#in every single other game in the series when a mage uses a corpse for their own gain like this its never been portrayed as quirky or funny

[lizzybeeee]

Am I the only one who thinks it's fucked up that the Mortalitasi are parading about King Markus's corpse...as opposed to letting the next in line rule??

He's alive in DAI - old, but very much flesh and blood - and we know this because the venatori use blood magic on him to get him under their control. So, what is he in DATV then? Are they implying that he's a lich? That he still has his mind? That they've got a spirit in there?

What do they gain from this? Cassandra's, what, 64th in line for the throne? So there's a bunch of potential heirs just hanging about -> potential heirs who want the crown because we know that Cassandra's parents were executed for trying to overthrow him.

Cassandra may not be fond of her family, but I can't imagine her letting this slide. This is the type of shit that gets an Exalted March called down on you! Especially if she's divine?! Nevarran's can be 'death-focused'* yes, but they let the living rule and not the dead.

It's their belief that when their soul passes through the Fade it results in a spirit being displaced - so they have the Mortalitasi find the spirit a new home in the Necropolis. That is their job - they maintain the Necropolis and, according to DATV, sometimes deal with awry magic.

The potential relation to a Divine or the Head of the Seekers, the King of Nevarra, is having his corpse puppeted about by a mage...and no one seems to care?!

Is this not super fucked up to anyone else?!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit - I put this down in the tags but I think it's important to point out: In all the previous games up to this point not once has a mage, manipulating a corpse like this, ever been portrayed as quirky or funny. This is not the norm of what the Mortalitasi are supposed to do - they honour the dead they do not puppet them.

Thedas is a world very strongly intertwined with faith, especially the Chantry. It is Nevarra's attitudes towards death and their burial practices that distinguishes it from other Andrastian nations - they still have the Chantry, the Templars, and the Circle of Magi just as the rest of Southern Thedas has.

It's impossible to imagine any Divine (Leliana, Cassandra, or Vivienne) hearing of this occurring and not taking action against this. It's extremely strange that Emmrich bemoans that half the nobility know this has occurred when this action should be seen as nothing short of an abomination to the faithful - including Emmrich.

[osakasshitpit]

I love Final Fantasy XIV

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIV, and after playing for around 180 hours, I haven’t even finished A Realm Reborn. Normally, 180 hours is an insane time frame for a game to manage and hold my attention. Persona 5 Royal was 180 hours of game time, and that was slowly outstaying its welcome. FFXIV must be doing something right, because just recently I went to a convention and bought a Y’shtola Keychain in a heartbeat. I haven’t had time to play XIV a lot prior to this, since I was stupidly grinding Praetorium for days and got burned out. I haven’t played much in 2 months, and Y’shtola only really has a minor role during A Realm Reborn’s Storyline. Despite that, I started in Limsa and Y’shtola stuck with me since then. I just had to buy that keychain. My girlfriend asked me about it and despite me staying away from the game after being burned out, I explained to her in great enthusiasm why I loved Y’shtola and why I loved the game so much. I think that’s the first time I really realized how attached I was to this world, these characters, this game.

I came to FFXIV after having played WoW from Vanilla through WotLK, after having barely ever touched a MMO since quitting WoW. Honestly, I was very skeptical of XIV but holy fucking shit did it ever win me over. They are completely different games, mind you, but that is a good thing in my opinion.

So here is the longest tumblr rant post I have written so far, I think.

To be fair, the first 20 levels or so were kinda slow. You get thrown into the deep end and get bombarded with lore and characters, terms and phrases that you don't understand. For fucks sake, the opening cutscene shows Louisoix fighting Bahamut front and center. Its this big, epic moment of sacrifice, but to someone who has not played 1.0 and who doesn't know anything about the lore, this just zips right past you. During the main story of ARR, they keep talking about Louisoix and how important he is, but you haven't even seen the guy because he died before the game even started. I only really realized this today, it took me 180 hours and a look at the wiki to connect the dots. It really is a slow burn, but that slow burn was okay because everything else was so fantastic.

While the world can arguably be more subdued than Azeroth in parts, there is still this distinctive style that I quickly fell in love with. It’s fantastical, but it still feels grounded. Part of that has to do with how the game introduces you to the world, and how the main story quests explain to you the lore bit by bit. I feel like much of the world design of WoW was down to “the rule of cool”. Now, I’m not saying XIV doesn’t have that, but I feel like XIV always goes the extra mile to explain why this cool shit is here. Everything you see out there in the world feels like it has a purpose, a reason to be there and an explanation on how it works. The factions make sense, the political conflicts you get entangled in are believable. I feel like I am kind of biased to be honest. What got me to play FFXIV in the first place was seeing that Viera are a playable race. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasy, not in short part to my memories of Playing Final Fantasy Tactics and XII. XII is still my favorite game in the series, and much of that has to do with the world, Ivalice. Viera were always my favorite race of the ones seen in Ivalice. Seeing as you can play a Viera in XIV, I just had to try. Thinking about it, XII and XIV have a lot in common when it comes to world building.

One of the weirdest things to acclimate for me was how FFXIV handles story. I was used to WoW, where story was basically non-existent and you did what you did to see numbers rise and to unlock now content you could do. You are basically never involved in the story of WoW, you are just kind of there for the ride. In FFXIV, you are the main character. You are involved in what happens at all times, and that is kinda strange coming from WoW. At first I thought I wouldn’t like it, but the game made it work in my opinion. I also didn’t expect there to be so much of story to begin with. Kind of ironically the moment I realized just how much there was to experience was when I went through Ul’dah and saw a blue quest. Now, blue quest markers mean there is some content you can unlock by doing this quest. A lot of these are kinda short, with a bit of dialogue and some bits of lore for you to enjoy and I thought this one would be no difference. After all, the hook is basically just to help this lady mourn for the death of a friend. What I got was a fabulous detective adventure that spanned over the entire continent, where in I had to help the worlds most manly detective uncover the secret behind a mysterious phantom thief. To say the least, this 21 quest long quest line brought be hours upon hours of joy and had me in stitches throughout. And it was completely optional. I don’t think I even remember a single moment from any quest in WoW that made me this excited for it, optional or otherwise.

Ultimately these are very different games that try very different things.

Dungeons and Raids were a different thing. I remember when I rolled a new character for WotLK and wanted to do karazhan because I used to like doing that raid with my guild back in TBC. I could not for the live of me find a group willing to do it, because everyone was way more focused on the new content, so they could get better gear. Regardless, it just wouldn’t have been the same experience anyways I fear, because the new gear from the new Dungeons outclassed the raid gear from TBC, so karazhan would be way easier and a much different experience. In FFXIV, every dungeon is level synced by default, meaning if a higher level character joins, they get basically downgraded to the level the dungeon was designed for. Couple that with the Duty Roulette feature and suddenly, there was always someone to do any given dungeon with. I remember when I had to do the crystal tower raids and thought “why would they tie main story progression to a raid, I will never find a group to do that properly” but low and behold, I found a group within 30 minutes or less and raided through the entire set of raids within a day. Dungeons and Raids are generally a very pick up and play thing in FFXIV. To be fair, dungeons got easier and more pick up and play in WoW too, but Raids were always the endgame thing where you had to gear up and learn to play. In FFXIV, much more lenient. No corpse walking required. I say this, but I have yet to do the Coils of Bahamut or any Savage Raids. I have only heard that there is plenty of hardcore raid content for those who want that.

That’s nothing to say about the actual gameplay. FFXIV is a tab-target MMO, like so many others, but it manages to keep this kind of gameplay fresh by introducing a lot of mechanics that make the game more active than the typical “I stand here and hit my rotation a lot”. For starters, most enemies have special abilities that you can actually dodge by moving out of the way. There will a area marker on the floor and everyone within that area will be hit. It starts out easy, but later dungeons really start kicking your ass with this mechanic. You really need to say on your toes. In addition, every class is extremely different. They all have special mechanics unique to them, special meters and resources they will have to manage during combat and so on. For example, a Red Mage (the class I’m playing currently), has two meters that fill up as you cast spells. They generally have two types of spells, white and black magic. Each type fills its respective bar. Once they are both full enough, you can go in and do a more powerful melee rotation. However, if one bar is fuller than the other, the other bar will fill up slower. Since you need to fill both, you want to balance that out. You get instant casts for spells after performing a damaging spell, and you have some spells with a short cast time and good damage output that you want to cast and then use the instant cast of to cast a more damaging spell that has a long cast time. But these short cast, good damage spells require a you get from casting a spell of the respective type. So, in essence, you want to balance your use of black and white magic, but you also want to use the proc you get from casting your white and black magic, which means you cast more of the type which inherently unbalances your gauges. It becomes this micromanagement game you play with your procs and instant casts, so you can go in and do the big, flashy sword combo. And that’s just the red mage at around 50. Every class has something like this, and it’s all unique to them. Learning a class is not just learning the rotation and spells you have anymore, it’s really learning how to effectively play your class. Also, positioning. Some abilities do more damage from certain positions, so you will have to dance around an enemy to hit all the sweet spots with classes like monks. These complexities get introduced slowly as you level up, so you have plenty of time to learn the mechanics. My favorite feature might be the class system itself, though. In FFXIV, you aren’t limited to one class for the entire duration of your characters career. You can, from a certain point forwards, choose any class you wish and level that up instead. You can freely switch between classes outside of combat, too. If you are dedicated enough, you can level them all up to max, even. This means if you don’t like a class or the direction a class is going in, you can switch. I for my part started as an arcanist, so I unlocked Summoner at 30. I played Summoner up to 50 but I was just not meshing as well with the direction the summorer went in. So, I switched to Red Mage and after some getting used to, Its now my new favorite. Arcanists are special, because you actually unlock two classes at 30, so I also unlocked Scholars. Scholars are healers and that became my main dungeon class, since queue times are way shorter for healers. This would be unthinkable in WoW, and love the fact this is a thing here.

If I had to describe it, WoW is an MMO with RPG Elements, while FFXIV is a JRPG with MMO elements. I didn’t know I needed that, but in retrospect, it makes sense. The thing that really killed my progress in WoW was that I didn’t have anyone to play with anymore. My friends all dropped from the game and while I generally like doing solo content from time to time, I’m pretty introverted, after all... MMORPGs are usually most fun with friends. Final Fantasy XIV is a JRPG first, an MMO second. There is so much to keep your attention as a solo player, its nuts. All my friends who play this game, play on a different data center, so I can’t even visit them. Despite that, I had a lot of fun in my time with the game.

My experience with the game was incredibly positive, and I don’t think it will get worse from here. Everyone keeps telling me how great Heavensward is. I just have to finish 16 more quests and I’ll be able to see for myself what the fuss is about.

Honestly, if I had to say anything negative, it would be how longwinded ARR is. I mean, its not bad by any means, but I can see how someone could be turned off by this huge storyblock. Worst of all is, after you hit 50 and reach the end of ARR’s story line, there are 80 quests before you can even start with Heavensward. Since everyone keeps going on about how great it is, it’s kind of annoying how long you have to work to even get to it. In retrospect, it kinda makes sense though. These quests are meant to be played over months and months throughout a update cycle and bridge the narrative gap between one storyblock and the next, but holy fucking shit why did it have to be THAT long. They even cut like 20 of the quests from this already insanely long quest line. What the fuck. This is supposed to be an epilogue to ARR and it feels like I played a whole fucking JRPG in between ARR and Heavensward. Oh well. Thankfully, they learned from this and made the post-story blocks shorter.

I will just say that I can recommend this game. You should give it a try. Just... try not to drop the game before it gets really, really good.

[the-dreamer-traveller]

Final Fantasy X: The Faded

Continuing with the crowd-sensationalizing popular series of Final Fantasy, this is a dream video game (or a dream focusing on other) within a dream, which makes it as bizarre as it sounds to be. This is “The Faded”, a Final Fantasy game that focuses on Spira, the setting of Final Fantasy X. However, it bills itself as an “Interquel” between the main X and X-2, which is already even more bizarre because such materials differ themselves in terms of chronological events that adding The Faded between it just creates even more plot holes and contradictions that would make Kingdom Hearts blush.

Unless it all sets place within the Farplane, then that is at least agreeable.

Based on what I can gather from watching on the video, here is the plot of the entire dream video game/dream story: Sometime after the events of Final Fantasy X… or whatever… but right before the events of Final Fantasy X-2, the crew were transported into a yet unnamed region other than the main continent in Spira, where they discover that they are not alone and have more people in it. Led by Wakka (lol, wut I know, right?), the group are traveling around the continent with their huge armies of New Yevon soldiers, which would probably been sent by Yuna or someone. Together with a band of young, aspiring soldiers and mages, they are going through the country and checking up with their towns and cities, while keeping a mysterious and evil cult at bay from summoning their dark gods, which can cause the end of their world as they would know, along with some of their angels, who have wings in their arms and wrists, wears flowing clothes made of either silk or their feathers and screams like banshees after busting out of a womb or egg.

Despite that this is going to be a train wreck full of plot holes, inconsistent time lines, occasional flanderizations, overpowered characters and bizarre characterizations, this particular dream video game is NOT a comedic parody dream game, but is instead an aggressive, HOLY SHIT and dark one that is in par with, if not oversteps, Drakengard, one of the darkest fantasy video games in the industry!

o----------------------------------------------------------------------o

Setting within the unnamed continent, Wakka and co. are in the plains, with several of the army are within this certain place to set up their camp. Wakka and co. are in a platform high in the air, which is described as to be this world’s equivalent to a blimp; a seashell-shaped platform with spiked magitek ringed propellers that surrounds a large chunk of pseudo-land, while the area where it is standable is lightly guarded with light golden fence. There is no shelter for it and is fairly light weight, and it is pretty much OSHA’s worse nightmare, made even worse as it is also an acrophobic’s hell, because the platform is several hundred feet away from the ground, while it is floating above them.

Wakka and co., along with several dozens of New Yevon soldiers, are standing on top of it, looking through the horizon. Honestly, watching this particular scene just makes me squeamish, because of the various OSHA violations that this scene commits, and it also follows a ridiculous sequence that made me think that it is something of a parody.

Just as Wakka and co. are passing through, a thunderstorm happens exclusively in the atmosphere, causing only a darkened area in the land below. Because of this, the whole platform begins to rock and shake violently, causing everyone to be thrown out of their balance. The unluckiest are the mooks, as 90% of all of them, due to over boarding the platform, are thrown out of the OSHA-violating blimp platform and are falling to the ground.

This is where it gets ridiculous, along with added slow motions, dramatic music and incredibly improbable physics.

The troops below, which consists of regular footmen, Chocobo riders and mages, begin to notice of the falling troops and are acting fast to save them. In the manner similar to ass pull or highly unrealistic way of incorporating science, the Chocobo riders begin to command their Chocobos to fly above them to rescue, something that is impossible due to their actual nature, weight and small wings. Deliberately ignoring with the fact that they are full set in armor, the Chocobo riders manage to catch some of them, including a child soldier that is present for some reason. By catching with them in their Chocobos, they manage to save them before they become bloody red chunky salsas on the ground. How and why it happens made me think that this is some sort of a parody Square Enix is making.

In the next scene, it features Wakka grabbing the hands of a mook who is about to fall… except that it is followed by a series of other mooks who are also grabbing his legs, and it even reaches down to the ground below them. Wakka tells him that he’ll tries to save them, but the mook said to him not to and gives some sort of cheesy lines that made me cringe.

“You don’t have to, save yourself, for you are the light of our future.”

Afterwards, he let go of Wakka’s hands and he lets out an anguish no… while I am looking at them slowly folding down in half as if they are made of paper.

At this part, my jaw only drops due to its sheer ridiculousness that the scene carries itself, being so melodramatic but the way the scene is executed is so poor it left me in stunned silence due to the awkwardness of the scene.

As the ridiculously long line of hanging soldiers begin to fold and fall down, some of them loss grip and fall down, all of it down in dramatic effect. Some of their swords also fall down and ended up killing some of the falling soldiers by the sharp edges stabbing them, so the fall didn’t much kill them. Some of them that hit the ground just… turned bloody with their missing limbs appearing next to them, as if they are just replaced with cadaver textures and models along with the missing limbs. Blood also appears, but it looks like a tomato stain on the floor. Everyone acts so melodramatic and over the top it is basically insane.

And up to this day when I am awake, I still think that it is crazy.

Then suddenly, one of the main playable cast suddenly sprout wings in their arms and back, effectively turning into one of those winged humanoids that are their enemies. Fortunately, it is one of those short-haired brunettes who is an ally to them, so they are most fortunate. Then she jumps from the platform and sprouts a scorpion tail coming from her ass and I am not sure if I see or describe it correctly, but that is how I accurately remember it.

I think I’m going to take some therapeutic eating once this is done.

Once she jumps off, she quickly uses her super sense powers that are not really explained well and starts flowing to a random direction, where the rest of Wakka and co. and army begin to start following her. She’s ridiculously fast in flying, but so was everyone else in running and galloping. The army were quick enough to follow her and have no time to wonder why she grows wings on her arms, a scorpion tail on her ass and starts flying randomly.

The countryside soon takes an interesting turn in its design, which slowly features some trees, slightly more varied vegetation and some crops. There are also clusters of towns in the area, each of them covering several kilometers around a church, which serves as their town center. Thing is that there is a church, stylized as a cathedral, in every single town in the area, no matter how close these towns were. It turns out to be part of the kingdom of whatever region we are in, and the army is sent wandering around to protect it from outside threats.

What outside threats, you may ask? Well, we can begin on how they were introduced.

Distorted Latin-like Gregorian chants, sung by deep male vocals but also slightly distorted with a faint echo and chamber effect, can be heard. They sound off and unsettling, probably because of the vocals because it feels so uncanny that it is less of a heavenly choir and more of a mock demonic choir that tries to copy a heavenly choir but ends up unsettling. This is the arrival of the malevolent mysterious gods and their agents, as the distorted nature of the song can sometimes serve as their arrival call or something to wrap the minds of weak-willed mortals.

And then it turns out that these cursed chants are found in churches of each town.

So, we are going to smash in and kill the ones who are chanting with it. Relatively simple and easy in their eyes, extremely controversial in some religious people’s eyes.

While they are busy fighting and slashing the cultists and their chanters, some of them are quite busy taking over towns. It turns out that the chanting also serves as a summoning ritual, which is used to summon one of those creepy winged screaming bastards which would only be successful if it takes took long for our army to take them down. Some of the towns are relatively fine, as they manage to keep their pseudo-Italian architecture and buildings intact. Other towns are not so lucky, as they are forcibly invaded by the cults, with desiccated corpses of civilians, guards and soldiers gather in heaps while the undead, summoned by the cultists, are shambling around. Homes and buildings are on fire, while the church/main hub remains intact for the cultists to use.

Wakka and co., the army and the winged girl are sent here to curbstomp the cultists from causing too much permanent damage, as summoning them can cause the end of the world as they would know.

And all I am left as I woke up is just confusion of the overall nature of the dream video game.

[persephone-damnedqueen]

The Downfall of Fairy Tail . . .

****Insert Spoiler Warning Here*****

Hiro Mashima published the final chapter of Fairy Tail this past week, and as some one who had been following the series weekly for the better part of 6 . . . oh gods. . . 7 years now, I can honestly say that this left me just bummed. 

Now, before I start with my rant, I want to address some things.  First:  A lot of people will label me as a hater, or a snob, or whatever, and that’s fine, but know this.  I’ve been reading this series for years.  This was also one of the first Shounens I ever got into.  In fact, it’s only because I’ve seen/read so many other series that I can tell where the faults really are in this series.  Second:  I know whatever I say there will be those people who are like:  “But Persephone, it’s his story, he can do what he pleases.”  Trust me I know this, and I write this fully aware that this is his work and not mine.  If this had been mine, people would have actually lost/died, *cough, cough, Erza, Makarov, cough, cough* and ships would be totally different,  *Cough, cough, GrayLu, cough, cough*  (Forgive me, it seems like I have a bit of a cold writing this).   To me, having been with the series for so long, and dedicated so much of my time to reading this series weekly for YEARS, to have the final battles end how they did and then that final chapter just makes me so disappointed.  Fairy Tail had so much potential, and then to see it just wasted like that just leaves me just disappointed.  “But Persephone, you’ve already said that.”   I KNOW, that’s how bad I feel, I feel so bad that I must reiterate how disappointed I am at a series I spent so much time with only to have it end like that.  Okay, now let’s go into what made me so just done with this series.   

Flaw Number One:  The Spriggan 12

Immediately, I get why he felt the need to go with the twelve, and in all honestly, I do not hate all of the twelve; however, I do have to hate on some of them.  For starters, War God Serena.  

Now, when War God Serena was first introduced, he was hyped the fuck up.  Are you kidding me?! Why wouldn’t he be hyped?!  The strongest mage in all of the Kingdom swaps sides?  Sounds Amazing right?!    Well, it sounds amazing.  Here’s the issue with him.  The first time we see him fight in the manga, it seems that he uses barely a quarter of his power, and singlehandedly defeats the 2-5 Kings of Ishgar, only to be literally instantly one shotted by Human Arcnologia, literally at the end of the chapter.  Arcnologia, having already proved to be the baddest of the bad, killing him wasn’t that big of a deal since after all, it was Arcnologia.  What killed it for me was later on in the arc, when God Serena was brought back, he was literally used as a nobody, and more of a comedic relief then a serious BAMF he was made to be at the start.  His like brief little skirmish with Gildarts was pointless, and only increased the uselessness of him afterwards.  Seriously, I’m left with this bitter taste, forever wondering what the hell was the point of him in the first place.  

Jacob:  

Remember Jacob?  No?  Oh, that’s probably because this guy was the literal definition of stupid.  How?  Simple.  This Big, Scary, Villain Mage was deathly afraid of boobs.  . . . In Fairy Tail. . . .  For those of you playing the home game and have literally no idea why this is fucking retarded, Fairy Tail is a series known for two things:  Friendship Power, and Boobs.  For a villain to be afraid of boobs is literally like Superman walking over and not only telling a villain he’s scared of this green glowy rock, but literally handing them the only thing that can take him down.  It was disgusting, pointless fanservice, that turned Best Girl into literally another object, just when she was actually holding her own.  Yaaaay.  I mean why give Lucy a proper fight this arc when you can just show her boobs?  AmIRite?  

Honestly, out of all of the twelve, only a handful of them were even relatively decent characters in the first place:  August, Brandish, War God DiMaria, Fucking Eileen, and Larcade.  Everyone else was utterly just either pointless, or just overall bad choices.  And hell out of the twelve of them, there was only one of them that I actually liked and that was Brandish, who is Best Girl Period and I’ll fight anyone who thinks otherwise, but I feel like Eileen and August need their own section to rant about.  And literally the only one of the ones I didn’t mention to get a decent fight was Bradman against Gajeel, and ugh . . .that ending.  . . . Moving On.  

Flaw Number Two: Because She’s Erza fucking Scarlet

Queue the hate now.  Goddess, if you guys didn’t hate me before haha you sure as hell are going to hate me now.  Oh well, I’m prepared.  Bring it.  

Alright, I fucking despise Erza fucking Scarlet.  One of the most beloved by the fandom is literally the worst character plot armored character ever created.  Hell, she has so much plot armor she makes fucking Kirito look like a masterpiece character.  

She didn’t start out as my most hated character, but damn by the end she definitely deserves the title.  I loved her during the Tower of Heaven Arc, and hell, she wasn’t even that bad later on in the Tenroujima Arc, and was even decent in the Grand Magic Games Arc, but oh god did she get ridiculous really fucking quickly in the Tartarus and Alvarez Arc.  

Have Erza take out a 100 monsters all by herself in a Game?  Sure, that’s somewhat believable.  Have Erza win the battle with Kyouka after she lost literally every single sense, but because she’s Erza can somehow use a sixth or a seventh sense?  Really?  Have Erza fucking Scarlet take out a fucking meteor falling from the sky right after she had literally every single bone broken except for one arm and then defeat an actual dragon with a pathetic dragon-slayer-enchanted sword?  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?  NO ONE IS THAT FUCKING PLOT ARMORED.  RATHER THAN LOSE THE FIGHT YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT BECAUSE SHE’S ERZA SHE CAN MAGICALLY TAKE OUT A FALLING METEOR AFTER SHE’S BROKEN ALL HER BONES IN HER BODY EXCEPT ONE FUCKING ARM AND THEN STILL HAVE ENOUGH STRENGTH TO NOT ONLY MOVE BUT TO FUCKING TAKE OUT AN ACTUAL DRAGON?!?!  THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THAT?!  

And don’t even get me started on the shit about her and Arcnologia.  I’m so fucking done with Erza ‘Because she’s Erza’ Scarlet, moving on.  

Flaw Number Three:   Eileen/Irene Belserion 

Getting this out of the way so that I no longer have to talk about Erza anymore because fuck that bitch.   Also, I must note that there are a couple different variations of her mother’s name, but I will be using Eileen, since I like that one best.   It’s all the same person, and she is indeed Erza’s mother, so moving on.  

I loved Eileen and her backstory.  In all honestly, I actually really enjoyed her character, and for me that’s saying something in this series.  You find out that she’s over 400 years old, and is actually not only the first Dragon Slayer, but a Dragon herself.  Her past is a tragic story, and honestly, the most developed out of the 12 and more developed than most of the Fairies’ to begin with.  So, if she’s got a good established character, wants Erza dead, or at least her body anyways, and a solid reason for following Zeref, why do I have a problem?  Simple.  The ending of her fight.  Yes, I’m fucking furious that Erza magically won that fight, but what irritates me even more is her stupid, pointless, suicide.  Are you fucking kidding me?!  On what planet does that make sense?!  This BAMF had already abandoned Erza for dead, joined Zeref, body-swapped, turned into a fucking dragon and THREW A GODDESS DAMNED METEOR AT ERZA and then after all that decides to feel remorse and then goes and fucking kills herself?!  Really?!  Alright.  I’m done.  #ForeverSaltyAboutEileen.  

Flaw Number Three: Zeref, Mavis and August

Alright, these three all go together, so let’s start with the biggest killer for me.  

Zeref x Mavis

Personally, when I first read about their relationship, and in Zero, I loved it.  I obviously shipped the tragic immortal lovers together, and truly wished for their happiness. . . . well, that was until August came into the picture.  

I would have been much happier with the Zervis relationship had Lacarde, a END prototype was the true “son” of Zeref, rather than August.  Why you ask?  Simple.  When Mavis’ death was first shown and you got to see that tragic kiss that killed her, it was stated that that was how she died, thus making it a true tragic love story. 

The only love of Zeref once again killed by his own curse the moment they achieved happiness.  It was perfect.  What killed it?  Mavis got pregnant.  Now, that could happen one of three ways.  One:  Mashima rewrote all of chapter 450 and changed it so after Zeref got laid, Mavis became instantly pregnant, AND the child magically survived that, (keep in mind Mavis was dead at this point).  Two:  Zeref fucked her corpse, magically got her corpse pregnant, in which case ewwww, or Three: I’m completely overpraising this entire thing and expecting this to make too much sense.  Regardless, That ship became destroyed for me at that moment.   

August:  

Not even August was saved from the Power of Friendship defeat.  Pooor August.  Like Eileen, my main problem was his fight and how it turned out.  That fucker had such powerful magic and was the son of fucking Zeref himself, and yet he got defeated by fucking Gildarts and Cana.  Alright, alright, alright, but at least it was Gildarts, making it a bit more satisfying.  Regardless, what does the guy do anyways after his defeat?!?!  Fucking Kills Himself.. . Yet again. . . Really?!  Ugh, so done with the suicides for no reason.   

Flaw Number Four:  The Results of the Battles 

Honestly, this was the main killer for most of the fandom.  Let’s have a massive country war and have literally zero heroes die in the entire thing and absolutely win with some bullshit tactic.  What?  Let’s review the massive circle the arc took every fight.  Some all powerful baddy would come.  He’d fuck some shit up.  Oh no! Someone is going to sacrifice themselves to finish them off, Shit he’s dead!  But they defeated baddie!  Cry!  Feels!  Three chapters later, Our hero is fine!  Are you fucking with me?! 

Carla should have died.  Juvia’s death would have been perfect right there, her killing herself to save her beloved, dramatic.  Gajeel dying after performing a heroic deed right infront of Levy showing the true loss of this war and effecting the aftermath.  Erza fucking losing a goddess damned battle for once in her goddamned life.  Gray dying for attacking Zeref.  ARCNOLOGIA KILLING ONE MORE ACTUAL DRAGONSLAYER TO PROVE HOW MUCH OF A BAMF HE WAS.  FUCKING MAKAROV ACTUALLY STAYING FUCKING DEAD FOR ONCE.  FUCKING NATSU DYING BECAUSE IT WAS FUCKING STATED THAT ONCE ZEREF DIES, NATSU DIES.  ANY FUCKING MEMBER OF SABERTOOTH AND BLUE PEGASUS DYING AFTER LITERALLY BEING CRUCIFIED.  AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE SHIT WITH ICHIYA.  

I’m done with this. I’m too mad.  Moving on.

Flaw Number Five:  Arcnologia.  

Nope.  Not even going to begin on the clusterfuck of that fight.  Moving on.  

Flaw Number Six:  The Anti-Climatic Ending

In all honestly, as cliche as it would have been, I would have much preferred a time skip and children ending.  Sure, it’s the stereotypical ending for a shounen, but after this clusterfuck ending, it would have been a billion times better.  The ending was just meh at best.  It really just more felt like a filler ending instead of a conclusion to this 11 year tale.  The only part of the ending I did enjoy was the conclusion with Zeref and Mavis reincarnating, despite the fact that they are like teenagers and they’d only been dead for like a year, but whatever.  It was just the final straw in an already burning fire. 

Overall, this is what caused the Fairy Tail Downfall for me and just killed my love for this series.  Regardless on how it ended, Fairy Tail will always hold a special place in my heart, and I’m just glad it’s done with.   Regardless, I obviously will be watching the final season in 2018 when it comes back, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it!  I just get to be disappointed one last time.  I guess the best way to end my time with Fairy Tail is to say this:  The ending was shit, but hey! At least it looked Pretty.  AmIRight?  

Whatever, bring on the hate.  What were your thoughts on the ending?  

[ciathyzareposts]

Treasures of the Savage Frontier: Won! (with Summary and Rating)

Reminder: It is possible to play this game with “evil” characters.

             Treasures of the Savage Frontier

United States

Beyond Software (developer); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)

Released in 1992 for Amiga and DOS

Date Started: 20 July 2019

Date Finished: 2 August 2019

Total Hours: 31 Difficulty: Easy-Moderate (2.5/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Summary:

One of the last Gold Box games, this one is competent but not terribly memorable. All of the Gold Box strengths (variety of enemies, combat interface, character development, interface) and weaknesses (bad economy, no environmental graphics, limited sound) are present, with a few minor additions such as weather affecting combat, the ability for enemies to join combat in subsequent rounds, and a romance between the lead character and an NPC.

*****

If the Gold Box series was a political dynasty, its founder, Pool of Radiance (1988), would be like a bold, innovative president whose genius and integrity are remembered for generations. Curse of the Azure Bonds would be like his son who only ever made it to vice president. Every other game would be a bunch of descendants who had served as cabinet secretaries and representatives–each perhaps distinguished when considered individually, some even more physically attractive than their famous forebear, but none rising quite to his level of prominence.

Treasures of the Savage Frontier added a handful of tweaks to the Gold Box experience and told a competent story. It was in no way a shame to the family–not like those Buck Rogers cousins. But neither did it offer anything, in real terms, that we haven’t experienced already. Since what we experienced already was pretty good, this isn’t exactly a problem, but in some ways it’s too bad that the lineage didn’t continually improve over its lifetime the way that, say, the Ultima series did. Perhaps the comparison is inapt because Ultima used different engines for every release.

I said that Treasures told a “competent story,” but even that is only true up through the end of my last entry. The Zhentarim/Hosttower/Kraken plot didn’t keep me on the edge of my seat, but it did at least keep me interested. The final battle of this segment was a worthy challenge. Then, all of a sudden the Lords’ Alliance leaders started talking about The Gem and the importance in keeping it out of the hands of the Zhentarim. I promise that The Gem had never been mentioned at any point in the story before, but all the journal entries acted as if everyone already knew about it. “It was this magical Gem that was used to destroy [a white dragon named] Freezefire centuries ago,” King Steelfist said. “The powerful magic item may still be there, awaiting adventurers with the strength and courage to come find it in the barren wastes.”          

I expected him to turn on me, but mostly I forgot he was even there.

         And thus the last chapter of the book had the party traipsing through villages and caverns of the frozen north. Accompanying us was an NPC fighter named Kriiador, servant to the human leader of Mirabar. A previously-unavailable dock in Neverwinter now sold passage to the northern city of Fireshear.

When we arrived, we discovered that the city (which occupied two levels with multiple ladders) had already been sacked by the forces of evil. We slowly retook it from the various yeti, ice hounds, remorhazes, and umber hulks that had made homes in the former shops and businesses of the residents. Umber hulks–which look weirder here than in any other game in which I’ve seen them–did their usual “confuse” trick.           

An umber hulk, looking very cartoonish.

          The hardest battle–and this became a recurring issue–was with a large group that included about half a dozen yeti chiefs. I guess the creatures get a chance of “terrifying” each party member when the battle starts, and with so many of them, it was common for every one of my party members to get terrified. Terrified characters flee the battlefield. They ultimately return, but only after four or five rounds in which the remaining characters have to hold out. There seemed to be no way to protect against the effect, and so the battle occasioned several reloads before I got enough party members to stick with it.            

This is what finally frightens my party?

          Even after I finished this battle, I had to immediately fight another one with a beholder and more yeti. Fortunately, my characters were under the effects of “Haste” (I used it so often that the party ended the game in their mid-30s having started in their early 20s). Resisting the beholder’s more serious attacks, my three lead fighters ran up and pounded him until he was dead.             

This guy wasn’t as hard as he could have been if the dice had gone the other way.

          Once Fireshear was clear, the shops and services opened up again, including a boat offering passage further up the coast to the Ice Peak. This area consisted of four maps, including three interconnected towns: Aurilssbaarg, Bjorn’s Hold, and Icewolf. The areas featured numerous encounters with tribal northerners, and I regret to say I was done with the game at this point, so I stopped meticulously recording everything that happened.            

The type of encounter I got in the final maps. I probably didn’t even read the entry.

           The tribesmen were nice and didn’t give me any trouble about pronouncing “Tempos” as “Tempus,” and there were more battles with ice creatures. Ultimately, I found my way to the passage that led to the final area.             

My ranger gets impatient.

           The final map, Freezefire’s Lair, had a lot of secret doors but not a lot of special encounters. One exception was a combat with a creature I’d never encountered before (in any game) called a “gorgimera”–a cross between a gorgon and a chimera.              

These guys were pretty bad-ass.

          The penultimate battle occurred when we stumbled into a cave containing Freezefire’s corpse. A bunch of mages, spies, and priests had beat us there, and fighting them was about as hard as the last battle in Mirabar. It all came down to who drew first and paralyzed everyone else with “Hold” or negated their spellcasting abilities with “Ice Storm” or “Fireball.” I’d gained a level or two since the final battle in Mirabar, however, and this one had fewer enemies suddenly appearing in later rounds.            

My ranger is taken out of the action, but we were victorious in the end.

        When it was over, there was a scripted scene in which the party drooled over the piles of treasure in Freezefire’s chamber before remembering that their duty was to collect The Gem. (The game never gave any indication of what, exactly, it did.) Ghost pried it out of the dead dragon’s claws, which somehow caused the dead dragon to come back to life.               

I like how the game tries to make the dragon scary, as if we hadn’t been fighting dragons since Level 2 in Gateway.

           The actual “final battle” with Freezefire was laughably easy, as battles with single dragons tend to be in Gold Box titles. He had a few dozen hit points, which the dancing blades of my hastened fighters depleted before he could even breathe once.           

I swear his name is spelled “Freezefire” everywhere else.

             The endgame screens then commenced. A group of dwarves carried us victoriously back to Icewolf, where we had a feast. The two rulers of Mirabar showed up to lay plans for diving Freezefire’s treasure among the Lords’ Alliance cities, plus the northern tribes.           

Yeah, that’s going to pretty much ruin the local economy.

          The party was offered 40 jewelry, 250 gems, and 15,000 platinum pieces (but why)? The Lord’s Alliance took charge of The Gem, and the Zhentarim, Krakens, and Hosttower forces all slithered back to their homes. After the final screen at the top of this entry, the game allowed me to keep playing.              

That’s nice, but just once I’d like someone to call us by our names.

         As I noted in the last entry, the ending felt tacked on. On the other hand, without it, the title didn’t make any sense, as the game preceding it wasn’t about any treasures. On yet another hand, it still doesn’t make any sense, because while the ending is about treasures, the treasures are not “of the Savage Frontier.” Then again, hardly any of the game took place in the Savage Frontier. 

There are more than a couple hints that the developers were setting up a sequel to occur in High Forest. First, there was the mystery to do with Siulajia and how the Axis of Evil knew her family. Second, the mages and priests we encountered at the Ice Peak appear to have been sent not by the Zhentarim conspiracy but by “the Masters of Hellgate Keep,” as one captured enemy squealed. Hellgate Keep is on the edge of the High Forest. Even the cover, showing Siulajia holding a magic gem, seems to be from a sequel more than the current game.

After I won, I took a few minutes to create a new party out of my massively-overpowered characters from Pools of Darkness. These were characters so powerful, you’ll recall, that at the end of Pools, they were basically sent into exile. They were all around Level 30-40, some of them in their second classes, and the mages among them had Level 9 spells. Treasures read their character files, including all their equipment, as if they were native characters.           

The imported party. Look at those ACs!

         The game wouldn’t let me outside until I won the big battle in Llorkh. There were a lot more enemies than the first time, but I’m not sure if that’s because Treasures “read” my party as being more powerful, or if it was because I didn’t clean up the side encounters first. Either way, the large party still went down quickly to “Delayed Blast Fireball.”           

A lot more foes than last time, but that’s just more fodder for a “Fireball.”

          I immediately brought the party to Luskan and attacked the Hosttower. Despite the level of my characters, the defending mages still mostly acted first, suggesting that the initiative rolls are rigged for this battle. It didn’t help them much, however, as they mostly cast “Ice Storm” and I had “Resist Cold” on every character. Although multiple new enemies joined each round, my vorpal swords and spells like “Meteor Swarm” cut through the masses faster than they could replenish them, and I won with minimal damage in just a few minutes.             

I forgot how much I like vorpal swords.

         The battle earned me 19,751 experience per character. When it was over, I was taken back to the 3-D screen where a message said, “The great gates slam shut!” I then had the option to bash them again for, presumably, another battle. So much for that. I’m sure this combat could be won with native characters, particularly late in the game. “Resist Cold” and “Haste” would do most of the work.            

The whole point of fighting that big battle was to get through those gates.

          I always like to check out the uncircled journal entries to see which are likely to be fake. There aren’t many here. Out of 88 entries, I checked off 73, and at least 5 of the remainder fit known story developments and events, so it’s likely that I just missed them. Of the few obvious “fakes,” one has the dwarves of Llorkh betraying and imprisoning the party. Another would have the party waste time looking for a beholder in Port Llast. There was a fake map, and a misleading entry about the pirate Redleg. That’s about it. I miss some of the older games’ fake entries, which often had an entire fake sub-plot running through them.

With all the corners explored, it’s time to get on to the GIMLET:           

5 points for the game world. It makes good use of Forgotten Realms themes, adequately continues the story from Gateway, and does a reasonably job evolving the world as the game progresses.

           The Forgotten Realms campaign setting says Mirabar is ruled jointly by dwarves and humans, and that’s how the game presents it.

          5 points for character creation and development, which is essentially the Gold Box/AD&D1 average. Only the Dragonlance games do significantly better with their unique races and classes. Here, I thought some of the level caps were a bit low.

6 points for NPC interaction. This series has never featured classic NPCs (with their own icons, independent existence, etc.) so much as “encounters” with memorable characters in them. But this game does better than most by allowing so many characters to join the party, including one who will engage in a romance with the lead character. The romance is a bit dull and progresses mostly in the background, but it has actual consequences for statistics and behavior in combat.

6 points for encounters and foes. Most of that goes to the foes. I really do like the AD&D bestiary, with its incredible variety of special attacks and defenses that constantly change up combat tactics, and this game had some creatures I’d never heard of. Non-combat encounters aren’t as thick or memorable in their role-playing options as some of the earlier titles, but the game does feature at least a few.

          Monsters are introduced in memorable fashion . . . 

. . . and the manual tells you what you need to know.

          7 points for magic and combat. Few changes to a very good combat engine and magic system. I didn’t feel strongly enough about the two additions–consideration of the weather and the ability of enemies to join the combat midway–for it to affect the rating either way.

5 points for equipment. I like the variety of equipment, but I don’t like that every item is predetermined and fixed in location.

2 points for the economy. There’s more interesting stuff to buy than in the typical Gold Box title, but it’s so cheap that you end up with the same problem as every other game: too much gold, not enough to spend it on. A party could easily get through this game with its starting allowance.

             “What is . . . the Gold Box games’ philosophy for how much money the party should get after a battle with 4 orcs?”

            4 points for a main quest and a fair number of side-quests and side-areas. I never finished whatever the dwarves wanted me to do.

6 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics and sound effects are both adequate, though I’m getting sick of empty environments. Most of the points here go to the extremely intuitive interface, which manages to accommodate keyboard, joystick, and mouse users.

5 points for gameplay. I like the quasi-nonlinearity, and I thought the challenge and length were about right, or maybe just a tad too easy. I don’t see it as very “replayable.”

             The final score of 51 is about middle-of-the-road for a Gold Box title. I’m surprised to see it only two points higher than Gateway, but I can’t pinpoint where I expected Gateway to do worse. At this point, it’s clear that no Gold Box game is going to outperform the first entry, Pool of Radiance (1988), which got a 65. It has the most interesting world and story of the series, the most memorable and challenging battles, the best non-combat encounter options, and the best variety of quests.              

            It doesn’t appear that Computer Gaming World even bothered to review this one. Scorpia offered some hints in the July 1992 issue but not a full review. In an October 1993 summary of CRPGs on the market, she said that the game had “a couple of twists” but was “otherwise pretty much a yawner.” Dragon gave it 4/5 stars in an August 1992 review and said that while it was “enjoyable” and “satisfying,” there was “nothing really new.”

(A couple of weird things about this issue of Dragon: 1) it features a screenshot from SSI’s Sword of Aragon from 1989 but labels it from Treasures; 2) it has a joint ad for Twilight: 2001 and MegaTraveller 3, neither of which were ever released.)

I would venture that Treasures is more fun today, when the player isn’t really expecting innovation, than in 1992, when the Gold Box engine was 4 years old and players were excited by more immersive environments as in Ultima Underworld or even Eye of the Beholder and its sequel. Such attitudes surely pervade the horrid series of reviews that the game received from European Amiga magazines, the best being the 69 in the June 1992 Power Play and the worst the 34 afforded by the November 1992 Amiga Power. Amiga magazines, and particularly the British ones, never really “got” the Gold Box, and it annoys me that the reviewer (Les Ellis) seems to define “playability” as the ability to immediately start playing without reading the manual. Otherwise, the review is oddly forgivable in its historical context, opening with the rhetorical question: “After the likes of Eye of the Beholder 2, is there really any need for games like this?” I rated Eye of the Beholder II lower than Treasures, but even I kind-of get where he’s coming from.

In my ignorance as a non-programmer, I have to wonder why the Gold Box couldn’t have evolved better than it did. For instance, why couldn’t a player exploring the tiled maps of Neverwinter be treated to some of the same menacing background sounds, perhaps growing when enemies were near, that he receives in Eye of the Beholder? Why couldn’t the graphics have featured more environmental clues? Why was it so important to stick to 16 x 16 maps? I know some of my helpful commenters will try to give answers, but I suspect they’ll sound to me more like excuses than explanations.            

“Players can now interact with NPCs–they can even have romances!” is a bit misleading.

           Ah, but it’s too soon to bemoan the loss of the engine–we’ll do that after Dark Queen of Krynn. For now, we say goodbye to Beyond Software, soon to rename itself Stormfront Studios. It will develop one more RPG in the near future (1993’s Stronghold) and nothing again until the 2000s. SSI, the most prolific RPG publisher of the period, will continue to entertain us with RPGs of all types until 1995, when it will suddenly get out of the RPG business for good.

I move now to The Magic Candle III, of which I know virtually nothing. My entries may continue to be a bit spotty for the next few weeks (though hopefully without any more very long breaks) as I adjust to a new job and schedule.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/treasures-of-the-savage-frontier-won-with-summary-and-rating/

[ciathyzareposts]

The Two Towers: Won!

Want to bet?

            It’s probably good for my version of the Fellowship that the story ended here, more warped and twisted from Tolkien’s tale than you might imagine a computer game based on this material would allow. At the end, we’ll have to have a little thought experiment about what happens to the story from here. There’s a lot to complain about with this game, but I certainly can’t complain that the developers didn’t give the player the freedom to diverge from the original.

This last session began with Frodo’s party in Ithilien. The map continued to be bounded by the river to the west and the mountains to the east, so I explored in east-west strips as I slowly made my way south. At one point, for no real reason, the game suggested that we were hungry and that we send Gollum to hunt for food. (Food and drink exist in the game, but to provide light amounts of healing. There’s no hunger/thirst system.) Gollum took off to hunt, which is ironic because after he left, we found rations repeatedly as we walked.

           Faramir looks like a jerk in this game.

           Investigating an elephant, we were ambushed by Faramir and his men and taken to a hidden grotto, where Faramir gave us some lore, a healer tended our wounds and taught the “Herblore” skill, and one of Faramir’s men made fun of us for picking up a shovel.

              What a dick.

             Wandering around, we found ourselves on a cliff with a pool below. Faramir pointed out Gollum fishing in the pool and asked if his boy Anborn should shoot him. “Sure,” I had Frodo say, calling his bluff. Anborn nailed him between the eyes, and Gollum’s corpse sank beneath the water.

               From Gollum’s perspective, it’s probably better than being burned to death in lava.

          Well, that’s going to make things a bit easier, I thought, and decided to keep going instead of reloading. We left the grotto with Faramir and two other rangers in tow. At the south end of the map were the ruins of Osgiliath, and the game warned me that I shouldn’t go in there, but I did and suffered and instant death scene.

           But where will I get an inspirational speech from Sam?

          Moving on, we found a statue whose head was missing. We replaced it but then the game wanted me to find a gem to put in its eye. I was losing patience about this point, so I just had the party press east to the gap in the mountains leading to the Morgul Vale. When we reached the entrance, Faramir, the rangers, and Gilglin took off. Gilglin didn’t even have any farewell dialogue, and he took a bunch of Athelas with him.

           This doesn’t sound like a good use of my time.

           In the Morgul Vale, I decided to adopt an exploration pattern that took us counter-clockwise around the mountain borders. We soon came to a river where the game decided it was important that we pick up some “Morgul Water.” Then we canme to a bridge that was “draped in evil,” and Frodo froze, unable to move. 

         Abrupt changes in the active party continued through the end.

          The action switched back to Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf, who (the game reminded me) were on the road to Helm’s Deep. We passed by a couple of houses where there was this suspicious Rohirrim clearly up to something, but I couldn’t figure out anything to do with him. Moving on, we fought some battles with orcs, Dunlendings, and Dunlending leaders called “Dunarches.” (There were also “orcarches” a couple of times.) We tried to walk to Isengard, but the game wouldn’t let me go past a particular point.

As we headed west, Gandalf suddenly decided that he had to head off on his own to find “the lost armies of Rohan.” He split off into his own party with three Rohirrim named Wulfgrim, Hunthor, and Beodred–no idea where they came from–and went north in search of “Erkenbrand.” I was a bit confused because in the films, Gandalf goes in search of Eomer, but I figured it was roughly the same quest. We wandered around until we found Erkenbrand next to some mountains, and everyone agreed to return to Helm’s Deep.

            Just a reminder of the manual paragraphs. For the most part, they’re shorter than the in-game text.

             Back to Frodo and Sam. Frodo somehow came to his senses and we walked off the bridge. Two steps later, we were at the gates of Minas Morgul, and the game relayed how we saw the gates open and the armies pour out with the Witch King at their head. We had to use the “Hide” skill to avoid being seen. Then it was back to Aragorn.

            The game does an awful lot of telling rather than showing.

                Rather than head directly for Helm’s Deep, I had them thoroughly explore the area, fighting a number of orc parties along the way. We found a mountain pass north of the fortress that led into some caves occupied by Rohan citizens. We were unable to fully explore the caves because guards kept blocking certain passages. This becomes important later.

             What is this place?

            Eventually, we left and went to Helm’s Deep itself. When we arrived, the first thing the gate guard suggested is that we go check out the secret exit at the “Glittering Caves” and make sure that Saruman’s forces hadn’t already found it. We went back to the caves but found nothing new.

Helm’s Deep in the game consists of a central keep with about four rooms surrounded by an inner wall with one opening. Outside the inner wall is an outer wall with two openings. A moat surrounds the whole thing but is crossed by two bridges.

            A satellite view.

           None of the famous faces of Rohan–Theoden, Eomer, Eowen, etc.–were anywhere to be seen since I left Edoras in the last session. No sooner had I poked my head into the inner keep than I received a message that “an immense force of orcs has come,” and I had to rush back outside.

           I was hoping to have an unproductive shouting match with Theoden first.

          Let’s take a moment to go back in time to 2002, when the second Peter Jackson film hit theaters. I’m sure I have some readers who can’t even remember 2002, but to a near 50-year-old man, this is “recent.” I still think of Sleepless in Seattle as “recent.” To me, Renée Zellweger is a fresh young face who’s clearly going places. The other day, when Irene remarked that “Murphy Brown” had been canceled, I said, “Well, they had a good run. It must have been on for–what–15 years?” She had to explain to me that it had actually been off the air for 20 years and what was canceled was brief revival series. I’m just adding some perspective.

  I know that the way the film depicts the Battle of Helm’s Deep violates some aspects of canon, which for some people is like violating a religion, but sitting there in the theater, looking across the field of 10,000 orcs, I realized we had reached a point in cinematic history where a movie could show us anything the director wanted to show us–that there was no more limit to what could be accomplished with special effects. It was one of most thrilling sequences I’d ever seen. They technically topped it in the last film, but by then I was expecting it. Helm’s Deep came out of nowhere.

  I also couldn’t help thinking how the battle illustrates the difference between the mentality of an RPG player and . . . well, real life, I guess. I’m sitting there thinking, “They’re just orcs!” They don’t have any mages or clerics, no trolls or ogres. My Might and Magic VI party would descend from the heavens and slaughter them all with a single “Armageddon” spell. If it was Gold Box game, the battle would be over after six “Fireballs.” These days, my character from Shadow of Mordor would scoff at 10,000 orcs. He’d dance through their ranks, exploding heads, and have half the army converted to his side within 10 minutes.

           What do you mean “too many?” That’s just more experience points for me. Plus, do you know how many wands potions, and scrolls I have to get rid of?

          In other words, some part of me had been waiting to fight Helm’s Deep in an RPG for a long time, and the experience was . . . underwhelming. Aragon and friends rushed out of the Hornburg and encountered six orcs and two Dunlendings immediately outside the entrance. We killed them. Then a message told us more orcs were crossing the bridge, and we killed half a dozen more there. Then the message said that some Dunlendings had come through the south wall, and the game took us directly there so we could kill them.

Now, I guess we were supposed to have the sense that we were only seeing our part of the battle, and that the Rohirrim were fighting other battles all around us. In any event, we got a message that things were hopeless and we should retreat to the Hornburg. We did, then got another message that the absolute final battle–we mean it this time–was beginning. Outside we rushed again and fought three consecutive battles against orcs and Dunlendings right outside the gate. It occurred to me that it might be useful to blow Helm’s Horn at several points during this sequence, and every time I tried, nothing happened. I mention this because after I won, I looked at a hint guide that said I could use Helm’s Horn to make the battle easier. I have no idea where or when.

             The Battle of Helm’s Deep was basically six screens of this.

         Gandalf showed up, as did an army of Ents, and the whole thing was over. Gandalf suggested that we “find any of our comrades who were scattered in the battle” and then go confront Saruman. I looked around and saw that we had Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas, so I didn’t really need to gather anyone. We thus headed up the road towards Isenguard.

On the way, we ran into a party of Dunlendings, led by Prince Burlag, who said that it was their custom that, when they were defeated in honorable battle, the victor should give them a “gift that honors our skill.” My version of Aragorn explained that it was his custom that when he defeated enemies in battle, he tracked down any who were left over and killed them, too.

                           I mean, talk about gumption. They’d just allied with an evil force to utterly destroy the people of Rohan, and they want a gift?! (The hint guide later told me I should have given them any sword.) Unfortunately, we lost Gimli in the ensuing battle. Figuring the game was almost over anyway, I didn’t reload.

We arrived at Isenguard to find Merry smoking pipeweed at the front gate. The game didn’t give me any option to talk to him or invite him into the party, so we pressed on to the main keep. We saw Saruman up at the top of Orthanc and entered the keep. The tower consisted of four levels, with one or two battles with human allies of Saruman. In a library, way too late to be useful, we found books that would teach us various skills.

            Why would they introduce this now?

         At one point, we discovered two “corrupted eagles” and one regular eagle behind a locked door. When we killed the corrupted eagles and freed the regular one, he gave us a word of power called MANWE, which we never used. The only word of power we ever used in this game is a single use of some elf word to open a locked door.

              Can we just speak it, or do we have to whisper it into the ears of a little moth?

             We continued up to the top of the tower, where the game gave us a paragraph indicating that we wee now stuck on the top of Orthanc. Hint guides later told me that I should have used MANWE here to get the Eagles to give us a ride, or use the “Climb” skill to get down, but the stairs still worked just fine for me, so I’m not sure what happened there. Anyway, exploring more carefully, we found Saruman in a corner of the third level. We fought him, and he fled just before he would have died. He left the palantir behind. Picking it up ended the game for this party.

           Our last shot of Aragorn and his part of the Fellowship.

         Action returned to Frodo and Sam. After an instant-death scene when I blundered into Minas Morgul . . .

                      . . . we continued around the mountain range–I think we fought one battle against spiders–until we found the mountain pass to Cirith Ungol to the north. It was a long pass, but nothing assailed us, and we just had to use “Climb” at one point to keep going. 

             Note that, with Gollum out of the picture, Sam is still with Frodo and we both have plenty of lembas bread.

           The pass took us into the caverns of Shelob. I guess Gollum would have attacked us there if we hadn’t killed him earlier, but I spared us that. We used the Star Ruby to burn our way through Shelob’s webs, and Galandriel’s phial to drive off Shelob herself when she attacked.

             Alas, we get no image of Shelob during this sequence. That reminds me: Lord of the Rings fans, how do you feel about Shadow of War‘s revelation that Shelob is really a hot woman in disguise? Cool? Or . . .

           And then, with no final battle or puzzle or anything, the game limped to its inevitable end:

            You have been wounded with spider venom. You hear the approach of iron-shod boots. Orcs! But you collapse, and feel your consciousness fade. The last thing you remember is the Ring falling from its chain.

With the presence of his enemies revealed to him by the Palantir of Orthanc, Sauron decides to move his forces against the city of Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor. Saurman is beaten, but a far greater threat remains. 

           I love how, in the film, it was treated as a big revelation that “Sauron moves to strike the city of Minas Tirith.” Was there really anywhere else for him to strike?

            And so ends the second part of “The Lord of the Rings,” not in triumph and glory, but in uncertainty and deadly peril. Can Gandalf, Aragorn, and the other members of the Fellowship save Gondor fro the armies of Sauron? The Ringbearer trapped in the dreaded tower of Cirith Ungol. Can he be saved?

             Someone’s wedding is ruined.

           You have done well indeed to bring the Ring this far, but the quest is not over yet. The Ring must be taken to Mount Doom and destroyed for all to be set right. To be continued in . . . “The Return of the King” coming soon from Interplay.

          Not so hasty.

          We’ve still got a bit to talk about, including the GIMLET, false journal entries, missed material, and why Volume III was never made, so I’ll wrap things up in another entry. For now, let’s analyze what happens in the darker world I’ve created. Gimli is dead–does it matter? (I mean, what did he really contribute?) Is Aragorn’s decision to execute the Dunlending prince going to have any consequences? Most important, what changes with Gollum out of the picture?

Final time: 18 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-two-towers-won/