What Remains of Edith Finch 4: A Masterpiece

Well, not everyone dies, but this is a game about death, after all. Sounds bad, but the opposite is true. This game is absolutely beautiful and brilliant. Anyone sufficiently skilled in using the simple system of WASD and a mouse ought to have no trouble with it. It took me five hours, but that's because I am not so skilled. The average playing time is supposed to be two to four hours, so don't let my ineptitude stop you!

I'm better now, however! Several of the last stories in the game require extensive use of WASD, and I definitely did improve. I ought to find another game of that kind to continue my progress. I will look at what I have.

On to the game! I had lots of trouble with Gus's kite story. However, it did help me with WASD--a lot. You can't get through this without developing some serious skillz in it. So, I took it less frantically on my second try (in the first try I crashed into the clothesline and couldn't get out). And I made it!

Requires good flying ability

I did this one before the baby, because I couldn't figure out how to turn the page on the clipboard to get to the baby, Gregory's, story. Um, you just press W. I was trying to do it with the mouse. Anyway, we're in this nice bathtub having loads of fun with bath toys:

We can make the frog jump!

Once again, this game is just so imaginative in how they use these simple controls, and in how they craft the stories. This one was super fun although once again, a bit tough to do. But you can just splash around until you get it.

After that there is more wandering around the house

The house.

and yes, we will make our way to the highest room. On our way up, we meet Milton, who apparently did not die, but disappeared. This is one of the easiest stories for anyone else--except for me. (Note that I did turn up the brightness in the game--it was just too dark in too many places.) We get into his room easily, but then all we have to do is flip through a notepad.

Milton's Room

The cartoon notepad

I had the devil of a time trying to get those pages to turn. Finally I just moved the mouse in a circle and managed to get it to work, although choppily. After I finished the game I watched CJU's video of this, and he just flipped through as though it really were a cartoon. How?

Anyway, on to perhaps the game's best story: Lewis. We find his room near the top of the tower, and go into quite a fantasy. Lewis works in a salmon factory. The action is in two parts. With our right hand we have to keep moving the mouse--yes almost all the way through the story--to chop the heads off salmon and push them onto a conveyor belt. With our left hand we have to do WASD to move through a marvelous fantasy world that Lewis concocts. It's challenging, but this really helped me to get the WASD movements. I made it!

The little guillotine. Chop chop.

Lewis is sailing a boat in that part of his fantasy. Later on it gets even more involved:

Lewis's kingdom

If you look, you can see a large cat on the right which has a nametag that says "Molly," so the game keeps up the family theme!

At last we reach the top room, and that is Edith. She takes us through her last night at the house, which includes part of her great-grandmother Edie's story. 

Finding the library

We have to get into the library, at last. That is the first sealed-up room we found in the game. At last the story is tied together, mostly. And with that, we can go back and replay any of the stories (rather like the replayable games in 7th Guest and Shivers). I really like that feature. I might just replay the whole game sometime, also!

Note the line "Replay a story"

This game is just absolutely wonderful. It won't be any kind of challenge for most gamers, and the art and music and the fantastic imagination make it unforgettable. CJU said at one point in his video that it's a masterpiece. 

I agree.

What Remains of Edith Finch 3: Stuck? Really?

Still having lots of fun with the game, but I'm away from it long enough to kinda forget how the controls work. Problem is, the major puzzles in the game are figuring out how to use the simple controls differently in each area. Should be easy enough, it's just WASD plus the mouse. That, however is a challenge to me!

It really is a brilliantly done game. I'm just a lousy player. I have ventured outside point and click occasionally, but not enough to really be comfortable with other type of controls. I think I know the solution: I need to just grab enough time to finish the game in one sitting so I won't forget how to do what I'm doing.

Still! I had fun with the Walter story, which I actually was able to figure out all on my own. Walter has been living for quite awhile apparently on a diet of canned peaches:

Gulp those peaches down!

Walter finally decides to break out, and he does! Of course, all of these stories are about how the family member died, and Walter's story is no exception. But they made him a nice memorial.

With offerings!

We then go wandering around the house in the night, which is lovely, but a bit dark in spots. Still, the views are nice!

Yes, we will visit that statue

Here the darkness becomes a problem, but it's far from insurmountable. We go wandering around and learn one major story element--I will not give it away, although a commenter on Steam spoiled it for me. It's not at all easy to find your way to the next location, Sam's room. 

Sam has me stumped for the moment. He's a photographer, and he's on a hunting trip with his daughter. In this area, we have to take photographs to advance the game. That means we have to find the proper shots. Pressing the mouse button takes the photo. I still haven't really figured out how to move around. No doubt it's just my ineptitude. But I have made my way through nearly the whole story and have hit a wall.

After we finish taking the photos, our control changes to Sam:

Hi Sam!

Now the task, which I so far have been unable to accomplish, is to move Sam with WASD up the hill. If I can use the mouse to do that I haven't yet figured out how. It seems to just depend on WASD. The problem with that is that there is a time limit. If I can manage to get Sam to the top of the hill, the game will take over and finish the story. (I looked at CJU's video of this. Of course, he had no problem at all with either the photos or with moving Sam.)

Because of the fixed save points, I'll have to start Sam's story all over again and take the photos again. Well, I know I can figure it out. Actually, it's good for me. Clearly it's an easy maneuver. I need to learn!

Update: Ha ha! I got through it! It's all WASD, nothing from the mouse. Of course, now I'm having trouble on the next section. So! More practice! But the game is absolutely brilliant!

Next Entry.

What Remains of Edith Finch 2: The Monsters aren't under the Bed

Finally got back to another session with this very strange but really interesting game! Yep, it picks up right where it left off, so you really can only use the fixed save spots.

I really thought I wasn't going to be able to finish the game in what is perhaps one of the simplest areas. Your kid brother is swinging in a swing--and that's all you have to do. Just swing. But you have to use the W and S keys to get higher and higher. If you don't get high enough, you just keep swinging, and swinging, and swinging.

That's all there is to it. Just keep going.

So I quit the game to look up what I needed to do. Yeah, you just keep swinging until an event happens. But you have to get higher and higher. When I came back to the game indeed it was at the previous save slot. Didn't lose much though.

After that I just kept walking onto the obvious path, which you do have to discover, but that isn't difficult. We find Barbara's room, the former child star. Again, we have a rather different approach. The game "reads" a comic book to us, but we do have to interact with it at certain points.

Barbara's story.

This is where the monsters come in. As a child in horror movies, Barbara had a particular talent. Play the game to see what it is, and what happens to her.

Barbara

Didn't really do much today, but at least I continued. This game really is unusual and highly interesting. Can't wait to find out what happens next!

Till then!

Next Entry.

What Remains of Edith Finch 1: Walking into Strangeness

Having finished a game that is retro in the extreme, I thought I'd return to the present and try something that has great reviews and is a new game. A guest told me he had played this recently and really enjoyed it, so I decided that this would be my next excursion into adventure.

And an excursion it is! It seems fairly straightforward at first. You use WASD and the mouse to navigate through a forest into an odd house perched on a cliff somewhere in the Pacific northwest. 

Warning: you cannot save your game at will, which I find a real problem. I've seen the word "saving" only twice, which either is because there aren't many save points, or I was just so immersed in the game that I didn't see them.

Because this is a very, very strange experience. I'm having difficulty with the navigation, because the controls change with each different scenario. Edith has come back to her family home, which the family abandoned when her brother disappeared. She has to find her way in, and then make her way through the rooms, all the while commenting on things. 

The house from a distance. Already strange.

Edith is reading her story to you, so you see text in the scenes.

The bedrooms have all been sealed up, with only peepholes. However, Edith manages to gain entry into one of them, and there the game really takes off. It took me a long time to find out how to navigate outside the house, and then farther outside the house as a dream sequence gets ever more bizarre. 

This is why the family abandoned the house.

Nice fireplace!

I actually unlocked an achievement because I couldn't figure out how to move, but I'm really not concerned with achievements in this game. I'm just trying to figure out the story! First we get into Molly's room and she has quite a story to tell! 

Molly's room in 1947

She had an ant farm!

We will be exiting the house here, and are in for quite an adventure. This is where I had my most serious difficulty; I just could not figure out how to move around. Finally you get it, but even then it isn't straightforward. But out and out and out we go!

Follow the birdie. But how?

Very strange ship. Very strange adventure. Very strange girl.

Up to the point of Molly's story I thought I was in just an interesting walkthrough of a place that would reveal secrets. With Molly, the game turns absolutely surreal. Highly unexpected! It is sort of explained, but now I'm wondering what's to come!

Another hidden door into . . . what?

I've done Odin's story, which is fairly quick, but still has navigation problems. Now I've started the next one, and there I saw the "saving" text, so I quit. 

Whew! Well I certainly am looking forward to the rest of this! Who knows what's to come?

That's what adventure is supposed to be! So, despite the navigation difficulties, I'm really looking forward to continuing this. Won't have time tomorrow, but after that I should get the time. The reviews said this is about a two-hour game. Somebody lied. I've played over an hour and a half already, and there are plenty more bedrooms to go! So if the short time is correct, the rest of the stories must be shorter.

And of course, I don't yet know why Edith is doing this in the first place (actually she's on a ship and is "reading" to us from her notebook). 

So! Be back soon!

Next Entry.

Nethergate Resurrection 12: Victory!

Victoy! The endgame stretches out into fights you have to find, then once you do you continue to the next one until you get to the final fight against the Roman commander, who has some magic working for him. 

But first we get to run around all over the Spire, where there are abundant goodies ripe for looting, but little reason to take anything because we'll get no chance to sell the stuff. I did at least use a bunch of my consumables. Gulped down the energy elixers and potions. Glad I got Ravage Life spell for my mage, because he used it a buncha times!

Talking to Sylak

We have to place the three major quest items we have won on pedestals near the Nethergate portal. One of them isn't easy, but if you read the text and head in the directions it tells you to go you'll get it all done.

Then we wait:

Sylak opens the Nethergate!

Sylak drones on for quite some time, but that gives us time to chase down the Romans who are attacking the spire. We find some lovely crystal wands that work as missile weapons. Find the instructions and you're good to go. They do lots of damage.

Vibius, the commander, is the last one we find (or so we think) and it does take some effort to get him because he makes himself invulnerable for quite a while, but if you just watch the text you can figure it out and get him.

However, that isn't the last! Nethergate Resurrection is a dual game--you can choose to play either as the Celts or as the Romans. Throughout the game you will find references to the other party, and at last you will meet at the end! You don't fight them, however. That indeed would be a tad inconvenient. 

The game does get resolved, however:

This is the first of several screens.

It's just a fun, fun little RPG, and the very first RPG I ever played--in it's original form when it was just "Nethergate." This is the only one of Jeff Vogel's games that did not do well financially, because people thought it was somehow educational. Nope, it's just a very clever little RPG. I think its dual nature is a really compelling virtue. It's essentially two games in one. 

The fact that the game is so completely retro, with very primitive graphics (even more so than Spiderweb's other games) and gameplay is no impediment at all to enjoying it. Plenty of this game is quite difficult. Once you're into it, you completely forget that it's retro, and just enjoy.

Will I go back and play the Romans? Sometime yes, because actually I never finished a Roman game. But not yet. I have a few more things to do. When I get another itch for a Spiderweb game, the Roman version will be the obvious thing to scratch it with!

So! Thanks for following along! And try this fun game!

Nethergate Resurrection 12: Escaping the Dead

I have escaped the Land of the Dead! It wasn't nearly as difficult as I remembered from my playthrough years ago, but it was fun and challenging at times. I got a couple of decent items out of it too. It involved the usual fights, but now that both of my spellcasters have the "disrupt spirit" spell, it really wasn't all that difficult.

Had to meet with the Lord of the Dead, Bel. He's got a rather frightening visage:

Scary guy! Click to embiggen

The toughest fight by far was a "shadow" bear that Llyn gives you a boon for when you visit him in Nethergate Village. There are supposed to be five of shadow beasts in the game. I've found three. Seem to have missed the shadow snake in the deep Goblin pits--I looked and looked for it. There's also a shadow spider in the Ruined Hall dungeon but I never could figure out how to get to the area where I'm sure it is. I used piercing sight and bumped every possible wall, but there simply was no way in. Missed some loot easily visible on a ledge, too.

Turns out you can't get much out of Annwn either. Once out, you can't get back in. So the solution is to just pick up valuable things that are lightweight, such as gold torcs, and escape with those. Have to leave most of that lovely chainmail armor that the ghosts drop inside. The Romans drop some decent items, but hey, it's so late in the game now that you really don't need money anyway.

After winning Annwn, I went to the Faerie Bazaar and bought the final spell for my mage--Ravage Life. I think I made a mistake based on my years-ago plays of Spiderweb games. In the early games I always tried to get both of my spellcasters to maximum strength, but I think there just aren't enough spell points available in NR to do that. I got all the spells for both, but I never got the spell points to get all the potions. I have the recipes, but my potion guy just never could make the elixers because he didn't have the knowledge.

So, having done everything I could do I'm ready for the endgame! I have reached the Spire, which previously was unavailable:

Impressive, yes?

I've kinda scoured my way through the castle, which got me into a few fights, but I did manage to find a couple of crystal wands, which my ancient memory tells me I will need. 

The Entrance.

A library and lab, were you have a major fight with ghosts.

I've finished the first floor, and have gone upstairs to meet with the great and powerful Sylak, who is managing the Nether Gate. Found him, but quit before I got into the conversation with him. I'm pretty sure that after I talk with him I'll be heading upstairs for the big final battle with the Romans. 


Might not have time to do it tomorrow, but should be able to do it the next day! Whee!

Next Entry.