To all who finished the game...

[vultureblade]

The ending was a bit weak, but on the whole this was probably my favorite game set in Aravorn. I ended up really liking all of the characters (especially Rowinda). Loren was fantastic, but for some reason I thought this one was even better.

[jack1974]

Thanks, for sure was the one in which I spent more time coding it!

[Player00013]

Jack, would you mind an easter egg about Rowind in my visual novel? It's nothing major just a character finding a lava diving magic scroll and asking who would be crazy enough to try using it? I told you about it when I asked about the poly relationships, hopefully I will finish this game before graduating.

[jack1974]

Yes no problem, you can do it

[nolosk]

Waaaaay late to the party, but I figured this was as good a place as any to put my thoughts even though they spill over into other games a bit.

I played SOTW a few years after I first played Loren, but I did another playthrough right before so it was fresh in my mind. With that in mind, I think the similarities and differences stood out more sharply. I haven't played Queen of Thieves yet, so I can't draw any comparisons there.

The first and most obvious difference was that the gameplay was way better. Loren had a lot of cheesy tactics that you could use to cruise through most everything (speed spam anyone?) but it really feels like SOTW tightened up the mechanics and made it a lot more engaging.

That leads into what was probably my favorite part of the game, the first season. As much fun as facing down demons and saving the world was, I don't think I've ever been more engaged in a VN than when I was trying to help two kids struggle to get enough to eat and keep their secret safe. Vaelis was a surprise hit, really nailing the jaded mercenary role in a way that I think even a lot of more "serious" fiction fails to do. It was in this part of the game that the increased difficulty and better balance really served to reinforce the links between story and gameplay, because having kind of cruised through Loren on max difficulty, this suddenly felt like a struggle for survival.

The gladiator fighting section was almost as compelling as the first bit, especially when the focus was on the fights themselves. I enjoyed getting to slowly meet and learn about some of the other fighters, and it kept up the "struggle to survive" themes of the first season, albeit in a slightly less impactful way imho. As much as the threat of dying in the arena was real, it didn't have the same visceral impact on me that searching for pelts and meat did in the first section.

I found the pirate section to be my least favorite, because as much fun as it was to finally be free and get to go on raids, it felt a bit padded and unfocused. I understand the desire to keep the seasons roughly equal in length, but I think this was one where a few raids would probably have been enough. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was grindy, but it felt like there just wasn't the same dramatic tension as before.

The ending did a great job of tying it all up for me though. I had Bad Blood, so I can't speak to the base game, but I felt like it did a great job of snapping me out of the somewhat off-track pirate bit and reminding me what the story was all about. Probably my second favorite section all things considered.

All in all, I think I enjoyed SOTW more than Loren for mostly gameplay and story reasons. The romance between Shea and Krimm was wonderfully done, second only to Saren x Loren in terms of ones I've played through. The only place I wasn't quite as thrilled was with the character art style, but if I recall correctly that was the result of a change in artists so it's understandable that it wasn't going to be identical. For all my gripes about pacing, it still blew Loren out of the water in terms of dramatic storytelling imho.

I think if there's one final opinion I'd have for future games, it would be that at least for me, hours of gameplay aren't really a big selling point. I'd rather have a tighter plot at the expense of fewer battles and such, and would even be willing to pay more for a shorter game in this case.

Anyway, this turned into much more of a ramble than I was planning, but I loved the game and can't wait to get back to Aravorn!

[jack1974]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes I think I got carried a bit away in number of battles in certain situations. If you'll play Cursed Land, that game is easier than SOTW (also has no front/back row so certain tactics don't work) but I think the balance between fights and story is better (I know some people do excess arena battles but it's really not needed even at max difficulty to win).

The RPG I should release shortly, Planet Stronghold 2, is interesting in a way that there are many optional sidequest, for the first time you can even fail many main plot quests and it won't be a game over (until a certain point of course). Also since there's an automatic fights option, at least when I played it myself I enjoyed just keeping the party equipment updated and leave most of the fights to the AI pausing only to use skills (the AI is very basic and will only heal but never use offensive skills except firing the weapons). So because of this it plays very differently from all my games.

As for the story when it's out I'm curious to see people's reactions since the various situations you're put in will force your character to make hard decisions and will be hard to always play the "good guy" role. It also has 10 different endings so hopefully one (or more) of them will be cool

[nolosk]

Thanks for the recommendation! I think Cursed Land looks right up my alley.

I've been looking forward to PS2 ever since I finished PSCD. The hard decisions sound like a lot of fun, especially for replay value.

[jack1974]

Cool if you end up playing both let me know your thoughts (PS2 obviously is not yet finished but should be soon!). I think Cursed Lands is my first game to have more "political intrigue plot" and I got many positive comments about that, so that I tried to replicate it in PS2 too and also in future games