Coelacanth

Yes, agreed. It’s perfectly understandable why we’re not really getting games like Witcher 2 or to a certain extent Dragon Age: Origins with any kind of regularity. Any executive signing off on the budget for a truly branching storyline game would need to be absolutely unhinged. I hope some of the now-larger independent studios might give us something like that in the future, but otherwise it seems to be relegated to the genre of cinematic choices-matter games like Until Dawn and what have you.

Well, what I am talking about when I’m talking about branching narratives is not really endings. There are tons of games with tons of different endings, especially these types of combinatorial endings where they’re cut together out of various parts that answer individual side quests and whatnot. Many games can technically have hundreds of “different” endings, but they’re not branching narratives.

I always use Witcher 2 because it is a very rare example of a truly branching storyline. Siding with Roche or siding with Iorveth means getting two completely different experiences. I didn’t really see that in BG3. Imagine if you could join up with the Absolute in Act 2, not kill Ketheric and have a completely different Act 3 where you’re buddies with the trio? That would be a branching story.

As far as I can tell in BG3 the main story beats just kind of have to happen, and you might get some flavour one way or the other or some fake choices but the story is the story.

Is the game actually that branching? It always felt pretty linear to me, although granted I only played it once myself and watched Welonz and Mapocolops Let’s Plays of it. Like sure, you can have some player agency on a micro level in the moment-to-moment stuff, but the story is the story. It’s not like Witcher 2.

Or did you just mean Raphael? I guess the player might have some agency on how much to engage with him.

I personally did not get the feeling that he was a “main boss” due to the way he was dispatched sort of to the side of the main plot. So for me it felt more like “weird that a side quest is getting this much fanfare”, even though I loved the moment itself.

But I absolutely agree that he was by far the most charismatic, impactful and narratively supported villain. There are a lot of things about BG3 that I seem to have liked way less than the general public, but I did love Raphael. I wish he was the defacto final boss and main antagonist.

Ketheric was good, in general I felt like Act 2 was where the game peaked for me. I didn’t really feel like Gortash was all that great of a villain honestly, although part of it may be that he got introduced so late. And Orin was absolute dogwater so that didn’t help the impression of Act 3 for me.

I feel like they needed a stronger throughline antagonist, even the big brain is introduced very late. Maybe doing something with the Emperor instead of “not all Mind Flayers are evil, actually! Hey, would you like to fuck one?” would have been better for me, I don’t know.

But I think an Elder Brain is just inherently less compelling as an antagonist than something more human, and I’m not really sure how to get around that.

Your pick is probably an objectively better call (and better scene), I just remember being in awe the first time I saw that scene as a kid and really feeling how powerful Irenicus was. As if it wasn’t already apparent enough from the opening, where his delivery is equally dripping with similar nonchalant disdain at these flies who think they can lay a finger on him.

I wish BG3 had an antagonist half as strong as him. Maybe it’s just me but the super spooky gigabrain of doom was just not it.

I could pick almost anything he ever said in the game honestly, but this line always stuck with me. I’ll spoiler tag it just in case since it’s a pivotal moment.

They can dangle the original co-lead designer in front of me all they want, my faith in Hasbro doing something good with this is almost zero. Also David Warner has unfortunately passed, and nobody else could ever deliver a better Irenicus, so I don’t know how they’ll deal with that problem (assuming they want the game fully voiced now). Please don’t let it be AI David Warner acting from the grave. Also please get Jim Cummings back, I believe he’s still working and I don’t want another Matt Mercer Minsc.

Baldur’s Gate 2 is an amazing game, and in one sense I would want it to reach more players. But I also kind of… don’t want it fucked with. Maybe I’m just grumpy and stuck in the past. A more elegant ruleset than 2E and a more intuitive gameplay style than real-time-with-pause would be great. I just fear that everything else (ie: the parts that actually matter) will suffer.

But line must go up, I guess. After the success of BG3 it was only a matter of time.

I thought the concept of the story was neat, but it had a little too much ludonarrative dissonance for me in the end. Hard to keep up suspension of disbelief that you’re a cop when the game should logically end with the protagonist getting drawn and quartered for committing domestic terrorism.

But like I said, as a brain-off GTA clone it’s a fine playthrough if you’re in the mood for it. The fighting was pretty fun and the game has good pacing and isn’t too long either, so it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

Didn’t most people that played it like it? I thought it was mostly a marketing failure.

Personally I didn’t love it but it was a solid enough like 7-7.5/10 GTA clone to turn your brain off and enjoy if you’re in the mood for that kind of thing.

Depends on what they value, no? Alan Wake 2 still turned a profit in the end. Would Sam Lake and the others at Remedy have preferred releasing an inferior product that didn’t match their vision but made them a bit more money? I personally don’t believe so.

The DLC is just retired Geralt playing Gwent in Toussaint all day and all the new content is just more tournaments and decks 🙏

^Seriously though judging by the title I would expect some sort of flashback, probably some kind of prequel thing involving Ciri’s backstory to lead into Witcher 4.^

It’s a shame people don’t seem to realise this. I have genuinely no idea why you’re getting downvoted. I guess people on Lemmy just hate Epic that much. I think if the Epic Store was the last food source on Earth, over half of Lemmy would voluntarily starve to death.

Anyway, it’s a real shame what happened. Alan Wake 2 is a true masterpiece and yet it needed like a year and a half post release to just break even. It makes me fear that we won’t ever see another Alan Wake game as ambitious and amazing.

They didn’t “put it on Epic”. Sam Lake and the rest of Remedy really really wanted to make the game and were trying to find funding for it for over a decade, but Alan Wake 1 sold poorly and thus nobody else would touch the franchise with a ten foot pole. As part of the deal to fully fund the development, it was made an Epic exclusive. Sam Lake signed the deal with the Devil because it was literally the only way he saw his dream game ever being made.

I wish it was put on Steam and sold three times as many copies, but I am still incredibly thankful it got made at all. It’s a masterpiece.

You actually allowed Oddjob to be played in the first place? What an absolute mad lad.

I finally bit the bullet on sale a while back for it as it was cheap and I saw there were a bunch of glowing video essays about it popping up last year when the sequel got announced. A bit trepidatious though as I heard it’s both very hard and also the scariest game ever made.

How do you feel about Darkwood. I’m probably about to give it a shot this week.

You’re a good parent. I don’t envy your position, that was probably not easy.

Also a hellhole filled with predators and groomers.

Ah damn I’m so sorry I didn’t pick up on your name! I’m terrible at that, I really should be more mindful. Actually I’m going to tag you “LRR Enjoyer” now. There!

Also I have to confess I haven’t kept up with them lately. I used to watch a ton of it years ago, both their sketches and some of their stream stuff. And Desert Bus of course. I really should get back into it, I don’t know why I stopped.