Alright yeah, that’s definitely an ongoing trend. There’s a lot of ESes recently that feel like they’re 1. kind of giving you a quick summary of FL as it simultaneously showcases the narrative and 2. written in such a way that the character has only one meaningful response but all roads lead to it. I don’t like that. It makes me feel like I have less skin in the game, and in my opinion deprives FL of it’s greatest strength: Creating atmospheric, immersive, character-driven narratives. Contrast that to back when we had Seasons, and the narrative just threw you in the deep end without going “ah yes, these are the Neddy Men, rough-looking sorts who are the minions of Mr. Fires. Now, where did that baker go?” or “You can definitely trust me, me, the character you can trust, oh won’t you just cooperate with me to raise a stat to a certain level so you can unlock the good ending? My ending? Our ending, rather?”.
From a business point of view I can see the intent to make the ESes more accessible to newer players, but I just feel like that deprives them of a lot of the charm that got me into the game in the first place.
Anyway, if I can look past those glaring caveats I can at least say I enjoyed this one more than the last one. It’s no The Waltz that Moved the World, but it’s short, sweet and leaves no bad aftertaste. Like the custard I didn’t make.