#what happens when two PCs want to date the same NPC? this i guess

[art-bit-me]

a noble, a drow, and a vampire walk into a bar

[villainessprefect]

~Tell It to My Heart~

title: Commencement

Prompt #1: Being too afraid to confess during the school year, so you wait until graduation.

Idia x gn!reader

Read on AO3

"You're going to do it, right, Idia?" Ortho asks as he hovers beside his brother.

"Do what?" He asks. For once his focus isn't on playing a game, but rather coding one. With that, he doesn't notice the smile in his brother's voice nor the mischievous glint that sparks in his eyes.

"Confess to the Prefect!"

Idia is glad that he hadn't gone for his energy drink because it would have spilled everywhere. The sudden declaration makes his hair flare for a second and tests the code when it's not done. It ends up in a loop, crashing. Ortho had done more damage than a final boss doing his signature move could ever hope to do.

"Wh-Why would I do that? It's so cringe and n-normie! Besides, the Prefect has other options...they'd never pick me."

"I know they would," Ortho reassures. Idia lets out a sigh and he can't tell if it's his brother's endless optimism or the fact that he can't recall when he last saved his work. "I've analyzed their reactions and heart rate whenever you're together. The chances of you two becoming more involved are 90%! Please, I know if you just ask then you two can be happy."

"Not happening."

He picks up from where he left off with his code as if he were never interrupted. But his focus doesn't last long, not when his mind lingers on Ortho's bluntness about his feelings. Pah! As if he would ever admit those aloud. Not in a million years. No matter how much Ortho pestered him, he wouldn't- couldn't do it.

No matter how many times he's dreamt of the scenario or even dared to practice in front of his PC. The amount of times he's tried to mimic those dating sims and tried to sound as cool as a love interest is truly embarrassing. The memories make him cringe.

He's a weirdo, he knows this. You know this. The whole damn school knows this. He's a shut-in who barely has any friends let alone a love interest. It's a miracle that he even has you.

Those stupid feelings for you should have disappeared a long time ago. They blossomed before he could even realize it. You just had to waltz into this world and steal his heart- just like a true MC! But what was he to you in your life? An NPC you were fond of? A passing friend who would be forgotten soon? He doesn't dare to think of himself as anything more to you.

You should have gone home. At least, a part of him hopes you would have by now. That way he could bury those feelings in his heart and get over this lovestruck phase. He could find comfort in an anime character who was just like you and be fine with that. But you've pretty much settled on staying in this world. And that's a scary thought.

You were going to remain in the same world as him.

And his feelings for you would never disappear.

"Ortho?"

Idia doesn't want to confess and lose...whatever it is you have. Friendship, he guesses? It's...nice. To have someone that he can spend time with. Someone who isn't his brother and can get along with him too! It's something he didn't think he was capable of having.

Yet, he fears losing you to someone else. Anyone could snatch you up. Even the weakest soul that walked the school grounds was stronger than him. At least they had the courage to be out there while he found safety in his room. It's pathetic, he knows...

"Yes?"

But it can't be like this forever, can it? He can't keep cowering away despite how easy it may be. Fighting against fate is pointless, he can't win.

But he can try. All he needs to do is take the first step.

"M-Maybe I will...b-but under one condition!"

Graduation.

That is when he would confess. Idia finds the timing to be good considering he missed the other holiday events. Plus he has time to prepare (and test his theory if you're really staying in this world or not). And if everything goes to hell, well, he won't be here to deal with it! He could flub his confession and go home and never have to deal with that or you, again! Even if he loses, he wins.

If only graduation hadn't come sooner than he thought. It's only thanks to Ortho's enthusiasm does he remember that 'promise' he made to him. His face instantly pales at the reminder and how he's been neglecting to prepare for the upcoming day. Grinding in his games was always a priority but they've been put even higher when learning he has to appear in person to get his diploma before leaving this place for good. Ugh. Seriously? Couldn't they just send it to him digitally? No? Figures.

The day of graduation feels quite surreal. For the most part, he's blanked out. Unimportant NPCs were called one by one for their flimsy piece of paper and a handshake from Crowley. It was a painstakingly, extensive ceremony. He never liked his surname thanks to the curse it brought, but now he disliked it even more due to the fact how low it was on the list. His curse loved screwing him over in more ways than one, it seems.

It's not surprising that Idia disappears the moment the diploma is in his hands and he's free from Crowley's hand. He played his part and now he has no reason to remain there. Even if teachers barked at him to stay, did it matter? He was a student here no longer.

Idia finds solace in the courtyard. It's empty and devoid of life. Everyone is crowded at the ceremony, waiting for the final names to be called. The cheers of celebration for this event is heard even from here. Good for them.

"Idia?"

"Eek!" The blue-haired boy squeaks at the call of his name. He jumps and practically squeezes that flimsy piece of paper in his hands like a lifeline. When he sees that it's you, he lets out a breath. Just for a moment, he is calm. Then he realizes, it's you.

"P-Prefect? What are you doing here?! You're not...watching the rest of the ceremony?"

"I came to look for you," you answer with a soft smile. So warm and comforting. It's hard to believe you don't have magic when you make him feel at ease with just a smile. "I figured you would leave and asked Ortho to tell me where you went. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Ah, Ortho..." He shouldn't be surprised. "I, uh, I'm okay. Better now that I'm away from...there."

"The ceremony is nice and all, but...there really are a lot of people. I'm just glad no one ruined it," you laugh.

"Planning to ruin another ceremony?" He scoffs, a playful grin itching on his face. "You could have showed up on stage with Grim."

"Maybe for my graduation, I'll do something like that. You can be there to see it too."

"Y-Yeah...I will." He agrees before properly processing his answer. Of course, he would go to see you graduate. It would be under the guise of doing it for Ortho, but for you two...he thinks he could brave the crowd. Well, he'd be all the way in the back near the closest exit and be watching you both up close with a drone while he's avoiding the crowd, but he'd be there.

Silence falls between you. It's not unwelcome, but Idia has the looming sensation of dread hanging over him. He made a promise to Ortho and he wants to keep it. Even if it makes him feel like he's going to pass out. If he's going to be a good older brother, he has to do this. For him and Ortho.

"I'm going to miss you."

"Eh?"

You're the one to break the silence first. Your gaze lifts towards the sky, eyes on who knows what. Idia catches a glimpse of how your smile has fallen from your lips.

"I kinda dreaded graduation. It means losing out on my older friends, sort of. I know no one is leaving for good, but you're going to be busy with your family business, right? I don't know if you'll have time for me, but...I'd still like to keep in touch with you."

His face burns upon hearing your words. It feels like you're the one making a move on him! You totally are, right? Right?! Wait, was Ortho seriously right this whole time? No, no. It's too early to tell.

"Y-Yes!" He squeaks out, again. He's happy to have given a verbal response and see your face light up.

Idia opens his mouth to continue speaking but finds his voice lost. A hand reaches out to pull out his tablet hidden in his robes. It's kept in his hands with a firm grasp as he thinks how easy it would be to convey his feelings through it. But that's so lame. Who confesses via tablet when you're literally right in front of each other?

"You okay?" You ask.

Idia gives a quick nod. His gaze is focused on the tablet, looking at the reflection of himself through it. His flames capture his attention and he can see the tints of pink giving his feelings away. He doesn't like how he looks. Pathetic. Weak. Cowardly. It's times like this when he would just run and lose everything. Things would be so much easier if life were a game.

He forces his head up and takes in the surroundings. The courtyard is still empty aside from you two. There's a slight breeze that causes your hair to sway in the wind. The setting sun is casting an orange glow upon the world and on you, caressing your face with a gentle glow. If only there were cherry blossoms, this would be a peak anime scene. The normal tree behind him has to do the stand-in job for it. Video games may show the ideal, but this...isn't such a bad cutscene.

"I...have something I want to say to you," Idia gulps. All he has to do is be the MC he was meant to be! Er- love interest! If he can do this in a game, he can do this IRL. Easy peasy.

You don't rush him. You're patient. Always being kind and letting him take his time to formulate his words. To be considerate, makes his heart warm, especially with the way you're looking at him.

"I just have to pick the right dialogue options," he mutters to himself. He takes in a breath and hides his tablet. "I've been wanting to tell you how I feel...a-about you. That I really like you as a person. You're not like the rest of the normies, you're actually pr-pretty cool. And I wouldn't mind you being in my life longer than them." His voice cracks and he lets out a whine. He wishes for these robes to have hoods so he could hide. "I-Is that good enough? I think I messed this up...just KO me already, please."

Now the silence feels like it's chipping away at his HP. The lack of response is more threatening than anything before. He doesn't even have the courage to look at you. Not until he feels warmth against his cold hand. It's yours atop his.

"It's good enough. I just have one thing to say." You wait for your eyes to meet. Those golden eyes full of fear hide their true beauty. "Will you wait for me?"

"Wait...?"

"Wait for me until I graduate. So I can be with you."

"O-Of course! Wait...Wait- You want to be with me?!"

"I do. You're one of the most important people here to me. I want to stay with you, Idia."

A pathetic noise escapes him. Even he's surprised by the sound he makes. It's not a cheer or a yes, but something akin to a joyful cheap. This was definitely not the outcome he was expecting, but it was the best one he could have had.

"Just promise to come to visit every now and then, okay? If not, I'll get Ortho to drag you here," you chuckle. "Even if you're busy, make time for us."

"I will!"

"Thank you." You squeeze his hand. "We should probably celebrate your graduation- and us."

[bloody-fists-beating-hearts]

It’s a Fallout76/Bethesda rant

Bethesda just released Fallout 1st, a horseshit pay-to-win subscription system for their absolute cum-bubble of a game, and while it’s getting the flack it deserves there are people already putting on their kneepads so they can gobble down Todd Howards entire turgid cock, and as someone who likes rpg’s way too much this irked me, so have a massive and barely coherent rant i took off the discord because why not.

I want to start off with this:  Every good thing about current fallout comes from the fanbase. The stories people tell, the headcanons, the fanfics, the art, everything fans do for it is made with more love, and more thought, than anything Bethesda’s writing and games design team has done in the last 10 years

Now first of all, I haven’t bought or played 76. People are gonna stop me right there and go ”well you haven’t bought it how would you know its bad!!” yeah, I’ve never eaten dog shit either but I can pretty well guess that I ain’t gonna fucking like it.

I knew the second he said "there are no npcs" with actual enthusiasm that this game was gonna be shit. And if you give me 2 seconds to gloat, I never bought the game and I knew this was gonna happen and I was RIGHT so suck my fat hairy nuts all those fanboys who pre-order things mindlessly just because there's a brand name attached to it. If there is anything you take from this its DO NOT PREORDER. BRAND LOYALTY IS FOR BOOMERS AND BOOTLICKERS. FOR FUCKS SAKE BE SMART WITH YOUR MONEY.

Games like this are fucking 80-90 dollars or more in Australia so I actually have to think about whether this momentary distraction is worth almost an entire days paycheck, and I’m still looking for employment which means I actually haven’t bought shit in a while (side note, anyone wants to commission me for 10 dollars I’ll draw damn near anything. God I need to make rent)

Every executive at Bethesda seems to be playing catch-up to EA's monetisation scheme. Beth has abandoned their model of single-player rpg's in favour of a "games as a service" model. Fallout 76 seems to me like its a weird experiment for just how far they can stretch this and still make money. It actually makes me wonder if they are 

 a) just completely unaware of fanbase response [no idea HOW]

b) are running into financial problems and are doing this out of desperation

 c) todd howard is still mad that obsidian made a better fallout than he ever could and he's doing this out of spite 

  Games as a whole has become much like the movie industry where publishers will throw big buckets of cash around to development teams, and those teams have CEO's and higher ups that throw lavish meet n greets and have nice fancy suits and cars and then treat their development teams like shit, overworking them to the point of exhaustion, because the product has to be on time for release dates that are scheduled to be the most profitable (christmas is a notable one). 

And those products are consistently bland, shitty, shallow experiences. Narrative cum-dumpsters that are purposefully made to toe the line as safely as possible, to be open to as wide as an audience as possible so they can make the most money, and Bethesda is a huge offender. Skyrim was fun, sure, but it was watered down to fuck, it had shitty dialogue, it had bland one-note characters, it had a simplified skill system. It was impossible to lose. Seriously, try and fail a fucking quest in skyrim, other than one or two, it's a hand-holder of an rpg, but it has a huge community of fans that put in monumental effort, for free, because they like the Elder Scrolls, and they like the world bethesda made. 

  Then Bethesda goes "hey, that watered down thing we made got huge! lets release it about 12 more fucking times, with some of the SAME bugs, with the SAME content, with the SAME limitations and Yes, we absolutely expect you to pay for it, again. Then they release the remastered edition which, to their credit, is free to anyone who already bought the legendary edition (on PC), and does actually have updated 64bit capability and some graphical enhancements (that aren't anywhere near what some goober in his basement cooked up in his spare time, but whatever). Then, seeing that Skyrim was so popular, with kids especially, and made money, they turn their sights to fallout 4, a game that was so anticipated that someone made a fake countdown and caused a small meltdown on tumblr/social media when it was revealed to be fake (i was part of that fiasco, i remember the hype, i was there goddamnit)

So Fallout, a franchise that literally has its theme as its FUCKING TAGLINE, an ADULT game that is equal parts crude, gory and humorous. A game that satirises the cold war era of american my-country-tis-of-thee blind loyalty and openly mocks the way war was idealised, and shows that not even the literal end of the world could either stop humanity's lust for blood or its desire for conquest. Games that showed you the growth of the world - from shady sands to the NCR, from the vault dweller to arroyo, shit actually happened in the games, the world didn't just stop turning when the bombs dropped. A game where you you become a porn star for fucks sake, and it's funny. 

So Bethesda sees that, makes something like it (fallout 3) which is good, but a little rough around the edges when you look at it too hard. But the way they suck you into the vault, the way they build a relationship with your dad and your way of life is immersive as fuck, so when you leave the place you actually feel like you're leaving something important, not just finishing the tutorial

then they outsource a Fallout game to obsidian, because hey, we saved your franchise by buying it off you, but if you can make an entire game in one year and get a metacritic score of 85 we'll even throw in a bonus. And fuck me sideways and in the ear, if the obsidian devs didn't work themselves harder than a 4-armed hooker. And they made a game that on release was a clusterfuck of bugs, because they were given an unrealistic time limit and missed the metacritic score by ONE POINT so bethesda goes "nhey heh sucks to suck" and fucks them off the franchise forever. EXCEPT (and I admit I'm biased here) the game is good. The game is actually really good when you remove those bugs, and people start forming attachments to it, and mentioning how bad fallout 3's writing is by extension. 

  So Todd and Co. in his infinite wisdom, decide that the only thing a fallout rpg needs is 50s aesthetic and fuck all else, and he releases a game so watered down it can't even be called an rpg. And its not. There are no skills. There are barely any dialogue checks. Instead of dialogue, Nate/Nora is a flat, samrish individual that is either "yes sir right away sir may i have another", "yes but i'm gonna make an unfunny quip about it" "this option pretends to say no but its gonna give you the quest marker anyway". 

The game drops any pretence of difficulty by giving you a deathclaw, a minigun and some power armour in the first 10 minutes, allowing you to effectively reach late-game power levels with some minor scavenging for ammo or cores. Then the game ropes you into some inter-faction war that realistically you wouldn't give a shit about, because some spud in a cowboy hat fucking deputizes you into a military general because you shot like 4 raiders from a rooftop (with a minigun. in power armour. making you nigh-invulnerable to bullets). You're sad about your son about 3 times the whole game and then you're on your merry way to mowing down humans left right and center without a care in the world. God fallout 4's writing is so stupid it gives me an aneurysm.

 Remember the part about resources wars and america only having the veneer of a strong country while riots, inflation, and resource shortages tore it apart from within? Bethesda doesn't, have an eerily stepford pastel coloured glimpse at a world that was totally fine, nothing wrong here, shame it got nuked oh well moving on

Your spouse? yeah you love them, they're said 2 whole sentences to you then they died, be sad because you totally loved them and it is totally sad that they are dead. Your weird play-dough son shaun, you love him so much, you even tickled him on the chin once, okay he's gone off you go to chase him - woah now, don't chase him too hard we have all these side quests for you to do! What would be the narrative reasoning for a supposedly distraught parent to fuck around boston instead of finding their goddamn child? fuck knows! just go pick up some goddamn wood and get to base building sonny-jim! 

Companions? yeah, they're fun, we gave them a romance questline and it's thus: if you pick enough locks and pass a minor charisma check maccready will be ready and willing to tell you about his sick child, and then he'll ride you like a stallion. Talk to him like, 4 times, and he will be your bosom buddy for life in about 3-5 days if you just pick locks like a fucking madman, because character growth is hard and counting beans is easy.

 Also your son is a part of the faction we were talking about! something about synths, remember that one questline from rivet city that barely anyone actually remembers and was an interesting time waster at best? Well get ready to do that same quest but about! 15! more! times! because we could not think of anything else to write about synthetically produced humans that assume peoples identities other than having them as a hamfisted metaphor for slavery. Why do they take over people's identies? Well because the institute needs them to aasdkfjdh kshshshsh t9oe of course. 

Speaking of hamfisted metaphors, here's the underground railroad, named after the underground railroad that actually mattered, except this time its the same thing but synths. They are so top secret that the only way to find them is to follow the only bright red line in a street that is exclusively green-brown otherwise, and then enter their super secret password, which is "password"

They are then, like every other faction, absolutely willing to trust you, at face value, no questions asked, because have to actually do something or require a skill check might make this hard for people under the age of 12 to play. Then you go do whatever fuckin shit you do, I stopped playing at this point, and then you find out your son is actually 60, you guys have a tearful, 10 sentence reunion, then he diesthe whole reason you were out here in the first place dies, and you react appropriately, which is to say you say his name really sadly, and then go back to mowing down raiders with reckless abandon

And then 76 gets released, bethesda drops all pretense of fallout still being an rpg. You want a story? Fuck you, pay up. Its retro future and thats all that makes falloutSatirizing war mongering? You can nuke things in this game and its totally fine, its actually the goal, because fallout has nukes in it right? Pay us 10 dollars and you get army olive drab spraypaint because hurrgh war is fun and great, wasnt that the tagline from the first game?The more i rant the more angry i am because people put their heart and soul into writing this. The lore and dialogue is actual work that someone researched and loved and felt proud of and now  it's becoming a hilariously meta parody of itself. 

Honestly FUCK bethesda and and fuck todd howard for his pisspoor cash grab. Not even worth calling it a video game anymore

[xseedgames]

Zwei: The Arges Adventure - Localization Blog #1

AAAAAAHHHHH IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING.

I’ve been working on this game for the better part of a year now, but have been unable to say anything about it for PR reasons – namely, that it wasn’t in a showable state, and we didn’t want to confuse prospective players by having two Zwei games announced but unreleased at the same time. Which is totally reasonable, but AAAAAAAHHHH I’VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK ABOUT THIS GAME SO BADLY YOU HAVE NO IDEA.

…Ahem. First off, I guess I should bring you all up to speed, in case you missed the announcement. Falcom’s 2001 PC classic Zwei!! is coming to the Western world via Steam, GOG, and The Humble Store in early 2018, under the name Zwei: The Arges Adventure. Why the name change? Well, because we already released its 2008 sequel, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection (which was originally called Zwei II: Sky-High Great Adventure in Japan).

That’s right. Localization work wrapped on the sequel first, and now we’re finishing things up with the original.

What are we thinking?!, you must be asking yourselves. Why would we release the sequel first, then go back and release the original? Why wouldn’t we release the original game first? And since we’ve already released the more modern second entry in the series from seven years later, can this earlier effort really hold its own by comparison? 

Well, that’s why I’m so excited. Because Zwei: The Arges Adventure is good. REALLY good. In fact, I dare say it’s my favorite translation I’ve ever worked on to date – yes, even topping Return to PopoloCrois and Corpse Party. And if you’re at all familiar with me (this is Tom, BTW), that statement alone should tell you that Zwei: AA is something special, since PopoloCrois and Corpse Party are… shall we say, perennial favorites of mine. To put it very lightly.

So, yeah. Let’s address those hypothetical questions, shall we?

Why would we release the sequel before the original? Well, two reasons. One, because we can – these games each tell standalone stories, set on different floating continents with different casts of characters. Zwei: AA’s two protagonists, Pipiro and Pokkle, do make a few cameo appearances in Zwei: II, but this is done almost purely for the sake of fanservice (the literal kind, not the naughty kind). When all is said and done, these two games are completely standalone, taking place in the same world but telling very different stories with very different characters and a very different feel. Think of it kind of like the Ys series, but even more episodic (since, Ys Origin aside, Ys has the Adol-as-protagonist connection from one game to the next, whereas Zwei doesn’t even have that!).

The other reason is because of the nature of Zwei: AA’s code. The Japanese version of this game utilized DirectX 5, was formatted strictly for 4:3 resolution with no widescreen options whatsoever, offered a lovely FPS selection of 30 or 15 (seriously!), counted on players to play it with mouse and keyboard over gamepad (it supported gamepads, but… barely), and contained no fewer than six unlockable Windows desktop apps that were loosely tied to yet completely separate from the main game.

This is one of them. And that first screenshot at the beginning of this blog entry is another.

In other words… this is the kind of adaptive coding project that’s been known to give lesser programmers heart attacks. Getting a game like this to even run on a modern Windows machine at all – much less run WELL – was decidedly not a task for the meek. In fact, it’s because of the way this game is coded that we ultimately decided to translate the game in-house rather than working with any fan-translators as we did for Zwei: II, as no two programmers would handle this text the same way – and trying to convert a fan-translated script to a format that would work for us would’ve taken almost as long as translating the game from scratch.

So, yeah. Getting Zwei: II out first was pretty much just done because… erm… it was ready first. And it was always GOING to be ready first. Even with a lengthy QA process and a couple minor delays, it still inevitably got finished long before its predecessor was ready to make its debut.

Fortunately, we hired a veteran programmer to work with us on Zwei: AA… but you’ll never guess who! It wasn’t Sara, since she was busy getting Zwei: II ready at the time (and a fine job she did of it, with one of our smoothest PC launches ever!). But this wasn’t our first time working with the guy we worked with on this project, either. It was, however, our first time working with him to modernize someone else’s game – and he really did perform some miracles for us (and put up with my many, many demands for quality-of-life improvements and feature additions, to boot!).

The man in question? Matt Fielding, of Magnetic Realms. A.k.a. the guy who brought you the game Exile’s End. 

Pictured: Exile’s End. Which is also an awesome game you should play!

And thanks to his technical wizardry, you guys are going to have an astoundingly up-to-date version of Zwei!! on your hands at launch. We’re talking more than just widescreen support here – there’s full in-game integration of the Pet Monitor and other desktop apps, new control functionality for more natural gamepad support across the board, inclusion of the arranged soundtrack from the Japan-only PSP version of the game, additional art and text content not present in any previous version of the game, and much, much more (to be detailed in future blog entries!).

Moving on to the second question I asked, with Zwei: II already out, can Zwei: AA hold its own by comparison?

I think you know what my answer’s going to be, on that one. Zwei: The Arges Adventure is a freaking awesome game with a lot to offer, and differs from its own successor in enough key areas that it can very easily hold its own any day of the week. Hell, you might even like it better than Zwei: II – it’s certainly a very close call for me, but I’d say Zwei: AA gets the slight edge! 

Sure, they’re both dungeon-crawling action RPGs at their core, and they both use food to level-up, even sharing the same food exchange system to discourage grinding. And the two-character party (plus one pet), with one character taking the role of physical attacker while the other slings spells, takes center stage in both titles as well. Plus, both games are set on floating continents in the same world.

That’s a lot of similarities, but they’re all relatively superficial. You could say Zwei: AA is like the 2D answer to Zwei: II’s 3D world, but that would be discounting its snarkier and more tongue-in-cheek storyline (yes, even more than Zwei: II’s!), or the gorgeous and ludicrously colorful hand-drawn backgrounds, or the two games’ very different approaches to pets (you only get one pet in Zwei: AA as opposed to the veritable army of pets featured in Zwei: II, but that one dog or cat [or other?] has significantly more personality and gameplay involvement than its many Zwei: II counterparts), or the huge variety of minigames on offer (all of which have been adapted to play from within the game itself, despite formerly existing only as desktop apps)… and that’s just scratching the surface. In short, although the two games use the same basic template, they represent two very different approaches to game design within the confines of that template.

For me as Zwei: AA’s translator, though, I can’t help but laser-focus right on the game’s dialogue. Protagonist duo Pipiro and Pokkle are without a doubt the best pair to write that somebody like me could ever ask for. Pokkle constantly cracks bad puns (and I do mean constantly!), wears a tail for funsies, and is always hitting on women twice his age.

And Pipiro just has absolutely no filter whatsoever, and is full of so much snark that she’s fit to burst.

Practically every line out of these two is an absolute gem – and that’s to say nothing of the many quirky NPCs surrounding them over the course of their rather lengthy quest (such as the endlessly self-delusional “libertine fatass” that’s funding your adventure, and his extremely no-nonsense maid who gave him that nickname).

I… really can’t stress enough how much fun it was to write for these characters, and how inspired I was to come up with the perfect phrasing for every line. I’m extremely appreciative that we chose to translate the game in-house, as it gave me an opportunity to work much more deeply with this script than I ever could’ve if we’d only been tasked with editing it. As time went on, I found myself revising my work on a daily basis, making small tweaks here and there as new bits of wordplay or better puns popped into my head (much to Matt’s chagrin, I’m sure!). The end result is something that I can stand behind as a faithful interpretation of the game’s mood and intent – an attempt to convey the same degree of lighthearted fun and irreverence present in every line of the Japanese script, but formatted to sound more natural in English, accounting for context, tone, atmosphere, and individual character quirks rather than just hammering out a word-for-word translation.

I’ve never laughed so hard while playing a JRPG before, and I truly hope that when you guys play this one in English, you’ll find its English interpretation just as hilarious as I found its original Japanese to be. That would mean I succeeded at what I set out to do, and would bring me great joy and pride as a localizer!

And please do keep an eye on this Tumblr, as I fully intend to give lots more info about Zwei: The Arges Adventure (and more screenshots showing off lines I’m particularly proud of) in the weeks to come!

Until then, I hope you’re all continuing to enjoy Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, and… well, I’mma go back to testin’ Zwei: The Arges Adventure now, ‘cause I want this game to be downright perfect when it’s released! And with translation and editing 100% complete, and coding probably somewhere in the 70-80% done range, that release date will be here before you know it…

[mister-69]

WHY TRAILS IS MY FAVORITE RPG SERIES

What comes to mind when you think of a good RPG series? Often times people will say Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Skyrim, and Witcher 3. Others will say Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, or Tales. But very few will mention the Trails series, otherwise known as the Kiseki series in Japan.

The Trails series is actually a larger part of The Legend of Heroes franchise, which has been around for a long time. There are 5 other Legend of Heroes series just like Trails, but we will be focusing on just the Trails series, which is the 6th installment.

It is by far the best RPG series pound for pound in existence; very few games can rival the quality of this series such as Witcher 3 and the Xenoblade series. So why doesn't anyone know about it outside of Japan? The biggest problem that stands in the way of the Trails series is localization.

Trails games have the largest script size of any video game series, which means they come over that much later when localized. For frame of reference, Trails in the Sky came out on PC in 2004 and PSP in 2006, but it was localized in 2011. Its sequel was localized 3 years later. The script size isn't the sole reason for the discreprancy between Japanese and Western release dates, but it makes quality testing, debugging, and programming much more time consuming.

Long localization times mean that the game will feel dated to Western players by the time it reaches them. Couple that being in the unpopular JRPG genre, and it's no wonder why Trails is under the radar in the West. Even in Japan, Falcom’s decisions to make most of their games on PC backfired. At the time, console gaming was more popular than PC gaming, the reverse of today's trend.

As a result, console RPGs received more attention which was further amplified by the heated console wars between Nintendo, Sony, and Sega. What's more unfortunate for Falcom was the decline of the JRPG genre, which earned a stigma in the West, therefore striking the global market off their list of considerations. So even by the time Trails in the Sky came out, it was already too late for them to capture a widespread audience.

If you go back in time and change a few things like platform choice, localization, and maybe going 3D, then Trails would have the popularity it deserves today. If Trails was as well known as Final Fantasy or Witcher 3, it would have dramatically changed the landscape of the JRPG genre.

But enough about that... So what makes the Trails series so worthy of praise? When you pick up an RPG, you're probably doing it for its story and characters. The battle system is secondary to you but of course you still want that to be fun. The Trails series does all of the above and more, to the greatest extent.

The best way I can describe the Trails series is that it's an RPG made for RPG fans. You have some of the best worldbuilding of any fictional work, profound story and characters, massive amounts of content, and an ingenius battle system. It does everything you want an RPG to do, and more.

WORLD BUILDING

It's easy to create a fictional world but difficult to create one that has a coherent geography, ecology, history, and politics. It is essential to telling a story because it’s the setting, the driving force of the plot, and the groundwork for character motives. But worldbuilding can also destroy the storyline if it's bad.

Let's take a look at Final Fantasy XIII and its world of Cocoon, a floating planetoid-shaped continent floating above Gran Pulse, a wilderness of monsters. While on Cocoon, your fugitive characters are constantly on the run from the entire human race. You never have time to take in the sights and in fact, you barely get to explore any of the wondrous cities in the game. Outside of deities and the military, you know nothing about its citizens, cities, politics, economy, or what life is like for the average person. You have no reason to care about its world.

Which I guess is the point because your characters are fugitives who plan on destroying it. Except that halfway through, your characters don't want to do that anymore but Cocoon almost gets destroyed anyway. In the end, Cocoon is saved but to what end? The players have no way to care about Cocoon even if they wanted to, so why does it matter? Its safety has no emotional impact on the player.

By the way, you can read much about XIII's lore and background in the game's database. But that's not the same as storytelling or worldbuilding. Reading about something is not the same as experiencing it. The game can have amazing characters and look as pretty as it wants, but with such awful worldbuilding its story becomes the least memorable thing about it.

Now let's talk about Trails, which takes place on the continent of Zemuria. The Trails in the Sky trilogy takes place in the Kingdom of Liberl. Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki take place in Crossbell State, and are thus known as the Crossbell duology. Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2 takes place in the Erebonian Empire. All of these regions are within the Zemurian continent, each with their own culture, people, ideas, economy, and politics.  And there are many more countries on this continent that play a role in the Trails series, we just don't travel there- yet.

They sign treaties, trade with each other, and go to war just like real world nations. The relationship between these regions affects the overarching events of what happens within their borders, and thus become the driving forces of their respective games.

In Sky, you have an extremist who doesn't believe the current seat of authority has what it takes to protect Liberl. In Erebonia, you have a country built on the annexation of many other states in an expansion for power so that it can compete against its long-standing rival, the Calvard Republic. With the way Trails does its worldbuilding, you can see that everyone has a motivation behind their actions. You can see why the story unfolds the way it does. And you can also see how they intersect and affect each other.

But Trails is not simply a bunch of countries vying for resources or superiority. There are so many forces and organizations in play that make the story even more interesting. You have the Bracer Guild, a politically neutral organization whose purpose is to maintain peace and protect people. They don't alway get along with the military, but they are loved by the people for solving their everyday problems.

On the other hand, you have the Jaeger Corps, mercenaries for hire. They are often employed by corrupt officials and evil organizations to carry out their dirty work. They operate outside the boundaries of laws and do whatever it takes to get the job done. There are different Jaeger Corps in the Trails Series, such as the Zephyr and Red Constellation, who have a bad history together. The Jaeger Corps and Bracer Guild are not necessarily rivals, but their line of work and ideals are often in opposition.

You also have Septian Churches established all over the continent in dedication of the Sky Goddess Aidios, otherwise known as "She who dwells above." Ordinarily, these churches are insignificant to the main storyline. But in Arteria, the High Seat of the Septian Church, there is an operation of Holy Knights known as the Gralsritter. They operate with the utmost secrecy and are therefore unknown to the public. Their goal is to recover artifacts and ensure they are kept away from human hands. They have other important missions but they are a central focus of the Trails series, so there is not much we know about their Holy Knight operations. 

Also operating in secrecy is an evil society known as Ouroboros. They are the ultimate masterminds in each of the Trails games. Their intentions, members, and powers are all shrouded in mystery. Often times, their plans revolve around obtaining artifacts and manipulating influential figures to carry out their grand schemes.

The amount of detail that goes into their worldbuilding goes down to even the microscopic levels. Each city and town has its own economy, culture, and people. The main reason for Trails' large text is because almost every NPC in the game is a named character with their own story. You have a couple traveling the world together, a hopeless romantic and his best friend, and family members living in different cities wondering about each other.

These aren't your average generic NPCs that exist to fill up a town and make it feel alive. These are actual characters with their own stories with different dialogue lines throughout the entire game. What you get in the end is a living, breathing, organic world. It's something you can appreciate while traveling, something you can fall in love with, and ultimately something you want to protect.

STORY/CHARACTERS

Even with amazing world building, the writers can still drop the ball on the story and characters. In Sword Art Online, the worldwide hit MMORPG anime, you have a wonderful fantasy land and an intriguing UI for players to use. Couple that with top notch animation and attractive character designs and you have a great-looking anime. Unfortunately, that's all it is.

The show is basically being run by a Gary and Mary Stu, two leading protagonists who are perfect in every way and get what they want in the end. It's painful and annoying to watch. The show does a great job of catching your interest but an equally good job on ruining it. SAO's worldbuilding has great potential but it's ultimately wasted on poor writing and terrible characters.

On the other hand, Trails does an exceptional job with their story and characters. Their storylines have actually good plot twists and their games know how to wrap up and ending better than a Chipotle burrito. Their characters have deep histories and well-written development.

Writing a good plot twist can be difficult, because it needs to have the element of surprise, impact the storyline, and make sense all at the same time. The story has to lead up to that point without giving it away. In other words, the foreshadowing needs to be just enough so that players guess something will happen but not too much so that they don't know exactly what WILL happen. This is something Trails has done every single time.

Secondly, plot twists will change the tone or pace of the game, for better or for worse. Often times, writers just have this amazing twist in their mind but they don't know what to do afterwards. So what you get is a sloppy ending that makes no sense.

This is a problem Trails does not suffer because you can tell that they meticulously plan out their writing from beginning to end. Their plot twists properly accomodate for everything affected so there are no plot holes or inconsistencies. And because their storylines occur over several games, their endings wrap up the current arc but end with a cliffhanger to start the next arc.

Trails does an equally amazing job with their characters. Good characters are always memorable and it just so happens that nearly all of the Trails characters are memorable. They go beyond your typical archetype because of good writing, original histories, and meaningful development.

When delving into a character's past, Trails goes deep. You see their upbringing, what happened to each of the characters, and how those events shaped the person you see today. These flashbacks are brief and happen at the crux of a character's development. What you get in the end is a development that flows nicely, ties in with the story, and helps you appreciate the character more.

Speaking of development, Trails has some of the most meaningful character development in the genre. Each of these characters feel very human because they have relateable flaws, flaws that they know they have difficulty coping with. And by adventuring with companions, they are able to own up to their mistakes and make amends, which pushes their characters towards completion.

For example, there are a pair of characters who dislike each other because of their personalities and social standing. They are unable to work in a team and as a result, a mutual friend of theirs gets hurt. They are forced to realize that they are the problem and begin working together. They still get on each other's nerves, but now they are more like squabbling rivals rather than two people who hate each other's guts.

Moreover, each of them have their own realizations as individuals. The noble realizes that he shouldn't try to do everything alone. There are times when it is okay to rely on other's strengths. The commoner realizes he's too hotheaded and that he needs to be more open-minded. It's endearing, it's charming, and it's entertaining. This is the kind of character writing you will come across in the Trails series.

BATTLE SYSTEM

At the end of the day, video games are video games. It can have a great story but if the gameplay doesn't attract the player, then they might drop the game before finishing the story. So sometimes, players are forced to play a bad game to finish a story or go through a bad story that has good gameplay. With Trails, the quality of their story and characters can also be seen in the gameplay so you get the best of both worlds.

The Trails series is one of the most satisfying strategic turn-based RPGs in the genre. It's simple enough for newcomers to understand without referring to a guide but complex enough for hardcore players to have fun with. Basically, your characters battle on a field and perform regular attacks, special attacks, or cast spells. And naturally, there are other commands such as defending, using items, or running away. But there is much more to this.

First of all, positioning. Each character has a movement stat which determines how far they can travel on the field. This is important for weapon users who need to be close to the enemy to attack. During battles, you and your enemies will be all over the battlefield attacking each other, and this is where position comes to play. In this game, spells and special attacks have an area of effect that allows them to hit more than one target. For example, a linear AoE or a circular AoE. This also applies to buffs so if your characters aren't close enough together, some of them may miss out on beneficial effects.

Secondly, Trails' turn-based combat has an additional factor called Delay. In most turn-based RPGs, turns are determined solely by the speed stat. In Trails, it's based on both speed and delay. Delay is the amount of "lag" of each action, and this "lag" determines when the character's next turn will be. For example, when unleashing a powerful spell or attack, the delay may allow the enemy to take an extra turn before your character can act again. This kind of balancing allows different levels of attacks and spells to become relevant throughout the entire game.

Third, we have spells which are known as Arts in the Trails series. These spells can be offensive or supportive. Supportive spells can buff your characters or debuff the enemy, depending on their immunities. Offensive spells are separated into different tiers of spells. Stronger spells have higher costs and more delay, but they deal more damage and often have an area of effect. Certain offensive spells also have a chance to inflict a status ailment such as freeze or burn.

Fourth, we have Crafts which are the special attacks of the Trails series. These are character-specific skills that can have any number of effects. They can deal extra damage, have an area of effect, provide a buff, inflict debuffs on enemies, heal HP, and more. They consume a resource called CP, which can only be accumulated during battles (with some exceptions).

Fifth, we have Status Ailments. Yes they exist in every RPG but Trails' status ailments play a larger role in the outcome of battles than any other RPGs. Defensive buffs are significant enough to prevent character deaths and save you from wasting a turn on healing HP. And ailments such as Petrify or Freeze can completely turn the tide.

On top of that, Trails has a plethora of unique ailments unseen in other RPGs. AT Delay pushes back a character's turn. Faint prevents a character from taking a turn, and any attacks that land on them will result in a Critical. Vanish temporarily removes a character from the field. The complexity of ailments adds more layers of strategy that must be considered when battling in a Trails game.

And finally, we have Orbments, yet another defining part of the Trails system. Every character has an Orbment with several slots. Players choose what elemental Quartz goes in each slot. Quartz will affect both the character's stats and what spells they can use. For example, an Attack Quartz (Red) will increase a character's physical damage and give them access to Fire Bolt.

Orbments work differently depending on which Trails game you play, but universally you get to choose what Quartz goes into each slot. Because of this freedom, there is a high degree of customization in outfitting your party members. You can shape characters into different roles to suit your needs.

These are the defining components that make up the Trails system. Each of these adds a layer of depth and strategy to the battle system. In most turn-based games, you're essentially managing damage and healing. But in Trails, you're doing so much more than that. Its sophistication allows the satisfying experience of finding multiple solutions to the same problem and playing however you want.

A battle system can have the most interesting concepts and mechanics but it's useless without an array of enemies that take full advantage of it. In Trails, you have many different kinds of enemies that require different strategies to take down. You have enemies with high evasion or high defense, so you need to use spells to take them down. Then there are enemies who are immune or even reflect spells, so they need to be handled physically. There are enemies who explode upon KO, so you have to take them out from a distance. These are just few of the many types of enemies that you will run into in the Trails series.

You can get by on brute force, but you’ll be using more healing items and spells along the way. If you play with strategy, your battles will be more efficient and satisfying. That’s the beauty of the Trails’ battle systems. There is no single way to win a battle. There are no useless characters that get outshined by the rest of the cast (okay... I can think of one poor girl). The battle system is your playground. 

MUSIC

When people talk about amazing video game music they often refer to Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and Mega Man. But the Trails series is a real contender and personally, I enjoy their music more than any other video game series (except Zelda). You have really catchy battle tunes, perfect ambient music for dungeons, and the music for cutscenes are spot-on. Most soundtracks are 50% recognizable, but Trails music is so good, I remember 80-90% of their tracks.

CONTENT

Like I said before, Trails is an RPG for RPG fans. RPG fans love a game they can sit down and play for endless amounts of hours. They love having a ton of sidequests to do as long as they are fun and interesting. They enjoy exploring every nook and cranny of fields and dungeons for hidden treasure chests. Trails caters to all of this and more.

This holds especially true for their storylines. As mentioned before, the Trails series span several games to tell the complete story. Their story isn't dragged on or inflated for the sake of having multiple games. The scale of the stories are so grand and epic, that each arc needs to be told on its own. When playing the sequel, I want to find out badly how the story ends and what happens to the characters I've grown attached to. I don't feel like the series is being milked or that they are just reusing assets to cut costs of making a new game.

CONCLUSION 

I've always found it difficult to explain to someone else why Trails is so good. It's easy to say "This RPG has good stories and characters and it's fun to play" but that's not enough to convince someone to pick it up and play it. This is a series that cannot be summed up with a few tag lines in a 30 second commercial. I wish I could hold a lecture at a campus to describe the Trails series to RPG fans.

Also, the Trails series comes in so many different flavors but they're universally amazing. So it's not just one game or a duology I am trying to sell to people, it's the entire series. I find myself saying to people "Just give it a try, you won't regret it" and then typing in all caps to emphasize my desperate excitement. But I think in writing this essay, I've done a good job making it stand out from other RPGs. 

I hope you guys give Trails a try. 

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

Our Favorite 7 Of 73

For ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest, Microsoft released 73 demos for upcoming indie games on Xbox One. The demos are all free but they'll only be available to download and play until Monday, July 27.

It would be quite the ask for any one of us to play through all 73 demos in order to tell you which are the best ones, but as a team we've managed to check out a hefty sum of the games made available. The demos detailed in the following gallery are all of the ones that stuck out to us the most--some left us nostalgic, others offered something brand-new we'd never seen before, and still more just scratched an itch that we've been looking to satisfy for a long time. Regardless of our reasons, these are the demos that made us the most excited to play their respective full games when they release.

We haven't listed the demos in any particular order. This is just a list of demos that we think are cool or at the very least hint towards an exciting game. Maybe they'll all meet expectations, maybe they won't. We'll just have to wait and see.

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Kaze And The Wild Masks | PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch

You'd be forgiven for not knowing if you didn't happen to grow up in the early 1990s, but following the breakout success of Sonic the Hedgehog there was a veritable flood of me-too 16-bit mascot platformers that never quite caught on. From Ristar to Acro the Acrobat to (deep sigh) Awesome Possum, it was the battle royale of its era. Everyone wanted to make one.

Playing Kaze and the Wild Masks brought me right back to those heady days, sitting on the carpet and playing the latest copycat rental from Blockbuster. That's not a slight against Kaze, because these platformers weren't actually bad, just oversaturated. Almost 30 years removed, it's as comfortable as your favorite sweater. The art style is beautifully vibrant and colorful, the platforming is familiar and accessible, and it's just a great nostalgia trip. I love a lot of recent games that have taken a fresh look at modernizing classic platformer tropes, but Kaze is the much more explicit throwback I didn't know I wanted. -- Steve Watts

ScourgeBringer | Xbox One, PC

ScourgeBringer is already out on Steam Early Access but the Xbox Summer Game Fest demo is the first time we have the chance to play it on console--it was also my first time actually trying the game after oohing and aahing at trailers for the past few months. I love it a lot.

I've always been a fan of video games where you're encouraged to fight quickly, especially if you're further rewarded for being skillful enough to fight without touching the ground--games like Titanfall 2 and Hollow Knight. ScourgeBringer goes a long way towards scratching that itch for me. Though you can platform between enemies, ScourgeBringer rewards players for playing aggressively and doing midair dashes between foes. You remain airborne while slashing or shooting so you can reasonably clear out entire rooms without touching the floor if you're good enough.

I also like ScourgeBringer's hard but fair gameplay loop. Enemies can kill you quickly if you can't pull off deflections and dodges, but there was never a moment where I died and thought, "Dammit, how the hell was I supposed to counter that?" The game is harsh in its punishments--it's a roguelike where you pick up temporary power-ups with each run and slowly unlock permanent abilities over time--but it's fair. It also helps that the game reloads relatively quickly, so you can just jump into another run upon death. -- Jordan Ramée

Haven | PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

More than most of the demos I dabbled with, Haven defies easy categorization. At first blush it's a visual novel telling a futuristic love story between a couple of stranded spacefarers. Even in the course of a relatively short demo, though, it opens up considerably and blends together a few disparate genres and mechanics, which all illustrate a sense of duality and interdependence.

Cooking a meal is performed by coordinating ingredients from the left and right sides of the user interface. Similarly, the RPG-like battle system appears simple at first, but it quickly becomes clear that coordinating your attacks to perform them together is the only effective way to fight. When you do defeat a monster, you pacify it rather than killing it, a sign that this pair are ultimately peaceful scientific observers.

Inside the ship you're a first-person observer, a choice that seems self-consciously voyeuristic in a story about a romantic couple. Outside of it, though, Haven's best feature shines. Movement through the world has you float through the tall grass with balletic grace, with the ability to swerve, u-turn, and drift with ease. It's all based on just a few simple commands but it's so well-executed and intuitive that floating around the world is just a joy. -- Steve Watts

SkateBird | Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

After playing a lot of the hardcore skateboarding simulator Session, in which both thumbsticks control each individual foot on the board, Glass Bottom Games' charming SkateBird is a sigh of relief. Not just because it's far simpler to control than Session, or even the Skate and Tony Hawk franchises, but also because it's incredibly cute and cozy. The small demo available on Xbox One as part of the Summer Game Demo Event, while lacking in variety, had me hooked on its aesthetic. And though I wish there was more to do in its limited sandbox, SkateBird makes skateboarding approachable.

The vertical slice strips everything away--story missions, alternate locations, bird customization, etc--and left me with two activities and a fully skateable "park" on a desk. The cute little skatepark consists of kickers made of office supplies, ramps and quarter pipes with bendy straws as coping, and various other obstacles using Thrasher magazines. The controls are simple and the trick list is much more contained than other skateboarding sims, but watching a tiny bird push around on a tiny board before busting a hardflip into a front crooked nosegrind never gets old--no matter how limiting or restricting the demo is and how many times I performed the same eight or so tricks.

While there's a lot left to be desired in the demo, what's currently available had me itching for more. It'll be interesting to see everything SkateBird has to offer when it launches in 2021 for Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. -- Jeremy Winslow

The Vale: Shadow Of The Crown | Xbox One, PC

Frankly, I've never played a game like The Vale: Shadow of the Crown before. Or, I guess I have--it's technically your run-of-the-mill fantasy RPG with towns to visit, side quests to fulfill, weapon and armor to buy, magic to learn, choices to make, and plenty of battles to be had. But the game flips a lot of that on its head by putting you in control of someone who's blind.

In The Vale, you have to navigate the world, fight enemies, and interact with NPCs all while looking at a nearly completely black screen. There are a few flashing lights on the screen, but they don't help you. It feels like they're just there to give your eyes something to look at. So you're forced to interact with the world via sound and touch--the former via headphones and the latter via controller rumble.

This makes tasks that are almost trivial in most RPGs, like sneaking past a group of enemies or navigating a busy market square, into daunting endeavors. But it's also a rather interesting and novel way to play a video game. The Vale might not be much to look at, but the demo is pretty fun to play and I'm intrigued to see how the gameplay will evolve throughout the full release, which I assume would crank up the difficulty after the tutorial. -- Jordan Ramée

Freshly Frosted | Xbox One, PC

Freshly Frosted brings together two of my favorite things, donuts and conveyor belts. The donut-factory based puzzle game is focused on making zen-inducing factory-lines that automatically make a variety of donuts. I love puzzle games that focus more on relaxing the brain than frustrating it, and Freshly Frosted is incredibly relaxing. It's very easy to adjust the factory lines whenever I make a mistake or miss a topping for my endless line of donuts.

I also appreciated how Freshly Frosted takes a very simple concept of a donut factory and continuously adds more and more steps or ideas to create a puzzle game that feels fresh throughout the demo. Having to feed three different types of donuts through all of the different toppings is a cute and fun experience that is definitely worth playing if you like puzzles and relaxation, or just need an excuse to order some donuts. -- James Carr

9 Monkeys Of Shaolin | Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Despite being just two and a half levels long--with the half being a tutorial introducing the controls and story--I found myself growing a little bored during the 9 Monkeys of Shaolin demo. Developed by Sobaka Studio, the Russian team behind the underrated isometric twin-stick brawler Redeemer, 9 Monkeys of Shaolin has this staunch air of familiarity to it: The story--in which Japanese pirates invade and pillage a remote Chinese country--echoes a similar set-up to Ghost of Tsushima and the control scheme is eerily reminiscent of (yet surprisingly simpler than) Redeemer's. Even the enemy types and environmental backgrounds are familiar and generic.

And yet, after finishing the short demo and re-watching the 2018 announcement trailer, I was still intrigued by the RPG elements and excited for what's to come.

9 Monkeys of Shaolin is a side-scrolling beat-em-up that put me in control of the fisherman Wei Cheng. The combat is simple yet fluid, with the controller's face buttons performing one of four actions: kicks, slashing strikes, thrusts, and dodges. Every action can be canceled into another--for example, the three different attack types can be combined together or immediately interrupted by a parry move--which allows me to remain aggressive and reactive when surrounded by multiple enemies. Though the arsenal was limited, the short demo seemingly belies the depth 9 Monkeys of Shaolin has buried within it. There's also online and offline co-operative play, which should make the combat even more chaotic during later levels, especially when you acquire new moves and better gear and magical spells.

With being a small, vertical slice of the final game, the 9 Monkeys of Shaolin demo is by no means indicative of how the game will look and play when it drops on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. But the demo does make the case that, if anything, 9 Monkeys of Shaolin will be an enjoyable action romp when played with a friend. -- Jeremy Winslow

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[ciathyzareposts]

Game 319: Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers (1992)

Vol. II lazily re-uses a lot of the artwork from Vol. I, including the title screen.

          Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers

United States

Interplay (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS, 1993 for FM Towns and PC-98

Date Started: 5 February 2019

I remember approaching Lord of the Rings, Vol. I with some trepidation, not much of a fan of the source material, not looking forward to a game that recapped a plot that everyone already knows. Role-playing a defined character with a predestined fate, I reasoned, removes any sense of player investment in the character. Meanwhile, if the game simply follows the plot of its source, there’s no fun in exploration and no surprises; but if it allows all kinds of diversions, the player is jarred by the dissonance with the source.

           The game starts with a recap of the story from the beginning.

         I was thus surprised to find most of my worries unfounded. Vol. I plays like an alternate-universe execution of Fellowship of the Ring–one that begins at the same location as the books but is then free to go off in its own directions. The player can make any character in the Fellowship the ring-bearer. All kinds of non-canonical NPCs can join the Fellowship, including some created just for the game. Even Gollum can join. The open world is full of side quests that Tolkien never envisioned. And it’s completely non-linear: a player can exit Moria, turn around, and walk all the way back to the Shire. He’ll even encounter new situations and quests if he does so. And it turned out that none of these departures from the book bothered me at all–although we must remember that I wasn’t much invested in the book in the first place.

The opening to Vol. II makes me wonder if the developers retained this admirable freedom. The backstory makes this game more of a sequel to the original material than to Vol. I. The first game ends with a non-canonical episode in which the Witch King kidnaps Frodo and Sam (or, I guess, whoever has the Ring) and the rest of the Fellowship has to rescue them from the fortress of Dol Guldur (and keep in mind, depending on the player, the “rest of the Fellowship” might include none of the canonical members). The game thus ends on a triumphant note, before the betrayal and death of Boromir, who might not even be with the party.

          The intro screens elide some unpleasant events.

          The backstory told in the opening screens of Vol. II omits the business with Dol Guldur and jumps ahead in time to a point past Boromir’s death, the kidnapping of Merry and Pippin, and the division of the Fellowship. It begins with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas (who wasn’t even in my Vol. I party) on the plains of Rohan, following the trail of the orcs who kidnapped the hobbits.

             The game begins.

           I didn’t expect the developers to emulate Crusaders of the Dark Savant and offer a different opening for every potential end state of Vol. I, but I was surprised that the game doesn’t even import the save file or offer any concessions to the variances in the plot. As I began, I hoped that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t feature the same spirit of open exploration and side quests that we found in its predecessor.

The manual does suggest that Vol. II is more interested in adhering to canon. Among other things, it makes a distinction between canonical members of the Fellowship (Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli)–who can die but will otherwise never leave the party–and “temporary NPCs” who might join for a little while, but only until their personal missions are fulfilled. There were some of those temporary NPCs in the first game, too, but generally you trust that anyone who joined your party would stick around to the bitter end.

There is thus no character creation process. Characters come with preset levels in certain attributes: dexterity, endurance, life points, strength, luck, and will power. They also come with a variety of active skills, combat skills, and lore. “Active” skills can be directly employed by the player and include such options as “Climb,” “Detect Traps,” “Hide,” and “Boats.” Combat skills are used automatically in combat, and lore–including orc, dwarf, wizard, and elven lore–are similarly passive. Skills and lore are binary; you either have them or you don’t.

           The main interface and its various commands are activated with the SPACE bar.

         You may recall that Vol. I was reissued in 1993 on CD-ROM, with artwork created specifically for the game replaced with scenes from Ralph Bakshi’s 1978 animated film. It also improved several aspects of the interface. (I started with the earlier version and finished with the later version.) Vol. II, developed in between the two releases of Vol. I, benefits from some of the interface improvements but not all of them. The party cannot move diagonally, for instance, but the main actions on the bottom of the screen–attack, view, get, inventory, skills, magic, talk, set leader, and game options–are easily called by keyboard commands. There’s also an automap, which reveals itself in large squares. When you turn the interface off, the exploration window is completely uncluttered, which I like a lot.

            The automap fills in by large squares.

         The game begins with the three companions locked in battle with half a dozen orcs. Combat hasn’t changed from the first game. You select “Attack” then specify the target from the list, with wounded and near-dead enemies annotated with special symbols. Enemies get their turns after the Fellowship members, and sometimes the Fellowship gets a free turn. I’ll have more on combat later once it comes back to me.

         In the midst of a melee.

         My party destroyed the orcs handily, after which Aragorn did some tracking and noted that the trail of the kidnappers leads north and that the hobbits needed to be rescued at once. So naturally I decided to make my way north via east-west sweeps of the area. (Hey, I was trying to spare Aragorn a broken metatarsal as long as possible.) The eastern border of the opening area is water–I guess the river Isen–and the western border is the uncrossable Misty Mountains. The southern border is open, and you have to be careful not to cross it because the game forces you to switch parties, with I-don’t-know-what consequences for the initial trio.

            Walking alongside the Misty Mountains.

            As you walk, events and combats are triggered as you enter their appropriate areas. You often don’t see anything in advance, which is one of the oddities (and, I think, weaknesses) of this interface. Some of the things I ran into on the first map include:

          Remains of an orc encampment with some rations and ale.

A party of random orcs. Once I killed them, I found a sigil with the white hand of Saruman on their bodies.

           Note that there are no actual orcs on the screen until after I get the message.

         Athelas, which Aragorn can use to heal wounds.

A Rohirrim warrior named Dorlas, hiding in the bushes, claiming to be hunting orcs who burned his town of Estemnet. He told me that a wizard has been seen on the edge of Fangorn Forest and suggested we look into it. In follow-up questioning (you talk by typing keywords, probably one of the last games in which this is true), he told me that the King of Rohan is “all but dead” and that a “craven council” rules in Edoras. He spoke of Saruman as an enemy, so his betrayal is clearly already known. Dorlas popped up several times. It got kind of annoying.

          This doesn’t seem to be this Dorlas.

         A man named “Walcnoth” who just stood there and wouldn’t say anything to me.

Three uruks trying to capture a black steed. They attacked as we approached. There were two such encounters.

The ruins of Estemnet. A warrior named Bregowine gave us a meal, which healed all our accumulated wounds. Most of the other citizens were angry and bitter about the failure of their king, Theoden, to protect them. The leader, a woman named Leofyn, said that the town wouldn’t be helping anyone until “a weregild is paid to compensate us for our losses.” Specifically, she wanted her husband’s sword, a bag of gold, and the return of her son, who had taken off, vowing to avenge his father. The sword and gold had both been stolen by orcs, with a camp to the north.

          This was the same portrait they used for Galadriel in the last game.

     ��   A warrior named Heof. He offered to teach us the “Riding” skill (how is it possible that Aragorn doesn’t already know it?) if we solved a sub-quest to destroy a shrine that the orcs placed in a sacred pool used by the mearas (cool horses). The shrine couldn’t be harmed during the day, and at night it’s guarded by “spirits of evil.” I left this for later because I wasn’t yet sure if the slight darkening of the sky that happens every few minutes is “night.”

              That seems pessimistic.

          A group of horsemen led by Eomer. He said that they had slaughtered a group of orcs, didn’t know anything about hobbits, and not all was right in Edoras. Basically the same as the book.

         Eomer says nothing about being banished.

         In a burned area north of Estemnet, I found the orc encampment. The game warned me that there were too many to fight, but I bungled my way into it anyway. I defeated the first party of attackers but died at the hands of the second.

             If we all die, Satan gets the ring.

           After my defeat and reload, I changed my exploration pattern, going all the way north along the River Isen to Fangorn Forest. A path led into the forest–which is anything but dark and brooding–and it wasn’t long before we found Gandalf. Saying his name snapped him out of his reverie. He explained that Merry and Pippin were safe with Treebeard and that our priority should be to stop a trio of “messenger orcs” on their way to Saruman (perhaps the same party I already killed as above?), then see about helping Theoden.

             Fangorn! What madness would make us hesitate to go in there?

          At this point, the game decided it was time to switch the action, and it loaded up Frodo and Sam on the edge of the Dead Marshes. There doesn’t seem to be any way to manually switch between the parties, so I guess the game will do it automatically when certain plot points occur. I wonder if there’s any way to artificially unite (or even switch!) the parties. I guess I’d have to find a way across Isen first.

           I don’t care what’s canon; I’m glad the films didn’t make the hobbits look like goofy old men.

           The game had us distribute the gifts from the elves (two cloaks, magic rope, lembas bread), after which Frodo recommended that we approach Mordor via the marshes to the southeast. 

            The Dead Marshes, Frodo. Yes, yes, that is their name.

            I think I’ll wrap up here for the first entry, but a few miscellaneous notes before I go:

The exposition with Leofyn was delivered via a written paragraph in the manual. Vol. I had these, too, but the re-release put all the text in-game. This has to be just a copy protection exercise because the game certainly hasn’t been shy about long in-game paragraphs otherwise.

            Flashbacks to Pool of Radiance!

          I’m not really sure how experience and leveling work. The manual assures that your statistics will increase with experience. I forgot how it worked in the first game.

The screen trades between dark and light every minute or so. If that’s a day/night cycle, it happens very fast. I don’t think my DOSBox cycles are too high, though, because if I lower them it’s sluggish to respond to commands. Are those periods of momentary dimness “night,” or just cloudiness? (If the latter, I haven’t experienced night at all, yet.)

Sound effects are sparse except during combat, when there are about three: a thunk of connection, a whoosh of missing, and a scream of death.

The manual devotes a lot of space to the History of Middle Earth and a glossary of characters and places, enough that I learned quite a bit despite having been exposed to this material before. The manual also philosophically questions whether Tolkien himself would have approved of a computer game based on his work.

           I’m not going to have a lot of patience for this.

        The events of the opening area ultimately assuaged my concern that Vol. II would be too linear and plot-driven. I look forward to seeing how it develops. I suspect I’m due for an encounter with Gollum soon. Can I be smarter than Frodo and just kill him?

Time so far: 2 hours

****

Non-sequitur: I had this dream the other night that the nation of Denmark hired me to create an official Danish tabletop RPG (this despite my lack of experience with tabletop RPGs). The scenario was to be that the melting ice sheets in Greenland were slowly uncovering an ancient civilization. I invited several of you to be a part of the team, and we had a very contentious meeting in Amsterdam (yes, I know that’s a different country–I’m just telling you what my dream was) where some of you wanted to make it a pure exploration/archaeology RPG while others wanted to have, like, ice giants awakening in the melting glaciers.

Lately, I’ve been in the habit of writing down dreams that I think might lead to good song, story, or game ideas. I don’t always hit a home run. The other night, I wrote (I have no memory of this):  “Bacon-wrapped chocolate coin. The coin has an image of a woman on it, and you have to convince her to submit before you can eat the bacon.” That one doesn’t seem so promising now. But the idea of an RPG set in an ancient civilization slowly uncovered in Greenland actually seems like a good one. Anyone has my permission to use the idea.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-319-lord-of-the-rings-vol-ii-the-two-towers-1992/

[dndgamergirl]

Dming and God mods

in my experience in dungeons and dragons things are always crazy. when dnd is by the rules the players are the reason you have to be on your toes as a dungeon master. when your a player the dungeons master is the reason you have to be on the edge. and i can attests to the saying that when the dm smiles or laughs it is never a good thing. it scares the hell out of yo and some dm’s get a kick out of watching players squirm. its a give and take relationship but when the rules are fallowed its always fun.

however when one takes into account the idea of a person god modding then it gets bad. for those that dont know here is a definition of god mod fro dnd

God-modding is taking control of another player’s character during role-play. It’s frowned upon and with good reason: you only control your character and no one else’s.

the sad part is god modding is not just this. god mod can also happen if you do one of the fallowing in many dnd cycles

1: making a character without faults: this means the character can do no wrong in any way and you are constantly arguing with the dm over the rules

2: making a character that is in a sense op (over powered): this can play into level one since when this happens the players normally want to make it so the character has a lot of things the dm doesn't know about making it where the dm has to call out rules and in sense makes the air of the game play uncomfortable. 

but its not just players that can god mod dungeon masters can as well which brings me to example 3.

3: letting a player make a character that breaks the rules of the game

lets have a example of this. say a character is in there right to something and they go through with the deed. as such away from others you have another person try to raise the character such as a mage or wizard doing the work of a cleric. any dnd player will tell you that this isn't possible. in some dnd and other games a game master can make exceptions but only if they find a item that can cause it or even having a player quest to find a way to fix this. but when a game master lets you make a player that goes against any forms of rules in right the rest of the players have a right to call them out on it. 

god modding if anything is one of the worse things that can happen in a dnd game. one of the ways that this can go about is by putting limits on a character. in example of this ill use two characters i built for a dnd game im currently running. these characters are in a jest named npc’s they are select to this world but have limitations and faults like a pc character would but to a more extreme leash. the characters are simply called inn keeper and cook. both of these two are brothers one year apart, immortal but can still be killed in human form but must revert to god form until they regenerate a form over a course of so many months, and sons of Loki who are gods in their own right that have taken human form. why they chose so the party has yet to find out. they run a chain of inns that has copies of themselves running it and they at all times know what is going on in all the inns at that time. as a result only the real versions can leave the inn but copies have to stay int he tavern at all times not setting foot outside the border of the tavern. 

although they have good powers if used they level the surrounding area and are banished from a area completely. and on top of that they can not give the party to much help they only give a item tell them what it does and leaves the party to pick if they keep it and figure out how to use it for there task. or they leave it and find another way around it. if they chose the later they have to make a deal for it. in this way yes its a safe form of god modding as it make a puzzle for the players as some things they give them might not help them on this quest and is needed for a new on further down the line or is just something that they trade off not thinking and can be needed again at a later date. 

by making your players think on what they need to do it becomes less a god mod and more of a divine puzzle. one friend of mine finds that goddmodding in some games can be helpful for a dm but he also says that i can be harmful as well. “when you god mod as a character you have to make sure your players know ahead of time this character can god mod his rolls. i figured out a way around it though to make it so that its less god modding and more of the character is using the idea of warped probability. sort of like that alien guy from MIB 3.” in some ways i can see what he means building a character that can see many outcomes is a good idea but at the same time that comes as flaws. a character might not be able to know which reality he is in unless he asks the players. the players have a reason to either tell him or not. if they do he knows which of about 50 ideas of how combat will go but at the same time if not their in the world of about 269 scenarios that they lose. by using this i can see how he has made goddmodding hard for a character the gm is controlling but at the same time more trouble for the dm by having to think ahead of time and have a file cabinet of doom.

but dont think that god modding is just for in game it can be out of game as well. as a way of keeping up with my players and helping them with rolls i have a rule that when rolling for stats i must be present. this is because i have seen many games where a player was able to roll away from the game and it was completely unfair to the others they had a over kill of points that didn't seem to add up even to the dm. when i do this i make it a point to let my players know its nothing against them its just i want to make sure to keep the playing field fair. no one excluded for this not even me and my players often watch me roll stats so they can see im not cheating and that im playing fair by them. they never know when some things will be used so it keeps them guessing as to who it is they are going to fight. this creates a excitement for me and players alike as i dig in my files and pull npc sheets. 

i got this idea from another freind who had this to say on the subject. “we used to let others roll what they wanted and the dm did aswell. one game though we realized that 3 of out 8 players where some what cheating. they used what is known as cheater die and soon we where not allowed to roll unless we where at the guys house and using his dice to roll so he knew we had non cheater dice. that worked ok for about a year but then they got wise and if thy rolled one thing they lied on the sheets. some things never added up and sure you could say that it was just luck until we saw the sheets. we had a bit of a accident in the house we played in when a water pipe burst over the winter and when the family got home we found some of the dnd stuff got in the water. so we all went over to chip in at different times of the day to help clean out and try and salvage things. on the work from dnd we found things that really made us mad.”

“we where all friends and we all trusted one another and this was way back int he 90′s. so some of the stuff for dnd that you guys have now is kind of major fancy now but the sheets from back then we guarded as not just a clue to characters but clues to who a person was. we had to look at the sheets to see whos sheet got messed up and we found the normal doodles and all but at the same time on the scratch papers we used to pass notes we found that one had said next time we have to roll for stats we need to say these numbers showed on the die. they where planning ahead of what characters they wanted to build we all did but to lie about a dice roll was hell. we confronted them on our next Friday night game and told them that half the group wanted them out but the rest where on the fence and we where not going to make them choose who to be loyal to. so we made them a alternate. they could stay in game but the dm had to roll the dice for them and they only got one roll. one is still with us but the dm is always next to them to make sure they are not cheating on rolls. i have no clue where the other two jerks are.”

in many ways some might say that this is kind of extreme but in many different game groups this is basic fact. if ne person cheats the whole group comes to question. its up to the game group or even a player to have a choice to stay with he group or disband from them and set out on their own adventure. we have all been Bilbo handed a contract of thorn and company when we look into playing dnd. the character sheet is the contract. you swear to fallow the game rules and to play fair. thats in anything be it rpg or signing contracts to play football. and just like in mainstream sports and in the job market you break the rules you and anyone else with you or associated must also be placed to the same outcome of that. when one player cheats at a sport the whole team is held in the same regard. its just facts of life. and its not just stats that this can be seen with.  

i also make rules as to what races a player can use so that i have time to read up on other races if they where used in a game. so when a player tries to make a character of a unapproved race its still hard to tell them no but i have to stand stonewall on the fairness i try to keep with my players. granted if they want a character to look a select way yes it means that later in the game some things will come up. this brings into the point of should you tell your players or not. would keeping it to yourself as the dungeon master be considered god modding on your part? the answer is no. your the dungeon master keeping the way some what a mystery is a point. yo can chose whether or not to tell players but at the same time you can give out as little or as much if you like. but remember that at times some players might feel like you have it out for them. in many ways players can feel like they get picked on because of character class and this is not true. this is what a friend of mine said about her character. 

“i was playing a bird race. and i picked the look of my character as a peacock man. i didn't want to do a parrot because i didn't want to have people doing the Polly want a cracker stick all the time. i was away for a time before i got to play my character so the party had a good bit of headway ahead of my guy in the game. the dm said he could work me into the next game as the same level as the others so i said sure. while he was setting up stuff while i was leveling my character from a level 3 to a level 6 he asked me if i was ok if we had me show up working at the brothel that the group was entering at the next one since i made mention i wanted my rouge to be kind of like a spy undercover for someone at ne point. i told him that be fine but i didn't realize those words would come back to haunt me.”

“when we started playing he said to me on a text my character was going to make a entrance and he said ‘as the lights fade once more for the next dancer you all hear a man in a booming voice call out. ‘lets hear it for SIR COCK’ and he starts playing the i want to see your peacock song. unknown to the others i had had a bad experience with that song and i had a panic attack right there. i had never told them so in a way i guess it was partly my fault that i didn't tell them but in a way it made me not want to play that campaign again. this was only after one person that joined constantly made the jokes and the dm let them make the jokes of saying the i wanna see your peacock. since then i dont go to that group anymore but i have a different one i play with once a month given my busy time sheets for work”

in a way yes this was kind of a dick move on the dm by letting that happen but at the same time was not so much a sense of god modding but bullying. i made this point as to me it didn't seem like god modding but to others it seems like it. but then they layed this on me as i asked why did the dm let them keep doing that? 

“the players character was meant to be a counter spy at the time one that knew my characters past without doing any work on how they where working. this meant they had like uber magic items that you had to be like a cleric or something to use because of how the items where preset up int he game as they where home brew items. one of our cleric players noticed this looking through the booklet of items the guy gave us as a little home brew guide of his game and when they called the dm out on this the dm got pissed and told us all to get out of his house it was his game and he was gonna run it how he liked it. if we didn't like how he built his world we could get out. so my friend who called him out drove me home and we made our own once a month dnd group. didn't help that they made me the joke pony every day with that character.” 

when this was further explained i realized the hell that some can have with dm’s and the dm playing god of the world. as a dm you are the story teller and the world shaper you wear the faces of monsters and innkeepers. you are the voice of rivals and companions. with a wave of your hand to throw dice you are a force that can calm or strengthen a storm. its a lot of power and at times can go to your head. because of this you have to be careful who is the punching bag and in some ways i have started to experiment with how to not have one person be the punch bag. 

in this sense make a different person a punching bag at the time of game play. this way its fair have a list of a sheet and go in a rotation. after the rotation ends roll a die to see who gets what spot int he line up so that each person gets it. that or you can do it with each encounter person that got most damage taken is out of the running and go for the next one in line. i like to preroll the day before game to see which player gets to be the punching bag and its fun. so far the punching bag has yet to be used as encounters in my game seem to be solved mostly by verbal conflict but even then sometimes the players make one another punching bags and i dont have to do a thing. 

so what can we take from the collection of stories and observations i have done. in some ways yes god modding can be helpful but only if used in the right way for select npc’s such as gods or demigods but you must always remember that you have to put major bars up on them to keep them in check. going in and god modding a player character however is never a good thing and can be bad for you as a player or dungeon master. and can and times be fun but know it is dangerous as many times you might lose those you have fun with if your not careful.

special thanks to those that offered stories to me to draw inspiration from and at the same time allowed me to post the ideas i had from the interviews i had with you. as promised your names will not be disclosed but thank you none the less