September 2023 Channel Update – Chaos Begins (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

Hope you’ve been well!!

We’re starting to get into the crazy busy times, so tbh I’m very much sitting here thinking UGHHH let’s hurry up and write this out so I can get back to other work lol. I’ll try to keep this one to the point!

TL;DR

• Finished: Telltale Expanse
• Ongoing: DAI, RE4 Separate Ways
• Upcoming: CP2077: Phantom Liberty, October releases

Finished Stuff

The Expanse: A Telltale Series (5 parts): New Telltale’s first game set in the The Expanse sci-fi universe. What’s here is good, but it’s a short story further fractured by the episode-released-every-other-week structure. The whole thing is fine as a bingeable 6-hour thing, but could do with far more character detail and meaningful choices.

We had some first looks as well (maybe a few more than usual b/c I was afraid of overcommitting before Sep/Oct):

Sea of Stars: Inspired by the classics, a 2D JRPG of two children who inherit powers of the sun and moon, destined to destroy the evil forces of the world. It looks gorgeous and there are some fun parry mechanics within the turn-based combat system, but the first hour of character introductions was a little thin for me to feel out how the rest will go. The game seems to be very well-regarded by those with experience of and nostalgia for JRPGs back in the 90s though.

Starfield: It’s clear there are many intermingling gameplay systems at play, but the plot & characters in the first 2 hours is standard and didn’t really provide a mega compelling hook. With shorter games I might be more “lenient”, but if a game is going to be 100+ hours long, I think I really need something more on the narrative front to sustain my interest. (I’ve never finished Skyrim and Fallout 3 either - now with Starfield, I get the sense the Bethesda RPG formula might just not mesh well with me.)

Chants of Senaar: A puzzle game inspired by the Tower of Babel myth where we decipher languages based off visual & contextual clues to communicate with the local peoples. Similar to 7 Days To End With You, another game I checked out earlier on this year, except it has a puzzle solution verification system a la Return to Obra Dinn to give player feedback & assurance. I think this is a fun one for puzzle lovers!

Witchfire (early access): A roguelite FPS set in a dark fantasy witch-hunting world. Not normally my genre but I checked it out on the basis of it being from The Astronauts, the team behind The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. The focus here is absolutely on the gameplay, and I could tell there’s tons of little combat nuances that just a first look wasn’t able to fully dig out. It’s hard to tell what the difficulty curve is like but I did get the sense that it’s not easy. Enjoyed my time with it!

Current Stuff

Dragon Age: Inquisition: It’s a little difficult to tell how far along I am but I am in Act 2 of 3 right now. Despite the filler collectathon stuff, I’ve still been continuing to enjoy the main story lots.

Schedule-wise: I mentioned that I’ve been trying to make DAI videos longer (~1 hour vs ~40 min with DAO/DA2) so we can get through it faster, but it does make fitting in a second video for the day noticeably more difficult. I expect this to be an ongoing challenge especially with the heavy hitters coming out soon…

Resident Evil 4 Remake Separate Ways DLC: The RE4R story from the perspective of Ada. Thanks Capcom for adding to the craziness of September and October by announcing this one week before release 🙃 That aside, it’s been great fun to return to RE4 shooty shooty zombie gameplay. It’s 7 chapters long, and I’m on the 3rd atm – it shouldn’t be a big long thing.

Upcoming Stuff

After Separate Ways I think I’ll likely move straight into Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty - I have to spend a little bit of time to reacclimate myself with the 2.0 Update too. (I know there are some discussions online around starting a brand new playthrough to weave the DLC in, but considering how slow of a player I am I don’t think that’s realistically feasible.) I’ll see what it looks like after that, but it’ll likely be Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2 next on my radar.

It’s a crazy period and I’d love to get to everything right at release, but I’m trying my best to be mindful about taking on too much too. Videos are eternal, and I want to avoid firing out a bunch of subpar ones just to meet an imaginary deadline (who's even here because I’m a fast video game player.... 🗿). If it's good, I will get to All The Games, eventually...!

Hoping your schedule looks a little less chaotic than mine! Thanks for your support as always, stay safe and healthy, and I’ll see you in thick of the September/October release onslaught! (Feel free to let me know any questions/comments/suggestions below – I check back throughout the month regularly so no worries even if it’s “late”.)

Cheers,
Welonz