Lost in Lualand

Fellow Tumblrinas have probably seen me grinding through Final Fantasy 16 the past few weeks and, I gotta say: I did not much like it overall!

Which bums me out a bit, since it seems to have struck a chord with a bunch of friends, who adored it and are having a grand old time with it. I wish I could join in on the hype, but alas, this was very aggressively Not The Final Fantasy For Me.

I'm at the point right before you confront Ultima for the final time, and I have done all the sidequests, but I dunno if I'm gonna actually swing at the final boss (I kinda Need To Be Done With This Game, and making all those sidequest markers go away might be just the thing I needed, much like how I simply Could Not Stop Playing Stardew Valley until I completed the community center), so, I may as well capture my thoughts now while they're fresh.

Starting with the good (there was a lot of good!):

( the good )

Anyway, now for Hater Hours:

( annoyed at the plot )

( hating on other stuff too )

in conclusion this game was fun enough for my current brain-state (needed something repetitive/distracting) but idk if i'd do it again hahaha

I feel like I was really tapped into the indie game scene in the 2010s and now I'm not. Alas! I decided to try and catch up a bit.

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

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Umurangi Generation

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Hypnospace Outlaw

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Long Live the Queen [x] is such a hecking delight of a game that I'd recommend it pretty unreservedly to whoever.

Normally, I do not dump VNs into the "unreserved recommendation" bucket—not because I don't love VNs, but because they tend to be an acquired taste; not everyone enjoys when their game feels more like reading a book than playing a thing, so I have to know a bit about the person before I recommend one.

But Long Live the Queen marries the VN format to some simulation game mechanics, resulting in a brisk, tight gameplay loop that's immensely satisfying, lending itself to endless "just one more try!" play-thoughts, and a storyline that's breezy and interesting but not overdone.

The premise is straightforward: your mother, the Queen of Nova, passed away, and you've got ~a year to do all the studying, politicking, and preparation you can manage before you inherit the throne yourself.

Like many old-school adventure games, this results in a lot of dead ends—death by snakebite, by assassination, by rogue mage, whatever. But the dead ends never feel annoying—you always end up learning a bit more about the world at each end, vow to study more Intrigue or Poison or Lore the next time, and try again. This is the first RPG game in a long time where I didn't simply reach for a guide when I got stuck. Normally I'm lazy; normally I just want to get on with the story. But here, the process of forging my own way ahead was the satisfying thing, in-and-of itself, and I had a blast jotting down notes as I got a little further each time.

The mechanics are based around two simple things: mood, and classes. You take classes to level up various skills, but how much you learn in those classes depends on your mood: if you're feeling lonely, you'll be better at studying Conversation-based skills; if you're feeling cheerful, you won't be in the mood to study Military-based skills. Each week you can take two classes and pick one event to adjust your mood, and events unfold based on checks on whatever skills you've developed.

The skills offer just enough resistance to turn what could be simple "pick option A or B" choices into satisfying little puzzles; how can I stay Willful long enough to master all the Intrigue skills when my dad keeps lecturing me and totally harshing my mood?

And probably my main takeaway, game-design-wise, was how little text you need to get across a satisfying story to the player. This VN is not trying to tell some deeply dramatic, nuanced, novelesque story; characters tend to only have very short lines of dialogue, and thin characterization. But, they still feel full and exciting—because, one, all that negative space gives you plenty of room to project whatever you like onto these characters, and two, you have so much control over the narrative that they feel real and engaging. The game designer is not trying to tell you some Correct Story TM; they're getting out of your way as much as possible, so that you can actually experience and build the story yourself.

It was interesting to contrast that with the NORCO demo [x] that I played on the same day. I've been following NORCO's development... oh, gosh, ever since some of the author's heron pixel art made the rounds on Tumblr, like, years and years ago? Weird, slightly-scifi-y deep south is my jam and I'm so invested in where this project is going.

But the demo left me a little cold. Where LLtQ was deft and light-footed, NORCO felt a tad overwritten and drag-y. The pixel art is gorgeous, and absolutely the centerpiece, but I felt like we spent too much time clearing our throat and looking at the dreary run-down suburb without interacting with it much, or very meaningfully. It feels like the world's about to open up, when we get on a motorcycle with the house android to go and try and find my brother... but then we cut to a lengthy flashback sequence! which opens with more ponderous, slow text! augh! I'm still interested in seeing the final result; there was a lot to like in the demo, but, gosh, there's something satisfying about something minimal and carefully-done that's easy to forget.

Kingdom Hearts 2, when it feels like it, is a nearly-perfect combat system.

The "when it feels like it" is key, there. Most of the time, this game's reputation for "mash X to win / hit Triangle to win" is well-deserved. Most battles are mob encounters; the pace of most battles is relaxed enough that you can whip out any number of slow-yet-overpowered finishers (summons, limits, etc) to bail you out of a tight spot; most of the time you're playing in a chilled-out just-here-to-bash-some-baddies state.

But.

Last night I played the Roxas fight, and it was so, so satisfyingly tense. Reading your opponent's moves, the split-second timing for your blocks/relects, oh-so-careful positioning, carving out a heart-pounding second between volleys to dare a desperately-needed heal attempt, and of course, lunging the second there was an opening—every single thing I did mattered. It was exhilarating. It took me like two hours and I was smiling and screaming and my heart was pounding the whole time.

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sarasa_cat asked a while back for a pitch on Why Fire Emblem Is So Awesome. As the self-nominated ambassador for all things Fire Emblem, I am delighted to comply :P

So! the snarky pitch that I’ve seen floating around for these games is “fantasy medieval chess but also you can date the chess pieces,” haha. And I mean, that’s not untrue, but!

What’s personally compelling to me, story-wise, is how impressionistic the game is. There’s always a core story, generally some young noble going on a quest to reclaim their lost kingdom or whatever, and while that core story is always competently written and often quite fun, the real fun lies in all the interactions within the ensemble cast.

See, in Fire Emblem, you are not directing an army of faceless footsoldiers. Every single unit on the battlefield has a name, a backstory, and a set of “support” conversations with the other characters in your army—and you’ll see such surprising/different interactions based on who they’re talking to, bringing out different fun and fascinating aspects of their character, and the writers manage to make you care way too much about these characters in a really compressed space.

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