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Golden Sun play log day 2 - exploring Vale, a little farther
The title quote is the best RPG excuse for a temporary roadblock ever.
Wild World is indeed taking up most of my attention, but I did play Golden Sun a bit more. Most of my time was spent exploring Vale - my, what a large starting village - and my opinion of the game did go up a bit. I mentioned the high graphical resolution before, and though there's isn't, as I said, much of an artistic "style" per se, I have appreciated that sheer pixel power alone can make a village warm (well, warm-ish) and detailed.
I guessed that the mysterious, unhospitable visitors should be the culprits behind the storm three years ago, but only because I've played an RPG in the past fifteen years. What I find inexplicable is how the hero cannot recognize the two pastel-punk wizards who assaulted him three years ago and caused the destruction of his village and death of his father and neighbors. He does know this, right? The game allows you to own up to eavesdropping, and I *assume* that the hero heard all the player did of their incriminating conversation. He *was* on screen at the time; the dramatic conventions fall into place. I know it's just a "shut up; whatever gets the plot rolling" scenario, but they could just as easily have delayed their appearance until their inevitable upcoming kidnap attempt/murder/betrayal/etc. on Mt. Aleph.
My other big story gripe is the Sage of Ham-Handedly Bald-Faced Exposition. The following Mutterings Conveniently Overheard by the Hero are verbatim: "Just who were they? They already know too much about Sol Sanctum... ...things that even the Elders of Vale don't know. And what were they saying about the elements? The elements of Alchemy: earth, water, fire, and wind... They plan to set them into motion? And the four Elemental Stars are the key? These are things even I, a trained Alchemy sage, do not know."
Nice touch: your party members are lined up shoulder-to-shoulder on the status screen. While you're rearranging a character's equipment, the inactive characters will cast a curious glance at him. Odd compliment, but the charas' "head language" is a neat touch in conversations. That ":\" thought balloon is used far too often, though, for too wide a range of emotions - doubt, puzzlement, regret, apology, nonpluss...ment, boredom. Enlarged thought balloons are a neat way of expressing characters' feelings, but not when there's just one emotion!
The title quote is the best RPG excuse for a temporary roadblock ever.
Wild World is indeed taking up most of my attention, but I did play Golden Sun a bit more. Most of my time was spent exploring Vale - my, what a large starting village - and my opinion of the game did go up a bit. I mentioned the high graphical resolution before, and though there's isn't, as I said, much of an artistic "style" per se, I have appreciated that sheer pixel power alone can make a village warm (well, warm-ish) and detailed.
I guessed that the mysterious, unhospitable visitors should be the culprits behind the storm three years ago, but only because I've played an RPG in the past fifteen years. What I find inexplicable is how the hero cannot recognize the two pastel-punk wizards who assaulted him three years ago and caused the destruction of his village and death of his father and neighbors. He does know this, right? The game allows you to own up to eavesdropping, and I *assume* that the hero heard all the player did of their incriminating conversation. He *was* on screen at the time; the dramatic conventions fall into place. I know it's just a "shut up; whatever gets the plot rolling" scenario, but they could just as easily have delayed their appearance until their inevitable upcoming kidnap attempt/murder/betrayal/etc. on Mt. Aleph.
My other big story gripe is the Sage of Ham-Handedly Bald-Faced Exposition. The following Mutterings Conveniently Overheard by the Hero are verbatim: "Just who were they? They already know too much about Sol Sanctum... ...things that even the Elders of Vale don't know. And what were they saying about the elements? The elements of Alchemy: earth, water, fire, and wind... They plan to set them into motion? And the four Elemental Stars are the key? These are things even I, a trained Alchemy sage, do not know."
Nice touch: your party members are lined up shoulder-to-shoulder on the status screen. While you're rearranging a character's equipment, the inactive characters will cast a curious glance at him. Odd compliment, but the charas' "head language" is a neat touch in conversations. That ":\" thought balloon is used far too often, though, for too wide a range of emotions - doubt, puzzlement, regret, apology, nonpluss...ment, boredom. Enlarged thought balloons are a neat way of expressing characters' feelings, but not when there's just one emotion!
