It’s probably just as well that I wasn’t planning to try and finish this off before the release of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth… with just days to go the map screen tells me that I’ve reached 28% completion thus far… ho hum.
February 25th
There is a second point in the game where the decision towards which ending you’re playing towards can be set, following the passing of the witch Siridean, and upon seeing the devastation that has beset Seeker, her pupil, Red and Antea discuss whether they’ve made the correct decision… I stick with the Oath pathway and still have my sights set on a second play for the Resurrection ending.
More so as, after your first meeting with Siridean, you’re faced with a choice of destination… the Harrows where some of the New Eden townsfolk have chosen as the new site for a settlement… or a Fort in the opposite direction… as I went to the Harrows this time, I’ll go to the Fort next time.
Whether this split path decision makes a huge lot of difference I don’t know, considering that the next main mission I’m being prodded into going to is the Fort, the initial decision may have been entirely arbitrary.
As it is, I can now remove the magical vines that obstruct my path at numerous places (but not the mystical webs that block others) which makes some of the other missions I have unlocked to this point easier… but, as appears to be the case with the game, after each major story beat the game unlocks more tasks and hauntings to be resolved… and being the type of gamer that I am this is what I’m focused on next… there are several hauntings I can now work on, and other activities which I’ll attempt to clear totally before I head to the Fort and move the story on.
It may be early doors but the full 1,000 Gamerscore on offer is beyond me, collecting all 88 items of equipment seems excessive, all cursed chests, all treasure maps and so on… not sure I really want to be doing that much grinding throughout but we’ll see.
February 26th
The game continues to give you a reason, in EVERY haunting case, to blame the person being haunted thus giving you reason to kill them and bring Antea back to life… the last one especially… what’s more, in all but one of the cases the “closure” element of each case is done with a near complete lack of witnesses to your deed.
The game makes a big deal of the “consequences” of your actions… after each major story mission there’s a small scene showing you the settlement you’ve just been to moves on… and not always for the better… you may have spared the Governor of the township, but has the embarrassment of being unveiled as a fraud taken its toll? Has the towns sudden swing to a very puritanical regime changed things for the worse?
You may have saved the Hunters camp from the Beast in the woods, but has doing that left them open to attack as the solitary protector of the camp leaves rather than face the music for having sent people off to an almost certain death?
32% of the map complete at this point, several “?” on the map to clear up and a couple of additional hauntings to work through before I head to the Fort for the next main quest mission.
March 2nd
Many hours of play later… seems the choice between The Harrows and Fort Jericho is a false one, once one has been completed, off you trot to the other to move the main plot on, which concludes with a quite impressive boss battle, but one that annoyed.
A new mechanic is introduced where Antea can see a weak point in a chain, which can then be hit to break the chain, either a punch, a swing of the sword or a shot with the rifle, all well and good throughout the mine… but in the boss battle you have to hit the weakened link in a set time limit… which I fluff repeatedly at times.
More annoying is that the boss has a three part health bar, once the chains have been weakened you rush in to “banish” the boss and one part of the bar is gone, so three times in all… at the end of the first bar the boss grabs Antea and binds her in chains, so Red has to free her, pick the wrong light and you release a large Specter… all well and good, but at the end of the second run through this process… Antea repeats the same action as before and gets bound by chains again… repeat.
With the boss defeated, and another part of Deborah released into the light (not here that Deborah is the true identity of the Nightmare that awaits in New Eden, having been wrongfully accused of being a witch she was executed by the folks you’re now helping) the story moves on… new abilities are unlocked (you can now remove spectral webs blocking paths, and Fuse your powers so Antea wields Red’s sword in combat to do more damage) and new cases appear on the map.
This also proves to be a rarity as there is no ghost to banish (the one that does appear turns out to be a puppet controlled by the boss so vanishes shortly after the boss is banished) and you have to decide who is to run the Fort going forward.
With all haunting cases there is an added on smaller mission after, in my case I left the current commander in charge and, having jailed the Rebel who tried to overthrow him, wants her hunted down after she escapes… as a good honest soul I don’t want to kill her, and it turns out she would make an ideal candidate for becoming a Banisher, so you send her off to get a good education, along with a message that will let her potential trainer know that Antea has passed on… good writing, way better writing than you’d expect for a supposed mid-level game.
Naturally rather than move the story on, I’m working through these new tasks and clearing up the remaining “?” symbols on the map… if I want to pop the Achievement for having 8 equipped items all at the highest class then I need to complete some Void areas to upgrade Antea’s equipment fully.
Story-wise I need to find Seeker, who has gone walkabouts, but I suspect she used to be a pupil of Deborah when they first landed as there is a letter to Grace from Deborah which indicates that Seeker is Grace and may have a connection to the Nightmare.
Basically, there is a lot a “busy work” to take care of before I decide to move the plot on… and, for a change, I don’t mind it at all… the game is a delight, way better than I expected for what amounts to a second level title, at best an AA game, and I’m looking forward to a second run bringing Antea back to life at the end… but maybe not as soon as I finish the first run… I’m almost at 43 hours to this point and can see that hitting 70 before I roll credits.