Wandersong: a tale of music and heroes
May. 16th, 2022 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkYesterday, now that my exam is done, I finished Wandersong, which I got in one of the charity bundles for Ukraine. I enjoyed it a lot. I almost stopped playing early in act 3 because neither gameplay – you use music to interact with things – nor story were that interesting yet and I'm sick of the romanticized view of pirates (they sell coffee beans! Gotta call them pirates because that's cool, I guess?) But then the end of act 3 immediately made me much more interested in the story and the characters, and it only got better from there. The gameplay fortunately also got a little more varied. The colors were very nice, the artstyle is not my favorite but it fit well, and I enjoyed the music too, and the themes of what it means to be a hero and how to go on in the face of overwhelming odds etc.
I tried to get as much dialogue as I could, and it took me a little under 12 hours to finish the game. There are several blind playthroughs on Youtube of about the same length.
Many more spoilery thoughts under the cut (it got a lot longer than I expected), especially about The Hero. I wrote most of this after I finished the game and then I looked up a few details, and that's when I found out that a) according to Word of God the bard has a semi-canonical name (when asked, the developer suggested "Bard" or "Kiwi") but I don't like that and will be ignoring it, and b) the bard is not canonically gendered and according to the developer is non-binary, any pronoun. For some reason I was convinced that the bard was male, I thought I remembered that someone had referred to the bard as "he" early in the game, and now I'm annoyed at myself because generally I dislike it when people default to male for non-gendered characters like Hollow Knight's knight. But since any pronoun is okay I won't rewrite my notes.
I loved the friendship between the bard (mine is called Elyn) and Miriam so much. And both of them on their own, too. I love how they support each other, and encourage each other, and admire each other. Some of my favorite interactions were Miriam breaking Elyn out of jail, of course the conversation in The Crater while both of them were dancing, Elyn carrying Miriam out of the temple, and Miriam apologizing for leaving and Elyn admitting that he does have negative emotions he just sees no point in sharing them. They both are heroes!
I hope that Miriam can go back to Chaandesh one day, I think she would enjoy that. She has plenty of time to figure out what kind of witch she wants to be. And while many people know that she was I involved in Elyn's quest, like the king of Rulle and the queen of Chaandesh, and the people they met on the ship and in Delphi and in Rulle and in Langtree and the Spell Squad etc., and whoever else might have seen her while Elyn went back to talk to his friends again, especially in Chaandesh there are most likely many people who don't know about her involvement so she could be treated like a normal person, while also knowing that she could talk about having saved the world if she wanted.
And Elyn – it seems like everyone who met him joined him in singing the not-Earthsong, and it seems likely that even people he didn't meet heard his voice, though that doesn't mean they'd recognize him. Not sure how much he'd enjoy being known as savior of the world to everyone tbh, at least not long-term. That might interfere with a "normal" career/life, such as doing another tour with the band in Delphi. I got the impression that for him, being a hero was more about himself than about the recognition.
Either way, they have each other and they'll see each other a lot and be there for each other <3
Then of course there's Audrey, who's a brilliant antagonist. She's The Hero! Her initial entry was so cool, and then playing as her in the Interlude was so much fun (after an initial odd moment of readjustment to suddenly be fighting again, the contrast worked so well.) Until then there were barely any achievements and then as soon as you play as her there are dozens, and in hindsight I could have made the connection that all the achievements are about her right then. Later you even get achievements while watching her do things, it's like the game confirming that it's her story and it's so well done. Almost all the achievements are combat-related, which also shows well what Audrey believes being a Hero entails. She defaults to using violence to solve problems: the very first time she meets Elyn she charges her weapon after he shouts at her, and when he runs towards her (definitely unwise) she electrocutes him, which she must have known would at the very least severely injure him. To be fair she didn't know what he was planning on doing, it's not unreasonable to assume that he was carrying some kind of weapon. And she'd just found out both that she was actively destroying the world and that he wants to stop her from completing her quest. And when the one thing you have to solve problems, the thing that made you The Hero in the first place, is a magical sword…
Aside from that, I really liked how both sides had a valid point: Elyn and Miriam insisting that if there is even the slightest chance of saving the world they have to try, and Eyala and Audrey (once she knows what she is actually doing) saying that it's practically impossible so it's better to give the world a quick and painless ending instead of a long and drawn-out dark age that would only lead to more suffering. It's an understandable position.
Though it was honestly kind of unnerving to eventually get to the temple of Eya and talk to all the monks there insisting that the end is inevitable and natural and how witnessing it is an honor. It was good that Mask was there to say that there's no use being sad about things one cannot control – but "what if you can control it, and you aren't?"
All interactions with Audrey were fun. I cheered during her first fight with Miriam – Miriam finally got to use her blasting spells! And then constantly having to hear about how amazing she is and having to make her a potion to bribe her to see the king of Rulle, to the brief interaction on the boat that does not go at all the way Audrey hopes it would, and Audrey injuring Miriam, and then of course Audrey and the bard trapped on the mountain together! He hates that she injured Miriam, even more than he seems to care about her injuring him, but is still willing to consider her perspective and to work together and to believe her. She has to promise to be nice, I loved that. And only the second promise was not to destroy the world… It was both fun how Elyn had to keep reminding her, and I was worried that it'd come across as patronizing/condescending. In the end she did break her word and kill the King of Hearts, I maybe should have expected that but I didn't.
Overall, Audrey's interactions with the spirit world were very different from Elyn's. Elyn only made friends there, while when Audrey went to the castle of the Wind Queen the Overseer was already birthing monsters that were attacking Audrey, so she had to fight. And once you've started fighting it's harder to see that there might be an alternative. Elyn thought that he might be able to get through to the King of Hearts with his song, but he already tried that throughout the battle without success. It might also have been harder for Audrey to trust that the bard might succeed on his quest when she saw that he needed her help and specifically to fight the Overseer first.
And even after that Elyn tells Miriam that Audrey is not evil but misunderstood! Audrey reminds me of Miriam in several aspects, mostly their strong desire to "be the hero," which includes proving their strength, being special, and being acknowledged. Miriam at least had her witch powers to make her special and her grandmother to give her some acknowledgment and believe in her strength. Audrey, from what she says – though of course it's a very biased narration – didn't have either of those things. And Miriam then finds Elyn as support, in addition to being on a quest to save the world.
Elyn wants those things too. He too wants to be a hero, to be cool and strong and special, to matter, and when it turns out that he is not the hero he probably would have kept on moping and abandoned the quest if not for Miriam insisting that they continue and basically not leaving him a choice. I think Miriam got the strength to continue because she was both too annoyed at Elyn for giving up and too angry to want to believe it was true, but she had Elyn to help her keep that anger in check. They both needed each other to keep going.
While Audrey only has Eyala, and Eyala is, uh… she tries? Well, sometimes she does. She means well. But she's not human, she's an angel of Eya, meant to guide the Hero, so that's a very different relationship from the beginning. Eyala didn't even initially tell Audrey that her quest was going to destroy the world! If they hadn't encountered Elyn she might never have told her, and that's a big detail to leave out. Audrey asked if they were a team and Eyala said they were but of course it was already very hard for Audrey to trust anything Eyala said after that.
I don't think Eyala understood Audrey very well, at least not until it was too late. Audrey was given a magic sword and was sent on a divine quest to Slay Monsters to Savethe World People, she was The Hero, admired and revered everywhere she went. She embraced being The Hero, she liked it so much better than who she had been before, clearly this was her true destiny and her real self. And then she was told that oops, no, your spirit guide made a mistake, what you did was wrong and you should stop being The Hero immediately and go back to being a nobody while other people save the world instead (not what Eyala said but definitely how Audrey would have heard it.) No wonder she didn't react well to that. When Audrey refused Eyala finally realizes that Audrey is scared and wants to be the hero "no matter what" and that she might even be dangerous; but Eyala definitely contributed to that.
Elyn, who also wanted to be a hero and felt like something was taken away when he was told that that was a lie, understood Audrey better. And so even after he and Miriam stop Audrey from killing the Dream King and take away her sword, even when she was no threat anymore, he offered her another chance to join them. He told her she was special, and strong, and smart, and she could save the world and be a hero, all she had to do was stop doing things her way. But Audrey refuses and kills the Dream King anyway. She wants to be The Hero more than a real hero. The story of Audrey Redheart is a tragedy and that's the final act, when her pride is so great she's willing to doom the world.
(To be fair at this point I can imagine she's in denial about Eyala's unexpected statement that the Earthsong might actually work after all or refuses to believe her sudden change of opinion, so it's not unlikely that she still thinks – wants to think – she's doing what she planned, namely giving the world a quicker less painful death.)
Then the world doesn't end, Elyn doesn't sing the Earthsong but manages to sing a song that Eya notices and that harmonizes with her new song of creation so the world is restored which nobody even knew was possible (Miriam in the spotlight leading the choir was a great image) – and Audrey is still alive, and somewhere; not The Hero anymore but the person who almost destroyed the world before it could be saved. That must really hurt. But I hope that one day she can find a way to be satisfied being Audrey.
So to sum up, all the character and relationship development is brilliant. The various story acts are mostly good as well, some I liked better (exploring the capital of Chaandesh with Hala) and some less (the mermaids.) Sometimes the resolutions had a point where they became unrealistic, like the Baron simply shutting down the factory when confronted with the fact that it did not make people happy, and the King of Rulle and the Queen of Chaandesh both agreeing to peace because all their people don't want to fight anymore and apparently there was nothing they were really fighting about. But both of these didn't bother me that much because there was enough build-up emphasizing that it really isn't that easy and there is a lot of work involved, to a point where it makes sense that there has to be a stopping point because this is a game and that has to take shortcuts to get to an ending eventually.
After the ending there's a scene selection menu to go back to individual scenes, that's very convenient. I don't care about getting all the achievements (even though I'm only missing a couple and I don't think it's that hard... hm), but I might go back to get all the dances. I loved learning new dances but I only got four.
I haven't read any fic yet, I think I need at least a short break, but I checked and there's 143 on AO3, which is more than I expected! Not many with Audrey, unfortunately, but quite a few Miriam&/Bard post-canon fics that sound good, so I look forward to reading them. There's also some nice fanart.
I tried to get as much dialogue as I could, and it took me a little under 12 hours to finish the game. There are several blind playthroughs on Youtube of about the same length.
Many more spoilery thoughts under the cut (it got a lot longer than I expected), especially about The Hero. I wrote most of this after I finished the game and then I looked up a few details, and that's when I found out that a) according to Word of God the bard has a semi-canonical name (when asked, the developer suggested "Bard" or "Kiwi") but I don't like that and will be ignoring it, and b) the bard is not canonically gendered and according to the developer is non-binary, any pronoun. For some reason I was convinced that the bard was male, I thought I remembered that someone had referred to the bard as "he" early in the game, and now I'm annoyed at myself because generally I dislike it when people default to male for non-gendered characters like Hollow Knight's knight. But since any pronoun is okay I won't rewrite my notes.
I loved the friendship between the bard (mine is called Elyn) and Miriam so much. And both of them on their own, too. I love how they support each other, and encourage each other, and admire each other. Some of my favorite interactions were Miriam breaking Elyn out of jail, of course the conversation in The Crater while both of them were dancing, Elyn carrying Miriam out of the temple, and Miriam apologizing for leaving and Elyn admitting that he does have negative emotions he just sees no point in sharing them. They both are heroes!
I hope that Miriam can go back to Chaandesh one day, I think she would enjoy that. She has plenty of time to figure out what kind of witch she wants to be. And while many people know that she was I involved in Elyn's quest, like the king of Rulle and the queen of Chaandesh, and the people they met on the ship and in Delphi and in Rulle and in Langtree and the Spell Squad etc., and whoever else might have seen her while Elyn went back to talk to his friends again, especially in Chaandesh there are most likely many people who don't know about her involvement so she could be treated like a normal person, while also knowing that she could talk about having saved the world if she wanted.
And Elyn – it seems like everyone who met him joined him in singing the not-Earthsong, and it seems likely that even people he didn't meet heard his voice, though that doesn't mean they'd recognize him. Not sure how much he'd enjoy being known as savior of the world to everyone tbh, at least not long-term. That might interfere with a "normal" career/life, such as doing another tour with the band in Delphi. I got the impression that for him, being a hero was more about himself than about the recognition.
Either way, they have each other and they'll see each other a lot and be there for each other <3
Then of course there's Audrey, who's a brilliant antagonist. She's The Hero! Her initial entry was so cool, and then playing as her in the Interlude was so much fun (after an initial odd moment of readjustment to suddenly be fighting again, the contrast worked so well.) Until then there were barely any achievements and then as soon as you play as her there are dozens, and in hindsight I could have made the connection that all the achievements are about her right then. Later you even get achievements while watching her do things, it's like the game confirming that it's her story and it's so well done. Almost all the achievements are combat-related, which also shows well what Audrey believes being a Hero entails. She defaults to using violence to solve problems: the very first time she meets Elyn she charges her weapon after he shouts at her, and when he runs towards her (definitely unwise) she electrocutes him, which she must have known would at the very least severely injure him. To be fair she didn't know what he was planning on doing, it's not unreasonable to assume that he was carrying some kind of weapon. And she'd just found out both that she was actively destroying the world and that he wants to stop her from completing her quest. And when the one thing you have to solve problems, the thing that made you The Hero in the first place, is a magical sword…
Aside from that, I really liked how both sides had a valid point: Elyn and Miriam insisting that if there is even the slightest chance of saving the world they have to try, and Eyala and Audrey (once she knows what she is actually doing) saying that it's practically impossible so it's better to give the world a quick and painless ending instead of a long and drawn-out dark age that would only lead to more suffering. It's an understandable position.
Though it was honestly kind of unnerving to eventually get to the temple of Eya and talk to all the monks there insisting that the end is inevitable and natural and how witnessing it is an honor. It was good that Mask was there to say that there's no use being sad about things one cannot control – but "what if you can control it, and you aren't?"
All interactions with Audrey were fun. I cheered during her first fight with Miriam – Miriam finally got to use her blasting spells! And then constantly having to hear about how amazing she is and having to make her a potion to bribe her to see the king of Rulle, to the brief interaction on the boat that does not go at all the way Audrey hopes it would, and Audrey injuring Miriam, and then of course Audrey and the bard trapped on the mountain together! He hates that she injured Miriam, even more than he seems to care about her injuring him, but is still willing to consider her perspective and to work together and to believe her. She has to promise to be nice, I loved that. And only the second promise was not to destroy the world… It was both fun how Elyn had to keep reminding her, and I was worried that it'd come across as patronizing/condescending. In the end she did break her word and kill the King of Hearts, I maybe should have expected that but I didn't.
Overall, Audrey's interactions with the spirit world were very different from Elyn's. Elyn only made friends there, while when Audrey went to the castle of the Wind Queen the Overseer was already birthing monsters that were attacking Audrey, so she had to fight. And once you've started fighting it's harder to see that there might be an alternative. Elyn thought that he might be able to get through to the King of Hearts with his song, but he already tried that throughout the battle without success. It might also have been harder for Audrey to trust that the bard might succeed on his quest when she saw that he needed her help and specifically to fight the Overseer first.
And even after that Elyn tells Miriam that Audrey is not evil but misunderstood! Audrey reminds me of Miriam in several aspects, mostly their strong desire to "be the hero," which includes proving their strength, being special, and being acknowledged. Miriam at least had her witch powers to make her special and her grandmother to give her some acknowledgment and believe in her strength. Audrey, from what she says – though of course it's a very biased narration – didn't have either of those things. And Miriam then finds Elyn as support, in addition to being on a quest to save the world.
Elyn wants those things too. He too wants to be a hero, to be cool and strong and special, to matter, and when it turns out that he is not the hero he probably would have kept on moping and abandoned the quest if not for Miriam insisting that they continue and basically not leaving him a choice. I think Miriam got the strength to continue because she was both too annoyed at Elyn for giving up and too angry to want to believe it was true, but she had Elyn to help her keep that anger in check. They both needed each other to keep going.
While Audrey only has Eyala, and Eyala is, uh… she tries? Well, sometimes she does. She means well. But she's not human, she's an angel of Eya, meant to guide the Hero, so that's a very different relationship from the beginning. Eyala didn't even initially tell Audrey that her quest was going to destroy the world! If they hadn't encountered Elyn she might never have told her, and that's a big detail to leave out. Audrey asked if they were a team and Eyala said they were but of course it was already very hard for Audrey to trust anything Eyala said after that.
I don't think Eyala understood Audrey very well, at least not until it was too late. Audrey was given a magic sword and was sent on a divine quest to Slay Monsters to Save
Elyn, who also wanted to be a hero and felt like something was taken away when he was told that that was a lie, understood Audrey better. And so even after he and Miriam stop Audrey from killing the Dream King and take away her sword, even when she was no threat anymore, he offered her another chance to join them. He told her she was special, and strong, and smart, and she could save the world and be a hero, all she had to do was stop doing things her way. But Audrey refuses and kills the Dream King anyway. She wants to be The Hero more than a real hero. The story of Audrey Redheart is a tragedy and that's the final act, when her pride is so great she's willing to doom the world.
(To be fair at this point I can imagine she's in denial about Eyala's unexpected statement that the Earthsong might actually work after all or refuses to believe her sudden change of opinion, so it's not unlikely that she still thinks – wants to think – she's doing what she planned, namely giving the world a quicker less painful death.)
Then the world doesn't end, Elyn doesn't sing the Earthsong but manages to sing a song that Eya notices and that harmonizes with her new song of creation so the world is restored which nobody even knew was possible (Miriam in the spotlight leading the choir was a great image) – and Audrey is still alive, and somewhere; not The Hero anymore but the person who almost destroyed the world before it could be saved. That must really hurt. But I hope that one day she can find a way to be satisfied being Audrey.
So to sum up, all the character and relationship development is brilliant. The various story acts are mostly good as well, some I liked better (exploring the capital of Chaandesh with Hala) and some less (the mermaids.) Sometimes the resolutions had a point where they became unrealistic, like the Baron simply shutting down the factory when confronted with the fact that it did not make people happy, and the King of Rulle and the Queen of Chaandesh both agreeing to peace because all their people don't want to fight anymore and apparently there was nothing they were really fighting about. But both of these didn't bother me that much because there was enough build-up emphasizing that it really isn't that easy and there is a lot of work involved, to a point where it makes sense that there has to be a stopping point because this is a game and that has to take shortcuts to get to an ending eventually.
After the ending there's a scene selection menu to go back to individual scenes, that's very convenient. I don't care about getting all the achievements (even though I'm only missing a couple and I don't think it's that hard... hm), but I might go back to get all the dances. I loved learning new dances but I only got four.
I haven't read any fic yet, I think I need at least a short break, but I checked and there's 143 on AO3, which is more than I expected! Not many with Audrey, unfortunately, but quite a few Miriam&/Bard post-canon fics that sound good, so I look forward to reading them. There's also some nice fanart.
