The Way Ep 3

Welcome to The Way episode 3 - A lost love carried on by the great LunCasari.
You can find the reviews of the two previous episodes here:

The Way Ep 1 - The land beneath the sky
The Way Ep 2 - Echoes of the past decry

But I will make a fast recap: Rhue of Landorin took place in a tournament and later followed the mysterious Cetsa/Dancing Violet to question her about past events. After meeting a bunch of characters including members of the Paradans and of the Guided he joins a fight against the Blue Scarves bandits, that are led by Cetsa.
After their defeat Rhue finds Cetsa surrounded so he kills two guards and wounds the forewoman Hill but Cetsa runs away before he can question her, and he's then knocked out and locked in a cell by Kloe... what happens next?


What's happening? I can't tell you, but note this: things will get edgier and darker as we progress with the series... and it's only the third episode!

Well the game opens with Rhue being rescued by a mysterious green haired Setzer edit we already met in episode 1, where he saved (again!) Rhue from a ninja bounty hunter that was looking for a certain Jeruh. We finally get to know this silent warrior, Slade, that seems to be looking for Cetsa/Silent Violet too. So they both leave and start a journey that will lead them through the wilderness. And caves, lots of caves. Tunnels, dungeons, subterranean areas... (anime usually have the "beach episode"... the Way has the "cave episode", ok?)
Ok also other places, but almost half of this adventure will consist in traversing dungeons and caves. This third episode is shorter than the second but longer than the first, anyway it's more of a sort of connection between two biggest and most important parts.

That's not to say that its importance is inferior, on the contrary here we'll get to know Slade and learn some more about Kloe and Traziun's past. Yes, they will both return here, like a couple of two other characters from the previous episode.
And that's a good thing, a bad thing that returns instead is the use of ugly rendered landscapes, something that was used extensively in the first episode but greatly reduced in the second. Here it happens again. Sigh! Pity because for the rest we have some nice traditional maps, like the Matalan fortress and the usual nicely edited custom charsets (that include various poses) and facesets of course.
Music is still good also in this episode, this time the theme that stood out (for episode two was the midi version of "The Good, the Bad and and the Ugly") was a midi version of "Zombies" by the Cranberries, that is used during the last parts of this episode and guess what? It's a good choice for that part.


Ok, I won't judge!!! No surprise he's called Long Tongue!

But let's focus on the gameplay: this episode is a travel that will involve fighting the hostile fauna and solving some puzzles that require pushing boulders, finding ladder pieces and also a classic crate/barrel pushing puzzle. Puzzles are ok, I liked them and no one of these was annoying, so all good, while combat against monsters is nothing special (still it's necessary to let Rhue absorb items and get the permanent upgrades), but at least most of the time Rhue won't be alone (Slade, Scatha and Traziun will be the temporary companions of the wandering swordsman). Finally there is a nice adventure segment during the final parts of the scenario, but I won't say more due to some interesting revelations.

Of course there is the return of the Plunge, the Way duel system. While there aren't many duels in this episode (the second included a tournament and had some more) the Reaches mandatory Plunge was a stopping point for me, the first time I played episode three. Ok, it will be extremely easy if you followed a walkthrough and you collected all bonuses and optional upgrades, but I did not. On the other hand you can still win if you got some, anyway it's probably the only real hard part of this episode (except maybe fighting the Risers, some ugly monsters of the Reaches, but luckily there are just three of them!).


Ah the fine art of diplomacy! Ok last time I helped the Guided, but today they punched Kloe, so...


Final Verdict
I liked this episode a bit less than the second one (uhm probably due to the shortness and extreme linearity of it and the return of these ugly backgrounds and yes, all those CAVES!), still it's far better than the first. It's a decent interlude between my two favourite episodes (the fourth is the best but... it's another story for another day of course!)
Years ago I'd have given a 3 or even less because I had to replay the previous episodes to "git gud", but ok it was probably my fault (or maybe it is because all the episode happens just because Rhue cannot speak for five minutes with Cetsa!), I was young and inexperienced. This is still quite good after all, so it gets a 3.5/5!

Extras
There are a couple of easter eggs in this game: inside Matalan you can find four "Crestfallen" books called Inception, Ascension, Emergence and one with no name. LunCasari is in fact the creator of the Crestfallen series, a RPGMaker95 series that consist of just two episodes... guess the names? Bingo! Inception and Ascension! (still do not ask, I don't play Rpgmaker95 games, sorry!)
Second easter egg: another book found in the same room is "Phlounder, the band who changed the face of music". Phlounder was LunCasari band, of course!