheese her under a chandelier when she goes to meet with you/the detective. However, it was at least consistent this time until in WoA2, she never fell for me trying to cheese it whereas if this was Hitman 2 it’d work 50% of the time and drive you mad. I did manage to get her under a chandelier, because in this game’s case personal bodyguards are easier to get rid of and there’s usually only one if they have one so I was proud of that. I love doing non-laid out kills in Hitman, one of my favourite things. I love the level design here, the mansion is big and brooding and so is Alexa’s route it seems. I loved finding out the secrets like using the cane to open doorways and using the camera to find pieces of the code for the Edwards safe. I got the 9, 7 and 5 ones and was going to brute force the code but turns it the solution was 1975. The level takes atmospheric cues from Beldingford Manor but I got real Paris vibes from the verticality which I loved

Berlin: I thought this mission wouldn’t impress me with its gimmick but it’s my favourite so far. The atmosphere and rave soundtrack gave me chills, and THIS is how you do target AI. There are a total of eleven or twelve potential targets I think, and all of them use guard AI. You have to track down and kill at least five of them, giving a unique and dynamic gimmick for this mission which I’ll love to replay. Target routes seem good too and your first playthrough where you’re winging it is even more fun here when you don’t know where your targets are really coming from. The mission is also really surprisingly massive, it might be the biggest one so far despite only having ten disguises (I don’t think we’re going to top Miami’s 29). I also loved that you could poison some fast food and have a biker take it inside

Chongqing: this is a great example of the knee jerk nature of these first impressions, not that this level will be bad but I feel like I’m speaking a little too soon when I say this might be one of my favourite levels of the trilogy. I was a little disappointed when the level wasn’t Mumbai 2.0, being more vertical than horizontal in scale but I ate my words when I experienced it. This is probably the weirdest level of the trilogy but so cool at the same time. At first I tried getting Hush with his satellite dish, and sniping him from his little area. I died. Then I became a test subject and started messing with his brain, making him take a break and killing him when he’s at his desk. I got caught however and had to make a break for it. Then I infiltrated the ICA data banks by becoming the board member, but then I had to sneak into his apartment since I didn’t know the code, but then I heard the code when I answered his answering machine. I really like the introduction of keypads and hope they stay, they reward map knowledge and let you skip having every door be locked via lockpick. Then I distracted and KO-ed Imogen’s guard and pushed her off the data core railing. What proceeds is a great bit of fan service where it shows almost every target from the trilogy as 47 deletes the info ICA has on him and then one of my favourite moments of the series (in terms of scripted stuff, I’ll always prefer stuff like sniping Rico from the jungle) where you have to escape the burning facility while avoiding the now entirely hostile guards. I’m super glad this and other story beats are confirmed optional on replays, but I’d happily replay this regularly because it was so fun to Splinter Cell the level for the last minute

Mendoza: Another great level. I wasn’t expecting it to be so big but even that big field you can see over the balcony is explorable. Feels more like A Vintage Year throwback than Santa Fortuna was. I quite like the kill opportunities that I saw, sniping Yates from the top of his house and finding wine to serve Vidal was what I went for. Also love that Diana is in the level physically, she even hides behind a box if you caught an alert. Yates’ house is very intimate but very well designed. Wasn’t expecting the tactical wetsuit to be here as a disguise but it was a cool thing I found

The Train: this level is simultaneously an awesome and disappointing end to the trilogy. The idea itself is great and the hallucinations that begin the level are really imaginative, but that nightmare intro gameplay wise is just you walking forward. It’s the exact opposite of the reason why I like Hitman, I like Hitman because it isn’t like those triple A “walk forward while dialogue plays” kind of games. It’d maybe work better if they had you shoot every target you’ve ever killed in this dream and then top it off with the one proper gameplay moment that’s in the real thing where you press the button that kills Diana’s parents. Then the level itself after that intro is way too linear, I know it’s a train but there could’ve been way more options with how to go about it. There is a great final moment with Edwards and I love that it encourages combat for the first time in the trilogy, but it could’ve been a lot better. Ideally this would be the seventh level after a proper sixth but I think it’d be more palatable if it was more replayable than it is. Because at the moment it doesn’t have Contracts mode, probably won’t get escalations and definitely won’t get an ET. Which puts it behind Hawke’s Bay, which is a regular punching bag for its lack of content

The Story: surprisingly, I loved it. I’ve always thought this trilogy had excellent worldbuilding but used some plot contrivances to get from level to level. This time while the worldbuilding isn’t quite as solid the story is actually pretty great and goes in a lot of interesting directions which I think would make great sequel material. 47 essentially kills the ICA and the game ends with him and Diana becoming independent agents. So they’ll be doing the same thing without the immunity a giant organisation like the ICA has, which could lead to interesting conflict in the ninth Hitman game. I also like this game’s portrayal of the ICA, they’re a lot more professional than in Absolution but it goes for a similar take of showing how brutal they are

In Conclusion: For the most part Hitman 3 is excellent and I loved it, probably about as much as the previous Hitman 2 and the Paris level of Hitman 1 in terms of first time experiences with these games. There were some downs with the Carpathian Mountains and elements of the game design but it’s still another solid new Hitman game. I can understand why the reviewers loved this one over Hitman 2, while I loved that game’s levels this game’s levels feel a lot weirder and that’d leave a much stronger first impression. Ofc being the second sequel to 2016 nothing’s really changed much. While there are improvements to the way guns feel and the fluidity of 47’s movement it’s nothing groundbreaking. The new map features, while cool, aren’t selling points IMO. If you love Hitman buy this, if you love stealth buy this, if you love mucking about in a sandbox buy this, but if you’ve never been interested in Hitman or this gameplay style of Hitman it’s best to avoid this. It’s a very good third season of Hitman, whether you like it or not. In terms of my thoughts on the levels my personal ranking rn would probably be Chongqing > Mendoza Berlin> Dubai > Dartmoor > Carpathian Mountains (AKA the Train level)

[fczbecrspizzc]

// ok so let's talk about gregory's watch.

his watch is very interesting to look at; the interface is bear-shaped and is probably attached to a thick metal chain around his wrist, but it's not the interface shell i will focus on here, instead, i will focus on the options within the actual watch itself.

so. there's quite a bit to unpack in this-- but i'm sure we can get through it quickly. there's a bit to go through so i think i'll start at the top and then work my way down.

the clock: now, i think the game spans across the real-timespan of six actual hours, considering how the time is specifically stuck at 12:09. it's nothing we've actually seen before from a canon fnaf game, after all! so it's essentially most likely a time-based game where there's possibly multiple endings for replayability ( hence the title five nights, in the game sense ).

the cameras: right, okay, so i assume that there's gonna be A LOT of cameras in this pizzaplex, considering how big it'll be. there's a lot of little options on the actual watch for the cameras too, seeing how there's a square, a very faint eye, a mechanism to look around on the camera, and a zoom function, there's also a little minimap ( i think ) that moves with gregory as he ventures through the plex, and he primarily uses them to make sure there are no enemies wherever he wants to go ( also! i just realised that this camera is pointed at monty's golf course! ).

the map: i assume this is simply an entire map of the whole plex, featuring multiple floors and maybe even secret rooms, which would make things quite interesting if you're looking for a secret or two.

the inventory: now here's something i think is interesting; gregory having an inventory that probably features items he picked up along his journey throughout the plex. maybe they're sorted in terms of important items such as story progressive items and general items such as batteries and the like?

the logs: this is probably the one that i'm the least sure about, logs could mean anything; dialogue logs? movement logs? who knows, but i'm interested in finding out!

the flashlight icon: clearly, this is a battery indicator, maybe gregory's flashlight is connected to his watch, or the flashlight is attached to the cameras like in fnaf 2! there's five bars of power that would definitely not withstand the real-timespan of six hours, which is why inventory is probably a thing for the sake of batteries.

the power meter: this can either be the general power of the cameras, or, glamrock freddy's energy meter. i like to think it's the latter, since he could potentially need power to move from place to place so that he can distract others or hide gregory.

the number counter: people say this might be the camera number, but i personally think this might be a danger meter for each camera-- maybe using the light system raises the meter due to how dangerous it could be?

the tickets: probably somethin' to do with secrets or buying things from a prize corner, for what, who knows?

that's my overall thoughts on the watch for now, it's all relatively headcanoned, but it'll definitely change when the game comes out.

[derkastellan]

Musings: Quest design without reload...

I’ve been playing Pillars of Eternity recently, and just like the first time I picked up the game it has failed to enchant me, but nevertheless it is a decent game, not gonna hate on it.

One thing it advertises for is that choices matter, you’re bound to chose sides over time, and will have an impact. And the game, being from Obsidian, after all, tries hard to make good on that promise.

But having completed one of the Act II quests I can see that in adding replay value some of the quest designers have fallen into a trap, and I think it’s an avoidable one... (From here on, spoilers for Pillars of Eternity)

The quest can be summed as follows: Nobleman loses daughter on a journey, locals seem to not care much about helping him find her, you find a big temple accessible from under town and fight your way through, only to learn that she is actually his niece, that he impregnated her because his wife could not bear a healthy child, and the cultists of revenge now want to turn her into a hypnotized murderer that will end his line for sure.

Let’s leave aside how a temple complex so big and full of cultists that it dwarves the village almost in comparison can exist. I really thought as I made my way through that maybe I would expose a big conspiracy. One way in which PoE feels unsatisfying to me is that it doesn’t make these connections. There is cults and conspiracies seemingly everywhere, but somehow they exist in a vacuum and utterly separate from the landscape they inhabit.

But I digress... again. Bad habit.

Let me count you the ways...

This quest can go three ways. Two are obvious because you’ll always get them offered to you: Kill her before she can be used in this way to harm even more people than have already been harmed. Or let her pass and let things happen.

The third option, however, only offers itself if you bring a cipher along - somebody who can interact with people’s souls, a sort of soul-healer. You of course happen to meet one on the road just in the village, willing to join you. So if you brought her along you’re in luck - you get offered the third option: She can snap the girl out of it, and you can actually then help her decide - after beating the baddies - how to carry on with her life. (The quest concludes after you decide how to deal with the lord, including whether you tell him the truth regarding your choices.)

Now, three outcomes for the girl, and a plethora of different options to end the quest - including lying, covering for someone, telling on someone, killing an innocent to prevent harm, letting a sleeper agent murder a noble house, etc. There’s no lack of choices here!

But there is something missing. Telegraphing! You see, once you fight your way through the dungeon, you can enter the last encounter and probably figure out a cipher might be useful here, given the kind of magic that was wrought here. And then you reload an older safe and run the situation differently.

Telegram for you!

Problem is that it would be way better if you had a way of knowing ahead that this would be a good idea. Of course that might give a lot away, but as it stands now the best possible solution - or at least the ability to have all choices available - depends on either pure luck (bringing the right kind of character) or playing the situation once and reloading.

Telegraphing is a subtle art. And sometimes really hard. How can you foreshadow “You might need a cipher in your party.” for this quest without hitting them with visions and prophetic dreams, etc? I admit, unless you make your players believe that every potential PC that turns up is Chekov’s Gun, you wouldn’t have an easy time giving players the “better option” by telegraphing it. 

(And thankfully, potential party members have typically no immediate impact, Grieving Mother the cipher is an exception here. They are not quest items to open up something just around the corner. And I’m kind of glad for that because it always makes a game feel like a series of unlocks.)

There would have been another way. In this game you can actually, on occasion, take prisoners. It actually tells you this in loading screen texts. Now, if you had the option of grappling the girl instead of just letting her go or killing her, you could then have time to figure out how to help the girl, maybe even make that into a small sidequest of its own that opens for taking option 3.

By delaying the decision you give people an actual chance to find their way into a solution even if they have not all pieces in place - like for example there is no guarantee they have even met or sought out Grieving Mother yet when they do the quest.

By forcing a decision on the spot you might be able to make it more impactful and likely to come from the gut, I can get that. But walling options behind circumstances and reloading wouldn’t fly so well in an actual tabletop roleplaying game and I guess videogames shouldn’t design around the need to reload as well - unless that’s where the replay value comes from? Trying to find your own superior solution amidst the options

The game tries really hard to gate different options for a variety of ways to solve a problem. Your stats often play a role, but I also think for the most time it changes how you solve a problem but not necessarily the outcome. I appreciate the effort that went into replayability and choice-making. I wonder if quest design in PoE2: Deadfire will iron out these kinks. After all, I’ve picked up PoE again mostly so that I can dive into the sequel that seems to be highly regarded by many. 

[blastoisemonster]

Meitantei Conan: Karakuri Jiin Satsujin Jiken

My review will focus on the "Murder at the Temple of Karakuri" episode (featured in the cartridge shown above), since it's the one I played thoroughly, but it needs to be said that all five games look very similar and apart from, obviously, the different plots -or the lack of colour in case of the two gray cartridge games- they all feature the same mechanics and controls, along with the same quality in audio and graphics department. Later games might also show a few cosmetic upgrades but nothing experience changing.

After choosing our save slots out of the possible three, we're immediately launched into the opening cutscene, giving us context for the upcoming investigation. Right off the bat, the Meitantei Conan videogame shows offs some rather impressive backgrounds and spriteworks, with nice panorama views of the places we're visiting as the protagonist and portraits of the speaking characters, which also change expression depending on their speech lines. The soundtrack isn't immense, but definitely has solid tunes, too: the title screen even plays the main theme straight from the anime! This elaborate sound and video combination makes it feel like we're watching an actual toon episode. As soon as the initial scenes are done, we're off of "cutscene mode" and into "investigation mode", which controls and feels exactly like a classic top-view RPG for Game Boy, with the prerogative that Conan can run and move diagonally. Suck it, mainline Pokèmon games!

In this particular chapter, Conan's gang is initially tasked with finding Satomi Togawa, one of Ran’s friends who has recently gone missing. The search leads them to an ancient temple in the mountains, once home to a ninja clan and therefore still filled with traps, but that now hosts several people. Conan plans to look around discreetly, but all changes when one of the other characters living in the temple, Yuuji, is found dead in his room. Police arrives to the place, and the kidnapping investigations are moved aside in favour of the murder ones. During the game, Conan can obviously look around interacting with various objects and characters to round up clues and/or solve a few puzzles, but he has also other tricks up his sleeve- er I mean, main menu: by pressing Start we gain access to the Map (useful in order to memorize the most complex exploring areas), Character Profiles that display name, picture and basic info of everyone we've encoutered in our adventure (a feature strikingly similar to Phoenix Wright's Court Records), and last but not least all the Key Words of the case: this section pretty much gathers up all clues, thoughts and discoveries we find during the game and by "Considering" them (simply clicking on them, that is) Conan comes up with associations and ideas. If pressed in the right order until a coherent line of thoughts gets formed, the story will progress and new "scenes" are unlocked until the culprit is caught and their motives and modus operandi are explained. We can also stick close to the crime scene and examine the body and murder weapon, which are represented with perfectly gruesome close ups, and thoroughly described where the Game Boy's pixel screen reaches its true limit; we get a description of wounds, state of the body, and approximate time of death, all useful information in order to unveil the mystery. This chapter in particular also had an interesting murder puzzle with seemingly more than one killer at the same time, which made the experience even more pleasant to discover. Among some secondary game mechanics, the player may come across a few multiple choice answers of which only one is correct and guarantees progress; however, if the other two are chosen, there's seemingly no other malus than making Conan act like an idiot, though without changing the order or nature of future events. Conan can also "swap" roles with other playing characters if he talks to them (for example, while in the Karakuri temple we also have the choice of fooling around as Ran or Kogoro). This is not necessary in order to complete the case, but I understand it could be a welcomed touch for fans of the series that would like to experience a certain scene from different point of views; quite infact, it's interesting and funny to see how different characters react to clues or interactions, and NPCs also respond differently depending on who they're talking to. For example, suspects have a hard time responding to Conan while the police is investigating because they feel like it's not a kid's business; also, we learn that Kogoro is a record breaking asshole, as considering Key Words with him leads to absolutely nothing.

After all requirements are met and we're ready to point the finger at whodunit, one final puzzle is triggered in form of a questionnaire: similar to Gyakuten Kenji's logic thinking, Conan tries to summarize the case and put all events and intrigues in order with a series of questions that the player must reply correctly. However unfortunately it seems that just like the other multiple choices we get through the main game, these ones too end up feeling kinda useless for the unfolding of the events. Unmasking the culprit feels kinda a letdown, sadly, as it is presented not as an interactive section but rather as a long cutscene that, as said before, is not even influenced by how many answers the player got right during the "recapping" inner monologue. We don't even get to shoot Kogoro with sleeping needles; the game does it all by itself. That was very unnerving and unexpected, especially for an investigation game, and frankly the most negative point about it. We also get an epilogue where we save Satomi (remember her?) and some minor plot points that link this chapter's plot to the next one, tempting players to get the upcoming new cartridge. And after this, our very last gaming screen: a rating. Turns out that fooling around giving wrong answers only contributes to a less than stellar final score and nothing else in the game, which is honestly a shame, considering that it could have been potentially used instead to present different scenes, ways of investigating, and even possible bad endings. One could argue that this particular choice was made due to capacity limitations for data, but in that case why leave us the illusion that our choices matter? The character swap count is also shown on the score screen: I'm not sure if this counts towards a negative score or not, but I do hope developers didn't mean to penalize players for wanting to explore the game with different point of views (which, honestly, is what a good detective would do instead!).

In Short What's positive about Meitantei Conan? It's a little jewel in term of graphical and audio quality, and an impressive technical experiment that brings a complicated genre such as the murder mystery on a simple console such as the Game Boy, with a positive result. Easy to maneuver, it offers an intriguing story that can be enjoyed just fine either as alone or as a chapter from a saga, since the main plot links every single cartridge together. And it's also so bloody! Once you see this you'll definitely want to see fanmade Phoenix Wright cases on Game Boy. Let's start some projects!

And, what's negative about it? Well, it could have definitely been much more interactive. Except for the main examination part, the player mostly gets to follow the case through cutscenes, and the fact that they can't control any character during the final showdown is definitely disappointing. The multiple choices and logic thinking recap are useless to the story when they could instead add a lot of depth and replayability, so it does feel like developers missed a big chance. Also the fact that we only play through one investigation makes the game feel very short... I would have at least preferred to have two "episodes" per cartridge, but I imagine this was due to capacity limitations.

And that's the game! Very interesting and inspiring, but unfortunately not perfect. Nonetheless, an interesting piece for every kind of collection!