[Event] The PokeCommunity Game-Along III: The Gaming

May - Choices



Choices matter... or at least they sometimes do. This month is one of those times. While you can play any genre of game you like this month, they must have one key feature: the choices you make must impact the characters and/or narrative of the game. How you choose to interact with your game should change how things play out!


 
Janp said:
Cool. For a moment, I was considering Dragon Age: Origins, Jade Empire, Mass Effect or any other BioWare game, but I would like to play something shorter, so I picked The Henry Stickmin Collection, if that counts. If not, I think I'll go with Road 96.
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I don't know either so I'll trust your judgement.
 
gimmepie said:
I don't know either so I'll trust your judgement.
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It is marketed as "A choose-your-own-path where failing is more fun than succeeding," so I hope there are some choices that will change the course of the story. If not, I'll pick another game.
 
So, I finished The Henry Stickmin Collection and I think it could count in the end. Each episode had at least one moment, in which the story branched. Here is the (pretty much) spoiler-free story path of the first episode (the start is in the highlighted 4/4 cell):
Spoiler:


The branching storyline was fairly simple at first, but the final episode was completely different based on endings of previous episodes. And I mean COMPLETELY different. What side you are on, what is your goal, when and where the episode takes place and even some NPCs are different in between 15 iterations of the episode. Now, I have to say that each of these iterations is linear in the end (except one), but I think it could still count towards this month's theme.
 
I finished the Black Eagles route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses today. Did not like the game! I think it was really poorly designed, especially as a game where choices matter. The route I chose, which I was more or less locked into within the first half hour of the game, felt really incomplete. I guess it was lacking a lot of important lore so I was mostly just confused at the end and even along the journey, I always felt like the game was withholding information but expecting me to know what was missing. I thought it was just bad foreshadowing that some big unknown would come along later and take me by surprise, but I kept waiting for it to happen and it never did. I guess those moments were for people who played other routes first, but it made for an extremely unsatisfactory experience. The pacing of the game was also godawful, so even though I'm begrudgingly curious about the other routes, I will not be playing any of them because it was already difficult to finish the route I picked, nevermind playing the game 2-3 more times just to have the whole story.

It's not like I'm against games that make you play multiple times to uncover everything, but basically any other game I've played that tells its story in such a way that you have to do multiple routes to unlock everything is much kinder in terms of pacing and gameplay. Usually you can skip around to the branched parts or something like that, but that wouldn't work here even though the prologue is probably largely the same because it locks you into one class and set of characters from the start. Even if you NG+, my understanding is it wouldn't even be that useful because any upgrades for other classes would be largely useless for your new class unless you sniped a few characters to your new house?

I'm behind on my physical game journal and even further behind on my PC one so my rant about the game and its choices goes here. Hopefully I will like next month's game more lmaoo.
 
Cherrim said:
I finished the Black Eagles route in Fire Emblem: Three Houses today. Did not like the game! I think it was really poorly designed, especially as a game where choices matter. The route I chose, which I was more or less locked into within the first half hour of the game, felt really incomplete. I guess it was lacking a lot of important lore so I was mostly just confused at the end and even along the journey, I always felt like the game was withholding information but expecting me to know what was missing. I thought it was just bad foreshadowing that some big unknown would come along later and take me by surprise, but I kept waiting for it to happen and it never did. I guess those moments were for people who played other routes first, but it made for an extremely unsatisfactory experience. The pacing of the game was also godawful, so even though I'm begrudgingly curious about the other routes, I will not be playing any of them because it was already difficult to finish the route I picked, nevermind playing the game 2-3 more times just to have the whole story.
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If you can get yourself to play through the game again, you don't necessarily have to play all 4 routes to get all the critical lore and information and all that. Silver Snow is an absolute waste of a route that offers nothing of value to the game as a whole, while Blue Lions/Azure Moon is pretty much 100% about Dimitri's personal issues and so is not terribly important to the overarching plot and backstory of 3 Houses. You should get pretty much most of what you need out of just Black Eagles+Golden Deer.

I like 3 Houses myself, but I think it's also unfortunately a victim of a rushed development cycle that is sadly commonplace (or seems to be anyway) in the gaming industry.
 
June - It's Dangerous to Go Alone



So our brave hero better embark on their perilous quest with some help. For the month of June, our theme is games with multiple player protagonists. Whether you're alternating between two characters or working with a fully interchangeable JRPG party, the only requirement for this month is that you as the player control multiple important characters throughout the game.


 
There are so many games that would fit this theme and that I would love to play, that I'm not sure what to play. I'm not sure if I want to start another RPG right now, which would be easy fit. But I'm leaning more towards shorter experience. Maybe some kind of adventure. And so, I pick The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man Of Medan. I don't have huge expectations for it. I know Until Dawn is great game, but from what I've heard this series is not as good and especially this entry is really balancing between bad and average. But I'll try to be open-minded about it.
 
Been sitting for a few days trying to decide what to play and while I'd love to use this month as an excuse to finish a JRPG, I just don't think I'll have the time for it this month and neither of the games I would have picked will work as commute games to/from work, sooo instead I think I'll replay Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney since I've been itching for a Layton game recently and this one fits the bill pretty well with the constant switching between protagonists. Perfect for my commutes.
 
Finished The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan. It was fine interactive movie. The story was a little bit weak, mainly because the big plot twist was painfully obvious right from the tutorial section. The gameplay and choices were very limiting and linear. But I still had fun just relaxing and watching this B-tier horror movie.
 
Finished Final Fantasy VII! I liked it a lot and can definitely see why the game is a huge deal for a lot of people. It definitely has some noteworthy flaws, but it is overall a really fun experience that I'd highly recommend. You can see more of my thoughts over in my game journal if you're interested, as per usual.
 
Completed Baldur's Gate 2 (Shadows of Amn) today. Barely squeezed that before the end of the month. Will write a game journal entry later.

Quick impression: Interesting, but also frustrating. Enjoyed the usual RPG progression (despite the barebones level-ups), as well as dialogue and choices actually mattering. Ran into so many immunities, though. Why does this (optional) Iron Golem near the start of the game have 100% magic resistance, immunity to all weapons below +3, 20% physical damage resistance, and a Slow ability? Spent a lot of time, particularly near the end, just trying to remove the layers of immunity. Did not find that very fun.
 
July - Headscratchers



Arguably, most games are based around some sort of action - usually combat. But, that's not the only challenge you can put into a game. Love 'em or hate 'em, puzzles are also a huge part of the mechanics of many games. Some developers love frustrating their players so much they make entire games of just puzzles!

It's not much of a riddle to figure out that puzzles is the theme for this month. Your game can be of any genre or include any other mechanics you want, but puzzle-solving must be a large and centralised part of the gameplay.


 
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