I managed to beat Chibi-Robo and, dang, that story really went some places right at the end. If someone had attempted to spoil it for me one hour before I reached it myself, I’d be insulted by how gullible they thought I was.
In terms of my personal main quest, the game hasn’t explicitly stated that I’m the new husband but he lost his wedding ring and I found it and there’s no prompt to give it back and I can’t help but notice the symbolism.
I’ve tried this, too, and they always self-destruct. Their character growth when you don’t play as them is so tied to them reacting to the player character’s influence that taking that influence away tends to prevent them from growing.
With Shadowheart in particular,
spoilerNightsong made a convincing argument that I shouldn’t follow Shar anymore but I saw no reason why I should just go along with the vanilla thing that she immediately switches to being a cleric for the opposite deity and I spent Act 3 bumbling ineffectually through a couple questlines with no clear ideology to lean on, plus a history that had previously skewed quite evil and thus left me without the alliances a more moral character would have developed by now.
The two exceptions to that rule have been Karlach who right out the gate has got her shit shockingly together for this cast and, hilariously, Astarion who absolutely thrives as his worst self. Those are the only two Origins I’ve managed to beat without betraying the RP of it all.
I’m a couple decades late to Chibi-Robo and it is incredible. They’re probably not going to let me actually steal this guy’s wife in the end but it will not be for lack of trying.
It’s not a pride thing, it’s just that I’m so used to not thinking about difficulty modes that they don’t occur to me as a solution in the moment. I straight up forget that the game is more than the version of it I’m currently experiencing.
There’s like an emotional component to it, though. Having lots of options doesn’t necessarily feel like lots of options. Deus Ex and hundreds of gigs of not Deus Ex feels like a yes or no decision, trying one of the multitude of other options being psychically equivalent just turning the machine off. At least in my experience.
Hence the suggestion of a compilation. Multiple other games but connected to each other to form a greater whole. Five minutes of Balatro and five minutes of One Way Heroics feels like ten minutes of not playing Deus Ex, whereas five minutes of Magic Garden and five minutes of Mortol feels like ten minutes of UFO 50.
Deus Ex is great but 55 hours of having nothing to do but Deus Ex sounds overwhelming. Grab UFO 50 as well so you have some low-commitment alternatives to fall back on.
If I were given carte blanche to redesign 3D Sonic gameplay, making it control like a faster-moving Tony Hawk game seems like the way to go. Sort of the middle ground between conventional platforming and vehicle control.
On my seventh attempt, I walked into a store and was told yes when asking if there were any Switch 2s in stock. The young cashier adorably turned to his older coworker and unironically said “Wow, that’s four in one day! You weren’t kidding about these things.”
So anyways the past few days have been a blur of Mario Kart World. The new mechanics are a challenge to learn but they’re a challenge I’m delighted to have and make me feel incredible when I’m using them well, the soundtrack full of remixed classics on par with the best of Final Fantasy VII Remake’s that are just there to fill the empty space between the proper racetracks, and I was not prepared for HDR in the hands of Nintendo’s artists. This game is by far the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen on a screen and that was already true before I looked up how to use that shockingly unhelpful calibration tool the Switch 2 has and now it’s twice as beautiful on top of that.
The sole complaint I have about this game is that I’m not enjoying Waluigi’s new voice actor. I can’t hear the pain underlying the mania that Martinet understood was core to the otherwise ill defined character. His animations and his costumes are so fucking good, though, it’s hard to even care that his voice is downgraded.
I have lost so many Baldur’s Gate 3 Honour Mode runs because I’ve accidentally blown up the Zentarim hideout.
Did you know that having a torch equipped as your melee weapon means you’re considered to be carrying an open flame even when you’ve switched to have your ranged weapon out? I just found that out yesterday. Always learning new and exciting ways to explode.
I finally picked up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, this being a game that’s been on my radar since well before it came out because I was a big fan of Jet Set Radio Future back in the day. It’s kind of too much like it and not enough like it at the same time? I tried the original Jet Set Radio when that came out on Steam and bounced off it but based on that limited experience I think this is kind of splitting the difference and that’s where most of the frustrations come from. Movement is more like JSRF but level design is more like JSR. And the soundtrack seems to lack that variety of some songs being made for the game and others being licensed that kept the monotony at bay. No “Aisle 10” to slow things down for a bit.
I am enjoying it, though, for as little as it sounds like I am. Movement feels good enough that it’s making me search for combo lines for the sake of combo lines and at the end of the day that’s what’s really important about this kinda game.
Also finally finished Zelda echoes of wisdom.
Never would have guessed going in that that would have the most graphically violent last boss sequence the series has ever seen. I beat it feeling like I was the real monster.
I hope you’re not playing Anniversary Edition for your first time with the game. Getting bombarded with all that Creation Club stuff would not be my ideal first impression.