Game Thoughts: Abandoned 09-2024
Despite my best efforts I've got yet another pile of unfinished games. Just stuff that I didn't have the patience to get through or wasn't clicking with me. For the sake of preventing future me from repeating my mistakes, here are the reasons for putting them down:
(Sekiro, Mother3, Void Stranger)
-Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (Steamdeck)
Oh boy. One lesson I don't think I'll ever learn is I do not enjoy soulslikes. Hell, I even had a copy of the original Demon's Souls on PS3 before "soulslike" was a term and I sucked at it then. I don't have the patience or skill for these games, and find the process of replaying portions of the game over and over (and losing all my souls in the process) extremely frustrating.
So naturally I own a small mountain of soulslike games, because they always look so damn cool (especially the ones FROM Software produce). And naturally I've never been more than 4 hours into any of them before I pronounce "fuck this" and drop it forever.
But, of course, Sekiro was going to be different.
It wasn't.
I'll see you back here after Wukong.
Void Stranger (Steamdeck)
I bought Void stranger after hearing it whispered about on some forums. "The best game I've ever played". "The next undertale / outer wilds". "Go in blind, don't spoil anything"
Spoiler warning: Void Stranger is a sokobon game -- that is, one where you push blocks to solve puzzles -- combined with some over-arching meta-puzzles and a bit of story. As you play through the game you slowly peel back the layers of what's going on and there's lots of crazy revelations.
On paper this sounds great, but let's wind back a moment to the first sentence. "Void Stranger is a sokoban game". I want to focus on that, and not the cool crazy meta puzzle stuff. Before you get into any of the cool meta shit you'll need to beat all the game's puzzles. There's 256 of these.
Now, I don't dislike sokoban games -- on the contrary, I've enjoyed many of them -- but 256 levels is a lot to get to the "good stuff". And even then, the "good stuff" doesn't show up right after -- no, instead you need to start beating the levels again.
Second / third playthrough is way easier, of course, and if you can pick up on the meta puzzle hints (which I did not, I needed to look up a hint guide) you can get powers that make it even easier or change the dynamics of the game entirely.
I got through 2 playthroughs, figured out a handful of neat meta things, and then realized I really really didn't want to play these levels again. Whatever was hiding underneath wasn't worth grinding out another 200 levels of the same sokoban.
If you love sokoban and are clever enough for deep meta puzzles I'm sure this is mindblowingly good, though.
Mother 3 (Analogue Pocket)
I gatekept myself from playing this game. In my head I needed to play through Mother and Mother II (Earthbound) before I was "allowed" to play Mother 3. I've taken a crack at both of those games, and while Earthbound was extremely charming I got snagged on its dated RPG grind.
So fuck it, I read a summary of the two storylines and dived into Mother 3.
Note: The only way to play this in english currently is via a fan translation.
First off I must say this game absolutely oozes* charm. It's ridiculous how well the art / music / story direction of the game lines up. I guffawed quite a few times playing, whether due to a ridiculous enemy design or hilarious random dialog. The game has vision, I'll give it that.
I was actually really enjoying the game for about 12 hours. 10-15 hours is usually when my game fatigue kicks in, and is the great barrier to me playing a lot of RPGs nowadays. If a game isn't being carried by an amazing story or gameplay loop by that point I will fall off.
In Mother 3 this equates to roughly the point where you end up in a field of sunflowers after a major boss fight (a tough one at that!)
In the lull after the story arc I found myself getting annoyed at the battles, annoyed at revisiting locations, and I asked myself "Do I care what happens next enough to not have fun for a bit?"
I found the answer to be no, and put the game down.
A thing to note: in playing the game I do believe I now know why they haven't translated it for the west. There's some problematic depictions of trans/drag-queen characters in the game. While these characters are treated well and actually become key characters in the story, they're also the butt of some pretty crude slapstick jokes.