September 2022 Channel Update - A Crisis in My Core (Patreon)
Content
Hi all,
It’s been a rough few weeks with my IRL work being nuts – I hope you’re all doing better than me over here!!
Today’s is not the most groundbreaking of updates but I do have a conundrum with Final Fantasy 7 towards the end – please let me know if you have any thoughts on it!
TL;DR
Finished: As Dusk Falls, Cult of the Lamb
Ongoing: Dragon Age: Origins
Upcoming: SCORN preview, FF7?
Finished Since Last Update
As Dusk Falls (6 parts): A picture book style choose your own adventure following the lives of two families. The stop-motion animation seems divisive but I got used to it in like five minutes. Engaging, short & sweet, it doesn’t overstay its welcome and I’d gladly welcome a sequel (which seems imminent!) One thing that’s hard for me to see in one playthrough but I’ve heard is done well is that the story can branch off in tons of different ways.
Cult of the Lamb (14 parts): An interesting mix between god-sim management and roguelike with a cute art aesthetic. It has a really addicting “just one more day” gameplay loop, but overall I don’t think it’s too replayable after the main story ends – there isn’t quite enough depth in the mechanics to support prolonged playing. Enjoyed making my followers eat poop though!
I also did “first” looks of:
There are already old, complete playthroughs of both these games on the channel and going through it again really brought back memories. I wouldn’t mind continuing either TBH (esp. Sleeping Dogs because that LP is O L D), but since a LP does exist already it probably would be better to cover “new ground” so to say. Still awaiting a Sleeping Dogs sequel in the year 2022 😭…
Progress on Current Stuff
Dragon Age: Origins: The poll winner! The world is fascinating with what seems to be like 50000 different deep lore concepts, which is always mega fun to learn from scratch. Enjoying it lots so far although it’s taking me a while to get familiar with the gameplay - I don’t think I’ve played anything with this type of micromanagey squad combat (???) before, and I feel like I’d also rather not have to think about all the various skills/talents/attribute upgrades/blahblah lol. None of it is really affecting my enjoyment of DAO though – I am sure we’ll get there eventually!
Upcoming Stuff
This coming week we’ll have a preview of SCORN, a horror game coming out in October. I hadn’t heard of this one before but it looks pretty highly anticipated as it’s been in development for like a decade. If I can handle it I will consider playing the full game... I haven’t played a “real” horror thingy in a while 🤡......
As with before I think my next big thing likely God of War: Ragnarok in November, but something time-sensitive did come up on my radar: Crisis Core Reunion’s been announced for a December 13 release this year.
I know the play order for the original games goes:
Final Fantasy 7 ► Crisis Core
with Crisis Core being a prequel & having content that reveals critical plot points in FF7. However, the new remakes are split into three parts with Crisis Core Reunion sandwiched in between:
FF7R Part 1 ► Crisis Core Reunion ► FF7R Part 2 ► …
As someone who’s only played & knows FF7’s story as far as FF7R Part 1 goes, I feel like I’ve been put in an awkward position where if I want to play CCR on release, I have to consider the impacts of how that will affect my story experience. I did some research & the devs have said this is intentional because they think CCR will just want to make you want to learn more, and fans seem to agree it should be played before FF7R Part 2 because why else would they release it that way. However, I think both statements are more of a “knowledge of Crisis Core won’t affect your enjoyment of FF7(R)”, not “Crisis Core will not spoil plot points to FF7(R)”.
Anyway, bottom line is I think I have two options:
1. Do nothing now, play CCR in December
2. Play OG FF7 now, play CCR in December
Currently I lean towards the second since it’s the option that’ll preserve my reactions for at least one form of FF7 + the release schedule is not super busy right now (though DAO + FF7 + GOW later seems a bit… 💩)
Curious to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this. If I proceed with my plan, I think I’ll have to start very very soon to make the Dec 13 “deadline”!
This is all I’ve got for now! I hope to be able to slot in more games here and there but realistically I feel like I’m burning a candle at both ends with my IRL work being very blah lately. Appreciate your understanding and patience in the meantime...!
Welonz
PS. Haven’t forgotten the Q&A – I’m making progress! There are quite a bit of repeat questions so you may want to look at previous Q&As in the meantime if you had any burning inquiries. I’ll probably not go over those ones too much so this can actually come out sometime in our lifetimes… 😬