[SPOILER WARNING] My thoughts on EP6: Reflections

[CrystalStar]

So... I just finished e6, and man has it been a wild ass ride. Desolation truly was a game worth waiting for.

Warning, I will probably get a bit rambly in here, so i have set divided my thoughts into segments, tucked away neatly into spoilers.

As stated above, spoiler warning for e6 content!!

 

The Story

Spoiler

 

 

So, let's get the big bad out of the way. Desolation's story is awesome as shit. Genuinely I think it has to be one of the best storylines I have ever seen in a game.

The premise is simple, or so it seems. You, with your two friends, Ava and Scarlett, are heading towards Cellia, the spotlight of Ayrith, for a fresh start.

But oops, bad evil people aboard!!!! Terrorists! And bam, you instead start on an island called Amaria(not Reborn, she is a person, this is an island).

What seems to be a simple plotline ends up wounding into something far more convoluted that you could've imagined.

Until Blackview, we were led to believe it was simply a fight against Crescent and the Foxes. 

But come Cellia, and we are dragged into something far worse... the dream, and Darkrai.

I love how Desolation's story plays out. 

E6 felt like a whole 180-degree turn, tbh. What earlier was a fight against Darkrai, has now become a race against time to stop Waldenhall from potentially dooming us all. And of course, that presence, who even Darkrai was aware of. 

The characters were all awesomesauce. I loved each and every character, including Baron.

 

One thing I love about Deso is that it makes you think, and choose. There have been a lot of choices throughout the story. But two that stood out particularly to me, were: the Onyx Stone, and choosing which twin to help.

In both cases, beforehand, the game sheds light behind the workings of those choices, it at first asks you to make one choice, but at the last minute throws a complete curveball. A good example of this is the twin choice. 

If you didnt get the Archives Key from Rosetta, perhaps you wouldn't have read the secret entry, and may have come to the conclusion that Nova was nothing more than an evil manipulative person.

But if we do read the secret diary entry, we realise that deep down, Nova truly cared for Shiv. She saved him, from himself. And later, you are given the choice to save Nova's life by reminding Aurora that Nova saved Shiv.

 

Another thing I liked was the game's way of showing what the other characters were doing, via those "Meanwhile..." moments. I felt that it was a nice touch, showing what the others were doing while you were off doing something else.

 

All in all, the story of Deso has me very much intrigued, and I am looking forward to seeing what the devs have in store for it.

 

The Gameplay

Spoiler

Alright, right off the bat, let me say that I loved Deso's gameplay a shit ton.

 

First, battles. Deso has good battles!!!! I mostly swept through early game teams because I had activated the power items password and had a fully EV trained team before Connor, oops. But the later trainers, especially starting Act 2, were all decent and taught me to think. A couple of takeaways from the fights:
1) Ruby Island Aderyn was deadass the hardest fight in the game in E6, she was just, holy fucking shit. Her team was a little too well optimised for burning field. So I had to resort to burning the field to even stand a chance.

2) The fight club Elite trainers were hard.

3) Waldenhall's Mega Luxray is on some fucking shit bc like. Wow dude your thing just outsped and ohko'd my entire team, the fuck.

 

Exploration. Hoo boy where to start. Deso's maps really go hard. I had a lot of fun exploring them. A couple of notable maps that stood out to me were the Waterscape, Route 1. and Visinite. They felt like the complete combo of fun to explore + trick enough to maybe get lost in. And as we know, the more you explore, the better rewards you have. As of writing this, I havent actually fully explored the East of Waterscape. I just wanted to complete the story lmao. Regardless, going through the maps was fun. But I have to say, i was looking through the maps in RPGXP, and dear lord how do you all not go crazy mapping(and eventing) places like Blackview, East, Visinite, Waterscape?????

 

Quests. Quests were probably my favourite part of the game after the story ngl. The different quests are all incredibly unique and varied and you have a lot of fun completing them, (I really need to finish up the East Dockside and Arcanius quests). Also, story relevant quests are always a W for me and I am glad Deso has them. I think the Credit and Quest systems are really fun, and I look forward to what other ways the team will spin it. The Quest Log was a blessing, I had so many quests I'd lose track of what I was doing LOL.

 

Random Shit:
1) y'all have spoiled me with the Jinx Scent, I dont think I can ever play a fangame again without remembering it ughhhhh.

2) passwords are neat as always, haha prisonbreak go brrrr

3) the new shinies are absolutely gorgeous, genuinely wow they are beautiful.

4) The music in the game is an absolute bop, the custom themes done by Darius are always a pleasure to listen to, my personal favs are the title and Shiv's theme

 

Closing Thoughts

Spoiler

All in all, Desolation is an Amazing game, I am glad i decided to wait for E6 before playing and am even gladder(is that even a word?) that i played it after finishing my exams because, i ran through this game in 38 hours over the course of 4 days so like, even if you divide the number of hours by 4, that amounts to 9 hours in a day. So, safe to say i nolifed this game.

I loved every single moment of this game, I havent had this much fun playing a fangame in a looooong time. 

I am very much excited for where the team takes the game in E7, mainly story wise :D 

Safe to say, I loved deso.

 

Also my final e6 team, if anyone is interested. Brutality was my starter

There's also a Silvally.

Spoiler