the year in clears #24: BBB game 17 - threads of fate

this is a pretty fun little vignette of a game. I don't know that I've got a whole lot of deep thoughts about it.

the fact that the two main characters have stories that follow essentially the same beats apart from one dungeon in the middle, and the stories end up contradicting each other fairly regularly, but both are basically treated as true... it's fascinating. playing as mint first and finding out how ridiculous her side of things was before seeing how she behaves in rue's side of the plot, which amounted to often infuriatingly incompetent, was really amusing.

the mechanics are a little janky all around! and I don't know that I had fun, per se, figuring out how to handle them enough to get through the platforming and combat gauntlets, but they worked, mostly. please, god, give me coyote time

the star of the show is definitely all the character concepts. to name a few:

• rue the doll, who is capable of transforming into monsters he's beaten
• mint the princess, who uses magic with different elements/modes to get different effects
• rod the blade star, the blacksmith who is fixated on coming up with new weapons to fight with
• duke and belle, a pair of mercenaries who mimic the characters in books to power up, and who ride an ancient mech, respectively
• fancy mel, a witch who has lived for a while and dresses oddly (to the rest of the cast) and enjoys a whimsical aesthetic she's applied to the area around her home

honestly, it's just a whole bunch of pretty strong characters who could use more screen time than the game can support. all of them just kinda bump against each other, instead of having anything resembling a thematic cohesion, but it's fun! much like most of the game, I don't know that there's a whole lot said by this game, but it's kinda neat. can't fault it too much.

except for the platforming sections before the mandatory minigames at mel's atelier. help. augh.