Feel like this game could benefit from a save and load feature or multiple save files. I'd like to explore the last trip phase of the game and look for multiple endings, but you have to commit to a complete playthrough beginning to end to do that?
I really enjoyed Klaus and XN-220. They were some of my favourite characters I think. But despite always seeking them out, I missed crucial steps of their stories. And I feel it's too much of a setback to have to start a whole new playthrough just to try again.
On the other hand, I also really like Big Basilio. I might try another playthrough and seeing if I can explore more of his story.
This game is incredibly well balanced also. I personally believe that balance is highly contextual, that sometimes a game is balanced if every option is equally good, or it's balanced if some options are clearly better than others, it depends what you are balancing against. So multiplayer games are usually better balanced with equally valuable options, since you are balancing the game against player-to-player interactions.
Signs of the Sojourner has a central theme of working through inevitable setbacks and loss. I think Nadine is the character who tells you early on that you can't please everyone and you really shouldn't try to. Clearly signalling to newer players that it's okay if they don't always play their cards right, that that comes with the nature of the game.
Now I tried everything I could think of to bust this game wide open and give me the good cards and let me always have the good options, but it's just not possible. You can never build a perfect deck, and even if you somehow did have a perfect deck, there are still all these complex interacting game systems that make life difficult for you.
I really enjoyed that aspect of it. That the themes of the game still shine through even if you try to metagame it. So that's what I think of when I think of balance. That's a well balanced game.
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