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It should be no surprise that I'm playing Granblue Fantasy: Relink. I'm an avid player of the Granblue fighting game, which I still believe is an excellent way for new folks to get into the genre, and needed a brighter RPG experience after my long haul of Final Fantasy 16.
What I found surprised me. I was under the impression that this long-delayed Granblue experience was a lengthy narrative game and while there is a story to clear with some flashy high points, the post-game opens up to a Monster Hunter-esque loop of heading out to challenge bosses and returning to town in order to upgrade your characters.
There's a pretty huge roster in Relink and that means you need a lot of experience points and supplemental currency and items to upgrade your crew. An endgame mission called "Slimepede" drops players into a gilded room of lucrative slime that drop gold, give quick experience points, and even have a chance to spawn a rare enemy that gives amazing upgrade materials. It's a hot spot of player activity. But how do you farm most efficiently?
This post isn't really about Relink as a game. It's about the odd ways in which communities form unspoken rules. How even after a week or two, the notion of what's optimal becomes what's expected and then finally what's believed to be courteous. Slimepede is a case study in how gamers develop mores and taboos. And honestly? I don't know how it happened. Okay, well, I have some idea but it's weird.
Because there is an expected way to play a certain mission in Relink and those expectations tell us something about the game's community and perhaps gamers more broadly...
I actually didn't want to write about Unicorn Overlord again right away. Is that a funny thing to lead with? I have this thing about how blogs look and I like when topics alternate and shift. I thought I'd write about Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's ending or perhaps finally write about the beauty I see in Heavenly Delusion. But Unicorn Overlord is on the mind.
(heads up that we're discussing spoilers.)
When I first wrote about the game, I said that the story was the biggest stumble. For a tale ostensibly chasing after inspirations that were quite political and grounded in material concerns, Unicorn Overlord slides into higher fantasy. There's some political frictions to it but those complications come hand in hand with higher level magicks that often boil down motivations to something simpler than many might prefer. In the game's defense, SRPG pioneer Yasumi Matsuno's been clear about how audiences should approach things: leave old expectations at the door. Enjoy the thing as it is. Which is good advice though sometimes hard since Unicorn Overlord invites comparison. Still! When you let go and allow yourself to enjoy the moment to moment writing, it's quite good.
yet it's hard to ignore the way in which certain magical elements intrude on the story. And while the genre often has stories whose final acts give way to gods and demons, Unicorn Overlord tips the hand early. But as I play more of the game and become aware of potential endings, this bothers me less and less. Particularly in the paths that take darker turns.
I am going to write about endings after all. I'm also going to be writing about player behaviors, open world structures, the rush to reach endgame, and the ways in which Unicorn Overlord plays with current structural trends. I think there's something interesting happening here. Something beyond a twist for the sake of replay-ability. In turning certain habits against the player and enticing them with the option to march on the evil overlord's capital from essentially any point in the game, Unicorn Overlord takes clear joy in turning maximalist impulses against hardcore players. The results are dire but exciting.
So let's break it down...