Wow. This game is dense with mechanics to learn. And in contrast to many games, the mechanics aren't things you discover. You basically get pages and pages of help files to pore over. Every other page will have something on it that looks really important and worth remembering, but I'm already twenty pages in and there's no way I'll remember it all. So as opposed to other games, where secret techniques are slowly acquired, TWEWY shoves it all at me at once and dares me to learn it as fast as I can. It's daunting.
It's especially daunting when the enemies are kicking my butt. The controls in the game are pretty awful. I'm supposed to be able to drag the character around and make him dodge. But half the time I just end up drawing a line on the screen. I'm also supposed to be able to tap on enemies to attack them with certain buttons. But the targeting isn't very accurate, especially when the enemies are moving. Normally control this bad is a cardinal sin, but I'm not giving up on TWEWY just yet. That's partly because of how much praise the game has received, but also because I think I can work around it. Some pins don't require precision. And I'm learning to use both screens.
Currently I peek at the top screen to see whether there are enemies to the left or right. Then I spam that direction on the directional pad (D-pad for short) while attacking like crazy on the bottom screen. I don't much like this berserker style of play. It feels crude and brainless. But it works better. Hopefully the combat will get more strategic fast. I'm not up for a whole RPG's worth of button mashing.
As for the story, it's essentially as advertised. The main character is a jerk. It's interesting how his personality may be related to game mechanics. At his current level, he has a very low bravery stat. In the cut scenes he's very self involved, keeps his own counsel, and is mistrustful of others. It will be interesting to see if he opens up more as his bravery increases.
The actual plot of the game involves some sort of supernatural monster bloodsport. It happens in the middle of the city, but no one seems to notice. All the hero did was pick up a pin, and suddenly he's a combatant. It's pretty surreal. Someone will be giving away said pin at the Penny Arcade Expo button exchange. So if I suddenly disappear, you'll know what happened.
Overall my impression is that TWEWY is a game with a lot of mechanics to explore. I don't know if I'd call it deep so much as complicated, though. Truth be told, I'm not really sure what deep even means. I just know people use it a lot to describe games they continue to discover new techniques in. Regardless, I'm still interested to continue exploring the game. There's a promise that I'll eventually be able to learn cool combos and optimize my food intake and do all sorts of ridiculous things in my quest for ultimate power (and some sort of clichéd life lesson in the main story, I suppose).
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