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robophantom · 4 years

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Characters I’m Excited About But Don’t Have A Game For:

Adelaide Blackwood

Human

Grave Cleric

A young noble woman who has heard the voice of the Raven Queen ever since she was a child. Unfortunately, no one else believes her, especially since she’s always been a bit odd even when she isn’t supposedly speaking to deities. This came to tragedy when her sister brought home her new fiancé and Adelaide insisted to the point of violence that the fiancé was a vampire, and wound up institutionalized. She was proven right several months later when her family was found murdered in their home.

Adelaide became an adventurer when she either escaped the institution or was turned out since there was no longer anyone left to pay for her care. Adventuring parties were much more forgiving of her quirks, and much more likely to believe her when she said there was an undead around.

Aster Crucis

Scourge Aasimar

Divine Soul Sorcerer

Absolute Baby Unlimited. He was raised to be a Pope-like figure as a direct messenger from his god, but he was really intended to be more of a figurehead. He is thus a very sweet, very naive person who is great at public appearances but knows next to nothing about the real world and struggles therein.

He becomes an adventurer due to a comedy of errors beginning with one of his caretakers leaving out a book that detailed a king going out to visit his kingdom and culminating with Aster slipping his guard and getting caught up with a group of adventurers.

Sir Augustus Lucian Fairwell

Protector Aasimar

Devotion Paladin

A big, beautiful man and absolute himbo from a family line that has long been favored by Lathander. The Fairwell have all served the god as clerics, paladins, or the odd celestial warlock or divine soul sorcerer and Auggie is no different. Unfortunately, he’s dumb as a brick, but he makes up for it by being attractive, charming, and just a generally nice guy. He loves his family very much, and will brag about his sister, Ophelia, at any given opportunity. His one major vice is that he’s quite vain and somewhat spoiled due to being the former heir to a noble house. But he’s trying.

Auggie became an adventurer after abdicating the position of family heir to his significantly more clever little sister. Nonetheless, he is committed to serve Lathander to the best of his abilities as a free agent of the people!

Curiosity “Curie” Magellan

Standard Tiefling

Transmutation Wizard

Curie is, much as her name implies, a very curious being. She comes from a large family of tieflings and had a very happy childhood before deciding to study magic. After her schooling was complete, she joined up with a research group working with transmutation magic: her specialty. However, things were always a little odd in the lab, and one day Curie’s curiosity got the better of her. She snuck into the senior researcher’s labs to take a look, and found out that there was some very horrifying and unethical research being conducted. In a panic, she stole or destroyed whatever research she could find and fled.

Curie thus became an adventurer because she’s technically a fugitive. As soon as her sabotage was discovered, she was labeled a criminal and thus doesn’t have a lot of options. She’s making the best of it, though!

Edie Everhardt

Human

Hexblade Warlock

Edie is a simple country gal from a huge family. As the middle of nine siblings, she’s always tended to be overlooked, but she sort of enjoyed the anonymity within her own home, even if it could get lonely sometimes. This all changed when she found a weird sword while out exploring that pretty much begged her to make a pact and take it places because it was so f*cking bored.

Edie herself is very humble and sensible, and is an adventurer mostly to humor the spirit in the sword and raise money for her folks back home. She’s not really interested in the fame and prestige, but it’s an enjoyable enough way to spend her time and she likes the people.

Lady [Redacted] Greye

Protector Aasimar

Monster-Slayer Ranger

For centuries, the Greye family was famous for slaying even the most terrifying of monsters. If you had a problem and regular adventurers weren’t cutting it, you took it to the Greyes. They were duty bound to stand between the innocent public and creatures of the night, and did so gladly. It was thus an unimaginable tragedy (and horror) when one night the entire family was wiped out by an unknown enemy. Or so it seemed. The woman would would later style herself as Lady Greye was unexpectedly away from home that night and escaped the massacre. In her grief, she forswore her given name and dedicated herself to her family’s legacy.

Lady Greye is an adventurer because that’s what she’s always been. She’s just... not used to working with people who aren’t her family members yet. And if she maybe wants to discover the people or creatures who massacred her family and get revenge, well. That’s no one’s business but her own.

Mareille “Marley” Traith

High Elf

Arcane Trickster Rogue/War Mage Wizard

Mareille is the eldest—but illegitimate—daughter of the previous Duke Uthellon. She was born amidst a very juicy scandal involving broken engagements and a possible murder, and despite her father’s attempt to give her a good life the stigma has followed her. After her father married her stepmother and had her half-brother, Syril, Mareille began training to be her brother’s spymaster, though she kept as much of the traditional Uthellon’s magical teachings as she could.

Mareille became an adventurer following her father’s mysterious death and her younger brother’s premature ascension to Dukedom. She wants to use the profession as an excuse to snoop around and get to the bottom of the tragedies following her family and hopefully protect her little brother from sharing their father’s fate.

Nadya Thueban

Half-elf

Divination Wizard

Nadya comes from a long line of diviners in her home village. People came to her to inquire about the harvest, if their lover was cheating on them, how many children they would have, and other peaceful mundanities rural villagers concerned themselves with. Nadya also has a young daughter, age twelve, but was never interested in marrying, and a snake familiar that exists as a really dope tattoo when he isn’t summoned. But all the predictions in the world didn’t prepare her for the day when raiders attacked her village, killing dozens and kidnapping dozens more. Her daughter was among the missing, and it drove her to a grief so profound she still hadn’t clawed her was back out.

Nadya became an adventurer to find her daughter and the rest of the missing villagers. She’s also slowly learning to trust her divination again—although it keeps returning the strangest of messages about a plot she doesn’t understand...

Shinobu

Human

Beast Master Ranger/Samurai Fighter

Shinobu is a quiet, melancholic woman in her thirties. She was actually already an adventurer about a decade ago, but after her party was wiped out, she retreated to the forest to live out her “retirement” surrounded by the wolves she always felt an affinity for. She still struggles with survivors guilt, and has difficulty forming attachments to people knowing they would be killed just as easily as her previous party.

Although somewhat out of practice, Shinobu is forced to leave her retirement by events relevant to the plot OR the resurgence of whatever creature or organization killed her party, necessitating her involvement. She is accompanied by the (grand?)daughter of her original Beast Companion, Kagami.

Shizuka

Half-elf

Shadow Monk/Assassin Rogue

A trained spy and assassin who was raised by a secretive organization. On a mission to assassinate an important noble, they were critically injured and subsequently abandoned by their parter. Luckily they were found by a local who nursed them back to health. Presumed dead and thus free of the organization, Shizuka has tried to adapt to a more civilian lifestyle with... mixed success, not helped by the fact that they are completely mute and very few people speak their version of sign language.

Shizuka becomes an adventurer when some of the noble’s agents come sniffing around and they flee rather than implicate their saviors in their crimes. They are now traveling doing mercenary work while still trying to learn how to become a person.

Ulrike

Protector Aasimar

Abjuration Wizard

Ulrike is a cheerful soul who has only ever wanted to help people. She was a member of an elite team of wizard who travelled about dealing with cursed artifacts and locations. Unfortunately, and their last mission Ulrike got trapped within the artifact they were dealing with. The next thing she knew, she was being released from her prison decades or even centuries later with no idea what happened to her former team. She is now forced to deal with the intense culture shock of finding herself all alone in a future she doesn’t understand with no way to return. She’s doing her best to stay positive, but even her persist any cheer has taken a hit by the circumstances.

Ulrike is an adventurer mostly because she has nowhere else to go. There are few alive who still remember her, and even the organizations she used to work with are long defunct or unrecognizable from when she last last active. She is thus relying on the kindness of the strangers who found her, and perhaps hoping that she might one day find out what happened to her team.

Úna

Firbolg

Gloomstalker Ranger/Scout Rogue

Úna was born with albinism and struggled to live in the sunlight. Other people found her creepy—even her own family—and so she grew up playing alone after dark. Over time she began to adapt to nighttime living, and travelled further and further into the woods each night. On one such night, she stumbled upon a bandit camp. They nearly killed her, but her lack of fear and straightforward way of speaking to them amused their leader enough that they decided to take her with them. Úna had little attachment to her previous living conditions and so followed without protest. She quickly proved invaluable for moving around at night and in dark places, and became a fixture of the group. However; one day they caught a little too much heat for their crimes, and it was decided that it would be best to part ways for a while. After all, a seven and a half foot tall white firbolg draws attention no matter how sneaky she is.

Úna is an adventurer because her skill set lends itself to little else. She finds working under the cover of darkness soothing, and isn’t squeamish about the moral quandaries that follow adventurers around.

Ysara Djimon

Wood Elf

Open Hand Monk

Ysara was a martial arts teacher at her home monastery. A strict but fair teacher, she enjoyed working with the acolytes who passed through the monastery. One of her students was particularly gifted and Ysara found training them to be particularly rewarding. However, many years later they returned to the monastery and nearly wiped it out before departing again. Ysara was left critically injured, but managed to survive.

Ysara set out to become an adventurer once she was recovered enough to walk on her own. Her other skills have been slower to come back to her, though she is confident that she will one day return to her former prime. She left to track down her former student and extract justice and maybe a reason for the massacre.

#dnd #OCs #I just make so many characters but then they sit there with nothing to doooooooo #and this isn’t even scratching the surface of characters I have in reserve #almost had a game for Shizuka but they kept getting misgendered and the dm did some gross things so I jumped ship #a surprising number of Aasimar on this list #tieflings are usually my favorite but apparently I have an itch for angel people #a couple of these have some very obvious inspirations #can you guess who was inspired by what?

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ultragamerz · 4 years

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PlayStation Games Nominated for The Game Awards 2019

New Post has been published on https://www.ultragamerz.com/playstation-games-nominated-for-the-game-awards-2019/

PlayStation Games Nominated for The Game Awards 2019

2019 was another big year for PlayStation at The Game Awards. Sony’s first-party titles were well-represented among the nominees, with 3 PlayStation exclusives nominated for a total of 12 awards. This year, the winner of every non-mobile video game category is on PlayStation, solidifying Sony’s comfortable position as King of this generation. What were the PlayStation games up for an award at The Game Awards 2019? Who won big and who walked away without a statue of an armless lady? Read on to find out!

Death Stranding

Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment

If there’s any one game that PlayStation was betting on to make a splash at TGA 2019, it would be Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding. Marketed as an open-world supernatural action-adventure title, Death Stranding confused many gamers with its strange, borderline-obsessive focus on the physical mechanics of walking. Boasting a star-studded lineup starring the likes of Mads Mikkelsen and Norman Reedus – even Guillermo del Toro makes a cameo in the game – this bizarre post-apocalyptic package-carrying simulator took home awards for Best Game Direction and Best Score/Music.

Nominated for

Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Score/Music, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (Mads Mikkelsen), Best Performance (Norman Reedus), Best Action/Adventure Game, Player’s Voice

Won for

Best Game Direction, Best Score/Music, Best Performance (Mads Mikkelsen)

Concrete Genie

Pixelopus/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Concrete Genie a vibrant, heartwarming tale about the creative young Ash, a fledgling painter and victim to constant bullying. One day, his treasured sketchbook is stolen by his tormenters, its pages torn out and thrown to the wind. Ash begins his quest to recover the lost pages of his sketchbook that lay scattered throughout his city of Denska, a mission that leads to him using his creative abilities to breath color and life into the gray, industrial town he lives in. This indie work combines platforming with innovative paintbrush mechanics, creating a unique and memorable experience that really showcases the creative energy of the developers signed under the Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide initiative.

Nominated for

Games for Impact

Blood & Truth

SIE London Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Blood & Truth is an unbelievably cool first-person shooter experience designed exclusively for the PlayStation VR. This high-stakes corridor shooter is an immersive virtual reality experience of a quality unparalleled in the landscape of largely amateur VR offerings. Propelled by a cast of well-acted characters, this intense spy drama isn’t just one of PSVR’s best titles, it’s one of the best VR titles period.

Nominated for

Best VR/AR Game

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

FromSoftware/Activision

FromSoftware has built a reputation for developing action-adventure games that are hard-as-nails but greatly reward the patient and skilled gamer. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice follows in this tradition, offering a challenging swashbuckling experience in the vein of Dark Souls but with a greater emphasis on speed and verticality. It follows the tale of shinobi known as Wolf, sworn guardian indentured to the young lord of a powerful clan. When his master is stolen away in the dead of night, Wolf sets out on a journey to rescue his liege and get revenge on the people responsible. Its battles are quick yet cerebral, pitting you in deadly combat against all manner of beast and monster inspired by Japanese mythology in a number of breathtaking locales and stages. It’s a standout title in a year full of amazing releases with gorgeous visuals, magnificent character and stage design, and a beautiful soundtrack, and so it comes as no surprise that Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice won TGA 2019’s Game of the Year and Best Action/Adventure Game.

Nominated for

Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Audio Design, Best Action/Adventure Game

Won

Game of the Year, Best Action/Adventure Game

Control

Remedy Entertainment/505 Games

Playing Control is like stepping into the shoes of the protagonist in a Syfy supernatural horror series, but with better writing and likeable characters. It’s set in a frightening paranormal realm contained within the Oldest House, a towering, faceless Brutalist structure in New York City. The mysteries contained with the Oldest House are so enticing that curiosity keeps you marching ever forward. The excellent writing, wonderful cast of superb actors, and some of the most amazing world-design we’ve ever seen make this a horror game to remember.

Nominated for

Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, Best Audio Design, Best Performance (Courtney Hope), Best Performance (Matthew Porretta), Best Action/Adventure Game

Won

Best Art Direction

Resident Evil 2

Capcom

This game single-handedly redefined what a remake is and what it can be. Rebuilt from the ground up, Resident Evil 2 is a modern re-envisioning of the PlayStation classic, taking the same premise and characters and adopting them into a modern game engine. The remake also eschews tank controls, fixed cameras, and pre-rendered backgrounds in favor of a more action-based third-person experience, making this 2019 hit a completely different beast from its mid-90s inspiration. It’s also an incredibly thrilling and fun horror shooter that earned universal praise from both critics and players. The only thing keeping it from reaching absolute perfection is the fact that the original’s iconic voiceover sadly didn’t make the cut in this new version.

Nominated for

Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Audio Design, Best Action/Adventure Game

The Outer Worlds

Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division

With The Outer Worlds, Obsidian has shown once again why they’ve been a leader in story-driven RPGs for decades. It’s a Fallout game that’s better than actual Fallout built atop stellar world-building and a level of care for character development and story writing that’s unparalleled in the industry. It takes an approach to games development completely contrary to the Bethesda method. Instead of creating massive open worlds filled with repetitive side quests, serviceable-though-generic characters, and relying on world design to carry it through, the Outer Worlds is a shorter but significantly more packed adventure. Here’s hoping we see more games like it.

Nominated for

Game of the Year, Best Narrative, Best Performance (Ashly Burch), Best Role Playing Game

Outer Wilds

Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive

Outer Wilds (not be mistaken with The Outer Worlds) is a co-operative first-person adventure like no other we’ve played. It’s based around a time loop; every 22 minutes the galaxy explodes, throwing you back in time to exactly 22 minutes before critical mass. What you do to fill those 22 minutes is up to you. Perhaps you’ll explore the caves and locales around you, maybe you’ll spend it reading text logs or listening to tapes left behind by a mysterious alien species. The adventurous among you might even try to find a way to stop the galaxy from exploding. You have very little power to change things, a concept foundational to cosmic horror, but Outer Wilds isn’t Lovecraftian Groundhogs Day. It’s a beautiful and often hilarious exploration into what time means when you’ve got none of it – and all of it – left.

Nominated for

Best Game Direction, Best Independent Game, Fresh Indie Game

Fortnite

Epic Games

What can be said about Fortnite that hasn’t been said before? It’s still immensely popular months after its wave of “trendiness” has passed, and it continues to see updates, patches, and seasonal expansions that keep it fresh for long-time players. Epic Games’ cash cow is designed to have a long tail and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it at the TGAs for many more years to come.

Nominated for

Best Ongoing Game, Best Community Support, Best Esports Game

Won

Best Ongoing Game

Apex Legends

Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts

Apex Legends released seemingly out of nowhere, immediately capturing a massive audience thanks to its compelling combination of Battle Royale and class-based, character-driven squad shooters and, of course, its immeasurable streamability. For a few months near its release, Apex Legends dominated Twitch, with professional streamers both old and new riding the crest of its wave of popularity for weeks on end. It might not be nearly as popular as it was at release, but Apex Legends continues to be supported by its developers, with new characters, maps, and game modes introduced all the time.

Nominated for

Best Ongoing Game, Best Action Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best Community Support

Won

Best Multiplayer Game

Destiny 2

Bungie

It’s difficult to imagine Bungie, the studio behind Destiny and Halo, as an indie studio, but this year they broke off their relationship with Activision and decided to go solo with Destiny 2’s development. This year we also saw Destiny 2 go the free-to-play route, with players able to play through the content of previous seasons without spending any cash. Having spent uncountable hours blasting Vex in the Vex Offensive, we can attest to the addictive and fun qualities of Destiny 2.

Nominated for

Best Ongoing Game, Best Community Support

Final Fantasy XIV

Square Enix

Final Fantasy XIV is a shining example of what a game can become if its developers are willing to reflect on their mistakes and take a second chance on a failed product. Without going too deep into its history, put simply the Final Fantasy XIV we have today isn’t the same game that we got at launch – it’s much, much better. It’s been a long six years since the game released, but it’s still going strong with a large and stable playerbase and constant, world-changing expansions that keep the game from getting stale.

Nominated for

Best Ongoing Game, Best Role Playing Game, Best Community Support

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

Ubisoft

Rainbow Six Siege made it past rocky beginnings and has cemented its position as a multiplayer powerhouse that sits comfortably in Steam’s most popular games every month for the past several years. It’s a tactical class-based 5v5 shooter that’s endlessly fun and requires tight teamwork on top of immaculate shooting to win the day. It’s also one of the most watchable esports around, so fans of games with a healthy balance of action and strategy should give it a go. It’s good to see Siege getting the attention and praise it deserves after its poor launch.

Nominated for

Best Ongoing Game, Best Community Support

Disco Elysium

ZA/UM

Disco Elysium is an excellent RPG that tells the tale of a balding cop afflicted by a drink-induced amnesia. Like Planescape: Torment, interactions revolve around the game’s robust dialog system, with every choice you make branching off into a thousand different alternate paths. It’s the first game we played since Planescape where your decisions really had an impact on the world, not only with regards to how the plot develops, but also on how characters treat you and how your character treats others. Any self-proclaiming fan of RPGs should play Disco Elysium and see why it won this year’s Best Role Playing Game award at TGA 2019.

Nominated for

Best Narrative, Best Independent Game, Best Role Playing Game, Fresh Indie Game

Won

Best Narrative, Best Independent Game, Best Role Playing Game, Fresh Indie Game

A Plague Tale: Innocence

Asobo Studio/Focus Home Interactive

A Plague Tale: Innocence is a gritty and dark game about two siblings, a sister and her younger brother, as they flee from a mysterious gang of bloodthirsty murderers who want to see them dead. It’s a dramatic thriller that thrives in its ability to create tension from thin air. It’s a stealth game that’s built around a complex system of interactions, allowing for creative solutions to the problems you face. Through it all, you’re responsible for the safety of the younger brother, Hugo; some of the most frightening and stressful moments in the game are when a noise or person distracts you and you lose track of him. It’s arresting and creates a constant sense of danger that’s stressful but absolutely memorable.

Sayonara Wild Hearts

Simogo/Annapurna Interactive

Sayonara Wild Hearts is an arcade game of a kind we haven’t seen since the age of coin-op game machines and Saturday morning gaming sessions in our pajamas. It’s set in a dream-like, neon universe thrown into chaos by the breaking of a woman’s heart. There��s dancing, swordfighting, motorcycle racing, skateboarding – every 90s kid’s sandbox fantasy put together. It’s also insanely stylish with a visual and audio flair that sticks with you long after you’ve finished playing.

Nominated for

Best Art Direction, Best Score, Best Mobile Game

Devil May Cry 5

Capcom

Devil May Cry 5 still has all the over-the-top action and ridiculous cutscenes characteristic of the series, and the combat is just as frenetic and electrifying as it’s ever been. The new playable character, V, is a brave departure for the series, a non-combatant who summons animal familiars to do his bidding. There are massive changes with how Nero handles in combat, Dante has a cool new wizard hat, and V is character unlike any we’ve ever seen in the series, but Devil May Cry 5 is a declaration by Capcom – the King is Back! it’s good to see Devil May Cry back in the hands of Capcom after the disappointment that was DmC. More please.

Nominated for

Best Score/Music, Best Action Game

Won

Best Action Game

Kingdom Hearts III

Square Enix

A month before Kingdom Hearts III’s release, we decided to catch up with the game’s tale and get up to speed with the adventures of Sora, Donald, and Goofy to prepare for number 3. It’s a rabbit hole of plot twists, weird naming conventions, lots of puns revolving around hearts and darkness, and multiple characters with the same name. When you start Kingdom Hearts III, you’ll probably have little idea what’s happening. Once you’ve finished, not much will have changed, but you’ll know that you love the characters and you love its Final Fantasy-meets-Disney concept, even if you don’t understand what the heck is going on.

Nominated for

Best Role Playing Game, Best Score/Music

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

Infinity Ward/Activision

The original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has a special place in the hearts of gamers who were around to play it. Beautiful set pieces? Check. Drop-dead gorgeous visuals? Check. An interesting story? Absolutely check. That first Modern Warfare was a special, special game. 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboots the franchise, bringing back the series’ most-loved characters and throwing them into an all-new conflict with different stakes. It might never be the game-changer that Cod4 was, but the new Modern Warfare is a damn good game and one of our favorite shooters of the year.

Nominated for

Best Audio Design, Best Action Game, Best Multiplayer Game

Won

Best Audio Design

Borderlands 3

Gearbox/2K Games

Borderlands 3, much like Metro Exodus, has been unfairly judges by the decision by its producers to make it a temporary Epic Game exclusive. A lot of hubbub has been stirred about what timed exclusives mean for PC gaming. So much, in fact, that we all had to remind ourselves that Borderlands 3 is a great game. It’s the pinnacle of loot shooters by the team that helped define the term, offering everything the first two games gave us but blown up and multiplied by 1000.

Nominated for

Best Action/Adventure Game, Best Multiplayer Game

That was all the PlayStation games that were nominated for an award at The Game Awards 2019. What did you think of the nominees? Which games do you think deserved to walk home with a trophy? What game should’ve been on this list? And don’t forget to get these games on PlayStation. Get your PSN Gift Cards today to start your gaming experience with these award winning gems!

#game awards #games #Nominated #PlayStation #PlayStation Games Nominated for The Game Awards 2019 #Blog #Gaming News #Playstation

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theonyxpath · 5 years

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The Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter launched last Thursday and we would have loved it to fund in 24 hours, but it was actually closer to 25. Possibly every backer was pranking us, but in the end it’s cool- we did fund, we’re gonna get this newest Chronicles of Darkness game into retail stores, and we’re moving into building additional books with the Stretch Goals!

So basically, the Deviant KS is doing great! Come join us!

Links for the Deviant: The Renegades and the Creature Collection for Scarred Lands 5e Kickstarters are below in the Blurbs! section.

We have had some folks, who I’m guessing have not backed any of our last few KSs, write to tell us that they’re taken aback by the listed international shipping costs. Yep, we are as miffed at those costs as you, and as I posted here a month or so back, we have chosen to go ahead and still ship internationally and post the costs, rather than stop shipping internationally as quite a few of our fellow TTRPG publishing have chosen for their KSs.

I figure it’s better to let prospective international backers know the cost upfront so they can make the informed choice that makes the most sense to them.

Usually when I explain this, I also let folks know that behind the scenes we have tried and are continuing to explore alternative shipping options. With Deviant‘s KS, we are still using our previous methodology, but with the concurrently running Creature Collection for Scarred Lands 5e Kickstarter (also doing nicely, thank you!) you can see one of the options we’re exploring.

In CC’s case, we’re working with Handiworks Games not just on the art and writing and design and Kickstarter for the book, but also with printers and fulfillment based in the EU. We’ll have a bunch of books sent over to the US for those backers, and then we hope that costs to ship from the EU for our international backers will be more reasonable.

Like I say, it’s an experiment that we think will work in a good way, but that’s never a guarantee in the rapidly shifting cost-structures of international shipping. And we’ll have to see if it is repeatable for other projects, too.

VtR2 Spilled Blood art by Michele Giorgi

But enough about Kickstarter, let’s talk about me.

Well, pretty much about how I spent my weekend, but it will circle back around to general topics about our hobby.

Have you ever had one of those time-frames where it seems that everybody you haven’t been able to get together with all want to hang out at essentially the same time? Well, that’s what happened to me, and for a twenty-four hour period I had three get-togethers (one was virtual) with old gaming buddies.

The first was an invitation from two high-school friends for dinner on Friday night which of course turned into talking about how my one buddy Johnny, aka Shithead the Dwarf, and I first met during our first D&D games as sophomores in HS. That’s the gaming club where when we started, we had the first four little D&D booklets and were waiting for the fifth booklet, Blackmoor, to be released.

It just so happened that my English class (that’s what we called Language Arts then, kids) had assigned me a journal to write, and in it I chronicled those first D&D adventures, so even now through the mists of time I can read all about how we’d stir through piles of mud with 10′ poles, and get attacked by 11 Stirges, and lose our Cleric to being swallowed by a Giant Frog.

The first few months we played with our very first DM, Robert, but then he had to get ready to graduate, and both Johnny and I stepped up as DMs. Johnny continued to run and play games until he graduated, and I did same but returned to our HS to run games for a couple of years since my art college wasn’t that far away.

When Johnny came home for break, and later when he was on leave from the Navy, there was always a seat at our gaming table for him, and some of his “temp” characters lived on as famous NPCs. Which was easier because my setting, my D&D “world”, has been the same since I first stepped up to DM as a sophomore.

(I share all this about my friend both for context and because I’ve known this guy for over 40 freaking years and that amount of time boggles my mind.)

And we weren’t the only players who ran games too, most of our players did both – which makes me wonder what we could have done with Community Content sites for all of our many worlds? Getting into Dragon Magazine was some folk’s goals, but if we could have published our stuff? Wow!

Of course, we probably would have needed the internet to make it happen, and we were just getting desk-top computers at that time!

BTW I just listened to the recording of our “What’s Up With Onyx Path Community Content?” panel from Gen Con on the Onyx Pathcast from last Friday, so Community Content might be on my mind. It’s a good panel if you’re interested in exploring publishing your own material for our games, so check it out on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue.

Dark Eras 2 art by Alex Sheikman

Then, Saturday all day was board games with the old gaming crew from both HS and the college years: Elmer the Troll, Thock the four-armed well, Thock, D’Gr’Gr the Duergar, and Ish, the gender-neutral Deep Gnome jester.

Obviously, those are their character names (from one campaign I ran), but in real life they are old friends and we’ve tried to get together once a quarter to play games, or go to the movies, or whatever, and this was one of those occasions.

We played Terraforming Mars and Blackbeard, and had a fun time learning the former while grinding our teeth trying to figure out what the hell the rules were so desperately trying to say with Blackbeard. Granted, it was an old Avalon Hill game, but seriously, these things were contradictory in the same paragraph.

This is one of the reasons I take the errata phase of our Onyx Path games seriously – can the audience understand and implement your text in the way you intended when publishing it? It’s sometimes hard to tell until you get it in front of that audience, so that phase for us gives us that feedback.

Then Saturday night, after our guests left, I raced upstairs to join our ongoing D&D 5e game on Roll20. It had been quite a while since we could get our schedules to line up (and of course it had to be this self-same day), and we were shifting from Justin running it to Oscar. So big change, although they had decided to keep our current characters and storyline with Oscar stepping in to add to our ongoing saga, and Justin could join in as a player.

So I had to play if I could swing it timing-wise. Turns out I could, and did, and a good time was had by all. What’s really interesting is the contrast as I look at the playing experience Johnny and I were reminiscing about, and the one I had on Saturday night.

Still playing D&D (from 1e to 5e!), but there’s our group doing collaborative world building as DMs. Not done by me and my HS friends in those early days; everybody was more about presenting THEIR world, that melange of influences and tropes that they wanted everyone to play in. The chance to tell the stories they wanted to tell. In a way, it was very personal, and it was how we all expected was just how it was done.

I do think part of opening up how and why we create and run our settings is the ensuing decades of game design that have experimented with more innovative ways to play. Not all the avenues that have been explored have worked long-term, but the accumulation of trying different things has enriched our hobby overall.

And, of course, there’s the huge difference that we played on Roll20. We had players on the West Coast US and on the East Coast, and we’ve had players coming in from London, places in Canada, the EU, and Micronesia previously. Being able to pull your group together from all over the world is such a boon when I remember worrying if all of our group would make it just from all over Philadelphia for our weekly session.

What I’m saying with these comparisons, is it’s a great time to be a table-top RPGamer!

DR:E Jumpstart art by Sam Denmark

Final thing about me – I’m going to do Inktober again this year. That’s the challenge to do one drawing in ink every day for the entire month. Any kind of ink. Last year I depicted characters that were all from the MithraukoQuest storyline of my old game world. This time around I’ll be doing characters and creatures that are part of the world, and from different gaming groups’ adventures, that weren’t part of the years the players fought against Count Mithrauko – so look out for my drawrings on social media.

All this, all these years of playing, and the years of reading genre fiction and comic books, the years of TV and movies, of studying fine art and graphics, all go together so I can decide what games we’re publishing, and what seems like it’ll play well at the table, be characterful and immersive, will look really cool, and have visual hooks like page layout and symbols – all of it comes to together and powers up my ability to make sure you have:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Our Creature Collection Kickstarter for Scarred Lands 5e is skittering on creepy-crawly legs towards the next Stretch Goal to add more monsters – that the backers vote on – to the book! The first group of creatures to be added by backer voting are:

Flay Beast

Fleshcrawler

Gray Lancer

Hellfire Bloodshark

Iron Tusker

Love-Scorned Soul

Mist Murderer

Night Tyrant

This book was designed with amazing art by our friends at Handiwork Games, and they’re running the Kickstarter for us on our brand-new Onyx Path Kickstarter page! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/scarred-lands-creature-collection-for-5th-edition-rpg

And, we’re running this Kickstarter, too!

The Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter launched last Thursday and we funded in just a tad over 24 hours and are vengefully slamming through Stretch Goals now! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deviant-the-renegades-a-tabletop-roleplaying-game

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features an interview with Red Moon Rising, one of our favorite actual play groups! Go to https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/ or to your favorite podcast venue!

This week should be the last one where the Onyx Path News goes directly onto YouTube, as soon, Matthew will be streaming directly to Twitch! In this week’s news, Matthew discusses Deviant: The Renegades, Scarred Lands, Vengeance of the Shunned, freelance writer tips, and more! Check out this week’s news here: https://youtu.be/Zf-YB2drW54

Speaking of Twitch, please follow our channel if you haven’t already done so! Our schedule is filled with games including Vampire, Scarred Lands, TC: Aberrant, Pugmire, Scion, Mage: The Awakening, and Hunter: The Vigil, as well as videos on Storytelling advice! Visit www.twitch.tv/theonyxpath and give us a follow, and if you have an Amazon Prime membership and haven’t already subscribed to a Twitch channel for free using it, just type Amazon Prime Twitch into Google and please use it on our channel! The first season of our Scion story is coming to a close this weekend, so thank you to David for running it, and please check out any parts you missed on our YouTube channel

Look forward to October, because we’re going for a special Character Creation Month, where every Saturday we create characters for different games, including Scarred Lands, Deviant, Scion, and more! Remember to find us on Twitch!

Remember, if you miss any content on our Twitch channel, some of it finds its way to our YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/user/theonyxpath Don’t forget though, that some of that content is Twitch exclusive or belongs to the Storytellers running their games, so don’t miss out and remember to follow us!

The ENnie award winning Red Moon Roleplaying continue their actual play of The Sacrifice, from V5 Chicago by Night, with Klara Herbol as the Storyteller and Matthew Dawkins as a player! Please check them out on www.redmoonroleplaying.com

This week, the Story Told Podcast have created a Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition primer: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-36-geist-the-sin-eaters-2nd-edition-primer

And here’s the newest Occultists Anonymous content right here, for you Mage: The Awakening fans: Episode 45: Get Out Within the lair of the Seers, the cabal strikes while they still have an advantage. Mage-on-Mage combat! The most harrowing experience the cabal has had yet, threatening mind and body. https://youtu.be/kvTU3Wp8KEs

Episode 46: A Deal Is Struck The cabal recovers from battle and deals with the decision Wyrd made without consulting Songbird or Atratus. Emotions are ragged but there is still Mysteries residing in Lynnewood Hall.https://youtu.be/o5HR_Oj3cjk

If you’ve not been keeping up with our TC: Aberrant actual play, please do give it a look here on our YouTube channel! Collateral Damage is a superb way to introduce yourself to the Trinity Universe through an Aberrant lens: https://youtu.be/WFBBZrUZVkE

And here’s Paws & Claws, our Pugmire actual play! Lots of content for you to watch and interact with: https://youtu.be/ga7wb3ESdEA

It’s been a while since we last promoted them, but Devil’s Luck Gaming are embarking on Season 3 of their Scarred Lands pirates campaign. As one of the best actual play shows around, do yourself a favour and start watching from Season 3. You will not regret it: https://www.twitch.tv/DevilsLuckGaming

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re releasing the EX3 Dragon-Blooded Screen PDF and two more of our monthly Adversaries of the Righteous!

Conventions!

Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th 2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Manuscript Approval

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Indexing

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution core (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e – Sam on the fulls.

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted. More sketches coming in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – LeBlanc on this.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Trinity RMCs – Contracted.

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Contracted.

Chicago Folio – Sending contracts and art notes out.

Mummy 2 (KS) – Characters being worked on, fulls next.

Memento Mori – Contracted.

City of the Towered Tombs – Contracted.

In Layout

They Came from Beneath the Sea!

Dark Eras 2 – Files with Aileen

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

VtR Spilled Blood – In progress.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

W20 Art Book

DRE Screen

Geist 2e Screen

Proofing

C20 Cup of Dreams

M20 Book of the Fallen – PDF back to Phil for review.

DR:E Jumpstart – Sent to Eschaton for approval.

At Press

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – Printing. PoD proofs ordered.

Trinity Aeon – Printing. PoD proofs ordered.

V5: Chicago – Files sent to printer.

Aeon Aexpansion – Backer PDFs out, errata.

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Backer PDF out to backers, errata gathering.

Signs of Sorcery – PoD proofs ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

And so we now are in Autumn! Falling into fall! Let’s celebrate the season that starts today where things get really colorful and then die! (OK, nature is just sleeping…really.) And Saturday was, I hear, Batman Day, which works well, especially if you recall the first drive in the Batmobile to the Batcave in Tim Burton’s Batman with the low angle shot up the road with swirling dead autumn leaves in the car’s wake. Lovely, just like the season.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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shuttershocky · 7 years

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The Tsukihime Worldbuilding Primer : Part 1 - The Factions

Hey Type-Moon fans! Have you not read Tsukihime but wondered how much of the Nasuverse lore you’ve missed out on? Then this is for you! This will be an easy to read Nasuverse worldbuilding guide meant for those who are unwilling or otherwise unable to read Tsukihime, from a very big Tsukihime fan that understands that we’ll all be dead before the remake comes out. It will discuss everything from the factions, magic, connections to Fate and Kara No Kyoukai, and anything else people might find interesting. I will also avoid any major plot spoilers in case this convinces you to read Tsukihime in the future!

(Of course you could just read all this on the Type-Moon wiki yourself, but good luck in those murky waters)

For this post, we’ll talk about the three main factions introduced in the Tsukihime franchise.

1.) The Twenty Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors

Also seen in Fate/Zero, Fate/Apocrypha, and Fate/Strange Fake, the Dead Apostles are the Nasuverse’s term for vampires, powerful monsters that feed on the living. They roam Earth in secret, disguising themselves as humans, while secretly feeding on them at night and turning their corpses into mindless slaves. They are aggressive and territorial, and thus normally stay away from each other, thankfully reducing their ability to form solid alliances and become a massive threat to humanity.

Just like Servants, the abilities of a Dead Apostle vary per individual. Some, like Odd Borzak in Fate/Zero, are not very powerful, and are only capable of creating ghouls and controlling bees. Others like Zepia Eltnam (otherwise known as TATARI), can manifest powerful reality marbles the size of a whole city and maintain it for several days. Within Tsukihime (and apparently even in Fate considering one of them appeared in Strange Fake) 27 of these Dead Apostles form the leadership of these monsters. They are known as the Twenty Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors.

These individuals are extremely dangerous, and together they form an organization that rivals the Church and the Magus Association in power. Originally humans imprisoned to be food for the True Ancestors (a lesson for another time!), The DAA is composed of some of the most powerful Dead Apostles on Earth, each one capable of taking on servants and entirely wiping out human settlements.

A good example for what a Dead Apostle Ancestor looks like is Nrvnsqr (pronounced “Nero”) Chaos.

This vampire keeps 666 beasts in his body, capable of using them for attack, defense, and scouting the area for enemies. The beasts themselves range from mere animals such as crows and lions to powerful magical beasts such as unicorns and dragons, making him absurdly powerful even among Dead Apostles. Though he was defeated by Shiki Tohno in Tsukihime, he was also hinted at as the reason for Richard the Lionheart and Saladin’s truce during the First Crusades in Fate/Strange Fake[1], his arrival on the battlefield forcing both sides to band together for survival.

The primary goal of this organization is the revival of The Dark Six, the very first Dead Apostle and the only one capable of uniting all of the world’s vampires under one banner. This requires an ancient ritual called the Aylesbury Valesti that would take decades to prepare for, but completion of the ritual would spell the doom of humanity (as shown by the state of the world in Fate/Extra, where said ritual is hinted as the reason behind the total collapse of magic on Earth).

In the main timeline however, The DAA suffered several defeats during their centuries-long war with the Holy Church, during which several of their members were killed or imprisoned and thus delaying the Aylesbury Valesti. Within Tsukihime and Melty Blood, several more of their members fell during their repeated attacks on Misaki town, defeated by its inhabitants.

2.) The Holy Church

REJOICE

Known to Fate fans for being the neutral judge of the grail wars and a farmhouse for psychopath villains, The Holy Church’s true purpose in the Nasuverse is to act as humanity’s shield from the supernatural, hunting anything with even a whiff of magic and keeping the general populace in the dark. While this has famously put them at odds with the Magus Association, their true enemies are the Dead Apostle Ancestors, with whom they’ve waged war with for centuries. Their agents/inquisitors, known as Executors, are all experts at fighting inhumanly powerful enemies, with the likes of Kotomine Kirei and Hansa Cervantes able to operate alone vs such creatures.

To that end, The Church has divided itself into several subfactions such as Kotomine Kirei’s Eight Sacrament Assembly or Riesbyfe’s Chivalric Order (Aka the Knights of the Church) in order to better organize their efforts to stamp out or at least control magic, with their most powerful firebrand executors becoming members of the Burial Agency, the faction of inquisitors tasked with the extermination of the Dead Apostle Ancestors and all other demonic organizations.

Burial Agents mostly operate alone, and are known to amass great power and influence while also having the freedom to ignore any direct orders from the church itself if it will interfere in their hunt. The Agency is also not above recruiting members of the DAA themselves (through force or other means), attempting to turn them on one another in order to even the odds. A good example of a Burial Agent is Ciel.

An immortal woman who has slain countless Dead Apostles, her magical ability exceeds that of magi and even her fellow executors, turning her into a one-woman army hellbent on the extermination of the undead. She is capable of wielding any weapon, including the Church’s rarest and deadliest sacred devices, and can turn even mere Black Keys into horrifying devices capable of incinerating or exploding targets. She is also a master of reinforcement magic (the same one Emiya Shirou uses), reinforcing her body in order to grant her superhuman strength and senses, allowing her to keep up with enemies as powerful as Arcueid Brunestud. She is also popularly thought of to have given Shirou his iconic red coat that he wears as Archer.[2]

By the events of Tsukihime, the Church had successfully gained the upper hand in its secret war. The Dead Apostles of the world spend most of their time in hiding, fearing the wrath of the Church and the freelancing magi like Natalia Kaminsky and Emiya Kiritsugu who would hunt them down. Despite this, the DAA themselves are unafraid of the Church, with most of them being far too powerful to be killed by conventional means. Nevertheless, with the (rather testy) alliance that the Church has established with the Magus Association and with the True Ancestor Arcueid Brunestud (whom the Church still attacks relentlessly), humanity wields enough power to keep the DAA working from the shadows.

3.) The Atlas Academy

First introduced in Kara No Kyoukai: Oblivion Recorder, the Atlas Academy is one of the three great branches of the magus association that has since shut itself off from the rest of the world. They are mostly known to Fate fans for being Chaldea’s scientists, who assisted in the construction of Chaldea’s advanced technology.

Hidden in the Atlas Mountains (according to Kara No Kyoukai), or somewhere in Egypt (according to Melty Blood), the Atlas Alchemists are the descendants of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and are concerned with only one thing: the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. No code of ethics or law binds them, allowing for any researcher to conduct any kind of experiment, no matter how strange, cruel, or horrifying, as long as the end result is never meant to leave Atlas. Due to how shut off they are from the rest of the world (and thus show up very little in the Nasuverse), little is actually known about this organization and just how powerful they really are. It is known however, that they have their own relationship with the Church and occasionally lend them the aid of their great alchemists. There are also 7 contracts in existence that bind Atlas to lend their aid to any who own them. Four of these contracts have been recovered, three more are yet to be used.

Because there is so little known about Atlas, most of what we know of them come from the only three individual alchemists to leave the institute: Satsuki Kurogiri, Zepia Eltnam Atlasia, and Sion Eltnam Atlasia. As the backstories of all three are rife with spoilers, I’ll do my best to stay away from the plot as much as possible, as well as skip talking about Zepia entirely. He’s ALL spoilers.

Satsuki Kurogiri was the first member of Atlas to ever be shown in the Nasuverse (and also the first time the institute was ever mentioned, though the Ufotable movie cut that part out). Like the other Atlas Alchemists, his brand of magic was strange and ancient, considered to be almost completely alien to the members of the Magus Association. He had the ability to speak to the souls of all things, bending them to his will. If he tells you to sleep, you’ll fall right over. if he tells you that you can’t see, then you’ve got to learn to be Daredevil before he gets away.

Though he had this ability as a child, according to the Light Novel version of Oblivion Recorder the ability disappeared as he reached puberty and resurfaced later on in adulthood, which he then honed in the Atlas mountains.

Though Kurogiri was a minor member of the Atlas Academy, Melty Blood would introduce one of its most important people as its main protagonist: Sion Eltnam Atlasia.

The Vice Director of the Atlas Academy and the next head of the whole institute (those chosen to succeed the previous director are given the name ‘Atlasia’), Sion’s personal vendetta with one of the DAA led to her expeditions outside the Institute, and also gave us a look at what kind of technologies the Atlas Alchemists have created.

Sion’s first and most noticeable asset is her superpowered mind (but unfortunately without a mechanical canine). She’s able to perform complex mathematical calculations and analysis with incredible speed and accuracy, and is able to partition her thoughts into 7 different parts that allows her to run 7 independent thought processes at the same time. This allows her to gather and process data like a computer during combat, eventually becoming able to predict movements and decisions through statistical analysis. Whether this is simply a supernatural gift or the results of experiments she ran in Atlas, it’s never made clear, although the two weapons she brings with her certainly are.

Her gun, the Black Barrel Replica, is a replica of the ancient god-killing firearm, the, er, Black Barrel. By almost all appearances it’s just an ordinary gun, but the bullets it holds in special; they have the ability to introduce the concept of death to a being that lives without it, making immortals such as Tiamat or Arcueid capable of death. Think of it like having King Hassan’s power contained in a bullet. Terrifying.

Her second weapon is a nearly invisible string called Etherlite. The Etherlite allows her to connect the mind of any individual it is attached to to her own, superior one, allowing her to read thoughts, sift through memories, and even hack the body to augment or disable its abilities. This horrifying breach of privacy and the abuse such power was capable of was too shocking for even Atlas, and coupled with their sordid ancestry, the Eltnam’s names were disgraced in the institute.

And that’s all for this post! These posts are meant to be read by fans with very little knowledge of Tsukihime, so if there’s anything confusing or unclear (or wrong, although I’m pretty confident in the accuracy of 95% of this post), please don’t hesitate to tell me and I’ll attempt to improve the content. Thank you for reading!

Notes

1 - I have not yet reached this part in Fate/Strange Fake, although I have heard from its fans that the Dead Apostle that battles Richard is in fact, supposed to be Nrvnsqr. If this is wrong, please do tell me!

2 - Try as I might, I can’t find the interview anymore where Nasu said the red coat was a gift from the Church and most likely from Ciel. If anyone could point me to it I’ll be so grateful!

#Nasuverse #Type-Moon #Type Moon #Tsukihime #Melty Blood #Kara No Kyoukai #Fate #Fate series #Fate Grand Order #Angel Notes #Nasuverse meta #The Tsukihime Worldbuilding Primer

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mindthump · 5 years

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The best PS1 games of all time: From Symphony of the Night to Final Fantasy 7 http://bit.ly/2WiC9N8

Sony tentatively entered the video game market by partnering with Nintendo to develop a new, disc-based console in the mid-90s. After that partnership fell apart, Sony went on to release a console of its own.

The first PlayStation launched in Japan in late 1994, and in the following year, to the rest of the world. Although the PS1 wasn’t the first console to use CD-ROMs or provide true 3D graphics, it created the breakout moment for both of those technologies in gaming.

Ranging from novel-length, narrative-driven RPGs to fast and furious races to mind-bending puzzles, games for the original PlayStation offered a wildly diverse lineup over its 11-year production run.

Take a stroll down memory lane with us as we count down the 50 best PlayStation 1 games ever made. Do they hold a candle to the best PS4 games? You decide.

Action

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The Castlevania series was over a decade old by the time Symphony of the Night arrived, but it was absolutely the franchise’s defining moment. It radically expanded the series’ platforming with RPG loot and progression and non-linear exploration, lending its suffix to the subsequent “Metroidvania” genre as a result.

Unlike previous Castlevanias, where you controlled members of the vampire-hunting Belmont family, SotN revolves around Alucard, the lazily-named son of Dracula, who fights the horrible monsters of the castle to protect humanity from his father. Symphony of the Night stood out immediately for bold choices like hiding more than half of the game behind a false ending, or using the CD format to make a massive game filled with rich, 2D sprites instead of the crude, early 3D the rest of the industry was pursuing at the time.

One of the most influential action-RPGs of all time, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is still just as satisfying to play now as it was 20 years ago.

Metal Gear Solid

Between Thief: The Dark Project on PC and Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, 1998 was the year that modern stealth video games were born. A sequel to two lesser-known games from creator Hideo Kojima, you play as special ops soldier Solid Snake, infiltrating the hideout of a rogue unit threatening the United States with a nuclear strike.

Snake has a variety of tools for evading and taking out guards, making it one of the most taut and tactical gaming experiences available at the time. The series has since spawned four more critically-acclaimed main entries and various spinoffs, radically expanding upon both its deep gameplay and Kojima’s baroque, nuclear mythology. But the first Metal Gear Solid remains an unassailable classic.

Twisted Metal 2

Prior to leading the team behind God of War, designer David Jaffe rose to prominence for his work on the PS1 vehicular combat series, Twisted Metal. In the demolition derby taken to a post-apocalyptic extreme, players take the wheel of various over-the-top armed and armored vehicles. Projectile weapons and power-ups are scattered throughout the arenas, set in the ruins of major cities around the world. The cars and drivers — like the series’ iconic ice cream truck, Sweet Tooth, and Axel, a muscle-bound man straddling two truck tires — ooze personality even in the early polygonal days of 3D.

The first game included only a single-player campaign and co-op mode, but the sequel expanded everything about it, including more vehicles, more arenas, and more custom and multiplayer modes for just dropping in and enjoying the mayhem à la carte. A contractual dispute between Sony and developer SingleTrac led to subsequent sequels being developed by other, less capable studios, making TM2 the peak of Twisted Metal for most fans.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

An action-focused spinoff of the top-down RPG series Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver was a third-person action game from Crystal Dynamics, which would go on to earn acclaim with its reboot of Tomb Raider. You play as the ghostly vampire Raziel in the grimdark fantasy world of Nosgoth.

Players loved its dark, compelling narrative, voice acting, and varied mechanics. One of its main conceits was the ability to swap between the physical and spectral realm at any time. Crystal Dynamics was unable to simply layer two different versions of the world on top of one another because of the console’s limitations; achieving the effect was no small technical feat.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is also notable as one of the first major games written by Uncharted series scribe Amy Hennig, now considered among the best game narrative creators in the business.

Tenchu: The Stealth Assassins

With their long-held mystique both within and beyond Japan, ninjas have featured prominently in video games since very early on. In franchises like Ninja Gaiden, however, they had largely been translated into nimble, hack-and-slash fighters. Tenchu: The Stealth Assassins is one of the first games to truly embrace the ninja as a stealthy infiltrator who must rely on his tools and wits to survive, rather than just weapons and reflexes. Developed by Japanese studio Acquire, Tenchu was the feudal Japanese parallel to Metal Gear Solid’s nuclear melodrama. Failing a mission would cause you to lose whatever tools they were carrying at the time, forcing you to be careful and deliberate when planning your approach to each mission. Fantastical elements from Japanese mythology provided fun flavor, but Tenchu was most fun because of how human and vulnerable you felt, making success all the sweeter.

Syphon Filter

Although somewhat overshadowed by Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter was another exceptional 3D, third-person action-stealth game for the platform that was praised at the time even if its legacy has not endured as strongly. Newbie developer Eidetic took equal inspiration from Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64, hoping to create a “super-spy” hybrid genre with stealth, action, and puzzles.

It tells a gritty, contemporary story about special operatives facing off against biological terrorists in a world-spanning story that encompasses governments, multinational pharmaceutical companies, and conspiracies that run all the way up to the top. It was a pulpy and immersive plot, enhanced greatly by gameplay that was a compelling balance of stealth and straight-up action. Critics cued into its stellar AI, a key requirement for good stealth games, which was among the most impressive in any game to date.

Einhänder

Although best known at the time for its roleplaying games, Japanese developer Square was no one-trick pony. Case in point: It also gave us Einhänder, an absolutely fantastic side-scrolling shoot-’em-up in the tradition of Gradius (though not quite as extreme as the “bullet hell” subgenre that came after it).

Set in the future during a war between Earth and the Moon, you pilot a spacecraft through horizontal, 2.5D levels, destroying enemies and collecting power-ups. The name, a German word for a one-handed sword, alludes to the core mechanic of your ship’s sole grappling arm, used to pick up weapons scavenged from destroyed enemies. Weapons mostly have finite ammo, forcing the player to keep finding new ones and adapting their play style to what’s available.

Apart from the generally slick presentation, players loved the tactical variety enabled by the system of picking up new weapons, as well as the way that bosses had discrete parts that could be targeted and disabled. Although well outside of Square’s wheelhouse, many consider Einhänder to be one of the genre’s best, and Square’s finest non-RPG work to date.

Ace Combat 2

The original Ace Combat (released as Air Combat) was one of the first games released on the original PlayStation, and it showed. This sequel was an improvement by developer Namco in basically every way. Gameplay is divided into relatively linear, objective-based missions, with resources becoming available to upgrade your jets depending on how successful you were at destroying all targets.

It’s an arcade-style combat flight simulator, “arcade style” here referring to its gameplay-over-simulation design, with only semi-realistic physics and the ability to carry far more missiles than an actual jet could — though difficulty settings allowed more hardcore players to fly with greater realism if they so desired.

Mega Man Legends 2

Although the PlayStation hosted some of the best conventional 2D Mega Man games as well, it was also the exclusive home to some weird entries like Mega Man Legends, as well. With only the main character in common (and a cheeky reference to how he’s named after a character’s favorite video game), Legends is set in an archipelago where he travels around with the Caskett family of treasure hunters, scouring ruins for ancient machinery in search of the legendary Mother Lode.

In addition to refining the run and gun mechanics (replete with a fairly deep crafting and customization system), the second game also presented a much richer and more character-driven narrative than the structure typical to the core series of “hunt the bosses to get their powers.” The voice-acted cutscenes were particularly entertaining, feeling very much like watching an anime. It featured memorable characters like your nemesis, the pirate Tron Bonne, who had her own spin-off game between two Legends entries. A third game was canceled in development.

Tomb Raider 2

The original Tomb Raider essentially founded the genre of the 3D action/adventure game, but it’s the sequel that really made it sing. A radical departure from the cutesey, cartoon mascots of the previous console generation, international treasure hunter Lara Croft was immediately embraced as one of gaming’s most iconic characters, heralding the medium’s maturation.

The first game’s mix of exploration, platforming, combat, and puzzle-solving was expanded substantially for the sequel, with refined controls, bigger environments, and more exciting set-pieces. The third game felt a bit more like a rushed cash-in, leaving Tomb Raider 2 as the series’ peak for a lot of players until the universally-praised 2013 reboot.

Fighting

Bushido Blade

Feudal Japanese weapon-focused 3D fighting game Bushido Blade is the most well-known game from Japanese studio Light Weight, and it’s still somewhat anomalous within the genre. Eschewing the convention of health bars entirely, blows would either cripple particular body parts or kill you outright. This gave the game a rare degree of realism, and a much more tactical and punctuated tempo.

There were eight realistically simulated weapons and six characters with different stats, abilities, and proficiencies with each weapon, and a stance-based fighting system, giving players a lot of options. Also unlike the discrete levels of conventional fighters, its arenas were all inter-connected, and players could run and climb between them, using the environment to their advantage.

Bushido Blade had one direct sequel and another similar title on PS2, but those smoothed out some of its quirks too much for our taste. Other fighting games like the Soulcalibur series and more recently For Honor have explored weapons-focused “dueling,” but nothing has quite replicated what made the original Bushido Blade special.

Tekken 3

Street Fighter set the bar for 2D fighting games in the early 90s, but brawling in the third dimension was all about Tekken. This arcade-native franchise set the high bar for 3D fighters, perfecting the formula with the third entry. Where previous entries made relatively little use of the third dimension, depending on the character, Tekken 3 toned down the hyperbolic jumping and made it so every character could easily sidestep into the third dimension, opening up one of the most tactically complex and polished fighting systems in video games to date. A large and diverse roster of characters and truly impressive graphics for a home console port of an arcade game made Tekken 3 an instant classic, and it still holds the honor of being the second-best selling fighting game on any platform of all time, after only Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

While Tekken and Bushido Blade blazed new paths for fighting games in the third dimension, Capcom stuck to its roots with Street Fighter, the fighting franchise that started it all. It featured a massive roster of 34 combatants drawn from the series’ whole history. It also introduced three different “isms” playstyles, changing the mechanics of how combos work and special moves charged up. While some felt that the 2D, sprite-based graphics dated the game, in retrospect it looks great, and holds up magnificently well as one of the most comprehensive and refined entries in the Street Fighter franchise.

Darkstalkers 3

Capcom was on such a roll producing top-notch fighting games during the ’90s that it sometimes overshadowed its own excellent titles. The Darkstalkers series of 2D fighters was always a cult and critical darling but had middling commercial success. Relatively standard (but solid) mechanically, it was mostly recognized for its anime-meets-gothic-horror aesthetic, with characters like vampires, mummies, demons, and a yeti. The look was magnificently refined by the time it hit the third game, with detailed and fluidly animated sprites that are among the best of the decade. First released in arcades, the game had undergone several character additions and balance changes by the time it was ported to PlayStation — all of which made it one of the fastest, fun, and charming fighters to play at home.

Platformers

Crash Bandicoot

Recently remastered in full, Naughty Dog’s original Crash Bandicoot trilogy (recently remade for PS4) endures as one of the most iconic 3D platforming series from the genre’s heyday. As the eponymous Crash, you are a mutant bandicoot (an Australian marsupial) on a quest to stop Dr. Neo Cortex from taking over the world with an army of other mutant animals.

The gameplay is standard for the genre — patrolling enemies, jumping challenges, power-ups, and collectibles, though levels were generally linear: It’s more Mario than Banjo-Kazooie. It was most highly praised at the time for its visuals, which felt more like a playable cartoon than any game to date. The vibrant character in Crash’s various death animations were particularly memorable in that regard.

Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus

The original PlayStation was a fascinating, transitional period in game design, with a big uptick in processing power and storage opening up a whole new field of possible aesthetics to explore. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee was a cinematic platformer in the tradition of Prince of Persia or Another World. You play as Abe, an enslaved member of the Mudokon race, leading a rebellion against their corporate overlords before they are turned into a cheap food source.

It’s grim satire for sure, but full of warmth, humor, and loving attention to detail. As Abe explores, solves puzzles, and avoids enemies, he has to rely on his wits more than anything else, because he’s liable to die without much effort. The sequel, Abe’s Exoddus, picked up right after the first game and enhanced it with both quality of life improvements such as quick saving, and more elaborate puzzles based around communicating with NPCs. A recent, well-received remake of the original shows that there’s still a lot to be enjoyed in this classic series.

Rayman

Before designer Michel Ancel gave us Beyond Good & Evil (will the sequel ever appear?), he created one of the most enduring characters in platforming, Rayman. Released early in the PlayStation’s life cycle, Rayman was a stunningly colorful and charming 2D platformer, using the console’s 32-bit processor to present one of the most vibrant and detailed games to date. The story was light, fantastical nonsense, as the eponymous Rayman fought and jumped his way through various themed worlds to defeat bosses and save the day.

Rayman subsequently took a detour into 3D platforming as well, but his real legacy was secured in 2011’s Rayman Origins, which returned to the bright, animated aesthetic of the original. It didn’t rock any boats in terms of gameplay, but Rayman is still beloved as one of its generation’s most solid iterations on the platforming genre, which is still alive and well today.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage

In the immediate wake of the Sonic vs. Mario console wars of the early-to-mid 90s, marketers still held onto the idea that a console needed a family-friendly platforming mascot to succeed. Next to Crash Bandicoot, the cutely-proportioned Spyro the Dragon competed for that spot on the original PlayStation.

En route to vacation, Spyro is pulled through a magical portal into a fantastical world under assault by a warlock who gleefully discovered there were no dragons to bother him. Spyro collects a series of MacGuffins to progress through nonlinear levels and unlock new traversal and combat abilities.

The whole first trilogy, developed by Insomniac Games, is well remembered for its colorful characters and solid platforming, but for our money, the second one hits the sweet spot of refined mechanics and freshness.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile

The transition from 2D to 3D gaming produced a lot of interesting artifacts, but oddly enough, most developers didn’t think to try the intermediary style that’s grown more popular in recent years: so-called “2.5D” (action rendered in 3D but largely constrained to a 2D plane). This Namco-developed platformer is set in Phantomile, a fantastical realm manifested from the dreams that people forget soon upon waking.

You play as Klonoa, an anthropomorphic resident of Phantomile with a power-granting wind spirit that inhabits a ring. Gameplay is standard for the genre, with enemies, puzzles, and bosses spread out across themed levels. Praised by critics at its release, Klonoa can be hard to find now, particularly outside of Japan, but is fondly remembered as a solid and enjoyable platformer.

Jumping Flash!

Released in 1995, one year before Super Mario 64, Jumping Flash! holds the honor (according to Guinness) of being the first truly 3D platforming video game. Presented in first-person, you play Robbit, a robotic rabbit, exploring open levels to collect four MacGuffins (“jump packs,” in this case) to progress through its six themed worlds, each with a culminating boss battle after three levels.

Robbit’s ability to triple-jump mid-air is the game’s mechanical focus, supplemented by various power-ups with classic effects like temporary invincibility, extending the level time limit, or increasing Robbit’s health. Although it was soon overshadowed by the flourishing of 3D platforming’s imminent golden age, Jumping Flash! is still an innovative and under-appreciated trailblazer.

Ape Escape

In this third-person platformer you play a boy, Spike, tasked with travelling through time and using a variety of gadgets to capture hyper-intelligent apes that are meddling with history. It was the first game to require the PlayStation’s DualShock controller before the now-standard vibrating two-stick model came stock with the console. Rather than using the right stick to control the camera, it was used to manipulate the gadgets. Acclaimed at the time and fondly remembered since, it’s a seminal moment in platforming video games for both its cutting edge presentation and mechanics.

Puzzle

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube

The PlayStation’s most memorable games tended to be immersive fantasies, yet there were a few exceptions more purely focused on gameplay. I.Q.: Intelligent Qube was a 3D puzzle game in which a player ran around on a gridded platform, clearing cubes before they push him off into the void. It was a challenging brain-tickler, given more replayability with the ability to create new levels, a feature that unlocks after completing the game once. Although released in the West, it was most successful in its native Japan, garnering several sequels.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo

This port of a hit Japanese arcade puzzle game for one or two players isn’t actually a sequel to anything, but is cheekily named after Super Street Fighter II Turbo because it bolts the aesthetic and interface elements of Capcom 2D fighters onto a falling block puzzle. In it, Chibi versions of Street Fighter and Darksiders characters performed a silly battle that reflected what was happening in the puzzles.

Capcom developed the game for Japanese arcades in response to the popularity of Sega’s Puyo Puyo 2. It employed similar competitive mechanics to Puyo of successful chains dumping garbage blocks onto the opponent’s field, which could be countered with a quick combo in response. The charming 2D graphics and solid competitive puzzling mechanics have aged beautifully, maintaining this game’s reputation as a delightful cross-genre curio.

Racing

Gran Turismo 2

Hyper-realistic driving sims are flourishing, but Gran Turismo was the cream of the crop for virtual gearheads in the PS1 era. The smooth forms and inorganic materials of cars have always been an excellent test case for the cutting edge of realistic graphics, and as such Gran Turismo 2 was one of the first games where you might glance at the screen and think you’re watching live television.

The gameplay, graphics, and physics were largely unchanged from the first game, with the most notable expansion being in Gran Turismo 2’s enormous roster of real-world cars (over 600, the largest in any game to date), a robust customization system, and more flexibility to take part in races à la carte, rather than necessarily structured as tournaments. It was a bestseller among both car fans and regular gamers, establishing Gran Turismo as a key racing franchise that has endured through the present.

Wipeout XL

Like F-Zero on the SNES, the Wipeout series let players experience fantastical levels of speed in futuristic racing. Players piloted extremely fast, anti-gravity ships through dramatic, high-tech courses. Gameplay revolved around extremely high speeds, power-ups, and utilizing air brakes for drifting turns around tight corners.

Expanding and improving upon the first game in nearly every way, Wipeout XL was praised for its intense gameplay and slick presentation, including a techno music soundtrack and detailed background worldbuilding that made it feel like the immersive, futuristic entertainment video games had promised to become since the 80s.

Crash Team Racing

Mario Kart clones flourished on all consoles in the years following the success of Mario Kart 64, and Crash Team Racing was handily the best available on the PlayStation. Developed by Naughty Dog, it featured characters from the Crash Bandicoot trilogy kart racing for up to four players. Like its obvious inspiration, it featured aggressive and speed-boosting power-ups, drift turning, and whimsical, elaborate courses.

Unlike Mario Kart games, in addition to standard, time trial, and battle modes, it also included a story that progressively unlocked additional characters and modes as players completed it. For the most part, it didn’t shake up the formula in any substantial ways, but it was a solidly designed, good looking, and fun game that filled a definite niche for PlayStation owners. Not every great game needs to reinvent the wheel, after all.

R4: Ridge Racer Type 4

Between the simulation-focused realism of Gran Turismo and the wacky hijinks of Kart racers, you have Ridge Racer. R4, the Namco-developed series’ final entry on PlayStation, looks like the former, but plays closer to the latter. That made it perfect for racing fans who wanted the fantasy of realistic-looking cars but were turned off by realistic handling. 321 vehicles to unlock and a variety of tracks and modes make this a great package for anyone who wanted a rich, arcade-style racing experience. Many still consider it the peak of the Ridge Racer series.

Driver: You are the Wheelman

While most driving games framed the action around races, Driver instead sought to recreate the feeling of 60s and 70s car chase movies like Bullitt or 1978’s Driver. Set in open-world urban environments inspired by real cities, Driver looked forward to the sort of hijinks that would come to define Grand Theft Auto games, like escaping from cops or smashing up other cars. It also included an interesting Film Director mode that allowed players to capture replays with particular camera angles.

Rhythm

PaRappa the Rapper

Before Harmonix made the genre blow up with Guitar Hero on the PlayStation 2, PaRappa the Rapper was the name in rhythm games. Sidestepping the crude stabs at realism that contemporary developers were making with the console’s nascent 3D tech, PaRappa features colorful, 2D characters in 3D environments. This highlighted design over horsepower, decades ahead of current trends to integrate 2D and 3D artwork into more visually interesting aesthetics than the brown-grey realism that dominated the early part of the millennium.

PaRappa’s bright and cheery look was a 90s hip-hop Day-Glo fantasia, and the music, while lyrically inane, holds up shockingly well over 20 years later. PaRappa the Rapper has been technically surpassed by subsequent rhythm games in nearly every regard, but it’s still rightly beloved as a groundbreaking curio from a time in gaming before genres became quite so crystallized and anything felt possible.

Vib-Ribbon

Although Vib-Ribbon is one of the most visually primitive games ever released for the original PlayStation, ironically it could now most easily be mistaken for a contemporary indie title. In this minimalist rhythm platformer, you play Vibri, a rabbit who must traverse courses generated procedurally from the music, all rendered in simple, white, line vector graphics on a black background.

The game’s lightweight visuals meant that it could be loaded entirely into the console’s RAM, and thus players could generate levels based on any music CDs they put in. Using CDs to generate material for games had been explored on PlayStation already in Monster Rancher, but Vib-Ribbon was the first to integrate the content itself into the game. Well ahead of the curve for both rhythm games and minimalist, procedural platformers, Vib-Ribbon feels nearly timeless now.

Role-playing

Final Fantasy IX

Breaking off from the trajectory of Final Fantasy VII and VIII toward gritty sci-fi, FF9’s return to the stylized, chibi aesthetic and light-hearted fantasy of the series’ original entries left many fans turned off. In retrospect, it stands out as a fantastic synthesis of the franchise’s recent ideas with its classic mechanical and worldbuilding tropes. It follows the rogueish Zidane, the rebellious princess Garnett, and their assembled friends taking on the sinister Queen Brahne and her world domination plans. It’s classic Final Fantasy through and through, and is easily the most charming and fun entry from the era.

Final Fantasy VII

Perhaps the most famous entry of the premier Japanese RPG franchise, FF7 was a massive, breakout event for the series, breaking into the third dimension and reaching far wider audiences than ever before. It tells the tale of mercenary Cloud Strife and his ragtag friends taking on the sinister Shinra Corporation, which is literally draining the planet’s life force. The chunky, polygonal visuals haven’t aged well, but characters like Sephiroth and moments like the death of Aeris loom large for gamers (as evidenced by the hugely hyped remake in the works), making this still one of the most influential and well regarded RPGs of all time.

Chrono Cross

Squaresoft RPG Chrono Trigger is still widely considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Its PlayStation sequel never achieved the same reputation, but it’s nevertheless a fun and interesting game that holds up quite well. Like the first game’s different time periods, Chrono Cross’ primary narrative conceit was jumping back and forth between two parallel timelines, in one of which the protagonist had died as a child.

The game features over 50 recruitable characters, each with their own personal quest to follow, making it literally impossible to see everything in a single playthrough. The connections to the first game are non-obvious at first, but ultimately it ties them all together in an interesting and resonant tale that frequently meditates on loss and regret. It’s also colorful, fun, and features unique approaches to both combat and progression.

Xenogears

Another fiercely loved Squaresoft RPG, Xenogears started as a pitch for Final Fantasy VII, but eventually spun off to start its own science fiction franchise. Long and ambitious, it amazed some and perplexed others with the plot’s complicated political and religious themes, along with a healthy dollop of Jungian psychoanalysis.

You play as the amnesiac young man Fei Fong Wong in a quest to save the world from Deus, an ancient, planet-killing weapon that has gained sentience. Gameplay featured both conventional, Final Fantasy style active time battles, as well as fights in the eponymous Gears (giant mecha suits) that involved managing action points and developing combos. The first Squaresoft RPG to feature voice acting and anime cutscenes, Xenogears was a leap forward in the medium’s potential for mature and cinematic storytelling.

Vagrant Story

Yasumi Matsuno’s action RPG stood out from its peers at Square because of its razor focus. Rather than assembling a ragtag crew of wacky misfits to save the world, you play a single character, Ashley Riot, a knight sent after a cult leader who kidnapped a noble family and absconded to a ruined medieval city, Leá Monde.

Like Parasite Eve, it featured pausable, real-time combat and the ability to target and be targeted on particular body parts, crippling particular capabilities. Combined with an elaborate weapon crafting and armor system, it provided a rich and focused tactical playground that players enjoyed experimenting with for years. It was essentially retconned into Ivalice, the world of Final Fantasy Tactics and XII, but even without that it would stand alone as a beloved classic for its mature story and mechanical depth.

Final Fantasy VIII

Following the explosive, global success of FFVII was a tall order, but Square managed to keep aggressively evolving the series for its immediate sequel. Final Fantasy VIII was the first in the series to feature realistically proportioned characters and continued the move from 7 towards the fantasy-infused sci-fi aesthetics that defined later entries.

The story revolved around Squall Leonhart and a party of other freshly-trained SeeD mercenaries in a quest that quickly turns from political to world-ending stakes. Fans also latched onto the romance between Squall and fellow party member Rinoa, which featured an original vocal track (a series first), “Eyes on Me” by Chinese singer Faye Wong.

The game was a radical departure mechanically, getting rid of magic points in favor of the elaborate “Junction” system of drawing finite quantities of spells from enemies that you could either cast or hold onto in order to buff up particular stats. It was an odd system that didn’t make it into subsequent entries, but demonstrated the franchise’s ongoing willingness to reinvent itself in core ways.

Suidoken II

While widely beloved by fans and critics, Suidoken II’s limited print run and distribution prevented it from reaching the universal acclaim that Final Fantasy games found on the PlayStation, at least in the West. Loosely based on the plot of a classical Chinese novel, it was most praised for its story: a complex and mature political saga of warring nations and city-states struggling for independence.

The scope of that narrative was reflected in the scope of the party you could recruit, with over 100 characters able to join you through personal side quests (though not all in combat roles). It featured both standard turn-based party battles in the vein of Final Fantasy as well as large-scale, strategic engagements on a grid more reminiscent of Fire Emblem. Suidoken II was about as epic as you could get on the PlayStation.

Legend of Mana

The Secret of Mana series grew up alongside Final Fantasy in the 8- and 16-bit eras (the first game was actually sold in the United States as Final Fantasy Adventure), generally taking a slightly lighter tone and substituting the turn-based battles with more open, action RPG gameplay. Legend of Mana is the fourth entry (following the fantastic Seiken Densestsu 3 for SNES, which has still not been officially localized in the west).

A recurring theme on this list, the storage and processing power of the PlayStation was leveraged not to make crude stabs at 3D graphics but to fill it to the brim with lush, beautiful 2D graphics, universally praised at the time as looking like an animated film, and aging exceptionally well.

Set after a cataclysmic war, the player is tasked with restoring the land of Fa’Diel (and eventually the Tree of Mana itself) by literally placing parts of the land on the map that have been sealed in artifacts, with their relative placement affecting things like the strength of elemental magic types in each region. It was criticized at the time for making the story feel too diffuse, but in retrospect, its nonlinear, system-rich approach feels ahead of its time.

Wild Arms

One of the first RPGs released for the PlayStation, Wild Arms stands apart also for its highly-unconventional setting that blends traditional JRPG fantasy tropes with visual elements from the American old west. Set in the world of Filgaia, you play a scrappy band of wandering adventurers called Dream Chasers, including a boy, Rudy, who can excavate and use ARMS (Ancient Relic Machines — basically guns from a lost era of greater technology).

Using both 2D sprites for exploration, and 3D rendered battle sequences, Wild Arms was an interesting transitional game between the 16- and 32-bit eras. Mostly it stands out for its compelling setting, however, fusing science and magic in a way reminiscent of — but also completely distinct from — Final Fantasy VI.

The Legend of Dragoon

Sony may have set unreasonable expectations for The Legend of Dragoon by marketing it initially as a “Final Fantasy Killer,” but this SCE-developed RPG has endured as a cult classic of the era. You play as Dart, an orphaned survivor of a destroyed city rescuing his childhood friend, kidnapped by a rebel army.

In typical genre fashion, he assembles a motley crew for a quest that spirals up to defeating a world-ending god of destruction. It fleshed out the typical turn-based combat with a system of combos and counter-attacks that added an interesting dimension of timing and risk/reward. While it never panned out into a franchise, it’s just as well-written and designed as many of its more widely beloved peers.

Legend of Legaia

While much of the flourishing RPG genre was simply following in Final Fantasy’s footsteps, Legend of Legaia had the hipster appeal of trying to do something different. The story was standard genre fare: A martial artist from a village at the edge of the world, you set out on a quest to beat back the Mist that has consumed the surface and spawned countless monsters, pushing humanity to the brink.

Legaia stood out for its combat system, which was turn-based but also heavily derived from fighting games. Rather than having a generic “fight” option in battles, players targeted different strikes as left, right, high, or low, chaining them together into increasingly elaborate combos as the game proceeded. It added a tactical richness to combat that few of its peers could match, and is a franchise worth re-examining.

Parasite Eve

Adapted from a popular, contemporary Japanese novel of the same name, Parasite Eve was a bit of a genre hybrid from developer Square. Equal parts action RPG and survival horror, it follows a New York City cop trying to stop an entity named Eve from destroying humanity through spontaneous combustion.

Like Square’s Vandal Hearts, it featured pausable real-time battles and the ability to target particular body parts, with abilities tied to the “Active Time Bar” (ATB) system pioneered in the studio’s Final Fantasy games. Critics praised its interesting and immersive design at the time, although its legacy was somewhat overshadowed by the more “pure” RPGs and survival horror games of the time, respectively. In retrospect, however, its infusion of RPG progression systems into a survival horror framework can be seen reflected in more modern games such as The Evil Within, although its pausable real-time combat has been less explored subsequently.

Shooters

Medal of Honor

Several years before the original Call of Duty kicked off the oversaturation of WW2 first-person shooters in earnest, Medal of Honor set the bar. Steven Spielberg developed the story, working with the same historical military consultants he collaborated with on Saving Private Ryan.

Where previous shooters had been relatively light-hearted affairs about blasting hordes of demons, Medal of Honor was one of the first serious, cinematic shooters that presaged future classics like Spec Ops: The Line by exploring the medium’s serious narrative potential. Critics and fans also praised its gameplay, however, as one of the most generally refined shooters released to date.

Sports

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2

The original Tony Hawk Pro Skater was an enormous success when it launched in 1999, but it was the follow-up from the next year that truly cemented it as one of the most beloved sports franchises of all time. The action centered around arcade-style gameplay, with the player flipping and grinding over open levels to rack up as many points as possible from tricks and combos within two minutes.

Collectibles and level-specific objectives keep it spicy, and the addition of level- and skater-creation tools gave it a ton of replayability. The series continued through the ill-received Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 in 2015, but for many, the second remains the definitive entry and still one of the most highly rated sports games of all time.

Madden NFL 98

1997 saw the Madden football franchise’s first stab at 3D with Madden Football 64, but for our money, the best sports game of the year was the less ambitious and far more refined Madden NFL 98. While other franchises made the leap to polygons, development efforts at Madden instead were focused between 97 and 98 on punching up the game’s artificial intelligence, which made this the most strategically sophisticated football game ever released at the time. As is often the case from this era of consoles, Madden NFL 98’s late 2D sprite graphics hold up better than the early efforts at 3D that followed it.

Strategy

Final Fantasy Tactics

FFT wasn’t the first tactical RPG to come out of Japan — the Shining Force and Ogre Battle series already broke that ground for western console audiences. It’s far and away the most beloved and influential one, however.

The series’ traditional linear battles of three to four party members lined up facing a few enemies. In turn, Final Fantasy Tactics opened up into a much richer, isometric, grid-based combat reminiscent of X-COM, with an elaborate job system allowing for deep, strategic party customization.

Set in the world of Ivalice (which was featured in later entries like FF12), it tells a mature tale of competing noble families, warring nations, and the intersection of church and state. Spin-off sequels for the Game Boy Advance were solid, but none ever quite captured the magic of the original.

Survival horror

Resident Evil 2

While the first Resident Evil is beloved for creating “Survival Horror,” Resident Evil 2 perfected the formula. It picks up two months after the events of the original, as the Umbrella Corporation’s zombie plague spreads from the company’s labs to nearby Raccoon City. Like the first game, it features two protagonists, puzzles, exploration, and limited resources for ammo and saving the game, forcing careful and strategic play.

It added the “Zapping System,” in which players could revisit scenarios multiple times as different characters, with unique challenges designed for each of them. Its presentation was also praised as improving upon the first game in virtually every way. Though the series has continued for decades — we’re up to Resident Evil 7 as of 2017 — many still consider the second the high watermark. Resident Evil 2 also received a stellar remake in 2019.

Silent Hill

The PlayStation’s 3D capabilities opened up a whole field of possibility for cinematic horror, which is why the survival horror genre was born on it. Where the early Resident Evil games relied more on jump scares and zombie movie tropes, Silent Hill took a decidedly more psychological and surreal approach.

You play as Harry Mason, searching for his daughter who goes missing in the creepy town of Silent Hill while passing through on vacation. The whole town was blanketed in a thick fog, cleverly utilized to cover for the system’s draw distance limitations, which gave the game a memorably menacing atmosphere, particularly when played alone and late at night.

Drawing from an interesting range of influences like Lewis Carroll and David Lynch, Silent Hill is seminal in establishing the subtler and more artistically interesting strain of psychological horror in video games.

Resident Evil

Released first in Japan as Biohazard, Resident Evil is Shinji Mikami’s genre-defining survival horror opus. Although not the first horror game, it exerted such a gravitational pull that, like shooters in the wake of Doom, any other entries in the genre were called an imitation for a while — and it’s still basically impossible to talk about survival horror without Resident Evil featuring prominently in the discussion.

You play as Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, special forces units sent to investigate their missing teammates in a zombie-infested mansion on the outskirts of Raccoon City. It established the now-standard genre gameplay of careful exploration, puzzle solving, and resource management. Players remember it most fondly for its creepy atmosphere and unsettling presentation, however, making clever and efficient use of the hardware with 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds to achieve unprecedented immersion.

Dino Crisis

If you liked the survival horror stylings of Resident Evil auteur Shinji Mikami, but weren’t into zombies, Capcom still had you covered. Much of the same team including Mikami himself also developed Dino Crisis, a survival horror game set on a secret island research facility wherein genetically-revived dinosaurs run rampant, Jurassic Park-style. Capcom contrasted it with Resident Evil by marketing it as “Panic Horror” rather than survival, because of the emphasis on dinosaurs as a quicker and more aggressive/intelligent threat than zombies.

Unlike the pre-rendered backgrounds of its predecessors, Dino Crisis featured real-time 3D environments, adding to the sense of immersion. Although not quite as viscerally scary or enduring a franchise as Resident Evil, many felt that it improved upon those games in nearly every way, offering a tense, fun, and more consistently paced experience.

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drabbles-n-stuff · 5 years

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Lyra, the Beat-Maker.

Lyra doesn't remember the first few years of her life. Bandle City, the name, sure, as most Yordles do... but then? Somehow she ended up in Zaun. Truth be told, she never cared much about the why of it all. Probably sold for drugs or something. That could be forgiven in her mind. Not like she ever needed them. No, she didn't. What she couldn't forgive is who they left her with.

An old man, long since dead by now, that loaned the poor Yordle girl to clean chimneys, clogged pipes and whatever small holes you couldn't reach. It wasn't prostitution, but at times when she inhaled the toxic sooth and got caught between massive rats, nipping at her feet and ankles until they got bored and turned tail to allow her to move... she sometimes wished it was. Worse were the times when it got too cold, and the metal started to slowly but noticeably shrink. Her hurried scuttling surely was entertaining to those that hired her, when she got away. And when she didn't, and the cold metal forced her to get stuck in a dark, echoing place, she yelled. A lot. To their despise. Some went so far as to tap the pipes with brooms, or slam their floors, knowing she was under them and could feel every vibration. Punishment for not being fast enough. The longest she stayed stuck was less than a week but... probably more than three days. Time didn't feel like it passed down there. The noises didn't help. Nor the rats. The smell. Hunger.

It didn't last long, however, as she soon was sixteen and by divine grace, her 'caretaker' passed away. And she got to inherit all of his debts. And the few pennies he had left, probably forgetting to use those to help him drink or drug himself to death. Lyra had no plans, but she knew one thing: She wasn't coming back to Zaun anytime soon if she had a say on it.

Her journey was arduous, quiet, and painful. With no money, no clothes, nothing to bribe or give, she could never get to the upper levels of Zaun or to Piltover itself without getting captured and put to work on something else. But she had a particular set of skills.

Despite days without eating, the rags she ate through making makeshift clothes, bandages, and bandanas to cover herself, the hundreds of feet of ground she clawed for, sometimes even sleeping in the metallic prisons despite the potential of an early grave, she climbed. Through the rats. Through the awful bumping and beating. Through the vile liquids, and chemical burns. Tooth and nail, she forced herself into the sewers of Piltover, and from there, the golden streets. And for once in her life, as she saw the sun glistening on the streets, she felt safe.

Most humans didn't bat an eye at her, thinking it was someone's harmless - although fetid - experiment wandering the streets, all of the doubtful she could ever be harmful. And in truth, she wasn't. Nor did she want to be. All she wanted was a nice, comfy place to sleep under the night sky.

But she didn't get it.

Her instincts and life on Zaun told her to look for a place that had good cover from any liquids dribbling down from up top, and indeed someone had just left a good bunch of boxes lying around, probably to be thrown into the trash at some later date. So, without questioning it, she shoved herself inside one of them.

What little rest she got was assaulted by nightmares of endless corridors, and in her waking hours, she stared at the dark streets, half expecting this 'box' to be but another way into the maze of steel below, dragged back to that hell by the nipping on her ankles and the disturbing vibrations that made her dizzy.

To the best of her abilities, she only slept on the outside from that day onwards.

She ate what she could get from the dumpsters, and tried to stay away from the public eye as best as she could... but with how colorful she was, despite the burns and horrible marks on her body, she was taken. A family of quite powerful businesspeople, dwelling in the area of sound waves and light projections. Something about trying to make meetings and communication easier, she vaguely remembers.

But she wasn't to be taken in like a long-lost daughter, loved by the parents she never had. Lyra was treated no better than a circus animal, the rich parents displaying their catch and inventing wild, unbelievable stories about how they found her. 'The Plague Jungle!' 'A lost soul of the Shadow Isles!' 'Casting a spell to curse one of their long distant cousins into a Poro until they stepped in!' and so on. Always laughing, belittling and generally displaying her as one would a purse or a pair of shoes.

But, she knew to be quiet. It was all she knew, actually. Answering yes, and yelling if stuck. Education wasn't exactly a priority of her previous 'caretaker'. But she had a keen ear, and by all the stars in heaven, she knew one thing.

Whatever a 'waltz' was, she wanted one.

It took her a couple of years, picking up on the information she heard at the parties she was forced into, and in fact, she grew extremely fond of the attention she received. Posing, and even adding spice to the family's stories about her. But she didn't casually fall into place, becoming a groveling, subservient party dog. Through their kids and the conversations she overheard, Lyra grew more cunning, being too loud to ignore and quick on her feet after they stopped paying attention to her tricks. A bunch of old people wouldn't miss a penny here or there, and the poor young kids would love to see a new trick for a couple of gold coins! And it was that way that she learned. Stealing became almost as easy as breathing, or crawling.

With that, soon came lockpicking, glad to finally be able to shove something that wasn't her into a tight, metal hole. With lockpicking, the family library. With the library, more understanding, especially of one thing... Waltz. Music in general. She did occasionally hear a faint melody while in Zaun and Piltover, but to her, they were just machines doing odd sounds. Now? Composition. Rhythm. Beats. How a band should play. How orchestras worked, How Maestros guided the crowd into a singular motion of pure beauty. And a question popped into her mind.

... why not make it a machine?

The party monkey continued to dance and laugh and giggle for the crowds, and behind their backs, plotted. She took radios and played with their limited frequencies, she used decibel meters to measure how loud was too loud and kept going with it. Testing amplifiers in the middle of the day, when no one was gonna question one more loud noise amongst the crowds of people chattering, electricity and other things. Sewing her own things as she worked to fix the tear on the children's clothing. And it all came to fruition one faithful day, when the parents, too drunk from a party to realize the Yordle doing her chores around the house, laughed and talked about their work. A revolutionary light projection system, with a way of producing sounds of their own through... crystals? Now, she wasn't exactly an expert on the field, but she knew that sounded... interesting. Even if she didn't understand the science behind it. Oh, but she was going to.

Of course, she harped on with them and gleefully went to the lab where this grand reveal was gonna be displayed, a pocket sewn on the inside of her ill-fitting, aristocratic clothing.

They left her in the same room as the box containing the projector, a revolutionary little thing. A mere little metal disk with some special engravings, coupled with a massive crystal in the center, about as thick as her own fist, with a couple of smaller ones for projections that took less energy to be powered. Supposedly, one could configure it to create a tangible hologram that was its own source of sound, not its projector. And that... well, that was just too nice to pass on, wasn't it? It was too big for her pocket, but an opportunity like this wasn't gonna be passed on.

They heard a horrifyingly loud scream and the sound of glass smashing on the floor. By the time the guards got there, Lyra was left a sobbing mess on the ground, the box smashed, and the crystals nowhere to be seen. The Yordle spoke of a tall man with a big robe and a mask covering his face. And with that, she had the perfect decoy, carried away on her caretaker's while in the fetal position. Holding those treasures tight against her chest as she sobbed.

Almost a decade of having to take these tormenting monsters... and now... now she had so much more than she could EVER HOPE FOR! She had stolen books and money from them, obviously, they deserved NO respect from her. Now? She had groundbreaking tech! All for her own! Enough gold to buy a nice hideout, and enough connections and blackmail material to make the big-hatted pigs blush.

Lyra bought a nice, spacious warehouse of her own in the upper levels of Zaun, and there...

Her future as a thief and a con had just begun. A loud, and very bright future.

---- LYRA'S SUIT -

It is powered mostly by the crystals she stole, which is recharged naturally by her own magical nature, being a yordle and all. Her cape works as a graphical equalizer, quickly adapting itself depending on what track she's playing. From her crystals, she blasts loud techno music, mostly stuff like this (Embed link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBb060OPegg ) because hey, SOMEONE has to invent dubstep remixes in Runeterra, right? Alongside stuff like Industrial Metal and more low quality, noisy dubstep to act as distractions.

Her mask has a pair of glasses built into it, seeing as her vision is so utterly destroyed by the fact she spent so much time in dark, cramped spaces during her development years. Some things not even Yordle healing can cure totally.

Her arm blades are actually weapons she's quite unused to. But! Ease of use easily takes that away. While it does take a couple of swings to slice through steel, it still can do it, and if she's just flailing her arms to protect herself, they'll do quite good work. It helps that she can set them to vibrate to the beat of her songs, harming the hand of any melee attacker and helping soften the blow by dispersing it.

A bodysuit of latex that only covers your torso isn't very practical, but it isn't MEANT to be practical. Lyra learned that the louder she tried to be, the quicker people would stop paying attention to her, so if she looks like a freak... well, she's just asking for attention. It usually works. And when it doesn't, she's learned how to bullshit her way through quite a few situations, and with a sneak implementation of Kisu, she can pretty much twist her way out of anything.

----

K.I.S.U. , the not-so-evil Minion!

Remember that big crystal stuck in a disk? Well, it took a couple of re-reprogrammings, but Lyra finally got what she wanted. From word of mouth of some very blackmailable higher-ups in the Piltovian world of business, she learned this little thing was supposed to be called "Keeper of Intelligence / Storage Unit", a spying device that was to be marketed as a simple maid that would gather audio and visual documentation of their marks.

Of course, she never even got out of trying to get funded, having been stolen right before the grand reveal it even existed. But it still worked. She untoggled some fail-safes for the AI and broke a couple of connections, and soon enough, she had it running.

It of course, due to the nature of her editor, chose to display itself as a Yordle now. But soon enough both of them discovered she could be... pretty much anything! A bird, human, Krug, dog, cat. She would never lose that distinct see-through body nor her glow, but hey, that only ADDED to the distraction factor! It also helped that the disk was pretty easily concealable, and Kisu was quite skillful at maneuvering it around to keep it hidden and herself out in the open, pulling all the eyes.

Unlike Lyra, she doesn't have some grand plan of an evil career, however. In fact, she mostly just sticks to Lyra because she has nothing better to do, being an escaped highly valuable, rare and sought after mineral and breakthrough AI. They work pretty well together though, sometimes even considering each other sisters. And of course, partners in crime.

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