Belloq

It loomed large in my notes:

But the actual scene went fast. So fast, I finished and got through the first part of the "You and I are much alike" scene.

Which I'm refactoring. This is the art of shaping a proper climax. I'm constantly making little adjustments to bring the various pressures and themes and so forth so they reach their crests at the appropriate moments. Which means in this case I keep adjusting how Penny perceives her "rival" in the Parisian treasure hunt. Especially as this is the penultimate scene with him; the next scene he gets is the climax at Notre Dame des Paris.

(I just found out the creators of "Emily in Paris" meant for the title to be pronounced in the French fashion. So it rhymes. No, it doesn't make it any better.)

Almost at that climax. After "You and I" -- which is three different meetings lumped into a single chapter -- there's the Steampunk Garden Party with the Mummy's Kiss, then the final Proustian Loop as Penny walks to Notre Dame (the "New Mombasa" flashback). And then the epic climb of Notre Dame and the confrontation on the roof.

I suspect, actually, the climb won't be that epic. The architecture isn't that complicated, not that way. And yes, I climbed it in Assassins' Creed : Unity. Bought the game just for that. Besides, in the current day of the story, the scaffolding is still there.

***

Speaking of...

Took a day off to rest and recover and finished Hogwarts Legacy. Bit grindy to get to the end. You can't finish the school term until you are level 34, which in that game pretty much makes you a monster. Even if you skipped learned all three Unforgivable Curses. 

You don't actually level up from combat. Not really. You do it from challenges (and you get a lot more by collecting notebook pages or running errands for people you befriend in your travels). Combat is already a fairly nice rock-paper-scissors plus combos and can get very fast moving. A bit difficult without a controller, as you really need to be able to fire off at least three different spells, use protego, use dodge roll, and to be really effective, use some Ancient Magic too. And, yeah, more than once I was reaching for "2" to fire off a simple leviosa and instead hit the "G" for Ancient Magic Finishing Move.

The combos always work. But the fastest level advancing is if you do the suggested combo that is popping up on your display. So there's three wolves coming at you, you are trying to remember which finger is on confringo, and then you've got to read the tiny text that just came on telling you that for the next 30 seconds, you can complete a Challenge by using depulso on a wolf at exactly the right moment of his charge.

Which isn't even in one of your assigned spell slots, so go into menu, assign it, come back out, re-orient to where that wolf is, figure out if you need to dodge-roll his buddy first, and...

So it can take a bit of work leveling via combat.

And...there's not much of a payoff. When you finally hit 34 and get to take your OWLS, there's a cutscene of you and the other students sitting for your exams. No totals, no score, nothing. Not even (I am told via the message boards) anything if you get 100% completion. Then there's another cutscene where your House wins the cup for that academic year because there's always a 100-point Golden Snitch-type award for being the hero.

The only thing that seems to change is that the people who run out to congratulate you are from your house.

Yeah, not quite as much fun as, say, Horizon Zero Dawn, in which the people joining you for the final fight against the baddies include half the people you chose to help in side-quests (OR the Frozen Wilds DLC!) and all of them have dialogue, too.

The credits take thirty minutes to run. First time I have seen credits that display the entire text of the software license for each font used in the game...