#rez rambles

Knights of Guinevere seems right up my alley.

Let's go down the checklist:

Science fiction (check)

Science fiction with androids/robots (check)

Science fiction with androids/robots where shit is probably going to go very wrong with them (check)

Seemingly leaning toward anti-capitalist/anti-corporate themes (check and check)

Described as a psychological thriller (check)

An invention of three of the same creatives who worked on The Owl House (check)

An independent production free from corporate oversight and meddling (BIG goddamn check)

An animated series, giving it a lot more potential for great, unrestrained cinematic displays that can be tapped for both mind-bending portrayals of the intended psychological messages and physical action than live-action equivalents (check)

A decidedly more adult-oriented direction that probably will tackle more mature themes that a major-company-directed production wouldn't want to touch (check)

Doses of comedy for levity and breathing room (check)

A very strongly put together pilot episode that tells enough to draw me into its already intriguing world and plot without completely giving away everything (check)

Given the people involved in making this, I can safely say that I'm very much looking forward to this show. I hope it will get the traction it needs and already deserves to go the distance and tell the story it wants to, unchained from the limitations and roadblocks imposed on the creators' previous works.

That said, it does seem like it's recycling a lot from CotC in terms of story content (with adjustments for the new format invoked by having a player-created character protagonist and overall console-based presentation).

I'm also glad to hear Yasunori Nishiki is back to add more wonderful music to the series, and while there is some new music to be had, it also appears they'll be remixing or reorchestrating existing ones. I just hope that the new outweighs the old, as I recall being a bit disappointed in how Tears of the Kingdom reused so much of Breath of the Wild's soundtrack. I'd rather not feel that way again about this game.

Considering how much they're drawing on from CotC and Octopath Traveler 1 for this game, I hope it means that they're still hard at work on another proper entry in the series (i.e. Octopath Traveler 3 or however they decide to name it). As much as I love Orsterra and the original cast, I thought taking the second game to a new continent with a new cast was a great idea that allowed the devs to really get creative with their characters, locales, and storylines. Considering the assets they'll like have to work with (and hopefully polish up a bit from OT1 and CotC), I'm hoping that Octopath Traveler 0 is only a side project on wayside that doesn't distract or detract too much from another mainline game.

I'm going to keep a casual eye on the game, in case they actually decide to try and make something high-quality of it, but I'm not holding my breath.

The new starters are cute, but definitely not enough to draw me back in. Two of the three seem awfully familiar (cough-Rowlet and Sobble-cough) in terms of aesthetic and animal-type combinations, but I imagine there'll be enough to differentiate them at later stages of evolution.

The thing that actually had me thinking about this trailer in earnest though was the region itself. It seems like another tropical region, and I wonder what real life locale it's based on.

But honestly, the first thing that leapt to mind for me, a vain hope, was that it would expand on the region we saw in New Pokemon Snap.