Game:

Steven Universe: Attack the Light (2015)

Duration: 13:31

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7

It's a bit difficult to get to be able to create more content for this playthrough sometimes, seeing as how it's being captured from borrowed technology... and frankly, more to the point, it's a huge hassle to get everything right, what with the age of the device in question, the persnickety nature of the absurd 30-pin connector that's thankfully fallen out of use in favor of (unthankfully also very much prioritary) Lightning connector... then there's also HDCP and my insistent and neurotic demand that I use third-party workarounds to back up my save data in case something weird should run awry, because I'm NOT going through the same thing I did with the FIRST world, a mere proof-of-concept, that made me do everything over again no less than FOUR times... that I'm willing to admit to, anyway.

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The Desert
Stage 3-1:

Yes, yes, I know... a bit on the nose, isn't it? Though it is true that there's one particular unnamed desert that seems to crop up a lot as a setting for various happenings in Steven Universe, so... I actually have LESS reason to assume this could be some other "the desert" (there are many deserts in the world!) than THAT particular desert? Regardless, that's even what the game soundtrack identifies this area as, so... (though Steven DOES say this area is new!)

As you can see right off the bat, we've got a bit of a ways to go in terms of party optimization... Amethyst is slacking on her levels, Pearl is surprisingly unlucky (attack power that big comes at a bigger expense!), so expect a fair bit of badge juggling while we're still feeling out our roles on the team and getting more options to toss around as well.

As you can see, The Desert is full of orange enemies with desert-themed creature caricatures, so that means a whole new set of attack properties and timings to work out on the fly, in case you were getting too comfortable with the bio(luminescent)diversity we were already attacking.

Steven leans in a bit close to the audience on this one, suggesting that things are about to get HUGE in here... only to get shot down pretty quickly by the Gems, because indeed the opposition we've met so far is pretty low on the threat spectrum, barring less than a full handful of one-off situations... so there's no real need to up the ante beyond the regular team composition while we Attack the Light... ... ...I say this, and they make a pretty deliberate point of saying this... but I get the feeling that you don't quite believe this will remain the case.

For those not necessarily in the know, part of Steven Universe's setting features a power among Gems to merge their bodies and personalities into much bigger and stronger Gems by means of gem fusion. Contrary to what Dragon Ball has taught generations of media-consumers, fusion is kinda a big deal, and the setting and show go into quite a bit of detail exploring various aspects of that, so the option doesn't tend to come up a lot... but when it does, it's obviously for a good reason (like getting more breadsticks or because you're jealous or not on speaking terms with someone else!) and is going to be very cool. Probably. I mean, nah, it's no big deal. You probably shouldn't worry about it. Probably won't come up anyway. (Be cool!)

All that downplaying of the threat level and scale of this adventure aside... the enemies ARE starting to get more diverse in the nature of challenge they're going to present, and we've just seen the two most basic types for the area. Suddenly status ailments are getting more frequent and diverse, even stacking up in ways that only our party has been enjoying thus far. (Bet that ukelele's starting to feel more worthy of consideration with every passing battle, huh?)

The stage layout is also much less simplistic and orderly than previous areas' first stages... although part of that is because I seemed to have made the WORST possible choices at each fork for getting to every nook and cranny with minimal backtracking...

My point is that the game is going to start getting way more unapologetically game-like in its mandatory areas, and I say that even with a couple non-bonus stages already pushing us into 20 minute videos and beyond. Do you realize how many ACTUAL episodes of Steven Universe you could've watched instead by now?!

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