Finished first playthrough of Ravager.
This game is pretty good. I've played a lot of duds on this site, which contributes to my chronic disease of "never being able to finish a game". But Ravager is different. I was always interested in pushing the plot forward. The pacing of the story is actually decent; no annoying minigames, no grinding, scenes come at you at a good clip, it leans into the strength of the medium to be an interactive story.
I also have to give props to the developers for giving their players immense freedom how they wish to navigate the game. I never felt forced to see content I didn't consent to, which went a long way to making the experience pleasant. I also have to give props for to the Dark Fantasy difficulty mode. I'm a soft bitch who usually wants to be as nice as possible to everyone, but there is a limit to Mercy-I had to make some hard decisions, do terrible things, to fully secure the kingdom during the conquest phase. That is very impressive. Even if I intentionally sacrificed the characters I enjoyed the least, I still felt guilty over their fates.
The dragon is a decent protagonist, his own character with his own struggles, but with the amount of meaningful choices the game has it's very easy to roleplay and comme to your own conclusions about what he values.
As far as characters are concerned, I think Malagar comes out on top as my utter favourite. He's a slimy scientist sorcerer, to be certain, but he is genuinely commited to the pursuit of knowledge, and he is tempered by some degree of sympathy for his fellow man-he cares about Darja, and at least attempted to offer a kinder fate to Marie Anne than he offered others when I made her an experiment. I found myself raptly listening to all his info dumps, and he seems to have a genuine rapport with the Dragon. If you always humor his desires, it's easy to his relationship with the dragon as one built on mutual respect and admiration. I was always happy to see him.
Oddly enough for a game of this nature, I did find that I preferred most of the male characters overall. Eburon and Issa were also stand out favourites of mine who have nary a scene I didn't enjoy. Eburon is a bit of a simp, but never breaks character as an absolute savage, and I found it rather touching to reward his trust in the Dragon by going on the dreamscape journey. Sure, the wolf tribe was the hungriest horde for approval, but they also had the weakest reason to be loyal to me, so I get it. His presence in a scene was always reassuring.
Issa is just adorable, and really benefits from his voice actor, I think (besides Balthazar, all the voice actors for the males do a better job. The only voice acted girl who matches them is Sabetha and Mina, imo). He is incredibly suspicious, but i find that intriguing more then annoying. I'm always wondering at the true intent behind his actions, why he does not act like a kobold in the slightest, why he's so interested in being kind to a Realm that had rejected him for so long while still having to steel to command armies to slaughter your foes. I found myself constantly wishing that Issa had more scenes, and was as developed as Malagar is. If he were to be available as a consort option, on a pure character level, I'd pick him, no questions asked.
For a plot and story perspective, Heloise hits above her weight class. Her voice actress has an, admittedly, spotty performance, or perhaps that's just her voice direction being poor. Her dialogue is also...not the most inspired. But from a story perspective, I can't see anyone else as the Consort. The family unit of the Dragon, Heloise, and Malice is incredibly endearing. Heloise acts more in service of Malice, providing the Naga with a decent homelife and a reason to be so friendly wit everyone. Apparently Valzira can be her mother too, and I cannot see how that turns out well for anyone.
On Malice, I'm one the fence about her character. Great design, of course, but actually raising Kid Malice from birth, however brief, made me supremely uncomfortable when she started making the moves on her father. I think it services the story well, because while I'm not primed to blame Malice for the Cataclysm, her being so into her Dad made my skin crawl, and view her with the appropriate apprehension that otherwise would have been lost. I really like the scene with Kid Malice and Malagar as a showcase of what I hoped her character would be like. I did get the "Obedient" personality type, so I might try for "Thoughtful" instead, see if that makes her a bit more forthcoming about her actions.
Maelys has the dubious honor of having the most heart wrenching scene in the game. I wanted to see it out of morbid curiosity, but a Merciful Dragon severing her was a gutpunch in the extreme. I think she has to be the most mentally fucked up character in the game, which is saying a lot cause she's in no shortage of competition. I find myself wanting to help her as much as I can, she's one of the few wholly sympathetic characters in the game, which is surprising since she was the main antagonist for the first three acts.
I sacrificed a lot of the characters, so I can't speak much on Naho, Chanwe, Cuchilla, and Marie Anne. As much as the game tries to make you think of Naho as an enemy, I still felt guilty over so extensively torturing her. Not enough to avoid designating her as a instant sacrifice in every playthrough, she ran out of functions quick, but still. I really don't like Chanwe or Cuchilla, their personalities just didn't do it for me. If Malagar's experiment on Marie Anne wasn't as relatively benign as it is, I probably wouldn't have sacrificed her, but my love for Malagar and Science is much stronger.
I think I've settled on having a relatively good opinion on Mina. She's your goon, at the end of the day, and every overlord needs one. Her fate if you sacrifice her to Malagar was also so horrible that I treated her nice as an extended apology. Darja is...nice, but doesn't cut as deep as some of the other character. I think she excels whenever she is being a friend to the other captives, it's when I like her the most and feel like giving her a thumbs up. Her actual relationship with the dragon is too simplistic for meto get behind, but she's a simple girl.
Sabetha and Inej are cool. Fucked up, but cool. Of all the captives, they feel the most disconnected from the Dragon himself, since their character development is more reliant on interactions with eachother. They are on the oppossite end of the spectrum as Maelys, whose character is almost wholly defined by her relationship with the dragon and the extrapolations from it. I like them though, probably my second favourite captives personality wise.
The game is pretty...not politically correct when it comes to the whole, uh, rape thing. I found it fascinating stuff, it's just fiction and all that, but it'd make me hesitant to reccomend this. Enid (who I funnily enough found more endearing then a lot of the other captives), Heloise, and Inej are empowered by the dragon forcing himself on them, which I think was nice to see because it revealed a lot about their characters. Especially Inej, who was humanized by it, making me able to look past her insane deviancy (something Marie Anne desperately needs, since her deviancy comes at the expense of her humanization, imo).
I also like the kobolds. The kobolds are nice. They're forgiven for trying to throw Issa off the Spire, for minions, they were endearing enough.
Adeline is, uh, I dunno how to feel about her. I feel much less of a connection with her as I do with the other characters, which many very well be intentional as she's absent for most of the game and doesn't have relationships with anyone else, but I was still rather shocked to see you can kill or capture her. I don't trust Adeline, but I see those as rather drastic responses. Just to see how the story changes, I guess I need to try them out.
Since I only did one playthrough, I can't fully judge the game, but I can offer speculation of other options I'm interested in exploring.
I get the feeling that I would enjoy Rhyll, if he's as good as your other make allies. Making him mutually exlusive with Mina is a deterrent for sure, but that man gave me like, ten extra actions in act 3, so I'll throw him a bone. I sincerely doubt I'll like the other Lair Factions as much as I like Malagar, but I'm eager to see what they have to offer. Malice gives such a huge, unfair buff to Heloise as consort its not funny. Heloise has the most screentime of any character in the game, at least that's how it felt. If I take the route where you sacrifice her, I'd think I'd only enjoy Eberon or Sabetha + Inej (pradge for Issa consort)
But yeah. Rambling effortpost about the dragon dick game posted. I eagerly wait more content from the developer and will support the official release of the game. Por favor mas Issa.
