Alright, I’ve finished what I think will probably be my final playthrough of the demo.
Thoughts on specific topics in the second half of the game
- The decision of whether or not to endorse Cleo as an agent seems sort of meaningless—as far as I can tell, it only ever affects her relationship with Spillane, and nothing else, which feels a bit off given that the whole of Chapter 5 goes to great lengths to force Spillane to reckon with the potential pros and cons of that choice. Not sure exactly how it would manifest, but it feels like it should have at least a small consequence somewhere down the line.
- I’d been feeling somewhat apathetic about the idea of spending time with Remy instead of a wedding, but after doing it, I actually like the addition! I don’t think it had occurred to me before that he isn’t a companion in any major chapters like all the other ROs (+Sam), so I actually found it surprisingly refreshing to see him get some substantive screentime to himself. Sometimes, it’s actually nice to have to spend time with some characters you wouldn’t normally choose to—that’s one of the things I like about the way you’ve formatted these games in general, I think.
- Appreciated the addition of the conversation with Sabine in Chapter 6—gave a good amount of insight into her character that actually did came in handy when trying to get through to her during the endgame. …Also, it reminded me that she was related to Albrecht, which was a detail I’d previously forgotten, but that felt meaningful in terms of tying back to previous books.
- The addition of endgame forces from high altruism definitely helped. I still haven’t crunched any numbers (and I don’t think I’m going to at this point), but just speaking anecdotally, it definitely felt like I had a strong chance of success (and ultimately I got away without any deaths, other than Stevo), while still feeling earned, so I do think it’s better balanced now.
- Having the protagonist’s love interest die (a pretty huge deal, narratively speaking) if you let Maxie live feels a little extreme to me. While it is signposted that leaving him alive will mean you’ll continue to be in danger from him, it feels sort of, I dunno, innately unsatisfying, I guess, that after a triumphant win against the Nazis, Maxie of all people is the one that pulls the rug out from under you and robs you of a fully happy ending, at a point in the game where you can’t really do anything about it. I’m not really sure exactly what could be done about this, because it does feel like there should be some consequence to leaving him alive, but this feels disproportionate to me. Maybe the RO could just sustain a lasting injury or something? I dunno.
Overall thoughts on the chapters
I think probably unsurprisingly, my favorite chapter is Oxford, as I’m always an advocate for chapters that mix up the formula and offer something different and novel, and Oxford does exactly that. It’s a great change of pace, a fun exploration of Spillane and Maria’s past (previously only hinted at in pretty vague terms), and an intriguing mystery with a number of interesting characters.
I will say that I still think the mystery element could be stronger, and would benefit from not being fully solvable just from the one conversation at the end. But I’ve said my piece on all that, so I won’t get into it again.
Re: other chapters…it’s interesting to me that Peru and Japan are scoring so low on the poll right now, because they were actually probably my second and third favorites! Maybe I’m just a sucker for situations where you have to handle a dysfunctional group of people with opposing worldviews?
But I thought both of these chapters featured some pretty interesting and compelling predicaments—in Peru especially, the moral/pragmatic issue of how much sympathy Luis deserves (being genuinely unpleasant and morally challenged…but possibly redeemable) and how much you can count on him (since he causes trouble, but is also necessary to the mission overall), and the issue of how to grapple with Cleo’s justifiable but unconstructive hostility, and whether or not this quality would make her a bad agent, I thought made for some great social drama.
I really enjoyed Luis’s character arc, in particular, where he at first seems sympathetic but distasteful, then reveals some genuinely objectionable things about his past that make you wonder if he really does deserve your ire, and finally comes to a point where you see all his worst qualities on display, at the same time that you’re challenged with convincing him that he can still choose to be good—and then if you do, he really does find a way to redeem himself. (And that has an effect on Cleo’s perspective, too! It all ties together!)
Reminded me of Tibet from the first game a little, while still being its own thing.
Japan I have less specific things to say about, but I enjoyed that it felt different from other chapters, while still touching on familiar situations that I always enjoy (the aforementioned navigation of dysfunctional social dynamics, connecting with local cultures). We don’t really interact with soldiers much despite the war backdrop, so I found it quite enlightening to see how more grounded, battle-worn characters would perceive someone like Spillane who always has a super-special top-secret mission that only they can do, without ever having to personally endure the full horrors of war.
Egypt and the Caribbean, conversely, felt like sort of a return to basics, similar in tone and function to chapters from previous games, and maybe that’s why people liked them? (Or maybe it’s because these are the two chapters that feature Tran, who is clearly the most popular character in the game.) For me, though, they felt a little vanilla—not bad by any means, I still enjoyed them, but they didn’t really feel narratively or mechanically distinct to me, in terms of their overall conception.
I think Chapter 1 sits somewhere around the middle of the pack for me; I thought the setting and backdrops were fun and different, but I don’t think anything really stood out to me as, well, outstanding. Solid, though.
And I’ve already commented on it, but I’ll reiterate that I quite like the endgame, particularly now that it feels a little less punishing.
Thoughts on this game compared to the others
This is actually a tough comparison to make because I think all three games have strengths and weaknesses; none of them stand to me as overwhelmingly better or worse than the other two, overall.
I think the second game edges out as my favorite mostly because I really did love the overall structure of the race format, the way different competitors would weave in and out of the story, the fact that they were of varying levels of morality and had different levels of willingness to cooperate. Just felt fun all the way through.
With that said, I believe I expressed an opinion in the last thread that I felt that individual chapters were weaker and less distinct than in the first game, and I think I stand by that. Looking back, I definitely do not even remember a lot of them, other than the vampire chapter and the Germany chapter (though the former of the two does remain a highlight). So although Relics 2 is probably my favorite, it’s not a runaway lead—I do think that the first and third games both tended to have stronger individual chapters, or at least ones that were more memorable.
With regards to the first game vs. the third, I think maybe the first game had higher highs—Tibet and Congo are still probably my favorite chapters in the whole series, though Oxford, Peru, and the aforementioned chapter from the second game are close contenders—but it also had lower lows IMO. Like I laid out in the previous section of this comment, I don’t think there were any chapters in this game that I disliked, they all felt high-quality in general, even the ones that weren’t my favorites.
With that in mind, I think it’s probably accurate to say that I liked this game more than the first overall, even if I liked parts of the first game more than any specific segments from the second and third.
So I guess my order would go 2, then 3, then 1. But they’re all good games!
Anyway, I think that’s it. Congrats again on finishing the trilogy and I’ll be interested to play whatever you end up working on next.