It’s rare to come across games that feel as much like a work of art as Clair Obscur does, especially in the AA+ budget space. It deserves the hype and the success they’ve had, and I really hope it ends up getting Game of the Year.
I’m excited to hear that! I also picked it up on the sale because it was outrageously cheap, but it’s not near the top of my backlog pile. Should probably rewatch the movies first too, whenever it gets time to play it.
I’m back on a NG+ run of Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree. I had to take a break from the misery of Blasphemous. I might play both in parallel this week. I already missed out on the “true ending” of Blasphemous by not doing the DLC early apparently so now I need to decide if I can bother going for the “good ending” or just try to rush through the final area so I can get some credit rolling action and uninstall the game for good.
Mandragora has been fun though! NG+ could maybe use a balance pass perhaps, but it’s hard to tell with the amount of build variety. So far NG+ has felt more like a victory lap than a challenge, but I did go for a fairly greedy multiclass build so it really only came together towards the end of NG. And even then, the gameplay is fun enough and traversing these beautiful locations is fun enough that I don’t mind. And there is a certain ARPG style satisfaction in seeing your character grow in power and your build come to fruition. Easy free dopamine.
Additionally, so many games struggle with implementing evil choices or quest resolutions that are actually satisfying or at least interesting. For example, how many times have you seen an NPC ask for a favour and the Good option is “okay I’ll accept this sidequest” and the Evil is “fuck you, I’ll decline your side quest”? How many times does the Evil option just involve murder hobo-ing to the extent that you lose a ton of content because you kill off companions and quest givers?
Interesting, it’s my absolute favourite personally. I don’t hear many people dislike it.
On the subject of pixel art retro styled RPGs though I want to make a case for https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the_Black_Priory/. It doesn’t have voice acting, but otherwise should satisfy your demands given you say you tolerate pixel art. It’s very short for an RPG (16-20h) but that also means it’s very concise, has no filler and no grinding. Should play well on a Steam Deck too. I played it back in January I think and had an absolute blast with it. Cool story and world building, fun somewhat simple combat. Very enjoyable.
EDIT: though there is some dice rolling in dialogue, so maybe that’s a no go.
No shame in enjoying a serving of slop every now and then. You can’t be expected to eat broccoli and celery all the time, sometimes you just need a burger.
Still suffering my way through Blasphemous. I think I misjudged the length of it initially as I had heard it’s fairly short. I’m probably over halfway now, though. I’ve played about 13 hours and just killed Exposito.
My notes are more or less unchanged from last week. I love the story, lore and world building. The atmosphere is cool as hell and the art is great. Gameplay is janky, clunky and has an overabundance of platforming for a game that strews instant-death hazards generously all over the place and has a bunch of projectile-launching enemies hand placed to cause maximum annoyance. Plus the controls are clunky, hitboxes are janky and jumping onto and grabbing a ladder is way harder than it should be. And did I mention every single enemy deals contact damage that jolts you to the side and often knocks you off an edge?
The bosses meanwhile have been cool designs, but not really that complex or challenging. I think it’s been 3-4 tries per boss on average. They’ve been fine, but not really worth trudging through the rest of the game for.
So overall it’s been a mixed bag. I respect the game for its artistic vision, and I understand that having the player suffer is meant as a sort of method acting to go along with the game’s theme of the virtue of suffering. But I don’t know, I’m not really having fun playing it.
Also like, the whole selling point initially for making a Bloodlines 2 was getting Brian Mitsoda back to write the script. But they’ve thrown it out to make their own story and it will be like BG3 in that sense - a sequel in name only but no actual connection to the original game(s).
Same, all the Star Wars slop Disney has churned out has completely washed any lingering magic out of the fabric of the franchise for me. I don’t even feel the desire to watch supposedly good Star Wars products like Andor these days.
Here is where I was surprised. My second case the game makes me choose. Between placing Blame, Ascend or Descend the spirit and its most loved one. That shapes the game for you each case choice matters in the end.
What I want to know is: are the choices actually interesting, though? For so many games with choices like this they aren’t really choices. It’s just “do the right thing and get the good ending or don’t and get the bad ending”.