Two Video Games
Feb. 28th, 2022 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearDave and I have spent the last few weeks playing Eastshade on the X-Box. It was my turn to have the controller, with Dave offering commentary on what to say and do. The first thing we were asked to do was give our character a name, and I picked Stanley, since he was sitting next to me on the sofa at the time (four-foot teddy bear, for anyone who doesn't know). And then, it turned out there were actually bear people in the game! So, we fitted in well. There were also chimpanzees, deer and eagles.
We played an artist, who arrives in Eastshade with the intention of painting several specific landscapes. And part of the game was finding those places (and others that NPCs asked for pictures of) and creating paintings of them. Along the way, we met a lot of interesting characters, most of whom had tasks they wanted us to do - finding lost children or items, collecting specific resources, investigating various things, and generally exploring around the world.
We had a clear to-do list (I do love a game with a to-do list) but no time limits or deadlines (perfect combo, if you ask me) and the landscapes and towns were all gorgeous! The world was small enough that it wasn't too hard to get around - but the inclusion of a bicycle for extra speed and eventual teleportation powers between places we'd already been meant we didn't get bored, just slogging along the paths.
There was a satisfying amount to do, we only got stuck a few times, and it was generally very relaxing and a lot of fun. The ultimate conclusion was lovely, too. There was one occasion where it felt the game pushed us into doing something we didn't really agree with (and then criticised us for it!), and there was one task we couldn't complete because we couldn't find the character we needed to speak to, which was a shame. But, overall, it was a really lovely game that I thoroughly enjoyed playing - exactly what I was looking for!
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, which I played on my own on Steam, has some similarities. It's an open-world, exploration game, with an extensive to-do list, and the added options of building and maintaining farms in various locations. The graphics are more cartoony than Eastshade, and the world is a lot bigger.
Good things - clear objectives to complete each designated task, no time limits or deadlines, some fun plot and cute animals, useful compass to point you in the right direction.
Bad things - while the map was clear and the compass useful, there were a lot of landscape features that got in the way of moving from one zone to another and I often couldn't find out how to get where I was going. Also, I eventually floated down off a cliff to reach a specific location and then couldn't figure out how to get back, since there was no way back up and the piece of land I was on was surrounded by water too deep for me to cross. So, that was the end of that.
I got quite a lot of fun gameplay out of it overall, but it did start to get a bit wearing after a while, and I wasn't overly disappointed when getting trapped meant I couldn't carry on playing.
We played an artist, who arrives in Eastshade with the intention of painting several specific landscapes. And part of the game was finding those places (and others that NPCs asked for pictures of) and creating paintings of them. Along the way, we met a lot of interesting characters, most of whom had tasks they wanted us to do - finding lost children or items, collecting specific resources, investigating various things, and generally exploring around the world.
We had a clear to-do list (I do love a game with a to-do list) but no time limits or deadlines (perfect combo, if you ask me) and the landscapes and towns were all gorgeous! The world was small enough that it wasn't too hard to get around - but the inclusion of a bicycle for extra speed and eventual teleportation powers between places we'd already been meant we didn't get bored, just slogging along the paths.
There was a satisfying amount to do, we only got stuck a few times, and it was generally very relaxing and a lot of fun. The ultimate conclusion was lovely, too. There was one occasion where it felt the game pushed us into doing something we didn't really agree with (and then criticised us for it!), and there was one task we couldn't complete because we couldn't find the character we needed to speak to, which was a shame. But, overall, it was a really lovely game that I thoroughly enjoyed playing - exactly what I was looking for!
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, which I played on my own on Steam, has some similarities. It's an open-world, exploration game, with an extensive to-do list, and the added options of building and maintaining farms in various locations. The graphics are more cartoony than Eastshade, and the world is a lot bigger.
Good things - clear objectives to complete each designated task, no time limits or deadlines, some fun plot and cute animals, useful compass to point you in the right direction.
Bad things - while the map was clear and the compass useful, there were a lot of landscape features that got in the way of moving from one zone to another and I often couldn't find out how to get where I was going. Also, I eventually floated down off a cliff to reach a specific location and then couldn't figure out how to get back, since there was no way back up and the piece of land I was on was surrounded by water too deep for me to cross. So, that was the end of that.
I got quite a lot of fun gameplay out of it overall, but it did start to get a bit wearing after a while, and I wasn't overly disappointed when getting trapped meant I couldn't carry on playing.
