Gamesception

Protagonist is exceptionally cute. I am quite partial to anthro mouse characters.

I have to assume this is the antagonist. Apparently also the patron who called us back to fix the whatever devices? So a barely disguised surprise twist villain? Not my favorite trope, but better than a sincere surprise twist villain.

Rival maybe? Some kind of bat character, I think? I expect this would be the primary antagonist throughout the game who turns out to be working for the lion guy, or maybe someone we think is a villain who turns out to be a misunderstood hero fighting against lion guy.

...

The manual is cool. Controller settings a bit odd - usually Steam automatically swaps the A/B & X/Y buttons on my switch pro pad, but not for this game? Which I guess is maybe because I got it on GoG and am only launching it through steam for steam input & recording? Not sure, this is the first game I've done that way. I'm glad it has a native linux version so I don't have to mess with lutris yet.

I'm trying to reduce my dependence on steam specifically lately. I have way too many games in that library, and any day Valve could decide to start charging subscription fees just to access them. Like, Gabe probably wouldn't allow that, but I give myself about 50/50 odds of outliving Gabe, so I can't exactly count on one guy's good graces forever. Seeing so many corporations go down the enshitification toilet has made it pretty clear how bad an idea that is, and while GoG probably can't be trusted either it at least has the pro-ownership anti-drm thing baked a bit more heavily into its bones, to the point that it would probably take a bit more time to strip it out.

Loading some custom images even has it looking nice in the steam library, and I don't even care about the lack of detailed info or steam achievements, though the lack of cloud saves to pass the game back and forth to the steam deck is annoying. Or would be if I weren't playing it on desktop to make recordings. Or will be once I give up on live blogging it.

but back to the game...

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yeah, that feels very shovel knight. Mina's in game sprite is almost as cute as her character model.

There's a whole story set up intro sequence, on top of the 'attract mode' animation when the game launches and the story summary in the instruction booklet. The mood is very fun. "Tenebrous" is a good word.

She's even got reading glasses come on now.

Also, is that a human?

There are humans in this world, I guess. Weird, but ok. "Seafarer" isn't an actual name, so this guys not making it out of the intro segment, is he?

Oh, he's just "knocked out." Except that purple lady definitely went overboard, so uh...

Anyway, yeah, monster attacking the boat.

boat hold has basic mechanical tutorials for jumping and digging, plus picking a starter weapon.

The hammer is really cool, locking in facing while charging a big swing but letting you dodge in any direction while holding it seems like a gool mechanic. But I've had castlevania on the mind lately, so I've gotta take the whip. Daggers not as appealing due to locking you in place while you're stabbing with them.

I'm sure you can pick all three up to play around with later anyway, so I'm not too pressed about it.

Back up on deck and, yeah, I don't think these people are escaping this attack merely "knocked out cold."

The Kraken is the classic souls out-of-your-depth tutorial boss that you can totally beat but that new players are supposed to lose to so they can feel cool when they fight it again and beat it later. I like that trope.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing though, and am not at all used to Mina's unique dodging mechanic. You can burrow to avoid hits, but have to jump first to do it, which means there's a big delay before you get those precious i-frames, meaning you have to anticipate attacks much farther in advance than in souls games.

It's certainly a twist on the formula. Feels a bit frustrating at first, definitely an adjustment there.

Anyway, Kraken wrecks my shit then fucks off right before the boat crashes into a cliff side. The captain is another human (still weird), but this guy's got a name and a more distinct portrait, so I expect he'll survive.

That's the end of the tutorial segment though. Short and sweet, but I wasted a ton of time on the manual, so seems as good a place as any to cut things off.