Another Crossroad Elegy Review (spoilers)

[TFA303]

I just finished  Ep3 last night. I've been playing TLD for about 20 months, and have 1,200 hours logged. I'm starting my own review thread to keep it separate from other folks' reviews in case the devs are keeping track of this stuff. 

I was very excited about Crossroads Elegy, as I'm in this game for the story mode and I just play Survival mode to kill the time between episode releases. I've loved how Hinterland listens to its fans while still being true to its vision of what the game should be; that's a hard balance to strike. 

I'm sad to say that I give CE only a B+. That's still better than much bigger games, but less than I was hoping for. 

Pros: 

Finding more about Astrid's side of the pre-crash story. 

Visual improvements   - the added detail makes TLD even more beautiful, and  I just about squee'ed the first time I saw a hollow tree. 

The challenge of rescuing the survivors was gripping and immersive. I really worried about making  it. 

I liked the timberwolf music and the idea of them being tougher wolves.

The final scene at Desolation Point was everything I love about TLD and this storyline.

 Cons: 

The timberwolf pack meter is aesthetically jarring and breaks immersion. 

Similarly, the perfect knowledge that the map with your location arrow gives you was unrealistic to the point of immersion-breaking (the geomagnetic storm has made compasses and GPS unusable, but my innate navigation is better than either?), plus it made the quests way too easy. 

Molly's phone calls to repeatedly confess to leaving her husband to die rapidly got tiresome, and didn't increase my enjoyment of the game or my identification with the character. Her stated reasons for doing this were so vague as to confuse me about the point the story was trying to make. Was he an abuser who got what he deserved as the world changes, or was Molly a murderer who was taking out her problems on a guy who was nothing more than a neglectful jerk?

The behavior of timberwolves after pack morale is broken turns them from terrifying hunters in to spastic doofuses. They just run around you in circles, get stuck in patterns on hills, ignore you even when they almost run over you.... they're laughable. 

Overall, CE ends right when it's getting good. The various rescue and supply missions just felt like the warm-up to whatever the real story is, which we didn't get to see. 

 

I'm still in, and hoping this is building up to a colossal Episode 4!

 

 

Edited November 11, 2019 by TFA303

[MarrowStone]

I agree that the cinematic parts and visual improvements to the game were very well done in this episode! Things "Pop" more yet it doesn't detract from the game's tone.

The episode did feel a little anticlimactic, but the thrill of learning Astrid knows Mackenzie survived the crash and the cutscene at the end in Coastal Highway really makes you feel like things are building up for later. 

I think the point of Molly's calls was her trying to make more sense to herself rather than to Astrid. Sometimes my thoughts don't fully develop until I've heard myself try to explain them to someone else. I don't think anyone can easily make sense of what they did if they were in Molly's shoes. It's left a little vague whether the husband was physically abusive or not, but we do know he was neglectful. She says "Some ways heal, other ways... never do" suggesting it was probably emotional trauma she was experiencing. At first I wondered why she didn't just leave, but this is Great Bear Island, she probably had nowhere to go. While not justified, Molly can at least be understood.