tombattey.bsky.social
Writer, narrative designer and games educator in U.K. HE. Based in Yorkshire.
Tombattey.com
197 posts
1,118 followers
850 following
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Pease take this with the humour with which it is intended, but…
…we’ve still got David Cage games?
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Happy birthday!
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You are right, and I think the real difference today is that things don’t get cheaper.
My family couldn’t afford a PS1 on launch - but 3-4 years later that price came down enough that it was manageable for us.
The 5-year-old PS5 has just seen its second price INCREASE.
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Praying for Yuki to overcome the cursed Red Bull!
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This would probably be my perfect game.
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Do I love every creative decision? No.
But it is cool seeing a team get the big AAA Sony money to go absolutely nuts, properly weird in all sorts of ways, all the way to bonkertown.
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I would absolutely pay this if it was made.
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All-time great intro here.
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Our cat was super psyched to watch me re-create her on the TV. Credit to the devs that their virtual cats read as actual animals to actual animals.
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I think part of the problem is that the goons propagating this stuff in real life have no self awareness or media literacy, so they read all that as cool as aspirational rather than cautionary.
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This looks great! I’ll check out the demo for sure.
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Excited, let’s go indeed!
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The name is stupid though. It’s one of those special game titles that I’m embarrassed to say out loud. ReFantazio. Come on.
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You could comfortably cut that end section, and you’d end up with what’s possibly the tightest - and best written - Altus RPG in recent memory.
And despite all the above issues, I enjoyed my time with it - even if it did start to drag in places.
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It’s very strangely balanced - and you can tell the designers knew this, because the final dungeon is full of clearly designated grinding spots in case you’re not ready.
Infinitely respawning enemies that are worth 3x the experience of everything else in the game and drop the most powerful gear.
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And if you DON’T grind, the last section is a horrifying slog of repeat boss fights that you’re underpowered for.
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If you’re willing to grind for a few hours the last part of the game becomes comically easy. Battle strategy goes out of the window. You just use the 3 or 4 objectively best moves over and over and everything goes down in a few turns.
Except the last boss which still takes ages.
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Each character gets a bespoke class that is objectively better than everything else in game. And woe betide you if you’ve been developing them in a direction that doesn’t suit this - hidden for the first 60 hours of game - Royal Archetype.
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The Archetype system allows for a wonderful level of flexibility in how you build your characters and strategise around specific enemy encounters - until the last part of the game when it decides every character has exactly one way to optimally develop.
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That is pretty much exactly what House of Leaves is like, yeah!
If I’ve gauged your taste at all well from videos/podcasts, you’ll dig it.
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I would love to see a modern reimagining of the original, un-cut vision. Not even necessarily the original planned story - the intended ending kinda sounds goofy as heck! - but one uninterrupted take on Soul Reaver, without the need to make cuts or rush out sequels.
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That’s where I’m at too. The first one centred world exploration, with cool Zelda-style lock and key mechanics gating areas off.
So far the second doesn’t seem to have that - you just go forward, fights loads of stuff, then do a small puzzle or watch a cutscene. I’m struggling with it.
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There are parts of my job I can do while half asleep if necessary.
And teaching, I can almost always dig deep and force an energy spike if my mood isn’t great going in.
But the reflective, critical, creative work requires me to be in a headspace I can’t simply activate at will.
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That “unfair” take is wild, because this is kind of true of all storytelling. The most revered artworks in any medium are those that require some work on the part of the reader.
People LIKE to work for it.
Just in games, look at the popularity of Nier Automata, or any modern FromSoft game.