I have reached the end of this game(ish), and I can finally talk about it as a whole. This game being Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock), of course. I have put in nearly as much time as I did into my first playthrough of Elden Ring (FromSoft), and I am not even done with the game. (That’s the ish part, and I will get to that in a bit.)
In the last post, I gave the game much props because it does so many things right. I mean, obviously, I would not be still playing it if it were a shit game. However, it’s overwhelming with the sheer amount of content it has (as I mentioned before, it had several updates after being released–and I’m fuzzy as to how the releases went. I know it was a mobile game first, and then? Not sure what exactly happened afetr that.
I mentioned previously that I was unsure as to how to unlock certain updates. When I found out that I had missed one for two full in-game seasons, I was pretty miffed. The clue wasn’t very obvious, and it was only when I looked it up that I realized I a letter I had gotten from one of the fae had been more important than I realized. Or rather, I thought it meant something because all the letters in the game are important, but I couldn’t figure out what it meant. So I put it to the back of my mind and moved on.
The other one was the jewelry shop as I mentioned before. It showed that it could be updated by displaying the sillhouettes of dozens of items I could sell–that I could not make. This was in the first or second season, and it was locked there for the rest of the year and well into the next. I wasted so much money trying to sell things (after buying them in bulk) in order to upgrade the supposedly fully-upgraded shop.
It was only a few days ago that I really tried to figure out what the fuck was going on (because it kept telling me to sell shit to further upgrade the shop, which didn’t happen with any other shop once it was fully upgraded. That’s when I realized that the questlines I needed to do for townfolk to prock the quests for the jeweler were in winter of the second year, which was the last season of the year. The story ended at the end of the first year. So we’re talking a full year later, which is dozens of in-game hours.
I have fully upgraded the shop now, and it’s an empty feeling. Because I have so much money, I can make all the new jewelry I want. In this case, it’s just buying all the materials I need. There’s no sewing them together or dying the cloth or any of the bullshit that accompanies the making the clothing bit, which makes it far easier. But, also, it gives me less motivation to make every piece as I did in the clothing shop.
Speaking of which, the clothes shop is the another place that suddenly dumped a bunch of new content on me in the last few days. This ties into what I was talking earlier about the update I missed for two seasons because of a vaguely-worded letter.
If I want to do this part of the game, I will have to put in at least another season because one aspect of the process takes several in-game days, and then it’s up to luck whether I get the result I need. So far, I’m one of three with the process that does not have a guaranteed result. The clothing shop and the hair salon both need plenty of the product I’m trying to make in order to continue, and I’m not sure I have it in me.
Also, I took a peek at the achievements, and there a few that will be a pain in the ass. You have to marry each person who’s romanceable. While it’s possible to get them all in one game, the one exception is that if a specific two of the romanceables are single at the end of year one, they automatically hook up. If you have not dated and married both of them by then, you can’t date them after they hook up.
I was married to one for much of the second half of the first year, and then I divorced them a few days into the second year. They immediately were partnered with the other romanceable, and the second romanceable became a ‘best friend’ and not datable. That means I would have to start a new game to marry one person, which, no thank you.
Plus, the clothing shop and hair salon bit I mentioned above is a big part of the other achievement that would be such a big pain in the ass to get.
By the way, I really hate when indie games make their achievements so hard. Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall) is tied for my favorite indie game of all time. But, because of a bizarrely hard in-game video game, I will never 100% it. I’m not an achievement hunter, but it’s irritating when I’m that close and no closer.
I wish I had looked things up earlier. But that’s not how I play games, FromSoft games, notwithstanding. With those, I try not to look shit up, but it’s inevitable. At some point, I’m going to look something up because I don’t want to fuck up an NPC quest or something like that. I did not look shit up for the DLC, and as a consequence, I fucked up all the NPC quests. Well, most of them. And one of the final fights that was supposed to be epic turned out to be sad and pathetic.
I really don’t think you should have to look things up in an indie game (that isn’t a puzzle game). I will say I’m quite proud that I called a late-game mystery very soon after it was revealed. But, again, I have read thousands of mystery novels, and I’m quite adept at sussing out who did it. In this case, it was quite obvious to me, but maybe not to other people.
I’m really not sure I want to continue with the game. I have gotten a lot out of it, and I think if I try to do the last lengthy bit, it’ll make me turn sour on the game. This is the kind of game that I could put it away and come back to it, but realistically, I probably wouldn’t come back to it once I shut it down.
More tomorrow.