#ohohohoho these are actually all so fun but in different directions

[rainia]

some ideas for flare?

-she and him knew each other for a long time and got their powers from the same source at the same time but he somehow made it so that she does not have full control over her powers and the wild magic has negatively effected her in a way, this could have boosted him -evil guy literally created her*/or just did some weird experiments on her, somehow she is based on a phoenix or any other fire based thing. he could want her to do stuff for him but shes like no way dude and ran off to the rebellion *if you do this one you can make flare new to the world in some frankenstein vibe, so you have a lore reason to need to have explanations of things -flare was a mercenary, went into the fey realm bc she was hired by evil guy and got tricked/messed up/stolen/in debt etc etc because of it, but she got magic -flare was raised in the religious group and was pretty devout, met evil guy and he convinced her to leave it and join his (emo band) evil science group, then she has a bad time working under him -her family worked under him, but decently high up in the chain of command/scientists. they screwed up somehow, evil guy decided to enact revenge and transformed them/killed them but flare was the only survivor and made a deal with the fey -she worked under him and wanted to learn more about fey magic to add to experiments, it did not go well most of these r pretty open ended because i dont know her personality or your play style, but you can mix and match these, or add various family members to reasons why she wants revenge maybe. hope you have fun with the game!

ANON YOU ARE A GENIUS these all have such awesome fucking potential omgggg!! Ok ok, yeah!!! I think I might go with some combination of a few of these hehehhe but THANK YOUU this is so helpful :DDD

[blackjackkent]

This time I happened to remember that we can enter the Guildhall from the direct entrance in Heapside, which coincidentally brings us in right next to where Roah is hanging out. This, as it turns out, is quite fun, because we get a cutscene that I definitely did not get with Hector, and which is at least partly specific to having Minsc in the party.

"So it's that simple!" Roah is holding forth from a high platform in the Guildhall, shouting down at the Guild criminals lining the hall below. All of them have weapons drawn, as do the Zhents, and everyone is practically vibrating with rage. "Drop your weapons, bring out Nine-Fingers, and this can all end peacefully - for you at least!"

Hearing the unexpected footsteps behind her, Roah spins - and fixes her eyes on Minsc with a slow smirk. "What's this, Stone Lord?" she asks mockingly. "It's a little late to change the terms of our deal. The pieces are already in place."

Minsc bristles. "The Stone Lord is no more," he growls. "Boo and Jaheira and my friend would not let me stay cursed."

(A/N: I know they can't actually say Rakha's name here for obvious reasons, but I feel like this could have been phrased literally any other way and it would feel less awkward. XD Usually the game is better at this.)

He leans forward, towering threateningly over the halfling. "And the only terms we offer are between my boot and your treacherous buttocks!"

Despite the monstrous difference in size between her and the man threatening her, Roah does not flinch, does not even blink. She just smiles, slow, derisive, and flicks her eyes towards Rakha. "I see," she drawls. "That's unfortunate. And what about the adult in the room?"

Rakha's eyes narrow icily. Roah, it seems, has not gotten the memo that insulting Rakha's friends is a fast-track ticket to pissing her off.

"Whatever I told that lot below," Roah continues casually, oblivious to (or uncaring of) the anger she is eliciting, "this *will* end in bloodshed. All you have to do is pick the right side."

Rakha is conscious of Minsc's bubbling rage, of Jaheira's colder, wary fury. The outcome of this conversation was decided before they even came in the door; Roah is only making things much, much worse for herself.

"I will," Rakha says flatly, "but I don't think you'll like my choice."

"Hah. A hero!" Roah barks a laugh. "There's a time for heroics, my friend, and a time for common sense. This is the latter."

She steps forward, ignoring Minsc completely and focusing only on Rakha. "The Zhentarim have been trying to crack Baldur's Gate for years, but Nine-Fingers' grip has become too strong. And look what it's come to. Her Guild is disorganized, undisciplined. The cult broke them in a matter of days, while my Zhentarim still stand strong."

Her eyes glint eagerly. "A Guild under *our* control can do what Nine-Fingers failed to - drive the Absolute out of the city once and for all. And then remain on in the city, to protect its good citizens from any future threats... for a reasonable fee of course."

(A/N: I truly enjoy Roah as a character. XD Nothing phases her; she knows what she wants and is supremely confident at literally every moment. It won't save her, but it does make her a lot of fun.)

"My hamster can smell your lies, villain!" Minsc cuts across her with a roar of anger. "Foul not his little nose!"

"Fine," Roah says calmly, turning towards him with a disingenuous smile, her gaze hard and pointed. "Let us talk of *truth*, then. Do your friends know how many you killed in the Absolute's name, Stone Lord? Do *you*?"

(A/N: Ohohohoho ouch.)

Minsc stiffens, backpedaling a step. "I-- do not call me that!" he snarls. "Minsc is Minsc!"

"Oh?" Roah takes a step forward, pressing her advantage, a smirk spreading across her face. "Oh? I don't recall any tales of Minsc helping the likes of Nine-Fingers," she sneers. "A known thief. A *murderer*. I thought Minsc of Rashemen served the side of good?"

Her eyes widen in mock-astonishment, and then she laughs as Minsc sputters, his shoulders hunching away from the accusations. "I'm the last to judge, big man," she says with casual condescension. "You were just following orders. And hey - that's all you have to do now."

Her eyes return to Rakha, who has been following this whole conversation without moving a muscle except the one twitching in her jaw. "If you don't know what's right, just let the grownups talk. Because I *know* your friend will make the smart choice."

Rakha scowls.

Up until this point, Roah has been, at best, a small fish in the very large pond of this ever-shifting and incredibly tangled situation. But she is doing a very good job of shoving herself with express speed to the top of Rakha's shit list.

I know your friend will make the right choice.

Perhaps Roah knows perfectly well who Rakha is. Perhaps she knows that Bhaal's blood ran in her veins, and that up until very recently she would have gladly thrown in with the Zhent for the pure joy of the bloodshed to follow. Or, perhaps, she simply thinks Rakha is an easy mark to be lured with coin and flattery.

Either way, it doesn't matter, because she has insulted Minsc, taunted him with the memory of the terrible things he did under the Absolute's influence.

Minsc, who Rakha has seen as an aspirational figure almost from the moment she met him - a force of chaos and madness and violence nevertheless devoted to doing good. A man who called Rakha 'friend' without prompting, while knowing the state of her wretched blood. One of the few who has truly made her believe that she is a creature worth salvaging.

And Rakha herself carries too many memories of the evil she's wrought to listen to Minsc being abused for his. She can see the way that he has slumped under the barrage of verbal fire, the way his shoulders have hunched in and his eyes narrowed in pain.

It will not stand.

"You're mistaken," she growls. "Minsc of Rashemen *always* knows the right thing to do."

(A/N: In-game it only showed Minsc approving here, but according to the dialogue files, it's ['Wyll 2', 'Karlach 2', 'Jaheira 10', 'Minsc 10', 'Halsin 2'], which is delightful.)

There's a long, long silence. Minsc turns his head to look at Rakha, and then he draws himself to his full height, his shoulders squaring, his eyes losing the haunted expression. With one long stride he moves to stand at Roah's side, overlooking the Zhent and Guild forces below.

"Your leader is not wrong!" he bellows out to them. "The Guild is a band of treacherous scoundrels, and Nine-Fingers the worst among them!"

Rakha blinks, shoots a look sideways at Jaheira. Jaheira says nothing; her eyes are fixed on the back of Minsc's head, unblinking.

"But the Stone Lord... Minsc..." Minsc goes on, with a touch of bitterness, "was many times worse. I have no right to judge."

He reaches into his pocket, then lifts one hand, his hamster balanced on his palm.

"So it will not be Minsc who does the judging!" he cries.

With a loud squeak, Boo scurries up his arm and onto his shoulder. Minsc narrows his eyes, his voice lifting to echo through the huge room. "MY HAMSTER WILL COUNT TO THREE!" he roars. "LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS, ZHENTARIM, AND BOO WILL SPARE YOUR LIVES!"

Roah gapes, then turns to stare up at Rakha disbelievingly. "Truly?" she snaps. "I am handing you the Guild, and you'd throw it all away on the word of a madman?"

Rakha stares back at her wordlessly. There's a loud squeak from Boo, shrill enough to make their teeth ache.

Roah's veneer of cool is starting to slip; there's a flash of anxiety in her eyes. "Think about this!" she hisses. "It defies all logic! I--"

Another squeak, louder this time, a warning in it. Minsc's hand hovers over the hilt of his greatsword.

Roah scowls. "Oh, enough of this," she snaps, and darts away, setting an arrow to her bow as she goes. "ZHENTARIM! TO ARMS!"

[into-the-fraymotif]

May I ask for one of these three fraymotifs, I guess roll a d6 for which one is actually made ohohohoho 1-2 maid of void + rouge of light 3-4 maid of void + seer of space 5-6 maid of void + muse of hope

I’m going to do the first two, one here, and the other is going in the queue solo. But first I will take the time to explain though why I’m leaving the third out.

It’s super long tho so I’m putting it all under the cut

So, the Muse. There’s a very intentional reason why i left the master Classes out of the equation when calculating how many viable Classpect Pairs there were to be made into Fraymotifs. You see, a Class is not only the way you interact with your Aspect, but it is also the kind of person you are; they are at their core character archetypes flavored with superpowers. The two master Classes don’t really function this way. You see, where the main 12 really flesh out their Heroes’ personalities and interactions, the two master Classes are Vast, Vague, and Very powerful, but not at all specific. The Lord does everything that every active Class does, and the Muse does everything that every passive Class does, which doesn’t tell you anything about the person who holds the title, just the position that person has. Caliborn is The Foreground Character (always already here), and Calliope is The Background Character, permeating the back half of the story in close-to-no direct way. The Lord, while not necessarily a bad guy, is a Mary Sue by definition. And the Muse may as well be a SylphMaidPageHeirSeerBard Jack-Of-All-Trades Master-of-None.

I cannot stress enough that when it comes to the two master Classes, your entire archetype boils down to the function you have in the narrative, because if it were anything else, it'd be a different Class. So, any powers they have, when applied anywhere close to the level of a Fraymotif, would not be a “Special Attack”, it would be a Major Narrative Event that shapes the plot of your session irreversibly. And I’m not here to tell you how your story pans out, developing it yourself is the fun part of storytelling, and I don’t want to take that away. That said, wanting to play a powerful Hero is by no means a bad thing. It’s fun to play a broken character! (Especially the Muse of Hope, which is the most effective Muse in a team-setting imo) Have fun with your peeps and your characters, I just find that the master Classes’ regular powers are essentially Fraymotifs in their own right, and there’s really no point because any combo would be “and then the Lord wins”/“and then the Muse causes their allies to win”.

Anyway, enough of my whining, here’s your first request:

Ode to Nihilappraisal

Rogue of Light [one who redistributes and redistributes through information, relevance, and fortune] + Maid of Void [one who serves and serves through emptiness, irrelevance, and absence]

Ode (a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter) + Nihil (Latin for "nothing") + Appraisal (an act of assessing something or someone)

The Maid, as one who serves the Void, would naturally be in communication with and in some cases directly receive orders from the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors (if the Witch of Void was a Warlock, think of the Maid as a unionized employee). So through following the whims of the NCHT, they would grant the Maid some degree of access to their powers.

The Rogue could then take the knowledge of the existence of the NCHT and redistribute it amongst the Targets. The NCHT don’t really like people knowing them all that much, so that combined with the Maid’s upkeep on all that it unknown, and the Rogue taking the physical brightness of the area and giving it to the Targets for dramatic effect, would culminate in the Targets being… well…

When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate. So when you have a bunch of Lightened up Targets and you flood them with the true nature of the Void, both Aspects annihilate with each other; this is brought on by the wrath of the NCHT, and by the Maid "cleaning up" all the "clutter" that is supposed to be in the empty space, and the Rogue redistributing all of the Target's relevance elsewhere,

Evaporating the Target.

Yeah.

That's the power of combining opposite Aspects.

This is also a slightly special case because the Maid Class usually only serves the nature of their Aspect (like Time, making sure everything is moving forward smoothly and pruning doomed timelines, and Life ensuring that everything g keeps growing and developing, etc.), but Void is a special case because there are tangible forces to serve with dynamic motives out there that also have crazy Paradox Space warping powers.

A Maid of Void may not work under the NCHT in every session; I honestly don't know how many Maids they need for whatever motives they have, so... A less cool version may be just the Rogue redistributing the Target's relevance somewhere else, and the Maid tidying up the job to ensure the Target is nearly completely irrelevant such that the Target fades into obscurity. Not as cool, but Heroes of Void are rather inconsistent between sessions, regardless of Class.

Thank you for your patience and I hope this was worth the wait! More to come in the queue as per my last post.

[jakeunkangajii]

Miitopia Review!

Hello, this is Jakeun Kangajii and this is my very first Miitopia review! This is my very first review so I’ll just dive on into how I’ll do this. I’ll describe and rank a game on their game mechanics, art direction, music, and story on a 5 point scale. Then I’ll average it up and go from there. Easy, right? Then let’s get started! Warning, there are some spoilers for classes but I won’t spoil the story.

Thanks Nintendo!

GAME MECHANICS

So, at its core, Miitopia is a turn-based RPG where your Miis can level up, gain stats, and learn skills. You know, standard RPG fare. However, there is a lot that sets this game apart from the others, from the wacky jobs to the food system. And I mean seriously wacky jobs. Like flower or cat.

Nya~

In total, there are 14 classes, with the standard Warrior, Cleric, Mage, but most of these classes are very different. I mean, Cat is a class all of its own. Two of these classes are unlocked post game but aren’t overpowered as you might think. All the classes have different skills, though some function the same as others, but how those skills mix and match are unique, so try them all out and see what works best with you and leave the ones you don’t like to the AI.

... Did I mention the party members are controlled by AI?

Wait, I didn’t tell you to do that! That skill isn’t that great either!!

Yeah, you can only control the first Mii you create. On one hand, usually the AI for your allies are pretty good in healing you or getting the kill, but sometimes... sometimes they do things you don’t want them to do. Like healing themselves when the enemy is just ONE HP away from dying. Honestly, it would have been nice if they gave you the option to control what Miis you can control and what Miis you can trust the AI to not mess around with. It does speed battles up a bit, so I’ll give it that much.

Skills aren’t the only things affected by AI. That part where it said the Mii was a “Kind” Cat? Personalities are actually pretty important in Miitopia, with seven types to choose from. They all have good and bad parts to them, like the Kind Mii sharing food with their allies but can also feel sorry for the monster, giving them a 50/50 chance of either letting the monster go or the monster taking advantage of their kindness to do damage to them. My recommendation is to have at least one of each type of personality. 

One thing I’ve noticed is that this game and its predecessor, Tomodachi Life, tend to be pretty obsessed with food. In this case, it’s really important for your Miis to eat food, usually dropped by enemies but sometimes gifted. Why? Cause they help raise stats even after you hit the max level of 50. In fact, you can and are encouraged to raise all your stats to a total of +99. However, there are some limits. After all, you can only eat so much in one day, right?

Plus, some Miis are picky eaters. Eat your baby food, cat.

The other main way to raise stats is through buying gear. I have problems with the method used. You see, you can’t just go to a store yourself. You have to wait for the Mii to want to buy their next upgrade of gear and hope you have enough money, or who knows how long you’ll have to wait for your next opportunity? 

Larry you better not screw it up this time.

Even then, sometimes the Miis might get distracted and buy something totally different. Like a Banana. Or piece of Candy. You get the amount they didn’t spend back, but it is really annoying.

Oh thank GOD.

Next we have Relationships! Yeah, your Miis can bond and learn skills that aren’t specific to one class.

Like, say, warning a friend to get out of the way of an attack. Not that it worked in this case. Darn it Trucy.

How are relationships raised? Well the most basic way is for them to simply spend time in the inn together.

Phoenix is all alone ‘cause he’s sick. Get better soon!

Other ways usually happen randomly, like a random event in the inn, a character uses a beneficial skill on another, or a random event in the field.

However... sometimes, Miis may get into fights. This is a VERY BAD THING. 

Oh my God Kay can you NOT.

When Miis fight, they might either let their guards down, get angry when the Mii they’re fighting with takes a turn, or even get into an all out brawl with them. It’s fortunately very easy to get them to get along again, either by putting them in a room together or have a Pop Star do their job, but it is a pain to deal with. Especially when you have more than one fight going on at a time.

Finally, I���d like to bring attention to how you encounter battles on the field.

Tralala~

You can’t actually control your Mii’s movement. Instead, it’s almost like one of those rail shooters where you go on a specific path except you can’t move your character at all. Battles and random events are placed at certain “parts” of the path, which can be a bit of a pain but can also help for easy grinding. Not that you really need it until post game but. The idea is there.

Ohohohoho, hello money bag.

There are a lot more little details than what I’ve gone over so far, but I’ll leave them for you to discover and try out. I give this part a 4/5. It’s pretty solid overall and it is fun for the most part, but there are some frustrating bits that prevent me from giving it a perfect score.

ART DIRECTION

Obviously, for a game starring Miis, the art is generally simplistic and cartoony, so there’s not a lot of realism going on here. That’s not a bad thing, as it works in making the game look bright and lively, perfect for a weird RPG like this. Besides, they definitely didn’t skimp out on the backgrounds!

You can’t tell me that the background doesn’t look impressive. Especially if you see it in motion.

Another area that I saw a lot of effort put into are the gears and weapons. Because oh my god I love the variety of these things. They make really good ideas for cosplay or just costumes in general! 

God I want that dress SO MUCH.

Of course, we can’t skip out on the enemy designs. However, I don’t think I need to say much more other than these pics.

AHHHHHHH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

5/5 definitely.

MUSIC

Ohohohoho.... OHOHOHOHO! THIS is where this game truly shines at its best. You’d think a Mii game would have okay music but nothing too impressive, but you’d be DEAD WRONG. 

That’s just ONE of MANY wonderful songs in this game. I mean, this made one of my top 10 OSTs, and I have a lot of favorite OSTs. God I love it so much.

5/5 highly recommend getting the game if ONLY for the soundtrack. But that would do a disservice to the rest of the game.

STORY

This is insert name here Phoenix. Phoenix is just one of many Miis living in the land of Miitopia. However, dark happenings are afoot.

Dark Lord insert name here Manfred decided to steal everyone’s face and put them on monsters! Naturally, Phoenix must meet new allies and work with them to defeat the evil Dark Lord and rescue everyone’s faces! 

... Pretty simple, right? Well, despite that, I’m giving the story 4/5. Why? Despite how bare bones the story seems to be at first, there are actually many twists, the characters are charming, and more importantly, there is surprisingly a lot of emotional depth to it. It’s not a 5 cause it didn’t make me cry. Close, but no cigar. 

TOTAL

Game Mechanics: 4/5

Art Direction: 5/5

Music: 5/5

Story: 4/5

Average: 4.5/5

All in all, highly recommended for those looking for a light hearted game with surprising amounts of depth. Who knows? Maybe this game can get a sequel and we can get a follow up on the ending. Or maybe we’ll get something completely different. Hard to tell with these Mii games.

Next time, I will be talking about the spiritual predecessor of Miitopia! See you then!