I’m back with more thoughts on Wylde Flowers (Studio Drydock). You would think that I have talked about it enough, but you would be wrong. I am so close to getting the plat. I have become engaged to the last datable person, and I’m a week away from marrying them. Once that happens, then I’m done with the game.
I have to admit it’s a relief. I’m so tired, and yet, I can’t stop playing. It’s because of that one fucking achievement that I decided not to do on my first playthrough. This is all my fault, by the way. I know me. I know how I am. I should have just done it when I had the chance. Barring that, I should have just left it undone. But no. It’s simply not in me to do that, and I’m not proud of it.
Back to the game and what I was talking about in the last post. The romance options. I freely admit that I am not about that dating life–in games or in real life. I don’t like dating sims for the most part or when there’s dating in games that aren’t focused on that. The rreason why is because it’s usually just transactional, which I understand from a gaming point of view. I don’t see it as much more than a bunch of fetch quests, though, or plugging coins in a vending machine to get what you want.
In fact, I loved Saints Row IV (Volition) because it made such fun of the way other games did romance. You can sex up anyone in Saints Row IV just by blunting propositioning them (and you get a variety of hilarious answers in response)–except Keith David. No matter how hard you try, you cannot seduce him. Everyone else, though? Very fair game.
In this game, I’m unclear how much you have to gift a datable person in order to get them to the point where they ask you out. I know it makes the progress go faster, but I think you can get there without it. I would not know because I gave gifts to the datables every day. But, when you reach a full heart, you have to trigger a special cutscene in order to move to the next level of your relationship (this is true of all the relationships in general, by the way, not just the romantic ones). Then, you go on a date (same date for every person but one), and the other person declares their love for you. If you want to move the relationship forward, you have to say yes. Or at least not say no. Sometimes there was a ‘I’m not sure’ option, but I never chose that, so I don’t know what it actually does.
Then, you go on a few more dates before becoming partners. Soon thereafter, there is a local custom that you have to follow so you can propose to your intended, and then you wait a week before you have your wedding. Once you do that, you have another date with the person, declare your love for each other, and that’s it.
Unttil you want to divorce them, of course. Then it’s a whole ‘nother tradition you have to follow before you can call yourself single and ready to mingle again. Since I did this seven times in one playthrough, I got to know the process REALLY well.
The first time I did the whole procedure, it was really sweet. I enjoyed it, and I thought it was well done. I decided to divorce that person because I was tired of the repeated conversation, and then I decided to romance someone else just to see what happened. By the time I got to the seventh person (and my favorite person), I was so worn out from the whole process that I didn’t even feel that great for marrying my favorite character.
Being able to divorce and remarry was an update to the game, and I think it would have been better off not being something you can do. At least the remarrying part. Because it cheapened the whole experience in the long run. Especially as there was no fallout for divorcing someone other than maybe the other person feeling briefly (very briefly) sad before everyone forgetting it ever even happened.
I think overall, my general feeling about the game is that it really was an overabundance of offerings. I just turned the seasons and am in the very beginning of the third season (so roughly halfway through the story), and this is when things really open up. It’s also where I feel the game goes slightly off the rails. Right now, I’m just trying to get to the wedding so I can put the game away. Still, I have it on relaxed because there are so many things I feel I have to do every day. Let me tell you what a typical day looks like right now.
Get up, make whatever food I need to give to people to make them my friends. Check on my potions and such brewing in my inner sanctum (basement), and then go outside to check on my flowers/veggies/trees, my animals, and pick up any resources I can find around the farm. Then, I go up to the mountain pass to pick up even more resources. Next, I go to the fae world (which is a great area, by the way), and I do my rounds there. There are four fae, and they each need something from me at different times. Some big things and some small things. Sometimes both at the same time. There’s a whole lot going on in this world.
Side note: I love the fae world, by the way. How I got there was fresh and novel, and I enjoyed the introduction of the fae world. I have to say that while the loop got a bit stale after a while, it stayed fresh for far longer than I expected. I really liked the inhabitants (even when they frustrated me), and I preferred to spend my time there than in the town sometimes.
After my rounds in the fae world, it was time to go into town. I had to do my rounds there as well, which is where I got tired fairly early on in the game. There’s a weird glitch that when I talked to one of the townsfolk, they would repeat the same line five or six times in a row. I mean five or six separate interactions with them had them saying the same line.
I think that’s one of the traps that devs fall into these days–knowing when to stop. I understand wanting to provide value and less cynically, being brimming with ideas that you want to share with your players. I have the feeling that the devs of this game were quite involved in their community (taking feedback and such), and they wanted to give their players everything the latter wanted. I can appreciate that, but I’m not sure I agree that it’s always necessary.
I will be writing one more post on this if not more because I’m done for now. I’ll probably have the plat by this time tomorrow, and I can finally stop playing the game.