About East Brickton:
So, let’s talk about the thing most people might find problematic here: this game moves slowly, very slowly. At the time of writing, the any% speedrun world record is slightly over 7 hours long, which is half the time I actually spent finishing the game as a casual player. Granted, I barely touched Earth Born, but still. Most of your time will be spent watching cutscenes, and in a 2D top down game that means reading dialogue. A lot of the plot gets padded by what you could consider filler, which isn’t helped by the fact that the “mysterious conspiracy you discover accident” trope means you only discover the overarching goal when you’re almost done with the story, so at many points in the game the narrative feels like it meanders around with no clear objective. Just like Mother 3, the story is chapter based, and most chapters involve moving to a new location, which has the side effect of making side quests impossible, since you might not be around later to turn them in (which is probably why they made Earth Born, which serves as basically the one side quest for the whole game). But of course this all has a point: to make you spend time with the world and its characters. And I felt like that was a worthwhile trade. The game is full of interesting people that you want to learn more about, and it is cool to learn about the communities you visit. But, of course, you might feel different. If you’re not a fan of somewhat contemplative character studies, you might come out of this thinking that a quarter of the story could be excised without losing any actual plot thread.
