The presence of good does not magically negate the simultaneity of bad by proxy.


You’ll have trouble decking the halls once you catch these hands

There remains a wealth of content ahead of me in Expedition 33 (E33), of this, I have no doubts. What, with the game mirroring most of the magical machinations a JRPG usually does, dozens of hours of a world left to explore sounds right…and that’s likely with just a casual once over in mind. Like most games I usually play on Active Time Event, I will likely not quite be able to spare the amount of attention I want with E33, and truly sink my teeth into the meatiest part of the game, but I am at constant odds with myself, in terms of giving myself enough time to enjoy a title, get through it thusly, and then move on without lingering. Time waits for no one, and due to my daily posting schedule, I can’t remain in any one realm too long, lest I be condemned to it, and in doing so, condemn not only myself, but the rest of the gaming realm to absolute irrelevancy in the process.

So many elements of E33 I still desire to talk about, though I suppose as is the case with most games I shoot the shit about, I feel compelled, nay, effortlessly magnetized to discussions about the difficulty, or at least, the challenges inherent with both the parry/dodge system, as well as the nature of some of the quality of life (QoL) mechanics that service E33 in superb ways. I feel as if I’ve down a bit of a rundown on these notions prior, at least, upon reflection of the articles I’ve written vs what feeling still “girds my loins so ravenously” related to the subject. This yearning to speak more to this notion of parrying, and the all or nothing mentality that follows, has me pouring over, once again, a conversation about challenging standards within the gaming realm. A convo I was definitely having before Silksong, but a pontification that has most certainly reared its ridiculous head once more.

To wit; while in essence, all of reality, even virtual reality, is always in a state of flux, and therefore ceaselessly transient in nature, this perpetuity of change helps to frame ones own perspective relative to what works in what context, or how to “define the moment”, sometimes, within a value approximation of several marginal times within a minute itself. Obviously, by pure definitional standard, every second would be different from the last, much like the notion I’ve discussed that we are never the same person for very long, in the same way one can’t step into the same river twice. Some of you may be yucking the fuck out of me right now for being so flowery with prose, and or perhaps being too gratuitously grandiose in my gesticulations in making real of the real, but I find value in being excessively qualitative with my examinations and measurements, as not only are we talking shop about games here on ATE, but we are also trading in the currency of wisdom on the regular too, and the wealth of insight one gains from overly indulgent examination, gives one a true sense of purpose in the realization of just how much it is that surrounds us, and how often we take so much of it for granted, with how little we end up realizing we know there after.

Refocusing here slightly: I’d be interested to know what percentage of people actively use the dodge/parry mechanic in E33, as I’m wagering a guess that the number is of a minority of users who actively uses it on a regular basis. There is a basic reality one must face with the notion of gameplay engagements and genre tropes, and some flavors of games just capture the attention of certain gamers as opposed to others. This is speaking very broadly, and is certainly anecdotal, but the people I’ve known in my life who were hardcore RPG enthusiasts, were the kind of people who were not necessarily predisposed to competitive scenes or highly demanding reflex based games. Totally subjective of course, but my read on it was that RPG’s just capture the imagination of folk who are just wired in a different manner, and I admit, this is all in reference to a notion I have discussed before, where what I reference isn’t just a binary, nor a trinary state of being, but one that lies upon a spectrum…which itself, lies upon heaps of other spectrums. It is honestly spectrums all the way down, which is a healthy and excellent way to look at reality I think, as existence paints with more colors with just white, black, and grey, and allows one to expand their focus of there being much more in the way of bedazzling beauty upon which the rainbow hues so brilliantly.

Didn’t realize I felt the urge to wax so poetic today…my prior point was not just that context is key, and it varies wildly all the time. I still feel safe in asserting certain realities, like the common proclivities shared amongst an average grouping of RPG fans, sharing in some aspects while being radically different in others; two disparate ideas can be simultaneously true at the same time. This next part I know I’ve referenced, but in the same way that JRPG’s aren’t necessarily known for their parrying mechanics, (yet here we are with E33), so too, do FPS’ not really dabble in those bespoke arts of counteracting glory, yet Doom: The Dark Ages did sport one, and in a very odd comparison, I want to say that E33 may purport itself better with the parry mechanic, as I’ve definitely seen examples thus far where it looks as if it doesn’t break the game, (in the way of excelling in parries, I mean), as battles can circumvent the relevancy of the parry full stop, and is a reminder that as only one element of a bigger move set, battle isn’t absolutely contingent upon the parry, the move acting as more of a flourish, in that if one did not utilize the system, which I’m sure Sandfall Interactive realized would be the case, one would manage relatively fine. This translates to a more mindfully designed game, as the pure essence of the moment to moment is not hinged unrealistically upon one standard, players having a myriad of ways in which to tackle the encounters, where as in my moments of attempting to play The Dark Ages without parrying, and in a moment of strange irony, reguating myself to “only shooting” in a Doom game, it felt incomplete, and like something was missing. The parry being such a core mechanic of the experience, one is kind of lost with out its presence, and the whole thing quickly falls apart.

That’s my take on the early (to possibly mid?) point of what E33 has to offer, in reference to how Hell shapes the devil’s advocacy of gambling it all on parrying.

~Pashford