Went live, actually. At 3am. I took the trouble to look up the exact time, just in case it was late afternoon in the UK or something. Didn't want to be sitting around all day, waiting for the doors to open.
And then, of course, I woke up and forgot about it until after breakfast, by which time it Beryl was ready for her walk. And it's a lovely day, warm and sunny, so we made it a long one, meaning I didn't get to sit down with the game until after eleven. Now that wouldn't have happened a decade ago!
Luckily, I had at least remembered to pre-download the client yesterday. All 50 gigs of it, which isn't really as big as all that by modern standards. The download was very fast, too. Big pipe.
Even so, there was, inevitably, another patch to install before I could log in. And a replacement for the launcher to install before that. And finally the damn shaders had to compile...
Eventually I got in. After which it was all a bit of a whirlwind ...
I like media that don't waste time with introductions. I like books and movies that start in the middle of the story and leave you to figure out the plot. I like world-building where the building has all been done before you get there and all the characters act like you know as much about the world they live in as they do.
I like to be overwhelmed with new ideas, concepts and jargon and to be left to figure out what it all means from context. If the writing is good, context should be more than enough to go on.
Neverness To Everness opens like that. Just like that. And then it goes on the same way, at least for the first hour, which is about as long as I've played because after that I had to stop for lunch and after lunch I started writing this, which I kind of wish I wasn't...
I'd say I can't wait to get back to Hethereau but clearly I can because if I couldn't I wouldn't be typing now, would I? But you know what I mean...
Games don't often stick with the "throw them in the deep end" approach for long for the simple reason that you generally need to be told how to play a game in a way you don't have to be told how to read a book or watch a movie. You can only take a player so far with an opening movie and a cut scene. At some point you have to hand over the controls. And then explain what the controls do.
NTE does a pretty fair job of sliding out of that one. For a start, it avoids character creation almost completely. The entire thing consists of one click - do you want to look like a boy or a girl? Doesn't even ask you for a name. That comes later, when you sign what very much looks like your life away.
No option on that, by the way. I might have opted out if there had been.
Then, for quite a while longer - fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe half an hour - the only instructions you get are to use WASD to move and Space to jump. Even when the fighting starts, you don't get any hints on what to do. The developers trust you to know. You've played games like this before, right?
Yes, well, as it happens, I have. Even if I am ancient and the game did feel the need to query my age when I set up the account (And I knocked a couple of years off, too, because who gives their real birth date to any of these people?), even then I have played games before where all you really need to do is click LMB for your light attack and RMB for your heavy attack...
...which won't work here because RMB is Dodge. So, fine, I've played those too. Actually I prefer it that way. Much easier than having to hit Ctrl. And as for the Ultimates and Specials, you can see the keys on screen, just like you always can. Seriously, no-one needs to be told this stuff, right?
Yeah, sure. Until the second or third fight, when the game starts to let you into the secret of how complicated combat is going to get. All that stuff about timing dodges to get parry and how to work with the rest of your team for heals and buffs and how to set up Breaks and...
Heh. Important? Sure it is. I know enough to know that none of that is going to matter for a long time, if at all. Not to me. Not the way I play. And if it does, I'll play something else instead.
For now, just button mashing and hitting the specials when they light up looks like it's going to be plenty good enough. It took me through all the fights up to the one where the Boss is Level 9 while you're still Level 1, anyway. See, at this stage, the developers don't want you to lose these fights. Later on, when they're trying to sell you something, then maybe they'll want you to lose but not until they've gotten you good and hooked first.
Meanwhile, as the fights are going on and the game is giving you suggestions on how to win, the story is exploding around you. It's a kinetic introduction to what I'm kind of hoping will be quite a sedentary game, at least the way I plan on playing it. I'm more interested in the getting an apartment, driving a car and running a business side of things than the spinning 360 degrees upside down in mid air to kick some bad guy in the back of the head part.
But it's a good story. Or, rather, it's a good show. Something is happening all the time and most of what's happening is psychedelic or surreal or both at once. It's like a 1990s Grant Morrison comic, come to life.
After about ten minutes I was pretty clear on what game I was playing. The elevator pitch for this one must have been "What if Once Human and Wuthering Waves had a baby?".
And you know that's going to work for me. What are my two favorite new games of the last two or three years? Yep, those two. Not that I'm playing either of them anymore but that's on me, not the games. Harder and harder to hold my interest for long, these days. Still, those two together racked up a few hundred hours of my time. If this one can match either it'll be doing just fine for itself, the way I'm keeping score.
That's speculation but one positive thing I will say for NTE up front is that it feels like a very comfortable fit. I barely had to look anything up. All the controls do what I expect them to do. All the key binds are where they should be. I haven't had to change anything yet. Nothing at all.
There was only one thing I even had to go into settings to check and that was whether there was a screenshot key and, if so, what it was. Alright, two things. Be like that!
And there are two keys: F8 and F9. The first is for snapshots, the second for photographs. The only difference I can see is that there are a few more controls in the latter. Not many, though. Not yet. I'd expect that to change later.
What's there already is more than enough for me, in any case. I'd been using Win+PrtScr up to then anyway and that worked fine. I was only looking to see if I could get some shots without the UI.
Speaking of the UI, it's delightfully minimal and you can make it transparent if you like. Can't get more minimal than invisible.
Enough of the technicalities. I'm sure I'll get into all of that later. This is just an extremely early first impressions piece and my extremely early first impressions are very favorable. The game looks great, it sounds great, the characters are engaging, the voice acting is easy on the ear, the writing is sharp, the translation is fluent...
What's not to like? Well, I'm sure there'll be something but whatever it is, I haven't run into it yet. I probably shouldn't be making any broad statements and assertions at this stage, anyway, good or bad. I've barely been in the game an hour.
Perhaps the most positive thing I can say about the game so far is that I'm very eager to cut this short and get back to it. That I'd rather be playing NTE than writing about it is about the strongest recommendation I can offer right now.
So if it's all the same to everyone, I'm going to do just that. More commentary and analysis to follow, I'm sure, by which time we can only hope I may even know what I'm talking about.
First time for everything!
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