Ugh...

Okay-- so, on one hand, this game plays extremely well. Engage's interpretation of the weapon triangle and the titular "Engage" mechanic make combat a blast. Maps are cleverly designed and the battle animations are incredible. The hub world is also fun, and overall, the game has a very rewarding loop that's hard to walk away from.

Unfortunately, I actively dislike everything else. The story is rough and the supports feel AI written. I went in with low expectations given many reviews explicitly stated this game was more focused on tactics, and I still found myself feeling disappointed by the narrative.

I know very well that not every FE game prioritizes story, but there's absolutely a way to have a lighter stakes journey that doesn't take itself too seriously. Instead, we get a plot that echoes the beats of an epic fantasy tale without giving us any reason to care.

Despite my issues with Engage, I am still enjoying the game. My advice is to skip the cutscenes, give everyone sunglasses, and have fun with the incredible tactics.

TLDR: Help, I miss Garegg Mach so much...

I seriously respect this game for doing something incredibly unique. It is really cool going through these lost movie clips, and trying to figure out what happened to Marissa and why these movies didn't release. It also clearly has a lot to say about artist, and the making films n such, though honestly I am not smart enough to unpack all that.

However, this game does have a serious issue with pacing. Either they needed a better method for delivering these clips, or they needed to cut the fat. Like did they need a 5 minute scene of Marissa just dancing AND a subverted version of that scene? It's not particularly interesting, and I don't learn anything really. And of course it sucks that I have little control on the next scene I am brought to. It just leads to me clicking stuff repeatedly in hopes I get something new. Maybe they could make the object relations less broad? Like when I click on one of Minsky's paintings, I don't think I should be brought to a painting of Mother Mary.

This game also includes a bunch of secret footage, which at first is a bit eerie and exciting, but they all are more or less uncovered the same way and their contents are quite similar. The secret footage gets quite dull, quite fast. At least for me anyway.

With those complaints, the game starts feeling quite aimless after awhile. I started to question when the heck the game was going to end. Turns out it just kind of ends randomly? Like I don't know if it ended, because of the particular last scene I saw or if it was due the number of clips I uncovered? I have no idea. Honestly still don't really know why Ambrosio didn't release, but I still got the ending. I guess it was just too horny? Idk. Immortality is still incredibly unique and respectable, but the experience of playing it really wore on me.

There’s a chasm between being an effective leader and being a good one. While a lifetime can be spent thinking “number goes up quickly” is an accomplishment, acknowledging and endearing oneself to the people who make it possible is the true reward. Good leadership is accepting that the skills of individuals make the whole stronger, understanding nobody should ever be considered “replaceable.”

And in that sense, Peter Quill is trying to be good.

One tragic backstory later and Peter is going by “Star-Lord” while daydreaming of being celebrated and feared throughout the cosmos in equal measure. He’s emotionally stunted, a thirteen year old boy trying to live vicariously through his own thirty-something body. Though charming enough to assemble a crew of would-be-heroes, he doesn’t quite have the chops to command them. Even if he did, deciding to call the group “The Guardians of the Galaxy” is in itself a sign of fantastical thinking, totally detached from the reality that all five members are outcasts in a society that spans countless star systems. As the player we begin our time in Peter’s rocket-propelled shoes making decisions and issuing commands to the Guardians in combat, but the dialogue frequently betrays the man he’s striving to be. His teammates clearly don’t respect him, and his own insecurities about this bleed out as rash decisions and laughably futile motivational speeches.

The next roughly fifteen hours tell the story of a group coming together, falling apart, and coming back even stronger. It dives into the mind of trauma and proves love is a more powerful force than revenge, camaraderie and individuality defeat subjugation any day. Mechanically we find ourselves getting better at commanding the team alongside Peter, who somehow earns the right to be called “Star-Lord” by the time credits roll.

Being “the one in charge” is never an easy task, and those who desire it most tend to be those least deserving. Although Peter begins his story trying to be effective as the captain of his crew and force himself into an idealized version of leadership, truly accepting himself and his circumstances paves a path towards being someone better. Someone good.

Disappointed by how the genuinely impressive specificity of place, atmosphere of dread, and the sharply observed details re: class and encroaching capital are left entirely by the wayside around the halfway point (maybe even earlier?) in favor of it's ok-but-not-revelatory plot, which I found significantly less interesting than the place and context and small glimpses of community around which it initially revolves. Unlike KR0 it is to some extent actually about the region its ostensibly about, at least at first, but also unlike KR0 its formalist and structuralist swings feel...not half-baked but maybe a bit of an afterthought, or at least not consistent enough in implementation to fully land. The 4ch/proud boys/Q analogue stuff is just restrained enough to avoid being embarrassing and is generally p funny but ultimately feels pretty toothless idk.

All that said, the first few hours absolutely transfixed me, and I got more genuine laughs out of the jokes here than I have from any game I can think of in recent memory, and that Thou end credits track fucking shreds so this still gets a rec from me! Extremely keen to see what Geography of Robots do next, they've definitely Got Something here.

The wind meets me here.

I stand above a land of rolling green, the breeze carries with it a melody and the sound of howling laughter. The faint smell of a roaring campfire dances past.

I leap, and the air catches me in its embrace. Tugging ever so gently on my glider, the valley below rises to greet me. I follow the melody to an old stable, and wooden planks creak as I make my way past the smiling faces of its many patrons. Just outside a dog barks, and a guitar continues to enchant a gathered crowd.

I’m told I was asleep. One hundred years stretch between my visits to this valley. I watch as sun vines pierce the clouds above, and I wonder how I could have possibly forgotten something so beautiful.

I’m told I failed. Allies perished. “End times.” Calamity hangs aloft these days, you can see it with your own two eyes. They tell me this with heads bowed low.

And yet here I sit, eating a stew comprised of the few edible materials I could scrounge together in my short journey thus far, and I am welcomed by these people with open arms. They surround me with their tales and with their tidings. They offer advice, and they offer supplies. Not a shard of malice rests in the eyes of the stable bearers, nor those stopping for a well-earned rest on journeys of their own. Before the sun has set I am prepared for the road ahead, my bags are filled with many a token of kindness. The last of the day’s light once cast an orange hue upon these strangers, but I now find myself among friends as the moon joins in our festivities.

This does not feel like a world torn asunder.

This does not feel like an apocalypse.

Or perhaps, this is exactly what it should feel like. When all is lost, do those who remain not fortify themselves with the aid of those around them? We look ahead across the fields before us, and we can see it from the ground upon which we sit: The Castle. It splits up through the earth and into the aether like an ever-present colossus, an imposing monolith against the glittering horizon.

And do we not all see a dark shroud moves within its walls? Do we not feel the ways in which it is unnerving, and frightening, and unnatural? Do we not perceive a constant, looming reminder of history’s greatest failure? Of mine?

We do. I do. Yet we laugh. We trade goods, and we drink, and we love.

After a century of torment, somehow, we persevere.

And we do it together.