#aveyond blogging

the king: hmmm... cause conflict elsewhere and draw them away

characters

mel mel is about as resourceful as a walnut. hate this immensely. she's training as a spy and couldn't figure out her friend edward is the prince? she doesn't know basic geography? i get the gag of "she's stubborn and hates admitting she's wrong" but it got old FAST baby

i do appreciate that they lean into her selfishness though. i think it's EXTREMELY funny. like when you see eston and he's like i'm blind and lost :( and she's just like well i'm sure you'll find your way home :)

or you find out the merchant died and instead of saying literally anything else she's like "i guess he won't need his merchant pass anymore!!!!" like girl. you and stella were MADE for each other.

stella stella is perfect. i love her. perfect balance of ditzy and serious to underly whatever the fuck she's got going on underneath. 10/10.

i really REALLY like the dynamic she and mel have. it literally feels like mel is like "we can't do that" and stella is like 🥺 please and mel goes: ok... i guess we will do that. i deeply, DEEPLY desire more of them interacting in the next three games outside of the weird catty jealousy from mel at the start.

also, i think she and mel should kiss.

edward honestly edward pissed me off because he got more lines than literally anyone else and also he knows things because... he's the prince. ok?? i am a strong believer that edward thinks he's hot shit until he has to fight a monster and then it's mel who's pwning ass while he's freaking out in the bg. i think edward should be a himbo.

i hate that the writing rewards every single smug moment of his too. not only if he insufferably know-it-all but he's always RIGHT. and like yeah boohoo he doesn't believe mel's story but the writing is like "yeah but it makes sense he doesn't because vampires aren't thought to exist." WE GET IT. YOU LIKE EDWARD. WE GET IT!! WHY DOES HE HAVE MORE LINES THAN MEL, THE PROTAGONIST!!!

te'ijal i learned more about te'ijal in this game than any other aveyond installment combined. if anything, it made me feel more confident that i'm writing her in a way that works with game canon. i loved every single one of her stupid nicknames she gave people and i LOVE how she and mel get along. immediate synergy just because they've got shit to do and muscley men to help them do it.

i also think it was extremely, extremely funny when she gets untied and she's like "the sun! it's too late, my crumpet. we're dead." like LKJDSKLFJKSLDJF that delivery!!! also, what the hell is a crumpet.

galahad i looked up what a crumpet was and it is unsweetened bread made of flour, water, and yeast cooked on a pan. usually you put stuff on it. i bet galahad wouldn't. galahad looks as plain as a crumpet. i can see it.

this is probably the first time i've actually liked galahad as his own character, rather than how he can be used as a foil to others. also, shameless plug to read iz's fic about the bar scene because after i experienced it the fic became Very Very Important To Me.

others i like how professor gray's house remained locked up for the rest of the game. i thought that was very funny.

story

predictable in the classic rpg way. extremely good because of it. i do think it's very funny how heptitus plays into everything consistently. i also appreciate that you are rewarded for exploring everything!

gameplay

if i had realized the fast travel required activating the mirrors first i would've been happier throughout the game. unfortunately, i did not. whoopsies!!!!!

i think my main complaint is that it is super unclear what needs to be done next. you're given one dialogue prompt ("go east" "go west") and if you forget it you're fuuuucked. i didn't know what to do until i was like hang on i bet wine delivery guy will tell me the next town to go to! and he did! and i went there and got confused again. i ended up severely overleveled by the end of it because i kept wandering into places i shouldn't.

anyway i looked up a walkthrough and sorted it out but the idea that edward going "let's find civilization!" means to talk to the reporter and then talking to heptitus in witchwood makes sense is....... i mean. really?

conclusion

characters

mel it is astonishing to me how consistent she is throughout these games. she's not written particularly well in the first place, so the fact that it neither improves nor gets worse is really impressive!

i thought it was very funny how quickly she and edward fell back into sniping at each other. i can't even conceive of them as friends because mel is such an asshole. if anything the only reason they get along is because they've kept each other alive during their adventures, which is a bond that only breaks when there's no more fighting to be had.

lydia her in-game motivations make absolutely no sense. i really liked her in 3-2, but in 3-3 she's a caricature of herself. disappointing to be sure!! like if in 3-2 they had had her talk about how she wants to rule i'd get it, but in 3-2 she was mostly concerned about edward dying out there. and yes you can twist that into some convoluted "it's foreshadowing!" section but come on. really guys. really.

stella stella come back i miss youuuuuuuuu

i wish she had more screentime here. i think it's pretty telling that one of the only poc characters we play (at least visibly poc) is shunted off to the side. (not to mention how they lighten her skin in her dialogue avatar. sigh.)

edward he's the king and he fucked off and let lydia do her thing. we love a colossally stupid man who does no research into how to annul a marriage. LITERALLY the stupidest prince/king alive.

i like at the end he finally decides to get going and do his job but like sir. you ran off during your coronation to help your friend? what about your WIFE. (because i had him marry stella.)

ulf he deserves a peaceful apprenticeship in animal town. you go, ulf. you had more lines in 3-3 than you did in 3-2, and you were with the party for a section that lasted less than 20 minutes. then he came back for another 10 minutes, but hey, it's something! i actually fought with him for a bit!

te'ijal (and galahad) i did not read as many letters as i should have, but every single one broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. i'm so SAD for you, te'ijal! by far her letters were the best written thing in the game because of how heart-wrenching they were in their simplicity. ARGH

june i went from 0 to 100 with june between starting and finishing this game. i think the fact she's 14 years old is WILD to me. what the fuck! get this girl into school! she literally DIED on this quest because sometimes i fucked up the fights and she's FOURTEEN!

i think there's something very cute about how she likes to keep track of how much of something you've done. she will count everything. shields. pixies. whatever. she'll count it for you. good for you, june.

yvette she is myst lite. i can see how they took yvette's base and made myst. i desperately wish yvette was more unhinged than she already was.

i do think her way of speaking, as well as the fact she often was giving explanations, was a nice touch. she's a local and she knows the area(s) better than anyone!

spook i'll admit the game got me with this one LOL. the writing in general is Not Great so i was like "oh a character without a real reason or motivation who wants to get it on with mel? sure. seems reasonable" and just rolled with it.

the primary issue was that since i had edward marry stella, edward being jealous was really fucking weird, so i didn't even think twice about it. shows what i know! they really hit it hard at the end. although why would gyendal say he's done the whole route dozens of times if he hadn't been able to get into the cave before?? that part didn't make sense to me i mean, seriously.

can we also take a moment and think about how gyendal's plan to get mel to do stuff is to... join her party and try to get it on with her? like. that is his first plan. he could've just sat and waited. like. he COULD have just not done anything. i think about this very often.

story

sincerely i don't see the point of saving your game in 3-2 if the only thing that's kept the same is whoever edward proposed to. it doesn't even really matter: the game is slanted to having mel being the scorned wife even if she wasn't the one who was supposed to get married, and it makes everything really stiff and awkward.

THAT SAID. i am grateful there were less characters for me to focus on - that made a much more compelling narrative. the side quests felt much more fleshed out in this chapter than the other two so far, and i feel like i actually remembered things about each town and its locals. it Felt Right. it Felt Good. the vibes were exquisite for each place and you could tell the effort they'd put in to give each area a personality. i genuinely love that very much.

i do think the big twist at the end is kind of lame, but like, they DID get me with it, so that's on me.

gameplay

oh my god they finally made the quests clearer and with more instructions. i screamed when i saw they put the location of the quest in parentheses next to each name or whatever. thank GOD. it made the game SO much easier to manage (and more efficient in terms of completing several quests at once).

i never was a huge fan of the aveyond 4 battle format (kind of hard to see each icon) so i'm not thrilled to see it here, but it's also really fun to see how each game slowly builds on itself to create the next.

also i didn't know this until i looked up a walkthrough, but i skipped an apparently pretty big quest in peliad where you set leopold up. i was wondering why the fuck i learned trapping the whole time i played, so i looked it up and it turns out... you set leopold up. which i never did. and yet when stormbend's tavern keeper was like "i wanna retire!" leopold was already out of business. SUPER weird. i'll try to replicate it on my next playthrough, i think.

conclusion

literally was like "meh" at the start and then INTENSELY invested by the end. this is probably my favorite chapter so far. like the other two i was like "these are good" but i finished this one and was like. man. i really feel connected and at home with this one.