got_quiet

Got Titanium Throne and have been enjoying it. The core gameplay loop has two phases. the first is a match three where you get resources and manipulate a playing field to be layed out the way you want it for the second phases, which is something of an auto battler. Using the resources in the first phase you schedule a series of spells or summons and then the scene plays out without your input as enemies spawn or units collect resources. This rundown doesn't do the game justice though, because the brilliance of it is in the presentation. The premise is you find yourself at faerie court, and want to go home, but according to the court you are their queen and need to lead them to victory in war. What's the war about? Who knows. There is a mind bending juxtaposition of the hyper modern (foodball and baseball references are everywhere, everyone looks like a yuppie from the 2000s) and the classical fantasy (the faerie court is just how I like it: changeable, absurd, and imbued with a confident logic that none the less makes very little sense.) The castle you're stuck in ups and walks around, moving itself from engagement to engagement. The writing is top notch, full of whimsy, mischief, and fourth-wall-breaking gags. As an example, I had played the demo a few months ago, just bought the game recently, and when I came back the game was like, "Oh cool, you bought the game, great! Well here you are in your old save. Would you like a refresher on how the game is played?" And I was like, "Sure, thanks," and the game went, "Ok, so just delete this save and start from the beginning. That'll be a better refreshing than anything!" And then it throws you into the boss fight that the demo had stopped right before. 

This might sound malicious but the gameplay is simple on its face and the demo was not that long. There is still a lot of depth to actually playing the game, as the units you chose or the "job" you pick will significantly change what terrain benefits or hurts you, and there are a many sub objectives and a variety of challenges. I'm not very far in at all but there's often something brand new showing up in a level and a lot of fun banter to go with it.

And then there's the inter-gameloop segments. Much like the home bases in Hades, there's stuff to do in between runs that change with some frequency. A lot of times those elements come with their own very easy match three minigames which add a little interactability to what is otherwise a somewhat linear plot. I have so far tried and failed to get a single straight answer out of Puck, tried to help a cat get to the top of a shelf via a stacking puzzle (that you fuck up if you match three), gotten lost on a labyrinth, and chugged a Loving Baseball potion, which everyone was excited about because they didn't know what baseball was and wanted to find out what it was like loving something you had no exposure to. They also are very dismissive of idea that cars exist.

Looking at the recent patch notes, it looks like there is a lot of content that I haven't seen yet, so I'm excited.

With a puzzle type of game play, a lot of stuff to discover, and entertaining writing, I definitely recommend this game.

During the Snowflake Challenge I was thinking of linking to my old Anidb account, which is largely unused, but then I went and looked it up, and read the reviews that high school me had left on a few things, many, many years ago, and decided no, let's not show this to people.

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Anyway, Snowflake Madness is over, so it's time to start making posts about Baldur's Gate 3. The below is going to be spoilerific, so here is the more spoiler free reaction first. The game is very good but almost too long, The choices and relationships are also excellent, especially for a mainstream RPG, but I am maybe a little spoiled by Visual Novels and still think that they do a better job with some of the elements of narrative.

I've been playing without too much save scumming. A couple times a sequence has felt a little unfair, or the consequences of certain choices did not seem properly clarified, but for the most part, I have rolled with the very many punches that have come my Tav's way, and it's worked out.

My brother and I finished our run of Divinity! It was a lot of fun and particularly enjoyable to play as a duo. I played a Necro/Hydro Ifan with some sword and board skills, and my brother was a glass canon summoner/archer Lohse. While playing with a friend was a fun way to do it, there were some pros and cons.

Pros:

• Discussing tactics in battle and speculating about quests or pondering decisions together was a lot of fun. It was also nice to share feelings of achievement when we hit a particularly nasty combat or tried to achieve a certain outcome and had to keep trying over and over again. And of course when someone did something stupid or crazy and it worked or absolutely didn't there was an audience.
• The RP approach when you're in multiplayer is a lot different from solo play and it was fun to have your other party member be an actual person with certain of his own ambitions. We both got into our characters pretty well and enjoyed becoming invested in their own quests.

• My brother tends to play at a faster pace than me and I have a habit of wandering off into random places so while we were generally in sync sometimes one of us triggered something big while the other was nowhere nearby. There's a teleportation mechanic that helps prevent this from being a huge problem, though, playing split meant...
• Sometimes one player gets lore and the other doesn't so the story feels like it would probably have been more coherent if it were played solo.
• The difference in RP approach was also something of a con. We didn't interact with any of the NPC companions because we Lone Wolf duoed it, so I still know nothing about them, and even if they had been in the party it would have been harder to really interact with them properly when there is two of us.

We both agreed that it was a great game and we'll probably play again, this time separately. I want to try a rogue elf. Maybe I'll pick Sebille, though I might try a romance in which case I kind of want a male PC. It'd be also nice to play a game in which the scoundrel skills are at all in play. Neither I nor my brother took any of them and we couldn't sneak, steal or lickpick for to save our lives. But a second run is probably not going to happen any time soon. I don't replay games too often, and don't have too much time to do so either.

Below are a few plot/spoilery reactions to the game:

With Divinity officially in the books, I'm eyeing BG3, but I won't have time to really sit down and lose my life to that thing for a while yet, and I don't want to spend that much money either, so it'll still probably be after New Years that I can get to it. Meanwhile I'm trying cinch this BLM bundle VN play through. I'm almost done for real this time, and if I could get it done by the holidays then I can feel a little accomplished in my fannish life.