#ive got designs for other npcs i just need to draw them :)

[procyonv]

its my courier's birthday so furry new vegas au be upon ye

[be-good-to-bugs]

having ocs is great until you have to organize them

[itsbenedict]

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop 

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

[guild-guardian]

Spoiler Free review of “All or Nothing”

After a cut because long post, many words, skritt math. 

The Story (No details)

Overall it's probably one of the best executed episodes worth of story that they’ve released in the last couple of Seasons. 

The Final Battle is more akin to the kind of scale you see in the Zorah Magdaros battle in Monster Hunter World than you’d expect to find in GW2, and that was a huge improvement compared to previous Elder Dragon battles. Having an active role in the battle, along with the NPCs not just “swinging their sword Oh look they swung it again” at trash mobs, and actually being useful- firing siege weapons, fighting mobs, picking you up if you get downed

So many call backs to minor named NPCs- some personal early personal story, and others from pact/priory/vigil etc It lead to a feeling of being surrounded by familiar faces as you lead the charge.  The short piece after the battle was also a well designed experience- the lack of UI and the “damage” lines that you felt when Balthazar killed you in PoF, further push the “oh fuck we’re pretty badly wounded”, along with the forced walk/limp and fall to our knees when we try to hop down along the uneven floor. The main character’s animation here was excellent and slow pace allowed Anet to sculpt a tightly designed experience that is as shocking as it is memorable. I won’t forget that last visual.

Brandon Bales and Debi Derryberry probably did the best voice work in this episode (imo- I haven't played it through on a non-sylvari male). It was extremely immersive and I totally bought what was happening as they expressed it.  I appreciated that the Zephyrites’ song/choir got further development, and how its relevant to the story just made it a really nice touch overall. 

I did think it felt very short- only 3 instances. It may be that they pushed the pacing to emphasise the commander rushing headlong and gambling dangerously on the first ideas that come to them, and they do love a cliffhanger at the end.  It ends on a flat note though, you can’t even interact with story NPCs after you finish it- nothing in the shiverpeaks map changes, no dialogue no “I’m just checking in” updates, nothing.  Final Note: WHERE ARE KASMEER AND MARJORY 

The Map

Huge! Ruins! Subterranean structures! Exploring! Absolutely nailed the Guild Wars 1 Shiverpeak atmosphere.but uh...not much to do past that. 

The Thunderhead Keep meta is fun- I love defense events that allow us to set traps, build barricades and ballistae. The Boss is TOO BRIGHT. It is impossible to see even with effects turned down and post processing off. Anet needs to reassess their priorities with visual telegraphing because right now you can’t see a thing, never mind reacting to the thing. 

Minor Quibble. UH WHERE DID THAT CLIFF AND PIT COME FROM? I’m pretty sure that the mountains just...continued north of the keep in GW1, and a little further north you’d come to the Mursaat teleporter to Hell’s Precipice. 

The dredge meta is...hard to get people to defend the 2nd and 3rd drills- I’ve yet to be successful on this one. 

The delay between meta active times feels a bit long, and perhaps its just the layout of this one, but there isn’t much notification if North or south meta is happening/how long until X etc. 

I don’t like that Map Completion can’t be soloed- Both metas are required. Unless you find a friendly mesmer or buy the Light of Deldrimor from the TP. 

Past the Metas, I’ve seen maybe 5 or 6 events tops on this huge environment. That is pretty woeful. I get that this was probably a high budget episode with two cutscenes, unique character animations and PvE environments built to scale with the GW1 counterparts (why did dwarves build so big anyway?), but the overall quiet map is a bit of a let down- considering the variety of content available in Jahai.

I adore the skritt/priory interactions, and an above ground village of Dredge being shown in in a positive light. Even if literally every member of the survivors has had to kill their friends and family with their own hands. 

The Mastery 

Heavily Situational and will take some getting used to. It doesn’t have that immediate “Good Feel” as mounting your griffon midair or while gliding. Being “animation locked” for most of the launch prevents you from gliding or re-mounting, so you just plummet for the most part and lose out on any air you might have hoped to gain from using it. 

At least we can be thankful it wasn’t required to complete the story or meta.

The Fractal

Dreams: Crushed Hopes: Sundered Orr: Ignored.  Instead of picking an interesting pirate/corsair character that could use a bit of story development, they go with the boisterous ghost from the Lion’s Arch Jumping Puzzle. 

This fractal is short (at T1- it’ll likely have more complexity as you go up) and very sparse on story. The music is good, and the environment is good. Dessa continues to be the shining star of most fractals with her responses to the situations she gets to observe.  Probably won't be the new Challenge mode fractal that people were hoping for, but the fight mechanics are fun and different. 

I’d appreciate it if Anet could relinquish their choke grip they’ve had on talk like a pirate day 2012 that seems to permeate all of their pirate related content- it always feels kind of like even the characters themselves don’t take themselves seriously. There's just something pretty wack with them.  (and I’m not talking about all the landlocked core game pirates just living in lakes barely big enough for their bases) That’s Enough. 

The Legendary

Probably one of the nicest they’ve done in a while. Initially I was put off by it- the official preview of it in the reveal trailer didn’t really show it off very well- not the steps, aura or on-draw effect. However on this video from someone who got it before release, they point out a few things about it that really sell it for me.

I love the scorch mark on draw, with the dubstep twangs the most. A little disappointed that Range LB 5 is unaffected- it could have been very pretty (ie spirit bow active visuals).   It's a very refined weapon that will certainly suit a lot more characters than Kudzu, and I’ll probably make it after I finish Ipos. In like a year.

The Music

Knocks itself out of the park in a home run touchdown or however sports works. The choral piece for Aurene is very beautiful, and I especially appreciate the tarir motif used towards to the end of the track.  Re-used GW1 themes in the map give a very nostalgic feel, and the fractal has a unique Shanty theme, along with what was used for this year’s Festival of the Four winds. 

OVERALL SCORE 7.5/10

The story is moving and immersive, the encounters well designed and well executed, however sparse event placement on the map kinda gets :/ from me. 

Fractals continuing a trend of “we can do anything in the history of tyria- but lets focus on the boring parts” is also disappointing. 

PS. The .5 comes from the Skritt writing and voice acting.  So pure and wholesome. 

[sometipsygnostalgic]

xenoblade chronicles  2 rapidfire review

π after i started writing up a 5000 word review and was still on the “character” section ive decided to make a rapidfire version to get to the fucking point. 

Story - at the end of the day, it’s a tale about how to deal with all the pain and insecurity that life throws at you. how to dig down deep and find a way to continue in what you may interpret as a dreadful world. it also has some of the most satisfying mysteries and plot resolutions i’ve ever seen in a videogame. utterly touching themes. unfortunately gets a bit too shonen at points especially with the protagonist. also quite possibly a lowkey harem anime.  

Story rating - 8 out of 10.   

Characters -  mostly all amazing in the english version. 

Rex - a top lad. your best mate. however, becomes a total flawless gary stu pretty quickly. better than many protagonists out there. i like the way he gets people to open up by acting so casually friendly around them. 7 out of 10.

Pyra - unfortunately the weakest character in the main cast. has 3 forms that are treated as different characters for some reason, and no emotions beyond “sad” and “in love with rex”. her mythra form is a slightly better character who will talk to other cast members and sass down people. however mythra also comes across as weak and overly emotionally fragile at times, considering she is supposed to be the Master Blade. i suspect she exists for rex to have 4 3 girlfriends at once.   

Azurda -  dragon grandpa. subversive in that when he dies for the hero to move on from the homeland, he immediately resurrects himself as a cute furry thing that sleeps in rex’s helmet. best videogame decision ever. gives top advice.

Nia - welsh. double furry. how old is she? 6? most useful NPC. swears a hell of a lot. hilarious sassmaster with an intriguing story and well-rounded motivations. consistently interesting relationships with other cast members up to the end of the game. even remains the same after receiving her compulsory magical girl transformation. has the most awesome magical girl transformation. gives the main villain super cancer, causing him to blow up like harry potter’s aunt. probably the best character. lightly orbits the black hole of the rex harem, struggling to maintain geostational stability against the powers of fanservice.  

Dromarch - a good dad cat. there is not a lot else to say about dromarch, except that you can ride him, which is badass. he and azurda are the old dad types babysitting the kids. 

Tora - meh meh. actually likable mechanic child. why is this furry cat thing a key member of my party. despite rarely ever upgrading his blade he has made me basically immortal many times. nopon mask is underrated. masterpon is same at start of game as at end of game. that is to say he is an ambitious child, and a bit of a pervert. however, has terrible taste in upgrades. has many IRL blades pointed at him.  

Poppi - poppi artificial blade who speak like masterpon. poppi α has cool design. poppi α adorable and cool. due to being newborn blade, poppi have refreshing and truthful view on world. poppi have tragic artificial sister who almost die terribly after evil nopon brainwash!  poppi have most sad heartbreaking scene at end of game. however, poppi QT and poppi QT π designs can die in big fire.  poppi good at throwing shade. it endearing and special trait. 

Morag - technically the group normie. however, very weird. when you first see morag she reeks of pure chilled badassery. logical and with a strong sense of justice and compassion, morag starts off as an intimidating antivillain but becomes a staple member of the party. even though rex and the gang are fugitives in her city, she lets them leave because she senses they weren’t crooked ruffians and they had a purpose of their own. but she comes back to kick their ass when she thinks they’re causing more trouble, and is actually quite pissed off about rex and pyra holding back on her. has a sweet relationship with the emporer, her distant cousin/adoptive kid brother. morag learns on her adventure the value of the optimistic views the kids  around her have of the world, and says multiple times if more people thought like they did, maybe there wouldn’t be so much political nonsense  stopping people from living together peacefully. morag has a lot of pride and cannot deal with being oneupped. i love her.

Brighid - Morag’s wife blade who is one of many that struggles with the thought of losing her identity after regenning. has a diary of her past lives. uses it to taunt mythra about that one time she kicked her ass. pretends to be a little distant but low key super emotionally invested in the cast’s development. literally asked a main villain if she was like her past self that he knew, causing him to reconsider his entire philosophy on blades becoming completely different people when they’re reborn. bitchslaps rex that one time. Owns everybody at some point. such a beautiful character design that i never even noticed her chest is basically bare. 

shellhead Zeke - the prince... of NOTHING. wishes he was still a student. that one time he nearly died, he was probably impaled by a falling twig. enjoyed playing Team Rocket. surprisingly wise for a teenlike NEET. does not look after his precious turtle. potentially does have a thunder powered eye. however, definitely requires second contact lens. unfortunately not comparable to rex in combat especially as his Luck stat means using a legendary crystal on him is like throwing it away. 

Pandoria - i often forget pandoria is a blade because she is zeke’s girlfriend, also i never use her in battle due to his redundentness. well reknowned for also not looking after turtles properly. also well reknowned for slam dunking the prince over his nonsense while being equally silly.  

BAD GUYS

Jin - apparently has special people-drawing trait that makes all the good cast who know him shocked he is ordering such evil bastard things to happen. not entirely sure what that trait is. emo about much bad stuff that happen to him and his driver. wishes to never forget his life with his driver. dirty child killer.very aniime. why is he the only flesh eater whose core turns red?  okay character with decent enough motivation. was confused as to why Malos was following him until the very end. 

Malos - evil bastard. cheesy villain. you can kick his ass many times and he will get back up 3 minutes later and laugh at you while swallowing back the bile of a bitter defeat. is actually a little tragic by the end of the game. dies for no reason. makes morag jealous because he found his purpose in life, though im not sure what that is.  

Akhos - N3RD. probably the most likable member of Torna. had a silly Blade companion who he was really upset died. i like how he was sentimental about his ‘sister’ blade. 

Patroka - most forgettable Torna member. a little bit tsundere. 

Mikhail - grew on me significantly at the end though like Akhos and Patroka his backstory was unceremoniously dumped on your lap at the last second. must be a great fan of Prince Zeke as he’s heard of the term Blade Eater. also why has Mikhail got awesome blade powers and immortality when Zeke hasnt? maybe Mikhail is “possessing” the blade per se.  

Amalthus - emo bitch. stared God in the face and raised his middle finger. hypocritically creates flesh eaters then sends witch hunts out for them. i like that he reminded himself every day about how bad humanity was by doing his best to help people. so despite the praetor being this “benevolent” figure he had somehow manifested a being of pure hatred. 

Theres a lot of other people I cant be assed talking about right now.

Character rating - 9 out of 10. Even though some important characters arent as impactful as they should be, everybody is memorable and I can remember all of their damn names and backstories.  

Gameplay - not particularly amazing. battles are alright, RPG-wise, with orb breaking combos and cancelling being fun to use. but they’re highly limited by the fact you can only control 1 character at a time and there is no Co-op feature. they also take an incredibly long time, even for just one enemy encounter, and there can be unfair Spike damage moves that oneshot you. my most satisfying moment battling ever was when i was fighting Aeon, the final boss, and got a Full break for the first time... I decimated the fucker when he was at 60% health. 

Of course, those are just the battle mechanics. 

The game is full of complex mechanics that do nothing but add tedium. Every single quest in the game forces you to farm for certain “collectibles”, plants that grow in specific unlisted locations that respawn when you fast travel. Many character “affinity” upgrades, which can lock out certain areas of the map, special skills, or unique interactions, also require you to do this shit. A guide is NECESSARY for this.  There’s also the Merc Missions. Little did you know, you will need to complete Merc Missions to reach the end of many blade quests!!!you know what’s FUN? Waiting for a timer to pass after 25 fucking minutes!!!! this game has NO RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME WHATSOEVER. 

the biggest bullshit of all is when you’re locked out of the main story because a specific character on your team hasn’t unlocked level 3 of a specific skill, because there’s no way that you’d be able to unlock that by naturally playing the game as you have to go out of your way to fill the criteria and grind something or other for 20 minutes. 

This makes sidequests absolutely worthless.

The saving grace for the gameplay is probably the customizability of the blades themselves. Not so much the skills you can attach to each blade, but that you can unlock a number of fun characters to use, and they will have their own unique dialogue. The drivers and blades talking during battle also makes a 20 minute fight feel a lot quicker. 

Battle gameplay mechanics: 6 out of 10. Fun but could be better.  Sidequests, crafting, and field skill mechanics : 1 out of 10. Worthless trash that should never have been greenlit. 

Considering that you will be spending so much time on the gameplay, why even bother playing the game at all?

It’s very much the story that pushes the player to move onwards. If this game didn’t have such a fun cast and meaningful plot then I’d probably not have gotten past the first act. 

Music and Environments - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is filled with vast, beautiful and diverse environments. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interactivity with them other than killing monsters or foraging those bloody collectibles, but they’re beautiful enough with a diverse range of monster inhabitants that give them life. The MUSIC is godlike. My favourite track in the game would be the song used for the city in Tantal. Very ominous and beautiful hymn, sung in English. 

Music and environment rating - 8 out of 10.

Localisation - While many sneer at the localisation choices for this game I thought it brought it to life. Granted I have great bias as being a Welsh girl who is familiar with the differences in UK regional dialect, but it felt like the dialogue the characters were saying also had a heavy makeover to fit the new voices... I really don’t believe that Rex’s Japanese voice actor also sounded like a Top Lad, or that Nia’s japanese voice actor sounded as much like she was ready for a valleys bar fight.  However there are some clear obstacles as well - the characters seemed to have no idea of the context of their lines. This is obvious when they shout something for a long time. Rex’s “HIYAAAAAAAAH” and Nia’s “NOOOO MOOOOORE” sound comically off-tone when they are supposed to be epic. It’s the works of someone who read those lines off a script without knowing what was going on. Tora’s actor saying “meh meh” sounds like it was meant to be a COMPLETELY different noise. Morag and Zeke never go off-course, however. I think either they had an advantage with more visuals being completed by the time they were cast, or they just don’t have diverse enough dialogue in the game for it to have been an issue.

Localisation - 7.8/10 too much Meh. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Xenoblade chronicles 2 is a highly addictive game that pulls you to the finish line with an interesting plot and a cast you just can’t let go of. While Pyra is certainly the weakest link of the characters, and the game has some extremely goofy shonen scenes that it’s hard to take seriously, and oh dear me that’s an awful lot of boob shots, I had a lot of fun powering through it. I’m going to have a tough time letting go of this story and these characters. 

Unfortunately the gameplay itself is not similarly addictive, and becomes more of a chore for you to get to the next cutscene or funny interaction.

Final rating - 6.5 out of 10. While a worthwhile experience, the greatest story in the world cannot save this game from piss-standard design choices. It is probably better to spend your time on a game that doesn’t have anti-fun mechanics. But I’d be hard pressed if any had a cast that touched your hearts quite like that of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. 

[artcanary]

1-50

oh my god dude 

im gonna put this under a cut bc this is a lot. this is a ride, have fun i guess

1. Your first OC ever?god. its got to be Super Kitty. when i was like … an incredibly small child I used to draw comic strips about this feline caped crusader, who was friends with everyone in the city, and the comics always involved him stopping an evil banana man from stealing money from the local bank. He was paid with donuts for his service to the city. i still remember how to draw him. 

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?i’d get arrested if I didn’t answer this with Bronze, probably… but really, they’re very important to me

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?man, i cant remember! i really dont think i have… P:

4. A character you rarely talk about?there’s loads of characters ive never even posted a single picture of on tumblr, i wouldnt even know where to start asdf

5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be? bronze is the easy answer, but… i guess that could also go to Servant or Westrin. Servant has a comic project in the works that basically stars him, sort of a series of one-shots about the things he’s experienced, i feel like that would be a good thing to take off and run with. Westrin’s just fun as hell, i love the guy.

6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?real talk now… there’s at least five different characters that i refer to as a whole as “bronze-tangential”, who started out as, “what would bronze be like if they were in this world?” and then becoming their own thing within said world because i just get stupid attached 

its an epidemic

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?nearly all of them, actually. that’s the main reason i make characters, after all! too many to really go into specifics here, again P: 

8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!not often, but i think Bronze and Westrin are the most common ones. unless playing a character in dnd, or running an npc in dnd counts… then a whole lot more hahaha

9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?it depends on the circumstances. i don’t really like the idea, though. 

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design? Westrin’s old getup is a pain to draw, and there was one other design i did that I cant find anywhere… whichever way, i dont often tend to draw super complicated things often 

a couple fakemon ive designed though… heheh those can get pretty finicky

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? hmmmmmmmm my immediate thought was Eric Silverdale from a comic i was working on a few years ago. hes a darling, i want him to be my friend irl

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lothow could you do this to me i love each and every one of all my friends ocs GOD the first one who comes to mind is @d20-official‘s Smith, whos Bronze’s friend… everyone in that DND party actually

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs? Rated on a scale from “harmless” to “honestly somewhat frightening”: -Baromet (charming and quite friendly but definitely a kleptomaniac),-Westrin (demigod of bards and travelers), -XEN09 (a nonsense hacker), -Conny (needlessly contrarian and dumb as HELL), -Enza Colie (long fucking story but hes a good-for-nothing), -Hemlocke (mad scientist, chaotic evil), -Iris (AI and hacker, VERY bad), -The Terminus (glitch-in-the-matrix demon, chaotic evil), -and Sydd (the Queen of the Faeries, hopefully the danger there needs no explaining :’D)

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory Mmm… there’s a few of them, most obviously Lent (whose background I did a short comic about). Basically his entire town got eaten by ghosts and turned into zombies, he only barely survived with a sliver of his soul left. 

15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?yes, i often discuss storylines and such with friends

16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)? Probably Bronze’s dad! I don’t talk about him much, but his name’s Devon Reed, and he was a biotech developer specialising in android design. 

I often describe him as being something of a reverse Arthur Weasley - a very fatherly scientist fascinated to the moon and back with the concept of magic. 

17. Any OC OTPs? having trouble thinking of a lot of them right now, but there’s Eric + Lent & Naiadine + Tailias from Emerald Sigil, Avken + Baromet from my space campaign world, Sydd + Wyvv from my unnamed campaign world, and I’ve been considering Westrin + Servant as an interesting dynamic in Servant’s story

18. Any OC crackships? My character Bismuth and @autistictimeknight​‘s oc Eros. Theyre so fucking in love, I love it. Its been awhile but I do still think about them sometimes.

As I recall, Eros is an empath, she can read other people’s emotions. But Bismuth is a robot, and Eros can’t read her. Because of this Eros can let go of her fear of unintentionally manipulating the emotions of her date, which would hold her back from most other relationships. 

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)Hey, meet Bronze! I definitely do not talk about them every five minutes, why would you say that. 

Bronze was with me through two of the hardest years of my life so far, and being a DND character they grew with me, both as a fighter and as a person. They were non-binary before I started using those pronouns, they were the first character or person or anything who I fought someone about using the right pronouns for, they make a great icebreaker for if I want to see how someone reacts to non-binary pronouns … 

One funny anecdote about Bronze is that when I first made them, their “gimmick” was that they would sometimes glitch out and mess up their speech, mostly because I wanted an excuse not to engage in the roleplaying (which I was very bad at). The interesting thing is that as I got better at interacting with the group, we both grew out of needing it very quickly. 

I’m very proud of Bronze. 

20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?Westrin is a bard! His singing voice sounds like Bill Wurtz and these are his theme songs.

21. Your most artistic OCProbably Westrin again, he writes a lot of songs… and Hallux is a game designer?

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how? I honestly dont know… no-one talks to me about them, haha! 

people use all manner of pronouns for bronze, though. 

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?I’m gonna go with Enza for this one. Enza Colie was originally written entirely because I wanted an antagonist for a short starring his sister, Jane Colie. But the more I fleshed out his reasonings for acting how he did and explored his character, the more I realised he’d make an even more interesting character if allowed to have a redemption arc, too. 

I just want to state for the record that I was very reluctant to the idea, and he basically dragged his way out of the villain pit entirely of his own accord. I am dubiously proud of him, and also a bit scared. 

24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?Probably either Eric (Big Man, Best Friend), Crocus (Mother figure), Reed (Father Figure), Westrin (hed just make a good friend u kno??), or Bismuth (she makes good conversation!)

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)probably the homestuck fan-troll Hallux, but that’s mostly because they were based on a troll-sona I made awhile ago. They’re a hope/prospit game designer who is small and full of rage and love

oh, and there’s dave! dave’s a superhero speedster, existing in a modern-day superhero version of seattle. theyre idiot, just like me,

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will? this is an interesting one… i don’t think ive ever had something Bad in a design ive done called to my attention by someone, but I did create my character Servant at around the same time I was first really expanding the diversity of my casts. (since i don’t talk about him often, a little context: he’s a magic spirit creature bound to human form to serve the royal family of the land and follow their orders.) 

somehow, younger-and-more-stupid me managed to have the revelation that making this “eternal slave” character literally anything other than a white man, especially as a white author, would be Pretty Not Good. im … thats really, really not something i should pat myself on the back for, but i do consider it one of the biggest bullets dodged in my artistic career so far that i realised that not all representation is good representation so quickly, before i could make that incredibly, incurably stupid mistake. 

after that, trying to make sure my characters and their presentations don’t harm anyone pretty much has become a paranoia. i don’t seem to have stepped on any toes yet, but when it inevitably happens, please let me know - i didnt know, and i want to fix it! 

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? None that I can think of, actually! I don’t really do that often. 

28. Your most dangerous OC? god damn it i have no idea!!! is it the terminus? glitch in the matrix god of chaos motherfucker?is it sarle? terrifying calculating scientist with the power of the soul at her fingertips ??? is it ares??? is it athena????? is it petra?????? the gatekeeper???? 

… actually, the gatekeeper might be it, if “dangerous” just refers to “the amount of raw power it can wield”. the Gatekeeper is a titanic entity that exists in interdimensional multiverse space, and its implied to have the ability to create and destroy entire universe bubbles at will. for what cosmic purpose, no-one knows. 

at a more personal scale, though, literally all of the aforementioned characters are pretty bad to run into too. 

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?god. Mina or Tawn. Tawn is the Indiana Jonesy type and probably dumb enough, but also competent enough not to get into too much trouble there. Mina would probably drag her friends along. 

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection? XEN09. No-one knows, because no-one knows xir personal identity. Xe absolutely does, though. It’s less of a secret if you know xir in person, but good luck finding out about it otherwise. 

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)dave just reblogs memes all the time tbh. they like to keep tabs on the ridiculous superhero news going on, and they show human jokes and cat videos to their alien gf. they dont really post or add to posts, but they talk in tags a lot. 

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why? i want to say tawn because i literally just realised ive been imagining their voice as sounding like luigi this entire fucking time and i never realised until this exact instant

33. Your shyest OC?probably baromet. they prefer to keep to themself in their hideout, with their collection of shiny things. they don’t really enjoy trying to communicate much, mostly because they expect to get yelled at. 

34. Do you have any twin characters?Yes! At least two sets; 

- Crocus and Sarle. (x) (x) They don’t exactly have a very well-developed relationship, but they are both quite important to the plot of my campaign world, and they are both very interesting. Crocus is a motherly figure who just exudes friendliness, while Sarle is .. very much not that, a researcher studying very gruesome things and pushing the boundaries of reality. 

- Jane and Enza Colie. I haven’t talked a whole lot about either of them here, but I’d rather leave their story to do the talking whenever I get around to it. Essentially, the both of them were intended to do the dirty work for their crime boss family, but Jane ditched to study medicine. Most of the conflict between the two of them comes out of Enza not understanding why she made the choice she did, and coming to understand how he’s been manipulated. 

35. Any sibling characters? I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, I should … I should really work on that. 

I can talk about Westrin, though. Westrin (a demigod of many things, but namely bards, travel, travelers, and people who are lost) often becomes close friends with mortals, sometimes practically adopting them. These people who consider him family, and people who have received his blessing, are able to use his surname, Brilanta, as their own if they choose. So I guess all of the Brilantas are siblings, at least in spirit. 

Oh, and XEN09 has like, seven siblings. Xe is the second-oldest, and least remarkable. 

36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? I already talked about Eros and Bismuth up there a ways in question 18, but I’ll talk about another relationship here. @autistictimeknight​‘s character, Nova the Alchemist, is mentor and adopted parental figure to my character Munna. Munna … Munna isn’t a very good apprentice. She tries very hard. 

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human That’s most of them, I’m not quite sure what to say here. Bronze is an android? Bronze again? Westrin? All the aliens ?? 

38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer? man. uh. westrin or jean. or perhaps valencia. 

39. Introduce any character you want ??? uhhhHHHhhHHH Lord Brillium is the reigning deity of the Cloud Kingdoms in the other campaign setting I’m working on. They represent light and the quest for knowledge, and spend most of their days in the Cathedral Observatory watching the stars. 

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!one time bronze flew a hover-bike through the stained glass window in a cathedral blaring all star by smash mouth on their iguana

also one time bronze rickrolled a rakshasa demon and then pulled updog on it like, two minutes later

another time bronze scared off an entire army by pretending to be an automated security system 

41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)ive got a whole little folder on here from all you blessed people !!!! right now ive got a drawing quinn did of one o fmy characters as my lockscreen

but i think the one i’ll really never ever get over is this piece of Jane, by @rabendraws​ / @owoltron​: 

(i bet you thought i forgot about this, dude. dude. think again.) 

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods? this is kind of a weird question, m, I feel like Bismuth would find learning about the mythos utterly fascinating, as would Tawn. 

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confesshaha. uh. i might. 

aside from the entire “bronze-tangential characters” thing i mentioned awhile back, I tend to really like designing characters with hair color lighter than their skin color. it just looks so cool man. i love drawing freckles but dont put them on enough characters. i like really curly hair, but also really long and flowy hair. i like drawing triangular body types, and pointy/prominent noses. 

44. Something you like about your OCs in generaluhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is a really vague question. m. m. 

45. A character you no longer use?there’s old versions of characters, but a lot of my older ones have been somehow repurposed. I guess there’s Turien, my first-ever DND character, who’s just kind of sitting dead now. Haven’t really done anything with him other than a pretty recent tangential character. 

46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?Not that I can think of.

47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child? Im certain it’s happened, but I can’t remember any specific instances. 

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pureSpring. spring knows nothing of th dangers of the world who is letting them into fights someon eneeds to stop this

(spring roll, hehe.) 

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memesim not sure what this question is asking since many of my ocs actively enjoy memes including but not limited to westrin, dave, bronze, xen09, iris, and doctor archersen

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you wanti think. i think im going to pass on this one. i gave you the good old oc talk. your damn turn, yall: 

if you have any questions about any of these guys feel free to shoot one at me!

thats all from me im tired and its one am. techskylander you absolute madman 

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 335: Prophecy of the Shadow (1992)

               Prophecy of the Shadow

United States

Strategic Simulations, Inc. (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 for DOS

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

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

Character creation even has some Ultima IV-style questions.

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

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

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

An NPC delivers part of the backstory.

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

“Yeah! I hope you find . . . him!”

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

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

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

A little FMV upon entering the inn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My health increases as I kill a bandit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few too many things in my backpack.

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

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

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

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

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

Arriving in the dungeon.

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

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

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

The gruesome scene.

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

Now I guess I can eschew both lamps and torches.

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

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

Time so far: 4 hours

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

[hot-topic-for-vikings]

Camilla’s Best Quotes #2

Session two, otherwise known as The Gang Gets To Know Each Other and Is Forced To Deal With Delusional Shopkeepers. We saw some mild jealousy drama between Dancer and Tuile, sock-related suffering on the part of Heskan and everyone yet again forgetting to actually have their characters introduce themselves to the rest of the party. Oh well, next time perhaps?

1. No surface is safe

Tuile remembers that one stayed behind somewhere in the room, right... under the table. She walks up and bends down, looking for someone sleeping under there but founds nothing. Well, she does find something - drawings have been carved into the wood under the table, penises in different sizes covering the surface with almost no space between them.

Tuile: "Interesting."

2. So alcoholism isn’t the final boss anymore? 

Hamster Master (GM): yeh...im going to leave belloth and tuile with the wolf now for a bit

Cravin Raisins: fair

Belloth: this wolf corpse is the final boss

Eff Off: knew it

3. *MUSIC STARTS SUDDENLY*

Camilla S.: nice tunes

Eff Off: man that startled me

Cravin Raisins: hell yeah

Belloth: lol

Hamster Master (GM): xD 

Hamster Master (GM): we need them tunes

4. More music shenanigans 

Camilla S.: ooh, spicy

Camilla S.: is this wii music

Hamster Master (GM): it sounds like zelda

Briar L.: it sounds like wii music

Hamster Master (GM): ya know...when u enter a weird shop

Belloth: it sounds like zelda im glad im not the only one

Briar L.: it reminds me of mario on the wii

Hamster Master (GM): like..i swear ive heard it

Eff Off: i love this

Cravin Raisins: nice dnd vibes only

Eff Off: thank you for this gift

Briar L.: ive never played zelda though so idkCamilla S.: I'm feeling like animal crossing

Hamster Master (GM): i swear this is like...it...its zelda

Hamster Master (GM): WELL ANIWAI

Camilla S.: yeah lol let's move on

5. “Hot Topic For Vikings”

shopkeeper: We got a bit of everything. Shiny decks of cards. Broken brushes. Cloaks.

Eff Off: i think you just walked into viking hot topic

Cravin Raisins: god i wish that were me

Briar L.: i've never been to a hot topic so i have no idea what that means

Cravin Raisins: viking emos 

6. Designer socks

shopkeeper: well here are some socks. some have holes, i charge extra for those

Eff Off: oh my GOD

shopkeeper: i spent a lot of time on them

Eff Off: i'm crying LEKDJGSKFDGKJDF

Briar L.: i cant even

shopkeeper: do you want left or right? both, or maybe two right ones? or two lefts? some holes or no holes...there's a lot to choose from

Couch: buy them all

7. It follows...

Corva: "Okay, so, everyone. Let's get down to business."

Briar L.: to defeat the huns

Hamster Master (GM): to defeat..dmit

Camilla S.: I knew someone was going to say that

8. When members of your group skin a giant wolf shortly before you visit the local nobility

left guard: Oh sure. These look like guests fit for a lady.

Eff Off: (dancer kinda does tho)

Camilla S.: two of us are covered in blood

Eff Off: dancer is covered in jewellery

Eff Off: but yeah you guys aren't helping

9. PARTY DISPUTES

Shadowdancer: "Please don't bring the bloody wolf head into a mansion."

Tuile: "Well why not?"

Shadowdancer: "We're guests, not barbarians."

Corva: "It's foul."

Belloth: "I say it shows character!"

Tuile: "She'll think it's cool."

right guard: you have to leave it outside the door

Corva: "Let's just go”

Tuile: "..."

Tuile sighs

Belloth pats Tuile in reassurance.

Tuile: "Fine."

Belloth: "I would have let you keep the wolf head."

Tuile: "Thank you, I appreciate that. SOME people have taste.”

Corva: "Come on everyone, let's calm it down."

Tuile: "I am very calm."

10. *side-eyes*

Shadowdancer checks out Mari.

Tuile notices and elbows Shadowdancer

Eff Off: YOU GOTTA ROLL TO NOTICE

Cravin Raisins: DAMN YOU

Cravin Raisins: smh i gotta roll to shame ppl??

Belloth: yes

Eff Off: damn right

Tuile rolls well.

Eff Off: fuck

Cravin Raisins: HA

Belloth: she been knew

Shadowdancer smiles.

Shadowdancer: "Jealous?"

Tuile wipes blood from her cheek onto Dancer's clothes and walks ahead.

Corva sighs.

Shadowdancer will remember this.

Tuile hopes so.

Camilla S.: ominous

Eff Off: you don't KNOW that

Eff Off: gawd the metagaming

Tuile has no idea what Dancer remembers.

11. Stop humiliating her!! She’s doing her best ok

Corva: "Well, first we should pay a visit to the black market, I guess.”

Shadowdancer laughs.

Shadowdancer: "'Visit' the black market. Good one!"

Tuile: "Can you physically go to the black market?"

Frida laughs too

Corva: "Oh, you know what I mean!"

Corva looks cross.

12. Larryyyyyyyyy (the missing chicken)

Camilla S.: i feel bad about larry

Eff Off: justice for larry

Hamster Master (GM): theres time to find him

Cravin Raisins: IM TRYNA FIND HIM OKAY IM GOING TO THE BAKERY

Eff Off: we all are

Cravin Raisins: for clues and justice

Hamster Master (GM): im so happy i added the larry quest

Camilla S.: J U S T I C E

Camilla S.: F O R

Camilla S.: L A R R Y

Cravin Raisins: BEST NPC

13. Prostitution? 

Briar L.: also the shopkeeper was great

Eff Off: if i can't fuck loki i will fuck the sock keeper

Eff Off: :))))

Hamster Master (GM): they'll probs charge u for it

Eff Off: i'll save up 

Eff Off: and i will pay

-- camilla