by SpectralTime » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:33 am
Played the whole thing, liked it a lot more than I expected.
For one, the fact that the Overmind is gradually revealing more and more of a personality beyond just being horny all the time adds a lot to investing me in the story, more than just keeping him silent and horny would have. For another, the fact that the tone stays pretty light and silly takes the edge off some of the darker themes that would probably otherwise put me off. Also, while he seems EEEEEEEEVIL! in that cartoony sorta way, effort is also made to give him likable, human qualities, rather than just having him just be a mute force of rape.
Couple more-specific comments:
Never actually played the Overlord games, but I've a general idea of how they go. If I'm not mistaken, the heroes who beat the last Overlord went on to represent the Seven Deadly sins, their old virtues inverted. I think something similar is going on with the "heroines" too, but I can't really remember how many there were. Probably a moot point, as Justice and Determination aren't in the seven virtues that usually get brought up to contrast the seven deadly sins.
Not terribly clear what happened to the Prince of the desert kingdom. I've got a general impression that he was going to marry his sister, fell in love with the heroine, married her instead, she went crazy with temperance/justice and murdered him before taking over and imposing her draconian thingummy, like in... I never played it, but Ultima V, I think?
Backstory about the Overmind is... eh. I'd probably be more interested if I weren't burned right out on that whole "divine rebellion" thing in fiction as a whole. Be interesting if they were both wrong though, the cults and that cleric too. Like, if the Overmind is also a servant of the goddess, and by setting up his (vaguely) evil (but not necessarily cruel) empire for heroes to show up and defeat every generation or so he's acting as an agent of human progress? And it's the last batch of heroes that went against the divine order by ganking him before it was time under that rebel angel Joy, and that's why they're all crazy? Or something? Well, either way, not necessarily bad or uninteresting writing, objectively, just not really to my specific taste. But it's a component of the whole, and, again, the light tone keeps me from feeling bad about it the way I would in other games. Yeah, I'm that guy, the one guy who never feels comfortable playing an evil character. Way it goes.
Heh. Just had a hilarious idea. What if the Overmind isn't the previous Overmind? What if he's just... some guy, who happened to wake up in the Overmind's body and is just playing along because he's not sure what else to do under the circumstances?
Dunno what else to say. Thanks for the game.