The Queue: A Highland Song

Having finished Persona 5 Tactica I’m now playing A Highland Song which came out yesterday and it’s a really gorgeous game. The artwork and music are both perfect, and the “chasing a deer” rhythm mini-game is delightful. It’s possible I’ll get frustrated at some point trying to puzzle out the right path, but for now I’m having a lot of fun.

While I take a break from scrambling over Scottish peaks, let’s answer some questions!

I unfortunately have not played any of the nominees this year (although 3 are on my to-play list) so I have to go outside the list for my selection. But before I get to it I have some other awards to give out:

Best Indie Game: Slay the Princess. An utter crazy delight.

Most Impactful Game: Life is Strange: True Colors. Even though it came out in 2021, True Colors is the game that sent me down the path of Choices Matter/Visual Novels that have dominated my playtime in 2023. There are so many games I likely would not have had the opportunity to enjoy this year if I hadn’t played True Colors when I did.

Those who closely monitor my gaming may wonder why Persona 5 Royal — which has completely taken over my life — isn’t most impactful, and that’s because its impact has been narrow: playing P5R led me to the various spinoffs such as Persona 5 Strikers and Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight, but it didn’t fundamentally change the genres I pay attention to and play.

That all said, Persona 5 Tactica is my Game of the Year. The gameplay was fun (similar to the Fire Emblem series, although with more puzzle aspects), the core story was actually quite touching, and it was awesome to spend time with the Phantom Thieves again.

I got one for Diablo 4 recently that was super long and yeah those are awful. In the case of the D4 one I think they were using rigorous data control because they essentially asked the same question fifty different ways and were probably making sure there wasn’t inconsistencies in the answering (or at least minimize the inconsistencies so the data was useful). Or it could also be the plan was to group everyone’s responses together and extract data that way.

In other words, I don’t honestly know what they were trying to do with a long survey but I have to think it was long for a reason.

I have done it, and it was … alright, I guess? I have two issues with it.

The first issue is me — I’m just not a huge Elf fan when it comes to World of Warcraft. I certainly like many of the different versions of them and have Elf characters, but I’ve never been really into their story. I get why so many people disliked what happened at Teldrassil, but it didn’t provide any strong emotional impact for me.

That said, if I was going to rank where to do the Night Elf Heritage Armor quest chain, Felwood wouldn’t have cracked the top 5. I get that it’s an area that has Night Elf questing (that probably nobody has done in a decade) but considering everything that has happened in recent Night Elf history I feel like the quest chain should’ve taken place somewhere more relevant — like Darkshore. Heck even Feralas could’ve been interesting, to see how Feathermoon Stronghold is handling things post-Teldrassil. So I was disappointed in that.

That’s easy, I’m sure I’ll die to falling damage at least three times while leveling in The War Within (yes, even with my Goblin Glider tinker), and there will be at least one rare I attack and get killed by and — oh, you meant name NPCs? Let me start again.

Genn Greymane is at the top of my list. In fact, if I was ranking a list in terms of likeliness, he’d be #1 with #2 through #7 blank. Why do I think Genn dies? A couple reasons. First of all, he’s up there agewise. But even ignoring that, I have a suspicion that the Alliance is going to have some sort of “succession crisis” in the near future and as long as Genn is around he feels like he should be the default leader of the humans simply due to his position and longevity so there’s no place for a crisis. Once he’s dead and Tess is leader of Gilneas, whatever drama plays out in the Alliance will have a much murkier resolution.

My other choice for a death is Bolvar. I’m honestly not sure how much longer he’s expected to be alive. And sure, he has that baked-in Red Dragonflight flavor, but he’s no longer the Lich King. While I hope he enjoys his time with Taelia, he’s basically a character without a natural place in the world anymore.

Dwarves are gruff, hairy, and love to eat and drink and pass out for the winter. Clearly the correct answer is bear.

“Not finished” doesn’t work because my gaming history goes back to when you couldn’t finish games so there are many games I’ve picked up, played some, and then stopped to play something else. There’s also the reality that I learned pretty quickly I couldn’t play FPS games without getting motion sickness, but I did at least try Doom. There are also a fair number of gaps in my gaming “resume” — never played a Grand Theft Auto game, or Call of Duty, or any game that includes the words “Tom Clancy” on the cover, for example — so it wouldn’t surprise me that there are some must play classics I missed out on.

In terms of games I probably should’ve played based on my gaming history and interests, there are really two that stick out. The first is the Metal Gear series. While it’s not normally my genre, the game’s popularity in the late 90s was so extensive I’m kinda shocked that I never did try it out.

The other game that I would’ve expected to play by now is Skyrim. Somehow I have never once woken up in the back of a cart.

He is! We got him a cute holiday sweater. However, you’ll have to wait for a pic as I don’t have one handy. In the meantime enjoy a picture of Marshmallow in his Halloween costume.

That’s all the time we have for questions today. If I didn’t get to one you really wanted to see answered, ask again and maybe Matt will answer it for you tomorrow!

Be good, have fun, and we’ll chat later!