Posted by This list is arbitrary. Contents can range from mostly superficial impressions to actual deep-dives if my level of interest calls for it.
DELTARUNE CHAPTER 1
Also known as Susie’s Character Arc, the Game. It’s very minimalist in terms of graphics, which kind of speeds the gameplay along by virtue of having fewer things to notice. The humor’s on point as well (admittedly 90% of the Undertale franchise). Mixed feelings about RPG town mode when you’re not in a dungeon, where you’re just walking around talking to randos who have nothing to do with the story and appear to be placed there for flavor text. (And boy do they ramble). Fights are challenging and the last boss is kinda BS, but there’s plenty of healing at your disposal. I would’ve preferred if it’s actually feasible to power through on sheer danmaku aptitude but alas. Anyway the overall story wraps up towards the end but it is Chapter 1 and the teaser did be teaseing, so I’m onboard to see it all the way through.
What else, what else. Oh yeah, music slaps. Anyway, yes, I’m proud I recognized Laura Shigihara’s singing voice.
PRAECANTOR LILA ~ BELL SPELL
For anyone familiar with the Touhou Project, the challenge presented here is in no way a disappointment. To further the comparison, the patterns of the later levels lean more on the sheer speed and density of the bullets for their impact, which can be rationalized in the encouragement of clever usage of the bell mechanic on the part of the player. The bell mechanic itself is an innovative take on the death-bombing mechanic, one that takes precision to leverage to its fullest. One can draw a parallel to the collectible UFOs from the Touhou game of the same name, in which survivability and points are trade-offs when deciding how to make use of them. The stage backgrounds have a variety to them, each of which owes its ambience to an amount of details that rival the most ambient of Touhou stages. As far as the story goes, it is simple and easy to follow, yet one is given a sense that this is but a small glimpse of what seems to be an expansive universe that can definitely be further delved into.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Man…
What a game.
There are so many ways to tackle this behemoth, but I will try my best. Full disclosure, I have only played through the Golden Deers route, which is just one route out of the possible… four? I believe? Which irks me a bit – my style of analysis has more to do with story and narrative than anything else and only seeing part of the complete story hardly puts me in a position to give full consideration. All the same, I don’t think you have to go through all four routes and 200 hours of gameplay to be able to run the game through a critical lens. Whether or not I proceed with the remaining routes is entirely up in the air since, man, the gameplay is tedious as heck. But fun.
Aesthetically speaking, this game is… (starry-eyed emote). That much is a given. The ability to meld together 3D models with a hand-drawn anime style really succeeded in catering to the widest audience imaginable. There are some environment textures that look tacky and low-spec, but those don’t intrude upon the overall experience. My one gripe with the visuals isn’t that it’s not rich, it’s that they aren’t being delivered at their full potential. I’m talking about the battle animations – they are swag, it’s just that the camera angles aren’t as cinematic as I’d hoped. There’s a rich plethora of weapons and weapon handling animations, but there are times where, due to special effects or the camera being angled weirdly or not being zoomed in enough, I miss some details that I wish I’d seen.
Now…
How about that monastery. It’s really not something you’d expect to exist in an SRPG, but it’s a neat touch nevertheless. Having a home base of some sort really centers most of the happenings, character interactions, and gameplay routines into one place – it goes without saying that they really ought to make this place into something you wouldn’t hesitate to call your home. To that end, I’d say it does its job. If it weren’t so easy to get lost, I’d almost wish they got rid of fast travel just so you can take it all in as you move from place to place. If anything, I wish there were more things going on in such a huge map. Instead, there seem to be rooms, corridors, and open spaces that don’t seem to fit any purpose, which lulled me into a sense of expecting something new to happen, or some new areas to open up anytime.
The same sense of place can’t be said of the in-game universe as a whole, though. Fodlan’s supposed to be this huge continent, split into various territories each with its own characteristics, lore, customs, and such. I’ll admit, I felt a bit giddy upon seeing the highly-stylized map labeled with Many Words. Don’t get me wrong, the lore is there for those who want it. You’d just have to enjoy reading a mountain of text that’s in the library. For now, the entire rest of the continent just… exists as a bunch of battle maps. You can hardly distinguish between one or the other. A bit disappointing, to be honest. A great deal is happening in the 3-Houses-verse, whether it’s on-camera or off – the game does its best to portray it as such – and these stories are mostly told through the interactions of the numerous cast members. This is understandable. You can’t have such a huge cast and just have everyone exist in a void.
…Which brings me to character support. Yeah, I know. Having such a big cast inevitably means slogging through piles upon piles of support conversations – some of which are interesting, mind you. But just like any universe, there are people you can put up with more so than others, and it doesn’t help that a good portion of support conversations involve two characters butting heads over something trifling. It’s not the worst thing. The writing here isn’t intended to be good – it’s intended to justify the support relation between two characters that you happen to place next to each other. And having personalities fleshed out in this way, albeit not ideal, is better than not having them fleshed out in the first place. So what’s the workaround? I’m not sure myself, but maybe it’d be better to limit the pool of people a given character is compatible with and have the pairings that stand out have more substance.
You know what else can use more substance? … So I know this is something I’m in the weakest position to talk on, given my limited playthrough, but I guess I have to comment a bit on the main overarching story. From what I’ve seen, it’s pretty standard, a run-of-the mill good-versus-evil narrative. Simply put, an evil underground society tries to awaken a long-forgotten villain and hijacks an empire to take over the world, and so a living saint resurrects the Goddess in the form of the MC to deal with them. Nothing about the evil society really stood out over the course of the game – I can’t speak to their motivations, describe any of their quirks, nor how they came to be. The revelation that the head priestess is actually the patron saint is something I shrugged over – her role in the game thus far is mostly in the margins, always existing as a voice of authority in the backdrop. Sothis, the incarnation of the Goddess herself, mysteriously appearing and establishing a bond with the MC, yet never making a second appearance nor being revisited afterwards seemed like a loose knot. There’s more to the story, I’m sure, but I wish the game had hinted at something in the epilogue, maybe a bonus cliffhanger-type scene that leaves me looking for more – but there isn’t anything like that either.
None of what I’ve said takes away from the fun I had, though. The gameplay kept me going throughout my entire run. It’s what left me spoiled and wanting more from everything that wasn’t the gameplay. Having played some of the older Fire Emblem games, the additional elements they’ve added to the basic SRPG mechanics (i.e. abilities, combat arts, and battalions) offered multiple dimensions to customize the characters with. So yeah, I spent way too much time in the pre-battle menus, but none of it felt like wasted effort.
I have to commend IntSys for making each route its own cohesive story – as fun as it was, a single run takes an eternity (for those that aren’t hardcore), giving me room to step away and come back whenever I feel like it. I don’t know what kind of takeaway I’d have if I were forced to repeat chapters over and over again…
@ me here.