Time for another fashion report. My latest acquisition is the
Black Mountain Set, as worn by Sophos Sisyphus, sometimes known
as Sophia.
If you can pick your way through the translation, the gist is that she's
forever rolling the stone of her age up the hill of years from eight to
twelve, whereupon it slips and rolls back down and she has to start all over
again. She's knows she's doing it but she doesn't know
why. She wants to stop but she doesn't know how. It's heartbreaking.That's not why I picked her, though. I picked her because she has a tail.
It's not a real tail. She's a human girl not some kind of animal that walks and talks like one. (If only...) The tail's a part of her costume. I thought it was attached to the legs but it turns out it's sewed into the top.
As you can see, there's really no way to tell where it's attached from the pattern. The tail
doesn't appear in any of the pictures. Well, it wouldn't be attached to the
shoes, I guess, although with magic in the world you can never be sure.
Before I decided which pattern to unlock, I spent a good, long time looking at all the available options in the Fashion preview window. I was a little gunshy after unlocking the last one and finding it didn't look exactly as I'd imagined.
I couldn't find any more full sets I thought I'd want to wear just as they come.
There are several I really liked the look of when I saw them on the big,
splashy, full-screen picture that flashes up when you first acquire a new
Phantom and some still look good on the Line-Up page but when I got to see the as-worn version in the preview window, most didn't
look quite so appealing.
Consequently, instead of full outfits, my main focus has moved to separates and there you
have to be very careful. Some patterns give you Top, Bottom and Shoes but
quite often, especially with any of the gowns or dresses, the Top and Bottom (And sometimes even the Bottom and the Shoes.)
are all one piece.
Separates combine pretty well in Noah's Heart. They fit together very smoothly. There are plenty of pieces that share an aesthetic and go together convincingly. I'm acquiring a lot of leather jackets and leggings and things with straps and buckles. A tail, though, that's something special.
Sisyphus' Top and Bottom both go with several things I already have but if I want to wear the tail, I have no choice but to wear the top too. Luckily it goes really well with several options in my wardrobe.
As you can see, my choices do tend towards the gothic, although that's mostly a by-product of the original designs. I'd prefer at least a splash of color but for that I'd need some dye. The good news is I have finally figured out how the dye system works. The bad news is that, as you'd expect, dyes are mostly sold in the cash shop.
There are some that come from "Events". I have received a few of those but at the time I didn't really understand how to they worked and I used them up trying to figure it out. The other good news is that the're not very expensive. I could unlock a dozen colors for five dollars and a dozen is about twice as many as I'm ever going to need.
That brings me to a very significant moment of truth. Do I actually spend some money on
this game? Given I've been playing it for nearly a year and it's cost me
nothing, it seems reasonable to pony up a fiver. I'd spend twice that on an
indie game on Steam that might only give me four or five hours of playtime
and I must have had hundreds of hours of entertainment from Noah's Heart by now.
Without being entirely paranoid, I'd be wary of giving my credit card details to whoever's behind this thing but I just checked and you can pay by PayPal, which is the exact reason I made a PayPal account all those many years ago.
Looking past that decision, I'm really not sure what Phantom to butter up next. There aren't many obvious choices left for seperates and none of the full Outfits feel like anything I'd wear in preference to those I have already.
I might even have to start thinking about which Phantoms would be most helpful in combat rather than focusing on whose clothes would suit me best. There are practical reasons as well as cosmetic ones for bribing a Phantom into liking you, after all.
For the time being, though, I might just make some pies and stockpile them. They don't go off so there's no need to rush.
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I read the backstory and thought, "Okay, I can see that working," but I look at her and think "She looks a lot older than 8-12 years old". I'm thinking 16-18, but whatever. And I was amused by the 90s era goth look that she's got going. Geez, I suddenly feel so old.
ReplyDeleteStill, I can appreciate your ambivalence about directly paying this company; were it not for Steam I'd likely stick to a couple of well known companies when purchasing games as there's not that much transparency behind so many smaller outfits.
Just for clarity, all the above pictures are of my character dressed in Sisyphus's clothes, not of Sisyphus herself but your point would stand equally well if they weren't. The Phantom Sisyphus looks pretty much the same age as they all do. I wonder if I can embed a picture in a comment... no, not possible in Blogger (Thanks, ChatGPT, for trying...) But I can embed a link to a picture of her
DeleteThere's a *huge* disconnect in many MMORPGs between the way the writers describe NPCs and how the artists depict them. It happens more in anime/Eastern games but traditional Western games don't always do a lot better.
Noah's Heart is particularly bad at syncing the words with the pictures. As you can see from some screenshots I've used in the past, there are plenty of NPCs who don't look like they're between 16 and 22, including some very, very overweight ones, some with grey hair and wild mustaches, some that are very short and plenty with a dress sense that suggests they're on the way to an amateur production of Oliver. Absolutely none of them, however, are Phantoms, all of whom, regardless of back story or profession, look like they're desperately hoping to get signed up by a KPop agency.
Allowing for the very iffy translation, Sisyphus does sort of speak like a pre-teen rather than a late adolescent, although it can be hard to tell what anyone's register is supposed to be in this game. Her face also does look noticeably younger than most but the rest of her looks considerably older. I kind of adjust mentally for all of them if and when I actually think about it at all - some of them are meant to be a lot older as well.