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Angels with Scaly Wings
8 years ago
So I’ve finally gotten around to trying this game I’d been hearing a bit about for a while now, and holy crap it’s pulled me in. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s sort of an interactive novel/choose your own adventure/investigation/dating sim mix, wherein you’re an ambassador for Earth sent through a recently discovered portal to a world populated by dragons. I won’t go into further detail to avoid spoiling it, but suffice to say, the game has really good writing and incredibly rich characters. And through multiple playthroughs you really get to know them, learn their hopes and dreams, fall in love with them if you wanna… and they’re all wonderful dragons, and have managed to do that thing that really good stories always do, where they start really feeling real to you after a while.
It’s a game with multiple endings, and on my first playthrough I got one of the ‘bad’ endings. Decisions I’d made cost the lives of some of these people, and I let their world down. And it shattered me. Because after just a single playthrough I’d become that invested, and come to care that much about these dragons and their world. So I’ve been playing it more and more, maaaaaaaybe a little obsessively, but I’ve just developed this determination now to do right by them. To fix things, to find an optimal ending where things turn out okay for everyone. It’s really sucked me in, and I’ve really come to empathise with these characters.
I don’t think a video game has ever made me sob my eyes out like this. By which I mean, and I want you to appreciate my full meaning when I say this, this game has given me deeper feels than Undertale. We’re talking Spirited Away levels of bawling my eyes out here, folks.
And I love it. >..< It’s really fun finding a story that I can lose myself in to this extent, to feel this invested in, and just let it make me feel things this deeply. Maybe there’s something cathartic about finding something that speaks so deeply to me, but since it’s fictional I’m able to let myself go and just emotionally lose my fluff for a little while. The heart needs to be able to feel things, and too often in real life I don’t feel like I really can lately. I dampen or bury the emotions because people are depending on me to be stable and solid, and I can’t give myself permission to just get swept up in the feelings like this. This allows me to. I can find myself sobbing in bed during the wee hours of the morning, and have this be a good thing.
So it’s fair to say I recommend the game. Just go into it ready for one heck of an emotional rollercoaster if you get as invested in it as I have. This game has done things to my heart - deep things, at times very painful things, but ultimately very good things.
I just finished the game’s final ending last night, and will say simply that the emotional investment I’ve put in has paid off.
It’s a game with multiple endings, and on my first playthrough I got one of the ‘bad’ endings. Decisions I’d made cost the lives of some of these people, and I let their world down. And it shattered me. Because after just a single playthrough I’d become that invested, and come to care that much about these dragons and their world. So I’ve been playing it more and more, maaaaaaaybe a little obsessively, but I’ve just developed this determination now to do right by them. To fix things, to find an optimal ending where things turn out okay for everyone. It’s really sucked me in, and I’ve really come to empathise with these characters.
I don’t think a video game has ever made me sob my eyes out like this. By which I mean, and I want you to appreciate my full meaning when I say this, this game has given me deeper feels than Undertale. We’re talking Spirited Away levels of bawling my eyes out here, folks.
And I love it. >..< It’s really fun finding a story that I can lose myself in to this extent, to feel this invested in, and just let it make me feel things this deeply. Maybe there’s something cathartic about finding something that speaks so deeply to me, but since it’s fictional I’m able to let myself go and just emotionally lose my fluff for a little while. The heart needs to be able to feel things, and too often in real life I don’t feel like I really can lately. I dampen or bury the emotions because people are depending on me to be stable and solid, and I can’t give myself permission to just get swept up in the feelings like this. This allows me to. I can find myself sobbing in bed during the wee hours of the morning, and have this be a good thing.
So it’s fair to say I recommend the game. Just go into it ready for one heck of an emotional rollercoaster if you get as invested in it as I have. This game has done things to my heart - deep things, at times very painful things, but ultimately very good things.
I just finished the game’s final ending last night, and will say simply that the emotional investment I’ve put in has paid off.
But yeah, it really affects you, makes you care so much about each and every character. I've lost just about every evening for the past week to this game I think, been unable to put it down, just so determined to make things right for all of them. :)
See you on Skype sometime?
Admittedly Spirited Away didn't bring me close to crying, or what you seemed to have felt, and quite frankly I cannot fathom how something could make you feel more than Undertale!!! That must be a LIFE-CHANGING game, my goodness, an experience!
I like that you let go of control over your fluff for a while. :>
I wanna lick your eyes of your tears in bed in those wee hours... now you got me wanting to sob like that over this. I also hope that you don't have to really shove away your emotions daily, it sounds like being a breadwinner you really do have to be stable and stuff, and I semi-know how that is, heck I DO know how it is when you have to show up at work all ready or arrive home and not be a sad lump to your fambly. Eh, I wish I could be there to be secret emotion release/mini punching bag for ya, I'd always wanted to know more emotionally about you--though I think that could be only doable in person, there's so much more to people in person, like I relearned on my recent road trips.
I love ya, and this post is one of the reasons why, you big blue dragonboulder you. *cradles your cheeks*
Spirited Away is an interesting one for me. I wouldn't have thought it would have such impact, but something about the way it's done and the nuances of how emotion is handled just... hits me perfectly to get me really deeply involved and, by the end, release whatever tears I've been holding inside for the past X number of years.
The fact that AwSW had more emotional impact on me than Undertale is... yeah, that kinda blew my mind too. I was not expecting that to be possible. :) But it all comes down to characters that you really fall in love with, a story that really pulls you in and makes you care, and then giving you the capacity to make things right for all of them with enough determination. And of course being dragons helps a bit too. :)
Life can be rough, and I think we all find ourselves in those situations or periods where... you just need to get on with things, and expressing or facing your own emotions is kind of a luxury you don't feel like you can afford. I've maybe been hiding it all away more than I'd realised. It always still comes out in my artwork, so that's always been a great way for me to express things when I don't know how more normally... but I feel like this game has helped bring me back a bit too. Re-introduced me to my own emotions, and I'm hoping to hang onto this new relationship a bit better and stop myself burying it all quite so deeply. We shall see. :)