I have started my playthrough of Baten Kaitos Origins. I did lose my first three hours of gameplay because I had an apparently rare glitch that resets the card collection when you turn off the game and the only way to fix it is a specific save/load setup done on a brand new file. It’s weird finally playing the sequel to a game I know so well for the first time. It almost feels like a Romhack since it looks almost identical.
The differences do come in fast and hard when it comes to combat though and I have to say I am not happy with it. What made combat in the first game so exciting was the split-second decision you had to make. Do you take the risk and chase that straight or do you play it safe and start forming pairs with the cards you already used? In the sequel, every card has a predetermined role in the one combo you are able to play and you do that over and over again. On top of that, it’s not as strictly turn-based anymore. Combat keeps going while you’re setting up your own turn and once I had a full party of three characters, I no longer see 90% of combat even happening. I sometimes notice one of my characters being poisoned and I don’t even know which enemy did that. I’ll give it to the game that combat gets fast paced a lot earlier than in the first game, where combat is honestly quite boring for the first 10 hours, but it’s just such a mess. And it doesn’t help that all three characters have to share the same deck!
Meanwhile, I’m about 90% done with Tomb Raider (2013). It’s shorter than I thought, but it’s nice to play something that doesn’t drag its feet all the time. It’s got all the doodad-collecting I need and you can get all of it in 20 hours, as opposed to other games where it takes 200 hours to realize you don’t actually care about getting everything.
Overall, I like the game. It doesn’t stand out (anymore?) but it also doesn’t really do anything wrong. It does get unintentionally funny how Lara keeps taking the worst falls and horrific injuries and just walks them off. The percentage of voice acting that is just ‘pained grunts’ has to be unusually high! It’s a shame the game has multiplayer achievements though. I like completing games, but when I can’t get all achievements, I can’t care about any of them.
Usually I have more time to get in the mood for a new game, now I’ll have to actually look for something.
I’m looking forward to the expanded story, I’m not looking forward to subjecting myself to the anxiety again. If I didn’t know what this game was, I’d probably just play it on Normal difficulty, thinking that’s the intended experience and be none the wiser. But I reject the lower difficulty levels! I’ve beaten the remaster of the original and I will not settle for less. My pride won’t allow it and I hate it. Stupid pride…