a pooltoy, Charge, Cradle, Echo, Kharaya-do, Luna, Meredith, Sevens, Sparkles, Spoke, Taliesenn, Tanwen/Tanwyn, UMBRA. and Vivi


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Kinky Ace, Demi, Bisexual


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SnepGem
@SnepGem
FaeAlchemist
@FaeAlchemist asked:

Hey, assuming you're done with it, what're your thoughts on Pseudoregalia?
—🔋Charge

Actually not done with it yet! So far the movement is very versatile, though difficult to get used to and understand sometimes, and the world is pretty cool, though a metroidvania with no viewable map is really a tough ask. I guess it would be harder to have a map since it’s 3D? But tbh it wouldn’t even need to be all that detailed, just a way to see more or less what room I’m in would be pretty nice…

It isn’t always super obvious what upgrades actually get you past certain checkpoints. This can be pretty interesting and fun because it means theoretically more than one possible upgrade could let you get through a given point, or even a combination of upgrades… but, once again, it makes navigating hard, because it’s hard to tell where you “should” be.

I get the feeling that all of this navigation difficulty is actually intentional, like, the game feels as though it’s supposed to be kinda surreal in that way… but maybe it leans a little too far in that direction? Idk, I respect it, and I was enjoying it, and now I will never play it or anything else ever again because Risk of Rain Returns came out today and that is my life now.

Thanks for the ask! Have a Soda’s Potion Bar coupon c:


SnepGem
@SnepGem

Pseudoregalia was pretty fun and I enjoyed it! Pretty much everything from my previous post still applies. There was a big upgrade I was missing that I didn’t even realize I was missing because I was able to get through so many of its “do you have this upgrade yet” checkpoints without it. Genuinely just thought they were unusually difficult platforming challenges lmao. I guess I’ve been accidentally practicing for a speedrun I’m not gonna do?

Once you get used to the movement and understand how it works (really just the Sun Greaves being weird until you figure them out), it’s absolutely amazing. Platforming around feels great and the world is designed to let you show off your skills to an audience of just yourself. Very satisfying to move through the world, which is good, because that’s kinda the whole game!

The combat is certainly there, I guess. It’s good enough. Enemy variety is lacking, but that’s okay. The most interesting enemies are the ones you have to platform to, and also the ones that you incorporate in your platforming. The game’s a platformer! It has very few boss fights, arguably only one, and honestly I have mad respect for that. Pseudoregalia is, for the most part, not a game about fighting.

The game looks cool and the environments are surreal and I like them. I love castles and the whole game is castles pretty much. The main character looks sick as fuck and like also attractive I guess but the “holy shit she’s so cool” kinda way. Also cute furry, so like, neuron activation. The graphics settings are cool, though I just played with the high resolution and more fluid animations.

The biggest frustration comes in two parts. First of all, the game needs a map, and its lack of one is frustrating. It’s hard to tell where you are, and (nearly) impossible to tell where you’ve been, by any means other than just “I rember I’ve been here”. I looked up a map and beat the rest of the game very quickly after doing so. Honestly it was pretty fun using it and working out where I was, since the map didn’t mark my position (it being a static image that I googled, of course).

The second part of this frustration is this: all the game needs is a map. I guess it’s a hard thing to playtest for, but like, dang, what a missed opportunity. Not having a map is so counterintuitive for this kind of game, and for this game specifically, that it almost has to be a deliberate choice. So my question is… why did they choose that? Even the problem of the movement being a little too versatile for its own good would be drastically improved by a map! Being able to see other areas you could be when you’re stuck is so much better than “well, maybe I’m stuck here, but I don’t know if there are other places to be and make progress, and if there are then I don’t know where, and if I search I won’t know if my search was exhaustive or not”.

So yeah. Pseudoregalia is good. Really good, even. With a map it’d be better imo. But it already has Sybil With Big Pants so that’s yknow that’s good.


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in reply to @SnepGem's post:

in reply to @SnepGem's post:

The wall kicks are definitely something to get used to. They're probably the second most powerful mobility item though, after the cling gem, so Tanwen found it quite satisfying once she mastered them. It was also fun to compare with our sibling, who got the three sun items in reverse order to us, pointing out places we pulled off impressive workarounds for what we hadn't picked up, and seeing some similar shortcuts of theirs.

I guess we ended up really enjoying the nonlinearity, and how you could substitute progression items with skill. The pooltoy even ran 2/3 of the Twilight Theatre big key levers without cling gem, after we'd spoiled ourselves on that item watching our sibling play. Sadly, the third is too well proofed to bypass it entirely. Long jumping into three perfectly timed and angled wall kicks to navigate an S shaped corridor over a pit was particularly memorable.

I guess I'm not really engaging with your points too closely, but honestly, your assessment seems pretty complete. We didn't struggle without a map, but we also know we are not worth listening to if you want to know whether navigation is easy.
—✨

The Twilight Theater is actually exactly where I realized “hey wait have I been missing an upgrade” because of the vertical panels you have to wall-slide on in that long hallway :P

For the record I love the wall kicks now that I get how they work. They’re just a little weird up until that point. Honestly that’s barely even a bad thing since, again, they end up being great after that learning curve.

Fun little bonus tidbit about my playthrough: My dumb ass misunderstood the sign about “the three sun items” outside of that tower area (I suspect I was lacking ADD meds at the time) and I filed it away in my brain as something I couldn’t engage with yet. Only after using the internet to learn of the cling gem’s existence did I go back to it. I think it’s a really cool and clever way of saying “you need these upgrades” but I totally didn’t get it when I encountered it myself.