Final Fantasy II, the bad one

Final Fantasy II is the one entry in the series that is rarely talked about. It always seemed that when listing oldschool FFs, you could find people who had good things to say about one, three, and everything after. But FF2 was oft skipped. I didn’t give it much thought until recently, when I started to become curious. It’s the only game that I knew nothing about. I had no concept of FF2’s characters, villain, abilities, anything.

Most online sentiment for FF2 is not very positive. Particularly for the original release, which was apparently brutal. But, the pixel remaster fixes all that and makes the game far more playable. So, I finally gave FF2 a try.

Too many random encounters

This is agony. The encounter rate is atrocious. It’s way too high, every few steps triggers a fight, making exploring dungeons a chore. The fights themselves are also really easy and straightforward, to the point that I played nearly the whole game on auto-battle. I wasn’t engaged with the combat, just auto-attacking through everything. With such a high encounter rate, I can’t imagine what it would be like if each fight was difficult. I probably would have tapped out and not finished the game.

The high encounter rate makes the pace of the dungeons grueling. Each dungeon is built like a maze, with multiple floors of winding corridors and dead ends. The exit to the next floor isn’t clearly marked, and is usually hidden behind a door. The game loves to fill dungeons with empty rooms, that means you’ll be going in and out of doors with little to no reward, butting up against dead end hallways, and doing it all while the high encounter rate bogs down the whole experience. This makes dungeons a frustrating grind, which is unfortunate considering there isn’t much else to the game other than its dungeons.

Thankfully, the pixel remaster gives you tools to mitigate this. You can turn encounters on and off with the press of a button. And, there is a boost option in the configuration menu that allows you to apply experience multipliers, so you can level up faster by doing less fights. I still find it frustrating that I have to go noodle in the options menus, and turn off combat—a core feature of the game—to enjoy it. I’d much prefer having the encounter rate reduced overall, with more exp from each fight, so we could just play the game from beginning to end without any hinderances. They could’ve added a classic mode for those who wanted to play through a grinder like the original release.

Flat characters

I didn’t find the main cast interesting at all. There’s not much to them, nothing interesting is revealed about their past, and their relationships with the other characters are sterile at best. This is true for almost all the NPCs in the game, from the princess who gives you your early quests, to the final villain. There’s no substance to any of them.

The rotation of guest characters doesn’t fare much better. They all fall into the same category, uninteresting and flat. The only intriguing thing about guest characters are their interesting visual designs, but that only goes so far. Even then, they lack a sense of uniqueness in combat, since each character has the same moveset and spells. Unless you keep the guests with their original weapons, like the dragoon with a spear, there isn’t much that differentiates them. They don’t even get special abilities like jump, steal, chakra, or any of the other Final Fantasy staples. All this makes the guests feel like just another unit, easily replaced with a blank soldier rather than a named character.

Proto-Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy II has many of the hallmarks that would become the norm for the series, like guest characters and character deaths. But, being an early entry in the series, none of it is fleshed out yet. The characters and villains are loosely tied together, but not in a way with any meaningful depth. The guest characters feel shallow, and the deaths are often lacklustre (except one that I thought was well done). All in all, FF2 very much feels like a proto-Final Fantasy. An early version filled with all the narrative beats that would become standout moments in the following games. The characters and story arc even feel like an early version of Final Fantasy IV, like FF2 was the rough draft to FF4’s final edit.

Conclusion

I thinks it’s fascinating from a historical perspective, but on its own I can’t say it’s a good game. I would not recommend playing it, especially if you don’t already have an interest in the history of the series or that of JRPGs. If you do play it, I’d suggest making shameless use of the experience multipliers in the boost menu, and turning encounters off whenever they start to annoy you.

The boost multipliers and toggle for encounters help a lot, but I still find it frustrating that I have to turn off a core aspect of the game. The most fun I had was when encounters were off and I was only fighting monsters from chests and bosses. Which made me wish they’d modified the encounter rate and experience by default, and then gave players some kind of classic option for those that want the grind.

Despite all that, Final Fantasy II grew on me in the end. This is clearly an important part of Final Fantasy’s foundation, one that future FFs would build off of. Even if I can’t wholeheartedly recommend FF2, I’m still glad to have experienced it.

Darkest Dungeon and Narrative Context

Darkest Dungeon is the best game I’ve played that doesn’t have a plot, and yet has a story. It’s a peculiar distinction to make, but it’s the only way I can think to describe how Darkest Dungeon’s narrative and themes are laced throughout every aspect of the game, without having a point A to point B plot.

Darkest Dungeon is layered in a gothic Lovecraftian aesthetic. You find yourself pitted against tentacled horrors and warped pigmen. The whole game has an oppressive feel, bearing down on you with inescapable hopelessness. It’s phenomenal. This is all communicated with an amazing mix of art and sound that comes together to create a vivid experience.

The final knot that hold the whole experience together, is the ancestor’s voice over.

Conflict and Tragedy

The ancestor’s voice over narrates the entire game, from combat, to the Hamlet (the game’s hub town), and all the little pieces of exposition we’re fed over the course of the game. It’s a low, pained tone that haunts us as we try and clean up the ancestor’s failings.

Darkest Dungeon is inextricably tied to the ancestor’s actions. We see the remnants of his dark rituals, grotesque experiments, and disregard for the townsfolk who were his charge. Each dungeon, each boss, and every broken thing about the Hamlet is the ancestor’s fault.

This is where conflict and tragedy intersect, rooted throughout the game’s design. Each boss is tied to the ancestor’s actions. When you enter a boss dungeon, the ancestor narrates a snippet of that boss’s history. They are always created by the ancestor. A problem that was the result of his greed. And you are there to clean up, throwing body after body at horrors to fix his mess.

In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings...

—Ancestor

The ancestor starts in a position of power. A leader of vague title to the surrounding town. He’s wealthy and wants for nothing. But then his greed and selfish fascination with the Darkest Dungeon drives him to more extreme actions, until his end (this is all shown in the opening cutscene). Which is when the player, as the descendant, enters a derelict and broken Hamlet.

The ancestor starts as a powerful leader, but we enter after the tragedy, when he has already brought himself low and expired from this world. The ruins of the Hamlet, the dangers of the dungeons, are all that’s left of him. And it is all failure.

The minute to minute gameplay is laced with this subtext. Every raised undead and grotesquely summoned monster is reinforcing the ancestors actions. He may be gone, but his failings haunt us. The player is partaking in the tragedy, at the very tail end of it, by throwing heroes into the fray. And our frustration, either when a leveled up hero dies, or we run out of gold, its all part of the hopelessness that hangs over the Hamlet. All initiated by the ancestor. His actions still affecting us.

Plot vs Story

I wouldn’t say Darkest Dungeon has a plot. It may be possible to very loosely apply the boss encounters and build-up to the final dungeon on a plotline, but that feels like a stretch. Really, the game is about grinding out levels while partaking in the gothic fantasy atmosphere. But there is still a story.

The discussion of what plot versus story is can get convoluted, it depends on who you ask. In this context, I separate plot as being the story beats that make the backbone of a narrative. Hero leaves town, meets mentor, encounters villain, climbs Mt. Doom, etc. But lacks all the characterization, worldbuilding, and atmosphere that makes a story complete. The two are so intertwined that is makes sense to not break them apart outside of noodly conversation around narrative.

For games though, the way stories are presented can be very different than other media. Darkest Dungeon might not have the player following a clear route through a plotline, but it’s still enmeshed in story. The narrative permeates every aspect of gameplay. Heroes permadeath frustrates us, makes us angry or hopeless, even feeling like we wasted our time. The background sounds, especially when the torch is at 0%, evoke horrors just beyond our sight. And all of this, the reason we’re sending heroes to die in nightmare wrought landscapes, is because of the ancestor’s actions.

The game design is the narrative. Grinding levels is part of the conflict, a result of the ancestor’s tragedy. One the player strives to push against, despite the consequences of our predecessor’s actions constantly bearing down on us. Each dungeon run has narrative conflict rooted in its foundation, and supports the ancestor’s tragedy. The narrative and game design are so expertly interwoven that it creates an amazing experience. There’s no part of Darkest Dungeon that feels out of place.

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If you can’t tell, I’ve been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon lately. I went through the same stages many players do, where at first I got incredibly frustrated, considered dropping it, but then ended up hooked. It’s a peculiar game that can shift from infuriating to comforting once you learn the tactics to deal with each enemy type. But I was particularly struck by how the narrative is tied to the gameplay, it really is phenomenal.

If you haven’t tried it, and you like the sound of a turn-based rogue-like, then I highly recommend Darkest Dungeon.

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For A Vast Future is really good

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up For a Vast Future. I saw it recommended in a Quartet Kickstarter email, and picked it up on a whim. Advertised as a compact, Gameboy inspired RPG, I couldn’t help but give it a try.

A Vast Apocalypse

For a Vast Future takes place in a beautifully crafted apocalyptic world. You start out as Chel, an orphan who spends her days looking for scrap, until she encounters a cyborg who can’t remember his origins. Promising to help him, and maybe get some loot on the way, the two set out, kicking off the story.

The worldbuilding is fantastic, creating a world scarred by corrupt governments and a desperate war. But to really dig into it, you have to read the optional logs that can be found on bookshelves and interactable computers. Each is short and to the point, but they do an amazing job of laying out the context of the world, revealing the intricacies of the apocalyptic war and the experimental tech that grew out of it.

There are some weaknesses though. I’d describe the game as having a strong plot, but weak story. We move through the twists and turns at a fast clip, and it’s a satisfying pace. But there’s a lack to the character interactions and their role in the story that makes it feel plot driven, but not character driven. It’s a letdown, but not a dealbreaker. And the gameplay more than makes up for it.

Ammo, scrap, and wargear

Combat is turn-based and works around a simple but elegant ammo system, where each character has access to the same pool of ammo types. There’s basic, burn, ice, shock, which are some of the traditional damage types. Then there’s the interesting ones like delay (move enemies’ next turn further back on the timeline), vampire (absorb hp), desperate (deal more damage at low health), and so on. There's also an EXPLODE damage type. Which I find both hilarious and awesome.

Enemies can have strengths and weaknesses, where certain damage types deal more or less damage. The difference between a strength and weakness is significant, so it’s incentivized to try and exploit weaknesses to keep battles from turning into a slog. Especially after the first quarter of the game, because spamming attacks with basic ammo starts to do much less damage.

Then there’s wargear, which is stuff like first aid kits, grenades, and items that invoke a temporary weakness, like the oil can making enemies weak to burn damage. To my surprise, the simplicity of all this together made it so that I would be regularly using wargear, as it’s extremely effective, especially when you upgrade a character’s dexterity stat (it increases wargear’s damage).

In most games I tend to ignore damage items, but in For a Vast Future I used them constantly. It was made more fun since you can craft wargear with scrap. So if you need more grenades or tasers, you can get it from a junk-o-tron as long as you have the requisite scrap. And you get a ton of scrap, I never found myself wanting for basic items.

All of this works together in a simple yet satisfying system. Defeating enemies by using their weaknesses, getting a bunch of ammo and scrap after each battle, then stopping at a junk-o-tron to craft more wargear to defeat more enemies. I found it to be a lot of fun. There’s an elegance to the simplicity of its design.

Do I recommend it?

Yes.

The only letdown are the characters, who I wish we’d gotten more time with to fully flesh them out. Otherwise, fun combat with a straightforward ammo and crafting system, a fascinating apocalyptic world, and a compact 10 hour playtime make this an easy recommendation. For a Vast Future is a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone looking for an old school RPG experience.

Check it out on Steam.

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Hello Void #3: Is Anybody out There?

Whoa! This looks different. Still simple and straightforward, but attached to the left. What the heck is going on? Well, I’ve switched from Substack to Buttondown. One of Buttondown’s selling points is its barebones simplicity, though maybe some might find that simplicity to be a detriment. I’ve come around to really liking it, and hope you don’t find the change too jarring.

Anyway, hello friends, and welcome to Hello Void issue 3. Right off the bat we get existential with Is Anybody out There, followed by a musical interlude, and ending with Insert Text.

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Is Anybody out There?

_{Photo by NASA on Unsplash}

I’ve been flip-flopping a lot on what I want to do with this whole writing thing. Some days I have the urge to dropout of publishing and instead just upload everything I write to an anonymous blog. It would definitely cause me less existential dread.

And yet I keep going, probably because I’m stubborn.

The few works I’ve lobbed out into the universe haven’t made a splash. Add onto that how I find it hard to see a path toward getting a novel (or another novella) published. I end up asking myself if this is self-imposed stress that I could shed.

Writers write. Don’t fixate on things you can’t control. Finish the damn book.

It’s a mantra that’s gotten a dull edge over time. I don’t know how long stubbornness can propel me forward. And my spite reserves were never particularly robust. Pretty soon I’m going to be hovering through the void without any means of propulsion, alone yet acutely aware of all the other millions trying to dogpaddle toward the same goal. I’ll cheer when someone reaches their goal, but that won’t stop me drifting away from mine.

One bit of solace is knowing that not only have other writers gone through this as well, but they found a way through to the other side. It’s heartening to know that there is a path forward, even if I can’t see it.

I don’t have an insightful or declarative way to end this segment. I’ve just been stewing on this idea for awhile now. There are a lot of days when I get to the knife’s edge of tapping out. Thankfully, I’ve still got some stubbornness reserves.

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Interlude

I absolutely adore this cover of “I'm Outta Love” by Hannah Boulton and Rabea Massaad, alongside a bunch of talented folks. All around mesmerizing (and vastly different from the original), I’ve been listening to it on repeat ever since I first heard it.

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Insert Text

Okay, listen. This issue ended up being a little ramshackle. And, full disclosure, I couldn’t think of a segment to put here. Instead, we’re going miscellaneous, I’m hoping no one out in the endless net will take umbrage. Next issue—if all goes well—I plan to do a double feature talking about my replays of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy IV. I just finished both and didn’t want to rush it for this issue, hence its ramshackle nature.

This year the Writing Excuses podcast has been doing a series of master classes. One of which is about poetry (eps 16.11–16.18) with Amal El-Mohtar—who has her very own and very good newsletter that you should check out. I’ve dabbled in poetry before, but have never been very good at it. It’s been extremely enlightening (all the master classes and their teachers have been!), and given me a newfound respect for poetry and its power. One of the exercises was to write three haikus. Which I did. Two of them aren’t very good, but there is one I like. I’ve shared it below and hope you dig it.

Superhero

Flying through the sky.
Hope on the horizon, give,
love, and never stop.

This was inspired by my frustration with current media trends of making Superman knockoffs that are bloody and violent. I’ve found myself wishing for a hopeful Superman. I hadn’t expected it to manifest in an impromptu poetry exercise, but I guess that’s the value of working within constraints. It forces you to give your ideas a shape.

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Signing Off

Thus concludes Hello Void issue 3, and the first issue sent out via Buttondown! You can view the Buttondown archive here, and as always I maintain an archive on my website at matthewmarchitto.com/hello-void

If you’d like to find me around the web, you can follow me via Twitter, tumblr, Instagram, and Goodreads.

Or check out my website, matthewmarchitto.com, where you’ll find links to all my work and more.

Thanks for reading!

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Banner Photo by Patrick Carr on Unsplash

Hello Void #2: The Case for Linearity and Playdead’s INSIDE, Newsletter Hiatus, and demo recommendations

When I started writing this there was a big stuck boat, and because I move at a snail’s pace, the big stuck boat is no longer stuck. Now it’s just a big boat that was stuck. But at least the big stuck boat before it was a big not-stuck boat brought us all together to commiserate over the absurd simplicity of a big boat being stuck.

Anyway, hello friends and welcome to issue #2 of Hello Void. This one is structured a bit different, instead of having one big segment and a couple smaller ones, this is comprised of a variety of shorter segments.

Contents:

• The Case for Linearity and Playdead’s INSIDE

• Interlude

• On Newsletters and Moving On

• Read Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

• Play More Demos: Lunark and The Last Spell

• Signing Off

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The Case for Linearity and Playdead’s INSIDE

I’ve always liked linear games. I want to be swept up on an adventure that’ll show me all the sights, to know that the experience from point A to point B has been fine tuned. Linearity isn’t a bad thing, but when I see it come up in conversation, it’s often with a negative connotation.

Linearity can create powerful and evocation experiences, all centered around the idea of knowing exactly where the player will be and limiting the scope with which they can react. And Playdead’s INSIDE is the perfect example of this.

In Playdead’s INSIDE the game slows the player down when it needs them to slow down, or speeds them up when it needs them to speed up. At no point during this does it feel like control is being removed from the player. Each nail-biting jump is manufactured, a pre-designed outcome that feels to players like an organic result of their input.

Simplicity is used as a mechanism to limit the scope of a player’s reaction. You can jump, move left and right, and interact with objects. That’s it. So when a monster starts chasing you, you can only go left or right, and the game knows it. This is how it limits the scope of players’ reactions, and because of these limits the game can squeeze the margin for error tighter and tighter but with precision. At no point does it feel unfair, or like you’re under leveled, or wandered into the wrong area. More often than not, you’ll make the jump on your first try. But it’ll feel like you almost didn’t. And that’s the point.

For now, we’re just talking about running and jumping, but you can apply the benefits of knowing when and where a player will be to a whole host of scenarios. From combat to narrative sequences, even upgrades and levelling up.

I’m not sure how this could be recreated in non-linear games. Looking at open world games as an example, their popular for their sandbox nature, but can also devolve in to meandering collectathons and repetitive tasks. The only way to recreate that sense of precision is to plug the player into isolated locations that can then impose linearity on their progression. But leaning too heavily on these dungeon-like levels can make the sandbox feel redundant, like it’s really just a hub world to traverse on your way to the next mission.

It’s why I enjoy linear games so much. There’s no meandering, no wayward wandering. The experience is focused and fine tuned. I like to be led along, and to know the sights will be exactly where they need to be.

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Interlude

Violet Orlandi is a musician whose been making covers on YouTube for years now. She’s overall awesome and gives all her covers a dark, horror tinge. A little while ago she released her first original song, “Creatures,” with her band She Won’t Live.

I absolutely love this song, and have been listening to it on repeat nonstop.

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On Newsletters and Moving On

It recently came to light that Substack has been engaging in scummy business practices via their Pro program. You can read more about the situation here and here.

So, this is going to be the last issue of Hello Void sent out via Substack. For me, it’s ultimately not a big deal. I have a small handful of subscribers and no paid subs. But I 100% understand why others who have improved their circumstances and rely on paid subs for their livelihoods would be hesitant to make the jump.

Where will Hello Void go? I’m not sure. I’m leaning toward Revue, it’s the most convenient and easy to use option for me, but there are a few hurdles to getting it setup. For the time being Hello Void will live on my blog, and I’ll continue to post issues there during this interstitial phase. (Does this mean it’s not even a newsletter anymore? An e-zine? Just weirdly formatted blog posts? Who knows.) Hello Void will likely be in limbo as I figure things out, but the (admittedly small) archive can be found at matthewmarchitto.com/hello-void

I hope you’ll still pop by to see what’s up! Until then, keep an eye on your inboxes for Hello Void’s return 👀

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Read Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

I adore Ring Shout. This is a must read, it’s equal parts horror and hope. Filled with surprises, evocative imagery, and unflinching truth. I highly, highly recommend checking it out.

Bookshop / Barnes and Noble / Amazon / Goodreads

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Play More Demos: Lunark and The Last Spell

Do you remember demo disks? I had this one filled with tiles, each tile a demo for a different game. I’m ashamed to admit I can’t remember what all the games were, but I do remember one of the secret games. Another kid in my elementary school had the same demo disk, and he told me that if you put in a special input, you could get the tiles to flip. Supposedly, there was a secret demo hidden behind them.

So I ran home and tried it. Lo and behold, he was right! That’s why out of all the demos on that disk, I can only vividly remember one, Fighting Force. It was like I’d just unlocked a hidden treasure. I replayed that demo constantly, cherishing it, my own clandestine polygons that only a few (probably lots of) people knew about. Looking back, it’s a unique experience from a time when cheat codes weren’t readily available and games were filled with little easter eggs that weren’t easily discoverable.

All this to say, I like demos. I wish they were commonplace these days. They’re a great way to let players try a game out first, and with some clever design can also be used to hook players, almost like the opening line of a novel.

As such, I’d like to highlight a couple demos for games I’m excited about. Check them out, download the demos, and let me know what you think.

Lunark

I backed Lunark’s Kickstarter, and have been eagerly awaiting its release ever since. Now there’s a demo you can download via Steam to give the game a try for yourself.

Lunark is a sidescroller adventure game in the vein of Out of this World. The combat is slower with a precise methodical feel to it. But once you get the hang of it, navigating the world and dodging enemies becomes extremely satisfying. Lunark is set in a beautiful sci-fi world that is filled with vibrant colours, accompanied by awesome music, and brought together with meticulous rotoscoped animations. I definitely think this is a game to keep your eye on.

The Last Spell

The moment you load up The Last Spell, it hits you with the tone of the game. A sea of zombies all looking to a singular figure brandishing a staff aloft, a town on fire, and heavy metal playing in the background.

The Last Spell is a turn-based tactics rogue-lite. You have a limited amount of days to build defences, upgrade your heroes (assuming they stay alive), and fight oncoming waves of a zombie horde. Your goal is to protect the mages in the center of the village trying to cast the last spell that will banish all the undead.

Each day plays out in three phases. Phase one is where you upgrade buildings which provide a variety of benefits. Phase two is when you build defences, walls, barricades, and so on. And the final phase is nightfall, this is when the zombie horde swarms your town.

Combat plays out on a grid, alternating between the heroes’ turn and the zombie horde’s turn. There’s a plethora of abilities for your heroes to use, and many of them are AOE based, emphasising mass horde squelching efficiency.

The Last Spell is in early access, and the demo is the alpha version of the game. As such, it’s missing some features, particularly the meta progression which will let you carry over resource into a new run. It also throws you right into the action with very little explanation of what all the stats and abilities do. But still, it’s an absolutely fun experience and made me excited to see where the devs take the game. You can download the alpha demo now via steam.

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Signing Off

Thus concludes Hello Void issue 2. I think I prefer these shorter segments, its easier for me to put together and offers more variety. But let me know what you think, do you prefer longer single topic issues or this mixed bag of subjects?

If you’d like to find me around the web, you can visit my Twitter, or check out my website, matthewmarchitto.com, where you’ll find links to all my work and more.

Thanks for reading!

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Banner Photo by Patrick Carr on Unsplash

Hello Void #1: Rise of the Argonauts and Lost Potential

Hello friends, and welcome to my renamed newsletter, Hello Void! Aptly named to encompass its miscellaneous nature, and the fact that I’m basically talking to myself. Hello Void will go out once a month (give or take) and encompass a variety of topics, but will have a notable focus on video games.

I plan for each issue to be separated into a handful of segments. The first will be what I think of as the main feature, this will be the longest and meatiest part of the newsletter. Followed by an interlude where I share a piece of media, new or old. And then finishing off with one or two shorter segments.

Today’s issue consists of three segments. The main feature is Rise of the Argonauts and Lost Potential, followed by a musical interlude, and finishing with What am I working on?

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Rise of the Argonauts and Lost Potential

I’ve always had an affinity for peculiar games that folks seem to have forgotten. Whether due to questionable quality or because they just didn’t hit the right cultural notes to become part of our modern lexicon. If you’ve followed me on twitter for awhile, you might have seen me bring up Dragon Valor for PS1. It’s always been one of those games that I have deeply fond memories of, but is also, by all metrics, mediocre. Whenever I bring it up, I seem to be the only one who’s ever heard of it. And everybody looks at me weird when I show them the totally rad intro for disc one.

Though well reviewed when they released, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory and Rygar: The Legendary Adventure both occupy that same realm. Games that nobody seems to have heard off outside of a few dedicated audiences. And both were games I remember playing over and over, absolutely loving.

I love these oddball games, peculiar and off the beaten path. Made with passion but oft forgotten. So, when I saw Rise of the Argonauts sitting in my Steam library, I decided to give it a try. I played it when it first released, and have mixed memories of the experience. But maybe, after a second look, RotA might turn out to be one of those hidden gems. Oft forgotten.

SPOILER WARNING: From here onward are SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE GAME. You have been warned.

The Setup

We start out in the palace of our main character, Jason king of Iolcus. Jason is getting married to Alceme in a juddering, poorly compressed cutscene filled with jaggies that aren’t present in-game. It’s not a great introduction, and doesn’t help that stilted, wooden character models mime going through a wedding ritual. But assassins have infiltrated the palace, and before Alceme even gets to utter her first line of dialogue, she’s shot with an arrow through the heart.

We learn that the assassins are Blacktongues, a murderous cult devoted to Hecate. Later it’s revealed that Alceme was part of some poorly explained prophecy dictating that she would be the downfall of the Blacktongues, which is why they attacked her. It’s not really made clear what exactly that prophecy was, but it’s implied to be self-fulfilling on the part of the Blacktongues, since in killing Alceme they start Jason on his quest that ultimately results in their own destruction.

So Alceme dies, and Jason pledges to bring her back to life. With the help of the gods, he sets out on a quest to get the Golden Fleece, which has the power to revive her.

Right off the bat, this smacks of reducing Alceme to a prop to fuel Jason’s motivations. Though her death and revival is the anchor that tethers the narrative, we never get any insight into her character. The closest we get are a few flashbacks that show snippets of her and Jason’s budding relationship through the years, which is nice, but even these are optional. I only found them because I like to explore the nooks and crannies of levels, otherwise it’s extremely easy to miss these extra scenes.

Stab, talk, and stab again

Rise of the Argonauts is an action RPG. The combat plays like a hack n’ slash, you have two attack buttons, a wounding attack (weak attack), and an execution attack (strong attack). Along with a block, a shield bash, a dodge roll, and a couple special abilities, you set to work slicing, crushing, and stabbing enemies with reckless abandon.

There isn’t much finesse to the combat. Jason has access to three weapons and a shield, and each is associated with a god. The mace (Ares) is slow but strong and deals more damage to shields. The sword (Hermes) is quick but weak, with long combo strings. And the spear (Athena) has the strongest execution attack, but doesn’t do much damage to shields. Finally, we have the shield (Apollo), which has a shield bash that can stagger enemies.

There’s some strategy built into these weapons, using the mace to break shields, the spear to do precise damage, or the sword for a series of quick attacks. But I often resorted to spamming attacks, becoming frustrated from enemies constantly blocking with their shields, and just trying to brute force my way through encounters. A lot of the combat’s satisfying feel is carried on the back of the execution attacks. When an enemy is near death, hitting them with an execution attack will initiate an animation with a slow down effect. It’s undeniably satisfying to see Jason chop a dude in half amid a spray of blood while the world goes into slomo for three seconds.

Pictured: Nessus, centaur traitor, and his tamed spectral beast. There aren’t a lot of enemy types and many of them have similar patterns. But there are some creative boss fights that require more strategy than spamming attacks.

It seems like shields were meant to be a big component of the game. Jason’s shield gets its own upgrade tree assigned to Apollo, and in a super interesting design choice, Jason’s shield is always blocking. This means if you’re standing still, not pressing any buttons, and an enemy attacks Jason from the side holding his shield, the shield will still block the attack. This is true for enemies as well, and gives the impression we’re meant to try and duck and weave around attacks to hit opponents exposed sides. But the combat is so spammy, and encounters often throw a dozen or more enemies at you at once, that this just becomes unfeasible. It’s an interesting idea that ends up feeling like a gimmick because there’s no room to build effective strategy around it.

I mentioned that the shield has its own upgrade tree assigned to Apollo, each of Jason’s weapons has a dedicate upgrade tree assigned to their respective god. So Ares’ upgrade tree focuses on beefing up mace attacks, Hermes enhances sword attacks, and Athena’s improves spear attacks. Each also provides additional benefits and some magical abilities that do things like increase your damage, heal yourself and party members, leave a decoy after you dodge, and so on.

The way RotA approaches leveling up is pretty unique. The game eschews experience points, instead relying on the player dedicating “deeds” to one of the gods. Think of deeds like achievements, kill ten enemies for the first time, you get a deed and can dedicate it to a god. This also includes advancing in the story, recruiting Argonauts, and doing side quests. Dedicate enough deeds to a god and you get an aspect point, which can be used to purchase an upgrade. Rinse and repeat. It’s a clever way to make leveling up feel more involved and thematically appropriate to the fantastical Greece setting.

In-between all this stabbing and upgrading are long sections focused on dialogue. I think this is really the part of the game that’s hit or miss for a lot of players. These dialogue sections often feel drawn out and involve running back and forth in a town or village to talk to people. The dialogue itself is kept short and concise, there only being a few instances with long bits of exposition. Where the drag comes in is the need to run back and forth in a town, talking to the same handful of people over and over.

RotA uses a Mass Effect style dialogue wheel, but each line of dialogue is associated with one of the four gods presiding over Jason’s quest. Ares’ options are more aggressive, impatient, and to the point. Athena’s prioritize law, honor, and duty. Hermes’ are laissez faire, invoking a more carefree attitude. And Apollo’s are the all-around Good Dude answers, prioritizing respect for the individual. These options help make it feel like you’re influencing Jason’s personality as you play, but they’re more like you’re filling in the edges of an already predefined character. Unlike Mass Effect, options are never gated off or hidden behind upgrades, so it’s not like you’re creating a good or bad character, like might be expected in games with morality systems. Jason is Jason, despite what you pick.

Another reason players might bounce off the dialogue is the illusion of choice. In multiple scenarios RotA makes it seem like the player can affect the outcome with different dialogue choices, but all scenarios play out in a samey fashion. As far as I can tell, dialogue choices might net you some extra bits of equipment, otherwise the story will progress the same for everyone.

But! The branching dialogue does have one material benefit, when you choose an option associated with a god, it’s equivalent to dedicating deeds to that god. Which will get you more aspect points to spend on upgrades. So rest assured, running around talking to people will make you better at stabbing them later.

Self-contained stories amid a larger whole

To get the Golden Fleece, Jason will have to find three descendants of the gods and bring them to the Oracle at Delphi. Each of these descendants are on one of three islands, and are themed around their respective gods, Ares, Hermes, and Athena.

You can choose to visit these three islands in any order, and what happens in one doesn’t affect the narrative of the others. The only difference being that you might have a different Argonaut companion, but this only affects a few offhand lines of dialogue.

Each of these three islands has a self-contained story directly related to one of the descendants you’re trying to recruit, and each is interesting and varied in their own way. The overarching narrative is relatively barebones, its these individual narratives that hook the player and carry us along.

Mycenae is the standout of the three. Homeland to Alceme, and seat of king Lycomedes, her father. When Jason lands he is greeted with a cold and disdainful atmosphere, the citizens refusing to talk to him and in some cases even jeer at you. The entirety of Mycenae blames Jason for Alceme’s death. Lycomedes refuses to hear reason, and condemns Jason to the arena as punishment for his supposed crime.

The Mycenae plot is a great example of the story’s potential, playing on all the emotional strings setup in the opening. Jason has to confront his own guilt while butting up against Lycomedes, who is using Jason as a scapegoat to preserve his own sense of power and control. It has all the ingredients to come together into a crescendo, but doesn’t hit the mark. Instead, the Jason/Lycomedes narrative peters out and we spend the rest of our time on Mycenae trying to uncover a conspiracy.

Saria, another of the three islands that you visit, gets close to this as well. But in this case, it doesn’t rely on Jason’s history with Alceme, instead revolving around Atalanta and her relationship with her adoptive centaur clan. There’s a monster loose in the jungle, and it’s killing centaurs who venture outside of their village. This means they can’t hunt, causing their food stores to dwindle. Turns out there’s a traitor in their midst somehow tied to the beast. As you try and solve the mystery, centaurs start becoming accused, causing anti-human sentiment to bubble to the surface, directed at both Jason and Atalanta.

This push and pull is the strongest introduction to one of the Argonauts, making Atalanta the most fleshed out member. Showing us Atalanta’s need to cement her place among the centaurs while also reconciling their differences is the most in-depth we get with any of the Argonauts.

Both these narratives stand out because their character-first, and it’s why the Kythra plot is the weakest. One of the three islands you visit, it has you meandering around a temple village trying to uncover a mystery with no real hook to keep the player invested.

None of these storylines ever truly shine. They each have strong setups, a variety of building blocks arrayed in the right order, but they don’t quiet fit right. And it’s the almost that’s such a letdown. So much in RotA is almost there. The pieces fit together, but they aren’t flush.

The Argonauts

The Argonauts proper, these aren’t the descendants you’re recruiting for their blood. These are the characters who will fight alongside you, wading into battle shoulder to shoulder with Jason. By the end of the game you’ll have four Argonauts to choose from—Hercules, Achilles, Atalanta, and Pan—and they’re all insufferably likable.

The Argonauts fight alongside you in combat, and accompany you as you run around towns talking to people. You can have two Argonauts in your team, alongside Jason. But whoever you choose doesn’t have a major impact on the story. They only add one-liners and a bit of extra dialogue, and that’s it. The only time the Argonauts are integral to the narrative’s forward progress are during Atalanta’s plot on Saria, for which she is a mandatory character, and the arena plot with Achilles. Otherwise, they’re just along for the ride.

Pan is a mandatory character for the Kythra plot, but all he does is provide exposition and then summon some barriers during a boss fight. So even though he’s mandatory, he could be easily edited out of the story and it’d progress as normal. It doesn’t do much to expand his character, nor does he feel integral to the Kythra plot.

The player has no control over the Argonauts, they act on their own. Atalanta firing off volleys of arrows, Achilles rushing in whirling his spear in an arc, Hercules bearhugging goons to death, and Pan firing off globules of vibrantly coloured magic. This isn’t uncommon, Mass Effect and Kingdom Hearts both have similar party systems, where your teammates act on their own.

But it feels particularly disjointed in Rise of the Argonauts because you don’t have access to the Argonauts equipment or abilities. There’s no way for you to upgrade them, change accessories, or have any influence over their abilities whatsoever. Not only does this create distance between the player and the Argonauts, but it means when Pan starts firing off green energy blasts that leave a glowing circle on the ground…I don’t know what is happening?

There’s no way for me to tell what any of the Argonauts’ abilities do, which makes it impossible to strategize. I just have to assume everything is damage and acknowledge that there is going to be no coordination. Particularly frustrating because Jason gets upgrades that slow down or stun enemies, breaks shields more effectively, heals allies, and/or gives temporary buffs to damage and defense when certain conditions are met (like taking a large amount of damage in a short period of time).

If the Argonauts have access to similar abilities, I don’t know it. Because all we get to see is a flurry of special effects with no clear indication of what’s happening. Which is why I have to assume it’s all just damage, which sucks. The combat would have been elevated by giving the player influence over the Argonauts abilities, loadouts, even just some way to pick and choose passive traits.

Hercules and what could have been

The motivation behind why each Argonaut joins your crew is nebulous at best. Hercules and Atalanta have the most well-defined reasoning for joining Jason’s crew. Hercules because he’s a long-time friend of Jason’s and is devoted to helping him on his quest to revive Alceme, and Atalanta because she and Jason develop a deep respect and kinship after going through the Saria conspiracy together. But Achilles joins because *shrugs* adventure and glory. And Pan joins because *shrugs* adventure and stories.

I don’t think every character in Jason’s party needs or needed to have an ironclad reason for joining the Argonauts. But when this is coupled with the fact that the Argonauts have little effect on the overall story, and that the player can’t even customize their abilities in any way, it starts to feel like they’re just there. Along for the ride and nothing else.

Which brings us to Hercules. Long-time friend of Jason, there in the beginning and there in the end. We start the game with Hercules by our side, he stands as witness to Alceme’s assassination and is the first to charge into the fray alongside Jason.

And it’s why Hercules is the biggest letdown. He must have the least amount of dialogue out of all the Argonauts, and his shared past with Jason is barely touched on. Hercules could have been the standout of Rise of the Argonauts, the most memorable and beloved character. Devoted to Jason, but not unafraid to ask him hard questions. After a member of the Argo dies, Hercules asks Jason if it’s still worth it, if people dying in the pursuit of Alceme’s revival make it an immoral quest.

Jason doesn’t have a good answer, no grander justification other than he’s set his mind to it and won’t back down. Still, Hercules sticks around.

The bond between Hercules and Jason could have been something really special, the lynchpin which the Argonauts revolve. Instead, we get a lovable brute whose influence doesn’t extend past one-liners and bearhugging enemies. When it comes to missed potential, Hercules is the most egregious example.

Lack of body diversity

From left to right (excluding Jason): Atalanta, Medea, and Medusa.

Hercules, massive, hulking, wading into battle, grabbing mercenaries one in each hand. Achilles, tall and lean, leaps amid the fray in a whirlwind of spear strikes. Pan, hooved, long horns upon his head, casts spell after spell against a charging minotaur. Jason, thewed and stocky, raising his shield against a flurry of blows. The men all get an interesting range of body types, from Hercules hulking form to Achilles tall and lean frame.

Atalanta, quick and agile, wielding her bow with expert precision, is thin with an hourglass waist. Medea, a sorceress you recruit early on who offers insight and advice, is thin with an hourglass waist. Medusa, one of the three descendants you are searching for, is…thin with an hourglass waist. Alceme too, is thin with an hourglass waist. All the women look so similar that I wouldn’t be surprised if they use the exact same base model, just altering the clothing, hair, and tattoos.

As I’m editing this I realized I’d forgotten that the centaurs in the game are all male. Though there’s a line of dialogue that alludes to female centaurs existing, they apparently just haven’t arrived yet?

This has always been a problem in games, but going back into the 00s is revealing just how bad it was. I like to think we’re moving past this now, though admittedly it feels like progress has only been made these last few years.

Folks of all shapes and sizes deserve to see themselves in games, as heroes and villains and monsters. It’s particularly jarring to see this now, when just these past several weeks the internet became (rightfully) enamored with Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village, featured in this story trailer.

Glitches, stuttering, and crashes

Sometimes the camera would whip around to the left or right, making Jason barrel into a wall. If I took too many screenshots, the game would crash. Jason had a tendency to get stuck on corners that were a foot away from him. And the Argonauts just love standing in narrow doorways, blocking your path until you nudge them out of the way. All while there are constant framerate dips, particularly in areas with a lot of NPCs.

And there was one boss fight that glitched and became unbeatable, so I had to close and restart the game. And another boss fight where, for who knows why, whenever Jason blocked an attack his arms would shoot five feet into the air and twirl around like elastic bands.

There’s just a lot of little things that all start to add up.

On top of that is the fact the game has zero graphics options on PC, other than a resolution option. Which left me with diving into my graphics card’s control panel to try and tweak the performance, it didn’t do much.

I know it’s a twelve year old game, and there should be an expectation for it to be rough around the edges, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a certain level of stability. These compounding technical issues make it harder to enjoy the good in a game that’s already mired in letdowns.

Do I recommend it?

No.

There is a lot of potential here, but Rise of the Argonauts doesn't fully realize it. I like the fantasy version of ancient Greece, and their willingness to altar Greek myth. But spammy combat, long stretches of running back and forth to speak with NPCs, technical issues, and an overall sense that the game was stapled together in a rush keep me from being able to recommend it. The likable Argonauts, cool aesthetics, and moments when the combat clicks aren't enough to elevate Rise of the Argonauts to a must play. Though I do genuinely think RotA deserves either a sequel or spiritual successor that can truly take the good elements and refine them. There’s amazing potential here, it just needs a second chance.

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Interlude

With the well-deserved popularity of Hades, I thought a fitting interlude for today's issue of Hello Void would be a look to the past with a song from Bastion, Supergiant Games’ first game. I can't believe Bastion came out nine years ago. But clearly, Supergiant started out strong, and I hope they'll keep going strong into the future. Speaking of, I've got to do a couple more Hades runs.

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What am I Working On?

I’ve been noodling on a few things, none likely to be finished anytime soon. I’ve been writing a sci-fi novel since forever (okay, only like a year and a bit), and it’s been slow going. It started out as galactic barbarians wreaking havoc but may have turned into a found family story. I’ve also got a couple comic scripts I keep eyeballing, but haven’t found the motivation to dive into them, mostly because the path towards actually putting them out into the world is fraught and likely expensive.

But what I really wanted to talk about is a novella I’ve been revising. I started it in 2018, trunked it in 2020, and have recently un-trunked it to give it a second look. It’s a bizarre interdimensional fantasy book that treats the in-world magic with absolute shameless abandon. I’d been so caught up on the idea of magic systems for so long, that I ended up needing to write something that went in the totally opposite direction. The result is a story with no concrete magic systems, monster that leap through dimensions, friendly gorgons, and a hero who (sorta) can’t die.

It's weird and chaotic and I love it. But I don’t know if it’s a fit for any of the current markets, though I guess what I really mean is I don’t know if it’s good.

I have a fondness for novellas, these little stories that are books but not novels. Long enough to really get into a story, though short enough that they’re not a huge time commitment. Novellas seem to be having a small resurgence, with Tor.com routinely putting out amazing books, and just recently Rebellion Publishing announced its new novella line, Solaris Satellites (which looks awesome and shoutout to the all Canadian lineup!).

Placing a novella is still tricky, despite this new resurgence. Being unagented means I have to rely on the few markets open to unsolicited submission. It’s hard trying to find a home for any kind of story, from short stories to novels. Wading through listings and desperately trying to swim up the slush feels like a herculean task. In the past there haven’t been a lot of open submission calls for novellas, maybe a few a year with short submission windows. Which gets narrowed down further if your book doesn’t fit the publisher’s market/genre.

But maybe this is changing. The past few years Tor.com has been intent on kicking down the door and thrusting novellas into our to-be-read piles. Rebellion Publishing has also been regularly putting out novellas via their Solaris and Abaddon Books imprints (*cough* you can read The Boneman in Three Stories About Ghosts *cough*), alongside a handful of small presses that have been publishing amazing stuff. And just recently both Tor Nightfire and Uncanny Magazine announced novella submissions will be open later in the year.

Hopefully this will start a trend of more publishers opening up for unagented novella submissions. I adore these little not-novels and want to see more of them out in the world.

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Signing Off

Thus concludes Hello Void issue #1. I think it’s fitting for the first issue to focus on a peculiar game that’s only intriguing to a niche of a niche. I don’t know why I have such oddball interests, but I hope you’ve gotten some value out of this newsletter and will stick around for the next issue.

If you’d like to find me around the web, you can visit my Twitter, or check out my website, matthewmarchitto.com, where you’ll find links to all my work.

And if you haven’t already, please do consider subscribing. That way you’ll get the next issue of Hello Void directly in your inbox.

Thanks for reading!

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Banner Photo by Patrick Carr on Unsplash