Good evening everybody, this is Aifos coming to you alive from... From Phil... Philadelphia? No that's not right... I don't actually know how to spell it. But that's besides the point! We all know the meme of how annoying chatty video game sidekicks are. You can say "Hey! Look! Listen!" and just about any gamer will know what you're referring to without any context. Since those fateful times, it feels like video game sidekicks have gotten quieter. When they chime in with helpful advice, it's no longer a voice, but a bell or chime of some sort, and if they do say something it's usually a scripted conversation of some kind. Which brings us to [url=https://youtu.be/u-zycj_tJgo?si=SnNgymw53SS2YoAA]The Adventures of Elliot[/url], a new game that was announced not long ago. I've recently been playing the demo of this game, and it's quite fun. There are a lot of things I really loved about it, but I think the thing that I loved most is your little faerie companion, Faie, will. Not. Shut. Up. You see a treasure chest? Faie has a comment on it. You kill 5 monsters in a row without taking damage? Faie has a comment on it. You see a cat? Faie has a comment on it. You get a cool drop from an enemy? Faie has a comment on it. You walk into a desert? Faie has a comment on it. You sprint head-first into a wall? Faie has a comment on it. Like, seriously, she is just talking all the time, and I loved it. Of course, she only had one or two lines of dialogue for each of these things, so there was a good amount of repeated dialogue, and you could put for the argument that that's a little immersion breaking. And y'know, fair enough, I can definitely see it. For me, however, it had the opposite effect. I've spent 60ish hours with Grimoire Weiss in NeiR Replicant (he's my favorite video game partner!) and only maybe 2 hours with Faie over my two playthroughs of the Elliot demo, and yet despite this, I already feel like I've been on much more of an adventure with Faie than I ever have with Weiss. And that's not because Weiss doesn't talk, mind you, he does, but it's very much in the vein of scripted conversations. Weiss felt like he had things to comment on with the story, but he never really cared when we found a new weapon, or unlocked a new spell. But Faie felt like she was right there with me. She cared just as much about the small things--like finding a chest full of cash and yelling "Lookit all that cash you got!"--as she did about the big story moments. And not only did this help feel like we were on an adventure together, it also helped firmly establish her personality in a fairly short amount of time. And of course, it's not like The Adventures of Elliot is the only game ever to do this. KK in Ghostwire Tokyo is also pretty chatty, for example, but Faie is probably the most talkative video game partner I can think of in recent memory. And, I'm sure as a result, there are some players who absolutely despise her. But, I think we need more video game companions like Faie. So yeah. That's all. I'm really hyped for this game, the demo is really fun. If you have a Switch 2, you should give it a shot. [b][u]Tl;dr? Here's my point![/b][/u] If I had a nickel for every time I sprinted headfirst into a wall, and Faie told me "That hard to hurt...", I'd probably have, like, two bucks. Which is a lot given the demo is only an hour long, and most of that happened in the first 10 minutes. That's the mark of a good video game companion right there. I really hope they don't tone down her dialogue in the full release... But that's all for now folks! Jambuhbye!