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Wiki Project: Summer Games Wiki'd Quick 2016

One of the tentpole endurance events this Summer, more exciting than the Olympics, Euro 2016 and Wimbledon combined, is the biannual return of the Summer Games Done Quick week-long marathon event put on by the speedrunning community to raise money for charity. This year's SGDQ begins on Sunday the 3rd of July, and in preparation I once again took to the wiki to caulk and plaster over any gaps we might have for the sake of the event's Twitch stream. Twitch has some strict and, dare I say, Byzantine requirements for our wiki pages for them to qualify for their database integration, and I wanted to make sure that the stream's "currently playing game" algorithm went as smoothly as possible for the event coordinators. It's my little part in helping the event go ahead with a bang, in lieu of actually donating much of anything after this recent Summer Steam sale cleaned me out.

Poring over the schedule for abnormalities and obscurities over the past few weeks has naturally fueled my hype for the event, and specifically certain games that they intend to show off. While I always enjoy the races and runs of crowd favorites like the Metroids and the Mega Mans (and I guess the Sonics to a much lesser extent), it's the weird and wonderful new "experiments" that the speedrunners try out every year that pique my particular interest. That can mean the always-entertaining TASBot segments, but also new games that I've yet to see in a speedrunning capacity. I haven't been following the event so close that I can guarantee these all haven't been done before, but the following are a few scheduled games this year that I'm keen to watch for the novelty factor. Linked also are the wiki pages that I helped prepare, because a lot of these are hopelessly obscure and presumably added to keep the event fresh. I mean, how many more times are we going to be surprised at the same shinespark sequence break or Ocarina of Time warp skip?

Ten Speedrunning Obscurities in SGDQ 2016

The Rapid Angel: This is one of those Japan-only PS1 games that was ported intact, no localization or anything, by MonkeyPaw for international PSN stores. (They also did Money Puzzle Exchanger, that old favorite of Ryan's and Jeff's.) It looks rudimentary as heck - a first effort of a fledgling studio - but I imagine there's something to it if it was selected for a speedrun. Then again, the whole group of games that follow - which include a lot of risible licensed platformers like Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures and Barbie Game Girl - seem suspiciously like the "Awful Games Done Quick" block that GDQ events usually have.

Oh boy...
Oh boy...

The Curse of Issyos: This is a freeware game by Spanish Indie dev Locomalito, who you might know from last SGDQ's Maldita Castilla - a pseudo-NES homage to Ghouls N' Ghosts. Issyos seems to fit the Castlevania/Zelda II mold from what I played, or perhaps The Battle of Olympus given the setting, with regular light RPG upgrades and some hidden bonuses as you slice your way through some Ancient Greek mythological creatures.

Sometimes, these speedrun choices seem like commercials for cool freeware shit that might otherwise get missed. Not that it's a bad thing...
Sometimes, these speedrun choices seem like commercials for cool freeware shit that might otherwise get missed. Not that it's a bad thing...

Celeste: This is going down the freeware Indie rabbit hole some, as a game made specifically for the fantasy console "Pico-8", which seems to be a self-imposed challenge by and for Indie developers to make games for a fake console with the screen size of a digital watch or scientific calculator. It was created by Matt Thorson, best known for the Jumper series and more recently for TowerFall Ascension, and features some challenging vertical platforming in a series of compact stages. Like many Indie games on this year's list, it seems built for speedrunning.

Right, one of
Right, one of "those" games.

Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight: Now this is a series I'd never heard of before starting on this list, but apparently the Momodora games are highly regarded by those who have encountered them. They seem like a Guacamelee!/Dust: An Elysian Tail type of SpaceWhipper, where the combat has seen special attention by the developers and is much more like a fighter game with its combo- and flow-heavy systems than the usual perfunctory combat of most games in the genre. It also looks and sounds great. Reverie is actually the fourth game in the series and a pretty recent release, and I might be sold on it after watching the stream. (It's presently on sale for 20% off on Steam too, but like any Steam Indie game that will appear in a GDQ, I'd advise folk to wait to see if it appears in the official Humble Indie Bundle for the event. You never know...)

I'm into the look, but I wanna see how it plays.
I'm into the look, but I wanna see how it plays.

Boson X: Boson X was released a little while ago, but as a Frequency/Amplitude style endless "tube runner" it's odd that we don't see it in speedrun contests more often. The goal of the game is to navigate each tube, turning it around so that your avatar is always walking on a stable surface, and running over a particular type of flashing surface to fill up a meter in order to complete the stage. I've yet to try it myself, but it seems fairly manic.

This seems like it would be exhausting to play.
This seems like it would be exhausting to play.

Runny Egg: Talking of strange endless runners, Runny Egg was one of those oft-ridiculed WiiWare-exclusive releases that most of us ignore just as a general rule, but apparently it has some legs to it (as it were). As a jogging ovum, you're a fragile target that has to avoid every obstacle on the screen as per usual endless runners, but the game tracks every type of death - by poaching, roasting or sunny side up - as a separate collectible series, and there's also recipes and all sorts of cute digressions. I don't envy the websites that track these digital shovelware releases on Nintendo platforms, but at least they get the occasional gem out of it.

Seems kinda elaborate for an eShop endless runner.
Seems kinda elaborate for an eShop endless runner.

Streemerz: I love the backstory for this one. It's part of a NES block, but isn't actually an NES game, at least not technically - Streemerz is a remake of one of the execrable "games" of the notorious NES compilation cart Action 52 as part of an Action 52-based Game Jam, that repurposed the original's hookshot-based gameplay as a (deliberately) poorly-localized Bionic Commando parody. The goal is to use the hookshot, which always flies out at a 45 degree angle, to maneuver your way up a vertical shaft to escape the enemy's base after setting the self destruct. The game gets diabolically difficult very fast, as you're required to hook several times in a row with exact precision to avoid getting killed by "Master Y's balls" and evil clowns. After trying it for a few minutes for screenshots, I'm looking forward to seeing an expert have at it.

The Bionic Commando allusions are... uncanny.
The Bionic Commando allusions are... uncanny.

Pause Ahead: Pause Ahead is another one of those moody Indie puzzle-platformers with a central gimmick, in this case a very specific trick to do with pausing the game (as per the title). It was created by Askiisoft, the Tower of Heaven guy(s), so that should give you some idea of what its story is like and how difficult the game eventually becomes. By pausing the game mid-jump, your character continues to move in whatever direction he was heading in at that exact moment, allowing him to essentially hover great distances and pass harmlessly through enemies and hazards. Actually accurately aiming this time-stopped flight is half of the challenge. It's also a freeware browser game, so if you like what you see during the event, you can try it for yourself.

You can turn the TV affects off in-game. I mean, if you wanted to.
You can turn the TV affects off in-game. I mean, if you wanted to.

Twinkle Tale: A Sega Mega Drive top-down shoot 'em up starring a magical girl anime heroine and a manual weapon-switching system right out of Radiant Silvergun. It's also one of the best looking games for the system, so it's probably no surprise to hear that it's also one of a handful of Mega Drive games that never left Japan. It's actually a little weird - each 16-bit console has one of these highly-acclaimed cute anime witch shooters that collectors go nuts for, whether it's Twinkle Tale for Genesis, Magical Chase for TurboGrafx-16 or Cotton 100%/Magical Pop'n for SNES. Either way, this speedrun will be a good opportunity to see one of the Mega Drive's forgotten gems in action.

That's a good world map!
That's a good world map!

Ultraman Ball: I don't even know what to tell you with this one. It's an Ultraman licensed game (Japan only, of course) in which the enlarging kaiju fighting hero instead uses his shapeshifting powers to turn into a ball instead. The game seems like a fairly standard compact Game Boy Color platformer with a cute, Kirby-like aesthetic, but for the fact that you're controlling one of Japan's prime tokusatsu TV heroes as he rolls through half-pipes and collects candy. It leads the Kirby block on the penultimate day of the event, and it's maybe worth sticking around to see.

My Personal Picks

For fun, I thought I'd leave you with the ten SGDQ 2016 speedruns I'm looking forward to most. While I'm psyched to see the ten games above either because they're either so weird or so new to the event, there are plenty of recurring speedruns that are never dull to watch.

Demon's Souls: People are super serious about the Souls games, and how best to speedrun them, that these streams are always worth watching for the huge amount of time-saving tips and skips its large and dedicated community has found. I don't think I've seen a speedrun for the series originator Demon's Souls before though - it's usually the first two Dark Souls games. Demon's Souls's structure is both more open and less conducive to seamless runs, as you're always warping to and from the Nexus to restock and pick a new venue. I'd like to see what the official speedrun is like for this - whether they go world by world with as few Nexus visits as possible or if there's some convoluted and specific order that works best for timed runs.

Will these little guys factor into the run? I mean, they are the masters of getting around quickly.
Will these little guys factor into the run? I mean, they are the masters of getting around quickly.

Early SNES Block: As someone who has been on a quixotic wiki quest regarding Nintendo's 16-bit system for a few years now, I'm naturally a little biased towards any SNES block a GDQ event might present. This year, though, they're showing off some genuinely brilliant and overlooked SNES games to run through, including the challenging Hagane, the creative Claymates, the high-velocity Sparkster and the acrobatic Skyblazer. I'm deeply curious how someone might speedrun Quintet's ActRaiser too - there's a whole lot of waiting around for towns to be built and demon lairs to be destroyed during the game's "sim" parts, so if there's a way to speed that up I'd like to see it.

More people need to know about Skyblazer
More people need to know about Skyblazer

Burning Rangers: There aren't many Saturn games that have stood the test of time or engendered a lot of fans in the console's brief tenure, but Burning Rangers - with its fantastic firefighter superhero premise and theme song - is one of the Saturn's few stand-outs. I don't think I've ever watched more than a few minutes of the game's firefighting sentai madness though, so I'm looking forward to seeing it played in full (albeit really quickly) when it shows up.

Sonic Team's usually at their best when they aren't actually making Sonic games.
Sonic Team's usually at their best when they aren't actually making Sonic games.

Tetris: The Grand Master Exhibition: Now a fixture of any GDQ event, the Tetris The Grand Master displays always beggar belief. Even if it's the same old tetromino stacking, it's done with such an impressive level of skill and fast thinking that I'm always left speechless by this block. Certainly puts my own meager Tetris skills into question. And I thought I was hot shit for getting the space shuttle to launch in the Game Boy original...

I'm surprised none of these people have been The Last Starfighter'd yet. They clearly have the synapses for interstellar combat.
I'm surprised none of these people have been The Last Starfighter'd yet. They clearly have the synapses for interstellar combat.

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall: The key to speedrunning any sufficiently big game, such as one of the RPGs in the expansive The Elder Scrolls series, is by carefully exploring and exploiting the game's bugs for warps and the like. The bigger and more unwieldy the game, the more gaps and loopholes there are in the game's programming of which to take advantage. Nothing better exemplifies a game that got far too ambitious for its own good than the second Elder Scrolls game, Daggerfall, which boasted a land mass roughly equivalent to the UK's and was mostly procedurally generated. It's a game where clipping through a wall and falling through the world was given its own name - The Void - and factored into one's exploration ahead of time like a regular pitfall or spike trap. A speedrunner would not have to try very hard to break the game wide open, but I'm curious to see how they might use that cornucopia of glitches to their advantage. I also just want to see more people play Daggerfall. Shit's fun.

I'm guessing the runner(s) won't be taking tips from Vinny or Dave Snider.
I'm guessing the runner(s) won't be taking tips from Vinny or Dave Snider.

Magrunner: Dark Pulse: I have a soft spot for this Portal-wannabe after playing it for a feature a little while ago, because it has such a great slow burn of a sci-fi Lovecraftian plot that builds up to pure insanity (like most Lovecraftian plots, come to think of it). The first-person traversal puzzles are fun, and I'd like to see someone breeze past them by exploiting the magnet mechanics in weird ways, but I also just want to see the reactions of those who have yet to play it or watch an LP. It goes some places...

Probably says something when your four-armed mutant guardian is one of the less unusual sights in the game.
Probably says something when your four-armed mutant guardian is one of the less unusual sights in the game.

Bubble Ghost: I revisited what I imagine will be the Game Boy version of Infogrames's Bubble Ghost (it's in the Game Boy block near the end of the event, the one that Ultraman Ball is also in) recently for a retrospective focusing on the games Hitoshi Sakimoto worked on as a composer. It's also one of my favorite Game Boy games too - a puzzle game full of devious tricks and traps that is perfectly suited for the compact portable. I hope this speedrun introduces more people to it, and I'd really like to see the late game as someone who has never good enough at the game to complete it.

Man, is that little ghost cute. Don't make him mad by bursting his bubble!
Man, is that little ghost cute. Don't make him mad by bursting his bubble!

Super Mario Maker: So there's a few reasons why the Super Mario Maker is a "can't miss" event for any GDQ. The first is that the levels selected, usually from PangaeaPanga's library of insane courses, are so difficult that it's incredible anyone can make their way through them let alone do so quickly. The second is that there's always a blind element to these races - a few stages that the runners have never seen before, and have to adjust on the fly using their prodigious Mario skills. Such stages are still filled with vindictive traps that would make Dan Ryckert flinch, and the best part is that Rising YouTube Star and Ziff-Davis employee Patrick Klepek then tries to play through them all himself for his morning show.

Utter madness, every year. Can't wait.
Utter madness, every year. Can't wait.

Pepsiman: One of those games that has to be seen to be believed, the Japanese PS1 endless runner Pepsiman is filled with nonsense details befitting an advergame from the 90s where advertising was still in its "confuse the hell out of the viewers with a surreal commercial and they won't forget the product's name" phase. Bookended by FMV of a genial if slovenly American extolling the virtues of carbonated soda, the blue-and-white running hero Pepsiman ends up in all sorts of adventures attempting to deliver ice cold Pepsi to vending machines around the world as quickly as possible.

Pepsiman is real and he is your friend.
Pepsiman is real and he is your friend.

Final Fantasy Adventure: There's a few of the usual culprits towards the very end of the event, Super Mario RPG and Super Metroid among them, but I'm eager to see someone make their way through Final Fantsy Adventure, also known as Seiken Densetsu 1 or (by hardly anyone) as Secret of Mana 0. The first game in the Mana franchise is full of twists and turns and unexpected danger, and is one of the original Game Boy's great RPG classics. Bolstering its action-RPG exploration with elements borrowed from Nintendo's Zelda series doesn't hurt either. It'd be great to relive that game again, even if a figurative fast-forward button is held down the whole time.

Totally normal Game Boy RPG.
Totally normal Game Boy RPG.

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Sunday Summaries 26/06/2016: Dreamfall Chapters & Tales of Xillia

Well, this is it. The last Sunday Summaries for the first half of 2016. I'm just going to indulge in some broader recollection; a Sunday Summary but for the past six months, in so many words. Obviously, I'm not going to talk about general news and politics, because both have been depressing/scary as hell of late. Instead, I'm going to specifically consider the past six months of game releases and Giant Bomb content:

Thumbs up for all the shit I've yet to play.
Thumbs up for all the shit I've yet to play.

Game-wise it's been a surprisingly packed six months. The Beastcast brought up the fact that this has been a year where the "AAA" side of the industry has been stepping up, along with the always busy Indie segment, and we've had a parade of mostly well-received big releases - Uncharted 4, Doom, Dark Souls III, The Division, Ratchet & Clank, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Hitman and Overwatch - as well as some promising Nintendo stuff like Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, Bravely Second: End Layer and Final Fantasy Explorers. Then we have the deluge of Indies, and as always I've managed to bolt on another twenty games to a growing Steam/PSN wishlist: Stardew Valley (I own this now! Can't wait to get stuck in), The Witness (which I also own, but... well, I don't imagine I'll get it running smoothly any time soon), Darkest Dungeon, The Banner Saga 2, Hyper Light Drifter, Firewatch, Jotun, Superhot, Lumo, Salt and Sanctuary, Enter the Gungeon and Ultimate Chicken Horse to name but a few I'm personally interested in.

I'd make a
I'd make a "don't count your chickens" observation about the list of upcoming games on the right, but that would just make me want to play Stardew sooner.

Perhaps more vitally, there's still a lot on the near horizon (as it were) to be excited for. I'm sure I'm not alone in desperately wanting to get my hands on Persona 5, No Man's Sky, Dishonored 2, I Am Setsuna, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Mass Effect: Andromeda, NieR: Automata and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. On a personal note, I'm also both gratified and somewhat overwhelmed by the number of RPGs - both J and C - that are getting released this year. I'm unsure where I'll find the time to play even half of them. Then again, it's not like I'm particularly current with my gaming these days - in these past six months, I've only played one 2016 release, and that was the last chapter of a mostly 2014/2015 episodic adventure game and barely counts. Apologies for sparking off any backlog-related anxiety about all the great releases so far this year, incidentally, though I'm sure it's a net positive to consider all the wonderful games you've yet to play.

"Dope" and "What's really good?" won't be leaving the GB lexicon any time soon.

As for Giant Bomb itself, we're all of course saddened by the departure of Austin "Professa Killah" Walker, who received an opportunity few would turn down in his position. Giant Bomb is routinely and paradoxically considered one of the most intelligent and insightful homes of video game discussion as much as it is known for any number of incredibly dumb tangents, features and notions, and Austin was of a rare breed that was willing to contribute to both those aspects of the site's personality. He raised the level of discourse on the site between his own contributions and those of the talented freelancers he recruited, but also threw himself into every silly little digression Vinny set up on the Beastcast. He's left his eventual successor with a difficult hole to fill.

Even with that one exception, however, we can agree that the site's had a great year so far. Maybe not so much in terms of new premium features - though Game Tapes is shaping up to be very promising, and all the extant features like UPF, Mario Party Party and Demo Derby have been fun - but the site was firing on all cylinders for E3, and the Beastcast, though now down a member, has gone from strength to strength. I'm also happy to hear that the guest articles won't leave with Austin; other staff members will step in for a while, until we have a news editor again. I have high hopes for the site in the months to follow.

New Games!

I still don't believe this is a real thing that's coming out.
I still don't believe this is a real thing that's coming out.

I've been gushing for the months to follow, but just this next week alone has a lot of games I'd really like to play in the near future. First and foremost is the unexpected surprise that is a new Zero Escape game, Zero Time Dilemma, soon to be released for Steam, PS Vita and 3DS. The status of that particular series was left in the air after the excellent and weird Virtue's Last Reward failed to do as well as its publishers had hoped, but fan outcry got the third game's production back on track. I've deliberately avoided learning anything about it, up to including the inevitable Quick Look, just because so much of those games hinge on mystery and twists. I don't doubt it'll be as convoluted and strange as its forebears though, and I can't wait to try it out.

If that wasn't enough for 3DS owners, we also have the BOXBOY follow-up BOXBOXBOY. The minimalist, monochrome puzzle-platformer was a surprise hit last year, and this sequel looks to adapt the simple but versatile mechanics of the original in some promising new directions. HAL's had a busy few weeks between that and the recent Kirby: Planet Robobot, and BOXBOXBOY seemed to come out of nowhere. It's a good thing Nintendo didn't stick with their original plan of showing nothing but Zelda coverage this E3, because there's a lot they sneaked under the radar for reasons that escape me. If you produce a couple of consoles and a very limited amount of first- and third-party output for that hardware, wouldn't you be shouting from the rooftops about those games?

Thumbs up... for animes?
Thumbs up... for animes?

Because we can't have just two things, this week also sees the release of: Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, or Star Ocean 5, a JRPG series I bounced out of a few games ago but still have some respect for as an uncommon merging of sci-fi and fantasy; Inside, the new atmospheric platformer from Limbo's Playdead; a new JoJo game to take advantage of all these Roundabout memes, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven; LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I'm still critical about because they've always done the Star Wars movies in trilogies; The Technomancer, the new CRPG from the Mars: War Logs developers Spiders that is also based around a Martian conflict, which hopefully has more potential than their previous project; and the PS4 remake of the Vita Monster Hunter-like God Eater Burst, named God Eater Resurrection, is also out this week. For being smack dab in the middle of the Summer slump, that's a hefty amount of new releases.

Wiki!

Daggerfall's easily one of the runs I'm looking forward to most. I imagine it'll be faster than Vinny and Dave's attempt.
Daggerfall's easily one of the runs I'm looking forward to most. I imagine it'll be faster than Vinny and Dave's attempt.

I want to write something about the Summer Games Done Quick schedule closer to when the event begins next Sunday (July 3rd), as well as the wiki work I've been doing to ensure we have some "completed enough" pages for the purposes of Giant Bomb's partnership with Twitch and how they've opted to integrate our wiki database (i.e. very ambiguously, which makes it fun for the wiki mods when some developer can't get Twitch to accept a wiki page's "complete" status), but I can speak in more general terms about this week's wiki output before that article goes up some time later this week.

Tetris: The Grand Master 3: Terror Instinct - shattering any delusions one might have of being good at Tetris since 2005.
Tetris: The Grand Master 3: Terror Instinct - shattering any delusions one might have of being good at Tetris since 2005.

Because this particular wiki project isn't as in-depth as the console ones, many of which require a lot of screenshots as well as additional research on various Japanese sites, I've been able to whiz through the big list of games that will be featured at this year's SGDQ at a relatively brisk speed. This expediency is largely due to the fact that, as this is something like the fifth or sixth time I've built a wiki project around a Games Done Quick event, a lot of the games featured involve treading some familiar ground. There's always similar "blocks", for instance, for Sonic, Mega Man, Mario, Castlevania, PC FPSes, Tetris: The Grand Master, a handful of recurring JRPGs like Chrono Trigger and FF6 and probably a Pokémon or two. The more pressing concerns, then, are all the new Indie games that have built up speedrunning communities since their recent releases, especially as we see more and more that are explicitly geared towards speedrunning, since that particular play style has really risen in stature with these increasingly elaborate Games Done Quick events. There's also the semi-facetious "Awful Games" block that sees a lot of obscure (and deservedly so) turkeys get their speedrun spotlight by particularly masochistic runners that require some digging up.

Though there's a lot of the usual customers that I can safely skip past, having already given them the discerning eye in previous years, I'd say a third of this list still required some significant work to build them up, or at least clean them up. That's a fairly frequent statistic with these wiki projects, and why I'm usually satisfied that these little detours always help to some extent.

Dreamfall Chapters!

No Caption Provided

Not much to say for this one, since I've already said a mouthful in last week's two enormous 3000+ word rundowns of the last two Books of Dreamfall Chapters here and here. The game doesn't quite reach the emotional peaks of something like Life is Strange, but as the culmination of years of excellent adventure game storytelling from Ragnar Tornquist and his new studio Red Thread Games, it perhaps deserves more attention than it is presently getting. In particular, the last two Books took in a lot of fan criticism of those that came before, reducing the difficulty and ambiguity of its puzzles and focusing more on the characterization and story aspects its fans were there to see. Though Dreamfall Chapters has a whole had some early issues with how much those city-wide puzzles could drag down the pace of the narrative, its finale was able to course-correct and deliver a brilliant (if overly tidy) conclusion for the many fans who had stuck with it to the end.

If you were even a passing fan of The Longest Journey or Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, I'd highly recommend seeing the adventures of those characters through with this final game, now that all five Books are finally out. I might even recommend playing those first two games before you do so, to minimize the number of callbacks and references that might otherwise be lost on you. It's a marathon I hope @vinny considers turning into content, as the site's biggest adventure game fan.

Aw man, this is the last time I'll be able to use this.
Aw man, this is the last time I'll be able to use this.

Tales of Xillia!

No Caption Provided

I'm only a few hours into the Tales of Xillia, but I have so much to discuss. (It's fortunate, then, that I'll probably be playing this for a few more Sunday Summary features.) That's the nature of every entry in Namco Bandai's Tales series - while the plots and characters tend to be full of familiar (almost comfortably so) tropes and archetypes, the gameplay mechanics are always taking on new ideas and experiments, while ensuring that the core real-time combat is as snappy and enjoyable (though also deeply tactical, once you get to grips with its nuances) as it ever was. In that sense, it's not unlike a fighter game - you're largely driven by instinct gleaned from lots of practice, given the speed of the combat, but at the same time you have to consider the weaknesses of your opponent and the most advantageous approach with the many options you have, seizing on opportunities in the split-second when they present themselves.

Because Tales is such a feature-rich series, especially with every subsequent entry adding something new to the formula, I'm actually a little reluctant to get too deep into any one aspect of Tales of Xillia in case it has more in that area - combat, character progression or exploration - left to introduce. I've still got party members left to recruit too, and all the character-specific talents and abilities they bring to the table. I'll broadly go over some of the new features that Xillia has introduced.

The first is the link system, which seems to be the big new thing for Xillia's combat in particular. When in combat, you can link with one of your three other party members, who will then flank the enemy your character is targeting - you do more damage with back-attacks, including a higher crit rate - and provide a special skill that procs more frequently depending on the enemy type. For instance, the wiseacre mercenary Alvin has a "Breaker" move that greatly reduces the defense on enemy types that guard a lot, while the enigmatic swordswoman Milla can "Bind" faster enemies, like birds who fly out of your range, and hold them in place for you to wail on them. Knowing which of your companions is going to be the most useful for the enemies in front of you is key to this system. More vital to consider, though, are the linked artes. Artes are what the game calls special attacks and spells, which require a separate "Technical Points" stat that slowly regenerates after regular attacks, the idea being that you balance out powerful artes and standard attack combos. When you're linked with someone, and the linked arte gauge is sufficiently high (it raises through regular attacks too), you can perform an arte and then immediately follow it up with another arte that you and your linked partner perform together. Not only are these linked artes extremely powerful, but they don't cost any Technical Points to use, and can even offer a sort of "overlimit" mode that allows you to use artes and regular attacks freely with no cooldown or Technical Point expenditure for a brief time.

Linking's a really useful feature, and a good way of ensuring that you can exert some control over one of your AI companions.
Linking's a really useful feature, and a good way of ensuring that you can exert some control over one of your AI companions.

That probably sounds like a big old word salad to those not accustomed to Tales and its combat, but it's actually very intuitive. You'll face plenty of battles with which to practice - enemies are visible on the overworld, so there's no random encounters, but every area is still teeming with hostiles - and Tales' features have a history of being easier to demonstrate than they are to explain. You also have the usual mix of combat features like exploiting elemental weaknesses, flanking enemies, character-specific abilities like protagonist Jude's ability to back-step away from an enemy's attack only to suddenly appear behind that enemy, combos and air juggles and the effects of curative items and meals, the latter of which is applied before combat and provides a benefit (like an XP boost) that lasts for a set number of battles.

Xillia's other distinctive feature, though perhaps only within Tales itself, is the Lilium Orb. As with Final Fantasy X's giant game of Chinese Checkers that is its Sphere Grid or Final Fantasy XIII's floating crystalline flowcharts, the Lilium Orb provides a grid of nodes that the player can activate once they earn the necessary building points after leveling up. This grid looks like a giant hexagonal web, and the goal is to activate the nodes that surround each square in the grid, which in turn unlocks a new skill or arte for that character to use. The nodes in between tend to improve certain stats, giving the player some freedom in prioritizing the level-up bonuses they need most for that particular character. For instance, a melee-focused character can focus on HP, Physical Strength, Physical/Magical Defense and Speed, as well as techniques like special guards, lengthier combo chains for regular attacks, health recovery after kills and extended back-steps. The player needs to activate a certain number of nodes on the outside layer before more is revealed, and the web-like grid expands ever outward. It's a streamlined version of FFX's Sphere Grid, intelligently so, though it doesn't offer the same versatile crossover opportunities as everyone's Lilium Orb is independent from the other characters'.

Thank the Wiki Gods that we had a picture of the Lilium Orb system I could use for demonstration purposes.
Thank the Wiki Gods that we had a picture of the Lilium Orb system I could use for demonstration purposes.

Since I brought up the trifecta of combat, character development and exploration before starting, I'll mention Xillia's new approach to the final third of those before signing off for this Sunday. The game has no overworld map - rather, it breaks up its towns and settlements with any number of explorable zones in a manner similar to, say, Final Fantasy XII or Xenoblade Chronicles. Each of these zones is packed with enemies, but also a lot of gathering spots and treasure chests. The treasure chests, once opened, stay opened forever, though the gathering spots have a set percentage to refresh their contents every time you leave the area and come back. The vast majority of the pick-ups from these gathering spots are materials, which the player can either sell or invest in stores. Investing in stores increases the inventory for every shop of that type in the game, and the best way to acquire better weapons, armor, accessories and healing items is to keep investing in stores and increasing their levels. In addition, items that are already unlocked become deeply discounted, which means there's never a bad reason to dump everything you've found in expanding the store types. The game offers an extra expansion bonus for certain material types, but these change all the time - if your armor shop level is lagging behind and you don't have the bonus material type to improve it, you can come back a little later and find that it's switched to a different type. Again, a little out of the ordinary, but a great way of giving the player more agency in how and when new equipment becomes available. It seems like the type of game that the player can make easier on themselves if they're willing to do a little extra grinding and farming.

Anyway, I'll have more to say on Tales of Xillia on the weeks to come. Naturally, as soon as I beat this game Tales of Berseria will have already come out in Japan, thereby ensuring that I'm making zero progress catching up with this immense RPG series. Then again, it's perhaps for the best that I'll always have a new Tales game to look forward to if the release schedule happens to be a bit sluggish that month.

Until next time... keep it dope, Giant Bomb. And thanks, Austin.
Until next time... keep it dope, Giant Bomb. And thanks, Austin.

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Snooze Button: Dreamfall Chapters: Book 5: Redux

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If I had to summarize Book 5 of Dreamfall Chapters in two words, rather than the several thousand to follow, it'd be "answers" and "catharsis". Like Book 4, the classic adventure game puzzles take a back seat to delivering a lot of narrative exposition to the proponents of this series who have been aching for it since Dreamfall Chapters first made clear its intent to bring the overarching storyline of Ragnar Tornquist's decades-spanning adventure game series to a satisfactory conclusion. In many ways, the final Book of this episodic resurrection of The Longest Journey has done just that; it reaches a denouement of sorts for all its characters, puts almost all its cards on the table for us to see, settles long-standing mysteries that have been around since April Ryan's adventures way back in 1999's The Longest Journey and ends on a note somehow both final and open-ended, depending on whether we're talking about the characters featured in these games or the TLJ multiverse on a larger scale.

We are getting ahead of ourselves, though. The game spent the last Book, Book 4: Revelations, setting up all its dominoes for the culmination of years of lore, and spent this Book, Redux, knocking them all down in the precise order they were meant to fall. So like before there's not a whole of "gameplay" this time around as a result: no novel twist on the adventure game puzzles we've seen before in earlier Books nor any big surprises beyond those passively delivered by the narrative, which as I stated has pretty much taken the wheel for this final hurrah. This Book was about giving all the TLJ fans out there exactly what they wanted and needed from a finale - one that many of them have waited years to see - and I'd suppose that the developers didn't want to keep them in suspense with any more distracting puzzles to solve. The one case where you had to walk Kian to an unknown part of Marcuria to continue the story was excruciating enough, so based on that it's clear to me why this was Book 5's only and final instance of the kind of puzzle that had dominated the earlier Books.

I'll quickly recap the end of Book 4 to make sure we know where we're at before I start on Book 5. If you're new to this feature, I'd recommend starting with the first three Books that I covered in Day 18, Day 19 and Day 20 of last month's May Mastery feature and the Snooze Button recap of Book 4 that I covered a few days ago (as of writing). Heck, you might even want to check out my mildly disparaging three-part analysis of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey from last year's May Mastery, the game which leads directly into Dreamfall Chapters (albeit with an eight year gap between the two releases).

At the end of Book 4, Zoe had crossed back over into Stark after accepting an aspect of the "First Dreamer" into her soul. Before leaving, she bid farewell to Crow and mentioned something about her destiny as the "Dreamer"; a metaphysical role regarding the multiverse that she was uniquely qualified to fulfill. Crow, on his part, decided to look for Kian Alvane back in Marcuria. With Kian, we had uncovered the mass genocide and experimentation of the magical races on the prison island of Ge'en and had revealed all this to General Hami, the man who raised Kian as an ethical warrior, as the Book concluded. Last, but not least, we saw a teenage Saga leave her house between worlds for possibly the last time to go explore the multiverse via paths only she could find. She clearly had some part yet to play in the struggles on Stark and Arcadia, but what could they be?

Book 5: Redux

(The recap that follows is largely for the benefit of anyone trying to follow the plot, including myself, to help make sense of the events that occur and their significance. That means there's an immense number of spoilers here for passive readers of this blog - not only for Book 5 but for the entire series as a whole. You have been warned! If you just want to know whether or not the game's for you, or the level of quality of this Book in particular, be sure to to skip to "The Bit at the End".)

The Book begins as the last ended, with a shot of Zoe waking up from a coma on a familiar hospital bed. Turns out this room is a facsimile; a virtual representation of Zoe's hospital room from the beginning of the first Book. Her old purple buddy Wonkers was there, but nothing felt right, and it soon became evident why: the memories placed all around her bed in the form of get well soon cards and photographs were partially fabricated. All these keepsakes occurred before she woke up the first time, moved to Propast with Reza and hopped over to Arcadia for the events of the previous Book. They also made up memories to fill that gap: going on vacation with Reza, graduating university, pretending her friend Liv was still alive. By observing these memories closely, the simulation begins to break down and reveals that not only is Zoe in a high-tech observation room similar to the one that held Faith - the mysterious little girl of Dreamfall: TLJ that guided Zoe - but that the room was in a subterranean laboratory run by JIVA: the bioengineering company that belongs to Zoe's absent mother Helena. We also saw that Zoe's gone through some changes too: she's been shaved bald, stuck in a skintight plug suit and covered in various electronic devices for an as yet unclear purpose.

Still going on about the Cheese Soup, huh?
Still going on about the Cheese Soup, huh?

The game then switches back to Alvane at this point. The Book gives us our first decision: what to do with the villainous Sister Alessandra who ran Ge'en and experimented on so many magicals. Since there's no more waiting around for future Books to see our repercussions, it was simply of choice of sending her back home to Sadir for a fair trial - one that would almost certainly be manipulated to protect the Prophet's secrets - or to kill her there, or hand her over to the prisoners for an even worse fate (my choice). Kian and Hami then head back to Marcuria to plan an assault to prevent the activation of the immense calculating Engine, which we now know is instrumental to the Prophet's plans to wipe out all magic in Arcadia. Hami gives a rousing speech to the Resistance about how magic is ingrained in every living creature in Arcadia, and the groups are split into three: Anna and Enu help the defecting engineer Ferdows to take control of the engine room in town, Hami leads the majority of the Resistance against the Azadi forces on the streets as a distraction while Kian infiltrates the Engine's heart within the Azadi tower alone.

Before Kian can find a way into the tower, he comes across Onor Hileriss attempting to incinerate a captured Crow. This is really the game's only major puzzle, and it involves first finding where this pyre is - you essentially wander by while heading through Marcuria's central park - and then figuring out how to save Crow from Onor's imminent ignition of the kindling. The goal is to find a nearby empty flagon, fill it with an explosive wine (I have no idea how the wine merchant didn't notice I switched his dainty wine-tasting thimble with the flagon) and use that on the kindling. Onor goes up in flames, but so does the pyre, and you quickly have to find a pitchfork to open Crow's cage and free him before he starts smelling delicious. The one interesting thing about this puzzle is that it gives you a red herring that's easy to fall for: there's a nearby birdbath you can use to fill up the flagon instead, which can be poured on the kindling to make it too damp to light, but Onor simply lights the pyre directly instead if you do this. You can also drink the flagon of birdbath water, if you want to see Kian curse the stupidity of drinking something with bird poop in it.

Crow still continues to make new friends.
Crow still continues to make new friends.

Crow tells Kian that he knows a way into the Tower: it's through the forgotten underground city beneath The Journeyman Inn that both Zoe and April have passed through at various points, which leads to the eerie Well of Dreams that was filled with blue energy the last time we came by as Zoe. It's this Well that the Engine and the Azadi Tower are tapping into, and is directly powering a means to merge the two worlds together through everyone's dream energy and that of Storytime - the interdimensional primordial source of all reality that Zoe was briefly trapped inside. Kian sneaks to the central level where he meets Roper Klacks - we see in a brief scene that he's working for the Prophet, and is the mastermind of the Azadi Engine. The idea was given to him after his time trapped in April Ryan's calculator: a throwaway joke about a wizard being defeated by science that managed to become a monumentally important plot point. Kian sucker punches Klacks and gets to work sabotaging the Engine by remotely handing controls to Ferdows in the substation after following his directions via the speaking tubes, but before he and Crow can complete a two-person step to fully divert control they are interrupted... by Mother Utana. Kian's teacher tries to talk a confused Kian down, until Crow spills the beans that he's been doing oddjobs for the head of the Azadi Scientific Advancement Whoosit (I neglected to write this down, but it's the division of the Azadi government that Sister Alessandra was working for in creating an anti-magical virus), who happens to be Mother Utana. Utana, realizing that Kian might need more than a little convincing, stabs him in the gut and leaves him to bleed out in front of the Engine. At this point the Prophet appears and breaks Crow's neck, sending the beloved sidekick's corpse falling into the vortex of dream energy. So far, this sabotage mission isn't going so well.

Zoe's not faring that much better. The facility she's in is being raided by WATI soldiers; it appears WATI and JIVA aren't on speaking terms right now. Avoiding the exosuit guards, she discovers that she was fabricated in a laboratory - like Faith, and Hanna - to become someone who could tap into the dreaming world for its reality-changing powers. As her latent powers didn't manifest as a baby, she was to be cast aside by Helena until Gabriel gave up his stake in the project to raise her as his own daughter. Through Zoe, Helena intends to change the reality of Stark via Storytime for the better, eliminating death and disease and ensuring science and logic become the guiding principles of humanity. Helena explains this to Zoe herself, after she releases a gas that knocks out everyone in the facility - including Zoe's father Gabriel, who has been helping Helena for Zoe's sake - and placing Zoe inside a pod so that her supercomputer Eingana can use an unconscious Zoe's power to shape reality automatically to a pre-defined blueprint. What we also learn? Zoe has been in this Mumbai lab since Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and the version we've been playing as this whole time is a perfect physical double that she used her dream powers to create. Helena's also been working with the Prophet all along, though she doesn't know the full extent of the Prophet's scheming, and tricked WATICorp into giving her the resources she needs for her supercomputer Eingana by producing for them the Dreamachine. WATI's been using the Dreamachines to brainwash everyone for profit, though Helena's true purpose for the device was to funnel everyone's dream energy to where she (and the Prophet) could use it. Helena, to her credit, has also been looking out for Zoe's safety - the enigmatic German agent Falk who saves Zoe's life was under her orders to protect her from WATI.

One of the oddest decisions of the game is to not show this guy until now. I mean, we're going to know who he is in thirty minutes if we didn't already, so why bother masking him?
One of the oddest decisions of the game is to not show this guy until now. I mean, we're going to know who he is in thirty minutes if we didn't already, so why bother masking him?

At this point, the game starts getting even more convoluted. Zoe wakes up in a spectral realm similar to Storytime, where she meets a non-plussed Crow. Crow's there to provide a guided tour through the memories of the Prophet, whom he managed to peck and taste his blood before the Prophet killed him. To no surprise to anyone, the Prophet is none other than Brian Westhouse, who was taken over by the Undreaming (the force of negation attempting to destroy all worlds) after his trip through the portal at the monastery, which we saw as the epilogue to Dreamfall: TLJ. Since then, Brian's been seeking a way home and drowning out the Undreaming and its own plans for destroying the world, and Brian determines that the best way to get back to Stark is to unite Arcadia and Stark into one world. To do THAT, he needs to eliminate all magic in Arcadia to better facilitate the merging of the two, hence the dream energies and the various plans to genocide the magical races. Using the scientifically-minded Azadi as his pawns, he's been running the show for decades. Before Zoe can wake back up, she bumps into the phantom of April Ryan. April and Crow then depart into the shadows on a poignant note, beginning their longest journey together.

We then switch back to Saga. Saga's much older now, a young woman, and well-versed in multi-planar travel. She's returned to the now abandoned house between worlds to collect some items required for a "prophecy" she has to fulfill. These include a spatula, a length of rope and an elixir of extended life, which the player needs to concoct by finding even more objects inside the house. Once done, she shifts to the innards of the Azadi engine, uses the objects she has to make her way through the gears, down onto the platform where Kian is dying and revive him with the elixir. Saga's fairly passive through all this - because she knows what is and what will be, she's passively dancing to the unseen puppetstrings to the mild bewilderment of everyone around her. After giving Kian precise instructions on how to stop Westhouse, her next step is to open a portal between Stark and Arcadia to assist Ferdows (who sneaked into the tower with Anna after Kian stopped responding to them via the speaking tubes) and Zoe (who managed to escape by manifesting her dream powers again, since the Eingana is weakening the veil between the dream world and reality) in communicating with each other to shut down the Azadi Engine. Meanwhile, Kian has climbed to where the Prophet/Westhouse is absorbing the dream energy for the culmination of his plan, and dispatches the nearby Klacks with the Silver Spear Westhouse used to kill the White Dragon in the previous game. Filled with eldritch magics, the Silver Spear destroys the soul-stone that Westhouse had placed inside Klacks for safekeeping, and with it unleashes the trapped Undreaming back into Westhouse, who is seemingly disintegrated by the vast amount of dream energy.

Saga's all grown up! And has... a pair of Koss Porta Pros?
Saga's all grown up! And has... a pair of Koss Porta Pros?

While this is happening, some loose ends are getting tied up outside the tower's core. Hami falls in honorable battle, his forces overwhelmed by Commander Vamon's. Once it becomes clear that the Resistance is winning and there is no way to excuse the immense magical energies radiating from the Azadi tower, Vamon pushes Sister Sahya off the balcony of her office, determined to let her take the fall (as it were) for their scheming. Vamon himself is cornered at the pier by the vengeful Resistance and Azadi, though its Anna who spills the first blood by avenging what Vamon did to her back when they and Kian were all street urchins in Sahir. Mother Utana appears to escape after gloating over Kian's collapsed form, claiming that she'll continue the work the Prophet started in eliminating the magicals back in their homeland of Azadir. Westhouse rematerializes in Stark, getting the drop on Helena and Gabriel. Zoe uses all her Dreamer power to halt Westhouse, allowing the Lux inside her and the Nox inside Westhouse to combine and neutralize each other.

After this, we get a series of mini-epilogues, followed by a semi-major one that concludes the game. Zoe wakes up in her Casablanca hospital room again, though now Gabriel is there and promises to tell her everything. Helena and Westhouse vanished after Zoe used her dream powers and collapsed, and an injured Gabriel managed to take her out of the facility and back home to Casablanca. We also find out that Reza had been brainwashed by WATI this whole time to keep tabs on Zoe, that Sully finally managed to publish the tell-all on WATI that has fully incriminated them, and that WATI, EYE and the corrupt politicians of Propast are all being investigated by whatever amounts to a global peacekeeping force on Stark. Reza then appears, looking fairly sheepish, and Zoe beams as he walks in. Kian says his goodbyes to the Resistance: Shepard is returning to what's left of her deer-people, but she's left the Resistance in the capable hands of Enu. Na'ane decides to accompany Kian back to Sahir, as Kian intends to root out the corruption still remaining in the Azadi capital. He's also being joined by Saga: Saga determines that her place is by Kian's side for as long as his struggle continues, and also suggests that Kian adopt her for the sake of convenience as a nameless woman won't get far in Azadi soceity. Thus, she becomes Lady Alvane. A confused Kian concedes, but demands more answers about who and what Saga is and how she knew when to save him while they head back to Sahir, or she's getting thrown overboard.

We then move five years into the future. Zoe has settled in her hometown of Casablanca, and is relaxing on a sofa with a book and Wonkers, looking visibly pregnant. Kian has managed to unite the entire Azadi nation under his leadership, beginning his legendary reign as the Bloodless King. Standing by his side is the magical Na'ane and the shifter Saga, as well as a very young crow sitting on Saga's shoulder...

I have to wonder who would've been on Kian's right had the circumstances been different. Likho? Enu?
I have to wonder who would've been on Kian's right had the circumstances been different. Likho? Enu?

We then move several unknown decades into the future, as an elderly Saga prepares to light the fireplace for her guest. The player can opt to look at the various keepsakes littering the living room of the house between worlds - many reflect Saga's life of adventures through the multiverse, her reflections on her departed parents and the Draic Kin she knew (including Queenie, who was actually the dragon Rose), and the last two portraits tell of what happened to Kian and Zoe (spoiler: they lived long and prosperous lives). Before she can sit down, an elderly Crow taps on the window and wants in. Saga tells her that he cannot be around when she receives her guest, because it would "raise too many questions" and beckons him to sit upstairs for a while. Finally settling down, she welcomes her guest to her hearth: a bewildered April Ryan from The Longest Journey, who meets Lady Alvane mid-way through that game, thus tying up the last loose end. Roll credits.

"Well, you took your sweet time."

The Bit at the End

Naturally, that was a hell of a lot of plot exposition, but that's what this final Book needed to be in the end. It wouldn't do to leave the viewers with too many questions regarding their favorite characters and outstanding plot details without sitting them down in a motorized rollercoaster car, lowering the safety bar and letting them see it all unfold from a place of limited interaction. While I'm generally of the sort who might place engaging game mechanics above story, even in adventure games, that perspective is usually based on the unfortunate fact that video game narratives aren't generally all that great. I can enjoy a standard video game tale if it's on the periphery of whatever interaction is involved, but I can't really name a single video game story I'd be inclined to sit down and read if it happened to be a book. The Longest Journey, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Dreamfall Chapters might be the exception to that, so I'm actually fairly pleased with where Book 5's priorities were at with this final leg of Zoe Castillo's, Kian Alvane's and April Ryan's journey.

The big questions one always asks with any episodic adventure game that puts story and narrative above all else: Was it worth the months-long waits between the release of each episode? Was the final product cohesive enough despite being split into several mostly self-contained episodes? Sometimes these games start strong and end comparatively weakly (e.g. Life is Strange) or hit rough patches somewhere in the middle (what I hear is the case with The Wolf Among Us, something I intend to confirm firsthand eventually), but I can say that Dreamfall Chapters is a case of where the game starts slow and builds up to the sort of finale that anyone could conceivably want. It took a while to get there, not to mention a few confusing puzzles that involved marching from one corner of Marcuria (or Propast) to the other, but got there it did.

I'd be far more inclined to recommend Dreamfall Chapters as it is now, fully complete, than I would've been a month ago when I had only played through the first three Books. I will say to the people skimming through this, though, that you owe it to yourselves to play through The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey beforehand. Dreamfall Chapters is, first and foremost, a fan-crowdsourced project to conclude a story that has been going on for decades, and its core directive was to reward those fans for their generosity and their patience. Coming into Dreamfall Chapters entirely fresh isn't recommended, as you'll miss a lot of the finer details of the complex-enough plot and what little you will be able to follow probably won't be enough to keep you invested in playing the later Books, especially after a few of those oblique early puzzles. All I can say is that, for all the mysteries these games have raised over the years, this final Book does its very best in answering them all, providing a cathartic and eventful conclusion to a great story along the way.

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Snooze Button: Dreamfall Chapters: Book 4: Revelations

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Hey all. You might, or probably might not, recall that after completing the first three Books of Red Thread Games' episodic adventure game Dreamfall Chapters - a continuation of Ragnar Tornquist's true-to-its-name The Longest Journey series - that I opted to take a breather on playing and reviewing Book 4 until the release of Book 5, that I might seamlessly move from one to the next and not be left hanging in suspense too long. Well, my friends, shortly after E3 was over Book 5: Redux has indeed come out - it was released last Friday on the 17th of June. Dreamfall Chapters is now "complete", though I've yet to discover if the same is true for Zoe Castillo's story and that of the twin worlds of Stark and Arcadia, and that means it's due time I finished off the series I began in the midst of this year's May Mastery feature last month. For the sake of additional convenience, that would be Day 18, Day 19 and Day 20 of May's marathon blogging.

My recapping "style" thus far has been one borne of expediency, as a daily blog series is no place for patient, deliberate rumination and the exploration of themes, characters and symbolism. I'm half-tempted to summarize the entire trilogy of games in order to fill the gaps, let alone just the first three Books of this episodic series, but I think that'd probably be too much pre-amble. This game isn't going to make a lot of sense to those who aren't already familiar with the first two games anyway, which are still readily available (and highly recommended!) on Steam and GOG. For the time being, I'm going to continue as I've done before, focusing on the decisions I made and the handful of puzzles and gameplay sequences that each Book contains. The former would be more of interest to someone who has already played the game and perhaps chosen differently, and the latter is generally what I'm most invested in as a fan of these adventure games. I'll probably embellish the retelling with a few footnotes here and there on specific characters too - there are some that have risen to prominence in Book 4 (and presumably Book 5) that were either sidelined or briefly mentioned before now, and understanding where they came from is vital to understanding their present role. For instance, I've spoken very little of the Venar mage Abnaxus - until now he's simply been a cryptic hint provider for Zoe, but Book 4 will explore his background and importance to the plot in far more detail.

My apologies to Red Thread Games and you guys for the low-quality screenshots. I had to hobble the graphical settings to get a decent framerate out of the thing.
My apologies to Red Thread Games and you guys for the low-quality screenshots. I had to hobble the graphical settings to get a decent framerate out of the thing.

Before we begin, in lieu of a more detailed recap here's a very quick situation report: Zoe has managed to shift herself body and soul to the world of Arcadia, a power heretofore inaccessible to her and used only by April Ryan and the "Draic Kin" (the nigh-omniscient Dragons) before now, and was quickly apprehended by the Marcurian Resistance after tracking down their base with the help of the irascible but lovable Crow. In the meantime, former Azadi Apostle Kian Alvane has sneaked on board an Azari cloudship to the prison island Ge'en where the Azadi have been deporting all the fantastical races, or "magicals", from all over Azadi-occupied Arcadia. He's explicitly there to save one magical in particular - the street orphan Bip, who he befriended in an earlier Book and whom has been a helpful companion during a few of his missions for the Resistance. He opted not to take along the vengeful Dolmari warrior Likho, who returned to the Resistance HQ even angrier with Kian than before. Meanwhile, in a house between worlds, a little girl named Saga is slowly beginning to understand her powers...

(Other significant characters: Shepard, wise leader of the Resistance; Enu, a chatty Zhidling rogue working for the Resistance; Jakai, a Resistance scholar and the nephew of Benrime, the kindly innkeeper from the previous games; "General" Blind Bob, a beggar Zoe once befriended who became head of logistics for the Resistance; Na'ane, a healer for the Resistance that betrayed April Ryan who Kian can choose to incriminate; Ulvic, the innkeeper of the "Rooster and Kitten" and Resistance sympathizer; Onor Hilariss, a slimy bigoted demagogue attempting to gain political power in Marcuria; Abnaxus, the Venar mage who sent Zoe a message in her dream, prompting her to return to Arcadia; Lux, the First Dreamer, whose dream created reality as we know it.)

Book 4: Revelations

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The Book begins with Crow and Zoe immediately returning to and fixing the contrivance that was keeping Zoe in a containment cell so she wouldn't bump into Kian as he left to go on his mission. I assumed it was like a Time Cop thing where the two protagonists couldn't meet at the same time, because they couldn't both be playable, and they'd implode into a CGI Ron Silver paradox blob. With Crow vouching for her, who the Resistance all know as the close friend of former leader April Ryan, Zoe convinces the rest that she was also friends with Ryan shortly before her passing at the end of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. She introduces herself to the Resistance, including the instantly smitten Enu, before borrowing a key from Blind Bob to Abnaxus's house in the middle of Marcuria. We also get the first big decision of the Book here: Jakai can be observed doing something suspicious in Kian's room. Zoe can continue to observe (what I did) or she can interrupt him, but nothing really comes of the scene.

Upon reaching Abnaxus's abode, we have the first of four puzzles in the game. Onor Hileriss, who sees Abnaxus's quaint fairytale house/tree as an affront to all that is human and rational, has a pair of goons with him to chop it down. The axes bounce off the magical energy protecting the house, but we're kind of on the clock here. What results is an odd puzzle where you essentially control two things: directing Crow to stand on parts of the scenery or attack Onor directly using an arrow prompt, or tell Onor where Crow is hiding so he sends one of his goons there via the same arrow prompt. It's one of those trial and error puzzles that can be mitigated with some forward thinking (for instance, how many locations can be targeted with both arrow prompts?) but it also means not having to mess around with inventory items - you can't even leave the small area around Abnaxus's house, so the developers have clearly taken to heart complaints about the amount of unnecessary walking between hotspots in earlier Books. Something predictable occurs, the group leaves and Zoe sneaks into Abnaxus's house.

Blind Bob's excuse for why
Blind Bob's excuse for why "Purple Mountains" sound like "Turtle Mountains" to him. Maybe he should talk to that Plane'arium guy from South Park.

Here, though, we meet Brian Westhouse for the first time in Dreamfall Chapters, I believe. Brian was a recurring character in the previous two games; as the only other Stark resident in Arcadia besides April Ryan, he helps April out a few times with the customs and lore he's gathered since entering Arcadia. A university scholar both in Stark and Arcadia, he has spent most of his time in either world studying various mystical secrets and legends. We also know from the prior game that, at some point, Brian was possessed by a malevolent spirit; however, this is player-derived knowledge only, as it occurs after a cutscene lingers on him too long after Zoe has departed. When it comes time for a series of decisions regarding how much you trust Brian - letting him know how you got in (the key), why you're there (to find out where Abnaxus and the Purple Mountains are from the vision) and allowing Brian to stay behind and continue researching after you leave the house - are all contingent on whether the player approaches the game on a meta level than choosing what seems like a sensible choice for Zoe. Zoe only knows Brian as an eccentric but friendly old companion of April Ryan's who she traveled with briefly in Dreamfall: TLJ; she has no specific reason to distrust him beyond her own intuition. Meanwhile, players who have started with Dreamfall Chapters (which seems odd, but OK) won't know who Brian is beyond the game's one opportunity to pretend Zoe's amnesia wiped memories of him too - leading to a reintroduction - and so that player won't know about Brian's ominous little companion. Being vague with your responses and kicking him out of the house once your business is done seems unnecessarily dickish, though it has been made clear to the player in the past that Brian Westhouse is a very dangerous individual who shouldn't be trusted or told anything vital whatsoever. I've never seen a decision that hinges so much on "outside knowledge" in a game like this, as most if not all rely on the player's ignorance of what will happen as a consequence of their choice, which is why there's often an even number of players who chose either of the divergent paths.

Having gleaned the location of the Purple Mountains from Abnaxus's study, Zoe realizes that she'll also need a "soul-stone" McGuffin to restore Lux's health. To do this, she goes to the last known owner: the warlock Roper Knacks, who was last seen in Dreamfall: TLJ as a "reformed" wizard in Marcuria's square hocking tell-all memoirs and now putting on fingerpuppet plays of his run-in with the hated April Ryan, who at this time in general Marcurian society has been posthumously branded as a villain that once led the Resistance until the heroic Azadi cut her down. Knacks isn't all that reformed, we learn from some of the least convincing sotto voce comments he makes about April, but is just laying low as a showman for reasons that become slightly more evident later. For now, he gives Zoe the knowledge that the soul-stone he once had now belongs to a creature known only as "Yaga", who resides in Riverwood forest. He promises to tell Zoe more after the show, but is dragged away by Vamon during the play as Onor Hileriss (who might as well be called Boo Hiss and the villain of a morally black-and-white children's performance himself) insists that the play is "teaching children about magic".

The game decides to go blue, briefly, while talking to old Roper Klacks.
The game decides to go blue, briefly, while talking to old Roper Klacks.

After this, Zoe and Crow manage to find one of the elgwan beasts to head out of the city, first to Riverwood for Yaga's soul-stone and onwards to the Purple Mountains where Abnaxus and Lux are to be found. The game has some fun here, suggesting a whole mess of misadventures and additional illogical puzzle solutions occurred off-screen to acquire the beast and leave the city in one piece. The game only just previously had Zoe mention in her head that she'll "never ride one of those things" after observing a picture of an elgwan, so the game's being as cute as an 80s sitcom right now. What follows next is a blast from the past for fans of the original game: Zoe heads to the same part of Riverwood forest that April did, meeting the mole-person Ben-Bandu along the way and visiting the abode of the Gribbler witch that April defeated. The Yaga sequence is genuinely great: Upon visiting the Gribbler's old house in a spooky part of the forest where the dreamworld and reality are clashing, the house suddenly rears up to resemble an enormous serpentine head. The player can then call upon Zoe's handful of dream powers in this space between worlds - stopping time, reading minds and telekinesis, all gained at the start of Book 1 but dormant until now - to get into the void at the center of the Yaga's head. It's in here we meet the entity collectively known as Baba Yaga, or the Nox; a primeval entity of unimaginable power that acts as the universal nightmare to Lux's universal dream - the game's emphasis on balance puts her as a necessary evil that has existed in the darkness for far longer than there has been a reality to fill said void. Baba Yaga is depicted as three female entities - a child, a maiden and a crone, a familiar arrangement in female neo-paganistic deities - who decide to help Zoe, but only after Zoe has fed them some of her negative memories. This is where the game has some fun with the bad decisions the player may have made as Zoe, either wittingly or inadvertently. For instance, the only "bad" memory I had on hand to feed the trio was the memory of running away from Nela, Zoe's Communist food-trolley vendor friend, instead of towards her as she approached the EYE building to suicide bomb it. I'm sure other the other bad decisions you could make as Zoe would've appeared here as alternate options, though I'm curious if the game would've let me continue without any bad decisions to feed to the Yaga.

The Yaga relents to giving up the soul-stone (her only food source), despite several threats of eating Zoe and telling her that she is the one being that would survive if Lux were to suddenly stop dreaming and thus doesn't really give a shit. Turns out the Yaga only has power when there are people around to fear and respect her, and if not her then the darkness and evil in general. Zoe leaves with the soul-stone and meets the Mole as she is escaping from Marcuria; the Mole offers Zoe her fast steed to reach the Purple Mountains and some better directions than we got from Abnaxus's library, amazed that she was able to meet the Yaga and walk away relatively whole. The two Bandu then leave the area and also presumably the game, opting to move East to look for other Bandu survivors. Zoe then travels to the Purple Mountains - there's another "wow, that was some crazy stuff that just happened" joke after Zoe and Crow reach the Oular village where Abnaxus and Lux are waiting - and a one-sided conversation happens between Zoe and Lux in the dream world that convinces Zoe of her destiny. Lux vanishes from his/her place on the Oular altar and Zoe shifts back through to Stark after saying goodbye to Crow for the last time. Naturally, this last hour or so didn't have much in the way of puzzles whatsoever, but the game needs to get through a lot of plot that it's built up over the last few Books (and prior games) so I can forgive a larger focus on the narrative for now, especially when it's this elaborate.

I loved this whole sequence. The Baba Yaga is so damn unnerving. It was like having a polite chat with a Dark Souls boss.
I loved this whole sequence. The Baba Yaga is so damn unnerving. It was like having a polite chat with a Dark Souls boss.

At some point during all this, we also have our brief time with Kian Alvane for this Book. Last seen boarding a cloudship to the prison island of Ge'en, the first puzzle is finding a way up the cliffs around the prison camp, and then onto the citadel watchtower and then finally into the Administrator's office for some answers and Bip's location. What's really fun here, and I'm sure the game is hoping more than a few people pick up on it without spelling it out to them, is that the island is littered with effigies to an unnamed "Necromancer King" who ruled the island a millennium ago. One of these effigies is a 100ft tall statue on the beach. Every effigy is also lacking its head; however, you can poke around the beach to quickly find the head of the statue, and it's a spitting image of Roper Klacks himself. I really like that they took this character - a minor villain in the first game, a joke cameo in the second, and a slightly sinister presence in the Zoe cutscenes just previously - and brought him back to create even more mysteries surrounding him. All we know at this point is that before he was defeated by April Ryan, Roper Klacks was beholden to the Yaga for his power, like every evil, weak-willed magical being that the Yaga could corrupt, but there's clearly no telling just how old or powerful Klacks truly is.

When Kian finally meets the Administrator after what I'll graciously called the most gameplay-intensive sequence in this Book (though fortunately one without any stealth), she's revealed to be a mad scientist that has been creating a virus to wipe out every magical person, creature, insect and plant while leaving humans alive. She does this at the behest of the "Prophet" - a mysterious character who has been mentioned a few times as having the ears of the Azadi council leaders - and her newest victim that she's hacking away at when Kian finds her is none other than Bip. The game leaves Bip's fate fairly ambiguous here; Kian acts like he could still be saved, though the Administrator (who goes unnamed for this whole sequence) is splashed in blood. General Rami happens to walk in at that point, and Kian has to think fast to dispatch the gun-toting Administrator in time before he or his mentor is fatally shot. We then leave Kian trying to explain the amount of mass slaughter and amoral experimentation happening at Ge'en to his former superior officer as his part of Book 4 ends.

Saga's blue hair: a trait from her green mother, or a trait of being a bored teenager who is permanently grounded?
Saga's blue hair: a trait from her green mother, or a trait of being a bored teenager who is permanently grounded?

Two other things occur during this Book, neither of which is seen by the major characters but the players are given the scoop for the sake of drama. The first is the attack on the Resistance HQ, which claims the lives of Likho (I imagine he might've survived if I'd taken him with Kian, but who needs grumpyguts around cramping my style?), Blind Bob and Jakai - who turns out to have been the mole all along, and gets murdered by Vamon for his trouble. Enu survives, but only because I spared Na'ane, and Shepard is mysteriously fine too. It seems as if the entire rest of the Resistance was wiped out in this attack, which begins and ends sorta quickly and anticlimactically. The other thing that occurs is the third Intermission: we once again visit a now-teenaged Saga and help her escape the inter-dimensional house she has spent her life in, breaking down wards that block her power with memories in another annoying mini-game that every Intermission has had so far, and seeing her depart in a flash of light as she becomes the (other) Girl Who Walked Between Worlds. It also becomes more evident before this final Intermission that Saga has something to do with both the White Dragon and April Ryan, possibly being a reincarnation of the two mixed together. I guess that'll be explained in the final Book... Hell, I'm sure a lot of things will be.

Overall, Book 4 suffers a little from having to fast-forward its plot to the point where Book 5 can wrap everything up, dropping most of the plot-interrupting adventure game puzzles in the process (but cheekily alluding to them all the same), but the part I was dreading most - that this Book more than any other would end on an anxiety-inducing cliffhanger only to be resolved months later - didn't come to pass. Kian's getting through to the honorable Rami and has enough evidence to bring Arcadia's antagonists Sister Sahya and Vamon down, Zoe's now resolute in her purpose... though the player has yet to find out what her role is, specifically, besides that it probably involves going back to Stark, and Saga has now departed her home and can explore the nexus of worlds at her leisure. I've yet to figure out how time works for Saga - both April and the White Dragon died less than a year ago in the game's timeline, at the end of Dreamfall: TLJ, so either her location in a realm between realms allowed the game to fast-forward through her formative years, or she grows very quickly as a Dragon Kin, or her connection to those two isn't quite what I thought it was. For now though, it seems we have some mysteries afoot.

36.1% figured it was OK to tell the most evil creature in Arcadia what they were doing and where they were going. Cool.
36.1% figured it was OK to tell the most evil creature in Arcadia what they were doing and where they were going. Cool.

Should I start predicting things for the final Book? OK, let's have at it (possible spoilers for Book 5):

  • There's two "nemeses" to confront, one for each world, that are working together to perpetuate the dream-machine plot to destroy reality. It's possibly a single "Undreaming" being possessing the two of them - a darkness that is described as being one of total negation, rather than Yaga's darkness which is there for balance. For Arcadia, it seems fairly obvious that this person is the Azadi's mysterious Prophet, who I imagine is also Brian Westhouse. The trickier side of the coin is the Stark equivalent: There's the CEO of WATICorp as an obvious culprit, as she was the creator and propagator of the dream-machines, but we haven't heard anything from her since Dreamfall: TLJ. It's also possible that the culprit is Zoe's duplicitous mother, Dr. Helena Chang, who was the one who put Zoe in a coma and is still working for WATICorp in some capacity. That makes more sense from a dramatic standpoint, given that Dreamfall Chapters has at least brought her up a few times in passing to explain Zoe's delicate mental state and feelings of abandonment back in Book 1. I guess we also can't overlook the "imposter" Reza that Coma Zoe could tell was a fake, though I still don't know where the game is going with that.
  • I also suspect that General Rami and the visiting member of the Six (the Azadi's leadership, comprised of six young girls who rule everything in the Empire) will end up dead once Sahya and Vamon's plot has been revealed, and Kian's motivation to avenge them will overwhelm his otherwise compassionate nature. Kian, as the game has intimated a few times, is a near-mythically skillful warrior that rose to the Apostle position after killing hundreds of enemies for the Azadi Empire. To Dreamfall Chapters's credit and its dedication to being a fully narrative-driven adventure game rather than one that shoehorns in action sequences like those in Dreamfall: TLJ, the game so rarely relies on this aspect of his character, instead choosing to explore his status as a conflicted human being who is forced to fight against his own people because his sense of honor and morality cannot condone what they are doing. Still, it's clear he could kick some ass if need be, as evinced by him snatching an arrow out of the air early on in Dreamfall Chapters. Who does that?
  • My only prediction for Saga is that she takes on the mantle of the new White Dragon at some point and eventually meets the rest of the group. Maybe they'll allude to her being a reincarnation of April Ryan, which would make sense of her childhood sketches of April's adventures. Given some cryptic lines from Abnaxus about Crow's role to come, I suspect Crow will appear as Saga's new sidekick in Book 5 and stay with her from then on. The game might also decide to kill off more of the game's secondary characters on the final stretch, because why not? There's a lot of loose ends in both worlds to tie up: The role of the giant Azadi computing machine the Prophet is building throughout Marcuria; the dream machines; the connection between the aforementioned two; the modified Dolmari Plague virus; minor Stark villains like Mr. London, the fascistic EYE and the crooked politicians of Propast; the importance of Hanna's role as a shifter (or Anna's as a double-agent come to think of it, though we got a fairly decent idea what the deal was with her at the end of Book 3) and many others. Book 5 has a huge task ahead of it, though I can't imagine it'll get around to everything.

Anyway, that's my word salad of a recap/review for Book 4 of Dreamfall Chapters. I hope to have the final part up tomorrow or Thursday, after which I can put these characters and worlds in the vault for who knows how long. Tornquist's story about two worlds and the balance between them has taken quite some time to tell, but I'm happy he got the opportunity to end that journey on his terms. Or maybe even extend it further...?

Same. But we both knew this long(est) journey would have to end eventually, Crow.
Same. But we both knew this long(est) journey would have to end eventually, Crow.

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Sunday Summaries: 19/06/2016

This is going to be a short one this week. With E3 and my various side-projects last week taking up almost all my free time, certain sections of the Sunday Summary are going to be on the dry side. Speaking of which, it's been an exhausting but elucidating week for the site with all this news both external (all those new game announcements!) and internal (I'm gonna miss ya, @austin_walker! Good luck at Vice Gaming, or "NARC" as I hope it gets called).

The one big thing I want to promote before we get into the usual Sunday Summary content is this enormous and ill-advised list I created that reviews each of the E3 trailers, though I cheated a little by doubling up on some of the games that saw more than one. @marino posted 142 of these on the site this year, and they all appeared so quickly and in such great numbers that I figured a few might get lost in the shuffle. I'm also concerned that some of the more JRPG-y ones will go without a QL now that Anime Editor Austin is leaving, but the staff likes what they like and it's down to JRPG fans in the community to get the word out. Pushing through all those trailers definitely gave me some wishlist ideas at least. Might be the one silver lining to that dumb idea.

New Games!

There's nothing about this screen I don't like.
There's nothing about this screen I don't like.

I think the stand out for this upcoming week is Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, the Fire Emblem/Shin Megami Tensei crossover that appears to be based around a giant futuristic singing talent show based on its trailer. The Fire Emblem characters are, in this case, spirits from another world called "Mirages" that the various characters in the contemporary Tokyo setting use the same way they might Personas in one of the games from that series. The combat looks to take various elements from both franchises and merge them too, with the rock-paper-scissors system of Fire Emblem's units and the elemental weaknesses (and opportunities for big attacks after exploiting them) from Shin Megami Tensei. Given both Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei have a lot of stock with JRPG players, I think there's going to be a hell of a lot of people wondering what the heck this is. Certain weirder aspects like the focus on Japanese celebrity and the inclusion of Vocaloids as Mirages might attract a few outsider otakus too.

Either way, if you're an anime fan, you're almost certainly going to be opting for the above over Mighty No. 9 and its derogatory nonsense, which completes its troubled journey from conception to production to publishing this Tuesday. Keiji Inafune's not-Mega Man has been courting controversy for almost as long as the project's been alive, and we're all very curious to see if it can walk the walk. Feels like the whole video game industry, or at least the small part concerned about Mega Man spiritual reboots, has been left suspended in mid-air waiting for this game to come out, like Mega Man himself while entering boss doors. Meanwhile, another alternative for aggrieved anime fans is Grand Kingdom, a PS4/PSV strategy RPG from some ex-Vanillaware people that is getting published in North America and Europe by some heavy hitters in the strategy RPG genre - Mystery Dungeon's Spike Chunsoft and Disgaea's NIS Europe - so it would seem that the pedigree is there. It certainly looks as good as a Vanillaware game, but here's hoping the gameplay is as in-depth and detailed to match.

It's definitely more Rhythm Heaven, for (mostly) better or worse.
It's definitely more Rhythm Heaven, for (mostly) better or worse.

I should also mention the two surprise releases from E3 week: Rhythm Heaven Megamix, which sees Nintendo's fantastic rhythm game bring together a lot of its best mini-games and a few new ones besides, and Trials of the Blood Dragon which takes the 80s insanity of Far Cry Blood Dragon and adds it to the already off-their-gourd sensibility of the more recent Trials games. Both seem like a tremendous amount of fun, and I'm sure all the journalists at E3 appreciated the fact that they couldn't stop to play them with all the interviews and write-ups they had left to do.

There's a huge amount of great-looking games coming out on the 28th too, so look forward to that next Sunday as we hit the mid-point of 2016.

Wiki!

Nada! I didn't get around to doing any wiki work this week; there's a legion of dedicated power-users on here that were creating game pages for everything featured at E3 as soon as they were announced, and I'm reluctant to get in their way. As stated last week, I'm going to be focusing on the roster for the upcoming Summer Games Done Quick 2016 event in a fortnight and putting the SNES stuff on the back-burner for a while. I'm probably not going to be quite as thorough with releases and the like for these games - the goal here is to ensure that every game has enough of a wiki page that Twitch will acknowledge it as a "non-stub" so that the speedrunners, and those specifically in charge of the Twitch broadcast, aren't caught short when Twitch decides the next game on the speedrunning chopping block doesn't exist.

After this Sunday Summaries goes up, I'm going to get started on catching up with last week's podcasts while starting on this SGDQ schedule, so here's hoping I make an appreciable dent.

Rudra no Hihou!

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Not a whole lot to say here - I've thoroughly explicated, expatiated and expounded on Squaresoft's 1996 Super Famicom RPG Rudra no Hihou/Treasure of the Rudras in my five-day LP series I created as an "Alternative to E3" for those as fed up with the event as I was. Days Zero, Zero Again, One, Two and Three are all here for your viewing pleasure. Remember to open the spoiler blocks for all the screenshots/captions!

For me Rudra isn't quite the big, tragically forgotten classic of the 16-bit JRPG generation, but neither is it one of those games that deserves to be lost to obscurity because of the only recently-conquered language barrier. Like Square's Live a Live, it's a game with a lot of ideas and ambition that flubs and succeeds at a similar ratio, and that risky idealistic approach would go on to serve Squaresoft well during their "golden" PlayStation era where more of their output was fortunate enough to see North American and European localizations - off-beat games like Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, SaGa Frontier, Brave Fencer Musashi and Parasite Eve come from the same school of thinking that created Rudra no Hihou and Live a Live, and the creativity of the video games medium is better for having all of them.

If you consider yourself a fan of Squaresoft at their peak, by all means please check out that Treasure of the Rudras playthrough and analysis. For a throwaway series meant to childishly dismiss E3's irritating emphasis on promotion and hype, I think I accidentally stumbled on some video game history worth putting out there.

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Mento's Alternative to E3 2016: Day 3: Rudriddance

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Hey all, and welcome to the finale of this LP of Treasure of the Rudras, or Rudra no Hihou (did it backwards this time!). The final day of E3 is upon us, and what better way to celebrate the yearly catastrophe that follows Dave Lang and his cohorts by averting a similarly apocalyptic event in another world? Be sure to peruse the table of links at the bottom of this article for the previous entries in this year's Mento's Alternative to E3 2016 event. Yep, I'm upgrading it to an "event". I'm sure that's not an embellishment in any way.

Before we start, we have our last pre-amble concerning Rudra no Hihou; this time, I just want to review the game based on the single scenario I've played and consider how playing through the others will potentially impact my appraisal. After the LP is complete, I also want to make - for my own edification more than anything - a timeline of all the events I either triggered or saw happen as an incidental party. I think it'll be fun to refer back to that timeline if I ever get around to playing as the other characters, and see just how closely the sequence of events lines up from alternate angles.

So, how is this game? It's actually an awkward prospect; I don't think Rudra no Hihou is a lost classic. At least, not compared to Squaresoft's sterling output for the Super Famicom and SNES. I'm by no means someone who can judge their entire library, since I've only played about half, but Rudra slides somewhere in the middle in terms of overall quality of the gameplay. However, Rudra shines most in its presentation - the soundtrack and graphics in particular, which have always been strengths of the Squaresoft stable. I also appreciate just how weird its story and premise is, how its distinctive scenario-based format offers diverse but interlacing storylines (about which I can only comment about so much, of course) that for some reason I haven't called "Rudrashomon" yet and the game's emphasis on a (mostly) singular cultural source to draw all its legends and monsters which helps make the game feel more distinct from its "borrow from everything" contemporaries like Final Fantasy, as well as being more aesthetically and culturally cohesive. Whatever, I'm largely just playing game criticism buzzword bingo now, but I hope my point got across. That every boss was based on a Hindu/Buddhist deity rather than having them share the stage with Norse, Greek, African and Japanese mythological figures seemingly picked at random is a big plus in my books. Makes it feel like the game was based on a specific legend, rather than cobbled together from incongruous parts.

Back to the gameplay though, Rudra no Hihou is what you might consider "standard" Squaresoft, right down to how party members line up on the right while the bigger enemy sprites occupy the larger space on the left. I've talked (and demonstrated!) how well the larger sprites look while fighting, though I've perhaps not been able to give a similar exhibition to how well they animate given all the static screenshots, but the game generally plays exactly as it looks with all the random encounters, maze-like dungeons and NPC hint-gathering you'd expect. There are two divergent modifiers in the game's favor, for those of you who generally only revisit games this old (twenty years last April!) because they still have something unique to offer: how the scenario-based structure can factor into the world and dungeon design, and the Mantra system.

With the former, you have a lot of dungeons that you'll visit and revisit with the distinct feeling that you'll be travelling through them with another party at some point. For instance, you'll visit some dungeons without reaching its end or see any sign of a boss, often fighting enemies that are considerably weaker than your party along the way - what this suggests is that you're meant to encounter this dungeon for the first time with a different party, and your current party is only passing through for story reasons. The treasures are gone, the puzzles have been solved, and you're simply strolling through to complete a story objective or sweep up anything that remains. It's a weird feeling to walk into a dungeon and see that it's essentially been completed, even though it's your first encounter with same.

With the latter, you have an endlessly in-depth and modifiable magic system that - once you pick up on its rules - offers a great amount of versatility. While you learn the various elemental and healing mantras fairly quickly, you still need to figure out which spells raise people from the dead, or cure ailments, or cause status effects, or buff stats. Yet when you consider the amount of affixes in the game - the words that can be attached to the start or end of the mantras you have - there's a great deal of tweaking that can be done. For instance, most affixes increase the power of the spell while also increasing the MP cost, similar to how Fire has always progressed to the stronger Fira and Firaga spells in Final Fantasy with an inflation in MP each time. However, "PE" will boost the mantra's power but actually lower its MP cost. Others, like the suffix "NA", will turn the spell into a multi-target version, and there are special prefixes that will only boost the strength of a spell if it's in its multi-target "NA" form already. Best of all, the Aeon Genesis fan translation team who worked on this game really outdid themselves in creating spells with fixed effects that are actual words in English - "TORNADO", for instance, is a fairly powerful Wind-element spell that the game doesn't necessarily reveal (at least it didn't in Vbomb's chapter, unless I missed it) but the player could feasibly guess it. "LIFE" doesn't do what you might expect, but the thematically-similar word "ANIMUS" does. If you try MEGA or SUPER as prefixes, they do indeed have a significant effect on the power of your spells. So even though the Mantra system is a little Byzantine at first and prone to a lot of trash "non-starter" spells with any swears and dumb phrases you might concoct within its twelve-character limit, it's also a fascinating and ultimately game-enhancing experiment.

The question, then, is whether or not Rudra no Hihou is worth coming back to years later. I would say yes; the one benefit of a Kawazu-directed game is that it has something you'll never see done again elsewhere, sometimes for good reason. I can't speak to Kawazu's other SNES games - his only other directing credit is for the three Romancing SaGa games, which I've been informed have varying amounts of questionable design decisions - but Rudra no Hihou is one where the weirdness works in its favor, or at least doesn't diminish the gameplay to a detrimental degree. Plus, if you're reading this, you have three other scenarios to try out (though the fourth is locked until the other three are complete, keep in mind) and a whole lot of bonus Mantra ideas to try out. You'll be starting out on a strong foot if you were to follow my lead.

Anyway, we'll now launch into what became a three-part (plus Finale) conclusion to this series. It didn't quite work out the way I'd hoped, but I did eventually do what I promised to do: complete the game as Sion/Vbomb and give everyone (and myself) a thorough look at a game that hailed from a genre and developer who were at their respective peaks, though for one reason or another managed to escape the gaze of almost all of us outside of Japan.

Part 9: Surts Him Right

Last time, on Rudrastic Measures: Surt, the surly giant who fought our equally surly hero Vbomb on top of a giant tower what feels like days ago, has given the party a list of destinations to visit across the Sky Islands in order to find a way back to Terra Firma. Presumably, no-one's invented parachutes yet. We're just about at the end of this whistlestop tour, heading towards the Danan Temple and the third of four Divine Danan mystics.

If you guessed the next dungeon would be a giant tower, well done. You have operational pattern recognition. I wonder if it bothers the people of this world that there are giant foreboding structures visible in every direction?
If you guessed the next dungeon would be a giant tower, well done. You have operational pattern recognition. I wonder if it bothers the people of this world that there are giant foreboding structures visible in every direction?
The Tower of Spirit is nothing special, though I did puzzle my way into a hidden room with four chests. Two of them held equipment for Ture - for whatever reason, the big guy needs unique items, and since they're only useful to Vbomb's party they're all in those Jade-sealed chests. The other two chests turned into these very tough mimic guys. I really appreciate it when artists get weird with their depictions for mimics; take, for instance, the creepy long-legged monstrosities in the Souls games.
The Tower of Spirit is nothing special, though I did puzzle my way into a hidden room with four chests. Two of them held equipment for Ture - for whatever reason, the big guy needs unique items, and since they're only useful to Vbomb's party they're all in those Jade-sealed chests. The other two chests turned into these very tough mimic guys. I really appreciate it when artists get weird with their depictions for mimics; take, for instance, the creepy long-legged monstrosities in the Souls games.
Mayura, the Divine Danan of Destiny, told us very politely to get lost and Vbomb took it about as gracefully as you might expect. She's actually extremely powerful, whacking the party with constant high-level spells.
Mayura, the Divine Danan of Destiny, told us very politely to get lost and Vbomb took it about as gracefully as you might expect. She's actually extremely powerful, whacking the party with constant high-level spells.
I believe she's also immune to damage for the first half of the fight, because she doesn't change color (the telltale sign that you're doing serious damage) until she decides to make the fight real and transport us to some sort of inter-dimensional space. She even covers her elemental weakness of Dark magic with an elemental protection spell suffix I was happy to learn. Not bad for someone who resembles a naked woman who stepped into what she thought was a steampunk shower but was actually a HG Wells time machine. (I've been making up my own headcanon based on the art design for a while now.)
I believe she's also immune to damage for the first half of the fight, because she doesn't change color (the telltale sign that you're doing serious damage) until she decides to make the fight real and transport us to some sort of inter-dimensional space. She even covers her elemental weakness of Dark magic with an elemental protection spell suffix I was happy to learn. Not bad for someone who resembles a naked woman who stepped into what she thought was a steampunk shower but was actually a HG Wells time machine. (I've been making up my own headcanon based on the art design for a while now.)
Kicking Mayura's gratuitously bare derriere has powered up the Gram sword, though it makes no appreciable difference to its combat strength. It's stronger in spirit, then.
Kicking Mayura's gratuitously bare derriere has powered up the Gram sword, though it makes no appreciable difference to its combat strength. It's stronger in spirit, then.
They need to make these towers out of sterner stuff. More load-bearing walls, fewer load-bearing bosses. Apparently, the affect of taking down all these Divine Danans was a little more dramatic than we thought: the Sky Islands are falling back to Terra Firma! The Gram blade was nothing more than a magical lynchpin keeping the islands afloat!
They need to make these towers out of sterner stuff. More load-bearing walls, fewer load-bearing bosses. Apparently, the affect of taking down all these Divine Danans was a little more dramatic than we thought: the Sky Islands are falling back to Terra Firma! The Gram blade was nothing more than a magical lynchpin keeping the islands afloat!
The game hasn't stopped torturing us about that damn airship either, talking of recurring
The game hasn't stopped torturing us about that damn airship either, talking of recurring "screw you, player" goofs. But wait... it's actually landing in front of us? Because we kind of need to get off this giant rock before it hurtles into the ground.
Ramyleth is inside! He briefly joined Lockedwn and Friend after disappearing on us early on. He's as eager as we are to get back to Len and the Danan Castle that was our first destination in the Sky Islands and give Surt a piece of our mind.
Ramyleth is inside! He briefly joined Lockedwn and Friend after disappearing on us early on. He's as eager as we are to get back to Len and the Danan Castle that was our first destination in the Sky Islands and give Surt a piece of our mind.
A nice touch, the sky bridge we passed through last time (you remember right? With all the laughing skulls telling us how doomed we were? That was fun) now has ground all around it. Maybe they can plant flowers later? I just hope there wasn't someone's house under here...
A nice touch, the sky bridge we passed through last time (you remember right? With all the laughing skulls telling us how doomed we were? That was fun) now has ground all around it. Maybe they can plant flowers later? I just hope there wasn't someone's house under here...
Surt is naturally unapologetic about tricking us into causing the Sky Islands to fall. In order for him to complete his plan of Giants domination - he's the only other one I've seen so far, including all the races up in the Sky Islands, so I don't know how he intends to repopulate the Earth - he had to ensure that all the previous races would get wiped out along with humanity with the advent of the next Rudra. Vbomb rightfully calls him out on his bullshit.
Surt is naturally unapologetic about tricking us into causing the Sky Islands to fall. In order for him to complete his plan of Giants domination - he's the only other one I've seen so far, including all the races up in the Sky Islands, so I don't know how he intends to repopulate the Earth - he had to ensure that all the previous races would get wiped out along with humanity with the advent of the next Rudra. Vbomb rightfully calls him out on his bullshit.
I technically didn't fight Surt before. That was more of a cutscene played out on the battle screen. This fight is for real though. Surt's a Fire element, which should be obvious to anyone who knows their Norse mythology (I think this is the only case where the games gets its mythologies crossed). He has a mean left hook too. He doesn't have a huge amount of health, though, and while he has some nasty desperation attacks as he nears his demise, his obvious elemental weakness means he's kind of a chump. As I suspected all along, really.
I technically didn't fight Surt before. That was more of a cutscene played out on the battle screen. This fight is for real though. Surt's a Fire element, which should be obvious to anyone who knows their Norse mythology (I think this is the only case where the games gets its mythologies crossed). He has a mean left hook too. He doesn't have a huge amount of health, though, and while he has some nasty desperation attacks as he nears his demise, his obvious elemental weakness means he's kind of a chump. As I suspected all along, really.
Oh for crying out loud. We didn't think to put a Denver boot on that thing?
Oh for crying out loud. We didn't think to put a Denver boot on that thing?
Ramyleth's kind of a laid-back guy. Being the scion of a 20,000 year old civilization kinda gives you that
Ramyleth's kind of a laid-back guy. Being the scion of a 20,000 year old civilization kinda gives you that "seen it all before" outlook on life. Deciding to complete the set for the sake of posterity, we head back south to that Ice Dungeon I couldn't get into.
Door's open now, but it still has a few surprises for us. Like this yeti called Ice Jack. What's an Ice Jack?
Door's open now, but it still has a few surprises for us. Like this yeti called Ice Jack. What's an Ice Jack?
We find the Rudra stone for the Danan civilization with a little wormy dude that looks like something out of Richard Scarry's brain. He's not hostile though, and Ramyleth tells us why:
We find the Rudra stone for the Danan civilization with a little wormy dude that looks like something out of Richard Scarry's brain. He's not hostile though, and Ramyleth tells us why:
Each Rudra is created to destroy the pre-existing civilization, but also takes the shape of the species that will replace them. That big knight guy that fell out of the Lago Stone early on? He was the deity for the Giants, who destroyed most of the prior race (either the reptiles or merfolk) and was the basis of the Giants that followed. Hence why Surt was obsessed with him. Rudras therefore take on something akin to the Hindu cycle of death and rebirth, in how they're both the destroyers of one race yet also the creators of another. As the Rudra that spawned the Danan, this guy is unlikely to want to harm us with Ramyleth here.
Each Rudra is created to destroy the pre-existing civilization, but also takes the shape of the species that will replace them. That big knight guy that fell out of the Lago Stone early on? He was the deity for the Giants, who destroyed most of the prior race (either the reptiles or merfolk) and was the basis of the Giants that followed. Hence why Surt was obsessed with him. Rudras therefore take on something akin to the Hindu cycle of death and rebirth, in how they're both the destroyers of one race yet also the creators of another. As the Rudra that spawned the Danan, this guy is unlikely to want to harm us with Ramyleth here.
Passing through the Glacier, we eventually meet the flamboyant Dyaus. He's certainly enthusiastic about forcing us to fight him. He's also not particularly tough, especially after fighting Mayura. He's a big Wind guy who doesn't like Lightning magic, turns out.
Passing through the Glacier, we eventually meet the flamboyant Dyaus. He's certainly enthusiastic about forcing us to fight him. He's also not particularly tough, especially after fighting Mayura. He's a big Wind guy who doesn't like Lightning magic, turns out.
We collect our second legendary weapon of the game, the Sigmund Sword. I'm sure this one won't be as underwhelming as the last one.
We collect our second legendary weapon of the game, the Sigmund Sword. I'm sure this one won't be as underwhelming as the last one.
We apparently didn't learn our lesson last time, and the entire glacier defrosts and carries us off with its current into the ocean below. It's never as easy as it is with the Master Sword, is it?
We apparently didn't learn our lesson last time, and the entire glacier defrosts and carries us off with its current into the ocean below. It's never as easy as it is with the Master Sword, is it?
That... is a very good question. Did we just get Monstro'd?
That... is a very good question. Did we just get Monstro'd?

Part 10: Hitting a Nerve

Last time, on Going Deeper Rudraground: Betrayal! Drama! Getting eaten by a giant fish! These are the everyday occurrences of Vbomb and his team, who include Foxy the foxy hunter, Ture the scholarly giant and, now that he's finally back, Ramyleth the Mage King that's dressed like a Jester. We may have accidentally caused the destruction of the Sky Islands (yeah, our bad), but at least we're back on the ground. Well, in the ocean specifically. Remember that part about getting eaten by a giant fish?

Well this is gross. I guess every RPG has to have its
Well this is gross. I guess every RPG has to have its "inside a giant creature" gooey dungeon. I wonder if we'll find Gogo down here...? At any rate, the trapped merfolk in here tell us that the creature is a Heg - a whale-like monster that lives peacefully with the merfolk, to whom they're sort of like guardian spirits. This particular one has been taken over by one of those Horsemen we probably shouldn't have left alone.
Whoa, hey, we barely know this fish. Poking whatever the hell this is actually opens a gateway later in the level. I figured it'd be a recurring element of this dungeon, but it's actually the only one. The dungeons in this game, if I haven't brought it up before, tend to be incredibly short.
Whoa, hey, we barely know this fish. Poking whatever the hell this is actually opens a gateway later in the level. I figured it'd be a recurring element of this dungeon, but it's actually the only one. The dungeons in this game, if I haven't brought it up before, tend to be incredibly short.
Yol-Gee is siphoning power from the Heg, which I figured would come up but doesn't really. He's quite powerful too, with some nasty Water-elemental attacks. He's weak to Fire, but his magic defense is quite high so it's not the steamroll it usually is. Oh, did I mention that all-mighty Sigmund Sword I picked up is Water-based, and thus does very little damage to this boss or any of the monsters in this fish? 2-2 on these
Yol-Gee is siphoning power from the Heg, which I figured would come up but doesn't really. He's quite powerful too, with some nasty Water-elemental attacks. He's weak to Fire, but his magic defense is quite high so it's not the steamroll it usually is. Oh, did I mention that all-mighty Sigmund Sword I picked up is Water-based, and thus does very little damage to this boss or any of the monsters in this fish? 2-2 on these "legendary" blades so far.
Unlike the other Horsemen, Yol-Gee seems quite cordial. He's been keeping the Heg alive in these toxic oceans through his symbiosis with the fish, and we've weakened both him and the Heg sufficiently that he asks us to help cure it. Foxy recalls that her noble family is in possession of the Holy Grail (I've heard of the rich girl whose family owns everything, but...) and so we ask Yol-Gee to swim us as close to Eremia Mansion as possible.
Unlike the other Horsemen, Yol-Gee seems quite cordial. He's been keeping the Heg alive in these toxic oceans through his symbiosis with the fish, and we've weakened both him and the Heg sufficiently that he asks us to help cure it. Foxy recalls that her noble family is in possession of the Holy Grail (I've heard of the rich girl whose family owns everything, but...) and so we ask Yol-Gee to swim us as close to Eremia Mansion as possible.
That means crossing this desert. Not a tall order, since it's only about ten tiles in every direction on the world map, but it means we get a new battle screen background out of it.
That means crossing this desert. Not a tall order, since it's only about ten tiles in every direction on the world map, but it means we get a new battle screen background out of it.
I'm really starting to dislike those two.
I'm really starting to dislike those two.
Foxy's mansion is in a state of disrepair, which puts her out of sorts. We take the back entrance. Into her base, I mean. Ugh, I'm bailing on this caption.
Foxy's mansion is in a state of disrepair, which puts her out of sorts. We take the back entrance. Into her base, I mean. Ugh, I'm bailing on this caption.
The house is full of minor undead enemies and a scroll that tells us that the family and servants relocated to the nearby port town of Oriab. Kinda ominous, but I get the feeling the explanation for all this is part of someone else's scenario. The house is empty but for a few chests where I came in, so it's definitely spooky.
The house is full of minor undead enemies and a scroll that tells us that the family and servants relocated to the nearby port town of Oriab. Kinda ominous, but I get the feeling the explanation for all this is part of someone else's scenario. The house is empty but for a few chests where I came in, so it's definitely spooky.
Before I move on though, let's discuss the new geography of the world. The Sky Islands conveniently landed between the landmasses that were already here, creating a lot of landbridges between several areas of the game. If I was so inclined, I bet I could backtrack to a lot of earlier dungeons to see what's beyond those clock doors I keep passing.
Before I move on though, let's discuss the new geography of the world. The Sky Islands conveniently landed between the landmasses that were already here, creating a lot of landbridges between several areas of the game. If I was so inclined, I bet I could backtrack to a lot of earlier dungeons to see what's beyond those clock doors I keep passing.
Like this one in the Ruined City of Catulia, for instance. Between the door here, some suddenly unlocked doors in the north of the village and the new inventory in the equipment store, taking the time to come back here was definitely worthwhile. All the same, I'm not sure how often I'll take big detours like this. I kinda want to beat this scenario, you know?
Like this one in the Ruined City of Catulia, for instance. Between the door here, some suddenly unlocked doors in the north of the village and the new inventory in the equipment store, taking the time to come back here was definitely worthwhile. All the same, I'm not sure how often I'll take big detours like this. I kinda want to beat this scenario, you know?
Eremia, Foxy's dad, tells us that Dr. Muench borrowed the Grail some time ago for his experiments. Dr. Muench, you might recall from way back when, was introduced by Foxy as the mentor of Wizmaker/Surlent. Looks like we're overlapping again.
Eremia, Foxy's dad, tells us that Dr. Muench borrowed the Grail some time ago for his experiments. Dr. Muench, you might recall from way back when, was introduced by Foxy as the mentor of Wizmaker/Surlent. Looks like we're overlapping again.
I didn't think to mention Advol until now, but it's a ghost town. Well, specifically, it's a zombie town. Something awful happened here and all the civilians are undead. They have some semblance of rationality, but all of them will attack you if you try talking to them. The only non-zombie in the town is the innkeeper, if you need to restore your HP and MP.
I didn't think to mention Advol until now, but it's a ghost town. Well, specifically, it's a zombie town. Something awful happened here and all the civilians are undead. They have some semblance of rationality, but all of them will attack you if you try talking to them. The only non-zombie in the town is the innkeeper, if you need to restore your HP and MP.
The Cult of Rudra is clearly involved with whatever went down here. They descend to the basement via an elevator, and we quickly follow.
The Cult of Rudra is clearly involved with whatever went down here. They descend to the basement via an elevator, and we quickly follow.
I gotta say... Ramyleth sort of has a point. I guess we're the only species so far to have started a cult worshipping the being that will destroy us all.
I gotta say... Ramyleth sort of has a point. I guess we're the only species so far to have started a cult worshipping the being that will destroy us all.
Talking of ominous, not only is it like the Spencer Mansion down here but they've been experimenting on whatever Rudra resembled the Reptiles. And it's missing.
Talking of ominous, not only is it like the Spencer Mansion down here but they've been experimenting on whatever Rudra resembled the Reptiles. And it's missing.
Dr. Muench is, sadly, among the bodies of the scientists down here. Whatever they were working on with the Lago Stone and the Holy Grail, it blew up in their faces. Again, I feel like this is something that another party sees happen in real-time. Muench, however, is not all the way dead...
Dr. Muench is, sadly, among the bodies of the scientists down here. Whatever they were working on with the Lago Stone and the Holy Grail, it blew up in their faces. Again, I feel like this is something that another party sees happen in real-time. Muench, however, is not all the way dead...
Kudos localization team. You undercut a creepy moment with a Ghostbusters goof. (All right, it was pretty funny). Nagiya is the third Horseman we've come across, and apparently the one most closely related to Death.
Kudos localization team. You undercut a creepy moment with a Ghostbusters goof. (All right, it was pretty funny). Nagiya is the third Horseman we've come across, and apparently the one most closely related to Death.
That seems... personal? Nagiya starts the fight like a G by immediately killing Foxy. Permanently. That's her soul in Nagiya's rib cage. No amount of resurrection spells are getting her back. Being a person down makes this fight a little tougher than anticipated, and Nagiya's very fond of the Dark element, and has a huge number of Dark-based mantras. He also has a very powerful version of the mantra STELLA, which draws HP from enemies and gives it to the caster. The damage he's taking from our Light mantras is vastly overtaking whatever he's healing, though.
That seems... personal? Nagiya starts the fight like a G by immediately killing Foxy. Permanently. That's her soul in Nagiya's rib cage. No amount of resurrection spells are getting her back. Being a person down makes this fight a little tougher than anticipated, and Nagiya's very fond of the Dark element, and has a huge number of Dark-based mantras. He also has a very powerful version of the mantra STELLA, which draws HP from enemies and gives it to the caster. The damage he's taking from our Light mantras is vastly overtaking whatever he's healing, though.
Before vanishing back to the underworld, Nagiya reminds us that even though he was an inconsequential boss in a series of same, at least he got his Sephiroth moment by killing our love interest. This... this is bad news.
Before vanishing back to the underworld, Nagiya reminds us that even though he was an inconsequential boss in a series of same, at least he got his Sephiroth moment by killing our love interest. This... this is bad news.

Part 11: FOXYDIE

Last time, on Rudra-Roh!: Foxy's down (the most underrated of all Tarantino films) and with her dies Vbomb's chief hypewoman. Surely this can't stand! No demonic grim reaper is going to keep her away from us forever, even though he did kind of take Foxy's soul and eat it. Oh hey, don't read this synopsis if you haven't seen all the screenshots above yet. Sorry, I should've stated at the outset that there'd be some Game of Thrones shit going down today.

Time to jump back on the dying manta ray to save our girlfriend. Priorities!
Time to jump back on the dying manta ray to save our girlfriend. Priorities!
Meanwhile, the dying fish problem sort of solved itself with the suddenly purified ocean. Way to go Sclonna! We'll take credit all the same, though.
Meanwhile, the dying fish problem sort of solved itself with the suddenly purified ocean. Way to go Sclonna! We'll take credit all the same, though.
Anyway, the dying Dr. Muench told us that there's a sage that lives in a Hidden Village that might know how to save Foxy. It's extremely convenient, as is the fact that Ramyleth knows exactly what he's talking about and that this is a Danan village that remained on the surface. One little forest puzzle later, and we're in.
Anyway, the dying Dr. Muench told us that there's a sage that lives in a Hidden Village that might know how to save Foxy. It's extremely convenient, as is the fact that Ramyleth knows exactly what he's talking about and that this is a Danan village that remained on the surface. One little forest puzzle later, and we're in.
Sclonna's apparently just hanging out here after cleaning the oceans. She does us a solid and gives us the last of her Revive Herbs for Foxy. I'm sure if I played her scenario first, I'd be peeved about giving away my super useful herb for some party of assholes I once met on a boat.
Sclonna's apparently just hanging out here after cleaning the oceans. She does us a solid and gives us the last of her Revive Herbs for Foxy. I'm sure if I played her scenario first, I'd be peeved about giving away my super useful herb for some party of assholes I once met on a boat.
Right, so not exactly an Aeris moment. Square's going to save that for next year, I suppose. As thanks, we give Sclonna's party the Heg Ocarina we use to communicate with the big fish. The merfolk in Sclonna's party kinda guilted us into it by reminding us of the importance of the Ocarina to her people. I'm cool with it; let them hash it out with that demon controlling the fish who keeps complaining whenever we force him to swim us somewhere.
Right, so not exactly an Aeris moment. Square's going to save that for next year, I suppose. As thanks, we give Sclonna's party the Heg Ocarina we use to communicate with the big fish. The merfolk in Sclonna's party kinda guilted us into it by reminding us of the importance of the Ocarina to her people. I'm cool with it; let them hash it out with that demon controlling the fish who keeps complaining whenever we force him to swim us somewhere.
My next stop is getting back home to Danelf, after I find a message that Pastor Miller left in Oriab. Since every port has a world map, I thought I'd check to see if it got updated with all the landmasses. Cartographers in this world work quick, huh.
My next stop is getting back home to Danelf, after I find a message that Pastor Miller left in Oriab. Since every port has a world map, I thought I'd check to see if it got updated with all the landmasses. Cartographers in this world work quick, huh.
Back in Danelf, I just need to go right out of here to meet Pastor Miller in his church. Like I should've done all the way back at the start of the game, I suppose.
Back in Danelf, I just need to go right out of here to meet Pastor Miller in his church. Like I should've done all the way back at the start of the game, I suppose.
Miller's told us that, even though the world has been purified of its pollution, the Rudra is still coming and we're getting the first signs of its approach: cosmic radiation that kills anyone outdoors at night. I wish we got a good look at these killer moonbeams; they sound badass.
Miller's told us that, even though the world has been purified of its pollution, the Rudra is still coming and we're getting the first signs of its approach: cosmic radiation that kills anyone outdoors at night. I wish we got a good look at these killer moonbeams; they sound badass.
On the way out, Pastor Miller's statue vanishes from the altar. This non-sequitur of a miracle apparently indicates that the Jadebearer that the statue represents - I'm guessing the only female hero, given the statue was female - has left our world. Not to worry though, as we're sure she's just in space or something. I'm sure she'll get a lot of use out of nature powers up in orbit. Nature abhors a vacuum after all.
On the way out, Pastor Miller's statue vanishes from the altar. This non-sequitur of a miracle apparently indicates that the Jadebearer that the statue represents - I'm guessing the only female hero, given the statue was female - has left our world. Not to worry though, as we're sure she's just in space or something. I'm sure she'll get a lot of use out of nature powers up in orbit. Nature abhors a vacuum after all.
We''re told to report in to the King, which is one of those things that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the game progression flow but lots of sense for Vbomb the character, who is supposed to be the Knight-Captain in charge of the castle's security. Our standing orders still apply though: find a way to dismantle the Cult of Rudra. The old coot on Mantra Peak is apparently fighting them off as we speak. More backtracking!
We''re told to report in to the King, which is one of those things that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the game progression flow but lots of sense for Vbomb the character, who is supposed to be the Knight-Captain in charge of the castle's security. Our standing orders still apply though: find a way to dismantle the Cult of Rudra. The old coot on Mantra Peak is apparently fighting them off as we speak. More backtracking!
The Cultists are crawling all over Mantra Peak, turns out. The way up to Zora's cave is an odd mix of finding soldier corpses from Cryunne, occasionally bumping into cultist mini-bosses and fighting the weaker enemies from the start of the game.
The Cultists are crawling all over Mantra Peak, turns out. The way up to Zora's cave is an odd mix of finding soldier corpses from Cryunne, occasionally bumping into cultist mini-bosses and fighting the weaker enemies from the start of the game.
When we finally find Zora, she's being threatened by this limber fellow. Ravana's kind of a chump, though that might be because I've learned a lot of useful mantras since our last boss. POWERUP (which I got from the Hidden Village) and MEGAMI (which I got from a random cave on the way over here, and has to be a SMT reference given how many of those games Aeon Genesis has worked on) are both
When we finally find Zora, she's being threatened by this limber fellow. Ravana's kind of a chump, though that might be because I've learned a lot of useful mantras since our last boss. POWERUP (which I got from the Hidden Village) and MEGAMI (which I got from a random cave on the way over here, and has to be a SMT reference given how many of those games Aeon Genesis has worked on) are both "game-breakers": the first greatly increases the physical strength of the party, while MEGAMI is a party healing spell that's far stronger than the standard LEF. He has a weakness to Water-based Mantras too, but we just wailed on him. It was bruuuutal.
Chekhov's Portal to the Netherworld finally comes into play, and Zora directs us that the Rudra Cult has set up in the Netherworld - which is actually just a subterranean kingdom that once belonged to the reptiles. Down here, you're partially shielded by the Rudra's world-cleansing cosmic rays, and I think their intent is to wait it out down here and take over the world after the Rudra's done and joined his brothers as a Han Solo fossil.
Chekhov's Portal to the Netherworld finally comes into play, and Zora directs us that the Rudra Cult has set up in the Netherworld - which is actually just a subterranean kingdom that once belonged to the reptiles. Down here, you're partially shielded by the Rudra's world-cleansing cosmic rays, and I think their intent is to wait it out down here and take over the world after the Rudra's done and joined his brothers as a Han Solo fossil.
We finally find our mentor Taurus. This has been a game-wide quest of Vbomb's, so he's stoked to meet up with his hero and fight some cultists side-by-side.
We finally find our mentor Taurus. This has been a game-wide quest of Vbomb's, so he's stoked to meet up with his hero and fight some cultists side-by-side.
I mean, sure, there's only seven of them.
I mean, sure, there's only seven of them.
No! Taurus feeds us some bull about the glory of the Rudra, and demands we hand over our Jade to help make the Rudra perfect. He was a cultist this whole time!
No! Taurus feeds us some bull about the glory of the Rudra, and demands we hand over our Jade to help make the Rudra perfect. He was a cultist this whole time!
Forced to fight his mentor, Vbomb's basically apoplectic at this point. Taurus doesn't seem brainwashed though; rather, he's a little too pragmatic for his own good. We get a sense of where Vbomb got his reckless attitude from, as Taurus calmly tries to talk us down by reasoning that becoming powerful is what's important, and who stronger than the Rudra that will kill us all? As an opponent, he's... OK, remember when I told you about the game-breaking mantras? I'm a weak-willed guy, turns out. (I also just kinda want this scenario to end, for as much fun as I'm having.)
Forced to fight his mentor, Vbomb's basically apoplectic at this point. Taurus doesn't seem brainwashed though; rather, he's a little too pragmatic for his own good. We get a sense of where Vbomb got his reckless attitude from, as Taurus calmly tries to talk us down by reasoning that becoming powerful is what's important, and who stronger than the Rudra that will kill us all? As an opponent, he's... OK, remember when I told you about the game-breaking mantras? I'm a weak-willed guy, turns out. (I also just kinda want this scenario to end, for as much fun as I'm having.)
Before we can proceed to the final dungeon, we need one of the fantastical treasures of the Rudras (title drop!). We have a Psycho Shield that Taurus gave us, but we either need the Apocalypse Sword or both Shields. Fortunately, Wizmaker seems to have been busy, and has found both the sword and the other shield. We propose a trade, though we're given the option of the sword or the second shield (I look forward to seeing how this trade works out in Wizmaker's scenario).
Before we can proceed to the final dungeon, we need one of the fantastical treasures of the Rudras (title drop!). We have a Psycho Shield that Taurus gave us, but we either need the Apocalypse Sword or both Shields. Fortunately, Wizmaker seems to have been busy, and has found both the sword and the other shield. We propose a trade, though we're given the option of the sword or the second shield (I look forward to seeing how this trade works out in Wizmaker's scenario).
By the way, we're in a Reptile town that's under the Earth. The reptiles once filled these tunnels - it was their domain, in the same manner that the seas belong to the merfolk - but this appears to be the only one left after their own Rudra some several thousand years ago before we came along. Anyway, this guy's apparently just freaking out about a nightmare and gives us eight prefixes in case we didn't already know them. I sort ofwonder how I could've gotten this far without knowing
By the way, we're in a Reptile town that's under the Earth. The reptiles once filled these tunnels - it was their domain, in the same manner that the seas belong to the merfolk - but this appears to be the only one left after their own Rudra some several thousand years ago before we came along. Anyway, this guy's apparently just freaking out about a nightmare and gives us eight prefixes in case we didn't already know them. I sort ofwonder how I could've gotten this far without knowing "NA"?
And here it is, Shumisen. The location of the new Rudra, and the source of the planet's cycle of life and death. Definitely has an
And here it is, Shumisen. The location of the new Rudra, and the source of the planet's cycle of life and death. Definitely has an "the final boss is this way!" look to it, don't it? This is actually the last place I can manually save - from here on out, it's the end or bust!

Finale:

Last time, on My Rudra, My Rudra and Me: It's been quite the ride, but now Vbomb and his beleagured team are standing outside the very gates of Hell ready to save the world from utter annihilation. What is the nature of this Rudra deity of destruction? Is it a sentient creature, or is it simply the form of the destroyer that some other God has created to eliminate us? If so, are we going to have to try really hard to not think of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

Thank you!
Thank you!
This is Gomorrah. From this point on, the game sort of resembles the end of Final Fantasy IX. I only mention that because I know there's at least one other mod around here who adores that game. Gomorrah was created to ensure that the Rudras would appear on schedule every four thousand years for reasons he doesn't feel like disclosing to mere mortals like us. We just know it involves a
This is Gomorrah. From this point on, the game sort of resembles the end of Final Fantasy IX. I only mention that because I know there's at least one other mod around here who adores that game. Gomorrah was created to ensure that the Rudras would appear on schedule every four thousand years for reasons he doesn't feel like disclosing to mere mortals like us. We just know it involves a "Gafu".
Moving through this final dungeon, which is just as short as all the rest of them, we suddenly hear a cacophony of screams (or as close to it as the SNES sound chip can replicate) and suddenly all the skulls and bodies in the background start moving around. It's a freaky effect.
Moving through this final dungeon, which is just as short as all the rest of them, we suddenly hear a cacophony of screams (or as close to it as the SNES sound chip can replicate) and suddenly all the skulls and bodies in the background start moving around. It's a freaky effect.
By the way, Ramyleth wasn't lying: we got deep into Shumisen just as our time limit finally ran out, and the Rudra burst into being. This is the fated God of our destruction, and the basis for the species to follow us. It sorta looks like the next folk would've been bird-like, or maybe Xenomorphs? Either way, they're shit out of luck, because we humans aren't budging.
By the way, Ramyleth wasn't lying: we got deep into Shumisen just as our time limit finally ran out, and the Rudra burst into being. This is the fated God of our destruction, and the basis for the species to follow us. It sorta looks like the next folk would've been bird-like, or maybe Xenomorphs? Either way, they're shit out of luck, because we humans aren't budging.
The Rudra was... disappointingly easy for a final boss. For one, it had an obvious elemental weakness (Water), which I didn't anticipate. It also didn't hit hard, nor did it have a huge amount of HP to whittle down. The game makes it clear that the Rudra needs to collect all the Jades and the
The Rudra was... disappointingly easy for a final boss. For one, it had an obvious elemental weakness (Water), which I didn't anticipate. It also didn't hit hard, nor did it have a huge amount of HP to whittle down. The game makes it clear that the Rudra needs to collect all the Jades and the "Treasures" we're wielding, not to mention it just got born a few minutes ago, so it's fair to say that it was ill-prepared for a sudden beatdown. We're all celebrating the averted apocalypse, but...
Right, Gomorrah's still around. With some fighting words for us, no less. He's not done with us either way, and opens up the way to the Gafu at the center of the planet.
Right, Gomorrah's still around. With some fighting words for us, no less. He's not done with us either way, and opens up the way to the Gafu at the center of the planet.
Rostam and Huey are down here, mysteriously, though they seem to be zombified. Either way, we can't reach them. I wonder if they appear in someone else's scenario? Either way, it's good that Vbomb got some closure on their whereabouts and status. Kinda
Rostam and Huey are down here, mysteriously, though they seem to be zombified. Either way, we can't reach them. I wonder if they appear in someone else's scenario? Either way, it's good that Vbomb got some closure on their whereabouts and status. Kinda
The Gafu, and stop me if you've heard this one before FFIX fans, is a Godlike living conduit that takes the souls of the deceased and transforms them into new souls. When the Rudra destroys the population of the planet, the Gafu takes the influx of souls and transforms into members of the new race.
The Gafu, and stop me if you've heard this one before FFIX fans, is a Godlike living conduit that takes the souls of the deceased and transforms them into new souls. When the Rudra destroys the population of the planet, the Gafu takes the influx of souls and transforms into members of the new race.
It's also instrumental to the Forced Evolution thing Gomorrah's got going on, and possibly older than anything else on the planet. Gomorrah is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Rudras, but even he is simply following the orders from even more ancient and powerful beings, one of which we briefly met outside the Cult headquarters. The game's Garland, in so many words.
It's also instrumental to the Forced Evolution thing Gomorrah's got going on, and possibly older than anything else on the planet. Gomorrah is revealed to be the mastermind behind the Rudras, but even he is simply following the orders from even more ancient and powerful beings, one of which we briefly met outside the Cult headquarters. The game's Garland, in so many words.
The identities of the Majestic Four, the people actually behind Gomorroah and the Rudra cycle, is one of those big mysteries I suspect other scenarios will fill in.
The identities of the Majestic Four, the people actually behind Gomorroah and the Rudra cycle, is one of those big mysteries I suspect other scenarios will fill in.
Anyway, it's time to fight the true Final Boss. Gomorrah is no joke, unlike the relatively weak Rudra. Not only does he have around twice the HP, but he's untouchable until you've taken down his three henchmen, each of which is almost a boss in of itself. Each time we defeat one, Gomorrah brings a new soul forth from the Gafu.
Anyway, it's time to fight the true Final Boss. Gomorrah is no joke, unlike the relatively weak Rudra. Not only does he have around twice the HP, but he's untouchable until you've taken down his three henchmen, each of which is almost a boss in of itself. Each time we defeat one, Gomorrah brings a new soul forth from the Gafu.
It's not until we've defeated the three adds that Gomorrah starts to get serious. He's packing a lot of Dark magic - fortunately, almost all the new armor in that Reptile town was Dark-affiliated, so that lowers his damage output a lot. Also useful is Foxy's amazing new whip weapon, which we found in this dungeon and carries with it a Light-affinity. Just keeping her and Vbomb buffed in strength is causing them to cause around 2500HP per round.
It's not until we've defeated the three adds that Gomorrah starts to get serious. He's packing a lot of Dark magic - fortunately, almost all the new armor in that Reptile town was Dark-affiliated, so that lowers his damage output a lot. Also useful is Foxy's amazing new whip weapon, which we found in this dungeon and carries with it a Light-affinity. Just keeping her and Vbomb buffed in strength is causing them to cause around 2500HP per round.
Love Whip strikes again! Gomorrah would be a challenging foe, but the game's so thoroughly broken at this point that it was simply a matter of time. I didn't even have to use save states or anything.
Love Whip strikes again! Gomorrah would be a challenging foe, but the game's so thoroughly broken at this point that it was simply a matter of time. I didn't even have to use save states or anything.
Saizou, we find out, is the Majestic Four member who appeared to help us. He was fairly human-looking, so I wonder if humanity was built in his image? There's a lot we don't know about the machinations behind the Rudras, though I think Vbomb and co. are just pleased that we've postponed the apocalypse for a few thousand years.
Saizou, we find out, is the Majestic Four member who appeared to help us. He was fairly human-looking, so I wonder if humanity was built in his image? There's a lot we don't know about the machinations behind the Rudras, though I think Vbomb and co. are just pleased that we've postponed the apocalypse for a few thousand years.
The game ends on a little epilogue scrolling text, simply rehashing what we'd done. Beating up weird immortal sorceresses in the center of the world, saving the day by foiling the global devastation of an eldritch destruction deity built to look like a race that will never exist. Same ol' Squaresoft bullshit, then.
The game ends on a little epilogue scrolling text, simply rehashing what we'd done. Beating up weird immortal sorceresses in the center of the world, saving the day by foiling the global devastation of an eldritch destruction deity built to look like a race that will never exist. Same ol' Squaresoft bullshit, then.
And that concludes Vbomb's scenario. I think his is probably a lot more straightforward than the others, even with all this weirdness. I'd love to find out what happened to Wizmaker after we left him in the Reptile town, or to Sclonna after she went to space, or even those two knucklehead thieves after they stole our airship for the billionth time.
And that concludes Vbomb's scenario. I think his is probably a lot more straightforward than the others, even with all this weirdness. I'd love to find out what happened to Wizmaker after we left him in the Reptile town, or to Sclonna after she went to space, or even those two knucklehead thieves after they stole our airship for the billionth time.
Though as tempted as I am... I think it's time to call it here. Thanks for joining me on this journey deep into the unknown annals of the Squaresoft library everyone, and for that matter I hope you had a fun E3. Maybe I'll swing back around and do something E3-related next, but for now... well, the Lang/Boyes/Vignocchi E3 panel is about to begin, and I dare not miss a second of it. Bye!
Though as tempted as I am... I think it's time to call it here. Thanks for joining me on this journey deep into the unknown annals of the Squaresoft library everyone, and for that matter I hope you had a fun E3. Maybe I'll swing back around and do something E3-related next, but for now... well, the Lang/Boyes/Vignocchi E3 panel is about to begin, and I dare not miss a second of it. Bye!

Day 0A: Parts 1 & 2Day 0B: Parts 3 & 4Day 1: Parts 5 & 6
Day 2: Parts 7 & 8Day 3: Parts 9, 10, 11 & Finale
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Mento's Alternative to E3 2016: Day 2: All Aboard the Skytrain!

We're heading towards both the end of E3 and what I hope is the end of Vbomb's scenario with this, Day 2 of Mento's Alternative to E3. We're still plugging away at lost Squaresoft RPG Rudra no Hihou, or Treasure of the Rudras, released for the Super Famicom in 1996 as the last Square-developed game for the platform.

So far I've discussed this feature and its history (Day 0a), the game's innovative "mantra" magic system (Day 0b) and the brief proliferation of the scenario-based RPG format that Rudra no Hihou and a handful of other Squaresoft games utilized in the mid-90s (Day 1). It's probably time I address the Lord Ganesha in the room; by which I don't mean but am sort of alluding to the game's many references to Hindu/Buddhist mythology and folklore (I wouldn't even know where to start), but rather the game's soundtrack.

If you recall from the intro to this year's Alternative to E3 feature, this was one of the big selling points that got me invested in playing Rudra no Hihou specifically for the 2016 edition; Ryuji Sasai is the lone composer for Rudra no Hihou, and his previous work was the criminally underrated (if only musically) Final Fantasy Mystic Quest from 1992 which he co-composed with former Sega musician Yasuhiro "Y.K." Kawakami, who rejoined Sasai on Rudra no Hihou as Sound Engineer. Rudra no Hihou's soundtrack in comparison is... well, not exactly underwhelming, but not quite the same electrifying rock opera that Mystic Quest was. If anything, it sounds like some Squaresoft-ass Squaresoft music. But then, that's only based on what I've heard in the game thus far, which is barely scratching the surface given the three other scenarios and the places I've yet to visit.

First, let's make it clear that it's not like this game doesn't have some badass tracks. Take the theme for the enigmatic Jade stones that empower the four heroes and are central to the game's overarching plot - The Mysterious Stone. Sasai was presumably given directions from the writers to make this theme otherworldly and mystical to befit the jewels in question, and you can imagine exactly which direction Nobuo Uematsu might've gone with it. Instead, the track sounds more like something from a synth-heavy 80s slasher movie.

Second, the game offers two tracks for each hero, which usually play during cutscenes or walking around towns as that character. These two themes reflect whether it is day or night, with the night theme often being slower and more relaxed. As I've brought up before in the screenshot captions, the game's got a fixed time limit that moves at the "speed of plot": day turns to night and night turns to day as the player completes quest objectives and moves closer to the game's conclusion. The Sword of the Valiant (Day) and The Sword of the Valiant (Night) represent Vbomb the warrior (though perhaps I should use his original name Sion here) in particular. The day theme is fairly traditional rousing and heroic Squaresoft music - though it does sound like it might've come out of Mystic Quest in particular, thanks to Sasai's distinctive style - but the night theme takes away the marching drums and replaces it with some softer synth to make it feel a lot more ethereal. When I played Xenoblade Chronicles a few years back, I marveled at how novel it was that every area of the game had two distinct BGM based on the time of day. I'm guessing Rudra no Hihou wasn't the first to think of it either, but it couldn't have been particularly common.

Finally, Battle for the Fields and Strange Encounter are the standard battle theme and the standard boss theme respectively. These are the two tracks I've heard the most, naturally enough for a Squaresoft RPG where the random encounter rate is so high, but they've been pleasant enough to listen to as I whittle down odd-looking creatures sourced from the Rigveda. Surlent's boss theme is apparently this - The Spirit Chaser - so I feel a little duped that his is a lot cooler. Still, it's another case of how impressive it is that this game has so much music across the four scenarios.

That's going to have to do it for a quick primer on Treasure of the Rudras' music, since I don't want to risk spoiling too much of the soundtrack for myself before it turns up in the game, but I'd recommend giving this full soundtrack a listen. There's some tracks that feel like standard Squaresoft fare, others that have Ryuji Sasai's distinctive rock/synth sensibility and even more that sound so odd it's like they come from an entirely different game and genre altogether. At sixty-six tracks, it's not a SNES game soundtrack with many peers in terms of size or diversity (even the enormous Final Fantasy VI barely hits sixty), which makes it all the more incredible that it came from a single composer. While I still like a lot of Mystic Quest's tracks - Dark King, Doom Castle, Bone Dungeon - there's no denying that Sasai outdid himself with Rudra no Hihou.

Part 7: All-Stops Tour of the Sky Islands

Last time, on He's Not Heavy, He's My Brudra: Vbomb's crew is still adjusting to life on the Sky Islands, and are following the directions of an old nemesis to locate a way back to the surface. There's a Cult to disband, after all, and that can't happen with everyone's heads in the clouds.

You thought I was kidding about the Sky Train? Nope, Faxi here is ready to take us to as many islands as we need to visit, which is apparently all of them. RPGs, am I right?
You thought I was kidding about the Sky Train? Nope, Faxi here is ready to take us to as many islands as we need to visit, which is apparently all of them. RPGs, am I right?
While snoozing on the Sky Train (because I imagine it'd be a very boring journey, flying over the world in a magic train), Vbomb has a sepia-toned flashback to his fighting days. Taurus, it seemed, always favored Vbomb's peers Rostam and Huey because Vbomb was just too reckless dang it. Joke's on them; I'm still alive.
While snoozing on the Sky Train (because I imagine it'd be a very boring journey, flying over the world in a magic train), Vbomb has a sepia-toned flashback to his fighting days. Taurus, it seemed, always favored Vbomb's peers Rostam and Huey because Vbomb was just too reckless dang it. Joke's on them; I'm still alive.
The first tunnel we hit proves eventful, as the train is suddenly accosted by a giant sentient boulder. You might ask why a flying train would even need to enter a tunnel, and you'd be right to do so.
The first tunnel we hit proves eventful, as the train is suddenly accosted by a giant sentient boulder. You might ask why a flying train would even need to enter a tunnel, and you'd be right to do so.
Right, the big rock is one of those Horsemen of the Apocalypse that the freaky skulls warned us about.
Right, the big rock is one of those Horsemen of the Apocalypse that the freaky skulls warned us about.
The train is well-stocked, fortunately for us. There's a merchant and a guy who heals us for free. There's also this fellow, who gives us a useful mantra for the next fight - it's actually a fairly weak Wind element spell, but it has a Float affect that FF series fans will know as a useful way to avoid Earth damage. Starting to suspect this giant rock might be Earth-affiliated.
The train is well-stocked, fortunately for us. There's a merchant and a guy who heals us for free. There's also this fellow, who gives us a useful mantra for the next fight - it's actually a fairly weak Wind element spell, but it has a Float affect that FF series fans will know as a useful way to avoid Earth damage. Starting to suspect this giant rock might be Earth-affiliated.
The
The "Great" Bhadra (yet another Hindu deity, though you might recognize it as the name of one of Far Cry 4's characters) is indeed an Earth elemental, and like the Earth element in Final Fantasy it sort of sits outside the usual rock-paper-scissors tree of elemental affinities.
All the same, it really doesn't seem to like Lightning attacks. Sometimes when a boss has an elemental weakness, you do a lot more damage when everyone's blasting it with spells from that element. Even the warrior types like Vbomb. Despite a really nasty Earth spell that hits all characters for major damage, Bhadra wasn't so tough. I sort of wonder if we'll meet the other Horsemen, or if the fact that there's four of them means that each scenario gets one apiece?
All the same, it really doesn't seem to like Lightning attacks. Sometimes when a boss has an elemental weakness, you do a lot more damage when everyone's blasting it with spells from that element. Even the warrior types like Vbomb. Despite a really nasty Earth spell that hits all characters for major damage, Bhadra wasn't so tough. I sort of wonder if we'll meet the other Horsemen, or if the fact that there's four of them means that each scenario gets one apiece?
There's two exits to the cave. This one doesn't actually go anywhere - the cliffs are too close to the edge, so you can barely move a few squares - but it's another SNES FF trick that this game carries over: you're limited to where you're allowed to save the game, and the world map is one of those places. This, then, is simply a spot to save the game because the developers couldn't be arsed putting in a save point near the train.
There's two exits to the cave. This one doesn't actually go anywhere - the cliffs are too close to the edge, so you can barely move a few squares - but it's another SNES FF trick that this game carries over: you're limited to where you're allowed to save the game, and the world map is one of those places. This, then, is simply a spot to save the game because the developers couldn't be arsed putting in a save point near the train.
The other exit means passing through a small network of caves, which isn't all that taxing. It does mean bumping into these adorable umbrella cats though. They hate getting wet! Ironic, given they and every other enemy in here are Water-affiliated.
The other exit means passing through a small network of caves, which isn't all that taxing. It does mean bumping into these adorable umbrella cats though. They hate getting wet! Ironic, given they and every other enemy in here are Water-affiliated.
Leaving by the correct exit this time and... the Ark! Those damn thieves have gotta be around here somewhere! And here were are without Ramyleth around to steal it back...
Leaving by the correct exit this time and... the Ark! Those damn thieves have gotta be around here somewhere! And here were are without Ramyleth around to steal it back...
The Garal Clock Tower has a cool steampunk aesthetic to it, though there's nothing much in the way of clockwork puzzles and the like. It's yet another tower dungeon too, so that means more floor puzzles.
The Garal Clock Tower has a cool steampunk aesthetic to it, though there's nothing much in the way of clockwork puzzles and the like. It's yet another tower dungeon too, so that means more floor puzzles.
I made an epiphany moving through the Clock Tower - Foxy here takes a lot less damage from all the spells the enemies are casting, which are uniformly Lightning-based. She took way more damage than everyone else while passing through that cave full of Water-based creatures, however. I suspect that if you have increased defense to one element, you'll take more damage from its opposite. Worth considering if you're about to enter an overtly element-based dungeon like this.
I made an epiphany moving through the Clock Tower - Foxy here takes a lot less damage from all the spells the enemies are casting, which are uniformly Lightning-based. She took way more damage than everyone else while passing through that cave full of Water-based creatures, however. I suspect that if you have increased defense to one element, you'll take more damage from its opposite. Worth considering if you're about to enter an overtly element-based dungeon like this.
I met a few of these Dartrys, and despite looking like a boss he was just a normal albeit tough enemy. The game just goes all out on its enemy designs, it's wonderful.
I met a few of these Dartrys, and despite looking like a boss he was just a normal albeit tough enemy. The game just goes all out on its enemy designs, it's wonderful.
So we've found a few of these clock doors, and there's a specific trick to them which I'm sure you've figured out, given how many times I've talked about the game's
So we've found a few of these clock doors, and there's a specific trick to them which I'm sure you've figured out, given how many times I've talked about the game's "quest-time" clock.
Monju here is the first of the Divine Danans we've met, who seem to operate like guardians of various abstract concepts. Monju is specifically the guardian of time, and sits on top of this tower waiting for Jade-bearers like us.
Monju here is the first of the Divine Danans we've met, who seem to operate like guardians of various abstract concepts. Monju is specifically the guardian of time, and sits on top of this tower waiting for Jade-bearers like us.
He's also one of those guys who insists on making us prove ourselves, so we have another boss on our hands. I suspect if we had Ramyleth here, he might've trusted us quicker. Dang it, where did that guy wander off to?
He's also one of those guys who insists on making us prove ourselves, so we have another boss on our hands. I suspect if we had Ramyleth here, he might've trusted us quicker. Dang it, where did that guy wander off to?
The Danan bosses, I'll discover, are all difficult foes that are heavily-Mantra focused. That means a lot of free spell ideas, but it also means working around elements and figuring out how best to approach them. Guy hits hard with his Lightning spells, but the obvious weakness to Wind means we can use a similar strategy to the last fight with Bhadra. As in, just barrage Professor X with Wind spells and stop to heal every so often.
The Danan bosses, I'll discover, are all difficult foes that are heavily-Mantra focused. That means a lot of free spell ideas, but it also means working around elements and figuring out how best to approach them. Guy hits hard with his Lightning spells, but the obvious weakness to Wind means we can use a similar strategy to the last fight with Bhadra. As in, just barrage Professor X with Wind spells and stop to heal every so often.
Monju gives us some directions, as well as allowing us to activate the Clock Tower's mechanisms. But what could this do?
Monju gives us some directions, as well as allowing us to activate the Clock Tower's mechanisms. But what could this do?
So this is how the clock doors work, now the Clock Tower is active. With eight days left before the end of the world, the Clock Tower will chime once after midnight seven times in total (the first happens as soon as we learn how the clocks work). Each chime moves all the clock hands above doors by one. You can get a sense of how long it takes certain doors to open by seeing how far the clock is along - ideally, you can double back and revisit certain locations at a later time when the door/day aligns right, but realistically I imagine some clock doors will be conveniently open for some groups and not for others.
So this is how the clock doors work, now the Clock Tower is active. With eight days left before the end of the world, the Clock Tower will chime once after midnight seven times in total (the first happens as soon as we learn how the clocks work). Each chime moves all the clock hands above doors by one. You can get a sense of how long it takes certain doors to open by seeing how far the clock is along - ideally, you can double back and revisit certain locations at a later time when the door/day aligns right, but realistically I imagine some clock doors will be conveniently open for some groups and not for others.
Hilariously, we beat these two chucklefucks to these chests on the way up the tower, so now it's our turn to leave them with nothing. Unfortunately, they return the favor by quickly darting out of the tower and taking the airship with them. Well, at least I know that getting around as the thief will be easier... and besides, we have a cool-ass Sky Train to take us to the next destination!
Hilariously, we beat these two chucklefucks to these chests on the way up the tower, so now it's our turn to leave them with nothing. Unfortunately, they return the favor by quickly darting out of the tower and taking the airship with them. Well, at least I know that getting around as the thief will be easier... and besides, we have a cool-ass Sky Train to take us to the next destination!

Part 8: We Continue to Trample On Other Cultures

Last time, on: Opening the Fludra Gates, Vbomb and co. are passing through the Sky Islands for a way to get home. They've been given dominion over the power of time, only not really as all it does is open some doors at opportune times, but it's something at least. We're going to be up here for a while, so maybe we take what we can get? Speaking of which, let's go rob some more places and beat up their guardians.

Conveniently, the train has fixed its boulder-related problems and it's time to move onto... the Ruined City? They need a better tourism board.
Conveniently, the train has fixed its boulder-related problems and it's time to move onto... the Ruined City? They need a better tourism board.
Catulia is the Reptile part of the Sky Islands, and it's not that bad really. It's a bunch of caves rather than ruins.
Catulia is the Reptile part of the Sky Islands, and it's not that bad really. It's a bunch of caves rather than ruins.
No thanks, I already had some Chamobadfilenameornumber Tea. I'm glad I thought that was a good goof.
No thanks, I already had some Chamobadfilenameornumber Tea. I'm glad I thought that was a good goof.
Gram's Tomb is why we're here, though we've not been told why we need the Gram sword. Still, it's not like I'm about to turn down a free legendary sword.
Gram's Tomb is why we're here, though we've not been told why we need the Gram sword. Still, it's not like I'm about to turn down a free legendary sword.
Gram's Tomb seems kinda confusing early on, but the basement is a lot more straightforward. Lots of hitting switches and checking to see what changed in the previous room.
Gram's Tomb seems kinda confusing early on, but the basement is a lot more straightforward. Lots of hitting switches and checking to see what changed in the previous room.
The enemy that pops up the most is this guy, Gir. He's annoying because he has a huge amount of health, so every battle involves a few rounds of healing and clobbering him with weapons, and he shows up in 60% of the encounters. Even so, I gotta thank him for this new Mantra idea.
The enemy that pops up the most is this guy, Gir. He's annoying because he has a huge amount of health, so every battle involves a few rounds of healing and clobbering him with weapons, and he shows up in 60% of the encounters. Even so, I gotta thank him for this new Mantra idea.
"IG" (fire element) and "LUS"(strengthens spells) I already knew about, but FULL is a new prefix that adds a lot of damage to spells (or more HP healed for the cure spells). The MP costs go up too, but Ture's drowning in the stuff. Prefixes are the most common "new" mantras you can find, and there's only so much space to apply them, so you often have to edit the Mantras you have and switch out lesser affixes for new, stronger ones.
Marica is the guardian of this place and... he sorta seems like just a normal Reptile dude? Who is down here protecting his race's legendary weapon from thieves from other species? I sort of don't see how we're not the bad guys here. Marica is also extremely powerful - his Rex Spin hits one character for 100 damage and Rex Air hits them all for around 60. You can see our total health, so that gives you some idea of how much healing I had to do per turn. Poor Ture was stuck healing the whole time while the other two whittled the boss down with physical attacks and Water spells.
Marica is the guardian of this place and... he sorta seems like just a normal Reptile dude? Who is down here protecting his race's legendary weapon from thieves from other species? I sort of don't see how we're not the bad guys here. Marica is also extremely powerful - his Rex Spin hits one character for 100 damage and Rex Air hits them all for around 60. You can see our total health, so that gives you some idea of how much healing I had to do per turn. Poor Ture was stuck healing the whole time while the other two whittled the boss down with physical attacks and Water spells.
As you might surmise from a legendary blade that was protected by a powerful guardian and emits a giant ray of ethereal light when pulled from its rock, it's... barely stronger than the sword we were already using.
As you might surmise from a legendary blade that was protected by a powerful guardian and emits a giant ray of ethereal light when pulled from its rock, it's... barely stronger than the sword we were already using.
Nothing significant's happening here, I just like the little animation of Vbomb waking up and looking around whenever the Sky Train comes to a stop. It's a little relatable character moment that grounds, so to speak, this part of the game's more fantastical aspects.
Nothing significant's happening here, I just like the little animation of Vbomb waking up and looking around whenever the Sky Train comes to a stop. It's a little relatable character moment that grounds, so to speak, this part of the game's more fantastical aspects.
We're now in Roma, the merfolk city. It's an attractive place, but I wonder why they all live in surface caves. Actually, I sort of wonder how there's a lake on a floating island at all, but it's just one of those magical Danan technology things I guess.
We're now in Roma, the merfolk city. It's an attractive place, but I wonder why they all live in surface caves. Actually, I sort of wonder how there's a lake on a floating island at all, but it's just one of those magical Danan technology things I guess.
In case you forgot the laundry list of destinations that Surt gave you, each one of these towns basically says
In case you forgot the laundry list of destinations that Surt gave you, each one of these towns basically says "hey, go to the one other location on this island dummy". It helps to know the next place is full of Wind monsters though.
Spending the last of our cash on all the new equipment in shops, as per JRPG tradition, we've already found a weapon to outclass that Gram sword we just picked up. Figures. Well, maybe it has plot purposes? I mean, we did go to the trouble of murdering a guard for it.
Spending the last of our cash on all the new equipment in shops, as per JRPG tradition, we've already found a weapon to outclass that Gram sword we just picked up. Figures. Well, maybe it has plot purposes? I mean, we did go to the trouble of murdering a guard for it.
Sounds like a bunch of Glub fiction to me. (No more random NPC goofs, I get ya.)
Sounds like a bunch of Glub fiction to me. (No more random NPC goofs, I get ya.)
After leaving Roma, we spot the northern continent. If you recall, the Druidess character hails from this region and has been looking for a way to purify the high levels of pollution from the area.
After leaving Roma, we spot the northern continent. If you recall, the Druidess character hails from this region and has been looking for a way to purify the high levels of pollution from the area.
Apparently she figured it out, because the blackened region disappears before our very eyes. We're naturally optimistic about this development, but does it really mean the end of the world has been averted?
Apparently she figured it out, because the blackened region disappears before our very eyes. We're naturally optimistic about this development, but does it really mean the end of the world has been averted?
Frey Ruins does indeed have Wind-elemental enemies, and these guys look great. So much detail in those headdresses. They're easy enough monsters though - they seem to take a lot of physical damage for whatever reason.
Frey Ruins does indeed have Wind-elemental enemies, and these guys look great. So much detail in those headdresses. They're easy enough monsters though - they seem to take a lot of physical damage for whatever reason.
Man, do I appreciate how these pots are in every dungeon. I make a beeline for it every time there's a boss fight coming up.
Man, do I appreciate how these pots are in every dungeon. I make a beeline for it every time there's a boss fight coming up.
Opsis is the second Divine Danan, and appears to be one that governs all the advanced knowledge of the race. Being a little more enlightened than his time-based contemporary, he dispenses with the trial by combat and tells us what we need to hear.
Opsis is the second Divine Danan, and appears to be one that governs all the advanced knowledge of the race. Being a little more enlightened than his time-based contemporary, he dispenses with the trial by combat and tells us what we need to hear.
Nah, just kidding, it's another boss fight against a weirdo with a whole bunch of new Mantras. Pusspeck here, which probably isn't the word I'd have gone for if I was localizing the game, drops everyone's magical defense. That makes it harder to survive the other mantras he has, most of which are Wind-elemental. He doesn't appear to have elemental weaknesses, at least nothing I could find, but he doesn't have a whole lot of HP fortunately.
Nah, just kidding, it's another boss fight against a weirdo with a whole bunch of new Mantras. Pusspeck here, which probably isn't the word I'd have gone for if I was localizing the game, drops everyone's magical defense. That makes it harder to survive the other mantras he has, most of which are Wind-elemental. He doesn't appear to have elemental weaknesses, at least nothing I could find, but he doesn't have a whole lot of HP fortunately.
Opsis calms down and gives us our last destination: Danan Temple, to meet Mayura. Isn't that a full circle? He also confirms the nature of the Rudras: they actually come from space, rather than the polluted/corrupted Earth, and the first thing they do is recover all the Jades. With those, they become unstoppable and destroy the world. The Danan have watched this happen four times now, so I'm inclined to believe them. That means we gotta team up with the other Jade-owners and watch our backs for any crazy-looking alien asking us if he can take a closer look at the gem in our eye socket.
Opsis calms down and gives us our last destination: Danan Temple, to meet Mayura. Isn't that a full circle? He also confirms the nature of the Rudras: they actually come from space, rather than the polluted/corrupted Earth, and the first thing they do is recover all the Jades. With those, they become unstoppable and destroy the world. The Danan have watched this happen four times now, so I'm inclined to believe them. That means we gotta team up with the other Jade-owners and watch our backs for any crazy-looking alien asking us if he can take a closer look at the gem in our eye socket.

And with that, we'll have to conclude our sky peregrinations for today. I'm hoping tomorrow that we can get back to Terra Firma (literally what the game calls it) and reach something approaching a temporary conclusion to Vbomb's story. Tomorrow is, of course, the last day of E3 and it would be really convenient if I could finish this scenario in time. Either way, I'll probably continue this game after E3 is done; I'm having fun, and I'd like to see what the other groups have been up to all this time.

Until tomorrow and the end of E3, I've been Mento, the 2MP Lightning-based single-target Mantra (yes, of course I tried enscribing my own name).

Day 0A: Parts 1 & 2Day 0B: Parts 3 & 4Day 1: Parts 5 & 6
Day 2: Parts 7 & 8Day 3: Parts 9, 10, 11 & Finale

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Mento's Alternative to E3 2016: Day 1: Rudra Starts Getting Nuts

No Caption Provided

Welcome everyone to another edition of Mento's Alternative to E3 2016, wherein I continue to delve into the forgotten Squaresoft JRPG Rudra no Hihou, or The Treasure of the Rudras. The game's been a bit slow so far, but today's updates are gonna accelerate the plot just a smidge with a few curveballs. If you're just joining us, be sure to check out Parts 1 and 2 here, and Parts 3 and 4 here.

Before I resume the LP, though, I have some musings about the short-lived scenario-based JRPG.

I've been wondering why Squaresoft decided briefly to focus on RPGs with a scenario format - specifically, those games that let players take on the roles of various heroes in any order they choose, and requiring that they complete all the available scenarios before they would be allowed to move onto the end-game. Most of these are the Squaresoft JRPGs we never received overseas: Live a Live, Seiken Densetsu 3, and the Romancing SaGa series. It occurred to me that there's a number of benefits for this format from a purely narrative standpoint. We'll see one of those later when the LP resumes, but another significant one is that it allows players to spend time with secondary and tertiary characters that would otherwise get lost in the mix. Consider the many RPGs often of a more strategy bent that offer huge casts of characters - the Fire Emblems and Suikodens of the world, say, or the many heroes of games like Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Cross - and how they're often lacking when it comes to fleshing out characters that aren't central to the plot. These characters might get a few lines of backstory, or an optional side-quest that offers a lot more levity than the game's central plot, but tend to get sidelined when the player has more characters than they have spaces in their active party and some are inevitably left in the non-active roster to depreciate in value as their companions continue to outpace them in levels and equipment. With scenarios, you give multiple fixed parties their time in the sun before the final act inevitably draws them all together and the player is able to cherry-pick their favorites.

I wouldn't say Rudra is taking full advantage of this. Ture's a fairly important character in terms of moving the plot forward, as well as being living proof that the "extinct" races of legend still exist in some form, but we've had little in the way of development for Foxy. She's simply introduced as a proficient hunter of criminals early on and saddled with Vbomb as his constant companion, interjecting occasionally when the plot demands a sassy female outlook on current events. I'm not going to start any kind of poopstorm about the lackluster characterization of women in Japanese RPGs, but it does feel like a missed opportunity to give these three characters - which is a small group, comparatively speaking - more time to flourish before they're thrown into the predicted giant end-game stable and disappear in the shuffle.

But scenario-based JRPGs do more than give characters room to grow. By looking at the world from various perspectives - a reckless warrior, a learned scholar, a compassionate environmentalist and an opportunistic treasure hunter - you give the bizarre central plot and the various legends and prophecies govern it some much needed alternate perspectives. I've no doubt, without knowing for sure, that each character will face their own challenges and see parts of the world that the others will miss, purely based on the fact that I don't think the game will want to repeat itself that much with so much geography to explore, but their disparate adventures will serve to create deeper context for the larger mysteries governing this encroaching end of the world scenario and the journeys of all four characters. That's the true strength of the scenario-based format, I figure: having different angles on the same story, and allowing the player to use those to piece together the big picture.

Part 5: More Crossovers Than an MCU Movie

Last time on Paul Ruddra's SNES Commercial: Looking for answers and the whereabouts of Vbomb's friends Rostam and Heuy, as well as Ture's companion Ramyleth, the heroes tramp all the way up a mountain to look for another old person who knows a lot, only to have to tramp all the way to the bottom because I missed something somewhere. It's a JRPG, in so many words.

Turns out I needed to talk to a merchant in Opressa. I think the game told me as much, but I'd visited his store earlier to be told by his assistant that the merchant was
Turns out I needed to talk to a merchant in Opressa. I think the game told me as much, but I'd visited his store earlier to be told by his assistant that the merchant was "out" and other NPCs had told me about men going to the mountain north. Easy mistake to make.
You may have noticed another curiously-dressed bunch hanging out during our conversation: it's actually Wizmaker and his party! It's natural enough that the four scenarios would overlap eventually, but seems way too cute a coincidence. Until we play his scenario, we won't know who that ninja or the woman in purple is, but it's a fun enough teaser.
You may have noticed another curiously-dressed bunch hanging out during our conversation: it's actually Wizmaker and his party! It's natural enough that the four scenarios would overlap eventually, but seems way too cute a coincidence. Until we play his scenario, we won't know who that ninja or the woman in purple is, but it's a fun enough teaser.
Heading back north, there's something different about the world map...
Heading back north, there's something different about the world map...
Ture's friend Ramyleth has an airship, named the Ark, but it appears to be abandoned. That's too bad; I could really use an airship. I mean, it'd be convenient at the best of times, but even more so with this time limit hanging over our heads.
Ture's friend Ramyleth has an airship, named the Ark, but it appears to be abandoned. That's too bad; I could really use an airship. I mean, it'd be convenient at the best of times, but even more so with this time limit hanging over our heads.
Yeah, no Grand Theft Dirigible, alas. The airship's locked up tight, and only Ramyleth can fly it anyway. I guess we better find him first.
Yeah, no Grand Theft Dirigible, alas. The airship's locked up tight, and only Ramyleth can fly it anyway. I guess we better find him first.
The tower is now mysteriously open, no key required, and so begins the next tower dungeon. Or so you'd think.
The tower is now mysteriously open, no key required, and so begins the next tower dungeon. Or so you'd think.
These are the only enemies I met in the tower. They're resistant to physical attacks, and hit you with this fire elemental Mantra. Doesn't take a whole lot of ratiocination to figure out what to counter them with. I mean, the game went through all the trouble of telling us how elements worked...
These are the only enemies I met in the tower. They're resistant to physical attacks, and hit you with this fire elemental Mantra. Doesn't take a whole lot of ratiocination to figure out what to counter them with. I mean, the game went through all the trouble of telling us how elements worked...
Two rooms into the tower and we overhear these knuckleheads trying to make off with a statue that looks suspiciously like the old man we've been searching for. It is of course Lockedwn, our rogue with the E3-themed name, and the second look at how another scenario is getting along.
Two rooms into the tower and we overhear these knuckleheads trying to make off with a statue that looks suspiciously like the old man we've been searching for. It is of course Lockedwn, our rogue with the E3-themed name, and the second look at how another scenario is getting along.
His pal, another thief, is called Cid. So if you're wondering where that guy was going to show up... either way, they managed to trick us and run off. We also happened to spot Lockedwn receive his jade from the statue, so I'm hoping Ramyleth isn't too sore about that. If we can figure out how to defrost him.
His pal, another thief, is called Cid. So if you're wondering where that guy was going to show up... either way, they managed to trick us and run off. We also happened to spot Lockedwn receive his jade from the statue, so I'm hoping Ramyleth isn't too sore about that. If we can figure out how to defrost him.
Actually, I guess the jade did the trick. We're introduced to the spry old man Ramyleth, Ture's close friend and a fellow scholar of the Rudras.
Actually, I guess the jade did the trick. We're introduced to the spry old man Ramyleth, Ture's close friend and a fellow scholar of the Rudras.
He also gives us this Mantra, which seems kind of obvious in retrospect. Having our own Life spell this early on is bound to be useful. While I'm talking about other scenarios - I guess it is important which order you do them in, because when I finally get around to playing them I'll have all this mantra knowledge to fall back on.
He also gives us this Mantra, which seems kind of obvious in retrospect. Having our own Life spell this early on is bound to be useful. While I'm talking about other scenarios - I guess it is important which order you do them in, because when I finally get around to playing them I'll have all this mantra knowledge to fall back on.
Ramyleth also joins our party! He's not packing much physically, but his Spirit and Mag Defend stats are through the roof compared to our other party members. Though he has fewer MP than Ture, his mantras are a lot more powerful. Also of note? He's apparently not only a member of the Danan people - you might remember them from the intro as being the bald wizard race - but also their King. Seems like a useful ally!
Ramyleth also joins our party! He's not packing much physically, but his Spirit and Mag Defend stats are through the roof compared to our other party members. Though he has fewer MP than Ture, his mantras are a lot more powerful. Also of note? He's apparently not only a member of the Danan people - you might remember them from the intro as being the bald wizard race - but also their King. Seems like a useful ally!
Of course, we're denied our airship this early on. The implication here is that the thieves took Ramyleth's jade and are using it to joyride in his supremely useful conveyance. I guess we'll be sailing back to Danelf after all.
Of course, we're denied our airship this early on. The implication here is that the thieves took Ramyleth's jade and are using it to joyride in his supremely useful conveyance. I guess we'll be sailing back to Danelf after all.
Perhaps inevitably, we bump into the third hero on our way back across to the tournament. Sclonna, you might recall, is the druidess. She's here to visit the King of Cryunne, and hails from a continent where the pollution is the strongest. I'm already dreading whatever climate change jeremiad her scenario will involve.
Perhaps inevitably, we bump into the third hero on our way back across to the tournament. Sclonna, you might recall, is the druidess. She's here to visit the King of Cryunne, and hails from a continent where the pollution is the strongest. I'm already dreading whatever climate change jeremiad her scenario will involve.
Our last challenger, a secretive monk, goads Vbomb into accepting a one-on-one match, despite the fact that we'd easily overpower the guy with our full party (really, we've had no chance to try out Ramyleth yet).
Our last challenger, a secretive monk, goads Vbomb into accepting a one-on-one match, despite the fact that we'd easily overpower the guy with our full party (really, we've had no chance to try out Ramyleth yet).
Needless to say, this puts us at a distinct disadvantage. Vbomb's total MP is still in the single-figures, so I can't rely on heal magic to keep me in this fight. It's a lot of using healing items and hoping I don't run out, while whittling this guy down between all his martial arts moves. It's not quite as crushing as it sounds though; I've given Vbomb all the best equipment so far, and going up and down that mountain twice (sigh) has ensured that he's at a decent level.
Needless to say, this puts us at a distinct disadvantage. Vbomb's total MP is still in the single-figures, so I can't rely on heal magic to keep me in this fight. It's a lot of using healing items and hoping I don't run out, while whittling this guy down between all his martial arts moves. It's not quite as crushing as it sounds though; I've given Vbomb all the best equipment so far, and going up and down that mountain twice (sigh) has ensured that he's at a decent level.
Afterwards, the monk reveals himself to be... Pastor Miller!! Wait, who? I guess I should've visited that church on the map...
Afterwards, the monk reveals himself to be... Pastor Miller!! Wait, who? I guess I should've visited that church on the map...
He's an old friend of Taurus, anyway, and had previously lost to him 10 years ago during the last Tower of the Valiant contest. He lets slip that Taurus has gone deep underground to dismantle the Rudra Cult, something we're going to have to get back to doing now that these silly arena shenanigans are over with.
He's an old friend of Taurus, anyway, and had previously lost to him 10 years ago during the last Tower of the Valiant contest. He lets slip that Taurus has gone deep underground to dismantle the Rudra Cult, something we're going to have to get back to doing now that these silly arena shenanigans are over with.
At any rate, alls well that ends well, I suppose. Time to get back to the castle and start figuring out where to go next.
At any rate, alls well that ends well, I suppose. Time to get back to the castle and start figuring out where to go next.
Ramyleth suddenly moves us to this platform and remarks on a sudden eclipse, which apparently means the world will end in twelve more days. Right. I forgot about all that.
Ramyleth suddenly moves us to this platform and remarks on a sudden eclipse, which apparently means the world will end in twelve more days. Right. I forgot about all that.
And then the Jade suddenly goes crazy and the platform we're on starts rising from the ground. Uh, OK?
And then the Jade suddenly goes crazy and the platform we're on starts rising from the ground. Uh, OK?
OK????
OK????

Part 6: OK???????

Last time, on I Can't Believe it's Not Rudra: The party gets flung into space by a magical platform? I guess?

We land unceremoniously on this sky castle? What the heck? I recognize those two though, or at least recognize their race: they're every bit like the Danan we saw during the intro.
We land unceremoniously on this sky castle? What the heck? I recognize those two though, or at least recognize their race: they're every bit like the Danan we saw during the intro.
Ramyleth fills in the confused humans. The Sky Islands are a magical nation built by the mystic Danan race, and is the home of Ture and Ramyleth and many others.
Ramyleth fills in the confused humans. The Sky Islands are a magical nation built by the mystic Danan race, and is the home of Ture and Ramyleth and many others.
 It was also the reason the Danan were able to avoid complete annihilation by the Rudras. It's curious to note that the Danan race would've been wiped out 20000 years ago. Surt gave us a different figure for the Giants' own doomsday: 8000 years ago. It's been four thousand years since the last culling and the rise of humans thereafter, so I'm wondering if this is like Mass Effect and the Reapers. The Danan, Reptiles, Merfolk and Giants were all the dominant species of the planet at different points in its history, and each were all but wiped out by the Rudras with humanity now next on the chopping block.
It was also the reason the Danan were able to avoid complete annihilation by the Rudras. It's curious to note that the Danan race would've been wiped out 20000 years ago. Surt gave us a different figure for the Giants' own doomsday: 8000 years ago. It's been four thousand years since the last culling and the rise of humans thereafter, so I'm wondering if this is like Mass Effect and the Reapers. The Danan, Reptiles, Merfolk and Giants were all the dominant species of the planet at different points in its history, and each were all but wiped out by the Rudras with humanity now next on the chopping block.
I'm also getting some strong Zeal (of Chrono Trigger) vibes from this place, with its location in the sky and the wondrous technology of a millennia-old civilization that figured out a way to merge magic with science. Those two games were released so close together that I was expecting some thematic overlap.
I'm also getting some strong Zeal (of Chrono Trigger) vibes from this place, with its location in the sky and the wondrous technology of a millennia-old civilization that figured out a way to merge magic with science. Those two games were released so close together that I was expecting some thematic overlap.
The Sky Islands also host members from the two other species we'd yet to meet - the merfolk and the reptiles - shown here waiting for a train. I guess we have a lot in common after all.
The Sky Islands also host members from the two other species we'd yet to meet - the merfolk and the reptiles - shown here waiting for a train. I guess we have a lot in common after all.
I figured I'd check out the map here too. Like Ramyleth says, it's an archipelago of floating islands linked by a skytrain, like the one foretold in that Train Simulator QL. Where we're going, we don't need rails.
I figured I'd check out the map here too. Like Ramyleth says, it's an archipelago of floating islands linked by a skytrain, like the one foretold in that Train Simulator QL. Where we're going, we don't need rails.
Buying some new equipment with all my hard-earned loot. It was expensive, but this fire bow makes Ramyleth a lot more powerful, and it also means I can stick him on the back row out of harm's way. He's effectively a powerhouse both magically and physically at this point, and he'll definitely pull his weight when we finally get to use him in a boss fight.
Buying some new equipment with all my hard-earned loot. It was expensive, but this fire bow makes Ramyleth a lot more powerful, and it also means I can stick him on the back row out of harm's way. He's effectively a powerhouse both magically and physically at this point, and he'll definitely pull his weight when we finally get to use him in a boss fight.
I really like how the world map looks up here. Peering down, we can see the smoggy cloud cover and distant landmasses. It's a neat effect.
I really like how the world map looks up here. Peering down, we can see the smoggy cloud cover and distant landmasses. It's a neat effect.
We also spot the airship flying off at a tangent. Do those thieves even know how to steer that thing?
We also spot the airship flying off at a tangent. Do those thieves even know how to steer that thing?
Sigmund Glacier, which has
Sigmund Glacier, which has "Ice Dungeon" written all over it, is the only other thing on this island worth checking out. Ramyleth tells us there's a Holy Danan waiting beneath the ice for a hero, to whom he will bequeath an immeasurably powerful sword.
Naturally, I can't find a way in. In fact, the only thing here are these annoying ice monsters (hey, guess what element works well on them?). A fire bow would be particularly useful here, which is why Ramyleth leaves the party for vague plot reasons, taking his expensive new equipment with him. This game's kind of a procession of teases, huh?
Naturally, I can't find a way in. In fact, the only thing here are these annoying ice monsters (hey, guess what element works well on them?). A fire bow would be particularly useful here, which is why Ramyleth leaves the party for vague plot reasons, taking his expensive new equipment with him. This game's kind of a procession of teases, huh?
Back in the Danan castle to look for Ramyleth, I must've missed the library the first time through. Just a bunch of lore and magic tips we already knew about, but this was a nice find. I now have the final two elemental mantras I was missing.
Back in the Danan castle to look for Ramyleth, I must've missed the library the first time through. Just a bunch of lore and magic tips we already knew about, but this was a nice find. I now have the final two elemental mantras I was missing.
You! Lefty!
You! Lefty!
Vbomb talks big, but I got ganked last time and I had a full crew of knights with me. Vbomb's naturally upset about his missing friends, but it doesn't seem like Surt's here to stir trouble.
Vbomb talks big, but I got ganked last time and I had a full crew of knights with me. Vbomb's naturally upset about his missing friends, but it doesn't seem like Surt's here to stir trouble.
In fact, he gives us a bunch of directions to help us get back home to the surface. The veracity of his instructions might be highly dubious, given how much the dude hates our guts, but it's not like we've got a whole lot else to do. We're off to visit all four of the Holy Danan prophets in a plot-contrived order.
In fact, he gives us a bunch of directions to help us get back home to the surface. The veracity of his instructions might be highly dubious, given how much the dude hates our guts, but it's not like we've got a whole lot else to do. We're off to visit all four of the Holy Danan prophets in a plot-contrived order.
Meanwhile, on Freaky Sky Bridge.
Meanwhile, on Freaky Sky Bridge.
Uhhhhhhh
Uhhhhhhh
Coooooool? I better tell Ramyleth that his bridge is haunted by thirsty ghosts.
Coooooool? I better tell Ramyleth that his bridge is haunted by thirsty ghosts.
So with that ominousness out of the way, we're off to visit another series of dungeons and towns across the Sky Islands. Join us tomorrow as we hunt down some powerful wizards and try not to think too hard about whatever demonic Horsemen of the Apocalypse might be following us.
So with that ominousness out of the way, we're off to visit another series of dungeons and towns across the Sky Islands. Join us tomorrow as we hunt down some powerful wizards and try not to think too hard about whatever demonic Horsemen of the Apocalypse might be following us.

Day 0A: Parts 1 & 2Day 0B: Parts 3 & 4Day 1: Parts 5 & 6
Day 2: Parts 7 & 8Day 3: Parts 9, 10, 11 & Finale
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Mento's Alternative to E3 2016: Day 0: The Real Day 0 This Time

Hey all, and welcome to the continuing playthrough of the final Squaresoft-developed SNES game: 1996's Rudra no Hihou. For those just joining us, be sure to check back with the other Day 0 entry (yeah my bad, dates are hard) for all the necessary set-up and explanation for why I'm playing a decades old JRPG when there's E3 conferences to watch and jokes about weed to be made.

When we last left our monoculous hero soldier Vbomb, he'd just been beaten around by the member of a legendary ancient race. Naturally for a Square game, there's a whole bunch of towers and crystals and imminent end of the world scenarios to be concerned about, and it appears our prologue days are over. That also means there's more walking over tutorial monsters and bosses either...

Before we resume with the LP, however, I feel like I need to take a moment to explain how the game's magic works, because there's a lot to clarify there. It's not overly complex in terms of how simple it is for the player to grasp, but it is complex system that Square was tinkering around with and apparently dropped for later games. Essentially, spells are known as "Mantras" in Rudra no Hihou, and operate as "magic words" that the player can create between battles via the "Enscribe" menu. It's as simple as choosing a blank space, writing any word you wish using the virtual keyboard that usually only pops up when naming characters, and being told what the spell effect is and how MP it costs to cast once it's done. However, there's a set of rules governing what mantras do what that the player slowly gleans over time, including a whole affix system that increases the strength or adds special effects to mantras if you add specific prefixes and suffixes to what you already have.

I'll get into more detail with the screenshots, because it'll be easier to explain the specifics with visual aids, but the spells are rooted in an etymological system that rewards both experimentation and going out of your way to pick up tips in-game from books or NPCs. Most words will produce weak spells with high MP cost, which are completely useless, while the ones you find in the world will tend to be more reliable. That doesn't mean that you won't come across something like Metroid's JUSTIN BAILEY if you search long enough. Infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters, and all that. It's a really cool and versatile magic system, and it sort of makes me wish that I picked a more magically-inclined hero for my first scenario so I could put it through its paces. Still, Vbomb's party might be getting a magic-user very soon...

Part 3: Ture Ducking

Last time, on Rudragged Kicking & Screaming: A routine patrol leads to a fight on top of a giant tower with a giant man which didn't end as predictably as you might think, as Vbomb takes a gemstone to the eye and his compatriots fall to their doom. As introductions go, it's an inauspicious one.

We're back with some svelte screenshots. The last ones were x3, but they felt a bit blown out in retrospect. The game's text is harder to make out at smaller sizes, though, so we're at a x2 compromise here. Anyway, Foxy's just been standing in our home all the time we've been recovering, despite our brother looking after us. Someone's thirsty.
We're back with some svelte screenshots. The last ones were x3, but they felt a bit blown out in retrospect. The game's text is harder to make out at smaller sizes, though, so we're at a x2 compromise here. Anyway, Foxy's just been standing in our home all the time we've been recovering, despite our brother looking after us. Someone's thirsty.
Now that we have access to the stores, we can check to see what looks good for our two-person team. This screen is very much like FFVI's and Chrono Trigger's: characters laugh maniacally if they're allowed to use the presently highlighted equipment. That's reassuring. At any rate, we have most of the best stuff already and can't afford more regardless.
Now that we have access to the stores, we can check to see what looks good for our two-person team. This screen is very much like FFVI's and Chrono Trigger's: characters laugh maniacally if they're allowed to use the presently highlighted equipment. That's reassuring. At any rate, we have most of the best stuff already and can't afford more regardless.
Our first task after waking up, which is to say everyone's doing whatever Vbomb wants, is to go look for his fallen buddies in the Tower of Giants. We won't be warping directly to the top this time, so this will act as our first dungeon. Better get prepared.
Our first task after waking up, which is to say everyone's doing whatever Vbomb wants, is to go look for his fallen buddies in the Tower of Giants. We won't be warping directly to the top this time, so this will act as our first dungeon. Better get prepared.
Let's take the mantra system out for a spin, what say? Naturally, I'm going to be as high-brow about this as possible. This type of lingual alchemy business is an academic science, after all.
Let's take the mantra system out for a spin, what say? Naturally, I'm going to be as high-brow about this as possible. This type of lingual alchemy business is an academic science, after all.
Most spells in the game have spell effects. Like a fireball for fire magic, and so on. When you just get a giant word like this, that usually means your made-up mantra sucks. Butt here does a small amount of void (non-elemental) damage, but the MP cost isn't worth the damage output.
Most spells in the game have spell effects. Like a fireball for fire magic, and so on. When you just get a giant word like this, that usually means your made-up mantra sucks. Butt here does a small amount of void (non-elemental) damage, but the MP cost isn't worth the damage output.
You can see on this list of experiments (hey, it's E3) that the spells that don't follow the rules tend to cost a lot of MP and are kinda shitty. Ig/Igna and Lef/Lafna adroitly demonstrate how the game's affix system works: while IG is a single-target fire-based spell and LEF is a single-target heal, by adding
You can see on this list of experiments (hey, it's E3) that the spells that don't follow the rules tend to cost a lot of MP and are kinda shitty. Ig/Igna and Lef/Lafna adroitly demonstrate how the game's affix system works: while IG is a single-target fire-based spell and LEF is a single-target heal, by adding "NA" to the end you make those spells apply to every enemy (or every ally). In that sense, the game is building on earlier magic systems like Final Fantasy's where "Fire" becomes "Fira" and then "Firaga", or Shin Megami Tensei where single-target spells become multi-target when you add "Ma-" to the front, like Zio/Mazio. With Rudra no Hihou, you can cast the strongest spells off the bat - you just have to know the words, and that means a lot of searching around for hints.
The tower is one of those dungeons where you have a lot of floors but they're each fairly small and the puzzles tend to involve falling from one floor into areas on lower floors that would otherwise be inaccessible. There's no falling damage, fortunately. That was always the worst part of these multi-floor puzzles in Legend of Grimrock.
The tower is one of those dungeons where you have a lot of floors but they're each fairly small and the puzzles tend to involve falling from one floor into areas on lower floors that would otherwise be inaccessible. There's no falling damage, fortunately. That was always the worst part of these multi-floor puzzles in Legend of Grimrock.
We also discover that the jade, which is one of the eponymous Treasures of the Rudras, allows us to open specific colored chests. Yep, including the ones back in the castle's jail. I think this is so you can go through areas with different characters and get stuff exclusive to them. For instance, this chest had a particular piece of equipment for a future character.
We also discover that the jade, which is one of the eponymous Treasures of the Rudras, allows us to open specific colored chests. Yep, including the ones back in the castle's jail. I think this is so you can go through areas with different characters and get stuff exclusive to them. For instance, this chest had a particular piece of equipment for a future character.
Huey's ring. Just need Dewey's bracelet and Louie's tiara to complete the set.
Huey's ring. Just need Dewey's bracelet and Louie's tiara to complete the set.
At the top of the castle, we somehow fall through the floor and end up in a room with this fellow. Ture's a giant like Surt, but he's far less hostile to us. In fact, Surt left him chained up in here, and Ture's eager to track him down. He thinks Surt has the Giants' Rudra, you see. I guess he doesn't look people in the eyes too often (which is understandable when you're a few feet taller).
At the top of the castle, we somehow fall through the floor and end up in a room with this fellow. Ture's a giant like Surt, but he's far less hostile to us. In fact, Surt left him chained up in here, and Ture's eager to track him down. He thinks Surt has the Giants' Rudra, you see. I guess he doesn't look people in the eyes too often (which is understandable when you're a few feet taller).
Ture's a badass, fortunately. Not only is he a fairly powerful melee character, but he's also got a wellspring for MP with which to cast healing spells. I think he's meant to be a monk or a priest type, but it's more fair to say his class is just
Ture's a badass, fortunately. Not only is he a fairly powerful melee character, but he's also got a wellspring for MP with which to cast healing spells. I think he's meant to be a monk or a priest type, but it's more fair to say his class is just "giant".
Anyway, all the noise from breaking through the roof woke up grampa here, who shifts himself out of the giant fossil and jumps down the hole after us.
Anyway, all the noise from breaking through the roof woke up grampa here, who shifts himself out of the giant fossil and jumps down the hole after us.
So apparently this is one of the Rudras. As in, the destruction deities that regularly cause the end of the world. It's great that we're fighting one this early on, huh? Well, actually, the guy's kind of a pushover. This fight mostly involves wailing on him and healing whenever anyone drops below 35HP. The rest of the bosses will not be as easy.
So apparently this is one of the Rudras. As in, the destruction deities that regularly cause the end of the world. It's great that we're fighting one this early on, huh? Well, actually, the guy's kind of a pushover. This fight mostly involves wailing on him and healing whenever anyone drops below 35HP. The rest of the bosses will not be as easy.
Abilijerk's fury subsides, and he returns to the rock from whence he came. You know, I expected more from the god that destroyed the Giants. Taller, maybe.
Abilijerk's fury subsides, and he returns to the rock from whence he came. You know, I expected more from the god that destroyed the Giants. Taller, maybe.
This happens sometimes. Chests will buff up your stats (I couldn't tell if it was permanent) and then gives you a hint for a spell that will raise them again in battle. Only twenty-six possibilities, right? Well, no. The real spell here is BRACKEEM, which... I dunno, maybe it was a localization issue.
This happens sometimes. Chests will buff up your stats (I couldn't tell if it was permanent) and then gives you a hint for a spell that will raise them again in battle. Only twenty-six possibilities, right? Well, no. The real spell here is BRACKEEM, which... I dunno, maybe it was a localization issue.
After walking back to the town of Vad (not Vod, my bad), the time of day shifts to night. If you recall, the game has a ticking clock that counts down to the end of the world. Time passes after story events occur, moving the plot along without putting the player in jeopardy if they spent a whole in-game week grinding for the next boss. I could've spent a thousand hours in that tower, but it wouldn't have shifted to night until I'd left with Ture.
After walking back to the town of Vad (not Vod, my bad), the time of day shifts to night. If you recall, the game has a ticking clock that counts down to the end of the world. Time passes after story events occur, moving the plot along without putting the player in jeopardy if they spent a whole in-game week grinding for the next boss. I could've spent a thousand hours in that tower, but it wouldn't have shifted to night until I'd left with Ture.
Getting some cocktails at the bar. Recognize the odd way the game is parsing that name? That means it's a Mantra.
Getting some cocktails at the bar. Recognize the odd way the game is parsing that name? That means it's a Mantra.
Specifically, it teaches us some elements: AQU for water, NIHI for void, TEO for wind and TOU for lightning. It also taught us
Specifically, it teaches us some elements: AQU for water, NIHI for void, TEO for wind and TOU for lightning. It also taught us "LUS", which is a suffix that increases a spell's power. FART, you might be surprised to learn, is also wind-based.
As for that chest back in the jail? Sadly, it's just an Alarum, an inexpensive item that works the same way as a Phoenix Down. Still, saves us a few hundred Ragu.
As for that chest back in the jail? Sadly, it's just an Alarum, an inexpensive item that works the same way as a Phoenix Down. Still, saves us a few hundred Ragu.
Anyway, the only thing anyone's ever talked about since we started is this damn Tower of the Valiant contest. There's all sorts of weird events afoot, but Vbomb will be damned if he won't be allowed to hit things in a officially sanctioned capacity. Next time on Vbomb's Ventures: Compulsory Arena Fights!
Anyway, the only thing anyone's ever talked about since we started is this damn Tower of the Valiant contest. There's all sorts of weird events afoot, but Vbomb will be damned if he won't be allowed to hit things in a officially sanctioned capacity. Next time on Vbomb's Ventures: Compulsory Arena Fights!

Part 4: Vbomb's Dubious Mastery of Time Management

Last time, on How Rude-ra: We join Vbomb as he heads to the all-important tournament, but he also some investigation leads to follow regarding the mysterious Giants and that giant rock that got stuck in his eye. Can Vbomb find time to balance the two, all the while raising three precocious kids in downtown San Francisco with the help of his eccentric brother-in-law and best friend? "Whatever happened to Seiken Densetsu 3? The milkman, the paperboy, and Treasure Hunter G..."

Danelf, for reference's sake, is at the northmost part of this continent. Vad, Cryunne Castle and the Tower of Giants are all down the left there. We've yet to visit the rest.
Danelf, for reference's sake, is at the northmost part of this continent. Vad, Cryunne Castle and the Tower of Giants are all down the left there. We've yet to visit the rest.
Anyway, we have to take a convoluted walk through the coliseum to reach the first of three battles that comprise the
Anyway, we have to take a convoluted walk through the coliseum to reach the first of three battles that comprise the "Tower of the Valiant." So it's really more of a figurative tower.
I didn't take a shot of these guys, but they were cool ninjas with sword whips and I feel bad about missing them. They were also hard as balls - the set up for this contest was taking two of them mano-a-mano in consecutive bouts with just Vbomb, or taking all three on at once with all three of my party. I opted for the latter, because of Ture's heals, but it was a close-run thing. Burned through a few Alarums too.
I didn't take a shot of these guys, but they were cool ninjas with sword whips and I feel bad about missing them. They were also hard as balls - the set up for this contest was taking two of them mano-a-mano in consecutive bouts with just Vbomb, or taking all three on at once with all three of my party. I opted for the latter, because of Ture's heals, but it was a close-run thing. Burned through a few Alarums too.
Surprisingly, the sun comes out after the first battle is complete. It makes a significant difference to how the outside world looks too: until now, there's been a dense cloud cover of smog. The game harps on about the pollution a lot, by the by. It was apparently caused a long time ago in some messed up Industrial Revolution that didn't go anywhere, and the world's been suffering ever since.
Surprisingly, the sun comes out after the first battle is complete. It makes a significant difference to how the outside world looks too: until now, there's been a dense cloud cover of smog. The game harps on about the pollution a lot, by the by. It was apparently caused a long time ago in some messed up Industrial Revolution that didn't go anywhere, and the world's been suffering ever since.
I thought this might be the ominous arrival of some sort of Death Gaze boss, but apparently this mass is pollution-eating butterflies. I'm still going to be on my guard, I think.
I thought this might be the ominous arrival of some sort of Death Gaze boss, but apparently this mass is pollution-eating butterflies. I'm still going to be on my guard, I think.
Anyway, almost apropos of nothing, Doug sends us to an island to meet an
Anyway, almost apropos of nothing, Doug sends us to an island to meet an "expert" there. We have some time until the next bout, so we borrow this old man's boat and sail over.
This map probably looks as familiar to you as it does to me. I'm sure this was part of Frog's part of Chrono Trigger. It's a network of caves, but not a particularly confusing one.
This map probably looks as familiar to you as it does to me. I'm sure this was part of Frog's part of Chrono Trigger. It's a network of caves, but not a particularly confusing one.
Cool. Thanks for stopping by, you guys. (It's actually concealing a switch, which opens the door we need to pass through. The game's just making fun of us, I suspect.)
Cool. Thanks for stopping by, you guys. (It's actually concealing a switch, which opens the door we need to pass through. The game's just making fun of us, I suspect.)
While on this island, Mantra Peak, you occasionally meet these little jiang shi guys. They cast two mantras on you - this one, Eerirog, is a fire spell with an additional burn effect that causes recurring damage. And yes, you can enscribe it and start using it against the same enemies.
While on this island, Mantra Peak, you occasionally meet these little jiang shi guys. They cast two mantras on you - this one, Eerirog, is a fire spell with an additional burn effect that causes recurring damage. And yes, you can enscribe it and start using it against the same enemies.
I'm not sure the geography of Mantra Peak makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe they're supposed to be magical cliffs, like the ones in the movie Highlander?
I'm not sure the geography of Mantra Peak makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe they're supposed to be magical cliffs, like the ones in the movie Highlander?
This is the Sage, Zora. Getting some strong Matoya vibes, and not just because she's a hermit witch in a Squaresoft game that took a lot of effort to find. She gives us a few cryptic hints about our missing friends, the missing Captain Taurus (who is the guy who mentored Vbomb,went missing and now I'm hoping to supplant his role with this tournament) and the guy Ture is looking for, an old man named Ramyleth. Zora directs us to the island nation of Ompross and tells us to beat it. You know, as sage hermits tend to do.
This is the Sage, Zora. Getting some strong Matoya vibes, and not just because she's a hermit witch in a Squaresoft game that took a lot of effort to find. She gives us a few cryptic hints about our missing friends, the missing Captain Taurus (who is the guy who mentored Vbomb,went missing and now I'm hoping to supplant his role with this tournament) and the guy Ture is looking for, an old man named Ramyleth. Zora directs us to the island nation of Ompross and tells us to beat it. You know, as sage hermits tend to do.
Walking into one of the back rooms, I find a literal portal to Hell. I decide to not check behind the other door.
Walking into one of the back rooms, I find a literal portal to Hell. I decide to not check behind the other door.
Before I can go to Ompressa, I have to travel back to Danelf for the second round of the tournament. This time, I can choose between having weapons or Mantras. The idea here is that the Mantras have a lot more versatility, but given that Vbomb and Foxy have a handful of MP each, I figured weapons are probably the way to go. I suspect that other parties might find their way into this tournament, and for them the Mantras will make more sense.
Before I can go to Ompressa, I have to travel back to Danelf for the second round of the tournament. This time, I can choose between having weapons or Mantras. The idea here is that the Mantras have a lot more versatility, but given that Vbomb and Foxy have a handful of MP each, I figured weapons are probably the way to go. I suspect that other parties might find their way into this tournament, and for them the Mantras will make more sense.
Like before, these rapier ladies are extremely difficult, and have a lot more HP than the last lot. I burn through a few more Alarums (they summon these adorable angels) but once one of these enemies has fallen, the battle becomes a whole lot more manageable. I shudder to think what kind of Mantra nukes these gals were packing.
Like before, these rapier ladies are extremely difficult, and have a lot more HP than the last lot. I burn through a few more Alarums (they summon these adorable angels) but once one of these enemies has fallen, the battle becomes a whole lot more manageable. I shudder to think what kind of Mantra nukes these gals were packing.
After a brief boat ride to Ompressa, I'm... exploring another mountain on an island. I'm not sure Rudra's level designers have really got their heart in this. They're probably mumbling under the breath about how much cooler is must be to work in the Final Fantasy VII studio.
After a brief boat ride to Ompressa, I'm... exploring another mountain on an island. I'm not sure Rudra's level designers have really got their heart in this. They're probably mumbling under the breath about how much cooler is must be to work in the Final Fantasy VII studio.
No! Bad dog, bad!
No! Bad dog, bad!
If you're wondering, BALNA is absolutely a spell I can use. It makes this big symbol appear and then all the enemies take minimal void damage. I suspect it's not one of the
If you're wondering, BALNA is absolutely a spell I can use. It makes this big symbol appear and then all the enemies take minimal void damage. I suspect it's not one of the "accepted" Mantras, even though it ends with "NA".
After a lot of climbing up Mt. Delphi, I finally reach this tower. It took a while to get here, so I'm a little concerned I might run out of supplies, but here goes.
After a lot of climbing up Mt. Delphi, I finally reach this tower. It took a while to get here, so I'm a little concerned I might run out of supplies, but here goes.
Aw crap. Did I come out without my keys again? Did I leave them at the bar? All right, hang tight folks, I have to figure this out. Back to Ompressa to talk to all the NPCs again...
Aw crap. Did I come out without my keys again? Did I leave them at the bar? All right, hang tight folks, I have to figure this out. Back to Ompressa to talk to all the NPCs again...

That's going to have to be it for today. Tomorrow, I'll figure out where this tower key is and work my way back up the mountain. Maybe I'll find another angry god of destruction to fight at the top. There's also the mysterious third round of the Tower of the Valiant (which really didn't need to be called "Tower of" anything, given how many actual towers there are to confuse it with) with an opponent no-one's ever seen before, the whereabouts of the various missing knights from Cryunne Castle, and we may even get around to figuring out what the deal is with all this pollution and where Surt might've bounced off to. Answers possibly to come tomorrow, with Mento's Alternative to E3 Day 1. See you then!

Day 0A: Parts 1 & 2Day 0B: Parts 3 & 4Day 1: Parts 5 & 6
Day 2: Parts 7 & 8Day 3: Parts 9, 10, 11 & Finale
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Sunday Summaries 12/06/2016: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

I'm writing this from inside the E3 mod bunker, preparing for another conference stream and another chat with eight thousand people in it. EA's conference was a garbage fire, but fortunately our chat wasn't so much, so here's hoping people can remain civil for the rest of the event. Well, civil to a certain extent. I don't think there was any way of politely tiptoeing around how stoned Jamie Foxx was during that Battlefield 1 celebrity alpha event.

As for the week leading up to E3, and the week to follow, there's still plenty to talk about that doesn't involve a hundred new trailers for the many games between now and when the lurching juggernaut that is E3 rolls its way around again. I want to highlight one particular Not-E3 happenstance going on at the moment, and that's my Alternative to E3 series which is taking a look at a lost Squaresoft JRPG right in the midst of their golden age: 1996's Rudra no Hihou, or Treasure of the Rudras. The first two parts are already up over here, and I hope to keep you appraised on Vbomb the Vocabulary Warrior's adventures as E3 continues (though I might make the resolution on the screenshots a little smaller...).

I may have got my days wrong in that blog title, though: It could be that this is actually Day -1 of E3 and Day 0 is tomorrow with the Monday conferences for Microsoft, Ubisoft and Sony. Day 1 is when the show floor opens the day after that. Yeah, this is pretty much why I sleep through E3 every year; the logistics are too hard to follow.

New Games!

That's right, baby! Third time's the charm!
That's right, baby! Third time's the charm!

All right, so it's a "big" release, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the release I'm looking forward to most this week is Book 5 of Dreamfall Chapters, the third game in The Longest Journey/Dreamfall series from Ragnar Tørnquist and his team. I completed the first three Books - what the game is calling its episodes, now that it's one of those episodic adventure games that are all the rage - during last month's May Mastery. I've been putting off Book 4 until I heard confirmation on Book 5 so that I wouldn't have to suffer any cliffhangers. This also means that I'm one of the few TLJ/Dreamfall fans that has never had to wait on tenterhooks for the next game, something that fans of the almost 17-year-old The Longest Journey might hate me for given the huge gaps between each release. I can't wait to see what Kian and Zoe have been up to, and how the game is choosing to close the book - as it were - on a story that has taken almost two decades to complete. The original game's title wasn't a misnomer after all...

Nooooope. This is what we in the mod team refer to as a
Nooooope. This is what we in the mod team refer to as a "ZombiePie game".

There... really isn't a whole lot else out this week. Sometimes we get a big release around E3 just to annoy all the game journalists whose attention is focused elsewhere (which makes it a great time to release something crappy under the radar), but this week is tumbleweeds for miles around. Minecraft is finally coming out on the Wii U to coincide with whatever depressing dirtbag thing Notch said this week on Twitter, Vita and PS4 are getting their Octodad on, while Ori and the Blind Forest is seeing a "definitive edition" for Xbox One. The Elder Scrolls Online receives its Dark Brotherhood expansion this week, which I'm guessing is both a figurative and literal stab in the dark by Bethesda to attract more users. On Steam, we have Dead by Daylight, a new multiplayer horror shooter from Starbreeze, something called The Narrator Is a DICK (a The Stanley Parable follow-up?) and... Nurse Love Addiction? Ewww, now I remember why I don't check Steam's upcoming (so to speak!) section very often for these segments.

Well, next week should prove to be more interesting at least. Unless you're an anime fan on prom night. Yeah, that game's finally coming out. Lord help us.

Wiki!

Because this week's game was a perfect "podcast" game - the sort of open-world collectible huntfest that you can enjoy while listening to whatever podcasts you have lined up - I took a break with the wiki this week. I completed the rest of September, which just involved another ten game pages so I could hit the next quarterly milestone for these title screen collages I do every so often.

I've also been making a checklist for the games to be featured in 2016's "Summer Games Done Quick" charity livestream event, one of two that the speedrunning community puts on every year. It's been around enough that I think everyone's familiar by now, but I like to do my part by ensuring we have a semi-presentable page for every game that gets showcased by the talented runners that appear every year. In particular, I want to make sure that each game has enough of a page that Twitch won't dismiss it as a "stub" and refuse to include in their database as a result. This year's SGDQ promises to have a lot of lesser known PC Indie games, so I want to get on that project as soon as possible. I've left the Super '95 project in a good place right now, with three quarters of the year complete, so the next few Sunday Summaries will probably focus more on the SGDQ event. Time being of the essence on that one, and all.

For now, let's talk about those remaining September '95 games. No new additions to the wiki this week, not surprising given the small number of pages covered, but there's a few significant titles in here worth exploring:

Not your standard JRPG. How many have garages?
Not your standard JRPG. How many have garages?

Metal Max Returns is a 16-bit remake of the original Metal Max for Famicom, which is a combination of Final Fantasy, Front Mission and the Mad Max movies and a game series that Westerners might know better from the PS2 incarnation Metal Saga. Metal Max already saw a Super Famicom sequel - 1993's Metal Max 2 - but I imagine it was popular enough to convince the developers to make this remastered version of the original. The Metal Max games are perhaps known first and foremost for letting the player build their own vehicles and travel the wastelands taking down monsters in their souped up rides, but they're also known for their open-world aspect: players take on missions at their leisure, some story-significant and others not so much, and you use the resources from those missions to build up your convoy and characters until you're ready to take on something tougher. It's a shame it took so long for the series to come to the US; like EarthBound, it practically feels built to appeal to that market.

"See all that stuff in there Homer? That's why your robot never worked."

Talking of off-beat Japan-only RPGs that could've easily found an audience States-side, Verne World is an RPG that introduces a streetwise kid and his more innocent brother as they get dropped off by their parents in "Verne World", a near-future theme park based on the literary works of French sci-fi author Jules Verne. There's no translation for the game, but I imagine the older kid was there under duress and planning to be bored out of his skull when suddenly the power goes out and the animatronics start attacking people. At that point it becomes a Verne-inspired Westworld where some exhibit robots - Around the World in Eighty Days' Passepartout and Philias Fogg, to name two - are actually friendly and join the party. It sounds nuts, and maybe it doesn't play so hot - developer Dual doesn't have a big history of JRPGs prior to that game, and Banpresto's role as publisher probably meant that an SD Gundam shows up at some point - but it seems like a shame that no fan translation exists.

No Caption Provided

Now, if you want to annoy the entire Giant Bomb staff, I think forcing them to play Wedding Peach might do it. The game is a competitive mini-game collection based on a shoujo manga about a trio of schoolgirls - who are also angels - who balance their time between saving the world from Lucifer and trying to mack on the cute soccer player in their class. This mutual crush comes to the fore here, as the three compete to be the one to ask him out to a school dance. The mini-games are kinda bad, but if ever there was a Mario Party style game that you could be sure Dan would hate in equal measure to the rest of the crew, this would be it. If Jeff and co. are considering some mutually assured destruction after all the Mario Party Parties are complete...

Wizardry was complicated enough in English.
Wizardry was complicated enough in English.

I'll just briefly mention Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge before moving onto the fifth and final game this week, because it highlights the odd relationship Japan has with the Wizardry series. You'll often see other venerable CRPG franchises taken out of mothballs every so often - the recent release of Might & Magic X Legacy, for example, or InXile's sequel/reboots of Wasteland and The Bard's Tale - but Wizardry is one of the oldest cornerstones of the dungeon-crawling genre and has been the domain of Japanese publishers for several decades now. After Wizardry 8 failed to keep the franchise alive, despite being pretty damn good actually, every subsequent game has been created overseas and usually without any US or EU release coming back over. Wiz VI itself was first released in Wizardry's heyday back in 1990, but this SNES port that came five years later was only released in Japan. It's very strange. If you want a taste of Japan Wizardry, your best bets are the PS2 game Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land or the semi-recent Steam release of Elminage Gothic (a "spiritual sequel" series).

It's every bit the looker that its predecessor was.
It's every bit the looker that its predecessor was.

The last game for today, and indeed the last game to be released in September of 1995, Seiken Densetsu 3 was one of THE big Japan exclusives being heavily discussed in the earliest Super Nintendo emulation communities on the internet. Final Fantasy V and the original Front Mission were prime candidates for fan translations early on of course, along with everything else Squaresoft was involved in like Live a Live, Bahamut Lagoon and Treasure of the Rudras (I can vouch for that one) after they shot to megastardom with the PlayStation Final Fantasy games. Lot of folk wanted Mystic Ark, the first Clock Tower or the many untranslated Super Robot Wars and Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem games. Not to mention the Shin Megami Tensei fandom, which was crazy even back then. But the follow-up to Secret of Mana? A follow-up that, somehow, has an even better reputation than the already stellar SNES classic? I remember hearing all sorts of superlative things about the game, though it proved too intimidating to get into at the time with its scenario-based structure. Needless to say, people hold the first three Seiken Densetsu games - the first was released worldwide as Final Fantasy Adventure for Game Boy - in very high regard.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor!

No Caption Provided

I do want to collect my thoughts on certain aspects of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor in a larger blog further down the road, maybe after E3 is over and I've caught up with my Dreamfall Chapters recaps, but on the whole I can definitely concur with Giant Bomb and many other outlets' decision to name it their game of the year in 2014. While it's not perfect - it has the same free-running/climbing pathfinding issues that has crippled Assassin's Creed for years now, and I don't care for how it never gives you the option to restart non-story missions, just to abandon them and force you to run back to the trigger point - there's a lot in here to exonerate a few mechanical open-world flaws.

Obviously, the big standout is the Nemesis system. It's odd that we still haven't seen anyone try to ape it, given it's been two years and thus plenty of time for a new game to try their own variant. (I'm actually hoping that maybe a new Crackdown can do something similar, giving the criminals that manage to take down your super cop a boost in their underworld rep and perhaps some new weapons and armor befitting their status.) What's more significant though, and this is what my eventual deeper blog post on the subject will delve into, is how the game manages to take the procedurally generated Uruk nemeses and gives them a personality beyond a silly name and some growled insults about eating manflesh. Specifically, how every Uruk seems to have their own strengths and weaknesses, and how they can play into building them up as distinctive enemies.

I wish they did more with Celebrimbor's spectral world bleeding into the real one. It's a weird thing to say, but that's something Murdered: Soul Suspect did better.
I wish they did more with Celebrimbor's spectral world bleeding into the real one. It's a weird thing to say, but that's something Murdered: Soul Suspect did better.

More on that later, though. For now I want to talk about everything else. I'm not a big LOTR fanboy, so the reveal that the mysterious wraith was Celebrimbor was lost on me, but I appreciate that the game dug deep like so many figurative doomed dwarves for all its Middle-earth lore, collecting a lot of information about the human civilization that prospered on the edges of the desolate realm of Mordor between Sauron's various resurrections, and how the game sets up a lot of what happens in the LOTR movie and what would've already happened in the Hobbit movies. Orcish propaganda, for instance, considers the Battle of the Five Armies that ended the original Hobbit novel as "the battle to gang up on the orcs". We hear snippets about Shelob (as well as her relatively harmless children), learn that the forces of Gondor have fled Mordor's Black Gate and are regrouping back in Minas Tirith and meet some of Sauron's lesser known henchmen who act as the game's core antagonists, following the same theme as "The Mouth of Sauron" by representing a different aspect of the Dark Lord while he takes a break from existence - cursed beings that represent his might, his malice and his duplicity respectively.

I also have to give major props to nailing the gameplay flow, which is one of those visceral instinctive things that you either have to , or have such a keen understanding of game design and what makes it tick that you opt for whatever's fun over whatever feels more realistic. I mean, you're already a ghost fighting orcs, so realism shouldn't have been a major goal in the first place. It's a game that feels better the further you get into its character development, as each new skills unlocks new means of murdering orcs faster and in a more extravagant way. While you're sticking to the shadows for much of the game, avoiding getting into giant fights just in case some chump orc gets lucky and lands himself a free promotion for temporarily taking down the scariest dude roaming across Mordor, towards the end all that ceases to matter. You can ride into battle on top of a three story high troll, or fire off a dozen headshots without running out of arrows, branding a dozen orcs to join you in your fight, or pumping up your combo skills to such an extent that you're able to perform showy executions on every other swing. There's a tough side-mission where you have to defeat fifty orcs without dying, and once you've leveled up it becomes an amazing dance of death and destruction as they mill around unable to land a hit on you. The level of power fantasy on offer for players is palpable, and it's made even more fun by the way Uruk captains will show up to gravely threaten you, only to lie dead seconds later from a few flashy moves.

I got ya, sis!
I got ya, sis!

It definitely put in perspective all those saying that The Witcher 3's combat was a little disappointing. If Shadow of Mordor was the last big open-world game with swordfighting in it, then I can understand perfectly why you'd come away from The Witcher 3 underwhelmed. While Mordor's combat rarely gets more sophisticated than hitting the counter button occasionally and remembering which finisher is bound to which combination of face buttons (there are four, for the four quadrants of the face buttons, which gets confusing), it's the level of options and strategies to fall back on - what I initially praised The Witcher 3's combat for - that elevates Shadow of Mordor above the usual Arkham Batman/Assassin's Creed crowd. Basing all the upgrades around Talion's sword, bow and dagger - which represent melee, ranged and stealth takedowns respectively - was a smart decision by the designers.

Anyway, I've probably said enough, and I'm sure all of it was reflected in the reviews and GOTY approbations at the time. I'm glad I finally got around to playing it this week, and it feels like another big name has been ticked off the video game bucket list. Plus, it means I've now played all of Giant Bomb's "Game of the Year" winners bar one (I'll get around to The Last of Us some day, I swear).

Another piece of LOTR lore I didn't know: Mordor has its own Blitzball arena!
Another piece of LOTR lore I didn't know: Mordor has its own Blitzball arena!

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