so i beat wandersong last night, and it's a very cute game and fun to play (except the orderscape, fuck the orderscape), but

there are some moments that just took me out of it completely

like it has this weird thing where it wants to be a game about compassion and pacifism and spreading happiness

but it also wants to have villains, and it has no idea how to handle having villains

there's this bit early on in the pirate bar where a guy's getting aggro on you, then everyone tells him to chill and he apologizes for trying to take out his personal problems on you, then excuses himself from the situation

and i'm like "cool, that's a mature response", while all the characters continue to talk absolute shit about him for being aggro to begin with

so that was a weird moment, right?

he shows up again later to tie up your pirate friends to get a jewel you don't even have anymore, but you talk him down and he excuses himself again

and it feels like this only happens to justify everyone talking shit about him

and then audrey, man

like the whole conflict with audrey was great, but it becomes increasingly clear that the creator had no idea how to actually resolve it

to the point where she just disappears entirely from the narrative at the end

which is way better than what they originally planned, where she'd apparently just unceremoniously die in the background

they decided that was counter to the themes they were going for, and cutting it was the right call, but they didn't come up with anything to replace it that would have reinforced the themes they were going for, and it's...it leaves a big hole in the ending

leaving things open-ended isn't always a lazy shortcut, but in this case it really did feel that way

especially weird when you talk to eyala at the end and she's like "oh no i wasn't being shady af from the very beginning and gaslighting you into feeling like shit, i really came to believe in you and audrey lied about that!"

like

but she did do those things though

and passing it off as just audrey lying like she lied about other things is really kind of passing the buck when eyala is the one who made audrey a problem to begin with

idk, this game is cute and fun (except for the fucking orderscape) and made me feel feelings, but where it doesn't land it really doesn't land and it kind of undercuts some of the feelings it's making you feel in the process

also the baron just deciding not to hold the whole town hostage to continue producing his toys no one likes because he was informed that doing so makes everyone unhappy felt very anticlimactic, but then the end heavily implied the baron is the bard's DAD?!?!?! and i have not resolved how i feel about that beyond "well that sure is a thing"