Epilogues?
Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:51 am
A little late to the party, but just a bit of feedback for you Long post ahead, sorry!
While playing the game and exploring all the possible endings, I kept getting this feeling that the romance routes were weirdly disconnected from the main plot, and I think I figured out why. In your other Aravorn games like Loren and SotW, you get a nice little set of epilogues revealing what became of each of the members of your party after the events of the game, even the ones you didn't/couldn't romance (or in SotW's case, at least what happened with your character and their love interest). But in Amber's Magic Shop, there's not much of this.
Characters who you don't end up romancing all but disappear from the game once you reject them, and apart from an occasional appearance in other characters' cutscenes, there's not really any mention of where they ended up after. Likewise, with characters you do end up romancing, some of their endings automatically end the game once you reach them, but for others the game just kind of...keeps going like nothing happened, and then Amber doesn't say anything about where her relationship with them went once them main story ends, or if they died, the effect that their death had on her.
Thinking about it, I realize this is kind of an inherent problem with the way the game is structured, in that certain combinations of romance endings and main endings can directly contradict each other. The main plot ending where comes to mind. It would definitely be difficult, but I think you could probably find a way around each of these contradictions. Just a few examples of how I think you could incorporate the romance endings into the main game epilogues:
I'm sure others could think of more examples, but those are just some off the top of my head.
...eesh. Now that I've actually written it out I'm realizing how difficult what I'm asking could be. Obviously there's nothing to be done about it at this point, and I don't know if you'll ever make another game where this kind of thing would be necessary. But this is something that I really think could (and has, in the past) do wonders in making the player feel like their choices had an effect on the story and the characters within it.
While playing the game and exploring all the possible endings, I kept getting this feeling that the romance routes were weirdly disconnected from the main plot, and I think I figured out why. In your other Aravorn games like Loren and SotW, you get a nice little set of epilogues revealing what became of each of the members of your party after the events of the game, even the ones you didn't/couldn't romance (or in SotW's case, at least what happened with your character and their love interest). But in Amber's Magic Shop, there's not much of this.
Characters who you don't end up romancing all but disappear from the game once you reject them, and apart from an occasional appearance in other characters' cutscenes, there's not really any mention of where they ended up after. Likewise, with characters you do end up romancing, some of their endings automatically end the game once you reach them, but for others the game just kind of...keeps going like nothing happened, and then Amber doesn't say anything about where her relationship with them went once them main story ends, or if they died, the effect that their death had on her.
Thinking about it, I realize this is kind of an inherent problem with the way the game is structured, in that certain combinations of romance endings and main endings can directly contradict each other. The main plot ending where
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
I'm sure others could think of more examples, but those are just some off the top of my head.
...eesh. Now that I've actually written it out I'm realizing how difficult what I'm asking could be. Obviously there's nothing to be done about it at this point, and I don't know if you'll ever make another game where this kind of thing would be necessary. But this is something that I really think could (and has, in the past) do wonders in making the player feel like their choices had an effect on the story and the characters within it.