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thebiscuitlabryinth · 6 months

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In the end, it doesn't matter. His plans, his intentions, his hopes, none of it matters.

In his dreams, it is disturbingly easy for Pure Vanilla to forget that the world is larger than the two of them, full of Cookies with their own plans and motives. In the careful cradle of his dreams, cocooned within Shadow Milk's constant presence, he hadn't even considered that there were other options.

Now, he is forced to confront them, and he can barely pay attention to anything. He isn't sure what happened in the first place, everything moving too quickly for him to process a thing. There is chaos everywhere, a flurry of colours and sounds and happenings whipping around him like a hurricane, the veil of darkness turning it all into a blur. The air is thrumming with unleashed archaic power, pricking his dough like pins and needles, and it all goes straight to his head, making him dizzy.

His grip on his staff is tight, leaning against it as he closes his eyes and borrows its gaze in the hopes of having a clearer view. It is just as indecipherable through his staff though, which means he isn't seeing things – the world really is coming apart at the seams, his nightmares unfurling before him.

And worst of all, Pure Vanilla is awake. He is wide, wide awake and cold with shock.

"There you are!"

Arms wrap around his shoulders from behind, the voice chiming delightedly in his ear. Pure Vanilla pulls away with a violent jerk of his body, not quite having the mind to be surprised that the arms let him, spinning around to face the other.

Shadow Milk stands, practically glowing with giddy joy, in a newly-crafted body of fresh dough, and it is strange to see him so solid. He stretches his arms above his head, leaning from side to side, before turning in a circle with a flourish, as if to show the body off.

"Wonderful, isn't it? And with this, Little Miss Guardian can't lock us back up again so easily! Certainly not with a dirty little trick like patching up some cracks." His voice is jovial, even as irritation flickers over his eyes at the memory of his encounter with White Lily. It disappears quickly, swallowed by tide of something that could almost be taken as childlike excitement. "Ah, it's so fun to have my own body again!"

It's the sort of happiness Pure Vanilla had hoped to see from him, but seeing it now, it just makes his heart ache fiercely, his chest seconds away from caving in. He is beautiful, a fact preserved even through the filter of his staff's eye, and everything is falling apart around him.

"What are you doing?" He asks, hardly more than a whisper, hardly able to manage those words anyway. It isn't the fact that Shadow Milk is out, physically here in front of him that makes him feel queasy. If it were only that, Pure Vanilla suspects he'd match him in his joy. It isn't even that he grabbed the first opportunity to escape, even if it wasn't following Pure Vanilla's plans for negotiation.

It is the upheaval sweeping around him, a complete lack of care for the surroundings and exactly as Shadow Milk was before, that is what hurts. Pure Vanilla had never lied when he said he believed in him.

"Celebrating, of course! This is my greatly anticipated grand return!" Shadow Milk announces cheerfully, taking an overdramatic bow before glancing at Pure Vanilla with a cheeky grin. His eyes glitter like stars, in that way that always mesmerises him. "Come on, Vani, dance with me!"

He reaches for both of Pure Vanilla's hands, not fazed by the fact that one is still holding his staff. He simply traps Pure Vanilla's hand between his and the staff as he pulls him towards him, using the momentum to whirl them around. Pure Vanilla stumbles, and without thinking, he scrambles to hold Shadow Milk back, his stomach and head churning uselessly.

It must show on his face, the horrible turbulance within him, because Shadow Milk's eyes all squint at him, some softly, others teasingly. He lets go of the hand not on his staff, instead wrapping his arm around Pure Vanilla's waist to offer him more stability. "What are you looking so gloomy for? Isn't this what you wanted?"

"Not like this, you know that." Pure Vanilla whispers, his now free hand balling into a fist and falling weakly to rest against Shadow Milk's shoulder. His sadness leaks heavy into his tone, but he can't help it, can barely articulate himself. "I wanted you to be better."

Shadow Milk doesn't reply for a moment, still dragging him through the motions of a partner dance. He seems to realise Pure Vanilla isn't planning to open his eyes anytime soon, because his eyes slide over to make contact with him through his staff, his grin simmering down to a smile, still unbearably cheerful. "You didn't truly believe that would work, did you?"

It's a harmless question, in the grand scheme of things, in the whirlpool of everything happening around them, but it feels like a cracking punch to the stomach. Shadow Milk had seemed reluctant at first, but he had never outright refused his idea. By the end of it, he even seemed to be considering it seriously, but something said as bluntly as that must be his true feelings–

"So you lied to me." Pure Vanilla murmurs hollowly, the cracks in his heart filling with sticky disappointment, all towards himself. He can't bring himself to hate Shadow Milk for acting within his own nature, not when he should have known. "...Of course you did."

For the first time since he regained a physical form, Shadow Milk's smile drops completely, replaced with a fake pout. Though it seems lighthearted, the stars in his eyes spark with annoyance.

"I would never! How could you say such a terrible thing about me, after all we've been through?" Shadow Milk laments with exaggerated sorrow, throwing Pure Vanilla into an awkward twirl as his free hand rests against his own forehead like a hapless maiden. Pure Vanilla's brain seems to scramble at the sudden movement, barely gathering his bearings as Shadow Milk's arm returns to his waist. He thinks he may be sick.

"Remember, I said you could try your little plan out, not that I ever agreed to it." Shadow Milk reminds him in a low croon, lined with condescension. "I even told you I thought it was a stupid idea! I may be the Beast of Deceit, but I never directly lied to you. I'm a little hurt you assumed I did. I thought you knew me better than that!"

And Pure Vanilla can't muster a response to that, spirit growing soggier by the second, because it is true. His hope had led him into assumptions that were misguided, how can he blame Shadow Milk for that?

Somewhere in the background, there is the rumble of an explosion.

"You might have been able to convince me, you know." Shadow Milk adds with a gossamer thin smile, his voice growing more serious. "There was just one eensy-weensy problem with your argument."

Pure Vanilla trips over something behind him with a frazzled yelp, unconsiously gripping Shadow Milk's shoulder as his hat falls off, and Shadow Milk uses the momentum to lower him into a dip, bowing over him as he finally pauses their dance.

"You assumed that I need to be fixed," Shadow Milk spits the words through his teeth with a slight growl, curling his lip disdainfully as he pushes their faces far too close together, "but there's nothing to fix. We paid the price for having power the Witches' themselves gave us, all because of their cowardice and fickleness." He huffs, smiling with a lack of mirth. "Good punishments always teach a lesson, you say, but our punishment was unjust, decided on a whim. What lesson could it possibly teach?"

Pure Vanilla stares at him wordlessly, ears buzzing nervously. He feels vaguely like he is in freefall, his body tensing in anticipation of hitting the ground.

Instead, like a switch is flipped, Shadow Milk's stormy expression clears back into that pleasant merriment.

"But enough about all that," Shadow Milk says with faux politeness as he straightens up smoothly, jerking Pure Vanilla back onto his feet and sweeping him back into a circling dance, "now is the time for celebration! Relax!"

Shadow Milk draws Pure Vanilla even closer to him, almost pressing their bodies together, and Pure Vanilla, despite himself, is struck by the warmth of it. Shadow Milk has always been cold to the touch in his dreams but here, in this new body, he is too warm, radiating a heat that suggests getting too close will burn.

Shadow Milk hums a jaunty tune in his ear as they sway to and fro, and Pure Vanilla's darts his gaze around in an attempt to ground his thoughts. He must focus. He isn't sure where the others are – are the children safe? Where is White Lily? Shadow Milk isn't the only one who escaped, of that he is certain, so it is likely they are surrounded by danger on all sides, and that isn't even taking Dark Enchantress' forces into consideration. But if Shadow Milk is focused on him here, that is at least one less Beast for them to handle.

There you are, he had said when he found him. Shadow Milk had been seeking him out specifically, and surely not just for an innocent dance, so why—

Pure Vanilla glances down with sinking dread and realisation, jam turning cold.

"You're here for the Soul Jam, aren't you?" He murmurs, more to himself than Shadow Milk, but he must hear anyway, because his humming trails off. Pure Vanilla doesn't give him time to process the words though, yanking his staff up and suddenly there is light.

It is an extremely clumsy spell that misses by a mile – Pure Vanilla isn't awfully practised in offensive magic, and on top of that, his dough is shaking with too many emotions – but it does the trick. The bright flash startles Shadow Milk just enough for his grip to loosen, and Pure Vanilla wastes no time in scrambling back and away.

He gets a good few paces away before he is stopped by firm tug on his wrist, almost knocking him over. The beginning of real fear begins to well within him as he looks down to find himself caught by a dozen strings, shimmering like spun silk, all leading back to Shadow Milk's own hands as he approaches through the parting haze.

"I didn't know you had that in you. Bravo!" He laughs as he claps, seeming to be at ease, the attack doing nothing to dampen his mood. He comes to a stop nearby, wrapping the strings around his hand once, twice before pulling Pure Vanilla forward in a long, smooth motion that allows Shadow Milk to tuck his arm behind his back as he leans forward to meet him. "But to answer your question..."

Shadow Milk reaches up to grab the clasp that holds his Soul Jam as Pure Vanilla strains against the strings, knowing that despite any fondness he might have for him, he had never planned to let him have this. He braces for it to be ripped off, he braces for it to be gently pried away for him – he isn't sure which would be worse.

He does not brace for Shadow Milk to bend down and press a delicate kiss against its smooth surface.

"I'm here for the Soul Jam and you." He smirks against it, eyes flicking up from its sapphire shine to Pure Vanilla's stunned face, frozen in place. "That shouldn't be a surprise to you, after all our time spent together."

"You must be joking." Pure Vanilla chokes out before he can say any more, voice stuffy with conflicting emotions, gripping his staff so tightly he's distantly worried it may snap. His head is swimming, so much so that he worries he will faint, even though he's never been prone to it. "You don't mean that."

"I do." Shadow Milk replies with breezy confidence, his expression falling neutral as he straightens up just enough to press their foreheads together. It is not quite as impactful with Pure Vanilla seeing through his staff, but the contact between their dough still burns. "I like you. So, because I like you, I've come to collect everything."

Pure Vanilla is seeing through his staff, so he knows he is not imagining the solemn furrow of his brow, the slight pinch of his mouth, the lifetimes behind his eyes, the lifetimes he has fallen for. He is sure, almost instinctively, that he is telling the truth, and the mere thought makes his insides collapse into themselves like an agonising supernova.

"Please," he begs helplessly, strangely hoarse, abandoning his staff's eye and welcoming the darkness, unable to look anymore, "don't do this to me. It's–"

–cruel, but the word gets stuck in his throat. It is an accidental cruelty, and it hurts, hurts more than anything else, more than words can describe, even more than the all-encompassing ache of Dark Enchantress' first appearance, and the realisation that she shared White Lily's shadow. At least, then, Dark Enchantress was clear in her hatred, never allowing an opportunity for hope to fester. For all the pain that caused, the distance kept his head clearer.

But what is he meant to do now, knowing that Shadow Milk Cookie, for all he has done and will do, is sincere when he says he likes him? It is an irony that burdens him like a curse, but he almost wishes that it was a lie. It would be painful either way, but surely being tricked outright and mocked for it would be easier to cut clean from, to compartmentalise.

An ugly, painful sob rattles through his chest, and he bites down on it before it can leave his mouth, shoulders curling inwards like a wilting plant. Shadow Milk's arms loop around them, weighing them down further.

"Look at me." He calls, calm and low and stern, a professor's tone, and Pure Vanilla shudders with another swallowed sob.

"Look at me, Pure Vanilla." He repeats, a little louder, but it is the use of his name that catches his attention like a snare. Shadow Milk doesn't often use his proper name, not when it is just the two of them.

Pure Vanilla finally opens his own eyes, slowly and with difficulty, gummy with unshed tears and unable to make out anything beyond colourful shapes. Shadow Milk's face takes up his whole vision either way, and it makes his pain worsen. He can't look at him, not now, with everything that makes up Pure Vanilla jumbled into a mess and the world around them jumbled to match.

Surprising himself, Pure Vanilla sluggishly shifts to bury his face in Shadow Milk's shoulder, his shaking hands dropping his staff to clumsily grip his back in tight fistfuls. It surprises Shadow Milk too, judging by his slight jolt, but his arms tighten like a noose around his neck, pulling him close into a hug.

"You're awful." Pure Vanilla croaks, muffled and aching, squeezing his eyes shut again and soaking in the searing heat of the other, eating him alive.

Between them, the Virtue of Knowledge hums discordantly, its fractured pieces reunited at last. Shadow Milk chuckles, a sound Pure Vanilla feels rather than hears.

"If I'm awful," he says lightly, rocking them from side to side in a soothing rhythm, "then you must be too."

fin.

#sorry in advance guys. this one is An Experience!#unfortunately the things i'm good at are Torment and Emotions so here we are #also i wanted the ending to be ambigious because this was meant to focus on the relationship #rather than the surrounding. apocalypse. so you can imagine what happens next as whatever you want :)#shadowvanilla #pureshadow #vanilla milkshake #echo paradox au #the biscuit library

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randomnameless · 23 days

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Drankengard done (land 2!)

A lot of nice things in this part, so far it feels like the most FE-like land, and some characters from this land are really interesting!

l firstly love how the plot starts with "we have to rescue this midget prince from 100k soldiers" in one of the few defend maps of this game with various catapults and other engines to attack/defend against a cluster of loldiers coming at you - that was nice compared to the nigh useless ballistas and other engines in FE.

Granted, Gilbert's defining moment after being revealed is basically protecting his vassal from a gotoh-like character who's twice his size and more or less recruiting her for the defend map -

(localisation thingie : no "kisama" for eng/fr script Gilbert, sure it's kind of complicated to put it in words - like an agressive "you" - and yet it gives some nice characterisation, after Amalia rekts Leah and while Gilbert is standing seconds before being surrounded by 100k peons in front of someone who's basically stronger than anyone else around, he is still angry and pissed for his friend's sake) -

Just before being upset at asking our party - aka a foreign nation who was at war with his for the last few decades and revealing that his dad only granted asylum to the princess of said foreign nation to marry her to his heir to conquer it later on - for help.

Hopefully for him his game is no Triangle Strategy, so no one will actually tell him to eat shit because he wasn't the one who liberated the land even if he participed to instead worship the "foreign" person who led the liberation army.

Hell, idk what kind of PR campaign Gilbert and his few loyal soldiers pulled out, but some NPCs are really acting as if he liberated his kingdom single handedly lol

His relationship with his elder brother was sort of developed in the main plot - but more in the equivalent of the support convos - but as I said in another post, I really loved that part where he feels like he's still a second prince, and if his older brother returns, older brother should get the crown even if older brother feels like dirt for failing his country and his father, and became a wandering... mercenary who's busy saving priestresses from jails (and leaving them in the middle of battlefields).

Ultimately, they reunite and more or less solve their issues, and Ludwig manages to tell him that he wouldn't be half the king Gilbert is, because Gilbert is the one who led a rebellion and ultimately led Drakengard free, is loved by this people etc etc.

TBH, while it was short, this was a nice character arc -

(complete with the support/rapport convo just after the final map I unlocked where Gilbert, wanting to know how the common people live in his kingdom, gets plastered with the a random worthless bandit/merc who's freaking out from the entire situation lol)

The other major character from Drakengard is Virginia, the MC's older cousin!

We first see her being kind of pushy and overbearing, sometimes taking the initiative to do rather extreme stuff (wanting to fetch her axe instead of recruiting the earlier worthless bandit/merc), but she's still deferring to the MC, save for a certain mission - because, and kuddos to the game for going there, while Virginia's story is basically a tragic Marth's, aka, when her kingdom was invaded she had to run away to a foreign state for asylum but without any Jeigan, she believed for 10 years and never stopped believing that she was the only one who survived, and thus it was her role and duty to restore the Cornian line on the throne and take back the country from the evil Empire.

And... MC pops up, as the rightful - aka the son of the late queen as opposed to her mere niece - heir thus Virginia's hopes of becoming the Queen and the one to restore her nation vanish.

So kuddos for the game to basically have Virginia tell her cousin that while she was happy to see him and learn he was alive after all those years... she also felt jealous, because the 10 last years she spent having this dream and hope to be the one to restore the country... vanished in 10 minutes lol.

She's not going to challenge Alain's claim to the throne and instead will support him.

Granted, this moment becomes ten times more interesting if you do her own mission before - aka the one where she zerg rushes against the dude who slaughtered her retinue against the advice of Jeigan Joseph and becomes a dreaded green unit (who loses her promotion somehow???), running in a battlefield full of catapults to have her vengeance.

Remember when I said one of her first defining moments is when she asks to be handed her axe to get rid of a worthless merc instead of recruiting him? Well, her words back then were something like "your men died for you, so you can't beg for your life" or something like that, we learn in her own mission that she was basically talking about herself.

Basically, kid!Virginia was supposed to have her Jeigans and Cain/Abel/Draugs and they were supposed to escape and run away together to Drakengard... but they were slaughtered by some general of the evil empire who thought bringing her head would make a good offering to the evil emperor, so the Jeigans, Cains, Abel, Draugs etc etc laid down their lives to allow her to escape - we have a voiced FB with a few images and a battle cinematic, where the knights basically say they will die to make sure she'll be able to escape, and will slow down the evil general with their corpses if needed.

The entire platoon of knights died, and Virginia has been carrying this trauma for ten years, dreaming of having her revenge but never once confiding in anyone from Drakengard about it - not even in her (Gilbert's) vassal Leah who she seemed to be close too earlier.

Short story, the general holds a fort and is supposed to be called back to the evil empire's capital for some reason, and instead of waiting for his departure to recapture the fort, Virginia storms at the general to have her revenge (accompanied by the knights who were just squires when she had to leave, and thus couldn't be there when their senior knights were slaughtered and want revenge as much as she does!).

You have to send Joseph to talk to her to have her turn blue again (and promoted again thank gods) and the re-recruitment scene is cool for 2 things :

1/it's Joseph, not Alain who talks to her because her beef and the one who talked to her and the one whose plan is ignored is Joseph - I love it when the MC isn't at the center of everyone's universe

2/Virginia during this convo notices her friends/knights are injured (they have the injured sprite) and realises she was going to send to their death the last remaining members of that platoon, chastises herself and her next battle lines are something like "I won't let them die/bleed anymore" or something and it's fucking powerful because hey, besides some "vengeance is empty" that she will get later on herself, part of what makes her see reason is the realisation that her allies are injured and were going to die in her quest, and she can't have that anymore (nice ludonarration moment here, Virginia is a tank, if her allies are injured, it's because she wasn't tanking well enough!).

"Vengeance is empty" moment : the evil general who slaughtered her former knights doesn't even remember the people he slaughtered, or the mission where he hunted her, aka, she's been obsessing for 10 years over something her so called "nemesis" forgot.

End of the map, the realisation that her vengeance was nothing + she put her close allies' lives in danger (+ the little bit of salt when she mentions that Alain is the Cornian Royal people should follow because he is royalty) make her want to leave the army as fitting punishment - which, you know, coming from a series where some lord basically goes 1VS1 against the guy who killed his dad and who was followed by his kid sister who put herself in mortal danger but only receives a scold from his not-mom and slap on the wrist just makes me side-eye FE Tellius' writing even more.

Anyways, while I read on redshit that some people were pissed because "wah wah Virginia is a character who does foolish things and there are consequences about it she should be exiled forever or something", she obviously doesn't leave the army because, all of her close allies ask her to stay. Hell, Alain only gives one or two sentences that are dispassionate compared to the other 4 - again to show that MC privileges aren't everything at least plot wise - but the main voice is Leah's - aka her (well) Drakengard retainer!

When earlier Virginia told her that this story and her choice had nothing to do with Drakengard - because it's about Cornian knights who died during her flight from Cornia - Leah now reminds her that she became someone important for Drakengard too, and you know, the 10 years she spent here ? It's not just only background to give some fluff for a teatime line, no, it has more implication, if not only to have this moment where Leah says that Virginia's pride, bravery and hope to restore her country also influenced and inspired people (Gilbert, the second son who had to assume the role of the King when no one else was left!) around her and made the people of Drakengard also hope to liberate their country - if she leaves now, the named character from Cornia will miss her, but also "Drakengard" in general.

To cement her words, after this map we can talk to some Drakengard NPC who's all "wow Princess Virginia is so cool she defeated the bastard in charge of this fortress!" and while idk if Leah's speech + that NPC were added to make the ending where she becomes the queen of Drakengard (save for Alain marrying his cousin) more plausible, but it was a really nice addition.

Adding to that the fact that Virginia is the one who's basically telling Alain (and informing the player) about various map hazards like geysers around the land, giving some backstory about the desert along with Leah and also the one who tells the party about a sort of shortcut/secret passage and yes, we get it that she lived for 10 years in that land and knows it enough to act as a guide, but also that the people around know her.

I mean compare with a game where some dude apparently went to a school in a foreign capital but when he marches on said foreign capital or talks to people who also attended that school he never mentions it - it's like night and day.

Final "daw" moment that is both tied to her character but also, another example that Alain isn't the center of the universe... Virgnia is the one who tells Alain to talk to Aramis (the eldest prince who became a merc!) and ask him to talk to Gilbert to put his worries aside about the throne and the succession and ust, to reunite with his younger brother.

The characters concerned (Gilbert and Aramis) thank Alain for giving them the occasion and push to talk to each other - not knowing this was something Virginia planned, because while hers and Gilbert's issues are sort of similar (the not "legitimate" heir who took the mantle of restoring their country to glory and believed it so for the last decade, only for the legitimate one to return), she has a good enough read on Gilbert to know that he needs to talk to his brother to put his doubts and questions about his legitimacy aside and accept that he is the King.

Coming from a series with "avatar scissors", the bonds and links between the characters was really something I enjoyed, Alain will not pop up and tell Gilbert that he is a good king and should get over/or deal with his doubts about his brother, Alain isn't the one who gives the most meaningful speech about why Virginia is important to Drakengard and hell, we don't even see the exchange we know he had with Aramis to convince him to talk to Gilbert, because the most important scene here isn't the Alain-Aramis dialogue, but the Aramis-Gilbert one. Gilbert doesn't want to free his Kingdom because he envies Alain or Alain told him to do so, it's something he wants to do being inspired by Virginia.

In a nutshell, Drakengard's major characters were a good surprise and their stories and quests were cool.

More minor character wise...

We get the Drakengard version of the same plague we saw in Cornia, but instead of having "clerics" perform experiments on infected people to find a cure, the accent here is put on a wyvern knight who was to enforce a lockdown, to prevent the plague from spreading and well... no fines in this setting, instead she runs them through with her spear.

IDK how that game would have been received just after Covid lol

All jokes asides, just like the Cornian version of this plot heavily suggested, the plague was devised by the evil empire to cut down the forces of the rebellion and make sure this land would be able to be conquered easily.

Why are the imperials killing people? Well, it might have to do something with the fact that the totes-not-gharnef old sorcerer guy is a necromancer...

Leah's quest explored a little more the background info that "Drakengard and Cornia used to be at war" thingie, with random green units also mounting a liberation army but refusing our help, and we know how this ends with green units, we basically have to save them.

Map ends with some Drakengardians - who swore allegeance to the evil Empire? - still willing to fight us, and Alain asking Leah to please ask them, as a Drakengardian (?) to surrender because if someone from Cornia asks them they will refuse.

Also it's a bit of a character exploration, for once the usually demure + always in the back behind Virginia asks the Liberation Army to do something and insists even if people refuse, straight up saying that in that case (if they refuse) she's going to help the green NPCs herself since she's strong enough to do so and it's cool because I think at one moment Virginia sighs/laughs, but not in a derogatory way, but more in some "damn she's becoming like me" way - which is alluded to in ther rapport conversation, Leah seeks to emulate her bold and fearless (being a green unit) behaviour.

I haven't seen a lot of convos with the desert people we recruit - thank goodness we're far from Hyzante's clichés even if the "people in the desert are bandits and former prisoners" trope is still here, but given how the ones who attack us were brainwashed by the evil Empire, it's not as aggravating as, well, Nopes or Hyzante.

Gameplay wise :

Damn if promoting your units cost medals, but it's so worth it to have more than one action (at least) per turn ! It also means we can use entire new strategies because now the turns are at least longer than one round each!

Drakengard fills the Jugdral quota with the group of units coming all at once at you sometimes lol, but I loved the aesthetic difference that ultimately became gameplay difference between this area and Cornia, basically we have more mountains to less space to manoeuver the non flying units, the enemies use AoE engines to ruin you or at times, AoE map abilities from their own units to deal some annoying amount of damage.

The cities are larger so instead of fighting in a meadow with one or two small buildings here and there, at times the fight takes place in an entire city, so again, it means reduced mobility and of course, desert sucks because, just like FE, you can't move well in the sand.

Lolcalisation wise :

Virginia "I have never been fond of court formalities" says a desert full of bandit isn't a place for "royalty like us"? When the "us" is both her and her cousin reknown for their martial abilities?

What the fuck does it mean ?

At least in FR it's "a lot of people avoid this place" and not just "royalty like us" - which doubles as ridiculous because in the "people avoid this place" it's again the trend of Virginia being a tour guide of Drankengard, telling Alain that people from Drakengard think about the desert, eluding this part is also, in part, eluding part of the knowledge Virginia has about Drakengard.

I think the localisation took the "royal pride" that defines her and exaggerated it to "royal arrogance".

IDK if the meaning is the same in english, cretin is an insult like in french, but damn if you say to someone the are a "crétin" they will feel offended and insulted because that's way more rude than calling someone an idiot!

And I also have a bone against whoever thought it was a good idea to throw "pseudo elvish" words in the localised script (sadly we followed this :'() when the japanese audio doesn't use them at all, was it to pretend the evles from Fevrith have a different language because Tolkien shall be universal, or what?

Elf land doesn't see that interesting plot wise compared to Drakengard, and I'm not saying this because of my Alcina bias lol but I'll just have to wait and see!

(poor hodrick is being slaughtered by those pesky pointy ears and their hybrid attacks, tfw armor not withstanding magic is universal, I'll have to promote Miriam asap to protect him or just bench him :/)

#unicorn overlord stuff #i like Alain but seeing other characters run the show is just #super cool after the avatar wanking from the previous FE titles or the general lord wanking #small Gilbert kisama-ing Amalia was hilarious lol #too bad it was localised away #the redshit double standard regarding Virginia though #Alain if he didn't had Joseph could also zerg rush against Galerius and get him and his friends killed because he wants revenge #what not having joseph does to someone lol #alain notices it in their rapport convo #Virginia had no time to play board games like him in those ten years since their country fell she trained and nurtured her vengeance #while also navigating this foreign country on her own and learning a lot about it and its people #no banging swords together with lex on a beach lol #but in general much like BK #I like how background matters for characters and how some of them have a lot of ties thanks to that background #to others it feels natural #and while I know Alain can ultimately use his MC scissors to marry/become BFF with everyone #at least as for the plot mandated interactions people can talk to each other #outside of support convos #can you imagine if we could have a scene post Flayn's kidnapping where we happen on Doro talking to Manu and worrying about her health?#but like a full cutscene and not only two characters being next to each other to have 3 lines on the world map?#I'll miss the bgm for Drakengard the Elfheim one isn't as catchy :(

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