Tag: storytelling | A Banana Peeled

I am so tired. I think I’m done with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive). For the first day since it came out, I did not play it as soon as I could in the morning (afternoon, really). I did dip in a bit before writing this, but I just felt empty as I did it. Here’s my post from yesterday in which I talk about my growing dissatisfaction with the game, especially the story.

*SPOILERS*

I’m going to be talking about the story a bit and other things that might be considered spoilers. After I finished the second act, I flew around the map (we unlocked the ability to fly on Esquie during the last boss fight of the second act) quite a bit. I love Esquie, but he says exactly three things as you fly (when you hit RT to accelerate): “flashing through the sky”; here we go”; and “hang on tight”. Along with some sounds. Because I am pumping RT all the time, that means he says these phrases every three seconds or so. Which, as you might guess, is annoying AF.

Here’s the thing. Getting the ability to fly was super-cool. But 90% of the things are for later. MUCH later. I am in the high fifties, level-wise, and I can get one-shot by some of these enemies. And doing chip damage.

Beating the last boss of the second act unlocked the dagame cap (it was 9,999 for the first two acts). I was so excited for it, but I’m not doing the millions of damage I’ve seen other people do (and that I need to do in order to kill many of the world bosses I can reach now). I just had a look-see, and the things I need to have these incredible builds are farther down the road. Except for a skill that I did not unlock, even though I could have quite some time ago. I may go ahead and respec Maelle to optimize her build.

Because, you see, if Im’ going to continue playing ,I want to be able to finish the combat as quickly as possible. I hate it so much. SO much. I know the third act is much shorter than the first two, but man. Something inside me rebels at doing it.

I also deepened the relationships between different characters. I’m of two minds with this mechanic (it gives you perks like unlocking gradient attacks–the deadliest of attacks). On the one hand, the chatting between the different party members is one of my favorite things about the game. Partly because the acting is so good even if the writing is shaky at times and partly because it means I don’t have to do the combat.

By the way, I am about to give up and min-max the hell out of my characters jsut to get through the combat more quickly. I have enough respec items to redo every character, and I just might do it. That’s how much I hate the combat. I don’t want to struggle, doing thirty-thousand damage when I could be doing millions. I want to one-shot bosses so I don’t have to grind out a win.

I did one of the chromatic bosses today, and it was really difficult with my puny damage. I managed to eke it out, but I died three or four times (which is way more than I’ve died to most other bosses). People in the Discord were saying it was disappointing to be too overleveled for the final boss, but I don’t care. I want to be that overleveled. Though I’m confused as to how one person got to level 100 before taking on the final boss. I’m almost level 60 with each member of my party, and I’ve done a hell of a lot of grinding.

One of the things that irks me the most when people talk about the Soulsborne games is when someone glibly says, “Oh, there’s no story there.” I’ve heard actual games journalists say this, and it irks me every time. There is a story to each game–a pretty deep story with several NPC storylines. It’s just not handed over to you in cutscenes (though there are a few of those. The ones in the beginning are surprisingly explicit); you have to dig it up mostly on your own. Or, if you don’t have the patience for it, read up on it on the wikis.

I will say that you don’t have to understand the story in order to play the games and have a satisfactory experience. The gameplay itself stands up if you’re willing to put the time and effort into learning it. I’ve learned from ‘the community’ that the controls are shit, but I didn’t know that because it was the first time I’d ever used a controller. Any control scheme would have been foreign to me, and now, the Souls schematic is the one imprinted into my brain. I reinstalled MHW because Ian is powering through the end game, and his enthusiasm has perked my interest again. It’s hard getting back into the controls, though, because I’ve been playing Souls games in the meantime.

I was switching back and forth between Souls and MHW for a bit, and that was really hard. When I go back to Souls games, though, it’s like coming home. It’s one of my biggest gripes about Souls clones that they would copy everything about the formula EXCEPT the controls. If you’re going to be a Souls clone, then copy the control scheme. B is forever roll, and I will fight anyone on this.

Anyhoooooo. Back to the brilliance of Miyazaki, and this is specifically related to him. In each game, there are several NPC questlines. You have to do them in a specific, byzantine order in order to fulfill the quests. I’ll give you an example. Solaire is one of the most famous and beloved NPCs in the whole Souls series. The whole ‘praise the sun’ and ‘do you even praise the sun, bro?’ memes are about him, and the funniest part is that he never says the phrase at all. It’s the emote you get when you join the Warrior of Sunlight Covenant (his covenant), and you perform it by crouching slightly, then raising up as you hold your arms up in a V. If you’re summoned as a SunBro (nickname for the members of this covenant), you perform the gesture automatically as you enter your host’s world, and you’re a brilliant golden color as opposed to white.

Tag Archives: storytelling

I truly think I’m done with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (part ten)

Miyazaki the brilliant storyteller