LunaEndlessWitch
2017
Suggested by Tatsky!
I've tried to get into this game four times. Over the span of umm,, 3-4 years? Honestly maybe even since release I don't fully remember anymore. I keep putting in about two to three hours on a whim, finding quick fun and satisfaction, plateauing quickly, then putting it away, never to return. I don't think I can still tangibly explain 'why' that is, Rivals of Aether doesn't really have anything particularly wrong with it.
In some ways the problem is me. The hyperaggressive no-rest-only-rushdown is already largely how I played Melee and smashlikes for the longest time. I grew up on Smash, found a huge group of friends in college playing Smash, only stopping by the time of graduation. I never really unlearned my tactics, I didn't understand dashdancing or neutral game until the very end of my time in university. So this ends up with many many years of a rushdown idea, hit first don't space ask questions later. Bad habits I've since unlearned in fighters through the years. Well maybe unlearned isn't exactly the proper term, as much as I understood my errors and learned to play differently. Execute different gameplans. This puts Rivals of Aether at a major disadvantage to me, I've already found many many different ways of playing, I've found things that now make rushdown feel not interesting on its own. But aggressive playstyle IS Rivals of Aether, for good or bad, and that makes the act of playing it largely rote to me.
To make matters worse, Rivals of Aether is extremely accessible. I don't mean to sound like this is a bad thing for the game as again, it's a bad thing for me. Everything is so fluid and seamless to pull off that the general majority of actions are a complete non-challenge for me. The tech, the staples, they're all stuff I'm hard-wired for. Melee's bullshit is basically metaphorical weights I'm throwing off and playing at full speed, and in that surge of power I feel,,, bored lol.
There's still a lot of elements to love. The character diversity is really strong, there's nothing really fundamentally off with its mechanics, everyone has a good proper toolset and even under the guise of "everyone can rushdown" there's still unique styles of play. I do have a bit of mixed feelings on its aesthetic. The pseudo-16-bit style is really not to my taste, and it gives it too soft and frictionless a texture to something that's already extraordinarily comfortable. Honestly not enough sauce under the surface for me. The singleplayer being really a dead end and incomplete in its current form years and years later (I know it's not 'technically' incomplete, but it fucking feels incomplete) hurts too.
This isn't the end of Rivals of Aether's story here, there's another side of the mirror here, blissfully.
It's the fucking STEAM WORKSHOP MOTEHRFUCKERSSSSS.
It's Mugen with a lot of the internet-sectional rust removed but even with that loss it doesn't matter, just absolutely hilariously insane shenanigans you can get up to here. While RoA may not be a vehicle for greatness I personally enjoy, its excess comfort lends itself perfectly to mod infusion in spades. I honestly do not know which workshop character i had the most fun with, it's so ridiculous. I played a multi-set chess piece in the background of lsd dream simulator while fighting someone's furry OC. And I also slam dunked skullgirls Annie of the Stars at the top of the No More Heroes Motel while playing Vergil-sitting-in-a-chair, sounds and all.
So like yeah, Rivals of Aether can still slap. Mods of Aether really. It turns it straight into fast food but like fuck it it can be a really good time like that vs. what I feel is an uncomfortably narrow-for-me base game. Give it a shot!
I've tried to get into this game four times. Over the span of umm,, 3-4 years? Honestly maybe even since release I don't fully remember anymore. I keep putting in about two to three hours on a whim, finding quick fun and satisfaction, plateauing quickly, then putting it away, never to return. I don't think I can still tangibly explain 'why' that is, Rivals of Aether doesn't really have anything particularly wrong with it.
In some ways the problem is me. The hyperaggressive no-rest-only-rushdown is already largely how I played Melee and smashlikes for the longest time. I grew up on Smash, found a huge group of friends in college playing Smash, only stopping by the time of graduation. I never really unlearned my tactics, I didn't understand dashdancing or neutral game until the very end of my time in university. So this ends up with many many years of a rushdown idea, hit first don't space ask questions later. Bad habits I've since unlearned in fighters through the years. Well maybe unlearned isn't exactly the proper term, as much as I understood my errors and learned to play differently. Execute different gameplans. This puts Rivals of Aether at a major disadvantage to me, I've already found many many different ways of playing, I've found things that now make rushdown feel not interesting on its own. But aggressive playstyle IS Rivals of Aether, for good or bad, and that makes the act of playing it largely rote to me.
To make matters worse, Rivals of Aether is extremely accessible. I don't mean to sound like this is a bad thing for the game as again, it's a bad thing for me. Everything is so fluid and seamless to pull off that the general majority of actions are a complete non-challenge for me. The tech, the staples, they're all stuff I'm hard-wired for. Melee's bullshit is basically metaphorical weights I'm throwing off and playing at full speed, and in that surge of power I feel,,, bored lol.
There's still a lot of elements to love. The character diversity is really strong, there's nothing really fundamentally off with its mechanics, everyone has a good proper toolset and even under the guise of "everyone can rushdown" there's still unique styles of play. I do have a bit of mixed feelings on its aesthetic. The pseudo-16-bit style is really not to my taste, and it gives it too soft and frictionless a texture to something that's already extraordinarily comfortable. Honestly not enough sauce under the surface for me. The singleplayer being really a dead end and incomplete in its current form years and years later (I know it's not 'technically' incomplete, but it fucking feels incomplete) hurts too.
This isn't the end of Rivals of Aether's story here, there's another side of the mirror here, blissfully.
It's the fucking STEAM WORKSHOP MOTEHRFUCKERSSSSS.
It's Mugen with a lot of the internet-sectional rust removed but even with that loss it doesn't matter, just absolutely hilariously insane shenanigans you can get up to here. While RoA may not be a vehicle for greatness I personally enjoy, its excess comfort lends itself perfectly to mod infusion in spades. I honestly do not know which workshop character i had the most fun with, it's so ridiculous. I played a multi-set chess piece in the background of lsd dream simulator while fighting someone's furry OC. And I also slam dunked skullgirls Annie of the Stars at the top of the No More Heroes Motel while playing Vergil-sitting-in-a-chair, sounds and all.
So like yeah, Rivals of Aether can still slap. Mods of Aether really. It turns it straight into fast food but like fuck it it can be a really good time like that vs. what I feel is an uncomfortably narrow-for-me base game. Give it a shot!
2021
We are all capable arbiters of our own destruction. In the face of trauma, loss, anxieties of the world we chase specters, seeking solace in vacuums where nothing can touch us. But the metaphorical monsters follow, twisted by our own attempts to forget and leaving them in fragments that we are forced to piece together again for any attempt to heal to succeed.
This destruction permeates, festering and swelling until it is our own purgatorial hell. Returnal is Silent Hill 2, it's also Housemarque's past properties, it's also Arrival. It's a weaving gripping story as much as it is a compounding stressful game to play. They're intertwined, for every artifact that saves us is the same one that shoots us down. To gain is to lose, and to lose is to gain. And in that mind-numbing dance we hope that eventually we'll find answers and ASCEND.
But we don't, we return. The choice to journey alone against the dark within is a futile one. We may eventually piece things back together yes, but an outside hand was needed at some point or else the result is the same, the crash repeats. Cyclically. You can help future versions, but those same notes will hurt you too. You are not perfect at envisioning how you will respond to yourself later as much as you can now.
But is that really true? Are we really incapable of breaking the cycle? Perhaps there is a way. Once we've come to terms with our traumas, pieced together things, maybe now the grieving can begin. And then trial after trial, we can come to accept our fractured home and our multitudes, trace them to where they began, and then move on.
There's more to it than I can effectively take away and regurgitate here. Our souls are simply denser than that. Selene's journey is complicated and painful, and crossing every cycle is punishing and difficult. You can choose to remain strong, but the twist is that there's no real destination for you here. This is her story to let go and you can ride it as long as you like.
---------------------------------------------------
I can wax prose like this, but there's simply no way I can do that and comprehensively talk about everything I love here. So this is now when we zoom out, lol. I hope you enjoyed that. As much as Returnal deserves something that considers it in all its interwoven nature, I would like to spend time on just how much it gets right.
Housemarque really just outdid themselves here, something I would've never expected were I following them before this game came out. The sense of scale to where this third person shooter roguelite seamlessly works with its narrative and ethereal elements is incredible!! I enjoyed every boss, each of them forced me to sit still for a moment and understand what I needed to work on and use as soon as possible. Biggest shout out to the fourth boss that really shat on me and said "dashes are not a spammable escape tool. They can be smokescreen to slaughter equally as much as assisting." In other words, sometimes it's better to just WALK. The bullet patterns match this, each of them require different ways of moving, jumping, traversing. The harder and optional minibosses near the end especially emphasize the limits of your toolset. At a lot of points there was a re-evaluation of what my main strategy to traversing the area is. This led to a lot of heart-pounding scrambly moments, and when the roguelite elements showed their ugly face on top of me that only beat me down further. You have to be prepared for the worst case scenario at all times, but you can't afford to stay strictly safe either if you want to grasp victory!!
Also god the aesthetic is so great, I love how Returnal is visually and it never compromises clarity. There are times in Resogun and Nex Machina where I couldn't 'really' see things and felt like I was hit cheaply. Of course it was likely my own fault, but the idea is that the clarity isn't exactly perfect as much as I'm having to adjust my vision for particulars. Returnal sidesteps that completely, just perfect layering. Really doesn't go stupid for the sake of next-gen, and as low a bar that is it gives me a smile! Music is incredible too, and if there's one issue I have it's that the official soundtrack doesn't have all of the music and that makes me angry >:(
I had such a good time here. Not a ps5-seller mind you, there'll never be justification for spending $500+ for one game and that in of itself stops me from shoving this game down people's throats. Fucked up. Even still, I can't stop thinking about this game. I had to finish it today and even still I don't feel like i'm done! I will be returning! If by any chance you can touch this experience please do, I implore you. And to a good rest of the year I pray as well!
This destruction permeates, festering and swelling until it is our own purgatorial hell. Returnal is Silent Hill 2, it's also Housemarque's past properties, it's also Arrival. It's a weaving gripping story as much as it is a compounding stressful game to play. They're intertwined, for every artifact that saves us is the same one that shoots us down. To gain is to lose, and to lose is to gain. And in that mind-numbing dance we hope that eventually we'll find answers and ASCEND.
But we don't, we return. The choice to journey alone against the dark within is a futile one. We may eventually piece things back together yes, but an outside hand was needed at some point or else the result is the same, the crash repeats. Cyclically. You can help future versions, but those same notes will hurt you too. You are not perfect at envisioning how you will respond to yourself later as much as you can now.
But is that really true? Are we really incapable of breaking the cycle? Perhaps there is a way. Once we've come to terms with our traumas, pieced together things, maybe now the grieving can begin. And then trial after trial, we can come to accept our fractured home and our multitudes, trace them to where they began, and then move on.
There's more to it than I can effectively take away and regurgitate here. Our souls are simply denser than that. Selene's journey is complicated and painful, and crossing every cycle is punishing and difficult. You can choose to remain strong, but the twist is that there's no real destination for you here. This is her story to let go and you can ride it as long as you like.
---------------------------------------------------
I can wax prose like this, but there's simply no way I can do that and comprehensively talk about everything I love here. So this is now when we zoom out, lol. I hope you enjoyed that. As much as Returnal deserves something that considers it in all its interwoven nature, I would like to spend time on just how much it gets right.
Housemarque really just outdid themselves here, something I would've never expected were I following them before this game came out. The sense of scale to where this third person shooter roguelite seamlessly works with its narrative and ethereal elements is incredible!! I enjoyed every boss, each of them forced me to sit still for a moment and understand what I needed to work on and use as soon as possible. Biggest shout out to the fourth boss that really shat on me and said "dashes are not a spammable escape tool. They can be smokescreen to slaughter equally as much as assisting." In other words, sometimes it's better to just WALK. The bullet patterns match this, each of them require different ways of moving, jumping, traversing. The harder and optional minibosses near the end especially emphasize the limits of your toolset. At a lot of points there was a re-evaluation of what my main strategy to traversing the area is. This led to a lot of heart-pounding scrambly moments, and when the roguelite elements showed their ugly face on top of me that only beat me down further. You have to be prepared for the worst case scenario at all times, but you can't afford to stay strictly safe either if you want to grasp victory!!
Also god the aesthetic is so great, I love how Returnal is visually and it never compromises clarity. There are times in Resogun and Nex Machina where I couldn't 'really' see things and felt like I was hit cheaply. Of course it was likely my own fault, but the idea is that the clarity isn't exactly perfect as much as I'm having to adjust my vision for particulars. Returnal sidesteps that completely, just perfect layering. Really doesn't go stupid for the sake of next-gen, and as low a bar that is it gives me a smile! Music is incredible too, and if there's one issue I have it's that the official soundtrack doesn't have all of the music and that makes me angry >:(
I had such a good time here. Not a ps5-seller mind you, there'll never be justification for spending $500+ for one game and that in of itself stops me from shoving this game down people's throats. Fucked up. Even still, I can't stop thinking about this game. I had to finish it today and even still I don't feel like i'm done! I will be returning! If by any chance you can touch this experience please do, I implore you. And to a good rest of the year I pray as well!
2017
Lot of things to love here, so much to really dig teeth into. I completed it on Rookie and Experienced, 1cc for the former for as little as that means. No intent on gunning for the secret final boss on the higher difficulty but it looks like it'd tear me down and laugh at me so I'm good.
The jump from Resogun to here is so graceful, honestly awe-struck at housemarque's ability to increase scale and add on additional mechanics and layers to juggle. Spoilers, this is absolutely true for Returnal too on a level that cements them as an all-timer if not my favorite devhouse to look up to, but that's talk for later.
I'm not really in approval of my feelings on Robotron 2084 but it bears repeating, because this game manages to meet its design goals and exceed them. Effortlessly too, it's unreal the level of clarity and meticulous enemy design that feels geared around whichever special item you pick up. My weapon of choice was the bomb though, if only because it's such a nice shmup defense equivalent (but much weaker of course). But it doesn't really matter which one you go for! Each has such oozing versatility and power without feeling busted, but strong enough where losing a life alongside it hurts HARD. Except the sword though, that one sucks. Feels practically useless against bosses.
I don't do score but I'm in love with how much the game encourages your multipliers. They really have fine tuned what buttons to press to get you in the rhythm. My entire focus shifted to saving humans similar to resogun and the mechanic itself has a lovely "hit that ground floor hard and stay alive" feeling to every individual level. Didn't save everyone but it doesn't matter, the rush from getting all humans saved for just an individual section is ecstatic. Music helps set the mood there too, and while the aesthetic doesn't exactly grab me it's a perfect background to the cyber slaughter.
Above all else there's a nonstop tension, riveting feelings washing over you as you pour through the fiery battlefields. Practically gleeful through the whole way that after finishing once I had to keep going until the machine within was satisfied. Welcome bliss, see you some years later house.
The jump from Resogun to here is so graceful, honestly awe-struck at housemarque's ability to increase scale and add on additional mechanics and layers to juggle. Spoilers, this is absolutely true for Returnal too on a level that cements them as an all-timer if not my favorite devhouse to look up to, but that's talk for later.
I'm not really in approval of my feelings on Robotron 2084 but it bears repeating, because this game manages to meet its design goals and exceed them. Effortlessly too, it's unreal the level of clarity and meticulous enemy design that feels geared around whichever special item you pick up. My weapon of choice was the bomb though, if only because it's such a nice shmup defense equivalent (but much weaker of course). But it doesn't really matter which one you go for! Each has such oozing versatility and power without feeling busted, but strong enough where losing a life alongside it hurts HARD. Except the sword though, that one sucks. Feels practically useless against bosses.
I don't do score but I'm in love with how much the game encourages your multipliers. They really have fine tuned what buttons to press to get you in the rhythm. My entire focus shifted to saving humans similar to resogun and the mechanic itself has a lovely "hit that ground floor hard and stay alive" feeling to every individual level. Didn't save everyone but it doesn't matter, the rush from getting all humans saved for just an individual section is ecstatic. Music helps set the mood there too, and while the aesthetic doesn't exactly grab me it's a perfect background to the cyber slaughter.
Above all else there's a nonstop tension, riveting feelings washing over you as you pour through the fiery battlefields. Practically gleeful through the whole way that after finishing once I had to keep going until the machine within was satisfied. Welcome bliss, see you some years later house.
2013
About halfway into Returnal I had to put everything away and take a quick look over the rest of the devhouse’s catalog. And it’s good that they don’t disappoint. Instead I’m more disappointed with me.
Simply put, it would appear after Black Bird and Resogun, the cylindrical/defense shmup is not for me. I couldn’t really meter out a lot of joy or satisfaction from the mechanics here which is surely a death sentence to a game that is begging you to play it over on greater challenges with different scales of weaponry.
But in lieu of a grand time, Resogun gives me so much to appreciate! I’m astonished with the powerful set of Intent housemarque brings to their work. The mechanics weave an intricate interwoven dance that never ceases. Enemy design and spawns are tightly built to keep you moving and stress your whole arsenal. There’s so many moments where the game is begging for you to do a mad Boost to save a human, or surround you with enough to force an overdrive. Your movement is so key and requires pinpoint direction, leaving none of the space unoccupied in your head. This can definitely lead to some dizzying play but I was grateful that the difficulty moved itself up piece by piece without getting too overwhelming. The bosses especially are all perfect, and the last level was a great ballbuster.
While I have no intention to come back due to my own limitations, I hope so much more people grab it if it seems like a right fit. It’s an extremely solid adrenaline rush as you save the humans through apocalyptic blocky space. It’s video games baby!
Simply put, it would appear after Black Bird and Resogun, the cylindrical/defense shmup is not for me. I couldn’t really meter out a lot of joy or satisfaction from the mechanics here which is surely a death sentence to a game that is begging you to play it over on greater challenges with different scales of weaponry.
But in lieu of a grand time, Resogun gives me so much to appreciate! I’m astonished with the powerful set of Intent housemarque brings to their work. The mechanics weave an intricate interwoven dance that never ceases. Enemy design and spawns are tightly built to keep you moving and stress your whole arsenal. There’s so many moments where the game is begging for you to do a mad Boost to save a human, or surround you with enough to force an overdrive. Your movement is so key and requires pinpoint direction, leaving none of the space unoccupied in your head. This can definitely lead to some dizzying play but I was grateful that the difficulty moved itself up piece by piece without getting too overwhelming. The bosses especially are all perfect, and the last level was a great ballbuster.
While I have no intention to come back due to my own limitations, I hope so much more people grab it if it seems like a right fit. It’s an extremely solid adrenaline rush as you save the humans through apocalyptic blocky space. It’s video games baby!
I have very little to say, unfortunately. I still quite enjoy Heavensward but it's definitely certain my overall enjoyment has diminished. I still find HW's immaculate theming with regards to debt and repayment engaging. I find how this extends to the worldbuilding everywhere just so. I understood about halfway that I would be repeating either my original write up or just other friends and people I look up to. You're far better off reading ghost_girl's for one.
That being said, it's not like I'm lacking in anything. Though I don't have the motivation to personally continue what I thrusted in my re-ARR writeup which was being "overly comprehensive", I can at least finish up talking about a few details.
For one, it's really sad how all three jobs added in Heavensward are really just not doing so well now. Machinist is only in competition for simplest job to play with Dark Knight, both of which have very little to them now other than 1-2-3, an oGCD after 40 seconds or so, and a burst phase. They're lacking in such an identity that's hard to come back to now, were it not for Dark Knight's job quest which I still find incredible I would consider it a lost cause. Astrologian is as well. I personally hate the new redraw, it irritates me. Even if I get used to it I can't say it's doing too hot. If I want its versatility of weaving I can now see Sage and Scholar for it. And it's less reliable at healing than White Mage. Maybe its dps could conceivably be balanced soon to be what you play it for as a healer but I just can't stand the gacha life it feels like now.
Secondly, I think the biggest miss of wind in Heavensward's sails as I come back to it is that it's missing the real personalized cast that would come to define FFXIV later. I still love the cutthroat nature of the party that stays with you, and the way each character ends, but it's clear not everyone here has as much presence. I love these characters for what they become, not for their dialogue and personality as they were. Especially in terms of the archbishop, who while I think is constructively a perfect villain for the plot, is something my mind just zones out through the words of now. You can really feel the breath of fresh air in terms of personalities building and clashing off each other in the post-patch when the scions reform. The comparison works enough, I think, even as unfair as it is.
Also, it was kind of a mistake to keep the sidequest game going. I know they improve soon but doing every sidequest in HW was simply a chore, somehow moreso than ARR. This mostly extends to them locking like two things behind extremely long sidequest line (Looking at you moogles holy shit) and while there's definitely a few still with charming worldbuilding ends I can't say they added much to my re-playthrough.
Oddly I ended up liking the ishgard restoration stuff most. It's a Shadowbringers addition but the fact you can see so much of Ishgard tie itself up post-3.3-story here and done decently well is heartwarming. Fuck them for saying that Estinien bathes though. Murder hobo who doesn't shower doesn't have the same joking tone to it when they forcefully establish he comes by to bathe. I'll never forgive them for this.
I still love the majority of the instances, although I've soured on the post-patch HW dungeon additions. They were clearly experimenting more there but god the tedium! Nice to do them and see where everything later comes from, I suppose. I kinda wish they relooked at Pharos Sirius. This is totally random because PS was in A Realm Reborn but the turbo-nerf still hurts me even being unable to experience it myself. I would've loved to see really Hard Dungeons, rather than the deep dungeon bullshit we're left with.
One last big negative, is it weird that most of the 50-60 questlines are like such a major step down? I'm not saying that most job questlines were really good in ARR but even Dark Knight kind of degrades. I think out of the lot I only really liked... Red Mage. Which is a really good job questline overall, but that counts as Stormblood content, technically. DRK 50-60 is fun and the ending is hilariously good but I still kinda hate like, most of it.
I'd kind of consider this a companion write-up btw. This is so overly negative because it's all like nitpicks and flaws I notice with excess revision. I still think Heavensward is a super great game that I cherish, even if it's a lot less than a year ago. Will I do a big write-up for Stormblood? Probably not, but I hope to have some more thoughts there.
I've kind of moved my writing pursuits to self storymaking and going more with the flow nowadays. I think it's significantly less likely that I'll be writing big reviews like this, and moving down to more bloggish stuff. I,, like to think I've gotten better at putting my words out but who can say.
That being said, it's not like I'm lacking in anything. Though I don't have the motivation to personally continue what I thrusted in my re-ARR writeup which was being "overly comprehensive", I can at least finish up talking about a few details.
For one, it's really sad how all three jobs added in Heavensward are really just not doing so well now. Machinist is only in competition for simplest job to play with Dark Knight, both of which have very little to them now other than 1-2-3, an oGCD after 40 seconds or so, and a burst phase. They're lacking in such an identity that's hard to come back to now, were it not for Dark Knight's job quest which I still find incredible I would consider it a lost cause. Astrologian is as well. I personally hate the new redraw, it irritates me. Even if I get used to it I can't say it's doing too hot. If I want its versatility of weaving I can now see Sage and Scholar for it. And it's less reliable at healing than White Mage. Maybe its dps could conceivably be balanced soon to be what you play it for as a healer but I just can't stand the gacha life it feels like now.
Secondly, I think the biggest miss of wind in Heavensward's sails as I come back to it is that it's missing the real personalized cast that would come to define FFXIV later. I still love the cutthroat nature of the party that stays with you, and the way each character ends, but it's clear not everyone here has as much presence. I love these characters for what they become, not for their dialogue and personality as they were. Especially in terms of the archbishop, who while I think is constructively a perfect villain for the plot, is something my mind just zones out through the words of now. You can really feel the breath of fresh air in terms of personalities building and clashing off each other in the post-patch when the scions reform. The comparison works enough, I think, even as unfair as it is.
Also, it was kind of a mistake to keep the sidequest game going. I know they improve soon but doing every sidequest in HW was simply a chore, somehow moreso than ARR. This mostly extends to them locking like two things behind extremely long sidequest line (Looking at you moogles holy shit) and while there's definitely a few still with charming worldbuilding ends I can't say they added much to my re-playthrough.
Oddly I ended up liking the ishgard restoration stuff most. It's a Shadowbringers addition but the fact you can see so much of Ishgard tie itself up post-3.3-story here and done decently well is heartwarming. Fuck them for saying that Estinien bathes though. Murder hobo who doesn't shower doesn't have the same joking tone to it when they forcefully establish he comes by to bathe. I'll never forgive them for this.
I still love the majority of the instances, although I've soured on the post-patch HW dungeon additions. They were clearly experimenting more there but god the tedium! Nice to do them and see where everything later comes from, I suppose. I kinda wish they relooked at Pharos Sirius. This is totally random because PS was in A Realm Reborn but the turbo-nerf still hurts me even being unable to experience it myself. I would've loved to see really Hard Dungeons, rather than the deep dungeon bullshit we're left with.
One last big negative, is it weird that most of the 50-60 questlines are like such a major step down? I'm not saying that most job questlines were really good in ARR but even Dark Knight kind of degrades. I think out of the lot I only really liked... Red Mage. Which is a really good job questline overall, but that counts as Stormblood content, technically. DRK 50-60 is fun and the ending is hilariously good but I still kinda hate like, most of it.
I'd kind of consider this a companion write-up btw. This is so overly negative because it's all like nitpicks and flaws I notice with excess revision. I still think Heavensward is a super great game that I cherish, even if it's a lot less than a year ago. Will I do a big write-up for Stormblood? Probably not, but I hope to have some more thoughts there.
I've kind of moved my writing pursuits to self storymaking and going more with the flow nowadays. I think it's significantly less likely that I'll be writing big reviews like this, and moving down to more bloggish stuff. I,, like to think I've gotten better at putting my words out but who can say.
The next year begins, the pressure inside the submarine is stable. Everything is normal. I have to hope it's normal. The last thing I need is for the machinery inside to break again and for the storm outside to flood in once more.
I get to live in a fashionable one. I've managed to live a very privileged life, working remotely just the same. I'm connected enough that while I miss the sky above I can talk to all I hold dear daily.
I'm sure there's more oil now than ever. I've done my part in cleaning up the space around the sub so nothing noxious comes inside. I still hold up hope that when we all rise again to greet the rafts of others there's clean water for miles and miles.
We have to hold out hope. Now more than ever. So we can all open the hatch and welcome each other together.
I get to live in a fashionable one. I've managed to live a very privileged life, working remotely just the same. I'm connected enough that while I miss the sky above I can talk to all I hold dear daily.
I'm sure there's more oil now than ever. I've done my part in cleaning up the space around the sub so nothing noxious comes inside. I still hold up hope that when we all rise again to greet the rafts of others there's clean water for miles and miles.
We have to hold out hope. Now more than ever. So we can all open the hatch and welcome each other together.
When I first mentioned I was going to go back through the entirety of FFXIV, now that it was functionally complete with the release of Endwalker, I was given looks of concern. This will be the fourth time I’ve played what amounts as A Realm Reborn, and just that inkling alone is really fair enough for people to give me worry. It’s really only off the honeymoon sentiments that I can just stare at the screen going “Yes I will gladly scrutinize myself to play the bullshit parts again for the sake of being comprehensive.”
That is to say, A Realm Reborn is not good. Awful for most of it even. This return trip, where I plan to overturn every rock to give the whole of Final Fantasy XIV its fair shake with the combined 1000+ hours of experience I have with it now, requires going through this patchwork prologue. To an extent this is relaxing to me now, I’m so attuned to FFXIV’s world that I can just pop a reshade on and get lost in doing countless fetch this and do this quests and feel a sense of affirmation. I also get to experiment trying to find a more affirmative body in the world by messing with my character design. This might sound like a superfluous intro, but really the best thing ARR can offer as it is is a world to get lost in.
The real prologue certainly tries to bring you in, although haphazardly. I have a strong preference to Gridania start over the other two as it’s the only consistent highlight of 2.0’s main quest. It really gets the rags to full adventurer right as you help out with menial but nice lovely worldbuilding quests, even if tree-hugging The Shire clone is the most it amounts to. It feels good though, and it helps that the area is decently pretty. I can no longer stand Limsa’s pirate speak prose which poisons that affair, and Ul’Dah’s intro can simply fuck off for all the good Scheming Monetarists amounts to.
The rest of the main quest pretty much follows suit. I’d scorch earth it, as for all the good it does at creating political spheres and cultures to understand and vibe with, it never really amounts to much bar a few scenes that the patch story content would add. Especially where I stand now, where fundamentally so much of the region’s story becomes inconsequential and at best only leads to a couple pathos moments. I actually had more fun sidequesting, even if that never quite becomes good it at least affirms neat political stuff like Ul’dah’s failure to become anything other than poor business startups across the desert. There’s a quaint scholarly feel to seeing how the corruption of capitalism does not really lead to any wealth, while a dead monster’s remains has wealth of its own. A sidequest story describes how a monster near Camp Drybone saved countless fauna and flowers across its back during the calamity that led to a beautiful conservation monument in its wake. It fits so snugly into the region, this contradiction to how the most wealthy inspirational parts have to do with acts of good in people and ‘monsters’ both rather than any business venture will do. The general puzzle pieces of FFXIV’s world remain this solid, but what I’ve described alone is a needle in the haystack.
It’s most telling that the biggest sigh of relief was when I finally got through the awful Praetorium once again, collected a bunch of optional quests, and felt free. FFXIV’s 2.0 is quite literally stifling, forcing you through all of its areas in painful uninteresting nonstop introductions. Even its strongest moments are retconned or swept away. You do everything in your power to try to prevent region threatening gods from being born, and only succeed at stopping one and said one is so temporary that a few patches later it gets summoned anyway.
I want to talk about probably the most contradictory portion, a part of the main questline I used to say was the best part. The Coerthas story follows ‘the lowest point for the main characters’ and has you getting partially involved in civil warfare between religious zealots and devout heretics. On the surface it’s just far more interesting than what’s come before, because there is such an intrigue in how easily corrupt the theocratic institutions are and what the heretics’ truth could be. However, it’s the most painful area by design. You get one aetheryte to teleport to, and plenty of the quest have you going back and forth across the desert snow area that feels less like Cold Hell and more like overbearing busywork. You have to climb all the way to the top of towers five plus times not even including sidequests just to talk to two people. Alongside the most inefficient use of time and the region, the sidequests themselves work against the narrative being foiled. The heretics you talk to are literally insane, sacrificing to a ‘blood god’ (What?) and painting them as such an unjust evil that I was aghast at the thought that Heavensward really completely overturns this. A Realm Reborn isn’t just patchwork, it's quite literally writing themselves into a hole that they had to gracefully jump straight out of and act like the hole didn’t exist or was not as deep as it looked.
I’ve done a lot of kicking in ARR’s face which frankly it doesn’t completely deserve. Past its failures I ended up somehow enjoying my time, although it’s clear that a lot of that is from retrospection. Not to bring up its disgusting dev crunch, I’d rather push towards what it Does get right. The job quests, for the most part, are all enjoyable times. Bar the Archer’s sickening vibe that amounts to “earn the racist’s respect and force a family that hates each other to continue being with each other”, the vast majority have very earnest and funny stories. I love the Thaumaturge’s cute family, and their themes of facing cowardice and becoming their own mages. I adored the Pugilist story which is just a lighthearted boxer story. I especially gushed over the conjurer story which thankfully side-steps Gridania’s endemic issues in favor of giving a great narrative about listening. You watch a girl come to terms with her buried family and her own mortality as she is forced to understand what it means to have perspective, listening to the world to find beauty in it, while coming to terms with the loss that prevented it.
The patch story is also still a setup and takes a strong amount of the time. I found myself more bored on this playthrough, but I remember how happy I was when ARR was finally taking its characters with, well, character. It weaved threads, set up downfalls and arcs while beginning to critique the structure and ground it. There was finally an intelligence to how characters act and react, instead of say, pre-praetorium’s entire Mor Dhona arc where you simply walk into high-tech Fascist Mordor and everything just works. I’d still say it only really gets good from Hearts of Ice-onward, where things finally start coming together instead of going in such a roundabout fashion. But moments like facing the keeper of the lake hit me as much as the final glass that clinks on the floor with The Fall. Just excellent stuff that really lets the kickoff to Heavensward settle in.
Not to mention, it actually starts being rather fun to play around that time too. I still find it difficult to criticize the early leveling that much, but it’s certainly not fun to ever replay any of those sections. Working with an incomplete rotation where you pretty much hit one to three buttons at best for 10-20 hours is just not interesting, even if the idea is to engrain all of the moves in your head. I’m all for the tutorial making sure that even the people who skip Hall of the Novice have leeway to not ruin the whole party, especially since a lot are playing to care about the story alone. But that doesn’t change that the vast majority of the dungeons need considerable reworking, just so I don’t feel like I’m slowly going insane. They are by design this way since ARR was an experimental phase, but again, we can do better now. FFXIV is certainly not above redoing sections, and I mean, Yoshi-P announced he was going to fix the Cape Westwind trial of all things.
Still, it does get significantly better in the patch content, and ARR’s gameplay still brought me a few of my favorite moments! Coil of Bahamut is laughably poor for most of it, but Turn 9 is such a beautiful dance of mechanics that simply hasn’t been replicated yet. Titan Extreme too, which was my first hardcore content in general, is such an adrenaline rush and showcases exactly what makes FFXIV combat special. Not only having to fulfill your role to react to a profuse amount of mechanics at once, not only weaving your abilities appropriately, but being able to match how your team moves and filling in for their mistakes. 90% of the time, your party is not going to move efficiently and cover everything. But even as a single person, you have the ability to make up for that in most hard instances.
Even on Normal they’re all fun presentation wise, and while gear buffs and changed mechanics have rendered much of these instances at launch painlessly easy, I still enjoy them a great deal. Whenever I get Shiva or even King Moggle Mog I just smile, partly because the music for both is a perfect fit, but also just getting to be a bit attentive and optimize my attacks. Even in the most tedious moments of questing, the general gameplay is strong enough to make me grin when an instance unlocks as a result.
The patch content also does such a workload to fill in for much of ARR’s travesties. Besides the raid and extreme trials it also adds Hildibrand, simply one of the best comedic questlines that calls back to Garry’s mod era in a wonderful way. It's consistently good and lighthearted, where having it on the side while I continued the main quest was a lovely feeling. Also I love the Gold Saucer, and while I suck at mahjong, fucking around with triple triad this time around was weirdly satisfying. Can’t say I spent much time chocobo racing or doing much of the parkour though, that’s not really my thing but I did give it a shot and I moderately understand the appeal. The fashion show deserves so much praise just for simply forcing me to try glamour because I keep pushing that off to “endgame.” The RTS mode isn’t anything I’d put much time into but I love that it’s a thing simply for giving you an excuse to collect minions. The optional dungeons as well as the quests around them are quite neat and cute too, of various quality but still particularly memorable.
Certainly, not everything it adds is a hit. The moogle delivery quests are such a tedious apology, putting character backstories into nameless NPCs that barely had any before. That entire storyline should just be skipped completely. The beast tribe quests all culminate in the same too-serious points with only the Ixal crafting one being something I even moderately enjoyed. The PVP… exists. I don’t simply mean the deathball spiral carteneau stuff which just sucks on the face of it, but the 4v4 stuff too at best gives good looking gear. At worst it feeds into a nasty side of the community that didn’t really need to exist and is just a boring timewaster. Not to say that every player vs player multiplayer needs to have the depth of Destiny 2 crucible or WoW’s utility maximizing tactics, but I’d rather this just be excised at all if it’s not going to amount to much. Even as it is now with expansions later, it’s at best an experience grind.
There’s probably more I could cover that escapes me even after all the notes I wrote down, but I think I’ve added enough to this monstrosity anyway. This will serve as a first part that I hope to tie together as a big review on FFXIV as a whole. I know this in of itself isn’t really ascribing much meaning or giving a thoughtful look at the game. As much as I want to have particularly powerful things to say I’ve decided to myself that this is my current project for who knows how long, and for some bizarre reason beyond mortal understanding I enjoy it. I hope this perspective has at least been interesting to read through.
Oh if you wanted a conclusion, basically ARR sucks lol. No, it's still so hard for me to recommend getting into FFXIV this way. If you seriously want my recommendation and just find A Realm Reborn sooooo unbearing, just buy a Heavensward skip and then go to the waking sands to unlock New Game+. All you really need is the patch content main quest for context, I cannot stress enough how completely trivial and inconsequential the 2.0 story is.
As for job stuff in terms of how they play, I’m saving that for Endwalker. I really can’t find talking about all of the job’s leveling process interesting.
That is to say, A Realm Reborn is not good. Awful for most of it even. This return trip, where I plan to overturn every rock to give the whole of Final Fantasy XIV its fair shake with the combined 1000+ hours of experience I have with it now, requires going through this patchwork prologue. To an extent this is relaxing to me now, I’m so attuned to FFXIV’s world that I can just pop a reshade on and get lost in doing countless fetch this and do this quests and feel a sense of affirmation. I also get to experiment trying to find a more affirmative body in the world by messing with my character design. This might sound like a superfluous intro, but really the best thing ARR can offer as it is is a world to get lost in.
The real prologue certainly tries to bring you in, although haphazardly. I have a strong preference to Gridania start over the other two as it’s the only consistent highlight of 2.0’s main quest. It really gets the rags to full adventurer right as you help out with menial but nice lovely worldbuilding quests, even if tree-hugging The Shire clone is the most it amounts to. It feels good though, and it helps that the area is decently pretty. I can no longer stand Limsa’s pirate speak prose which poisons that affair, and Ul’Dah’s intro can simply fuck off for all the good Scheming Monetarists amounts to.
The rest of the main quest pretty much follows suit. I’d scorch earth it, as for all the good it does at creating political spheres and cultures to understand and vibe with, it never really amounts to much bar a few scenes that the patch story content would add. Especially where I stand now, where fundamentally so much of the region’s story becomes inconsequential and at best only leads to a couple pathos moments. I actually had more fun sidequesting, even if that never quite becomes good it at least affirms neat political stuff like Ul’dah’s failure to become anything other than poor business startups across the desert. There’s a quaint scholarly feel to seeing how the corruption of capitalism does not really lead to any wealth, while a dead monster’s remains has wealth of its own. A sidequest story describes how a monster near Camp Drybone saved countless fauna and flowers across its back during the calamity that led to a beautiful conservation monument in its wake. It fits so snugly into the region, this contradiction to how the most wealthy inspirational parts have to do with acts of good in people and ‘monsters’ both rather than any business venture will do. The general puzzle pieces of FFXIV’s world remain this solid, but what I’ve described alone is a needle in the haystack.
It’s most telling that the biggest sigh of relief was when I finally got through the awful Praetorium once again, collected a bunch of optional quests, and felt free. FFXIV’s 2.0 is quite literally stifling, forcing you through all of its areas in painful uninteresting nonstop introductions. Even its strongest moments are retconned or swept away. You do everything in your power to try to prevent region threatening gods from being born, and only succeed at stopping one and said one is so temporary that a few patches later it gets summoned anyway.
I want to talk about probably the most contradictory portion, a part of the main questline I used to say was the best part. The Coerthas story follows ‘the lowest point for the main characters’ and has you getting partially involved in civil warfare between religious zealots and devout heretics. On the surface it’s just far more interesting than what’s come before, because there is such an intrigue in how easily corrupt the theocratic institutions are and what the heretics’ truth could be. However, it’s the most painful area by design. You get one aetheryte to teleport to, and plenty of the quest have you going back and forth across the desert snow area that feels less like Cold Hell and more like overbearing busywork. You have to climb all the way to the top of towers five plus times not even including sidequests just to talk to two people. Alongside the most inefficient use of time and the region, the sidequests themselves work against the narrative being foiled. The heretics you talk to are literally insane, sacrificing to a ‘blood god’ (What?) and painting them as such an unjust evil that I was aghast at the thought that Heavensward really completely overturns this. A Realm Reborn isn’t just patchwork, it's quite literally writing themselves into a hole that they had to gracefully jump straight out of and act like the hole didn’t exist or was not as deep as it looked.
I’ve done a lot of kicking in ARR’s face which frankly it doesn’t completely deserve. Past its failures I ended up somehow enjoying my time, although it’s clear that a lot of that is from retrospection. Not to bring up its disgusting dev crunch, I’d rather push towards what it Does get right. The job quests, for the most part, are all enjoyable times. Bar the Archer’s sickening vibe that amounts to “earn the racist’s respect and force a family that hates each other to continue being with each other”, the vast majority have very earnest and funny stories. I love the Thaumaturge’s cute family, and their themes of facing cowardice and becoming their own mages. I adored the Pugilist story which is just a lighthearted boxer story. I especially gushed over the conjurer story which thankfully side-steps Gridania’s endemic issues in favor of giving a great narrative about listening. You watch a girl come to terms with her buried family and her own mortality as she is forced to understand what it means to have perspective, listening to the world to find beauty in it, while coming to terms with the loss that prevented it.
The patch story is also still a setup and takes a strong amount of the time. I found myself more bored on this playthrough, but I remember how happy I was when ARR was finally taking its characters with, well, character. It weaved threads, set up downfalls and arcs while beginning to critique the structure and ground it. There was finally an intelligence to how characters act and react, instead of say, pre-praetorium’s entire Mor Dhona arc where you simply walk into high-tech Fascist Mordor and everything just works. I’d still say it only really gets good from Hearts of Ice-onward, where things finally start coming together instead of going in such a roundabout fashion. But moments like facing the keeper of the lake hit me as much as the final glass that clinks on the floor with The Fall. Just excellent stuff that really lets the kickoff to Heavensward settle in.
Not to mention, it actually starts being rather fun to play around that time too. I still find it difficult to criticize the early leveling that much, but it’s certainly not fun to ever replay any of those sections. Working with an incomplete rotation where you pretty much hit one to three buttons at best for 10-20 hours is just not interesting, even if the idea is to engrain all of the moves in your head. I’m all for the tutorial making sure that even the people who skip Hall of the Novice have leeway to not ruin the whole party, especially since a lot are playing to care about the story alone. But that doesn’t change that the vast majority of the dungeons need considerable reworking, just so I don’t feel like I’m slowly going insane. They are by design this way since ARR was an experimental phase, but again, we can do better now. FFXIV is certainly not above redoing sections, and I mean, Yoshi-P announced he was going to fix the Cape Westwind trial of all things.
Still, it does get significantly better in the patch content, and ARR’s gameplay still brought me a few of my favorite moments! Coil of Bahamut is laughably poor for most of it, but Turn 9 is such a beautiful dance of mechanics that simply hasn’t been replicated yet. Titan Extreme too, which was my first hardcore content in general, is such an adrenaline rush and showcases exactly what makes FFXIV combat special. Not only having to fulfill your role to react to a profuse amount of mechanics at once, not only weaving your abilities appropriately, but being able to match how your team moves and filling in for their mistakes. 90% of the time, your party is not going to move efficiently and cover everything. But even as a single person, you have the ability to make up for that in most hard instances.
Even on Normal they’re all fun presentation wise, and while gear buffs and changed mechanics have rendered much of these instances at launch painlessly easy, I still enjoy them a great deal. Whenever I get Shiva or even King Moggle Mog I just smile, partly because the music for both is a perfect fit, but also just getting to be a bit attentive and optimize my attacks. Even in the most tedious moments of questing, the general gameplay is strong enough to make me grin when an instance unlocks as a result.
The patch content also does such a workload to fill in for much of ARR’s travesties. Besides the raid and extreme trials it also adds Hildibrand, simply one of the best comedic questlines that calls back to Garry’s mod era in a wonderful way. It's consistently good and lighthearted, where having it on the side while I continued the main quest was a lovely feeling. Also I love the Gold Saucer, and while I suck at mahjong, fucking around with triple triad this time around was weirdly satisfying. Can’t say I spent much time chocobo racing or doing much of the parkour though, that’s not really my thing but I did give it a shot and I moderately understand the appeal. The fashion show deserves so much praise just for simply forcing me to try glamour because I keep pushing that off to “endgame.” The RTS mode isn’t anything I’d put much time into but I love that it’s a thing simply for giving you an excuse to collect minions. The optional dungeons as well as the quests around them are quite neat and cute too, of various quality but still particularly memorable.
Certainly, not everything it adds is a hit. The moogle delivery quests are such a tedious apology, putting character backstories into nameless NPCs that barely had any before. That entire storyline should just be skipped completely. The beast tribe quests all culminate in the same too-serious points with only the Ixal crafting one being something I even moderately enjoyed. The PVP… exists. I don’t simply mean the deathball spiral carteneau stuff which just sucks on the face of it, but the 4v4 stuff too at best gives good looking gear. At worst it feeds into a nasty side of the community that didn’t really need to exist and is just a boring timewaster. Not to say that every player vs player multiplayer needs to have the depth of Destiny 2 crucible or WoW’s utility maximizing tactics, but I’d rather this just be excised at all if it’s not going to amount to much. Even as it is now with expansions later, it’s at best an experience grind.
There’s probably more I could cover that escapes me even after all the notes I wrote down, but I think I’ve added enough to this monstrosity anyway. This will serve as a first part that I hope to tie together as a big review on FFXIV as a whole. I know this in of itself isn’t really ascribing much meaning or giving a thoughtful look at the game. As much as I want to have particularly powerful things to say I’ve decided to myself that this is my current project for who knows how long, and for some bizarre reason beyond mortal understanding I enjoy it. I hope this perspective has at least been interesting to read through.
Oh if you wanted a conclusion, basically ARR sucks lol. No, it's still so hard for me to recommend getting into FFXIV this way. If you seriously want my recommendation and just find A Realm Reborn sooooo unbearing, just buy a Heavensward skip and then go to the waking sands to unlock New Game+. All you really need is the patch content main quest for context, I cannot stress enough how completely trivial and inconsequential the 2.0 story is.
As for job stuff in terms of how they play, I’m saving that for Endwalker. I really can’t find talking about all of the job’s leveling process interesting.
2020
One of the most heartwarming introductions to experience that I can think of, packed to the brim with a love and passion for this entire ridiculous art sphere. Smiles from onset to sunset, and couldn't put it down until I had seen every bit of sony's paraphernalia and explored the entire marketing scape. Really the only hard pill to swallow is simply how with every single gutteral squeal I had to seeing stuff like Patapon and Jumping Flash!, I couldn't help but think about how most of the studio who delivered this to every child and introductory player to the PS5 was laid off and sent elsewhere. It never quite feels like a final hurrah, but entirely an excitement for what's to come. This really gives it a sort of invisible sorrow in the backdrop to wrestle with if it's at or near the forefront of your attention.
I do owe myself to go back, down the path of history it set out and celebrate/check out Japan Studio and Asobi's catalog. To an extent maybe this can be the idea coming forward, even if you don't recognize a lot of the references you see here it's very clear how charming and suffused with appreciation they are. Maybe that'll set more people on that path. One can hope!
I do owe myself to go back, down the path of history it set out and celebrate/check out Japan Studio and Asobi's catalog. To an extent maybe this can be the idea coming forward, even if you don't recognize a lot of the references you see here it's very clear how charming and suffused with appreciation they are. Maybe that'll set more people on that path. One can hope!
2021
I was just smiling ear to ear the whole time playing this. I'm so bad at Pac-Man and here comes a game that's taking great influence from pac-man to make a much easier to get into (thanks to the score-life system) and different beast that is much more tangible but just as interesting as the good ol' Namco game! Props to the creator still having that great different enemy behavior and especially with levels that provide different quick-thinking routing with their own mechanics without ever getting stale. Absolutely in love with the game's simple charm too, just so refreshing to see. Please do pick this up and give it some love it has all the heart in the world and such wonderful sensibilities to the genre ^w^
Never particularly been a fan of the 'tactical' cover shooter systems old games like this use. Focusing on crouching down behind cover to keep your weapon's hilarious gamble of a spread tight, moving slowly to get accurate shots on enemies that don't have remotely decent pathing to feel satisfying. Weapons do each have their own system of accuracy that keeps them viable but things don't really feel good to do unless you're mowing enemies down in bursts (provided the spread is kind to you).
Level design utilizes some of its strengths to make dickish ambushes on you and I was moderately impressed with how much it stayed true to its aesthetic. Highlights including crypt traps and closing the doors on you, and bonus points for slowly opening doors that keep you stuck in the encounter.
All that being said, wasn't particularly engaged and I probably wouldn't have even touched this game were it not for the game club that chose this for the month. Certainly could do with worse!
Don't really have a good chance to try the multiplayer but I've heard good things there. Can't say I'm interested but there's plenty there.
Level design utilizes some of its strengths to make dickish ambushes on you and I was moderately impressed with how much it stayed true to its aesthetic. Highlights including crypt traps and closing the doors on you, and bonus points for slowly opening doors that keep you stuck in the encounter.
All that being said, wasn't particularly engaged and I probably wouldn't have even touched this game were it not for the game club that chose this for the month. Certainly could do with worse!
Don't really have a good chance to try the multiplayer but I've heard good things there. Can't say I'm interested but there's plenty there.
2021
JETT: The Far Shore is afraid of having confidence in its vision. This was a voice playing in the back of my head when I started playing and finished the intro and the first chapter. I hoped it would grow quieter, and that the experience would over time, begin to trust you as part of its world. I rationalized at first that the continuous co-pilot chatter was to inspire and drive home that sense of communion. You are after all, not alone, and one of several pilots all working together to make sure that these new, earnest steps actually make it to a new world intact. In some ways that's still true, visions and pictures, all of the 'acts' you will take serve the colony and make true on the directives of your group religion.
However, the most damning part of JETT is that it cannot and will not trust you. Picture if you will, this example: in one instance, you need to protect a fellow crewmember's ship from enemies that are about to come across. You need to intercept them and then disable or draw them away. The game will pause, for every, single, enemy that shows up. The game will then pause, and show you a way to stop them, and then another way. After about a minute each. It'll even do this when you're already acting, after you've already disabled them, coming in complete violation of what's happening on screen. This isn't in an early chapter mind, this is the penultimate one, very far and near the end of the journey. They've already taught you to disable these enemies before, in the same ways they even present to you now. They've already step-by-step detailed how to intercept chapters before. In the end, they must be damn sure that you know exactly what you should be doing.
I felt a deep pain in my heart when not long after this I came to one of them on the mother ship and they told me how brave and self-directed I was, how strong a scout and example I made for the colony. All while in that same breath I could just remember the people who might as well have been talking to me as a dog following orders. I felt a dissociative pushback when at a couple moments, there would be quiet time. A time to just explore, and even there I could not get minutes of solace, because the objective would update or the co-pilot would chatter about what I'm already seeing.
To me that's extremely disappointing, almost hurtful especially when the story really stresses at points that there'll be a time to Adapt that will bring your group to its knees, and you must help them. Was I really? Was I really a part of this journey? Was I my own person at any point? I do not feel like a walker on these shores, I am no explorer discovering the planet, I am no voice within the cacophony of radio, I am no identity in these cosmic waters. I am merely the glorified observer, brought out of my role when the priest has deemed me minutes to act on something more, wishing that we were truly something more.
However, the most damning part of JETT is that it cannot and will not trust you. Picture if you will, this example: in one instance, you need to protect a fellow crewmember's ship from enemies that are about to come across. You need to intercept them and then disable or draw them away. The game will pause, for every, single, enemy that shows up. The game will then pause, and show you a way to stop them, and then another way. After about a minute each. It'll even do this when you're already acting, after you've already disabled them, coming in complete violation of what's happening on screen. This isn't in an early chapter mind, this is the penultimate one, very far and near the end of the journey. They've already taught you to disable these enemies before, in the same ways they even present to you now. They've already step-by-step detailed how to intercept chapters before. In the end, they must be damn sure that you know exactly what you should be doing.
I felt a deep pain in my heart when not long after this I came to one of them on the mother ship and they told me how brave and self-directed I was, how strong a scout and example I made for the colony. All while in that same breath I could just remember the people who might as well have been talking to me as a dog following orders. I felt a dissociative pushback when at a couple moments, there would be quiet time. A time to just explore, and even there I could not get minutes of solace, because the objective would update or the co-pilot would chatter about what I'm already seeing.
To me that's extremely disappointing, almost hurtful especially when the story really stresses at points that there'll be a time to Adapt that will bring your group to its knees, and you must help them. Was I really? Was I really a part of this journey? Was I my own person at any point? I do not feel like a walker on these shores, I am no explorer discovering the planet, I am no voice within the cacophony of radio, I am no identity in these cosmic waters. I am merely the glorified observer, brought out of my role when the priest has deemed me minutes to act on something more, wishing that we were truly something more.
2015
I had an anxiety attack for 5 minutes after reading something past an hour and a half down what i imagine is a multi-route story idk.
There's too much to it that's disturbingly close, I was reminded of the relationships I've personally left behind and the estrangement and my own mental well being. The poisonous toxic nature of the clear asshole in the group revealing all of the pent up frustrations and completely strung relationships, their inability to really let their feelings known to each other due to the way their lives has moved coming to an emotional head that I imagine, is going to whittle down on all of the barriers I have left that keeps me coolheaded.
This is not a condemning of the novel, but it needs to be understood that the content warning on the itch.io page does not lie. Or at least, it certainly wasn't lying to me. These people all have living fractures and the text is glass, whether or not you have good feet for it doesn't matter.
I do hope to return to it when I'm of better self control. Who knows I may end up reading it again soon in almost perfunctory self-flagellation either from stubbornness or in the hopes that there is a light at the end of that that brings peace to those anxieties for me.
There's too much to it that's disturbingly close, I was reminded of the relationships I've personally left behind and the estrangement and my own mental well being. The poisonous toxic nature of the clear asshole in the group revealing all of the pent up frustrations and completely strung relationships, their inability to really let their feelings known to each other due to the way their lives has moved coming to an emotional head that I imagine, is going to whittle down on all of the barriers I have left that keeps me coolheaded.
This is not a condemning of the novel, but it needs to be understood that the content warning on the itch.io page does not lie. Or at least, it certainly wasn't lying to me. These people all have living fractures and the text is glass, whether or not you have good feet for it doesn't matter.
I do hope to return to it when I'm of better self control. Who knows I may end up reading it again soon in almost perfunctory self-flagellation either from stubbornness or in the hopes that there is a light at the end of that that brings peace to those anxieties for me.
2014
Was going to go for 100% completion but this one stage has been giving me its hands for over an hour and I was just sitting at the screen going "am I enjoying this challenge or should I just stop playing?"
Anyway other than that quandary I solved, Cloudbuilt is a deceptively competent 3D platformer. Deceptively, in that its initial difficulty gives you such a ridiculous sandbox to exploit to where the base mechanics aren't being tested but by the time you're jumping between challenge maps you're losing your MIND. This is not even mentioning the outright ridiculous amount of tech, of which I can pull off barely a third of. There's so much and it's so crazy to wrap your head around that when I say "barely a third of" I mean "I pulled off the technique but oh hey i'm falling to my death."
The aesthetic and music is also rather nice, although you're better off probably skipping the whole story. It has a cute late 00s edge to it but it doesn't go anywhere that's really worth considering. It's a complete gameplay master work and if you want to throw your head at comprehending all this movement and playing by the skin of your teeth on these scattered cloudscape structures then I absolutely recommend this.
Anyway other than that quandary I solved, Cloudbuilt is a deceptively competent 3D platformer. Deceptively, in that its initial difficulty gives you such a ridiculous sandbox to exploit to where the base mechanics aren't being tested but by the time you're jumping between challenge maps you're losing your MIND. This is not even mentioning the outright ridiculous amount of tech, of which I can pull off barely a third of. There's so much and it's so crazy to wrap your head around that when I say "barely a third of" I mean "I pulled off the technique but oh hey i'm falling to my death."
The aesthetic and music is also rather nice, although you're better off probably skipping the whole story. It has a cute late 00s edge to it but it doesn't go anywhere that's really worth considering. It's a complete gameplay master work and if you want to throw your head at comprehending all this movement and playing by the skin of your teeth on these scattered cloudscape structures then I absolutely recommend this.
2016
All press is good press as they say, right?
I think the most entertainment you can get out of this one is the lparchive that keeps devolving into a more tired mentality, slowly losing sanity to the game's discombobulate mess that grasps at nostalgic straws. The game released in a very hacked together way, but the changes and patches didn't really reveal a charming core, instead something that feels almost insecure. It's dark in a 00s fanfiction edgy way, but not quite carrying that energy into some real heart or message. It's genuinely hollow, and even the worst pokemon game has a more earnest understanding of life, people, and childhood sentiments than this shit. Radioactive my ass this isotope is as inert as they come.
I think the most entertainment you can get out of this one is the lparchive that keeps devolving into a more tired mentality, slowly losing sanity to the game's discombobulate mess that grasps at nostalgic straws. The game released in a very hacked together way, but the changes and patches didn't really reveal a charming core, instead something that feels almost insecure. It's dark in a 00s fanfiction edgy way, but not quite carrying that energy into some real heart or message. It's genuinely hollow, and even the worst pokemon game has a more earnest understanding of life, people, and childhood sentiments than this shit. Radioactive my ass this isotope is as inert as they come.
1997
Pure Joy