Maddy Myers

And like, those are some really interesting pieces of narrative tension, but this just isn't the kind of, this game is a little too light of a touch.

I also thought of Claudia from Interview with the Vampire.

I was absolutely thinking of Claudia.

If I truly can't recommend that TV show adaptation enough, I will take this extra moment to recommend it.

It's so good.

But yeah, I mean, even the original Kirsten Dunst portrayal of Claudia, also really great from the movie way back when.

But yeah, they just don't get into that in this game.

It remains very superficial in the sense that it's just he wants to care for this little robot girl because she looks like a little girl.

And it's just that simple, you know?

Explains how fun it is, for sure.

Yeah, which is kind of too bad.

I mean, you're right, like, Yoko Taro's voice in this would have been so fascinating.

I mean, that would never happen, but, like, thinking about Nier Automata and, like, the story that that tells, or even, like, Kamiya with Bayonetta, much as I may quibble with him, to say the least, about some of the decisions he's made, I can't deny he's got a strong...

sense of who Bayonetta is as a character and that's like a big part of what makes those games function at all and like it does feel like that's a fundamental thing that's missing from this game and that there's just I don't know it's it's I mean it clearly worked for some people and just not me and there's so much about the game that I love it's just that it felt like there's just one thing missing which is like this larger sense of humanity at the core of it

Yeah, yeah, I suppose not.

And I do, I had no problem getting to the credits on this game.

And usually I'll kind of talk about like, oh, I wanted the story to motivate me to complete it.

And I just was fine with that not being my motivator this time, which I think really speaks to how propulsive this is.

the game's design is in every other particular like kirk was was highlighting which that's a huge compliment like the fact that every single area looks completely different and it's fascinating and has all of those environmental puzzle aspects like late in the game there's just randomly this level that has this sliding box puzzle that like doesn't have any combat

And I thought was so fun.