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slade-neko · 3 years ago

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Saw this video game tag thing pop up on my dash a few days ago. Wanted to do it.

1. First game you played obsessively? Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I believe I was 5yo. Still waiting on that FF7 Remake treatment.

2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc. Well if I play a game and like it, then I'll create sims of it. Does that count?

3. Who did you play with as a kid? My brother from the day I was born.

4. Who do you play with now? My brother FROM THE DAY I WAS BORN.

5. Ever use cheat codes? I wasn't lying when I made this post. {link}

6. Ever buy strategy guides? Yes! Mainly to look at the artwork though. (Don't need no guide!)

7. Any games you have multiple copies of? Lots of games, most being Left 4 Dead with 6 copies (3 Xbox 360, 1 PC case, 2 PC digitally.) What can I say, its a GOOD GAME!

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection? Gold cartridge Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (maybe that's rare?)

9. Most regrettable purchase? I don't regret my purchases, but I have received games I have never played like Cubix (PS2) no clue where that game came from, but I have it somehow. Madagascar (Xbox 360) came with my Xbox 360, never opened it from its case. And Monsters Inc. Scream Arena (Gamecube) or something... it was a gift.

10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours? No, because then I'd have to interact with people.

11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games? I'm only friends with people BECAUSE of video games, so yes.

12. Ever get picked on for liking games? No, that'd be ridiculous.

13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has? Probably a lot, I'd say Call of Duty, but I technically played CoD 1, 2, and 4. The campaign mode was alright, but I don't really care for CoD games at ALL.

14. Favorite game music? Koji Kondo and Grant Kirkhope are two BIG ones.

15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick? Triforce is the most basic option, but I'd rather not get a tattoo.

16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL? Super Smash Bros. Brawl with hacks, but that was over a decade ago.

17. Ever lose a friend over a game? No, that'd be ridiculous.

18. Would you date someone that hates gaming? No, that'd be RIDICULOUS.

19. Favorite handheld console? PSP. 3DS is great, but PSP Monster Hunter has ALL of my portable gaming memories. Like playing in school after End of Grade tests with my friend.

20. Game that you know like the back of your hand? Sims 4 I like to think I know everything about Left 4 Dead. Quite a bit about Monster Hunter, more so of a series though than a specific game.

21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now? I'd say Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. I loved it as a kid, but had a lot of complex pen & paper RPG mechanics that I never understood. I understand a lot more of it now, but its still complex as all heck. I just know you hit things, they die.

22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories? That's the only thing I wear.

23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into? Not sure so I'll list a few. Sims 4, Smash Bros. Brawl, Monster Hunter (its a series though), or Left 4 Dead

24. First Pokemon game? Leaf Green

25. Were you ever an arcade game player? No, don't like paying to play.

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries? No.

27. Game that makes you rage? I don't get mad at games, but I had a custom modded Hard Eight mutation in Left 4 Dead that is absolute bullsh*t!

28. Ever play in a tournament? No, because then I'd have to interact with people.

29. What is your gaming set up? A giant wall of video game consoles spanning from NES to Switch, 4 TVs, but I sit at a desk with a PC.

30. How many consoles do you own? "I own every console that's ever existed." - I Don't Play Games When I Play Games (My STRENTH) original song by Smooth McGroove BUT no seriously I own 32 consoles including handhelds.

31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches? Yes. 3DS gave me headaches though I only really played with the 3D feature in Ocarina of Time 3D. I think my eyes broke because I couldn't get my 3D to work very well after.

32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic? Sure I play games based on a lot of things. Literally any anime game. If I had to pick Dragon Ball Xenoverse is kinda like a dream Dragon Ball game. Oh, Attack on Titan 2 is pretty neat too!

33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games? Some SEGA plug-n-play thing once. Played it like once and now its lost to time (or my closet.)

34. Do either of your parents play video games? Yes. Mom and Dad played NES Super Mario Bros. My Dad went HARD at that game until he saved the Princess. Then he quit forever.

35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop? "Hi. Welcome to Gamestop!"I never want to hear that again, but it was my main store until I went full digital/ online orders.

36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game? No, I don't tend to get upset or emotional, but Bill dying in Left 4 Dead made me pretty pissed.

37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination? Never played it. I don't really play "bad" games, but maybe Sims 4.

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like? The Sims 4

39. A sequel that you would die for them to make? Dragon's Dogma 2 WHICH I think is actually in development, so I'd have to say Fallout New Vegas 2. C'mon Bethesda you cowards, hand the keys back over to Obsidian so they can make another good Fallout game!

40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls? Two part question, two answers. VR Headset to immerse in world, yes. Motion Controls, no.

41. A genre that you just can’t get into? MOBAs and MMOs. I don't like paying to keep playing.

42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness? Nintendo 64 opened me up to what video games could be as a kid. Sad to say my parents' NES didn't really do that for me. And years later Fallout 3 was a big game changer for me too.

43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else? Every day of my LIFE.

44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters? None. I'd rather emulate.

45. How are you at Mario Kart? Pretty dang good. 3-STARS MARIO KART WII, BABY!

46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon? Yes, both of those. I preferred when Animal Crossing had more character to it. New Horizons looks so pretty, but feels so bland compared to classic AC.

47. Do you like competitive games? No. Not really. Usually amongst friends or if I can get competitive against AI Bots. I love my machine bot friends cause they don't cry like 10 year olds when they lose.

48. How long does it take your to customize your player character? Too long. I've seriously restarted games because I wasn't happy with my character's appearance.

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character? Yes, I am always the magic man, my brother is always brute warrior, and my friend is the ranger.

50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create? I don't really know. Honestly, I'd rather mod already good games to make them better than create something completely new.

51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep? No, that'd be ridiculous. But I've had a friend fall asleep playing games at my house 3 different times and currently dozes off during our Minecraft sessions. So, maybe that's not a completely ridiculous thing after all.

52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid? Kirby 64 apparently. My brother tells me we had to count out pennies to buy it. I must've been too young with no recollection, but I believe it.

53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days? It's good if its not in the game's files from the beginning and is actually developed AFTER launch... and pre-order bonuses should be standard DLC a month or two later. Some games have content lost to time because of that pre-order bullsh*t.

54. Do you give in to Steam sales? Of course. If you want a game and its on sale then why not? I typically wait just for Steam sales to get games.

55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them? No? I typically make people and characters I like in Sims. I've made villains like Dio, but he's an anime villain and I don't really HATE him despite the horrible things he's done.

56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests? No. Never played that game.

57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements? I try to for all the games I really like.

58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick? The Sims 4, Skyrim, & Fallout: New Vegas. Mods make them live forever. Left 4 Dead and Monster Hunter are good choices too.

59. Do you play any cell phone games? Those aren't games.

60. Do you know the Konami Code? No? But I'll take a guess. Is it make an IP and forget it exists?

61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever? Keep forever... even the bad ones.

62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game? PS4 Pro for Monster Hunter World. It was basically for early access since the PC version was being developed and releasing after PS4, but I don't like waiting.

63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? Sort of. Been to anime cons and walked into the gaming tournament rooms only to walk out less than 10 minutes later.

64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming? No, but I'm going to be doing that soon, hopefully.

65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file? GameShark for N64, PS2, Gameboy, and Action Replay for Gamecube, DS, 3DS. And no not really, I would cheat responsibly... but there was this one time at school my friend and I borrowed another friend's Gameboy game, loaded it up with my Gameshark, tried playing, it crashed, loaded it back up, save file corrupted... we just stared at each other jaws dropped, "Here's your game back, dude. Make sure you don't play it til you get back home!"

66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it? No, but I remember seeing them on billboards in the game DRIV3R on PS2.

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share? Every game I play is filled with happy memories (mostly.)

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool? These tiger plushes. My brother got white and I got orange. They were the coolest. Got a butt load of tickets from some jackpot spinning light game thing as I was good at the timing with repeated jackpot hits.

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? I've played quite a few masterpiece games, but to pick one, I'd say Fallout: New Vegas

70. Very first game you ever beat? Super Mario 64. I was a mere child on a Sunday morning and ate celebratory pancakes made by my Dad.

Wow, that was long... I get the feeling this was supposed to be a "send me ask with numbers" thing, but answering all at once is more fun.

#personal #video games

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mysmashplaythroughs · 5 years ago

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Ocarina of Time Link Playthrough

Fighter: Link (Ocarina of Time Incarnation)

Game: The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Wii U virtual console (N64). First Released on November 21st 1998.

Fighter Bio.

Having drawn the Master Sword from the Pedestal of Time, roughly 9-year-old Link finds himself flung 7 years into the future, now a 16-year-old standing in the Temple of Time. He meets Rauru the Sage of Light who informs him that he had been put into a slumber for the past seven years in order to grow into a state in which he could effectively wield the Master Sword, and that in that time Ganondorf had taken the Triforce of Power and conquered Hyrule. Rauru tells Link that he must now find the other seven sages in order to gain the power needed to defeat Ganondorf and save Hyrule. Stepping out of the Temple of Time Link finds before him a far different Hyrule Castle Town to the one he had left behind, buildings in ruin, Hyrule Castle destroyed and replaced with Ganon’s Tower and Redead Zombies the only residents now in the town square. Link later finds out that most of the surviving citizens of Hyrule Castle Town had escaped to Kakariko Village, with it being a more bustling location than it was seven years before, with many of the shops from the Castle Town now found there.

Link meets many characters he’d met in his childhood once again. With seven years having passed many of the children he’d met such as Malon of Lon Lon Ranch have aged similarly to him. It is on Lon Lon Ranch Link also meets the now grown up foal Epona who he had met seven years earlier. With the help from Malon’s song she had taught Link as a child, he manages to save Epona from being given to Ganon by the new corrupt owner of the Ranch, in the process breaking Ganon’s hold over him and saving the ranch. With Epona now helping Link he can travel across Hyrule faster as well as using her ability to jump over fences to access areas he couldn’t before. During his travels Link often meets a mysterious character called Sheik who teaches him various songs that Link can use to warp to locations related to the sage’s temples. After a long difficult quest Link manages to awaken six of the seven sages before being reunited with the seventh, Princess Zelda who had been in hiding for the past seven years. However, once she reveals herself, Ganondorf locates Zelda and captures her taking her to his Tower where Link must travel to with the help of the sages in order to finally take down Ganon and bring peace back to Hyrule. Following his adventure, Link is sent back to the past, to the moment he left seven years ago and is never seen again in this specific timeline in Hyrule’s history, being regarded as the legendary Hero of Time and passing into myth.

Friends: Link in his travels as a child met many characters throughout Hyrule and following his journey seven years into the future met many of these characters again as an adult. Saria is Link’s oldest friend having lived with him in Kokiri Forest as a child before he left on his adventure, following this Link met Princess Zelda and Impa who helped guide him on his quest. He met Darunia leader of the Gorons, Princess Ruto of the Zora as well as Malon during his travels as a child as well as being reunited with them in the future. Many of these characters with the exception of Malon would turn out to be sages when Link met them again, with Rauru and a Gerudo called Nabooru being the other two sages Link meets and befriends. The sages all help Link during his quest to take down Ganon, using their powers during his journey to and through Ganon’s Tower. Link has two more key friends who help him, Epona the horse who he can ride to travel around Hyrule Field and a couple of other locations such as Lake Hylia and the Gerudo Training Grounds, and Navi his loyal fairy companion who travelled with Link from the very start of his quest. Navi was sent to help Link by the Great Deku Tree, the guardian of the Kokiri Forest where Link grew up and who acted as a parental figure to Link and the Kokiri living there.

Enemies/Rivals: Link’s main enemy is Ganondorf the King of the Gerudo who, in the seven years Link was in stasis, took the Triforce. Due to the imbalance in his heart however, he could not hold the full Triforce and it separated leaving him with only the Triforce of Power. The Triforce of Wisdom went to Princess Zelda and the Triforce of Courage went to Link. As such, Ganondorf seeks Link and Zelda in order to reclaim all three pieces of the Triforce and rule Hyrule without opposition. With the Triforce of Power alone however Ganondorf has already managed to conquer Hyrule when Link arrives, controlling many monsters who have captured the Sages and spread chaos throughout the land. Link battles many of these creatures, from Volvagia the ancient dragon of Death Mountain to humanoid foes such as Phantom Ganon and Twinrova, the twin Gerudo witches. This Link also canonically is the first to encounter and battle Dark Link, a shadowy reflection of himself who appears from his reflection in the Water Temple.

Link also fights the assorted creatures and soldiers making up Ganon’s army such as Octoroks, Stalfos, Moblins and Lizalfos. Link doesn’t make many enemies of the people of Hyrule with mostly his enemies being monsters. The only exceptions to these are the guards in the Gerudo Fortress, who are more attacking him for intruding in their fortress than as enemies and the majority of them will simply throw him in a cell when they catch him, Deku Scrubs who, sometimes when defeated offer to sell Link things (although other variants will fight to the death) and then there are Gorons who can accidentally damage Link if they run into him whilst rolling around their city or down Death Mountain.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: This Link has not specifically crossed over with any other characters outside of Smash Bros unlike his younger incarnation. He has been represented as an alt costume for Link in Hyrule Warriors however, being able to fight against and with other versions of Link, Zelda and Ganondorf from throughout the series. EDIT: And now, this is probably the first post I’ve gone back to alter following a new character being revealed. This is a tenuous connection really overall, but it’s a very notable event in gaming that I’ve finally had a chance to bring up so I decided to at least mention it. With Kazuya Mishima revealed for Super Smash Bros Ultimate from the Tekken series, Link with this specific design has had a connection to Tekken before through another series. In Soul Calibur 2, a decision was made to have an exclusive character to each platform the game was on, Xbox got Spawn the Image Comics character, Playstation got Heihachi Mishima, the father of Kazuya and Gamecube got, as you may have guessed Link in a rare role as a guest character. This was fondly remembered and I believe the Gamecube version of the game actually sold the best possibly due to Link’s inclusion, however Link and Heihachi were mutually exclusive and as such could not directly fight each other. What still makes this worth mentioning however, is that Soul Calibur as a series is related to Tekken, to the point it’s been hinted at if not outright confirmed that the series takes place in the past of Tekken’s world, with Yoshimitsu being a fighter in both series, and the one in Tekken being said to be a successor to the one in Soul Calibur. There is one other link directly between Link and Kazuya, however that one involves another incarnation of the hero, so therefore I will go over that in a later post.

Why this game?

With the first Zelda character I’m covering comes a key factor the main characters of the Zelda series have which makes them somewhat unique from other characters in Smash. Instead of Link and Zelda being characters who appear throughout the Zelda series there are many different versions of them, with the Link in Twilight Princess for example being a different character to the one in Ocarina of Time. They all tend to share various characteristics, the most obvious being their name and in all cases so far Link has been the main playable character in each game. As this covers the Link in Ocarina of Time, a character who has both an adult and child form, the main game to represent this Link therefore is the only canon game this Link appears in as an adult, being Ocarina of Time. Because this is his only appearance the vast majority of equipment and attacks Link uses in Super Smash Bros come from this game as a source. It’s also important to note that this version of Link only appeared as a fighter in the original Super Smash Bros and Super Smash Bros Melee, being replaced in Super Smash Bros Brawl onwards with other versions of Link from later games. I will cover those versions of Link later down the line so for now the Link here is only drawing from his portrayal in Super Smash Bros and Melee.

My past with this game.

So this game is the first example of something I had with a few games back in my childhood and probably is the one that I think of first when it comes to it, which is it wasn’t a game I owned but one which I played at my Cousin’s house when I’d visit. My history before this with the Zelda series actually was rather brief which is funny to me today as it’s definitely one of my top personal series now, still as a child the only game I had was the very original Legend of Zelda on the NES, which I never got very far on. I will go over that game further down the line, but it’s never been one of my particular favourites so it was probably the worst game for me personally to start with. Since my only games really at the time my Cousins had OOT were Super Mario 64 and possibly Mario Kart 64 this game always felt like a lot more of a ‘mature’ game than I was used to, with various dark elements and a world that unlike Peach’s Castle was a bit more hostile. This also brings me onto something I remember from my childhood, which would often happen with games that you don’t get today really, getting a game second hand that had a save file already on it. I wasn’t good at games at this time (I mean, not to say I am now necessarily.) and I was more interested in just running around in the worlds than actually doing the main story and challenges in the game. The save file on my Cousin’s copy of OOT had gotten to the future Hyrule part of the game, which meant we could run around a lot of Hyrule already as well as having access to the past version of Hyrule as Child Link. As such, my earliest memories of this game aren’t really about the story so much as the locations and talking to all the various NPCs. I remember this was probably the first game I played which had things like towns you could go to and talk to random characters in as well as sidequests. It was also the first game I personally played with a day and night system which I found fairly amazing at the time. Finally, this game was also the first I remember playing where music was more than just something in the background, with playing the Ocarina being a big part of the game (it’s in the title afterall) a lot of the tunes even now hold a lot of nostalgia for me, as I’m sure they do for a lot of other people.

After playing the game quite a few times at my Cousins and I believe borrowing the game a couple of times I finally got my own copy, second hand also which similarly had a save file in the Adult Link portion of the game. I did I believe make an attempt to play the game from the start now that I had it, but the furthest I think at this time I got to was Death Mountain where I think I ran for the first time into something I’d like to refer to as the ‘Zelda Pitfall’. I’m sure it has already been given a name as it’s not something unique to me, nor to Zelda games specifically, I’ve just found it happens to me in a lot of them. This is where you get to a point in the game where you just cannot work out how to continue. You’ll explore every area of the dungeon, try out everything you think is ‘obvious’ you can do with the items you have, but you just cannot figure out how to go forward. It’s even worse when you run into this outside of dungeons as then you have the whole world to explore in order to find a solution. The final nail in the coffin that makes this ‘the Zelda Pitfall’ is when the solution turns out to be extremely simple and you were overthinking it the whole time, such as having the item you needed already and you forgot, actually being able to fairly easily proceed because a door you thought you’d checked you actually hadn’t or finally the answer being given to you and you immediately forgot it and started overthinking the solution.

Due to this I didn’t get very far into Ocarina of Time for a while. Gradually other consoles with newer games came out and I didn’t revisit Ocarina of Time as often, but one thing I find interesting is it was somewhat of a constant presence for me. First came the Gamecube and because I was playing it as my main console at the time, I didn’t like to have to plug my N64 in again to play older games. During the Gamecube era however, there was a special release with Ocarina of Time, the new Master Quest mode and Majora’s Mask all on one disk. I got this and played Ocarina of Time again, this time managing to get to the Adult Link part myself rather than using the previous owner of the game’s save file. I did not get any further than the first adult dungeon however, the Forest Temple which is where I left the game off. At this point I had played a few Zelda games, however I had not completed any of them at the time. When the Wii released one of the big selling points to me was the Virtual Console, allowing me to easily play all sorts of older games without having to get those consoles out and setup again. Due to this I was able to download Ocarina of Time on my Wii. At this time, with the launch of the Wii also came Twilight Princess, which I thoroughly enjoyed and became the first 3D Zelda title I’d completed (I believe I possibly beat Minish Cap on GBA before this as my very first completed Zelda game overall.) I would over the next few years return to Ocarina of Time sometimes hoping to complete it, however often as with so many games over the years, there’d be other new games would come out which would take my attention away.

In June 2011, Nintendo in a similar move to their remake for Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo DS came out with a remake of Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 3DS fairly early into it’s run. This version of the game boasted redone models with a lot more details, redone environments and various changes to the item setups making it much faster to equip certain ones than in the original game, which managed to improve upon a largely criticized dungeon I will detail later. There were other changes such as the option to use the gyro sensor when aiming items such as the bow and slingshot which I found a great improvement. With the game portable and it being one of the few big releases at that period of time for the 3DS I finally managed to play through Ocarina of Time from start to finish, I believe beating the final boss whilst on holiday in this case. This remake is one I would highly recommend, it doesn’t make many controversial changes to the original game, looks very nice (Although I have heard the criticism it looks too nice and takes away some of the edge of the original game as it looks too clean.) and in my opinion the gyro controls are a very nice addition for aiming certain items etc. I’ve included in this post a single screenshot I got of OOT3D which you can compare to the other pictures here to see the difference in Link’s model for example. So, finally I had beaten a game I really should have beaten many years earlier, at least, I had beaten the remake. A few years later however, I decided to replay the game for my Smash Bros list. I felt rather than replay the remake even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I wanted to finally beat the version from my childhood that I should have beaten so many years earlier.

My Smash Playthrough.

So the first thing I want to go into with this game is the introduction that plays when you start a new game. If you read my previous section you’d realise, I’ve started this game from scratch a few times now, and honestly I feel this game has probably one of the most standout openings I can think of. Every time I’ve restarted the game (or watched a person starting a Lets Play of it) the scene with Link sleeping in his home in Kokiri Forest, with the text narration of the Great Deku Tree and the complete lack of any sounds until his nightmare begins has always felt like the start of something special to me. In a sense, given how Ocarina of Time is such a big nexus point for everything that happens in the series (even if it’s not the very beginning of the series canonically) the really understated opening always feels sort of epic for me. Of course, having played this opening many times before, a lot of this specific run doesn’t stick in my head particularly, although I personally find it a nice relaxing start to the game, exploring Kokiri Forest and talking to everyone, taking on the first dungeon and onwards until I reached the Temple of Time and the Master Sword.

Since this post will focus on Adult Link in the game, I believe it’s best to not go too in-depth on the first parts of the game which I will get to in a later post. Reaching this point in the game isn’t too difficult, but it’s still three dungeons in with the last one being a somewhat irritating one so it feels an achievement to reach this point. With the Master Sword in hand it always feels like you’ve had a powerup, beating enemies you had more trouble with in the past somewhat more easily such as Lizalfols. The first Temple as an adult, the Forest Temple I remember gave me a few ‘Zelda Pitfall’ problems. I’ve found when I come across these issues now there are various steps I take which often lead to the solution. The first step is simply to check my map and see which rooms I haven’t visited yet and see if I can enter any of them, if I’ve found the compass also it’s key to track down every chest I can find/reach. The next step is to check my inventory to double check every item I have, it’s important to try and remember all the functionality of them, I’ve had a few times I’ve forgotten some specific additional effect an item has that is required to solve a puzzle that is, due to this, fairly simple. The third is to remember what the most recent item or ability I’ve gained is. Some equipment is always equipped so when checking the item menu won’t show up, it’s important therefore not to forget you’ve already got this equipment and that if you can use it’s ability it might be the key to get through. Next up it’s important to check every room thoroughly, it can be easy to overlook something in some cases as simple as a door that you just assumed for some reason didn’t actually lead where you want to go. You should also test things out, sometimes a texture or object you think your item won’t have any effect on is actually the solution to your situation. Next is taking a break, sometimes you can get so focused on solving something you miss an obvious solution that with a break you realise was right in front of you the whole time. Finally there’s the cheating loser’s way out, which is if all else fails look up a walkthrough, it’s perhaps not honourable, but it’s up to you if you want to lose motivation in a game because you just can’t work something out or take that extra help. I personally tend to nowadays do everything I can to work it out myself until it’s taking almost a week, which luckily for me rarely happens anymore. With this in mind, this doesn’t always work as there have been a few times I’ve found guides that unhelpfully completely gloss over the obvious thing I’ve been making a mistake on the whole time, which is why in these cases I’ll usually check out someone’s video playthrough to see just how they reach the next section.

Following the Forest Temple, I didn’t have many problems until I reached what many consider the worst dungeon in the game, the Water Temple. This is the dungeon I said earlier was improved somewhat in the 3DS remake of OOT. The key issue with it in the N64 version is you having to equip the iron boots, which require pausing, moving to the equipment screen and selecting the iron boots every time you want them on to weigh you down in the water, then doing the same and selecting the Kokiri Boots every time you want to float to the water’s surface, which is required a lot in this dungeon. In the 3DS remake you can instead equip the iron boots as an item, which you can simply press the assigned button to equip and de-equip. With this said, personally I found the Water Temple, after years of hearing just how hated it is to be fairly unremarkable. Honestly, I think I had more trouble with the boss than I did with the actual temple, which I will get to later. Personally, I actually found the mini dungeon which is an Ice Cavern more irritating to get through than the Water Temple. The Ice Cavern has naturally, ice physics, however, it often has sections that require slightly more precise platforming than usual, has ice statue enemies who breath clouds of ice that freeze you if you make contact with them which coupled with the ice physics can make them irritating to get close to to take down, although you can use fire arrows if you’ve found them at this point which cost magic and arrows each time. Then there are the block puzzles which aren’t particularly difficult, but if you mess them up often require you to leave and return to reset. Following this, the only dungeons that stick out as difficult to me were the Gerudo Training Ground, which was more difficult to navigate than particularly tough with it getting slightly confusing working out where you had and hadn’t gone, and the Spirit Temple, the second last dungeon. The Spirit Temple definitely is an interesting place and I didn’t dislike it, however it had a fair few moments where I fell into some ‘Zelda Pitfalls’. Ganon’s Tower has a few tricks but I didn’t find it particularly difficult, however I did like going through it, especially the final ascent of the main tower facing various enemies on each floor as Ganon’s theme plays.

When it comes to the bosses, this is the game that first translated bosses into 3D for the series. As such, it takes a lot of it’s cues from the earlier games, something the series has had a long tradition of to this day. The bosses often will be weak to the item you’ve found in the temple they’re in with them having a weak point of some sort that you have to use the item to expose. After this you’ll move in whilst they’re stunned and slash as much as you can with your sword. Whilst this is the case, the bosses were still fairly big spectacles in each encounter, the first being Phantom Ganon who has a fun battle involving him charging on horseback at you from one of several paintings in the room, Volvagia the dragon of Death Mountain who flies through the air before giving you a game of wack-a-mole. Morpheel, a liquid tentacle with an eyeball floating in it was probably the boss I had the most difficulty with, more than the actual Water Temple itself as I found it difficult to get the hookshot to effectively pull the eye out of the water so I could strike it leading to a long irritating battle from what I remember. Bongo Bongo and Twinrova were also both fun and somewhat challenging battles. With Twinrova even though their tactic was fairly simple to work out (use the mirror shield to reflect their attack back at their twin) it was still challenging to actually pull it off. Before I go onto the Final Boss, the Mini Bosses were in most cases simply strong enemies you’d have to defeat to proceed, there were two standouts however. Dark Link is a fairly iconic fight from the series with him mirroring your every move and in some cases even jumping and standing on top of your sword when you thrust it at him. You have to use somewhat unconventional strategies against him that he cannot replicate, using items such as the Megaton Hammer, Biggorons Sword which is longer than his copy Master Sword, or if you wish to and have the magic energy, Din’s Fire, a magical attack that engulfs the whole room that he cannot counter. The second standout mini boss isn’t iconic so much as one of the creepiest things in the game, a corpselike, blood spattered (except in the 3DS version) bizarre being called Dead Hand. This thing sprouts from the ground along with many hands around the room. The hands will grab Link if he goes near them and hold him in place in order for Dead Hand to shuffle over and take a bite out of him. It’s not a very hard boss but it definitely stuck out in my mind (and nightmares).

The final battle with Ganondorf is fun. This takes the form of something referred to in Phantom Hourglass as “Dead Man’s Volley” where Ganondorf will fire a ball of dark energy at Link, Link will hit the energy with the Master Sword sending it back before Ganondorf with a swipe of his cape sends it back again, it going back and forth until one person misses their strike and gets hit by the energy. If Ganondorf is hit, he’ll fall to the ground stunned, it’s then Link can use the Light Arrows to fully stun him before jumping in to slash away at him with his Master Sword. There are a few variations Ganondorf uses in this fight and Phantom Ganon earlier in the game did a more simple version of this fight but following it Ganondorf is defeated and Link must escape the collapsing tower with Zelda. Once they escape however, from the ruins of the Tower, Ganondorf, now transformed by the Triforce of Power into a beast called simply Ganon has his final battle with Link. This battle can be somewhat challenging as Ganon can hit for a lot of damage, but as long as you know what you’re doing it should be doable without too many problems, leading to the ending. Future Hyrule is freed from Ganon’s grasp at last with him being sealed away and Link is sent back to his own time leading to the Zelda timeline being split forever more… but I won’t go into that too much. The ending has an overview of all the areas around Hyrule. The characters around Hyrule all being shown celebrating together, having a big party on Lon Lon Ranch, although some who were close to the Sages who have left them such as Mido of the Kokiri and Princess Ruto’s Father King Zora are sat together looking sadly at the ground before noticing what seems to be possibly the spirits of the sages flying overhead. The whole time some very nice music is playing with some characters such as Malon and the Carpenter group who appeared in the Gerudo Desert singing along with it. Overall it’s definitely a nice ending and fairly iconic amongst a lot of Nintendo fans.

Seeing this ending again, even if I’d seen it recreated in the 3DS version was still very satisfying for me, having played this game on and off for probably about roughly 15 years by this point and finally properly finishing it was a great feeling which definitely increased the impact of the ending credits for me. Overall the game is fantastic I’d argue even today. I feel this is one of those games that has had so much praise over the years that sadly, people lose perspective of how good it really is choosing to instead focus on its flaws or call it basic. It definitely isn’t perfect, no game is of course, but I disagree personally when I hear it being talked about as a basic generic Zelda game or just A Link to the Past in 3D. A lot of the ideas in the game are fairly unique such as the two different time periods you can travel between, various interesting locations with new races such as the Gorons and Zoras (who have a somewhat complex history with them having a species related to them with the same name who act as regular enemies in other games) having Link playable as both a child and adult as well as just how much lore we get to see take place here with the origin of Ganondorf, the creation of Hyrule being explained (things only really detailed in instruction manuals and dialogue in older games) and other fairly iconic scenes. (A standout scene to me has always been when Link leaves Kokiri Forest for the first time running away after speaking with Saria for what could for all he knows be the last time.) Yes it’s not got a focus on story as such, but I feel people do tend to gloss over what actually is here a lot now. Another big thing to me regarding the game is the atmosphere. I mentioned earlier this was the first game I knew of and played with a day and night system and exploring areas at night in the game is still one of the most atmospheric experiences I personally can think of in games. I think it’s because at night there’s not any music and instead you hear sounds such as crows in some locations, the wind or other background sounds. When I do these articles I tend to play the games again for a little bit just to try and jog my memory about how the controls feel etc, and one thing I remember this time was going to Death Mountain as the sun was setting and looking down at Kakariko Village. Now… yes, it is just a flat texture when it comes down to it off in the background, but I personally just found it nice watching how the lights on the houses came on once the sun had gone down, nothing compared to watching the sun set over a world in modern games, but it still has its own charm to me. I suppose one final personal thing I’d like to mention which I realise is pretty archaic now but I just found fairly charming in a nostalgic way is the areas which are static backgrounds, one of the key ones being Hyrule Castle Town with its back alleys. There’s something about wandering around these static locations that look more like paintings than actual locations that I just like for some reason. It sort of reminds me a little now of some of the old point and click adventure games I’ve seen over the years. Anyway, in conclusion all I can say really at this point was it was great to finally beat this game properly.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Link in Smash.

When it comes to Link’s portayal in Smash, this is the first character I’ve written an article for who has equipment. With that said his equipment isn’t overly customisable and there are one or two aspects that aren’t possible to replicate from Smash. For his primary equipment, Link has the Master Sword, Hylian Shield and Kokiri Tunic. These can all be swapped out for other equipment with the Biggoron’s Sword, the Mirror Shield and two other tunics available, however this equipment unlike some later and earlier games can still be switched between so there is no point where you cannot equip Link with his gear from Smash Bros. When it comes to items, Link has his Fairy Bow, Hookshot and Bombs available. Despite being from this game however, Adult Link cannot use the Boomerang. Link can also charge up his Master Sword to unleash the spin attack which is replicated in Smash. When it comes to physical appearance, there is a point where Link will gain something which visually changes his outfit for the rest of the game, being the Silver and later Golden Gauntlets. These are received at the Spirit Temple which is one of the very last dungeons in the game, therefore it is possible if for some reason like me you’re doing some sort of weird Smash Bros recreation of Link in the game to make a separate save file just before you acquire them and still have all the other relevant equipment (Sword, Shield, Bow, Hookshot, Bombs etc). Beyond this, I suppose one final thing of note is that Link’s entrance in the original Smash Bros comes specifically from this game, being a recreation of the animation when Link enters and leaves a cave found inside a hole in the ground, with him dropping down from the light beaming from the hole and then ascending back up it when leaving.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Zelda Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down, the picture for Link in Melee I’m afraid I cannot locate currently.

#Link #The Legend of Zelda #Ocarina of Time #Super Smash Bros #Nintendo 64 #Wii U #Virtual Console #My Smash Playthrough #My Smash Playthroughs

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slapegg · 8 years ago

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Quick Critique: Dragon Quest 8

Re-release or not, Dragon Quest maintains its position as a C-tier RPG. Dragon Quest just... exists. It's not awful but it's not great or exciting by any means. It's harmless. It's a game you play while doing something else, like watching TV, surfing the Internet, or listening to a podcast. I spent most of the early parts rewatching It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and that seemed to work out pretty well. I never played the original version of the game, so if anything I mention is a new feature or spoilerish, sorry?

DQ 8 has terrible pacing. The first task is to talk to everybody in a town followed by constant running back and forth between people or places. The whole game suffers from a lack of motivation. You're just kind of wandering around trying to find a vaguely defined bad guy, who then gets away, and you have to meander around until your paths cross again. The time in-between is usually spent doing filler quests that typically involve helping royalty. And royalty in the game is constantly corrupt or incompetent but it treats saving them with the utmost importance. Almost all the interesting stuff in DQ8 happens before the game and is rushed over in flashbacks rather than being something you experience.

The game couples its lack of purpose with a terrible sense of direction where it doesn't guide you to what to do next or where to go. Without direction or even an indication of why you're on this journey, you wander around until you stumble upon the next thing that drives the plot forward. There are multiple points where your guidance is simply "go west" or "it might be somewhere in the east". There are a lot of things "west" so some more information would have been helpful. Sometimes you have to talk to people in a specific order or else you can't advance, so it leads to a lot of time wasted running in circles repeatedly talking to townspeople I didn't want to talk to in the first place. When it does give you directions, even those are usually horrible. One person told me my objective was on a hill upstream, but in reality, I had to go down to a beach and follow it downstream to get to the hill. Or your objective might only be available at a certain time of day, so if you don't set out at the right time, dusk will come causing your magical bird shadow to disappear with the damned objective in sight and you trudge back to town, rest up, and do the whole follow task a second time.

Story issues aside, it just doesn't play well. The camera is in too tight and can't handle close quarters (like most of the caves and dungeons!) or slopes so it zooms in even more and your character's head takes up most of the screen. The walking speed is slow, and your ship is even worse so you quickly learn to just take the mainline path and not bother exploring (thank you, over a decade of people posting maps and FAQs!). You get a mount 20 hours into the game, but it can travel faster than the game can handle the pop-in, so enemies will spawn inside you. The text is super blurry. Like, my eyes start to hurt if I play this for long periods of time kinds of blurry. It shows its age in how grindy it is with the costs of items and experience it takes to level up versus what enemies actually pay out. It has a crafting system so I was always afraid of selling my previous equipment in case I'd need it for a recipe later in the game, which meant I could never sell it back to make some money back and speed up the process. Bosses spam status effects, making beating them luck-based and there are bosses that can cast instant death spells on your entire party. When I died, it didn't feel like it was my fault because my party was usually confused, asleep, cursed, and/or paralyzed at their time of death, but then when I beat bosses, it didn't feel satisfying because I won due to the RNG just working for me that time. There are DLC downloads that grant you... crap once a day? The first day gave out an item that was good against Metal Slimes, but by the time I actually met Metal Slimes, I had an ability that was more effective anyway. I never got anything decent out of the downloads again so I'm not entirely sure what its purpose is.

One of the side quests is a series of monster battles, but you can't control the characters so you have to rely on the AI. And the AI is braindead. It will sit there with near full magic and let its entire team die without using a healing spell. Every time you make an attempt at the series of three battles, you have to sit through overly long and repeated dialogue scenes that you can't skip through, because even if you skip the dialogue, you still have to wait for camera pans or character animations to play out before you can advance. It doesn't take any skill, you just need to be there to mash on the Fight button over and over until the battle progresses and a random number generator decides to work in your favor.

The best thing I can say about DQ8 is that it has a really fun skill tree. It doesn't actually tell you what the abilities do and you don't know which weapon to spec towards because of that, but after looking up an FAQ and making my decisions based on that, I really looked forward to the skill points I got from leveling up more than the actual stats I got. I beat the final boss and post-game extra boss by throwing an old man at them as the final blow with an ability I learned from the skill tree. So, thanks, skill trees! Also, the game has a sexy pirate lady that joins your team and that is a wonderful combination of three words. There's a quick save that's pretty handy for a handheld game. Given everything else the game does poorly, that seems worth calling out as a plus. You can see the monsters on the map, but that's not as helpful as it sounds because dungeons are cramped and monsters are faster than you so there's frequently not much you can do when you see one in your path. If you pause the game and go to a settings menu that replaces the regular game screen, the game will unload all the monsters on the map and then reload them when you close the menu. You can use this to scum your way around some monsters blocking your path. The monsters also only appear when you're on land, so during the tedious and slow sailing segments, you still run into random battles.

It took me about 50 hours to complete the main game and major sidequests, but they weren't 50 enjoyable hours. It really felt like it could have been 10, at most 20, hours long for how little non-grinding, non-backtracking, non-aimless wandering content there actually was. I would have much rather played the 10 hour version of Dragon Quest 8.

The game also has a really scummy treatment of the lead female characters. Jessica is little more than eye candy. My introduction to her was in Dragon Quest Heroes where she has a big personality so it was jarring to now play this game and she's barely more than just T&A. She rarely says or does anything of her own will after she joins your party. And the Akira Toriyama art style does nooot do T&A well. Her forehead is ginormous and she has the worst outfits, so she doesn't come across as sexy, she comes across as the game being sleazy. The princess is treated like a prize or an item rather than a character, with your final acts in the game having you decide which woman to marry but none of them really seem to have a reason to want to marry the main character. It's like one of those "Mario/Link saves the princess and all he gets is a kiss. She owes him!" discussions but somebody actually had the terrible sense to put it canonically in the game. The initial driving force of the story is that the princess is turned into a horse by evil bad guy magic. The princess may have been transformed but she still has her mind and you don't actually have to treat her like a horse! There's a character in the game that tries to ride her and the game treats that as a "he's such a jerk!" moment, but the difference is that he doesn't know she's more than just a horse. You KNOW she's a cursed human being and you treat her like a horse anyway. You're way worse than that guy. And later in the game, you find a magic spring that can turn her human for a brief period of time, but the story and game won't let her drink from the spring without your permission. There's actually a prompt to "Let her" drink and return to being human. Why is that this nameless, personality-less jerk's decision to make? The silent, bland as beige hero wound up being the character I hated the most. Sure there's an evil dog that goes around murdering old women, but I was kind of hoping for the horse princess to kick the hero in the head so I could play as somebody else.

#Dragon Quest 8 #Dragon quest #horse princess #why is Dragon Warrior not on Virtual Console?!

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videogamesdensetsu · 7 years ago

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Video game ad collection (V.1)

More than 10,000 flyers and paper ads from (almost) all around the world.

Featuring Takeshi Kitano, Isaac Asimov, Tamori and Takahashi Meijin. When I asked on Twitter if there was a website similar to the now defunct Game Chirashi Collection (which collected Japanese flyers for console games), I didn't get a positive answer. Of course, there are websites which have some scans of flyers or paper ads, but nothing as huge as GCC. Since I have saved most of its content (with the notable exception of the Nintendo section) but have neither the time nor the will to make a dedicated website, I decided to upload what I have so you can download these scans, spread them or make your own websiste, because it's part of video game history and I don't want these files to be lost. If you're wondering why they are important, here are some examples: _an ad may indicate the name of the illustrator behind such cover art or shows his or her signature _an ad may indicate the intended release date of a game or a machine _an ad may show an early version of a game or a machine _an ad may be the only available material for an unreleased game _an ad may indicate the commercial strategy of a company _an ad may indicate to who such a game was aimed at etc. Sources: I'm aware that these scans are not mine and that it's a time-consuming task to scan all this stuff -I often scan old books myself- so I express my sincere gratitude to the people who have worked hard on it and present my apologies to those I forgot to mention in the following list: http://www.gamengai.com/#/ https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/gamesmasa http://archives.tg-16.com/ http://femicom.org/ http://www.smspower.org/ http://www.video-game-ephemera.com/ http://www.chrismcovell.com/secret.html http://animarchive.tumblr.com/ http://retrogamegoods.tumblr.com/ http://videogameads.tumblr.com/ http://vgprintads.tumblr.com/ https://twitter.com/frankcifaldi https://twitter.com/chou_nosuke https://web.archive.org/web/20160302223719/http://gamedic.jpn.org/museum/tirasi/index.html and of course, magazine archives. You can find a list here: http://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/144505923795/non-exhaustive-list-of-video-game-magazines If you're looking for arcade/Neo-Geo flyers: https://twitter.com/ARCADE_LAB http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/ Nomenclature: These flyers/ads come from various countries so I indicate the origin of each of them by using the following system: arg: Argentina aus: Australia br: Brazil chi: China den: Denmark fr: France ger: Germany ita: Italy j: Japan kor : South Korea mex: Mexico ned: Nederland spa: Spain swe: Sweden u: USA UK: UK +: similar (same illustration but with a few differences) or attached to the previous picture (back of a flyer, etc.) I generally use the name used in the country where the game was first released so if you're looking for an ad related to, say Dragon Warrior, search "Dragon Quest". Example: Dragon Quest III u 5+ Dragon Quest III = original name u = country 5 = ad #5 (ideally, this should be in chronological order, but it would take me too much time) + = similar or attached to the previous file Links: 1) Western Computers (mostly PC), Japanese computers, Misc (ads for books, goodies, tournaments, recruitment, etc.) https://www.mediafire.com/file/unruza84vi9buaf/1%20computers%20+%20misc.rar 2) Microsoft, SNK, NEC and various consoles (Atari, Bandai, Epoch, 3DO, etc.) https://www.mediafire.com/file/vjmd58sfs68kvwu/2%20SNK%2C%20NEC%2C%20Microsoft%2C%20consoles.rar 3) Nintendo, part 1 (3DS, DS, Famicom, Game Boy, GBA, GBC, GameCube) https://www.mediafire.com/file/ch17dobm3wnrjhj/3%20Nintendo%201.rar 4) Nintendo, part 2 (N64, SFC, Virtual Boy, Wii, WiiU, misc.) https://www.mediafire.com/file/ba0y7bgm1maj6jh/4%20Nintendo%202.rar 5) Sega, part 1 (Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive, SG-1000, SC-3000) https://www.mediafire.com/file/wt4b9wdvcta2r2n/5%20Sega%201.rar 6) Sega, part 2 (32X, Dreamcast, Saturn, Mega-CD, misc.) https://www.mediafire.com/file/ctij3n4szyp96bo/6%20Sega%202.rar 7) Sony, part 1 (PS1, PS2) https://www.mediafire.com/file/zkd89ke70y2i6d0/7%20Sony%201.rar 8) Sony, part 2 (PS3, PS4, PSP, Vita) https://www.mediafire.com/file/a3t14ox60iehdin/8%20Sony%202.rar

#Video game ad collection

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royalbirthchamber · 7 years ago

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Debt of Vengeance - Part I

**As promised: the first part of something new which I hope you all enjoy! Any and all feedback appreciated!**

Sybil sat before the door of her chambers and waited. She could hear them coming, him coming, from corridors away. The entire palace was almost empty save for the handful of loyal guards, such fools. Her father, King Omsa, dead in his throne room with a knife in his hand and a slit throat. Her ladies were gone as well. Now, after two years of bloody war against an otherworldy foe, it was all coming to an end.

She sighed.

Twenty years old. A virtual prisoner of her father's, the only child yet a useless princess with no claim to the throne. Her mother had died six years earlier from illness and the King...His lust and pride had started this mess and Sybil was to witness the end. Her only consolation was the chance that her death would be swift. Perhaps he would should her that mercy. She could only hope.

They were in the corridor to her chambers now. She felt his footsteps as he neared - each step heavy with determination. Sybil steeled herself and sat with as much regal poise as she could muster the grand doors violently flew open and the mountainous form of her adversary appeared.

Malchior ...

The princess had never seen him but had hear all sorts of stories about him. He was not of this world but instead ruled what they called the Five Realms: the lands of magick and strange, occult entities and creatures. It was the font where all mages, wizards, magi, witches, and sorcerers gained their powers, where summoners could bring forth powerful beasts of unimaginable proportions-both holy and evil. It was also where one would invoke the names of powerful lords and beg for their assistance in the matters of power or wisdom...or vengeance. Over all these lords, beasts, oracles, spirits, and guardians reigned Malchior their emperor. They said he had the body of lion and the head of a dragon, that he was ensconced in a halo of prismatic fire, that to look upon would turn the bravest warrior into dust...He was something to be feared by mortal men for he and his armies could easily conquer the world should he choose fit.

Standing before Sybil was no chimera or holy fire but mountain of a man garbed in platinum and maroon armor polished to rival any mirror. He easily stood almost two feet over her and she assumed what lie under his battle gear was solid muscle. His jaw was square and his face pale fierce with long locks the same color of dark blood which now coagulated under the dead king. The emperor radiated power and awe; Sybil did everything in her power not to cower in fear at his feet. No, she would face her death as dignity as befitting a princess.

Malchior stood before her, motionless as he gazed upon the young woman. Sybil return his look and waited for him to speak; why did he not make his move? His expression betrayed nothing but for a moment she almost imagined a slight hesitation in him. No, she must have been mistaken for as soon as Sybil noticed it the warrior king slowly entered her chambers and approached her. She did not rise but remained seated, her face raised in regal defiance to meet his gaze. Behind him stood four of his men, giant as well but not as their ruler.

Finally the emperor spoke.

" Sybil, Princess of the Kingdom of Roliam, only child of the late King Omsa the Sixth and Queen Avalee, last in the royal line," his voice, though low, matched him in power and fierceness. Sybil said nothing, mainly out of fear but also out of stubbornness. She would not let him scare her, not in front of his men. Malchior narrowed his eyes and continued. " Your kingdom has fallen, your father's sins have brought ruin to your House, and now it is time settle this debt."

Sybil swallowed and tried to sound brave. " Be quick about it, then! I'll not die a coward like my father but I won't allow you to torture me like a common criminal."

"Death," he replied, " is not what I seek."

Now it was Sybil's turn to pause. She eyed the demigod with sharp suspicion; if not her head then what could the demigod want as payment?

" I do not follow; what else is there?"

" You know why this war began, what King Omsa so violently stole..." Malchior's voice trailed off as his body began to quake with wraith. Sybil simply nodded in response.

Thyra...

Once upon a time, when Sybil was only sixteen and her mother now dead, King Omsa desired the hand of Princess Thyra, Duchess of Carnath to be his queen and give him the sons desired. She renowned for beauty, grace, wit, and every other virtue known and it was she who Omsa craved. Thyra, however, refused his hand. She, as well as the entire court, knew of his lecherous, cruel heart and remembered the poor late queen's sufferings. Instead the duchess surprised everyone by choosing to wed Emperor Malchior and join him in the Otherlands, becoming his crowned empress and beloved wife.

King Omsa, naturally, was furious.

His mind was slowly consumed by the need for vengeance, occupying every thought and moment to the point of madness. When news reached him through spies and gossip that the new empress was carrying Malchior's child the mad king finally descended into darkness. Sybil remembered seeing the trio of magi called to the palace. They were dressed in hooded robes of crimson, their faces obscured in darkness, and a curious spiked sigil embroidered on the back. Her father disappeared with the warlocks into his chambers and remained there for a week without any word. Every corner of the palace exuded an ominous presence as Sybil and the rest of the court waited in dreadful anticipation for the king's reappearance. Nobles and courtiers whispered in frightened tones what Omsa planned, but Sybil simply waited with her ladies...

When the king reappeared he announced that 'honor had been restored to his House and name' and then laughed manically. At first there was only confusion but soon news reached the capitol...

Thyra was dead, killed by an assassin's dagger laced with a violent poison. After three days of agonizing pain the heavily pregnant empress died along with her unborn son, leaving Malchior in a state of paralyzing grief. It was only a matter of time before the emperor found out who contracted a deal with some entity of the Otherlands and ordered the murder of his wife and child...Only a matter of time before the great war broke out...

And now Sybil sat before the widowed ruler. She could not blame him for going to war over such an act but what else but her own death would set things right? She slowly rose from her simple throne and stood before Malchior, who still loomed over her petite figure.

" I am at your mercy...though, I'm not sure what else besides my death-"

" My wife and heir were violently taken from me," Malchior interrupted; he had no time for her diplomacy. " I am owed a wife, more importantly I'm owed an heir!"

She froze at those final words: surely he didn't mean to...? Sybil narrowed her eyes as he continued.

"You are to be my consort and provide an heir to my empire. What Omsa has taken by force I shall do the same."

The princess stood in shock as his words rang in her ears. Consort...heir...She slowly backed away from the demigod and steadied herself by grabbing the back of her chair. She tried to find her voice, to protest Malchior's insane demands.

" You're mad! As mad as my father!" her voice was a soft hiss but the emperor heard her. " Be your consort? Bear your children?! What kind of relationship would you expect us to have? I could never...feel any affection for you!"

A bitter look crossed Malchior's face and his eyes darkened.

" Don't expect any notion of 'love' or 'affection' as my consort, princess: the only love I have sleeps in the tombs of my wife and son. Your duty is to replace what was taken...nothing more, nothing less."

" A loveless 'marriage'," Sybil spat with acidity, " All because you say you're owed a wife and an heir!"

" All because your father took them from me to begin with!" Malchior roared. He stormed up to the defiant princess, towering over her slight frame, and glared at her eyes of raged. She expected him to knock her to the ground or strike her down as he had done earlier to the palace guards. Terror filled her heart but she refused to show it. Don't let this unholy tyrant see your fear! She told herself and Sybil returned his look with stubborn defiance.

"Why bother with marrying me?" she mocked, "A real conqueror would have simply raped their prize and kept her prisoner until she bore an heir. Why didn't you do the same when you forced your way in here? I'm alone, my father is dead, and my kingdom taken. Go ahead, rape me as punishment for my father's sins!"

She wasn't too sure but she thought she detected the slightest flinch in Malchior's eyes. An all-powerful demigod, Emperor of the Five Realms of Magick, leading an army of infernal and ethereal entities to wage war against one of the most strongest, mortal kingdoms...and afraid to violate a simple princess with the same fury he unleashed on her people?

" I...am...not...a foul monster," Malchior slowly replied, "I am not...like your father." His low voice seemed to make the whole chamber rumble. "Besides, my heir must be of legitimate birth in order to take my throne. Be lucky, princess, that the rules were not different." Sybil snorted with disgust and continued to keep up her brave facade, positive he could see the terror trembling in her hands.

" What if I refuse? Since you're being such a gentlemen about this, I'm assuming I have a say in the matter."

"Then I kill everyone in your kingdom: the innocents, the children, the old...the people who had nothing to do with this war. I will spill every single drop of blood within these borders."

She recoiled in horror at his words. "I thought you said you weren't a foul monster!"

" I'm not, princess, but I am owed a debt and you can make a choice: either sacrifice yourself for your people or the people for your freedom." Malchior raised an eyebrow in mockery. " It's really not a hard decision to make, Sybil."

She looked at the lord with violence in her eyes. " I hate you, Malchior!" she hissed but he simply returned the words with a quiet, cold satisfaction.

He had his victory.

#fiction #fantasy fiction #a debt of vengeance

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plug2game-blog · 6 years ago

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King of the traditional consoles-- what to place on your wishlist|VentureBeat

When it concerns bring in the video gaming public, prominent console manufacturers are seeking to fond memories as much as they are to online services and fancy peripherals. Simply in the last few years, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, SNK, and others have tossed basic circuitry into an adorable plastic shell to make players recollect-- and open their wallets.

As one of those individuals who yearns for the days of bits and beat-'em-ups, I have a nearly unhealthy fascination with the retro revival and all the items that have come with it. The thing is, just a few of these devices live up to their forefathers. A few of them, rather frankly, may offer you the desire to let the past die. Which ones are worth the cash?

Prior to I go into this ranking, it is essential to mention that none of these traditional consoles have a comprehensive list of video games. Don't go in anticipating to play everything that you keep in mind.

Above: The Sega Genesis Classics collection deserves your time.Image Credit: Sega If you truly desire to have a look at a specific video game, your finest bet would be to see if it has a PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, or Nintendo Virtual Console/eShop release. A number of business, including Sega and SNK, have launched collections that feature many old-school titles. The Sega Genesis Classics collection(available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch) is a great example. One more thing, the only minis I'm going to discuss are ones in my individual collection, so let's

get to it. The kings of the classics SNES Classic( Nintendo )The Nintendo "Classics"may not have pioneered the mini-console trend, however they turned it into a full-blown phenomenon. When the Japanese video gaming giant decided to come out with miniaturized homages to their Nintendo and Super Nintendo Home Entertainment Systems, the world took notice. And it stood in line with money at the ready. Now, almost every video gaming connoisseur has a Classic, or they're trying to find one. Both the NES and SNES Classics are extremely similar. They include a compact kind element, adoringly recreated controllers, user-friendly user interfaces, and great

video output. Games look fantastic and play without much input lag( this will differ, depending upon the television). You can likewise apply filters to get that tube-TV aesthetic-- if you're into that. Conserve states for every game are readily available. Above: The SNES Classic takes you back to the early '90s. Image Credit: Nintendo What really makes these models shine is the video game choice. And, for me, that's why the SNES Classic is

king. While it provides fewer titles than its NES big sibling, the library here is unbelievable. Super Mario World, F-Zero, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy III(VI ), The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Street Fighter II Turbo are just a few of the highlights. As an included perk, Nintendo went ahead and consisted of Starfox 2, which never saw an official release until the SNES Classic struck shop racks. These 16-bit experiences hold up better than numerous other older video games. Just consider all the pixel-art indie titles out there. Where do you think they discovered their motivation? 2. NES Classic (Nintendo )Truly, the NES Classic is worthy of to be at the leading just as much as its SNES equivalent.

While the SNES edition provides deeper gameplay and more technically remarkable titles, the NES Classic is packed with renowned releases that introduced a new dawn for gaming. The initial

3 Super Mario titles, the

first 2 Legend of Zelda games, Castlevania, Kirby's Adventure, Ninja Gaiden, Punch-Out, and Mega Male 2 are some of the favorites that made the cut here. Above: The NES Classic is a mini marvel.Image Credit: Nintendo The NES Classic includes the same first-class develop quality and features as the SNES version. The one big distinction here is that it features one controller, not 2. If you wish to have fun with someone else, nevertheless, you'll require to pursue an extra gamepad-- which can be just as difficult to

discover as the console itself.

This does make the core package a

little less expensive, and you can utilize an SNES Classic controller if you occur to have one lying around. Enjoyable but problematic 3. Neo Geo Mini (SNK)When I heard that SNK was making a mini-Neo Geo to commemorate the console-arcade hybrid's 40th anniversary, I rushed to the very first preorder page I could discover. The end product itself may be the coolest device on this whole list, however it might just be the most infuriating. The Neo Geo Mini has an extensive video game list that need to satisfy most fans of

the original hardware

. SNK at first released two minis: one for Japan, and an "International "variation for other areas. Many of the games overlap between the two, however each mini has its own special offerings. Personally, I discovered this aggravating due to the fact that certain video games that I wanted ended up just on the Japanese system.

Regardless, amongst the Neo Geo Mini's 40 games, you'll get to play a slew of Metal Slug and King of Fighters titles, the remarkable Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Shock Troopers, Blazing Star, and the criminally neglected Last Blade 2. The Neo Geo library (and, as a result, the Neo Geo Mini's selection)has a heavy focus on fighting games. If you're not into that genre, you ought to most likely move on to something else. The

Neo Geo Mini gadget is different than most tribute consoles because it has its own LCD screen and arcade-style controls. This makes it a rather striking addition to any gamer's collection. While it's enjoyable to play these video games on a tiny game cabinet, the novelty wears away rapidly. And it deserves noting that the stick has no gate or microswitches, so you're generally playing with analog-style controls. This is less than perfect for the exact, arcade nature of

Neo Geo video games. The system is perfectly playable, however, and the screen's quality is surprisingly great. But I 'd rather hook the console as much as a TELEVISION, where I can have a more comfortable gameplay session. And that's where the Neo Geo Mini truly fails. The video output is flat-out disappointing. I can only tolerate playing with the "image quality optimization"filter made it possible for, which offers the video an extremely smoothed out appearance. I truly do not like the way it looks, however it's even worse when I turn it off. I paid for one of the gamepads that SNK released in combination with the Neo Geo Mini, so I might get the many of my TV play. These look nearly similar to the Neo Geo CD

pads that came out in the '90s. But the brand-new controllers don't include the satisfying microswitches from the CD system D-pads. To be blunt, the Neo Geo Mini controller is a disappointment. The D-pad feels unclear, and it's an ever-present distraction when I'm playing. And for some factor, SNK changed the order

of the buttons, so that adds an unneeded layer to my irritation. Due to the fact that it has its own screen, the Neo Geo Mini is in fact a little more costly than its classic colleagues. And you'll have to invest more money if you want one of the gamepads. Overall, the Neo Geo Mini is an excellent concept with an equally great lineup of titles. SNK screwed up in the execution, nevertheless, and it stopped working to provide fans with the worth they deserve. Still, this little thing has plenty of style(simply like its library ), and if you have actually constantly desired a Neo Geo,

possibly it's worth a shot. 4. Super Retro-Cade (Retro-Bit)This is the quirkiest console on the list, thanks to its random, yet unmistakably charming, selection of titles. Retro-Bit launched this gadget as a follow-up to its Generations plug-and-play mini-console. The Retro-Cade has a somewhat spartan style and includes two basic, yet strong, controllers(although, I wish the buttons and

D-pad were less stiff ). Like I pointed out earlier, the library of titles here is all over the place. You'll find game brawlers like Double Dragon from Technos and Capcom's great

Armored Warriors. You can jump into vertical shooters like 1942 and Varth. Or horizontal shooters like the goofy game romp Boogie Wings and R-Type III for the SNES. If you want puzzle video games, you can inspect out multiple Magical Drop games. Oh, and even the odd, Castlevania-like Holy Scuba Diver for the NES is here. Above: Yeah, Mega Male 3 is on the Retro-Cade. Image Credit: Capcom I ought to likewise mention that Bionic

Task force(arcade and NES), Strider(game and NES ), Joe and Mac, BurgerTime(NES ), and numerous entries in the Final Battle franchise are on this thing. The Retro-Cade's interface is straightforward yet functional. You can adjust the video settings to show a stretched or original aspect ratio, however the video games themselves look a bit too soft, with muted colors. Apparently, an upgraded version of the console is now readily available that lets you disable the smoothness filter, leading to a crisper image.

The"version 1.1"Retro-Cade also includes a revised

game list that includes

titles like Unrefined Buster. However I've only had the chance to experience the original gadget. Also, when utilizing the Retro-Cade, I needed to put my TV into video game mode to get less input lag. This is the norm for

many contemporary tvs when using video gaming gadgets, however with a few of the other consoles(like the Nintendo Classics), it wasn't as big of a requirement.

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dulcidyne · 8 years ago

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Ask Meme

Tagged by the lovely @reaping-cain and @ravenclawnerd !

Rules: Answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions.

Coke or Pepsi: Coke, specifically Diet Coke. I spent a good part of undergrad researching non-nutritive sweeteners and so I will often go on long, defensive spiels about aspartame at just the slightest whiff of ‘but aspartame causes cancer, right?’.

Disney or Dreamworks: Disney. I’m still obsessed with the Moana soundtrack.

Coffee or tea: Both. I’m a coffee snob (first order of business when moving back to Las Vegas was finding a new local roaster to buy whole beans from) and a loose leaf tea aficionado. I prefer both unsweetened and hot and I take my coffee black or with a bit of cream.

Books or movies: Books, books, books. I read pretty much constantly--for fun, for school. I watch plenty of movies too but books are my passion.

Windows or Mac: Windows. Gaming on a Mac is really no fun for me.

DC or Marvel: As far as movies go--Marvel.

Xbox or PlayStation: I mostly play on my PC but I prefer Playstation for console gaming.

Dragon Age or Mass Effect: Mass Effect. I love science and space and Garrus Vakarian.

Night owl or early riser: I honestly have no clue. My sleeping schedule right now involves going to bed at 12am and waking up at 4am. I feel more productive the earlier I wake up but I love staying up late.

Cards or chess: Neither, really. My fiance’s brother and mother both once played professional poker and the whole family is good at mentally calculating probabilities, bluffing, and betting strategy. I’m terrible despite their efforts to teach me.

Chocolate or vanilla: First up, I love real vanilla. I’ll go to the mat for vanilla--real vanilla has hundreds of aromatic compounds, it's super complex. As far as flavors go, I’m all about vanilla. But I eat a lot of dark chocolate when I have the money to splurge on ordering from my favorite “bean to bar” companies--Millcreek Cacao Roasters and Amano (holy crap, I just saw that Millcreek now has a High West whiskey chocolate bar...I need it!!!). If you like rose or floral flavors, do yourself a favor and try the Amano raspberry rose chocolate, it has sugar crystals for crunch and the flavors really bring out Amano’s amazing chocolate. It tastes like Valentine’s Day.

Vans or Converse: I’ve actually never owned either...haha.

Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash, or Adaar: Trevelyan. This really just comes down to the sliders haha. Customization is a biggggg part of my gaming experience and I couldn’t get a Lavellan or Adaar (my initial fave) that I liked. DA:I’s human face shapes were just easier for me to handle for some reason.

Paragon or Renegade: Paragon. I can’t be confrontational--even in video games.

Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars. When I was little I had all this romance headcanon for myself and Luke Skywalker lol.

Pluto - Planet or No? Going with nope. Sorry Pluto, <3 your <3 mark though!

My question: Melee or Ranged Fighting Style? I tend to like melee classes more. I’ve played a warrior in WoW since Vanilla and my preference for melee just stuck.

One episode per week or binge watching: I lack the capacity for moderation. I binge everything--TV, books, games, Halo Top ice cream.

Heroes or Villains: I have a soft spot for misunderstood villains.

Kill Quinn or kiss him: Just going off google image search--kiss? lol

Gandalf or Obi-Wan: Obi-wan. How is this fair--Ewan McGregor! Also, I appreciate that Obi-Wan took a more active role in moving the story along.

My question: MMO or Single Player? I spend like 15 hours a week right now raiding competitively in WoW. I’ve raided competitively in about 4 of the expansions, starting in BC in 2007. I like MMOs for open-world exploration, loose narrative structure, and competitive team play. I’ve made a lot of really good friends in the game and it allowed me and my fiance to hang out with our friends when we lived in another state. But I honestly can barely stand playing WoW right now as this will be the 3rd expansion that I’ve had to deal with sexist guild drama from asshole alpha-nerds. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, why?! I want to quit so badly and never touch an MMO ever again *gross sobbing*. Luckily, once I start my grad program in May, I won't have time for a personal life, much less a personal life that takes place in virtual spaces.

#tag meme #about me

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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Homebound with EarthBound | Ars Technica

youtube

EarthBound got a nice Nintendo Power push. But in retrospect, Nintendo of America, you could’ve tried a lot harder with this trailer.

Give me 10 minutes. I need to defeat five giant moles so the miner can find the gold… which I need to get $1 million and bail out the rock band… who can arrange a meeting with the evil real-estate-developer-turned-mayor I need to beat down.

My partner doesn’t get it, which I completely understand. When I first tried EarthBound, I didn’t either. The now-cult-classic SNES title first arrived in the United States in June 1995. And I, a nine-year-old, had no chance. I craved action as a kid gamer, and that largely meant co-op, multiplayer, and sports titles (a lot of NBA Jam, Street Fighter, and Turtles in Time). Nothing about EarthBound, particularly when only experienced piecemeal through a weekend rental window, would ever speak to me. As one of the most high-profile JRPGs of the early SNES era, it embodied all the stereotypes eventually associated with the genre: at-times batshit fantastical storylines; slow, s l o w pacing; virtually non-existent action mechanics.

Frankly, I wasn’t alone. Based on its sales, not many gamers seemed to understand EarthBound, and it’s not clear Nintendo did, either. What on Earth does the trailer above say to you? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company again and again (and again) tried to find a hit JRPG in the States without much success. Nintendo literally gave away games like Dragon Warrior—as a Nintendo Power pack-in—and still couldn’t find an audience. Even the heralded Final Fantasy franchise struggled initially, as Nintendo brought it stateside with a big, splashy map-filled box that no one seemed to care about in the moment.

But a quarter-century later, I can’t stop pushing the power switch on my SNES Classic to spend time with Ness and company. Part of it is me; I’m much older and, in theory, have more patience despite how things like social media and smartphones may be slowly destroying our collective ability to focus. People liked EarthBound better in 2013, too, when Nintendo finally re-released the game for the first time in decades on the WiiU Virtual Console. But part of my newfound appreciation is inevitably the timing of this recent play-through. The compounding pandemics of 2020 have changed the way we all approach the world; FOMO has all but evaporated. (Do I need to constantly doomscroll on Twitter to get all the depressing news as it happens? Should I plan a vacation so I can sit inside doing nothing particularly active somewhere more scenic?) In some ways, there is nothing but time, meaning an indulgent, leisurely, complex game suddenly offers a new value proposition.

More than any of that, however, all my time spent homebound with EarthBound—nearly 20 hours and counting despite a newborn and no work stoppages around the Orbital HQ—comes down to the game itself. To a subset of modern gamers, EarthBound‘s legacy may simply be introducing Ness to legions of Super Smash Bros. disciples. But on the 25th anniversary of this game’s arrival, it actually seems more suited for our current moment than ever.

My parents had no idea what kind of game I was renting at age 9.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Excuse me, what is happening here?

This cop has watched way too much Elliot Stabler in his life.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

At least the pro at the Onett Times captured the moment: “Police attack innocent boy!!” Evidently it was caught on videotape by a bystander and will air on the local news.

The Insane Cultists are obsessed with blue but really look like they prefer white.

Does Scientology involve beatdowns?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Why are the kinda crazy ones obsessed with having their name on the building?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

A plot for 1995, a plot for 2020

If it’s been a while or (like me) you never bothered in the first place, EarthBound takes place in a not-so-subtly veiled version of the US, literally called Eagleland in-game. Our hero (whose name defaults to “Ness” but can be changed as you see fit) grew up in the sleepy and seemingly mundane suburb Onett. Other “numbered” suburbs like Twoson soon follow.

Things are not as idealistic as they first appear. In these shining cities on various hills, an alien called Giygas has landed and seeped an evil influence into everything. You have to fight Runaway Dogs and Cranky Bag Ladies now. And post-invasion, every town has developed a problem for you to work through, each feeling eerily prescient in 2020.

In Onett, for example, bad cops feature prominently. Even after you rid the town of a pogostick-riding gang called the Sharks, you can’t just leave Onett because Captain Strong and his police force instead threaten to beat you down for trying. EarthBound originally came out within years of the beating of Rodney King, and it features four cops ganging up on a kid. Captain Strong literally attacks you with submission chokeholds. Nine-year-old me must have been confused if I even got this far, but adult me did a double take as society continues to grapple with the tragic deaths of Black Americans like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and Elijah McClain at the hands of police.

The cops of Onett merely come first, but that’s far from the only blunt observation on American life awaiting EarthBound players. In Twoson, your future friend and squadmate Paula has been abducted by a religious cult called the Happy Happy Religious Group. The group obsesses over turning everything blue, but, uh, they resemble a much whiter real-world analogue and maintain a similar disposition toward others (“Your existence is a problem for me and my religion,” says cult leader Mr. Carpainter before he attempts to dismantle you). EarthBound‘s creator Shigesato Itoi may have again been responding to events of his day, as the Boss Fights Book on EarthBound points out the game was developed during the feds’ siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

But with their character design and dialogue (“I think those who won’t paint everything blue are opposed to peace,” another says), the Happy Happy Religious Group probably doesn’t remind players of David Koresh anymore. Instead, my mind wandered to a much different modern-day cult, draped in white sheets or Stars and Bars, that pushes red on everyone instead. (As EarthBound’s subtle commentary-cherry on top, Paula’s “pray” ability during battle proves unpredictable and often detrimental if used.)

These storylines, rich in social commentary, come up again and again, and I’m barely approaching EarthBound‘s halfway mark. In fact, I just arrived in the big city of Fourside where a “regular unattractive real estate” developer named Geldegarde Monotoli has risen up the political ranks to become mayor. The guy’s name has been emblazoned on a big skyscraper acting as a de facto city hall. He takes political and economic advice from a privileged, bratty neighborhood kid. And Monotoli tries (and apparently succeeds) at both forcing police to do his bidding and manipulating the media in his favor—The Fourside Post’s lead story when I entered town was “Over 70% of Fourside citizens support Monotoli.” Hmm. Perhaps, as Cord Jefferson (a writer on HBO’s Watchmen) recently put it on a podcast: “History is prescient. The things we touch on are just things that have been complaints of my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents.”

Listing image by Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Game 335: Prophecy of the Shadow (1992)

Prophecy of the Shadow

United States

Strategic Simulations, Inc. (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

Date Started: 24 June 2019 SSI began as a wargame company, and their best games–principally the Gold Box series and the Wizard’s Crown series–have always reflected those roots. Nonetheless, by 1992, the company seemed to be on a mission to dominate, or at least compete in, every RPG sub-genre. Eye of the Beholder and its sequel were their answers to the first-person, real-time category, while Shadow Sorcerer took inspiration from British axonometric titles. Neverwinter Nights had virtually no competition online, and they were entering the console realm with Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun. The company’s streak of 22 published RPGs between 1991 and 1994 has never been broken on the personal computer.

Prophecy of the Shadow is so blatantly the company’s answer to the Ultima VI that it’s a wonder they didn’t license the “look and feel” from Lord British the way they did for Questron. It’s got the same mostly-top-down-but-slightly-oblique perspective, the same row of icons with keyboard backups (even most of the icon symbols are the same), the same targeting of enemies and objects with a cursor, the same keyword-based NPC dialogue, and the same continuous scrolling movement through a landscape that desperately wants you to think it’s not just tiles but really is.

Character creation even has some Ultima IV-style questions.

But just like Ultima clones from independent developers with a lot fewer resources, Prophecy of the Shadow lacks a lot of Ultima’s complexity. To start, you control only one character. The box puts an exclamation point after the game’s single-character nature, as if that by itself is a good thing, as if other developers were sitting around thinking, “Gee, it never occurred to us to allow the player to control just one guy.” It also greatly simplifies the inventory–the protagonist can wield one object at a time and can wear nothing at all–and it runs dialogue by feeding the keywords to you. (In many ways, it’s more like Origin’s Times of Lore, which used an early version of the U6 interface, than Ultima VI.) Whether by intention or limitation, it’s clearly geared towards the RPG novice.

The game map shows a small world. I already explored the northwest island.

None of this means that it’s a bad game. There’s always a place for an easy, familiar title telling a new story. Here, the story is probably the game’s best feature. It calls upon familiar tropes without being overly cliched or obviously based on a single source. Told mostly in the form of the naive protagonist’s journals, the backstory casts the character as an apprentice mage in a world where magic is outlawed. In infancy, he washed ashore on the island of Bannerwick, which I gather is part of the larger kingdom of Ylowinn. This is a world in decline. Every season, the crops get smaller and plants go extinct. Mines are exhausted of ore. Civilization itself seems to be coming apart at the seams; when the local ferry to the mainland breaks down, no one bothers to repair it. A princess named Elspeth was supposed to take charge on her 18th birthday, but she mysteriously disappeared, leaving the land in the hands of the regent Cam Tethe, who blames a conspiracy of mages for the disappearance and spends more time hunting them than searching for Elspeth.

An NPC delivers part of the backstory.

The townsfolk distrusted a baby who managed to survive the sea unscathed, so it was left to the local healer, Larkin–himself regarded with suspicion–to raise and tutor the child. The child of course becomes you. You’ve had so little contact with the outside world all your life that when you head into town at the beginning of the game, no one knows who you are.

“Yeah! I hope you find . . . him!”

In the game’s opening moments–so sudden as to be comical, particularly with the accompanying scream–Larkin is assassinated by a thrown dagger, leaving the protagonist to bury him in the back yard. With his dying breath, Larkin tells his ward to “get the text of the prophecy from Berrin,” as “it must go to the council in Silverdale,” which is on the mainland.

The main character’s master dies in the opening scenes.

In these opening moments and almost all the NPC dialogues that follow, we see that Prophecy of the Shadow was on the cutting edge of what would become the early- and mid-1990’s worst trend: the use of full-motion video (FMV) instead of computer animation (or just static graphics). Naturally, the subjects of these animations were whoever was sitting around the developers’ offices and not actual actors. Blessedly, it only seems to have been about five years before developers realized this was not the wave of the future, and I don’t remember seeing FMV after about 1998, though of course there are a lot of titles I haven’t played.

A little FMV upon entering the inn.

Character creation is a simple process of giving your name and sex. A few role-playing questions set your initial values for health, magic, and agility. Health and magic are both attributes and pools of points, and the maximum goes up with successful actions (swinging weapons and casting spells), which is a bit different than the Ultima titles. These attributes automatically regenerate, albeit slowly, as long as you have food. If you run out of magic points, you can still cast spells, but they draw directly from your health.

A row of icons–all, blessedly, with keyboard equivalents–defines how you interact with the world: look, attack, cast a spell, enter, drop, search, use, give, and rest. “Search” on Larkin’s door mat revealed an iron key to his house, but all I can do there is spend the night.

Using the L)ook command–and learning a new piece of vocabulary.

As I began the game, the passages through the forest around Larkin’s house naturally guided me to his neighbor, Berrin, who related that rumors have already spread that I killed Larkin. He gave me the key to Larkin’s workshop but otherwise wouldn’t help me (including giving me the prophecy) until I could prove my innocence. Behind Berrin’s house, incidentally, are two gravestones–his wife and son–both “killed by guardsmen.” I wonder if that bit of backstory will later come out.

Larkin’s workshop was accessed through an underground hatch near the house. There, I found a book of spells and a “lead catalyst.” You have to be holding a catalyst in your hands to cast a spell, and I guess lead is the lowest-level catalyst. The book had four spells: “Incendiere” is a basic fire blast that strikes one target; “Curare” is a healing spell; and “Memoria” and “Repetere” are a pair of mark/recall spells that let you designate a point and later warp back to it.

Using the game map as a guide, I eventually made my way to town, where I found about half a dozen NPCs, including some generic “peasants.” You converse by selecting keywords on the left side of the screen. As the NPCs respond, more keywords appear. Today, the local news was that the sheriff had caught Robin One-Eye, a famed bandit whose gang lives in the woods north of town. I was able to visit Robin One-Eye in jail but he just taunted me.

Getting lore from a local. Where did a bunch of programmers get access to so many actors who look like unwashed peasants with bad facial hair?

I also heard some talk of Larf the Terrible, a gnome wizard who lives in a tower to the east. There was a note in Larkin’s workshop that a circle of mages expelled Larf for necromancy. I suspect that either Robin or Larf is responsible for Larkin’s death, and I’ll somehow need to prove it to get off the island.

The local shop had some weapons and other items that were outside my price range, although the innkeeper was willing to pay me 10 silver for odd jobs. I repeated this option about 8 times before he finally said he had nothing more for me to do. I bought a sling and a torch but spent most of my money on food.

Outside of town, I started encountering bandits. Attacking is a matter of hitting “A” (or the attack button) and then moving the cursor to your foe. If you have a melee weapon equipped, you can only target the 8 squares around you. (Well, technically you can target your own square, but the game just admonishes you not to attack yourself.) If you have a missile weapon, you can aim anywhere in the visible window. Missile weapons are tricky because enemies will typically move out of the square before the missile reaches them, meaning that you really want to attack the square in the direction they’re going. It strikes me that missile weapons are going to be mostly useless in this game. There simply isn’t enough distance in the view window, and enemies close the gap too fast.

You can cast a spell instead of attacking by using the spell catalyst–or, if it’s already equipped, hitting the M)agic button. At the outset, I only had “Incendiere,” which kills most enemies in a couple of castings, but two castings cost 20 magic points out of the 45 I started with.

If you choose to fight with a weapon, your health occasionally goes up a point. If you cast spells, your magic pool occasionally goes up a point. This is the game’s approach to “character development.”

My health increases as I kill a bandit.

Slowly, I explored the rest of the island. It turned out there were two major indoor areas to explore: the bandit camp and Larf’s tower. You need a rope from the former to access the latter. I needed a password to enter the bandit camp, which required me to trudge back to town and buy Robin One-Eye a bottle of white zinfandel before he would tell it to me: ZINFANDEL.

Why does zinfandel have such a bad reputation? I rather like it.

The bandit camp was one small level and one large level. I had to kill a bunch of bandits. I rather like the game’s search function. If you wander over to a chest, a dead body, or just an interesting area, you hit S)earch, and the game tells you what you find. It’s rather tolerant in its distance allowance, so you don’t have to hit the command every step. A lot of what you find are notes, journals, and other writings that flesh out the game’s lore.

The bandit camp held a few healing potions, a rope, a rapier (better than the starting dirk), a magic potion, and several black potions. The black potions are acid that damage you when you drink them, so I’m not sure what good they do. Late in the dungeon, I fought and killed a “mage killer,” who was carrying a “death warrant” for Larkin.

The “T,” of course, probably stands for “Tethe.”

A book called The Joy of Pies held a treasure map that directed me to a specific square from one of the stone heads on the island. There, I found a chest with several pieces of jewelry.

By now, I was running up against the inventory limit, which dogged me the rest of the session. It became clear that you want to drop most items as soon as their utility is done, including keys and notes. Actually, a better idea is probably selling them to the general store, because the store keeps sold items in their inventory and will re-sell them to you in case you made a mistake. The problem is that you constantly have to leave locations and trudge back to the general store. I ended up selling most of the black potions because I couldn’t find any use for them and they were preventing me from picking up other things. I also sold all the jewelry I found, assuming it was for that purpose.

A few too many things in my backpack.

Showing the death warrant to the sheriff cleared my name, and showing it to Berrin prompted him to give me the prophecy on a vellum scroll. I read the prophecy. Larkin’s notes indicted that “most of it has already come to pass.”

And it shall come to pass that in the day, the end of all days, a Shadow will come forth from the wilderness. The Lord of the Shadows, the Bringer of Darkness, the Master of Death. At his hand, Evil will arise anew. Green fields will wither, and a plague will smite the land. Cry mothers for your children, for when you see these things, know ye that the fate of the world hangs in the Balance.

It’s probably going to turn out that Cam Tethe is the Lord of the Shadows, but it would be nice if the game had some kind of twist on the standard template, like maybe it’s me (I did kind-of come out of the wilderness). Either way, I had to get off the island. Since the ferry was broken, I turned to the only place I hadn’t explored: Larf’s tower. It sits in a ruined heap on the coast, near a graveyard where a ghost wanders. I tried talking to him, but it didn’t work.

Maybe later, I’ll find a “Seance” spell.

A rope gets you into the basement of the tower, which turned out to consist of five levels. Every one is dark, so you need a light source. The game keeps track of torches as a statistic, along with food and silver, rather than as inventory items, but you need a flint and steel in your inventory to light them. An alternative is to purchase a lamp and lamp oil, the latter of which is also tracked as a statistic. It would be a waste of inventory space, I gather, to have both a lamp and flint and steel.

Arriving in the dungeon.

The levels of Larf’s tower were full of evidence of Larf’s macabre experiments, including zombies that I had to kill. His notes indicated that he was more than a necromancer: he was a serial killer, having captured living subjects for many of his rituals. These notes also said that he eventually created an undead butler to serve him, but the creature went insane, stole something called a “translocation rod,” and hid it in a lower level of the tower. Larf was apparently making plans to destroy the creature when it attacked him in his bed at night, killing him and leaving his severed head behind.

Later, I killed the butler, Jeffers, with fireballs.

This scene is graphically illustrated, and it’s worth making a note that the graphics are detailed enough that they can show rather than just tell evocative stories like this. This hasn’t been true of many games up until now, but it’s good to see it becoming more common. We’ll of course see another murder scene with the same level of gruesome detail in the upcoming Ultima VII.

The gruesome scene.

I eventually killed the butler–the hardest creature in the game so far–with a few “Incendiere” spells. I recovered the rod, which allows transportation to the mainland when used between a couple of stones northwest of the tower. I also had the option to take Larf’s head. I have it for now, but I ‘m not sure if there’s any long-term use for it. Other treasure included a better catalyst (platinum), a magic weapon called a “Dirk of Sharpness,” and a scroll that gave me the “Inlustare” (light) spell.

Now I guess I can eschew both lamps and torches.

I used the rod in the right location and found myself transported to the mainland. I explored a while before concluding that I was in the northern part of the map, near the town of Glade. Larkin insisted that the prophecy had to get to Silverdale, to my southeast, but I’m tempted to go to the northern tip to the town of Malice and work my way systematically down to Silverdale.

So far, it’s been an inoffensive little game, but I wonder if there was really much of a market for a “lite” RPG. Were there legions of gamers in 1992 thinking, “I’d really like to play role-playing games, but they’re just too complicated“? I guess we’ll see when we check the reviews. I can’t imagine this one will take more than three entries, but perhaps it has some tricks up its sleeve.

Time so far: 4 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-335-prophecy-of-the-shadow-1992/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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terryblount · 5 years ago

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Octopath Traveller – PC Review

I am one of those weirdos who loves to buy JRPG’s off the Android store rather than taking refuge in the haven of emulation. Many frown when I tell them this, and some check if I remembered to take my medication that morning. Fact is, the store has built up an excellent collection, and these days I can often be found curled up on the couch, working my way through the classics on my tablet.

Through sheer luck, I just finished Dragon Quest IV, and it was fresh off this experience that I fired up my review copy of Octopath Traveller. After making my way through close to fifty hours or so in Octopath’s unforgettable world, I kept noticing the striking similarities it shares with the fourth Dragon Quest game, but also with many JRPG’s of the mid-nineties in general.

Initially I thought the developers, Square Enix and Acquire, had intended to pay homage to their successes in the early scene. After playing Octopath Traveller for myself, however, I realise this game is something more. It has everything we loved about the early days, but with a few tweaks, refinements and innovations that turns the experience into a ‘love letter’ for the genre as many have said.

If this does not impress you then I am done trying!

This game is truly exceptional, and now that we finally have a chance to play it on our favourite platform, I feel like no collection will be complete without it. I finally get why Nintendo insisted on Octopath Traveller as a timed Switch release since I know people who bought their console just to play this game. This is a stellar and accessible JRPG, and you should go try it as soon as you can.

Octopus caliper

I wasn’t being cute when I mentioned there are some hilarious resemblances between DQ IV and Octopath Traveller; one could easily write a whole article just comparing the two. Basically, Octopath Traveller takes the character driven chapters from the opening sections of DQ IV, and inflates it to fill an entire game. As such, this is certainly a JRPG driven forwards by its protagonists rather than its narrative.

When the game opens, you are asked to pick your first-in-command, who from then on represents the hero/heroine in your party. I measure a game’s consistency by opting for unconventional characters, so I selected Primrose, the dancer and former noblewoman (and nearly an exact copy of DQ IV’s Meena, but that’s another story). Turns out she is also an escort with the ability to ‘allure’ people… definitely a first for me.

Be that as it may, Octopath’s wholehearted committed towards developing its characters is clear from the start. As the story of Primrose’s life began to unfold, it was a heart-braking tragedy of seeking her father’s murderer. She has to descend to the lowest, most sordid pits of society to gain clues about the killer. Dignity means nothing in her task, nor does the appalling abuse from her handler.

Each character’s story has this deep, evocative writing.

Okay who was cutting onions in here, dammit!? In any case, the player then takes over her story when she finally makes a break in her search, and I helped her to escape the crummy pleasure house. From there, you can set off to any of the nearby villages to encounter seven other heroes and heroines that match Primrose’s story of ambition and self-completion.

This is the modus operandi for Octopath from there on in as you will steadily take each of the eight protagonists through the story of reaching their main obsession. As you probably guessed by now, this little companionship eventually begin to recognize how their paths are intertwined. The gang of misfits soon figure out that they are being set on a course by higher powers in order bring about the resurrection of a powerful force, and the destruction of the world.

Better get going!

The side-missions are rather dull, though. They mostly involve talking to one NPC, and then going through a trial and error system of trying each character’s unique ability on another NPC. For instance, the thief can steal something off them, the merchant can buy something off them, or the warrior can duel them.

While it was strangely hilarious challenging a bent-over old woman to a sword duel, I feel like these little side tasks could have been cut altogether. The payoff for their completion was rarely worth the squeeze.

En guard, you old bat! Give me the recipe for that potato pie or I stick you!

It all comes together

When protagonists themselves have to carry the show, they had better be interesting. While I agree that the eight narrative threads are not the most unique – bordering on cliché even – they have all the heart and depth to match Primrose’s tale. Each character has been given a well-written and interesting story that the player will complete over four chapters for each.

This is how Therion’s story begins.

This had the pleasant upside of keeping things fresh narrative wise. RPG’s tend to make the player work to keep up with their narratives and lore which is nice when it works, but there is always the risk of shattering the player’s immersion in the game’s central plot. By moving the story forwards one character at a time, Octopath finds a welcome alternative to this hazard. By the time the player has filled up the gang, they will know each character like an old friend.

Unfortunately, it is here where Octopath also makes its biggest mistake. Namely, characters feel almost completely isolated and at odds with one another. They never appear in each other’s cut scenes, and your party will be limited, in most cases, to four players at a time. Jason Schreier in his Kotaku review made the remark that the game might as well be called ‘Quadpath Traveller,’ and I feel inclined to agree.

I get that having eight people crowded together on screen might not have worked, but the interactions between the heroes themselves are far too sparse. The game gave absolutely no reason for why a thief, merchant, apothecary, exotic dancer and a hunter would want to work together.

You might wanna stay home in that case, Tressa. Also, you can see the resemblance to Torneko’s story in Dragon Quest IV.

Worst of all, the experience you get from completing quests and defeating enemies is not shared with idle party members. I can imagine many players will find themselves swinging around a broad sword with a level 50 fighter who has to babysit a level 18 merchant or apothecary towards the home stretch. At least this compels the player to circulate more often between party members, which prevents sinking into that grinding slump where the same attacks are used over and over again.

These are few of my favourite things

I do not own a Nintendo Switch, so up until now I had to get by with play-throughs on YouTube. I never realised how these videos utterly failed to translate the beauty on display in this game. Perhaps it is the fact that my modest PC can run it in 4K at buttery-smooth frame rates, but now that I actually have it playing out in front of me, I must say I have never experienced anything quite like this.

Damn this game is pretty!

Octopath really is a landmark game in terms of how modern tech can fuse 2D sprites with 3D visual effects. The characters and in-game assets are virtually indistinguishable from what was on our screens in the late nineties, however the shadows, depth of field and lighting effects are all in 3D. It makes that old, pixel art style come to life in a way that dropped my jaw, and when you add the vignette effect on the edges of the screen, the overall look is almost dreamlike.

Then there is the audio. Boys and girls read this carefully because I do not say this lightly: This is the best music I have ever experienced in a role-playing game. It ranges from enthralling, up-beat, folk style guitar jingles matching the lawless cliff side landscapes, to lonesome, harp-infused overtures in the mystical forests scenes. Then there are full, orchestral symphonies to heighten the more sharp and intense moments during battles and dramatic plot moments. It makes for a stunning, aural backdrop to your gameplay, and it is worth the price of admission alone.

youtube

I should point out that I found the cast far too chatty during battles, though. Perhaps this would have been more bearable if not for how often they said the same thing. I can only hear Olberic yell “My blade is UNBENDING!” so many times, and the same goes for that awkward giggle Therion makes every time it comes to his turn to fight. Just turn down the dialogue I guess, which is a shame in light of the solid voice acting.

The combat

There is no need for me to go into the specifics of how the combat mechanics work as it is bog-standard, turn-based battles. Players attack enemies with either a melee weapon or a selection of abilities, and then wait for the opposition to make a move. The developers have gone through considerable lengths to make the menus and sub-menus streamlined, which I found to be a nice touch.

Typical combat scenario. Notice the little blue shield indicating how many hits until the enemy breaks, and that the vulnerabilities of each character has been displayed underneath.

What is actually worth explaining are the three distinct layers Square Enix and Acquire have built into the combat encounters. One layer is the offensive or defensive moves you act out towards enemies, the second is the boost points.

In Dragon Ball Z style, you can boost offensive or defensive moves by ‘charging up’ a character very much like Goku. Every turn grants you a free boost point for a maximum of five, and you can augment your character’s abilities up to a maximum of three levels. Whereas a sword attack or a lightning strike attack might normally do 20 damage for instance, it might do 35 at a level two boost, or 45 at a level three boost.

Little small, sorry, but the yellow dots in the top right corner show boost point available to that character.

Then there is the ‘break’ system which is the game’s strategy to familiarise the player with enemy weaknesses. Each enemy appears on screen with a shield displaying a number. When the player attacks this enemy’s weaknesses directly, this number drops steadily to zero. This is when the enemy experiences a resistance ‘break,’ meaning that they are stunned for a whole round of turns.

All three layers add up to a really engaging combat experience that ensures skilled turned-based veterans can refine the protagonists into a death squad without the risk of newcomers being overwhelmed. I just wish that battles were somehow not random since they occur just a tad too frequently. I would be hard pressed to call Octopath grindy, but repetitive certainly springs to mind.

One of the classics

I never intended to make Octopath Traveller sound like the perfect game. It’s not, but I must say that I think its first reception back in July 2018 was overly harsh. ‘Squeenix’ and Acquire have done a great job with bringing the unforgiving and cryptic JRPG’s of the early nineties forward a few generations. Best of all, they have somehow kept the essence of these games alive in a palpable way.

Boss battle. Bet you cannot tell which one the boss is…

Octopath Traveller looks absolutely gorgeous, is a musical masterpiece and never tries to overcomplicate things. It is rare that the hard-core Final Fantasy and Persona fanboys can sit at the same table as the more casual players who only dabble in this genre from time to time. In this case, Octopath makes one heck of a conversation piece, and it only weighs in at 3.5GB!

Beautiful music

Unique visuals

Character development

Overall simplicity

Somewhat repetitive

No character exchanges

Lackluster side quests

Experience only affects active party

Playtime: About 54 hours . Admittedly this was a bit of a rushed playthrough, and I would recommend investing in leveling up

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

Octopath Traveller – PC Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

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swipestream · 6 years ago

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Blue Slime Fantasy

In the late 1970s, the surging popularity of both J. R. R. Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons fueled an increased appetite in fantasy novels. Publishers scrambled to meet this demand, buying up a number of derivative stories that congealed into Tolkien and D&D pastiche. This increasingly self-referencing sub-genre of fantasy was derided as “extruded fantasy product,” or, more commonly, pink slime. During this time, the tabletop game replaced the magazine as the primary means of experiencing fantasy. Many a fantasy work since can trace its origins to a role-playing campaign that the writer either ran or played in years prior. In the forty years since that fantasy explosion, gamers have shifted from the tabletop to first the console, and then the online video game. This change in the medium of fantasy has brought about a change in the conventions and stories in fantasy, incorporating many of the gaming mechanics into literary adventures. In Japan, this new set of expectations, settings, and tropes can be called Blue Slime fantasy.

The pink vs. blue divide has been used before to indicate the audience of what sex a story is intended for. Here, Blue Slime is intended not just to contrast with the earlier term, but also to pay homage to to the mascot of Dragon Quest, one of the video games that inspires the genre. And slimes are everywhere in the bestiaries of Blue Slime fantasy. What sets Blue Slime fantasy apart from other fantasies is that a Blue Slime fantasy is a video game-inspired story taking place in a pseudo-European setting, centered around a party of heroes taking quests from a guild, using the leveling, health, magic, class, combat, dungeon, and reward mechanics found in games such as Dragon Quest and .hack (pronounced “dot Hack”). While many of these stories, such as Sword Art Online and Overlord, can take place in a virtual game world set in the near future, these tropes have been extended to the non-video game fantasy worlds of the isekai genre, as can be seen in Arifureta, Konosuba, and In Another World with My Smartphone, where adventurers still carry cards displaying their level, class, combat stats, HP, and MP. While some of the adventures have a resemblance to cyberpunk such as Otherland and Snow Crash, the “punk” has been replaced by an often too-self-aware gamer and other more mundane concerns. But whether online, in another world, or in a galaxy far, far away, the video game influence pervades all Blue Slime fantasy.

Less known in the West than Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest is a legendary RPG franchise stretching back over thirty years, filled with recurring elements, including its mascot, the Blue Slime. While each game follows a similar story in that a hero and his party must set out to defeat a powerful evil monster, the first three games are notable for their story of how the descendants of an isekai hero must destroy recurring ancient evils. The third, Dragon Quest III, or Dragon Warrior III in the United States, was quickly adapted into light novels, anime, and manga. This novelization provided an early adaptation of video games, setting standards for how to express a video game world into prose. Fortunately, the second-person choose-your-own-adventure format did not last, as other methods of reader immersion into the video game world gained favor. But many other aspects of Dragon Quest III continue into fiction even today, such as now ubiquitous leveling conventions, HP and MP systems; adventurers’ guilds, non-combat classes such as merchants, monster types including the ever-popular slime, and even party makeup. For instance, Konosuba’s band of idiot adventurers fall into the classic Hero, Soldier, Priest, and Wizard party of Dragon Quest III instead of the iconic Western quartet of Fighter, Thief, Priest, and Wizard.

While the Dragon Quest series provides the mechanics for Blue Slime fantasy, the .hack multimedia franchise provides inspiration for the society. In a story encompassing console games, anime, manga, and novels, .hack explored the game world and real world mysteries of The World, a popular immersive virtual reality MMO game. Somewhere along the way, likely in .hack//Legend of the Twilight, the franchise shifted from transhuman cyberpunk themes to the idea of what living would be like in a video game world. And it is that distortion, life in a video game world, that fills Blue Slime stories. In an attempt to raise the stakes of a game from simple reset and defeat, litRPG fantasies will often use punishing logout penalties and technological traps to force the game out of the online worlds, including permanent death of both the character and the player. This puts emphasis on society and relationships not necessarily found in the guilds and factions of Western MMOs such as World of Warcraft. So the characters build real life structures in the video world, typically in a pseudo-European fantasy setting and form. This also drives an attitude of dread towards player-vs-player combat, with “player-killers” being treated as sadistic madmen and outcasts. The audience for .hack and Blue Slime stories do not encounter the “I’m going to hop on my main and call a few buddies for revenge” attitude towards world PvP common to many MMOs. Finally, The World and its Blue Slime analogues are subject to the whims of god-like outside forces that can shape reality in the game, whether rogue programmers, uplifted AI, or hackers. Isekai versions of Blue Slime fantasy follow the same strictures, keeping the mechanics, the societies, and the interfering gods, but ditch any pretense of a game in their new worlds, providing a seamless transition since there is no functional difference in story between immersive VR and physical travel to a new world.

Also present in the episodic nature of Blue Slime fantasy is the narrative structure of kishotenketsu, an exploration of consequence rather than conflict. Originally developed in Chinese four-line poetry, the kishotenketsu form was adopted by narrative story and even formal academic essay. For those familiar with Japanese visual culture, the 4-koma, or four panel comic strip, represents the most familiar application of kishotenketsu structure to Western eyes. Whether argument or gag strip, the story is divided up into four parts:

The introduction: The characters, setting, and situation are introduced.

The development: Themes and events in the introduction are built upon and developed in more depth.

The twist/complication: An unexpected event illuminates everything that happened before in a new light.

The conclusion: Not only does this wrap up the dilemma of the story, it explores the consequences of the twist.

This allows a story to be told without the overt conflicts inherent to Western structures, most of which originate in Classical Greek theater. This doesn’t mean that the story does not have conflict. Just watch one of Chang Cheh’s Venom Mob film to see conflict in kishotenketsu. But the conflict is not built into the structure of the story like in Western works. Instead, it becomes part of the milieu for episodic adventures. And just as a three-act writer will string together multiple try-fail cycles in a story, many light novels and Chinese films stack multiple kishotenketsu cycles together into one story. Sometimes, in inexperienced hands, this leads to wild shifts in tone and a fascination with new developments as the lack of conflict as an engine of plot leaves the story to the winds of the moment. Also, in Brian Niemeier’s recent exploration of the form, he points out that “You can see how cultural differences between East and West come through in each culture’s preferred storytelling methods. Kishōtenketsu emphasizes developing a cast of characters over focusing on an individual protagonist. The Eastern approach is also more concerned with reconciling the story’s events to the status quo ante.” This emphasis on ensemble and status quo lends itself to romantic tension, or much more likely in Blue Slime fantasy, the hijinks of a harem of female orbiters floating around an indecisive male lead.

So why spend so much time on what at first glance appears to be solely a Japanese genre? Not only are translations of light novels hitting American shelves in droves, thanks to Yen Press, J-Novel Club, and other publishers, these light novels are selling, including Blue Slime, battle academies, and science fiction high schools. Many light novels remain in the top 1% of Amazon sales years after their initial publication in English. And thanks to the recurring cycle of adaptations taking light novels to manga and anime and games, Blue Slime fantasies have a multimedia reach greater than most American science fiction and fantasy novels, and, in manga form, are quickly supplanting comics. Not only does the growing audience inherent to these light novels matter, but the influence in fantasy can be felt in other genres as well. The rise of the litRPG over the past few years has been fueled by writers emulating Sword Art Online and other episodic .hack style light novels, creating Sanderson-style hard magic systems using a palette of RPG mechanics spanning traditional tabletop, Blue Slime RPG, and Western video games such as Skyrim. And despite cyberpunk and the transhumanism stories filling American science fiction, these writers chose the familiar fantasies of gaming instead. Isekai is returning as well, following the otherworldly patterns of Gate, Outbreak Company, and other Japanese cross-dimensional tales instead of such classics as A Princess of Mars; The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and Nine Princes in Amber. And the less said about the harem and reverse-harem fad flooding science fiction and fantasy, the better. But despite the broad sweep of Blue Slime, it is not replacing familiar genres of English-language fantasy, but cross-pollinating with them, bringing a healthy shot of adventure that is often sorely needed in American science fiction and fantasy.

And, most importantly, a wider audience.

Blue Slime Fantasy published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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loudcreationsublime · 6 years ago

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Intro

The Dragon Quest series has a long, abundant background, beginning with its influence on the early console RPG category, providing a turn-based theme and also style that would specify Japanese RPGs for several years to find. The franchise has actually reached its share of milestones, including its 30 year wedding anniversary, making it the longest-running JRPG franchise. Despite these success, the series still hasn’t dominated the Western market, never ever getting to the elevation of appeal as Square Enix’s various other significant buildings, such as Final Fantasy as well as Kingdom Hearts. Dragon Quest is such a cultural phenomenon in Japan that it introduces on weekends Kids don’t avoid college for it, was the initial video games collection to get live-action ballet adjustments, as well as also has a whole dining establishment dedicated to it called Luida’s Bar in Roppongi. While it will most likely never ever reach this degree of fanfare in North America, the group hasn’t quit on Dragon Quest making an impact right here and also the upcoming XI is Square Enix’s following opportunity to transform the trends.

The Ups and also Downs

The Ups And Downs Dragon Quest hasn’t already had consistent showings in North America, with sales and also testimonial ratings rising and fall. At an early stage, Nintendo Power had a promo handing out duplicates cost-free duplicates of Dragon Warrior as a way to present American gamers to the series and also amass their passion in parlor games as a whole. PS1’s Dragon Quest VII, which was still under the Dragon Warrior branding due to hallmark concerns, was when points initially started moving in an extra positive direction. Square Enix proceeded to lure in Western gamers by including a PS2 trial for Final Fantasy XII with the acquisition of Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (the very first video game to use the Dragon Quest name stateside) and also had shopping center trips to advertise the game.

The series started marketing better with the last couple of mainline access; Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies broke brand-new ground selling over 1 million copies between United States and also Europe. This was encouraging progression, but Square Enix had actually stopped publishing the remakes and spin-offs long prior to IX, with Nintendo grabbing the mantle considering that 2011 for the Dragon Quest VI remake as well as Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 spin-off. Neither company attempted to launch MMORPG Dragon Quest X stateside, though.

The reason the series has likewise been in limbo is most likely the moment financial investment and also expense of localization. Dragon Quest video games are extremely message hefty, and maker Yuji Horii invests a lot of his own time ensuring the translation is exactly how he planned it to be, right down to his father jokes. New entries have usually taken some time to make it to our shores since of this. “It has a drawback in that means,” states produce manufacturer Yuu Miyake. “It’s actually the speed of localization; it takes a long period of time due to just how the video game is and also the text by Mr. Horii is a really essential part of the game and also allures to the fans. Clearly, we have to look at making that process much shorter and much more efficient.”

Miyake shares a price quote of Dragon Quest VII’s message count, which was 1.2 million Japanese personalities as well as claims XI is simply over double that with 2.4 million. “For the high quality of the translation, the translators really have to comprehend the globe itself as well as get it perfect,” Miyake says. “We really do make certain to include the accents of the individuals worldwide to make it benefit each private area.”

Dragon Quest XI will certainly be the first mainline entry published by Square Enix considering that VIII in North America. Why the adjustment of heart for a series without a terrific performance history along with a laborious job of centering a game loaded with content that lasts gamers anywhere from 80-120 hours? A different market and even more preparation job by Square Enix to reestablish the Dragon Quest name in North America is offering the collection much better odds than it’s ever before had before.

Leading Up To XI

Leading Up To XI It’s completely feasible that Dragon Quest faces the exact same destiny it always has in North America, continuouslying cultivate a specific niche but dedicated fanbase but never ever making a dash with the larger target market. This time things might transform with numerous aforementioned variables altering the having fun field. Talking with the development group in the ramp up to XI’s launch has actually revealed me a positive as well as hopeful perspective concerning the series’future in the West. The designers honestly look at this as a brand-new beginning for the franchise business– a possibility to appeal

to a new, contemporary audience alongside its diehard followers. The last couple of years have actually been spent slowly reestablishing the Dragon Quest brand to Western players, with Square Enix publishing mobile ports of earlier entrances and spin-off video games such as Dragon Quest Heroes and Dragon Quest Builders. It aids that Nintendo has actually continuouslied bring over the remakes, such as the much wanted VII and VIII for the 3DS.

To its advantage, the RPG market is additionally completely different than when Dragon Quest VIII introduced on PS2; it’s not virtually as affordable and also handhelds ended up being a less costly alternative as development expenses climbed. The amount of JRPGs on the PS2 was large to the factor where it was an instance of quantity over top quality, making it simple for any kind of video game without a heavyweight to get lost in the shuffle. We don’t have JRPGs debuting at nearly that rate currently, making lots of gamers ache for the style to prosper once more. Square Enix has actually absolutely caught on to this, introducing games like Star Ocean V and I am Setsuna that feed our nostalgia for beloved series and RPG layout. It helps that a marketing point is additionally it’s a mainline Dragon Quest game on residence console, which we haven’t seen in over a decade. Inning accordance with the group, Horii was adamant about bringing the series back to the cinema. That being said, the group is completely familiar with where Dragon Quest presently stands in North America and also intends to changes it relevance with XI’s release. “From our perspective, [the collection is] still is not where it requires to be [in the West],” Miyake claims.

Staying True To The Series

Staying True To The Series In several means, Dragon Quest XI is an event of the long-running franchise business, a conclusion of every little thing the series has actually been building toward. It was crafted with lots of callbacks as its programmers stuffed as much as possible from the collection’ history into one video game for the 30th anniversary. “Something that’s unique is you have the exact same 3 individuals, this dream group of the music from [Koichi] Sugiyama, [Yuji] Horri’s tale writing, and [Akira] Toriyama’s art design. It’s been the same men making the video games for over 32 years as well as that they could keep raising the motivation to earn these video games over this [long] duration,” Miyake states.

While movie critics have stated the entrances do not make drastic changes or developments from one video game to the following, the creators fit adequate to allow Dragon Quest welcome its simplicity and the technicians that made it such a vital as well as prominent series in RPG background. The core viewpoint has always been that any person could grab and also play a Dragon Quest game, making it appeal to a vast array of players. With those worths in mind, do not expect it to stray from its origins or shake up its formula like Final Fantasy XV did. It likewise does not suggest deserting its turn-based fight system or silent lead character either. The latter is something Horii is determined concerning maintaining. “The entire idea is that the gamer, themselves, ends up being the protagonist, becomes the hero,” Miyake discusses. “If we have actually a composed line and the player believes they would not say that, it breaks the immersion there.” After changing the series’ presentation with VIII, having a main game on portable, and creating an MMORPG, Dragon Quest XI is even more of a homecoming. “It’s returning to its roots in a great deal of ways, which makes it really feel fresh for us also,” Miyake states. “It’s got a specific degree of fond memories regarding it that I believe individuals are trying to find in video games,” includes manufacturer Hokuto Okamato,

The collection wishes to retain its traditional gameplay, and also the huge lure this time about was simply developing an entry using the technological developments of the equipment to upgrade the graphics and provide a much more practical globe. “We put in beast environments, upped the amount of enemies you discover on the field, as well as the ways the villages connect and relocate,” Miyake says. Dragon Quest XI introduces on September 4 for PS4 and also COMPUTER, with a Switch variation coming at a later day. Possibly the tale is moving as well as Dragon Quest XI will be the game-changer for the franchise business’s appeal in North America. As a longtime fan of the series, I know I’m rooting for XI, wishing it establishes a new high bar for the franchise as well as confirms that these niche experiences still have worth.

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ourdelicatestudentpost-blog · 7 years ago

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Top rated 6 Worst Fighting Games On The SNES

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christenamount-blog · 7 years ago

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postgamecontent · 8 years ago

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Square/Enix Misfits: Brain Lord

Original Release Date: January 27, 1994 (JPN)

Original Hardware: Nintendo Super Famicom

Although they checked out a bit early in the generation, Enix America was fairly busy during the the Super NES years. Over a span of five years, they published 10 different games on the system. Strangely enough, not one of them was a Dragon Quest game. Their most frequent partner in those years was Quintet, whose full line-up we've already examined. But they had another developer that they worked with on more than one occasion during those years. Produce Co., Ltd was a mid-sized company formed by a bunch of former IREM employees in 1990. It would close its doors by the year 2000, but in the brief span of time it was around, Produce was mostly known for its work on the Super Bomberman games for Hudson, and a group of RPGs known collectively as the Mystic Ark series for Enix. Due to Enix no longer having an American branch during the mid-90s, only two of the four games in the Mystic Ark series would see release outside of Japan.

The first is a game that is more famous than it deserves to be. I'm not sure why 7th Saga became so well-known, but I suspect it was due to the decent coverage it got in Nintendo Power and other magazines of the time. Many of its problems came from some poorly thought-out localization changes, but even in its original form, it wasn't going to win any prizes. At the very least, however, it is somewhat known, which is more than I can say for the second Produce game to make it over to North America. Brain Lord technically takes place in the same universe as 7th Saga, but it's an action-RPG as opposed to that game's more straight take on the RPG genre. In another fit of poor planning, the game was released in North America on the same day as Robotrek in October of 1994. That also put it in the vicinity of Illusion of Gaia and Final Fantasy 6. It was an unusual glut for RPG fans, and it was inevitable that there would be some casualties. Brain Lord was one of them.

On one hand, it's not a big loss. Brain Lord isn't a great game by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing it truly exceeds at is in walking the line of mediocrity without fail. But it's also not a bad game. I could imagine this game finding more success at another time and place in the Super NES's life. The action is competent if not particularly thrilling. The story is so bland they might as well have not even bothered. The dungeon designs and puzzles are where it's at in Brain Lord, though, and they're quite enjoyable. The game leans a bit heavily on block-pushing puzzles, but they're at least well-designed ones with several gimmicks to consider. I lost count at some point, but I think there are five decent-sized dungeons to explore, each with multiple floors. You're not always meant to finish these dungeons in a single attempt, so warp statues are placed at regular intervals. You can use those to quickly travel back and forth from town. Since all you stand to lose by dying is some money, it's wise to head back now and then to unload what you've collected and stock up on supplies.

Each dungeon culminates in a boss battle that gives you the plot coupon you need to find the next one. There are only two towns in the game, so you're meant to be spending most of your time tackling the dungeon areas. I had to laugh at the name of the second town in the game. I'm not sure why the localizers thought having it named Toronto was a good idea, but it greatly added to my amusement. I am Shaun the brave warrior, hailing from the mystical fantasy realm of Toronto! Anyway, towns aren't good for much more than picking up quests or replenishing your basic supplies. You'll occasionally be buying some gear there, but most of the good stuff is in the dungeons. The real money sink in towns, particularly in the beginning of the game, is Jade.

Jades are special items that allow you to summon a Fairy. These Fairies each have a special ability they can use, ranging from direct attacks to healing spells and more. You can have two Fairies equipped at any given time, with much of the game's combat strategy revolving around using the best combinations for the situation. The Fairies will level up while they're out courtesy of certain enemy drops. Higher levels produce stronger effects. Your character, on the other hand, cannot level up. The closest thing you'll find are permanent stat-boosting items. Most of your power upgrades will come from finding new gear or magic spells. So while your character can attack directly with his weapons, he's not always that good at taking down the bad guys that pack the dungeons. Ignore the Fairies at your own peril.

I kind of enjoy the Fairy system, but as you can imagine it's hideously unbalanced. Once you farm up enough gold for the direct attacker and healer, you probably won't need much else. The fact that they only level up while they're equipped makes it a bad idea to change which ones you're using too frequently. I appreciate the sentiment, at least. In a slightly different way, I felt similarly about the magic and weapons in the game. There's a surprising variety of both here, but once you find ones that work for you, there isn't much point in experimenting. This kind of wasted potential is a hallmark of Produce's games in general, in my opinion.

One thing I like a lot is how the game handles your traveling companions. Although you only control a single character, your hero is meant to be part of a group that is trying to scrounge a living from questing. As you progress through each dungeon, you'll bump into your companions in various places. They'll give information and hints, nudge the story forward, flesh out their back-stories, and even help you solve the odd puzzle. I don't remember a lot of games of this era doing that sort of thing. It makes it feel like you're actually working with others who have their own interests and agendas in mind.

In addition to testing your puzzle-solving and monster-smashing skills, the game also has a fair number of platforming challenges. Not Brain Lord's strong point, I assure you. I've certainly run into worse, but the main character in this game is not a terribly agile guy. The only thing that makes it bearable is that your guy's jump distance is predictable. Since everything is constructed with tiles, it's easy enough to gauge each jump. You'll need good timing, though, since you'll often be jumping from or to a moving platform, often with other gimmicks in play such as a disappearing floor. Is this really testing my brain? Well, probably as much as that silly DS game, anyway.

While most of the people who worked on Brain Lord were the usual Produce crew, they managed to pull in a fairly famous talent to do the character designs. Sachiko Kamimura is generally best-known for her role as the character designer and supervising animator of the anime adaptation of the classic City Hunter. She worked on a number of products at Sunrise Inc and Toei Animation. Her video game work is limited to Brain Lord and the SEGA CD game based on The Heroic Legend of Arslan. I wish I could say that her obvious talent shined through in Brain Lord's characters, but they're not especially noteworthy by the standards of the time, and they look pretty poor in-game due to the angle of the overhead perspective. Nicely animated, at least, so good job on that.

I guess I'm not making Brain Lord sound all that exciting. Truth be told, it's not a very exciting game. But there's an odd rhythm to it that makes it easy to sink time into, particularly if you're not allergic to block puzzles. Outside of the Zelda series, most action-RPGs that bother to feature puzzles don't usually put a lot of effort into them. Even in the case of Zelda, its reliance on acquiring and using new tools means that you rarely need to think deeply about how to move forward. I won't say that Brain Lord is like taking the SATs or anything, but it does feel like somebody added swords and platforming to a Sokoban-style puzzle game, and I think for some people, that's a nice combination.

Unfortunately, like most of Enix's American-released games, Brain Lord has never made another appearance. It's not on any of the Virtual Consoles, and there certainly haven't been any new ports of the game. It's very likely that the rights to the game are stuck in limbo with Produce out of the picture. It's equally likely that Square Enix just doesn't care about it, though. It's not like anyone is banging down their door for the game, I'm sure. Still, it's too bad the game isn't more accessible for those looking to plumb the Super NES's RPG library. Consoles are more than just their most popular games, but that seems to be all that gets preserved. Brain Lord might be a little too average for its own good, but I could see some people still enjoying it today if it were available.

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#squareenixmisfits #brain lord #enix #rpg #snes #superfamicom #retro #gaming

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