Alastor

WUOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

I don't remember any mansplaining, but Samus just going '…' at everything with the odd gesture does start to feel fucking weird in my opinion, I know we all hate Other M but Samus canonically can talk, if you're going to put her in that situation you might as well have her respond IMO. It sounds like they're talking about stuff like Myles saying 'Hey, did you know Missiles can destroy shelled enemies?' the knowledge gaining of such information I am pretty sure was the whole point of Samus having the Scan feature, but whatever, just really unecessary.

I'm not sure where a few hours takes you but I think obviously Fury Green cuts a nice first impression, and the Ice area is okay too if kinda' small, everyone loves Volt Forge too because the music is amazing but that was when I started to realise I was getting bored, but if you like that you'll probably have quite a bit of fun to go.

And depending on how long you spent in the Desert in between zones at that point can affect your opinion quite a bit, like if you just drove from Volt Forge to the Ice Belt it's like 'okay that was just a means to get from A to B on the Bike' (which does feel good to control at least) but if you do more than that you might be wondering how/why it even exists, the same way you said about the extra characters.

This is going to be a modded playthrough I think, there's a big mod I've always wanted to try called New Threat that changes a lot but specifically the combat so each character has a unique quirk (Barret has something like if he gets hit in the back row his defense increases, if he gets hit in the front his attack) and Materia is similar to FF8 junction where the stat increases they already give are now actually rather significant. Is it going to be finely tuned and well balanced? Maybe not, but it does sound fun, not to mention all the extra content you can do, like bringing back a certain someone after a certain event that I won't mention because it's a big spoiler.

I'm glad you said that though Brian, I should try a speedrun of this sometime, I just see people attempting them on Twitch and the ETA is in the hours which is hard thing to get used to when you watch Resident Evil speedruns a fair amount like I do. Also not that it affects me since I'm not trying to beat a World Record but I can't imagine getting hours in and then realizing the run is a bust.

I regret to inform people I'm probably starting another FF7 (PS1) playthrough

Adol has literally been all over the place, I wouldn't worry about it too much, there ARE lots callbacks and stuff though so it's not a bad idea, although you will be swapping combat system a fair bit. I quite like the sense of whimsy to it all, Adol just wanted to adventure and ends up leading this amazing life and taking part in important events, it's a great wee series really.

And I could play 1000 games in the Napishtim engine, it's so good, definitely my favourite direction of the series (over bump combat and party based post VII). Although funnily enough I'm yet to play Ark of Napishtim itself which I most certainly will sooner than later, I know it's the least refined of the three, but I can't see it being too bad.(the series should be going for absolute peanuts on Steam right now too)