Biggest Gripes..*spoilers*

[MachineGod]

Played this on game pass and I thought I was about 70% pretty good. Things started to suck towards the end of act 2.

1. Why does act 2 always end the same way? It makes sense if you accuse Hanna but for the Miller to protect Martin who he keeps accusing or Guy who is supposed to be in the library it doesn’t make sense. They really should have wrote multiple act 2 endings.

2. Really hate how the library always burns, peasants always revolt, Andreas always dies. Would have like different endings here like if we kill guy then the soldiers kill the peasants but if you accuse Martin maybe his family burns and the town is divided.

3. Act 3 I love Mags but the act is a real slog. I feel like Andreas character is completely assassinated since he always becomes a hermit no matter what. The only reason I finished the game was because I did think it ended pretty great.

Overall this game was cool, but they should have really doubled downed and spent extra time on the end of act 2

[Taliesin_Merlin]

Good write-up. I don't entirely agree, but I appreciate your thoughts here.

1. The Miller's actions defending Guy or Martin felt appropriate because, fundamentally, he defends the establishment against the peasants. Millers in late medieval society were stereotypically stuck-up, using their position to get more out of farmers and support the status quo. Lenhardt has more going on than that, but he would support the lord and the rule of law if push came to shove. Even for Martin, the issue isn't that Lenhardt wants to defend Martin, but Lenhardt believes the lord or the abbey should dispense justice, *not* a mob. And out of any of the middle-class characters, he's the most likely to obstinately defend on the basis of class principles.

2. I do wish there were other branches of the story that changed the end of act 2 more. The revolt feels inevitable (this is a chapter about Andreas's failures), but it feels like there should be a way to at least stop Peter or have him do something else, which could still lead to the abandonment of the Abbey and Act 3.

3. I enjoyed Act 3 and Magdalene. It would be hard to do more with Andreas - any differences would require a lot more scripting and game, and it would lead to different themes. For instance, if Andreas *had* left and then returned, or if Andreas *had* died, I can see how it'd be hard to write everything to fit those possibilities. Especially, that theme of living with what happens might change. Otherwise, yes, I think the Magdalene sequence could have at least locked down the evenings where she writes letters, since the game allows one to wander but there are only a couple of new scenes to find.

[Bauble]

I sympathize with your points, for sure. Practically, I think it just comes down to the fact that this game was made by a team of 12 core people. That's a pretty small team!

I LOVE choice and consequence in games, but it's A LOT more work to have branching paths 2/3 of the way through the game that would change the 3rd act so dramatically. It wouldn't really be feasible without increasing production time significantly.

I really, really hope this game does well enough and surprises everyone's sales expectations so that we can get a similarly styled spiritual successor with a bigger budget and even more branching paths. I loved it, but you're right, more variation would be good.

Given all the above, though, I must admit that I'm okay with Act 2 always ending the same way. Sometimes the forces of society and the political structures are on an inevitable collision course, and there's nothing that a single person can say or do to avoid the inevitable disaster. I think that's what the game is trying to say, and I think it's a very good point.

However, I do wish there was a little more variation in how that inevitable disaster comes about, like you suggested at the end of your first point. If you accuse Hanna, the Miller protects her, then the peasants march on the abbey to burn it. If you accuse Martin, his family protects him, then the peasants march on the abbey to burn it. If we accuse Guy, the abbey protects him, then the peasants burn the abbey directly.

[2pi360]

2. I would imagine making a branch where abbey would not burn would be a massive amount of work. One would need paint multiple new backgrounds, write new dialogues etc. It would be nice, of course, but one have to be reasonable with expectations

Alternatively, they could have make a branch where you could save the abbey during the Act II, but I wold burn anyways before Act III. Maybe pilgrims violated the fire safety while handling candles. But it would also end up unsatisfying, right?

3. I agree that the Act III is the weakest one. I hope they either would made Andreas the main protagonist, or kept him dead and let Mag do the job

[deplorable gollompus]

Originally posted by Synysterpillow:

Played this on game pass and I thought I was about 70% pretty good. Things started to suck towards the end of act 2.

1. Why does act 2 always end the same way? It makes sense if you accuse Hanna but for the Miller to protect Martin who he keeps accusing or Guy who is supposed to be in the library it doesn’t make sense. They really should have wrote multiple act 2 endings.

2. Really hate how the library always burns, peasants always revolt, Andreas always dies. Would have like different endings here like if we kill guy then the soldiers kill the peasants but if you accuse Martin maybe his family burns and the town is divided.

3. Act 3 I love Mags but the act is a real slog. I feel like Andreas character is completely assassinated since he always becomes a hermit no matter what. The only reason I finished the game was because I did think it ended pretty great.

Overall this game was cool, but they should have really doubled downed and spent extra time on the end of act 2

i agree with points 1 and 2, i think the ending of act 2 is the biggest weakness of the story. andreas suicidally remaining in the fire doesn't make any sense character wise, we see that he's struggling but nowhere near enough to suggest he's got a suicidal ideation. i think this compounds your third point, but i will say that given what andreas went through (though i think it wasn't the best writing decision), him turning into a hermit isn't a bad decision and could make sense. i think andreas becoming a hermit after act 2 would make sense in general, and i think that the "death" makes it worse.

[2pi360]

> we see that he's struggling but nowhere near enough to suggest he's got a suicidal ideation.

Also, he was not shown to have a particular love for book (compared to, say, William of Baskerville from The name of the Rose) so him rushing to Library to risk his life and save books was a surprise for me

[Psyringe]

Depending on your dialog choices, Andreas might actually come across as deeply depressed - an artist who feels empty, who no longer enjoys his work, and who dreads going home to his wife since his marriage has basically collapsed after the death of Andreas' son. From there, it's not too far-fetched that he'd be willing to risk his life for a cause he can believe in.

I wouldn't call such an attitude "suicidal" - Andreas is not going into the library with the goal of ending his life. His goal is to save the books, and he's willing to risk his life for that cause.

I also don't think that it's implausible for an artist who worked as a book painter to value books highly. He knows very well how much effort and skill went into making them.

That said, I agree that the lead-up to that scene wasn't written very well. It's definitely possible to play Andreas as someone who isn't depressed and doesn't care much about books, and in that case, the ending of act 2 feels out of character.

[2pi360]

Well, this is a perennial problem of CRPG. It is not always easy to align the character that you are roleplaying and the character game thinks you are roleplaying.

Like, when I play act II and choose more optimistic answer for my Andreas, does this mean my Andreas is polite and wear a fake smile, or is he genuinely less depressed? I was hoping for the later... so I was surprised when I rushed into the fire.

Disco Elysium tried to solve this issue by showing the inner voices of the protagonist. Pentiment also tried to do this with the dream palace, but alas, not as much as I was hoping for.

[deplorable gollompus]

Originally posted by 2pi360:

> we see that he's struggling but nowhere near enough to suggest he's got a suicidal ideation.

Also, he was not shown to have a particular love for book (compared to, say, William of Baskerville from The name of the Rose) so him rushing to Library to risk his life and save books was a surprise for me

my character had the bookworm trait and even still i felt like it didn't make any sense, but knowing that that is why he dies even if you don't have that trait is definitely lame

[deplorable gollompus]

Originally posted by Psyringe:

Depending on your dialog choices, Andreas might actually come across as deeply depressed - an artist who feels empty, who no longer enjoys his work, and who dreads going home to his wife since his marriage has basically collapsed after the death of Andreas' son. From there, it's not too far-fetched that he'd be willing to risk his life for a cause he can believe in.

I wouldn't call such an attitude "suicidal" - Andreas is not going into the library with the goal of ending his life. His goal is to save the books, and he's willing to risk his life for that cause.

I also don't think that it's implausible for an artist who worked as a book painter to value books highly. He knows very well how much effort and skill went into making them.

That said, I agree that the lead-up to that scene wasn't written very well. It's definitely possible to play Andreas as someone who isn't depressed and doesn't care much about books, and in that case, the ending of act 2 feels out of character.

i think the real problem with all of this is that there's just so many different characters that andreas himself doesn't have enough time for you the character to really explore how he was truly feeling, you only get a few glimpses about the life he built over the past several years but it's not sufficient imo. i think that andreas needed more memory palace sequences to remedy this in part two