Adelion

About Bards and Dragons

Also, I play to much Vermintide :P

  • Wandersong

    11 hours playtime

    75 of 75 achievements

  • Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy

    41 hours playtime

    105 of 105 achievements

  • Dagon

    71 minutes playtime

    6 of 6 achievements

Wandersong: Wandersong is a strange game in some sense. Gameplay-wise it is a story-driven rhythm game with some light adventure and platformer elements. Most of the time you arrive at a new location and need to find the song of the overseer. This is mostly done by talking with people, doing some simple quests and using your singing ability. Because you are a bard. The music mini-games range from hitting notes at specific moments, to rhythm games, memorizing patterns to creating own jingles (although it doesnt matter what you make there). All of this is extremely forgiving and you will basically always succeed. All the talking, especially in the beginning make up for a very slow start which may cause some people to drop it to early. Because the latter game is definetely the stronger part when the story and message pick up pace. And when the characters develop or not. The part which sticked out particularly to me have been the achievements which have been used to carry one of the main gimmicks of the game. And due to their importance I will set this for a rare change in spoilers.
There is a simple brilliance in the achievements. You see the game tries to tell you constantly that you are not the hero of the story (despite being clearly the protagonist and the most important character). This is underlined by the achievements which left me head-scratching for a long time. Why? Because you don’t get them. You do side-quests and no achievements. And then comes the moment where it starts to make sense. Because for a very short moment you play the hero and you get swamped with stupid achievements. And looking back you notice that the only two achievements you gained before have been tied to the hero as well. Basically every achievement in the game is tied to the hero which you don’t play most of the game. And the hero is stuck in his vision on what he has to do, while the Bard is trying to do it differently. This clash of visions finally lead to one very entertaining final fight between the two incomparable characters where all achievements are still for the hero you are fighting. So you get attacked by him and the game rewards you with achievements like “Ultimate Bard Kicker” because …. you are not the hero. In a sidenote, if you miss an achievement there is a level-select later on, so don’t worry.
All in all, an interesting premise and concept for a game which tries to carry its message. This leaves it with a slow start though.

Spyro™ Reignited Trilogy: This are - as the name implies - three games in one. And all of them are simple platformers and a lot of stuff to collect. If you just go for beating the game it isn’t to hard. Spyro 1 has some of the easiest bosses I have ever seen in a game. The more challenging and interesting stuff is if you start going for collecting everything available which is also necessary for the achievements. In addition to these collection achievements, there are also some “challenge” achievements where you have to do a specific action in specific levels.
Overall, the games are probably on the easier side but with three of them and so many things to collect, it can still eat up some time. Playing each game in succession also shows nicely how gameplay has been added over the various entries. In Spyro 1, you have your basic set of moves and this never changes. Which is nice because you know that every level you enter can be 100%ed the same moment. In Spyro 2, you gain additional abilities in the different worlds like diving or climbing ladders. This gives some feelings of progress, however it also means backtracking because for some levels items are locked behind abilities you can only learn one world later. In Spyro 3 all of these abilities are unlocked from the beginning (actually making sense in contest to sequels where you magically forget everything you once knew) but you are still locked out of certain parts in some levels. Because they have added side-characters you can play for certain segments. However, most of them are caged at the beginning of the game and you can only free one per world. So again backtracking after unlocking that character. In adds to the diversity in gameplay though. Nice games, but after playing all three of them in a row I was glad to be finished finally.

Dagon: Not much to say here. It is a short-story supported by some nice-to-look-at graphics and some minor looking around and searching for Trivia. It is a free game and the story is nice enough. Graphics are actually quite good but no free movement. Also fast to complete in 30 to 60 minutes depending on reading speed and how long you search for the Trivias yourself.

And for a change of pace, I also know what I am gonna play next: The Henry Stickmin Collection and Inmost (together with the played games it should be obvious I bought the Ukraine Humble Bundle). Also trying to trade for Songs for a Hero. But as all available traders either declined my offer or simply have nothing on their wishlist I could even offer I doubt I will be succesful there. Well, this time I still have some moments before I have to decide again on what to play next.

stef

I beat Wandersong and the achievements confused the heck out of me. Now I get it! Congrats on beating 5 games!

Adelion

Not much to add. Just wanted to say thanks. ^^

I wonder how far you could press the concept of “not-being-the-hero”