materwelonz
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January 2025 Channel Update – New Year, Same Old Me (For Now)
🕑 Added 2025-01-24 18:03:37 +0000 UTCHi,
Welcome to the first update of the year - hope you’re having a fantastic start to 2025!
I am doing Alright, hanging in there as always! TBH I've been mentally preoccupied w/ my day job (my boss, coworkers etc are cool, but frankly we’re understaffed & overworked 💦). On the channel we've been trucking through BG3 and DAV with shorter games and first looks sprinkled in between. I'd love to ramp things up a bit more but I need to get through this busy patch first (fingers crossed it's not a new constant lol).
TL;DR
Finished: Thank Goodness You’re Here!, Platform 8
Ongoing: Baldur’s Gate 3, Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Next Up: wrapping up Veilguard, Lost Records
Finished Stuff
Thank Goodness You’re Here!: A hilarious 3-hour “point and click” (walk around and slap people) adventure of a travelling salesman in an Northern English town and experiencing all sorts of oddities and errands. I am told it’s an accurate depiction of what these Northern English towns are like (!?) It definitely felt culturally distinct and a lot of it flew over my head 🤣 Still a great time, and a wonderful cozy game to end off 2024 with.
Platform 8: A short hour-long sequel to The Exit 8, a spot-the-difference horror-ish game I played last year. The anomalies are visually more creative than in Exit 8 but the gameplay is more walking gallery-like than ever. Fun enough for a sitting, but overall I thought it was a step down.
We checked out as first looks:
MiSide demo: A weeb horror game about being stuck in a gacha (?) game with a yandere (?) anime girl. The demo was entertaining enough, but unlike things like DDLC or Slay the Princess, I thought the writing seemed middling, probably not helped by the shaky translations for both the English text and Japanese audio. My main thing is so far is there’s been zero attempt to endear me to Anime Girl even though there is an expectation that you just like her by default.
The Roottrees are Dead: A detective puzzle game very much a mix of Return of the Obra Dinn (identifying people via logical deduction) and Her Story (finding clues using keyword searches). Very addicting! I am interested to continue it as a series but I’m keenly aware these types of games can get very high effort and mentally taxing, and I don’t know if I’m up for that right now.... do let me know if you feel strongly about this one though!
Cyber Manhunt 2: New World: Another detective game, but more along the lines of Facebook stalking, hacking and cyber-crime solving (similar to Orwell: Keeping An Eye On You which I’ve played on the channel a few years back). The characters are written super exaggeratedly and caricature-y though. Still fun if you enjoy the genre, but from the beginning bit, I think Orwell did it better.
Current Stuff
Baldur’s Gate 3: We’re… still in Act 3! I have no idea how much is left, but I would guess we’re at least 35% through Act 3? (Atm in the playthrough: I spent like two hours at the graveyard which is just one of 8237489324 spots in town - it is seriously crazy how dense the city is.)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard: I’m squarely in Act 2 now. I’ve been learning to meet Veilgaurd halfway and mechanically it’s a nice “click some buttons and enjoy pretty explosions” sort of game, but I also feel that’s not the kind of space a traditionally narrative-rich series should mainly be occupying. Even after eliminating the weird bad-faith stuff surrounding this game It’s still a tough one to talk about for sure.
Upcoming Stuff
I think the end to Veilguard is in sight and we’ll wrap it up next month. Before Lost Records Tape 1 (Feb 18) would be ideal for me but we’ll see how it works out! With that freed up slot I’ll probably shift focus to more indie stuff – while still being entrenched in Baldur’s Gate 3 – so hopefully there’s going to be something for everyone.
Thank you for your support and endless patience with me! Hoping 2025 will be a good year of video games for everyone 🍸
Welonz
Comments
Dolphin
Catching up on BG3, I really enjoy it. Taking your time to explore thoroughly and appreciate the story has become a rare thing. Thank you.
Materwelonz
That was worded confusingly, apologies! I agree the combat's way better than Inquisition. The thing that kept me going in the previous Dragon Age games was the story though so the gameplay being whatever was not a huge deal to me, whereas in Veilguard it's more the opposite: I'm finding the gameplay is nice and smooth and mechanically it's frictionless to play, but narrative elements have taken more of a backseat. I'm re-reading what I wrote and I think it sounds a lot more dire than I intended it to lol - I'm still enjoying Veilguard!
Materwelonz
IDK too much about Expedition 33 overall but I have seen the excitement around it - def keeping tabs on it!
Materwelonz
It's a little bit of both - I know everyone is really nice about it but I do feel like I get through games really slowly. Maybe it's the nature of YouTube being a fast-paced, move-onto-the-next-thing-platform that makes me feel that way!
Materwelonz
Oh it's not as bad as I might've made it sound here! I'm still enjoying Veilguard on a moment to moment basis!
Ulfenaar
Sorry to hear you've been bouncing off Veilguard a bit. I suppose one key difference between a casual player and a Let's Player is that when you're making an LP you can't put on your favourite Let's Player to tide you over during lulls in the story! But if it's any comfort the best part of that game is still to come in my opinion. In regards to future things and smaller things I quite enjoyed the first look on The Roottrees Are Dead. I'd be down if you want to continue that at some point.
Jamie
Thank you for always bringing us content! I hope your day job becomes less busy. Really looking forward to more indie content after Veilguard and Baldur's Gate are done. Both "The Roottrees are Dead" and "Cyber Manhunt 2" piqued my interest ("Roottrees" more; I also agree that the characters in "Cyber Manhunt 2" seem caricature-y).
Jim the Adequate
I hope your real life calms down soon! I'd love to see more of "Roottrees". Your mystery/ detective LPs are some of my favorite.
Smaug25
Very much appreciate your hard work on your channel Welonz. Coming from a Carpenter in New Zealand that is utterly swamped with work, tired, stressed and boiling in the hot summer sun, your videos are a god send in calming stress relief at the end of my day. On the plus side, your Thank Goodness You're Here playthrough was an absolute joy. Never related to Welonz more than listening to you getting utterly confused and even a little scared at the constant sex jokes and incomprehensible British speak. Keep uo the great work, and hope your day job can get easier sooner rather than later. 🙂
Oror
I see
Xavier Cho
I believe what she meant wasn’t that the combat is bad in DATV but the opposite, e.g. it’s not a good sign when you feel that the most impressive aspect of a narrative focused game is its flashy combat system. I don’t intend to argue that my view on DATV is objective or similar to Welonz’. But I am pretty sure she meant it in a way that the devs seem to have put a lot of effort into streamlining the combat rather than focusing more on the strengths of the previous titles of the series.
Tom Scharstein
I hope the "patience with me" part is just habit and not something you actually believe, you're so consistent and fly through series so quickly that you've steadily and easily become my favorite letsplayer. I'm really surprised to hear you have a day job, you produce just as much if not more content than others who do this as their primary.
Xavier Cho
I love how games like Her Story, Orwell, or Return of Obra Dinn got mentioned. I doubt there would be many other community around game YouTubers or streamers where such titles are regularly referenced and understood by their members. I appreciate that Welonz strives to play similar original indie games despite her being preoccupied with big AAA titles and her work.
fork
Medium-sized recommendation: Remember Not For Broadcast? Their latest (and final) DLC is amazing. Out of the three DLCs that came out since your playthrough, 'Live & Spooky' (1-2 hours) personally didn't grab me that much and 'Bits of Your Life' (3-5 hours) was really nice, but sometimes had me unsure what to do. 'The Timeloop' (5 hours) though... it had me in stitches. It's got pretty much the entire original cast in it and it's pure comedy. It's relatively linear, but I think you'd enjoy it.
Dylan Hearts
Can't wait for Lost Records! 2025 will be awesome! I will play Roottrees due to your first look, seems like something right up my wheelhouse. Also your future full return to indie games excites too!
Charles Baldwin
I'm interested in more Roottrees, but not as much as I am Red Dead. But really play what you want when you want, I think happy and engaged LPs are the best.
Calliope Rannis
I have so many things I am looking forward to this year aaaaaa XD. Hope your work gets a little better for you soon though! <3
k5Josh
Would love to see more Roottrees!
Naakhurz
I'm super excited for Lost Records!! Clair Obscur Expedition 33 also looks very cool, did you see the trailers? I'm not usually into jrpg turn based games, but the story/lore looks super cool. Thanks again for another great month of videos Welonz!
Dragonhunter
Still hoping to see the Arkham series some day. But if you wanna go Indie I'd recommend Lorelei and the laser eyes.
Kasp
I just finished playing the main story in The Roottrees are Dead (started playing because of your first look), and it is really good, and I'd love to see you play it. I really enjoyed your Obra Dinn playthrough years ago, and this is the closest I've ever seen a game get to being as good as Obra Dinn.
Oror
Actually I think that after the big fight with the 2 dragons of last time, you're getting into act 3 of the Veilguard! Also about the gameplay niche of narrative game, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. For exemple I think the gameplay of Inquisition sucked a lot more than that of the Veilguard. Also games like mass effect, especially 3 had a very similar gameplay to DAtV and was also a narrative heavy game. If you'd like to elaborate I'd be happy to hear more about you meant. (I'm saying this as someone who really liked all these games)
AngryAngryHippo
Sorry that work is so taxing right now. That sucks, especially if you're not in a position to change things. I gotta say that Thank Goodness You're Here! was my very favourite thing of yours (behind BG3) recently. A charming (? I guess?) game with some very funny humour.
