I finished The Roottrees Are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.) tonight. For a game that I at first did not get at all (why someone would play it), I jumped into it with both feet when it clicked (which was very soon after the second time I tried to play it).
The premise is shaky, but that’s quickly forgiven and forgotten. To recap, the president of a candy empire, his wife, and their three daughters die in a plane crash. I’m a private detective, and a shadowy figure slips an envelope under my door with several disparate pieces of information. The person adds a note that says they will return when I had a certain numbers of Roottrees (by birth, not spouses), their pictures, and their occupations correctly identified. Then, the person would return to give me more info.
The devs had their own search engine in the game, and as I’ve said, they were smart to set the game in the late nineties before the internet exploded and went completely wild. I was a little frustrated that you had to find exact search terms to come up with information, but I think that’s a shortcoming of my brain rather than an issue with the game. I don’t think like other people do, so it was a struggle from time to time to find what the terms they wanted me to use.
It felt incredible, though, when I was able to figure things out. And I was damn near a genius when it came to the special little optional bit at the end. Seriously, I mentally patted on my back for getting that shit right. I figured out the twist fairly early on, but I needed one piece of info from late in the game to nail down the details.
The way the game interweaves the intricate details is astounding. But, also confusing. And while I did start taking notes, it was still hard to know what would be useful and what wouldn’t. Hm. Let me rephrase that. Much of the time, it was pretty clear what you were looking for in a search result. Sometimes, though, there was nothing that really caught my eye. I knew if I got a result, there was something that mattered in it. Well, except for one name as he was a Roottree, but not related. At least not in this game.
There’s another game that unlocks after you finish the first game, and it’s alll about finding all the Roottrees who were born out of wedlock. I started it, got the intro and the new batch of information before shutting the game down. Finishing the first game took longer than I anticipated, so I decided that I would not tackle the second mystery properly until tomorrow.
Also, I looked at walkthroughs of the game to see how long it took people. Six-ish hours seemed to be the median. I have 12 hours on record. Now, I might have walked away at some point and left it running, but still.
I always double the amount of time suggested for a game because I can never play a game in the same amount of time as other people do. It doesn’t matter what kind of game; I’m just very slow. Especially with FromSoft games, by the way. In that case, we can triple the time and I will still probably take longer.
I remember watching a games journalist talk about Dark Souls (OG) and saying, “There is no way someone would take over a hundred hours to play this game”, and I laughed internally. I had the Prepare to Die edition which included the DLC, and it took me 150 hours to finish the whole thing. Sekiro took me 125 hours. My first playthrough of Elden Ring, base game, was over 200 hours. Probably closer to 250. I will say that I saw almost everything in that first playthrough, so there is that.
I am just really bad at games. Plus, I do things thoroughly. Until I get impatient and just rush through the last tenth or so. It’s gotten to the point where I just automatically double the time and expect to exceed that as well.
The time flew by. I would go into a session thinking I’d spend half-an-hour or so, but then I’d end up playing for at least an hour if not two. I was skeptical at the beginning that it could deliver on being a banging game because how in hell could just Googling things (essentially) be riveting? It was, though.
I can’t emphasize enough how being able to ask for a hint really made the experience so much better. In a single-player game, there is no reason not to have a hint button. And I really appreciated that it starts with a general hint, then a bit more specific one, then more specific, then they just flat-out give you the answer. Or tell you exactly where to find the answer.
I will admit that I used it more liberally near the end for two reasons. One, I was fatigued. I tend to get obsessed with whatever game I’m playing, and then feel slightly sick once i’m done with the game. Two, near the end of the game, there were less clues, which meant more scrambling. And, one small gripe is that even after I started taking notes, I had a hard time finding one bit of info I had read hours ago.
For example, I ended up with four or so female spouses whom I could not place. I looked them up on the in-game net and could not find anything about them. I was able to find one because I had forgotten to look up a piece of information four or five hours ago.
This is where my broken brain lets me down. What I think is important and what the game thinks is important isn’t always the same thing. I was really hung up on one piece of information, on and off, for quite some time. It had to mean something, thought I, but it didn’t.
And some of the leaps of logic were, ah, really big, let me put it that way. I’m tired so I’ll continue this tomorrow.