crimson2877
2022
Beaten: Mar 28 2022
Time: 5.3 Hours
Platform: Mac
Well, this is the second game I can remember that got me to tear up. The other one was Mother 3, which managed to catch me off guard at the very end of the game with a warm embrace, a shoulder to cry on who’s existence was what got me to open up those ol tearducts that don’t see as much use as they probably should. Norco hits different, but also the same. At least as far as the crying came about. There was a small moment partway through that gave me those same emotions, an optional small warm cozy patch to stick for a while, get your bearings, and brace for your return to the dour world on display, and that got me primed I think. But it was a scene closer to the end that really got me, and while I didn’t cry as hard as Mother 3, it was enough.
But uh anyways, it’s also a game! Not just a crying simulator! As a game, and a piece of southern-gothic-cyberpunk media, it’s very fucking cool!!! So it’s a pixely point and click adventure game set in Norco (wow, who woulda thought), which is a real place in Louisiana, known for being the home of a Shell petroleum refinery according to Wikipedia. Now, I knew Norco was real, but I just learned about the Shell refinery thing as I was looking it up to write that sentence, and wow that makes the politics of the game hit way harder.
See, it’s not just set in our real world Norco, it’s a cyberpunk reflection of it. It eschews the standard neon billboards and “wow, this city looks just like tokyo but it’s in LA? and it’s raining all the time?” (I love blade runner don’t @ me) cyberpunkisms, for a much more unique setting, a combination of cyberpunk tech-stylings with eroded swamps, run-down small town vibes, and refinery smokestacks spewing towers of flame into the night sky as their owner (Shield, haha) expands it’s operations and pushes people out of their homes. It’s cyberpunk, but just barely. It feels like very much it’s own thing, fresh in ways not much from that style of media has been in years.
The politics of the large corporation vs the small town aren’t the textual focus of the story though. Instead, you play a character who’s returning to the town after years away, exploring the changes that’ve gone down since you’ve left, and trying to find your brother. The narrative spins out much MUCH more from there, but that’s the basis, and might be my favorite part of the game.
Norco’s small, subtle moments are my favorites. Descriptions flare vividly like anything out of your favorite book, while the evening sky in the background adds a sense of romanticism to the downer vibes. A point of comparison would be Kentucky Route Zero, as far as weird narrative-first point-and-clicks go, but there’s a different intent here. KRZ was interested primarily in letting you stew in its winding passages and dark caves, providing ample detours (some mandatory) to ensure you understood that moving forward was not the point. While Norco’s writing has a similar quality to KRZ, the pacing is more in line with traditional point-and-clicks, speedy from scene to scene and only slowing down when you want it to. While I don’t personally think either style is better, Norco’s approach feels much more accessible.
Similarly accessible is the puzzles. In classics of the genre, things like Beneath a Steel Sky and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, I’m often in love with every aspect of the game besides progression. There’s an esotericism to those old puzzles, a real arcane complexity that’s generally pretty cool on paper, but becomes tedium upon tedium for me when I try to solve them. Norco keeps the feeling of complexity and arcane solutions juuuust enough, while also not forcing you to make any enormous leaps of logic like the classics used to. In place, there’s a good amount of more elaborate and more obviously “puzzly” minigame-based puzzles, where you’ll be controlling a boat, or performing Paper Mario-esque RPG attacks. These moments are just in there enough to bring the pacing and energy up or down when needed, and not for a second more.
My only thing is I wish the game was longer. I wish it let me stretch out a little bit more, that it took a bit more time reaching climaxes. But I feel like that’s a good problem to have, leaving me wanting more. It didn’t feel insubstantial or anything, I just want to exist here for a bit longer, to let things build a bit more.
Regardless, fantastic game here. Big ol Please Giv it a Shot
Time: 5.3 Hours
Platform: Mac
Well, this is the second game I can remember that got me to tear up. The other one was Mother 3, which managed to catch me off guard at the very end of the game with a warm embrace, a shoulder to cry on who’s existence was what got me to open up those ol tearducts that don’t see as much use as they probably should. Norco hits different, but also the same. At least as far as the crying came about. There was a small moment partway through that gave me those same emotions, an optional small warm cozy patch to stick for a while, get your bearings, and brace for your return to the dour world on display, and that got me primed I think. But it was a scene closer to the end that really got me, and while I didn’t cry as hard as Mother 3, it was enough.
But uh anyways, it’s also a game! Not just a crying simulator! As a game, and a piece of southern-gothic-cyberpunk media, it’s very fucking cool!!! So it’s a pixely point and click adventure game set in Norco (wow, who woulda thought), which is a real place in Louisiana, known for being the home of a Shell petroleum refinery according to Wikipedia. Now, I knew Norco was real, but I just learned about the Shell refinery thing as I was looking it up to write that sentence, and wow that makes the politics of the game hit way harder.
See, it’s not just set in our real world Norco, it’s a cyberpunk reflection of it. It eschews the standard neon billboards and “wow, this city looks just like tokyo but it’s in LA? and it’s raining all the time?” (I love blade runner don’t @ me) cyberpunkisms, for a much more unique setting, a combination of cyberpunk tech-stylings with eroded swamps, run-down small town vibes, and refinery smokestacks spewing towers of flame into the night sky as their owner (Shield, haha) expands it’s operations and pushes people out of their homes. It’s cyberpunk, but just barely. It feels like very much it’s own thing, fresh in ways not much from that style of media has been in years.
The politics of the large corporation vs the small town aren’t the textual focus of the story though. Instead, you play a character who’s returning to the town after years away, exploring the changes that’ve gone down since you’ve left, and trying to find your brother. The narrative spins out much MUCH more from there, but that’s the basis, and might be my favorite part of the game.
Norco’s small, subtle moments are my favorites. Descriptions flare vividly like anything out of your favorite book, while the evening sky in the background adds a sense of romanticism to the downer vibes. A point of comparison would be Kentucky Route Zero, as far as weird narrative-first point-and-clicks go, but there’s a different intent here. KRZ was interested primarily in letting you stew in its winding passages and dark caves, providing ample detours (some mandatory) to ensure you understood that moving forward was not the point. While Norco’s writing has a similar quality to KRZ, the pacing is more in line with traditional point-and-clicks, speedy from scene to scene and only slowing down when you want it to. While I don’t personally think either style is better, Norco’s approach feels much more accessible.
Similarly accessible is the puzzles. In classics of the genre, things like Beneath a Steel Sky and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, I’m often in love with every aspect of the game besides progression. There’s an esotericism to those old puzzles, a real arcane complexity that’s generally pretty cool on paper, but becomes tedium upon tedium for me when I try to solve them. Norco keeps the feeling of complexity and arcane solutions juuuust enough, while also not forcing you to make any enormous leaps of logic like the classics used to. In place, there’s a good amount of more elaborate and more obviously “puzzly” minigame-based puzzles, where you’ll be controlling a boat, or performing Paper Mario-esque RPG attacks. These moments are just in there enough to bring the pacing and energy up or down when needed, and not for a second more.
My only thing is I wish the game was longer. I wish it let me stretch out a little bit more, that it took a bit more time reaching climaxes. But I feel like that’s a good problem to have, leaving me wanting more. It didn’t feel insubstantial or anything, I just want to exist here for a bit longer, to let things build a bit more.
Regardless, fantastic game here. Big ol Please Giv it a Shot
Completed: July 18 2021
Time to beat: 24 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Yeah I mean somehow I think it's held up better than I even remembered. There's been a lot of discussion about this game over the last twenty years, and most of the common criticisms are pretty well known among fans. Taris goes on too long. Pretty much every main character is a direct reference to the movies. In fact the whole game feels like an alternate universe version of the original trilogy, in much the same way The Force Awakens does.
In spite of all those very very justified criticisms, where this game really shines is the execution. It's paced like a dream (minus Taris), and fun as hell from opening to closing credits. Whether you're fighting through waves of off-brand storm troopers or navigating the complex political climate of a neutral world, you're having a blast, just like if you were in the movies.
But you most likely already know that, it's the main legacy of the game! What I really noticed this time around was some of the masterful world building and the stellar character writing. World building-wise, the way this game represents small, less industrialized cultures is really interesting? They're shown to be worthy of respect and admiration, not just to trample all over, which felt a little refreshing to me. I feel like, as common as that sentiment might've been at one point, gradually the way games tend to represent cultures with less technology has gotten kinda one note in recent years, where even all the cultures in this game feel distinct!
Character-wise, there might be more than you're expecting as well! While the companions are solid Star Wars archetypes, they also tend to bend their molds a bit. There's the obvious ones, especially HK-47 slotting into C-3PO's place as "translator droid" despite having the exact inverse personality. But then you've got characters like Jolee, someone who's just a good person and a force user without being a Jedi. You've also got Canderous, a bloodthirsty "honorabble" warrior who'd fit right in with the villains if he wasn't so enamored with you! Also there's Zaalbar, basically an introverted and shamed Chewbacca with an incredibly interesting backstory that ties the main story into the world building I was talking about earlier.
It's not a perfect game, but I'm giving it five stars anyways because of what it means to me. It's the game that got me into RPGs, which are still most of what I play. It's what got me as into Star Wars as I am, clueing me in to the intricacies and fun as Hell factions that make up the old expanded universe and pretty much defining my teens. It shaped me, which is not something I really like admitting. I mean, defining myself by a piece of media and letting it shape me? That's like, anti-joe hahaha. Granted it didn't shape my core, I mean for real I've never been able to bring myself to do an evil run of the game just because I don't like being mean (and I've been playing for like 12 years!!!!), but just in general it's had a huge impact on me.
I don't know if I'd be a different person if I hadn't played this game. Probably not, but I would definitely have had different experiences in my life. This game that's very much about morality and choosing your own path probably had an outsized affect on the way I interacted with those concepts as a young kid, so I'm glad it handles the topics well (and not in a propaganda-esque way that positing the Jedi as the only source of good and anything else as evil absolutism would've been).
Idk, play it. It's only 20 hours long, that's super tiny for an RPG, and it's not terribly hard (tho it can be a little tough if you're a jedi consular). It's a good intro to star wars despite not being canon, and a good intro to D&D despite being simplified. It's just good.
Oh yeah also this was my first time playing on console and it's just all around worse, from the UI to some light QoL stuff to the resolution of all the icons??????????? Play on PC if you can, even the controller bindings on there are way better
Time to beat: 24 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Yeah I mean somehow I think it's held up better than I even remembered. There's been a lot of discussion about this game over the last twenty years, and most of the common criticisms are pretty well known among fans. Taris goes on too long. Pretty much every main character is a direct reference to the movies. In fact the whole game feels like an alternate universe version of the original trilogy, in much the same way The Force Awakens does.
In spite of all those very very justified criticisms, where this game really shines is the execution. It's paced like a dream (minus Taris), and fun as hell from opening to closing credits. Whether you're fighting through waves of off-brand storm troopers or navigating the complex political climate of a neutral world, you're having a blast, just like if you were in the movies.
But you most likely already know that, it's the main legacy of the game! What I really noticed this time around was some of the masterful world building and the stellar character writing. World building-wise, the way this game represents small, less industrialized cultures is really interesting? They're shown to be worthy of respect and admiration, not just to trample all over, which felt a little refreshing to me. I feel like, as common as that sentiment might've been at one point, gradually the way games tend to represent cultures with less technology has gotten kinda one note in recent years, where even all the cultures in this game feel distinct!
Character-wise, there might be more than you're expecting as well! While the companions are solid Star Wars archetypes, they also tend to bend their molds a bit. There's the obvious ones, especially HK-47 slotting into C-3PO's place as "translator droid" despite having the exact inverse personality. But then you've got characters like Jolee, someone who's just a good person and a force user without being a Jedi. You've also got Canderous, a bloodthirsty "honorabble" warrior who'd fit right in with the villains if he wasn't so enamored with you! Also there's Zaalbar, basically an introverted and shamed Chewbacca with an incredibly interesting backstory that ties the main story into the world building I was talking about earlier.
It's not a perfect game, but I'm giving it five stars anyways because of what it means to me. It's the game that got me into RPGs, which are still most of what I play. It's what got me as into Star Wars as I am, clueing me in to the intricacies and fun as Hell factions that make up the old expanded universe and pretty much defining my teens. It shaped me, which is not something I really like admitting. I mean, defining myself by a piece of media and letting it shape me? That's like, anti-joe hahaha. Granted it didn't shape my core, I mean for real I've never been able to bring myself to do an evil run of the game just because I don't like being mean (and I've been playing for like 12 years!!!!), but just in general it's had a huge impact on me.
I don't know if I'd be a different person if I hadn't played this game. Probably not, but I would definitely have had different experiences in my life. This game that's very much about morality and choosing your own path probably had an outsized affect on the way I interacted with those concepts as a young kid, so I'm glad it handles the topics well (and not in a propaganda-esque way that positing the Jedi as the only source of good and anything else as evil absolutism would've been).
Idk, play it. It's only 20 hours long, that's super tiny for an RPG, and it's not terribly hard (tho it can be a little tough if you're a jedi consular). It's a good intro to star wars despite not being canon, and a good intro to D&D despite being simplified. It's just good.
Oh yeah also this was my first time playing on console and it's just all around worse, from the UI to some light QoL stuff to the resolution of all the icons??????????? Play on PC if you can, even the controller bindings on there are way better
2021
Beaten: Jan 22 2022
Time: 12 Hours
Platform: Mac
Final Fantasy IV is just so cool. It takes everything cool from 2 and 3 and pushes it all further, mixing it with new ideas like ATB and tying character development to job classes and just really stretching its legs on the new hardware generation. Not that I played the original version mind you, this was the Pixel Remaster. Well, first I started the GBA version (and actually got very close to the end), but ended up taking a break from that and decided to restart with the remaster (mostly for that sweet sweet OST). Aside from the OST change, the remaster is definitely a bit easier, but it’s also much less janky feeling and actually bugged than the GBA version. Both versions definitely have their merits. Now as far as the core game itself goes, I’m not sure I could find anything wrong with it if I tried. It doesn’t have the cinematic grandeur of later FFs, but it doesn’t feel like it’s really missing? Instead, like I said above, this feels like an expanded take on what the Sakaguchi had accomplished with the NES FF games. Specifically it feels like an attempt to take what 3 did, with it’s (multi) world-spanning adventure, character classes with distinct abilities, exploration-focused back half, and just really cool lore, but bring back the grounded and focused storytelling from 2. What resulted is hard to describe as anything other than a masterpiece.
Final Fantasy IV’s characters are all deeply characterized, mature people, dealing with their situations in pretty relatable ways. They want to serve their countries, love their families, and live the lives they’ve set out in front of themselves. Cecil is a Dark Knight sure, and he seems to be proud of his position in his nation’s military, but he also chose that role for its vertical potential. It’s a career to him, a way to earn a living. He’s got a life, a loving girlfriend, and even all of that doesn’t prevent him from getting caught up in the myriad deceptions that make up the game’s plot.
All of the characters are like this. They’re normal people (in this world, at least), fighting for the ones they love. Sure they want to save the world, but they’re saving it for the people they know, the people they knew. The whole front half of the game is about pulling these people out of their lives and into this grand design. You watch an army take what it wants by military might alone and you’re powerless in its wake.
But you’re not locked into this powerlessness. Eventually the grounded, dour first half gives way to exploring the edges of the map, flying around in your airship to your heart’s content, trying to stay at least a little bit ahead of the big bad. It’s still not happy, but it’s hopeful, and it’s where the game really opens up. Even as it’s doing this though, it never loses sight of the story, and never leaves you floundering when it doesn’t want you to. It’s a game with a strong sense of the player’s state of mind, and it always knows how to get you to feel the way it wants you to.
Now, the newest thing here is probably ATB, which if you’re not aware, is kinda Final Fantasy’s defining battle system. It’s the series’ longest running mechanic for sure, at least. (6 games!!). Basically, rather than a normal turn based system, everybody’s turn is on a timer. That timer can be manipulated, whether by speeding it up, slowing it down, stopping it, whatever you want to do (provided you have the MP) to get yourself going faster than your enemies. You can also just wait, let the time pass, to get past an enemy’s prickly phase (like a boss who readies a counter move). It’s a cool idea, but not one I’ve ever fallen in love with. I’m much more of a fan of the system in games like Lost Odyssey and FFX, which get the variety of turn order from ATB but make it less about getting your menu selection up to speed. Still though, the games with ATB in them are balanced around it, and this one is no exception.
The last thing I wanna say about FFIV is that wow, this is the 3rd or 4th Final Fantasy game I’ve played that just kind of is Star Wars. Now, maybe less of this one is Star Wars than 2 or 12, but it outpaces 6 on that front. What’s interesting here though is that rather than a straight homage to SW, it feels more like a remix? For example, there’s at least three characters I could call versions of Darth Vader, and I Love Them All. It feels like Sakaguchi melting Star Wars around themes of his own creation, and I think what came out has a pretty unique flavor to it.
FFIV feels like the first one where Sakaguchi got something out that fully encapsulated his hopes for the series. This is the backbone all the others are built upon, even as much as it’s built upon it’s own forebears. What’s here is nothing short of solid gold, and I’m glad I gave it such a good shot. Also, I’d say it’s super reasonable to finish this game in under 20 hours even if you’re taking your time much more than I tend to, which is NUTS for an SNES JRPG. PLAYITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Time: 12 Hours
Platform: Mac
Final Fantasy IV is just so cool. It takes everything cool from 2 and 3 and pushes it all further, mixing it with new ideas like ATB and tying character development to job classes and just really stretching its legs on the new hardware generation. Not that I played the original version mind you, this was the Pixel Remaster. Well, first I started the GBA version (and actually got very close to the end), but ended up taking a break from that and decided to restart with the remaster (mostly for that sweet sweet OST). Aside from the OST change, the remaster is definitely a bit easier, but it’s also much less janky feeling and actually bugged than the GBA version. Both versions definitely have their merits. Now as far as the core game itself goes, I’m not sure I could find anything wrong with it if I tried. It doesn’t have the cinematic grandeur of later FFs, but it doesn’t feel like it’s really missing? Instead, like I said above, this feels like an expanded take on what the Sakaguchi had accomplished with the NES FF games. Specifically it feels like an attempt to take what 3 did, with it’s (multi) world-spanning adventure, character classes with distinct abilities, exploration-focused back half, and just really cool lore, but bring back the grounded and focused storytelling from 2. What resulted is hard to describe as anything other than a masterpiece.
Final Fantasy IV’s characters are all deeply characterized, mature people, dealing with their situations in pretty relatable ways. They want to serve their countries, love their families, and live the lives they’ve set out in front of themselves. Cecil is a Dark Knight sure, and he seems to be proud of his position in his nation’s military, but he also chose that role for its vertical potential. It’s a career to him, a way to earn a living. He’s got a life, a loving girlfriend, and even all of that doesn’t prevent him from getting caught up in the myriad deceptions that make up the game’s plot.
All of the characters are like this. They’re normal people (in this world, at least), fighting for the ones they love. Sure they want to save the world, but they’re saving it for the people they know, the people they knew. The whole front half of the game is about pulling these people out of their lives and into this grand design. You watch an army take what it wants by military might alone and you’re powerless in its wake.
But you’re not locked into this powerlessness. Eventually the grounded, dour first half gives way to exploring the edges of the map, flying around in your airship to your heart’s content, trying to stay at least a little bit ahead of the big bad. It’s still not happy, but it’s hopeful, and it’s where the game really opens up. Even as it’s doing this though, it never loses sight of the story, and never leaves you floundering when it doesn’t want you to. It’s a game with a strong sense of the player’s state of mind, and it always knows how to get you to feel the way it wants you to.
Now, the newest thing here is probably ATB, which if you’re not aware, is kinda Final Fantasy’s defining battle system. It’s the series’ longest running mechanic for sure, at least. (6 games!!). Basically, rather than a normal turn based system, everybody’s turn is on a timer. That timer can be manipulated, whether by speeding it up, slowing it down, stopping it, whatever you want to do (provided you have the MP) to get yourself going faster than your enemies. You can also just wait, let the time pass, to get past an enemy’s prickly phase (like a boss who readies a counter move). It’s a cool idea, but not one I’ve ever fallen in love with. I’m much more of a fan of the system in games like Lost Odyssey and FFX, which get the variety of turn order from ATB but make it less about getting your menu selection up to speed. Still though, the games with ATB in them are balanced around it, and this one is no exception.
The last thing I wanna say about FFIV is that wow, this is the 3rd or 4th Final Fantasy game I’ve played that just kind of is Star Wars. Now, maybe less of this one is Star Wars than 2 or 12, but it outpaces 6 on that front. What’s interesting here though is that rather than a straight homage to SW, it feels more like a remix? For example, there’s at least three characters I could call versions of Darth Vader, and I Love Them All. It feels like Sakaguchi melting Star Wars around themes of his own creation, and I think what came out has a pretty unique flavor to it.
FFIV feels like the first one where Sakaguchi got something out that fully encapsulated his hopes for the series. This is the backbone all the others are built upon, even as much as it’s built upon it’s own forebears. What’s here is nothing short of solid gold, and I’m glad I gave it such a good shot. Also, I’d say it’s super reasonable to finish this game in under 20 hours even if you’re taking your time much more than I tend to, which is NUTS for an SNES JRPG. PLAYITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Beaten: Apr 07 2022
Time: 35 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Wow, what a massive, thoughtful game. Pillars of Eternity 1 impressed me with its rather unique world and lore, focused much more around religion than other fantasy settings, and with its dedication to the free-exploration tone that I don’t think had been that fully explored since Baldur’s Gate. The map was large to explore, but small enough to fit in your head without much trouble, and getting around really felt like adventuring across the plains of the Dyrwood.
Pillars 2 ups all of those antes. Unique world and lore? I don’t think I’ve ever played a game in a fantasy setting that was focused on a multi-faceted colonial takeover of an archipelago, complete with pirates and an indigenous people with their own imaginative culture. Religious focus? In this one, you’re chasing a dead god across islands, seeing what his followers do when faced with the reality of their god as not only a real being, but a destructive one, that seemingly has no care for the people he hurts and kills as he tramples the land. The free exploration has been massively expanded as well. It’s not quite a full open world, but instead you have a boat to travel the overworld with, since, you know, it’s an archipelago. You flit from island to island, town to town and dungeon to dungeon, all while being wary of PIRATES!!!!! trying to raid you, and keeping your food and water reserves high enough that your crew doesn’t mutiny. The simulation aspects add a nice, slight heft to exploration, without getting too in the way of being able to sail from one end of the map to the other.
The way the factions interplay reminds me of one of Josh Sawyer’s other games, New Vegas, in that none of them are easy to call “good” or “bad”. There’s pros and cons to all of them, even as the indigenous people are (rightly, imo) slightly posited as the good guys. The cultural exchange on display is so complex and well textured that I ended up having trouble deciding between them as the end came and decisions needed to be made. Partly, that’s because I didn’t want to alienate any of my crewmates, which is… hard to do. The interpersonal reputation system, aka how your party members feel about each other, is the real standout feature here. Not only is every single line of dialogue immaculate, but the systems that drive them are intensely complex. There must be hordes of dialogue laying dormant, left behind because I chose one companion over another, or my choices pushed two crewmates closer together instead of two others. At times you can feel the game buckle a bit under the tremendous weight of these systems, these people, but never for too long (which is quite an accomplishment, given that Sawyer’s spoken before about the strain the complexity of this system put on development).
Between that and the religious commentary, which I won’t say more than “it feels like the value system of a Shin Megami Tensei game written from a more grounded, less Christian-inspired perspective”, Pillars 2 feels like it’s earned a spot in my favorites list by default. I don’t think any game has ever accomplished what this game has, and I doubt many will try for it again.
The only caveat here is the Xbox version of the game seems rather unstable, having crashed on me a good few times by the end. I never got locked out of any quests though, and none of my saves were corrupted, so it was more of a slight annoyance than a true deterrence.
But yeah, it’s a great fuckin game, with lofty ambitions and even loftier accomplishments. Everything is handled with a deft, considered touch, and I think it’s absolutely worth experiencing if you like these kinds of games.
Time: 35 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Wow, what a massive, thoughtful game. Pillars of Eternity 1 impressed me with its rather unique world and lore, focused much more around religion than other fantasy settings, and with its dedication to the free-exploration tone that I don’t think had been that fully explored since Baldur’s Gate. The map was large to explore, but small enough to fit in your head without much trouble, and getting around really felt like adventuring across the plains of the Dyrwood.
Pillars 2 ups all of those antes. Unique world and lore? I don’t think I’ve ever played a game in a fantasy setting that was focused on a multi-faceted colonial takeover of an archipelago, complete with pirates and an indigenous people with their own imaginative culture. Religious focus? In this one, you’re chasing a dead god across islands, seeing what his followers do when faced with the reality of their god as not only a real being, but a destructive one, that seemingly has no care for the people he hurts and kills as he tramples the land. The free exploration has been massively expanded as well. It’s not quite a full open world, but instead you have a boat to travel the overworld with, since, you know, it’s an archipelago. You flit from island to island, town to town and dungeon to dungeon, all while being wary of PIRATES!!!!! trying to raid you, and keeping your food and water reserves high enough that your crew doesn’t mutiny. The simulation aspects add a nice, slight heft to exploration, without getting too in the way of being able to sail from one end of the map to the other.
The way the factions interplay reminds me of one of Josh Sawyer’s other games, New Vegas, in that none of them are easy to call “good” or “bad”. There’s pros and cons to all of them, even as the indigenous people are (rightly, imo) slightly posited as the good guys. The cultural exchange on display is so complex and well textured that I ended up having trouble deciding between them as the end came and decisions needed to be made. Partly, that’s because I didn’t want to alienate any of my crewmates, which is… hard to do. The interpersonal reputation system, aka how your party members feel about each other, is the real standout feature here. Not only is every single line of dialogue immaculate, but the systems that drive them are intensely complex. There must be hordes of dialogue laying dormant, left behind because I chose one companion over another, or my choices pushed two crewmates closer together instead of two others. At times you can feel the game buckle a bit under the tremendous weight of these systems, these people, but never for too long (which is quite an accomplishment, given that Sawyer’s spoken before about the strain the complexity of this system put on development).
Between that and the religious commentary, which I won’t say more than “it feels like the value system of a Shin Megami Tensei game written from a more grounded, less Christian-inspired perspective”, Pillars 2 feels like it’s earned a spot in my favorites list by default. I don’t think any game has ever accomplished what this game has, and I doubt many will try for it again.
The only caveat here is the Xbox version of the game seems rather unstable, having crashed on me a good few times by the end. I never got locked out of any quests though, and none of my saves were corrupted, so it was more of a slight annoyance than a true deterrence.
But yeah, it’s a great fuckin game, with lofty ambitions and even loftier accomplishments. Everything is handled with a deft, considered touch, and I think it’s absolutely worth experiencing if you like these kinds of games.
2009
Beaten: Mar 21 2022
Time: 16 Hours
Platform: Mac (via emulation)
It’s been a wild ride, starting with Elden Ring and hopping around until I finish with Demon’s Souls. Literally starting at the end and ending at the start, compared to Elden Ring, Demon’s Souls seems kinda quaint. The levels are smaller and less sprawling (though more labyrinthine), oh and also it has discrete levels. No interconnectedness, no open world, barely even much side content. It’s so focused, so uninterested in being anything other than what it is. It almost feels like a very high end PS2 game in that regard, from the era when 3D games were still able to be experimental, before budgets ballooned and so many games felt like they had to spoon-feed information to the player, to the point of overload. Demon’s Souls deals in a different type of overload, one where you have the freedom to play however you want, if you can figure out what the stat screen is trying to tell you, and what all the different weapon upgrades do, and what the bosses are actually weak to (if anything). It’s much more puzzley than its offspring, with most bosses falling more along the lines of incredibly dangerous zelda bosses, sometimes even complete with weak points, than the frantic slugfests that would be the more common boss type going forward. Every fight feels unique and interesting, whether they reside in the fun-yet-punishing zone (like Fool’s Idol and Old Hero) or the frustrating zone with the Maneater >: (. That puzzley vibe is front and center in the level designs as well, which also run the gamut from fun to frustrating and back again. The constant is that each level is testing you on just one or two skills, like running between islands in a poison swamp, or fighting enemies that are weak to just one type of damage. Only Dark Souls 1 kept this test feeling to its design, though I think I prefer the shorter, more straightforward tests in Demon’s Souls.
The real standout here, even against the other souls games, is the atmosphere. The vibes. They’re on lock, but they’re also royally fucked. The world is a dream, right down to the slight haze, ever permeating, as if the colorless fog of the game’s lore has infected your screen. It’s not as completely ethereal feeling in design as DS2, but on a pure emotional response level it easily matches that game. The world makes sense, it’s connected together, but in the way that clouds float together. There’s no concreteness, and that’s a wonderful feeling.
I also just want to mention the music for a sec. This game’s OST seems like it was reaching for cinematic grandiosity but they didn’t quite have the budget for it or something, so a lot of what’s here feels very midi-ish (especially the kinda goofy horn sounds) and I just adore it. It’s a perfect halfway between the insane experimentation of early FromSoft OSTs and the much more digestible yet no less fantastic orchestral stylings of… all the later FromSoft OSTs. That kinda sums up the game for me as well, actually. It’s a crossroads, a game rooted in what FromSoft was doing in the early 2000s, that is, making the most cracked and creative JRPGs on the market, but adding a sense of subtlety and dread to that manic feeling. It’s utterly unique and endlessly creative, and after playing this I’m not at all surprised that they’ve been able to riff on this formula as well as they have when the core is just this much fun.
Time: 16 Hours
Platform: Mac (via emulation)
It’s been a wild ride, starting with Elden Ring and hopping around until I finish with Demon’s Souls. Literally starting at the end and ending at the start, compared to Elden Ring, Demon’s Souls seems kinda quaint. The levels are smaller and less sprawling (though more labyrinthine), oh and also it has discrete levels. No interconnectedness, no open world, barely even much side content. It’s so focused, so uninterested in being anything other than what it is. It almost feels like a very high end PS2 game in that regard, from the era when 3D games were still able to be experimental, before budgets ballooned and so many games felt like they had to spoon-feed information to the player, to the point of overload. Demon’s Souls deals in a different type of overload, one where you have the freedom to play however you want, if you can figure out what the stat screen is trying to tell you, and what all the different weapon upgrades do, and what the bosses are actually weak to (if anything). It’s much more puzzley than its offspring, with most bosses falling more along the lines of incredibly dangerous zelda bosses, sometimes even complete with weak points, than the frantic slugfests that would be the more common boss type going forward. Every fight feels unique and interesting, whether they reside in the fun-yet-punishing zone (like Fool’s Idol and Old Hero) or the frustrating zone with the Maneater >: (. That puzzley vibe is front and center in the level designs as well, which also run the gamut from fun to frustrating and back again. The constant is that each level is testing you on just one or two skills, like running between islands in a poison swamp, or fighting enemies that are weak to just one type of damage. Only Dark Souls 1 kept this test feeling to its design, though I think I prefer the shorter, more straightforward tests in Demon’s Souls.
The real standout here, even against the other souls games, is the atmosphere. The vibes. They’re on lock, but they’re also royally fucked. The world is a dream, right down to the slight haze, ever permeating, as if the colorless fog of the game’s lore has infected your screen. It’s not as completely ethereal feeling in design as DS2, but on a pure emotional response level it easily matches that game. The world makes sense, it’s connected together, but in the way that clouds float together. There’s no concreteness, and that’s a wonderful feeling.
I also just want to mention the music for a sec. This game’s OST seems like it was reaching for cinematic grandiosity but they didn’t quite have the budget for it or something, so a lot of what’s here feels very midi-ish (especially the kinda goofy horn sounds) and I just adore it. It’s a perfect halfway between the insane experimentation of early FromSoft OSTs and the much more digestible yet no less fantastic orchestral stylings of… all the later FromSoft OSTs. That kinda sums up the game for me as well, actually. It’s a crossroads, a game rooted in what FromSoft was doing in the early 2000s, that is, making the most cracked and creative JRPGs on the market, but adding a sense of subtlety and dread to that manic feeling. It’s utterly unique and endlessly creative, and after playing this I’m not at all surprised that they’ve been able to riff on this formula as well as they have when the core is just this much fun.
Beaten: May 03 2022
Time: Idk probably 25 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Honestly I think Torment: Tides of Numenera is a more interesting game to talk about than its predecessor, even if it’s not (by my measure) a better game. It’s conflicted and sprawling in pretty much every way that a work can be, and the ways it frays are almost all tied in to the idea that this is a followup to Planescape: Torment. Somehow though, much like KOTOR 2 (and if we’re being honest, Planescape: Torment itself), the rough edges and scraped skin where the work’s intentions crumble into oblivion just end up feeling endearing to me.
What’s remarkable about Numenera is that this knotty dissonance is tied into the setting at a foundational level. Numenera is a ttrpg set something like 1 billion years in the future on earth, after many (8 in particular) grand civilizations have risen and fallen, leaving every inch of the land coated in history and relics of ages long past. It’s a setting about discovering old, odd, or broken things, and it’s tied to a system that drops all pretense of simulation from the style D&D usually goes for in favor of simple mechanics to drive a more exciting story. Put simply, it’s a world of 70s and 80s pulp-hard sci-fi stories layered on top of and inside each other, like taking pages out of every Isaac Asimov book and rearranging them in a random order. I Love It.
What this means for the game is that it’s probably ok if your story has ends laying on the ground that don’t really relate to anything, because it fits into the larger whole. The first Torment is a tidy game, a game where just about every scrap of dialogue felt like it was thematically driven by the same forces (with the rough edges of the game being the amount of combat, which wasn’t driving that same thematic point, and was much more common than I remembered and also much more than this game lol). That’s a lot of why that game is so beloved, I think. You rarely get a game that focused and thought out, and yet so expansive as well.
Numenera hasn’t been as well remembered, and in fact seems like it’s fallen out of public discussions over the 5 years since its release, and I think that untidyness (or the non-standard mechanics that mix typical cRPG design with Numenera’s Cypher System in a way that *I* like but definitely feels a bit weird) has a lot to do with it. In fact, besides those two reasons, I can’t imagine why it would be forgotten. The quest and hub design is just like, intensely good, with a lot of the quests being some of my favorites out of any RPG I’ve ever played. Quests often lead into each other, tying up in unexpected ways, or branching out in a way that truly enhances the scale of the world.
Putting itself next to Planescape was always going to be a losing battle, but I thing the minutiae of Numenera should earn it a place next to its brothers (Tyranny and Disco included) as one of those games that mixes Adventure games, RPGs, unhinged creativity, and emotional devastation together unbelievably potently. It’s a great game on its own merit, and deserves a reevaluation. I hope it gets that second look sometime
Time: Idk probably 25 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X
Honestly I think Torment: Tides of Numenera is a more interesting game to talk about than its predecessor, even if it’s not (by my measure) a better game. It’s conflicted and sprawling in pretty much every way that a work can be, and the ways it frays are almost all tied in to the idea that this is a followup to Planescape: Torment. Somehow though, much like KOTOR 2 (and if we’re being honest, Planescape: Torment itself), the rough edges and scraped skin where the work’s intentions crumble into oblivion just end up feeling endearing to me.
What’s remarkable about Numenera is that this knotty dissonance is tied into the setting at a foundational level. Numenera is a ttrpg set something like 1 billion years in the future on earth, after many (8 in particular) grand civilizations have risen and fallen, leaving every inch of the land coated in history and relics of ages long past. It’s a setting about discovering old, odd, or broken things, and it’s tied to a system that drops all pretense of simulation from the style D&D usually goes for in favor of simple mechanics to drive a more exciting story. Put simply, it’s a world of 70s and 80s pulp-hard sci-fi stories layered on top of and inside each other, like taking pages out of every Isaac Asimov book and rearranging them in a random order. I Love It.
What this means for the game is that it’s probably ok if your story has ends laying on the ground that don’t really relate to anything, because it fits into the larger whole. The first Torment is a tidy game, a game where just about every scrap of dialogue felt like it was thematically driven by the same forces (with the rough edges of the game being the amount of combat, which wasn’t driving that same thematic point, and was much more common than I remembered and also much more than this game lol). That’s a lot of why that game is so beloved, I think. You rarely get a game that focused and thought out, and yet so expansive as well.
Numenera hasn’t been as well remembered, and in fact seems like it’s fallen out of public discussions over the 5 years since its release, and I think that untidyness (or the non-standard mechanics that mix typical cRPG design with Numenera’s Cypher System in a way that *I* like but definitely feels a bit weird) has a lot to do with it. In fact, besides those two reasons, I can’t imagine why it would be forgotten. The quest and hub design is just like, intensely good, with a lot of the quests being some of my favorites out of any RPG I’ve ever played. Quests often lead into each other, tying up in unexpected ways, or branching out in a way that truly enhances the scale of the world.
Putting itself next to Planescape was always going to be a losing battle, but I thing the minutiae of Numenera should earn it a place next to its brothers (Tyranny and Disco included) as one of those games that mixes Adventure games, RPGs, unhinged creativity, and emotional devastation together unbelievably potently. It’s a great game on its own merit, and deserves a reevaluation. I hope it gets that second look sometime
1998
Beaten: Apr 13 2022
Time: I have no idea but it felt like 20ish Hours on easy?
Platform: PC via GOG and Parallels
The classic Fallout games are really weird and clunky. Usually you can tell just by looking at their isometric turn-based style, with menus that look like they were crafted out of bolted together scrap missile parts, but as crusty as they look, they’re much crustier to the touch. Animations are slow, combat is heavily random number reliant, moving at a diagonal results in your character zigzagging all the way across the screen, and those menus? The design language they use is frustrating, at first (you actually have to click the little red buttons, not the words).
In any other games, these could, or maybe would, all end up poisoning or breaking the experience. I mean, does that sound fun? I definitely lost at least a couple hours just save scumming my way across the wasteland at points, or cheesing my way out of an unwinnable situation. It manages to translate the scungy mechanical parts of playing DnD, but without the fun of having friends, or a DM that’ll fudge the numbers for you.
But in this case, this one case (two if you count fallout 1), it works. Nothing gets you into the right mood, the right atmosphere for this game, like the interface. Black Isle was also working on Planescape Torment at the same time, a much smoother, quicker rpg, yet here they used most of the same systems from Fallout 1. I know the main reason for that is the rushed development of 2 (9 months I heard???????), but I’d like to believe they chose to use these systems again expressly for the mood they create when you meet them halfway.
Once you’re in that mood, this game is god damn fantastic. You want an RPG that reacts to your decisions and has morally dubious choices? You can not do better. A game with memorable characters and towns and world-building? You Can Not Do Better. You want a game that’s funny as hell AND incredibly disquieting about the state of our world (maybe more today than when the game came out)?????
BROTHER
PLAY THIS GAME
I wouldn’t call it flawless or anything (in particular, the tribal faction in the game feels… uncomfortable, even though you’re one of them), but it really is the kind of game that will meet you beyond halfway if you come to it with an open mind, willing to adapt to it.
I really don’t want to get into any kind of details about it, because I went in almost completely blind and every little thing the game threw my way felt amazing because of that, but if you think you’ll be able to adapt to the interface and difficulty (you can play on easy like I did, but you definitely still need to keep your wits about you) I really can’t recommend this game and its predecessor enough.
Time: I have no idea but it felt like 20ish Hours on easy?
Platform: PC via GOG and Parallels
The classic Fallout games are really weird and clunky. Usually you can tell just by looking at their isometric turn-based style, with menus that look like they were crafted out of bolted together scrap missile parts, but as crusty as they look, they’re much crustier to the touch. Animations are slow, combat is heavily random number reliant, moving at a diagonal results in your character zigzagging all the way across the screen, and those menus? The design language they use is frustrating, at first (you actually have to click the little red buttons, not the words).
In any other games, these could, or maybe would, all end up poisoning or breaking the experience. I mean, does that sound fun? I definitely lost at least a couple hours just save scumming my way across the wasteland at points, or cheesing my way out of an unwinnable situation. It manages to translate the scungy mechanical parts of playing DnD, but without the fun of having friends, or a DM that’ll fudge the numbers for you.
But in this case, this one case (two if you count fallout 1), it works. Nothing gets you into the right mood, the right atmosphere for this game, like the interface. Black Isle was also working on Planescape Torment at the same time, a much smoother, quicker rpg, yet here they used most of the same systems from Fallout 1. I know the main reason for that is the rushed development of 2 (9 months I heard???????), but I’d like to believe they chose to use these systems again expressly for the mood they create when you meet them halfway.
Once you’re in that mood, this game is god damn fantastic. You want an RPG that reacts to your decisions and has morally dubious choices? You can not do better. A game with memorable characters and towns and world-building? You Can Not Do Better. You want a game that’s funny as hell AND incredibly disquieting about the state of our world (maybe more today than when the game came out)?????
BROTHER
PLAY THIS GAME
I wouldn’t call it flawless or anything (in particular, the tribal faction in the game feels… uncomfortable, even though you’re one of them), but it really is the kind of game that will meet you beyond halfway if you come to it with an open mind, willing to adapt to it.
I really don’t want to get into any kind of details about it, because I went in almost completely blind and every little thing the game threw my way felt amazing because of that, but if you think you’ll be able to adapt to the interface and difficulty (you can play on easy like I did, but you definitely still need to keep your wits about you) I really can’t recommend this game and its predecessor enough.
Beaten: Apr 28 2022
Time: 15.6 Hours
Platform: Mac
I just replayed Planescape: Torment, and I’m glad it held up for me as well as it did. Not that I played it for the first time all that long ago, but I’ve played (and replayed) many more CRPGs since then, and it still made me feel something none of them quite hit. That being said, I don’t want or need to spill more ink in aimless praise of Torment. It’s good, fun, and timeless, and you should absolutely play it. Instead, I think I’ll ruminate on a recent facet of its legacy that I don’t think quite gets its due: the newish trend (ish) of hyperlocal adventure games.
The particular games I’m thinking of are Disco Elysium, Kentucky Route Zero, and Norco. All of these games, just like Torment, place more of a focus on an artsy bookishness, a strong prosal (like, prose-al. I don’t think it’s a word but) identity, than any specific mechanics beyond genre convention (KRZ/Norco with adventure game mechanics, Disco with RPG framing and mechanics). Torment absolutely focuses more on its D&D roots than any of those games engage with really tough puzzles or combat, but you can easily tell that it’s not about that.
That being said, I think Torment’s combat gets a lot more flak than it deserves tbh. It’s not as fleshed out in RPG combat as many of Black Isle’s or Obsidian’s or Bioware’s other games, but it’s still rooted in that same rtwp style. It’s clunky where the other ones are, it’s smooth (mostly) where the other ones are, and mostly it’s just pretty fun, if a bit on the easy side comparatively.
This is where Torment’s more obvious legacy comes from, games like Tyranny or Torment: Tides of Numenera. Talky RPGs with less tidy themes and slight less words for days, but also combat as a true component of gameplay. These games get away from the hyperlocality that played a part in making Torment feel so unique, though. That’s where those first three games really get it right, imo.
More than just being books with games attached, they’re incredibly deliberate in their literary themes and the way they explore a place, a city or region or highway. You see into every crack, every nook, just enough people’s personal problems that you get a sense that yes, this is a living, breathing, Place.
Purely speaking about RPGs, I think Baldur’s Gate 2 and Pillars of Eternity 2 also have *a place in them that’s almost this well fleshed out, but they also have many other smaller places in them. You’re exploring a whole countryside, an archipelago, that happens to have a big interweaving city inside of it. In these hyperlocal games, the city is the setting, it is* what you explore. Planescape ends with a few disconnected places, but 80% of the game is exploring Sigil, the City of Doors, and that’s what stuck with people.
There’s a third pillar of Torment’s influence, and that’s KOTOR 2. Influence is kind of a weak word though, instead it’s like a Star Wars themed remake of Torment fit inside of a stark-eyed takedown of everything Star Wars as a cultural idea ever held dear. But seriously, there’s even more direct parallels than I remembered lmao.
Anyways, yeah, Planescape: Torment has a wide ranging legacy with a high hit rate of games that are good to great to Amazing, and is maybe more important than the walls of text praising it would even have you believe!! If only chris avellone wasn’t a PoS aha
Time: 15.6 Hours
Platform: Mac
I just replayed Planescape: Torment, and I’m glad it held up for me as well as it did. Not that I played it for the first time all that long ago, but I’ve played (and replayed) many more CRPGs since then, and it still made me feel something none of them quite hit. That being said, I don’t want or need to spill more ink in aimless praise of Torment. It’s good, fun, and timeless, and you should absolutely play it. Instead, I think I’ll ruminate on a recent facet of its legacy that I don’t think quite gets its due: the newish trend (ish) of hyperlocal adventure games.
The particular games I’m thinking of are Disco Elysium, Kentucky Route Zero, and Norco. All of these games, just like Torment, place more of a focus on an artsy bookishness, a strong prosal (like, prose-al. I don’t think it’s a word but) identity, than any specific mechanics beyond genre convention (KRZ/Norco with adventure game mechanics, Disco with RPG framing and mechanics). Torment absolutely focuses more on its D&D roots than any of those games engage with really tough puzzles or combat, but you can easily tell that it’s not about that.
That being said, I think Torment’s combat gets a lot more flak than it deserves tbh. It’s not as fleshed out in RPG combat as many of Black Isle’s or Obsidian’s or Bioware’s other games, but it’s still rooted in that same rtwp style. It’s clunky where the other ones are, it’s smooth (mostly) where the other ones are, and mostly it’s just pretty fun, if a bit on the easy side comparatively.
This is where Torment’s more obvious legacy comes from, games like Tyranny or Torment: Tides of Numenera. Talky RPGs with less tidy themes and slight less words for days, but also combat as a true component of gameplay. These games get away from the hyperlocality that played a part in making Torment feel so unique, though. That’s where those first three games really get it right, imo.
More than just being books with games attached, they’re incredibly deliberate in their literary themes and the way they explore a place, a city or region or highway. You see into every crack, every nook, just enough people’s personal problems that you get a sense that yes, this is a living, breathing, Place.
Purely speaking about RPGs, I think Baldur’s Gate 2 and Pillars of Eternity 2 also have *a place in them that’s almost this well fleshed out, but they also have many other smaller places in them. You’re exploring a whole countryside, an archipelago, that happens to have a big interweaving city inside of it. In these hyperlocal games, the city is the setting, it is* what you explore. Planescape ends with a few disconnected places, but 80% of the game is exploring Sigil, the City of Doors, and that’s what stuck with people.
There’s a third pillar of Torment’s influence, and that’s KOTOR 2. Influence is kind of a weak word though, instead it’s like a Star Wars themed remake of Torment fit inside of a stark-eyed takedown of everything Star Wars as a cultural idea ever held dear. But seriously, there’s even more direct parallels than I remembered lmao.
Anyways, yeah, Planescape: Torment has a wide ranging legacy with a high hit rate of games that are good to great to Amazing, and is maybe more important than the walls of text praising it would even have you believe!! If only chris avellone wasn’t a PoS aha
2022
Beaten: May 23, 2022
Time: 5 hrs
Platform: Xbox Series X
Changing tides is lesser than its predecessor for me, and I can point out exactly why: The game, as a whole, is less intuitive. The puzzle solutions, the whole drive contraption, even the mechanical design of your boat all feel a bit more complex than they should be, too hard to understand at a glance. Which sucks, because there's some cool things here too.
The new look is gorgeous, even a bit prettier than the first game (though without the sense of industry having killed the world), there's a bit more freedom in how you move, there's some cool automation for loading fuel? Hell, the change to smaller teal accents for interactables is a huge win for the visual cohesion. It's not like it's a lazy game, there's just a bit of a wall between me and what I want to happen. Instead of running up and down my ship loading fuel and pushing against buttons to make sure they're locked, I'm fiddling with the fire hose because if I'm not careful I'll shut off the engine instead of just cooling it.
I'd say go for the first one, and if you're coming from that one, it's worth a shot. Maybe it'll work for you better than it did for me.
Time: 5 hrs
Platform: Xbox Series X
Changing tides is lesser than its predecessor for me, and I can point out exactly why: The game, as a whole, is less intuitive. The puzzle solutions, the whole drive contraption, even the mechanical design of your boat all feel a bit more complex than they should be, too hard to understand at a glance. Which sucks, because there's some cool things here too.
The new look is gorgeous, even a bit prettier than the first game (though without the sense of industry having killed the world), there's a bit more freedom in how you move, there's some cool automation for loading fuel? Hell, the change to smaller teal accents for interactables is a huge win for the visual cohesion. It's not like it's a lazy game, there's just a bit of a wall between me and what I want to happen. Instead of running up and down my ship loading fuel and pushing against buttons to make sure they're locked, I'm fiddling with the fire hose because if I'm not careful I'll shut off the engine instead of just cooling it.
I'd say go for the first one, and if you're coming from that one, it's worth a shot. Maybe it'll work for you better than it did for me.