Beat act 1 and

[EridianX]

I lost a lot of motivation. Spoilers, obviously.

I dislike the bait and switch of main characters in games. I didn't care about Maelle, at that point in the story I barely knew much about her character outside of little bits. I don't appreciate being given a character and having them be the defacto main character for an entire act of a game, only for said game to be "lol nope, THIS was the real main character the whole time". It just sucked out any interest I had in the story. I liked Gustave, i was invested in his personality and inner fight with everything going on. I had zero, absolutely none of that with Maelle. So her being the actual main character just really deinvested me from the story. I love everything else about the game, but honestly, as of this moment, i have very little interest in going forward. And after hearing about the ending, it only make it worse.

[['w']]

Felt the same, kept on going, wasn't disappointed.

[Shin Happens]

How much do you want to be spoiled?

While Maelle is in many ways the anchor of the story or main character in some ways, she won't really be the pov character, i.e. she does not replace Gustave. Verso does. He takes Gustave's place, he becomes your pov character in camp etc. And having Verso as the pov character makes a lot more narrative sense, given the events that are unfolding.
It would not have been the same with Gustave as far as the actual main story is concerned.

Reading or hearing about the ending is not the same as experiencing it. It will all make sense. CO is a tragedy at its core about a dysfunctional family destroyed by grief and loss, none of them can let go really and move on, well almost none. If you do not care for the theme of the story, that can't be changed of course. Then maybe it's just not for you, which is ok.

I will say this: I think the game, overall, would have benfited from having a pov character from Lumiere, Lune, Sciel are, ultimately, just bystanders with no real agency, they do not get to decide anything or add their perspective. This is, in my opinion, the only weak point in the story, it's ALL about the family, not about the people inhabiting the world. So in that sense having someone like Gustave until the very end would have been nice, someone who adds the perspective of Lumiere not just that of the family and their needs and wants. But the writers wanted this story to be about the family. And with that having Gustave around as a pov character would not have made sense for the rest of the story.

[EridianX]

Originally posted by Shin Happens:

How much do you want to be spoiled?

While Maelle is in many ways the anchor of the story or main character in some ways, she won't really be the pov character, i.e. she does not replace Gustave. Verso does. He takes Gustave's place, he becomes your pov character in camp etc. And having Verso as the pov character makes a lot more narrative sense, given the events that are unfolding.
It would not have been the same with Gustave as far as the actual main story is concerned.

Reading or hearing about the ending is not the same as experiencing it. It will all make sense. CO is a tragedy at its core about a dysfunctional family destroyed by grief and loss, none of them can let go really and move on, well almost none. If you do not care for the theme of the story, that can't be changed of course. Then maybe it's just not for you, which is ok.

I will say this: I think the game, overall, would have benfited from having a pov character from Lumiere, Lune, Sciel are, ultimately, just bystanders with no real agency, they do not get to decide anything or add their perspective. This is, in my opinion, the only weak point in the story, it's ALL about the family, not about the people inhabiting the world. So in that sense having someone like Gustave until the very end would have been nice, someone who adds the perspective of Lumiere not just that of the family and their needs and wants. But the writers wanted this story to be about the family. And with that having Gustave around as a pov character would not have made sense for the rest of the story.

The thing that really sucks, is that I joked with a friend about "wouldn't it be dumb if this was the twist" and I was spot on correct after seeing spoilers. I think the game may just not be for me. Which is a shame, because literally everything else about it is hitting with me. But story matters most to me, and I think this one is not great. Maelle may not be the pov character, but she absolutely IS the main character. And I really have zero interest or care for her at this point in the game. I would even go so far as to say I actually dislike her character, as she, in act one, feels very boring as a character. Her not being the pov character only makes this worse, as it removes any bonding you would get with her as your avatar in the games world. It feels very much like a bait and switch, and I don't appreciate that in games. And after playing a bit of act 2, i really have no sense of bond with the new character either. They are not like the player, thrown into this world and experiencing everything for the fist time. Not having an avatar in a games story like this just makes playing further a chore. It's a real shame, had they not gone this direction with the story, it would have gone up there in my top ten games for sure.

[Shin Happens]

Originally posted by EridianX:

The thing that really sucks, is that I joked with a friend about "wouldn't it be dumb if this was the twist"

If I may ask, what do you think IS the twist???

Maelle being the main character (kind of) is NOT the twist. The twist in this game is absolutely not dumb. Unless you generally dislike stories like this. I won't tell you more because I do not know how much you actually know.

I would be extremely surprised if you actually guessed the actual twist from the get go :-D

Trust me, Maelle will be fleshed out a LOT more as the story goes on, Verso will also be fleshed out. All the characters that have an impact on the story will be made relatable and even if you may not like Maelle as a person (there are reasons why you may not like her ultimately, won't say, spoilers) it is still very interesting to see where it all leads. In the end you will understand perfectly why each and every person in this game does what he or she does.

You will learn to care about even Maelle, even if you may not like her, but you will care about her motivations, her situation and you will even understand why the "villains" are doing what they do, for very good reasons even. In fact, everyone in this game has a very valid reason for doing what they are doing.

Disliking Maelle NOW should not keep you from experiencing the rest of the story. And if you hate her SO much you do not need to use her on your team, you will only see her in cutscenes. But the actual gameplay can be as Maelle-less as you like.

But quite frankly, I do not understand why you dislike Maelle THAT much. Once you find out more about her she becomes very relatable. And again, I doubt you guessed her backstory from the very beginning and I do not know what kind of spoilers you read.

[Dagný]

The connection Maelle had with Gustave up to the end of act 1 was immense, how can you play that much and not care about her while caring about Gustave?

it's one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen in any game.

[EridianX]

Originally posted by Shin Happens:

Originally posted by EridianX:

The thing that really sucks, is that I joked with a friend about "wouldn't it be dumb if this was the twist"

If I may ask, what do you think IS the twist???

Maelle being the main character (kind of) is NOT the twist. The twist in this game is absolutely not dumb. Unless you generally dislike stories like this. I won't tell you more because I do not know how much you actually know.

I would be extremely surprised if you actually guessed the actual twist from the get go :-D

Trust me, Maelle will be fleshed out a LOT more as the story goes on, Verso will also be fleshed out. All the characters that have an impact on the story will be made relatable and even if you may not like Maelle as a person (there are reasons why you may not like her ultimately, won't say, spoilers) it is still very interesting to see where it all leads. In the end you will understand perfectly why each and every person in this game does what he or she does.

You will learn to care about even Maelle, even if you may not like her, but you will care about her motivations, her situation and you will even understand why the "villains" are doing what they do, for very good reasons even. In fact, everyone in this game has a very valid reason for doing what they are doing.

Disliking Maelle NOW should not keep you from experiencing the rest of the story. And if you hate her SO much you do not need to use her on your team, you will only see her in cutscenes. But the actual gameplay can be as Maelle-less as you like.

But quite frankly, I do not understand why you dislike Maelle THAT much. Once you find out more about her she becomes very relatable. And again, I doubt you guessed her backstory from the very beginning and I do not know what kind of spoilers you read.

The twist that I guessed, literally right after finding Maelle, was that everything was fake. The whole world was actually inside of a world created in a painting, and everything was depressing because of some trauma from the artist or something. After act one i looked up spoilers. And that's pretty much the ending. So I guess be extremely surprised, cause I thought it was so obvious that it had to be a red herring and no way that could be how they go with it.

[EridianX]

Originally posted by Dagný:

The connection Maelle had with Gustave up to the end of act 1 was immense, how can you play that much and not care about her while caring about Gustave?

it's one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen in any game.

Because she says and does very little. We see everything from Gustaves perspective. We see how he wrestles with how things are going on, how he deals with the trauma and keeps going. His sense of humor in conversations, his sincerity with how he treats everyone, and how he struggles with keeping the few loved ones he has left safe. We see little, if any, of that from Maelle before the end of act 1.

[Dagný]

Originally posted by EridianX:

Originally posted by Dagný:

The connection Maelle had with Gustave up to the end of act 1 was immense, how can you play that much and not care about her while caring about Gustave?

it's one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen in any game.

Because she says and does very little. We see everything from Gustaves perspective. We see how he wrestles with how things are going on, how he deals with the trauma and keeps going. His sense of humor in conversations, his sincerity with how he treats everyone, and how he struggles with keeping the few loved ones he has left safe. We see little, if any, of that from Maelle before the end of act 1.

I hard disagree. Gustave was kind of the main character only at the start of the game, as soon as Maelle joined the party they worked as a duo and the one who suffered the most in all this was Lune, she was almost like a side character after a good start.

[Titan]

Originally posted by EridianX:

Originally posted by Dagný:

The connection Maelle had with Gustave up to the end of act 1 was immense, how can you play that much and not care about her while caring about Gustave?

it's one of the most beautiful relationships I've ever seen in any game.

Because she says and does very little. We see everything from Gustaves perspective. We see how he wrestles with how things are going on, how he deals with the trauma and keeps going. His sense of humor in conversations, his sincerity with how he treats everyone, and how he struggles with keeping the few loved ones he has left safe. We see little, if any, of that from Maelle before the end of act 1.

This is very much the point.

You are supposed to feel the loss of Gustave as much if not more than the characters within the game. The game makes you spend so much time with him and gives you that time to learn to love him because without that the fight with Renoir and Verso's introduction would be meaningless. And it's not like it came completely out of nowhere either, the signs for what would happen to him are very much present throughout all the events leading up to the end of act 1. You just don't see them at first because of how long the game makes you spend with him.

And from a gameplay perspective you're kind of just upgrading. Gustave is effective but his overcharge gimmick is the simplest and least varied of all the party members for a reason.

[EridianX]

Originally posted by Dagný:

Originally posted by EridianX:

Because she says and does very little. We see everything from Gustaves perspective. We see how he wrestles with how things are going on, how he deals with the trauma and keeps going. His sense of humor in conversations, his sincerity with how he treats everyone, and how he struggles with keeping the few loved ones he has left safe. We see little, if any, of that from Maelle before the end of act 1.

I hard disagree. Gustave was kind of the main character only at the start of the game, as soon as Maelle joined the party they worked as a duo and the one who suffered the most in all this was Luna, she was almost like a side character after a good start.

There were like, what, two scenes of them throwing rocks, the vision she had, and then conversations here and there during scenes as you progress. We get almost no sense for what kind of personality she has in act 1 aside from those few scenes about her and gustave talking about family and running if they see the old man.

[False Prophet]

Originally posted by EridianX:

Originally posted by Dagný:

I hard disagree. Gustave was kind of the main character only at the start of the game, as soon as Maelle joined the party they worked as a duo and the one who suffered the most in all this was Luna, she was almost like a side character after a good start.

There were like, what, two scenes of them throwing rocks, the vision she had, and then conversations here and there during scenes as you progress. We get almost no sense for what kind of personality she has in act 1 aside from those few scenes about her and gustave talking about family and running if they see the old man.

the whole point of losing gustave is that you are supposed to bond with him and through his loss bond with Maelle as shared experience. You see her grieve through his loss and then slowly begin to see her coem into her own. She is an excellent and emotive character. This story is one of the best an most original of the last 20 years.

[EridianX]

Originally posted by False Prophet:

Originally posted by EridianX:

There were like, what, two scenes of them throwing rocks, the vision she had, and then conversations here and there during scenes as you progress. We get almost no sense for what kind of personality she has in act 1 aside from those few scenes about her and gustave talking about family and running if they see the old man.

the whole point of losing gustave is that you are supposed to bond with him and through his loss bond with Maelle as shared experience. You see her grieve through his loss and then slowly begin to see her coem into her own. She is an excellent and emotive character. This story is one of the best an most original of the last 20 years.

The problem with that is, the game then makes you play through a new character, not Maelle. In the camp you don't control her, you control someone new. With a whole new friendship system for that character to use. Gustave was the player in the game, you are introduced to the world through him, you experience the horrors of the initial landing through him, you learn about new things through him, killing him off and then replacing him just makes it feel lousy. Like had he pulled that trigger at the start, instead of being stopped by Lune, what would change? Had they done things through Maelles perspective instead, I would care a whole lot more. But they didn't. So i don't.