I tried playing Harvest Moon on the SNES today and having played Stardew Valley for hours, I thought I'd try and see how tolerable the original Harvest Moon was in comparison. I know and understand it is unfair because there's a 20 year gap between Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley, while also discrediting Harvest Moon's later entries since there's more than one.

Harvest Moon to me is a bit hard to revisit. Having to get used to only carrying two tools at the same time, your farm doesn't seem as big, you don't have a way to know that you're tired as readily, you just have to watch for the signs and the village you visit doesn't seem as characteristic. It's a basic farming sim, it has to start somewhere.

But Stardew Valley does so many things that it is easier to revisit.

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[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I actually prefer walls of text these days. I find myself too impatient to sit through long, voice-acted diatribes. I can read 10 times faster than the voice actor can speak, so I just end up turning on subtitles and skipping most of the voice acting anyway.

I also just find that voice acting tends to compromise the amount of writing. They just won’t have the VA read a wall of text and instead they’ll cut it right down, removing tons of nuance. Voice also similarly compromises the amount of dialogue options available to the character. I have yet to see a voice acted game with the sheer breadth and depth of dialogue option choices as games like Planescape Torment or Fallout 2.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

While I agree with you on how mediocre voice acting drags down most games, BG3 is one of the very few where the voice acting elevated the dialogue for me and the dialogue felt a lot less rambling than in NWN and other similar games. In BG3 the player character dialogue options are pretty robust, sometimes having six or more options to choose from, since the character doesn't speak. I haven't played Planescape Torment or Fallout 2 to compare, so I'll take your word on them.

On a side note, BG3 was one of the games where the dialogue choices do matter. The worst are games where there are only a few poorly described choices and they have zero impact on what happens after! While I live Battletech (2019) the dialoge choices were completely pointless other than microfosing information. They would have been better off just having the NPCs banter after a single choice.

Personal preferences of course, which is why I love how many games there are to choose from.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Special shoutout to Astarion. His voice actor adds a LOT to the character, more than any of the others.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't normally like that kind of character but he really grew on me fast. Astarian, Gale, and Karlach are my absolute favorites but the cast as a whole is solid.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Love Karlach, but I couldn't stand Gale.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's what I am glad they included enough for personal preference and included the ability to respec them so they weren't locked into their starting classes.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

While I didn't like his class much, it was his personality that really got me. I saw he can become a literal god in some endings. Sure didn't happen in mine!