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[yeonchi]

Parallax Retrospective Part 3: Episodes 17-24

Funnily enough, me and my friends' version of the Parallax doesn't have any Welkin or Mrs Dawes-es. As for Guardians - well, we essentially were the Guardians of our Parallax, weren't we?

We're halfway there. Let's begin the second half of the series with episodes 17-24.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait readers in Australia, please be advised that some of the following episodes feature a character played by a member of the community who is deceased.

Episode 17: The Krellick War

In Techno World, Silver!Francis’ parents are continuing the search for her son, who have been unable to get any answers from authorities. Meanwhile, Katherine, Melinda, Jeremy and Stefan examine Veronica’s pots while Ben remains in Forest World with Mundi. Stefan notices a pot missing because Jeremy had accidentally knocked it over while hammering, so the four gather up the pieces and patch it up, even though they probably could have used something else as a substitute, but whatever.

Betti finally notices that someone is eavesdropping on her stave and turns it off. She turns it back on later as she stages a conversation with Veronica, telling her that she is sending Krellicks into Techno World. Mundi tells Katherine and the others while Ben tells Francis, Una and Due. Ben also finds Silver!Francis’ dad, Mr Short, and asks for his help, telling him that he knows what happened to his son.

The group gathers in Techno World, armed with water blasters. They stake out the streets for Krellicks, but they end up not needing to look far as they find the populace running from the Krellicks. Ben has everyone lead the Krellicks to the park, making them all gather towards them, before signalling Mr Short to activate the sprinklers, drowning the Krellicks in water.

Ben is about to reveal the truth to Mr Short when the Welkin begin swarming them, but they go away as soon as one bites Ben’s arm. The Welkin reports back to Betti and she sends Spy Boy to get “Mother”. Back with the group, Katherine wonders that if Betti can blandish the worlds by changing the water, then why would she send out the Welkin and Krellicks? She realises that this was a trap to bring Ben to Techno World; it is then that a giant Welkin comes and the group hold it off with their water blasters. Ben is about to kill the Welkin with his stave but Katherine stops him, deciding to give Betti what she wants; she has Ben take off his clothes and throws them and Ben’s stave to the giant Welkin, who eats it up and turns red. The giant Welkin flies back to Betti and coughs up Ben’s clothes and stave; to Betti and Veronica, Ben has been eaten.

Meanwhile, the water in Techno World has been turned purple by Betti. Policeman Garcia reassures the populace that there is no cause for alarm with the water system by drinking some of the purple water; nothing happens to him, but when he passes the bottle to Mr Short and he drinks the water, he disappears into purple mist…

Back in the forest hut, Ben and Katherine have their first heart-to-heart moment, the two never really having a chance to get to know each other since everything began.

Episode 18: The Reluctant Guardian

In Techno World, everyone begins to notice the river turning purple and some people going missing, despite Policeman Garcia reassuring everyone that there is no cause for alarm. Francis goes to get some fresh water from his world, but despite all his trials, he’s beaten to the punch by Melinda. That’s the subplot.

As Ben and Katherine sit around waiting for Jeremy and Stefan to work out the meaning of Veronica’s pots, Katherine realises that Otto, the hut’s former resident, would have more Guardian powers than Veronica (as if that is something that can be measured) if he was able to make the hut into a sanctuary. Ben points out that Otto is dead but Katherine tells him that just because Otto is missing doesn’t mean that he is dead, a sentiment which seems to be implied by the local Mrs Dawes.

Ben clears out the Krellicks near the Krellick nest as he and Katherine head into the portal and- ok, I’m sorry, just what the hell is happening with this scene? Look, throughout this series, we see portals in a combi van, under a bookshelf in the library, through a drainpipe and in a chicken coop, and then we have portals inside a storm drain or between some rocks where there are normally two sides to them. It’s all good and well if you head in through one side, but what happens if you head in from the other side? Also, if that Krellick was able to make a nest right next to the portal, then how is it not dead, and I say that because that portal leads right in the middle of a river!

Anyway, Ben and Katherine end up in… let’s call it Bush World - brown. They meet Otto, who denies being a Guardian, the sight of the stave clearly spooking him. Otto is eventually spurred into action, taking the stave and clearing out more Krellicks as he takes Ben and Katherine back through the portal. Back in the hut, Ben, Katherine and Otto listen to Betti and Veronica again. Katherine eventually loses control and reveals herself to Betti, believing that it’ll prevent Betti from killing Veronica now that there is another Guardian out there.

Mrs Dawes sees Otto’s return and has Ben and Katherine get him away; returning to Ben’s World, Otto is shown to Veronica’s pots and a diagram that Stefan drew (which honestly makes no sense compared to anything). Otto looks at the diagram and reveals to everyone that it is a map of the Parallax, and the key to the Reading Room. Later, Otto sees Spy Boy outside and creates a diversion for Ben so he can escape, leaving the stave behind…

Episode 19: Seek And You Shall Find

After being unable to find Otto, Ben and Katherine get into an argument blaming one another until Jeremy puts a stop to it. Ben heads into Techno World, where its Werrinup is celebrating their “day of enterprise”. He manages to find Otto but is stopped by the townspeople, who laud him as a hero for saving them from the Krellicks.

Meanwhile, Melinda and Francis notice that the Mrs Dawes-es in each world may know more than they think, and that one of them may know something about the Reading Room. Katherine asks Melinda to ask around but she asks Francis to do it instead, getting tired of being the “errand girl”. Katherine apologises to Melinda for bossing her around but she calls her out for uncharacteristically using contractions when she talks, because it’s totally not the first time either of them have done that, what the hell?

Betti makes contact with Katherine and she tries to convince her to agree with her idea of an ideal Parallax. Admittedly, Katherine considers the idea, but Melinda points out that it would mean there wouldn’t be any people who are different, like her or Ben. Betti makes contact with Katherine again and she seemingly agrees with her in an effort to speak with Veronica; when Veronica takes the stave, Katherine tries to communicate to her that Ben is still alive.

Ben manages to find Otto, but they have to split up to evade Spy Boy and they later meet atop the Spiral Corporation tower, where Otto is hiding out. Otto points out that there is a portal in the foyer but nobody ever comes up the building. As the two of them eat, the lift suddenly goes back down. Spy Boy comes up but Otto and Ben manage to restrain him. Otto offers to exile himself to a far corner of the Parallax with Spy Boy and he parts with Ben.

Ben and Francis finally get information from Otto and one of the Mrs Dawes-es about the Reading Room - the Reading Room is the font of knowledge to all the Parallax, since time began. And Ben doesn’t ask Otto how to get there?

Episode 20: Sand Witch

The main story arc continues, but we go back to some standalone-ish adventures for a few episodes.

Stefan is updated on the Reading Room and goes to Jeremy’s house to work out how to get to the Reading Room. After some technobabble which they obviously don’t understand, the two of them head to the portal and press on the portal sign as they go through, but they end up in Desert World, and so has Tiffany, who has followed them in. The two dads head in different directions, with Tiffany accompanying Stefan. Jeremy soon becomes lost and sits atop a dune, while Stefan and Tiffany encounter Betti at her tent.

Red!Francis sees Jeremy’s note and uses the FrancisCam network to notify Ben and Katherine. The two head to Desert World and go their separate ways; Ben finds Jeremy and they have a heart-to-heart, while Katherine confronts Betti as she finds Stefan and Tiffany, the latter throwing sand in Betti’s face as they escape. The two groups meet again and they head back to Ben’s World by entering the entry code in reverse, which wasn’t shown back in episode 9 nor should it work that way. When they arrive at Ben’s house, they find the door unlocked and go in to find not only Red!Martin, but Blue!Martin as well, the latter having met the former after following Stefan into the portal…

Episode 21: My Favourite Martin

The two Martins confront Katherine and Ben and ask to join their group, but they refuse, so they take Tiffany and attempt to explore the Parallax on their own. Tiffany proves to be of no help either, so they end up ditching her. The two Martins find Red!Francis and Red!Martin attempts to get back at him for the prank in episode 3 by making him empty a rubbish bin over himself in front of Policeman Garcia. Red!Martin gets called away by his mum and as Blue!Martin returns to the portal, he is approached by Betti, who offers to show him the Parallax before she asks him about Katherine…

Meanwhile, Ben and Katherine deduce that Veronica is being kept on an island in Techno World because both the portals are on land and Betti didn’t want her to escape. Ben and Melinda head to the island (named Circe Island as a callback to the creator’s previous series, Ship to Shore) with Francis and Una and they investigate the house; Ben finds his mum’s ring inside, but she is long gone.

Betti makes contact on the stave and Ben’s group hurries back to Forest World as Betti is revealed to be at Katherine’s house…

Episode 22: Cheats Never Prosper

In Ben’s World, Red!Francis saves Red!Melinda as Blue!Martin tells Red!Martin that he should have taken the advantage. When Red!Melinda’s parents arrive, Red!Martin proposes a surf club to prevent more accidents. Francis and Martin are nominated for the role of president (Melinda’s dad was willing to fund the club but not act as its president?) and Melinda suggests holding a triathlon between them to determine who will be president. Blue!Martin suggests a switcheroo, which is discovered by Tiffany and Francis Zapmeister. Francis goes to warn Red!Francis about this, but he doesn’t really care, and when Francis suggests that they do a switcheroo as well, Red!Francis refuses to sink down to Martin’s level. Tiffany stops Martin’s plan and eventually, Francis prevails, making him the president of the surf club.

Meanwhile, Betti asks Katherine to meet with her, and she agrees, if only to find out how she ticks. They meet in Techno World and Betti takes her through the portal in the Spiral Corporation building to Garden World - purple, a world that Betti has fully blandished and made “perfect”. I assume Betti entered the code into the computer because there is no way that Garden World would be right next door to Techno World, especially considering that the transition scenes show Garden World and Ben’s World as quite a distance from each other. Betti shows Katherine how Garden World is peaceful because there’s nothing to worry the people or aggravate them; even the local Martin, who’s even less of a dick than Green!Martin, only plays the violin for the love of music and doesn’t accept tips. She also mentions that Green!Martin doesn’t fit in Forest World and he would disappear when she blandishes it; Katherine agrees that while Garden World is peaceful, she thinks it’s bland, adding that while she once wished there were no Martin Dunklys in the world, life wouldn’t be fun without variety. Betti invites Katherine to work with her and she gives her 24 hours to consider her offer.

Returning to Forest World, Katherine encounters Green!Martin who asks her out to his mum’s woodchipping mill, but she turns him down. She meets with Ben and tells him that he will have to leave, because she has decided to stand against Betti and Betti will be coming after her…

Episode 23: Martinmania

Returning to the arc now. Green!Martin, Red!Martin and Silver!Martin are recruited into Betti’s enterprise with Blue!Martin (but not Yellow!Martin?) as she takes them to the house on Circe Island. Betti asks them for Katherine’s whereabouts, and she also learns from Silver!Martin that Ben is still alive, but she abandons him when Silver!Martin’s mum doesn’t know where Ben is. Green!Martin denies seeing Katherine and Blue!Martin and Red!Martin become suspicious of him being an aberrant…

Back in the forest hut, Ben refuses to leave even when Katherine insists that he has to. He notices a hexagonal-shaped spot in the rug faded by the sun (or rather, not faded) and Mundi says that Otto used to have a hexagonal-shaped stand, or pedestal, with a glass orb on top of it. They borrow the stand from the local Mrs Dawes, but they can’t find the orb. Mundi turns on the lights and the three notice a faulty light, which they realise could be the orb. Ben takes the orb down and they examine it; when he and Katherine put their hands on it, the orb activates and plays a video, namely a replay of Otto’s story. It turns out that Otto’s world was destroyed by Betti, becoming what is now known as Desert World. Katherine deduces that the orb is the reason why the forest hut is a sanctuary against the Welkin and the Krellicks.

Red!Martin finds a stave (hidden in a book that Betti took from the library in Katherine’s World) and fights with Blue!Martin over it, causing a mess in the house. They pin it on Green!Martin before the Martins are told to go and find Katherine and Ben. Blue!Martin confronts Green!Martin and offers to help him save his skin in exchange for Katherine and Ben’s location. Green!Martin does so before he rushes back to Forest World to warn the two; by the time Betti arrives at the hut with Blue!Martin, neither the two Guardians nor the orb are there…

Episode 24: The Reading Room

In Ben’s World, Red!Francis jumps off Madfish Rocks and gets freaked out by a strange feeling in the water emanating from another orb nearby. Meanwhile, Ben and Katherine take the orb from Forest World to Red!Francis’ surf shack, where they realise that it only activates when they both touch it, meaning that if only full-blood Guardians can use the orb, they each have 50% Guardian blood in them. This also raises the issue that Veronica shouldn't have been able to keep eyes on her Ben and Katherine when she gave them their tests, but maybe she went in through the portals when they weren't looking and that was how she knew, because there is no way that Veronica would have been able to access the Reading Room on her own, but more about that in a bit.

Katherine deduces that the worlds in the Parallax aren’t lined up in a straight line, but in a series of half-hexagons, a shape that we’ve been seeing during the scene transitions, and a shape that the characters know from the portal signs. Red!Francis comes into his shack and becomes freaked out at the sight of the orb; he tells Ben and Katherine about it, which leads Ben to realise that he will have to go underwater to get it. Katherine offers to get the orb alone, but Ben insists on going with her, deciding to conquer his fear of the water because the orbs are the key to everything.

It’s revealed that Veronica has been moved to Garden World and is asking around about Mrs Dawes, but Betti reveals to her that Mrs Dawes is redundant in this world with no one using the portals, or maybe she had her dealt with, I dunno.

Ben and Katherine head to Madfish Rocks, Red!Francis and Belinda dealing with Red!Martin on the way, and together, they make the jump and find the orb. The two of them touch it, and they find themselves in a room with the Parallax sign on the floor and a giant version of it on the wall with a screen; they have arrived in the Reading Room, and the stave has turned gold. Using the stave, they can look into each of the worlds and their histories; as such, they find Veronica in Garden World, but they don’t know how to get out. As Red!Francis and Belinda wonder what’s taking them so long, Ben and Katherine switch back to Ben’s World and they discover that walking forward makes them leave the Reading Room, and they emerge from the water.

As Ben and Katherine discuss their findings, Belinda tells them that they would be walking into a trap because they would be recognised. Katherine says that there is no other way, but Red!Francis says that there is and that nobody would recognise him; seeing how Ben conquered his fear of the water, Red!Francis decides to conquer his fear of the Parallax.

Are we there yet, Alec and Shanna? Nearly there? That's great. Episodes 25 and 26, the series finale, will be left for the final part, which will also include my analysis of the series and the characters in general.

[yeonchi]

Parallax Retrospective Part 2: Episodes 9-16

Back in primary school when me and my friends were playing our games, nobody drilled it into me to watch this series on TV so I while I did recognise a lot of references from Parallax, I didn't necessarily have the best understanding of them. The series has been up on YouTube since 2012-13, but I didn't seriously watch the series until recently when I finally got around to doing this retrospective. I have watched the series on-and-off over the years so by now I understand the differences between the Parallax in this series and the Parallax we adapted in our game.

Alec, Shanna, how are we doing? Good? Okay then. Let's continue with episodes 9-16.

Episode 9: The Big Sleep Over

While Jeremy goes fishing, Ben is shown hanging out with his Parallax friends. Veronica comes over to Ben (making Francis and co run off) and tells him that she wants to give him and Veronica a test so as to initiate them into the Parallax. She gives Ben and Katherine their own quests, sending them into Desert World - orange and Forest World respectively.

In Desert World, Ben digs himself out of the sand and marks an X nearby with some rocks, not knowing that they formed part of the Parallax portal sign. Ben was given a bottle of water which he soon drinks up while exploring, and one energy bar despite Veronica saying that there were six, forcing him to forage for food as well. After ending up at a purple sea and staying the night, Ben comes across a dead Krellick which still has some meat on it; with nothing else to eat, he gathers up some of the dried Krellick flesh for himself (which as he later notes, tastes like chicken). 24 hours later, Ben ends up back at the portal, and after reassembling the portal sign, he makes it back to his world, while somehow not touching anything to jump back.

In Forest World, Katherine finds herself at a party being held in her honour. Katherine isn’t much for singing or dancing, particularly given the laws of her world, but with the encouragement of Mundi and Green!Martin, who is less of a dick in this world than his other counterparts (and yet he still manages to be a dick anyway), Katherine learns to chill out and enjoy herself in the moment as she stays the night in the hut with Mundi. She also discovers that she enjoys singing.

In a minor subplot, Melinda gives herself a makeover and goes to Ben’s World, but is soon annoyed by Red!Martin and gets away from him. Melinda goes back to her world just as Ben and Katherine return from their worlds. They report back to Veronica and she points out to them what they needed to learn, implying that she was watching over them from afar. We’ll get back to that.

Episode 10: The Martin Crimes

Everyone in the Parallax is tired of Martin's dickery; Red!Martin pushes Ben into the surf, Blue!Martin ruins Stefan’s paintings by throwing them in the mud, Silver!Martin leaves a scared Due out in a storm when she refuses to tell him where Una is, Yellow!Martin steals a tarp from Francis Zapmeister’s house, leaving his mum’s tie-dye shirts out in the rain to ruin.

The group gets together and they hatch a plan to get back at all the Martins. They lure the Martins to their respective portals and into Forest World, where they are then lured to Mundi’s hut. As all the Martins come in, they have a bit of an identity crisis before the group lets the Martins out and takes them back to their respective worlds. They are left horrified, yet suspicious…

Episode 11: The World According To Betti

The series so far has been made up of standalone adventures, but from this episode on, we begin the series’ main story arc.

As Francis Zapmeister arrives in Techno World again, he is being stalked by a Spy Boy. In that world’s Werrinup, the Tangerine Alpha Man, a DJ hologram is coming to play at a gig (why would he be coming on the river if he was a hologram), and Una invites Francis to join. When Due points out that Silver!Francis will be there too, Francis decides that he just has to dress up like him and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

Meanwhile, Veronica finds Katherine and gives her her mother’s necklace for her birthday; she initially refuses to accept it because Veronica won’t tell her the full story about why she walked out, but she takes it anyway.

Spy Boy’s employer arrives in Techno World Werrinup as well; she has him approach Francis Zapmeister with the prototype Gemini7 video camera and offer it to him for a few minutes of his time. His employer, a woman resembling Veronica named Betti, meets Francis and reveals to him that he isn’t of this world and that she also knows about the Parallax. Betti convinces Francis to use the Gemini7 to film his friends and the Parallax, but of course, this is just a part of her plan…

Katherine goes to Ben’s World to find Veronica; she doesn’t find her in her pottery room, but she finds an album filled with baby photos of her, proving that Veronica was watching over her even when she was absent (I know that these are likely photos of her actress, but the angles on those photos just beggars belief given that she was supposed to be hiding from her tbh). This leads Katherine to reconcile with Veronica.

Meanwhile, Julia is coming back to town and Red!Francis wants to show off his surfing skills to her, so he gets Ben to bring Julia to the beach. Francis Zapmeister begins filming around the Parallax, which is also being watched by Betti and the Spy Boy, but Ben covers up the camera when Francis points it at him. This only proves to Ben that Francis hasn’t changed as a thief.

Francis returns to Betti and gives back the camera, but she suggests that he go and bring Ben to her so she can explain the situation to him. He tries to do so, but Ben can’t leave the beach until Red!Francis gets his wave (and the waves are flat today). When Francis goes back to Betti, she shares her worldview with him; in each world, 91.3% of people exist within a 17.62% mean personality average, and the remaining 8.7% are the aberrants, the people who cause chaos and confusion in the world. By weeding out the aberrants, there can be no wars, no famines, and people can be happier overall. Betti intends on using the water to blandish the worlds, causing the aberrants who drink it to disappear into water vapour. Francis realises that Betti is telling him this because he is an aberrant (at least by this world’s standards) and he quickly gets up and leaves.

Back in Ben’s World, Ben, Tiff and Julia watch Red!Francis trying to catch a wave, but he ends up crashing out.

At a drink stand/outdoor bar, Francis tries to find a way to get out of his date with Una when he sees Silver!Francis coming along. Francis hides as Betti approaches Silver!Francis, seemingly offering the drink to him; he drinks it and he is blandished, causing Francis to realise that it was meant for him…

Episode 12: The Curse of the Incredibly Bad News

Una finds herself being ghosted by Francis Zapmeister while Silver!Francis' parents are looking for him to no avail. Francis tells Ben about what happened in Techno World, then he freaks out upon seeing Veronica (he wasn’t there to see her in Forest World back then) and leaves, Veronica recognising the name Betti. Veronica rushes to the portal and gets there before Francis does. She learns that Betti is close to her world and tells Francis to go back to his own world, revealing that Betti is, in fact, her twin sister, and was the one behind the Welkin and Krellicks.

Veronica packs up to leave her world with Ben, but he refuses to leave; Jeremy comes into the room, knowing about the current situation and Ben learns that Jeremy isn’t his biological father, but Stefan is. Hands up everyone who managed to figure this out without spoilers. Ben runs off and Veronica tells Jeremy everything about the Parallax and her situation.

Una and Due hide out in Hippie World waiting for Francis. Una meets Yellow!Fortuna while Due meets Yellow!Martin before disappearing to the shore below. Una finds Francis at his house before they find Due being worshipped by the locals offering things to her. Francis explains to Una that he ghosted her because of his encounter with Betti.

Ben goes to meet Stefan and with some difficulty, confesses to him that he is his son and that Veronica is still alive. As they go for a walk, Veronica finds Katherine and takes her to Forest World. She explains that Betti must have found out about Ben from when the Welkin bit him the other time; Veronica left Katherine when she found out that she was pregnant with Ben, because their Guardian blood together was practically summoning the Welkin and Krellicks to them. At Mundi’s hut, Katherine learns that its previous owner was a Guardian named Otto, who left “many seasons ago”. Veronica goes back to Ben to tell him and Stefan where they are.

Episode 13: Decoy

As Ben continues to struggle over what is happening, Stefan manages to convince him to go to Forest World. They have to evade from Martin at the rocks so they head to the other portal at the library. Ben tries to find the Parallax symbol at the portal, but when Mrs Dawes is about to come downstairs, they decide to go through to Hippie World first before they jump to Forest World from there. Ben tells Stefan about the Parallax as well.

Inside Mundi’s hut, Veronica notes that it acts like a sanctuary, meaning the Welkin and Krellicks won’t be able to detect them if they are inside. She explains to Ben that when she left Katherine’s World, Jeremy took her in and gave her a job and a place to live. Ben is still unwilling to accept the truth, but Mundi convinces him to think about his mum’s situation instead of himself. Bit hard for Ben to do that when he barely has an idea of who Betti is, but ok.

That night, Veronica leaves the hut and goes through the portal to Techno World, using the same code everyone used for all the other worlds ARGGGHHHH- and lets herself be bitten by a Welkin. As the others work out what to do the next morning, Betti begins roaming the worlds in search for Ben, the male Guardian that the Welkin bit. Francis manages to warn Belinda and Red!Francis about her, and Red!Francis informs Jeremy who is well aware of what is happening. Sure enough, Betti does come to Ben’s house, but Jeremy manages to tell her that Veronica left and that they never had any children (which is technically true). Betti leaves the house and a red Welkin lands on her arm.

Back in Forest World, Katherine and Ben stage a fight and the latter lures Stefan off while the former gets Melinda and goes to Ben’s house, where she learns that Veronica gave herself up as bait for Betti. At the same time, Ben admits the deception to Stefan and they head to Techno World. Una and Due find Ben and tell him that they saw Veronica and Betti near the dock. Everyone gathers at the dock, where they see Betti shoot Veronica with a purple beam from her stave before sailing away…

Episode 14: Too Many Chiefs

In Forest World, Mundi gives Katherine her mum’s stave, saying that she left it for her. Ben returns home and explains to Jeremy what happened; they sit down and Jeremy tries to convince him that maybe he didn’t see the whole thing unfold properly and that Veronica just disappeared. I mean, he’s technically right, Betti wouldn’t want to kill Veronica until she can deal with Ben because a male Guardian was what she found, but come on, the guy just lost his mum, for crying out loud. Jeremy tells Ben to face his problem head-on before he heads back.

Meanwhile, Katherine sends Stefan and Melinda back to her world so they can keep an eye on things. She then goes back to Mundi and tests out the stave that Veronica left her.

After Ben goes back to the forest hut, he gets bored of Katherine and Mundi examining the stave and goes to Hippie World to find Francis Zapmeister, but he is unwilling to go back into the Parallax in case he runs into Betti. It’s then that Una comes with an idea; she and Francis buy some Gemini7 units modified to operate on the same frequency, then they each take one and give the other two to Red!Francis and the Green!Francis of Forest World, forming the FrancisCam network that they can use to update each other, and Red!Francis doesn’t have to go through a portal (because he hates the idea of encountering other versions of himself).

At the same time, Ben goes to Techno World and searches for Spy Boy with Due, Ben having been warned about Spy Boy from Francis. Ben manages to spot Spy Boy and trails him back to the e-waste dump, where he locks him inside an abandoned limousine. Using the FrancisCam network, Katherine is informed of Ben’s peril and goes to rescue him, using her stave to get Ben out of the limousine before it is destroyed by bulldozers that are unmanned for some reason.

As the group gather back at Mundi’s hut, they are soon greeted with a surprise; Red!Tiffany had managed to follow Ben into Forest World and she wants to join…

Episode 15: Ex-Ben

Katherine and Ben argue over what to do with Tiffany; Katherine tries telling the truth to her, but Tiff, being the bimbo that she is, doesn’t believe it; she only seems to believe it when Ben tells her that dinosaurs used to live in the forest.

In Ben’s World, Veronica has seemingly returned home, but it’s actually Betti disguising herself as her. Red!Francis becomes suspicious of “Veronica” when she gives him an apple because he hates apples and Veronica knows that. He tells Jeremy that Betti must have come looking for Ben because she didn’t believe Jeremy about him and Veronica not having any children. Jeremy tells Francis that he needs to go to Ben’s room and get rid of any evidence that Ben exists, which he does with Una and Belinda’s help.

Meanwhile, Katherine goes to Techno World after the FrancisCam network reports a sighting of her there. She goes onto her boat to search for Veronica while Due keeps a look out; she fails to find anything, but she drops a handkerchief while leaving which is discovered by Betti at the end of the episode. She learns from Due that Betti is at Ben’s house impersonating Veronica and she storms over there to confront her; Katherine presses Betti into revealing herself and the deception is exposed, but there is nothing else they can do but let her leave.

Back in Forest World, Ben learns that a Mrs Dawes exists there as well and realises that there has to be another portal nearby. Man, the Parallax must be a small world if the two portals are both located within the same town. They find the Parallax symbol and they head there, but there is a Krellick nest under it. As Ben and Mundi run from the approaching Krellick, Ben finds another stave nearby, which must have belonged to Otto…

Episode 16: Dad Meets Dad

Now with a stave of his own, Ben reimagines how his first encounter with the Welkin could have been if he knew what to do with the stave. Ben climbs back into his room through the window and notices that his stuff is gone; in the last episode we saw that it was just strewn all over the roof, but I guess they couldn’t risk it in case Betti came back. Anyway, Ben decides that they need everyone they can get so he proposes getting Jeremy and Stefan in on it as well. Jeremy and Stefan don’t think the other person will do much good, and when they meet in Forest World, the tension is palpable.

As they form an action plan to deal with Betti, Ben and Katherine fight over who should be the leader of their team, and Jeremy and Stefan taking sides doesn’t help things. The two dads walk out and Katherine sends Melinda to look out for them, Melinda frustrated about being the errand girl. Ben inadvertently tunes into Betti’s stave and they listen into her conversation with Veronica, insisting that the Guardian she is looking for will see things her way. Veronica realises that her children are listening to her and Betti through the stave and she stages a conversation with her to tell her children that “her pots are the centre of her universe”.

Meanwhile, Una and Due go to visit Francis in Hippie World and they catch him two-timing with Yellow!Fortuna. Francis goes to Techno World to reconcile with Una and Due, but Silver!Martin reports him to Policeman Garcia for staging his own disappearance. It’s then that Melinda, Jeremy and Stefan arrive and the two dads get Francis out of this jam, leaving Garcia and Silver!Martin in the river.

Regrouping at the hut, Ben and Katherine tell their dads about what they learnt. Jeremy points out the obvious to everyone; there’s multiple versions of himself, Francis, Melinda, Mrs Dawes, and even Martin, but there’s only one Veronica, Ben, Katherine, and Stefan, maybe Mundi as well but we’ll come back to that. Jeremy and Stefan shake hands.

We'll get out of the Reading Room soon enough, but first, there's still the second half of the series to cover. We'll continue next time with episodes 17-24.

[yeonchi]

Parallax Retrospective Part 1: Episodes 1-8

Hey everyone, I'm writing this from the Parallax universe (the one from the actual show, not the one from Soulbound). To sum up our situation in short, Alec and Shanna have decided to part ways with me and return to their universe. I went with them and we got into a bit of a situation. Now we're trapped in the Reading Room and we need to do a retrospective on the 2004 TV series Parallax in order to escape.

The series was filmed in Perth (and other areas in the southwest of WA) and it initially was broadcast on Channel 9 in Australia before it was replayed by the ABC. According to the official website it was also broadcast by the BBC as well, the series also having been co-produced by them.

Parallax was one of the inspirations behind me and my friends' adventures in primary school, among others such as Doctor Who and Dynasty Warriors. Those events formed what I call the Parallax War, which I've mentioned in Kisekae Insights; I tried to remember as much of those events as I could for Soulbound, but in the end I just decided to do my own thing with it. Regardless, some elements from Parallax were still there as Soulbound was originally supposed to be a retelling of the Parallax War, and therefore, a tribute to the TV series.

Please enjoy these quick retrospectives of the entire series that I'm only deciding to properly watch now, over 20 years since its premiere on Australian television. You can watch the entire series through this playlist on YouTube. You can also find episode plots here.

We begin with episodes 1-8 after the break.

(This retrospective has been timeshifted. It originally takes place after the Warriors Orochi 3 retrospective and the 2024 In Review Post, and before the Dynasty Warriors 8 retrospective.)

Episode 1: One Big Happy Family

For some reason, the first episode is 2-3 minutes shorter than all the other episodes, and that's because it was cut from the DVD movie. Yeah, apparently there was one DVD released for the series and it's a condensed version of the first 8 episodes made into a movie titled The Portal Opens (so basically this whole post).

We are introduced to Ben Johnson, a 14-year-old boy living in the town of Werrinup. Upon returning home, his sneakers are stolen by the mythical Werrinup Thief. After confiding in his best friend, the surfer boy Francis Short, Ben returns to town, where we meet characters like the mysterious old lady Mrs Irma Dawes, typical mean girls Melinda Bruce and Tiffany, and the town dick Martin Dunkly.

Ben attempts to use a Walkman to lure out the Werrinup Thief when he strikes right when he isn't looking; Ben manages to chase down the thief and gets a look at his face, which resembles that of Francis. Francis Thief (as he's called in the plot description to differentiate him from the Francis of Ben's World - red) manages to get away, implicating Ben for the crime.

Back at home, Ben sees Francis Thief and chases him to a storm drain which he goes through and disappears. Ben follows him through the drain and finds himself around some rocks. Having lost Francis, Ben walks around and hears a girl singing to herself before seeing his mum, Veronica, leaping around and zapping some bug-like creatures. Ben makes his way home, but neither his mum nor his dad are there; instead, he finds pictures of a girl in his room with his mum and a man who isn't his dad. It is then that Ben meets the girl, Katherine Raddic, who has never seen Ben before in her life, and her dad, Stefan. Ben learns that Katherine's mum abandoned her when she was young, leaving her and her dad with one of her pots.

Ben heads out and is stopped by Policeman Garcia, who arrests him for walking on the wrong side of the road, failing to answer a police siren and answering back to a police officer. Youth crime crisis amplified by US-style policing. OK, there is a reason for that; the Werrinup of this world, Katherine's World - blue, is a conservative world of overzealous law and order, where prohibitive signs like "keep off the grass" are everywhere. Ben is brought in front of the court, where he will be brought before the judge in an hour. Man, at least Ben gets a speedy trial instead of just being thrown in jail for months.

Katherine calls her world's Melinda (who wears glasses and is Katherine's bestie) over and they hatch a plan to free Ben from this clearly unlawful arrest. They are caught by the local librarian, Mrs Dawes, but Francis Thief manages to free Ben, telling him to go back to his world. Francis goes onto the grass and causes a distraction while Katherine follows Ben back to the rocks. Ben tells Katherine how there are apparently two Werrinups and Katherine tells Ben that Veronica is her mum as well. Neither of them believe each other and the two go through the portal to Ben's World.

Ben goes to meet his world's Francis, only for Francis Thief to show up behind him and return his sneakers. Ben learns that Francis Thief isn't from Katherine's World, but from a third world he doesn't know yet. At the same time, Veronica briefly goes to Ben's house and sees Veronica with Ben's dad, Jeremy. The two of them meet each other again at the portal; Veronica meets them as well and the bugs - known as Welkin - attack them before she zaps them with her stave. She tells Katherine that she needs to go back through the portal and that she and Ben cannot be together or they will die.

Episode 2: A Rare Find

Ben learns that his mum is a Guardian; despite trying to change the subject, Veronica insists that Jeremy cannot know about her true identity. Upstairs, Jeremy finds a portrait by a French artist named Lafayette (who once lived in Werrinup, apparently) under the floorboards.

Meanwhile, in Katherine's World, Martin's mum Olive, a real estate mogul, is foreclosing on Katherine's house so she can build townhouses. Ben takes Veronica's stave and goes into Katherine's World, causing a Welkin to come after them. In the chaos, Ben drops the stave into the grass, but Katherine manages to lure it to a sprinkler and discovers that the Welkin is weak to it before Ben whacks it into a pond.

Katherine wants Ben to go back to his world, but he refuses because he wants to find a way to save Katherine's house, so Melinda encourages Katherine to reconcile with her mum and she goes through to Ben's World just as Jeremy leaves the house to sell the portrait. Katherine tells Veronica about how she and Ben dealt with the Welkin, and Veronica is strangely nonchalant about Ben taking her stave even as she says that he needs training in order to use it.

With the bulldozers about to come and demolish Katherine's house, Ben opens the floorboards upstairs hoping that there is also a Lafayette portrait there, but he finds nothing. He tries to go back and borrow the drawing from his world, but when Belinda points out that a Welkin may come again because Katherine and his mum are there, Ben gets her to go instead.

Jeremy tries to tell the portrait in Red!Olive's antique shop; she hadn't heard of Lafayette so she doesn't buy the portrait, but she gives him $50 for the frame. Meanwhile, Veronica explains to Katherine that she left her to protect her and Ben, but she doesn't elaborate. Melinda meets with Katherine and tells her that she needs to get the Lafayette portrait to save her house. It is then that Jeremy comes back and is willing to give Katherine the drawing for free.

Stefan manages to stall Martin, Olive and the bulldozers until Katherine and Melinda come back with the portrait. Despite verifying it as genuine however, they fail to get the house heritage-listed. Katherine heads out and manages to sell the portrait to Olive for the value of the debt that Stefan owed her; because their laws allow for fair value paid, the bulldozers leave and Katherine's house is saved.

Returning to his mum, Ben learns from her that the portrait was worthless in his world and that Katherine knew about it. Veronica asks Ben where her stave is as we see that Francis Thief has picked it up...

Episode 3: The Artful Dodger

The episode begins in Francis Thief's world, Hippie World - yellow. As his parents tell him to get some gas and aspirin tablets, he heads to Katherine's World to steal them from there, but he is spotted and is forced to head to Ben's World. While hiding from Martin underneath a bridge, Francis manages to get away, but Martin takes the stave that he left behind. Melinda tells Katherine about this and she goes to Ben's World.

Meanwhile, Francis Thief sees Ben and Red!Francis as Red!Martin teases the former for his fear of water. After Martin does a dive, Francis Thief sees an opportunity to head into the showers and take Martin's clothes, leaving him embarrassed as he comes out. Francis Thief meets with Ben and takes back Martin's clothes, but he manages to make off with his MP3 player (damn what a throwback), leaving the local Francis to take the blame for it.

Ben heads off to find Francis Thief while Katherine finds Veronica and tells her that Blue!Martin has her stave. At the library in Katherine's World, Martin tests out the stave and sees that it can shoot through at least two books, while Melinda sees Francis Thief sneak down the stairs to another portal. Ben (presumably having followed Francis Thief there) arrives at the library and Melinda shows him to the portal that Francis Thief used, which Ben goes through.

Veronica explains to Katherine that the Welkin can smell the Guardian blood in the two of them because together, they formed enough of a signal for the Welkin to detect. Katherine asks her mum why the Welkin couldn't smell her and Ben, but Veronica changes the subject when they spot Melinda.

Ben wanders around Hippie World, which appears to be made up of many stalls with people trading things. He finds Francis Thief and learns that everyone in this world lives a seven-day weekend, making it a laid-back world with practically nobody working. Ben gets Red!Martin's MP3 player back and in exchange, he gives Francis some aspirin tablets. Ben goes back to his world, with Francis Thief following him, and with the help of Red!Francis, they hatch a plan to return Red!Martin his MP3 player while gaslighting him into thinking that he misplaced it. They do so by making Martin chase after one Francis while the other woos Tiffany at the milk bar/burger shop/whatever it's called. Martin is lured to the other Francis before Olive arrives and gives his MP3 player back to him, having found it under his bedside table.

Back in Katherine's world, Katherine is unable to get any further answers from Veronica, other than how powerful the former and Ben's blood can be when they are together and that there is a war going on in the Parallax. I've got a theory for the former, but we'll leave it for later. As Martin continues to examine the stave, a shot from it ricocheting off multiple objects and breaking a window causing an alarm to go off, Melinda comes in and offers to cover for him, with Katherine and Veronica backing her story. The three girls/women explain their story to Policeman Garcia while passing the stave back to Veronica.

Episode 4: Achey, Breaky Heart

Love and longing is in the air. In Ben's World, Martin is organising a dance party at his family's golf club and he plans on inviting the exchange student, Julia Dreamboat, who Red!Francis has a crush on (and yes, that's actually what her name says in the credits). Katherine arrives, much to Ben's dismay as gets roped into organising a dance party of his own, with the local Melinda up for stake since Ben and Martin both seem to have a crush on her, I guess, but was there any indication that Ben had a crush on Red!Melinda?

Back home, Veronica is happy to attend the 50's-themed rock-and-roll dance and Jeremy is happy to gather a band even though it is being put together on very short notice. Katherine intends on bringing Blue!Melinda and Stefan to the dance, the latter with the intention of having Veronica fall in love with him again.

As Ben helps set up the hall on the day of the dance, Red!Francis manages to ask Julia out for the dance while Francis Thief brings Ben a 50's-themed suit, on condition that he attends as well. It is then that Katherine and Blue!Melinda arrive to tell Ben that the latter is coming to the dance and they float the idea of having everyone wear masks, making things even more complicated for Ben.

The dance event comes, but the band's main singer is stuck on the road and unable to make it. Francis Thief heads off to deal with the problem while Katherine brings Blue!Melinda and Stefan to the dance, the latter being blindfolded so he won't know that he went through a portal. In an effort to stall things, Ben ropes Olive into singing before Francis Thief comes in with a surprise for everyone; the King of Rock'n'Roll, who apparently lives in Hippie World. Ben "accidentally" spills a drink on Stefan and when he goes to a side room to dry himself off, Veronica sees him and the two dance together in secret.

Later, Red!Francis becomes exhausted and Francis Thief offers to tag in for him. Ben and Blue!Melinda see Martin dancing with Red!Melinda. Blue!Melinda does a bamboozle on Martin which leads Red!Melinda to break up with him and dance with Ben instead. Red!Francis and Julia become an item and offer to be penpals thanks to Francis Thief's help. Veronica and Stefan can't seem to shake off their familiar feelings for one another and the former leaves, asking Katherine to take the latter home.

Episode 5: Lost In Paradise

Melinda complains to Katherine about how she never has any fun in her world. She storms off into Ben's World and she notices on both sides of the portal a six-shaped star before going to the library and rolling around on the grass. Red!Martin finds Melinda and spots something off about her before she asks him to buy her a milkshake. Melinda is spotted by her dad, who is actually Red!Melinda's dad, and he takes her to Red!Mrs Dawes' chook farm to get some eggs. Melinda runs off to do so, despite the fact that Red!Melinda hates chickens, and while hiding in the chicken coop, she falls back through another portal, which leads to a rubbish dump full of e-waste.

Melinda's mum calls Katherine after seeing that she hasn't come home yet. Katherine enlists Ben and Francis Thief's help to find Melinda. Ben learns from Red!Martin that Melinda is at home, where she is grounded for missing piano lessons and hiding in Mrs Dawes' chicken coop. Katherine and Francis Thief notice the star signs near the portals and they realise that each world has two portals, or doors, and they work out where the other portal in Ben's World is.

At the same time, Ben arrives at Mrs Dawes' farm and spots a chicken, Florence, coming in from a portal in the coop. Heading through, Ben walks around the dump and finds Melinda. Sure enough, Katherine and Francis Thief find the portal as well. Francis and Ben find a lot of brand new gadgets in the dump - wow, Parallax predicted planned obsolescence. With the bulldozers constantly moving rubbish around, the four find themselves having to search for the portal when they see a Welkin coming after them. While trying to fend off the Welkin, it bites Ben's arm and turns red before flying off. Another Welkin comes and after knocking it away and restraining it, they kill it by spitting on it. With some crawling creatures and more Welkin coming after them, the four head back through the portal and leave before Mrs Dawes can find them.

Episode 6: One Man's Rubbish

Francis Thief goes back and forth from the e-waste dump, stashing his finds in Ben’s world because he doesn’t want to share it with anyone in Hippie World. Ben plots to hide it in Katherine’s World (because he doesn’t want to send it back to the dump for some reason), but Katherine and Melinda find it and send it back to Ben’s World. After some back-and-forth, Blue!Martin manages to catch Katherine in possession of stolen goods. Of course, in this world, possession is 99/100ths of the law, so Martin makes a citizen’s arrest and takes her into town. Veronica manages to find them and tells Martin that the goods are hers, and of course, being a tourist, she believes that the laws don’t apply to her. She manages to talk Katherine out of the situation before they take the goods back to the dump. Veronica tries to stop Katherine from playing in the Parallax in an effort to protect her, but she refuses to listen after Veronica abandoned her and her dad years ago.

Meanwhile, back at the dump, Francis climbs up a mountain and sees this world’s Werrinup; this is Techno World - silver, a world with “tomorrow’s technology at yesterday’s prices”, and its main residents are sisters Una (short for Fortuna) and Due. Silver!Martin impresses the girls on his bike before Francis Thief sabotages him, leaving him stuck on his bike as he stacks himself. Una and Due meet Francis Thief and he learns that Silver!Martin is Una’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, at least until this moment when she becomes enamoured with Francis. Silver!Martin finds Francis Thief and challenges him to a race on paddleboats; sure enough, Martin wins, but Una is more interested in Francis at this point.

Episode 7: Artes Veritas

There’s a clown show on in Ben’s World. Meanwhile in Katherine’s World, the Dunklys are foreclosing on her house again, but Stefan hopes that his upcoming art exhibition will raise them enough money again. Katherine complains to Melinda and when she is too proud to ask Veronica or Ben for help, Melinda offers to do it for her. Ben takes another Lafayette portrait from his house and takes it to the portal. After Melinda goes through, Ben trips over and touches two points on the portal sign, which begins glowing. Ben goes through and instead of ending up at the rocks in Katherine’s World, he ends up in a forest.

In Forest World - green, Ben runs from the crawling creatures last seen at the dump - known as Krellicks - and meets its main resident, a girl named Mundi, who helps Ben up onto a tree away from the Krellicks before taking him to her hut atop a steel path high above the ground. Ben asks Mundi for a couple of sticks and he uses them as stilts to get back to the portal, but the Krellicks keep snipping at them and he is forced to abandon them before going up a tree to evade them. He realises that he touched two points back at his portal, so if he touches the two points in reverse, he should be able to get back to his world. Sure enough, he manages to do so.

Meanwhile, Melinda sees that Ben hasn’t come through and when she sees that he isn’t on the other side, she goes to Red!Francis and has him tell Veronica about Katherine’s situation. Later, Stefan’s art exhibition is received rather coldly until Veronica comes through in disguise as a famous American art dealer and upsells Stefan’s paintings to everyone as she buys one herself, which makes everyone else want one for themselves. Katherine’s house is saved once again.

Ben learns from Veronica that travelling through the Parallax is like hopping, skipping and jumping; they can hop to the next world by walking through the portal and they can jump to distant worlds by pressing on points on the portal sign, but skipping is more complicated. Obviously, this means that theoretically, one could jump from Hippie World to Techno World and skip Ben and Katherine’s worlds, but the intricacies of this are not explained (clearly) nor is such a thing ever tried in the series. It is then that we learn that Ben was scratched by a Krellick in Forest World…

Episode 8: The Battle of Mundi’s World

The sports carnival is on in Ben’s World, but Ben can’t participate because he is suffering from the effects of the Krellick scratch, which has become painful and is making him suffer from blackouts and puking up purple. Red!Francis takes Ben home and Veronica sends him straight to bed.

Meanwhile in Techno World, Una and Due get bored of Francis Thief - now calling himself Francis Zapmeister - showing them all the cool games he found, and he offers to take them into the Parallax.

Katherine goes to confront Veronica over her buying one of Stefan’s paintings to save her house, which she is thankful for, if begrudgingly. She learns about Ben’s condition as well and while Veronica says that the effects could go away in a week, there is an antidote - boiled Krellick tail drunk neat.

Francis takes Una and Due to Katherine’s World, where they meet Katherine and Melinda. Katherine offers to make some drinks for the girls while Francis bounces back to see Ben. Francis tells Ben about his new friends while Ben tells Francis how to get to Forest World to get a Krellick tail for him. Sure enough, he goes back to Katherine’s World to take Una and Due, and Melinda tags along for the ride as well.

Here’s where we have a little snag; in this scene we see the group going to Forest World from Katherine's World, whereas Ben ended up there from his own world. In both cases, they entered the same code to get to Forest World, so we can see that the code system is unique to each world and not relative to the world that the user is currently in, which is why there isn't a scene where Francis finds out he’s in the wrong world. However, this implies that Ben got back to his own world through dumb luck.

Anyway, Francis, Una and Due meet Mundi, who tells them that Krellicks are weak to water (like the Welkin). Francis goes back to his world and Una follows him, which leads us to another snag; on the tree portal, Francis touches the two points he used to get to Forest World in reverse and it glows yellow, implying that he would go to Hippie World when it should be red for Ben’s World (because it glowed green when it led to Forest World). I could forgive this given that we don’t see where they end up, but a couple episodes later, we see Katherine using the same code in Forest World to get back to her world. Yeah, this breaks the immersion for me here because we never know exactly what other jumps they could make or how the portal signs work. But moving on.

At the same time, Melinda arrives in Forest World as well and Mundi throws down a rope to bring her up. Francis and Una return with water pistols for the others, and they work together to take out a bunch of Krellicks. Katherine comes in on her own (after realising where Melinda and co went) and cuts the tail off a Krellick before she finds Francis and the others surrounded by Krellicks. Just as Francis goes to get more water (and doesn’t come back btw), Veronica leaps in with her stave and takes out the rest of the Krellicks, saving the group.

After sending everyone home, Veronica gives Ben the antidote, which tastes as disgusting as it sounds. Soon enough, he is able to participate in the sports carnival with Red!Francis.

We're starting to make progress on getting out. Next time, we take a look at episodes 9-16.

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective: Top 15 things I learnt about the Koei Warriors series

2025 marks the 25th anniversary of Dynasty Warriors 2, the game that really got the series going.

Working on the Koei Warriors Retrospective was an experience in self-reflection. Back in 2014 when I was doing the Koei Warriors Rant Series, my main focus was on getting answers for why Koei Tecmo weren't dubbing their games or speculating how things can be better. Years later, after playing the games and learning about things behind the scenes, I've come to realise that maybe I was ranting out of entitlement, out of my own toxic nostalgia, because before I started playing the games on my new gaming PC, I never realised that there was more to the Koei Warriors series than English dubbing and localisation. Koei Tecmo and their fanboys shouldn't be absolved of any blame I've lobbed at them over the years, let's get that right.

Because of how fans tend to speculate on things and form opinions based on the opinions of others, misconceptions can spread easily like rumours. One of the reasons why I did the Koei Warriors Retrospective was to set the record straight on these misconceptions, but with each instalment being as long as they are and the rants buried beneath each mainline instalment, things can become forgotten with time. Even if I were to post these on YouTube or Reddit, there is only so much I can do to change people's misconceptions.

I wanted to repost the rants as a mini-series, but I'm leaning against doing it because the lengths of the rants are unbalanced, I have rants outside of the designated rant sections and surely I'm above reposting snippets of old posts for content. As such, here are the top 15 things I learnt about the Koei Warriors series from the Retrospective. Keep in mind that these are mostly behind-the-scenes things and it's not basic knowledge like "the numbering of DW is one more in the West" or "the classic series had charge locks and rankings"; these are things that I think hardcore fans need to know about the games.

#15: Battlefield remasters

"Battlefield remasters were things in DW7 and 8."

There are some fans out there that have expressed their interest in remasters of the classic era games, most notably DW2-5, a sentiment that is no doubt being highlighted by all the current-gen remakes and remasters that have come out in recent years. Some modern era games have also been re-released in recent years on Nintendo Switch or PC, implementing PS4 graphics, 4K resolutions and all the DLC included and unlocked from the start.

The thing is, though, remasters of the classic era games do exist, but not really in the way you expected. I'm talking about the remake throwback battles from the DLC of DW7 and 8. In their money-grubbing autoerotic assetflipsiation, Koei Tecmo have taken battles from classic era games and remastered them with 7 and 8's battle mechanics. The throwback battles included in the Conquest Mode DLC are essentially a full remake of Dynasty Warriors 2 (given that 7 celebrated 2's 10th anniversary), then the other throwback battles in 7XL's Legend Mode/DLC and 8's DLC are just selected battles from 3-5XL.

I'm sure people would like to see remasters of the classic era games, implementing things like HD/4K graphics, XL/Empires bundling, removal of charge lock, preventing enemy officers in DW2 from rehealing... more than once, nerfing the archers in DW3, and trophies and achievements. The truth is, from what I can observe at least, Koei Tecmo doesn't seem to have any interest in doing this, so fans honestly shouldn't be getting their hopes over their heads about classic era remasters. Sure, Koei Tecmo re-releasing the modern era games has proven that they can do anything if they wanted to, but the modern era has been so focused on being nostalgic and "more of the same" that we ended up getting DW9 and Tomohiko Shō took great pains to bring the series back to the classic era with Origins.

The damage control is over and Koei Tecmo needs to continue moving on.

(UPDATE: Yes, I'm aware that there's going to be a remaster coming out. I guess Koei Tecmo can really do anything now, huh?)

#14: Xtreme Legends

"Xtreme Legends expansions contain the content of the vanilla game on the disc."

Before I started replaying the classic series games for the Retrospective, I played the Complete Editions of DW7 and 8 on PC - I never bought 5XL or any other Xtreme Legends game on the PS2. Because of that, I assumed that "importing" the vanilla game meant having the entire disc loaded onto what I now know is a meagre amount of RAM; when I actually looked into it, I realised that XL only uses a file on the vanilla disc named after its serial number to validate that it was the correct disc for its region (so you can't play a US copy of XL with an EU copy of the vanilla game), then it would unlock the vanilla game modes that were on the XL disc all along.

When I got the classic series games, I took consideration to the existence of the Xtreme Legends expansions and aimed to get the games in a way that wouldn't require me to keep the vanilla ISOs on my hard drive. For the USA English versions, there are ways that you can patch ISOs or use cheats to skip the "import" process, but because I elected to play the Japanese versions, I could only merge the ISOs because there was no equivalent cheat or patch. The ISO of DW5XL I got was already patched, but for DW3, DW4 or SW1, I only needed to copy a few files from the vanilla ISO that amounted to a few megabytes (DW3 might have needed a bit more than that). I still needed to go through the "import" process, but all I needed to do was press Start or select the XL ISO twice in the menu. For SW2 and 3, I was playing the PS3 ports that already had the XL content unlocked, and for DW7 and 8, I had the Complete Edition PC ports.

DW8 was the final Warriors game to receive Xtreme Legends expansions because Capcom would sue Koei Tecmo in 2014 for violating a patent they had relating to the "import" process even though they never seemed to use it in their games. Honestly though, this was for the best because the XL gimmick made players pay twice to get all the content while also making the vanilla game a paperweight for non-hardcore players. Plus, DLCs and expansion packs were more popular by that time anyway, so it was time for Koei Tecmo to keep up with the times.

#13: What's in a name

"Tomohiko Shō is the reason why the Western numbering is off."

This was a more recent thing that Shō talked about in the leadup to the 25th anniversary of Dynasty Warriors 2 so it wasn't covered initially, but I added it in once I learnt about it. Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to cover this "basic knowledge", but surely this is deep enough for it not to count?

As we all know, the numbering of Dynasty Warriors games in the West is one more than that of Japan. In Japan, the games are titled Shin Sangoku Musou (真・三國無双) where the first game didn't have the Shin prefix. According to Shō, DW2 was being developed as 三國無双2, but at some point, he randomly wrote 真・三國無双 on some internal documents, which was never picked up and therefore, that became the official title in Japan while the localised name became Dynasty Warriors 2. Shō pointed out that maybe Koei didn’t think that the series would continue in the long term, but in all honesty, the Western numbering was a logical continuation and it probably would have been difficult or awkward to implement the 真 part in the localised name.

Mind you, Warriors Orochi 2, Japanese name 無双OROCHI 魔王再臨, was named that way in the West because Koei presumably didn't know if there was going to be another Warriors Orochi game after that. They could have named it Warriors Orochi: Return of the Serpent King, but that name seems like a mouthful.

#12: Classic era farewell

"Warriors Orochi was a farewell to the sixth generation of video gaming."

As development on DW5 started, there were rumours about the PlayStation 3's development, so Omega Force thought that it would be the last DW title on the PS2. The launch of the Xbox 360 was also imminent, but knowing Japan, they didn't take it into consideration because the Xbox was a Microsoft brand that was more popular in the West.

DW5, specifically the Special port for the Xbox 360, started what I call the transition between the classic and modern eras of Koei Warriors games, coinciding with the transition between the sixth and seventh eras of video games. Since the tenth anniversary of the Warriors series was coming up in 2007, Koei Tecmo decided to create Warriors Orochi, a crossover game combining characters from Dynasty Warriors 5 and Samurai Warriors 2. It also served as a farewell to the PS2 and Xbox and fanservice for developers and fans alike.

The transition continued with DW6 being released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, bringing the Sony side of things into the HD era. Warriors Orochi and its continuation (2) became so popular that a sequel (3) was released in 2011, now using characters from DW7 and SW3. Another sequel (4) was released in 2018 using characters from DW8 and SW4, but it wasn't as good.

#11: Striving for perfection

"Each Warriors game is a culmination of what came before it."

This is something I learnt from Tomohiko Shō's tweets during the leadup to DWOrigin's release. Every game series strives to evolve with each entry, Dynasty Warriors notwithstanding, hence each Warriors game tends to be a culmination of what came before it. The Xtreme Legends expansions were also created to take in feedback from players and answer fan requests while the next mainline game was in development.

The timeline of Koei Warriors games during the classic era coincided with the launches of the PS2 and PS3, and Shō aimed for Omega Force to create the best game they could create for that console, taking advantage of each console's capabilities to the fullest. DW5 was created to be a culmination of the PS2 era while DW6 was developed to take advantage of the PS3's hardware.

With Shō returning to produce DWOrigins, he aimed to make a game that took full advantage of the PS5's capabilities and was also a culmination of the entire series, bringing back features like duels, castle sieges, multiple weapon movesets, hypothetical stories and increased enemy AI difficulty. Given how DWOrigins turned out, it can truly be said to be the best game they created for the 2020s.

#10: Experiment as you go

"Koei Tecmo likes to experiment (with ports and expansions)."

With ephemeral materials like clothing, entertainment and technology, companies need to learn to innovate, adapt with the times and evolve. Sure, you could focus on doing one thing to the best of your ability, but when you have all sorts of competition out there vying for fans and revenue, you can't afford to remain stagnant.

Quite a few consoles came out during the 2000s - the GameBoy Advance, the DS, the PSP, the Wii - every new console meant a new trend for companies to chase. Over the years, Omega Force has strived to create something unique with each new console that came out, hence why they had at least one spinoff game on every console imaginable coming out of Nintendo or Sony. Some of them were good, like the PSP games, Next for the Vita, or VS for the 3DS, but some of them weren't good, like Advance or DS Fighter's Battle. Naturally, after seeing the lukewarm reception of SW3 on the Wii, Koei Tecmo haven't really bothered to do any exclusive spinoffs on the Wii U or the Switch, unless it's a collaboration title (Hyrule Warriors) or a port of an already existing game (Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper).

Omega Force have experimented with different formats themselves as well. The Empires games combined the combat of Dynasty Warriors with the politics of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. DW Mahjong used the engine from Koei's Mahjong Taikai games and DW Godseekers was based on the Eiketsuden games or Dynasty Tactics.

Mainline games have also been used as a forefront for Omega Force's experimentation, such as the Renbu system of DW6 or the open world realism and deconstructed movesets of DW9. They both received mixed reviews from fans. In the end though, there's nothing like the tried and tested Normal/Charge Attack combo formula to make each new Warriors game as familiar as the last.

#9: Original weapons

"Dynasty Warriors Online had original weapons that were never used in other games."

Warriors games have had characters wielding all sorts of weapons all over the years, from the classics like swords, spears, halberds, clubs and bows, to the sillier weapons like claws, fans, laser fans, rocket engines and even a yacht.

Honestly, I don't mind a lot of the simmy weapons - this is a fantasy game after all - but there comes a point where it becomes outright ridiculous. In DW8, there was the Yacht Arm Blade and the Rocket Engine Siege Spear just to name a couple.

In this post, I've listed a few characters who could have received different weapons in 8, but failing this, there are a number of weapons in Dynasty Warriors Online that have movesets original to that game (even though some of those weapons are named after those that are already in 8, which is why the movesets from later games were named differently in Online to differentiate them from what was already there). They would have made for some good potential CAW weapons and a great opportunity to keep the legacy of Online alive even after the game's service was shut down.

Not all the newly-introduced weapons in the modern era were bad. It's just that some choices could have been better.

#8: Dynasty Warriors 6 Special

"Dynasty Warriors 6 Special was released on the PS2 due to fan demand and sales trends."

Fans like to trash Dynasty Warriors 6 Special on the PS2 for different reasons; they made an Xtreme Legends expansion and they released it on the PS2 instead of the PS3, there's framedrops and other performance issues associated with them adapting a PS3 game onto the PS2 (the West getting a dual-layer disc didn't help things either), there's a better-optimised port on the PSP and it wasn't localised; I'm sure there are other reasons I haven't mentioned here. But in fact, there is a reason why DW6Special was released on the PS2.

When DW6 was released in October 2007, only 1 million PS3s had been sold in Japan, compared to the PS2 which had sold 20 million units by estimation (21.45 million units were sold by October 2008). The higher launch price of the PS3 combined with the global financial crisis contributed to its lower sales figures compared to the PS2. In Japan, DW6 had sold 400,000 units whereas DW3-5 sold under 1.1 million units each on average (and it just kept going downhill from there). Therefore, to Tomohiko Shō and Omega Force, it made more sense for them to answer fan demands and release a port for the PS2.

You are right to be pissed that DW6Special was backported to the PS2 or that its PSP port wasn't localised. I just hope you can learn the real reason for it, unlike another major thing I've covered.

#7: Simultaneous development

"Some games were developed simultaneously."

People like me rag on Koei Tecmo and Omega Force for releasing so many games in a short amount of time (or announcing/releasing a new game a few months after the last one came out), but in reality, Omega Force is not made up of one team alone. For example, there'll be a team that'll work on the mainline DW game, a smaller team working on the XL game for the last DW, another team working on SW or something else, and another possibly smaller team collaborating with one of Koei Tecmo's other divisions or another company on a crossover game.

Over the course of the Retrospective, I've found a few cases where games were developed simultaneously. The Xtreme Legends were developed alongside the next mainline game to answer fan feedback from the last one. Warriors All-Stars, Dynasty Warriors 9 and Warriors Orochi 4 were known to have been in planning or development at the same time (possibly alongside other spinoffs) so notably, the reception that DW9 got made WO4 a damage control game. Warriors Abyss was developed by a separate team alongside Dynasty Warriors Origins.

People will say "don't keep all your eggs in one basket" and I think the same is true when it comes to business so maybe we can forgive the fact that gaming companies are able to work on more than one game at the same time. However, the root of this complaint comes down to Koei Tecmo tiring out their fanbase by releasing exorbitant amounts of ports, expansions and spinoffs year after year. I'm glad Koei Tecmo decided to slow down after seeing how terribly DW9 was received.

#6: Other dubbing companies

"Not all Warriors games were dubbed by Voicegroup."

I'm sure this will come as a shock to most people, but Koei Tecmo aren't responsible for the dubbing of their games. In Japan, they tend to hand it off to Aoni Production (or at least the casting part of it), while in the West, they tend to hand it off to Voicegroup or the cheapest company they can find.

It may also interest you to know that Voicegroup didn't dub Koei Warriors games initially, nor did they dub all of them. DW1 remained in Japanese, DW2 was dubbed in Japan by Movie Television Inc (the same people who dubbed Iron Chef and Shenmue), and DW3 was dubbed by San Francisco's KTSF Studio 26 in their first American outing (giving it that infamous dub you know today).

Voicegroup Inc started dubbing games from DW4 in 2003 all the way to DW8XL in 2014. During that time, SW2 wasn't dubbed by Voicegroup, but by (French-)Canadian company Agile Entertainment. In Voicegroup's later years, Koei Tecmo stopped hiring them to dub their games and their well eventually dried up. DW9 would go on to be dubbed by Voxx Studios and DWOrigins would be dubbed by Rocket Sound.

#5: SW3 Nintendo exclusivity

"SW3's Nintendo exclusivity in the West killed the series' popularity and English dub."

This is a theory I've had given what we know about that game.

Samurai Warriors 3 was created exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. Apparently, there was demand for a Wii release from the development team and with the increasing popularity of the new console, Koei Tecmo hoped that they could reach a wider audience with it. This was after they released Samurai Warriors Katana to poor reception.

Up to this point, most of Koei Tecmo's fanbase were playing on more conventional consoles like the PS3 or Xbox 360. The use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk was certainly a strange combo, but players could also play with a Classic Controller (Pro) or a GameCube Controller. Aside from that, the game ran at 30fps, attack speed was sluggish and enemy AI was aggressive to the point that attacks from soldiers could break combos or enemy officers could juggle your character into the air.

SW3 received significantly lower sales in Japan compared to SW2, but they could salvage it by releasing Z on the PS3 and PSP, albeit without optimisation or Murasame Castle as it was a Nintendo IP. The same can't be said for the West - Koei Tecmo and Nintendo signed a unique partnership to publish SW3 in the West exclusively for the Wii. Western sales in the West went just as well as you could imagine and its Xtreme Legends expansion didn't end up being localised either presumably because of this.

Sales aside, there is another reason I theorise for this. Koei Tecmo would go on to localise Samurai Warriors Chronicles in the West, but not SW3Z or Empires. My theory is that when Koei Tecmo signed their deal with Nintendo, they had a stipulation that they could only localise expansions/spinoffs in SW3's generation that were released on Nintendo consoles. Given how Nintendo have acted over the years, I wouldn't put it past them to pull a fast one on Koei Tecmo like this. SW3 vanilla and Chronicles would be the only games to receive Western localisations, with a localisation of the latter's expansion nixed due to poor sales.

For Western players, the characters of SW3 wouldn't be playable outside of Nintendo consoles until Warriors Orochi 3 was released in 2012. By that point, Koei Tecmo had decided to forego English dubbing in that game and would do the same for SW4 in 2014, making vanilla SW3 the last SW game to receive English dubbing. The Nintendo deal was likely the nail in the coffin for Voicegroup dubs or Samurai Warriors dubs.

Multinational corporations - you make a deal and everyone pays the price.

#4: The freakin' SCEA (es-see-ah)

The main reason why WO3 didn't receive a physical PS3 release in the US was because of its lack of English dub; Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) apparently had a policy where sub-only localised games could only be sold digitally on the PlayStation Network. This only applied for the PS3 and PS Vita games because a lot of sub-only Japanese games have received physical releases on the PS4.

I've said that Koei Tecmo should release WOZ, SW2HD or SW3Z in the West as a way to make up for WO3's lack of English dub or physical release, but while working on the Retrospective, I learnt that it wasn't as simple as that. Look, it takes money to localise a game, let alone make it, and putting aside Koei Tecmo's deal with Nintendo for SW3, SCEA was also the arbitrator of what games could be released in the US or not.

WOZ was planned to have a Western release, which you'd think would be easy because they have all the assets and voices right in front of them, but plans were "shelved" for seemingly no reason. There is speculation that SCEA had a rule where games couldn't be released on the PS3 if it had already come out on other consoles like the Xbox 360, or that SCEA wouldn't let Koei Tecmo sell two updated PS2 games for the PS3 at full price. I'd bet that Koei Tecmo could release SW2HD if they wanted to, but they couldn't because of the reasons I just stated.

Now with Steam being a more prominent platform and DW7, WO3 and SW4 receiving Complete/Definitive Edition releases on it, I wouldn't put it past them to release WOZ, SW2 and SW3 on Steam as well (even if SW3 only gets partial or no dubbing). Maybe they could also release a refreshed DW6 with all the Musou Modes and updated characters from 6 Special on it. Anything's possible, after all.

#3: Rubicon Solutions

"Rubicon Solutions is the reason why English translations in the modern era are terrible."

Very few people seem to notice or care about this, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the quality of the English translations drop when Koei Tecmo decides not to dub a game. This can be seen in most games during the modern era, starting from WO3. While it's natural to blame Koei Tecmo for this, a lot of the blame should really go to the company they hired to localise their games, namely Rubicon Solutions, who have localised Koei Warriors games from DWStrikeforce in 2009 to WO4U in 2020.

Koei Tecmo, or rather Rubicon Solutions, tends to change up some generic lines in the English dub, most notably the officer defeated lines in the modern era, so that every line isn't some variant of "Enemy officer defeated!" They have continued doing this even for games that weren't dubbed, which pisses me off because I know that's not what's actually being said and we'll probably never hear someone actually say it. This is what is known as dubtitling.

At the same time, some lines can feel a bit off when you actually say it out loud, that is to say that it doesn't sound natural. Sometimes there's no contractions, sometimes there's contractions when it would have been better not to have them, sometimes sentences can be a bit wordy, and sometimes it doesn't feel like the entire line has been translated at all.

I've called out in WO3U how a translation mixup in an objective caused some players to struggle with a particular goal (a mission tells you to defeat 500 Curse Sorcerers when it should be 500 Charm Sorcerers). I've also detailed some translation mistakes in DW8 and its Empires spinoff that makes the context be interpreted incorrectly, such as a strategist referring to a character who isn't even in the battle, or making it seem like you're raiding your own forces. There's more examples scattered throughout the Retrospective that would take time to list here.

Koei Tecmo have had plenty of opportunity to scrutinise their translations and release patches to correct them. Sure, maybe they'd have to do bug tests every time they change something that really shouldn't affect the code, but it's their responsibility to make sure that everything is perfect before they release something. But they haven't and they won't, because they just didn't care.

Rubicon Solutions was replaced by Digital Hearts from DW9E and SW5 in 2021 onwards. For the most part, they've been rather decent even if their track record has been iffy. At least they haven't been as atrocious as Rubicon from what I can tell.

Yes, I've seen translation mistakes even in the classic era games. Nobody is infallible to a fault and even the most experienced person can make a mistake and not be pulled up on it. It's just that the lack of English dubbing during the modern era has really made me fixate on the translation quality of the game.

Rubicon Solutions - providing first rate translations to businesses around the world handled by experienced native speakers... my ass.

#2: Global disgrace

"Koei Tecmo has disrespected their Japanese and Chinese fans as well."

Given the state of the modern era, it's easy to say that Koei Tecmo have disgraced their Western fanbase with the lack of English dubbing in their games and that they don't care about them. Truth is, Koei Tecmo have released some games that have been disgraceful, and when that happens, it's the entire fanbase that gets disrespected.

After years of Koei Tecmo disgracing Western fans, it was time for Japanese and Chinese fans to receive the same treatment as well. When SW4-II and SW Spirit of Sanada were released on Steam in 2015-16, they were only released in English; neither of them received Japanese versions on there even though DW8XL and Empires were updated the same way. SW4-II would receive a "re-Japanize" mod that added Japanese text to the game, but there were some features that stayed the same. Japanese wouldn't be supported in Steam ports on day one release until Warriors All-Stars in 2017.

Now we get to the big part of this point. When DW9 was released on Steam in 2018, Koei Tecmo announced that it wouldn't have support for Japanese or Chinese, but the files were included with the download and players could modify the registry to unlock those languages. For some reason, Koei Tecmo soon "patched" this bug two days after release, then "added support" for those releases again a couple months later after fan backlash.

Koei Tecmo did do better with Origins by not restricting the languages after release, but for some reason there are two versions of the game available on the PSN in Asia, one that has Japanese and Chinese texts and voices and the other having Japanese and every other language except Chinese. What the hell, Sony.

#1: It wasn't the strike

"The English dub of Dynasty Warriors 9 had nothing to do with the voice actor strike."

This was a hard pill to swallow, but everyone needs to know this because a lot of fans have fallen into the same trap I have, which was understandable given the circumstances at the time.

From October 2016 to September 2017, video game voice actors under SAG-AFTRA went on strike against 10 video game companies over residuals from game sales and better safety precautions for actors. Neither Koei Tecmo nor Voicegroup were among the picketed companies, but a number of union voice actors stepped down from their roles in non-union games to stand with the union during the strike.

You will recall that DW8XL was the last game to be dubbed by Voicegroup in 2014 and with Koei Tecmo opting not to dub their games, the well likely dried up for them. Voicegroup's founder, Charles de Vries, was way past retirement age at that point; the strike and the lack of work likely created the right opportunity for him to dissolve Voicegroup in January 2017 and enjoy his retirement.

According to Maxwell Chase in his Reddit AMA regarding DW9, dubbing for that game started after August 2017, meaning that Koei Tecmo had to find another dubbing studio because Voicegroup had shut up shop; the voice actor strike did not play a role in Koei Tecmo’s decision to switch to Voxx Studios. So as much as I wanted to call the DW9 cast scabs, they technically aren't because the original studio closed down or actors are contracted on a game-by-game basis. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Jacob Takahashi or the recast voice actors in the HoYoverse. Nah, I kid, I kid.

Koei Tecmo doesn't have anything to do with casting the voice actors, but they are responsible for what company they choose to produce their dubs. While Voxx Studios recast every character with relatively amateur voice actors in their first video game dub for DW9, Rocket Sound did the same for DWOrigins, but Koei Tecmo were lucky enough to have found a company that had quite a number of pre-9 alumni in their talent pool, including Kaiji Tang, Kyle Hebert and David Lodge, who voiced different characters in that game compared to DW8.

Face it, we may never have the DW8 English dub cast back together again or a dub as good as it was in that game. Frankly, after what happened with DW9's dub, fans will have to take what they can get, and luckily DWOrigins did a decent job with its dub. We don't know what Koei Tecmo will do with the next game's dub because nothing has been announced yet, but when they do, we can only pray that it'll be as decent as the last and that they (hopefully) don't switch to another studio again. Otherwise, there's always the Japanese dub. It's always consistent bar the rare recasts.

Happy 25th anniversary, Dynasty Warriors (2). It's been a real ride. I'll share some more retrospective extras when I get to them, including the Weapon Moveset Power Rankings for SW5 and DWOrigins.

[yeonchi]

People are finally beginning to wake up to the secret dictatorship of payment processors indirectly enabling the censorship of media and social media. While it does highlight a big part of the problem, it's not going to be easy to solve in the short-term, particularly when there are other related problems to be addressed and innocent people are being caught in the crossfire.

Small, private companies can do what they want, sure, but when it comes to large, public corporations, people need to stand together and say to them, "You will host our platforms, you will process our payments, you will accept our opinions, you will give us our purchases, and you will like it."

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 41: Rainbowfish Princess Queen(ie)

Name: Cleo-Pactra/Queen(ie)

Occupation: Rainbowfish Princess

Race: Salacian

Residence: Rainbowfish Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: 15 December 1999 (age 7, Sagittarius ♐)

Hair colour: Grey with darker tones

Eye colour: Grey

Skin colour: Cream

Ethnicity: Caucasian, Egyptian

Height: 100 cm

Relationships:

Rainbowfish King (father)

Rainbowfish Queen (mother)

Venus (best friend)

Luisa (friend)

Marcela (friend)

Hanna (friend)

Polvina (frenemy)

Tubarina (frenemy)

Ester (frenemy)

Marli (frenemy)

Carmine (love interest)

Dennis Lescano (acquaintance)

Enemies: Boys and girls who dislike her attitude

First appearance: Portrait (3 June 2022)

Skills: Dancing, stretching, makeup

Likes: Being fashionable, handing out with her best friends, bragging about being the princess of the prettiest fish, taking advantage of boys and girls with her charm, traditional Egyptian dances, stretching and acrobatics, being treated like a queen, playing games

Dislikes: Being called annoying, people being rude to her, not having her demands met, people thinking that her species is boring

Cleo-Pactra, better known to everyone as Queen or Queenie, is the Rainbowfish Princess and a student of the Sea School’s Farlands campus. She lives in the Rainbowfish Kingdom and true to her name, she dreams of becoming a queen.

History

Cleo-Pactra, hereon known as Queenie, was born in December 1999 to the Rainbowfish King and Queen. Queenie was spoiled by her parents who also taught her about the importance of the rainbowfish and the traditions of their ancestors’ culture.

When she started school, Queenie became a conceited and petulant girl, boasting about being the most beautiful princess of the most beautiful fish in the sea. Her bossy and mean attitude made many princes and princesses not like her, even Tubarina who could be just as bossy as her. She did have some friends like Venus and Hanna who tolerated her, but despite wanting to get more friends and be a very popular princess, not everyone wanted to spend a lot of time with her. As such,  Queenie would sometimes volunteer at the childcare centre, if only to have children to boss around because they couldn’t understand her yet and they also liked playing with the rainbowfish. Sometimes she would encounter the millionaire Dennis Lescano, who was arrogant towards most people yet was friendly towards children.

At some point, Queenie began to see Polvina, Ester and Tubarina hanging out in the metropolis with Dennis and three other men. Curious as to why the girls would hang out with those men, Queenie went to them and Dennis introduced her to his friends named Rick, John and Per. Dennis asked Queenie if she knew Polvina, Ester and Tubarina, to which she introduced herself as a “frenemy” of the girls.

Queenie asked Dennis why he would hang out with children and lower-class people when there were other people as rich and upper-class as himself, to which Dennis explained that he had more fun spending time with them and being friends with people like Rick, John and Per. As time went on, Queenie eventually noticed one day that Dennis was more upset than usual. When Queenie asked Dennis what was wrong, he answered defensively, saying that she wouldn’t understand. After failing to get anything from Dennis, Queenie decided to stop visiting him.

Queenie’s encounter with Dennis made her realise what would happen if she continued to be as bossy as she was and as a result, she began to change her attitude towards the other princes, princesses and children. She started to make more friends at school and she would begin hanging out with Polvina and Tubarina’s cousins Luisa and Marcela, forming her own trio and improving her social life.

Physical appearance

Queen is a girl who is one metre tall with a slender figure. Her head is slightly smaller and rounder than other royals. She has platinum grey hair with an Egyptian-style short cut, grey eyes and a multicoloured rainbowfish crown. Her clothing consists of an orange and red top with gold outlines, a long blue skirt with a gold belt and a green and yellow sash.

Curiosities

-  Like her parents, Queenie’s attire is themed around ancient Egypt, giving her the appearance of an ancient Egyptian princess.

- In her new friend group with Luisa and Marcela, she acts as the counterpart to Ester while the other two act as counterparts to their respective cousins.

- Reportedly, she and Venus are secretly more than friends.

- Queenie’s favourite singer is Ke$ha and she likes to sing and dance to her songs.

- Queenie’s nickname suffix (-ie) was added during the 20th anniversary event fanfic to differentiate her name from the queens' titles.

[yeonchi]

Some guy cut me off on the highway tonight.

I was on my way home from dinner, driving on the highway when suddenly this driver moves into my lane with one flash of his indicator. A little while after, he starts drifting to the lane on the left (without indicating) and I decided to pass him. He gets back behind me and suddenly he starts fucking beeping his horn and flashing his high beams at me. Keep in mind that it was a rainy night and my back windshield was fogged up because of the rain and the heater was on so I couldn't see shit.

Thinking the driver wanted to pass me, I moved a lane to the left to let him pass. Seeing a red light at the next intersection, I was curious to find out what that guy's fucking problem was. I briefly saw a kid in the car with the window down so I was slightly relived that blud wasn't gonna fucking jack me or some shit. I stopped next to the guy's as I came to a stop and turned my head to find out what the fuck he wanted.

It turns out I'd forgotten to turn my headlights on and the guy was trying to tell me about it.

For context, I wasn't driving my usual car that night; Dad took my usual car (because it was less messy than his car that he mostly used to get to work) so I had to drive me and my mum in his car. My usual car has an automatic headlight sensor that automatically comes on in low-light so it was set-and-forget for me, but Dad's car doesn't so I needed to make sure to turn it on at night (it does have a reminder tone when the engine's off and you open the door without turning off the headlights). Obviously, I forgot to turn my headlights on because I don't drive that car all the time, especially at night.

The moral of this story is that detecting the intention of a horn is just as hard as detecting sarcasm on the internet and to make sure your headlights are on when driving at night. That is all.

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 40: Shine On! Background Characters

After numerous extensions, I've decided that it's time to conclude the second run of Into the Liamverse with a post bookending the start of it - a look into the background characters that haven't received lines or character descriptions in the series. For a while, I've wanted to discuss the background characters beyond what I've written on the wiki because wikis are not spaces for speculation (said the person who added placeholder names and speculated species designations on the wiki). Then Liam opened up the floodgates with a post on Marcela and I countered with an instalment on Veto and this combined instalment on the background characters.

In my correspondence with Fabio Yabu, I tried asking him for details about the unnamed background characters (Jaune/Goldina/Flourison) but I was never able to get an answer from him about it. Maybe he forgot about those details or he doesn't want to talk about them, but regardless, the speculations (from Liam or myself) have stuck within fandom and it looks like it'll be that way for the foreseeable future.

Following this instalment, any further instalments will be ad hoc, that is to say I’ll only make instalments out of the YouTube community posts when they come out and if I feel like it. More information about that will be at the end.

Jaune (Lyretail Princess)

Name: Jaune/Valeria

Occupation: Lyretail Princess/Kamen Rider Amaki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Lyretail Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? May 2000 (age 7, Gemini ♊)

Relationships:

Lyretail King Liam (father)

Lyretail Queen Violeta (mother)

Flourison (boyfriend, future husband)

Goldina (friend)

Matilda (friend)

Leia (friend)

Agostinha (friend)

Caramelo (friend)

Cameron (friend)

Dustin (friend)

Becky (future daughter)

Valeria (future daughter, Yabuverse PM10)

Jaune is the gentle and kind Lyretail Princess. She is an inquisitive girl who doesn’t hesitate to ask questions about what she sees. Although she tends to blend in the background, she loves being with her best friends Goldina and Matilda along with her boyfriend Flourison. Her only spoken appearance is in Lost, where she asks Leia what the whales are doing above the school.

Jaune's attire, which is light blue with red spots, seems to be based on the blue lyretail, therefore Jaune is speculated to be the Lyretail Princess.

(Ironically, the placeholder name "Jaune" comes from the French word for "yellow" - I just picked it because it sounds like "Joan" and the spelling makes it look fancy.)

In the Kisekaeverse, Jaune is Kamen Rider Amaki, one of the Salacian Riders under Kabuki’s faction led by Maurico. In Kamen Rider Zi-O, she and Goldina (Kyoki) act as spies for Quartzer, siding with Yuki Yamaki (Magica) before turning on him at the last minute.

Goldina (Goldfish Princess)

Name: Goldina/Alexia

Occupation: Goldfish Princess/Kamen Rider Kyoki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Goldfish Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? February 2000 (age 7, Aquarius ♒)

Relationships:

Goldfish King Alexander (father)

Goldfish Queen Alicia (mother)

Alexa/Alexia (sister)

Wilmer (boyfriend, future husband)

Jaune (friend)

Soraia (friend)

Delfi (friend)

Matilda (friend)

Agostinha (friend)

Tim (future son)

Alexa (future daughter, Yabuverse PM10)

Goldina is the fun and outgoing Goldfish Princess. While she can be vain and conscious of her appearance sometimes, her boyfriend Wilmer reassures her that she is fine just the way she is. Although she doesn’t have any lines in the series, her prominent background appearances are in The True Princess and Beauty.

Based on the design of her crown, Goldina is speculated to be the Goldfish Princess, which is ironic as goldfish typically are a freshwater fish and don’t survive in saltwater, though there have been rare cases of them doing so. A more plausible match would be the Garibaldi, a type of damselfish that is also known as the marine goldfish, or the Siamese fighting fish, a freshwater fish also known as the betta.

(Fabio Yabu, if you’ve got official designations or descriptions for these background characters please post them, I’m begging you.)

Goldina met Wilmer when she and the main trio decided to help him with the difficult task of taming the moray eels. They took a liking to each other after Wilmer saved Goldina from the moray eels’ leader who was about to attack her. The two became a couple some time after and Goldina began hanging out with Wilmer and his friends.

In a different universe separate to Yabuverse PM10, Goldina and her friends were having a picnic when they discovered that they were clones of the original royals and the kings killed them as part of their cleanup. In Yabuverse PM10, Goldina and her friends sided against Veto and Soraia when they continued to support the Shark King, then after dealing with clones of themselves that had popped up, reconciled with them and helped them fight Kamen Rider Legend in the final battle.

Matilda (Hawkfish Princess)

Name: Matilda

Occupation: Hawkfish Princess/Kamen Rider Sabaki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Hawkfish Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? September 2000 (age 7, Libra ♎)

Relationships:

Hawkfish King Mardoqueo (father)

Hawkfish Queen Maddie (mother)

Merlo (boyfriend, future husband)

Soraia (friend)

Goldina (friend)

Delfi (friend)

Jaune (friend)

Agostinha (friend)

Dustin (friend)

Kimberly (future daughter)

Kenny (future son)

Shayana (future daughter)

Walton (future son)

Matilda is the friendly and caring Hawkfish Princess. Like her boyfriend Merlo, there is nothing special to say about her. Her only spoken appearance is in Lost, where she greets Polvina and Ester on the way to their first day at the Sea School.

Judging by the appearance of the fish accompanying Matilda (in Lost), which have orange backs, white bellies and yellowish-gold fins with a black stripe, it can be speculated that the fish are freckled hawkfish, meaning that Matilda is likely to be the Hawkfish Princess.

In the Kisekaeverse, Matilda is Kamen Rider Sabaki, one of the Salacian Riders under Ibuki’s faction led by Marli, before later joining Quartzer alongside most of her fellow Riders in Kamen Rider Zi-O.

Agostinha (Lobster Princess)

Name: Agostinha

Occupation: Lobster Princess/Kamen Rider Amazon Sigma (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Lobster Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? December 2000 (age 7, Sagittarius ♐)

Relationships:

Lobster King Alberto Lang Gosty (father)

Lobster Queen Abby (mother)

Dustin (boyfriend, future husband)

Wilmer (friend)

Merlo (friend)

Leo (friend)

Cameron (friend)

Jaune (friend)

Goldina (friend)

Matilda (friend)

Flourison (friend)

Choko (future son)

Unnamed child (future child, Yabuverse PM10)

Agostinha is the Lobster Princess. She is a very vain girl who wears her crown with pride, dreaming of the day when she will become the Lobster Queen. However, the path there for her is very long as she still needs to learn at school how to help her friends, who are frequently hunted by Drylanders.

Agostinha is usually seen as a background character throughout the series. In the animated series, she does not have any lines nor is she mentioned by name, but in two of the main series books, namely The World of Salacia and The Ballad of the Forgotten Princess, this is the case.

In the Kisekaeverse, Agostinha works with Narutaki alongside the other Amazon Riders in cooperation with Nozama Pharmaceuticals. Later, when she and a group of other royals join Quartzer, Agostinha assists Kensuke Nitta in exposing Miss Marla’s collusion with the goddess Salacia, who was in opposition to their plans.

Caramelo (Sea Snail Prince)

Name: Caramelo

Occupation: Sea Snail Prince/Kamen Rider Todoroki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Sea Snail Kingdom

Gender: Male

Date of birth: 9 March 2000 (age 7, Pisces ♓)

Relationships:

Sea Snail King Cedric (father)

Sea Snail Queen Loraine (mother)

Cameron (brother, Liamverse/future son, Yabuverse PM10)

Leia (girlfriend, future wife)

Naimo (future brother-in-law)

Veto (friend)

Polvina (friend)

Jaune (friend)

Dustin (friend)

Lelo (future son)

Caramelo is the Sea Snail Prince, a quiet and studious boy who wears glasses and uses complicated words. He is mostly a background character save for a focus appearance in The Pirates. In the Liamverse and Yabuverse PM10, Caramelo would enter into a relationship with Whale Princess Leia.

In most appearances, Caramelo is shown clothed with light green hair and square glasses. Some appearances show him with teal hair and round glasses instead; in the Liamverse, this version of him is split into his dumb and annoying twin brother, Cameron.

In the Kisekaeverse, during the fallout of the Genesis Meltdown, Caramelo was one of five royals (the others being Jaune, Goldina, Agostinha and Leia) defending the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road from Merthyr Tydfil to Neath. All five royals were defeated by Parker Zhou as he and his party travelled along the road on the way back to Hong Kong. He later becomes Kamen Rider Todoroki, one of the Salacian Riders, from 2018 in Kamen Rider Decade.

Flourison (Solefish Prince)

Name: Flourison/Matias

Occupation: Solefish Prince/Kamen Rider Shouki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Solefish Kingdom

Gender: Male

Date of birth: ?? August 2000 (age 7, Leo ♌)

Relationships:

Solefish King Facundo (father)

Solefish Queen (mother)

Jaune (girlfriend, future wife)

Goldina (friend)

Matilda (friend)

Agostinha (friend)

Delfi (friend)

Dustin (friend)

Veto (friend)

Dylan (friend)

Wilmer (friend)

Merlo (friend)

Cameron (friend)

Becky (future daughter)

Valeria (future daughter, Yabuverse PM10)

Flourison is the cheeky but sensitive Solefish Prince. He usually appears as a background character at various points throughout the series, such as in The Return, where he can be heard laughing at Marcello's burps alongside Hugo towards the end of the episode.

Flourison’s sensitive personality acts as a compliment to Jaune’s gentle personality, hence why they are a couple. Aside from that, there isn’t really anything else special about him.

In the Kisekaeverse, Flourison becomes Kamen Rider Shouki in Soulbound Series 3 in 2019, alongside Caton as Kamen Rider Gouki and Veto as Kamen Rider Touki.

Caton (Salmon Prince)

Name: Caton/Carlos/Saulo

Occupation: Salmon Prince/Kamen Rider Gouki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Salmon Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? November 1999 (age 8, Scorpio ♏)

Relationships:

Salmon King Sonny (father)

Salmon Queen Carolina (mother)

Saula (sister)

Marcello (friend)

Maurico (friend)

Sirilo (friend)

Caton, also known as Saulo or Carlos, is the Salmon Prince.

His parents are divorced and Caton lives with his father in the Farlands. When he was born, his parents argued how he should be named; his mother wanted to call him Saulo and his father wanted to call him Caton. When they separated and Caton went to live with his father, he began to prefer that name despite his mother’s insistence on calling him Saulo, resulting in a running gag (shown in the 20th anniversary event fanfic) where she tries to appease him by calling him Carlos. In actuality, this was caused by the different dubs of the animated series having different names for Caton.

His focus appearance in the series was in The Crush, where he served as a one-sided love interest for Ester. Caton had come from the Farlands for a visit and was hanging out with Marcello during his stay in Salacia. Ester developed a crush on Caton and did everything she could to impress him, but Caton wasn’t interested and even turned out to be rude to Tubarina’s pet shark, Gummy. Caton has also made a background appearance in Lunch Power, speaking with characters like Delfi, Jessi and Marli.

In Yabuverse PM10, Caton is also friends with Maurico and Sirilo and is seen as an annoyance by the main girls. He is part of the group fighting Parker Zhou on the beach and at King Marcos’ base. Later on, during the three-way battle in the Shark Kingdom, Caton sides with the Revengers and fights Ester before he attempts to charge her, Tubarina and Marli, only to be kicked back.

Saula (Salmon Princess)

Name: Saula/Carla

Occupation: Salmon Princess/Alternative Zero (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Salmon Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? April 2006 (18 months, Aries ♈)

Relationships:

Salmon King Sonny (father)

Salmon Queen Carolina (mother)

Caton (brother)

Naimo (boyfriend, Yabuverse PM10)

Sting (friend)

Alexa/Alexia (friend)

Bethany (friend)

Flikin (boyfriend, Liamverse)

Carlita (friend, Liamverse)

Sarita (friend, Liamverse)

Saula, also known as Carla, is the Salmon Princess. Like her brother Caton before her, her parents argued over how she should be named, but when they separated, Saula stayed with her mother in the Salmon Palace and was known by that name from then on.

Her main appearance was in The Doll, where she is shown attending kindergarten alongside Goldfish Princess Alexia and Blue Tang Princess Bethany. From Swordfish Queen Pietra’s toy recycling program, Saula received a doll named Bebe which originally belonged to Tubarina. Unbeknownst to her, Tubarina would steal Bebe from Saula, which would cause her distress until a conflict of conscience leads her to return Bebe to Saula.

Due to her age, Saula is not shown fighting as a Kamen Rider (or a similar entity) in the Kisekaeverse until Soulbound Series 4 in 2021, where she transforms into Alternative Zero and leads an army of Alternatives against Kamen Rider Poseidon. In Kamen Rider Zi-O, she, Elektra and Bia fight Kamen Rider Geiz when he approaches Salacia in his Time Mazine.

Dinho (Blowfish Prince)

Name: Dinho

Occupation: Blowfish Prince/Guardian Prince of Salacia/Kamen Rider Wiki (Kisekaeverse)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Metropolis

Gender: Male

Date of birth: ?? August 2000 (age 7, Virgo ♍)

Relationships:

Blowfish King

Blowfish Queen

Polvina

Ester

Tubarina

Miss Marla

Duante

Dinho is the Blowfish Prince and an affectionate and fun boy. He is usually not ready to deal with girls, even when pressured by Marcello or Maurico - he prefers to keep to himself in case he gets in trouble. Despite this, he is a close friend of Polvina, and occasionally lends his pet, Bib, to her.

Despite having a character description in the official sources, Dinho is not seen in the books or the cartoon series, not even as a background character, while his "pet", Bib, has been shown in a few episodes.

However, in a version of The Guardians set in several universes, including Yabuverse PM10 and the Kisekaeverse, Polvina, Ester and Tubarina would meet Dinho when they were searching for the true guardians of Salacia. They would discover the truth that the blowfish were the true guardians and that they could speak to and understand every creature, but Dinho would make them keep it a secret.

Dinho, having lived in the metropolis due to his family’s duties as the guardian royals, was curious about the Salacian royals, so Polvina, Ester and Tubarina helped arrange for him to attend the Sea School. They used their assignment on the guardians of Salacia to introduce Dinho to their class, and in a way, they revealed to everyone that the blowfish were the guardians of Salacia while still keeping it secret (because everyone was of the opinion that the guardians were their respective species).

Dinho has made numerous supporting/background appearances in the Kisekaeverse, plus he would have focus appearances throughout the 20th anniversary event fanfic set in Yabuverse PM10.

I got the idea to do a big instalment on the background characters after seeing Liam make a post for Marcela. I honestly never thought he'd make descriptions for characters who were already covered on the wiki/official sources, but since he opened the floodgates with that move, I thought I would do an instalment on Veto and a combined instalment on the background characters, since they didn't have descriptions in the official sources. And then he went and did a post on Agostinha. I suppose I should have expected it since I did ask him for his take on the other background characters. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if he begins making posts on the main girls and other characters with character descriptions in the official sources. I wanted to see more posts of OC princes and princesses from Liam (along with some OCs that weren't created by Liam) in this run, but unfortunately, that's been diluted by posts of royal relatives, non-royal OCs and royal characters who were already covered in the wiki. Just throw the "OC royal" premise of this series out the window at this point, especially with non-royal OCs like the Combo Rangers or Julian Greedy getting drawings and descriptions.

Liam recently made a community post complaining about why his drawings of Salacian civilians weren't getting more views, then in another post, he explained the reason why he created the non-royal OCs was to highlight the existence of Salacian civilians and their interactions with the Salacian royals. There's nothing wrong with it, but in my opinion, Liam has introduced a bunch of villains and civilian OCs, but they don't seem to have any ties to or interactions with the royals, something that can be seen for most of the Combo Rangers OCs or Theodore McConner. Does he have any plans to make any stories or storylines with them, and does he intend to involve the royals in those stories or storylines? From what I can see, not really.

With all the non-royal OCs, movie tributes (featuring the Salacians in place of the movie characters) and artworks for others in the Liamverse, I'm beginning to feel like Liam's focus on Sea Princesses has become diluted. On top of that, others in the Liamverse seem to be focused on different things outside of Sea Princesses; basically, the Liamverse doesn't feel like it's about Sea Princesses anymore.

While collecting posts for this run, I felt like posts of royal OCs from Liam were becoming sparse; Liam's posts have contributed to 9 out of 16 instalments in the second run, and out of these, only two of them are posts on actual royal OCs (3 if you count Cameron). In addition, I also included posts on royal OCs made by others in the Liamverse and a few instalments of my own. Because Liam had already made quite a few posts when I started posting the first run, it feels like the gaps between Liam's OC posts are getting longer and longer and there are more posts from others in this run, which there actually is because I had to condense four of Sirilo20XX's Water and Blood posts into one because they were getting repetitive.

This instalment bookends this run of Into the Liamverse, just as Part 25 launched it with a look at the involvement of the first run's OCs in the 20th anniversary event fanfic. As such, I would like to announce that from here on in, any further instalments will be ad hoc, that is to say I'll only make instalments out of the YouTube community posts when they come out and if I feel like it. It's been fun working on this series for the past couple of years and while I appreciate the work that Liam and others in the renaissance have contributed to the fandom, as I said, the Liamverse doesn't feel like it's about Sea Princesses anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I know people have their own interests and they like to cross them over with Sea Princesses - hell, I've done the same for other franchises myself so I'm one to talk - it's just that I don't feel like I'm that in touch with the Liamverse now compared to when it started. This is partly because of the language and age barriers, but also because I have vastly different interests to those in the Liamverse. Regardless, the main thing we have in common is our love and appreciation for Sea Princesses; this series brought everyone together and I'm grateful that my contributions have led to this renaissance.

Once again, Into the Liamverse will continue, but only when I feel like making a post. I hope you'll continue to enjoy the series when I do.

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 39: Lobster Princess Agostinha

Original post 1/Original post 2

Name: Agostinha Lang Gosty

Occupation: Lobster Princess/Kamen Rider Amazon Sigma (Kisekaeverse)/Lobster Queen (future)/Writer (future)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Lobster Kingdom

Gender: Female

Date of birth: ?? December 2000 (age 7, Sagittarius ♐)

Hair colour: black 

Eye colour: Grey

Skin colour: Pale beige

Ethnicity: Chinese

Height: 90 cm

Relationships:

Lobster King Alberto Lang Gosty (father)

Lobster Queen Abby (mother)

Dustin (boyfriend, future husband)

Wilmer (friend)

Merlo (friend)

Leo (friend)

Cameron (friend)

Jaune/Valeria (friend)

Goldina/Alexia (friend)

Matilda (friend)

Flourison/Matias (friend)

Choko (future son)

Unnamed child (future child, Yabuverse PM10)

Enemies

Caton

Ester

Tubarina

King Marcos

Thorn

Mr Chain

Weasel

Brittanie Chammel

Adrian Fabian Nario

Dennis Lescano (millionaire)

Anti-Salacian groups and individuals

Artists who draw her skin yellow

First appearance:

Book series: The World of Salacia (2004, page 36-37/P33-34)

Animated series: Lost

Liamverse: Drawing of Agostinha speaking to the viewer (8 December 2021)

Skills: Dancing, kung fu, mixed martial arts, advanced swimming

Likes: Spending time with her parents, playing with dolls, collecting pearls, dreaming about becoming a queen, her boyfriend Dustin, spending time with her friends, writing books, drawing, gossip, lobsters

Dislikes: Being made fun of, Drylanders hunting lobsters, people mistreating Dustin, racist stereotypes about her ethnicity, Ester and Tubarina catcalling her and being annoying

Agostinha is the Lobster Princess. She is a very vain girl who wears her crown with pride, dreaming of the day when she will become the Lobster Queen. However, the path there for her is very long as she still needs to learn at school how to help her friends, who are frequently hunted by Drylanders.

In her free time, she likes to spend time with her friends, doing activities in her palace and most of all, write diaries and stories; aside from wanting to be queen, Agostinha also dreams of being a writer and her inspiration for her stories come from the stories of other princes and princesses, who she usually stalks to gain ideas. She also likes playing with dolls and hunting for pearls.

History

Agostinha was born in December 2000 under the Sagittarius sign. As a baby, she was so small that her father could carry her in the palm of his hand (potentially meaning she was a premature baby?). Her parents, the Lobster King and Queen, instilled her with many family values passed down from their ancestors.

During kindergarten, Agostina became very good friends with Hawkfish Princess Matilda, Goldfish Princess Goldina, Lyretail Princess Jaune and Solefish Prince Flourison. They had their own adventures with each other and they met more princes and princesses when they started school, though they seemed to blend into the background since then.

At school, Agostinha began to write diaries about her and her fellow royals’ adventures in and out of class. To obtain inspiration, she even began to secretly follow some royals, particularly Polvina, Ester and Tubarina as she thought they had the best adventures. After learning that Polvina had a crush on a Drylander, Agostinha and her friend group longed to have boyfriends of their own, but no one at school was interested, to the frustration of Agostinha in particular.

One day, Tubarina fell out with Polvina, Ester and Marcello and decided to hang out with Agostinha’s group, but in actuality, she found them boring and only saw them as backup friends until she eventually made up with her own friends. Agostinha came to see her as weird and annoying, but she never outright hated her.

Later on, Agostinha heard that the Krill King Dustin would be joining their class, much to everyone’s surprise as they never thought that a young boy like him was already a king. When he arrived, Agostinha wanted to get to know him but she was afraid since he was a king. After Dustin got in a fight with Tubarina’s group and fell out with Polvina, Agostinha felt sorry for him and gathered up the courage to go to the Krill Palace and talk to him.

Surprisingly, Dustin was receptive to Agostinha’s empathetic interaction and they got to know each other over time, becoming good friends and later becoming a couple. Her best friends also got boyfriends as well and Agostinha and Dustin would go on adventures, sometimes with their friends and sometimes with each other. And Agostinha got a lot of diaries out of it.

In the Kisekaeverse, Agostinha works with Narutaki alongside the other Amazon Riders in cooperation with Nozama Pharmaceuticals. Later, when she and a group of other royals join Quartzer, Agostinha assists Kensuke Nitta in exposing Miss Marla’s collusion with the goddess Salacia, who was in opposition to their plans.

In Yabuverse PM10, Agostinha and Dustin are first shown together in the first chapter while Tubarina and her friends are doing mainies. Ester and Tubarina are shown cat-calling her before Agostinha defends Dustin. Later, during the battle at the fuel store in Jardim Casqueiro, Agostinha is killed by Fox Fonseca and Sara Moon’s group alongside Flourison and Matilda as they charged out of a trench.

After everyone is revived by Time Vent, Agostinha and Dustin side with the Turtle King’s rebel faction before later joining the Whale Queen’s Revengers when Tubarina and her group join forces with the Turtle King’s faction. In the three-way battle with the Shark King’s army, Agostinha, Maurico and Caton face off against Ester, Marli and Tubarina; Agostinha is the first one to be defeated as Tubarina punches her in the head and sends her back. As the battle continues on Dryland during Bites the Dust, Agostinha and her comrades are shown fighting Kamen Riders Geats, Gotchard and Gavv.

Years later, Agostinha and Dustin marry alongside other royals in the mass wedding ceremony. Some more years after that, their firstborn son Choko begins attending the Sea School and is assigned to Miss Marla’s class. Agostinha is also pregnant with another child and she and Dustin are on speaking terms with Tubarina and her husband Parker Zhou, though they don’t say more than a few words to each other.

Personality

Agostinha is generally a cheerful and calm girl who is always willing to do her duties, although she can be quite vain or resentful, particularly to people who upset her. Aside from her duties as the Lobster Princess, she sometimes has other hobbies like travelling or writing books. She is quite affectionate with her friends and her boyfriend Dustin, who she defends even though he can be irritable and annoying.

Appearance

Agostinha is a little shorter than most princesses at 90cm tall. Her head is completely round and she has black hair in a traditional Chinese cut with bangs. She has grey eyes; they are shown closed in the books and official sources and open in some episodes of the animated series (in blink-and-you’ll miss it moments). She wears a red bikini decorated with lobster legs and a lobster crown on her head.

Relationships

Dustin: Dustin is Agostinha’s boyfriend. They are perfect for each other as their positive and negative elements complement each other. Dustin would later spend two-and-a-half years training himself to sing, dance, rap and play hoopball so he could propose to Agostinha.

Jaune: Jaune can be considered to be Agostinha’s best friend. They both spend a lot of time with each other, sometimes going on double dates with Dustin and Flourison.

Matilda: Matilda is another one of Agostinha’s best friends. They like to gossip and talk about a lot of things, such as their boyfriends.

Goldina: Goldina is yet another one of Agostinha’s best friends, who she usually hangs out with when she is with Jaune and Matilda. Agostinha doesn’t have a lot to talk about with Goldina compared to Jaune or Matilda. 

Flourison: Agostinha and Flourison get along quite well with each other, having been friends since they were little. Flourison is somewhat quiet when around Agostinha and her friends (even Marcello and Hugo), but he began to open up more when he started hanging out with Dustin.

Tubarina: Tubarina only started hanging out with Agostinha and her friends when she fell out with Polvina, Ester and Marcello, seeing the former group as her backup friends until she made up with the latter group. Later, after Dustin’s fallout with Tubarina and her friends led to Agostinha meeting and later, dating him, Ester and Tubarina would cat-call and make lewd noises at them.

Curiosities

- In the animated series, Agostinha is one of four background princesses (five if you include the prince Flourison) who have had no focus episodes. She also does not have any dialogue in any episode, whereas Jaune and Matilda have had one or two lines.

- In the books however, Agostinha does have dialogue; this is the case in two of the main series books, namely The World of Salacia and The Ballad of the Forgotten Princess.

- Agostinha has been mistaken for being the Crab Princess. Although she and the Crab Prince Sirilo have interacted with each other, they do not have any familial relation.

- Agostinha has lighter skin in the animated series.

- In Liam’s initial drawings of Agostinha, her skin was coloured yellow because he didn’t have the right colours to match her skin tone. The same was the case for her father and Polvina’s mother.

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 38: Sea Snail Prince Cameron

Original post 1/Original post 2

Name: Cameron

Occupation: Sea Snail Prince

Race: Salacian

Gender: Male

Date of birth: 9 March 2000 (age 7, Pisces ♓)

Hair colour: Teal-green

Eye colour: Teal-green

Skin colour: Light

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Height: 110 cm

Relationships: 

Sea Snail King Cedric (father)

Sea Snail King Loraine (mother)

Caramelo (twin brother)

Dustin (best friend)

Matias (best friend)

Pulpina (acquaintance)

Ester (acquaintance)

Tiburina (acquaintance)

Celia (girlfriend)

Camarina (friend, future sister-in-law)

Agostinha (friend)

Jaune/Valeria (friend)

Flourison/Matias (friend)

Leia (friend, future sister-in-law)

Naimo (friend, future brother-in-law)

Enemies: Caton, Duante, Leon, snobby kids

Status: Alive 

First appearance: The Pirates/Drawing (12 September 2024)

Skills: Persistence, “being funny”, “being clever”, rugged heroism, quick-wittedness

Weaknesses: Unathletic, unintelligent, somewhat cowardly, very gullible and overly insistent, unable to differentiate reality, easily manipulated

Likes: Adventures, being cool, being intellectual, spending time with his friends, saying catchphrases, reading comics, watching action-adventure series, talking about things that are irrelevant or out of place for others, “thicc” people, theatre directors, sweets, being a hero, (stalking) the Sea Princesses

Dislikes: Being made fun of, being negatively compared to his twin brother, the slightest insult, being called weird, being called a stalker, Caton, Duante, Leon, boys more attractive than him

Cameron is the Sea Snail Prince alongside his (older) twin brother Caramelo. Although they look alike physically, Cameron is not very intelligent and is a rather unpopular prince.

History

Cameron was born in March 2000 alongside his (older) twin brother Caramelo. Although they were very similar in appearance, Caramelo was a hard-working and intelligent boy while Cameron was not very bright yet annoyingly outgoing.

To prevent mix-ups, Caramelo was enrolled in the main campus of the Sea School while Cameron was enrolled in the Near-Farlands campus. He would pretend to be intelligent in an attempt to be cool and interesting, a move that, to some students, was funny some of the time and annoying the rest of the time.

During a visit to the main campus with his class, Cameron heard the exaggerated stories of Polvina, Ester and Tubarina’s adventures (the one where they apparently rescued Nub from the Drylanders) and wished that he could have an adventure as well. After school that day and throughout the next day, he proceeded to stalk the girls to see if they were going on an adventure, which they promised they would tell him if they did. Eventually, Cameron informed the girls that he would go look for an adventure for himself, which led the girls to go after him for fear he would get into trouble.

While looking for an adventure, Cameron saw what he thought was a pirate ship and went to save the children on it. The girls found Cameron and explained to him that it was a dress-up party when the ship was headed for some rocks. With nobody controlling it, the girls tried to steer the ship away, telling Cameron to climb onto the sail and untie it. They succeeded in doing so with little damage, but this adventure led Cameron to realise that adventures were difficult, preferring to read books and comics instead.

Although Cameron was not that popular at school, even being considered a “weirdo” by some of the students, he did still have some friends at both campuses, like Agostinha, Jaune, Dustin and Flourison at the main campus, particularly the latter two when his twin brother, Caramelo, stopped hanging out with them. Celia, Camarina’s twin sister, took a shine to Cameron; liking some aspects of him that other people didn’t, the two of them became a couple with time. Cameron, Dustin and Flourison would also have a rivalry with Caramelo, Duante and Manta Ray Prince Leon as well.

Personality

Cameron tries to be intelligent like his brother, but to most people he comes off as annoying. He tends to be socially awkward, gullible and naive, misunderstanding the attitudes of others and not seeing when he does something wrong. He tends to repeat phrases he hears from television and movies, much to the annoyance of others who aren’t used to it. He is fairly tolerable for the rest of the princes and princesses if he isn’t lurking around their palaces or secretly following them.

Appearance

Cameron and Caramelo are very similar to each other. Both of them have the same green eyes and hairstyle, but Cameron has teal hair and wears round glasses while Caramelo has light green hair and wears round glasses. Compared to Caramelo, Cameron wears darker blue pants with or without a short-sleeved shirt.

Relationships

Caramelo: While Cameron and Caramelo are almost similar as twin brothers, they are not as close as other pairs of twins. Cameron isn’t as smart as Caramelo and people tend to prefer his twin brother over him, much to his resentment, but they usually get along regardless.

Dustin: As outcasts, Cameron and Dustin are similar to each other. Dustin is likewise resentful towards Caramelo for abandoning him and Flourison and sought Cameron out in an effort to replace his twin brother. Cameron is well aware of this and is understanding of it; though Dustin can be bossy and disrespectful, the two of them do get along, particularly when going against their sworn enemies.

Flourison: While Flourison is not much of an outcast compared to Cameron or Dustin, he still prefers to hang out with them instead of Caramelo after he abandoned them for Duante and Leon. He can tolerate the strange things Cameron says and does.

Celia: When Cameron met Celia at his campus of the Sea School, he was surprised to learn that she was the twin sister of Camarina at the main campus. Celia was thicker than the slender Camarina so Cameron, having felt an attraction to curvy girls, was attracted to Celia. Although Cameron’s manner made Celia feel strange at first, she eventually got used to it and took a shine to him.

Agostinha/Jaune: Cameron gets along quite well with Agostinha and Jaune, being the respective girlfriends of Dustin and Flourison, and the two tolerate Cameron’s strange behaviour unlike other princes and princesses.

Curiosities

Cameron is based on Caramelo’s modified appearance in his focus episode, The Pirates, in contrast to his background appearance in other episodes. Caramelo’s modified appearance (used for Cameron) also appears in The Twins and Grow Up.

Cameron was created on the pretense that this modified appearance wasn’t the real Caramelo. His unintelligence was played up in the Liamverse.

The character of Adrian Chase/Vigilante from the 2022 Peacemaker series is similar to Cameron.

Cameron didn’t have a steady group of friends until Dustin and Flourison started hanging out with him.

Cameron and likewise Celia are the “twin” characters of Caramelo and Camarina and are original to the Liamverse. They do not appear in the 20th anniversary event fanfic, but one each of Caramelo and Camarina’s children would be named after them.

[yeonchi]

(original link)

Been looking for this for a while.

Some time back, I saw someone saying that they knew who "Jaune" and "Goldina"'s names were. I didn't take note of it and it's been relegated to the depths of my mind ever since, but recently I stumbled back onto this comment and made sure to take a screenshot of it.

So apparently, this person once sent a drawing of "Jaune" and "Goldina" to the official Princesas do Mar Facebook page (when it was still a thing) and asked who they were, and they were told that their names were Nanda (Jaune) and Bruna (Goldina). It's a shame that the page is no more, because I would have gotten quite a few insights out of it.

"Does that mean that Nanda and Bruna are their real names now?" Consider the following:

I made the names Jaune and Goldina up as placeholder names for the wiki since at least 2019 (they've been used in my personal project since 2017)

Artists like Juliane (Rainbow) and DanielStudios have used those names in their fanarts

Liamasterink named them Valeria and Alexia in a divergent move when he started drawing them

I asked Fabio Yabu himself via email (a couple of times) what names he gave the background characters, he either ghosted me or he said that he doesn't remember

So the lesson to take away here is that people can name the background characters any way they want. At this point, even if Fabio Yabu came out with the real names for those characters, I think people can and should still keep using whatever names they choose for them; it's not an "anti-deadname" thing, but it's mostly because Yabu never published their names or character descriptions back in 2004-2009, the fanon speculations have sunk into people's minds by now and if Yabu were to actually release names and details for them 20 years later, who knows if they'll match up with the original vision for the series or the expectations of the fanbase?

If Polvina, Caton and some others can have more than one name depending on the dub, I don't see why the background characters can't have more than one name either.

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses: Into the Liamverse Part 37: Liziana's father Facundo Skilachi

Original post 1/Original post 2

Name: Facundo Skilachi

Occupation: Stockbroker, successful businessman, Chief Diviner (Yabuverse PM10)

Race: Salacian

Residence: Metropolis

Gender: Male

Date of birth: 20 January 1970 (age 37, Aquarius)

Hair colour: Blue

Eye colour: Brown

Skin colour: Peach with some tan

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Ancestry: Atlantic Ocean off Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires

Height: 184 cm

Relationships:

Liziana Skilachi (daughter)

Jennifer Skilachi (wife)

Patrick Skilachi (father)

Veronica Skilachi (mother)

Shark King Trebon (friend)

Shark Queen Mariana (friend)

Swordfish King Marcos (frenemy)

Swordfish Queen Pietra (friend)

Marcela (future daughter-in-law)

Enemies:

Matt Stoned ✝️

Jordan Stoned (actual enemy)

Yuppies

Tycoons

Boastful executives

Status: Alive

First appearance: Father’s Day mini-comic (20 June 2023)

Abilities: Combat, proficiency with electric pulse weapons, stealth

Weaknesses: Ego

Likes: Being the best among all, pampering his daughter, being perfect, his daily routine, killing enemies without being discovered

Dislikes: People who are better than him, people who mistake him for another yuppie or tycoon, being discovered

History

Facundo Skilachi was born in 1970 in the Alphaville do Mar district of the Salacian metropolis, a district also known as “the Wall Street of the sea”. His father was a famous and renowned stockbroker named Patrick Skilachi, who always taught him to be perfect in everything he did, so Facundo grew up always trying to be the best at everything so as to not disappoint his father. He was first in his class at school and graduated from university with honours. Following this, he got a job in his father’s company where his colleagues, who were all yuppies, constantly competed to be the best at everything and demonstrate their superiority.

In 1997, at the age of 27, Facundo became a successful businessman and the owner of his own company. He lived a life full of luxury and success, but deep down, Facundo felt empty as since he was young, he never felt like he could have a proper relationship with his father or people who he could call friends; he lived in a world where everyone around him boasted about their success. Facundo hated people who thought they were superior than others; he hated all his yuppie colleagues, particularly Matt Stoned, the most popular millionaire yuppie in the district, who was an excessively conceited and arrogant man who called his friends by the wrong names.

One day, Matt Stoned’s body was found in the Arctic and the last anybody had seen of him was when he and Facundo went out to dinner before going to his apartment. Soon after, other yuppies and tycoons were found murdered as well after they had hung out with Facundo. He suspected something was wrong with himself because of this, but he didn’t think much of it at first because he never really liked his obnoxious colleagues.

Facundo married a young secretary named Jennifer and in 1998, their daughter Liziana was born. Facundo raised his daughter just as his father raised him, only he wasn’t so hard on Liziana and demanded that she be perfect. He didn’t like how Liziana wasn’t fitting in with the other children at preschool and he even learnt that Liziana made an enemy called Sally Stoned, who Facundo learnt was the daughter of Jordan Stoned, Matt’s younger brother.

Tired of his daughter not feeling special and seeing as Jordan hadn’t worked out who killed his older brother while also fearing that he would somehow kill him and Sally, Facundo decided to move his family out of the Alphaville do Mar district and enrol Liziana in a middle-class school. Liziana would also attend the Salacian Temple and meet Marcela, the Hammerhead Shark Princess. Noting that Marcela was the niece to the Shark King Trebon, he encouraged Liziana’s friendship with her and eventually he got to meet the kings of Salacia. Following this, his dark and murderous side never emerged again, but after meeting the Swordfish King Marcos, who was also a murderer, Facundo couldn’t guarantee that he could keep his dark side under control…

Personality

Facundo is a refined, elegant, sophisticated and calm businessman who cares about his physical appearance and economic status. Inside, he is a cold and calculating man with a dark psychotic side to him that sometimes comes out and murders the people he hates, namely conceited and superficial people such as yuppies. Otherwise, he loves his family very much, especially his daughter Liziana. He was happy to learn that Liziana became friends with a sea princess, but he had a hard time making real friends until he met the Shark King and King Marcos.

Appearance

Facundo Skilachi is a fairly tall and muscular man with dark blue hair combed back and brown eyes. He has facial hair as well and usually wears elegant and expensive suits when going out.

Relationships

Liziana: When Liziana was born, Facundo promised to be the best father to her, and to this day they have a very close father-daughter relationship. He always spoiled and pampered her since she was little, but he always taught her to strive for perfection and assert her superiority. While Liziana doesn’t always live up to such expectations, Facundo is content with being a good father regardless.

Jennifer: Before Facundo met Jennifer, he had a void in his heart that even his wealth couldn’t fill. Facundo and Jennifer are loyal to each other, unlike the former’s colleagues who would date several women at once. Currently, the two are married and they continue to live together.

Marcela: After seeing how Liziana’s relationship with Marcela developed, Facundo is glad that his daughter met an important girl, because thanks to her, he was able to meet her uncle, the Shark King.

Shark King: Facundo gets along quite well with the Shark King, liking that he is quite humble unlike his executive colleagues.

King Marcos: Facundo gets along relatively well with King Marcos, though they may be different in personality. Sometimes Facundo finds that King Marcos speaks to his dark side, particularly when it comes to killing people they hate.

Matt and Jordan Stoned: Facundo has had a hatred with both of the Stoned brothers, who are both yuppies. After Matt’s body was found in the Arctic, nobody noticed that he had disappeared because he always called his colleagues the wrong names. A few years later, Facundo discovered that Matt had a brother named Jordan, and that he also had a daughter named Sally who is enemies with Liziana. Facundo’s dark side sometimes entices him to let him take over so he can kill Jordan and Sally, but he managed to keep it under control and move his family away from them.

Curiosities

- Facundo’s character is based on that of the character Patrick Bateman from the 2000 film American Psycho, played by Christian Bale. Hence, his father is named after the character as an homage.

- The Father’s Day comic, where Facundo first appears, shows him killing Jordan Stoned and his daughter Sally with an axe, albeit in his imagination. This is a reference to Paul Allen’s death in American Psycho.

- Facundo shares similarities with his friends the Shark King and King Marcos and as such, they are considered the Sigma Kings, a phrase inspired by Patrick Bateman’s character.

- As a result of his dark side’s influence, he is prone to hallucinate frequently. Hence, it is hard to determine whether he actually murdered Matt or the other yuppies, or if the murders were committed by someone else.

- In Yabuverse PM10, Facundo became the Chief Diviner of the Salacian Temple, with Liziana set to succeed him in the future.

[yeonchi]

Sea Princesses Latin American Spanish episodes now available!

It's taken a few years to appear, but it has finally arrived. The Latin American Spanish dub of Sea Princesses Season 1 is now available in my cloud drive folder! Thanks to MJZD for capturing the episodes and thanks to Sheyla Barreda for uploading them to archive.org!

I am aware that there are episodes uploaded on YouTube, but I didn't download them because the quality was all over the place or they didn't upload the entirety of the series. The raws were captured in widescreen even though the dub was broadcast in 4:3 format, so I resized it back to its proper aspect ratio for authenticity while splitting the episodes. The quality remains the same at 480p.

The opening titles and ending credits have been cut from the episodes. It is a shame honestly, but the credits in this version are the same as the Brazilian Portuguese version, which is basically the credits for the English version scrolling up the screen followed by the Discovery Networks logo at the end, so it's no big loss honestly. Because the opening titles are cut, that means the cut timestamps on odd-numbered episodes are off by about 15 seconds, otherwise the timestamps on even-numbered episodes and the cuts in general are the same as in the Brazilian Portuguese version.

And speaking of cuts, in the Brazilian Portuguese version some episodes would present the title in a still frame because a part of the opening shot was cut. For a few of those episodes, the Latin American Spanish dub would do something different with them, usually by way of leaving the original scene intact, or in the case of Lost, replaying the first shot mirrored and slowed. If you're interested in what episodes did this, they were Lost, The Toy, The Babysitters, The Return, The Big Chill, The Angel Fish and Ester's Fear. Details have been added to the wiki.

As is obvious, only the first season of the Latin American Spanish dub is available in my cloud drive folder because only the first season is available on Amazon Prime. If the second season were to become available on Amazon Prime and someone were to capture all the episodes in a consistent quality and upload them somewhere I could easily download them all from, I will update my cloud drive folder accordingly. Until then, the rights to this series in Latin America (unlike the rest of the world) are with Flamma Films in Brazil, so Flamma, what the hell?

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 32: Warriors Abyss

Warriors Abyss (無双アビス) Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC, Nintendo Switch Release date: 13 February 2025 (digital only)

Really? Really. You just couldn’t do it, could you, Koei Tecmo? And just as I thought you’d learnt your lessons when you released Dynasty Warriors Origins. Not even a month since that came out and you literally decided to drop this in the February 2025 State of Play; it wasn't even a “Coming Soon” announcement, you just dropped a whole fucking game for seemingly no reason and refused to elaborate any further. You’re just giving me more work to do for the Koei Warriors Retrospective, aren’t you?

When I got the idea to begin this series, I never imagined I would end up covering Origins, and then this just dropped. I'm kind of glad things managed to turn out this way in terms of numbering, but goddamn, the amount of work I have to put in just when I think I'm done with this series.

The day before this game was announced, Card-Majin published an idea for a Hades-inspired roguelike game on the r/dynastywarriors subreddit. Little did he know what would transpire. Anyway, I've gotta explore this game eventually, so let's dive in one more time.

Warriors Abyss

The concept of roguelike games began with the 1980 Unix terminal game Rogue, which was inspired by text-based computer games and the high fantasy setting of Dungeons & Dragons, and ported to other personal computers of the time, like the IBM PC (MS-DOS), Macintosh, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit and the TRS-80 Color Computer. Aww, I miss Alec and Shanna. Don't you miss them too, the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids?

Anyway, Rogue is a game where characters go down levels of a dungeon to seek the Amulet of Yendor in the lowest level, fighting monsters and collecting treasures on the way. A characteristic of this game, and other games like it that would become a genre known as roguelikes, is that there is no interim save mechanism - if your character dies in the game, the game is over and you will have to start again from scratch. Dungeon levels, monster encounters and treasures are procedurally generated for each playthrough (save for bosses at specific intervals depending on the game), so no two playthroughs are the same.

With the increasing number of roguelike games being created, not all of them were being created with all the unique characteristics that Rogue had, so elitist enthusiasts started gatekeeping the genre, calling games that didn't have all the characteristics "rogue-lites" or "roguelikelikes" to differentiate them from actual roguelikes. In 2008, the first International Roguelike Development Conference (IRDC) was held in Berlin, which led to the creation of the Berlin Interpretation, a list of 15 high and low value factors that define roguelike games. It acknowledges that a game missing some of those factors doesn't mean it's not a roguelike, but a game possessing some of those factors doesn't mean it's a roguelike either. Hades is commonly described as a rogue-lite, so if Warriors Abyss was inspired by it, then it's technically a rogue-lite as well.

Arguably, Koei Tecmo has dabbled in rogue-lite formats in the past with game modes like DW4/5XL's Xtreme Mode, SW1/2's Survival Mode, WO3U's Gauntlet Mode and WO4U's Infinity Mode, but this is the first game explicitly made as a rogue-lite.

After development on Wild Hearts wound up, producer Kōtarō Hirata wanted to pitch a rogue-lite game. He came up with two pitches, with Warriors Abyss being the B pitch, but when he fleshed it out, he found it more interesting since the Warriors games already had a lot of characteristics that made it very compatible for roguelike games, so Hirata ended up pitching Warriors Abyss by itself. This was Koei Tecmo's first roguelike game so it would be an experiment for them. Development on the game started in February 2024 while Dynasty Warriors Origins was being developed and Hirata aimed to release it as soon as they could, hoping to capitalise on the early-access release of Hades II.

The plot of the game is as follows; Hell, the Underworld's prison for grievous sinners, has been taken over by the villain Gouma, an ancient god banished to eternal slumber in Hell, who has awakened and is spreading his evil will throughout its depths, raising the dead and creating demons. The ruler of the Underworld, King Enma, found himself losing control of Hell and summoned the souls of the heroes to help him regain control.

There are four levels of Hell to traverse through; The Blazing Waste (戒焔獄), The Glacial Wilds (白魔獄), The Blood-Stained Realm (血華獄) and The Desolate Expanse (無明獄). There are 8 phases to each level, and in the last phase of each you'll fight a boss, namely Onigashira, Magadori, Tamahami and the Bloodthirsty Warrior based on Lu Bu and/or the Veteran Warrior based on Tadakatsu Honda. Once you arrive at the deepest level of Hell, you'll fight Gouma, then when you defeat him, he'll reveal his true form and you'll have to fight him again to clear the playthrough.

On release, about 100 characters from both DW8E and SW4-II were made available; even Masayuki Sanada and Sasuke from Spirit of Sanada were available as well for the first time since they weren't featured in WO4. Not every DW or SW character was available, DW characters used their configurations from 8E where applicable and even SW characters were divided up into factions when they never were in the original games. The return to the modern era was admittedly jarring, but understandable. The battle mechanics of DW8 and SW4 are compatible with each other, but the same can't be said for DW9 and SW5 because they had battle mechanics that diverged from the classic system or cut characters from their lineups.

Subsequent updates have added additional characters to the game. At the end of February, the rest of the Sima family and Zhong Hui were added, with Sima Yi being moved to Jin. A month after that in March, Sophia, Ryza and Yumia from the Atelier series were added, then in April, Mature Yukimura and Chacha were added along with the warlords of western Japan. There was no further update until July, where the "Master Ninja" characters, namely the Ninja Gaiden characters that appeared in WO3, were added, and hopefully the updates will continue as time goes on.

All characters are limited to a 6-hit Charge Attack moveset with a 6-hit Hyper Attack for SW characters, so anyone who had more than that had their movesets rejiggered to fit. Certain DW characters will also have Unique Actions based on their EX weapon gimmicks. Each branch of a Charge/Hyper Charge Attack appears to have an extra input, even for SW characters who normally don't have C6 attacks. We'll come back to that later. They've also made it so you can just hold down the Square button to perform your Normal Attack string or Triangle to perform your Hyper Attack string.

The game is presented in a three-quarter view, that is to say you're looking at a dungeon in an angled bird's eye view. You're looking in the same direction but you can't rotate the camera. Characters are unable to jump in this game, meaning that attacks that send them into the air will bring them back to the ground. Pressing Cross makes you dash-evade and you can do this an extra two times with upgrades, but each dash-evade requires a cooldown before it can be used again. DW Strikeforce had dash cooldowns that were barely a second and it's still better than this.

As you traverse through Hell, you'll encounter Crystal Saplings (浄玻璃の若樹) after clearing a stage, where you can choose a hero to join your party. Heroes have their own emblems which can contribute to powering up abilities and attributes, plus they also have their own unique emblems that can contribute to Unique Tactics when they are in your Formation. At the War Banner of the King ('s exists, you know), you can change your formation and the heroes in it, or you can let Enma recommend a formation that will bring out as much Formation Attack Level. Each different formation has different effects and skills that are activated in an Assemble Attack.

Throughout your playthrough you can also gain Karma Embers (業蛍火) and Tears of Blood (亡者の紅涙). Karma Embers carry between playthroughs allow you to unlock heroes, formations and upgrades in each playthrough along with unique weapons for characters (if not unlocking them in the game) at the Hall of Bonded Souls (魂結の間), while Tears of Blood are exclusive to the current playthrough and you can purchase heroes, formations and recovery items for your party at King's Cauldrons (大王の大釜). Peach Trees can increase your maximum health on top of recovering some of it as well. Sometimes you can also get Crystal Beads (玻璃のしずく) that allow you to pick an extra character at a Crystal Sapling, or you can obtain extra emblems separate from obtaining them with heroes.

The more ability and attribute emblems you obtain, the more powerful your character becomes. You can an additional ability for each emblem you obtain for the first 8, then it's every 2 emblems until you get 18. If you ask me, it should be every emblem until you get 12 or 13 because I hate gaps.

The various emblem types you can obtain, and the abilities they influence, are as follows:

Vigor: Attack power and range

Skill: Attack actions and speed

Strength: Defence

Speed: Movement speed and evasion

Wisdom: Musou Attack power and recovery

Charm: Formation skills and Assembles

Attributes (Flame, Ice, Bolt, Wind, Slay): Elemental attack and defence

Sometimes at the beginning of phases, random events known as Memories of the Lost (亡者の記憶) will appear, using images taken from the rest of the series. You will choose from 2 or 3 choices with give you various buffs or debuffs, mostly for a number of phases. A lot of choices are chance choices, where if you select it, the game will roll for what effect you'll receive and there's a certain percentage chance you'll get one or the other.

So you know how I said that each Charge/Hyper Charge Attack branch had an extra input? Each hero in your formation corresponds to what Charge Attack they can be summoned in, from C2/SS2 to right after an N6. Summoning a hero makes them perform their Summon Skill attack before they go into a cooldown. You can quick summon a hero during a Charge Attack by pressing R1 to instantly trigger their Summon Skill, but there will be an additional cooldown on top of their usual cooldown. Some choices require you to have a certain amount of a certain category of emblems, while some choices will cost Tears of Blood.

Musou Attacks for DW characters are the same as those used in WO4 with some exceptions, while the Musou Attacks used for SW characters are their Frenzy Finishers. The exceptions for DW characters (at least the ones added from the start of the game) are as such:

Lu Xun's Musou Attack 1 (Blaze Kick/炎環腿) adds an extra flourish from the Musou Attack 2 (Volcano Smash/火山靠)

Zhao Yun's Musou Attack 1 (Flying Dragon/飛龍閃) adds the dragon corkscrew seen in Warriors All-Stars

Guan Yu uses his Unique Magic from WO4 instead of his Musou Attack 2 (Stormy Rage/天空轟断破)

Diaochan's Musou Attack 2 (Lunar Dance/月李) has her move forward like her Musou Attack 1 (Silver Lotus/銀蓮)

Sun Jian's Musou Attack 1 (Tiger Claw/虎爪) adds an extra flourish from the Aerial Musou Attack (Roaring Fangs/爪牙咆哮)

Zhang He uses his Aerial Musou Attack (Peacock Strike/孔雀抱) instead of his Musou Attack 1 (Eagle Talon/鴛鴦襲)

The Dynasty Warriors Weapon Moveset Power Rankings have been updated accordingly. If more characters are added in future updates, I'll have a look when I can and make updates if there are any.

There is also a separate Assemble Gauge and when full, pressing R2 will trigger an Assemble (man, fuck that name). Until the gauge runs out, the rest of your formation will continuously perform their Summon Skills, turning the screen into a big epilepsy-inducing cascade of attacks amongst the cascades of enemies. Launching a Musou Attack during a Assemble turns it into a Formation Attack/Assemble Musou, where characters perform their Rage Musou/normal Musou loop before all characters in your formation come together for a 7-man Kamehameha. If you complete the phase before the Assemble Gauge runs out, it will stop where it is and you can continue filling it up from that point.

The big issue with Assembles is that you're not invincible like in Musou Attacks. This becomes a detriment when you're fighting the bosses because one swipe from them during an Assembly and you're dead. Plus, depleting a boss' health is instantaneous and not gradual like with other enemies, so it looks like they're tanking your attack all at once. Bosses have shields that need to be depleted first, so there is a chance that they will recover your shield just before you get to the Kamehameha bit of a Formation Musou. Honestly, for the amount of damage you deal to bosses compared to the amount of damage enemies deal to players, the player's health should be 10 times what the game gives us.

After defeating a boss, you'll be able to obtain a special treasure that stays in effect throughout your playthrough. You will get 3 treasures max per playthrough.

Clearing playthroughs allows you to unlock higher traversal levels (or should I say lower?). Higher traversal levels allow you to earn more Karma Embers, but enemies will be stronger, less unlocked heroes will appear at Crystal Saplings (which becomes redundant when you unlock all of them), the Tears of Blood cost at King's Cauldrons will increase and there will be fewer portals to choose from. At Traversal Level 5, you will fight both the Bloodthirsty and Veteran Warriors.

Traversal Level 6, available in the April 2025 update, prevents you from regaining health when levelling up, enemy attacks will piece through your barriers and deal 50% damage and level bosses will block Summoning Skills. In addition, Thorns of Fixation (妄執の楔) will appear on the first three levels; Gouma is using these thorns to tie himself to the land, hiding them with his aura on lower traversal levels before gradually being exposed with each defeat, meaning that they can kill Gouma for good. Collecting the three thorns will make Gouma's true form Ruinous Gouma of the Abyss (深淵の災厄ゴウマ), the true true final boss.

The April 2025 update also adds the Depths of Torment (無間修羅獄); after defeating Gouma in a playthrough, you can save your Soul Record (魂の記憶), which will carry over your hero, your party and your treasures. With each stage of the Depths of Torment come Trials that will make things harder for you as you continue on. Instead of Karma Embers, you'll obtain Spirit Essence (霊力) and in turn, you'll earn Records of Sin (閻魔帳) in each run. You can take up to 5 Records of Sin for 20,000 Karma Embers each (if you can still earn Tears of Blood in this mode then why can't you spend those instead). You can equip one Record of Sin for each playthrough, but if you want to use it in the Depths of Torment, you'll have to beat Gouma with it first.

The July 2025 update adds the Void of Ephemerality (刹那修羅獄), which is the Depths of Torment in a time-attack format; like the Survival Mode in Samurai Warriors, you'll have a limited amount of time that you can extend by defeating powerful enemies. The Training Hall (練磨の門) has also been added, where you can play the game with special effects centred around a specific theme or attribute. Obtaining unique weapons for characters will increase their attack by 50%, and you can activate Transcendence (限界突破) on them to grant them additional emblems, boosts to unique tactics and strategies and status enhancements; this can also be deactivated to get back the Karma Embers you spent. Karma Embers can also be used to raise the Cumulative Level of a character. Traversal levels are no longer individual, reducing the need to continually play all levels for all characters. In the PC version, ultrawide monitor resolutions are now supported.

In the menu, there are achievements and collection items you can unlock by playing over and over again, including concept arts, Underworld Records and BGMs. In the April 2025 update, you can also create up to 20 of your own playlists for each level and level boss.

The only DLCs for this game are costumes. Selecting a different costume for a character will also change their profile in the character selection menu.

On release, there were three costume sets for the 100-so characters that were included at the start. The Legendary Costume Set contains DW3 and SW1 costumes for characters who were in those games. The Dynasty Warriors Classic Costume Set contains:

The original costumes from DW8

ROTK 12 costumes for Zhao Yun and Sun Shangxiang

Xiaoqiao's Dengeki PlayStation Politan costume

Guan Yinping, Xingcai and Lu Lingqi's Famitsu fox costumes

Qipao costumes for Sun Shangxiang, Diaochan, Xingcai and Guan Yinping

WO4 DLC costumes for Lu Xun, Daqiao, Guan Yinping and Lu Lingqi

Xingcai, Wang Yi and Guo Jia's yukata costumes and Xu Shu's Western costume from WO4 store bonus/pre-order DLC

Alternate costumes for Fa Zheng, Chen Gong, Lu Lingqi and Xun Yu from 8E

The Samurai Warriors Classic Costume Set contains:

DLC costumes for female characters from SW4/4-II

Swap costumes for Oichi, Ina, Nene and Nō from SW4 store bonus DLC

Mitsunari Ishida without headgear from Famitsu

Takakage Kobayakawa as Motonari Mōri from SW4E pre-order DLC

Naotora Ii's idol costume from SW4-II first print DLC

Sanada costumes for Kunoichi, Ina and Kai from SW Spirit of Sanada

Sasuke's alternate costume - he didn't have one in SW Spirit of Sanada and he wasn't in WO4; the changes are subtle but given the camera angles in this game it's a useless addition

Old Ieyasu Tokugawa, Mature Nobuyuki Sanada and Young Masayuki Sanada with and without headgear from SW Spirit of Sanada

WO4 DLC costumes for Mitsunari Ishida, Gracia, Kai, Kunoichi and Naotora Ii

Mitsunari Ishida, Takatora Tōdō and Yoshitsugu Ōtani's costumes from WO4 store bonus/pre-order DLC

Yukata costumes for Oichi, Nene and all male characters from SW4E

Man, that was a doozy to list. Two Deluxe Editions of this game were also made available on release; the Hack'n'Dash/Start Dash Edition which includes the Legendary Costume Set, and the Hack'n'Dash Ultimate/Full Costume Edition which adds on the two Classic Costume Sets. DW1 costumes for Cao Cao, Zhou Yu, Lu Xun, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei (which were also in DW8) were available for free until 14 March, but not the DW1 costumes for Xiahou Dun, Taishi Ci, Zhao Yun, Diaochan and Lu Bu (which were in DW7).

Of course, thanks to the lower price of this game and the amount of DLC packs, the game ends up costing one-sixth the total cost of the game with all the packs, but if you bought the Hack'n'Dash Ultimate Edition and then all the costume packs for the characters that were released in updates, it actually costs less than if you just bought the game and all the DLCs, provided you don't accidentally buy them twice somehow.

Alongside the characters coming out with each update, DLC costume packs were released with them as well. The Jin Classic costume set contains the modern costumes from DW8, the school costumes, fairytale costumes and fantasy costumes from DW7, and Wang Yuanji's pre-order and DLC costumes from WO4. No new costumes have been added for Sima Yi despite moving to his own faction.

The three Atelier characters received vacation and academy-themed costumes and I'm not sure if they were used in the original games. For the Samurai Warriors characters debuting in the April update, Yoshihiro Shimazu, Muneshige Tachibana and Motochika Chōsokabe receive yukata costumes, Ginchiyo Tachibana receives her 4 and 4-II DLC costumes, Toyohisa Shimazu receives his headgear-less costume from Dengeki PlayStation and Chacha receives her Sanada costume from Spirit of Sanada's DLC. Young and Mature Yukimura also have a separate costume pack with their costumes from Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening. The four Ninja Gaiden characters debuting in the July update receive formal and legacy costume packs consisting of DLC costumes from their series or WO3. After this point I don't think I'll continue listing off costumes, though we can assume that with new characters in updates comes new DLC for those characters. Keep up the money grubbing, Koei Tecmo.

As is standard with spinoff games since SWChronicles or DW7E, Warriors Abyss was localised without English voices. However, funnily enough, there isn't a lot of dialogue from the featured characters, but rather, their generic system lines are reused from WO4 or the respective characters' games. Koei Tecmo finally took on my idea of using archived voices from WO3U even if it wasn't as a supplement to newly recorded voices so they don't have to rerecord them. The only new voices in this game are from King Enma, voiced by Ai Fairouz.

Despite this game also being localised by Digital Hearts, there is a lack of macrons in this game for names like Kotarō Fūma or Takatora Tōdō, like it was in SW1. I guess this explains why the big bad's name is Gouma and not Gōma. But, this is a lower budget game, plus not many people will care about it so I won't harp on this point for too long.

The text languages are the same as for DW9 and Origins save for Portuguese or Arabic. While perusing through the update notes, I noticed that they were finally fixing translation errors in localisations. WHY WEREN'T YOU DOING THAT FOR YOUR OTHER GAMES IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

Warriors Abyss isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's another one of Koei Tecmo's experiments which justifies the return to modern era nostalgia and money grubbing, but the base game by itself is relatively cheap and you really don't need the DLC costumes to enjoy it. The game is under 4GB for all versions so it is fairly compact, which is something of an outlier for non-indie games when AAA games on Steam need over 100GB on your disk; even DW9 and Origins pass the 50GB mark when most modern era PC ports have been around 20GB.

If you like roguelike/rogue-lite games, if you like grinding and defeating bosses, if you like torturing yourself with constant failure repetitively then you'll like this game. For me though, I can't really enjoy it unless I use a trainer, and even then I couldn't deal with the prospect of continually losing and grinding, especially when bosses have shields and I'm not invincible during an Assemble. It's a fun game if you want it to be, but unfortunately, it's not really for me.

Finally, after what seems like years of work, the Koei Warriors Retrospective has caught up to all the games and we can close the book on it, at least for now. The Warriors series for me has been an incredible 20-year journey of ups and downs; there are times when I've been baffled over Koei Tecmo's decisions, even getting frustrated and angry over them, and as long-winded as my rants, recounts and research may be, I do everything I do out of love for the series and a hope that things will get better. Not everything has gone the way I liked, but sometimes you have to understand why Koei Tecmo takes the steps they do and the direction they take, so sometimes it's better just to sit back and see what they will do next.

The Koei Warriors Retrospective may return when the next Warriors game comes out, but until then, continue to walk the unparalleled path of the warrior and strive to become a True Warrior of the Three Kingdoms. Feel free to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr, and until next time, this is Azuma Yeonchi, victorious in defeat.

[yeonchi]

I know I'm not the only fanfic writer who's complained about this.

Ever since I came back to fanfiction.net to publish the Sea Princesses 20th anniversary event fanfic and its tie-ins, I sporadically get PMs from spambots asking if they want me to commission them or if I want them to make a cover for my fanfic.

Like, call me crazy, but isn't the concept behind commissions that you get people to pay you for the art they want you to draw? While job agencies and jobseekers do cold-call companies to see if they have any open positions, I think that when artists cold-call authors like this (and online no less), no offence, they're begging for money or attention.

A lot of these people will have links to their socials or art pages, but when I look into them there's not much substance to them. Even most of these accounts don't even bother to post fanfics themselves. Like, even if artists have to solicit commissions because they have IRL circumstances and they need money, you'd think they would have a substantial portfolio of works somewhere. Also, if they had Patreon accounts I don't think they would need to cold-call anyone in the first place, much less on fanfiction.net of all places.

So no, I have no intention of commissioning these bots and I recommend that others take the same advice that others have given as well. I would rather request something from Liamasterink or do an invitational art drive on my Sea Princesses Discord servers. Sure, I'm not going to pay anyone (in the Liamverse) for it, but at least when they do it, it's out of love for the series and my money won't end up going to bad actors. If I'm really going to commission an artist, at least it won't be any of these spambots.

And to all the artists out there, if you were inspired by my fanfics and you want to draw something from them, you have my express permission, even if you really want to ask me out of respect, so if you want to do it, just do it. I'm of the mindset that when something is uploaded to the internet, it's free game for everyone else (except when it's not), only I don't (or I try not to) repost art from people who have expressed on their socials that they do not allow reposts. It's a bit sucky at times, but it is what it is.

[yeonchi]

In yet another chapter of Me Noticing Things™, Brazilians have made the connection that Fabio Yabu, who adapted Cellbit's tabletop RPG Paranormal Order (basically a sort of D&D campaign by my understanding) was also the creator of Sea Princesses, and Yabu shared his appreciation for them on social media during this year's Bienal do Livro (book convention). I'm not surprised about that, but as always, I'm confounded at how people over there are still aware of the series. I guess it's a "childhood memory" kind of thing.

In yet another chapter of Me Failing to Notice Things™, I only recently realised that Anthony Hayes, who I speculated* to have voiced Veto in the series, was also the actor who voiced Seamus on Tracey McBean. I made that change on the wiki back in July 2023 while I was working on the "where are they now" post for the voice actors. Like, I'm pretty sure I would have looked him up and heard his showreels/voice samples at the time, but it wasn't until Toon Time was reposting both series that I finally made the connection. How could I be this dense?

*Anthony Hayes is only "speculated" on the wiki because I haven't been able to get official confirmation, but outside of it, we're all free to believe whether that's true or not.

[yeonchi]

Koei Warriors Retrospective Part 31: Dynasty Warriors Origins

Dynasty Warriors Origins (真・三國無双 ORIGINS) Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC Release date: 17 January 2025

Why is it so hard to find clean box art covers for games on Amazon? I used to get them there all the time for posts on EDGN, but now I can't find a good high-quality box art cover without having a box outline and a glossy edge crease on it.

Well everyone, we have finally come full circle. Back in 2022 when I got the idea to do this retrospective, SW5 and DW9E were the latest Warriors games to be released. A lot of things happened in the next two years that delayed things, but when I finally managed to start working on this retrospective series itself, Koei Tecmo announced the release of Dynasty Warriors Origins.

I've recounted this before as the origin story of this series, but after leaving the Koei Tecmo fanbase in 2018 following DW9's release, I just continued to play 6 Special, Multi Raid 2 and Vol. 2 on PPSSPP on my potato computer. When the pandemic happened, I decided to rekindle my love for the series and got back into the modern era with WOZ, DW8 and later DW7 on my laptop. I then got a job and later decided to build my own PC which I moved all my games into. Soon after that, I learnt that RPCS3 was a thing and that development had come a long way, so I realised that I had no excuse to not play the games I had shunned for not having an English dub or me not having a PS3.

And so we come to now, the conclusion of a year-long project 3 years in the making, celebrating 20 years of me playing the game series that defined my life, and 10 years of ranting about English dubbing and the Koei Tecmo New Normal Copium. It isn't over until we cross the finish line, so let's jump in.

This instalment follows on from my review of the demo in Part 16. A warning for spoilers after the break.

Dynasty Warriors Origins

Tomohiko Shō returns as producer for this game, the first mainline game with his involvement since the classic era and DW6. After Origins was announced, Shō began posting about his experiences developing the Warriors games for Omega Force on Twitter and I used some factoids from a few of them in the instalments for the classic series games.

Before development for this game began in the second half of 2021 (after DW9E's development), Omega Force was working on what would have become Dynasty Warriors 10, going back to how things were in 8. Shō believed that while their idea wasn't bad, the series needed to return to its roots instead of being just "another one". With the release of the PlayStation 5, he wanted to create the best Warriors game that could be made utilising the full potential of the console's specs, just as he did for DW6 on the PS3. As such, development of DW10 (I'd be surprised if they didn't end up calling it Dynasty Warriors/Shin Sangoku Musou X) was cancelled, or rather frozen, and all efforts went into the development of Origins, with the aim of creating a unique game with the tactical action that the classic series aimed for. The game also took in elements from previous games, making Origins a culmination of the entire Dynasty Warriors series up to that point, like how DW5 was a culmination of the classic era. Shō stated that Origins is not a spinoff or side game per se, but a mainline game on par with the other numbered titles, so it will be treated as such.

Shō has been wary of adding too many characters into the Warriors games, fearing that it would become more difficult to portray each character in depth and less energy could be devoted to other things. Hell, even he thought DW9 got too big. His belief was that it's not having a large amount of characters that matters, but rather how the gameplay and story deepens and evolves with each game. As such, it was decided to limit the scope of the game from the Yellow Turban Rebellion up to the Battle of Chibi, and the cast was cut to half of what it was in DW9, with only 47 characters featured in this game.

Like with SW5, the reduced scope of the story meant that some characters were redesigned to look younger than they had normally been depicted in the rest of the series, and a number of characters also had their seiyuus recast as a result (listed in bold):

Wei (Cao Cao Forces)

Xiahou Dun

Dian Wei

Xu Zhu

Cao Cao

Xiahou Yuan

Zhang Liao

Xu Huang

Zhang He

Zhenji

Jia Xu

Guo Jia

Yue Jin

Li Dian

Yu Jin

Xun Yu

Xun You

Wu (Sun Forces)

Zhou Yu

Taishi Ci

Sun Shangxiang

Sun Jian

Sun Quan

Lu Meng

Gan Ning

Huang Gai

Sun Ce

Zhou Tai

Ling Tong

Lu Su

Han Dang

Cheng Pu

Shu (Liu Bei Forces)

Zhao Yun

Guan Yu

Zhang Fei

Zhuge Liang

Liu Bei

Pang Tong

Yueying

Xu Shu

Zhou Cang

Other

Diaochan

Lu Bu

Dong Zhuo

Yuan Shao

Zhang Jiao

Chen Gong

Yuan Shu

Hua Xiong

Out of the list of 47, only 9 - and later 10 - characters are "playable" in this game, and by "playable" I mean they act as your bodyguards that you can do Extreme Musou Attacks with, then when their Swap Gauge is filled, you can switch to them for a total of 60 seconds, with the first 30 seconds being devoted to free actions and the last 30 seconds being devoted to Rage Mode. Each of the "playable" characters correspond to the weapons you can use in this game, or as Jim Sterling puts it, "they are, in fact, nothing but temporary reskins doing the exact same stuff you can do with a different character model":

Crescent Blade: Guan Yu

Lance (Pike): Zhang Fei

Spear: Zhao Yun

Pole: Zhou Yu

Wheels: Sun Shangxiang

Gauntlets: Huang Gai

Podao: Xiahou Dun

Twin Pikes (Axes): Zhang Liao

Sword: Guo Jia

Halberd: Lu Bu

As I've said in my review for the demo, there are also generic officers that use clubs, pikes and throwing knives, plus there are also officers using blades (dao), feather fans and shaman rods.

In this game, you play as an amnesiac Wanderer who you can name in the prologue, but almost immediately, we learn that he is a Guardian of Peace and in his first meeting with Cao Cao, he witnesses his prowess in battle and nicknames him Ziluan (紫鸞) after the sacred bird. And then we find out in flashbacks that his name is actually Ziluan and half the characters in this game address him as such half the time. Hey, Koei Tecmo, a little protip, don't give the Wanderer an actual name if you're going to let players name him but not customise him! Either the Wanderer is a nameable self-insert or he isn't. If you're going the visual novel route with this game, then you can't have both. There are gaps in the dialogue which take the place of the name you give the Wanderer and it's a bit awkward even if it feels seamless. I would forgive this if he wasn't addressed as Ziluan half the time.

In the first chapter, Ziluan seemingly has numerous encounters with Zhuhe and is plagued by voices and visions of a whitehaired boy, who in the flashbacks, is revealed to be Bailuan, the next chief of the village of the Guardians of Peace. The Guardians of Peace were founded by a hermit who helped Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang) establish the Han Dynasty. The hermit's goal was to find those who possessed the right qualities and teach them to preserve peace in the land. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty, when the eunuchs held the balance of power in the imperial court, the Guardians were split over whether they should continue to support the Han or uphold their mission and help bring about a new age. As Ziluan joins the Han forces in fighting the Yellow Turbans, Zhang Jiao (who has now become a Donald Trump expy) understood that his followers lost their way, something he became disillusioned by, and came to accept his punishment at the hands of Ziluan, a Guardian of Peace.

In the second chapter, Ziluan is joined by Yuanhua (aka Hua Tuo), a young doctor who offers to help him regain his memories. Ziluan joins the elimination of the Ten Eunuchs and the coalition against Dong Zhuo, but the vision of Bailuan tells him that the land is too vast for a single individual to make a difference, which is why he must choose a hero who he can help create a new world with. By the time the coalition disbands after the Battle of Hulao Gate, there are three such candidates; Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian.

The third chapter is where Ziluan (aka you) makes his decision over which lord to serve. As you contribute more to a certain lord, you will be locked out of serving the other two lords. Sun Jian also dies in this chapter, passing everything to his son Sun Ce. Yuanhua also helps Ziluan regain his memories by getting him to gather certain herbs so he can recreate the incense that the Guardians of Peace used. Through Ziluan's flashbacks, we get some insights into his origin story; he was taken in by the village as a child after he lost his parents to war. The village gave Ziluan his name along with that of Bailuan and Zhuhe, and the three of them grew and trained together to become Guardians of Peace. After helping the Han deal with a rebellion in the south, the village took in another child.

The story and flashbacks continue in the fourth chapter. The village leaders discover that the child is related to the rebels that are still being hunted down by the Han and they plan to hand him over for the sake of the village. Ziluan stands up to them and when Bailuan hears of this, he reminds everyone of the Guardians' mission and offers to speak to the chief with them. It took some convincing, but the chief agreed with them, meaning that they would have to fool the Han and convince them that the child doesn't exist. Bailuan says that this is the start of their mission, to find the hero of the age that they can help create a new world. Soon after, the Han forces discover the child's existence thanks to an informant and they send out forces to invade the village. Zhuhe tells Ziluan to look after Bailuan, but Bailuan tells Ziluan to go after Zhuhe.

In the Battle of Baima and Yanjin, or the Battle of Mt. Xisai in the Sun family path, a mysterious stranger appears in support of the Wuhuan in the north or the Shanyue in the east, recognising Ziluan when they meet. After the battle, Ziluan sees some incense being used and follows it to the mysterious stranger, who is revealed to be an older Bailuan, but Ziluan doesn't remember him. Bailuan tells Ziluan that if he had his memories, he wouldn't have allied himself with Cao Cao, the usurper of the Han, or Sun Ce, the vassal of the Han (so is Bailuan supporting the Han or opposing them given that they burnt down the village? Pick one). He also reveals to Ziluan that Zhuhe is dead, and has been since the destruction of their village. Bailuan says to Ziluan that if he insists on following his path, then he will not hesitate to stand against him. He's basically the anti-colonialist/imperialist of this game, siding with the oppressed against the oppressors that are Cao Cao and Sun Ce.

After this, Ziluan and Yuanhua head to the village so the former can receive closure from what is now actually a vision of Zhuhe. With Yuanhua's work now done, he initially plans to part ways with Ziluan, but he decides to stay with him for a while longer.

Bailuan's actions in the fifth chapter change depending on who you decide to follow. In the Cao Cao story, he is surprised to see that Cao Cao survived the Battle of Guandu and is eradicating the rest of the Yuan family in Ye. He uses incense to summon phantom troops and cover Yuan Shang's escape, which catches Ziluan's attention and the two engage in battle. After Ziluan wins, Bailuan challenges him to a rematch in the north at Mt. Bailang, where he manages to buy some time and tire out Guo Jia, indirectly resulting in his death.

In the Sun family story, he was implied to be indirectly responsible for Sun Jian's death by creating phantoms of Huang Gai and Zhang Jiao to distract the former and Ziluan, allowing Huang Zu to ambush Sun Jian with boulders. After Bailuan makes himself known to Ziluan and other forces join the Shanyue in rebellion against Sun Ce, he lays a trap for Sun Ce by creating a fog of confusion in the forest, causing him to be killed by a stray arrow. As Sun Quan leads the Wu forces to fight Huang Zu, he receives a report that the Shanyue are rebelling again and is forced to return home. Bailuan appears at the end of the Subjugation of Kuaiji and prepares to go after Sun Quan when Ziluan faces off against him. Ziluan wins the duel and Bailuan tells Ziluan to kill him, but Sun Quan stops him, telling Bailuan to watch as he tries to win him and the Shanyue over and make them into heroes who fight for peace.

In the Liu Bei story, Bailuan appears in the Battle of Xinye to distract Zhang Liao's reinforcements in fog, proclaiming that he cannot lose Liu Bei for the take of defeating Cao Cao. After the battle, he learns that Ziluan has followed Liu Bei and informs him that he must be protected. Later on, before the Battle of Changban, Bailuan makes contact with Ziluan again and questions him why Liu Bei is taking so many commoners with him as he flees for Jiangxia, risking their lives and slowing him down in the process. Just before Liu Bei reaches the escape point, Bailuan decides that he must be stopped, but Ziluan recognises the fog and fights Bailuan.

So yeah, this is a tl;dr of Bailuan's attitudes towards the three heroes:

Cao Cao: "I hate imperialism"

Sun family: "I hate colonialism"

Liu Bei: "liU beI is RiSKing ThE LIveS Of thE pEoPLE! tHey're ONLY SlOwINg HIM Down!"

Anyway, after winning against Bailuan for the final time, he admits that he doesn't have the strength to defeat Cao Cao or Liu Bei, or that Sun Quan managed to win even him over. In any case, he makes it clear that he will not stand with Ziluan, and that if his chosen hero strays from their path, he will not hesitate to fulfil his duty as a Guardian of Peace and bring him to ruin. As Bailuan leaves, the vision of young Bailuan greets Ziluan for the final time, saying that this is the new way of the Guardians of Peace, with Ziluan championing the heroes and Bailuan keeping them true to their path from the shadows. When Ziluan asks the vision who he really is, the vision just says that the founders of their order were ageless mystical beings who had the faces of children with hair as white as snow, and eyes as blue as the surface of a frozen lake (so, not that blue then).

The story continues from there, but each faction also has an alternate route that leads to their True Ending. It works more like the hypothetical conditions of 4 rather than the what-if routes of 8 because the stories are the same for the most part; it's just some cutscenes that are different. Cao Cao has three forking points, the Sun family has two and Liu Bei only has one. When you achieve the conditions at the forking points, the words "Fate Altered" (天命変化) will appear on the screen.

For Cao Cao's story, you need to save Dian Wei at Wan Castle, Guo Jia at Mt. Bailang, then prevent the fire attack at Chibi. To save Dian Wei, you need to get into the castle quickly when the ladders go up, then defeat Hu Che'er as fast as you can before clearing out the other enemy officers inside Wan Castle. At Mt. Bailang, you need to encounter and defeat Bailuan within 5 minutes, occupying all bases and defeating all officers on the way (I recommend you do this on easier difficulties because enemy officers will be going after Cao Cao from the eastern paths). After Guo Jia survives, he will step down as a strategist and either become a regular officer if Dian Wei is alive, or retire if he isn't. At Chibi, you need to head to the altar and defeat Zhuge Liang, then head back to the ships and wait for Huang Gai to come down as the winds change. Once you confront him, Huang Gai will reveal himself to be a traitor, then you will need to defeat him quickly or else the fire attack will happen anyway. After this, you can complete the battle and the story will end without moving onto the Battle of Huarong Path.

For the Sun family story, you need to save Sun Jian in Xiangyang and Sun Ce in Wu. To save Sun Jian, you need to get to the southwestern area quickly (whether through the normal path to the south or by turning around and heading through the north, which is how I did it somehow) and defeat the Zhang Jiao phantom. Upon reaching Sun Jian, the boulder event will still happen, but Ziluan throws him out of the way and saves him. Sun Jian will ask for him and Huang Gai to help him back before he requests that they not reveal his survival to the rest of his family and army so as to prevent Yuan Shao from going after the Imperial Seal and to make his children step up and lead his army in his place. To save Sun Ce, you need to go into the forest as he disappears within it, then find and defeat Bailuan quickly. He will still be struck by a stray arrow, but Ziluan manages to find him in time and bring him to Yuanhua. Yuanhua, out of concern that Sun Ce's nature will lead him to death once again, suggests that they fake his death like they did with Sun Jian earlier.

Before the Battle of Chibi, Bailuan will approach Ziluan again, saying that while Cao Cao is fighting Sun Quan, he will sneak into Xuchang with the Wuhuan and Shanyue to liberate the Emperor and cripple Cao Cao's influence in the capital. He asks Ziluan if there is anyone he knows who can be a commander to those armies and he brings him to Sun Jian and Sun Ce. After Cao Cao's defeat, Ziluan reveals the truth to everyone and after the Emperor is rescued, Sun Jian and Sun Ce remain in Xuchang to guard him, leaving Sun Quan to rule over Wu.

For Liu Bei's story, you just need to defeat Cao Cao when he arrives at Changban. Cao Cao's army will retreat upon their defeat, then you'll defeat Bailuan as normal. Aside from a different cutscene at the end, there's really nothing much to it. I honestly think they should have added another forking point to Shu's story for Xu Shu, but that's about it.

If you've maxed out the Peace levels in all provinces and you play a True Ending, you'll get some extra cutscenes after the credits. You'll head back to the village and meet Bailuan again; he initially thought that Ziluan had abandoned his mission, but it turns out that they were walking different paths toward the same goal. On top of that, you'll also unlock a Dream Battle, where you'll fight all the Other forces alongside Cao Cao, Sun Jian and Liu Bei.

The open world from 9 returns in the form of the world map, except it only covers the equivalent of 60% of the entirety of Han Dynasty China and it's a tenth the size of what it was in 9. You'll travel around to different castles and towns to fight in battles, stock up on supplies and interact with officers. You can also ride around on a horse or use the Eyes of the Sacred Bird to find out where you need to go.

In the first inn you go to in the township of Ji (薊), the innkeeper there says that he'll keep your mail for you, but you can also access it in different towns. Oh my God, the Chinese invented email. Anyway, through this and playing through the story, you can raise bonds with characters and unlock interactions with them. Each character will have five bond levels, with each level unlocking a bond event, a set of three training missions or a request mission which is either a mini-battle or just going to get something from a hermit elder to take back to the officer.

Speaking of bond events, I know Ziluan's a main character and I'm sure I'm not the only person who has noticed, but the dialogue from the officers in the bond events seems rather (homo)erotic. You've got Guan Yu saying he wants to etch the features of your face into his memory, Yueying wanting to take your measurements to build a life-size doll, Zhenji wanting to have a secret fling with you, Huang Gai just barging into your room to talk, and even Lu Bu wants to top you (in strength) and make you his. Tomohiko Shō has stated that these yaoi/BL elements were unexpected as he left the writing to other writers, but honestly, I found it amusing because, and say it with me now, BECAUSE DAMN IT EVERYTHING IS GAY ABOUT THIS!

Aside from the story battles, you can also participate in small-scale skirmishes to increase peace in a province, or medium-scale mission battles to obtain items and additional guards. Liang Province is honestly a bitch to increase peace because it's like one small corner of the map and you have to run in and out to get a skirmish to spawn. You'd have an easier time if you cleared all the stories and gotten all the endings first.

The Eyes of the Sacred Bird mechanic is utilised in the story quite often. It's mostly used for detecting sorcery and incense, but in the Ten Eunuchs' Rebellion, you use it to find the secret passages within Luoyang. Time slows to a halt when you press L2, so if you're doing a time-limited mission and there's a lot of battle dialogue going on that may affect the next event to be triggered, you can slow down time to let the dialogue pass.

At the Battle of Sishui Gate, you start off with 10 guards accompanying you. Completing the mission battles will give you another 28 guards, then the Ultimate Warrior Challenges will give you 12 more for a total of 50. If your guards die, then they will respawn if you go into an allied base. Tactics can also be triggered with nearby allied troops and sometimes, you can ambush enemies with them and achieve a Dramatic Success, which will also lower their Courage.

When dealing with strong archers atop of towers, base doors or siege weapons, you can't open or destroy them yourself like you could do in previous games; you have to command your guards/nearby allied troops to do it if someone isn't doing it already. If you're alone on the inside of a gate or a door, you can pull away the bar and open it yourself, but that's the only time you can do it. Entering castles during sieges requires you to at least wait until ladders or siege towers are put up like in 6, so you can't just grapple hook your way up like you could do in 9.

I said in the demo that there are two types of assaults, which are the Storm Rush assault or the Mighty Strike assault. Apparently, it turns out that there's three of the latter. From what I could see, the difference in which version is performed depends on how much life an enemy officer has left before and after an assault. If the damage value of the potential assault is lower than the enemy's health after it, the Storm Rush assault will be triggered. If the damage value is higher and the enemy has more than 10% health left, the medium-range Mighty Strike assault will be triggered. If the enemy has less than 10% health, the close-range Mighty Strike assault will be triggered. If said enemy in the latter case is an enemy commander or an important officer, like when you win the tug-of-war in a duel, a special variant of the Mighty Strike assault will be triggered.

There is also something I noticed in regards to the Storm Rush assault; when I apply a damage multiplier in the trainer (from FLiNG Trainers), the assault never finishes off the officer I'm attacking, but it can finish off other officers who are caught up in it, meaning that if their health drops close to zero, it will just keep dealing zero damage and I have to finish them off with another attack. I suppose this is another way of making the game a bit more harder so it's not a complete wash like the modern era.

In the demo, I said that the weapon movesets were a mix of play styles from previous games and it still applies here. I did mention how the wheels use the Flow/Trigger Attack system from 9, but after playing with all the weapons, I've seen how the system is applied here; the system isn't based on what state the enemy in front of you is in, it's based on the state that you are in when you perform a Charge Attack. Charge Attacks are different based on whether you press the button by itself, in the middle of a Normal Attack string, when you're in the air, when you're guarding or when you're evading. Holding the button can also trigger something different as well depending on the weapon. Some weapons will also have on-screen prompts to help players utilise their respective gimmicks.

The weapons in this game are also good candidates for me to do a Weapon Moveset Power Rankings series on, so that'll probably be a future plan down the line alongside the weapons for SW5.

Your character's rank level is based on the proficiencies of all your weapons added up. Increasing weapon proficiency unlocks additional special attacks and Battle Arts. Each increase in weapon proficiency increases your rank level and with it your stats. At certain points, you will receive a promotion in rank and unlock new skill panels.

Skills are unlocked using Skill Points. 3 Skill Points are unlocked every 100 KOs and each training task from an officer rewards 15 Skill Points upon completion. Skills can increase stats, unlock common Battle Arts (which can be used regardless of weapon) and unlock special abilities, including the ability to perform Extreme Musou Attacks with your companion or even enter Musou Rage and perform Ultimate Musou Attacks as you would when swapping to your companion, the latter of which is unlocked after you gain closure with Zhuhe.

There are five gems that you can choose from and power-up to give you different effects in battle. Powering up gems uses Pyroxene (輝石), which can be found all over the world map. You contribute an amount of Pyroxene per attempt and the amount and type of gems created varies, with bonus gems being created occasionally. Sometimes, your Eyes of the Sacred Bird will allow you to see a light in the Pyroxene and predict what gem types will be created, or you can use a Moongrass to induce a bright light and directly induce a prediction. Gems can be upgraded to a maximum level of 30.

Chapter 2 unlocks the Shui Jing Retreat, which would be run by Shui Jing/Sima Hui's apprentice Pang Tong from Chapter 3 onwards. You can find out the status of your bonds with other officers and also who can be interacted with for bond events or tasks. You'll also collect 500 Old Coins in this game, the equivalent to Hunting Points from 8, and obtain rewards like items, gold and pyroxene based on how many Old Coins you've collected so far. When you've obtained all the Old Coins you can in battle, the last few are scattered on the world map, so you have to go into every nook and cranny to find every last one. A March 2025 update added another feature in New Game+ where you can trade Skill Points for Panacea, Musou Bonds and gold, which is a good use for them after all your skills are unlocked.

In battle, you'll have a cache of 4-6 meat buns and you can take up to another three items into battle. Each item you take can only be used once per battle, like in the modern Samurai Warriors games. Depending on the setting, the meat buns you pick up can be used automatically to replenish your health before they refill your cache for later use. Entering War God's Rage also enables you to refill your health with each attack.

Like in the demo, you can summon and mount onto your horse by pressing L3. While playing the game, I've found a lot of times that I can accidentally press L3 and end up interrupting my attack; updates have made it so I can remap it to the down button and swap it with the function to zoom in the minimap, or I can make it so that the L3 button needs to be held down to summon the horse, which does help a bit.

Sometimes, enemy officers can enter Musou Rage and perform Ultimate Musou Attacks, especially on higher difficulties or when a large enemy army employs this as a Grand Tactic. This can be prevented by depleting the enemy's Fortitude Gauge.

An update in April 2025 added Photo Mode for those who are interested. There are less features in this compared to 9's Photo Mode, but I'm sure it'll be sufficient for most players.

After clearing the game once and entering New Game+, you'll unlock the Ultimate Warrior difficulty, which is this game's equivalent of Chaos/Ultimate difficulty. On Hero difficulty, enemies will become more aggressive, blocking attacks (or being attacked) drains your Bravery and enemies will not drop meat buns, but you'll earn more gold and Skill Points in return. Ultimate Warrior difficulty reduces the windows for Parries and Perfect Evades, but you'll be able to complete challenges that will reward you with gold, old coins, pyroxene, items, guards, special horses, Battle Arts, Grade 7 weapons and Grade 8 Luan weapons.

You can also start the story again from the beginning of a chapter or a restart point, particularly if you want to play a different faction's story or retry for the True Ending. You don't have to play all the way from Chapter 1 if you don't want to.

New Game+ also gives you the ability to merge weapons by reforging them, whether to boost a weapon's attack power or transfer traits from one weapon to another. You can only reforge weapons of the same type and grade.

Once again, there's not a lot of DLC in this game because everything is part of the pre-order bonuses. The only piece of DLC available for this game is the Original Soundtrack, which contains 20 original tracks from older games that received a new arrangement for this game, and the Official Book, which is something that I'd expect to see in a Treasure Box release and wouldn't you know it, it exists and it's in there. They are also available in the Digital Deluxe Edition as well, where the book can be viewed in the game. The only catch is that the Official Book is only in Japanese.

Koei Tecmo released the Official Book for international fans and it's only available in Japanese.

There's not even a Chinese version of it either. I don't know about other languages, but I wouldn't mind if they only translated an English version of the book for the West. Like, you go out of your way to send the Official Book out to as many people as you can, and you can't even get it translated to the languages that a great deal of your fans understand.

Players who preordered the game physically or bought the Treasure Box also four four additional Garb of the Flying Bird variants in blue, red, green and purple, while players who preordered the game digitally would receive the Nameless Warrior Garb from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty- wait. They released variants of Ziluan's initial costume and yet they couldn't release variants of his Wing Uniform when he joined a faction? The Photo Mode update also added the Lion Dragon Armor based on Zhao Yun's costume in 3.

Up to 30 January, there was also a free Early Works Soundtrack Collection DLC containing 191 BGMs from the classic era. What about the modern era BGMs, huh? Also, in February, a free tie-in DLC was released in collaboration with Ichiran, which is another health-recovering item. Yay?

The Digital Deluxe Edition includes 10,000 gold and 30 pyroxene which is obtained through letters that will be available in-game. Additionally, players who preordered the Digital Deluxe Edition or the Treasure Box could also get access to the game 72 hours early, and the early access was unlocked on 14 January whereas everyone else had to wait until 17 January.

Jim Sterling made a video on how gaming companies are using early access incentives to prey on the FOMO of players and extract extra money out of them instead of making actual content, and when you look at what's available in the Digital Deluxe Edition and the DLC (which there barely is any), they're not wrong. The base game costs USD$70 and the Original Soundtrack/Official Book DLC costs USD$20. Guess how much the Digital Deluxe Edition costs. Yep, USD$90, and for that price, you also got to play the game 3 days early with some bonus in-game currency, except the game's already been out so all you're really getting is free currency you could still get if you played a few battles or sold a few weapons. If the Official Book was also available in English and Chinese, if the Deluxe Edition included the Early Works Soundtrack Collection and the pre-order costumes, then maybe the Deluxe Edition would be justified at that price point. But now, the Deluxe Edition is no better than buying the base game and DLC separately, especially with no Season Pass to recycle content with (unless it's on sale, at which point it's partially justifiable).

Also, releasing a game 3 days earlier for people who pre-ordered is still releasing a game, it's just that everyone else can't play it for 3 days. The scene groups managed to crack the game and make it available as soon as they were able to get the game 3 days before everybody else. You're not fooling anyone. Early access is a scam if you get your head out of your FOMO-blueballed ass and think about it.

Onto localisation now. This game is available with voices in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and English, plus texts in Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and in a later update, Arabic. What, no Portuguese translation? You did it for 9.

Most PlayStation 5 releases outside of Asia, including Japan and the West, do not have support for Chinese texts or voices. Conversely, within Asia, there is a separate version that only has support for Japanese and Chinese texts and voices. Xbox Series and Steam releases have all language options intact. What the hell, Sony.

The Mandarin Chinese dub for this game was produced by another Beijing-based studio, 8082Audio, who also produced the Chinese dub for Black Myth: Wukong. Olivia Tong Xinzhu (佟心竹/C小调), who voiced Diaochan in 9 and also reprises her role in this game, served as the main voice recording director in this game after transferring to 8082Audio from TrioPen Studio. While a number of characters have been recast, a lot of the voice actors from 9's Mandarin Chinese dub return in this game, whether to reprise their roles or voice new ones, so kudos on that.

Initially, I predicted that the English dub would be produced by the New York-based 3Beep (who produced the dub for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty), but I was proven wrong. The English dub for this game was produced by the LA-based Rocket Sound and Dave & Dave Recording Studios, who have worked on both union and non-union projects alike with union and non-union actors. When I first listened to the English announcement trailer, I thought that David Lodge, who voiced Fu Xi in WO2 and Ling Tong in DW6-8, was the narrator in it and therefore, would be the narrator for this game (I was on my way home from a holiday at the time and I was watching on my phone over tea). I was wrong on those fronts, but I unintentionally predicted that he would have a role in this game's dub. The narrator in the trailer turned out to be Guan Yu's voice actor William C. Stephens and the narrator in the game turned out to be the older Bailuan, voiced by John-Henry Kurtz.

As is obvious, the English dub was recast by Rocket Sound, but interestingly, three voice actors from DW8 (out of 57) were cast in Origins. Kyle Herbert, who voiced Sima Yi, Xu Huang, Zhou Tai, and Ding Feng, was cast as Lu Bu; Kaiji Tang, who voiced Sima Zhao, was cast as Chen Gong and Gan Ning; and David Lodge, who voiced Ling Tong (and Fu Xi in WO2), was cast as Cheng Pu. The voice cast was gradually revealed on social media during the leadup to the game's release; the main voice actors (for Ziluan and the nine companion characters) were the first to be revealed when the game's website was launched, plus they are credited in the game's opening credits sequence, a first for the series.

Unfortunately, for an English voice cast that's full of DEI (there's quite a number of minority and LGBTQIA+/non-binary voice actors in the mix), they sure can't pronounce a lot of Chinese names properly or consistently. Some examples include "Xi" for "Xu", "Zuluan" for "Ziluan", "Su(a)n Sua" for "Sun Ce", and the most egregious examples, "Kong Zong" for "Kong Rong" (it's not Vietnamese) and "Lui/Louie/Looey" for any name that uses the umlaut "Lü", like "Lui Meng" for "Lu Meng" or "Louie Bu" for "Lu Bu" (it's not Cantonese). And like in 9, they still managed to pronounce Cao Cao's name as "Tsao Tsao" and not "Cow Cow". In a world where the entertainment industry is overtly left-wing liberal and #StopAsianHate crybabies get so anal-retentive over how non-Asians pronounce Asian names, this comes off as unintentionally funny at best and wilfully ignorant at worst. I'm surprised the 3 voice actors from DW8 weren't consulted on how to pronounce certain names properly. Say what you will about the Voicegroup dubs, at least they were consistent with their pronunciations in each game even if they were technically incorrect, with some pronunciations being changed in later games.

There are also points in the game where the line said in the voice track is incorrect, but the subtitle for it is correct. A couple of examples can be found with Cheng Pu in the Chapter 4 event Nemesis and the Chapter 5 event True Loyalty. I swear at one point I thought Taishi Ci said a line that was totally different than the subtitle, but maybe I remembered wrong or the line was corrected in an update.

The English localisation was once again headed by Digital Hearts and dear Lord, some of the lines use some pretty big or weird words. It's like they ran the script through a thesaurus or something. When officers (even Ziluan) order archers to fire their arrows, they say "Loose!" instead of "Fire!" After looking into it though, "loose" is technically a more accurate term since "firing" is usually associated with firearms.

The quality of the Rocket Sound/Dave & Dave English dub is way better than Voxx Studios' dub of 9, but in my opinion, and maybe it's my (toxic) nostalgia talking here, they could never reach the pinnacle of quality that was Voicegroup's dubs of 4-8.

Also, to the dub haters and opinion-neutrals who like to say "just read the subtitles" when dub fans complain about games not being dubbed, I dare you to play this game with Japanese/Chinese voices and try reading the battle dialogue when you've got enemies attacking you every which way and you're trying to concentrate on your character. Yes, I know battle messages can pause the game briefly depending on your settings. Oh, and you're not allowed to hold down L2 while the battle dialogue's on the screen because that would be cheating.

Dynasty Warriors Origins is an amazing game, easily the peak of the postmodern era. By combining elements from all three eras, Omega Force continued the postmodern era by taking what made the modern era great and giving them some classic era touches to add some real punch.

Like the modern era games, you're bound to rack up 2000-3000 KOs in battle, but the game makes you put in the effort so it doesn't feel too easy and become a complete wash. There's a degree of challenge like in the early classic era with enemies attacking more aggressively, plus the large army battles and castle sieges add depths of immersion that hasn't been seen in previous games.

Some parts of this game won't appeal to everyone, like the limited history scope, the lack of character customisation or the game's hyperfocus on an original protagonist that everyone gushes over. This game isn't going to be perfect for everyone and that's okay. There have been fans who would have liked to see an actual Dynasty Warriors 10 that went back to how things were in 8, like the original plan for this game. I can't deny that I'm one of those people, but maybe this reboot is the kick in the pants that the Warriors series desperately needed, which brings us to the rant for this game.

Rant: A Reality Check (The Current State of Koei Tecmo)

At the time of publishing this retrospective, Dynasty Warriors Origins has been out for 5 months now. It's been rated highly by reviewers and critics, beating DW4 on Metacritic as the highest-rated mainline Warriors game, sold 1 million units worldwide in the month after its release, and before its release, won an award from the Future Division of the Japan Game Awards at TGS 2024. So what's next for Koei Tecmo and Omega Force and what direction would they take the Warriors games toward?

After reaching its first peak in the classic era with DW4/5 and SW1/2, Dynasty Warriors and Koei Warriors games as a whole began to experience a decline at the tail end of the classic era that persisted throughout the modern era and came to a head in the postmodern era.

The first two Warriors Orochi games featured a dream crossover between the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series, but the features were lacking, the stories were disparate despite efforts to connect them, and the culmination of those games in the form of Z failed to reach the West presumably due to SCEA's vetoing of a localised release.

DW6 was Tomohiko Shō's attempt at creating the best Warriors game that utilised the PS3's specs to its fullest potential, but characters and Musou Modes were cut and most characters that remained had shared weapon movesets, not to mention the Renbu system homogenising the Charge Attack system that had been a staple of previous games.

SW3 attempted to modernise Samurai Warriors like DW6 did for its series, but the Nintendo Wii exclusivity hampered the game's performance and in turn, its reception, which resulted in the Xtreme Legends expansion and Empires spinoff remaining Japan-exclusive and the beginning of the end for English dubs in Samurai Warriors games or English dubs for Koei Warriors games in general produced by Voicegroup.

DW7 celebrated 10 years of Dynasty Warriors, began a modern era peak and allowed Omega Force to regain the respect it lost with 6, but weapon clones remained and not every character was given their chance to shine in the vanilla game's Story Mode, not to mention the reused assets in costumes and DLCs marking the series' biggest example of autoerotic assetflipsiation.

WO3 concluded the crossover story of the first two games and brought in characters from Koei Tecmo's other IPs, but the lack of an English dub, a physical release in the US or proper scrutiny in the translation hampered the awesome potential of the game that was only partially regained a decade after its original release with the release of the PC port.

DW8 improved on its predecessor by literally building on from its foundations, but it cheapened the 1 vs 1000 experience by making the game too easy on lower difficulties or too hard on higher difficulties, continued its predecessor's autoerotic assetflipsiation and the spinoffs began to show that Omega Force was beginning to burn out after releasing numerous games, expansions, ports and spinoffs year after year.

SW4 was Samurai Warriors' turn to celebrate 10 years of their series, but Capcom's lawsuits towards Koei Tecmo likely derailed their plans for its Xtreme Legends expansion leading to it becoming a repetitive retread of its main game, not to mention the lack of English dub or certain characters not being prominently featured dampening the anniversary hype.

WAS, DW9 and WO4 were all in development at the same time so resources were being stretched across these three projects among others, leading to them suffering from being unpolished in the final products, particularly DW9 as it aimed to be "ambitious" with an open-world format and a deconstructed combat system only for it to be an absolute dumpster fire, with WO4 acting as damage control.

SW5 was Omega Force's first step in a new direction as the scope was only centred around a specific period and group of people in Sengoku era Japan, cutting out characters that were extraneous to it. DWOrigins continued this with an original story intertwined with a fleshed-out scope covering the first part of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Recently, DenFaminicoGamer published a gargantuan interview with producer Tomohiko Shō about Dynasty Warriors Origins and the series in general. Towards the end of it, the topic shifts to game development and how things have changed in entertainment since the PS2 era.

In the West, the volume of content is what matters these days; the gaming industry there has essentially become another Hollywood over the past 10 years. The scale of development has noticeably expanded as well, as companies are investing lots of money in the hope that their teams can create high quality content (YMMV).

There wasn't much choice for entertainment back in the PS2 days compared to today, so Koei Tecmo releasing a new Warriors game every year was somewhat reasonable. But eventually, people will get tired at some point - even though Japanese fans, who love the Three Kingdoms era, were willing to play the Yellow Turban Rebellion again by the time 5 came out, Shō thought that they were starting to get tired of it.

Nowadays, it's impossible to expect a new game in a series every year, hence why sequels tend to be released every 2-3 years. Even small indie games require a lot of energy and time from the people making them and a new employee at a gaming company going into a new project will only see it completed and released to the public in 3-4 years. According to Shō, university graduates will aim to join gaming companies because they love games, but most of them have never even experienced the mindset of a creator. He also states that for better or worse, there have been more talented people in the gaming industry and less passionate people in recent times.

Take two of Koei Tecmo's mainline simulation franchises, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition. ROTK is going to be the more successful franchise because there is a large market in China and the original novel covers a large time period and a massive amount of people and events. Nobunaga's Ambition, on the other hand, is inevitably still going to be a niche franchise outside of Japan because there's not many fans who are interested in it, and also because, in my view, there is no one book that has covered the entire Sengoku period or romanticised it like ROTK. Plus, ROTK came to Japan during the Edo period. Romanticised foreign history vs. violent recent domestic history - you make the call.

Action games inevitably cost more to develop than simulation games. Reflect that onto Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors and you can see why the former has more advantages, more fans and more sales, especially overseas.

During the modern era, we saw how both series became too big and too broad while lacking in innovation or excessively overdoing it, making each game shallower and shallower with each release. Remember what Shō said about how having more characters makes it harder to portray them all in depth and devote energy to other things like gameplay or story.

So this is my reality check for the fanbase. We should not expect every new game to be bigger than the last one. We should not expect things to go back to how they were in DW8/SW4. We should not expect more and more characters and battlefields in a game covering such broad periods of history that are as bloated as they are already. We should not expect characters to all have individualised weapons with individualised movesets and gimmicks. And most of all, we should not expect every game to be translated or dubbed into every goddamn language in the world.

Instead, we should look forward to how the series will continue to evolve, what features would be implemented, what new mechanics will be invented, what characters and battles will receive focus, and most importantly, how these things will be received by everyone, in and out of the fanbase.

Do you want a series with sequels that get better with each release, or do you just want each new game to be "another one"?

Admittedly, I'm in the latter camp and I'm okay with it, but working on the Koei Warriors Retrospective and seeing all these insights from people inside and outside of Koei Tecmo made me realise that I want to look forward to how the Warriors series continues to evolve. I've been negative, angry, even entitled, over some of Koei Tecmo and Omega Force's decisions in the past, but I've realised that this isn't the classic era where every game can get an English dub or the modern era where I can play with 94 characters and weapons. This is the postmodern era where we don't know what era will come after this one, but we can look forward to deeper gameplay and storytelling. And while it may be hard for someone like me, who isn't into a diverse set of franchises and fanbases, to imagine how the Koei Warriors series can evolve, I know that I'm not the only fan capable of imagining, so hopefully I'll remain optimistic for what comes next after Origins, even if it takes years to be realised.

Well, it's been fun working on the Koei Warriors Retrospective for the past year. I hope you enjoyed reading these instalments, long-winded though they may be, just as I enjoyed writing them, and-

OH, GODDAMN IT.