#who is in turn based off an enemy from Drakengard I think

[picaroroboto]

this abomination of a triple (quadruple?) crossover brought to you by the fact I spent the whole Dongbaek fight pondering that "effloresced" and "inflorescence" are slightly different words. and the flowers in eyes aesthetic

[bobombun]

DoD1 x FFXIV

Drakengard 1 characters and what FFXIV jobs would suit them

Caim - Warrior. He loses himself into battle constantly, and feels a burning rage inside him, and draws power from that fury. Turns on his tank stance only if told to, he's a DPS at heart.

Angelus - Dark Knight. She is aiming for her own goals and justice, no matter the cost. Honestly, both Warrior and Dark Knight suit Caim and Angelus both, but I had to choose. Again, neither of them likes tanking, but they make a weirdly good pair of co-tanks.

Furiae - Red Mage. She's the Goddess Seal, so she has to constantly bear with pain and holding herself back. Red Mages came to be after white and black magic had drained the land dry, and mages had to think of a way to balance their magic use without being heavily persecuted and without putting on too much stress upon the nature. The whole world in DoD1 needs a Verraise, and with Furiae gone (depending on the ending), there's not really anyone who can do that.

Leonard - Scholar. Not only does he have a fairy companion (though the faeries in FFXIV are much kinder to their summoners...) he seems like someone who would be interested in healing and staying back. I can't really see him as a DPS job. Besides that, being a shield healer suits him better than the more passive pure healer, since he seems to want to avoid problems and hurt before it has the chance to happen instead of simply taking up the clean-up job.

Inuart - Bard, though that feels like a copout answer, considering the clear importance of his songs. Once he gives away his songs as a Pact price, I'm not quite sure which job suits him. Something in me says Gunbreaker, but I don't know how to justify it.

Arioch - Dragoon. She's bloodthirsty, and has gone off the deep end. Dragoons battle with the dragons all the while fighting off the call of their draconic blood, especially if they've drank the blood of a dragon. Dragoons literally dress in spiked armour so that if a dragon were to swallow them, the armour would tear the dragon from the inside. They're not messing around. And besides, they get up in their enemy's melee range, and Arioch would love to be in melee instead of staying back at a safe distance, away from all the gore and blood.

Seere - Dancer. He's the heart of the team, keeping the mood up (relatively up, considering the situation) and being in a supportive role rather than actively going out there. Though my heart wants to assign Summoner to him, just for the Titan-egi being somewhat similar to Golem. Besides, imagine what kind of an egi he would be able to summon after DoD1 would be over (if he doesn't die). What would an egi based on the Furiae creatures look like, or what kind of properties would a Queen-Beast egi have? And uh, how much mental damage would summoning them cause to everyone around him. There's that too.

Manah - Black Mage. The connection to the Watchers somewhat resembles the connection to Voidsent (which not all BLMs necessarily have, but black magic and its origins in Mhach are heavily connected to the Voidsent). Plus I'm taking inspiration from DoD2, where Manah uses magic and a staff.

[the-dreamer-traveller]

Final Fantasy X: The Faded

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[donut-secret-one]

Games: Of The Year

Hey, it’s me, your gamer friend “Parasite” Eve, here to talk about video games. I watched and played a few of those this year, so here’s some words about some of them, as a tumblr post, because I don’t know where else you can put a long writing thing.

GAMES ENJOYED BY WATCHING

Drakengard 3 and Ending E of Drakengard

I watched these in preparation for NieR: Automata, and it turns out I could have basically just read a summary and it would’ve been fine. I still think it’s impressive that I like the look of Drakengard 3 even though it seems like the gameplay sucks and I hate most of the characters.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard 7: Resident Evil

I think it’s neat that each “level” of this game is like a different horror genre. Scary house with a murder man, different scary house fulla bugs, a Saw thing, a scary little girl, a Resident Evil game... it’s a cool way to make the different parts of the game seem like, different, parts of the game.

NieR (Gestalt)

This seems like a really good video game, although the playthrough I watched cut out a lot from the extra routes, so maybe those parts are boring, who knows. The big plot twists are rad and the characters are good and it’s a videogame that made me cry.

Yakuza 0

I love Majima. Remember when all those people were looking at the statue guy and he was doing his dance and they were ignoring him? Remember when he had his band play battle music? Remember when, at the end, he can’t say anything to Makoto and he just walks away and you get sad at video games again? yeah...

Kiryu’s very good too. I can’t think of as much stuff to say about him. sorry.

Yo! Noid II: Enter the Void (https://dustinbragg.itch.io/yo-noid-was-ahead-of-its-time)

I probably could have played this but I had already seen a stream of the whole thing so I didn’t. The music and the look are rad. I think I want a whole game that plays how this game looks like it does, probably.

Tekken 7

There’s a part in the story mode where everyone sees Kazuya turn into the devil and shoot a big laser beam, and then a few days later everyone forgets it happened because something else happens.

GAMES ENJOYED BY PLAYING

Fire Emblem: Heroes

I started out liking this kind of a lot but not so much anymore, and I think I pretty much just want some aspects of this to be in a “real” FE game. It lets me only use the characters I like without missing out on anything, I get to be a silent protagonist instead of a boring generic loser, and they added a vague, abstracted version of the support system that lets you be a whole lot gayer. I think in my game Camilla is married to both me and Lucina. But yeah, it turns out I just want all that in a game that’s not a Mobile Game-ass Mobile Game.

Maybe I should learn more about game dev and make that game myself.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp doesn’t get its own section cause I basically have the same stuff to say about it. Just let me have a small house and let me make public spaces in a proper AC game. Actually I think they let you do that in Happy Home Designer. Maybe I should just play that.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Needs more cooking in it. Also, one time I saw a guardian shoot its laser at the ruins of an old wooden shack I was hiding behind, and it just stayed standing, and that seemed kinda weird.

For reasons this game is good, read anybody else’s GOTY list.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe

I don’t have screenshots for all of these, okay?

So this game has free-to-play mechanics that force you to choose between “paying money” and “grinding, but only getting a certain amount of fights per day”. Apart from that though, It’s fun to try and speedrun Kirby bosses with that good kirby music.

NieR: Automata

I only finished Route A, oops.

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow randomiser (https://github.com/abyssonym/aos_rando)

I played this about as much as any other game on this list & remembering it now makes me wanna play it more. I became good at skips in this game, and had a gun fight with Julius.

Splatoon 2

The game was pretty good I guess, but the music was even better than Splat1n. Everything by Marina and Pearl, the final boss songs, and the weird Salmon Run themes rule. I’m also real into the art of the fictional bands they make for this. Hey, nintendo, when are you makin a full rhythm game in the Splatooniverse?

Miitopia

This is a weird Mii RPG they put on 3DS. The gameplay is pretty, because it’s mostly just like, generating weird events and encounters based on the miis you’re using and the personalities you’ve assigned them? It’s pretty neat for a single playthrough but that’s about it. I kinda wanna see more games that do this kinda gimmick though. They probably exist and I’ve never heard of them.

Also I got to wear cute outfits and the relationship has that same vagueness that makes it seem gay as I talked about for FE:Heroes.

Sonic Mania

Sonic Mania is so good, it even has the bad parts of 2D Sonic. You still get crushed by dumb platforms and some of the bosses are awful. The middle section of Metal Sonic is garbage until you find out how you’re “supposed” to do it. Also why can’t Tails fight the true final boss.

After you get used to all that though, it’s a good video game. you can even go fast.

Metroid: Samus Returns

Hey, they (officially) made a new Metroid game, and it’s good. It sticks a little too closely to the original Metroid 2 in certain ways that kinda make the exploration part not as good, but they do a lotta cool combat stuff. The fights are tough but they give you checkpoints right before them so I’m fine with it at least, and even though the new final boss was a big obvious fanservicey thing, I was still way into it.

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch

This game’s fine I guess.

Anyway I watched a bunch of Dragon Ball this year, mostly DBZ Kai. I’m just at the start of the Future Trunks arc of Super. Hey, did everyone know, Dragon Ball fuckin rules??

Super Mario Odyssey

i like when the mario does a jump.

Sonic Forces

Honestly, it’s just a sorta-worse-than-normal 3D Sonic, and that makes it a pretty fun video game. Sure, the 2D sections are bad, I wish the 3D ones played a little more like Generations, and I wish the plot was a little more entertaining, but, I got to dress up my cat and fist bump sonic and the song called “fist bump” played. It’s cool. I’d prefer the good version of this to the perfected version of Sonic Mania. probably.

Dragon Ball Fusions

Okay but -this- Dragon Ball game was actually really good. It’s a 3DS RPG where you collect Dragon Ball characters like pokemon, including like a hundred OCs made for this game that I sometimes like better than the real characters, and you fuse them together. The battles system, though, is one of the best parts. I haven’t seen much else like it. The basic idea is like a Chrono- Trigger-style thing where the attacks have an area of effect based on the position of the character using it and the target, but on top of that, attacks do knockback, and you can knock enemies into allies to do a combo attack, knock them into other enemies to bounce them off each other, or knock them out of bounds to delay them a few turns... and they can do that stuff to you as well? And so every fight is also kind of a pool game?? And it rules???

On top of that, there’s stuff around which direction you’re attacking in vs. which direction the target is blocking, using your ki blast moves to counter other people’s ki blast moves so you’re pushing back Frieza’s death ball with a galick gun, and using super moves to recruit enemy fighters... there’s all this stuff going on in the fights, and despite being a turn-based sort of tactical RPG, the fights still kinda feel like DBZ fights? I’m writing a lot about this one I think mostly because it’s the one I’ve been playing recently but also nobody talked about it whenever it came out. It’s a good RPG -and- you get to do Dragon Ball stuff. You can fuse Yamcha with Vegeta. You can fight Great Ape Broly. For some reason they replaced all the swords with sticks but people still talk about Hell and Frieza’s still all about killing children. That’s a weird one but I wanted to write a third thing that was in the game and that was the first thing I thought of.

Anyway yeah... my top games are probably Dragon Ball Fusions, Breath of the Wild, and, I dunno, Samus Returns? Sure, let’s go with that.

ANIME OF THE YEAR

Kemono Friends. I didn’t watch a lot of other anime this year... but I didn’t need to.

2018 STUFF

There’s a new Kirby game so that’ll probably be at least in my top 5 I guess. Dragon Ball Fighterz looks good but I don’t own anything that’ll be able to play it. what the hell else is coming out in 2018

“THE END OF THIS POST” OF THE YEAR

In conclusion, the games were pretty good. I think we should keep making them.

Have a nice next year!

-Eve “Good at Video Games”. No second name.

<3

[severus-shake-and-dumblecream]

Hey, so, I’ve been taking a games and society class for like the past ten weeks, and our final is to post a review somewhere online. Sooooo, this is where it’s going. It’s about NieR: Automata so severe spoiler alert for that game and minor spoilers for NeiR. Read it if you want, but I won’t be mad if you don’t because it’s super long. But even if you don’t, go play both games because they’re really good (even if NieR’s mechanics were a bit funky).

           NieR: Automata is a game developed by Platinum Games and published on February 23, 2017. It is the sequel to NieR, which was developed by Square Enix, the publisher of NieR: Automata. The platforms available for this title are the PlayStation 4 and PC. NieR: Automata has been praised for its well-developed and interesting combat, making it a perfect fit as an action game. NieR: Automata provides the player with encounters constantly, as the player must fend off robots at every turn. Much like many other action games, NieR: Automata’s combat has a range of weapons, from light to heavy to ranged. The game also provides a wide array of enemies, as many other action games do, including boss battles, where the player encounters a notable and unique enemy that typically requires the player to fight through many other smaller enemies before the player encounters the boss. However, unlike most action games, NieR: Automata provides the player with an almost countless number of combinations for their weapons, allowing the player the freedom of customization. The game provides the player with two slots, or places, for their weapons and two sets as well. Each weapon has a faster “light” attack and a slower, more powerful “heavy” attack. Then the player is given a pod that allows them a ranged attack as well, in the form of energy bullets. Having forty weapons and numerous different attachments to the pod allows the player to develop a much more unique style of fighting a lot more than some other simple “shoot and slash” action games. NieR: Automata also varies the playable character, which allows for variation of the combat style to include hacking and a berserk mode, in which the character’s attacks are stronger and faster, at the cost of their health.

           As mentioned, NieR: Automata is the sequel to NieR, which itself is the sequel to one of the possible endings to Drakengard 2, and the sequel that Yoko Taro believes to be the true sequel (Sato). NieR was developed by Cavia, which disbanded in July 2010 with NieR being its last game produced, and published by Square Enix. NieR: Automata expanded on NieR’s open world, with the new generation of platforms allowing for a larger world and an update on graphics. NieR: Automata kept what worked with the original NieR, a rich storyline with interesting characters, diverse gameplay mechanics, and thrilling music to match the mood set by the story. NieR: Automata had a much more modern feeling to it, however. In NieR, one of the bigger twists is that it takes place in modern times. This is not the case for NieR: Automata and so it does not need to be hidden. NieR: Automata also fixed some of the fighting mechanics, making bosses and enemies more variable and more fun to fight. These changes allowed the sales of NieR: Automata to skyrocket. The original NieR sold around 500,000 copies while NieR: Automata has sold over 2.5 million (Minotti).

           One of the feelings that NieR: Automata wants to evoke from its player is the sense of vastness of the world around them. It does this by shifting the perspective to an isometric third-person perspective that is further away from the player. While at times the perspective changes to a side scroller, this third person is the main perspective of the game. By having the world take up a larger portion of the screen, and by allowing more of the horizon to be seen, the game makes the character seem smaller in comparison. The soundtrack also helps to give this impression. Full orchestral pieces with choral singing fills every building, forest, and desert. Having larger music, rather than a simplistic bit tune, gives NieR: Automata a sense of grandeur. The sounds also play a role in perpetuating the sci-fi theme. Menu selections and item pick-ups are accompanied by beeps. Damage taken and deaths result in a sound similar to static on a TV. HUDs (Heads-up display, where important stats, such as health and experience are shown), maps, and character design create a world of technology. However, the player explores a world covered in forests with towering trees, vast oceans, and wild animals.

           NieR: Automata is a game that is heavily based in its narrative and the player will not get the full experience if they do not pay attention to the story. The plot revolves around androids that are designed to end the robot invasion that has taken over Earth that caused the humans to leave for the Moon. The main characters, 2B and 9S, are tasked with helping the resistance androids on the surfaces as well as preforming reconnaissance missions for YorHa, the android military. As the player moves around the story, they discover more and more about the robots. Some have disconnected from the network and are trying to live peacefully or they become murderous individuals or they land somewhere in between. The aliens that created the machines have long since died and the robots now run themselves. Many are trying to learn about humans and become more human-like. They create families, follow governments, and explore passions. The characters themselves are a bit muted. 2B is loyal to a fault and a duty-bound soldier. She does not question her orders, just enacts them to the best of her abilities. 9S follows the rules a little less closely, ignoring protocol, rules, and orders when he believes that another plan would be more beneficial. Outside of these characters, there are numerous other reoccurring characters that participate in the main storyline or deal out side quests. Every character placed in the world has a purpose, there is not a character that you can’t interact with, only cast and player characters. As the story continues, some cast characters become player characters.

           NieR: Automata’s rich storyline provides numerous opportunities to discuss serious topics. Many of these come in the form of side quests, including exploring the ideas of what purpose an individual has on Earth and philosophy, but others are explored throughout the main storyline. During one mission, robots that had formed a religion witness their leader die and respond with a mass suicide. The robots also attempted to kill those who did follow in their footsteps. This is a commentary on extremism in religion and even goes as far as to include a new enemy that is a suicide bomber. Another mission involves deciding if a character begging for death should be killed, have his memories erased, or left alone. An overarching theme is what it means to be alive and to think. This is explored again and again as machines perform human functions and androids claim that they are nothing more than short-circuiting programs. The distinction between androids and robots is hazy, with every difference being torn away as the game progresses. Another topic explored is autonomy. At a few points in the game, the main characters raise objections to the tasks given to them, but complete them anyway because that is their duty as soldiers.

           NieR: Automata is a very well-developed game with unique storytelling, music, gameplay, and enemies. Because of all this it has created a very dedicated fandom, building on the one created from the original NieR. This is most strongly evidenced in the fanart, which follow in the creator’s footsteps of sexualizing the main characters. Fanart, art made of entertainment by fans rather than creators or sanctioned artists, allow the main character to be dressed in much more scanty dressings and also her skirt to be raised up. One of these images is featured on a mousepad or a Yu-gi-oh mat, allowing fans to proudly display their interest in both NieR and the main character. This particular item currently has an average of eighteen views per day (Ebay). Another piece demonstrates the process involved in creating his piece of art (ArtStation). It is unfortunate that this amazing title has been overshadowed by the release of other games such as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Horizon Zero Dawn. This game has much to offer the player in terms of not only entertainment, but also thought-provoking ideas.

Bibliography

 2B - Nier:automata, Kinohara Kossuta. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.artstation.com/artwork/vB9Jx

 Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S., Smith, J. H., & Tosca, S. P. (2016). Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction. New York: Routledge.

 F1366 Free Mat Bag NieR Automata Custom Playmat Yugioh MTG Vanguard Mouse Pad | eBay. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ebay.com/itm/F1366-Free-Mat-Bag-NieR-Automata-Custom-Playmat-Yugioh-MTG-Vanguard-Mouse-Pad-/332147888526

 Minotti, M. (2018, April 07). Nier: Automata's Yoko Taro and Takahisa Taura on sentencing characters and turning 2B into a bug. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/01/nier-automatas-yoko-taro-and-takahisa-taura-on-sentencing-characters-and-turning-2b-into-a-bug/

 Sato. (2013, April 05). Drakengard 3 Producer And Creative Director Explain How It Came To Be. Retrieved from http://www.siliconera.com/2013/04/05/drakengard-3-producer-and-creative-director-explain-how-the-game-came-to-be/

[archonreviews]

The Archon’s Review of Drakensang.

Every two weeks, eh? Ahaha.

Drakensang (Not to be confused with Drakensang Online, which I imagine is like this game… but online; and also not with Drakengard, a game about cannibal babies killing Tokyo) is a party-based role-playing game based heavily on a German tabletop game called The Dark Eye. It takes place on the continent of Aventuria, where Germanic fantasy is the word of the day. Drakensang was developed by Radon Labs and published by DTP Entertainment.

Drakensang is a bit of an odd duck for me to try and review for a number of reasons. First, it has a wealth of history and heritage behind it that could give D&D a run for its money (little of which I bothered to research because I am secretly a lazy sot). Second, trying to find info for it was difficult, as typing “Drakensang” into Google gets you Drakensang Online 9 times out of 10, so I had to go with “Drakensang the Dark Eye” or else type the exact game element I was searching for. Third, it appeared at first to be a moderately well polished CRPG, and put me in the mind of a Bioware game; this may very well had been the wrong mindset in which to play the game. Lastly, I can’t say I was filled with confidence in the game’s quality when the first guide I read was titled “How to run on Windows 10″. But the bug in question is relatively minor and easily fixed.

First thing I want to get out of the way is, incidentally, the first major problem I have with the game: namely, the camera is absolute ass. Allow me a moment to diverge on a tangent. Allowances, in the context of people doing stuff, are elements that make a particular thing more intuitive. All games have them, and all good games have lots of them. It’s what makes them intuitive to play and easy to experience. Drakensang gives absolutely zero shits for allowances or intuitiveness, at least, where camera is concerned. See, when your game begins with the camera focused on the character, the intuitive thing is to look around using the mouse. Well, instead, Drakensang decided that it would be so much better to have to hold down the right mouse button and drag the camera around that way (I’ve been told by a dear friend of mine that this is an old-school form of camera control, but it came out in 2009, so I’m not sure it should get a pass for it). As for movement, you’ve got two options: you can click on the ground to move, but since your view is always centered on your character, this method a bit jank unless you’ve got the camera zoomed all the way out. The other way to move is to use the WASD keys. Turning took some getting used to though; you use the Q and E keys to turn left and right respectively. I would’ve called this unintuitive as well, but on reflection, it makes more sense than using the A and D keys. It’s a bit like there was one designer who wanted to rip the movement from Baldur’s Gate and another who wanted to do Knights of the Old Republic and they had to share or something. In addition, the camera doesn’t always follow the character’s movement perfectly, and if you have your character do a thing father away, the camera has a second’s brain fart before catching up.

Character creation is a lie. You get a selection of characters to choose from, and that’s your lot. Mind you, it’s a pretty expansive selection, so there’s bound to be something for you. There’s three kinds of warrior, three kinds of wizard, three kinds of rogue, three kinds of Middle Eastern dude/dudette, three kinds of Elf, three kinds of Dwarf (did I mention this was Germanic fantasy? ‘Cause it’s Germanic fantasy), a Viking, and an Amazon. What you cannot change is your character’s appearance outside of gender, and your character’s stats after selection. Oh, they’ll tell you there’s an “Expert Mode” for people who really wanna tinker with the character creation, but if you don’t immediately get overwhelmed by all the numbers and statistics the game presents you with, then you’ve obviously played The Dark Eye before, or you’re a stats major from the University of Fuck. Even then, there’s not a lot for you to actually customize. I had the game give me the full allotment of leveling points to start, giving myself as blank a slate as possible, and it still felt like I was being railroaded toward a particular character.

The tutorial is not the best. It’s entirely text based, and if you should miss something, there’s no way to recover that information short of an internet search, which as previously expressed, can be tricky.

The denseness of “Expert” character creation follows us into the game proper. While your characters have levels in the CRPG style, they don’t affect much more than stat maximums. What really counts are the numbers themselves. And there are a LOT of numbers. Also, don’t be fooled into thinking that Strength and Dexterity at all affect combat. When wielding weapons, the associated stat for that weapon is all that matters.

Now, it may sound like I’m down on this game. But here comes the mid-day twist, you chucklefucks. I actually kinda like Drakensang. Once I got past all the bits I didn’t like or find particularly engaging, I really did get lost in the story and world. Once you shift your thinking to get used to combat, and skill checks, and the controls, Drakensang really opens up, becoming a genuinely enjoyable RPG experience. When I began the adventures of Baron Splendor, Knight-Errant and Bowl-cut Owner, I was skeptical. But I powered through, and eventually found a helmet to hide his ridiculous hair, and a fun game to boot!

^(The man himself, with his stalwart companions behind him)^

The graphical quality is actually pretty dang good for a game of this age. It was probably cutting edge for the time. I think. I’ll admit, I’m not super-duper familiar with graphical standards in video games circa 2009, but it seems pretty good to me!

Combat is a straightforward affair, you rush up to the baddies and murder them with swords, axes, spells, and bows, and hope you don’t get murdered yourself. The game handles health interestingly; every time you take more damage than you have Constitution, you take a wound, which inhibits your character. Take more than four, and you fall unconscious until end of combat. But you can heal wounds using spells or bandages. This resulted in the good Baron becoming the team healer with his nigh-magical bandage and iced tea powers; tea being good for healing poison.

^(Large enemy crab; attack at all for some damage. Also, camera having a little brain fart, as mentioned earlier)^

Skill checks are the inverse of most CRPG skill checks. Instead of rolling high, you want to roll low, as your stats serve as thresholds for failure. Each skill check is governed by two or three different attributes, and failing one check of the two/three means failing the whole thing. This isn’t a bad thing, but it did take getting used to; I was wondering why my Amazon companion kept fucking up the simple act of picking flowers.

Speaking of companions, they could use some work. Their quips give them a degree of characterization, but they don’t progress as people at all. The aforementioned Amazon attaches herself to you for no good reason, and whenever you ask her why she’s hanging out with you, she gives you the same non-answer over and over again. The other companions act similarly, never actually progressing as people beyond the point you pick them up. Still, they are useful to gameplay, and I never found myself truly dragging along a sub-par companion.

The narrative is probably the game’s strongest feature. It starts with your friend, Ardo of Boarstock, writing you a letter imploring you to visit him in the city of Ferdok. By the time you get there, however, you find he’s been murdered, along with several other people in the city. Thus launches a quest full of intrigue, mystery, magic, dragons, and all sorts of other cool shit. The voice-acting is decent, but not astounding. The characters all do this weird thing when talking, however. The tend to use way too much body language, flailing their arms where a simple hand wave would’ve done. It reminds me of the so-called “Bioware face”, but in the opposite direction, with the same effect, that being the uncanny valley. Although, I’d definitely prefer over-emoting to Bioware's under-emoting.

My only real nitpick is that the difficulty tends to spike in weird places and without warning. You could be booty-blasting the entire game, and then get stumped by a rat queen and be sad forever. The rat queen is actually a notorious example, well known and bemoaned, but there are other spots where the difficulty spike has me reaching for Google.

^(The remnants of one such difficulty spike, wherein I was forced to cheese the enemy to death the Amazon off in the distance to the left and the stylish lady in the center-right. Not pictured: the Evil Tree that slaughters any characters unfortunate enough to be caught in melee)^

Another potential nitpick is that spellcasting is a chore. Every spell requires a several second animation wherein the spellcaster moves their hands around, and then another several second animation for the spellcaster to sling the spell itself, and then if it’s an offensive spell, you get to watch the spell travel lazily toward its target. Exacerbating this is a tendency on the AI’s part to go after your spellcasters without even caring about anyone in front of them. Without any form of engagement mechanics or attacks of opportunity, your spellcasters are just as vulnerable whether they’re in front or in back.

Really, I would totally recommend Drakensang to anyone with a fantasy itch who likes Germanic fantasy and playing tabletop games. Hell, this plays a lot like a pen-and-paper game directly ported over to the PC. All it’s missing is a multiplayer element, but I suppose that’s what Drakensang Online is for. That may be a bit overwhelming for some; it was overwhelming for me, at first. But after you get into the right mindset, it becomes very easy to get absorbed completing all the quests and adventuring throughout Aventuria. I would definitely play this again if I got the chance. Or rather, I’d continue playing it. As is the course for many CRPG’s, there is simply too much content to get through in one few-week period. As for what Drakensang wants to do, it seems to want to be a German Dungeons and Dragons, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just a bit presumptuous, if anything. I mean, we have a Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a pretty rad Dungeons and Dragons. Still, I came from Drakensang  very well disposed toward it.

^(Baron Splendor, looking disappointed, trying to reach his hands through the screen to squeeze my skull, killing me instantly.)^