One of the things I appreciate the most in games are great stories and great characters...
OSW is another notch to the belt of quality OInhabitants possesses, but I still cling to Exoddus as my favorite fold to the series. I didn't quite feel the Stranger's struggle in the game until he's de-pantsed, and Raider has that great line: "You think you can be one of us? You think you can be normal?!"
But to be honest, the Grubbs struggle was never as evident to me as the Mudokons were in the first two parts of the series, you saw them chopped up, their eyes stictched close, their homes destroyed, their spiritual comrades slaughtered...
In OSW, the Steefs are gone, with no reflection on the matter, the same with the Grubbs...sure, both species are bad off now, but I never felt like there was a point where I could at least feel their pain, and though the pain is in actuality unimaginable, the point of a great story is to communicate emotions across a spectrum. The final scene was beautiful, and to recover some unused spiritual points they quoted Luther of the Sioux, which was a beautiful and inspired touch.
And as interesting as the Stranger was, the game needed more CGs for character development...
Auron, Revolver Ocelot, Kain, Faust, and Abe...those are the characters in videogames I appreciate the most...
All in all, OSW is/was a beautiful game, and hopefully the next one, whatever it may be, will have more character introspection, an aspect I've felt has been sorely lacking in the latter half of the series...but hey, that's me, and I love the series to death, faults or no...
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