Well, canonically Edwin gets punked by Elminster and lives out his days as a bar wench. And since they decided from the get-go to set BG3 a hundred years after the originals he’d be long dead, along with any other human NPC from the older games. Which, the fact that they started from the point of “let’s set it 100 years later” tells you enough of how much they wanted to deal with the older games. Viconia is not the only thing in BG3 that gives vibes of disdain at worst and disinterest at best for the originals. Flail of Ages is a useless trash weapon randomly sold by a vendor, for fucks sake!
I wonder how many at Larian even played BG1&2. I get such a Wiki-research vibe from a lot of the callbacks.
Viconia and Sarevok had no reason to be in BG3 and by choosing to use WOTCs deplorably terrible supplemental product lore as canon Larian has now cemented those character portrayals forever, which was just pure character assassination.
I finished Blasphemous. I didn’t go through the DLC as I apparently missed the chance for the True Ending by not doing it early anyway, so I couldn’t be bothered as I wasn’t really enjoying the game that much. Also I’ve heard it’s even more annoying. I’ll save it for a hypothetical second playthrough. I did beat the one optional DLC boss I had access to - Isidora - and the difference between the main game and the DLC is staggering. I first tried the last two bosses in the main game, but Isidora took me probably 50ish attempts. And I’m not sure it was “fun difficult” either, that second phase sure was something.
My notes remain the same: terrible platforming (and an overabundance of it) and design elements that are deliberately meant to waste your time and/or piss you off hold back what could otherwise have been a great game. I respect the artistic vision, I just didn’t have a lot of fun playing it.
As a palate cleanser I played through LIMBO, which I bought solely because it is supposedly an indie darling and was being delisted on GOG. I was assured by somebody on here that it wasn’t really “that bad” as puzzle platformers go (I hate platformers) and that it was “mostly vibes”. That was a lie - this is clearly a puzzle platformer. And it didn’t feel like a particularly good one either. Fortunately it was only a couple of hours long or I would never have been able to force myself to finish it. YMMV but it’s a solid 5.5-6/10 for me, I’m glad I only paid a dollar for it. I hope INSIDE is better as I foolishly bought both.
They are all fairly “serious” with a focus on news, articles and discussion. On the other hand !gaming is much less so and is pretty much the primary place for general gaming memes.
I’m long finished with this game (well, playing it at least, I’m still watching others play it) but these are great changes. Battle Retry is fantastic but this:
Autoplay Dialogue: Added an optional autoplay feature for dialogues outside cutscenes.
is also fantastic for an overall smoother experience. Was very noticeable in the (many) camp conversations where having to input “next” all the time made them feel very stilted. Especially jarring since the dialogue in actual cutscenes is so fluid.
It does actually kind of look like it, but doing it at Lemmy of all places sounds like a bizarre waste of money and time. Don’t think we’re big enough for those kinds of efforts?
It’s a weird one because it clearly has its flaws, and looking at it “objectively” it shouldn’t be a 10/10 game. But none of the flaws really affect the impact of the experience as an artwork, so it still feels like a 10/10. Does that make sense?
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.