Dan Plays Video Games, Part 4

 Previous episodes: 1, 2, 3

Black Mesa

Some games are just perfect. Not flawless, that's a different thing. Black Mesa has flaws, but it is perfect.

Darkest Dungeon 2

The change in genre basically fixed all the issues I had with the first game. Now that I can just lose, cash in my candles, and try again fresh, I am freed from the over-cautious and risk-averse playstyle that marred my time with DD1. When you lose a run in DD2, you lose a lot less investment in a character (since nearly all bonuses are permanent unlocks), which means trying out novel team comps is much easier to justify. The style is, as before, peak. Mod support is coming soon. Very glad I took the shot with this one, it’s been a blast so far.

Coromon

A Pokemon-like that plays it safer than Cassette Beasts, to its detriment. While it has loads of quality-of-life features (including customizable difficulty!) to spruce up the Gen 3/4 thing they have going on, it’s too grindy for my tastes, especially with no way to rematch trainers. Which de-incentivises trying out new team comps, and usually involves a lot of repetitive random battles before a boss. Monster designs are solid, the cosmetics and daily challenges are generally unobtrusive (and also not tied to real money), but it lacks the spark that made Cassette Beasts really pop both in terms of gameplay and personality.

Civilization 6

I haven’t played since 4, and have been enjoying it. There are frustrations to be had - mostly with how fucking long it takes to build anything, which makes fighting wars pointless but I never aim for conquest victory anyway. I am playing as the Cree and going for science victory and it’s still got the juice. Second run through I will add mods and then the fun begins. I like the build-your-own religion thing they have going, definitely want to get the expansions for that.

Shadow of the Erdtree

Once I figured out that each level of Scadutree Blessing was worth +5% damage dealt and -5% damage taken, it all made a lot more sense and I went from “ yeah this is pretty damn hard” to “ha ha my preferred playstyle of ignoring bosses and just exploring the map is going in my favor!”  Overall, I had a great time with it. The map is a highlight, containing all that wonderful density (and gorgeous views) of the early stages of the base game. It’s got the good weirdness, some great bosses and NPCS, and had me very pleased throughout. A bit of jolly cooperation helped take down the more troublesome bosses, because I beat Fume Knight solo and I am never doing that shit again. Some of the new lore was neat, though overall the expansion felt like it was a bit light in that department - I suppose I just need to keep digging through my big text file of item descriptions. Total lack of Gloam-Eyed Queen content was a disappointment.

My big issue is the final boss, which I think is terrible from both a design and a lore standpoint. I can see the logic behind it, and I can even buy that this was set up previously and not a total asspull. Doesn’t mean I think it’s narratively satisfying. We all know who it should have been, but instead of delivering on a major plot thread we ended up with George R R Martin writing about god-damned incest again.

Can we not, George? Can you be normal for five minutes?

Void Stranger

I have barely scratched the surface of this game, and it promises a lot more than the superficially simple puzzles would indicate. I just need to find a breakthrough.

Quester

A simple dungeon-crawler set in post-apocalyptic city-ruins. 90s-ass anime character design. Looks sounds and feels like a low-budget gem for the DS. Lets you fall into a nice comfortable pattern of make some progress, go back to base, repeat. Doesn’t ask much of you, which is good because it was my cool down from two solid months of Elden Ring.

Baldur’s Gate 3

BG3 has made something abundantly clear: I didn’t actually want to play BG3. I wanted to play Disco Elysium or XCOM again. I’m 8 hours in and already it is feeling like a tedious, miserable slog, even on the lowest difficulty that straight up doubles our health. I sure hope the official mod support will work on Steam Deck, because that’s the platform I’m stuck playing it on and trying to install normal mods is too many steps.

It would be a mostly enjoyable game if it wasn’t 5e. It’d be great if it wasn’t 5e. But it’s 5e and no, translating it to a video game doesn’t make it feel any better to play. Failed rolls in conversations don’t do anything interesting or entertaining, combat is a clunky, sludgy mess. The UI is a pain to navigate on deck, there are too many options, I rarely get dialogue options that I actually want to use, the character customization options are so lackluster that I am baffled they even included customization in the first place.

(Pathfinder 2 moving to an action point system was the best move they could have made: I cannot fucking stand how many wasted actions are in your typical combat.)

The party members are by and large unpleasant and occasionally irredeemable jackasses, only balancing out after several hours. Karlach is the best (no points for guessing that she would be my favorite, I am nothing if not predictable). Gale is cool, Wynn is boring but he gets bumped up several tiers in comparison to Shadowheart’s pointless tsundere hostility, Lae’zel the space fascist, and Astarion the king of rancid vibes.

(After his first big shitheel incident, I kept him alive because he has a +8 to lockpicking. Now that I can get hirelings, the next time he tries anything he’s getting a warhammer to the noggin. That shit don’t fly with me normally, let alone when playing a goody-two-shoes paladin.)

The character writing is extremely formulaic; everyone has this big tragic secret they’ll hint at but won’t say outright, and by the fifth or sixth time it was getting extremely tiresome. (Karlach once again being the best by default because she just tells you what her deal is and is, you know, open and friendly about shit in general.)

So all in all, it is a deeply frustrating game that I want to like, and that I can see the good parts within - but god damn, I wanted fantasy XCOM with a dating sim attached and this ain’t it, chief. I guess that’s on me. I thought it would be something it clearly is not.

(If you do know of a good fantasy XCOM with or without a dating sim attached, do let me know. Tactical Breach Wizards is already on my radar.)