I'm avoiding spoilers.
I was specifically recommended this game when I said that I enjoy turn-based combat. Something got lost in translation there because when I say turn-based combat I mean Baldur's Gate 3, XCOM, Wasteland, Shadowrun, Total War, Civilization, etc. Not JRPG. Generally the combat of JRPGs gets a bit stale for me after a while, but I decided to give it a go.
I'm glad I did. I don't think any other game has made me feel so many things so much all at once before.
Everything about this game is beautiful: the aesthetic, the characters, the environments, the story, the music, holy shit. I love how unapologetically French it is, yet willing to poke fun at the Frenchness (the mimes and the baguettes omfg). The ever-present mélancolie in French media/culture served this game well. So beautifully utilised. I've had the soundtrack stuck in my head for weeks.
Each act swung plot twists at me like damn sledgehammers. I saw none of them coming (which is an achievement, congratulations).
The game starts by telling you that it plays better with controller. I laughed at that, because I won't play better with controller. I would've missed every single parry and dodge because I'd have to look at the buttons to remember which one does what, instead of only missing half of them because I still suck at timing things.
I'm one of those gamers who like to do everything in the world before heading for the main objective. I was very confused by how little of the map was available to me, yet it seemed like I was getting close to the supposed end of the story. At least the point you think is the end in the first half of the game. So I had to look it up, afraid I'd miss something. Turns out the map doesn't truly open up until after act 2. So I kept playing.
Act 1 ended with a gut-punch that took me way too long to recover from. I'm not sure I've recovered yet tbh. The end of act 2 was both satisfying as hell because the puzzle pieces started to come together, but also HOLY SHIT WHAT. I struggled so hard with the choice in act 3 and I think I'll need to replay the game at some point just to see the other ending.
The gestral beaches had me tearing my hair out. Especially the ascension tower. I think I tried to climb that thing 20+ fucking times and I could not get it done. I kept mistiming jumps, going too far or not far enough. In the end I asked my bf to try it for me. He did it in two tries T_T All the other ones I managed on my own, after way too many attempts.
Endless Tower was a gauntlet, but I got it done. I got so much XP from that, and I had hoped that I could redo stages of it to grind the last few levels until max, but turns out you get 0 XP from the stages once you've cleared them once. The Flying Manor was interesting. The Painting Workshop was cool. Renoir's Drafts was cool too, until The Abyss. Fuck Simon. Hate that guy. I'll get your optional ass in NG+.
Unable to beat Simon and unable to find enough XP to get the last few levels to max, which kept me from earning the last three achievements, I went and finished the game. The boss fight now turned ridiculously easy because I was way over-leveled for it, having completed everything the map had to offer besides Simon.
The Thank You Update added a few new bosses in the Endless Tower, as well as a new zone with new mechanics, new enemies, new bosses, new weapons and gear, and a bunch of new stuff to do. Verso's Drafts ended up being one of my favourite zones, except for that last boss T_T And I thought Simon and The Flying Manor were bad. At least I managed to defeat this one. I went in to fight one of the new bosses in the Endless Tower, immediately mistimed the parry and it almost wiped my whole team. Then I noped out of doing any of the new bosses.
So much frustration went into this game as I mistimed parries and dodges. So many boss mechanics which seemed unfair until I had found the proper equipment combinations. But then I'd do some story or exploration or hang out in the camp and all that frustration would just melt away.
This has been fantastic. I want to go again, but I think I need a cleanse. To process.
For those who come after.
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