#vagrant does video games

[cellarspider]

Since I’ve been thinking about it all morning: here. A partial introduction to my favorite villain.

In the days of yore, when I was a teenager and video game hype was almost exclusively magazine-based, I saw a kid reading a copy of Game Informer.

“Hey,” said I, “could I see that for a second?”

The kid, not knowing what they were about to unleash, handed me the magazine.

I had seen this on the cover:

I had no idea what this was, but I knew that I wanted whatever it was selling.

I found out that this was an advertisement for City of Villains, an expansion to the previously-released MMO City of Heroes. I’d never played WoW with its Alliance and Horde split, so the idea was new to me. WoW also failed to present me with anything like the vibes of the newly-introduced lead villain, Lord Recluse.

Yes, they liked this art so much they did it twice, and I’m glad they did. More below the fold on why he was so appealing for a young queer kid, for those who are intrigued.

I’ll keep this focused on a single topic for now: The intensely queer vibes that Recluse acquired over the course of the game’s plot. Keep in mind that this game came out in 2004, so the actual amount of openly queer content was very minimal. However, CoH/CoV developed a reputation as an extremely queer-friendly space, with a community Pride event becoming a semi-official yearly celebration, complete with the devs showing up as major NPCs, custom assets, and spawning in unique raids that tanked everybody’s framerate. Equivalents of this have carried over past the game's tragic shutdown in 2012, with community-run servers still staging their own Pride events.

If the art above doesn’t make it clear, Recluse had a much-beloathèd archnemesis, Statesman. If the art above doesn’t make it abundantly clear, this was always an extremely fraught relationship, with a complicated backstory that became more and more tragic the deeper you got into the game lore, eventually bordering on cosmic horror. But one thing was for certain, this was Hark A Vagrant levels of obsession over a nemesis.

The game at first seemed to backstep on that: oh, it turned out, Recluse had once been villainous life partners with a woman who went by the villain name Red Widow. She died decades ago in the collateral damage of one of Recluse’s nigh apocalyptic confrontations with Statesman, and her death left him with nothing but his obsession. So sad.

And then when Statesman died in the course of the game’s plot, Recluse spiraled into depression and nihilism that was only halted when someone managed to dig Red Widow’s soul out of storage and resurrected her.

It was always deniably presented, but the implication was very much that the two were functionally equivalent emotional anchors to his psyche, and losing both of them was something he couldn’t survive.

Also, there was that one time that the game’s Valentine’s Day event was advertised with a heart split down the middle, half Statesman’s iconography and half Recluse’s, topped with a banner that read “AMOR OMNIA VINCIT”, meaning “LOVE CONQUERS ALL”.

And that’s without getting into the first tie-in book. A prequel starting at the end of the 1920s, it was a delightfully and deliberately pulpy book, which… centered around a complicated man slowly dying of lingering health problems after his exposure to mustard gas in WWI, and his very good friend, estranged from his family for unknown reasons, who’d devoted the last ten years to caring for the protagonist, and helping him seek a cure. This has carried on year after year, even though the man’s illness has made him unresponsive to the emotional needs of others, something they both know is going to culminate one day in the two parting ways.

…And then they get superpowers, and their relationship does not get any healthier from there. But what it does gain is a surprising trans metaphor as our now-antagonist slowly metamorphoses into the spidery villain I know and love.

I completely missed this back in the day. I have no idea if it was intentional. But there’s a scene where this man looks in the mirror and sees the first signs of his oncoming physical transformation, and he likes what he sees. He has no idea where he’s going, but he’s excited for it.

…And he’s started killing people who refer to him by his former name, in the most literal case of “dead naming” I’ve ever seen.

Throughout the rest of the series, Recluse is unapologetically who he is, putting him in that category of queercoded villain that doubles as a power fantasy. He’s grown physically monstrous and loves it. He has respect from everyone around him, either legitimately for his capabilities or out of fear of what he can do to those who don’t give him his due. A new demigod who is only matched by the man he’s never stopped obsessing over. He wins just as often as he loses, and often salvages something from his defeats in ways that nobody expected.

He is terrible. And he is wonderful.

#city of villains #lord recluse #I have so many more thoughts #and the canon is so wild and engages on metatextual themes so thoroughly that it really deserves more analysis #just in general #but for now #this will do

[bunnidarling]

Except from "A Message" :

The group made their way through the swamp with Astarion taking the lead to detect and disarm traps so they could avoid Averyll’s mishap. As they neared the archway to the teahouse, Astarion narrowed his eyes, nose twitching. “Does anyone else smell that?” 

“Smell what?” Averyll asked, eyes sharp and on guard. 

“No,” responded Shadowheart. 

“Maybe it’s your upper lip,” Karlach said.

“No, It smells like garlic… and something else.” Astarion knit his brow and wrinkled his nose in disgust. Even above the stench of the swamp, he could smell it and it made his blood turn to ice. He followed the scent, taking a rock path over to the left, where they found a small camp set up with a lone man tending a cauldron. He was taller than average and human, with long brown hair, a curling moustache and goatee, and he wore a leather vest and soft clothes beneath. 

He looked up from his pot as the group approached. “Well met. I wasn’t expecting company way out here. He noticed the sniffing faces on the party as they approached and chuckled. “Powdered ironvine. An old hunter’s trick. Most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me.” 

“A monster hunter?” Astarion said, stepping forward from the group, “I’m surprised. I thought all Gur were vagrant cutthroats,” he said dismissively and with thinly veiled distaste. 

“A mystical and dangerous people,” the man said, “We travel the land, never settling in one place. We steal your chickens, curse your crops, seduce your daughters. Your friend here has heard it all, I’m sure.” He was clearly addressing Averyll now, “And I wish I had half the power settled folk think my people possess. Alas, I am a simple wanderer and monster hunter. But I’m no witch doctor or cutthroat.”

Averyll’s eyes flicked from Astarion to the man. “And what monster are you hunting, exactly? I heard there may be a hag near.”

The man seemed all too eager to discuss his quarry. “I’m hunting a vampire spawn.” Astarion felt a bolt of anxiety, unable to keep the concern from blooming on his face, his eyes cast down, not meeting Averyll’s gaze as he looked over. “And it’s a little too bright for you to be my prey. I fear he’s gone to ground. I hope the hag of these lands can help me flush him out. If I can afford her blood price.”

Astarion’s mask snapped back into place as he spoke up, “A vampire spawn? Why?” 

Averyll glanced over, “Are you alright?” he asked, care and concern naked in his voice and face. 

There was a softness in Astarion’s expression and voice to match for a moment as he answered,”Yes. Fine. It’s just… a little too specific. Why not kill the gnolls or goblins rampaging around here?”

“It is a sacred mission from the head of my tribe. She sent me here to capture the beast and return it to her.” 

Averyll stayed quiet, letting Astarion take the lead here. “Capture, and bring it where?” he asked, curiosity and worry eating him alive. Cazador. It had to be. He sent his Gur dogs to find him and return him. Gods. I knew it wouldn’t be long. I wanted so badly to be wrong.  

“Baldur’s Gate. My people wait for me there.”

He could feel Averyll’s eyes on him, sense the concern but he ignored it, stepping forward to get within reach of the hunter, “I’ve crossed paths with your people before, you know…” Before anyone knew what was coming, Astarion had his dagger in his hand, slamming it straight into the Gur’s eye. He watched the body fall as he practically spat, “It wasn’t a good experience.” 

Averyll raised his brows to his hairline. “That bad, huh?” 

Astarion wiped his blade over the man’s body to clean the blood from it. “That. Bad.” he said with a solemnity that spoke volumes before pivoting as he often did, “Let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time talking.” 

Get the whole story here:

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion x tav #astarion fanfic #astarion ancunin #astarion x averyll #astarion x averyll x halsin #baldur's gate fanfic #astarion fanfiction #astarion romance

[scarletswarmhktheorizer]

“I’ve done things that I’m not proud of.”

Graphic Ginger has released a new short! Although it's mostly a comedic video, there are small things we can glean.

The video uses an edited audio of the “Freddy, you are supposed to be on lockdown.” scene from the game Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach. Where instead of Freddy responding with his usual line he says - well in this case it's Astral saying it - “I’ve done things that Im not proud of, Vannessa.”

This is meant to illustrate that during possible QnAs on the Graphic Ginger discord server, Astral dodges questions about himself.

What has he done that would justify this guilt and avoidance of talking about it? We are not on the Graphic Ginger discord server, so we don't know specifically what subjects Astral avoids. It would be useful, but we would rather use the publicly available evidence to craft our theories.

In our case we know he doesn't like talking about himself. He feels guilt or regret for something he has done. What did they do?

We think this action has to do something with the Grimm Troupe. As in the video, when Astral says his line, the background shifts to red and his signature red strings appear once again. The red string can be seen around the Troupe often. It's on Ameise’s hand, a character we know has some involvement with Astral. We know this red string signifies the influence of Astral AND Vagrant. As the string appears in Vagrant’s animation meme: Everyone is Dumb and behind him during the God animation meme.

What did he do then? And why does he feel shame for it? We don't know all the details at this point but we can speculate. We think it could be his involvement with the Troupe. On his wiki, there is a quote from Vagrant that he mentions not having met the troupe ever, we can assume for now because of this new video that this is an avoidance tactic to not talk about his involvement with Grimm. What was his involvement with the troupe? He isn't affiliated with the Troupe, so was he a ritual participant? What is his business with the Nightmare Heart?

#hk scsw #hollow knight #hollow knight au #hk scsw theory #hollow knight scarlet swarm

[autopotion]

For the gaming asks: 5, 12, 21 and 40?

5. Most memorable gaming moment?

HMM.... That is such a difficult question, it's really hard to pick! I think my answer to this is going to be an emergent moment, as opposed to a scripted plot event. Also I think I'm going to pick something recent lol, because I'd really have to sit and think about it if I was flipping through my entire video game history. So, how about a couple of little memorable moments from the last month or so?

Here's one. In Gravity Rush 2, I found an NPC busking. I stopped by him and applauded, then I used the sing emote. The guy dropped his guitar and started clapping for me! My jaw dropped, I was like, that was so cute, what a reactive sequence of events! (GR2 is full of pleasant surprises like that, and is my favorite thing about the game.)

I've also had a lot of memorable moments in my current Final Fantasy Tactics challenge playthrough, too. Outside of the hat guy stealing Gafgarion's sword and teleporting everywhere with Silky, I encountered an enemy Oracle in a random battle in Grog Hill, alongside a bunch of monsters. Since this is an invitation-only run, I had my eyes peeled for job classes I didn't already have (I also have the stipulation that any unit I invited has to keep their default job), so this Oracle was very attractive to me. When I got her in my party, I discovered she actually had more levels in Mediator than Oracle--which kinda makes sense, if you think about it on a mechanical level, because Mediator is the job that allows units to talk to monsters. Grog Hill is also located right near the largest battles of the War of the Lions, and we've encountered deserters there before. Zoe and I came up with a little backstory for her that was like, she used to be a Mediator with one of the armies, but got sick of the war and ditched, befriended some monsters in the countryside, and went Buddhist. (I find I'm creating a lot of interesting tiny narratives in my head for my generics in this run.)

12. Favorite game character?

How am I supposed to pick!!! My favorite characters are almost always from video games LMAO. I'll just name a couple.

Protagonist: Sissel (Ghost Trick) or Red & Mr. Nobody (Transistor) Party member: Aeris/th (FFVII & FFVIIR) NPC helper: Leliana (DAI) Antagonist: Tokiko Shigure (AITSF:NI) Of all time probably: Ovelia (FFT)

21. A game you thought you wouldn't like, but ended up loving?

Oh my gosh, I think the obvious answer to this one is also a recent pick, lol. I usually don't play games I'm expecting to dislike, true, but it does happen, especially if I'm just curious to test something out, or if I feel like I have to play it for whatever reason. Crimson Shroud is an example of the latter. Like, as a lover of Yasumi Matsuno and the other usual suspects he works with (like Basiscape), I felt like I owed it to myself to give Crimson Shroud a try, as the entry of his that I knew the least about, and especially because it's genuinely difficult to play it these days, so the game preservationist in me was like You Gotta.

But it seemed like everything I'd heard about it was designed to put me off. The oversexualized teenage girl. The fantasy oppressed ethnic group. The fact that the two main guys are named "Giauque" and "Lippi." The old and tired D&D tropes played completely straight. The fact that it was originally intended as a spiritual successor to Vagrant Story, a game that I admire specifically for its genre bending and cinematography, when Crimson Shroud wasn't doing the first thing, and, as for the latter, its characters are presented as static tabletop models... so I couldn't expect the kind of vibrant staging that Vagrant Story had. The dense mechanics (yes, I know that's a mainstay, but I do also have a habit of bouncing off of his games as well lol).

AND YET. While I still think it's probably Matsuno's weakest entry, it totally charmed me. I mean, you've read what I think about it already, but still. I think it was totally worth the playthrough, and it's got just as much charm as everything else he's written. I appreciated the dense mechanics much more because of the short playtime, and the tabletop figurines were genuinely interesting to look at, in the end. They were staged in amusing ways. YEAH. I DUNNO. I kinda like Crimson Shroud a lot.

Oh! I think another recent one is Misericorde. As someone who was never into visual novels growing up, I've become way more open-minded to them over the years (thanks to Zoe introducing me to Zero Escape tbh) and I was actively interested in the Nun Game, but I was admittedly frustrated when I belatedly realized that there was going to be no gameplay at all, not even basic exploration or a handful of dialogue options, outside of clicking through the text boxes. Partway through I was like "I don't think this is working for me." But after I got to the end, I found I couldn't stop thinking about it. Hedwig in particular really stuck with me. I'm actually extremely excited for the next entry, even if it's "just" reading. I know what I'm getting into this time, so I won't have any false expectations from the start, and I can enjoy it for what it is.

40. Best game cover art.

INTERESTING QUESTION..... Hmm..... I really like the cover for Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, and had a lot of fun trying to figure out who the characters were. Vyce running away in the background is also unintentionally hilarious. Her Story's cover is extremely clever once you figure out what's going on there. Zoe rightly pointed out that the Japanese Switch cover for Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is gorgeous. I also like the covers of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Pyre... I guess for the most part I really like a well-made character ensemble cover??

#taupewolfy #thanks illy!! ❤️ #quiznaibus

[wandringaesthetic]

You know, it's funny that I am so exhausted regarding A Song of Ice and Fire slash Game of Thrones (not because I hate it but because I love it but that's a whole nother post) but I love video games that have a similar vibe. Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, etcetc. I devoured Triangle Strategy and I'm looking forward to this Tactics Ogre remake.

Yet, part of the reason that I delayed playing further in Final Fantasy XIV for so long is that the first expansion was Heavensward, which does NOT have that vibe but is pretending it has that vibe and really looks like it has that vibe (Corrupt medieval church! Knights! Dragons! Snow! Ice zombies!) but it was released at such peak GoT TV times that I might have punched you if you said "Winter Is Coming" to me. And Coerthas in ARR very much felt to me like "oh? Are you missing normal Western fantasy? Here it is!" That I was just ugghhhhh I do not want this. So I didn't come back to the game for years.

Anyway Heavensward is Peak Final Fantasy Bullshit (affectionate) and I love it but I took it as a different thing which is... Also a thing I love but had a lot of negative emotions about at the time.

#my posts #a lot of nerd shit getting popular feels like some sort of monkey's paw curse to me

[rhetoricandlogic]

Zafrir Grossman’s review of Lavie Tidhar’s new book, Central Station, scheduled to come out this May.

As the Israeli band Teapacks (Also known as Tippex) beautifully described in its song, “A different state” from 1995, the old central station of Tel Aviv was indeed a different state, a fascinating and indescribable combination of spices, vendors of shoes and car radios of dubious origins (partly stolen partly salvaged by fearless pirates), a cinema with even more dubious movies and tedious and long waits in roofless platforms during the summer and winter. For this intrepid Haifa dweller writer, who had to board on buses from broken platforms during the 1980s, the memories are not extremely pleasant, and this is why I was overjoyed when in 1993, the new central station was built, a wet dream which included excellent video game arcade, CD shops (with counterfeit CDs created by pirates of a different kind), and a bakery shop with the best cheesecake known to man. But this place too—as seems to be the destiny of any huge transportation hub—gave birth to a brave and new underworld, which emerged in its murky depths. Homeless and vagrants have attached themselves like lichen to the walls of abandoned stores and a community of runaway teenagers found solace in its confines. Immigrant workers from all over Africa and Asia started to flock to it, and the area inside and around the station had gradually started to change its appearance and spirit.

This new spirit also resides in Lavie Tidhar’s new novel “Central Station”. We return to visit Tel Aviv’s new central station, but now it is a station in the remote future. This central station where the new spaceport is established, equipped with the huge elevator which transfers people from the low-orbit Gateway station to Earth. But the world we know is no longer recognizable. The world has continued on and the Internet has become “The conversation”, a network that can be accessed using a node, which is implemented inside a fetus’s body, so each human is connected to it from birth and is never alone. The conflict between Israel and Palestine has ended long ago, and most ideologists chose to practice their Kibbutz dream in the arid wastelands of Mars and leave divided Israel behind. The area surrounding the station is populated with the descendants of the work immigrants who flocked to Israel with hopes of a better future, but found themselves shackled, physically and mentally, to that same central station. Among these people, we can find Miriam Jones, also known as Mama Jones, a descendant of immigrants of Jewish and African origins, who manages the local shebeen for the locals, her brother Achimwene, the book dealer, who purposely disconnected himself from The Conversation and searches for antique paperbacks, Isobel Cho, who prefers to spend most of her time inside the VR game “Guilds of Ashkelon” and exits only at nights to spend time with Motl, her robotnik lover, a semi-human war machine , still remembering its fighting days in the Sinai desert, and Ibrahim, the Alte Zachen man, who rides on his horse-driven cart, from Palestinian neighborhood, Ajami, to the rest of Israeli Tel Aviv territories, even though people are willing to swear that he is doing it for several centuries.

First and foremost, Central Station is an Israeli science fiction book, which is surprising since Lavie Tidhar does not live in Israel for many years. But the spirit of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area is still very familiar in his writing. Central Station is perhaps the most ambitious Israeli science fiction book ever written, and can even be compared to Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos. The book is a series of stories told from the different points of views of multiple characters, from Ibrahim, through Mama Jones, Isobel, Motl, and other surprising characters. Through these various perspectives the readers get to view a fascinating mosaic of a known, but still unfamiliar, world. The world-building is rich and intricate and it seems the novel only scratches the surface. The historical details we receive are sketchy, and although many facts are hinted at in the text, most of the history remains in the fog of time. It is also evident that Lavie continues to explore and reference old and new speculative pulp Israeli novels, as he has already done in the book he has written along with Nir Yaniv in Fictional Murder. He gives one of his characters the name Boris Chong, which is reminiscent of the protagonist of Yoav Avni’s book, Chong Levi’s Fifth, who is also a son of immigrants. He also mentions Israeli vampire novels, such as Vered Tochterman’s Blue Blood and Gal Amir’s Red night (which also receives the title of “The First Israeli Vampire Novel”), which survive the passage of time and are sold for preposterous prices. Other pulp fiction series, such as Patrick Kim – The Karate Man, and Ringo, the dauntless gunfighter from the Wild West, an almost mythical figure in Israel, also get love and recognition. Tidhar already had a literary rendezvous with pulp fiction in previous novels, such as Osama and A Man Lies Dreaming, and seems to enjoy every minute of it.

Central Station is also a novel about identity. While in contemporary Israel, and also in pre-election USA, it seems that extremists get occupy the center of the stage, Central Station shows us a softened and more tolerant point of view. While the meek work immigrants have inherited the area of the central station, Neve Sha’anan, and Jaffa has become one of the most prominent Palestinian cities, moving between the adjacent cities is performed without any difficulty, without borders or fear, and although prejudices and fears still exist, they are now targeted at a different kind of “others” – artificial intelligences which free to evolve in the cyber space, and yet some suspect they are already beginning to probe their into the physical world. The separation between Jews and Arabs no longer exists, and both can sit in Mama Jones’s little shebeen and drink arak, but look crossly from the corner of the eyes on the poor robotniks, sitting in street corners, begging for alms and spare parts, and victims of addiction to a drug, which gives meaning to their existence.

This is not a book for the casual reader, but whomever decides to stick with it, will enjoy it immensely. Its plot would have made Aristotle pull his hair out. It is not linear and requires the reader’s constant concentration. It does not have a single or a couple of protagonists, but a myriad of characters, and there is no major conflict. What it does have is have is fascinating view into a piece of life in a futuristic version of Tel Aviv, as a city which has forgotten its essence in an Earth which is no longer the center of creation, in a universe which in turn contains much more. And maybe the real protagonist of this novel is the central station, a tall monument like the Eiffel Tower, always visible in the corner of one’s eye, but standing tall and ugly like the center of a Ferris wheel, with people around it connected to it like spokes, trying to hide and get away from it, but never really managing to exit its borders and leave the small world they have created, or even to gather up the power of will required to do it. Like a dark reflection of our time, a place which shows the people residing in it that they can “check out” in order to go anywhere they wish, but they can never leave.

#Lavie Tidhar #Central Station #mahreviews #long post

[theworstzangooseever]

The main theme's leitmotif kicks in during an important part of the game. What examples of this stand out to you?

Ask Box #3: Leitmotif galore

Thiiiiis one was harder than it should've been, oh goodness.

One that comes to mind right away is the Omori, but I already talked about that, and don't wanna repeat myself too much.

Does The End from Minecraft Volume Beta count? I think it does. The End is a song that plays in the last place you'll visit in Minecraft.. The End dimension, of course. The track has the leitmotif of Sweden, one of the normal Overworld tracks, underneath it's almost corrupted-sounding audio. When wandering the End islands for the first time, hearing this music sent chills through me. It's almost like the game was telling me "You're far away from home, but you're one bad jump away from being thrown back."

Fire Emblem Three Houses uses it's main theme as a leitmotif a LOT. (around 1:10 in.) Though that's the modern Fire Emblem games in general I'd say, I just love Three Houses' main theme a lot. The place you likely know this leitmotif from is The Edge of Dawn (Seasons of Warfare)! Though it also appears in Fódlan Winds, The Apex of the World and a handful more. Its main theme is quite literally its main theme, showing up nearly everywhere as long as you're listening for it.

Aaaaand here's my excuse to talk about Xenoblade! Within Xenoblade Chronicles 2, the game's main theme, Where We Used To Be, is hidden within a plethora of the game's tracks. It plays in a total of 29 of the game's songs, and I can't say I even caught them most of the time. A video here talks at great lengths about it and talks about it better than I ever could. Please, give it a watch.

Finally, I'll end it on a series I haven't talked about yet. Kirby! Specifically for today, Kirby Planet Robobot. The title theme, Bright Spinning Planet, appears in a lot of the game's tracks. Within the opening cutscene, the world map, and even in the first level. However, my favorite example is within the game's equivalent of a superboss, hidden at the end of the True Arena - Vagrant Keepsake of Oblivion. Yes that is the name of the track in a Kirby game. The plot of it makes it even worse, this businessman named Haltmann saw Kirby's planet, landed upon it to suck it dry of all its resources while simultaneously turning it into a robotic hellscape. All for the purpose of taking control of this giant space-clock-thing that grants wishes Star Dream, (which is basically a reincarnation of Galactic Nova from Kirby Superstar), so he can wish his daughter back into his life. Turns out this plan backfires, and the computer that is Star Dream takes a big homf and eats the man's consciousness, and this music plays as you're killing the literal heart of the computer to freee Haltmann's soul. Welcome to Kirby lore!

I know I didn't really lock onto the exact question you asked, but I still hope these answers sufficed! Thank you so much for the request, it was still fun to write about regardless.

#Ask Box

[burgerpocalypse]

I've been trying to run through some free games I got from the Epic game store, specifically Grand Theft Auto V, Creature in the Well, and most recently Night in the Woods. I quit GTAV about 60% of the way because it sucked, and I can't beat the last area of Creature, so that leaves me to talk a little about NitW and the emotional turmoil it gave me.

Upfront, I'm not interested in games with heavy emphasis on story, least of all visual novels or whatever you want to call this game. However, I've heard mostly positive things about Night in the Woods here and there for the better part of the previous decade. That and the fact I got it for $0 convinced me to finally try it out.

Night in the Woods is an adventure focused on exploration and character drama. Mae Borowski, the protagonist, is a college dropout that just moved back to her Rust Belt hometown for mysterious reasons, and becomes entangled in suspicious happenings. The player will traverse the aged suburban sprawl and rural outskirts of Possum Springs, conversing with family, friends, strangers, and everyone else, uncovering secrets and opening wounds along the way.

Seeing as how Night in the Woods is primarily a story, I'll mostly be discussing that, so look out for spoilers, yo.

After spending two years away, Mae attempts to reconnect with her previously closest friends Bea (an idealist goth whomst had considerable familial and financial responsibility thrust upon her at a young age), Gregg (an anarchist punk with bipolar tendencies), and Angus (an incredibly nice man). Mae pushes the story forward by hanging out with Bea and Gregg, and sometimes Angus. This will often involve going to social outings, running errands, committing crimes, and so on.

Other than her friends, Mae will also have opportunities to interact with her parents, various citizens, and vagrants. whom provide flavor and history to the world while also bringing some of Mae's muddled past to light. The player will traverse environments through walking and jumping around, with the occasional platforming feat required to progress or access certain areas. Occasionally, you'll be presented with small minigames, like a Guitar Hero-clone or red light/green light shoplifting, and a game-within-a-game dungeon crawler that pissed me off to no end. While most activities in the town are benign, certain important events will move the day along and lock you out of further exploration.

Early on, Mae's group stumbles upon a discarded arm and some cryptic dialogue from a few characters. After each day, Mae experiences strange dream sequences that involve platforming segments and surreal representations of her friends and the town. Several hours of gameplay later, Mae witnesses a kidnapping on Halloween by what appears to be a ghost.

In the midst of all this, Mae hangs out with her friends and discovers what they've been up to in her absence. Bea runs the family business for her father, who broke down after her mom died, putting them in dire financial straits and preventing Bea from leaving Possum Springs; she bears resentment towards Mae, since she dropped out of college and came home for no apparent reason while also not maturing at all. Gregg is aimless, sporadic, and uninhibited, while his boyfriend Angus is neat, tidy, and overly helpful. Their relationship appears strong, and they are planning to move to a new city together, though Bea is convinced it won't last.

Mae does her best to strengthen bonds while suffering from a variety of stressors, like her family's money troubles, her self-destructive tendencies and dissociative episodes, and ominous celestial beings invading her mind. This sometimes leads to inadvertent and painful social situations, especially with Bea.

Mae attempts to investigate the supposedly supernatural happenings with the help of Bea, Gregg, and Angus, while her mental health steadily declines. Eventually, the group travels deep into the woods (at night) and stumble into a cult, after which Mae suffers a great fall and enters a coma. After waking up, Mae then attempts to confront the cult head-on, though her friends arrive to help. They enter a cave, find the cult again, discover the eldritch horror they serve and explore her personal connection to it, accidentally cause a cave-in and trap the cultists, escape the cave, and try to make sense of what happened after the fact.

Now, don't get me wrong. I rather enjoyed Night in the Wood's story. I really liked all the characters. I loved the dialogue. Even the platforming and various minigames were fine, if simplistic and occasionally annoying. The structure of this paragraph seems as though it's leading towards a big 'but'. I just wanted to say that I really liked the game, even though I don't generally enjoy video game stories, and especially not video games primarily about a story. Though I'm not from a run-down midwestern town, and obviously don't have the same sort of personal relationships she does, Mae's emotional strife and insecurities really resonated with me. Her personal thoughts and reactions often made me just stop and think about the many mistakes I've made with the people I care about and all the relationships I've ruined.

However, if the plot wanted to spend so much time on Mae and her friends, it should have been about Mae and her friends. Conversely, if it wanted to be about a spooky cult in a small town, it should have spent much more time on a spooky cult in a small town. The plot is torn between two diametrically opposed focuses, those being Mae's struggles to maintain relationships and her dealing with suspicious supernatural occurrences in Possum Springs. So much time passes before anything really happens with the cult and cosmic horror that I feel some people might even forget there is a cult and cosmic horror, and Mae isn't just experiencing a psychotic break for no reason.

In the end, the cult goes unresolved, and it's unclear what the relationship is with the residents of Possum Springs, or what its powers even are. I don't need the game to explain every aspect in detail, but no one appears to be affected by the existence of the cult and its god other than Mae. My brain was going into overdrive looking for clues, making patterns, identifying red herrings, anything that might help me understand the mystery, when in reality there was no mystery to understand.

There is also a severe lack of actual choice or decision making in terms of dialogue, and a distinct absence of any real challenge in gameplay. I definitely felt that this story could have been more efficiently told if it were in a book, usually after spending a few minutes walking around trying to find something important and

It doesn't help that I sometimes accidentally skipped certain segments, since it's not always explicitly clear if an action will push the day forward and lock me in. I even completely missed a third of the investigations since I chose to check out the historical society building with Gregg second when the game expected me to do it last. This sort of problem led to me giving up completely on other story-focus games like Kentucky Route Zero since I constantly skipped and missed chunks of stuff or did things out of the intended order and ruined the flow of events.

Now this has obviously gotten a little too long, so I'll just wrap it up by saying that Night in the Woods is great and I recommend it. It made me feel feelings, deep feelings, like I was moments away from crying on more than one occasion.

Thanks for reading. I have a lot on my mind because of this game, so I hope it was worth your time.

#night in the woods #nitw #mae borowski #video games #review #coyote

[officecyborg]

followed the same no-repeats rule as my wife

favourite game: Ghost Trick

favourite series: Ace Attorney original trilogy, these are what actually got me into video games

best soundtrack: Great Ace Attorney, partly forced by the no-repeats rule, because most of the games on here have really good soundtracks. but I was jamming out today to the jury examination theme. I don’t think there’s a single dud track

favourite protagonist: Ramza! could’ve gone Luke also, but I think FFT wins better narrative by a hair. also I’ve been thinking about his arc a lot recently in the course of playing Tactics Ogre.

favourite villain: Akane and Vyce are both semi-villains who add up to one whole villain total

best story: of course it was gonna be a Matsuno game but yeah, I think it’s gotta be Vagrant Story. it’s the game that’s the most A Self-Contained Story to me, and it’s a damn interesting one. haunted city gets under your skin

have not played but want to: Graces is sitting on my shelf right now

you love everyone hates: a lot of hardcore Megaman fans hate Battle Network and they are wrong

you hate everyone loves: not everyone but there are a lot of rave reviews. imagine a guy who had never made or really played puzzle games made a puzzle game as “art” and the whole thing was dripping with contempt for other game creators, players, and humanity as a whole. that’s The Witness. I got steadily more annoyed at its attitude the further I played.

best art style: early Professor Layton has really strong, shape-heavy, unique character designs.

favourite ending: I’m being fast and loose with my definition of “ending” cos the final trial isn’t that interesting to play, but I think what Paradise Killer does with outcomes based on how thorough your open-world investigation is, purely in terms of what conclusions you draw and how you choose to manipulate evidence, is really fascinating. I’ve said before that I came perilously close to having a watertight but completely wrong theory and getting the wrong person executed for it. also kind of the opposite of Ace Attorney - is revealing the truth the most ‘just’ choice? especially when the whole setting is horrific?

favourite boss fight: went with the final boss fight from Tales of the Abyss, my other favourite game. depending on your party composition, it ends with Luke fighting alone while Tear sings. not going to get super deep into TotA analysis but it’s very moving.

childhood game: Pokemon Ruby, like pretty much the only one lol

relaxing game: Animal Crossing

stressful game: Stardew Valley. basically like AC but exponentially faster than real-time, and therefore stressful

game I keep coming back to: Undertale

guilty pleasure: all gacha games are bad except my bad gacha game that is also kind of a mainline Tales game but with microtransactions

tons of hours played: (excluding all previous entries because I did grind for hours to perfect every recipe in TotA) for a game that left me cold, I sunk an ungodly amount of time into the bonus dungeons/arena of Vesperia

[mostlysignssomeportents]

K-Zombies

When you and your friends put your fingers on the ouija board planchette and it starts moving around, there's a chance your friends are just yanking your chain - but just as possible is that your friends are experiencing the ideomotor response.

That's when your unconscious mind directs your muscles without your conscious knowledge. The movement of the planchette doesn't tell you what's going on in the spirit world, but it does tell you something about the internal weather of your friend's psyche, fears and hopes.

Our narratives are social-scale planchettes, directed by mass ideomotor response. When a fake news story takes hold, it reveals a true fact: namely, the shared, internal models of how the world really works.

Fake news is an oracle, in other words.

https://locusmag.com/2019/07/cory-doctorow-fake-news-is-an-oracle/

There's no spirit-realm directing planchettes. Supernatural phenomena are nonsense, in all their guises. Mediums are fraudsters or deluded - and so are soothsayers who claim to be able to predict the future. That goes for fortune-tellers and futurists alike.

A shocking number of self-described "rational" science fiction writers share the delusional view that they can predict the future. These pulp Nostradamii point to "predictions" of sf that have "come true" and claim to have an inside line on the world of tomorrow.

Sf *has* an important relationship to the future, though! It can be a planchette: all the futures imagined by all the sf writers are a kind of mutation-space, and the fitness factor that determines whether a story thrives or sinks is whether it captures public imagination.

Sf writers and readers are a means for society to reflect back, amplify and examine our unarticulated hopes and fears about our *present* technology. Sf doesn't predict the future, but sf readers and writers do an excellent job of predicting the present.

And since the present is the standing wave where the past is being transformed into the future, knowing about the present can be a source of insights into what's coming - and not just because sf reveals what's going on in the present, but also because it influences it.

People who are captured by imaginative, futuristic parables about the problems and possibilities of technology acquire a set of intuition-pumps for coping with the future when it arrives, reflexive views and actions about what the future demands of us.

Gene Rodenberry didn't predict the Motorola flip-phone. Rather, when a generation of Motorola designers and engineers were asked to make a mobile communications device their minds immediately flew to the Star Trek communicators they grew up with.

Thinking of fantastic fiction as measurement device and influence machine is a productive way to pick apart the meaning of literary trends.

As I wrote in my intro to the bicentennial re-release of FRANKENSTEIN, the rise and fall of Shelley's book tracks to the rise and fall of fears related to the book's various themes:

https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1974387

So what are we to make of K-zombies? Korean pop culture is experiencing a golden age of zombie movies, games, comics and other media.  

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-02-23/zombies-are-everywhere-south-korea-fears

Zombies have a lot of different themes, of course, and some are easy to map to the current situation: the fear of contagion and the need to distance yourself from loved ones who have become infected. The parallels to covid hardly need explaining.

But the K-zombie phenomenon predates the pandemic, and zombie stories aren't merely contagion stories - they're often stories about the lurking bestiality of nearly everyone around us.

That's behind stories like The Walking Dead, about the propensity of all our "normal" friends and neighbors to transform into an insensate, rampaging mob. These zombie stories are a throwback to the "cozy catastrophes" of John Wyndham and co:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/29/grifters-gonna-grift/#wyndhamesque

These are stories of racial and class anxiety, of xenophobia and the literal othering of someone who *seems* to be just like you but is actually a secret monster. Again, on a divided peninsula, it's not hard to see how stories of lurking otherness would catch hold.

Zombie stories are also stories about the fragility of social cohesion: stories about how we're never "all in this together" and how, when the chips are down, it'll be "the war of all against all." That, too, feels very zeitgeisty given recent South Korean politics.

South Korea has an ugly, authoritarian past that is at odds with its founding myth as the "good Korea," the "democratic Korea." But the post-war reconstruction of the country by the US elevated an elite to a position of near-total authority and impunity.

They abused this power in ghastly ways, running forced-labor camps for poor people and people with disabilities, with rampant physical and sexual abuse. Families who lost their loved ones were traumatized to learn that they'd ended up in the camps.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160423131643/https://bigstory.ap.org/article/c22de3a565fe4e85a0508bbbd72c3c1b/ap-s-korea-covered-mass-abuse-killings-vagrants

These forced-labor camps (which continue in a slightly modified form to this day) supplied slaves to chaebols, the conglomerates that represent the country on a world stage. Unsurprisingly, the leadership of these companies is also grossly corrupt:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2052871/samsung-chief-jailed-for-2-5-years-over-corruption-scandal

Korea is also riven by messianic cults, and the leaders of these cults have close ties to the Korean political class, an incredibly politically destabilizing fact that has caused recent Korean governments to collapse:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37971085

South Korea, in other words, isn't just haunted by the spectre of aggression from the north - but also by the possibility of internal rupture. It has a huge, authoritarian secret police force that has been caught secretly meddling in electoral politics.

Far from reining in this spookocracy, the South Korean political class has tried to hand them even MORE powers, with LESS oversight. Today is the fifth anniversary of the Korean opposition's filibuster to stop the worst of these.

(Seo Ki-Ho, a politician with the affectionate nickname "Milhouse" for his resemblance to the Simpsons character read the Korean edition of my novel LITTLE BROTHER into the record during the filibuster!)

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/02/26/south-korean-lawmakers-stage-filibuster-to-protest-anti-terror-bill-read-from-little-brother/

This othering is also sharply illustrated in the country's culture of misogynistic voyeurism, which goes beyond "upskirt" videos and includes a roaring trade in videos captured with hidden cameras in toilets, changing rooms and hotel rooms.

It's hard to overstate the reach of this practice, and its political salience: it has provoked a vast mass-movement of women and allies demanding an end to the practice and a reckoning with institutional sexism:

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/culture/net/2020/10/21/voyeurs-are-selling-photos-of-women-at-the-protest-online/

Zombies aren't ever just about contagion - they're also always an expression of a deep anxiety that your neighbors aren't what they seem, that in a pinch, they'll turn on you, and not just because they've been infected, but also to protect themselves and their comfort.

US zombie booms always have an element of this: 1950s (reds under the bed); 1980s (red menace redux); 2000s (immigration "crisis"), etc. It'd be amazing if the only thing driving K-zombies' popularity was the pandemic, or even less plausibly, a mere aesthetic coincidence.

#pluralistic

[fury-brand]

top 10 villains

my brain hurts so this is video games only and the order is whatever and I’ve picked villains that I like rather than ones that are good at making me hate them

1. Kreia - Knights of the Old Republic 2

A cunning manipulator with a fairly excellent point who will forever be the pinnacle of what Star Wars can be when no one’s being a fucking coward about it. Also, the drama? The lies? The being my overbearing mom who can’t love me properly and just wants to drive me to greater and greater heights? All so good

2. Delita Hieral - Final Fantasy Tactics

Delita’s such an impressive villain because like you’re on his side, really, except that he is slipping so far that suddenly you are not. Some people see Delita as a second hero of this story, and that is because he is good enough at what he does to convince you

3. The Practical Incarnation - Planescape Torment

Planescape Torment is just excellent at showing you up-close the fucking horrifying amount of damage you’ve done to people as the Practical Incarnation, and calling him “the practical incarnation” is itself just so choice, what an evasive way to put it. Anyway, Justice 4 Deionarra

4. Sephiroth - FFVII

I am Contractually Obligated to include him on any such list, please peruse my tags on this blog or @cryoftheplanet​ for rationale

5. Emet-Selch - FFXIV

The latest addition to my catalogue, he’s got RANGE. I don’t usually go in for affably evil because it can get old quickly but he feels very naturally relaxed when he’s dicking around with you, yet still overflowing with pathos and human failure when he’s not. Honourable mention to Emet-Selch for being the most likely to call you and ask what you’d like from McDonalds

6. Sydney Losstarot - Vagrant Story

The inverse of Delita in the sense that he’s got all the trappings of villainy but is mostly... on your side? And mostly has the right of it in what he’s trying to do? Except of course that he’ll step on anyone and do absolutely anything in order to do that. It’s ok, I respect his conviction

8. Elizabeth - Bioshock Infinite

OKAY HEAR ME OUT, I know she’s NOT a villain as we get to know her, but Bioshock Infinite is basically just a time loop AU where we try to stop Elizabeth from becoming a villain and EVERYTHING we know about the Lutece’s suggests that this, as her end, is nigh-inevitable! And boy she’s got all the shit I love, from the tragic backstory to the unbridled rage to the sorrowful too-late realization that perhaps another way was available to the willingness to walk over who she has to walk over in order to save herself in the end. Fuck Burial at Sea and I’m happy she avoided her fate but we do stan regardless

9. Loewe/Leonhardt - Trails in the Sky

Staying as light on spoilers as I can here but Loewe’s like the epitome of the villain who knows what he’s doing is wrong and stupid but just cannot turn away from it because of his own darkness, rooted in heinous injustice, absolutely will not allow him to move on and heal. What kills me about him is that it still doesn’t stop him from seeing better paths for OTHER people!!!! I think he’s probably the least villainous on this list if we measure by harm done, a little closer to Sydney, but still going to count him.

10. The Radiance/The Hollow Knight - Hollow Knight

Again, gonna try to stay light on spoilers here and just say... I STRONGLY appreciate the otherworldly jenova-like qualities at play here and the way they integrate so elegantly into such a sparse setting

#subdee

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

Does Morgana just straight up not exist in Murder Thieves or does he just not go to Kamoshida’s?

I’m thinking of Morgana being found in Mementos actually. The general idea is that unlike in canon where Morgana was amnesiac but still had a sort of purpose that drove him to Kamoshida’s Palace and eventually the Thieves, something went wrong with his creation and he ends up wandering Mementos with none of the knowledge he was supposed to impart to the Thieves.

This means he has zero knowledge of how changes of heart work so even once the Thieves do meet him (he acts as sort of a guide and transportation for them in Mementos) he can’t actually help them not murder people. Murder Thieves AU would require a greater and more creative use of Mementos so there’d be more story taking place in there anyway.

Over time he grows closer to all the Thieves and instead of him just staying with Akira, it’s more like he takes turns hanging out with them. So one night he’ll stay at Ann’s place, the next night with Yusuke, and so on for greater amounts of time until he’s spending very little time in Mementos on his own. He’s more of a mysterious vagrant than video game helper character in general. He doesn't really help with the Palaces because he’s not an official Phantom Thief, the group doesn’t want to drag Morgana into their murdering, but at some point he’ll have to join.

(I mean I know this began as a meta about why Morgana was important so it would make sense if Morgana didn’t exist in this AU to make a point, but goddammit I love that cat and we can still have Morgana even if he can’t fulfill his role as tutorial character)

Oh! He’d also have an actual awakening! He survives in Mementos by being sneaky and since Igor didn’t create him with all the knowledge he needed, he doesn’t come with a persona like he does in canon. I’m thinking maybe to protect the Thieves he has come to love like family? I could see that. But he’d need an enemy all his own rather than snatching Haru’s. Maybe an original Palace, or some twisted side area of Mementos where the Thieves get trapped? I’ll have to think on it.

Morgana would also probably have a lot more issues to work through. He’s so purposeless, unsure of who and what he is, and unlike in canon he has this sense that he’s failing some important duty. And when he finds out he has, oof. I mean he was created for one specific purpose. At first I think he’d blame himself, but the attempt to make him feel better by Igor and Lavenza pointing out he could have done nothing because something went wrong with his creation would only make it worse because now Morgana thinks he was created a failure. It’s a very bad situation, and it would probably only be through the Thieves loving him for who he is rather than what he was supposed to be would he finally end his character arc.

#persona 5 #murder thieves AU #morgana #ask

[sezja]

15, 16, and 18

Ask me about video games

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

I don't know about crossovers - I'm more a fan of "what would happen if This Character were born in This Universe instead," as you know all too well. If I had to pick, I'd say nearly any game I otherwise enjoy, with Vagrant Story's thorough approach to dungeon crawling and exploration.

16: Character you’ve hated most? From what game?

Man, Zenos is up there. I'm not the kind of person who hates villainous characters on principle, obviously, but Zenos is boring, and they've done nothing to make him interesting. "Hated" might not even be the right word - hatred is at least an emotion, you know? I can't even hate this guy. I mostly hate what his presence does for FFXIV's story, dragging it down and holding it back just when Shadowbringers showed us what the writing and the game itself are capable of.

Outside of villainous characters, Fayt and Sophia from Star Ocean 3 also just... never won me over. A lot of it's probably the voice acting, but I'm also just not a fan of a lot of their story beats - beats that were managed better and with more grace by Edge and Reimi in SO4.

18: A game you wish your friends knew about?

Vagrant Story is literally my favorite game ever, but my god, trying to get people into it probably qualifies as an act of violence.

#about me #asks

[aion-rsa]

15 Best PlayStation One RPGs Ever Made

https://ift.tt/3rHgcZn

In our look at the best Super Nintendo RPGs ever, we mentioned that the SNES is arguably the greatest RPG console in video game history. Well, if there is a console that makes that discussion an argument, it would have to be the PlayStation One. 

With a lot of help from Square, Sony quickly established the PlayStation as not just the home of incredible RPG experiences but as a console that was capable of effectively convincing people who previously had no real interest in RPGs that they absolutely needed to devote 50+ hours of their life to the next gaming epic. That sudden rise in genre popularity inspired some of the industry’s greatest RPG developers to try to outdo each other creatively and commercially. 

The result was a classic collection of role-playing experiences that still rank comfortably among the absolute best ever made. With due respect to the 20+ other games that deserve to be on this list, these are the 15 best PS1 RPGs ever made. 

15. The Legend of Dragoon

The Legend of Dragoon’s legacy has only grown since the game’s late 1999 release, and it’s not hard to see why. While this game was initially criticized for not living up to the standards of some of the other PS1 RPGs we’ll soon be talking about, time has been kind to the various things this game does so very well.

The Legend of Dragoon makes up for its slow story with an incredible combat system that emphasizes an almost QTE-like mechanic that helps ensure you’re rarely simply watching a battle play out. This RPG’s character transformation mechanic is also one of those brilliant gameplay concepts that should have been copied many times since this game’s release. There’s also always been something special about the fact that Legend of Dragoon‘s ambitious CGI cutscenes ensured this epic spanned four PS1 discs. 

14. Wild Arms

Wild Arms is another one of those PS1 RPGs that were initially overshadowed by some of the all-time classic games it had to compete against, but the thing that stood out about this title at the time is the thing that still makes Wild Arms special to this day: its style. 

Wild Arms‘ blend of sci-fi, fantasy, and western design concepts shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does here. Developer Media.Vision deserves a lot of credit for ensuring this game’s ambitious world always felt cohesive and for finding some truly clever ways to subvert genre expectations through this title’s approach to exploration, combat, and puzzles. 

13. Breath of Fire III

The Breath Of Fire III vs. Breath of Fire IV debate will likely not be settled here, but the third entry in this series ultimately gets my nod due to the ways it so clearly raised the bar for this franchise and its genre competition. 

Breath of the Fire III’s 3D visuals and voice acting helped sell this game’s engaging story, while the game’s combat and wonderful cast of characters ensured you were constantly engaged and ready to see where this absolute gem was going to take you next. 

12. Front Mission 3

Front Mission 3 rewards players willing to put the time into its fairly complex mechanics and deep storyline with one of the best tactical RPGs of the era and one of the best mech games ever made. 

This game is rightfully remembered for its customization options and often punishing tactical gameplay but I don’t know if it gets enough love for its faction-driven narrative and the ways its visuals convey epic mech battles without relying on more traditional action gameplay. 

11. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The only reason this all-time great game isn’t higher on the particular list is that there are just other PS1 RPGs that better represent the genre and the kind of epic experiences we think of when we think of one of the best RPG platforms ever. 

Having said that, the way that Symphony of the Night incorporated RPG elements not only changed the franchise forever but eventually helped inspire developers everywhere to enhance their own action titles by utilizing role-playing mechanics. This is still one of the best blends of role-playing and action/adventure ever made.

10. Valkyrie Profile

Long before God of War took us on a journey through Norse mythology, Valkyrie Profile caught many PS1 gamers by surprise with its unique blend of Japanese design and a Norse narrative that tasks you with assembling the perfect party of heroes to assist you through Ragnarok.

Valkyrie Profile‘s true calling card, though, is its turn-based combat system that essentially assigns a button to each character in your party. Getting the most out of your party of heroes requires you to successfully assign each character the right actions at the right time in order to unleash powerful combo attacks. It’s complex, original, and a whole lot of fun. 

9. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete 

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete may have started off as a Sega Saturn title, but it’s hard not to ultimately remember this as a PS1 game due to the many ways that Sony’s first console allowed Lunar’s developers to share their full vision for this classic. 

It’s true that Lunar is an “old-school” JRPG in a lot of ways that might turn some people off, but when level grinding, party management, and methodical turn-based gameplay are done this well, it’s hard not to see this as one of the ultimate genre comfort zones. 

8. Star Ocean: The Second Story

It’s hard to talk about Star Ocean without eventually getting around to the fact that it has almost 90 possible endings, so let’s not bury the lede. What’s even more impressive than the game’s number of possible endings, though, is the fact that many of those endings are clever, logical, and, in their own ways, complete. 

Really, though, this game’s incredible number of possible conclusions just highlights the various ways this sci-fi/fantasy title makes you feel like every action you do truly matters and that anything can happen. I also have to pay respect to this game’s brilliant “private action” system: a unique mechanic that allows your party members to have their own adventures that ultimately contributes to some of the best sidequests in RPG history.

Read more

Games

25 Best RPGs Ever Made

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Was Final Fantasy Really the First JRPG?

By Matthew Byrd

7. Xenogears

Xenogears features a fascinating blend of styles and mechanics that is quite appropriate considering the details of this game’s complicated development history (it started off as a pitch for Final Fantasy VII before briefly being designed as a Chrono Trigger sequel). Admittedly, there are times when you can tell this game is trying to find its creative voice and gameplay footing. 

Yet, all the concepts this RPG touches upon ultimately come together to form something wonderful and memorable. It features one of the best ATB combat systems ever, a complex and creative story, a lot of heart, great visuals, and a truly incredible soundtrack. Sure, the game struggles a bit in the second half, but it’s easy enough to overlook those shortcomings as the byproduct of ambition. 

6. Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII should be a victim of its own success. After all these years, all the praise, and all of the discussions, you would think we’d be at the point where the dreaded term “overrated” might linger just above this game’s legacy. 

That’s not the case, though. Maybe Final Fantasy VII was eventually surpassed, but it’s truly tragic to imagine what RPG gaming in the ‘90s and early 2000s would have been like if it wasn’t for this game. It alerted millions to the fact they loved video game RPGs, and it did it without sacrificing depth, quality, heart, or ambition. 

5. Final Fantasy Tactics

Considered by many at the time to be the best tactical RPG ever made, it has to be said that the most impressive thing about Final Fantasy Tactics is the fact that it’s still difficult to argue against this game’s claim to that title nearly 24 years after its release.

Final Fantasy Tactics‘ surprisingly accessible (yet still deep and rewarding) gameplay perfectly complements its colorful visuals, engaging character, and surprising story. I don’t know if it’s the best tactical RPG ever made, but it may always be seen as the standard in the eyes of many. 

4. Vagrant Story

It feels like people have been waiting for Vagrant Story to get the love it deserves ever since the game was released in 2000. While Vagrant Story absolutely has a cult following, it seems pretty clear at this point that it’s just never going to reach that level. It’s too difficult, too different, and it will probably never get the remaster it deserves. 

However, those who have played Vagrant Story know it was Square’s most mechanically ambitious and unique PlayStation RPG. From its stunning visuals to its deep combat and mature narrative, Vagrant Story has honestly aged better than all but a few of the games of this era. A game this different and innovative shouldn’t feel as complete and confident as it does. 

3. Chrono Cross

From the moment Chrono Cross was released, it feels like the first line about this game has been that it disappointed those who were expecting a direct follow-up to Chrono Trigger. Even when we learned that the Chrono Cross team never really saw this as a Chrono Trigger sequel, Chrono Cross still lived in the shadow of its all-time great predecessor.

Maybe there are ways that Chrono Cross would have been better off sticking closer to that SNES classic, but even at the time of its somewhat controversial release, many praised Chrono Cross for its innovative combat, weird and wonderful story, large cast of characters, music, visuals, and commitment to defying expectations at every turn. This shouldn’t be your first PS1 RPG, but it might be the one you end up remembering most fondly. 

2. Final Fantasy IX

Final Fantasy IX was essentially Square’s PS1 swan song. While the title’s return to the medieval fantasy style of classic FF games highlights the studio’s jovial mood at the time, the fact is that many people wondered if Square could recover from the controversial Final Fantasy VIII and produce an RPG that effectively ended their unbelievable run of hits in style. 

The fact they managed to do just that is an accomplishment that should never be overlooked. To this day, I struggle to think of even a handful of RPGs that challenge Final Fantasy IX’s charm, humor, and cast of characters while still providing a role-playing adventure that will feel rewarding to veterans and newcomers alike. This is an across-the-board triumph that delights and impresses in equal measure. 

1. Suikoden II

Suikoden II was pretty much “doomed to fail” from the start. It was released in the wake of Final Fantasy VIII’s massive debut, wasn’t widely distributed, and featured “retro” graphics that initially turned quite a few people off at the time of cinematic PS1 visuals. It didn’t help that its predecessor was a very good, but not great, RPG that also failed to find a wide audience. 

Yet, Suikoden II is quite simply one of the best games ever made regardless of genre. I would love to tell you about its nuanced and deep politically-driven narrative, varied combat system, minigames, world-building elements, and score, but how long can you really talk about Suikoden II without getting around to its cast of over 100 recruitable characters and the ways Konami managed to make each and every one of them (as well as their interactions with each other) among the best of their era? 

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I wouldn’t call this a perfect game, but at the same time, I’m struggling to think of a single thing I’d change about it. 

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[kyndaris]

A Hero Lies in You

On April Fool’s Day 2019, a video was released showing the latest game in the Yakuza franchise. Many thought it was a prank. The reason why? The sudden change in combat. Gone was the brawler beat-em-up that was associated with the series. In its stead was a turn-based system reminiscent of role-playing games. Characters waiting for their turns before utilising special skills? In a franchise known for its hard gritty storylines about gangs duking it out in the streets of Japan? ‘Haha Ryu Ga Gotoku. You thought you could fool us, but we see right through you. This isn’t our first rodeo and you’re not Square Enix,’ was many a thought when the footage had been viewed by thousands online.

What gamers did not know was that this was no gag. Fast forward several months to August 2019 and it was confirmed that Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon, starring new protagonist Kasuga Ichiban, would actually incorporate turn-based battles. There would even be JOBS! 

As I had just finished playing through Kiryu’s story, as well as Judgment, in 2020 I was eager to see what new protagonist Kasuga Ichiban would bring to the table. From trailers, I could already see how much livelier Ichiban would be in comparison to the more stoic Kiryu. And, in contrast to Yagami, he was definitely more of an idiot. A lovable idiot, to be sure, but an idiot nonetheless.

Yakuza 7: Like a Dragon released in a huge week for video games. While I would have preferred to play it earlier, I had other huge titans to wrestle into submission first. Once I had managed to satiate my Ubisoft open-world needs with Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, I dived head first onto the streets of Yokohama, ready to bust some heads.

The game opens on a play. For a moment, I thought I had somehow purchased the wrong game. But as the lengthy prologue progressed, it was very clear that this was most definitely a Yakuza game. It just needed to set up a little bit of the tale, starting with Arakawa Masumi - father figure and role-model for our erstwhile hero. It isn’t long before players are introduced to Kasuga Ichiban with his trademark ‘punch perm.’ Born in a soapland and raised by those that lived on the fringes of society, Ichiban, rather than being hardened by his experience, is empathetic and not afraid to show emotion. Tasked with collection, he interprets his orders in a way to benefit those that are struggling. His goofball attitude immediately makes him a character one can connect to. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s a bit of a nerd, having played Dragon Quest during his childhood and likening many of the people around him to things in the game.

It’s not long before the plot escalates and Ichiban volunteers to give himself up to the police. Sentenced to fifteen years in prison, he inadvertently extends his sentence when his Patriarch is insulted by one of the fellow inmates. After nearly two decades spent in prison for a crime that he did not commit, Ichiban is released with little fanfare and no waiting convoy. Disappointed, he takes it in stride. The first thing on his order of business: to get his signature punch perm and reconnect with his second father-figure and Patriarch of the Arakawa family.

Along the way, he is dogged by a former policeman: Adachi. At first, it isn’t made clear why Adachi seeks Ichiban for help. After all, Ichiban had supposedly killed another yakuza in Kamurocho, Tokyo. Adachi, on the other hand, was a detective in Yokohama. Why would he have any interest in uncovering the truth behind what had put Ichiban behind bars?

After a few shenanigans are had in and around Kamurocho, our protagonist is shot and left for dead - waking up in a homeless shelter in the heart of Isezaki Ijincho. Climbing his way from rock bottom, Ichiban embarks on a journey to uncover the truth, stumbling upon a series of events and unearthing a vast conspiracy in which he was to serve as a pawn.

Many of the earlier chapters felt a little contrived. In particular was the death of Nonomiya. While it served to move the narrative forward, it was most assuredly a means to an end that didn’t highlight any significant character growth. Poor Nonomiya was fridged just to bring Ichiban into conflict with the Liumang branch of the Ijin Three.

It was only in the later chapters that the story picked up steam - with the confrontations with Bleach Japan and the encroachment by the Omi Alliance. Joined by a menagerie of characters like Zhao, Saeko, Han Joon-Gi, Nanba and Eri, there was a lot to keep track on as the plot barrelled forward at a breakneck pace, connecting Ichiban’s past with his current present and all the while setting up a juicy conflict between two men that could have been brothers. And honestly, the ending with Arakawa Masato and Ichiban got to me. I loved how that Ichiban was finally able to reach his old charge by being vulnerable and finally letting out a little of his resentment at the life Masato led, despite the fact that he could not use his legs.

The characters were superbly written and their motivations were a good reflection of the human condition. The themes of family and finding a home were evident, right from the start, even though a lot of it was glossed over by Ichiban’s desire to be a hero in a video game.

(I also really liked Seong-hui and would love to see her be an actual playable character in possible future instalments. On a side note, Arakawa...you cannot simply say: ‘See you tomorrow, Ichi,’ and expect to walk away. You basically wrote your own name into the Death Note with that line!)

As far as aping Japanese role-playing games go, however, Yakuza: Like a Dragon falls woefully short. While the Tendo twist was a good one - it was pulled a little too early. Worse, there was no world-ending threat. Everyone knows that a Japanese role-playing game MUST HAVE A VILLAIN/ EVIL GOD FIGURE THAT INTENDS TO DESTROY THE WORLD. Yakuza: Like a Dragon was too focused on old childhood rivalries to extend it further afield. I mean, yes, Aoki Ryo hoped to pull the strings of the Japanese government as chair of the CLP, but WHERE WAS THE METEOR HURTLING TOWARDS EARTH? 

Honestly, 1/10 for holding true to Japanese role-playing games.

Other than that, the summons with Pound Mates was amusing. As were the side stories. Honestly, there can never be enough side stories to flesh out the wacky world of the Yakuza franchise. So many old favourites made their return. From Pocket Fighter (now dubbed Dragon Fighter) and Gondawara Susumu with his baby fetish.

Also, I didn’t think I’d be so obsessed with it, but I think they cracked property management this time round. Ichiban Confections, later known as Ichiban Holdings, was a blast to manage and accrue juicy money for.

The bartender of Survive also looked very familiar. I mean...what with the huge scar across his face. My suspicions were confirmed when I searched up Kashiwagi up on the Yakuza wiki page and was awarded with the fact that HE MANAGED TO SURVIVE THE ASSAULT HELICOPTER FROM YAKUZA 3!!

Other than that, my few other gripes involved the implementation of the levelling system and the way area of effect skills were handled. In particular, the pathing for how characters moved around the battlefield proved, at least to me, a bit of a frustration. Often, characters would be blocked by a knee-high fence or a corner. Sometimes they would be able to go around, but other times the game (after several seconds of watching them fail to walk through a solid building) warp to the enemy that I had targeted to launch their attack.

And even though the combat is turn-based, most of the enemies tend to walk around the battlefield - either clumping together or distancing themselves from each other. What truly annoyed me was when there were moves that could be used as an area of effect, with the MP cost to go along with it, but were limited by their effectiveness when the enemy combatants were too far away. Yes, it makes sense, but golly gosh, how much of a pixel measurement does it have to be for it to not hit?

Besides that, the levelling was also a bit of a tedious chore. Were it not for the invested vagrants, I feel like I might have put the game down with how much grinding there was - particularly when it came to the various jobs. The biggest hill to climb was from 20-30. Without the exp (experience point) boosting items, it would have been a torturous slog. I know that in the original Japanese release of the game, the cap for jobs was level 30, but if you change it to 99, please, for the sanity of all the gamers out there, tweak the requirements to make it easier. And maybe give normal trash mobs a bit more experience points for the playable characters to munch on. 

Goodness, imagine having to grind on level 55 Ornery Yakuza and receiving a paltry 1000xp for each battle (when, in order to level up a job, you needed almost a million).

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a break from the traditional formula that’s been a staple of the franchise for many years. Much like Ichiban, it’s a bit of fresh air to liven up the experience that might have gone a bit stale after I slogged through the whole Kiryu arc last year. With a few tweaks, and a few more Persona 5 CD soundtracks, I’m eager to see how the story evolves and whatever contrivances Ichiban will somehow force him into.

Although, to be fair, is it still appropriate to call this franchise Yakuza when the game literally saw the dismantling of the two biggest clans? Then again, Civilian: Like a Dragon 2 just doesn’t have the same ring to it. In any case, I hope the next one comes soon and we’ll be able to have Seong-hui in our party. I feel like she’d be wielding a gunblade.

(Did I just use a lyric from Mariah Carey? You bet I did! I had been tossing up the idea between this line and ‘I need a hero.’ Why? Well, I think that would be self-explanatory after knowing Ichiban’s proclivities. And it fits so, so, so well!) 

#yakuza 7: like a dragon #yakuza #video games #i need a hero

[unsoundedcomic]

the world is breaking down, cope. Tell me a comforting tale of the ancient Before Times, when social media was a chatroom that could hold twelve people, and gifs were arcane mysteries. How did you meet and rp with people then?

In my experience, you had to be a little bold.

My best online friends - whom I don’t RP with - I met when I went looking around for video game music. You couldn’t really rely on Napster and the like for VGM, it was too obscure, so you’d need to find an FTP or a good IRC server where the users weren’t too douchey. I didn’t have much luck until I started looking at DC++ servers. I stumbled onto a great channel with like 200 users and hit it off with a few people. This was like 15 years ago? And a few of those people and I have been good friends ever since. We’re on Discord now but we talk every day and I love them dearly. I even introduced one of them to another friend and they wound up getting married last year :3 Vile :3 :3 I get your grimace on today’s page, Sette, I do.

RP friends I mostly met through fandom. Back in the day you’d go on Yahoo! or maybe AOL and search the forums for Final Fantasy VII or Legacy of Kain or Vagrant Story. People would recruit for post-by-post RP games in those settings, and you’d pick a character (OC or canon) and join in. I also met friends through video game journalism and fanart sites - RPGamer was a big one - and then sites like DeviantArt. I also wrote a lot of fanfiction, had my own fansites, and would connect with people who’d email me about both. I picked up acquaintances everywhere! And when you’re an artist, people will kind of seek you out. I think that made it easier.

I actually found Shattered Realms, a chat site I RP’d on for ages, by following a hotlink referrer in my server logs. Someone was using some old fanart of mine for their character bio page. I remember I was sitting at work and not working, as one does, navigated to the base url, and found this clunky set of browser-based chatrooms. I made an account, went into a generic fantasy pub room as Sette, and the next year was a blur. I was obsessed with that place and I met some amazing people on there, including @mindaroth who is a fantastic writer.

I’d be lost if I had to make new friends now. I think it’s easier than ever for younger people, but meeting geeks in their thirties online is tricky. Most Discord rooms I go into are fulla kids and noooo thank you :) Fandom is probably still a good guide. Like the Unsounded discord! Friendships work best when you start out having at least a fandom in common.

#Anonymous