Thanks for having me on!

Thanks for having me on! Always fun to chat about robots and speculate wildly about where GQuuuuuuX is going to go next.

Perhaps a 1.0.1.3 if you really want to keep the 1.0.1 naming convention, but yeah that's wild.

GUNHED is truly a movie of all time

Anyways, all that to say, it's a really fun game. It's got some jank, it's got some balance issues, but it really is one of (if not the) best Wuxia games I've played. I liked it a lot before the updates and, after all the post-launch support, it's truly one of my favorite RPGs.

So it all ultimately culminates in Yuwen Yi, bringing together myriad techniques and allies, defeating Helian Fubi who has an unmatched technique but is completely alone.

Also, it's a dramatic duel in the middle of an enemy army against his masked father figure. Classic stuff, always hits.

Dunking on Fulongzi in Buddha's Hollow, almost incidentally, feels more narratively appropriate to the Yuwen Yi who is on this path of realization that everyone focusing on who has what technique is thinking about things completely backwards. The martial artist makes the technique, not the opposite.

The Yuan/Ning war and the duel with Helian Fubi felt like a much more dramatic capstone than the mountaintop duel, though I appreciate you get to do both on the new route. The new route gives you access to so many legendary techniques that the original focus on the Wind & Cloud Method wouldn't fit.

The plot highlights for me were brokering peace between the Snowlocks and the Wuxian Sect, which was still appropriately messy given the hundred year history between them, and the ongoing machinations of Li Yuanxing in the background to rally everyone behind Yuwen Yi.

You essentially have to actively choose not to pursue all of the side quests and instead progress the main quest. It takes away from the Romancing Saga influences, but I do think that the stronger narrative and the more interesting mechanics that the updates brought in make up for it.

The Nanjiang and Echoes of Ash & Dust content is definitely a big step up in storytelling, though also in presenting a much more straightforward narrative experience. The original game made it very easy to miss scenes and side content, but almost everything is signposted in the new stuff.

I wrapped up my run through the alternate story path and I was really impressed with it. I'm sure it would play out differently if you hadn't collected every possible companion and done the good endings to side content, because everything pays off in ways that the original climax didn't manage.

it was in the sequel that the studio won't let us see, probably due to some tax scheme

I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the run so I can give some final thoughts on the new experience, but it's been a much more fulfilling game than the original release -- which I already liked. Sometimes you just gotta hit 'em with the Tai Chi Sword and show them who's boss.

The highlight of the update so far has been the alternate Nanjiang plotline you unlock by fighting a golden scorpion, which at least two different people point you at. It adds a ton to the Wuxian cult, who were underbaked, and there's a ton of party member interaction which feels rewarding.

They've added a lot more signposting since release, it seems, though the way that some early characters snowball into unlocking later characters mean you may well accidentally lock yourself out of some really interesting plotlines -- Di Zui's additions to the Badlands Raiders plot is easy to miss.

It's a very Romancing Saga sort of game, full of plotlines and scenes that are easy to miss and weird, interlocking subsystems that see Yuwen Yi going from a hapless caravan guard to an unrivaled master faster than anyone can believe. It's the sort of game that scratches a very particular itch.

I thought it was an interesting look into the context of Heaven Will Be Mine, for sure, but also on writing and creating in general. And the giant robots, of course.

truly, horny knows no bounds