About Thimbleweed Park's ending, and attachments.

Maybe it's too much of a coincidence that in July 30th I started my second Thimbleweed Park playthrough, to weeks later becoming aware that Thimbleweed Park 2 was announced that same day.

The game was -75% off on Steam, luckily, and I received as a gift from an old great friend of mine. So, hmm... maybe the discount wasn't there for no reason?

I will be giving away spoilers, of course, since it's the ending we're gonna talk about the most. Thimbleweed Park has always being important to me, also, probably one of the best games to play as a couple, and I know that, 'cause I did that, with my ex-boyfriend, who introduced me to it in 2021. Two heads are better than one, as they say, right? (idk who are they) Specially when it comes to play adventure games together, it seems like. Since kid I've always enjoyed the Maniac Mansion universe (now thanks to my brother). Played lots of Dolores mini game in 2021, beated Day of the Tentacle (remastered) in 2019, and now almost finishing Grim Fandango (dubbed in Brazilian Portuguese, thank you very much).

I do wanna talk a little bit about my second Thimbleweed playthrough here. The one I just finished, this time, by myself, in the dark of my bedroom, really feeling the mystery vibes the game make us feel. As I was about to start, I remembered for a second that I really, really, disliked the game's ending, and also felt rather... disappointed. Couldn't remember why, tho. I do tend to dislike endings in general, purposely delaying finishing the games I start so I don't have to deal with the character's "death" and their entire universe in my life (did that a lot with the Lufia series of games). I feel a sense of grief, it is something that actually happens. I don't know about you guys, but it's a terrible feeling, I'll tell ya!

ZakMccracken poster!

But when it comes to ThimPa, something hit different, and that's what I was trying to find out before writing this post. 

For those who didn't play it (what are you doing with your life?), I see this game having 3 main layers:

Characters being aware of their own existence.

Characters being aware they don't actually have control over their lives. Characters being aware they are inside of a video game.

By the way, someone or something might be talking about us humans that same way right now. lol

Anyways, apparently, it was the first time in my life I dealt with characters that much aware of themselves. I dare saying that self-consciousness might have helped me not to feel the grief. It's like both the characters and the game let go of my hand before the attachment to happen. They were conscious before I had the time to suffer.

It strikes me as odd that playing the first 3 minutes of ThimPa you can already see the characters not only sensing they are in a different kind of universe -later building their own little conspiracist theories in their own little world- but rather forth-walling communicating about being inside of an adventure game. This here, of course, is just an example, there are plenty:

At the end of the day (or the game), nothing is really a surprise for them, neither for the player. I understand the humor behind "the body is starting to pixelate" instead of "decomposing", I think it's clever. But it bothers me that there isn't really a difference between reading a dialogue that is for me, the player, to giggle a little, versus reading a dialogue that's happening between the characters. I love Ron Gilbert, but perhaps, this is an example where the forth-walling dialogues could have been left out, so the ending would be a total surprise and make more sense.

 [One million graves on a town of 80 nutcases]

Interesting but not surprising dialogues from the game's very ending.

I really hope I'm not being picky! I do love this game! One more thing that I find clever, for example, is the chars sensing some kind of a loop, or reset, when all that's happening is every start ever of the game. And every time they think it's the end, it isn't, because I just lend the game to my 12 year old cousin and he'll play it again. I'm just kidding, there is no cousin, but there could be. 

"Diggin!" oh, I love Doug.

Those poor little lives, am I right? That loop thing was a great way to explain their feelings to us, the players. I wish there were more dialogues on that. In fact, even tho I know it wouldn't be the case for ThimPa -also Ron Gilbert really has a sense of humor- I do crave for a more serious note in a game like that. 

Leonard & cousin Bernard.

No, I'm not talking about the "annoying in-jokes" -which I don't even think its annoying- I'm saying it could have been an entirely super serious game, by focusing only on the murder mystery entirely, and it would have been just as great to play it.

But it's all fine by me. The game's atmosphere (and soundtrack!) is enough to make me drift away and forget about my real world, that's already way too insane to even be able to conspire a theory. Everything is just real madness at this point. 

Delores mini game (2020) amazing credits.

I think it's amazing how accurate and ahead of it's time ThimPa is nowadays. I don't seem to find many people talking about it. To me, it's a happening. It's a 2017 game, and after nine years, many thing have changed, many things were brought to light, many things were evolved, and also devolved.

I can only wonder how Thimbleweed Park 2 will be like. 

I hope it doesn't predict the future this time!

If I could change anything about ThimPa I would definitely remove the forth-walling dialogues, at least until everything makes sense to the chars. I'd also have a dubbed version specifically in Brazilian Portuguese, because why not? Also, no threads loose, ever. I wanna be able to use every single item I could initially "pick up". I LOVE picking up things in point & click games, to me, if they are not usable, don't make them pickable in the first place. I've grown to be kind of a completionist, so yeah, that would make me enjoy the game so much more.

I think that's it for today, I hope you guys enjoy non-AI text (as every post made in my blogs), it feels nice to write again, even if nobody really reads it!

Couldn't go buy the oficial Thimbleweed Park's merch on fangamer.com, so, I made it my own! That's me and my ThimbleCom poster!

Remember, "in a town like Thimbleweed Park a dead body is the least of your problems".

About Lufia, Ruins of Lore and the baby Jeros

Hi guys~ in this post I really just wanna rant about how THERE ISN'T a game that actually continues the original plotline for the series Estpolis, or... Lufia.

Let me explain everything.

Chronological order of Lufia: 2 / 4 / 1 / 3.

Nameless hero.

In case you are not familiar with the Lufia series, in the 1º game (Lufia I) you play as a young, brave, red haired hero from Alekia city. He has no official name (that's unusual) so, yeah, you get to choose his name (mine was Kliz). Before you start the actual game, you witness a scene of the end of the 1st Doom Island War, which happened 100 years ago in their little world. (You can move around a bit, but it's basically a story being shown to you). What you watch is the also-red-haired-hero Maxim, die, sacrificing his life, not for the war, but for his son Jeros, and for all the people who died during that time. You watch Seelan, his wife, die, and their friends Guy and Arty trying to make it out of that chaos. That is no spoiler, it is part of the plot. 

In Lufia 2, you get to play what you before witnessed.
You are now Maxim, YOU participated in the war. Everything that led to that very ending, you ended. You die, and you end the war. 

Original Maxim look for Lufia II (SNES) / Maxim in Lufia II remake (NDS).

Fortunately, they didn't end the whole story of Maxim in such a tragic way, they made us clear that his son, Jeros, in fact HAD SEX: turns out the nameless hero I just mentioned has much more in common with Maxim than just his red hair, he is a direct descendant of the legendary main character from Lufia II. Here are some screenshots I took at the time I played Lufia 1. 

I also took a few screenshots of the same event happening in both games. You can even see the details improvements (both great). I think it's amazing they created a game prequel 2 years after the first one, managing to release in the same console. Such a clever idea, not to mention way ahead of it's time. I know I'm biased here, but, come on. I will keep preaching the word of Lufia no matter what, even after 30+ years, because it is that good.

Lufia 1 (1993) - Lufia 2 (1995).

Lufia 1 (1993) - Lufia 2 (1995).

Lufia 1 (1993) - Lufia 2 (1995).

The thing is, everything so far makes sense. From both games, the characters are captivating, their relationship with each other is interesting to watch being developed, everything looks great, both with great mechanics, classic 90's JRPGs for Super Nintendo, it SOUNDS great, awesome OSTs (shout out to my man, Yasunori Shiono), the plot is genius with such great potential for more AND even more visibility.

Wain.

In fact, it had so much potential they needed a third game, only to continue writing on Maxim's legacy. Well of course! I'm glad it exists cause the 3º game is one of my favorite games ever. But I won't be talking about it much in this post. I'm just gonna say that in this game, you are 200 years in the future, so yeah, it's a huge time skip there. Our new protagonist is called Wain, and guess what? He is also a descendant of our favorite red haired swordsman, Maxim. 

Jeros's kidnap.

Now I wanna talk about what is really the problem to me. The problem is exactly what I wrote above. The game introduced us to his son, we see him being born, we deal with the enemy almost killing him, we watch him being saved two times, they made us clear that the powerful family tree doesn't end with Maxim, they showed us 200 years in the future, and YET they couldn't explain WHAT HAPPENED to Jeros??? That makes no sense to me.

Jeros's birth (NDS remake).

It was 100% plausible to make a game where we could ACTUALLY see Jeros growing up, continuing his father's legacy, finally showing us WHY the Sinistrals were so afraid that they thought of extinguish Maxim's bloodline, or most importantly, avenging his parents. 

Eldin.

I feel like they wanted to continue Maxim's story but for some reason they didn't do it.

And that brings me to the 4º and last game of the series, Ruins of Lore, taking place in-between everything we talked so far, only 20 years after the 1º war/Lufia II's ending. That means Jeros would be around 20~30 years old in this game. Every time I play it I feel like here's there, hidden somewhere in the world, but we cannot see him. 

Eldin's mom.

In this game, you are Eldin, who really wants a “hunter's license” so he can finally be able to go on adventures hunting for treasures, just like Rand, his father, does. He abandoned Eldin while he was just a kid, leaving him with his nameless mother (she's kinda red-haired too, but the timing makes no sense). Other than that, there isn't much explanation about the origin of this character or why he exists. We know he isn't part of Maxim's family tree. Here's a little chart I made explaining how the bloodline works:

As far as the plot goes, this 4º game has very little to do with the original story. They do mention the heroes here and there, which is the only reason I'm still playing it, honestly, but no sign of Jeros whatsoever. Here's a few screenshots I took while playing, showing a few of those mentions.

This game deals with the 1º Doom Island War as if it happened centuries ago, I mean, there are already books on every shelf in the world about it, as if they forgot you where there witnessing all that destruction that basically just happened; 20 years is basically nothing. As I'm playing, solving small problems for random people all over the place, I do my best to keep remembering myself this is an official Lufia title, and not another JRPG game in a whole new universe that sometimes references Lufia and the treasures from the war. 

Ruins of Lore map.

It felt JUST LIKE the Stranger Things season 5; you expected so much of the end of the series, but all you see is a bunch of retcons. It just doesn't fit with what has been built up since 1993. You see unexplained origin of their new so called legends, who the hell are those "Ancients" they can't stop talking about? They keep referencing a past never before seen in previous games, whole cities that shouldn't just pop up in a 20 years gap. Oh... and, by the way, human-beings can now merge with monsters, like... what???

The level of inconsistency is what really sucks to me.

"Ancients" mention in Ruins of Lore. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate this game. I thought some of the new mechanics are great, and also very challenging (which I enjoy). They put into the game the original Ancient Cave of Gruberik, big thumbs up for that. Also the appearance of Dekar, an amazing character from previous games that I personally love! The way they learn skills is much more fun here, the special B move for each character was a nice touch too, so yeah, it's not a bad Lufia game. 

 Ancient Cave entrance in Lufia 2 and Lufia 4.

Now, what is weird to me is that they not only decided to show us the main character -of all the cities- living in Parcelyte (homebirth of Jeros), but also waking up in the exact same bed where Seelan gave birth to him. Since he was safe from the Sinistrals and all the bad that could have happened to him, it's fair to ask... where is he? Where did he go? Why is there other people living in his house? Are they really completely random people? Are they family somehow? It's almost as if they replaced Jeros with a random new character at the very last minute.

Here is a comparison of the same house in both games.

Lufia 4 map edited above Lufia 2 map.

This is an universe that is already pretty well built; as you can see, Ruins of Lore make use of the upper part of the same map as it's predecessor. I made a little gif to show you guys better. The geography in game isn't exactly the same, it definitely could have been better thought out. Many important cities are in the bottom part of the map thought, such as Elcid, Maxim and Tia's hometown, or Eserikto, the elf village where Arty lives with his sister Milka. To know we won't be able to visit Maxim's hometown 20 years after his death is kind of a bummer to me.

Since you build such an unique world, I beg the question, what's stopping you from continuing it? Zelda could do it - they do it to this day! - why Lufia can't?

Is it too late for all the Lufia fans? Is it really too late for a new Lufia title?

Will I be able to gather more fans for Lufia with this post? (well, I can only hope so)

Thank you guys for visiting and reading this far!