Man, Sylvando’s first bit in season 2 is so good. Weirdly, though the overall tone gets darker in this part of the game, the moments of comedy seem more frequent and funnier.
This game is so weird about women, y’all
the horniness is sporadic but like… very pre-adolescent which makes it even weirder?
and then it seems like about 75% of the episodic villains are seemingly good women who turn out to be evil, or cursed, or whatever… it’s… strange…
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I think I’m in the final stretch, I knew they were going all out with content in the post-game and there’s levels to be gained but whew, they backloaded training in 100 times gravity
It’s almost…on
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It’s not consistent enough for me to really form a picture of the mind behind it, but given that I know and have evidence of their capability at pulling off sophisticated narrative techniques, underplaying expected bits in order to shuffle them in to greater effect later, and devices betraying an old man even when they were all young (DQ5’s themes of parenthood and coming second to children), I get suspicious.
So many of the scenarios willfully play towards what they want to call fairy tales: the naive, Disney-esque presentation of shallow myths, that the zigs into depths threaten to slip the mask of the naivety as show. Honestly I think they’re trying to dance a line between living in the world of Fantasy with purple-skinned bad guys forgiven like bloodless young children’s cartoons and the adult weariness putting on this show. But that implies deception and I think those threaten to destroy each other and the entire enterprise if they come in contact.
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Yeah, I mean to me the most effective thing about DQV is that it manages to have very light, episodic content while also building to something more poignant long-term. That seems to be the sweet spot they always aim for, and it just doesn’t really seem to be striking as effectively this time. The episodic parts are way more uneven–some of them are surprisingly well done, most at least have a few really good moments–and, so far at least, the main story seems a bit too hero’s journey-ish to be that compelling.
It’s still really enjoyable to me, mostly for I guess aesthetic reasons, but I feel like I find myself having to make way more excuses than should be necessary for stuff that happens in the plot.
edit: It’s also fair to say my expectations for the direction this would go were kind of blown out of proportion by the fact that the subtitle references Proust (though the English version is mangled enough to sort of hide this)
touching the Yggdrasil vine and being transported into someone else’s past is not as good as eating a madeleine and being forced to relive your own former emotional state.
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there’s a patch on steam at the moment but it breaks the orchestral mod so maybe put that off
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How do you do that though? Does Steam even allow you not to update your games?
i think you can start the update and then pause it indefinitely but i’m not sure
I was really completely on board with the plot and almost all the episodic content the entire time. The post game was a lot thinner on story than I expected and there’s one glaring plothole that’s driving me nuts (why was Michelle the mermaid still alive in the post game she died before part 2) but the final cutscene and finale was so rewarding
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i’m still hanging out in the last chunk but yeah your plothole tripped me up, i kept thinking i was missing/forgetting some detail
i think the mermaid doesn’t necessarily die depending on a dialogue choice, not that this would explain the plothole mind
I think this is a standard dq thing. 6 had something like that happen during the ending, so for that plot to be undone literally seconds later in postgame was very jarring
its a shame because how it was handled before the post game was so elegiac and sincere.
I’m surprised to hear 11 postgame has even a thin story. my impression of the old ones (based on 6) is a total plot & context free grind fest for dq maniax. Sounds like the plot hole in 11 is a vestige of that
The beginning of post game has a thick layer of story to contextualize a new state of affairs. After that you get little extra plot snippets in pretty much every town, another chunk of story is added to the Ancient Heroes, and there’s some deep DQ cuts in the wrap up.
A few things had me questioning did parts of the previous timeline just wrinkle themselves into the new one? All side quests did have to be made accessible.
I really like how nothing can truly be missed, there’s often more than one way to get end/post game collectibles materials gear etc
about Sniflheim stuff mid-game-ish
why didn’t anyone recognize erik the first time he showed up there… did he wait outside conspicuously like sylvando does in puerto valor? i can’t remember now
he did yes
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I just defeated Jasper Unbound. This is it, about to finish (the first time), pretty stoked. Kind of wondering if I should gain a few levels though before the final battle. I went into this fight at level 44-45 and just squeaked through it with two surviving party members (and they were on their last legs). Though a couple others did gain a level and go up to 46 so that’s neat.
That’s kind of been my whole experience so far with the Fortress of Fear. I was around level 42 when I got here and each big battle nets me a level or two. I love this game.
that’s pretty cool! it didn’t even register as significant i guess, unlike the sylvando thing which is very obvious
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