Uh, This One Is Clearly Impossible.
Aug. 3rd, 2020 10:00 amI started replaying Horizon Zero Dawn, because I desperately needed something to distract me from attempting all the way-too-hard postgame content in Celeste.
My Celeste death count is now over 14,000 and I'm nowhere near finishing everything. I feel pretty bad for Theo in all the timelines where I died in front of him, leaving him trapped in crystal and surrounded by cosmic horrors.
At one point I replayed the story, just to see how much better I was at it now. My original playthrough: twelve and a half hours, 3,500 deaths. My second playthrough: four hours, 1,000 deaths. I can't believe I've improved enough to shave 60% off my original time.
The story of Celeste is so good. I'd like to write fanfiction, but the game itself already deals with so many themes I love; there's nothing left for me to add! Characters bonding under intense pressure, characters having complicated relationships with dark reflections of themselves, environments that reshape themselves to reflect the people passing through: it's all there already.
Anyway! Yes! Horizon Zero Dawn!
It's so interesting to replay the opening of Horizon Zero Dawn with context. I understand what's going on now!
When Aloy first starts using the Focus, does it detect that she's a young child and start trying to teach her to read? It displays 'BOW' in big letters when she's handed a bow, and then the text turns green when she says, 'Bow?' That's a cute detail, although, to be honest, Focus, I'd start the kid out with lowercase.
(I'm going to ignore the later scene where the Focus shows 'BOW' to an adult Aloy, because I like this theory and I refuse to accept the fact that it probably doesn't hold up. IT'S JUST CHECKING THAT SHE STILL KNOWS HOW TO READ.)
Everyone's so hot for Aloy and it's hilarious. They're all so into her! Everyone she meets is just hitting on her, all the time.
'Time for Bast to get some sleep!' Bast proclaims, like he thinks it's cool to announce that you're going to bed in the third person. I snorted aloud.
Did Nil kill his 'hunting' partner? This didn't occur to me when I first played, because Nil tells you about his partner when you've just met him and haven't yet realised quite how horny for murder he is. Nil says his partner went ahead without him and 'we'd talked about this kind of behaviour', and he later proclaims himself to be 'just a traveller with a bow, a concern about the state of these lands and a missing partner' in a way that doesn't sound especially innocent. If his partner ruined Nil's fun by killing bandits without him, I can see Nil going, 'Look, we talked about this and now I'm going to kill you instead.'
Apparently, if you clear out the first bandit camp without Nil, he says, 'I'm glad I stayed to watch. Every kill you made, I pricked my fingers on an arrowhead just to feel part of things.'
Meanwhile, if you don't meet Nil until after you've cleared out all the bandit camps, he invites you to meet him elsewhere. If you do, he says, 'I'm so glad you came. In a way, I feel like I already know you. Every pile of corpses was like reading your journal.'
Nil is so weird and it's great. It's good to know what you're passionate about, and he is passionate about murder.
My Celeste death count is now over 14,000 and I'm nowhere near finishing everything. I feel pretty bad for Theo in all the timelines where I died in front of him, leaving him trapped in crystal and surrounded by cosmic horrors.
At one point I replayed the story, just to see how much better I was at it now. My original playthrough: twelve and a half hours, 3,500 deaths. My second playthrough: four hours, 1,000 deaths. I can't believe I've improved enough to shave 60% off my original time.
The story of Celeste is so good. I'd like to write fanfiction, but the game itself already deals with so many themes I love; there's nothing left for me to add! Characters bonding under intense pressure, characters having complicated relationships with dark reflections of themselves, environments that reshape themselves to reflect the people passing through: it's all there already.
Anyway! Yes! Horizon Zero Dawn!
It's so interesting to replay the opening of Horizon Zero Dawn with context. I understand what's going on now!
When Aloy first starts using the Focus, does it detect that she's a young child and start trying to teach her to read? It displays 'BOW' in big letters when she's handed a bow, and then the text turns green when she says, 'Bow?' That's a cute detail, although, to be honest, Focus, I'd start the kid out with lowercase.
(I'm going to ignore the later scene where the Focus shows 'BOW' to an adult Aloy, because I like this theory and I refuse to accept the fact that it probably doesn't hold up. IT'S JUST CHECKING THAT SHE STILL KNOWS HOW TO READ.)
Everyone's so hot for Aloy and it's hilarious. They're all so into her! Everyone she meets is just hitting on her, all the time.
'Time for Bast to get some sleep!' Bast proclaims, like he thinks it's cool to announce that you're going to bed in the third person. I snorted aloud.
Did Nil kill his 'hunting' partner? This didn't occur to me when I first played, because Nil tells you about his partner when you've just met him and haven't yet realised quite how horny for murder he is. Nil says his partner went ahead without him and 'we'd talked about this kind of behaviour', and he later proclaims himself to be 'just a traveller with a bow, a concern about the state of these lands and a missing partner' in a way that doesn't sound especially innocent. If his partner ruined Nil's fun by killing bandits without him, I can see Nil going, 'Look, we talked about this and now I'm going to kill you instead.'
Apparently, if you clear out the first bandit camp without Nil, he says, 'I'm glad I stayed to watch. Every kill you made, I pricked my fingers on an arrowhead just to feel part of things.'
Meanwhile, if you don't meet Nil until after you've cleared out all the bandit camps, he invites you to meet him elsewhere. If you do, he says, 'I'm so glad you came. In a way, I feel like I already know you. Every pile of corpses was like reading your journal.'
Nil is so weird and it's great. It's good to know what you're passionate about, and he is passionate about murder.
