About | Anime | Visual Novels | Games | Books | Misc
This website is intended to be an easy way for me to write reviews, commentary and general opinions and post them without having to worry about losing them. I'll figure out a better layout soon, so it's not just a giant wall of text on the first page. I might even link images or show openers, but we'll see. I don't want this to become work, just something fun to do while I enjoy stuff.
For now, new sections will be added to this page at the bottom, and slowly sorted into their pages. If you're looking for new stuff, scroll down - I bold every new section.
To Do
Add separate pages, sorting by medium, add relevant images and screenshots to reviews. This isn't a job, just a side hobby, but I'd like some organization and flair.
Crystar
Crystar is a game that is profoundly split between two halves: the story and atmosphere it wants to evoke, and the bog standard gameplay that just isn't compelling. I like it, but I am genuinely struggling with it. It's your standard third-person character battler. Left stick to move your character, right stick for camera, X to attack, repeat until the enemy is dead. I'm frustrated to say it doesn't differentiate itself despite its various mechanics. You can level up, equip different gear, swap between characters in combat, use special moves and ultimates... yeah. There's nothing special here, so it turns into a kind of tedious chore - moreso because the level design isn't. Every map is a tileset arranged in random ways - you could tell me they're all procgen and I'd believe you. Go through corridors to the arenas and fight, collect loot, repeat until stairs or a boss.
When I'm feeling charitable I call Crystar a chill game, perfect for podcasts. It's a relaxing tedium with clearcut goals, and it feels fine. When I'm cranky, it's just mediocre to bad.
The other half of the game, the reason to play it, is everything else. The premise of the game is that our teenage protagonist's sister is dead, and her soul is trapped in Purgatory. For unexplained reasons, our protagonist (Rei) is there too - and she takes her sister's hand and tries to lead her out of there. They're attacked by a monster, and to Rei's eternal regret - she lets go of her sister's hand. Her sister falls deeper into Purgatory, and is probably doomed to die permanently. Except! Two mysterious girls appear and make a deal: if Rei agrees to fight and kill lost souls in Purgatory for them, they'll revive her sister. She agrees...and wakes up.
The game proceeds in this structure: while Rei is awake, you're in the menu/her bedroom. Choose which level to play, manage equipment, read tutorials... play with her dog, answer texts and calls from other characters. There's the implication that she's spending some time outside in the real world - walking her dog, eating food, avoiding everything else, though. She's skipping school and not talking to anyone. Rei is profoundly isolated, with nary a family member to be seen.
When Rei is asleep, you enter Purgatory. Leaving aside the gameplay, this is where you meet characters and talk to them - and because you can move Rei around here, in a way it feels more real than the real world. Not that it's ever a jrpg - this is linear. It really is a visual novel stapled to an action game. I know it's a common pairing, but usually it's a better synthesis.
Still - the artwork and style is incredible. It's a beautiful game with great character designs, and I was in awe the first time I stepped into a level and was greeted with really strange, otherworldly levels. It's a genuine treat every time I play. Which isn't as often as I'd like, because so far the levels are just 10~ minutes too long, which means I can't hop in, do a bite-sized level and leave - I have to commit to half an hour of repetetive gameplay to get at the good story bits. Still... I'm compelled enough to keep pushing for more sessions, and I want to see where the story goes. I'm also hoping I can beat this game before digging into the sequel Crymachina! That one seems to be only thematically related, and is otherwise set in a new setting with new characters (robots!) - but I hate leaving prequels unfinished. - 11/9/2023
Anime
Oniisama e... | Dear Brother
I genuinely thought this anime was older than it is, and that's because the manga it was adapted from is from the early 70s. This anime began airing in '91 and it is a visual feast - clearly, the team behind this series had both budget and motivation to make this a treat to watch. The use of water color especially! But - alright - I'm getting sidetracked already. What's Oniisama? If you read my brief impression of Assault Lilies Bouquet, you probably noticed me mention this series, and it is indeed what inspired me to visit this classic.
Oniisama e... is the foundational anime about a teenage girl entering a prestigious all-girl's academy, meeting her classmates, and becoming entangled in their lives and their dramas. Sounds boring, especially to someone like me who prefers exciting, focused plots with supernatural, sci-fi, or action elements... but I'm coming to really appreciate the exceptions. I really enjoy strong character writing, and that's what Oniisama e promises. Additionally, Oniisama is a massive influence on anime that came after it. Revolutionary Girl Utena directly rips from it, using the tropes Oniisama defined in order to reinforce its setting before it begins to get to work playing and deconstructing them. Almost any other anime set in a prestigious all-girl's academy has this as an ancestor - and you'd be surprised at many of these there are!
The trick, then, is that I haven't seen this seminal work. I have watched two episodes, been impressed, and wandered off yet again. Thanks, ADHD. My attempt here is to use this website to make myself both document the show and in the process watch it. So now, as I type, I am most of the way through the first episode.
Initial thoughts: we're on a whirlwind tour of setting, setup, and we STILL have time for a rose petal slow-down sequence of one of the leads winning at basketball. Wow. Just now there's a long moody shot of another lead walking slowly down the road in the rain. I cannot emphasize enough how stylish this show is.
The brief: Nanako Misonoo narrates by writing a letter to her brother about her first day at school. She and her friend joined this famous school for, among other reasons, the freedom to wear what they want (instead of a uniform) but their conservative mothers browbeat them into wearing uniforms. They talk on the train, meet Saint-Juste briefly (green haired lady with incredible artistic talents who is an introvert), then make it to school to meet: Kaoru, who missed a year of school due to illness, but is an incredibly athletic basketball player; Miya-sama, the posh leader of the 'Sorority', Mariko the informative gossip, and Aya Misaki, a stuck-up aspirant to joining the Sorority. Phew! Teachers? Classes? What are those? Meet, by the way, is a strong word: there's a lot of information given to us but not much interaction between anyone this early on. Well, Nanako does receive a rose from Saint-Juste, and my GOD they're gay. (I don't actually know if this show does anything beyond hinting intensely at queer themes, but I hesitate to call anything here queerbaiting due to, well, manga written in the 70s by a woman.) Nanako has a crush... and in a gorgeously drawn scene we see Saint-Juste refusing an umbrella while walking in the park in the rain, before she pops some mysterious pills. Uh oh. The episode closes with two scenes: Nanako's brother sending her a present to celebrate acceptance into high school anonymously, and there's an implication that there's something weird going on with her family. Then Nanako sums up her day while showering, applying nail polish, and preparing for bed. I think - and I might be reading too much into this - that the nail polish is meant to help emphasize the theme that she's leaving / left childhood behind and is becoming a woman, instead of a girl. Which, well, it just isn't an anime about teenagers without exploring the struggles of growing up and what that actually means.
For what little happened, it's so striking and weirdly compelling to watch? I honestly might just go into the next episode, which is unusual for me. We'll see!
Yep I'm hopping in! And I immediately pause the episode to admire something that Sailor Moon might have directly ripped... maybe! Oniisama's first episodes aired in July of 1991, and Sailor Moon's first episodes aired in March of 1992. I might, again, be overthinking this shot: the close-up on the socked feet as our heroine descends the stairs in a hurry on her way to the kitchen/school/etc.
"Are you still writing letters to your boyfriend?" / "No, it's my brother!" / "Same difference." / "No, a brother is a brother." - Nanako, I appreciate you shutting this incest down. I also appreciate that the episode immediately begins to explain that her brother isn't her brother - or her boyfriend. He's her teacher from cram school, and on the last day she realized she'd never see him again, so she found him and asked him to be her brother (and to read and accept her letters). She emphasizes it's not love in her narration, but isn't quite sure. Concerning, but... ah, teenagers. He recognizes her family name, might know her father - and gives her his address, and tells her that he expects her first letter to say she's been accepted into high school. There is obviously something more going on here, but it isn't covered here yet.
It's fascinating watching initial, important themes be introduced: Mariko doesn't go 'aha my new friend Nanako!' she literally dives between Nanako and her old friend and drags her off, leaving the old friend upset. She all but forces another student to exchange seats so she can sit with Nanako.
... I think it speaks to the strength of the show that barely two episodes in I'm already dissecting and examining everything. Compare with VVV or Twin Star Exorcist where there's nothing to really examine, and no point. That's part of what makes it hard to watch something like this - I want to pay attention!
For example Mariko explains that her lips are so outstandingly red because she bites them all the time in order to impress the older girls, as they like red lips. Nanako is rightfully freaked out by this! I'm freaked out by this!
The main thrust of this episode is the Sorority, Nanako wondering if they're a good idea, and the question of who gets to enter it this year. I have no experience with these, and in my humble opinion I think they're bad; anything that elitist just makes me nervous - but then, I was never ambitious or popular in high school. So, only ten girls can enter the Sorority this year, everyone is wondering who can get in, and Aya is already assuming she will be entered, of course. She's from a rich family and her mother was in it, of course she'll be chosen. Oh, boy.
Mariko is the first one chosen to join, then Kaoru (who refuses to join as she doesn't like the Sorority,) and Nanako. That's all the girls from this class, and Aya is left in the cold. But first - everyone gets to be shocked because Nanako? Who is that? Why was she chosen?
All of this is played out in the backdrop of Saint-Juste having a run-in with the Sorority leader before this, having some kind of break, and running desperately to her piano to play dramatic music that plays as Nanako is chosen... and as Aya proceeds to throw a FIT. "It's not fair! Nanako isn't qualified!" as Mariko rushes in to defend her, and Aya snaps that Mariko should shut-up, she's the daughter of a porn writer! ... Oh my goodness, 70s Japan chill, porn is cool. But in this setting, it clearly isn't cool, and Aya uses it as a weapon against Mariko before physically pushing her - and Kaoru stpes in to separate them, and to remind them that no one can choose their parents.... before Mariko dashes in for the MEGA SLAP before collapsing into tears.
The leader steps in to say that Aya could have become a new candidate in play of Kaoru stepping out... except that she'd veto her herself. Aya leaves in tears, and poor Nanako is still confused and shocked.
I cannot emphasize how powerful the direction in this scene is. It's filmed with all of the passion and drama of the most tortured moment of a Shakespearean play, as if someone has died, and by god you can tell how intense everyone's emotions are. Teenagers!
Nanako and her old friend, on the train ride home, are ripped apart by this. There's a party Nanako has to go to - and they were supposed to bake a cake on that day. You can tell there's a real emotion of 'why are we in different classes, why are we being pulled apart?', especially from the friend. I... feel this a bit, because I met a close friend in middle school who was always assigned to classes away from me. It sucked!
The episode closes with Nanako wondering when the illusion that she should be chosen for this will be ripped away, comparing herself to Cinderella (as her friend did). Which really is a valid question - we don't know anything about her ability. She's very passive, and generally nice... so far. So far. - 11/10/2023
Otome Parade
I have ADHD, and it's been leading me down the path of reading too many otomes at once. But that means I get to tell you about them! So here, have a fast n' dirty summary of what I'm reading, why I'm reading it, and what it's about.
Hana Awase
First! Hana Awase: Mizuchi. It has a longer title, but that'll get you to its vndb page. This is a weird one, and that weirdness is what attracted me. The premise is, card game battles! It's Yu-gi-oh, the otome!
Except, of course, it's a little weirder than that. (And boy, Yugioh is weird. I am very fond of it.) In order: there's a prestigious high school that trains people to play this card game. The card game is hanafuda (hana awase variant). It's magical hanafuda, so you need two players - a dude and a lady working as a team (no queer people allowed sadly) - the dude plays the cards, the lady powers him with mana. (Apparently mana powering up also involves virginity? And kisses? This is going to be concerning!) (Before we get too concerned, this is an all-ages otome, so I won't have to dodge sex scenes.)
So we have magical romance hanafuda, and apparently there are shadowy monsters to fight, so what more can we add to the mix? Prophecies! Our heroine, Mikoto, was a normal girl. The story opens with her in a car accident, waking up in a hospital bed with no memories of the accident, and a student of the hanafuda school at her side. He rescued her... and he just leaves without giving her his name. Okay! Well, he left a card behind. She picks it up, and long story short the card chose her, she's prophesized to be a powerful senki candidate, and hanafuda school will pay for her tuition and deal with the paperwork to have her transferred. She, in an unsurprising twist, agrees! She really likes hanafuda and respects the players, but she was unprepared for the magical nonsense or being paired up with a dude ASAP or dealing with high-class classmates who already hate her.
So I effectively get a bunch of fun anime cliches thrown into a blender with powerful Oneesama e... vibes, a cool hanafuda minigame to play, and beautiful artwork. There's no way I was going to miss this one, basically.
Final details: the game is sold in... four fully priced pieces on the Switch? The hell? I don't like this, I don't support it. There's apparently a PC/steam release coming, but I, alas, am impatient. Now, on top of this, the four pieces? Those are your character routes, but you CANNOT skip around. You MUST start with Mizuchi -> Himeutsugi -> Karakurenai/Utsutsu -> Iroha. Wild. Last game I played like this (even if Tempest) just had the routes in the same game, but... apparently this is how it was released in Japan. Also, yes, you DO have to replay the card minigame and level up four times over. Whee. I'm actually looking forward to this but it sure is a design choice!
I fully expect playing this game - all of it - to take a long time, between the gameplay, the length of the story, and my own divided interests, but I'm ready for a journey. And for an excuse to play hanafuda again, I love hanafuda!
Bonus: This Hana Awase Review really helped me become intrigued to play this weird game. I'd recommend reading it if you're interested!
Irresistible Mistakes
Keep it short, Strix, keep it short. You have a lot to go through... Okay! Irresistible Mistakes is an otome made for phones, and sold to the USA in Voltage's Love 365 app, with f2p/premium currency nonsense gating its content. (Voltage has a lot of these fun otomes hidden in their phone apps sadly...) Voltage has been freeing them and packaging their content into compilations, sold on the Switch and PC (it seems to be random which ones reach PC alas). As a phone game, this has no voice acting and the scenes are broken up into short chapters.
Irresistible Mistakes has the delightful premise of: you're an adult woman working for an ad company in Japan. You go out drinking with coworkers in a big party, get stinking drunk, and have a one night stand with one of your hot coworkers. You wake up the next morning in the hotel, realize you're late for work, and leave in a hurry...and realize that oh, oops, you don't remember who you slept with. And there are a LOT of hot coworkers in your company. Oh no!
Thus begins character selection - pick the dude you slept with, start his route, and then based on your selections there are usually two ending variants. Potentially more. I played one route on my phone last year, and honestly? I still remember it super fondly. The writing is surprisingly sweet and mature, and the dude was cute.
I'm rereading the route I finished on the phone, and enjoying myself! I'm dating Toshiaki, an advertising exec from hell who is very strict and demanding. He leads the team that meets with clients, designs the ads, and so on, and it's high-pressure work. As per the cliche, he seems like a demon but he's actually super sweet (as long as you don't slack off) and yeah okay I have a type in otome games (hi Cupid Parasite Shelby, you're cute~) His route is you being assigned to his team, working on making the perfect canned coffee ad, and falling in love. It's all mundane and sweet and I like it a lot! I'm planning to reread it, do the other ending variant, then see who I want to date next.
Cafe Enchante
We're back to normal otome again! Woo! This is a lavish full otome with voice acting sold as a single game, with a fun premise and cute dudes to date. Yes. Yes!
Cafe Enchante has your standard premise: grandpa died, he left you the farm I mean cafe. You go to visit it and try to decide if you want to quit your job and take over, find a mysterious door inside, open it, and WHOOPS it's an isekai door. A demon lord, angel, headless knight, and fire dude enter immediately, and want to see your grandpa: they have been DESPERATE for coffee and he's had the shop closed for months.
With this setup, the game seems like it should be a cute slice of life fantasy series. Serve coffee, talk to dudes, grow as a person, y'know. But I'm told from reviews that this game goes to some weird and dark places and sprouts a plot, so! I'm actually excited for this, cute things that turn dark are my jam.
I'm picking the headless knight first because I love suits of armor, and I'll report back on how it goes! ... Or if the common route is SUPER LONG!
Otome Parade Summary
This breaks the format of the site a bit, sadly, but... hey! My site, my rules. And I've been dealing with American healthcare nonsense so I get to relax and read all the otome I want. I'm hoping I can read all of these to the end, but if not, no worries.As a fast summary, though, I am still reading Cupid Parasite (Ryuki's route is adorable), even if Tempest (in the endgame now I think), Code Realize (in the final chapter of the LONG common route woo), Hakuoki (on PC, just started, this deserves a full write-up), and those are the big ones. They're all huge games with fully fledged plots and character routes and I am truly enjoying this massive buffet.
For what it's worth, I typically spend my days at my computer, so I have things rigged so I can read while I do other things (like write this up) and I actually normally read this much - but in books. So I'm taking a break from reading books to reading visual novels instead. My goodreads is sad but I am happy, and since I ain't getting paid to do any of this stuff, I get to decide what I want. - 11/14/2023
Code Realize
Code Realize is a steampunk otome that falls directly into - weirdly enough - a kind of cozy genre in its common route. It's ostensibly about action and adventure, but the writing feels light enough that I'm not worried for anyone. Which is a mean thing to say, but this game just hasn't shown the kind of writing chops that makes me feel like it's a great game. This is not to say that it's bad, or not worth reading! Ah, let me back up and summarize it.
Our heroine Cardia wakes up in a mansion in the woods with amnesia, reads a note from her dad that says that he loves her, she needs to stay in the mansion, and he's coming for her. She does this for several years, and the game opens with a group of soldiers being sent from London to apprehend a monster in the mansion - her. At first, they're all "we can't hurt a girl", but then someone tries to grab her... and upon skin-to-skin contact his hand melts off.
Cardia, you see, has a weird gem embedded in her chest, and her entire body is pure acid. If she touches anything - and I mean anything - it will melt violently. The only reason she can exist at all is because her father left her clothing and gloves that are immune to this effect. (How does she eat? I don't recall, honestly, but she can. The game does answer this question.) (What about, y'know, dandruff? Lost hair follicles? What about bodily waste? As far as I know, this isn't covered - except to say that if Cardia spends too much time in a location, it slowly becomes poisonous, similar to how radioactivity builds up.) This is part of what I mean by how the writing is lightweight: it sets up hard science, but doesn't really think it entirely through, so you'll have to just go with it. I'm okay with this, but I can see where it's a problem.
Anyways, Cardia! She's a sweet teenager who hates that she just melted a dude and a dog (there is non-graphic animal violence in this) and she genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone. The soldiers freak out and try to shoot her, and she's rescued! Meet our hero, Arsene Lupin! Yep - it's one of these, too! Lots of historical/folk-loric figures as anime pretty boys, and they may or may not be accurate. I'll come back to this in a moment. Cardia is rescued, Lupin explains that he's here to steal the gem in her body - he's surprised it's there, so he instead agrees to help her out! Long story short, Lupin and his crew will now devote their energies to finding out how to make Cardia not poisonous, and she'll live with them and help them out. VERY otome premise but I'm so okay with it.
The game has this really sweet found family theme, actually, and it's one of the best executed ones I've seen in otome yet. Once you roll with 'they all live in the same house', you get the joy of Cardia sharing meals with these guys and planning heists together and training with them and by the time you wrap the common route you totally believe that they're going to be friends and family after the game is over.
So, historical figures! It's set in Victorian London with a steampunk twist, so there's the queen and so on. Arsene Lupin is a gentleman thief who only steals from the rich and evil, and our primary love interest. His crew (and our fellow love interests) are: Victor Frankenstein, Van Helsing, Impey Barbicane, and Count Saint-Germain. Yup! We'll run into Herlock Sholmes and others, as well - but they're not romanceable.
The story structure is: long common route followed by a hard split off into each character route (based on which dude you have the most affection for, via choices in the story) - and you cannot romance Lupin at all until you finish every other character route! This is fascinating as he's got the most prominence in the marketing, art, story... as much as I'm interested in the other dudes, it really feels like they wrote this story intending a Cardia/Lupin endgame.
Real fast: the common route is Cardia getting rescued, going to London, meeting all the boys, and then a series of episodic adventures centering around the theme of "we need information/money" as they continue the quest to find Cardia's missing dad, with the aim of helping her. The big finale is them entering an airship race, with everyone pitching in to help - the prize at stake is the location of Cardia's dad's hidden lab. Phew! It's fun but lightweight fare, with plenty of hints to deeper secrets and villainous plotting.
What really makes this work is the fun interplay between the dudes, and I won't lie: I spent a lot of time being completely charmed by watching them interact, moreso than I did the dudes in Cupid Parasite. In some otomes where they make the main cast hang out I can see them being friends in the future, but not always - and in this case I can totally see them wanting to continue living together. It's a really nice feeling!
Phew! Now - we have villains, a mysterious organization hunting Cardia, the Queen of England, Herlock Sholmes out trying to stop a thief and a criminal from doing stuff, and more. It's a busy game, and I will have more to say about it as I read the final common route chapter and enter the character routes.
As a final note - I disparaged the writing, and I still kind of do. Compared specifically to other otomes, it feels light in a way that's at odds with how much it's juggling. I suspect a lot of my feeling comes from wanting this to be longer and deeper than it is, because I know otome games can do that (Hakuoki, anyone?) - but at the same time, it's still a fantastic read, and I'm very invested in everyone. My first route is Impey Barbicane, and that was because reviews say he's the lightest and best route to start with, but now it's because - I just smile every time I hear his voice, or see how cheerful he is. Cardia and he have fun chemistry, too!
Okay I lied last final note: the game has not one but two fandiscs, and both were translated and released in English! The reading order for this trilogy is Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth (first game) -> Future Memories (fandisc1) -> Wintertide Miracles (fandisc2). There is also Code Realize: Bouquet of Roses, which is a compilation of Guardian of Rebirth and Future Memories. Don't get confused, and remember to start with Guardian of Rebirth. - 11/15/2023
Cupid Parasite - Ryuki F Keiisain Route Spoilers
Finally! Finally done with this route! I see why it was recommended as a first route in walkthroughs, but I personally think Shelby is a better 'first time' resolution of the story... mostly because I didn't care for this! Ryuki's route was straightforward, sweet, cute, and honestly a bit boring. Which was a bit sad, given that Ryuki's whole setup could have been good. Ah well. Here's the recap, if you've forgotten: Ryuki is the youngest of the Parasite 5, aged 19. He's a famous fashion designer, heir to a super famous clothing brand, antisocial, and obsessed with beauty. He has synesthesia (specifically when he sees people, he automatically rates how beautiful they are, then sees them as colors - the nicer the shade, the prettier you are) and he is an asshole about it. He does not sugar-coat anything, is strict, and straight up uses a mist bottle to keep people away from him, claiming they're dehydrated.
I wish he hadn't been so young. It kept bothering me, as, well, I'm over thirty and I keep thinking 'it's a child who needs time to mature' and sadly the route didn't disabuse me of this. See - the route's primary plot was about Lynette trying to get a side character hooked up with another one, using fashion. Lynette kept working with Ryuki, giving him feedback on designs, and it ultimately turned into them tailing the couple on a date to determine how the clothes worked together. (That was weird!) Cue them becoming kind of friends, Lynette visiting his house, meeting his dog... It kind of worked and didn't work as a Lynette keeps running into him or spending time with him due to work - and slowly she learns more about his ultra-strict family.
So - bluntly - the two biggest problems with this route was that first, there was no art for Ryuki's new awesome fashion designs. He designs for the Parasite 5 and Lynette, but we don't get to see any of it. I know the devs of the game probably had a set budget for where to put the CGs, but it really felt like the fashion designer route deserved more artwork so we could see what he was doing. It really stood out, in a bad way. Second, it felt like nothing happened, plot-wise? They meet up for work, they test clothes, they help each other out, the most dramatic moment was the thunderstorm that kept Lynette from going home one visit - and the second most dramatic moment was Ryuki getting a text from his grandma that she found him a fiance and they'll get married asap.
I was entirely set up for melodrama, but ultimately everything was resolved quickly and lightly and while that's sweet, I just wanted more. It even felt like trying to help Ryuki be nicer just... vanished, as he decided to be nice to Lynette. Which, well, good for him? I don't know. I was a bit bored, didn't really care for Ryuki as a romance, and that was that. I didn't need anything as action-packed and crazy as Shelby's route, but I wanted... yeah, more. Oh well.
Ultimately this route left me wanting a game about fashion and fashion designers. I should go watch some Project Runway, probably... ah well. It's nice to have it behind me, at least. So onwards to Gill! - 11/16/2023
Cupid Parasite - Gill Route Spoilers
Boy, it's hard to read a romance visual novel when you're intensely repulsed by the dude your heroine is supposed to be dating. I had a suspicion I would hate this guy, but I wasn't expecting to be this grossed out. The game even calls out his bad behavior multiple times, but then ultimately rewards it, because the route has to end with Lynette falling in love with him and that being celebrated.
So what's the deal? Why am I so mad? Well, Gill's problem is that he is a nice guy. As in. As Lynette's roommate in college, he figures out that she's new to normal life, so he takes on teaching her things - how to do laundry, how to cook, etc etc. Fine, cute, don't hate that. But he adopts the mentality that she needs to be protected and cared for in everything - he worries about men taking advantage of her, and even shoos off a pushy dude in college. Lynette's all 'wow he's protecting me!' and grateful, and like, this impression isn't wrong. He does help her out. But he goes from thinking 'this is an innocent I need to help' to 'she's so cute I want to have sex with her' and we're down the rabbit hole into hell. He takes photos of her and hoards them secretly. He is constantly pining for her. He pours himself into the housework to make sure she never has to do anything when he could do it for her. He writes love letters and never sends them. He overhears a conversation between Lynette and Claris (her bff) and since he hears Lynette saying that she wants a partner who has a lot of time for her, he changes his entire career so he'll have more time to be at home for her. This man. Is. Obsessed. Like, horrifying, creepily obsessed.
So, Gill's route has a lot of flashbacks! Every other scene you're in the past witnessing Gill trying to help Lynette and while it's intended to be cute, there's this nonstop vibe of how horrifying it is. They even specify that he's having wet dreams about her. Yeah.
There I am, reading this route, being barraged by reminders that Gill is the world's creepiest nice guy. My danger signs are flashing, I'm ready to leave. Gill's behavior has not improved at all - the common route demonstrated that - and almost immediately the game provides a twist - Gill's been kicked out of his apartment! - and yep Lynette lets him move back in with her and Claris. Which kicks us RIGHT back to Gill doing literally every chore and cooking food for her and being the perfect house husband. Which, like, I'm not going to deny the appeal of a perfect househusband, but it's to the point where Lynette is thinking of wanting to take some of the chores back and him being all 'nah I'm doing everything' and she's too nice to turn him down.
The first bad end in this route is the one where Lynette starts taking days off from work, then quitting it as Gill completely pampers her. She never leaves her apartment or does anything but read and rest, and Gill cooks for her, does every chore, literally everything until she's in a pampered haze. Claris leaves in disgust, and it's an omen of bad times ahead. Literally Gill is capable of enabling self-destruction and he does it happily without seeing what's wrong.
Next up, the misunderstandings. Gill never, ever explains himself. Back in college he asked her out to prom, she assumed he was picking her as a leftover, they have a great time, and at the moment where he means to confess to her, he says something easily misinterpretable, hugs her, and Lynette doesn't realize he thinks they're dating. So she acts normally and crushes his heart. Oh no. I'm so sad. Anyways he writes a love letter, sticks it in her text book, she swaps it with Claris and never receives it. (And it's not signed, either, so Claris assumes it's a prank.) So with that bullet dodged, Lynette moves on with her life and Gill is devastated.
Now in the present, they begin to untangle the misunderstandings, Lynette realizes she's in love with Gill - and that he's been in love with her this whole time - they begin to talk and as they realize that she never meant for him to spend all of his time with her, he finally gets a job and chases his dream. And - yep, surprise! Gill has a personality outside of "obsessed with Lynette" and it's "secretly loves cars, is the heir to a car making company, and is avoiding his family because he wants to chase his dreams instead of becoming a workaholic". Okay not bad, except that it's all wrapped around the same idiot misunderstandings as before: no one cares if he loves cars. His father doesn't expect him to be a workaholic, and it'd be totally fine if he came back. Literally no one in Gill's family knows how to talk to each other. His brother has been married to his wife for almost a decade and he's been lying to her about how much he loves cars (he hates them). This is stupid. This is an entire family soap opera drama based on misunderstandings, and while I can handle a few, this is too many. Lynette basically helps him untangle all of this, they fall in love and have sex, and then at midnight she reads his cellphone, misunderstands a text from his coworker, and... dramatically flees back to Celestia to never return to Earth again.
I hate Lynette in this route too. She's extremely passive, ready to misunderstand everything, and spends her time pining for Gill. It fits her, I guess, but it feels like a perversion of her personality after how forward and interested and neat she is in other routes.
Anyways, this is when the route goes to crazy town. I want to like this stuff - Gill loses his mind with grief, builds an entire magical flying car with Claris and Allen's help, flies to Celestia, finds Claris mid-argument with her dad, declares his love for her, shows off his secret collection of secret photos of her, which enrages her dad so much that he decides to obliterate this creepy stalker. As I'm rooting for him, Gill reveals that his magic flying car is also a Transformer, it turns into 'Bumblepig', and we get a Transformer vs Mars punch-out while Lynette watches and cheers Gill on. (This also annoyed me! First, the Transformers he's in love with are based off of the movie-verse, complete with Bumblepig communicating only in radio whistles. Wow I hate Michael Bay for butchering my favorite franchise! Second, Gill's secret love of cars, OK, sure, I can buy that. But Gill can instantly build a full-ass Transformer that can fly? No fucking way. No way. I don't care that he had a magical artifact to power it. Bumblebee doesn't even fly! God.) Gill's fighting spirit impresses Mars so much that he agrees to let Gill marry Lynette, and we skip to the end where they're married and happy and living together and working as a team and blah blah blah oh my god I hate him. He got some character development, but he never stops being this mega-creep who is obsessed with her, and Lynette is just okay with it now, because she's in love too.
ON TOP OF THAT, now that Gill is a rich CEO who is working his dream job with his dream wife with his magical Transformer who is his personal car, he ALSO got all of his love letters (he has hundreds) bundled together and published and he won a writing award for them.
So the love interest I like the least gets every single reward handed to him, Lynette is happy, and I'm ready to throw my switch out of the window. The only good side is that Gill does get that character development so he's less overbearing, but boy it's. I cannot decribe how skeeved out I am, especially to see the game effectively celebrate this behavior and treat it like it's charming or funny. Gill has secret photos of her. He swapped classes in college to be with her. He changed his job to be with her. He is, as a reviewer put it, one bad day from putting her in a cage to keep her safe.
gahhh.
In conclusion I hate Gill and I'm moving on. This was easily the nadir of the game and I'm ready to get back to the good stuff - the other routes where Gill pines hopelessly as she falls in love with other dudes and lives healthier, happier lives. The bit in Ryuki's route where he confesses and she explains she doesn't see him like that? Oh yeah. That's the good stuff.
Onwards to Raul's route, which I'm excited for! Onwards to other, better pastures! -11/22/2023
Video Games
Silent Hill
Silent Hill is an outstanding game with interesting flaws, and I think it's worthy of some high praise.
First: my personal history with the franchise. I've played a little of three, a little of four, and none of the others. I've seen multiple LPs of Silent Hill one, at least one of two, none of three, and two of four - and at least one of several of the spinoffs. I have an odd affection for the franchise, but I've never actually played it until now.
Alright, you say. What's Silent Hill? It is a survival horror video game for the Playstation and it did well enough to get multiple sequels and spin-offs as well as a movie. It's known for a focus on psychological horror and being set in America despite being made by Japanese developers. There's more, of course - lots of details I'm leaving out, but let's stay focused.
Silent Hill itself is fun! You sit down at your playstation, fire up the game, and watch a cutscene that first warns you of violence and gore in this game. Second, lovely music plays, you're told "The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh" and then you get a lot of incoherent scenes of various people and places. The one you need to remember is the one of the guy driving the car down a dark road while his daughter sleeps in the backseat. He sees a girl in the road, swerves to avoid her, and... crash!
Harry Mason is our protagonist, and we open the game as he walks away from his wreck. His daughter has already escaped the car and is walking into the fog towards the town of Silent Hill, and well - that's the main quest! Find Cheryl, his daughter. That remains the core of the game, the human heart beating as you keep pressing into nightmare.
There's a lot of the game I can describe: how Harry travels to the local elementary school, meets a local cop, is given a mysterious quest in a church - and it's all going to sound disjointed and dreamlike. Which is the point. The game and story structure of Silent Hill is aggressively dreamlike, to the point where one of the scrapped endings was that the entire game was a dying dream as Harry is in a fatal coma from the car crash. At no point is there a quest log, at no point is there a real explanation for the events of what's happening - only clues and strange dialogue. Even the major optional sidequest that offers more hints as to what's going on can function as a red herring to what's going on. It's the kind of storytelling where you're meant to carry the pieces in your mind and think about how they fit together and come up with theories.
The gameplay structure itself is from an older era as well: the really unintuitive adventure games that came before. For example, when the game opens up after the cafe? You walk out into the foggy streets of Silent Hill with only a mark on your map to guide you: go back to the alley in your nightmare and look for clues. Once there you'll find a note written by Cheryl that says 'to school', so you think to yourself, alright, the school is marked on the map. I'll go there. You swiftly find that the roads are out - but as you check all of them, one has bloody papers strewn around that say 'doghouse, levin street'. You search all the dog houses on Levin Street, find a key, use it on the nearby house and... find a door inside locked by three padlocks, and a map next to it with weird markings. You go to each marking, and find keys, and so on - simple, right? But already weird. The logic is askew; why would this random house have that padlock? Why are the roads out? Why are there skinless dogs attacking me all the time?
But I said unintuitive. Yeah. Inside the school you find the other 'half' of the game - it's kind of structured like overworld map / dungeons - and the school is one. It has a detailed floorplan, lots of weird roadblocks you need to solve, and puzzles. This turns into stuff like 'to enter this one room, you need to enter this bathroom' - and we're not even touching the puzzles, which range from doable to completely silly. To be clear, I'm not trying to say Silent Hill is difficult (it is and it isn't) but that you can tell the design of it is based on something older. It mixes oddly with the ongoing survival horror combat; you're trying to find a key but it's through a room filled with monsters, and you have limited ammunition.
I played on normal difficulty and never ran out of ammo. I alternated melee combat with guns, tried to save my ammo for when I was in real danger or at a boss fight, and ultimately had more than enough. My advice to anyone playing it is to not really worry. Like, don't shoot everything, but don't hoard bullets. If you have a hundred, use them! Remember: health drinks are limited too, and if you're saving ammo by taking hits while fighting with the pipe, that's draining your finite health drink supply.
I have a lot more to say about this game and I'll return to it later. But I refuse to leave this write-up unfinished! -12/9/2023
Avernum
Beat this today! It's been eating my mind for the last forty hours and spurring all kinds of monomania. I want to play the sequels, I want to play everything else the dev has made now.
Avernum is a classic rpg with an emphasis on tactical turn-based combat. It has an interesting setting, a well-written if thin plot, and thoroughly addictive explore-fight-loot-sell/talk-repeat loop. It feels, in a lot of ways, like a computerized version of sitting down to play a tabletop rpg with your group; specifically the classic Dungeon and Dragons. (No, I don't know which edition. I am, alas, not into D&D enough to care about editions.) You can practically feel the DM rolling the dice behind his screen, going 'uh oh' with a smile and then telling you that your party feels like it's being hunted. Same deal with 'you arrive at the goblin fort!' as he sets out the hand-drawn maps with the tokens and asks for initiative. This also applies to the plot structure - it's effectively the DM saying 'here is the setting, here's the worldmap, where are you going?' and it's very modular. Arriving at town A, you find out that they're under siege by zombies. Arriving at town B, you find out they have problems with the mayor's missing necklace. Solving these problems can be done in any order, and it doesn't really change the setting much, so to speak? This is not a linear narrative that has you eager for the next plot beat, it's a roadtrip as you decide to find out what's over there.
This is not to say that it's without a plot or coherent setting! This is not to say it lacks character! I am being clear about what Avernum is, and this game specifically feels like the developer wanted to share his really good D&D campaign with you - but not in the sense of "look at my special OP protagonist with dual blades and a magic panther!" but in the sense of "I wrote the BEST adventure but all of my players are out sick :( will you let me run it for you? please? I even premade character sheets!"
It works. It absolutely works and it oozes charm to the point where I forgive the rough edges and some of the glaring balance problems.
So, details! Jeff Vogel, our sole developer and DM, released this game in 1995. It was called Exile. It had a top-down perspective, a rough (antique) UI, and it sold well enough that Vogel went into gamedev as a full time career. He made Exiles 2 and 3, other games, and then in 2000 he fully remade Exile into Avernum. New engine, it's isometric perspective now, a decent UI, etc. I personally think this was a great idea: at the rate of technological progress, Exile looked antique when it was released, and no one in 2000 wanted to touch it, let alone buy it. It also couldn't run on then-modern systems. The remake made it marketable again - and vastly easier to play. Like, to be completely honest Avernum still looks rough. You can tell it doesn't have the AAA polish even for the time and genre (compare and contrast Baldur's Gate from 1998) - but unlike Exile it looks solid. You're playing indie, not something from the early 80s.
Vogel goes on to remake Exile 2 and 3, makes more games, then makes a sequel to Avernum! Avernum 1-3 are now followed by 4-6 for a full saga. Vogel then decides in 2011 to shake things up and gets a brand new engine... and yes. He remakes Avernum. Avernum 1-3 are remade, and... I'll be honest. It's a full top-to-bottom remake, but not the major upgrade Exile to Avernum was. It's nice to have them available on tablet for mobile play, but... well, personal preference. I don't like that the new Avernums feature less in-depth skills, they changed how secret doors work, etc. The graphics are - instead of straight better, they're different. It's the same style, and honestly you can overlay the games and they're close. The script remains the same. I personally believe that the early 2000s Avernums are better to play, BUT if you told me you started with Avernum 2011 I'd be happy anyways, it's the same game and we're picking flavors. Anyways. In conclusion, Vogel remakes Avernums! But not all six, just the first three. He makes more games, and as of this writing he's working on remaking his Geneforge series and making a new game, and I'm looking forward to them.
Avernum! The plot, the setting, is simple: evil Empire has conquered the entire planet, rules with iron fist. There's a huge cave system underground called Avernum, and the Empire decides to make their own underground Australia and exile criminals there. They run around sealing up all of the entrances and exits, declare it off-limits, and use a magical portal to send people on a one-way trip to the caves. Your party of four (six in Exile) is the latest set of criminals, and the game opens as you stumble out of the portal. The starter town gives you basic gear, tells you about nearby cities, and warns you to be wary of Nephilim and Slitherizaki and Bandits. You step out into the overworld, and the game begins proper.
See, even from the start, you can go basically anywhere. Go left and find a town. Go north and find a fort, or skip it and find a cave. Or bandits. Or.... well, it's one of those overworld maps that encourages you to poke around and just fill out the minimap. I think it does a great job balancing "go explore!" with "you found a dragon that bit your head off" by using the excellent worldbuilding. The starter area? It has bandits, sure, but they're low-level. You're safe poking around as it's a quote-unquote civilized area of Avernum - local soldiers have swept out the worst monsters. They'll set up camp near rough spots and warn you (sometimes) if there's something awful. (Later on, for example, you can try to go to a cavern but soldiers will warn you there's a bandit fort in there, and they're setting up an ambush. Either help them or leave.) Using common sense and paying attention will keep you from certain death - area full of skeletons? Weird pink monster spotted on the map? Maaaybe turn back - or better yet, save. Saving in Avernum is free and highly encouraged. Keep multiple saves, explore, and that way if you do mess up, you're not redoing too much. But, right, the setting - leaving the nice farmlands and towns and going into the unexplored area leads to high-level encounters. It's simple but it works super well.
So far so generic, right? Towns, farms, caves, bandits. But it's all nicely fleshed out with lots of text: visit towns, talk to people. Find out that the farms are mushroom farms, and the mushrooms exist because a mage modified the species to be sustainable food for humans. The towns are ruled by mayors who sit on a council headed by a king. This society takes whoever the empire exiles and integrates them freely - settle down with a farm, become a merchant, become a soldier, whatever. Those who don't want to fit in become bandits - or, in a fascinating reflection - are exiled from Avernum to an even worse part of the caves. You can visit these exile settlements too, and meet people who just don't fit in - either by being evil or disagreeing or... yeah. Avernum is not a utopia, it's basically a struggling civilization desperately surviving in a harsh environment and you get this interesting juxtaposition of normal generic fantasy town, but the blacksmith is there because people need weapons more than they need their horses shod. (Not that they have horses...) The setting is well thought out and interesting, and supported by interesting, charming dialogue. I never felt like I was wasting my time talking to everyone in town - partially because I read fast, but partially because it's a good read. Nothing that will make you go "this is Shakespeare! I must write an English essay on it!" but instead stuff you smile at or think about and just, y'know, good.
Additionally, I really like how the setting handles mages. It fully embraces D&D magic: anyone can learn magic and cast spells... and most wizards are assholes. Why is this random pair of pants cursed? Wizards have no sense of right and wrong! Most mages are at the Mage Tower, and you'll find all kinds of people - mages who want to help, mages who are power-mad, mages who are just weird. Some are involved with the big plot, some aren't.
Wait, big plot? Oh yeah. It's a slow build, but in the true tabletop rpg style there is an overarching villain and you do build up to defeating him. I won't spoil this - but like, the king has a quest for you. So does at least one mysterious wizard in their tower. And doing these quests gets you closer to finding a potential way out of Avernum - which is your overall goal, after all.
This brings me back around to game design. The overworld has dungeons as well as towns, and you're incentivized to explore them not just for the experience and loot - but because in every single dungeon is at least one item or piece of info that you will need for the big plot. Is goblin fort locked? Another dungeon has the key. Wizard needs something? A dungeon has it. Not everything is in dungeons (explore towns! talk to people!) but you never walk out of a dungeon feeling like you wasted your time grinding. (You CAN grind, if you want, the overworld spawns enemy groups you can fight repeatedly!) I love this. I love feeling focused like this, even as we're zipping around looking everywhere.
And I do mean everywhere. I won't lie, I had my partner with a walkthrough nearby so I could be all "I can't find the dragon's key :(" and they could answer "you should search the throne room again" - or be vague or explicit. I can't offer you my partner, alas, so you can't get custom hints, but I can tell you that Vogel is SNEAKY and finding some of the plot-crucial stuff in the endgame especially was a nightmare of "I've been looking for X and you mean it was THERE how was I supposed to figure that out" - but hey. This is end-game, and you've been trained the entire game to look for secret walls and check, because in most cases Vogel DID put something where you thought he did.
The game ends with some really satisfying plot beats and setpieces and it really works. I love it.
I've neglected one final piece of the game: the combat, and how it's unbalanced. It's fun, by god it's fun, but it inherits a lot of problems from stealing from D&D wholesale.
Combat takes place on a grid and everyone gets an amount of action points during their turn. It's surprisingly similar to X-COM, but instead of guns we have wizards. Now, the game's character creator has a point system - you can pick a pregenerated class, or you can dive into assigning all of the points yourself. Make a fighter, put their points into strength, endurance, melee weapons and maybe a point into luck, pick a perk, there you go. In combat they have a lot of hitpoints so they can survive walking up to an ogre and hitting it. Fighters are straightforward: crank stats, give good weapon, walk up to enemy and bonk it until dead. But the other classes - I'll be honest. You have four character slots, you need specific skills just to survive, I defaulted to the standard party: fighter, thief/rogue, mage, priest. You can multiclass freely and teach your fighter spells, but for the most part I stuck to these archetypes.
As the victory screen rolled, well, how was it? Was my party balanced? Yes and no.
The Fighter: vital, 10/10, perfect. Having a really strong tank who can take and give hits for free was SO useful that in some points they made the mage seem useless. I love this. I love breaking out of wizard supremacy - not all the time, but having a solid meathead was vital to my victory. The game also has at least one magical sword, so having someone who could use that sword was huge.
The Thief: sighs. You NEED points in tool use, because there are a LOT of traps in the game and they do not screw around. I had more total party KOs from opening a chest wrong or stepping on the wrong floor tile and failing the trap check, because traps can be 'you've been poisoned' and oh no, guess I'll cast cure, but more often they're 'a knife flies out and impales you!' and suddenly someone is dead. Or, worse, higher level explosion traps where everyone takes 40 damage three times in a row. Traps are bullshit and if you can't neuter them with tool use, there's a giant difficulty spike. Now, since you can't split tool use among the party like some other skills, it has to be piled on someone. Now, without checking, I believe it also gets a bonus from dexterity, so - well. I can already see myself doing a new character build where they're a second fighter with more DEX than STR, but no no, let's stay focused. I built my thief around DEX, Tool Use, and Bows. This, hm. It meant that they were surprisingly flimsy, so if anything got into melee range my priest would be tied up healing them. Bows range from exceptionally good to "oh man c'mon" depending on your luck and ammo. Ammo. It's manually tracked and there's no free refills. Early and mid game this was fine - I'd pick arrows off of enemy archers to keep my quiver full. I even hit points where I found out you can only carry 100 arrows in a stack. But - and this got to me - you can sometimes pick your arrows out of corpses after a fight, but it's never 1:1 to you're always running at a deficit. Which meant as the game got harder and less full of archers, it became common to run out of arrows and then I'd have a squishy thief standing around being useless in combat. Which - well - being an archer is great! Ranged attacks are amazing, especially as you run into mages who will summon waves of rats to prevent your fighter from reaching them. But without ammo, well, I ultimately decided to multi-class. My thief got points in endurance and pole-arms, and while they never caught up to my fighter, they were at least able to stand next to them and take blows and dish out decent damage. (Numbers: Fighter would hit an enemy for 70, Thief would hit for 40. That varied, but that was the gap I was working with.) It worked out well in the end - thief was real good at sniping mages and used their spear on melee dudes - but it's something to keep in mind if you try to go pure archer... and if you're going to spend that many points into tool use.
The Mage: lol, lmao, what's game balance. Mages are OP and if you do not have one you will not keep up with the enemies and you will die horribly. Why? Because this game has haste and slow. Yep. Your fighter may have a billion hitpoints and hit like a truck but they will die when an enemy mage slows them repeatedly, hastes their allies, and even rats will chew you to death if you never get a turn. If you are not keeping up with haste/slow, you are going to lose. Sometimes entire fights would be determined by my ability to counter slow. Now, I'm not sure if you can mitigate this by giving your entire party basic mage training so they can all cast haste/slow themselves, but having a focused mage has other benefits. Mages have about 20~ spells ranging from utility (cast light!) to mass damage (lightning spray) to crazy buffs (arcane shield) to - wait for it - summons.
Summons are so important they're getting their own paragraph. In the game of X-COM where cover is important and you want clear shots at the enemy mages, you quickly realize Avernum has no cover, kind of. You can hide a mage behind a wall sometimes as DPS spells need line of sight, but that's never guaranteed, nor are chokepoints. Your fighter can tank, but there's no taunt skill. The solution then is to summon your own minions. Early game summons are trash. Useful trash, but they die in one hit to anything and meh. I ignored summons because of this. But mid-game - as enemy casters are beginning to come into their own - even the trash became useful. Having six rats on the field as the enemy casts lightning spray... well, it can only target so many people, and if it chooses even one rat instead of your mage, there you go. This goes doubly for slow, or even worse late-game debuffs. Now, well. As your mage levels and finds the higher level summoning spells, the game balance flies out the window again. You can summon your own mages. Your summoned mages can then haste/slow... or summon their own critters. Yeah. None of your summons are controllable so there's a chance they'll spend three turns in a row casting fireball at an enemy immune to fire, but since there's no limit to summons, just summon another mage. In some very silly fights I wound up with three summoned mages who would summon their critters and my party was able to basically sit out the fight and then pick up the loot afterwards. Yeah.
Mages' DPS isn't anything to sneeze at either. Remember fighter hitting for 70, thief for 40? Mage cast lightning spray and did 40 to the entire enemy group, and then since they were hasted they could do it twice in a row instantly. This is silly. Mages are broken, wizard supremacy, etc. Except... except. And here is the balance that keeps the Fighter relevant: mana. MP. There is no way to regain it in combat outside of potions, the big spells are expensive, and since most dungeons are sieges where you need to chew through a lot of enemies before you can rest and regain mana again, there is a serious element of resource management going on. A mage without mana is kind of useless, and I didn't really put any stats into strength or endurance outside of enough to keep them alive. Making it to the boss of a dungeon as your mage is out of mana is really bad. You also have to do some big thinking as you choose between keeping their mana reserved for haste/slow and summoning and DPS and well, I really like that your mage is a big useful toolbox but you have to think about how to deploy them.
The Priest: vital, no notes. Going without a priest is suicide. Even if you're winning a fight you're taking damage and that has to be healed. Debuffs are plentiful and nightmarish. On top of that, priests deploy some insanely potent buffs that can boost your damage to ludicrous levels - or slap on some magic armor that keeps your squishy mage alive. And then! And then, because priests are awesome, they do the highest damage spell to undead - it's cheap to cast, huge DPS, and can multi-target - AND priests can do some summons. In other words, priests are busted and you should have one. Now - why am I not complaining about game balance here again? Because unlike a mage/haste/slow/summoning-other-mages, I think you could probably get through the game without a dedicated one. Huge challenge mode, you will need a huge amount of potions and someone should learn at least the level one priest spell heal, debuffs are gonna suck - but I think you could do it. Don't, it won't be fun, but - yeah. Priest summons, by the way, while great, will not cast spells.
If I had to play Avernum again right now I wouldn't replicate my party exactly but I'd still need the same set of four. Someone has to fight, someone has to cast haste, someone has to heal, someone has to disarm traps. There's not much wiggle room there, and I think this is a reflection of how Avernum reduced the party count to four - Exile had six, originally. Oh, well. It works, and there's enough flexibility and loose skill points that I could probably build a solid trap disarming mage.
That said, there are some hard skill checks through the game that you just have to roll with. You will need to be able to make a potion to finish an important quest, so someone needs at least a few points in potion making. Stuff like that. It's not sign-posted, it's - well, it's a symptom of what kind of game this is. You're either up for this or you aren't.
Last bit: potions and the economy. In general this works great. You're tight for money so you're incentivized to pick up loot to sell, but you're never so tight for money you're scraping all the heavy armor off the floor to sell for a pittance. I got very good at skimming the loot window to go 'ah silver ring that's light and sells, that's just another shield heavy and not worth it' etc etc. As you do more quests and get better loot you'll begin to swim in money - but buying new spells is very expensive (and worth it) so it evens out. There's also a cap on how much money you can carry, so you're encouraged to make regular trips to buy spells / items / etc. My only complaint here is that arrows are expensive and you can't carry enough. And I mean expensive to the point where part of the reason I dual-classed my thief was so I wasn't spending hundreds of coins on arrows after every major dungeon. Right. So. Potions. Lifeblood of the mage, and the only way to cure some awful debuffs. I did not hoard enough of these. Putting points into potion-making is not meant to be a dump stat: the game is balanced around you actively making and using potions, and I challenged myself by not doing this for a long time. I damn near made the final boss fight impossible because I didn't stock enough potions. (I won anyways, but BOY it was hard!) Potion-making ingredients can be harvested in the wild for free, respawn, and are so useful. Please do not make the same mistake I did!
Overall.... yeah I loved this game. I've talked too much about it already. I could keep going - boy I want to talk about Erika, or the Spiral Pit, or Dumbfound, or what I think about the dragons - but really? Avernum is good and it deserved no less than two remakes. It deserves to be popular and played by people who dig it. That eager, enthusiastic DM who wants to show you his module just shines with passion and excitement and interesting ideas. I finished this game happy, and I'm thrilled there's five sequels. - 12/10/2023
Age of Fear: Undead King
Necromancer Campaign; spoilers for said campaign
Finished another game! Well, campaign. But - regardless! I feel great! I have a tough time sticking to games (even ones I love) long enough to beat them, and here I am seeing the thing through. Even better, it's the kind of game where once you beat it, it puts you in the open world so you can keep playing if you want.
Age of Fear is a tactical turn-based strategy game featuring a top-down perspective and free movement. Think Phantom Brave or Makai Kingdom and you're there - but with a European fantasy aesthetic instead of anime. It's a game made by one man named Leslaw Sliwko, and he turned it into a series with multiple sequels, DLC, and plans for more. I like small-scale squad tactics, building my army and leveling them up and figuring out how to distribute my resources (equipment, potions, etc) and then the puzzle-solving element of trying to figure out how to defeat levels - so yeah, this game is for me.
At the very beginning of the series, we've got the Undead King: a game with two story campaigns; the necromancer campaign, then the human one. You don't have to play them in order, but story-wise the necromancer comes first. So that's where I hopped in, and I think the premise is neat: you are Krill, a thoroughly evil necromancer in training. The story opens with him murdering his necromancer-teacher, and he never ever turns good from there. How do I say this without sounding like a sociopath... it's kind of nice to play a story where you're evil? There's no choices, no way to redeem Krill, he's just an asshole who wants to raise the dead and then slaughter villages and revel in his mad power. I also appreciate the writing for - well, it's not deep, but I also appreciate that it doesn't go grimdark? It's almost cartoonish, in a way, all the joy of being evil and doing harm without any of the consequences. And frankly, I'm into that. It sells the fantasy and gives a fun flavor to the gameplay mechanics.
See, Krill's army starts with just him and maybe a skeleton or two. But as you get rolling it's Krill and zombies and skeletons and upgraded skeleton types and ghouls and vampires and a whole undead legion of units that you've created by raising the corpses of the people you've killed. This is in the story - there's an early mission where you kill a human knight, raise him, and get a named skeleton rider who obeys you completely - and this is in the game, where you go into a random mission on the open world, find an enemy hero unit, kill it, raise it, and voila your own named skeleton. Later in the game you're so full of random skeletons that you just delete them to get army space back. It really sells the idea that you're a necromancer, raising the dead, and... the dead are disposable.
You only get one other ally hero unit: Noea, a banshee. She seems to have decided that Krill is IT, and neither he nor I get it, but that's alright. I think, in the hands of a writer interested in doing more with either character, there could have been an interesting arc of corruption or redemption or something - but here, nah, she's just a bit of flavor. Which is okay! It works out, and I think this helps with the game design too - because she's mandatory, you have to use her, and this introduces you to how important support units are. Buffs and debuffs are very powerful, magic and morale manipulation are great tools - you go from 'why would I want a banshee' to 'I want two please' and it's great!
So yeah, the plot is basically Krill goes here, finds trouble, kills it, gets into more trouble, kills it - light fare, fun. I appreciate the attempts at foreshadowing (Krill has nightmares and visions), and I appreciate how the main thrust of the plot begins when Krill dies. (Scripted battle, no win situation, basically a cutscene!) He dies, is revived as a Lich, and is told he's now a part of the Undead King's legion. He decides 'no I am not' and begins the main quest to kill his boss. It gets spicy in the final two missions where you find out the Lich King condones demon summoning; Krill has exactly one good bone in his body, and it's that he HATES demons and does not want Hell on Earth. A real Joker versus the Red Skull kind of moment, but - hey. Krill kills the demons, the demon summoners, the Undead King, and... yep. It's all a cycle. He's the Undead King now, firmly in charge and doing evil... and he has a vision of a human hero rising to stop him. You can feel the smash-cut to the human campaign.
I like this. It's not deep, but it's fun and even - dare I say it - a bit clever. You've enjoyed the fantasy of being evil, you stop a greater evil, and it ends promising that you will be defeated someday.
Gameplay wise, I HATE this. HATE. HATE. HATE. AAAAA! I hate fighting undead versus undead! I would have been thrilled if we'd spent the entire game fighting ANYONE ELSE. LORD.
Okay so the deal is, undead armies are divided into halves: you have your disposable units that you cannot re-raise from the dead. Skeletons and all of their varieties, basically, alongside anyone still living. You then have your reusable units, such as zombies and their varieties, vampires, lichs, and a few others. So in some ways leveling your skeletons (easy to get, cheap, fast to level) is a waste of time because they die and whoops there goes all that investment. And the army cap for going into battle is capped at around 10~, so there's no way to bring in your 20+ skeletons. You need to bring in a hand-picked group that can defeat whatever's on the field. In fights against basically anyone else (humans primarily) this is fine - kill even one of their dudes and you can raise them and inflate your army. In undead fights, you cannot raise their dead. Lose a skeleton, you can't replace it.
Second, necromancers and lichs have a skill that lets them touch an undead and take control of it, with a 90% success rate and a two turn cooldown. This is balanced by how fragile they are, and you can't cast magic while standing next to enemy units, but... it's not balanced at all! For either side! Stealing a whole unit is huge! This can go from "that's my skeleton now and he's suiciding into your abomination" to "my vampire now heh heh" and yeah. All of the fights against the undead feature necromancers who can do this. If you do not bring your own, you will lose most of your army and it turns into a mess of "aha my ghoul is finally next to that mage, they'll kill them next turn - oh nevermind he's an enemy now" - so you're balancing that with raising your dead, and we come back to skeletons. You can't raise them, so they become key to destroying on both sides, as once they're gone they're gone.
Third, undead armies are naturally built around destroying morale and spreading disease. Undead armies are also mostly immune to destroying morale and spreading disease. I think you see where this is going. Banshee wails at massed knights, they all panic and you can pick them apart. Banshee wails at massed skeletons, nada. Waste of a turn. Undead are the perfect counter for undead.
What this all means in practice is that the final set of fights in the game had difficulty multipliers beyond anything I had faced elsewhere in the game. Fighting random armies against any other faction in the open world? Tough, but doable, and you walk away feeling satisfied. Fighting the Undead King? I'm dead again, this is awful.
From looking at the steam forums and the dev comments, and from thinking about it on my own, I think the intended way to take these fights is to bring a mixed army of units from other factions that can counter this undead nonsense, and bring your own necromancers so you can steal their units. But it seems that going pure undead is not intended? I could be wrong, but BOY I struggled here, as I was invested in my vampires, abominations, liches, etc. I figured it was the undead campaign, and I wanted to use undead. (sigh) Do not be me. Please play smarter than I did, and don't be stubborn. The open world provides a lot of avenues for different units.
But ultimately I was stubborn, so - yeah. I ground my way through it, somehow pulled these fights off, and made it to the final boss. And... I'll be completely honest I think this fight is too hard. I had the difficulty on normal the entire time, and was trading some units with every fight, but overall it felt solid. Tough but not impossible. Undead King? He had himself, multiple Liches, multiple demon summoners, lots of units already, and it was a clusterfuck of desperately trying to tear apart his army before I was inevitably destroyed. The liches would raise each other. They'd raise and/or control my dead. The demons are just tough.
My confession: I wanted to cheat. I didn't cheat. I didn't change the difficulty. Instead I wound up breaking and using save-scum around turn 30 to find the narrow path to victory. I hate doing this, I want to iron-man my way through battles (if not campaigns), but... yeah. I confess defeat. But... heck with it. I did it. My army ground down his, and it was just Krill and Noea and I was ready to restart the whole thing when one of the demons went rogue. This demon killed the liches, I began to raise my army back from the dead (again) and slowly - bit by bit - we worked until it was just Krill and the Undead King. And either a ghoul or abomination for him to be distracted by.
The Undead King is some nonsense. He is a clone of Krill but with better stats and skills, basically. He raises the dead, has an aoe melee attack, has other spells, and when you attack him his armor does an automatic damage to you... even if you miss. I never got a melee hit chance on him higher than 10%, even with back-stabs. There was no way for me to single him out in combat earlier on and kill him - instead I had to get him alone, then slowly whittle him down. And if I messed up at any point, he'd swap targets, zoom to Noea, and one-shot her. But she had to be in range enough to keep casting ice spells at him, as they had a full 20% hit rate! plink plink plink
If I were a more patient person I'd go back and rearrange my entire army and hire more units that can heal (as you can't really heal undead...) and so on, but... via save-scum/time travel and luck I killed him. And it sucked and I hope the other campaigns aren't as frustrating. I want a challenge, not a 'your entire army is built wrong try again' challenge.
Yet here I am - still fully ready to recommend the game and dive into the sequels. If you're the type to actually want to play this and keep going through the first half of the game, you're the type who will enjoy solving the undead vs undead problems in the second half. A lot of the game is being handled useful tools and having to figure out how to assemble them into a winning machine, and I like that. I really enjoyed solving that, and I can see myself coming back at some point to use Krill to stomp around in the open world killing random other armies. An undead army in full motion is a beautiful thing, terrifying the enemy and raising their fallen, and it's so much fun to play. - 12/12/2023
Books
Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow
I love this book series. Keep that in mind as you read this: I adore what this author does with her world-building and character development. I'm rereading it instead of reading new books because it's comfort food for me. The main character is ADHD in ways I relate to. I've read ten books in the series, and eagerly await new releases whenever they drop. Currently, I'm in the middle of reading #2, Cast in Courtlight.
The name of the series is Chronicles of Elantra. It is currently eighteen books long, with a nineteeth coming in August 2024, and it has three spin-off novels alongside a novella. It is a bizarre fusion of urban fantasy with epic fantasy, written by a veteran fantasy author who normally writes doorstoppers. She has been writing one of these yearly since 2005, alongside her work on said doorstoppers. (I feel, in some ways, that I am describing Tad Williams, but his foray into urban fantasy was a four book set of doorstoppers, not an ongoing episodic serial series.) The general story structure is that you could technically pick up any novel in the series and read a self-contained standalone story, but this becomes less and less true as it goes on. The author has stated that she has an ending in mind for the series, but no actual ETA as to when she'll get there - only an estimate that the final arc will be two or three books. (That said, she's been notoriously bad at estimating story length in the past, as one of her series ballooned from six books to eight!) In other words: start reading this series with the expectation that you're going to finish reading it before it properly ends, even if you're a slow reader, and there's a slim chance it may never finish at all. Finally, as a general estimate, each book (paperback and mass-market paperback) has been about 300-500 pages; they're not short, but they're not as long as her epic fantasy, either.
The pitch of the series is: in a fantasy world, a dragon has won the preceding wars and become the Emperor, ruling over Elantra, the huge city that surrounds a mysterious inner ring of ancient structures and ruins. The city is populated by other dragons, elves, cat-people, angelic winged people, psychic alien-esque people, and humans. Our protagonist is a former street-rat turned police officer named Kaylin, and she is capital-S Special in that way of protagonists. Every book follows her adventures as she tries to stop serial killers, magical crime, elf nonsense, or other fantasy weirdness. Through her we meet and explore all kinds of fantasy weirdos and their cultures, and get to see the inner-workings of a fantasy police station.
Now, what are the stereotypes of these genres? I'll give a quick refresher in case you're new to them. Urban fantasy (henceforth UF) goes first as it's less broad a topic. In a nutshell, if you laid out every UF and picked one at random, you would read a mystery story set in an urban environment with supernatural elements, usually tinged with a noir flavoring. The hard-bitten private detective who has to solve why someone offed a guy, except that the guy in question is a werewolf, and the murderer is a vampire and the detective had to do magical stuff to find out whodunnit. Often the ending contains adventure and/or violence, as the vampire won't come quietly. Finally, most urban fantasy series devote a decent amount of time to world-building, as they want to explain why there are vampires in New York City. -- Now, there's more to the genre, but that's the quick and dirty. (Last minute edit: UF usually is published as series, with each book being a separate case.)
Epic fantasy (also known as high fantasy), by contrast, cannot be summarized in this manner. Too big and broad a genre. The plots and characters are all over the place. But the common elements are, generally speaking, these: first, set in a fantasy setting, i.e. not Earth. Second, a large scope - be it cast of characters or time scale or similar. Third, magic is present. Finally, the major conflict cannot be decided by force of arms alone. There are more common features, but you need those elements to qualify as epic fantasy - or rather, to differentiate it from low fantasy, or dark fantasy, or something else entirely. The most commonly referenced work in this genre is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.
Elantra does a fusion I don't normally see: it's structured like an urban fantasy, in that it's a serialized story (each book is a separate case), follows one POV character who acts as detective, in an urban environment, and there sure are supernatural elements. But at the same time, the world-building is aggressively fantasy (none of the fusion of 'why are there vampires in NYC', but instead it's not Earth at all), there's no noir flavoring, and as the story goes on, the cases evolve from somewhat standard UF fare to full blown fantasy adventures. There's even a book where Kaylin goes on a roadtrip with the elves, and it's just straight fantasy for that entire book, no urban about it. But - more importantly - because it is so episodic, unlike most fantasy settings you actually get to explore all the nooks and crannies of the setting. Most epic fantasy novels are either novels or trilogies, almost never long-running series.
This should explain part of the appeal: reading this series is a guided tour through an alien world, following a central cast I care about and get to watch develop. It's the Star Trek of fantasy novels, and I love it.
Now, enough high-level view of the series! Let's look at the people, specifically our lead, Kaylin! Kaylin is twenty when the series starts, ADHD as hell, and immature. I have seen a lot of reviews mention that they dropped the series because of her: she's too immature, too stupid, too much of a doofus to be worth putting up with. I don't entirely disagree!
Kaylin is infurating. She was born in the fiefs, the inner core of Elantra where the dragons do not go and there is no government outside of crime lords. She was orphaned young by a sick mom and raised by a slightly older child, and she is a street rat to her core. She's used to poverty, starvation, begging and thieving to survive, and holding no respect for high society. At some point in her early teens, she left the fiefs, was taken in by the Hawklord and effectively tamed in the way you'd tame a feral animal. Which is to say, weirdly enough, that she was raised by a police station? The Hawklord didn't treat her like a daughter, he basically told her that if she wants to be a Hawk, she'd have to complete these courses and do the training and join up, and she did... but only the bare minimum. When Cast in Shadow starts, I won't lie, she is effectively the station mascot and pet, not an actual officer, and she acts like a bratty teenager.
But, weirdly, this also works? Kaylin is incredibly earnest about what she does and doesn't want. She wants, above all else, to protect children. Due to watching other orphans like herself get murdered in the fiefs when she was a kid, she has devoted herself to the Hawks specifically so she can protect and stop murderers. But she's also selfish about her life? Or short-sighted, shall we say, which is ironic given what she is. Kaylin wants to be a beat cop, effectively. She wants to patrol the city and stop criminals and go drinking with her friends and gamble and help out at the local orphanage. This is all she aspires to in life, and if not for the plot frantically dragging her into things, she would happily spend the rest of her life being a helpful presence in her community. She does not care about the history of Elantra, she doesn't care about magic, she doesn't care about elf politics, none of that.
So the plot screams into her life over and over in multiple ways, and through Kaylin's proximity to the plot, she is forced to learn everything she's been ignoring: history, culture, magic, more. We, the audience, benefit from this as we get interesting infodumps from other characters telling Kaylin about the world she lives in, that she should know.
In Cast in Shadow, this plot takes the form of serial murders targeting children and leaving evidence that directly ties it to the murders from her childhood. All the cliche elements are here: Kaylin is assigned to the investigation despite her personal ties to the case. The other two officers assigned are, well, similarly compromised (and Kaylin wants to kill one of them, for personal reasons.) They visit the scene of the crime, they interview the crimelord in charge of that area of the fiefs, they watch an autopsy, and so on. But while it has the structure of a police procedural, it doesn't have the heart of one. Kaylin's unprofessional as hell and basically unfit for this investigation. She's trying, bless her, but the book doesn't apologize about it: she's not on the case because of her skills, but because she is tied to the murders and her presence helps them figure out whodunnit.
Yet, despite all of this, you're not reading this scoffing at her. You're reading it like a fantasy novel, rooting her on as she navigates this. Another angle that I've neglected is that Kaylin is a healer. She's one of the four people in all of Elantra who can use magic to heal as an innate gift, and it is only through the Hawklord's influence that she isn't chained up in the Emperor's court, waiting to heal him if he ever gets hurt. What she's doing instead - alongside working as a Hawk - is secretly-not-secretly working with the Midwives. She is always on call for any emergency, ready to drop everything and run to personally heal births gone wrong. Healing drains her, but she never ever turns someone down.
The precinct treats her like a kid sister tagging along; the sarge is soft on her, the boss is soft on her, everyone likes her and supports her when they can, and in some ways this reinforces the image of her as a child. But it also creates a home-like atmosphere, where you know she's safe here, with these people, and she works damn hard, walking her beat or healing people or trying to keep up in the investigations. And, in a lot of ways, their gentleness with her pays off: when the stakes go high, she steps up. So - yeah, you as a reader are going to gel with her or you're going to run screaming. She's always late! She's rude! She's deliberately ignorant! Hell, she's even racist towards one of the species in Elantra, and it's an ongoing arc of her working through that and being a better person.
In case you can't tell, I like Kaylin. I adore her arc as she grows into herself. Cast in Shadow is only the beginning, but even this mess is fascinating to me. Especially her ADHD things: she struggles to apply herself to subjects that don't interest her, she loses track of time, yet hyper-focuses on things she cares about. Things other people find easy frustrate her. At no point does the author diagnose her in or out of universe, but I can't help but see some of myself in her and want to root for her.
The other big thing in the book I need to address are the elves. Ahem, they're called Barrani. Barrani are immortal people with beautiful white skin and black hair and they're stuck-up and fancy as hell. They disdain mortals for having such short lives, and they're so damn beautiful in the process of being massive dicks. Elves! I think the series has a cool take on elves, and I'm always a sucker for the pointy-eared bastards, so that's my bias. But, crucially to this book, early on we get a case of the plot reaching out to Kaylin and forcing her to learn.
The fieflord is an outcaste Barrani named Nightshade, and he lives in a fancy magical castle and deploys his servants to kill his enemies and put them in hanging cages outside. He is a big ol' goth edgelord, and he inserts himself into the plot by marking Kaylin's cheek with a magical tattoo that she can never remove, even if she skinned herself. Kaylin hates this! Everyone around her hates this! But she winds up magically linked to Nightshade, and he is - through the rest of the series too - a fascinating, cruel ally.
I'm going to just say it: the series has very very minor shades of romance, and the ghost of a love triangle, but it never really pursues this. Kaylin doesn't think about romance, she thinks about work, and she never really loses this. I appreciate it. It's a nice change of pace from what I usually read.
Last bits: every non-human in this series has magical moodring eyes. Why? I don't know. The author likes it. When dragons are mad their eyes turn red, or some color, and the author will bring this up, but never provide a moodring chart. I just take it as colorful flavor text and keep going.
Dragons are surprisingly prevalent in this series, in shapeshifted human form and as big ol' lizards. They're fascinating, old, powerful. I like how they're written.
Okay that's everything short of a whole slew of spoilers! Cast in Shadow, and by extension the series it begins, is a personal favorite and I fucking love it. It's weird and doing its own thing and in some ways clearly wish-fulfillment, but in a very earnest and wholesome way. Kaylin is special and kind of a mary sue but charming about it, and the world is filled with interesting people - and it becomes very funny that these fancy-ass elves/dragons/etc have to lower themselves from their proper high fantasy lives to interact with this ratty-ass street rat cop who failed all of her classes and refuses to respect them. I cannot wait until even more of these books come out. - 1/5/2024