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xpiester333x · 4 months

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And finally, to complete my yearly game posts, here's what I plan on playing in the year 2024:

1. Assemble With Care - a short little game I should be able to knock out in a few hours but I picked it up in a bundle and I have wanted to play it so I will try to knock it out this year.

2. I'm more than half way done with Baldur's Gate 3 but I likely will be playing it through January. I hope to finish it at least once before P3R.

3. Bloodborne - help.

4. Borderlands 2 - since I had such a blast playing Borderlands with my boyfriend this year, I'm looking forward to giving this game a second chance and hopefully enjoying it much more.

5. Borderlands 3 - a little less hopeful for this one, since I haven't heard much good about it, but might as well knock out the main franchise.

6. Boyfriend Dungeon - I just got this for Christmas and I'm excited for the concept of romancing my weapons :)

7. I'm also more than halfway through Catherine, so I also intend to finish that in the coming month.

8. Cat Museum - something cute and short I picked up on mega sale and want to make an effort to play this year.

9. The Coffin of Andy and Leyley - I actually have no idea what this game is about or if I'll like it but it was a gift so dammit I'll play it.

10. Dragon's Dogma 2 - Dragon's Dogma is easily in my top 10 games of all time, and I am SO hype for this game. The only downside is it's coming in March, and the first quarter of 2024 is pretty PACKED with games for me.

11. Etrian Odyssey - because I never finished it when I owned it on DS but I'm in my Atlus Games era rn so

12. Far: Lone Sails - I was drawn to this game for the art and it seems like a quick little experience of a game.

13. Final Fantasy 16 DLC - blanketing over the currently available DLC and the up and coming DLC.

14. Hades - a carry over from 2023's list but THIS WILL BE THE YEAR (maybe)

15. Haven - I don't think (?) this game is very long but it looks very heartwarming so I'm here for it this year.

16. Little Nightmares 2 - another fairly short game that I have no reason not to play, especially when I'm obsessed with the first one.

17. Little Nightmares 3 - I don't know what the release date is yet but like Borderlands let's try to close out a franchise!

18. Metaphor: ReFantazio - it doesn't even have a release date and I'm already excited about it.

21. Nier Automata - another carry over from 2023, but I have a good feeling about it this year.

19. NEO: The World Ends With You - I hear only good things about this game but I will be walking into it 98% blind.

20. Nightingale - Idk how much I'll actually play this game but my friend and I have been watching its development for years and we are READY

22. Nier Replicant - I watched a friend play some of this and it looked fun, and since I saw it was free on PS plus... why not.

23. Octopath Traveler - this is to feed my JRPG addiction but break up some of my Atlus obsession

24. Opus: Echo of Starsong - This was a gift like 2 years ago and I really want to play it through this year.

25. Persona 3 Reload - I ALREADY TOOK VACATION FOR IT IM SO READY 38 MORE DAYS

26. Persona 4 Arena - Because I think it's the only readily available Persona game I haven't played yet.

27. Sea of Stars - I'm more than half through this too, I stopped playing it to play Tactica so I'll be finishing this soon as well.

28. Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne - I put a fair amount of time into it this year, and I adore this game. I'm finishing it next year.

29. Shin Megami Tensei 5 - for real this year, I promise (🤞)

31. Undertale - why have I not played this? Why did it sit on my list last year untouched? Why did I install it and never play it? The world may never know.

30. Soul Hackers 2 - because again, I'm in my Atlus Games era and I bought it this year so time to play it.

32. Untitled Goose Game - for casual hijinks

I'm even more ambitious this year than last year and thats without knowing even half of whats to be released in 2024 sooo wish me luck.

#easy as pie #pie plays #games 2024

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dennydraws · 1 year

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Good Morning, happy friday!

It's friday, my friends :D We made it through the first week of the new year! I wanted to make a big New Year post but it's no longer the first or even the second... xD; there is no "New Year, New Me" kinda deal. It's new year and same ol' me just with more back pain haha xD;;; I only hope 2023 is kinder to everyone and the world as a whole.

So many games... so little time...

There are so many games coming this first half of the year... help! I'm currently playing Tactics Ogre and I'm at the final chapter but keep getting distracted by side content xD;; It's my first time playing TO and going in super blind. Apparently I'm going chaotic route. I'm having fun tho! Really love collecting dragons with my rando beast master I recruited. :D;; I kinda want to do some fan arts but time, energy - they are none!!

I got SaGa Minstrel Song Remaster and by now my friends know I'm a die hard SaGa fan. I've never played this one and super excited to play but couldn't fit it through the holidays and from the looks of it, I may have to play it way way later in the year.

@lumartical showed me Potion Permit and I grabbed it while discounted now I wonder how I can fit this before... Octopath 2 xD;; I was really hungry for another Stardew Valley-like game big time!

Octopath 2 is coming in the end of February, already preordered and super hyped! Not sure who I'll start with yet. I'm eyeing Thorne but the scholar guy or the cleric look super interesting too!

Suikoden 1 and 2 Remasters is apparently coming in March? Already preordered and if you didn't know by now Suikoden 2 is my all time favorite RPG and I will die on that hill. Once the game is in my hands I'm dropping off the face of the planet. XD

And somehow I need to fit FF14 here... h-help!!

Mobile mobile... I'm foaming at how much I love Romancing SaGa Re;Universe (that sure is a mouthful name lol) and in summer I will make 2 years. I mostly post on twitter about my pulls but as a SaGa fan this game is everything I'd want plus extremely generous xD;; I'm super happy for it, it brings so much serotonin.

Octopath Champions of the Continent, another one I play on and off but while I'm enjoying all the lore and stories, the gatcha part is very frustrating. Still I got some faves I'm aiming for, especially this month trying to accumulate 2k rubies to pity someone I really like but...we'll see if I manage XD;; wish me luck!

Okaay super rambled... but being back on Tumblr is making me more open to, just type about things that make me happy!;; Thank you for stopping by! Feel free to poke me in ask box or anywhere really if you want to nerd about games with me :D I hope I get to draw some fan arts or just talk about these more when blogging on Tumblr!

#Good Morning!#Denny Rambles #about games :D;;#it's good to be back home!

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pocketbelt · 4 months

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Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster (PC/Steam Deck)

This is the most interesting release of the FF Pixel Remaster series, because FFVI far and away has the most tweaks, changes and additions of any of them. As if they were slightly apologising for not committing to a IV style remake as has been long clamoured for, Square went a bit above and beyond for this one.

Far and away the most notable change is FFVI's famed Opera House sequence, which has been glamoured the fuck up; the stage environment is in full 3D via the "HD2D" engine Square use for the Octopath games and similar, with the normal sprites intact, and there's now an actual vocal performance in multiple languages (though you can't set which language you want to hear separate from your text language, a missed opportunity). Yeah, they actually sing their lines now, and it does genuinely enhance the sequence. It looks really nice, the singers' performances are fantastic, it's a delightful go.

Like FFV, there aren't too many versions of FFVI for the runnings of "best version", but I think it pretty easily goes to the Pixel Remaster version. It's not just because of the Opera House stuff; a lot of work went into this version specifically, from rolling back the overt censorship of the GBA and US SNES releases to making certain areas easier to parse visually, to adding little resupply points in longer sequences and making tweaks for a smoother experience (you get to retry Sabin's Blitz inputs and the game is more generous about parsing your inputs). Far away and the greatest is the ability to, when viewing the Equip screen, scroll to characters not in the active party but who are recruited and tweak their equipment, removing or adding stuff on the fly as you need it or get it. That's an unholy godsend because FFVI is a fucking monster of a game, with 14 recruitable party members and multiple sequences (including two full dungeons) where you need to use and manage 2 or 3 parties to get through them. Hell, this version automatically un-equips a character when they leave, dumping their shit into your inventory so it isn't just lost or stuck on them (which mainly matters for Shadow, who cycles in and out of being recruited multiple times).

As before, the console versions of the Pixel Remaster get a special note; in addition to some extra tweaks like the font and swapping soundtracks, it makes one notable change in making Deathgaze visible on the world map (he's an optional boss that roams the skies and must be run into with an airship to fight, and he'll flee and retain his HP across encounters). That's interesting, and is useful in a technical sense, but it does also rob you of the experience of flying into him blind and scrambling to beat or survive him, and later having to hunt him down for his riches.

The GBA version did have bonus content in the form of four extra Espers (including Leviathan, the notable absence from OG FFVI) and two optional dungeons housing Shinryu and Omega, but as before I don't think these are game-making additions, certainly less so than the Necromancer and Gladiator jobs from FFV Advance. Also, it could've been bad emulation from when I last played it but even on actual hardware I remember the GBA version of the soundtrack sounding "off"; there's apparently tweaks to vocalisation tracks and so on, but I think it also just got fucked up.

Having come to the end of the Pixel Remasters, I'm quite impressed they managed to live up to and achieve their goals; providing actual quality modern remasters of the original six Final Fantasies. They are, broadly, the best versions of these games and really convey them and their intended experiences very well. If you haven't played these old FFs, I think of course you should; I, II and III are still fine games in their own right, accepting the considerable simplicity of I and II due to their particular antiquity, but the Super Nintendo trilogy stand well on their own with no caveats.

Final Fantasy VI in particular is a game of remarkable scale and ambition, with mechanical depth, encounter design, dungeon design and gameplay systems that are remarkable even to this day: there aren't many RPGs where the final dungeon requires you to manually bounce between three separate parties who all must be equally capable of fighting its bosses and encounters. It allows for considerable freedom with its mechanics and systems, allowing you to completely disable quite a lot of bosses if you just know how; status effects matter quite a lot, from Slow to Sleep to Berserk to beneficial ones like Protect, Shell, Haste and Vanish all becoming key to snaking through tricky fights.

More waffle under the cut, but in short, FFVI PR is excellent, and it's the best way to play what is, essentially, the root of the next six Final Fantasies and the bar which so many others of the genre looked to and tried to meet...right before Final Fantasy VII hit and set another one entirely.

I mentioned it above, but it's really easy to gloss over the sheer scale of Final Fantasy VI and what it does in its gameplay when looking at it in isolation. You play FFIV or especially FFV right before it, and the jump is fucking insane; in particular, the visual leap and the shift in the art style of characters to bigger, more expressive sprites obviously influenced by Secret of Mana (which released the year before) is striking. The extensive use of Mode 7, the leap in cinematography, cutscene choreography (characters blink their eyes in response to things, they have more sprites for nodding, looking certain ways, poses for more actions, and this lets a lot of unsaid things be depicted!) and direction, it's not unfair to say it's pushing the SNES to its absolute limits. All the stops come out; it's the most populated world map of the NES/SNES games, much more of it and its locations are used, towns are not only often bigger but much more dense and intricately decorated, as are rooms and other locations.

NPC scripting is more elaborate, allowing characters to have routines across multiple rooms and houses of a town, and for one-time events to stand out without needing to be called attention to in their own cutscene or forced aside (Shadow walking to the pub when you first see him, Relm failing to be sneaky as she follows you up into the mountains, Umaro coming out of his cave's secret exit next to the Narshe Mines hours and hours before you'll meet him, etc). The line between the battle screen and dialogue scenes is blurred, character sprites bounce around and move aside to talk mid-fight, full dialogue boxes can be brought up in battles, scripted fights with unique single-fight-only characters and set-ups (the Magitek suits at the start, for example). The sheer amount of assets used for story sequences or one-off bits only to never appear again is insane; it's no wonder Square jumped hard at the chance to use CDs, they needed the space badly. I don't doubt if they had CD space for FFVI, every town would have its own tileset and there'd probably be even more crazy flourishes and setpieces throughout.

I mentioned the multi-party stuff and it's insane going from IV and V to VI. IV has a lot of characters who rotate in and out of the party, and by the end you have a fixed group of five, V has one rotation and you have four members throughout the game; VI has 14 recruitable characters in the endgame and expects you to use up to 12 of them! One is missable (Shadow) and two are hidden special members (Umaro, Gogo) unrelated to the story, and you can, technically speaking, do the final dungeon with just three characters (one in each party), but you'd have to have some mad luck or have done some insane grinding to pull that off. Technically, everyone outside of Celes, Sabin and Setzer are optional; you have to go get them yourself and the game doesn't railroad you to them once you have the Falcon airship, but even so, it's an insane scope jump from the fixed parties of four and five members.

The final battle makes you set a grand order of 12 characters, and it cycles KO'd characters out for the next in the line when you jump across phase transitions (which is slightly annoying, because what is there to reviving them when you have a dualcaster with a Gold Hairpin, and thus can do two piss-cheap Arises a turn?), so it does try to involve everyone and let you create this mad plan and decide who has to go when. It's an attempt to utilise a significant roster of full characters that the series would never quite attempt again.

Incidentally, swapping between parties even on older platforms (PS1 aside, bless its poor laser) in the multi-party sequences is pretty quick and done by a button press. I feel like bringing that up because I still remember Yokai Watch 3 needing you to go to a specific spot, hit a button in a menu and then sit through a loading screen to swap parties on the 3DS. I can forgive a loading screen when swapping between them outside dungeons, but in dungeons, when they're in side-by-side tunnels on the same map? Good lord.

I saw a tweet last night that said that classic Japanese RPGs are intrinsically incompatible with the demands and constraints of modern AAA game development. It meant that the best ones boast lively towns and sprawling worlds and such that the minutae-obsessed hyper-realistic super-expensive ultra-games simply can't do because they need 5-6 years and $315 million to make a new 12 hour story even with two games of assets to draw from ahead of time. The truth of it strikes me even now; the upcoming FFVII ReBirth seems like it'll be the first or at least closest to making that old classic style of FF work in the modern super-high-end context, but even it's doing so by being a remake of an existing beloved game, and having a prior entry to build the entire bones, foundation and extensive pile of assets first. And it may still have a gigantic budget issue to face on its own!

There are intrinsic fidelity and graphical quality gains made by the advancement and enhancement of technology, and staying firmly behind that forward trajectory allows you to reap much of it while still making excellent games. This, distinctly, has been Nintendo's approach since the Wii and the Switch, for all its hardware isuses, flaunts the merits of such a style immaculately. Developers need to either dial back to their way, or figure out the ways of Capcom and, I hear, Falcom; either have your whole own inhouse dark sorcery toolset to alleviate costs as much as possible, or dial back fidelity entirely. Falcom does both; Capcom cheats its high fidelity by extensive, clever and obvious asset reuse to cut corners (Resident Evil 8 was as much an asset farm for Resident Evil 4 Remake as it was an original production; Monster Hunter Rise cribs extensively from Monster Hunter World, which has its own extensive asset reuse all over the show, etc). But, the Insomniac leaks revealing deranged budget numbers for clearly iterative games anyway tell of the unsustainable strain of these projects anyway - the costs, it seems, of anchoring yourself to open world game design.

Also related to that, of note, in keeping with my habit of tracking the iteration across Final Fantasies, you can see the exact roots for VII's materia system, VIII's junction system and IX's ability system in VI, each one directly. Yeah yeah, materia are also magic rocks, but the way Esper magicites both unlock spells and also provide stat boosts on level-up is a pretty direct forebear to VII binding spells to their own materia and also providing a distinct array of stat-boosting and modifying materia separately, all plugged into slots the way Espers are equipped to their own 'slot'. Conceptually the junction system also draws (harh) from this, both in equipping summons to characters, but also directly 'equipping' spells to stats to modify them as well, allowing you to define characters as you see fit or figure out how to make omni-lord monsters out of everyone.

IX's ability system is even more overt; you equip Espers and gain AP across fights to gradually permanently acquire spells. Further, some equipment pieces actually also teach spells, most notably the Paladin Shield gradually giving you Ultima; that's just IX's equipment system directly, only it's up-front about what gives what and gets more modular in what Abilities and Skills do.

The continuing thread is one of allowing customisation and player-driven development of characters and their roles in parties, while also giving characters defining aspects and unique traits to, well, characterise and distinguish them. Only Terra has Trance, for instance, and she has a set of spells she learns by level-up without needing Espers or Equipment (including unique spell Meltdown); FFVII and VIII mostly lean on everyone's unique weapon types and Limit Breaks to distinguish them (Cloud's giant swords, Barrett's gun arms, Tifa's gauntlets, etc), and then IX rolls back to VI's style of giving everyone an "archetype" themed after an old FF job (Zidane's a Thief, Vivi's a Black Mage, etc) but without the freeform allocation of magic. In that respect, VI, VII and VIII look to uphold the freeform customsation aimed for in II, III and V in new and more nuanced ways, and they lead to quite complicated systems when you get into their midst. Interesting that IX goes back to the "fixed" characters of IV, and then X would be mostly in the vein with a level of customisation opening very late into the game, only for X-2 and XII to be wholly freeform again (XII coming closest to II's style of "everyone is mechanically interchangeable" in particular).

And then XIII keeps everyone being mostly mechanically interchangeable with some subtle differences, XIII-2 continues that vein with an injection of free-form customisation via the monster taming system, and LR/"XIII-3" is just a job system but with a single character. From that we get XV being basically an action RPG with a single character, and then XVI just being a lame action game. Off to the side, VII-R draws cues from the PS2 lot and is an actually excellent action RPG.

The "decay" in the mainline games, such as it is, is not with LR, to my eye, it's much more nuanced than that and one day I hope to go over the iterative nature of FF in more detail, and how that aspect explains where the numbered titles have gone wrong after XIII.

I mentioned before that Kefka is often held up as "the best Final Fantasy villain because he actually wins", but I don't think that really works. Yes, he obtains godlike power and becomes a de facto deity of magic at the 'midpoint' of the story, but once he's done that, after a year of doing some world ravaging he mostly spends his time sitting atop his tower, occasionally terrorising some town or another but mostly just...sitting up there, letting the world slowly die. Most of his motive speech when confronted at the end, of ranting about how all things will die or be destroyed in time and so on, doesn't feel like a deeply held belief but the ranting of a madman who was just freshly agitated. His callous disregard for the value of life and willingness to do things like mass-poison a resisting nation and commit war crimes don't feel like the result of some deep-held nihilism or fear of/submission to entropy, but just the mad antics of a sociopath given power.

Hell, he disturbs the statues of the Warring Triad and overthrows Emperor Gestahl to "build my own empire", implying he directly sought the position of power and control he gets, but then what does he do with it? He could raze the world and end all life much quicker than he does, but he doesn't. To that end, I don't think he can be said to "have won", insofar as he brings about an apocalypse and then seems to run out of steam in the aftermath. He gets his empire and just lords over it, his speech at the end is just something he invented in the moment when crossed/stepped to by people who seemed (and then proved) to be capable of ending him.

I don't think he's any more successful than Xande or Exdeath, the former achieves essentially the same end and the latter is very much in the process of doing it, and both have more clearly defined goals than Kefka seems to. He's about as active as Exdeath and while in some way more shocking (the mass-poisoning, as mentioned), is about as destructive in the end.

For my money the best FF villain is Emet-Selch specifically from FFXIV's Shadowbringers expansion; his story and character there are excellent, much more tragic and personal, it's so well done (and he certainly beats the shit out of Endwalker's villains and their story). I might actually think out a villain hierarchy some day but suffice to say while Kefka's a fun villain, and his final fight is genuinely excellent, he's a far cry from the series' best offerings.

#pocket-media-tag

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lindseybots · 1 year

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Just letting y’all know that I will be posting Octopath Traveler 2 spoilers soon, but I will tag them.

I highly recommend playing through each of the protagonists’ stories blind, so please hide the spoiler related tags if you plan on looking at my blog :)

#octopath traveler ii #octopath traveler 2 #octopath traveler

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theshatteredrose · 1 year

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I saw you post some Alfyn stuff and I was wondering who do you think will be your favorite character in Octopath 2

I honestly haven't a clue!

I fell in love with Alfyn upon first sight basically because he wasn't the stereotypical moe-eyed healer, but the perfect balance of masculine and wholesome and precious.

I haven't done much research into Octopath 2 as I like to go into my games completely blind.

The Warrior looks interesting as who doesn't love a samurai? While the Merchant looks like he'd be a lark of a character to play. Scholar, on the other hand, looks like he'd be a tragic tale of woe, but who doesn't love a tale of revenge, am I right? So far the Priest looks like the benign truth-seeker, but he may surprise me.

I guess I'll have to wait until the game comes out to see who the next Octo boy obsession will be. But it'll be hard to dethrone Alfyn, that's for sure.

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undeadorion · 1 day

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I've been playing Octopath Traveller 2 recently, and I'm at a point where I just keep playing it because I'm like 85% of the way through so I may as well finish it. The gameplay itself is decent, I like the fighting system, the music is good and the graphics are great.

But holy hell, the dialogue and story are mostly terrible. It feels like a rough draft someone made while blind drunk. The story beats are there but otherwise it's a mess. Dialogue goes on for way too long, feeling like they wanted to just pad out the runtime of cutscenes. And they're just saying the same things over and over.

Spoilers ahead.

For example. In Hikari's story, in one chapter he finds out that his friend's family was behind his mother's murder. Multiple times they talk about his friend feels like she has to put her clan's safety above all else, even if it means killing him on his brother's orders. She goes on and on about being scared and what not.

The very next time you see her, they basically repeat the whole conversation. Twice. Only now she says she's not scared anymore. They're in the middle of a big battle and they're just standing there going back and forth with "i'll fight by your side! Because I'm not scared anymore!"

Or near the start with Temenos, when he goes into his little mind palace. You walk around to all the clues, which are just glowing spots in the same little area. He blathers on about what each one means. Then he summarizes what he just found to himself, basically repeating everything verbatim. Then when he leaves his mind palace, he repeats it all again to the guy who's with him.

Then there's the just absurd plot points and just wild leaps of logic. At one point someone controls a storm by stacking rocks.

But then there's stuff not explained at all. Like with a group of healers, one of them turns evil and decides to just murder everyone with evil poisonous rain. They just sort of skipped the evil conversion part.

Oh and there's zero dialogue interaction. In 50+ hours of gameplay I think I've encountered maybe 3 times where there was any real choice to be made. Which would be fine, except the cut scenes are so goddamn long I've fallen asleep during them before.

it's just all so disappointing. This would be such a stellar game if the story didn't feel like a gaggle of fourth graders trying to come up with a story all at the same time.

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tracinginwardinvestigation · 10 months

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Play #4: Narrative system in nonlinear RPGs: curating the experience?

One feature that comes with video game’s nonlinear narrative is that the overarching narrative is often told in fragmental pieces commonly known as “main quests” and “side quests”. The purpose of this fragmental storytelling is so that players can have control over the order to which the narrative would unfold; this freedom also means more often than not, no one’s playthrough is the same as another. Nonlinear reading structure certainly has existed before in book format, but they are often seen as experimental compared to the more common linear type, in which the reader is expected to read from first page to the last page. However, with video games, and especially with RPGs, this sort of nonlinear reading order is often the main selling point. In a way, this nonlinearity bears the most resemblance to old-school Choose Your Own Adventure books, but as video game’s narrative is not bound by standard book format, the freedom to rearrange the narrative pieces only gets more complex.

Take Dragon Age: Origins, for example. After the linear prologue, the game then offers the player multiple main quests that can be tackled in any order that the players want. Not only that, completing one main quest may open up more options in the remaining main quests as well. Furthermore, factoring in side quests further increases the vast amount of ways DAO’s story can unfold. While not all quests have causal relations to each other, the fact that players can choose the order to which they experience main quests and side quests is worth investigating in.

What I’m more curious about right now is in what way does this customizable narrative arrangement have an impact on the player’s own understanding of the work? In a story with linear reading order, the narrative is essentially curated by the game developers for the players to have some specific experiences (although the players can defy that). But with nonlinear reading order, picking one’s own adventure may also mean that their experienced narrative may not follow a conventional story beat structure, for better or worse. I wonder how that lack of authorial-curated experience can impact one’s enjoyment?

Then again, the capacity to curate one’s own experience can also ensure that players get what they want out of the narrative, even if their experience may go against the intended way of playing. Don’t like downtime side quests? Ignore them. Have a tired day and just want to chill? Just do all the light-hearted quests and leave the more emotionally-intense quests for another time. Or if the player just plainly does not care about the story, they can simply skip all of the story contents in order to focus on the exciting gameplay. The possibilities are endless.

The capacity to control the order in which the narrative can unfold is so interesting to think about. I should attempt to list a few ideas that come to my mind right now:

For one, how can the player curate their own playthrough if they don’t know enough about the game? Consulting guide is an option. But in that case, does using a guide essentially ask for a curated linear experience?

It is certainly possible to curate your experience on the go. For example, in my playthrough of Octopath Traveler 2, after figuring out which character’s story I like more, I generally prioritize doing the ones that I like the least first while leaving my most favorite stories to do last. This way, I can build up my enjoyment so it ends on a bang.

Does watching a playthrough count as a curated experience? Even though I owned a copy of Spirit Hunter: NG, a horror visual novel, I decided to watch a playthrough instead so I could skip through the puzzles part and head straight to the novel part.

What happens if the player does not attempt to curate their own playthrough and just goes with the flow, something like a full blind playthrough? What sort of emotion and feeling can arise from such run that a curated run can’t elicit?

Furthermore, one question also arises from this customizable narrative arrangement: how do people discuss the game with others if everyone has their own arrangement of narrative? Obviously we can discuss the game, but do we discuss it by judging its narrative pieces (main quest and side quest) individually, isolating from each other? I find that sort of discussion to be common. Generally, when we discuss a part of a story, we would discuss it in relation to the whole story, but how does that take the player's individual narrative arrangement into account? While a lot of playthroughs will certainly share similar story beats, the narrative arrangement made by the player does matter to the player’s experience of the narrative. In short, when we discuss video game narrative with others, what exactly do we assume to be the shared narrative arrangement here? Are we to treat nonlinear narrative as linear if we want to discuss a game’s overall story?

Side note: I do like that in Theorizing Stupid Media, the authors compare video games to theme parks. Would it be too farfetched if I do a quick research on how people navigate around attractions in theme parks and then try to draw a parallel to how people navigate around narrative quests in video games? Then again, it is not like there is any downside to giving this wacky idea a go (beside maybe wasting my free time).

#tracingthemagiccircle #tmc_plays #tmc_engaging

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tobiasdrake · 8 months

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Starting up Partitio's story is like,

Partitio: I'm a good guy merchant with a heart of gold! Me: Fair enough. So his story is probably going to be a romanticized view of capitalism through a lens of-- Chapter 1: Capitalism is a hideous parasite that devours, exploits, and destroys until it has nothing left to sustain it. The lives of laborers are burned on the pyres of prosperity to enrich only a precious few. Unionization is the only cure for the greed, cruelty, and criminality of the rich. Me: O.O Okay. I. Did. Not expect Merchant Guy's story to go this hard. I am here for this.

Also, no surprise that the cheating land-owner was Roque. Roque's had "There is no loyalty under capitalism because loyalty is unprofitable" written all over his face from the second we met him.

#octopath traveler 2 #partitio yellowil #octopath 2 blind play

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coeursetcolores · 10 months

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Primrose, the Dancer: Chapter 2

WARNING! Spoilers ahead for Chapter 2 of Primrose’s story in Octopath Traveler!

...

...Every time I do one of Primrose’s chapters, I lose a little more faith in humanity.

Well, we made it to Stillsnow. One of the Crow Men is here.

And Primrose has a knife ready for him.

And knowing there’s a murderous criminal here raises your suspicion about the town in general. For good reason. This place, like plenty of idyllic towns a little far out, has a secret. Honestly, not as big of a secret as I would think, but still pretty messed up.

Normally a snowy town like Stillsnow would look cozy, but it’s more ominous. Maybe it’s mostly the story, but the stronger uses of dark blue and black with less yellow to bring warmth compared to other snow town levels I’ve seen make this place feel more like the Overlook than a Christmas park. It amazes me how you can use snow to make a heartwarming winter scene or a time of isolation and the fear your body will be hidden in it if you’re not careful. The cave to get into the Obsidian Parlor is pretty basic...

...Okay, I’m just gonna say it: WHY IS THERE A CAVE THAT LEADS DIRECTLY INTO A MANSION?! What use is that?! It’s already out in the middle of nowhere and barely anyone knows it exists, WHY DO YOU HAVE THIS?!

The reveal was pretty obvious, but no less devastating. Nothing against sex workers, but it is pretty sad to see Arianna having been forced to resort to selling herself just to stay alive. It’s not even her fault she’s in this position, but when you take down a head, the rest of the body falls too.

I get the feeling that besides vengeance, the mistreatment of women is another theme in Primrose’s story. Honestly, it’s done a bit more tastefully here than in other stories I’ve seen. And does fit in with the setting rather well.

For the utter darkness of this chapter though, it has one of the funniest moments in the game so far: sorry Prim, not every man is subject to your feminine wiles. And Arianna trying to make her feel better is just the cherry on top.

Though the bartender gets me thinking; just how many people know about the brothel? Arianna said everyone just turns a blind eye, but does the whole town know?

The flashback with Primrose and her father really shows how he influenced her and how she developed into the person she is now. He preaches to stay determined and follow what you believe is right; not what society or morality says, what you believe in. It’s easy to see how she became so focused on revenge, because it’s what she thinks is right. There’s no use in letting anyone try to talk her out of it.

The added history of her family really helped paint a picture of how she became so unwavering too, as well as giving the audience a reason to understand why her father was killed. Because the family refused to have any doubts about their more dubious acts, it’s easy to see why the other houses grew frustrated with them, especially after murdering their liegelord. Perhaps enough to order a hit.

The fact that the women who work here get sold I didn’t see coming. Honestly, what is this Crow organization about? I thought they were just assassins, but I’m thinking it might be something deeper...But how does it involve House Azelhart?

And I KNEW there was corruption in the church! That’s one of the sacred rules of JRPGs! Ugghhh...I needed a shower after this chapter.

Rufus...is a slimy villain. That’s all there really is to him. But he had a point: if you don’t consider how hated you are and never try to make others understand, you will make enemies. Ones that will take an opportunity given to take you down. Conviction is good, but self-assessment is also important. Maybe we’re getting some foreshadowing for how this story will play out? Even when he dies, he seems to have something over Primrose.

And it’s truly sad, at the end. Primrose sees absolutely no other reason to live than for vengeance. Even with all her ability and experiences, she stays focused on this one thing instead of trying to move on. At some point, is it unhealthy to be this determined?

How do the others feel about this darker side of the world?

Ophilia: This one was sweet. Even with her vengeance at hand, Prim can still see other people and acknowledge their feelings. I’m glad she and Ophilia can find comfort in each other after all the tragedy they’ve been through respectively.

Alfyn: Kind of a tonal shift. We were just being upset about Arianna being in a brothel, now we’re teasing Alfyn about wanting to go to one? I guess if it’s with someone okay with being there it’s different? ¯_ (ツ)_/¯

Tressa: Okay. Seriously? She cannot be this naive. Come on game, she wasn’t that sheltered. She’s 18, not 10.

Cyrus: Aww, she’s giving him dance lessons! That’s nice.

Olberic: Olberic probably would have been the best knight she could have asked for if she could have had his service. Maybe that could have been his life if House Azelhart still stood. But at least they can fight together.

Therion: Okay, encouragement. And worry? Is someone developing empathy for his companions?

H’aanit: This was bittersweet. The people who love you may be gone, but they’ll always be a part of you. You’ll always have them, no matter how short of a time they were in your life.

What truth is there in Noblecourt?

And why is it something Primrose might not be able to handle?

Is it something we want to find out?

Let’s all hope our faith will be our shield.

#Octopath Rambler #Primrose Azelhart #Chapter Two #Review #Murder cw #Prostitution cw #Human Trafficking cw #Octopath Traveler

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