![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rozzlynnI more or less have 'Knowing a Rock and a Hard Place' edited to the point where the existing chapters are more like 80%-90% of the best they can be. For a while I hoped to finish krhp before GS3 was released, but I wasn't able to progress that fast; it's gonna have to finish as an AU.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - 7 hours in.
The music, the glowy graphics, the lengthy summary of Alchemy and Weyard... I'd been a bit worried that this game wouldn't be the treat it had the potential to be, after hearing about other series going downhill (having mainly played one-off games myself, at least until FFVII and ToS started getting all those prequels and sequels), but everything about it felt like Golden Sun right from the start. The further through it I get, the more I fall in love with what I've seen so far.
First thoughts upon seeing Isaac: He has three quarters of a beard. And he doesn't exactly look like he's going on fifty. Why only three-quarters of a beard? His hair looks longer at the back, and his outfit looks so much better, with the darker blue coat and the lack of a bright red breastplate. He looked okay in the old outfit, too, but so much better here, even in tiny blurry 3D. It'll be good to see his new official art, though the 3D gives the hem of his coat a nice shape on-screen. And the beard looks like it's meant to go along his whole jawline, and they just messed up the avatar; when my mind fills in that gap, it does kinda suit him, and he'd barely look 30 or 40 without it. Must be the chibi/anime style making his age hard to judge.
Good to see Garet's still the normal one.
The Wise One, a Philosopher's Stone... I can't help but imagine Quirrel and Voldemort sneaking past the Devil's Snare and the chess set and all the other traps, only to come face to face with the Wise One at the end. It would be so completely unimpressed... Somebody's got to have drawn that comic. I've got to find it. And then there's the Full Metal Alchemist angle...
The vortexes definitely sound interesting. The Mourning Moon (and its description) had me wondering who might be mourning what, though my first thought's already been ruled out. Nice balance, anyway, for the sun to come with the moon.
And omg, the soarwings... I thought I was being self-indulgent with the wingfic, but they get wings in canon! I guess it was never too unlikely, what with the Hovering and the ship's wings last game, but still, yay. :D
And Vale got wrecked! Like, for good! Pretty happy about that. The Lookout and the other settlements are all interesting, and they suit the chaotic, expansive state of civilisation at this point, compared to 30 years ago. Angara in general looks pretty wrecked, with the massive crater round Mt Aleph, and all the mountain ranges breaking the area up into little strips of land at different heights in 3D... All the visuals immediately made the terrain look like it'd be fun to explore, to see what's happened to each place; the landscape itself contributes so much to the promise of an epic and far-reaching plot, it feels like the worldbuilding has set Weyard up to be the most fun it can be to explore in this medium, a third game -- though I get the feeling that the same details in writing would have served to set the tone slightly darker, what with all the implied disruption and destruction, rather than inspiring the same measure of childish excitement at the sight of the land stretching away to the horizon.
Okay, Garet never annoyed me, but Tyrell... He's annoying. It took me a minute to remember that I was controlling Matthew this time, rather than Isaac; I picked an 'angry' response to Tyrell's daft behaviour, and Garet told Matthew not to yell at him about his son. The emotion options are a big improvement over the yes/no thing; it makes it fully clear that the leader is actually joining in the conversation with a certain attitude, though it can be hard to guess the results; I thought 'angry' Matthew would agree with Garet. When Karis asked me to talk Tyrell down, I picked 'gutsy' to try say 'no problem', and Karis told me off for egging him on. Still, 'gutsy' has turned out to be the right line to take most of the time since then. :/
Throughout the section at the lookout, it became more and more odd that no mention was made of the kids' mothers. Isaac and Garet live out there with their sons, training them to help save the world, and Karis talks about Ivan's training... I heard who Isaac ended up with (the only spoiler I ran into), and there's something seriously wrong about a scene where a couple of fathers send their sons out to make their own way in the world, talking about the way they raised them to face that day and telling them to find Kraden for further guidance, without once mentioning their moms - did they split up? Are they together but living apart? Do the kids know where to go to meet them, for more advice and help and Psynergy training? Even if their moms had died, I'd expect them to get a mention at a time like that -- though if they've killed off Jenna or any of the other girls, after giving Isaac and Garet such cool intros, that'll be a wallbanger like no other. I really hope they're just trying to space out the cameos and reveals. The age slowing thing is a good omen, in that respect.
In Karis' encyclopedia entry -- she's inherted her father's indomitable spirit? Ivan, indomitable? I guess he was braver than a lot of people in signing up to that quest, but compared to Isaac and Garet and Mia, you couldn't have called him particularly confident or self-motivated... XD
The Sun Saga books are a lovely touch; they kept it from feeling like the old characters had been too thoroughly set aside, even though there's been no sign of most of them so far. The paper cut-out style looked pretty cool, though still indistinct enough to help it feel like a flashback and a summary, shifting the focus to the current story through the relative levels of visual detail. And when it established that Mia and Alex are cousins, I laughed so hard -- not because it makes all the old Imilshipping stuff outright impossible (though the rest of the plot probably will), or because it was all that unlikely or unexpected (though I didn't exactly expect it), but, well, because it makes things complicated; it necessitates a certain amount of interesting context surrounding them and the Clan, and their places in their family and in their community, and I never liked seeing the potential for that context stripped away to allow a cut & paste kind of romance, or a cut & paste kind of enmity. Complications are delicious. :D
The Psynergy training grounds were kinda fun, but at the same time... After realising that their ignorance had cost lives, the Valeans painted Menardi and Saturos' faces onto targets for successive generations of children to pelt with fireballs as a rite of passage? That's really kinda sick. I can only hope the Warriors of Vale weren't directly involved.
Okay, when Tyrell spoke in admiration of Carver, I was right there with him, though I agreed pretty much equally with Karis. (Even if people had been stranded on the other side of the camp, Carver wouldn't have done them any good by showing up injured.) And at Kaocho Palace, Tyrell was pretty spot-on with his assessment of the situation ("Shouldn't we be running?"); he's getting a lot more likeable.
The Konpa Ruins were fun, with all the Buddhist imagery and glowy lights. I was hoping I'd be able to go right back to freeze the puddles after meeting up with Kraden and whomever we were going to get the Psynergy from, but the plot took a more exciting turn than that, so I'm not complaining. Kraden really does look the same as ever; it'll be interesting to hear about the plot from him eventually. (The main events feel like they're going to be as spaced out as last time, but there seems to be more plot between them; the pacing feels a lot better, at least.) Nowell looks pretty cool, though her name sounds weirdly like a guy's name. Still, I never saw anything wrong with the name Piers (someone tell Piers Morgan that he ought to be a Picard!), so the localisation must just have its ups and downs.
Ninja battles, manipulation and intrigue... very nice start to the story proper. Blados almost seems too unsubtle a name compared to the others, but his role is a familiar continuation of the Proxans' roles (aggressive warrior held in check by a greater duty), and Alex is being more blatant than ever about forcing the story in interesting directions with mysterious consequences; it feels like a Golden Sun plot, but it doesn't feel like the same plot again. When Alex asked about the Glyph book, I had Matthew pick the gutsy response as usual, all "Yeah! See? Ain't it awesome?", and then Karis told me off for not trying to hide the valuable artefact from the villain holding the kid hostage. :P But then Alex revealed that he has some kind of lie-detector mask, and claimed that "Your glimmer of honesty has saved your lives" -- which I really doubt, this early into the game, but it sounded cool all the same, and I was all "Yay!" again. His new avatar looks so much better -- the extra pixels really make all the difference. And I love the new outfit, with all the white, blue and gold; can't wait to see his new official art, it's so hard to make out much more than that colour in the tiny blurry 3D version. The mask is a nice acknowledgement of Mt Aleph / the Wise One (unless it happened at some other point in the thirty years since), though I hope they don't go down too cliche a road with it. Dracobolt was quite prescient, there, with the Phantom of the Opera crossover fic.
The conversations on the way out of the ruins were great, so many lol lines. "Can't we come out here to say goodbye?"; "Trapped in a cage of monumental proportions!" (a quarter continent, no kidding); so much better and funnier than a pointless fight would have been, at that stage of the game. (That's not to say the ninja fight inside was pointless, since it was worth it both in terms of pacing, and as a distraction for the characters within the plot.)
Not exactly worried about the ruins being a lost-forever, what with all the water Psynergy indicators, but then I realised how weird it would be if the Adepts felt reassured for the same reasons. "I know we'll be able to pass through there again, because there were puddles! Really, all over the place! Splash, splash..."
Didn't realise how young Rief seems to be until I saw his battle sprite; he's a bit tiny compared to the others. He looked slightly baby faced, but I didn't guess that sort of age gap, for some reason. Pretty cool to have a diverse party; gotta look up their ages. Maybe check the manual again.
I headed for Kaocho before Passaj, and saved in a separate file once I got dropped in the Ouroboros; wanna see if there's differences in the dialogue if they run into a dead end at Passaj before visiting the Palace. From the fortune teller and everything, it looks like we've got to find the part of the labyrinth that needs unlocking, head elsewhere to gain the right ability/item, head back to the Ouroboros, find the item that'll get us past whatever the obstacle is Passaj, and fight Blados & Chalis to keep possession of it. Been looking at all the pots and ovens and bookshelves, chatting to all the NPCs and climbing across the rooftops. One of the most fun games I've played in a long time, with all the exploration and shiny stuff, but at this pace it's gonna be ages until I can look anywhere gs-related online without spoilers. Still, wouldn't love the fandom if I didn't love the games.
Golden Sun: Dark Dawn - 7 hours in.
The music, the glowy graphics, the lengthy summary of Alchemy and Weyard... I'd been a bit worried that this game wouldn't be the treat it had the potential to be, after hearing about other series going downhill (having mainly played one-off games myself, at least until FFVII and ToS started getting all those prequels and sequels), but everything about it felt like Golden Sun right from the start. The further through it I get, the more I fall in love with what I've seen so far.
First thoughts upon seeing Isaac: He has three quarters of a beard. And he doesn't exactly look like he's going on fifty. Why only three-quarters of a beard? His hair looks longer at the back, and his outfit looks so much better, with the darker blue coat and the lack of a bright red breastplate. He looked okay in the old outfit, too, but so much better here, even in tiny blurry 3D. It'll be good to see his new official art, though the 3D gives the hem of his coat a nice shape on-screen. And the beard looks like it's meant to go along his whole jawline, and they just messed up the avatar; when my mind fills in that gap, it does kinda suit him, and he'd barely look 30 or 40 without it. Must be the chibi/anime style making his age hard to judge.
Good to see Garet's still the normal one.
The Wise One, a Philosopher's Stone... I can't help but imagine Quirrel and Voldemort sneaking past the Devil's Snare and the chess set and all the other traps, only to come face to face with the Wise One at the end. It would be so completely unimpressed... Somebody's got to have drawn that comic. I've got to find it. And then there's the Full Metal Alchemist angle...
The vortexes definitely sound interesting. The Mourning Moon (and its description) had me wondering who might be mourning what, though my first thought's already been ruled out. Nice balance, anyway, for the sun to come with the moon.
And omg, the soarwings... I thought I was being self-indulgent with the wingfic, but they get wings in canon! I guess it was never too unlikely, what with the Hovering and the ship's wings last game, but still, yay. :D
And Vale got wrecked! Like, for good! Pretty happy about that. The Lookout and the other settlements are all interesting, and they suit the chaotic, expansive state of civilisation at this point, compared to 30 years ago. Angara in general looks pretty wrecked, with the massive crater round Mt Aleph, and all the mountain ranges breaking the area up into little strips of land at different heights in 3D... All the visuals immediately made the terrain look like it'd be fun to explore, to see what's happened to each place; the landscape itself contributes so much to the promise of an epic and far-reaching plot, it feels like the worldbuilding has set Weyard up to be the most fun it can be to explore in this medium, a third game -- though I get the feeling that the same details in writing would have served to set the tone slightly darker, what with all the implied disruption and destruction, rather than inspiring the same measure of childish excitement at the sight of the land stretching away to the horizon.
Okay, Garet never annoyed me, but Tyrell... He's annoying. It took me a minute to remember that I was controlling Matthew this time, rather than Isaac; I picked an 'angry' response to Tyrell's daft behaviour, and Garet told Matthew not to yell at him about his son. The emotion options are a big improvement over the yes/no thing; it makes it fully clear that the leader is actually joining in the conversation with a certain attitude, though it can be hard to guess the results; I thought 'angry' Matthew would agree with Garet. When Karis asked me to talk Tyrell down, I picked 'gutsy' to try say 'no problem', and Karis told me off for egging him on. Still, 'gutsy' has turned out to be the right line to take most of the time since then. :/
Throughout the section at the lookout, it became more and more odd that no mention was made of the kids' mothers. Isaac and Garet live out there with their sons, training them to help save the world, and Karis talks about Ivan's training... I heard who Isaac ended up with (the only spoiler I ran into), and there's something seriously wrong about a scene where a couple of fathers send their sons out to make their own way in the world, talking about the way they raised them to face that day and telling them to find Kraden for further guidance, without once mentioning their moms - did they split up? Are they together but living apart? Do the kids know where to go to meet them, for more advice and help and Psynergy training? Even if their moms had died, I'd expect them to get a mention at a time like that -- though if they've killed off Jenna or any of the other girls, after giving Isaac and Garet such cool intros, that'll be a wallbanger like no other. I really hope they're just trying to space out the cameos and reveals. The age slowing thing is a good omen, in that respect.
In Karis' encyclopedia entry -- she's inherted her father's indomitable spirit? Ivan, indomitable? I guess he was braver than a lot of people in signing up to that quest, but compared to Isaac and Garet and Mia, you couldn't have called him particularly confident or self-motivated... XD
The Sun Saga books are a lovely touch; they kept it from feeling like the old characters had been too thoroughly set aside, even though there's been no sign of most of them so far. The paper cut-out style looked pretty cool, though still indistinct enough to help it feel like a flashback and a summary, shifting the focus to the current story through the relative levels of visual detail. And when it established that Mia and Alex are cousins, I laughed so hard -- not because it makes all the old Imilshipping stuff outright impossible (though the rest of the plot probably will), or because it was all that unlikely or unexpected (though I didn't exactly expect it), but, well, because it makes things complicated; it necessitates a certain amount of interesting context surrounding them and the Clan, and their places in their family and in their community, and I never liked seeing the potential for that context stripped away to allow a cut & paste kind of romance, or a cut & paste kind of enmity. Complications are delicious. :D
The Psynergy training grounds were kinda fun, but at the same time... After realising that their ignorance had cost lives, the Valeans painted Menardi and Saturos' faces onto targets for successive generations of children to pelt with fireballs as a rite of passage? That's really kinda sick. I can only hope the Warriors of Vale weren't directly involved.
Okay, when Tyrell spoke in admiration of Carver, I was right there with him, though I agreed pretty much equally with Karis. (Even if people had been stranded on the other side of the camp, Carver wouldn't have done them any good by showing up injured.) And at Kaocho Palace, Tyrell was pretty spot-on with his assessment of the situation ("Shouldn't we be running?"); he's getting a lot more likeable.
The Konpa Ruins were fun, with all the Buddhist imagery and glowy lights. I was hoping I'd be able to go right back to freeze the puddles after meeting up with Kraden and whomever we were going to get the Psynergy from, but the plot took a more exciting turn than that, so I'm not complaining. Kraden really does look the same as ever; it'll be interesting to hear about the plot from him eventually. (The main events feel like they're going to be as spaced out as last time, but there seems to be more plot between them; the pacing feels a lot better, at least.) Nowell looks pretty cool, though her name sounds weirdly like a guy's name. Still, I never saw anything wrong with the name Piers (someone tell Piers Morgan that he ought to be a Picard!), so the localisation must just have its ups and downs.
Ninja battles, manipulation and intrigue... very nice start to the story proper. Blados almost seems too unsubtle a name compared to the others, but his role is a familiar continuation of the Proxans' roles (aggressive warrior held in check by a greater duty), and Alex is being more blatant than ever about forcing the story in interesting directions with mysterious consequences; it feels like a Golden Sun plot, but it doesn't feel like the same plot again. When Alex asked about the Glyph book, I had Matthew pick the gutsy response as usual, all "Yeah! See? Ain't it awesome?", and then Karis told me off for not trying to hide the valuable artefact from the villain holding the kid hostage. :P But then Alex revealed that he has some kind of lie-detector mask, and claimed that "Your glimmer of honesty has saved your lives" -- which I really doubt, this early into the game, but it sounded cool all the same, and I was all "Yay!" again. His new avatar looks so much better -- the extra pixels really make all the difference. And I love the new outfit, with all the white, blue and gold; can't wait to see his new official art, it's so hard to make out much more than that colour in the tiny blurry 3D version. The mask is a nice acknowledgement of Mt Aleph / the Wise One (unless it happened at some other point in the thirty years since), though I hope they don't go down too cliche a road with it. Dracobolt was quite prescient, there, with the Phantom of the Opera crossover fic.
The conversations on the way out of the ruins were great, so many lol lines. "Can't we come out here to say goodbye?"; "Trapped in a cage of monumental proportions!" (a quarter continent, no kidding); so much better and funnier than a pointless fight would have been, at that stage of the game. (That's not to say the ninja fight inside was pointless, since it was worth it both in terms of pacing, and as a distraction for the characters within the plot.)
Not exactly worried about the ruins being a lost-forever, what with all the water Psynergy indicators, but then I realised how weird it would be if the Adepts felt reassured for the same reasons. "I know we'll be able to pass through there again, because there were puddles! Really, all over the place! Splash, splash..."
Didn't realise how young Rief seems to be until I saw his battle sprite; he's a bit tiny compared to the others. He looked slightly baby faced, but I didn't guess that sort of age gap, for some reason. Pretty cool to have a diverse party; gotta look up their ages. Maybe check the manual again.
I headed for Kaocho before Passaj, and saved in a separate file once I got dropped in the Ouroboros; wanna see if there's differences in the dialogue if they run into a dead end at Passaj before visiting the Palace. From the fortune teller and everything, it looks like we've got to find the part of the labyrinth that needs unlocking, head elsewhere to gain the right ability/item, head back to the Ouroboros, find the item that'll get us past whatever the obstacle is Passaj, and fight Blados & Chalis to keep possession of it. Been looking at all the pots and ovens and bookshelves, chatting to all the NPCs and climbing across the rooftops. One of the most fun games I've played in a long time, with all the exploration and shiny stuff, but at this pace it's gonna be ages until I can look anywhere gs-related online without spoilers. Still, wouldn't love the fandom if I didn't love the games.
