Wrapped up my playthrough on The Forgotten City (via Game pass) and I have to say....I don't quite get why this has "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. My current assumption is that it's either because its a non-combat focused game or based on time-travel which automatically makes it deep. ;).

I mostly feel like I stumbled into places and solutions entirely by accident. I somehow got to Ending #2 (there are four endings) without seeing the first one and it was just over. And that's right after it introduces a major character and I'm just going "uhh....what just happened?". It wasn't satisfying.

I thought the conversation system was going to be deeper but it's...not. Listen to everyone talk about everything and eventually you'll progress forward. Occasionally you'll run into roadblocks but they're spelled out hard and if you still fuck up...just rewind time and everyone forgets how you insulted their mothers. This might have been forgivable if the characters were at least interesting or memorable but this is one of those "deep" games where everyone eventually turns out to be The True Asshole(TM). (Gods I am so tired of this).

When I got to the second ending, the Big Plot Twist was so hilariously spelled out by the game that despite it expecting you to be Surprised Pikachu Face, I just rolled my eyes.

Doesn't help that a lot of the voice acting in the game is delivered a bit on the flat side. Several particularly "dramatic" scenes were undercut because it sounded like I was voice acting then and trying to add emotion and failing.

That all being said, the game is very pretty and the location is well built and interesting to explore. The philosophical/political discussion isn't that bad but its just undercut several times. So it just comes off as unearned lecturing. Once I hit ending #2, I just was done. They clearly wanted me to go for the final, final ending but I just don't care at this point about any of them. This isn't a bad game, but its definitely not my favorite of the year. Not even top 10.

I remember the days when Dear Esther first launched; the firestorm of controversy and the raging debates of "what is a game actually?". As if answering what is and isn't an interactive experience makes the games industry better in some way. All of which seems silly this many years removed.

The answer, of course, is that it doesn't matter. Just as who is and isn't a "true" gamer doesn't matter. (Though on that one, anyone that plays any game is a gamer). Dear Esther would go on to inspire the creation of many games, some of which are a favorite of mine. So, if you don't like it, you can at least admit it was influential.

My opinion is that this genre should be called Journey Experiences. Certainly less derisive than Walking Simulators tend to be. A genre tag that is inaccurate to begin with, pressing WASD isn't simulating anything. If that is indeed all it takes to be a simulator, then your favorite FPS is also a walking simulator. There's another game out there that seems to be an actual walking simulator but that's a review for another time.

Dear Esther strays a bit too pretentious for my liking but I can't deny that there is an excellent crafting to the story here. In an age of maps being randomly generated and pieced together, stories told in fragmented and meaningless ways, experiencing a lonely island with intention feels like a breath of fresh air. And the story's melancholy works well. The soundtrack and sound editing is excellent and haunting. Can't believe I'm saying it, but yeah, Dear Esther still holds up.

This game is the perfect podcast game. In that it's perfectly able to hide its red flags long enough to suck you into listening to better productions while making you think you're doing something when really you're just sighing in exasperation as the dumbass AI dwarves fall into a pit and get stuck because Dwarves can't mine without being micromanaged and you just keep playing because we live in a Capitalist Hellscape and this is the only endorphin release you can get anymore.

The first red flag should have been the "Tutorial" which somehow explains a lot and yet nothing.

The second red flag would be the single track of music for the OST. Maybe there's more, but I sure didn't hear it for the first five hours.

The third was that nothing you do in the Overworld matters and will not affect you at all because anyone who declares war on you can just be bought off easily. Barely an inconvenience.

The fourth is that there are literally unimplemented or poorly implemented game mechanics still present in the "final" release. And attackers are of so little concern I started ignoring their attacks and someone would just rebuild the base anyway.

The fifth is that the optimization is terrible. 10 hours in and the game is stuttering like hell.

Nothing about this game is elegant, it's a hell of a lot of clicking to get ♥♥♥♥ done and I can't go through everything wrong because this game doesn't respect your time so why should I respect it.

But hey, 20 hours of Hammerting let me catch up on my podcast queue. So, that's. Something.