Sugarcube Corner (FF7 Rebirth spoilers)

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8:37 AM

@AndrasDeak--СлаваУкраїні Tutorial....

Tutorial content:
- it exist
- it is not recorded in the status
- "no obvious behavior change" (LIE! they will get weird idle animation and sometime will refuse commands)
- no cure
- something terrible happens.

So, the tutorial tells you nothing, lies on some mechanics and mentions "consequences".
You get this "tutorial" the first time someone is infected, without a warning on who (that said, if you just hired a new pawn...)

Average Joe wouldn't be crazy to think this is an inevitable plot device tied to the plot. Example: your companion pawn gets ill and you will get a quest to save them. You wouldn't think this is a "do something or you will lose access to every npc in a city"

@AndrasDeak--СлаваУкраїні As for the "chastising"...

Yep, the text is passive aggressive on the "serves you well" scale.

That said... let's reflect.

Suppose you are "observant" as those nice devs want you to.

Ok, you notice a pawn has red eyes. If they are a secondary optional pawn you recruited you can just dismiss them. Basically in this case the solution is to abandon the companion who got ill. Very cool solution, so kind, especially when the games calls you names for not caring if you keep them.

But suppose the ill pawn is your main pawn, the one you can't dismiss and start the game with.

You have two options:
- kill them. When they are summoned again they will be cured, but they will also gain a PERMANENT scar on their body (you spend an hour making a cute companion in the character creator? Hope you enjoy a scar on the face). This happens every time BTW.
- never sleep at an inn again.

Option 2 is more costly but apparently can work. But the "tents" you can use to sleep outside are limited (don't worry, you can buy more as dlc....). That said this only makes sense if you somehow know that the "consequence" only triggers when sleeping at inns. Lore wise, it makes no sense, you are just using your player knowledge to avoid the trigger.

Option 1... well, imagine making a plot heavy rpg, imagine giving the player companions they can bond with and then asking them to kill them "every now and then" just to be sure they aren't hit by a trash gimmik. And then chastising them by making their companion look worse because of that.

They COULD have implemented this well, but the current version is just a spiteful mechanic.

The correct way to have this would be something like...

SPArcheon

9:09 AM

You get the illness on your main pawn (lore wise, it makes little sense on the pawns you can just dismiss). You get the pop up warning but you can't do much (it should NOT be healed if the pawn dies). After a while, you get a new "terminal ill" warning that warns you that the pawn is losing their mind and it is dangerous to let them unchecked among people (an hint to not sleep in a city).
At this point, if you sleep in the city during the night you get a cutscene of the pawn turning evil and you have to battle them. Scripted battle, you can't win and the pawn goes missing after killing som…

6 hours later…