Title intentionally vague as to what a “part” is.
Tell me about the story you never forget, the carousel you never want to run again, the line that makes you smile every time it comes up, the area you never want to go back to because you think its writing or gameplay suck, the Exceptional Story you wish you could forget so you could play through it all over again, that one stupid part that made you go “Huh?” or “Wait, what?”, the most fun thing you’ve had your character do.
No grievance too petty, no praise too minor. Tell it all!
I’ll start: Port Cecil was one of the most unpleasantly confusing and bizarre places I’ve been in the game, and I don’t think it was intentional; despite Godfall being a horrible place, I adored it. Now I elaborate.
What bothered me about Port Cecil is that there’s not really any explanation of what its deal is, what the place looks like, what things my character is seeing - actions are described, but the people and space mostly aren’t. I’m almost offended by how little was described about lamp-cats - how do they act? Cats are very significant in the Neath, what is my character observing about lamp-cats? Do they carry themselves with the countenance of a tiger, a panther, a palace-cat, a roguish tomcat, or a terminally orange tabby? Why is my character so… nonplussed by lamp-cats, and by people who have coral growing on them? Why am I not given the option to investigate Port Cecil and what its deal is? My character acts familiar with it, like he’s been there before or read extensively on it and already knows the score, but I-the-player don’t and that bugs me a lot.
Godfall, though - I love that place. The prose is incredible, it does a great job of conveying the discomfort of the situation and the environment, everything is well-described, it fits its advanced skillchecks in very well( as opposed to some areas where they probably could’ve been standard checks, like a k.t. check that could probably have been a watchful check), and its item rewards are things that aren’t easily acquired elsewhere so I managed to come out feeling like I’d actually benefited from the trip since I was low on or actively in need of what it offered. I love Godfall from a writing and mechanical perspective, and wish F.L. had even more like it.
I think it sucks that a lot of my items are essentially “Bazaar fodder”. I love throwing out the Struggling Artist when he tries to mooch off me, and the line about the sweet roll bouncing off his bald spot makes me smile every time.
I think it’s really weird that declaring yourself Closest To a faction makes it harder to raise rep with them since the Counting the Days action you unlock on their Card doesn’t give a Favour. I appreciate having the Grizzled Veteran to give me hints on where to go from where I am, especially since I’m back from a very long break.
I think Agents are incredible for the game on a conceptual level - they provide a greater sense of power for Persons of Some Importance and help it feel like an accomplishment, they give the player a reason to hold on to their second-best items or get duplicates of their best, and the multi-stat nature of plots gives two-stat items a use in a way that I think is much more elegant than locking player outfits! At the same time, I hate having to check the wiki for every Plot’s actual stat requirements because the preparations screen ROUNDS the success chance for inexplicable reasons, and I find almost all Plots I have access to pay me in items that - while they may be lucrative to sell - are of absolutely no actual use to me whatsoever, to the point that I have resorted to using Plots as a roleplay mechanism because they bring me so little actual gameplay benefit.
I have more to say, but this post is already quite long and I’m interested in seeing what other people here have to say! I want to know what parts - mechanics, stories, single bits of text, particular carousels - people do and don’t like, and why.
