#lists most of the major npcs and companions as three more characters

[msviolacea]

There's a lot of "oh, Baldur's Gate, isn't that game all about sex?" out there - I've seen it on the internet and heard it in conversation - which is fair, that's what the mainstream articles have been about, and let's not lie, most of us around here are all about the sexytimes with pretty people. (Me included, 100000%. And my "romance doesn't make an experience less interesting or serious" rant will be saved for another day.) But anyway ... it's Monday, and I'm avoiding work, so I figured I'd list as many things as I can think of right now that make the game amazing that have nothing to do with actually having sex with someone.

GINORMOUS areas to explore.

There are lore books literally everywhere. If you like reading random bits of in-universe texts, you'll be spoiled.

Have you ever played D&D and wished certain spells had more utility - like Grease, or Sleep, or Create/Destroy Water? You're in luck here! Anything that can either create a ground effect or temporarily distract/take enemies out is OP!

Animated, voiced cut scenes with nearly every single NPC you run across.

At the same time, most of them are not required. Some will give you interesting side quests, extra approval/disapproval from your companions, or interesting information that will give you more options in a future quest, but you don't have to spend hours talking to people unless that's your jam.

In character creation, you don't pick male/female as a gender. You pick from four body types (two small, two large, two with breasts/more slender, two more broad/slightly larger), three sets of pronouns (he/she/they), and several different sets of genitals - mix and match all three categories to your hearts' content. I'm sure there are other things they could have done, but it's the most inclusive character creator I've seen in a major game for sure.

The turn-based combat is a blessing for anyone who struggles with real time combat. Take your time, consider your options, look at things from all angles, sort through your spells and attacks to find the right one.

Or you can remember you picked up that barrel of smoke powder three rooms back, climb up into the rafters of the room, and chuck it into the fire pit in the middle of the room for maximum effect. I cannot overstate how fucking satisfying that is.

Big fucking tiefling horns. Of a variety of shapes!

Your female companions are the tanks/hearty warriors. Your male companions are all delicate fucking flowers, at least until you get Druid Daddy who can turn into a bear.

While optimizing your 4-person party to bring the usual configuration - one tank, one healer, a couple of DPS - is useful, it isn't always necessary. There are some fights where bringing four ranged options is a great idea, as long as you give them some survivability spells or plenty of potions. Sometimes bringing four people who can just barrel their way into a pile of ogres is satisfying. Mix it up!

Okay every companion thus far (I'm still only through act 1 yet, listen I have two games and my partner didn't feel well enough to continue the game where we're the farthest this weekend so I spent my time catching my solo game up) is absolute gold, no duds in the bunch, and the next few bullets will be one awesome thing about each one of them that has nothing to do with romance.

Astarion with the Thief subclass at level 3 literally cannot fail most lockpicking or trap disarming checks unless he rolls a nat 1. He is invisible when stealthed. He can one-shot most low level goblins with sneak attack arrows from range. He is a very bitchy fancy-lad Super Rogue.

Wyll is the Goodest Boy - the speed with which he goes from "I am oathbound to kill you demon!" to "well shit you're just a tiefling guess I'll deliberately fuck up my very dangerous warlock oath for you" is wonderful. He's noble and impetuous and wants to be more than a rich boy and gives nearly everyone the benefit of the doubt. I would die for him.

Karlach does the ADHD idle dance of "I could not stand still if you paid me all the gold in Baldur's Gate" and has the best puppy dog eyes. Also the story tie-in to her rage mechanics is really great and excellent storytelling.

Lae'zel is nigh unkillable if you give her the right stuff. Speccing her as Battlemaster is amazing for controlling the most powerful combatants on the field. Trip Attack has saved my ass so many times, you have no idea.

On paper, Gale should be absolutely insufferable. But somehow the writing and voice acting managed to hit just the right notes of humor and good nature and wizard geek. I'm very impressed.

Shadowheart is a very interesting combination of amoral/self-involved but also compassionate and I find myself fascinated by it. She clearly contains multitudes, and thus far the story is doing a good job of doling out pieces of her at a satisfying pace.

And speaking of interesting moral dichotomies, I absolutely adore that Halsin is both the good influence authority figure and also utterly ruthless when things run afoul of his strongly held belief system. Also thicc, broad-shouldered elf supremacy.

The tieflings you meet in Emerald Grove are directly tied to the D&D adventure "Descent Into Avernus" - as is Wyll! (And I'm sure it has a lot of context for Karlach's story as well, I haven't finished reading it yet.) I'm sure there's more when you get to the actual city of Baldur's Gate, but I'm not there yet. It's just fun to have that as an option to read for backstory about some of the game's characters and situations if you want. It's not required reading, though - cough, Bioware/Dragon Age, cough - everything that happens with them is perfectly understandable without any additional context!

The "Balanced" combat difficulty is a really good mix of fights that take a LOT of strategy and ones that can be easily cheesed.

Have you ever wanted to shove someone off a cliff even though you have like 8 strength? Listen, a 30% chance is STILL A CHANCE, and you have limited bonus action choices. TAKE YOUR SHOT.

... feel free to add your own. I'm still pretty early in the game and can't wait to get to more.

(edited for some slightly better phrasing about the character creation gender options, hopefully)

[astarionsbeloved]

Ny'fein Durs'rend'aen as a companion (aka: what if you could recruit redemption durge?)

Baldur's Gate 3 Companion! Tav Ask List

What if your Tav was a recruitable companion, instead of the main character?  (contains major spoilers for the game, and for some dark urge runs as well)

General

Where can your Tav be recruited?  Are they first encountered on the Nautiloid, or in the Nautiloid crash region?  Or are they not recruitable until a later act?

Ny'fein would be met on the Nautiloid, and then probably again immediately between Astarion and Gale. If for some reason you miss him there, you'll find him held captive by Kressa at moonrise.

Do the other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting your Tav?

Astarion: A Drow Bard? How novel. Though I wonder....Do you think he might know Drizzt?

Lae'zel: If we must.

Karlach: Do you think he knows Drizzt? Is it...would it be weird if I asked?

Wyll: He looks familiar but I don't know why. I'm sure he'll be a fine addition to our party.

Gale: I find bards quite fascinating, you know. Do you think he'd be okay answering some questions? Wait, why are Karlach and Astarion crowding around him?

Does your Tav have any comments or advice when you recruit other companions? 

Persuasion roll of 80 to keep him on the team if you recruit Minthara. As a male drow, he wants nothing to do with her.

What sort of general actions raise or lower their approval?

Ny'fein is a redemption durge, so while I'm reasonably certain his alignment pre-tadpole is true evil, post tad-pole he's chaotic neutral. He likes when you help people, he likes a good joke, and he's not going to enjoy it if you're cruel for no reason.

Are there any instances where your Tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player character actions?

Recruiting Minthara, regardless of circumstance. Endangering children.

Do they have any secrets that can be revealed?  What are the prerequisites for this secret coming to light?

Ny'fein is made of secrets, since he's a bhaalspawn with a memory disorder. The first hints of something will happen at the goblin camp, when the three chosen look familiar even in silhouette.

Do they have their own personal quest that spans the course of the game?  Can it take different branching paths depending on the choices the Player Character makes?

"Healing wounds": origin durge questlines about putting things to rights and regaining memories, and taking down the chosen.

What do they say when the Player Character asks them to stay in camp?  How about when the Player Character asks them to come adventuring again?

When asked to stay in camp, he would pull out his violin and simply start playing a dirge. When asked to go adventuring, he'd say "ever by your side" if romanced or "as you wish" if good approval. If approval is low, he'd literally just say "fine."

Does your Tav have any escalating conflicts with one of the other companions, like Lae’zel and Shadowheart’s knife-fight?

He's truly suspicious of Shadowheart, and while he doesn't dislike her, she puts him ill at ease.

Are there any unique NPCs associated with your Tav that can show up during the course of the game?

Quill Grootslang, a dragonborn bard who comes to camp after you meet Alfira. Sceleritas Fel. Sarevok.

Are there any moments in the game that trigger unique dialogue for your character? (Like Gale’s anecdote about the barfight after you save the goblin prisoner) 

He keeps most of those as inside thoughts, but once you've made it to moonrise his memory starts to come back and he talks a lot more. If you recruit him at moonrise, once you get to the city, he talks a LOT. There will be a special cut scene with Gortash and a separate one with Orin.

Story Specific

How does your Tav advise the player character when it comes to the Dream Visitor?

Ny'fein doesn't trust them but since they offered help with his memory issues, he's intrigued.

How do they advise the player character on Raphael?

"He looked at me like I was food, it made me uncomfortable" "I think we should avoid him" "My claws are sharper" "I feel like I've met him before"

How do they react to Astarion biting the Player Character?

"....how did you NOT realize he was a vampire. Wait, did NONE of you know? Seriously??". No approval loss or gain, but he's def a little jealous. Of both of you.

How do they react to the Player Character letting Abdirak whip them?

If he, Shadowheart, and Astarion are with you during the Abdirak scene, expect the banter to be sexually charged and absolutely inappropriate. He's _way_ too into it.

How do they react to the Player Character taking their first tadpole power?

Very, very suspicious. No approval loss or gain, but they won't join Tav in consumption. Roll of 100 needed to convince them to consume tadpoles.

Will they stay with the Player Character regardless of siding with the goblins or the Tieflings, or is it possible for them to leave the party permanently?

if Tav sides with the goblins, they leave. If this happens, you'll find them dead in Orin's chambers just like you would find durge if they hadn't joined the party at all.

What can they be found doing at the tiefling/goblin party?

Ny'fein is a bard, so he'll be playing music at least a little bit. Other than that if he isn't romanced, he's flirting his head off with Rolan and Halsin, maybe even Zevlor.

Do they have comments on who the Player Character chooses to spend the night with? 

only in so far as "Who are you going for so I don't go for them as well" and "I want to hear about it tomorrow" before sauntering off to his own conquest.

Do they have unique dialogue if the Player Character lets them die when they steal the Blood of Lathander?

Seething anger. You will lose approval. He will pout.

How do they react if the PC licks the dead spider in the Gauntlet of Shar?

He would sigh, heavily, and say "I'm putting that in the song, you know".

What do they say if the PC tries to force them to go up on stage with Dribbles the Clown?

"I cannot express how much I detest you at this moment." "This isn't my scene" "Can't Astarion do it?"

Is it possible for your Tav to be kidnapped and replaced by Orin?  How is Orin's deception revealed?  How do they react to the PC rescuing them in the Temple of Bhaal?

Since they're Durge, I'm inclined to think Orin would vastly prefer to kidnap them over the other companions. I think the deception would be revealed by "Ny'fein" trying to kill whomever they have the most party banter with, and the companions thinking they've given into the urge. When Tav gets to the temple, they have to use "Help" to free Ny'fein after the fight with Orin starts. From there, Ny'fein becomes the only playable combat character, forcing Tav from the fight and into the "sanctuary" area.

How do they react to the PC either allowing Astarion to ascend or convincing him to spare the 7000 spawn?

Ny'fein gets it either way, but since he's fighting so hard against his Urge, he'd be disappointed his friends succumbed to their desire for power.

How does Tav react to the PC becoming a mind flayer?  Can they offer to become one themselves?  Does their reaction change if they’re romanced? 

Ny'fein cannot offer to become the mindflayer, and if the player asks them to, their approval drops and Ny'fein will explain he only just got his soul, he doesn't want to lose it. Ny'fein will support Tav's choice but will not stay with them, romantically, if they become a mindflayer.

How do they react when the Dark Urge first reveals their amnesia and murderous thoughts to them?

not answering since this would actually be Tav reacting to them.

How do they react to the Dark Urge killing Alfira?

skipping this one as well since they are the durge.

If romanced, how do they react to the Dark Urge trying to kill them in Act 2?

see above.

Romance

Is your Tav a romanceable character?  Are there any specific requirements to romancing them?

Ny'fein is romanceable. Tav would have to be supportive of them about their memory loss and trying to fight their dark urge.

Does your Tav need to be flirted with to start the romance, or will they approach the PC themselves if approval is high enough?

They'd approach Tav if the approval is high enough, and they'd be very forward about it. If recruited at moonrise, their romance moves really fast and they're basically seducing Tav outright.

Are they a polyamorous or a monogamous option?

Poly! Theyr'e okay mono, but Ny'fein would really enjoy having multiple lovers, and they would support Tav exploring their emotions and sexuality with others as well.

Do they have a special romance scene at the tiefling/goblin party?

Ny'fein's tent is bigger on the inside and Tav discovers this during the Tiefling party. They also discover Ny'fein is handy with a silence spell. Goofy, explicit scene.

Does the romance have different branching paths, or just one route to take?

The romance can develop in different ways depending on how the player interacts with Ny'fein, and I feel like there's a happy romance ending and a sad one.

How do they react to the player character breaking up with them, or choosing another character over them?

A little spiteful and they certainly carry a grudge about it. Ny'fein immediately starts sleeping around, loudly, just to irritate Tav.

What questions can Zethino ask the PC about Tav in the Love Test? 

What does he desire most? What does he wish to destroy, more than anything? When do they feel most themselves?

If they’re poly, do they have a reaction to the PC engaging in a relationship with Halsin?

Raised eyebrow, digging through their pouch, handing over a healing potion, a bottle of silver swirling oil that glitters, and a bottle that feels cold. "Trust me, you'll...you'll need these". They would want to participate after Tav x Halsin settle into their relationship.

How do they react if the PC has sex with Mizora? The Emperor?  Haarlep?

Utter indifference. Their body, their choice. Though, they do worry a little about Tav after Haarlep.

Will they join in with the PC and the Drow Twins, or no?

They absolutely would, enthusiastically. 

What are Tav’s plans for the future?  Do they propose to the PC, or is marriage not something they’re interested in?

A nice quiet life, somewhere nice that's a city without a bhaalist presence. They'd settle down with their polycule or Tav, or just go off on their own. Ny'fein would likely open a small bardic school.

Free space! Share anything from your companion!Tav au!

-Ny'fein is OLD. like, really old. But since he's bhaalspawn, he doesn't age properly on top of being notoriously slow-to-age-drow. -If Tav is evil, Ny'fein really struggles to stay in the party and if Tav wants to keep them it's constant persuasion rolls. -In act 2, if Kressa has Ny'fein, when you find him, he's is in the middle of being experimented on and uses the tadpole to call out to you. He compels you to rescue him and apologizes for it after. -I very much believe that if they're recruited at moonrise, they have an accelerated romance path with Tav, and are particularly inclined to romance Tav if Tav is with Astarion/Astarion and Halsin -I think that the moment he sees Gortash, there's an oddly intimate cut scene between Gortash and Ny'fein, with everyone kinda...lookin' on awkwardly. I think Karlach would be LIVID and need convincing to stay in the party after Ny'fein's past is revealed, especially because I HC Ny'fein and Gortash as former lovers. -I don't think Ny'fein ever met or knew Karlach, but I think Karlach wouldn't care too much about that. -Tav can kick Ny'fein out after learning who they are, and Ny'fein will still show up as a support character at the elder brain as long as Orin has already been handled. -As for fighting Orin, I feel like having Ny'fein in party means Orin has to be handled shortly after taking the rooms at the elfsong. It would be a timed thing and if it isn't handled, Ny'fein dies. -Sarevok would give Tav additional information and a map to save Ny'fein/take down Orin. -Orin will have definitely tortured Ny'fein. When you arrive at the temple, Ny'fein is very battered and bloodied.

[self-loving-vampire]

what are your top three rpgs? (and if you feel like elaborating further, why are they your favorites!)

I am not good at choosing favorites or "top X" lists, but there are three series in particular that I grew up with and that are very nice and familiar to me as a result.

These are not necessarily the best RPGs I have ever played, but they are ones that have been very influential to how I think about the genre and the possibilities within it.

The first is Ultima, specifically both halves of Ultima 7 (The Black Gate and Serpent Isle).

I'll say straight away that Ultima 7 does have some notable shortcomings; a linear main quest, practically no character-building, mindless automatic combat, potentially messy inventory management, a rushed second half, and so on.

But the things it does do well are really good. Most notably, it was the first game to ever grab me because of how well it crafts the idea of a living world that exists independently of the player.

Ultima 7 was released in the early 90s and yet it had fully-implemented NPC schedules and day/night cycles more than a decade ahead of Oblivion. Even Morrowind didn't really have this.

It had interactive environments that let you do things like bake bread or move crates into stacks to use as stairs.

It had a relatively painless hunger mechanic. Not so difficult to take care of that it gets distracting or annoying, but still a reminder that you should visit the tavern or hunt or something from time to time.

It had a spellcasting system that was kind of hit-or-miss. A lot of the spells did things that were more conveniently accomplished through non-magical means, but some of the spells were actually really cool. Notably, there was one top-tier spell that kills literally everyone in the world except for a couple of major NPCs (who get new dialogue shaming you for casting the spell). This typically renders the game unwinnable.

Both games (but especially the first one) were also open in a way that is not really unique but which was still very exciting if you're not used to that kind of freedom.

The second is Fallout, specifically the first and second games. The ones from before the move to first-person 3D.

I especially like the first game. Some of the early parts are particularly rough, but it nails its tone and atmosphere better than any other game in the series in my opinion. The music in particular feels much more fitting and desolate than the old-timey music they started using everywhere in later games.

The second game does have some advantages in terms of a much bigger world, more interesting and useful companions, refined mechanics, and etc. However, it is also goofy and kind of memey in a way that was much, much more restrained previously. I do still like it, but the first game has a much more consistent and bleak vibe that I prefer.

Also, even though the character creation is easy to break and there's a lot of skills that are relatively useless, I still love that aspect of it. The traits in particular are a really cool idea.

I also like that you have complete freedom to roam more or less right away. That can be kind of overwhelming to some people given how minimal your initial leads are, but feeling lost in the wasteland is actually part of the fun. It connects you to your character, who probably feels about the same way at that point in the adventure.

The third pair (because all of these games kind of go together in my mind) is Gothic 1 and 2.

This is a pair of action RPGs that also do a great job at both crafting immersive worlds and having a pretty hopeless and harsh tone.

In both games you start out as a weak, fragile, socially-disadvantaged person (a new prisoner in a cutthroat prison colony in game 1, an escaped convict in game 2).

In both games, you are given immediate freedom to explore an open world that is not vast but is so dense with hand-crafted content and expertly-used verticality that it feels decently big anyway. I definitely prefer that approach over having huge worlds filled with either nothing or clumsily procedurally-generated stuff.

And in both games, these worlds are full of things that will brutally murder you in one hit if you meet them without the right preparations.

I really, really like the way the gameplay reinforces the sense of desperation and vulnerability presented by the quests, the dialogue, and the general progression of the story. Especially in the second game. The gameplay's difficulty makes you actually feel how bad your situation is, and it also makes it much more satisfying when you do manage to become strong enough to overcome it.

Multiple video essays have been uploaded to youtube about the extremely immersive and interesting qualities of these games and their open world design. They're really good.

[xivu-arath]

naruto and swtor!

naruto

❤ Favorite Male: nagato is still a fave tbh❤ Favorite Female: tsunade❤ Favorite Pairing: uhhh I don’t usually do these, I like the team seven ot3 tho❤ Least Favorite Character: d a n z o❤ most attractive: kaguya is an Aesthetic honestly. ❤ three more characters that I like: sasuke, sakura, kiba

swtor

❤ Favorite Male: darth marr❤ Favorite Female: vette❤ Favorite Pairing: rkorya/lana obviously? I’m not sorry❤ Least Favorite Character: corso❤ most attractive: lana bc I’m Biased, koth and iresso❤ three more characters that I like: vowrawn, jaesa, risha 

[rainofaugustsith]

SWTOR: What is it about Iokath?

I think that if we did a poll on Most Hated Areas in SWTOR, Iokath would be a close front runner. Even I - who has tried to get the legendary status for every faction - have ignored Iokath's dailies. I go through once for the story, take whatever rep is given for the story quests, and then get out of there. It's only because I have a lot of toons that I've earned rep there.

Because Galactic Seasons includes Iokath dailies in its list of daily priority objectives, the planet's daily area is seeing more traffic. It's also getting some complaints. The big question: why?

On paper Iokath looks really cool. A killer techno planet that seems to have influence from the Rakata and Gree, with a legacy of unleashing superweapons on hapless worlds. A killer techno planet with technology that was at least in part co-opted by a murderous world-devouring supervillain who survives for a very long time and wreaks havoc across the galaxy. Dudes, that's intriguing.

And for those who have an interest in their toons switching factions, Iokath actually lets you do that. You can be a Republic character supporting the Empire and walking through the Imperial base, or vice versa. There's no sneaky saboteur stuff!

So why is Iokath maligned so much? It's one of those places like Makeb where it seems like it should be amazing, but it's not.

1. The story.

When I say story, I'm not referring to the Iokath chapters in KOTET, but to the traitor arc that follows.. In my opinion, the first time we visit Iokath in KOTET, it's not so bad. We get to stomp around as a giant Colossus droid, and it's one of the few "play as something else" moments in KOTET that seems to work well. It's really fun. We get to unravel some of the mysteries of the Eternal Fleet. It's a good couple of chapters, IMHO.

But then we go back for the beginning of the traitor arc. Both factions are trying to wipe the other out with a superweapon. Everyone's been led to Iokath by a traitor. The Commander gets fried on a throne again, as though that didn't just happen. The Commander is forced to side with one faction or another, instead of just saying "you are both being awful. GET OFF MY PLANET. WE'RE NOT DOING THIS AGAIN."

Instead we get a new galactic IMPS VS PUBS!!!! war (sigh), at least one major NPC death and a beloved character set up as a traitor.

2. The fact that the story cannot even be finished because they pulled an Oricon.

IMHO the one intriguing thing about the Iokath traitor arc is Tyth. We discover that Zakuul's pantheon of old gods are actually supernatural superweapon droids on Iokath. We meet one named Tyth. But then we never get to really battle it out with him - or five of the others - because that's all in an Op. The Op is the end of the story arc. Luckily, you can go on to Umbara and such without doing the Op. All the same, the question of the machine gods never really gets settled. You never really hear about them again, with the exception of Zildrog. Did you defeat them? Did they just go back to sleep? Did they rust in the Iokath toxic rain? The world may never know.

Leaving a storyline dangling this way - because the devs want to twist players' arms into doing Ops - is a nasty trick in a story-based, solo-based game. The devs tried the same stunt with Oricon's storyline. The result was that a lot of players left Oricon unfinished - and then didn't play that storyline at all on subsequent characters. No point if you can't finish it.

Iokath is unfortunately part of the main story. While you actually CAN skip it, you would miss out on a part of the main storyline - including the proposals for two companions that can be romanced - and have some decisions autocompleted for you. If you're trying to play the entire story, Iokath is a thing. You have to go through, you end up with an incomplete story and that Op sits in your log until you abandon it. FWIW, the Op couldn't even be abandoned for years, despite players requesting that again and again. I guess the devs thought that if it sat there, players would grit their teeth and jump in to clear their log?

3. The maps.

You thought Taris, Balmorra, Corellia or Belsavis were confusing? Iokath has entered the chat. The Iokath map is a nightmare. There are paths around the area that aren't marked. Daily quest objectives aren't marked. Just better go through the winding corridors and see what you find, I guess.

4. The bugs.

Years after being released Iokath still has numerous bugs, like your companions vanishing and your abilities bar unlocking.

5. You have to pay to play for some quests.

There are daily quests to play in a walker, play as a mouse droid, etc. You have to pay credits for them. Like, no joke. It costs credits to do the quests. Needless to say that does not seem to appeal to most players, and the devs have not tried this again.

6. The walker segment in the story.

Because everyone LOVED the walker quests in KOTET so much (yes that is sarcasm), here they are again! And you have to fight three giant robots in close quarters! The fight against the three sentinel droids is horrendous and a lot of players have complained about it.

With the exception of the faction switching, IMHO Iokath should be held up as an example of What Not To Do. The result is a really great concept that fell really flat in execution and pissed off a lot of players.

[smokeybrand]

Reap What You Sow

Finally finished Mass Effect Legendary Edition and gearing up for a second run. Before that, though, i wanted to stop and reflect on how well this game holds up, how ell this story is told. I’ve been playing these games since Mass Effect 2 was released on the PS3 over a decade ago and i haven’t regretted even a second of that time spent. I love these games. I loved these titles. And Legendary gave me an opportunity to experience the entire narrative, on one system, with a gorgeous face lift This makes me want Bioware to take another shot at Andromeda because, holy sh*t, can they deliver when they’re not hindered by corporate bullsh*t and it looks like EA is starting to accept that as fact and policy, rather than just the gripes of fans. I love these games and before i get back to it, i wanted to highlight my favorite companions because Mass Effect is nothing without those who run headfirst into the fire with you.

Urdnot Wrex

I hate the first Mass Effect but that’s because i’m a Sony shill so i started wit the best one of the franchise and had to double back. It was a poor experience by comparison but Wrex was f*cking delight. I loved this dude but his time on the throne in 2 and his limited time with the squad in 3 is what that sealed it for me. Uncle Urdnot is a goddamn joy to play with and even more hilarious as an NPC. If you romance Liara, definitely talk to him during the Cure the Genophage mission in 3. You wont regret it.

Aria T’Loak

I’ve been a fan of Aria since the first time she introduced herself in Afterlife. “Don’t f*ck with Aria.” Yeah, she definitely made an impression. Mostly an NPC in the second game, she really came into her in the third. The extended time we spent with her in the Omega DLC was exceptional. I loved that side of her we got to see and, if you play Paragon, you get to see an interesting evolution in her character. Not as dope as getting that awkward kiss at the end but still just as rewarding.

Javik

Good ol’ Prothy the Prothean. I don’t really bring him on missions in 3 but i make sure to check in after every major battle because dude is a f*cking fountain of snark. I do, however, make sure to take him on the Thessia mission because the banter he and Liara have n that temple is very compelling. Their dynamic is one of the highlights in Mass Effect 3 and i absolutely adore that sh*t. It never gets old and it never disappoints. I’ve played this game dozens of times over the years and i have never once deviated from these two, on that mission, since the first time i took them into that battle together. Plus, Javik in the Citadel is a whole ass delight. Make sure to check your bathroom when you wake up the next day. There’s a surprised in there for you!

EDI

EDI is a ray of sunshine in such ire circumstances. Long before she got Eva’s body, EDI was a full member of the Normandy crew. Her banter after becoming unshackled was brilliant in 2 and even more dynamic in 3. Seeing her becoming more and more “alive, over the course of that last title, was a real pleasure and i hated seeing her name on that board at the end. I almost always pick Destruction because that’s the only one where Shepard survives but it’s always a struggle. Me or EDI? My life or Hers? I hate having to make that choice but the time spent with her until that point, is always so much fun.

Urdnot Grunt

Grunt is MY Wrex. He’s the Krogan i was introduced to first and he’s definitely be the one i have the most love toward. I basically raised this dude in-game during 2 and seeing him finally come into his own in 3, is a big moment for those who are as invested in this series as i am. Not only is he an absolute unit on my squad, but the kid is hilarious. Some of the best banter in 3 comes from Grunt and it makes me wish i got to play with him more. Similar to Jack who is definitely going to make an appearance later down this list, you only get fleeting time with him but that time spent hunting Rachni is one of the funniest missions in all of Mass Effect 3.

Miranda Lawson

My darling Cerberus Cheerleader Princess. Miranda is never my first choice on a mission and was, like, my last romance option originally but, upon running threw these titles a decade later, she’s a lot stronger a character than i remember. Seriously, the growth she shows throughout Mass Effect 2 is real and is presented with a proper focus in her driven resolve during her solo mission in 3. Miranda Lawson is one of the most complete, best written characters in the entire franchise and I'm frustrated with myself that it took a whole ass decade to finally see that. Plus, i mean, she got a fat ass, too, so...

Mordin Solus

Listen, I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. Mordin is amazing and if you didn’t feel something when he did what he did in 3, f*ck you.

Kasumi Goto

Oh, Ms. Goto, i do enjoy you so very, very, much. Kasumi is like the mascot of my squad, the ship cat who keeps knocking sh*t of the table. She is an absolute disaster but i still love her anyway. She has some of the best lines in the entire franchise and i dearly missed her snark on my ship in 3. Tat lone mission with the Hanar was not enough time with the galaxy’s best thief but it had to be because Kasumi is nobody’s fool. She was like, “No galactic war with eldritch space horrors for me, sir.” but she made up for it in the Citadel DLC.

Liara T’Soni

Now we’re getting into the meat. Liara is a mainstay in my squad during Mass Effect 3. She is dub overpowered, especially with that Singularity, and i rarely go into a boss fight without it. Beyond her fighting abilities, Liara just has such a sweet relationship with Shepard that spans the entire trilogy. She opted not to be an official part of the team in 2, later taking up the mantle of the Shadow Broker, but more than makes up for that in 3. Liara is a principal character in Mass Effect 3 and her relationship with Shepard in that game, specifically, is fantastic to experience. If you romance her, it’s even more rewarding.

Garrus Vakarian

Garrus is one third of my Death Lineup. He and Tali stay in my squad in 2 and alternate with Liara in 3. Dude is, for lack of a better term, a straight up killer. I’ve only played mShep so i never actually romances Garrus but dude is easily one of the best companions in the entire game. The relation he has with Shepard and the way it develops over those three games, is only topped by one other character and she’s the premier on this list. Garrus is hilarious and a real force in the game but, more than that, he’s arguably Shepards’ best friend and a solid foundation they can rely on as dude shapes the history of an entire galaxy.

Jack

Oh, my darling Jacqueline Night. You were SO close to the top spot on this list and only missed it because you were introduced in the second game. That’s it. Jack is dope, one of the most complete characters in the entire franchise, and definitely a great romance option. I adore this chick for all of the reasons but mostly because of how realized she becomes by the end of 3. Her growth from “Psychotic Biotic” into maternal teacher for a bunch of biotic kids, was a turn i didn’t expect but loved to see. I love Mass Effect 2′s version of Jack, for sure, but her appearance in Mass Effect 3 is head-and-shoulders better than her initial introduction. It hurts we never got to actually got to play with her in an actual fight but her appearances were still outstanding.

Tali’Zorah vas Normandy

Tali is the best f*cking thing about this franchise and I'll fight you to the death over it. Listen, Tali, for me, is best girl, best character, best development, best everything! I adore Tali. She made that first game bearable but really came into her own in the second. By the third, she was the premier supporting character in the entire franchise for me. Literally her and Garrus stay in my party and for good reason. Tali’s romance is so goddamn saccharine that it gave me diabetes but her maturation as that narrative continues is exceptionally written. Being one of two squad mates who has ridden with Shep through the entire trilogy really gives Tali room to grow and it shows. She is the best companion in the game and i almost never leave her behind.

Look, all of the squadmates hold a special place in my heart but these twelve, specifically, always seem to find their way into my onsite shenanigans more often than not. Obviously, just because you didn’t make this list, doesn’t mean you didn’t have your moments and Aria being on here instead of, say, Thane, is not a knock against him at all. Aria was just hilarious and i enjoyed what little time we shared. Everyone on the Normandy is dope and i cannot wait until my next mission to save the galaxy from the Reapers with them. Not Kaidan, though. Never Kaidan. F*ck that guy, specifically.

[corsairesix]

Single Player Fallout 76: Cryptids

In a single player version of Fallout 76, I would want to make the cryptids more special, which unfortunately means making them rarer. Instead of randomly encountered enemies, they would instead be associated with certain quests. At the end of these quests you can either kill them or deal with them peacefully. If you deal with all of them peacefully or kill all of them, you get an associated perk.

Mothman:

I wrote a lot about Mothman and his cult here.

Overall this would be the most involved of all the cryptid quests (because it’s Mothman, the main character of cryptozoology). You would have to complete the entire Cult of Mothman questline to summon Mothman.

Also unlike other cryptids, Mothman gives you a reason to go back to him (most cryptids disappear or just hang out peacefully if spared). If spared, you can return to Mothman and get cryptic clues about quests that you are doing, similar to Mama Murphy’s sight in Fallout 4.

The leaders of the cult of Mothman are described by other characters as having something not quite human about them, although by all appearances they are regular people. Their names are Indrid, Demo, and Karl.

Flatwoods Monster:

I covered some stuff with the Flatwoods Monster here as well.

You escort the alien abductee through Flatwoods, where you can either stay until night at their inn or take him to the clinic for his paranoia.

If you take him to the clinic, you can tell the Responder working there to either have him treated by Dassa or Nurse Scott.  Both will treat his paranoia and calm him down so he doesn’t want to kill the Monster.

If Dassa treats him, he will just want to take pictures to prove he was telling the truth.

If Scott treats him, the two of them will want to capture the Monster to interrogate it. They ask you to help them set up a trap to capture it, and ask a few questions. The Monster doesn’t answer in any known language, but Scott fills up a few holotapes of data. If you take this option, you can decide to kill it or release it.

Whichever option you take, the abductee says that it wasn’t the creature that abducted him, and he’s going to keep researching until he finds it.

Grafton Monster:

I wrote about the Grafton Monster quest here.

In order to get the Grafton Monster call, you must visit Shelby O’Rourke, who a local cryptozoologist in Grafton claims was coming to visit Grafton but never showed up. She was mistakenly arrested by robot prison guards and locked up in the Eastern Regional Penitentiary. You have to spring her out to continue.

Snallygaster:

The Snallygaster should be a bit more birdlike in order to resemble descriptions of the cryptid.

The runt Snallygaster is a companion found at the Crashed Space Station. He is friendly toward you.

The Trappers in Huntersville (or other Huntersville npcs if you’ve gotten rid of the Trappers), have been hearing strange noises from the Southwest and want you to check it out.

This leads you to find...

Dwayyo:

Spruce Knob is a site populated by Dwayyos, fluffy bushtailed wolf-like humanoids.

They speak a strange language, but are intelligent, and have saved a written history on the terminals there.

They were created by West-Tec as intelligent hunters to catch and kill the Snallygasters that accidentally escaped the FEV lab.

They have found that the Snallygasters are in the Spruce Knob Lake.

They need data from West-Tec to find the Snallygasters’ weakness.

Once you find out their weakness (irrational fear of septagrams) you can return to the Dwayyo. You can either convince them to use this against they Snallygasters (which will result in the Dwayyo winning the battle), lie and tell them there is no weakness but that they should fight anyway (which will result in both groups killing each other), tell them there is no weakness but that they should try to tame them (speech check, will result in the Dwayyos’ deaths), or tell them the weakness and that they should try to tame them (lower speech check, will result in them successfully creating a Snallygaster farm).

If you do convince them to create a Snallygaster farm, they will relocate to Spruce Knob Campground with the Snallygasters. They will provide you with free acid and asbestos produced by the Snallygasters once a week. If you create a Settlement at Spruce Knob, they will transfer the scrap directly to the Workshop. The quest to reclaim Spruce Knob will not be given until this quest is completed.

Sheepsquatch:

The Sheepsquatch quest more or less follows the Lying Lowe questline that begins here. You try to solve the mystery of the missing Calvin van Lowe, whose sister is trying to find him.

Some major changes are: the quest now takes place post-war, relatively recently (enough that his sister Shelley is still looking). Calvin, Bo Peep, and Wolf are now hired by Hornwright rather than Bysshe, since it doesn’t make sense for a natural gas company to be invested in Sheepsquatch robots. Hornwright is trying to create fear of the Sheepsquatch around Lewisburg so that the town will hire more Coalition protection and the Coalition will solidify their control over them (Scooby-Doo-villain-style).

Once the Imposter Sheepsquatch kills Calvin and escapes, Hornwright disavows the project. Once you find the basement, Wolf is alerted to your activity and approaches you in Lewisburg. He asks you to go to the Garrahans to ask them for some pre-war anti-robot tech from when they were still rivals with the Hornwrights. From there he sets up the pylon trap like in the normal game.

Rather than a big multiplayer raid boss, you just have to activate all three pylons to shut the Imposter Sheepsquatch down.

A day later Wolf contacts you saying there’s been an attack on the pylons by the real Sheepsquatch. It was repelled by the electricity, but one more attack could set the Imposter Sheepsquatch free. You need to go down to Calvin’s lab to retrieve a hunting subroutine, which will reprogram the imposter Sheepsquatch to hunt down the real one and then return. If you want, you can take the Sheepsquatch mating ritual holotape and install that instead of the hunting one. If you do the second, it will run away peacefully with the real Sheepsquatch. If you choose the hunting subroutine, you must follow it and Wolf, and help them fight the Sheepsquatch.

Batsquatch:

I covered pretty much everything about the Batsquatch quest here.

Yahoo:

Yet another ‘squatch, this time not a hybrid of any sort, just a standard bigfoot.

The survivalist who runs Camp Venture believes that there’s something in the woods of the Mire, and wants to go hunt it down. He knows it’s in the area near Ella Ames’s bunker.

From there, you have to track it by the sound of its call, a “Yahoo” noise. You find his hideout in the Excelsior Model Home and have to investigate there. There is a lot of evidence that the Yahoo is intelligent. There is a hard speech check to convince the survivalist to stop the hunt.

If you don’t pass the speech check, you have to kill the survivalist to save the Yahoo, although shooting him with a disabling syringer works as well. If you follow the Yahoo’s calls, you can find him near the Gulper Lagoon. If you give him the things you took from his house, he will be peaceful.

Megalonyx:

Even though the game doesn’t list it as a cryptid, I’m including the giant sloth here because 1) there are giant sloth cryptids described in both Appalachia and Virginia and 2) unlike Radtoads or Radstags or Yao Gui, there are no native sloths in West Virginia to mutate from radiation.

You find the megalonyx as part of companion Teddy McDonald’s personal quest. To become a Nuka Scout, Teddy must do a Nuka Scout Project, which involves a significant contribution to the Pioneer Scout Troop. Teddy wants to kill a cryptid.

You go to the Ranger District Office in the cranberry bog to see if they know where to find a cryptid. The two rangers there know of a large animal that they think might be a large beaver in Creekside Sundew Cove. One of them hopes you go out and kill it, but the other wants you to tag it with a tracker for study, which can be accomplished with a syringer or a very high stealth skill.

If you don’t kill it, you will either have to convince Teddy to do something else for a project, or go to van Lowe Taxidermy to learn how to make a fake giant sloth head.

Abbagoochie:

The Sons of Dane have a problem with a beast they call the Nightstalker. On nights where they party in their compound, whenever someone leaves to take a walk they are torn apart by some unknown entity, leaving behind only a pile of bones.

There are two ways to deal with this. You can create a lot of noise to attract the Abbagoochie, something that looks like a cross between a monkey, owl, fox, and deer. Then you can kill it, but be careful! It deals a lot of damage very quickly.

You can also create a bigger monster to scare it away. This requires a lot of steel, springs, gears, leather, and cloth, as well as any type of scary mask found in the wasteland. Examples include things like Fasnacht Masks from Helvetia. If you do this option, you have to wait until the following night to see if it works. The Sons of Dane will have their party as usual, and the Abbagoochie will appear, see the constructed monster, and run away.

Wendigo:

I didn’t include the Wendigo for two reasons.

The first is cultural appropriation. Unlike other cryptids on this list, the Wendigo is a specifically Native American myth.

The second is game design philosophy when it comes to the cryptids. I want them to seem special and cool. The way that the Wendigo was implemented, it just felt like “ghoul but scarier.”

I may also put the Ogua, a two headed turtle, somewhere in the Mire. Right now I don’t have a story for it though.

[themachiavellianpig]

The Outer Worlds: The Perfect Solution to that RPG Itch

The Outer Worlds, the newly-released space RPG courtesy of Obsidian, is a goshdarned joy and delight to play; with several innovative new additions to the standard RPG roster, it creates an effortlessly intriguing world full of engaging characters and then, as promised, allows you to do whatever you wish with them. 

Mild spoilers below, but nothing too specific.

The gameplay of The Outer Worlds has been rightfully compared to Fallout: New Vegas; while the combat is well-managed, the game gives you plenty of other ways to solve your many, many problems. The use of an unvoiced main character allows for a far greater variety in dialogue than would otherwise have been possible; as well as the expected ‘Persuade’ and ‘Intimidate’ options, Obsidian has added ‘Lie’ as a separate skill and, of course, you can make endless use of other talents in casual conversation, often in somewhat unexpected ways. Being able to use my ‘Medical’ skill to heal the first NPC I met was a solid use of the mechanic; being able to use the same skill later to identify a murderer in a slaughter house just by the blood on his apron was  completely unexpected and utterly wonderful. 

In order, perhaps, to make best use of this multi-pronged approach to gameplay, Obsidian has also tweaked the skill-point system to avoid overly-early specialisation. The skills are grouped into categories: ‘Tech’ contains Medical, Science and Engineering, ‘Dialogue’ contains Persuade, Lie and Intimidate, and so on. When levelling up, the first 50 points go towards all the skills in that category, meaning that, for instance, you can easily level up all of the dialogue skills and make use of all three options in the early game, allowing you to figure out how you like to play before having to specialise too much. Seriously, no longer having to choose between leveling up either Hacking or Lockpick in the early levels warmed my little thieving heart so much. 

I was a little surprised when I realised that that core abilities (Strength, Intelligence, Charm, etc) couldn’t be leveled up as your character progressed throughout the game; my first Captain would never move beyond “Average” in perception, a terrible shame as that’s accounted for most of the missed dialogue options I’ve seen so far. 

The Outer Worlds also has a system of ‘Flaws’ to balance out all the perks which Player Characters earn along the way. These flaws cannot be unlocked at your will; they are offered to you whenever the game thinks that you might have earned a specific variety, which potentially offers a great way to increase the difficulty of certain encounters in exchange for the immediate reward of a bonus perk point. 

And, for the record, I have never felt more called out for my habit of jumping off slightly-too-high-but-not-high-enough-to-kill-me ledges as when the game offered me the following flaw: 

Well played, Outer Worlds, well played. 

Regretfully, The Outer Worlds does include armour and weapons degradation, along with the need to repair your equipment regularly in order to keep it functioning properly. This is a gameplay mechanic which I can usually do without, but they have at least streamlined the process with easily accessible weapons and armour parts which can be used to repair anything, even unique items. The option to “tinker” with equipment also allows you to level up your equipment in exchange for cold hard cash, which is a small price to pay to keep that gun which you have painstakingly modded to perfection lethal long after you first picked it up.  

Of course, decent game mechanics are worth very little without a decent story to hang them on, and luckily The Outer Worlds comes through with a world which is densely packed with quests which you are desperate to see through to the end. The choice to set the game in a distant solar system ruled by corporations allows for a brilliant mix of humour and nightmare fuel. NPCs who begin their dialogue with company slogans? Makes sense. Being told that my character’s favourite song legally has to be a jingle? Hilarious. Being told that one of my companions was raised in a single-parent household because her mother’s contract didn’t allow her to raise her children? Chilling. How about when I was casually informed that a worker taking their own life was listed as “vandalism to company property”? 

Despite the very dark moments of the game, The Outer Worlds also contains an incredible amount of humour and silliness. From a ship that arbitrarily renames you and asks for crossword puzzles (“preferably not completed this time”) to the option to complete the majority of the game wearing a perfect moon-mask over your face, there is very little danger of the game or the player character taking themselves too seriously. 

Essentially, this is a game which runs well, keeps the player engaged and has great replay value; I’m already looking forward to finding out all the different ways that I can mess up the colony of Halcyon when I reroll my character for Playthrough 2 - and 3, and 4 and beyond. 

The Outer Worlds is currently available on  PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows, with a Nintendo Switch release in the pipeline for sometime next year. 

[scoutception]

Fire Emblem Echoes:  Shadows of Valentia review: 3 steps forward, 3 steps back

The game that would really propel the Fire Emblem series to its long journey to the mainstream was actually the third: Mystery of the Emblem, on the SNES. Its success, however, overshadowed not just the original Shadow Dragon on the NES, but the second game, Fire Emblem Gaiden. While certainly not great, it was easily one of the most ambitious games on the NES, and the series as a whole, for that matter, yet despite that, it was left to rot in obscurity for decades, with only occasional acknowledgements that it even existed. And then, in 2017, a rather unexpected remake released, finally giving it a chance in the limelight, and, well, it certainly left an impression. What kind of impression, we’ll be seeing right now.

Story:

Shadows of Valentia takes place on the continent of, well, Valentia, a smaller continent neighboring Archanea, the setting of Shadow Dragon. Valentia is divided into two kingdoms: Zofia, in the south, founded by the Divine Dragon Mila, who has given her people constant prosperity with rich lands, while the north is ruled by Rigel, founded by Mila’s brother, Duma, who has taken a much rougher approach to his people, making them strong and proud. Both dragons originally lived on Archanea before being exiled by Naga, and were unable to reconcile their ideological differences when they first settled on Valentia. Unfortunately with time, their ideologies have only grown more and more extreme, affecting their people as well: Zofia’s people have grown slovenly and hedonistic, its royalty especially, while Rigel’s people have become much colder. Eventually, Rigel’s emperor, Rudolf, gains designs to take Zofia for himself.

The story, rather uniquely for the series, follows two main protagonists: Alm, a commoner from Ram Village in Zofia raised and trained by his grandfather, the great knight Mycen, and Celica, the last heir to Zofia, on the run from the ambitious chancellor Desaix, who has assassinated all the other children of the current king, Lima IV. Initially hidden in Ram by Mycen, Celica befriends Alm, only for Mycen to be forced to take her away to a priory on the island of Novis after she is discovered by Desaix’s men. 4 years later, Zofia is not doing well, suffering from a horrible drought, caused by Mila seemingly disappearing, and to make matters worse, Desaix makes his move and kills the king, taking over the kingdom and selling out to Rigel. However, a small group called the Deliverance, led by the knight Clive, fight Desaix’s rule, sending one of their members, Lukas, to Ram to recruit Mycen. After Mycen refuses, however, Alm volunteers in his stead, and accompanied by several of his childhood friends, sets out to join up with Clive and defeat Desaix and Rigel. Meanwhile, Celica leaves the priory with a few companions to investigate Mila’s disappearance, unknowingly becoming the target of Jedah, head priest of the Duma Faithful, who has plans of his own, separate from Rudolf.

While it does come with its own fair share of creative twists and turns, the story itself isn’t the highlight of the writing, not helped by some overly heavy foreshadowing of said twists. The real strength comes from the cast of characters. Shadows of Valentia has some of the best written characters in the franchise. Both Alm and Celica are fantastic protagonists, with Alm being fairly straightfoward, yet refreshingly and likeably so in comparison to so many others in the game, while Celica is much more complicated and troubled, falling victim to Jedah’s manipulations and her own hidden selfishness, yet still firmly committed to doing what she thinks is right, making for one of the most unique protagonists in the franchise. The side characters don’t disappoint either, helped immensely by certain mandatory characters appearing in scenes past their recruitment, as long as you keep them alive, giving them a lot of presence. From the proud and loyal Gray, to the grounded but kind and playful Tobin, to the spoiled yet willing to grow noble Clair on Alm’s side, to the overly serious and near cowardly Boey, to the extremely energetic, boisterous, but altogether sweet, if prone to bickering Mae, to the cynical, yet influenceable Saber, they alone add so much to the story, helped by having support conversations. The villains aren’t lacking either, with Jedah being sinister and cruel, yet genuinely wishing to do Valentia well, if through the warped mindset of Duma’s extremist teachings, to Slayde, the hilariously scummy and hammy henchman to Desaix, to, most notably, Berkut, the nephew of Rudolf, who, despite not being a nice person at all, is all the same sympathetic and troubled, shaped and damaged by awful circumstances, and is altogether one of the highlights of the game, period. Unfotunately, I can’t say the cast as a whole holds up so well. Despite some of its massive successes, many other characters are near completely neglected, with very limited interactions and points beyond just being more units, and while none of them can really be called flat, all of them having supports and conversations within towns to give better personal insights to them, it only helps so much, and unfortunately, this is the fate of the majority of the cast, not helped by the supports themselves being short and aimless most of the time, though some benefit from being featured in memory prisms, items that can be found that can be viewed for scenes taking place in their backstories. Still, what is there helps make SOV’s story one of the most emotional in Fire Emblem, capping off with a fantastic climax and epilogue.

The connections to Shadow Dragon is also something that should be mentioned. Valentia being near Archanea isn’t just a fun little fact that never gets expanded on; 3 of Celica’s units are actually Palla, Catria, and Est, the pegasus sisters from Shadow Dragon, and Alm recruits a man named Zeke, who is actually Camus, a major boss character from Shadow Dragon who was presumed dead, yet actually washed up on Valentia’s shores. This kind of continuity is fascinating, especially considering it was all present in the original, too, and set up Mystery for even more surprisingly detailed world building, Camus’ circumstances in particular having a large impact on the story.

Gameplay:

Fire Emblem Gaiden was considered the oddball of the series for a long time, and, to be frank, SOV doesn’t do much to change that perception. While the core gameplay is there, ie it’s still a turn based strategy game about controlling unique units and such, many mechanics are added or changed, some for the better, some for the very worse. For the better, firstly, there’s a world map system that has you physically moving between locations instead of automatically progressing to the next battle. Aside from locations containing battles, there’s also dungeons, which I’ll cover in a bit, and towns, or similar locations, where you’re allowed to talk to your units or other NPCs, or even recruit people, pick up items and examine other random stuff, and in general just take a little break before resuming your journey. It’s a small thing, but it genuinely does help the pace. Some NPCs also give side quests, of all things. Most of them consist of giving them items or killing a certain number of enemies, and the rewards aren’t always great, but it’s a good addition all the same. Another major addition is Mila’s Turnwheel, which can be used in battle to turn back time to an earlier point if, for instance, you screwed up and got a unit killed. It has a limited number of uses that can be raised by finding cogs throughout the game, and while it may seem a bit questionable in a strategy series, it is a very appreciated addition, especially due to the extra rampant amount of RNG present in certain aspects, and in general, allows you to learn from mistakes without having to redo absolutely everything.

Yet another major addition is combat arts, special techniques unlocked from having a unit use a certain weapon enough in battle. They range from simply being more accurate or raising their evasion to extremely powerful moves for Alm and Celica. While most are rather situational, it’s a very good concept in theory. And, if having to use a weapon a lot of times seems questionable due to durability, the good news is that durability is completely gone from SOV. No matter how many times you use a weapon, it’ll never break, and you don’t even need a specific weapon in your inventory, since otherwise everyone will just use generic, featureless ones. The downside is that A. equipment is much, much harder to come buy, with no armories existing, and B. the inventory system in general got overhauled, only allowing everyone to carry one item at a time, whether it be a weapon, a shield, food, or whatever else. The magic system is also vastly overhauled: instead of using tomes to attack, mages have specific spells that they cast using their HP. Every mage has a unique list of spells they can access, with properties such as a high crit rate, being able to hit from 3 spaces away instead of 2, or just being really, really powerful. This is, in my opinion, the most enjoyable change, making them much more unique than before. Clerics are also affected by this, having different healing spells and even gaining a few attack spells. On another note, instead of using items, units promote at Mila statues, usually in dungeons or a few special other locations, allowing everyone a chance to keep up rather than having to sacrifice some just because of limited resources. Classes also have three tiers instead of two, allowing a steady, more consistent progression, and you can deploy all your available units at any time during normal story battles. Another change to the classes comes with the archers, who are able to attack from much farther away, allowing them to work much better as the support attackers they’re meant to be, and even if worst comes to worst, they can attack at melee range too. There’s also a skill system, conferring a few class bonuses, such as healing adjacent units or halving magic damage. Finally, the story is rather uniquely divided into 5 acts, they’re called. The first two follow Alm and Celica, respectively, at the beginning of their journeys, and are more or less extended tutorials on various things, but acts 3 and 4 put both of them in your control, allowing you to progress with them individually. While Celica’s path is certainly less enjoyable than Alm’s just in what she has to face, it’s another addition that helps the pace, letting you choose just when to face stuff.

As for the bad stuff, there’s quite a bit to cover, unfortunately. Mostly prominently to me, dungeons. In dungeons, you wander around with free movement as your lord, collecting items, whether in treasure chests or via destroying stuff like crates and pots, and getting into encounters represented by enemies roaming around the area. If they see or hear you, they will give chase. While they’re annoying to avoid, the real bad part is that every encounter just puts you on one featureless map per dungeon. The enemies are rarely actual threats, and dungeons can actually be used to level grind, though a bit more on that in a bit, but it’s so utterly dull that dungeons quickly become a slog, regardless of their rewards. There aren’t too many of them, and all are technically optional, but act 5 takes place entirely in a long and tedious dungeon, making for a very disappointing final chapter. Plus, you can only ever bring 10 units at max into dungeons, which makes traversing and leveling even more repetitive. Unfortunately, the rest of the map design isn’t much better, even in story battles. While Shadow Dragon’s maps weren’t great, they were at least more distinct. SOV’s maps are, for the most part, very large and very barren, with enemies just being bunched up ready to charge at you, most of your units don’t have great movement to begin with, making it pretty repetitive. The maps that are more distinct are almost even worse, being set up to hinder you in any way they can, whether it be archers behind walls constantly pestering you or poison swamps that restrict your movement and damage you. Celica in particular has to deal with several maps of desert, which vastly decreases the movement of any unit that isn’t a pegasus knight, including mages, who are normally free of that restriction, and poison swamps. Additionally, since the game doesn’t go by the usual Fire Emblem chapter system, battles mostly come in smaller scale things, with less enemies. Notable setpieces are pretty rare, and occur more towards the end of the game. This does not help much, and makes a lot of battles rather disposable.

Another big damaging factor is the unit and class balancing. SOV has by far one of, if not the smallest cast in the series, featuring only 34 units total, with Alm and Celica getting 17 each. Unfortunately, the game is not properly tuned for such a small cast. Growth rates are very low all around, making 1 point level ups common, and through these bad growths or other factors, many units end up bad very easily. Some of the most infamous are Clive, a cavalier with awful growths in skill and speed, making him good as a very temporary crutch at best, Luthier, a mage who only tends to get a lot of skill, and little else, and Boey, a mage who leans towards a bizarre defensive focused approach over offense, which, in my experience, he fails at doing well regardless. While there are certainly some very powerful characters, such as the cavalier Mathilda, the mage Mae, and the three pegasus sisters, they’re pretty few and far between, barring absurd luck, making your most reliable units your lords, who are downright broken compared to the cast’s usual standards, Alm especially easily being able to solo much of the endgame. Classes aren’t well balanced either, especially with the map design in place. While mages and archers work quite well, with mages being balanced by their varying spell lists and the HP costs, and archers not having great actual attack power and needing a lot of skill to hit accurately balancing their insane range, everyone else tends to have some sort of problem. Knights tend to have a bad rap for the whole series, but they especially suffer in this from their low movement making it very hard for them to keep up in these large maps, and being extremely vulnerable to magic, along with the available units not being very good regardless. By contrast, mercenaries are downright overpowered, easily gaining a lot of attack and speed, and ultimately promoting into dread fighters, who can easily power through magic like nobody else can. The class distribution is also pretty bad. Alm gets several cavaliers and knights, but only two mages, one of which is the aforementioned Luthier, and no mercenaries by default. By contrast, Celica gets 3 mages and mercenaries, and up to 4 of one of them due to a choice of units, and 3 pegasus knights, but no cavaliers until act 4 and only one cleric. The pacing on getting them is rather questionable too, with Alm’s mages not being available until act 3, along with the cavalier example. Units also slow down on gaining EXP quite fast and quite hard, making leveling them extremely annoying, especially knowing great results aren’t going to be common.

To move onto smaller, but still notable annoyances, one unique mechanic is the villager class, the premier example, to me, of Gaiden’s ambition, and the limitations it was held back by. You see, Alm’s friends from Ram village, the 4 of them, that join him aren’t trained for combat like Alm or Lukas, and thus start in what is more or less a tier 0 class. They’re weak, but can promote starting at level 3, and actually have a choice of what to promote into. In theory, this gives them a lot of flexibility in what roles to fill. In practice, they aren’t balanced at this for all. Gray and Tobin in particular do awful in pretty much anything, and while Kliff is more flexible, he only has so much. The one exception is Faye, who was actually added in the remake specifically, having generalized growths that allow her to do well in pretty much any class, helped by having a different set available to her than everyone else. Still, as a whole, this is a badly balanced mechanic that can easily make Alm’s side way more difficult than intended, if you don’t follow the general recommendations on what to do with them. The kicker is, Celica gets a villager too, Atlas, with his main difference being coming in at act 3, compared to act 1, with growths even worse than the others, and most of his options either being heavily contested or just plain terrible for him. Another annoyance is enemies being spawned on the world map by set encounters that move and force you into a battle if you come into contact with them. This continues to happen every few turns, even for the army you aren’t controlling, and is really unnecessary. Speaking of enemies, there are some extremely irritating ones to be found, most notably the cantors and the witches. Cantors constantly summon monsters in great numbers that, while weak and really no real threat, come in such a steady stream, and often with huge ranges, make progression a slog. Witches, on the other hand, are a completely different matter. One similarity SOV has with Shadow Dragon is the abysmal resistance bases and growths, being single digit at best for both. Problem is, witches are magic attackers that not only have decent speed and more than enough power to ruin your day, but have a skill that can only be described as spiteful:, they can teleport anywhere on that map at any time, with no restrictions. Yes, the extremely dangerous units are able to just fly right next to you if you if they feel like it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Oh, and there’s even bosses late in the game that summon witches like cantors. Have fun. There’s also no weapons triangle, and in fact, none of your units are capable of using axes, which makes things a bit duller.

Finally, there’s also a forging system added, allowing you to improve the stats of your weapons, or even forge them into superior weapons. While a nice idea in concept, it’s quite difficult to take advantage of it due to the currency system. There are two types of currency: silver marks, mainly used for more normal weapons, and gold marks, used for stronger stuff. Problem is, it’s very difficult to accumulate. You need quite a lot of silver marks to accomplish anything notable, and your main source is slowly grinding them in dungeons, usually coming in drops of one, with a few bags containing more rarely coming up. Additionally, gold marks cannot be acquired outside of a few set rewards and a very specific spot in a certain dungeon, which only gives them very rarely anyway, with the only method of getting them otherwise being converting 500 silver marks into one gold. It’s just a miserably grindy mechanic you’re more than free to ignore just to save yourself an additional headache.

Overall, a lot of SOV’s mechanics feel completely experimental. Most of what was introduced with Gaiden was completely forgotten about by the rest of the series, other than the world map though thankfully Three Houses has taken notes from some of the better received mechanics. While I can’t say it doesn’t make for an interesting game, though, SOV’s gimmicks just make it a slog overall.

Graphics:

SOV is a very pleasing game to look at. Every character has a distinct design, with the artstyle especially being downright beautiful for portraits. Class designs are also quite interesting, with a nice progression with each tier. The main attraction, though, is the battle animations. Every class comes with smooth and entertaining animations that, to me, never get tiring to watch. Whether it be counterattacking after a weak enemy blow or overly fancy crit animation, it makes for some of the best looking battles in the series. The models are also quite good, though the faces can look a bit creepy. It’s overall a very good improvement on the other 3DS titles.

Sound:

The soundtrack for SOV is easily one of the best in the series. Gaiden had some very advanced music for the NES to begin with, but SOV gives them downright amazing remixes, with some of the big highlights being with Mila’s Divine Protection, Celica’s initial map theme, the Sacrifice and the Saint, Celica’s act 4 map theme, and A Song for Bygone Days, the act 4 world map theme. It also adds several original pieces that are just as, if not superior, with my favorites being Lord of a Dead Empire, for the map containing the fight against emperor Rudolf, and the Scion’s Dance in Purgatory, Berkut’s final boss theme. SOV also comes with an amazing English voice acting dub, helped by all the dialogue being fully voiced, instead of only having short voice clips or a few voiced animated cutscenes. While a lot of the minor NPCs sound fairly ridiculous, the units all sound fantastic, special note going to the major ones, Kyle McCarley as Alm, Erica Lindbeck as Celica, Max Mittelman as Gray, Robbie Daymond as Tobin, Alexis Tipton as Clair, Chris Hackney as Boey, Cherami Leigh as Mae, and Keith Silverstein as Saber. Some of the better more minor units are Christine Marie Cabanos as Delthea, Doug Erholtz as Python, Alexis Tipton as Palla, Connor Kelly-Eiding as Catria, Brianna Knickerbocker as Est, and Mick Wingert as Jesse. The major antagonists are also great, with Richard Epcar giving a great performance as Jedah, Christopher Corey Smith hamming it up with Slayde the whole time, making him very entertaining whenever he shows up while not overshadowing how vile he is, and especially Ian Sinclair as Berkut portraying his gradual downfall perfectly every step of the way. All in all, the voice acting shows just how far Nintendo’s dubs has improved, and the soundtrack provides something I could listen to for hours.

DLC:

Here comes a new category on these reviews. I’ll also be taking a look at downloadable content offered by games with them, assuming there’s any notable, and assuming I even care to try them. SOV, unfortunately, does not have a lot going for it. It’s mainly stuff for easy EXP and money grinding, extra scummy considering how difficult those are to do normally, compared to Awakening and Fates, and additionally, there’s item grinding DLC, giving you easy access to grind for normally limited equipment to your heart’s content, including items exclusive to the DLC, astral shards, that boost growth rates of units that hold them. Other than a few free things that are just free items, though, there’s two notable packs that are worth a more detailed look.

The first is the Cipher Legends DLC, about, of all things, Fire Emblem Cipher, the Fire Emblem card game exclusive to Japan. Despite having almost no context for this, it was localized all the same. It adds 4 units originating from Cipher as units: Emma, an extremely energetic pegasus knight in training, Randal, a sleazy paladin with a bad gambling habit, Yuzu, a priestess dedicated to training, and pretty much never learned how to be social, and Shade, a saint who tries to seem cool and collected, but is prone to panicking easy. Despite seeming like a joke, they’re actually surprisingly detailed, showing a lot of personality and even coming with town conversations and supports with each other. The supports, I must mention, are the highlight of it all. They are massively improved over what’s included in the base game, being much longer and containing obvious subjects and conclusions. As far as their practicality as units, though, while they can certainly help a lot early on, and have a lot of room to grow, they aren’t quite overpowered. The DLC is split into two parts, the first involving protecting Randal from mercenaries with Emma’s help, while the second involves helping Yuzu free Shade after she’s brainwashed. They aren’t very difficult, and be cleared pretty quick, but they’re pretty fun. All in all, nowhere near essential, but a decent little pack all the same.

The second, and most notable to me, is the Rise of the Deliverance pack, a series of 4 maps taking place before the events of act 1, focusing on the various members of the Deliverance, including Fernand, who is otherwise an unplayable villain in the main story. What makes these unique are that they are very set scenarios; everything you have to work with is set, including the units, their stats, and their items, and rather than simply wiping out the enemy or defeating the boss, the only objectives of the main maps, each has a unique objective.  The first map has you take control of Clive and Fernand saving Slayde, who is still nominally allied with them, from a merchant uprising, having to protect him and rout the mercenaries hired by the merchants. While probably the least notable of all, it’s notable for allowing you control of a few generic units. The second map has Lukas, Python, and Forsyth having to attack a fort and free some of their allies and then escape. The third has Clair and Mathilda trying to escape from a ruin filled with monsters, with Clair possessing a ring that nullifies magic attacks, while Mathilda has a blessed lance effective against the monsters, forcing you to weigh their defensive and offensive capabilities while making as much progress as you can. The fourth and final has you defending Zofia castle with every member of the Deliverance, including Fernand, against Slayde, after Desaix has killed the king. Beating these maps grant items and even additional support conversations with Python, Forsyth, Lukas, Clive, Clair, and Mathilda, all of which are much better than the base game supports, like with the Cipher DLC, and additional memory prisms. While even the individual pack is a bit too expensive for my liking, this is best the DLC has to offer. If you had to get something from it, this would be my recommendation, by far. The alternate chapter goals and fast pace give them a quality surpassing the normal game, in my opinion, and my only real complaint is that I wish there were more of them.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, whether or not I’d recommend this game comes from how much you can tolerate gameplay that isn’t very well designed in exchange for great writing, music, and other aspects. If you can get over the bumps in the road, I would give this a somewhat cautious recommended. I’ve still had a decent amount of fun with the gameplay, and it’s a fantastic showing on aspects otherwise. If you can’t quite ignore that, however, it’s not recommended. With that, I’m (finally) done here. Till next time.

-Scout

[batter-sempai]

Deltarune predictions

We’re probably not getting Deltarune for at least a few years, so I thought it would be fun to make some predictions about it. I doubt any of these will come true, but it will be interesting to go through this list again and check off anything that did come true.

Some of these predictions do contradict each other, but then again they’re just that, predictions.

(Spoiler alert, please don’t read this unless you have completed the game)

Here we go:

One of the Deltarune T-shirts on Fangamer is called Chapter 1, and has most of the major characters from the demo. I think every chapter will have a different set of characters. Every time Kris/you go into the Dark World, you help/defeat a different set of characters.

Continuing from above, your companion changes in every chapter. Ralsei may or may not continue to be your guide, you might get a new Darkner companion. Your monster companion changes. Considering how there are new monster characters, some who do have portraits when you talk to them, I believe they might become companions later on. Examples are Noelle and Berdly.

Regardless, in every chapter, the party will always be made of Kris/you, one monster, and one Darkner.

 Susie’s story isn’t over yet, even if she’s not your companion in the next chapters. You can still talk to her and maybe she comes back as a companion later on. I feel like her character arc is far from done.

Going by the theory of everything in the Dark World happening in one empty classroom, and all the Darkners are playing cards, chess pieces, puzzles, and toys. It’s likely that every chapter takes place in a different room, with different things around the room becoming Darkners/the Darkners being based on stuff around the room. Toriel’s classroom might be the next location.

The prophecy changes with each chapter. However, at the end of the game, you realize that despite the prophecies seemingly contradicting each other, they all string into a story about what’s actually happening in both worlds.

Either the overworld or the Dark world is an illusion, or a simulation.

You will be asked questions between each chapter. There has to be a reason why Toby titled the file for Deltarune “Survey program”. Your answers might change the next chapters, but not much.

The “choices don’t matter” concept of the game will have a twist later on. None of your choices seem to matter at first, every chapter ends the exact same way regardless of what you do. However, in the final chapter, the consequences of your choices will come crashing down on you. Either everyone you made friends with comes to your aid, or everyone comes to kick your ass for being a dick.

At some point in the game, you and Kris will wrestle control from each other.

The concept of control comes into play at some point. Since you are able to control your companions (aside from Susie since she resists mostly), and it’s implied you’re controlling Kris until they finally rip your SOUL out, you might have to make a decision as to whether you’re willing to take away someone’s freedom just so you’re able to have the freedom of choice.

The vessel you created at the beginning of the game makes a return, and it turns out they’re not an empty vessel after all. (So now there’s three characters: Kris, whatever you named yourself/the creator, and whatever you named the vessel).

The reason why Papyrus and Mettaton (I’m assuming it’s Mettaton in that house) hasn’t shown up yet is because they’ll be important later on.

Or, Mettaton does not have his robot body here, and Toby only wants to reveal his ghost form in the full game.

 (This is kind of self-indulgent) Papyrus plays an important role in your adventure. Either he helps you by giving advice or items, or he actually becomes a companion. Regardless, he seems aware of what is happening.

Or, Papyrus is not named Papyrus in this game. He’s Windings. He uses the name Papyrus later on. (maybe due to memory loss? or people forgetting who he used to be? what with the whole “Don’t Forget” thing going on.)

Or maybe it could be something as simple as “I CHANGED MY NAME AND FONT TO PAPYRUS BECAUSE NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND ME WHEN I WAS WINDINGS.”

Then again, Gaster might be a different person altogether, and is either responsible for everything that is happening to Kris/you, or trying to help you during your adventure.

Papyrus does not have his red scarf at the start of the game. It’s given to him by Ralsei.

There’s still a basement under the Skelebros’ house, it comes into play later in the game.

The Sans and Papyrus in this universe are the same ones in UT. Either time traveling/universe hopping shenanigans, or they are somehow in two universes at once.

Sans and Papyrus are escaped/banished Darkners.

We’ll get some closure on what exactly Everyman and the Memoryheads are, as well as the [redacted] character in UT.

We’ll also know how some characters became the Grey NPCs, Goner Kid, and Clamgirl in UT.

Asgore gets involved in some way because of those strange flowers he has.

We do meet Asriel, but he doesn’t follow Kris/us on our adventures. He does have an influence on the story though.

We get Undyne and Alphys back together. Maaaaybe get Asgore and Toriel back together, but it’s highly unlikely :(

Everything gets better when we unite the light and dark world, somehow. The Dark world and Light world can now exist simultaneously.

Or, on a more depressing note, we have to combine the light and dark world. The monsters get their magic back, and everyone’s lives get better, but the Dark world and the Darkners all cease to exist. (Sans and Papyrus escape into another universe to prevent themselves from disappearing?)

The bunker in the hill comes into play, either as the location for the final chapter, or it’s where whoever is running the simulation is hiding out. Then again, it could be a red herring by Toby Fox.

 If I think of more, I might add to this in another post. Again, none of these are definite theories and are just dumb predictions I thought of. We’ll see how many of these even come true at all when the game is released.

[themossstomper]

The Moss Stomper’s fics: WIPs for 2019

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII (the Turks and Shinra, mostly, with a smattering of other characters, including OCs and very, very minor NPCs from the games)

Toward the Storm (AO3 | ffnet) - currently at 35k words, 9 of 20 chapters posted

A.k.a. Nanaki's murder mystery, which has been in the works for years. Nanaki reluctantly teams up with Reno of the Turks to solve a murder, which turns out to be the first in a whole string of them. Follows the rocky, borderline antagonistic relationship of our mismatched detectives, which slowly warms into something closer to friendship… maybe. All of it peppered with the usual Stomper brand of action, humor, and pseudo-philosophical musings. Features a bunch of familiar faces from The Stranger in Their Midst (including Tess FitzEvan) and other fics.

Growing Pains - 4 chapters, 11k words, first draft

More silly Turk fun! As the growing Shinra Company grapples with the first incarnation of AVALANCHE, the Midgar Turks join up with another division to bolster their numbers. This sparks a second conflict on the inside: an escalating war of pranks and shenanigans. A short rivals-to-reluctant-allies-to-friends fic set mid-BC, a.k.a. when Reno met Nunchaku.

Fragile Fantasies - 7 chapters, 23k words, first draft

A Cissnei/Reno fic, of all things, that ambushed me out of nowhere. Post-Meteor, Cissnei has settled into a peaceful, incognito existence in a quiet backwater town. It's the life she wanted, free of Shinra – or so she thinks, until Reno whirls into town and reminds her what she left behind. Bursting at the seams with pining and UST, with a bit of angst and action thrown in for good measure.

A New Year's Desolation - currently at 11k words, aiming for 15k

A companion piece to Stranger. During a fun new year's getaway with the gang, Reno discovers the secret Tyco and Tess have been keeping from him. He doesn't take it well. Angst, romance, heartache, hurt/comfort, a sprinkling of humor… All the good stuff, in other words. This one was on last year's WIP list, but it's gone through major plotting/setting changes and rewrites since then. Now with blizzards!

Shrapnel - currently at 20k words, aiming for 50k

A.k.a. "a sequel that isn't exactly a sequel" from last year's WIP list. Tess, Reno, and the gang post-AC, about three years down the road. Mostly from the POVs of Reno and Rufus Shinra, focused on their troubled relationships with each other as well as the most important people in their lives. Full of angst, self-doubt, grief and soul-searching, because of course it is when I'm the one writing it… but it's all balanced by sweet moments and that delicious comfort that goes with the hurt.

Timey wimey bullshit - currently at 14k words, aiming for 85k

A time travel fix-it-gone-wrong fic set during the OG, that's so convoluted that not even I can make sense of it yet. X) Reno gets sent back in time to fix his broken, hopeless future – only to discover that he isn't the only time traveller, because sometimes actions have unintended consequences, and what you think will fix something will eventually make it worse. Reno struggles to keep it together, Elena is a certified badass, and because of at least three separate timelines the pairing/relationship situation will be… messy.

Spooky stuff - currently at 7k words, aiming for 35k

The old archives at Shinra HQ are a vast maze of stacks, shelves, and side rooms, with files spanning more than thirty years. Even Turks hesitate to go there alone late at night. When Reno runs into a woman who is looking for a specific file, he ends up delving deeper than ever before – and that's when things start to get weird. Kind of eerie, kind of sad. Features several BC Turks.

Werewolf on Gaia… sort of? - planning stage

Random story idea focused on Vincent Valentine in his Turk days, Hojo, and an oh-so-mysterious OC. Dark stuff, with body horror and twisted, repressed emotions and such. May or may not see the light of day – but the concept of it is awfully tantalizing.

Werewolves on the brain - planning stage

My brain, that is. Was watching a werewolf movie that was a bit crap (like most of them, sigh – good werewolf movie recs are welcome) when the dreaded I can do better struck. In my FFVII-obsessed mind it has percolated into another werewolf AU concept that's getting more complicated with each day. At this stage it features the OG Turks, the Shinras, several executives and a number of AVALANCHE members. Not sure about pairings… Tseng/Rufus perhaps, or maybe it's time to indulge in my guilty pleasure Aerith/Reno. Any preferences, dear readers? X)

———

Did anyone make it this far? X) I wasn't kidding about the 8 WIPs (and I’ve gained one more since then). Any of these tickle your fancy?

[kangacav69]

Garden Of The Gods Wasteland 3

After the dorsey raid there are still pockets of gang members within city limits, and sheriff daisy needs help clearing them out. For extra on wasteland 3, take a look at our information to character builds, attributes, and expertise.

Pin on YAHUSHUA (JESUS)

Just inside, bellamy ward will contact you and ask for help with the dorseys:

Garden of the gods wasteland 3. The first cyborg chicken in wasteland 3 can be found at the garden of the gods. Wasteland 3 finding the garden of the gods. Here, you’ll also venture within the garden of the gods.

If you have been following our complete wasteland iii walkthrough from the beginning, you should have talked to sheriff daisy and agreed to go to the garden of the gods where the dorseys are located. All cyborg chicken locations in wasteland 3. Wasteland 3 get to garden of the gods.

My hq has the brig active and the hospital. Wasteland 3 cornered rats you’ll start this mission at downtown colorado springs and will come to know about the town being attacked by the dorseys. Go down the stairs and out of the command room at hq towards the colorado springs […]

Inside the locker that you have to pick is a weapon and a skill. The man, josiah casady, claims dorseys have overrun his. Skill books provide a permanent skill increase to a single character.

Detailed, revealed and described map with walkthrough for garden of the gods location in wasteland 3 video game with missons starters and quest steps, npcs, skill use, skill books, cassette tapes, creepy dolls, animal companion, weapons, armours, items, secrets and companions, wasteland 3 maps & walkthrough. As soon as you enter the door and travel across, a radio voice from bellamy ward will be received which after accepting will increase the rep +1 against hundred families. Photon amplification lens at work.

Cornered rats is a quest in wasteland 3. Head to the garden of the gods. In wasteland 3, after having a conversation with marshal lupinski, he will let you proceed through the gate to the garden of the gods to eliminate all dorsey’s.

Keen karen is a creepy doll located in the garden of the gods on the north side of colorado springs town. Sit tight, we'll take care of the dorseys.: Wasteland 3 garden of the gods.

1 background 2 walkthrough 3 rewards 4 raw strings shortly before we arrived at peterson airforce base, a large group of dorseys attacked colorado springs. It is located north of the pit of burning corpses, and in order to get it, you’ll need to have at least a level four animal whisperer. For more locations or quests, you can head back to our walkthrough’s main page.

But i still cannot recruit her, she just sits against the wall, saying she's still too wounded to fight, when i talk to her. Garden of the gods is a location in wasteland 3. Wasteland 3 > general discussion > topic details.

Colorado springs is the first major settlement you'll visit in wasteland 3. After touring your dilapidated ranger hq, you’ll head to downtown colorado springs, the first major settlement you’ll encounter in wasteland 3. This is where you’ll receive your first.

The hero needs to get past the colorado springs downtown area to get to the garden of the gods area for the main quest. Unavailable at the start of the game, once players gain access to this new interior. This is also where you'll find the garden of the gods.

This is the way to the garden of the gods. It's the pride and joy of the ward family of the hundred families, the. Yogol aug 30 @ 6:05pm.

The attack failed, and most of the holdouts are holed up the garden of the gods. Wasteland 3 fig update #25: There are a lot of items to find and discover in wasteland 3.

Avengers walkthrough begins use photographer mode: Wasteland 3 inxile have been busy with the bard's tale iv, but they've finally found the time to put out a new wasteland 3 fig update.the previous update three months ago promised a continuation of last year's. Guide to prisoner, satellites, specialists, and more introduction.

Reputation +1 with the hundred. The gods have spoken mission walkthrough wasteland 3. Depois de sua conversa com greatski de volta ao hq, sua primeira missão em colorado spring é ratos encurralados.

Just up ahead on the right is bellamy’s work shop , it’s protected by 3 land mines so it helps to have someone in the squad that can disarm them. The garden of the gods is found around to the north, past the paperboy. Fixing the generator will open the door.

She wants you to go to the garden of the gods and bring lucia wesson with you. The sans luxe apartments are a pretty interesting place in wasteland 3’s main hub town of colorado springs. The patriarch asked us to help his marshals deal with them.

As you head up the path towards the garden of the gods, you may spot an old man pointing a gun at a store. It is a guide to prisoner, satellites, specialists, and more in wasteland 3. Lucia wesson is a unique companion in wasteland 3.

Depois da invasão de dorsey, ainda há grupos de membros de gangue dentro dos limites da cidade, e a xerife daisy precisa de ajuda para. Exit the marshal’s station and take the alley northwest of your position ( picture1 ). In wasteland 3 there are a total of five cyborg chickens you will need to unlock the unique animal companion in the game.

To find these chickens, you must go to the locations listed below and have the unlocked animal whisperer skill to get them to follow you. Dipping your toes into saving colorado will have to start. Once you have that, you just have to convince it and lead it back to the coup at the ranger hq.

Then i did all sort of stuff and finished the story line in garden of the gods. The entire guide consists of spoilers and if you do not want to learn something extra, then it is better not to read ahead of time. Talk to josiah on the way and he’ll ask you to clear some gang members out of.

Ask her to come and she'll join eagerly. This wasteland 3 skill book location guide tells you where to find each of the skill books we have discovered while battling our way through wasteland 3 so far. When you see what daisy wants (to wipe out some dorseys in the garden of the gods), she'll ask you to bring lucia along.

Then, speak with sheriff daisy. The wasteland 3 colorado springs settlement will then lead you to another area called the garden of the gods. In wasteland 3, there are rare collectibles known as creepy dolls.

Garden of the gods is one of the locations in wasteland 3.the various locations on the wasteland of colorado offer different objectives and secrets that are waiting to be discovered, characters that you can meet, and an environment that can be interacted with, as well as formidable foes that consist of humanoids, mechanical enemies, beasts, and mutated creatures. 1 background 2 points of interest 3 characters 4 notable loot the garden of the gods was originally known as red rock corral and its strange rock formations were created during a geological upheaval millions of years ago. After your conversation with greatski back at hq, your first quest in colorado spring is cornered rats.

Wasteland 3 walkthrough for the gods have spoken secondary mission, starting in yuma county speedway, at level 20, choices and consequences, starter location map, where to go, all steps, how to finish mission. Nowadays, however, it's more than just a pretty sight.

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How Long to Beat The Most Popular Video Games

Quarantine has left all of us with a lot more free time on our hands. More specifically, free time at home.

This spike in free time has significantly increased the amount of time people have to spend playing. So, to help you navigate the vast world of available games to play, we’ve created a list of our favorite games and how long they take to beat. Enjoy!

How Long to Beat…

Death Stranding

Death Stranding was a major title in 2019, and it was Hideo Kijima’s—one of the minds behind the Metal Gear franchise—big project. The game is highly realistic, and while the main storyline takes a solid 40 hours to complete, all of the available side quests and exploration will take much longer.

The lore is fascinating and mysterious. Players will get to see a star-studded cast, beautifully scored music,—Death Stranding has won several awards for its music—a fantastic landscape, and genuinely creative storytelling in this one-of-a-kind game.

Outer Worlds

Outer Worlds answers the question of what if Fallout took place in futuristic space?

It is no surprise that there are similarities between the Outer Worlds and Fallout since the makers of Fallout: Las Vegas also made this game. The main storyline will run the average player around 15 hours, but if you want to explore, then double the amount of time you’ll need.

Laugh, fight, and explore unfamiliar worlds in Outer Worlds.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 is what happens when a shooter looter lets its players run wild. The game doesn’t require daily quests and instead allows players to co-op to their heart’s content.

Players generally need 30 hours to sow their mayhem and complete the game. Gather some friends, play online, and discover new legendary gear in the ever-engaging Borderlands 3.

Red Dead Redemption 2

If you’ve ever wanted to relive your childhood games of cowboys and Indians (ahem, Native Americans), just with more violence, then Red Dead Redemption 2 is the game for you. Its massive open world and variety of quests mean that players can spend hours and hours exploring.

The main story will take players anywhere from 40-60 hours, depending on how experienced a player is. Players can also explore Red Dead Redemption 2 Online, which despite a rocky start, has made improvements on this online open-world RPG. Either option—console or PC—is great for hours of non-stop fun.

Kingdom Hearts 3

The Kingdom Hearts franchise is wildly renown and for a good reason. The games combine our love of magic and Disney with our passion for action-adventure games. Kingdom Hearts 3 is loads of fun and offers between 30-50 hours on the primary questline.

Gather your Keyblades and fight-side-by-side with some of your favorite Disney characters in this new addition to a beloved franchise.

God of War

The God of War remake is all the things that fans love about the God of War franchise, upped to a whole new level for the PS4. Fans get to see their favorite Spartan in an entirely new light and a completely new setting.

Kratos rocks the Norse warrior look, and getting to deep dive into Norse mythology is loads of fun. Players could spend around 20 hours completing the game and about 50 doing a full exploration.

Resident Evil 2

Capcom has been busy in recent years with creating remakes of their popular Resident Evil franchise. The zombie slasher is iconic, and this remake is gorgeously done.

The storyline takes about 15 hours, but to complete everything available in the game, you’ll need about 60 hours. Resident Evil 2 is the perfect game to hone your zombies fighting and evil corporation thwarting skills.

Resident Evil 3

Resident Evil 3 was the next remake Capcom offered. The story takes place in the same timeline as Resident Evil 2. Resident Evil 3, however, has Jill Valentine—which is an instant bonus, in my opinion.

The game is significantly shorter than its predecessor, with players only needing an average of 5 hours for a complete playthrough, making it the quickest game on our list. The draw for Resident Evil 3 is the fact that players need multiple playthroughs to access all of its content.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a fabulous addition to one of Nintendo’s most iconic franchises. It was one of the launch games for the Nintendo Switch. The story is terrific, and the graphics are fantastic.

The game takes about 60 hours to complete, and it is worth every minute. Breath of the Wild is a breath of fresh air to the Zelda series.

The Witcher 3

The Witcher is one of the most popular video game franchises ever. Between the books, the Netflix series based on the books, and the actual games, few people haven’t heard of this series.

The game is massive!

To play, the main questline is around 50 hours, and the two DLCs offer an extra 30 hours. To really explore the game, players can sink about 130 hours, if not more, to complete all of its content.

This action-adventure RPG is fantastic, and if you’ve never played a game in The Witcher franchise, The Witcher 3 is a great place to start.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Easily one of the most highly anticipated games of 2020, the Final Fantasy 7 Remake is amazing. The graphics are beautifully done. The game is technically only a fraction of the original; the game offers a deeper look into Midgard and its people.

Players can explore the different sectors of Midgard like never before with over 30 hours of gameplay needed for completion. The best part is that Square Enix has stated that there will be more parts to the remake in total, so by the time the full remake is out, there will be a lot more than 30 hours.

Spider-Man (PlayStation 4)

Everyone’s favorite wall-crawling web-slinger is back! Spider-Man is back and better than ever in this new adaptation available on the PlayStation 4.

The storyline is a mash-up of the comics and the movies, and it takes about 16 hours to complete. As a bonus, players get to be more than just Spider-Man, other playable characters include Mary Jane and Miles Morales. Three DLCs will run you about 2 hours apiece, bringing the total playtime to 22 hours.

See New York as you’ve never seen it before with this new addition to the Spider-Man video game library.

Far Cry 5

Far Cry is well known for its open-worlds and cheeky dialogues. Far Cry 5 is the latest installment in this open-world RPG series. The story is fresh, and there is no shortage of cultists and ‘Bliss’ users to battle.

With animal companions and hilarious NPCs, Far Cry 5 will give gamers plenty of distractions during the quarantine. Players can devote around 18 hours to the main storyline and roughly two-and-a-half times as long exploring the whole thing.

Bioshock: The Collection

Are you looking to marathon three games in one?

Then you need Bioshock: The Collection. The game contains all the solo-player content from Bioshock, Bioshock 2, and Bioshock: Infinite all remastered for the PlayStation 4.

The collection offers 45 hours of gameplay for all three storylines.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

Assassin’s Creed is from the same developers as the Far Cry series, Ubisoft. If there’s one thing Ubisoft does well, it is open-world action-adventure RPGs. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is the newest installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

Set in ancient Greece, players get to choose between two main characters, Kassandra or Alexios, and battle cultists, visit ancient ruins and become a true master assassin. Players will need to devote around 60 hours to beat the main quest, but to complete the full array of side quests, players will need to devote at least twice that if not more.

Grand Theft Auto 5

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a pretty popular series, well known for its open-world, lawless chaos, and variety of quests. GTA 5 is one of the largest worlds in the GTA universe.

Players can count on spending at least 30 hours on main quests alone, but full exploration will run you around 80 hours. Players of GTA know that 80 hours offer plenty of time to engage in all the car thefts and abundant chaos your heart desires.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is another big name for published by Nintendo. The game was the headliner for the Nintendo Switch Lite.

This remastered classic is masterfully redone. It takes all the things that players loved about the original and improves on them. With between 15 and 20 hours of adorable chibi fun, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is a highly recommended addition to anyone’s Switch library.

Control

Control is an exciting and fresh take on third-person sci-fi action shooters. The game features a main character named Jesse, who enters a very special building called, The Oldest House.

The Oldest House is the headquarters of a secret government agency, The Federal Bureau of Control. While in the Oldest House, Jesse gains psychic abilities that allow her to fight an evil mind-warping infection called the Hiss—trust me, psychically flinging thing at your enemies is as much fun as it sounds.

Between the main game and the DLC, players can count on roughly 15 hours of playtime. Named, IGN’s 2019 Game of the Year, Control is definitely worth adding to your ‘to play’ list.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is an action-adventure game set in the Sengoku Era of Japan. Players get to be a rogue shinobi—a shinobi is a ninja for you non-Japanese speakers.

If you are a Dark Souls fan, then you will love this new game by FromSoftware—the developers of Dark Souls. Sekiro showcases what the developers of FromSoftware excel at, gritty, grueling combat, and a unique setting. Battle yokai—monsters from traditional Japanese folklore—for around 30 hours and master the art of shinobi swordplay in this satisfyingly challenging game.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Have a Switch and love JRPGs? Then Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the game for you.

Enjoy 50 hours of main story gameplay, and if you find yourself with extra free time, this game has got you covered. Full completion of Fire Emblem: Three Houses will run you for about 200 hours, easy—it is the longest game on our list with five different routes for players to pursue.

With charming anime-style graphics, turn-based combat, and strategic player interactions, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a fantastic game and worth every minute of gameplay.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Luigi’s Mansion 3 is yet another fantastic game to add to anyone’s Switch library. The game focuses on Mario’s scardey cat brother, Luigi. In this game, Luigi must save his brother, Princess Peach, and the Toads from a hotel full of ghosts.

The game is nothing but good, wholesome fun, which will fun players anywhere from 15 to 20 hours. There was recently a DLC released for this game.

However, given how new the DLC is, there is little data about how long it takes to play. We have written a full review of Luigi’s Mansion 3, which you can read here.

Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is hands-down, one of the best open-world RPGs ever. The game is so popular that even three years after its release, people still want to see this game be available on the upcoming PlayStation 5.

The game takes the best things about action RPGs, post-apocalyptic timelines, and robot enemies and rolls into 35 hours of main story gameplay and 8 hours of DLC gameplay. However, exploring this open-world is the best part of this game.

The graphics are the very definition of eye-candy, and with the average gamer taking 100 hours to explore both the DLC and the main game setting, there is nothing but fun for players everywhere.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been one of the most popular games of 2020 so far. The game is an absolute delight! Cute villagers, adorable avatars, and endless customizations are the hallmarks of this game.

The actual storyline requires upwards of 60 hours, but players have reported spending double that.

How Long to Beat Popular Games

Quarantine has been hard on all of us, and spending your time exploring new worlds is a great way to make things easier. These games are perfect for anyone regardless of what system you favor.

Players of any game style will find something to enjoy on this list. Beat the quarantine blues and immerse yourself in an engaging storyline and stunning graphics.

The post How Long to Beat The Most Popular Video Games appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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The Black Gate Bonus: The Books of Britannia

One of many in-game books that make in-jokes and build lore.

         I’d have to look through my notes to see what game first offered full-text books–not as plot devices but just as random background flavor and world-building. It might have been Ultima VI. But even if they appeared in earlier games, Ultima VII is the first game to treat them this extensively, with at least a couple of dozen different titles found on desks, nightstands, and bookcases throughout the homes and workplaces of the Britannian people. The castle alone had more than 15 different books.

     Ultima VII admittedly doesn’t do as well with its books as many later titles. Many of them are goofy, or simply analogues of real-world titles, and not the world-building tomes that we find in, say, The Elder Scrolls series, the Infinity Engine games, or The Witcher series. Still, they’re fun and deserve some additional attention and analysis.

I thought I’d use this entry to organize that analysis, adding new books as I find them. I’m excluding some “plot” books that don’t have much text (like Morfin’s register of venom sales). I’ll add notes to future entries when this one has been updated. The books I’ve found so far are:   The Apothecary’s Desk Reference by Fetoau. A book that accurately describes which potions have which effects. Very useful.

The Art of the Field Dressing by Creston, with a forward by Lady Leigh. It has some advice about cutting cloth into strips to bandage wounds, something that actually works in the game. While Lady Leigh is later found in the game, I don’t believe Creston is.

The Bioparaphysics of the Healing Arts by Lady Leigh. The bible for in-game healers. I believe Lady Leigh will be found later in Serpent’s Hold.

The Book of the Fellowship by Batlin of Britain. The first page of the game manual–the one time it makes sense for a real-life book to appear in the game.

Chicken Raising by Daheness Gon. A relatively useless instruction manual for raising chickens and producing eggs. The anatomical advice seems accurate, but I’m not sure how it helps in-game. Found on the shelf of a farmhouse, which makes sense.

Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang by Ian Fleming. The real-life 1964 book by the author better known for creating James Bond. Lead Ultima VII writer Raymond Benson later went on to become the official James Bond writer from 1997-2002.            

With a couple of syllabic substitutions, this could easily have been a James Bond title.

          Collected Plays by Raymundo. An anthology of plays by the guy who runs the theater in Britain. Play titles include Three on a Codpiece, The Trials of the Avatar, The Plagiarist, Clue, and Thumbs Down. “Raymundo” is the in-game avatar of lead writer Raymond Benson, and at least three of these plays are real plays written by Benson. Clue is a 1977 musical based on the board game–a full 8 years before the Tim Curry film. The Plagiarist and Thumbs Down are more obscure; I’m not sure when or if they were ever staged, but they were published as short stories by Amazon Shorts in 2006. Three on a Codpiece is described in-game as a performance art piece in which audience members “tear an undergarment into tiny pieces, after which they are placed in funeral urns and mixed with wheat paste . . . then the audience may glue the pieces anywhere on [the actor’s] body that they wish.” One Ultima site suggests this might be a reference to Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece (1965).

A Complete Guide to Britannian Minerals, Precious, and Semi-Precious Stones by B. Ledbetter. The book discusses some of Britannia’s natural resources, including veins of gold and lead. It is notable for a paragraph on blackrock, a “recently discovered” substance with little practical use, rumored to have a “profound effect” on magic. This will of course become a major part of the game’s plot. I don’t believe Ledbetter appears in-game. I thought it would be funny if it was the guy who runs the jewelry shop in Britain, but his name is Sean.

The Day It Didn’t Work by R. Allen G. A collection of essays about “overseeing a group of well-meaning misfits in a mechanical environment.” An obvious joke about Richard Allen Garriott and the staff at ORIGIN.                Everything an Avatar Should Know about Sex. This book is blank after the title page. Ho-ho-ho. Or maybe it’s not a joke and it’s foreshadowing the upcoming unicorn encounter.

            The Honorable Hound inn register. The guest list for this Trinsic inn has four recent names: Walter of Britain, Jaffe of Yew, Jaana, and Atans of Serpent’s Hold. Jaana is of course the Avatar’s companion going back to Ultima IV. I don’t believe the others are ever seen or heard from in the series.

How to Conquer the World in Three Easy Steps by Maximillian the Amazingly Mean. The ravings of a “megalomaniac cleric.” He plans to acquire VAS CORP (“Mass Kill”), which he thinks will make everyone fear him, and that not even Lord British himself is immune. I’m pretty sure that Lord British survives a VAS CORP (which is a real spell). Lord British doesn’t even die from VAS CORP IN BET MANI (“Armageddon”). Also, there are no “clerics” in this setting. As an aside, I wonder if employees of Vascorp Network Solutions know that to a portion of the public, their name means “Mass Death.”

Hubert’s Hair-Raising Adventure by Bill Peet. A real 1969 children’s book by a real author. It tells in rhyme how the proud lion Hubert had his mane scorched in a series of escalating misadventures. We learned about its presence in Britannia in Ultima VI, where Lord British spent every night reading it to Sherry the Mouse. I don’t know which idea is worse: that the adolescent Lord British was carrying the book while hiking through the English countryside, or that he later went back for it.              

It’s good that Lord British has priorities.

            Jesse’s Book of Performance Art by Jesse. A “controversial and eccentric Britannian actor” who has published a book of “scripts” for performance artists and argues that performance art is basically the same thing as acting. Jesse is an NPC in Britain who jokes about playing the Avatar and having only three lines: NAME, JOB, and BYE.

Key to the Black Gate. A cluebook to the game, found within the game (but without any of the actual text). Probably meant as a subtle in-game advertisement. Can you imagine needing a cluebook to solve this game?             

A crummy commercial?!

             Lord British: The Biography of Britannia’s Longtime Ruler by K. Bannos. The biography frankly acknowledges that Lord British is from another world. I wasn’t sure that was public knowledge until now. He entered Britannia through a moongate and became one of the rulers of the eight kingdoms of Sosaria. The people proclaimed them the king after he successfully dealt with Mondain, Minax, and Exodus. The book recounts his role in Ultima IV and Ultima V but ends just as the gargoyles become a threat in Ultima VI. Unfortunately, the text also re-affirms the idea that the Avatar is the same hero as the one who defeated Mondain, Minax, and Exodus–the dumbest retcon ORIGIN ever introduced.,           

Part of Lord British’s bio. A party of Fuzzies defeated Exodus and nobody can convince me otherwise.

              Mempto Rays: A Qualitative Study in Metaparaphilosophical Radiation by Mempto. Some rantings about Britannia always being bombarded by radiation “lethal to all non-living matter.” Probably meant as a send-up of pseudo-science in the modern world.

No One Leaves by R. Allen G. This sequel to The Day It Didn’t Work is a humorously-phrased paragraph about missed deadlines and forced overtime.

No Way to Jump by Desmonth. A treatise on tropes found in adventure stories. This is probably another in-joke about game development. After all, Ultima VII, for all its realism, does not allow the Avatar to jump. The issue continues into the present day and is found on TV Tropes as “The Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence.” Note that Ultima VIII does feature jumping and jumping puzzles.

On Acting by Laurence Olivier. Philosophical notes on acting “written by a noted thespian of a distant land.” The text notes that it was apparently “one of the many brought to Britannia by Lord British.” Why was the kid hiking with half a library on his back? Anyway, Sir Laurence did in fact publish a book of this title in 1986.

Play Directing: Analysis, Communication, and Style by Francis Hodge. A “respected textbook” written by “an eminent professor emeritus from a university in a distant land.” It is in fact a real-world book, published in 1971 by a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Probably someone that Raymond Benson or someone on the staff at ORIGIN (which was based in Austin) knew. Hodge passed away in 2008.

The Salty Dog inn register. This inn and tavern in Paws lists seven recent visitors: Addom of Yew, The Avatar, Jalal of Britain, Tim of Yew, Blorn of Vesper, Sir Dupre, and Penelope of Cove. Addom is a traveling merchant who later shows up in Moonglow and plays a role in that city’s plot. To my knowledge, Jalal and Penelope never appear in the game, although I think Jalal appears in another register. Tim of Yew is also an unknown (there was a bard named Tim in Ultima V but he’d be long-dead). Blorn is an anti-Gargish racist who we later find in Vesper. The idea that Dupre recently visited a tavern is entirely within his character. The most disturbing entry is that someone is wandering around passing himself off as “The Avatar.”

Thou Art What Thee Eats by Fordras. A nutritional analysis that pre-dates the Atkins crazy by suggesting meats and vegetables ahead of carbohydrates. The author recommends certain foods in order, and I think it roughly corresponds with how filling those foods are in-game. 

The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. This is a real book by a real author, originally published in 1984. As best I can tell, it’s a real book about English grammar and syntax, but all the examples are vampire-themed and there are vampire illustrations. If there’s something deeper going on, someone’s going to have to tell me. I suppose if it actually gets people to read a book on grammar, there are no bad ideas.             

Go figure.

           Tren I, II, III, IV . . . XVII. An autobiography by “the obtuse mage” which “reveals Tren’s life in all of his incarnations as he continually strove to possess more powerful beings.” As far as I know, we never meet a mage called Tren, nor do we ever see an application of magic that involves possession of beings. 

Up Is Out by Goodefellow. A treatise on gravity and mass, including “falling apples.” It’s a clear analogue to Isaac Newton, but I otherwise don’t know if the title and author are a reference to anything. If Goodefellow is an actual Britannian trying to research physics, his life is going to be rough.

Vargaz’s Stories of Legend. This anonymous book is subtitled Reasons Why One Should Never Build Doors Facing North or West. The book has two stories, one about a plague of locusts foretold by Father Antos (Ultima II and IV) which destroyed houses with north-facing doors. The other tale suggests that monsters fleeing sunlight are more likely to flee east and thus invade houses with west-facing doors.

The Wayfarer’s Inn register. This tavern in Britain lists five recent guests: John-Paul of Serpent’s Hold, Horffe of Serpent’s Hold, Featherbank of Moonglow, Tarvis of Buccaneer’s Den, and Shamino. I later found Shamino shacking up with an actress, so he probably only had to stay for one night. I don’t believe Tarvis or Featherbank appear in the game, but John-Paul is in fact the ruler of Serpent’s Hold and Horffe is his Gargish captain of the guard.

What a Fool Believes by P. Nolan. The book only has a brief paragraph, describing it as “the story of a bard, a blonde, and a bottle . . . a classic tale of the war between the sexes.” There’s a song of this name, of course, recorded by the Doobie Brothers and Aretha Franklin among others, but it doesn’t mention a blonde or a bottle and has no association with anyone named “Nolan” (although, in a weird twist, the R&B artist Nolan Porter did cover the song, but not until 2011). 

The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum. The real book from the real world, except that in the real world, the author is L. Frank Baum. It is given a quick summary in-game. I assume it’s in Lord British’s castle because I stole it for him as part of an Ultima VI side-quest.

         source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/the-black-gate-bonus-the-books-of-britannia/

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Ninja’s eighty,000 Mixer viewers show that he’s bigger than just Twitch

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins — the Fortnite livestreamer and all-around entertainer — had his first exceptional broadcast on Microsoft’s Mixer platform; within the moments before his broadcast formally commenced, the wide variety of humans looking his movement crossed 50,000 and 60,000 people to land, in its first moments, someplace around 76,000 units of eyes. (It grew to eighty,000 just after Blevins’s first victory.)

Mixer competes with Twitch, YouTube, and facebook for a extraordinarily slim share of the livestreaming marketplace. the day past, Blevins introduced his circulate to the service, in a tweet that blew up gaming’s nook of the internet; he was leaving at the back of 14.7 million fans on Twitch, and putting out for a provider that, relatively, nobody knew an awful lot approximately. Blevins is probably the maximum famous streamer inside the world; the fact of his leaving Twitch, which dominates livestreaming, became a completely massive deal.

thus far, the circulate seems like it's been a success. nowadays, Blevins streamed from the pink Bull tent at Lollapalooza, the Chicago tune festival. even as the wide variety of visitors was lower today than the heaps of visitors he pulled in closing 12 months, it’s nearly double what he’s been locating there for the remaining numerous weeks, as Polygon’s Austen Goslin first noted. Even before Blevin’s first circulate on Mixer, his channel had located 370,000 paying subscribers, an impressive range for any streamer and one that became not misplaced on Blevins himself. That stated, Mixer is offering two months of free subscriptions to Blevins’ channel to everybody who signs and symptoms up.

at some point of the movement, the gang’s strength was infectious; it regarded impossible for every body looking in individual to prevent yelling. Blevins was his ordinary hyperactive self — slamming cans of red Bull, one of the day’s sponsors — and the gang cheered for each removal he earned. He turned into in excessive spirits, searching down each participant he may want to discover and exploding them into showers of multicolored objects. whilst he misplaced his first games especially early, Blevins managed to discover lower back to back victories towards the ninety nine other warring parties at the map. (“It’s smooth. It’s smooth. GGs,” he said, after his 2d win of the day.) At its fine, Fortnite is a twitchy, fluid sport of reflexes and aid management that rewards inventiveness just as a whole lot as it rewards accurate purpose; at his exceptional, Blevins has both, even though he’s now not a professional.

quickly into his matches, Blevins found a accomplice: the musician Mitchell Brown, who data beneath the call youngster Quill. “i used to be literally greater frightened to play this than to carry out my set,” Brown said, after he’d been knocked out. Which seems authentic: Blevins, a former professional Halo player, is the maximum popular online game player on the planet.

The day at Lollapalooza became leading up to Fortnite Friday, a weekly Fortnite tournament for celebrity players, streamers, and experts. within the games earlier than the match — wherein he turned into to play with Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, the sixteen-12 months-vintage who’s the game’s most recent international champion — Blevins became appearing: calling his shots, showing off for the crowd. “I freakin’ love you guys,” he stated. “allow’s cross!”

playing the game nonetheless seems fun for him. “i can’t let you know the closing time I planned a consultation to sport till Fortnite came out,” Blevins advised Brown. He changed into nonetheless excited to rise up inside the mornings and run squads with his boys, is what he meant.

sixteen) The Outer Worlds swaps Fallout’s publish-apocalypse for art deco in space

Obsidian enjoyment is a studio first-rate acknowledged for building at the paintings of others. Its maximum famous games up to now are titles like Knights of the vintage Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Dungeon Siege III. Even the studio’s higher-acknowledged original paintings, just like the Pillars of Eternity collection and non secular derivative Tyranny, are modeled on antique-school RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale collection, and Planescape: Torment.

So it’s no longer entirely unexpected that, regardless of being a totally new franchise, The Outer Worlds (now not to be burdened with the excellent and extremely further named area-exploration sport Outer Wilds, which came out in advance this yr) attracts on Obsidian’s own beyond RPG and movement reports to create some thing that’s both new and familiar.

As Brian Heins, a senior clothier at Obsidian, informed The Verge in an interview, The Outer Worlds isn’t supposed to comply with up any particular past sport. “It’s more like this is our next Obsidian RPG,” he explains. “because among, like, KOTOR, New Vegas, Stick of truth, they all have form of the same DNA going for walks thru them, that is Obsidian’s fashion of RPG.” That said, upon getting a risk to play a few hours of The Outer Worlds, there are simply a few huge influences here from Fallout: New Vegas (and, by means of extension, Fallout three), if simplest because of genre. The Outer Worlds is a primary-character sci-fi action RPG with a massive emphasis on conversational structures and gunplay. That was usually certain to draw comparisons to Fallout, in particular when the developer is already regarded for working on a Fallout sport before. In that vein, The Outer Worlds does experience a lot like that now relatively uncommon form of unmarried-player, stat-targeted RPG. Your person has a full listing of stats that you could cognizance on. Your guns have stats. Your armor has stats. Your skills have stats. Your companions have stats. Stats galore, with plenty of capacity paths for how you play. participant desire is also a big part of the game. while there's, ostensibly, a major storyline — one which sees players awaken a long time inside the future on a misplaced colony ship and thrown right into a conspiracy in the a long way-out Halcyon solar device — The Outer Worlds didn’t appear specifically invested in the fact that I pursue it. i was dropped right into a demo revel in some hours into the sport. I had simply started out wandering round a planet once I without delay commenced talking / negotiating / capturing my way inside and out of conditions. practically every communication is full of communicate choices. Did I want to be polite to the group chief who’s asking you to music down his lacking tablets? Be flippant? Use my man or woman’s intimidation capabilities to demand an extra reduce? Or use my charisma to lie about what I recovered, maintaining 1/2 for myself? That’s just one communique from one incredibly minor sidequest. The speak (at the least for non-playable characters) is absolutely voice-acted, too, despite the fact that my character was audibly silent, despite the fact that I may want to select exactly what i was announcing. in the course of my time, I performed matters highly honest — charging into an enemy facility, gunning down robots and safety guards alike with the help of my companions. but there appeared to be plenty of other options, like sneaking in the back, disguising myself as a shield, or mucking approximately with the equipment powering the factory. the sport additionally adapts as you play. I died loads in my demo to a selected type of giant alien monster, and i used to be granted a “flaw” that altered my stats against those creatures within the future, as an example.

In another example, player picks can deeply trade how the plot performs out. “you may kill every NPC in the sport and you may nonetheless entire the game through doing so,” Heins says. “It adjustments the sport dramatically. There’s certain quests that can or might not be available based on who you killed or when you kill them. generally for quests, if there’s anyone who’s a plot-essential NPC, in case you kill them, we attempt to have a few manner that allows you to advantage some thing facts or item they’re intended to provide you … we attempt not to fail quests primarily based on players doing the matters we permit them to do.” Conversely, players can be capable of play almost all of the sport as pacifists. Heins says that you could “usually get by means of without killing any people,” despite the fact that there are a few creature encounters in which gamers will nevertheless want to lodge to combat. (however they can theoretically farm that out to their associate characters.) For all of the emphasis on preference, the Fallout influences also are nonetheless pretty heavy. There’s a time-slowdown mechanic that allows gamers to specially target regions on enemies, which is largely Fallout’s VATS gadget. There’s a diffusion of factions — corporations, in the Outer international’s destiny — that are at odds with each other that gamers can help out or antagonize. There are companions that you can recruit who’ll be a part of you on your adventure and remark alongside the way. while the art deco stylings help set The Outer Worlds aside, it can most effective do so a great deal to distinguish the gameplay. That’s now not necessarily a bad element, though. After some hours of The Outer Worlds, it feels like a recreation from a barely extraordinary era. It performs like a tightly targeted single-participant adventure without a game-as-a-service payments, in-app purchases, or tacked-on multiplayer. Even Bethesda has began to move far from that, with the nevertheless-extremely-arguable video game Fallout seventy six.

And in a international wherein video games try to suck players into an endless loop to squeeze each closing dollar and minute of interest out of them, that type of awareness — even if it’s no longer the most original of conceits — feels find it irresistible is probably enough.

[thomasroach]

Top 5 Upcoming RPGs of June 2019 (Bloodstained, Warhammer and More!)

The post Top 5 Upcoming RPGs of June 2019 (Bloodstained, Warhammer and More!) appeared first on Fextralife.

Welcome to the Top Upcoming RPGs of June 2019! In this series we highlight the Top 5 RPGs for the upcoming month. In this edition, we’re going to take a look at each of the titles, talk a little about each, and then explain why we think they deserve to be on the list. So join me now and find a mixture of some hidden gems and old favorites given a shiny new coat of paint.

Top 5 Upcoming RPGs Of June 2019

Last month saw some classic titles make their way onto more platforms as well as a newer title touching down in early access. This month brings some classic titles but with a modern spin, these should keep you busy until we get more gaming new s during E3 2019 which is fast approaching. Enjoy a mix of turn-based, side-scrolling and some fantasy action combat as we dive into the month of June.

For the King arrived last month bringing a dungeon crawler with strategy and rogue-like features.

Honourable Mention: Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr

Release Date: June 4th Platform: PS4/Xbox One Developer: Zenimax Online Studios Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

This month’s honourable mention goes to Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr expansion. Last month was the early access release on PC, this month it joins Playstation 4 and Xbox One. Introducing a new class called Necromancer where players will use the power of the dead to inflict their attacks. With a choice of Gravelord Skills will imbue the dead with Frost, Fire or Lightning, raise hordes of the undead to attack your enemies. Bone Tyrant Skills will bend and break the dead to your will, creating a impenetrable wall and increase your own survivability. Living Death Skills draws powers of life and death, helps to restore your allies and resurrect your fallen comrades to bring them back to the battle.

The chapter introduces the new area of Elsweyr to explore, the birthplace of the Khajiit, where you can learn all about their history and culture. They will need your help to defend their homeland against the merciless dragons.

Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr releases on PS4 and Xbox One on June 4th and is available on PC. If you’re curious to find out major additions coming with this chapter be sure to check our Elder Scrolls Online Elsweyr: 6 Biggest Changes video.

5. Dragon Star Varnir

Release Date: June 11th NA/June 14th EU Platform: PS4 Developer: Compile Heart Publisher: Idea Factory

Dragon Star Varnir is a JRPG that follows a young warrior by the name of Zephy who is part of a group who spends their time hunting down witches. These witches are people afflicted with the curse of giving birth to dragons. Zephy comes close to be being killed on a hunting mission but is saved by two mysterious witches, the very people he is suppose to kill. They bring him back from the brink of death by feeding him dragon blood. Now experiencing new magical abilities, Zephy reluctantly becomes part of this band of witches in fighting against the very Empire he swore to protect.

The unique battle system splits the battle field into three different layers, meaning only physical attacks can hit foes on the same layer. While magical attacks have a wider range of reach, affecting all layers. Use your party of witches and their abilities to best enemies, with dragon forms issuing powerful finishing moves. See special in-game events by charming these witches in order to gain their affections which unlocks their affinity levels.

Dragon Star Varnir will be releasing June 11th for North America and June 14th for Europe. It will be available physically and digitally exclusively for PlayStation 4.

4. Super Neptunia RPG

Release Date: June 20th (PC)/June 25th (PS4/Switch) Platform: PC/Switch/PS4 Developer: Compile Heart Publisher: Idea Factory

Super Neptunia RPG follows the story of Neptune who wakes up in a familiar world but has no memory of who she is or how she got there. With the only knowledge of her name, the help of a strange girl named Chrome and a few familiar faces from the Neptunia series, Neptune will venture on, to piece together her memory. But their world is in peril, being attacked by an enemy that wants to turn their world back into 2D. Will Neptune and her band of companions keep the their world in 3D or will it slip into 2D forever?

The side-scroller, Super Neptunia RPG is a 2D hand-drawn style game that offers interactive dungeons, turn-based battles and elemental attacks. Use your party of four goddesses to unleash a combo of attacks in battle, using different formations consisting of Strike, Magic, Support and Heal. Use their Skills and Abilities to unlock weapons, armor and new accessories.

Super Neptunia RPG releases on PC on June 20th, then on Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch on June 25th.

3. Octopath Traveler

Release Date: June 7th Platform: PC Developer: Square Enix Publisher: Square Enix

Square Enix released their JRPG Octopath Traveler as a Nintendo Switch exclusive upon launch last year. Now its coming to a new platform this June, meaning players can now journey into to the world of Orsterra on PC, in this turn-based RPG. Players will get to choose from eight different characters, each with their own immersive backstory as well as abilities in the fantasy world of Orsterra. The world although is told through the eyes of eight different characters is shared between the cast, which you may bump into later in your adventure.

Those who have played previous Square Enix games especially early Final Fantasy titles will definitely find the gameplay to be quite familiar, however there is a modern twist with the added “boost” mechanic which gives increased power attacks and combos during each turn. The title also lets you summon NPCs to help out in battle for short term, which adds some useful assistance when the fights get tough.

Octopath Traveler is currently available to play on Nintendo Switch and will launch on June 7th for PC.

2. Warhammer Chaosbane

Release Date: June 5th Platform: PS4/Xbox One/PC Developer: BigBen Interactive Publisher: Eko Software

Warhammer Chaosbane takes on the first action-RPG to be set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Players will be able to adventure through several well known places in the Warhammer universe including the cursed city of Praag and Nuln, known as the Empire’s old capital. You will serve Magnus, a soldier who has helped to bring together the warring factions and lead the united front against the Chaos. However, Magnus gets cursed by a sorceress who you will need to track down in order to reverse the effects.

There are four classes to choose from in the form of characters, which will alter the type of combat you will experience but ultimately Warhammer Chaosbane is a hack and slash. If you choose the Imperial Soldier, combat is up close and personal, while a ranged class such as High-Elf Mage or Wood-Elf Scout will create distance between yourself and the enemy. Or choose the Dwarf Slayer to bring fury in the form of spinning axes. But each class has its own unique archetype ability which adds a different feel to your usual RPG gameplay.

Warhammer Chaosbane releases on June 5th on Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.

1. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Release Date: June 18th/June 25th (Switch) Platform: PS4/Xbox One/PC/Nintendo Switch Developer: Artplay Publisher: 505 Games

Its been a few years since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter back in 2015, putting the action side-scrolling RPG into motion under the Castlevania director Koji Igarashi. The title has gone under a major visual overhaul during its development as the developers listened to feedback from the community.

Bloodstained follows the story of protagonist Miriam, an orphan who is afflicted by an alchemist’s curse. This devastating curse is slowly transforming her skin into crystal. In order to reverse the effects of the curse, she must enter a demon infested castle and locate a summoner named Gebel, who is also suffering under the same curse.

Experience exploration, crafting, levelling and even upgrading abilities. Abilities ranging from shooting arrows to summoning a giant tentacle to strike at your foes. Create weapons from materials you loot or items you dismantle. Expect to face larger than life fantastical bosses, a mixture between mythical creatures meets reality, including a giant dog head or even a huge cat-like creature with horns that swipes at you.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is releasing on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on June 18th, while the Switch version is arriving a few days later on June 25th.

That’s a wrap for the Top RPGs of June. Did I miss your favorite June release? What games are you most looking forward to this year? Please let us know in the comments below.

You can also check out the Top RPGs of May 2019.

So, do you want more? If so, you can find more Top RPGs for 2019 here.

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