#but that npc DID almost start changing in front of fortune! however he is a gentleman and Immediately Looked Away

[mars-ipan]

i love my friands :]

[obstinate-docbot]

“It started when we were trying to stop an evil man named The Mechanic from stealing a strange looking mother board from a warehouse of old school electronic devices. We chased him down until eventually we stopped him and got the motherboard back. We knew something wasn’t right though. Why would he want that particular motherboard? We decided to investigate his layer which was inside an old abandoned arcade. While inside the abandoned arcade, Jay found an arcade cabinet for a supposedly unreleased game called Prime Empire.” Kai explained.

“He was determined to get the machine working so he could play it, so while we went to investigate one of the back rooms, Jay stayed and tried to get the game working. While were in the back room, we came across a computer with a voice asking us if we had located the motherboard. When Zane told it we did, it said, Unagami is pleased. Activate the game. Then it shut off. Then there was this blast of energy that shot through the whole city. We all hurried back to tell Jay of our findings, but when we returned to the front room...Jay was gone. After some more investigating, we discovered that not only was Jay inside the Prime Empire game, but multiple machines all throughout the city had started changing into the Prime empire game and multiple people were also disappearing inside it! We also found out the creator of the game was a man named Milton Dyer. He was a recluse and he lived on an island in a mansion. When we arrived on the island, however, he wasn’t there. His intern Bob was though. The poor guy has been waiting thirty years for a promotion Milton promised to give him. He told us Milton never finished the game because something went horribly wrong during development and the company he used to work for fired him. Milton wasn’t happy and according to Bob said they’d be sorry one day. We were all certain that Milton was actually Unagami.” Lloyd explained. “Then we headed to Borg industries where Cole played the original cabinet and got to level thirteen. Cole, myself, Kai, May-Lynn, and Nya all headed inside the game while Zane and Pixal stayed behind. They couldn’t enter the game because the coding was so complex it could completely format their memory drives.”

“Inside the game, it was amazing. We ended up in a huge city full of all sort of different players. Unfortunately that joy didn’t last long as we were almost immediately attacked by an army of evil red visor robots. We tried to do Spinjitzu and use our powers, but we couldn’t. It was as though all our hard earned ninja skills had been deleted. Fortunately we were saved by Jay....or so we thought. It turned out to be a group of people dressed as Jay. They were from the league of Jays and they helped us find Jay. As they were leading us to the real Jay, we were attacked again and Kai fell off the building we were on and lost a life. However, he came back. But that was when he got a bit too cocky.” May-Lynn said.

“Yep...I was an idiot. I thought we had unlimited lives in the game, so I kept letting enemies kill me. By the time we reached the location where Jay was, I only had one life left. We met a man named Scott. He was a mechanic and he had been inside Prime empire since the beginning. He was a beta tester. The only beta tester. He said we had four life’s in the game and I had used up three. After that, I was super careful. Scott led us to Jay who was dressed up in a rock and roll suit and calling himself Superstar Rockin Jay.”

“I was so happy to see my friends again. And now we had one mission. To take down Unagami and free all the people trapped inside the game. We all got ninja suits similar to the one Lloyd got for Christmas last year and we made our way to the first area, Terracarana. It was there we met an NPC named Okino. He was a samurai guide who was programmed to fail every mission. But with our help, he broke his programming and we were able to obtain the first Keytana after traveling through the forest of discontent, climbing the cliffs of hysteria, and making our way through the maze of the red dragon and taking the down the dragon on the other side. Then we headed to our next location. A city called TerraTechnica. In order to obtain the next Keytana, we had to beat a dangerous race called the Speedway five billion. After Nya and I got the credits we needed to enter the race, all that was left to do was to get our vehicles. We met up with Scott again, and he lent us some of his race cars, but we were still short one.”

“May-Lynn and I went to investigate the race track and see what we could learn. It was there we met an NPC driver named Racer Seven. She was an amazing racer. Unfortunately, she had been programmed to lose every race. She always wiped out at the exact same mile marker. But my sister and I saw something in her. We knew she could break her programming, just like Okino did and win the race. We were eventually able to recruit her onto our race team, which Jay decided to name, Fast Chickens. The day of the race arrived and it was intense. We ended up winning, but it came at a cost. Both Kai and Cole lost their last lives and were cubed. When a player is cubed, they turn into an orange cube and they’re sucked up by a robot and taken away to Unagami. It was only myself, May-Lynn, Jay, and Nya who were left.” Lloyd sighed. “The last Keytana was at the end of an area that was set up like those old school games where if you lost you had to start from the beginning again. It took us so many tries, but we eventually reached the end. To get the last Keytana, we had to defeat an NPC boss of the game’s choice. I volunteered to fight the boss. And......it ended up being an NPC of...of Harumi. I nearly had an episode, but I held myself together.”

“We watched Lloyd fight the NPC Harumi and she tried to trick him into thinking she was the real Harumi and she felt bad for hurting him. Lloyd saw through it though and took her down. But....on the final blow...they were both hit. NPC Harumi was defeated. But....so was Lloyd. He:..He sacrificed his last life and he...he was cubed.” May-Lynn teared up. “After the flying robot took his cube form away, all that was left of him was his pendent. Jay picked it up and gave it to me, telling me Lloyd would want me to hold on to it as a reminder to stay strong. I cried uncontrollably while holding my brother’s pendent close.”

“Once we got May-Lynn to calm down, we headed to Unagami’s temple. We fought our way to the top and things were looking up. But then....as we reached the door where Unagami was, where we had to put the keys in, Nya....N-Nya was shot by a rogue NPC and she was cubed. I-I was heartbroken. I felt like crying. My wife was...she was gone. All that was left of her was an orange cube. But I knew I had to be strong. Me and May-Lynn had to be strong. We were the only ones left. I put the keys in the locks and the door opened up. Unagami was on the other side. And you know those cubes? He was using them to build and power up a portal to Ninjago. Nya’s cube was the last one he needed. I summoned a techno dragon that I had accumulated back at that maze and May-Lynn and I rode after him through the portal back to Ninjago. Here’s where this all goes crazy, okay? Remember how we said we thought Milton was Unagami? Well we were so wrong! It turned out, Unagami was actually the game itself. Or rather, it was the working title of Prime Empire. Unagami is a shortened version of the full working name. Unfinished Adventure Game One. Miltons game was so advanced it was actually sentient. But Milton didn’t realize this. He programmed the game to be as immersive as possible and allow players to experience gaming in a way they never had before. But after the game quite literally let the beta tester, Scott, go inside the game, Milton quickly shut down the project and never finished the game. Unagami wanted to come to Ninjago to confront Milton about why he abandon the game...why he abandoned him, when he only did what he had been programmed to do. All this time, Unagami was never really a bad guy. He was just hurt and confused about why his creator....his father...abandoned him. Milton confronted Unagami and he sincerely apologized to him and guess what? Unagami forgave him. And he freed all the players from the game, including all the ones that had been cubed. I was so happy to see Nya again that I ran up to her and we kissed right on the lips.” Jay smiled.

“And Lloyd and I were extremely happy to see each other too. We gave each other the biggest hug and then I gave Lloyd his pendent back.” May-Lynn smiled. “Everyone was safe and now Milton and Unagami were living together as father and son.”

Ratchet was in the Autobot headquarters on earth in Jasper Nevada. While the other members of team prime were busy entertaining the human children, Ratchet was busy in his medical bay, typing up some reports on the computer. He wasn’t alone, however, he had a child with him. A young human girl named Riley. She had joined team prime a month ago, and after bonding with the medi bot, Ratchet decided to become her guardian.

The young girl was watching Ratchet type away on the computer. Ratchet didn’t seem to mind as she was much calmer and quieter than the other kids.

@futuremysteryshack

[postgamecontent]

The Summer of Adventure: Threads of Fate

Original Release Date: October 14, 1999 (JPN)

Original Hardware: Sony PlayStation

I'll open this article with a little honesty. I had trouble with Threads of Fate, both playing it and writing about it. As with Legend of Mana, this was my first experience with the game. Unlike Legend of Mana, Threads of Fate wasn't better than I was expecting, or even as good as I had imagined. Fortunately, it's also not a bad game by any means, but it lacks a certain something. In reading up on the game's development, it became clear why I had trouble investing myself in this game. It's not meant to be a deep game or even a very serious one. The intended vibe was something like a cartoon for kids, and with that knowledge in tow, its lack of narrative substance or mechanical complexity makes complete sense. Still, this is the Summer of Adventure. I made my way through the game and am now trying to get this write-up together instead of just ignoring it and playing Chrono Cross.

I'm not sure where I got the idea that Threads of Fate was done by the same team as the 1998 action RPG Brave Fencer Musashi, but I was completely mistaken. Given how close their release dates were, I suppose that's understandable. Instead, the development team was largely filled with veterans of Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, along with a surprising amount of new faces. Even among those with experience, many team members were taking on new roles. Chief among them was Koji Sugimoto, the game's director. Sugimoto had only done programming work for the company before this game, with his debut being in the role of a visual programmer on Chrono Trigger. He was just 20 years old when that game was released, but somehow only a few years later was given the reins of a fairly major production. Threads of Fate would be the only game released where he served as a director. After that, he returned to his programming duties on titles such as Final Fantasy 10 and Crisis Core.

There are a number of notable staff members who contributed to the game. Makoto Shimamoto is credited with the original story idea and the event planning. He would be among the developers who left Square to continue the Xeno series at Monolith. Shimamoto was one of the main designers of the battle systems found in Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Xenoblade. Like many members of Monolith, he also made contributions to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though the exact nature of his work on that title will likely remain a mystery. Threads of Fate's scenario was written by Daisuke Watanabe. At the time, he was a fresh face, but he would go on to earn writing credits on the entire Kingdom Hearts series, along with Final Fantasy 10, 12, 13, 13-2, and Lightning Returns. The soundtrack was composed by Junya Nakano in a rare solo effort. Nakano can frequently be found collaborating with Masashi Hamauzu on games such as Front Mission: Gun Hazard and Final Fantasy 10.

With all of that talent and more on board, you might expect something big from Threads of Fate. It's important to remember, however, that many of these future stars were still near the start of their respective careers. There's a sense of tentativeness about Threads of Fate that may well spring from that. It's not so much that the game lacks confidence, so to speak, but that it almost seems afraid of attracting too much attention. Indeed, as Square games of this era go, Threads of Fate might be the most forgotten. It's not the most thrilling or epic, nor is it memorably terrible, or even particularly unique. The interesting or unusual things it does do have failed to make much of a mark in the general gaming consciousness. As an example, one of the heroes of the game, Rue, wields one of those ridiculous-looking pizza-slicer weapons, but whenever that particular Square quirk is brought up, it's always in reference to Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2. 

According to an interview that director Sugimoto did with Gather Your Party a couple of years ago, Threads of Fate was built to satisfy three major goals. Like others on the team, he was just coming off of Xenogears, and he couldn't help but wonder if kids would be able to understand or enjoy games like that. He felt that kids were future customers that weren't exactly well-served by many of Square's games. Sugimoto wisely believed that for the sake of the company's future, they ought to start addressing that audience. As a programmer, Sugimoto really enjoyed doing 3D coding. Very little of Square's output at that time was in full 3D, so he wanted his game to cover that, as well. Finally, since this was his first shot at the director's chair, he wanted to come out of the gates with something exciting and lively.

Did he accomplish those goals? Well, to an extent, I guess he did. There's no denying that Threads of Fate is more kid-friendly than things like Final Fantasy 8 and Xenogears. The story certainly has some characteristically Square-like twists to it, but the tone is closer to a children's anime than the usual angsty teen adventure Square was largely turning out at the time. There are plenty of silly jokes, goofy expressions, and bits of physical comedy that help maintain that cartoony mood, and the game's true ending is really just an open-ended bridge to the next adventure. The gameplay is similarly light. Overall, there aren't many systems to grapple with, and each of the two heroes will only have to deal with a portion of them during their playthrough. Map designs are largely straightforward, and the combat system doesn't go much farther than stick-and-move. The difficulty is somewhat low in all respects. A single playthrough runs 15-20 hours or so, but you'll have to reach the end with both characters if you want to see an extra scene. That's a little on the longer side for an action-RPG, but I could imagine someone enjoying bashing things around for that length of time, even if I didn't.

For a fully polygonal game, Threads of Fate looks and runs quite well. Square was generally fond of using a mix of 2D and 3D assets in this period. Using 2D backgrounds freed up resources to make the 3D main characters look better than you would expect from the PlayStation, so it was a pretty good choice for the kinds of games Square was making. Threads of Fate went all-in on the polygons, and it's fairly impressive in that context. Comparing Threads of Fate to Brave Fencer Musashi makes it seem like the former is almost an entire generation ahead. While it's not quite as attractive as Mega Man Legends, it has a similar sort of appeal to its visuals. Come to think of it, the sense of humor isn't far off from that game's, either. The game makes good use of its 3D visuals with dynamic camera angles and combat mechanics that take the added visual depth into account.

While I won't go so far as to accuse the game of being dull, I think it's in the director's third goal that it stumbles the most. If the aim was to make something exciting and lively, I'd say that the team only halfway accomplished that. Amusingly enough, its main failure can be found in one of its notable selling points. The game has two protagonists, Rue and Mint. While they are both working towards the same goal, their narrative paths are quite different. The stories frequently cross over with each other, but the tone of each is quite distinct. Rue is seeking a relic that he hopes can bring his friend back to life. He ends up on a typical Square quest for identity once his origins are revealed. Unfortunately, his personality is exceptionally boring. The game is aware of that and hangs a hat on it often, but hanging a hat on something doesn't remove it from the room. Mint seeks the same relic, but for totally childish and selfish purposes. She wants to show up her younger sister and take over the world. She's a total brat, and she only evens out a little bit over the course of the game, thank goodness.

From a story standpoint, Rue's quest seems to be trying more, but it ends up being far too cliche. It also drags you through some really awful existential speeches. By contrast, Mint's story is a breath of fresh air. It's silly, shallow, and not afraid to be completely stupid if it thinks that will earn a chuckle. She's a princess who likes to jump-kick first and ask questions later, and she has an acute phobia of pumpkins that the game milks for all it's worth. I'll go as far as to say that the optimal playthrough of Threads of Fate is to play Mint's quest first, and then just leave it at that. Your only reward for doing Rue's side of things is an avalanche of Pinocchio winks and a brief cut-scene that sets up a never-to-come sequel.

It extends to more than just the story, though. Rue and Mint also have different gameplay styles. Mint can cast a variety of useful magic spells. Her repertoire constantly expands over the course of the game, and the only catch is that you need to keep an eye on your MP. Those points will slowly restore as you whack away at the enemies with physical attacks, giving the gameplay a nice balance between safe ranged strikes and risky but necessary close combat. Rue is a little different. He can change his shape into the forms of the enemies he fights. Unfortunately, he can only change into the last five enemies he has encountered, which makes that ability very unreliable. Rue has to depend more on his trusty weapon. Given the general lack of zip in the melee combat, it makes for a long slog. I suppose it's cool on paper, and I can't deny that it's an innovative way to introduce some puzzles outside of the normal action-RPG stuff.

Threads of Fate is at its best when it's being goofy. Its serious moments have been done many times before, and far better. But when it starts parading out its cast of bizarre NPCs, it's hard not to smile a little. Characters like the star-obsessed Duke, the self-absorbed Rod, or the garish Fancy Mel are not only weird and wonderful in their own right, they bounce off of the heroes really well. Especially Mint, who is frankly having none of this foolishness even as she is cranking up the absurdity all on her own. The game's localization doesn't try very hard taking any of this seriously, and although it comes off as rough and amateurish in places, neither of those qualities are particularly out of place in both this game and its era. The overall courseness that the English script is prone to is practically a perfect match for the bratty Mint, who isn't nearly as elegant or amazing as she thinks she is.

Had I encountered the game in the right time or place, I might have liked Threads of Fate better. It has charm to burn and it's certainly competent in most regards. I guess the problem is that it doesn't seem all that interested in being anything more than that. And while it's not a terribly long game in the grander scheme, any enjoyment to be gleaned from the gameplay is exhausted well before the credits roll on even the first playthrough. That's a long ride on silly jokes alone. That said, it's not hard to find people who absolutely adore the game, and it certainly got its fair share of positive reviews in its time. It's also probably unfair to expect so much from a game that was explicitly designed to appeal to children. Again, it's not a bad game at all. I'm not displeased that I played it. But I also didn't take much away from the game, so it's hard to say if people with no existing connection to it should bother diving back in time to give it a go. 

Previous: Legend of Mana

Next: Chrono Cross

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[ciathyzareposts]

Rome: Pathway to Power – Out of the Fire

Written by Reiko

Hector’s Journal #1: “Someone’s going to want to know eventually how a simple slave managed to get so far. I am hardly a simple slave, at least now, but I’d like to think that I was never ordinary. Yet you could say that I just got lucky, at least at first. It all started on the worst and best day of my life up to that point. It was certainly the worst day of the lives of a lot of other people.“

First, I’m probably going to want to complain about the controls a lot, so let’s just get that out of the way first, and then we can concentrate on the plot. Hector wanders around, often even when I haven’t told him where to go, and when I do, the pathfinding is very inconsistent. For a game with time limits, this is not helpful. One time I clicked on a square to have Hector walk in one direction along a wall, and instead he started going the other way, as if he was trying to go around the wall instead. The one mitigating factor is that the map is interactive: it’s basically like a very zoomed-out version of the whole level, with the current locations of all the people (unlabeled, but you can see in general where people are) displayed in real time, and clicking zooms back in and starts Hector moving to the selected location. It’s actually far easier to navigate using the map screen than the regular screen, just because the view is so narrow.

Also, I discovered that if I click on an NPC, Hector yells “Excuse me” or some such, and the person stops moving for a minute, which gives me a chance to do a “greet” or “inquire” action on them. Better than trying to talk to moving people when the people are so tiny. However, when there are multiple people in close proximity to each other, it’s still difficult to click on a specific one.

Those little sprites are hardly distinguishable, so I hope this is the right guy.

I started at the beginning again after not making much progress in my introductory look at the game. This time I started talking to people right away and noticed that Hector kept asking about someone named Fellonius. One person directed me to the villa with two fountains in front. That was a pretty distinctive location on the map, so I pointed Hector in that direction (and waited at least a minute while he wandered over) and found the nobleman called Fellonius Moronicus. What a name. (Incidentally, Google tells me there is apparently a Swedish Minecraft Youtuber called Fellonius the Wizard.)

Just a comment here on Latin greetings. From what I can tell, it’s a little odd to use “Vale” like this. The more common greeting would have been “Ave”. “Vale” seems to be more like “goodbye” or “farewell”.

Is this guy going to be important again later?

I also noticed that Hector has a message in his “use” list, which is basically inventory. Ah, maybe he’s on a delivery mission. So I tried using the message on Fellonius. That was correct. Fellonius was grateful for the message, gave me three sesterces (what a convenient amount!), and asked me to keep this exchange secret. I don’t know how I would tell anyone anyway, given that my dialog options seem to be limited to “greet” and “inquire.” But okay then.

Hector’s mother probably is either dead already (life expectancy for new mothers was not very good in those times) or somewhere else.

On the way to the docks, I ran into a dagger merchant selling daggers for three sesterces. I decided trying to get a ride away from the city was far more worthwhile than a dagger. Later I came across another merchant selling “lucky dice” for only two sesterces. I didn’t bother trying to buy those either, as I suspected any luck they may have had would not have been sufficient to deal with an erupting volcano.

Social inequality at its finest. But not unexpected, really.

Unfortunately, the boat owner wants nothing to do with Hector as a slave. He’ll only take citizens. So Hector needs a class upgrade, stat. I wander around a little more and come across people heading to the baths. Everyone knows Romans went to the baths all the time. So, not having a better plan, I head up to the baths also. Now, the next part was somewhat accidental. When I started talking to people (who mostly had very little to say), I noticed I had two new “do” options: “pay” (since I now had some money on me), and “steal”. Well, that last option was intermittent. I moved around a little and then saw that people would take off their clothing and just leave it by the pool when they went in.

Hmm, clothing…sure enough, I could do a “steal” action on someone’s outfit. I exited the bath area right away, just in case someone was upset about this, but everyone seemed to be quite intent on their baths, and nothing happened. Then I “used” the clothing I picked up, and Hector changed into what appeared to be a citizen’s white toga. Well, that’s one way to get an upgrade, I guess. After all, it’s a matter of life or death here.

At some point during this sequence, the storm arrived, and the volcano began its eruption. I hurried back down toward the docks to find the boat owner again. Along the way, I encountered a woman who thought she recognized me, but addressed me as a citizen. Clearly the new clothing is doing its job. By the time I get back to the docks, the eruption is well underway, and the townsfolk are panicking.

What’s next for our newest citizen?

This time when I talk to the boat owner, he’s content to let me have a place on the boat…for a price. I “pay” him my three sesterces, and we quickly escape Herculaneum and head to a much more happening place: Rome.

Hector arrives in Rome a free man.

The second level begins with a little cut-scene of Hector disembarking in Rome, presumably with high hopes of being able to rise even higher in a city where nobody knows he was once a slave.

Map of the second level.

Fortunately, the map of Rome is actually labeled. Why couldn’t they have put a few useful labels on the map of Herculaneum? Having “Baths”, “Villa”, “Temple”, and “Docks” would have been much better than nothing, and consistent enough with the Rome labels. No, you have to wander around blindly until you figure out what things are.

Even so, things start happening almost right away, and just knowing what places are doesn’t really help with figuring out what’s important and what Hector should be doing. Almost immediately I get hints that Fellonius did indeed survive Vesuvius and is also here in Rome. In the Senate, I find Gaius Maneus, one of the two Consuls of Rome. According to his description, Fellonius is the other.

Announcement of a slave auction.

Soon I hear an announcement that a slave auction will begin shortly. I go to the Forum and watch various citizens compete to buy several slaves. Then, almost right away, another announcement comes, this time that there will be a contest. I go up to the Colosseum to watch this. The guards have a champion slave, and citizens are invited to have their slaves fight the champion to win a prize of at least 40 sesterces, 50 if the slave has already won a bout. Given that a good slave could cost at least 20, this may or may not be a good deal. Well, definitely not if the slave doesn’t win against the champion, of course.

Hector wants to see the Emperor, desperately.

I go by the Palace, just to see what’s there, and the answer is, nothing. Not for Hector, anyway. The Emperor is there, but the guards bounce Hector away if I get too close to the doorway. The guards say they can’t let him in, unless…well, they don’t say, but clearly there’s a way in somehow. Possibly a bribe, but Hector would need money for that.

I don’t really know why Hector seems intent on seeing the Emperor anyway. He wants to be the Emperor, but he’s still a long way from that. I may be jumping ahead of the plot here, actually. I think somewhere in the blurbs I heard that the second level has something to do with protecting the Emperor from a plot, so it’s likely that later we’ll uncover something that makes it important to see the Emperor.

I also run into an assortment of colorful characters. There’s “Kristophalus Gratuitus”, an assassin (ooh, dangerous). “Iambicus Pentametrus”, a poet (clearly the name is based on the poetic meter iambic pentameter). The slave trader’s name was given as “Laborius Domesticus”. And then there’s a “wife” whose name is given only as “Erotica.” Have fun with that one, guys. Nearly all the names are jokes of some kind rather than sensible Roman names.

Hector is very polite about asking for rooms.

Later I go by the Hostel and find a woman renting rooms for one sesterce a night. This seems reasonable, except that I still haven’t found any way to earn money, aside from having a winning slave in the Colosseum, which requires buying the slave first.

As time passes, more announcements arrive. After the first slave auction and Colosseum contest, a little later there is a second round. I don’t bother going to these, but wander around some more. At one point, I actually run into Fellonius at the Forum (where the slave auctions occur, but not during an auction). I try greeting him, but he rudely tells me to keep out of his way. Despite the citizen clothing, he’s recognized me. Hmm, he’s probably up to something.

Rather anachronistic.

Eventually I end up in the Senate again and stumble on a debate between Gaius the consul and someone else about various governmental issues, including sewers, road bypasses, and religion. It’s all played for humor, such as using the Catacombs as an “underpass” instead of a bypass.

Evening is represented by Bacchus.

During this debate, time advances to evening, which changes the backdrop of the main screen from a bright woman with a harp (Minerva?) to Bacchus, with a handful of grapes. Later, when time advances to night-time, the backdrop changes to Diana, with a full moon.

After the debate is over, I catch up with the other man and find him to be a moneylender. He charges 100% interest, but maybe his cash could be invested in a slave or other venture to make some money. Hector can borrow 10, 20, or 30 sesterces. Somewhat ominously, he says he’ll find me when he needs to be repaid.

Does this mean anything interesting?

Shortly after that, another announcement declares that there will be a play presented by Plinius and Iambicus: “William Shakespeare” by Julius Caesar. Heh. Backwards, much? Anyway, when I get to the theatre, all the lines are in Latin anyway, so it’s not really all that interesting. Night falls when the play is over, and Hector’s first day in Rome is at an end.

Bonus: Death reel!

When Hector dies, the game automatically takes you back to the beginning of the current level. The game doesn’t seem to support multiple saves: saving requires quitting, so I’m probably going to have to play each level multiple times. This would be less painful if moving around was a little easier. I did discover the Run button, which makes Hector move around more quickly (but not more accurately).

The townsfolk’s deaths are presented comically.

Death #1: Dying in the lava of Vesuvius.

I restarted the first level three times before I was successful, but partly I wanted to see what would happen if you didn’t escape the lava.

Death #2: Stabbed by the assassin.

Hector was just wandering around at night when he encountered the assassin I’d seen earlier. The assassin asked if Hector needed his services, and just for giggles I said yes. Then the assassin decided, “Nope, now you know who I am, so I’m going to have to kill you.” Stab.

Next time, let’s see what happens when Hector buys a slave and tries to bribe his way into the palace.

Session Time: 3 hours Total Time: 3 hours

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

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