#Actually the level of details that both of them require might force me to nerf them if I'll EVER draw one of them again...

[tiny-sugar-dove]

Farewell, Penacony 🌌

[aly-the-writer]

Jedi Soup

Ao3 | More Tusin Shade

Prompt: OC introducing their romantic interest to a food specific to their home planet for Tusin/Theron as requested by DarthYaoi.

Tusin ran a hand back through his hair, nodding absently as he listened to Lana catching him up to speed on what had been going on during his away mission.

He’d gotten off the shuttle expecting Theron to be there – Theron was always the one who met him when he returned to base. Not normally alone but he was always there. Still Lana hadn’t said something was wrong…

“He’s fine,” the blond commented, at last realizing why the other Sith hadn’t paid attention to her. “Just a cold, Commander. The infirmary gave him a shot, if he rests then he will be better in a day or two.”

She watched as the gold eyes studied her, they were at the turn that the Commander would have to take to get to his room or the lift to the residential level. She’d seen that look before – both Theron and Tusin wore it when they were struggling with their desire to be with the other and their workaholic tendencies.

“I think he ended up in your quarters after Master Silver threatened to find an ‘alternative means’ of making sure he rested as required,” Lana added.

The grin – quickly hidden – was the only sign of amusement that came from the thought of the Barsen’thor of all people threatening violence on another.

“Then you don’t need me for anything tonight?”

There was a small mountain of paperwork and reports to finalize the details on but they could all be put off for at least one night. Still she dragged out answering, as if having to contemplate, until the Pureblood’s eyebrow protrusions had lifted up like wings – they always made his expressions over emphasized to the point where incredulity looked slightly ridiculous on his face.

“Nothing for tonight, Commander,” she relented at last. “Take care you don’t get sick, I can’t run this Alliance by myself.”

“Wait, so that’s not what you’re doing already?” he joked, beginning to walk down the hall.

She waved him off and headed towards the lift to go to her own private quarters. She had a nice bottle of wine she’d been saving for a quiet evening.

Tusin, meanwhile, let himself into his quarters as quietly as he could. The room was mostly dark, the blankets huddled into pile on the center of the bed while Theron was still asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around and his face tucked against the pillow that Tusin usually used. He looked entirely worn out even asleep, his mouth open so he could try to breath with his breath snuffled from the congested sinuses. The brown hair pressed completely flat without any of the usual styling done to it.

He knew Theron would never appreciate the thought but Tusin thought he looked rather cute. He leaned over and kissed the other man’s temple.

Gold-hazel eyes blinked blurrily up at him. “When’d you get back?” his voice a little hoarse as he sat up.

“Just now,” he smiled softly. “I understand you’ve been exhausting our Jedi’s inexhaustible well of patience. Have you eaten at all?” he said, picking up the bottle of pills on the table that Theron went to reach for to read the label.

“Not been hungry,” the spy muttered, flopping back onto the pillows as he watched Tusin – wondering for a moment if the Sith Lord planned on chasing him back to his own room. He was gross and miserable three days into the cold – definitely not something anyone would want to deal with after just returning from wading through a factory of Skytroopers with Havoc Squad.

“You need to eat - especially since all you do is survive off caff and prepackaged food usually. Besides, this says you need to take it with warm food. When’s your next dose supposed to be?”

“Like your diet’s any better,” Theron muttered sitting up a little to squint at the chronometer (though he could’ve just as easily checked the time with his implants), “Hour, hour-half.”

“Anything you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Alright. Go back to sleep for a bit longer, love,” he stroked Theron’s hair, secretly admiring the texture of it sans hair-product beneath his fingers.

Once the spy had muttered a half-hearted protest and retreated back into his cocoon of blankets Tusin got up, slipping from his rooms in thought. Theron was correct, Tusin’s diet was rarely any better. Ration bars or eating at the cantina was fairly common when he remembered to take a break long enough to eat.

Still he needed to find something that Theron would probably eat without much protest – maybe something that reminded him of childhood? He’d been raised by Jedi and there was at least one Jedi that cooked around the base.

Jedi Knight Dak Izma – the man who had struck the blow that freed the Sith Empire from the Emperor’s control – was a short, friendly blond Zabrak with bright green eyes that drew plenty of attention. He was also friendly enough with Theron that he might agree to help out

The residential levels had several communal kitchens, and it was easy to find the one that they’d occupied. The Jedi he was looking for was wrapped up in his husband’s arms, getting a kiss. The Mirialan agent who’d once been called Cipher Nine but now went by Aydin Olasee was the first to notice and smiled at him over the shorter man’s head as he straightened.

“Commander, what can we do for you?” the clipped Kaasi accent was the one most common among Imperial Intelligence operatives (and it occurred to Tusin then that perhaps they were all trained to use it) that was obviously false in Aydin as he opted to use different accents to suit his mood.

“Actually I was wondering if Dak knew how to make Jedi so- uh, rootleaf stew.”

‘Jedi Soup’ was the name that Imperials gave the very plain though healthy meal.

“Rootleaf stew?” Dak echoed, exchanging a look with Aydin. “I mean, yeah, I can make it. Just didn’t think it was something anyone ate if they didn’t grow up in the Order.”

“Theron still down for the count?” the spy asked. Theron was a favorite target of his practical jokes – a bit of rivalry left over from when they’d been the best spies on their respective sides of the war.

“Yes, and he doesn’t seem to be hungry. I thought that something he grew up on with would help and I know he was raised by Jedi…”

Aydin winced and looked at Dak, almost pleadingly.

The Zabrak met his gaze apologetically, “Alright, I’ll make some.”

Aydin groaned, pretending to clasp his chest and stagger against the counter, “My nerf burgers.”

“I’ll make them for you tomorrow,” the Jedi smiled over, watching his boyfriend’s dramatic ‘death’ as he crumpled to the floor.

“Liiiiessssss,” the Mirialan hissed dramatically before falling still.

Tusin hid a smile behind his hand, Aydin was one of the more troublesome members of the Alliance. Primarily because his fondness for practical jokes meant everyone from Lana to Aric Jorgan was ready to shoot the man (with the exception of the Jedi he was married to) but he was still one of the best agents they had on staff.

Dak meanwhile had opened the refrigerator unit that was labeled ‘Izma & Green Bean’.

“Does it taste that bad?” Tusin asked the agent who was climbing back to his feet following his performance.

“Yes.”

“No it doesn’t,” Dak said, sorting out his ingredients. “It’s very simple, too simple for Aydin’s tastes.”

Despite his disagreement regarding the meal choice for that night the Mirialan was on his feet helping in an easy rhythm with the other man – washing and cutting ingredients or measuring things out at the Zabrak’s request. For his part Dak moved around the kitchen with a sort of confidence that the Jedi usually lacked when off the battlefield, only he wasn’t usually smiling broadly or comparing vegetables to his husband’s skin tone when he fought.

Tusin took a seat to watch the pair – wondering if he should offer to help considering it was a request for his lover that they were making. Cooking was an art form that he’d never quite gotten the hold of – though the Pureblood admired anyone who managed it and even with the laughter and joking (or maybe because of it) this particular couple made it look a bit like a dance.

It wouldn’t take the ability to read their connection through the Force to see that the two were close – let alone to see how obviously in love the pair was. How had they managed to keep it unknown for as long as they had managed?

“How does the Hero of Tython end up married to the Imperial Ghost, anyways?” he asked curiously.

“You meet all sorts in cantinas in Nar Shaddaa,” Dak laughed softly glancing over. “Terrible pick-ups, cheap drinks, and bad decisions pretty much sums us up back then.”

“You’re forgetting that we’re devastatingly handsome as well as being complete messes,” Aydin smirked, leaning down to peck Dak’s lips before going to run the dishes they were done with through the wash

Theron cracked an eye open as the door to the room opened again. He hadn’t heard Tusin leave, but he was exhausted and it was embarrassingly difficult to fall asleep without the other man in the bed. Although, he felt that he might be granted some forgiveness considering that anyone would fret over their lover being on a battlefield.

It’d been easier to sleep knowing that Tusin was back on the base, safe and sound.

Balanced on one hand the Sith Pureblood carried in a tray laden with bowls, mug and silverware, which he set on one of the tables in the room, shoving some of his papers and datapads back into a pile to clear the space to do so.

The smell of food – something familiar – reached Theron’s nose from where he was watching the scene from his blanket cave and made his stomach grumble loudly.

“Wasat?” he asked, starting to sit up but still mostly muffled by bedding.

It sort of smelled like rootleaf but no way Tusin would make that – actually there was no way the Sith would make anything. The Commander was a disaster in the kitchen and Lana had explicitly forbidden him from attempting to cook again.

“I didn’t make it,” the alien promised, offering him a bowl. “I may owe Agent Olasee an apology, he seemed to be rather saddened by the loss of his nerf-burgers.”

Theron grinned despite himself – Aydin suffering in petty ways always made him smile.  “I’m sure all this,” he waved his hand at his face. “Is somehow his fault anyways.”

“Doubtful,” Tusin mused, setting a mug at Theron’s elbow. Tea of some sort, a deep crimson-black color to it, probably something the Sith had brewed him. Before sitting down with his own bowl and mug. “But he certainly owes you for some of the other things he’s done.”

“Won’t disagree there. Where does he even find time to compose poetry anyways?” he muttered, tasting the bowl’s contents. Dak’s version of the recipe had a Dantooine flare, probably using iriaz broth as a base instead of mushrooms like Master Zho had used. Still it was delicious – and the familiar taste through the deadened taste-buds that came with sickness was a comfort.

“I assumed that he pulled it off the Holonet,” Tusin was prodding his bowl carefully examining the ingredients that had gone into the stew.

“It’s good,” Theron pointed his spoon at the Sith’s bowl. “And no, he writes them. I know he composes terrible poetry for Dak when they practice.”

“I don’t know if I should be impressed or terrified,” the Sith mused before finally tasting the meal. It actually was good. As simple a flavor as promised, which would have likely made it easier to convince a variety of younglings across species to eat it with little fuss. Though he could see someone who preferred lots of flavor in everything – like Aydin did – would dislike the dish.

He blinked up noticing that Theron was staring at him.

“Something wrong?”

“Nope,” he smiled – stuffy and still feeling achy and miserable, but he had someone who had gone out of his way to care about that. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Theron. Now eat so you can take your medicine,” the Sith smiled back affectionately.

[sleepymarmot]

I still have about 200 queued posts (bear with me... and sorry followers on mobile), but I want to quickly publish some of my post-binging thoughts before the new episode comes out. (Because I get overwhelmed by other people’s opinions and can’t remember what my own were unless I write them down. It’s easy to recall which parts I simply loved for what they are because other people did too and I can reblog their posts; it’s harder to not forget my own perspective outside of that.)

I didn’t actually expect to post these opinions because I don’t feel comfortable criticizing TAZ the way I tear apart big franchises like ME. But I did write it down, so what the hell. Let’s start with the biggest piece of negativity then. I can't name a favourite arc but I think the last place is Petals to the Metal. The racing sequence was spectacular enough that I didn't mind the pacing that much, but the final episode was really disappointing. A combination of not actually explicitly confirming the pairing in canon (I seriously expected that would be the culmination of the arc) AND Bury Your Gays (yes, I know Griffin dealt with the feedback gracefully, that doesn't fix the actual story though) AND some extreme railroading AND deus ex machina/Power of Love (at least the latter was retconnet as in not retroactive continuity but retroactive context). That actually put me off the show for some time. I think this moment encapsulates my problems with Hurley's writing pretty well. She really comes off as a Mary Sue written by a self-aware male writer who feels the need to put female characters on a pedestal -- certainly not the most objectionable phenomenon, but still makes my eyes roll. I feel the same about Carey and Killian in The Crystal Kingdom and the recurring remarks about "competent women". (I mean, I understand the gameplay reason for that, it's not that I'm asking for super detailed fights between NPCs, but I didn't like the way it sounded in the story.) Thankfully Carey got some development with Magnus, Killian had a good introduction before that glorification thing started cropping up, and their relationship's good obviously; plus, thankfully, Lucretia is completely free from this (she actually might be my fave NPC in terms of writing).

I think my least favourite part of The Suffering Game is the final past bosses battle? It's not just repetitive -- this repetition, needless in this case, devalues the other instances of our heroes facing the past. The first big one was Noelle (great: surprising, touching, important for the overall plot as we now know), then we had the three robots (I was pretty delighted to see Jenkins and Magic Brian again) even it was more about combat than meaningful facing of past mistakes, then the destruction of Phandolin was seen again in The Eleventh Hour, and only a bit later the setting of the first arc will be revisited once more. So even not counting this scene, it was starting to get a bit navel-gazey, and the complete lack of story relevance of that battle diluted things even more. It kind of sounded like running out of ideas -- I'd prefer any other challenge or just a repeat of the random monster generation. (Btw I totally expected to see the crab from Rockport Limited in that lineup. It's kind of special to me because back I went "Ah a floating crab, yeah feel you boys, I hate fighting Praetorians too, at least this thing doesn't shoot lase--" and then it started shooting fire, lol.)

Back to what I wanted to talk about: I have lots of thoughts/feelings about consequences re: the last episodes. The spoilers I've seen gave me so much anxiety! Like I've read that Magnus loses memory so I completely expected him to lose everything. So I spent a lot of time in complete dread, and when I read "Magnus forgets" in the summary my heart dropped, and then it wasn't that bad at all so I thought "that's it?" and felt relieved until the fucking clone tank. At which point I thought "No, this is it" especially because all of the players interpreted it that way. So I was very surprised and relieved that he kept everything, and that Griffin was so kind to him. But that kinda brought me to another problem -- that the new body undid Magnus's sacrifices. He didn't lose a finger or 10 years of life; the only loss was the identity of his nemesis which a) is a sad thing and he might be happier without it -- I would; and b) the boys promised to take care of that. Meanwhile, Taako and especially Merle have to live with their sacrifices. That's unfair. I was pretty thrilled when I realized the sacrifices were For Real, and was feeling real dread and anxiety about them (can't say if in a wholly good way) and I don't like devaluing that. Though of course I'm pretty jazzed that the character who is at the moment my favourite got treated so well. That scene was cathartic as hell! But back to the sacrifices: I'm intrigued by the problem of balance of hurting the character in a way that's good for narrative and/or game balance (yeah the intent of "let's nerf them a bit" was easy to see) but not compromising them as a piece of writing. I didn't give a shit about max health or dexterity penalties, but the story significant things about losing body parts and especially memories sounded brutal and cruel to me. I actually laughed when during one of the commercial breaks Griffin said something like "I hope this isn't causing you too much anxiety" because I was rushing through this arc because of that anxiety! But in the end, as it often happens, the half-misinterpreted spoilers made everything sound worse than it actually was. And I was very glad and relieved to hear Griffin specifically clarify that he's not going to take away important parts of a character.

But despite what I just said, when I started The Suffering Game arc I was actually amazed because it was second arc in a row built around my personal favorite tropes! I really appreciate Doctor Who-ish journey through genres (that doesn't take itself seriously but also has an epic underlying plot. All my fandoms are the same...) Murder on the Rockport Limited also counts in that category. So if I had to pick a favorite, they'd probably be among the candidates? Well I don't know how to count Reunion Tour for that. I really liked The Eleventh Hour, time travel/time loop stories are like my #1 fave. And it's a closed room mystery too (like Rockport Limited). That was the point where I started listening much faster because I needed to learn the truth. (Also, the Lunar Interlude before that arc, with the three separate stories, was freaking revolutionary and started a new level of character development for the show in general.) But I was kind of disappointed by the lack of a Holmes speech-type explanation of everything in the end. Because a big part of enjoyment was the expectation that it'll all click together beautifully in the end -- and some pieces still didn't fit. I'm still not sure if I missed something or that wasn't explained. Why was Isaak, like our heroes and unlike everyone else in the town, aware of the temporal loops and free to act? What was the interaction between Taako's spell and the code word -- did the spell have any effect other than almost drowning everyone, would "Junebug" have worked by itself? I had some more questions I thing, but right when I was going to pause/think/rest, everything was swept away by the freaking Red Robe Magnus cliffhanger, so I continued to run forward internally screaming "Explain! Explain!" like a Dalek, and then that was joined by the aforementioned Suffering Game anxiety. And that's the story how I marathoned the last part of the show three or more times faster than I planned to.

I really loved listening to TTAZZ, both of them, it was really good meta! I think I started to appreciate the show more after the first one. I can see where the fan criticism re: representation is coming from, but I myself also belong to the category of people who can never visualise their own (or anyone's, really) characters and therefore really love the freedom of interpretation. I'm also a bit sad about the commentary on racism in the new one, which, in addition to the comments about the Taco Quest in the first one, made me pretty sure that storyline/running joke is not coming back. I found it really funny back then in the beginning of the show -- more so because I, myself, have no freaking idea what tacos are actually like. I mean, we might have some mexican food places over here, but I've never been to one. And I intentionally didn't look it up after starting the show because it was funnier and kind of immersive this way lol. But they sound pretty committed to non-committance about the enthnicities, and raising the topic in canon again would force the issue, so I think they're just quietly abandoning it. Story-wise, I'd love to hear something like "Taako had invented a dish and named it after himself, but the voidfish baby ate the recipe so he couldn't recreate it until now" because I'm a sucker for justifying jokes and tying them into the main plot/emotional storyline. But in general I'd prefer any option that offends people the least. I was kind of surprised when Justin talked about abandoning Taako's early "dumb" characterisation, because I hadn't actually thought it was "officially" thrown away. I assumed Taako was just really bad at paying attention, and got better at managing that as a part of organic character development. I actually found that kind of relatable, plus "absent-minded professor/wizard" is a classic trope. Also TTAZZ made me wish even harder for the lost awesome adventure of Magnus and Kravitz in the astral plane. And it was already slightly souring my excitement about the totally awesome & touching scene we got instead.

I didn't really get the exposition about the planes in The Crystal Kingdom, and the long explanation in the latest two episodes require more attention than I gave them. Hope today's episode will make things clearer. Some things I hope to hear explained soon:

Why has Merle died more times than Magnus or Taako?

Also, looking forward to the promised explanation of how Gundren can be Merle's blood relative lol

Why was the Chalice so much more self-aware and civil than the other Relics? Is it related to the fact that its creator has some special connection to the (a?) voidfish?

Was Magnus a wizard before? Being a lich, creating a Grand Relic... If so, why doesn't he have magic now?

If Magnus is a lich, can he one day die and stay in the astral plane with Julia like an ordinary human, like he wanted? If not, that's a pretty big and tragic turn of events for him. (Granted, this might be more of a D&D mechanics question...)

(I actually just found a Reddit thread starting with the same question, discussing whether all 7 are really liches or not, so these two points might not be even valid haha)

(I also saw someone theorize that Lup invented the taco recipe -- and damn I really do want to see that now. Imagine trying to figure out something and later realize that it was created by your dead sister who named that thing after you.)

(I was confused about LichBarry’s reveal because I thought at the end of PTTM he was mind-controlling Captain Captain Bane to poison THB. Someone had the same question and another person answered that Barry’s spell was only to make Captain drink the poison, and the murder attempt was on him. I totally didn’t get that. Between this and my question about “Junebug”, either mind-control spells are not very clearly explained in this show, I suck at understanding them, or both.)

(Shit, this list has transformed from future episodes wishlist into reactions to Reddit lol)

Since I was talking about Taako and Lup, here’s another passing thought: remember how Taako immediately wanted to be Like Them when he saw the lich duo? You know, the elven brother and sister?!

Not related to anything, but I just realized I can wear jeans as a stealth fandom reference and it's delightful :D

[ciathyzareposts]

Realms of Arkania: Road Trip

Map of my journey this session, including an aborted trip south from Phexcaer (ended at the “X”).

            My last entry on Realms of Arkania ended negatively, so I’ll start positively here. I like what I now see as the game’s overall approach:

1. Create a large game world.

2. Seed it with interesting encounters, dungeons, NPCs, and side-quests.

3. Include a main quest that requires the player to plot travel routes through this space.

4. Randomize the order in which clues are received so that no two players take the same route, even if they simply follow the main quest.

This approach makes the most of an open game world, gives a lot of flexibility to the player, and maximizes replayability. And by creating a main quest that is threatening but not critical, the creators provide a logical excuse for detours and side quests rather than making the player invent rationalizations for them.

We’ve seen this approach done well (e.g., Might and Magic, Ultima VI) and poorly (e.g., MegaTraveller II), and we’ll see it again with some of my favorite titles, like Baldur’s Gate and Morrowind. The problem is that there are a lot of ways to screw it up. Story for its own sake rarely supplies enough incentive to explore a lot of side areas (particularly in this era of such limited story-telling), so you have to incentivize exploration with rewards such as character development, wealth, and equipment. But you don’t want to go overboard, lest you create a situation where all the party’s early explorations are extremely hard and all its latter ones are extremely easy.

(Later games would address that concern with level scaling, but I think the concern is a bit overblown in the first place. I’d rather the developers offer a lot of locations of varying difficulty and let the player encounter them organically, choosing whether to tough out difficult locations or save them for later, and choosing whether to massacre Level 1 goblins or let them live in peace. This would maximize replay, too.)

Such incentives are where I think Realms of Arkania does things poorly, though better than either MegaTraveller II or Challenge of the Five Realms. Those games offered essentially no character development, whereas in Arkania it’s just extremely limited, particularly in the area of equipment. With half a dozen inventory slots per character and six characters, I don’t see any reason why every dungeon shouldn’t produce some kind of artifact item except that I guess Das Schwarze Auge‘s rules discourage it. That isn’t to say there haven’t been any equipment rewards. The spider dungeon left me with about a dozen vials of poison that really came in handy later, and some other dungeon produced some Molotov cocktails. I’ve received a few weapon and armor upgrades, mostly of the type that do 3-7 damage instead of 2-6 damage or some other modest increase.

            It’s hard to get excited about a box full of the same old stuff we already have.

             As for other incentives, you naturally get experience points for the battles fought in the side-dungeons and mountain trails and such, but leveling up is slow and rare in this game (3 times in 30 hours), and perhaps worse, it doesn’t seem to palpably affect my characters’ success. Part of the problem is the restriction that you can only try to level-up each combat skill once per level, and other skills can only be leveled up twice.

Nerfing the increase in combat skills is really galling since combat–and I’m sorry to repeat myself but it bears repeating because it’s so bad–takes so goddamned long, mostly because nobody ever hits anyone. Improving everybody’s chance of hitting by 100% (enemies, too) would have kept the same level of difficulty but would have made combats go much faster. In other games, spells would reduce combat time, but in Arkania while you have dozens of spells, you can only cast about three before your spell meter is depleted. Restoring it takes multiple nights of rest. There are potions, but they are rare and expensive. Hence, magic doesn’t play as much of a role in the game as it should. I’m particularly discouraged from casting buffing spells as I explore dungeons.

Thus, we have a game that’s quite enticing in broad strokes but falls apart when you get to some of the details. It deserves a lot of praise for bringing an authentic tabletop experience to the computer, but it deserves a lot of criticism for being perhaps too literal in its adaptation.

As I began this session, I was in far-flung Phexcaer, facing a trip back down river to Vildhome and from there to Thorwal and then to southern cities, where I had a couple more clues. I happened to notice that there was a long route from Phexcaer through forest and mountain to the city of Skelellen, which would allow me to explore the south more systematically, from a region that I probably wouldn’t otherwise visit. I decided to take it.

But the way was more treacherous than I imagined. The party got hopelessly mired in a swamp where we lost items of equipment round after round. I finally pulled the plug, reloaded in Phexcaer, and took the original route.

         Well, that’s a dealbreaker.

          I’m not going to narrate stop-by-stop, but the most important thing to know is that I ran out of clues about halfway through the session. After that, I started exploring somewhat systematically, starting with the southern cities, and making careful note of which cities I’d fully explored and which routes I’d taken from city to city. Even though this promised to be a long process, I started to enjoy myself more during it, partly because of the enormous variety of encounters between cities. Some just involved a night on the road, some had a simple encounter with an NPC, and some took me for a two-hour exploration of a two-level dungeon. 

Remember that you’re not actually moving your party across the landscape in this game. You just pick where you want to go, and the game shows its progress along the route as the sun moves across the sky. Every night, you’re forced to camp. Rather than carry a bunch of food and water, I’ve typically relied on Bart de Wald’s survival, hunting, and tracking skills. As long as he can find both food and water at least once every two nights, which he almost always does, then the party is fine.

             Nariell finds dinner.

            Similarly, I’ve stopped carrying a lot of extra equipment like shovels, picks, rope, and blankets for the road. If I run across an encounter that requires them, I’ll reload and buy them before setting out. Until then, they just keep pestering me with over-encumbrance messages. I had been living so lavishly at inns (always buying meals, always paying for suites) that I noticed my funds were taking a precipitous dip. I needed those inventory spaces for looted equipment.

Highlights from the road:

                Outside of Thorwal, I ran into a bard named Olvir who offered to sing us the song of Hyggelik when we camped for the night. We said yes, but he proceeded to sign an extremely long version of the saga, followed by another epic tale of the Hetman of Thorwal. After every hour, the game gave me a chance to tell him to knock it off for the night, but I persisted, and he finally wrapped up at about 4:00 in the morning. His tale would have given us a few new clues, but we’d already visited the NPCs that he mentioned.

Upon returning to Thorwal, I finished exploring the Old Fortress. There were three more interconnected levels and some battles with some undead. A lot of chests just served up regular weapons and shields, but one final chest provided us with six bottles of “Hylailic Fire,” which seem to hit one creature for 20 damage with 100% accuracy in combat. The last level exited up to a store in the main city, saving us a long trip back. That was nice.

               Maybe the game would be better if there were something “even remotely interesting to find” in those old bones?

              South of Thorwal, in Breida, we met another one of the descendants of Hyggelik’s party, Asgrimm Thurboldsson. I tried the conversation several times, but he didn’t seem to have a map piece. He just recounted the story of Hyggelik’s defeat and his great-grandfather’s involvement.

           Asgrimm would rather you ask about his great-grandfather than Hyggelik.

                 The NPC Nariell left me when I traveled to Varnhome. I don’t know if her departure was random, scripted by location, or scripted by time.

In Varnhome, I found my last “clued” NPC whose location I knew for sure, Eliane Windenbek. She agreed to help me if I would destroy an attempt to resurrect worship in an evil god on the island of Hjalland. After I did that, I returned and got my fifth map piece.

         An NPC sends me on a small side quest.

          The only city on Hjalland is Ljasdahl, and its buildings didn’t have any hint of the evil god. I was wondering how I could possibly explore the rest of the island with no other city to travel to, but it turns out that Ljasdahl has eastern and western exits, and if you take one, you loop around the island to arrive at the other.

In between, I found the “vault,” as the game had it. It was two levels, both quite hard because of the combats and the traps. I had to return to Ljasdahl a couple of times for rest, healing, and selling items. I don’t know about traps in this game. Some I seem to avoid with high “Danger Sense” or “Perception,” but others seem to be pre-programmed to damage the party no matter what. The temple had the first puzzle that required me to split the party (one character had to hold down a lever). I went through the temple smashing all of the god’s statues, killed his high priest, overturned his profane altar, and kept a figurine to prove my success to Eliane. A monetary reward in one of the chests for 250 ducats covered my expenses for a long while.

             Hitting a priest with a spell.

            While I was out in the islands, I sailed around a bit looking for the pirate queen, Swafnild Egilsdotter. I finally found her when I stepped on the port square in Prem, but I had the wrong character in the lead position and wasn’t able to get a favorable outcome from my questioning. After a reload and a shuffling of the party, she agreed to give me her map piece, but it must have duplicated one I already had because I still just had four.

Between Ottarje and Daspota, we elected to stay at an inn for the night. Hearing noises beneath the floorboards in the middle of the night, se soon found ourselves exploring a two-level cellar with zombies and skeletons. The dungeon’s final battle was with an alchemist (who had been raising the undead, presumably) and his chest contained an alchemy set, several elixirs, and several recipes–a better “final chest” than most dungeons so far.

             There was a cool statue in the dungeon that I couldn’t interact with.

           Daspota is an interesting city. It looks like every other city, but instead of shops, all of the buildings are full of pirates in foul moods. Most visits lead to combats.

           Daspota hospitality.

            Between Daspota and Rybon, we found a dying adventurer who told us that “the Daspota treasure” could be found “ten miles beyond Rybon.”

          Text is better than nothing, but I’m looking forward to the era in which this just happens, without a textbox describing it to us.

         Unfortunately, we couldn’t progress past Rybon (on the way to Thoss) because it’s winter, and that’s a narrow mountain pass. I’m not sure if we can’t progress period or if we need more cold-weather gear in our inventories before the game will let us try.

                     What if I’m willing to risk suicide?

                I’m debating what to do next. There might be a map piece in Thoss. If not, I’m probably stuck, having screwed up too many opportunities to get the map pieces from the early NPC visits–something for which I would definitely blame the game for not making clear. Even if I get it, and it doesn’t duplicate one that I have, I’ll only have six, and there are slots for nine. I don’t know how many is enough. I also don’t know if I need to assemble a certain percentage as a “trigger” or if I can simply visually interpret what I see and use that to find Hyggelik’s tomb. If the latter, I would guess it’s somewhere near Phexcaer, but a commenter suggested that it’s more complicated than that.

           Where I am with the map.

                Other notes:

    Broken weapons are seriously annoying. Despite what sounds (from the manual) like low probablity of a weapon breaking in combat, it seems to happen to one of my characters about every two battles. The worst part is, I don’t think there’s any way to tell that a weapon is broken (if you miss when it happens) aside from returning to a town and seeing if the smith wants to charge you to fix it.

I’m playing with sound completely off. There’s a grating three-note cacophony that plays every time you open a menu, and I can no longer stand it.

Somehow, it escaped me until late in the game that opening the “Information” tool in each town gives you a quick description of the town. This adds some life to the game.

            A nice one-paragraph description of an island town.

         I got my wand fully enchanted this session. Wands can be enchanted in four stages, each one taking almost all your magic points. You have to do it in camp at night. The second stage turns it into a permanent source of light, so you no longer have to cast spells or keep torches. The third stage allows it to conjure 10 paces of rope when you need it; the last reduces the amount of mana needed to cast spells by 2.

I tried messing with alchemy, but I didn’t have enough recipes to make it useful. This seems like one of those games where it’s easier just to sell alchemical ingredients and buy potions.

              I think I’m going to linger around Daspota for a while, using the pirates as an excuse to grind some experience points (maybe I’ll gain a level) and wait for winter to be over so I can continue to Thoss. If you think I’m in danger of a “walking dead” situation because of those map pieces, I won’t turn down a hint.

Time so far: 30 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/realms-of-arkania-road-trip/

[thelongestdamnreviews]

Another Metroid II Remake

This review covers v1.2.10, and I didn't know 1.3.1 was already out by the time I finished.  I used an Xbox 360 controller and according to the final stats screen, it took me 4h47m44s to finish the game, with 84% item completion.  I got locked out of the extra features because I suck, but more on those later.

I own the original Metroid II and I only beat it once many years ago, with a clear time of 10h07m.  I don't really remember much about it, other than I got lost about constantly.  No, I didn't make maps.  It was okay but I didn't really get into it.  I haven't gone back because I'm honestly spoiled by things like the automap.  I haven't beaten the original Metroid because of that, actually.  But yeah, my poor memory of the original will lead to poor comparisons, so forgive me for that ahead of time. 

Another Metroid 2 Remake looks to try to give this game the Zero Mission treatment.  A bigger view area, actual colors, better spritework, more items, new items that weren't in the original Metroid 2, new bosses...  It sucks that this was DCMA'd by Nintendo, though who would've thought they were remaking this game too after the poor reception of Other M and Federation Force? 

The story's still the same as in original Metroid II.  The Galactic Federation, realizing the threat that the Metroids serve to the galaxy's peace, orders Samus Aran to go exterminate them on their homeworld of SR388.  You land and leave your ship and prepare to start kicking ass all over the planet.  Things are a little bit different now and that extends to more than just the graphics. 

Parts of the original game were changed around to account for new content such as Power Bombs and the Speed Booster.  You still have the hidden tank upgrades that require different powerups to access, but that's typical Metroid for you.  You get items in a different order and because beams actually stack in this game, you don't need to remember where the Ice Beam was before you tackle the final area.  You actually get the Ice Beam near the end of the game, but you get Space Jump relatively early so you're still free to explore without your floating platforms.  I might not've been paying attention in other games, but this was the first time I noticed that destructible blocks could actually regenerate themselves after a moment.  Not all of them do that but it's one of those things that got me to do a double-take. 

Pretty neat puzzle involving you steering an Autoad to drop Super Missiles onto platforms to make a path for Samus. 

Fighting Metroids in this game is between annoying and dangerous.  I remember in the original M2, you just plugged them with missiles as fast as you could when they appeared.  That still largely applies here but this time you need to hit them in their soft undersides or your missiles will just bounce off.  All of the Metroids have new attacks, like the Alphas having a charge attack or a quick move to avoid your shots, and the Zeta and Omega Metroids no longer fly and they're a lot bigger too.  You still have the warning signs of the discarded shells before you encounter one, though be prepared for a sudden SKREE and fight.  The short cutscenes introducing the next evolutionary step were a nice bonus too.

  There are new bosses as well, some of which come from come from other Metroid games.  You encounter Serris for example near the end of the game, serving as a nice bonus callback to Fusion since Serris is from SR388 too.  Some of the new bosses are mechanical in nature, owing to the Chozo being a technologically-advanced race, so expect to get shot at with beams and missiles at some points.  There's a Logbook feature somewhat like the Prime series that automatically scans new environments and bosses, and that can give you hints about what you're fighting. 

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?” “I didn’t take nuffin’, honest!”

I don't remember the music in Metroid II at all, apart from the main cave theme, the final area theme, and the repetitive Metroid fight theme.  Everything else was ambient.  The music in AM2R takes some cues from the Prime series with the instrumentation, but nothing about it was bad.  The composers deserve credit for making the Metroid fight themes actually high-tempo without sounding like a fast copy of the intro to the Jaws theme.  The sound effects worked fine and there's no voice work except for the very end of the game for a well-known pair of lines. 

Controls were fine and there were several options, such as having the Spider Ball be a hold button or toggle, if aiming was Super Metroid styled with L and R aiming down and up, or like Zero Mission where you stayed diagonal and pressed up or down to switch, and so on.  I think I used the dedicated Morph Ball button more than the usual way of doing it too.  Speed Booster works like in Fusion/ZM with just running until it activates instead of there being a run button like in Super.  There's an option to use the analog stick to have Samus walk, but I never used this and I don't think there's any place it actually is useful, but it's nice to see a rarely-used animation. 

Guess who’s coming to dinner.

I thought the graphics work was great.  They went for sprites and 2D as opposed to Metroid Samus Returns' 3D on a 2D plane, so it has more in line with the GBA games.  The way sprites are rotated in Gamemaker Studio was kinda off but you don't really see it too much (for example, Samus' gunship coming in to land at an angle before leveling off is where it was most obvious for me).  I kinda wish I had a comparison spritesheet but everything in general is just more detailed.  Having an actual background that isn't stark black is a big improvement in any case.  A nice touch was how a couple of areas had entirely different door designs even though they worked the same as normal. 

Speaking of doors...

Difficulty felt about right for Normal, but I hear Hard Mode lives up to its name.  Enemies do a lot more damage and they have some new tactics, but I'm not brave enough to dive into that.  I died to a couple of bosses on Normal just by virtue of taking too much damage without being able to respond in turn.  Omega Metroids had their damage output nerfed in 1.1 but I think the recent fanmade updates put their numbers back where they were, so prepare to lose a few Energy Tanks to each one you fight.  A few bosses at least give you things to shoot to spawn recovery items, so that's some relief. 

Every single one of those dots ignores mercy invincibility.  Every single one of those dots can activate the other bombs.  This is how Metroid can become a bullet hell.  

If you clear the game in under four hours, you unlock New Game+ and Random Game+.  Both set the lava level down low so you're given a lot more freedom to explore and get items in a different order than the linear nature of the game originally allowed, but Random Game+ completely changes the order of items so you might end up getting the Screw Attack very early or Power Bombs instead of regular Bombs, for example.  New Game+ doesn't start you with any previous equipment you had so it's a little bit of a misnomer, but you can always use a save editor to give you some extras before you head out. 

Overall, I enjoyed the game, short as it was.  It's a hell of a lot better than the original Metroid II, not like that's particularly hard to pull off.  I dunno if I want to go back through the game to finish in under four to unlock the extra features, but at least that's something that'll get me to come back, as will future updates.  Part of the DMCA clause said that the original creator of this fangame couldn't work on any more updates, so fans have reverse-engineered what they can and are continuing to bugfix and add small content to the game, like giving the Queen Metroid a new attack and there's plans for a post-credits stinger revealing the X Parasites coming out of dormancy now their predator is long gone... 

Record of Samus