There’s an attention to detail, and an evident concern for aesthetic that Enderal really nails. I’ve encountered that rarely, most notably in distant memory in Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. There are areas of the game where I stopped to admire what they had done in level design, and said to myself “Someone made this with love.” That’s the only way to describe it. Some level designers took a part of a world they imagined in their heads, and in breathtaking scope, sculpted it into being, through what appears to be painstaking effort. Judging from the depth of the game mechanics, the designers must have made the skill system their own baby and poured into it all their desires as players of RPGs. There are hallmarks of a game constructed at this level of impressiveness, wherein each component of the overall product feels like it must have been a labor of love. Enderal is a feast, an embarrassment of riches and narrative design with a story that plucks at a player’s heart and mind. Enderal is the rare breed of game whose story will keep you awake at night as you lay in bed, your brain trying desperately to assemble pieces–it's a game that plays you. Because it’s a doozy.”Īnd, let me tell you, it is, and it is only the tip of the iceberg. OMG.”Another user chimed in:“I’m going to follow this thread until you finish this quest. This about to get freaking crazy, isn’t it? OMG. Are you kidding me right now?! Seriously? This dude looks exactly like ***** that has been… WHAT. Reddit user phnx0221 reached a point in Enderal that any player who has gotten into the game can empathize with. The Enderal subreddit is littered with stream of consciousness reactions of players bumping into pieces of Enderal that leave them gloriously astounded and catching their breath in awe, or shattered broken messes whimpering on the floor. And I know matter-of-factly that I’m not alone in these reactions, either. I am a grown man, and I was brought to tears by this video game, of all things. The enormity of a certain scenario’s completion was staggering and momentous, and, based on cursory analysis of comments in response to it, a visceral reaction is commonly shared among all the players of Enderal.ĭuring one moment, a scene in Enderal became so intense, vivid, and emotionally powerful that I had to walk away from my computer. There was another moment where the emotional weight of what happened hit me so hard and so strongly that all I could do was sit and stare blankly at the screen, trying to process the entirety of what just transpired. But the game moves on and seems to pretend to enjoy that it knows that you know. You have to know! You have to confirm that piece of the puzzle fits the way you think it does. So you sit there, frustrated and silently screaming at your character to ask the right question in the next line. It will be something that your character missed, that the dialogue doesn’t necessarily reflect as a choice. There are those moments when you as a player suddenly realize something, because you caught just enough of the lore and proper names bandied back and forth by other characters. There are “Hold the door” moments (to steal a phrase describing a pivotal scene in Game of Thrones) that combines heart-wrenching anguish with epiphany, completion, closure, and acceptance. Couched in that clarity was the essence of betrayal, surprise, and anger – and then utter delight at the personal revelation that it was this game producing these complex emotions in myself as player. I experienced a moment while playing the game when everything suddenly made sense with crystalline certainty, and such a startling recognition of pattern and immersion both horrified and titillated me.
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