There’s an isolation to Firewatch that I can only want to experience on my own. I’m slowly wandering from one point of the map to the other and I just want to take it in, a natural impulse I guess given the way I like to play a game.

I can understand the possibility that Campo Santo wants me to get immersed with the environment. Yet at the same time, it clearly has this undeniable urge to get me to talk about the environment with somebody else.

Well… it’s not really forcing my hand to do such a thing. But a clean HUD tells me otherwise when a prompt appears on screen. Sometimes used to tell me where I am, but often times used to let the other person know where I am.

“Uh, okay. I’m at the campsite, and there’s all these beer cans on the ground. What do I do about it?”Some details are important and help the story along, but every little thing invites your character to seem lonely, and ignorant. Ignorance is a strange feeling to have with a game that gives you very few tasks that aren’t complicated.

In the grand scheme of the narrative I can see that. Given what has happened to your player character (Henry) up to that point, earnest conversation could be right up his alley. Talking because he misses talking without all the worries of the world, even if he’s only there because he wants to get away.

During my time with the game, (Which I apparently decided to live-stream) I opted to keep things to myself when I could. I didn’t want to bore my contact Delilah (the only other person you talk to) with every little detail. Well… perhaps she is just as lonely as I am. Who’s to say she wouldn’t be bored with things like:

“Good view, huh?”“Nice trees, hey?”

“There’s a lot of grass over here, yeah?”

Does it help with the immersion? Does it help you feel like Hank? Would I really have needed to talk to Delilah all the time to get a sense of the story?

It makes me curious to see what it takes to get into the story. How different of an experience it would be if Henry was on his own with no one to talk to, trying to figure out everything for himself.

But you know, Henry doesn’t talk to Delilah to ground himself, he talks because she wants someone to talk to. There’s a greater story at play that she strings you along for, and it gets interesting albeit biased. (which could be a crutch in the storytelling. When a plot point in a story is heavily one sided. By the time you hear the other side, it might not even matter to you.) There’s something up with her, with the history of this place.

And you and Henry start to forget why he’s even there.

It got me thinking a little bit about conversations in games, and how much of it you need to have in order to get the point.

The worst case scenario I can always think of is the modern Bioware RPG. When talking to a character for plot points, you have the options that string the story along on the right of the dialogue wheel, and the explanations of every little exhaustive detail on the left.

These are usually the kinds of details that one should already be aware of, or are going to be told naturally through storytelling. How often do you, as the gamer, exhaust every option given to you thinking you need to consume it all or you’ll miss out on what you paid for?

With the thought of: “It’s there and I need to know why, even if I’m aware what I’m going to be told.”

Going to back to Firewatch. There was a point in the game where I found all of these things, and every single one had the option to tell Delilah about it. So I did it to the first one, and she answered back. Then I did it with the second one, and nothing. The third item gave me the same response. Nothing.

At this point, it could have been me thinking about the situation in game. Telling myself that I don’t have to bug her about every single detail, because she probably doesn’t care. The details in front of me are interesting for me to know, sure... but that doesn’t mean it’s interesting for every other person whether it’s in the game or in reality.

So I wonder, what is that threshold for everyone else. When you play something, do you need every detail, or do you just get to the point?

I ceased all completion of Fire Emblem Birthright when I stumbled into a retail store and Hyrule Warriors: Legends fell into my bag and forced me to play it.

I can’t help myself. As I’ve said years ago, these ‘Dynasty Warriors’ style games are a guilty pleasure. It’s also clear that the limitations of the (new) 3DS’s hardware is not enough to stop me from enjoying countless hours of hacking and slashing in the most mindless way.

Having more story and levels is a welcome addition to it, sure... but it’s not really important to something that is typically the same thing many times over. With a set of stages set in the world of Wind Waker, you could tell yourself that variety is awesome. But is it really? It would probably make more of a difference if those stages were also being put into the WiiU game, but I haven’t seen anything as evidence that they would.

I suppose I should have a paragraph to the character Linkle, a conceptual character that they weren’t sure about executing, but eventually said “fuck it, why not” When there was a loud enough voice for a female Link (I’m sure it’s how it went down). She’s an easy characters to use, perhaps almost too easy. The kind of character you give your 6 month old child because of her effortless ezpz control.

That’s not bad. Her quick execution makes her fun to use, and stands out when there’s a fair amount of characters that have an animation priority. Also, her overall presence is a bit jokey. Thinking she’s the hero of time, but has no idea where to go and what to do. Passing through story mode missions like a happy accident.

Am I supposed to say “It’s cute that you’re such an idiot.” ( Is this an anime trope by the way?)

The moral of this story is now I can play Hyrule Warriors pretty much all the time! This is probably a bad thing and will bring my productivity down to an all time low, but at least I’ll be happy…It’s weird to be a critic to a single character that was put into the game for fun's sake. It would be like sitting here trying to make an argument for why Waluigi should be treated as a serious addition to the Mario universe.

...right?