Some spoilers about ending states in Stray Gods
Feminina:
Well, I know none of us have played anything – except me because I finished all the versions of the songs and got the platinum trophy!
It was pretty interesting to go through all the variations, some of which were quite different from what I had already seen.
There are a couple of variants where Aphrodite gets really irritated with you during the ritual, like "how dare you assume you know what I'm going through and try to talk me out of this?" (You can still succeed if you encourage her to live, though.)
And then there's a version where, if you don't help him out AT ALL, Asterion fails to convince Hecate to accept his love. Interestingly, she offers instead to cast a literal spell on him to remove said love, which he accepts, and then tells him she'll enchant him to look like an ordinary man so he can go out into the world and look for love there. I didn't play it through to the end because I was only looking for trophies, but I'm curious about what the news in the epilogue is about them in this timeline. Probably not curious enough to actually go all the way there.
And there's a bit where you can take over the throne of Hades yourself, and Persephone gets extra mad (but still forgives you, because she was lying to you too).
They had a lot of musical branches, which, going back to previous criticisms, I think probably makes it hard to do a single Big Number...the focus is just so much on writing different pieces that will still slot together OK, that maybe doing one thing that's going to be the Big Song is just not in their minds.
Loothound:
Okay, so there are a couple of interesting tidbits that are rarer outcomes along the way, but the story overall just goes how it goes. No fail states, as Butch is fond of saying. Makes sense. This game is telling a story where some of the details are flexible. Still seems like whether or not Freddie is alive/the muse is the biggest challenge when thinking about a possible sequel.
Also, to refer to that review Feminina brought up yesterday again, Stray Gods is a much better title than Chorus.
Feminina:
Agreed, Chorus is descriptive-ish, but also not very distinctive. You wondered before what exactly 'stray' means here, and I think we don't necessarily know and there isn't necessarily one answer, but the various possibilities are thought-provoking and add a kind of interesting openness to the title.
Butch:
I'm not entirely sure why there wasn't a "fail" option. I was pretty sure there was going to be a way to lose the trial. It might have been very difficult, and you might have had to be intentionally daft, but I figured it would be there. Sorta like the end of Mass Effect 2 where Shepard could die. Hard to get that ending, but it was there.
Guess Stray Gods didn't want to go that dark.
Loothound:
Agreed. I like the title a lot. Using words that have multiple meanings than can all apply to a situation based on your perspective appeal to me. Given that the central conflict is essentially Athena trying to maintain some sort of centralized control over the remaining idols, the scattered/out of place meaning makes the most sense—but they all kind of work.
Butch:
I'm slightly surprised they went with it, as it came out around the same time as "Stray," which is a totally different game but could still lead to confusion in the PS store.
Loothound:
Well, the one big difference about the different trial possibilities involved getting to pick who came out to support Grace in a solo. I noticed that there was quite some variation in who and how many people you could have sing in Grace's support before it reached the final bit. If you somehow got NO ONE who would stand with Grace, would you lose? I'm a bit skeptical that you could actually alienate everyone in this situation.
Feminina:
Yeah, I initially assumed you would be able to lose if you intentionally alienated everyone so no one supported you at the trial (because Athena/the Furies didn't want to kill EVERYONE, but they presumably would have killed just Grace), but it really doesn't seem like you could drive away your allies.
I gave the throne of Hades to Orpheus, and then took it myself, and Persephone still stood with me! I ignored Apollo and then chided him for lying to me, and he was there by my side! I yelled at Pan and didn't listen to his advice, but he supported me!
Also, there's not a trophy associated with losing, and there's one for all the other outcomes, so I think they just decided that wasn't the story they wanted to tell.
They wanted to tell a story about friendship and moving on from past trauma through song, and they were going to tell it, damn it.
Butch:
Yeah, if you've platinumed it, there isn't a "lose" state. I, too, at that part of the trial when it seemed you could pick which friends stood for you assumed you had to earn those options like doing loyalty quests in other RPGs, do right by them they stand with you, don't and they don't (this guy did write Dragon Age, after all), but no.
It's almost like, in some earlier draft, it was there. The game starts as a murder mystery, really. Some of those "Look at whatever" bits seemed like they could have been investigations in some other iteration of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if some rough draft of this game actually was a mystery/investigation type story where you could fail to solve the murder. Maybe that was just too hard to write songs to.
Feminina:
I could see there having been a lot of plans and ideas that eventually fell by the wayside in the interests of "let's just make these songs fit together and support this narrative."
Which, honestly, they did impressively well – it may not be everything we imagine a game like this could be, but it's a solid effort and I quite enjoyed it.
Butch:
Oh, indeed. As a first crack at a non linear musical? Full props.
But now we must ponder...what now? Stagger gamelessly through the end of the school year? Pray for BG3? Something else?
Loothound:
Yes, but when it gets to the part of that song where you have the options to pick "have so-and-so stand with you," there's definitely a difference in how many people you can pick to stand up individually before you get to the group singing their defiance of Athena. In my playthrough I got to pick 5 before it went to the end. I remember that in one of Feminina's it was only 3 people before it jumped. So yes, the ending is the same, but there's at least that variety in how you get there.
Feminina:
Yeah, I'm not sure what I did there since I never got to specify more than three in any of my playthroughs, but the ending does always come out the same (whoever I didn't name came up anyway, they just didn't get to sing), so it's a minor question.
Loothound:
It is a minor question to be sure, and certainly doesn't seem to change the outcome at all. I was just thinking about how Butch mentioned Mass Effect before, and your relationship with your companions definitely had an impact on the endgame.
As far as what next, anything that I might want to do would definitely run longer than the (hopefully) current BG3 estimate on release. So, I'm pretty open. I'm also a lot freer from professional responsibilities for a while, so playing at night won't feel quite as conflicted.
Feminina:
Here are a couple of short games that look kind of interesting:
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/jusant/ -- this is from Don'tNod, and we've enjoyed previous games of theirs
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/cocoon/ -- I didn't entirely love the last game by Annapurna, that eagle/bow one, but it sure was pretty
Butch:
Both sound good! Do we trust Annapurna?
Little nervous about those "fights against monstrous guardians" in the Annapurna one. But I'll do either.
Shit, given BG3, we may end up doing both.
Feminina:
If we decide to give up on BG3 coming within the foreseeable future we could always start BG2.
That'll make it come the next day, probably.
Loothound:
Both look really cool, but Jusant strikes me as being the more intriguing play. I like the sound of the climbing mechanic, and the finding out about a lost civilization bit seems really cool. The other one looks good too, though. What about fighting monstrous guardians bothers you, Butch?
Butch:
Monstrous guardians on their own, nothing. Monstrous guardians from the same people who designed the monstrous guardian fights in "The Pathless?" Plenty. Those fights were frustrating, awful messes.
Dude, if we start BG2, that is a rabbit hole of rabbit holes.
Feminina:
The description of Jusant did make me think 'climbing puzzles!' and remember the early Assassins Creeds where those were so key, so while it's certainly not going to feel exactly the same, I lean that way because I loved those.
Butch:
I'm down with it. Let's do it!
Loothound:
Yeah, the description I read made the climbing sound really interesting. Not just natural handholds, but free climbing (like using the trigger buttons to grab) and pitons and stuff. Cool stuff.
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