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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2144 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 3, 2023

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I played Harry Potter Legacy and reached 100% completion last night. I cant remember the last time I 100% completed a game like this. The assassin creed series and far cry series have the similar big maps and lots of collectibles, but I tire of the game before I ever reach it.

It was a good game, combat was interesting, if a bit easy once I got the hang of it (I had to turn up the difficulty to hard, but still never died). I liked a few of the side stories more than the main story. There were some silly fan service moments, like at the end how your house ends up winning the house cup cuz one of the school teachers gives out a bunch of points to just you.

There was some level of story and gameplay disconnect. I was slaughtering a dozen enemies at a time, and still sometimes got reactions like "you are a kid, it is much too dangerous for you!" Kinda like when some no name bandit in Skyrim tries to mug the dragon born that is walking around in Daedric Armor.

I had fun roleplaying a bit and making my own personal cannon. I unlocked the killing spell, and never used it on anything smarter than a Troll. It was a little silly that the killing spell got treated so badly, but I created a literal mountain of bodies without the killing spell. (unless they are all just sleeping)

I also had the thought that finishing a game at 100% completion is kind of bad. One thing that could be said in favor of an assassins creed game that I play to 80% is that there was enough content for me to play for as long as I was enjoying the game. I suppose I could start a new playthrough in harry potter in a different house, but Ravenclaw felt like it fit best, and I don't respect the other houses very much.

I had fun roleplaying a bit and making my own personal cannon. I unlocked the killing spell, and never used it on anything smarter than a Troll. It was a little silly that the killing spell got treated so badly, but I created a literal mountain of bodies without the killing spell.

There's a huge bit of hypocrisy in the way that you can learn an explosion spell and routinely aim it directly at people and that's not unforgiveable. But the Imperio spell, which (if the game allowed it) could be used to force an enemy you would otherwise be forced to kill to surrender is an Unforgiveable Curse.

Imperio is a huge security breach just waiting to happen with one simple spell (and, indeed, happened in the books). The Killing Spell is known to be impossible to block (not sure if it was mentioned in the books), negating a huge part of Aurors' training. Crucio, well, it's a spell for causing sustained pain and doesn't have the excuse to be useful in combat (you're stuck pointing your wand at 1 opponent and they'll either be fine the second you stop or you're going far enough to do mental damage).

Yes, I think they mention Avada Kedavra being unblockable in the books, but if I recall the rationale for it being Unforgiveable is that you have to truly wish the person you aim it at to die. If I recall the rationale for Imperio being Unforgiveable is that you have to want to dominate the target. Sure, those rationales make sense on their own, but what are we expecting to happen to someone if you aim Confringo (Blasting Curse) at them? It's essentially shooting a bazooka at someone. Surely you're shooting it hoping it won't be blocked, so what are you hoping for? For them to only lightly explode to bits and not die? Somehow there's no moral event horizon being crossed in the game if you shoot it at all human and human-equivalent sentient beings. In the books, I don't remember the good guys casually casting deadly spells in combat, to avoid this hypocrisy.

Maybe moral norms were different in the 19th century. I guess it would have been boring if the only spells you could cast in combat were stupefy and expelliarmus.

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