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yanderefairyangel · 7 months

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I think it's very funny how I hear so many people say "if only we could have a game with Engage's gameplay with 3H's level of writing we could have a perfect game" because we already had a FE game with 3H's level of writing long before 3H came out... and that's Fates.

I kid you not. 3H and Fates have the exact same writing flaws when it comes to the story and the worldbuilding. And that's that it was waaay too ambitious for its own good.

I mean, Fates orginal script was literaly so big it was massive novel trimmered down for video game format as for 3H's well...

10 freaking thousand years of worldbuilding for a video game story.

See the problem ??? That's something you do for a novel not a video game !!!

The main reason why stories in video games tries to stay simple is because they are aware of the medium they are dealing with !!! Fates and 3H are both game that are very, very long. Do you have any idea how long they would be if they went fully into developping all of the worldbuilding and lore they were supposed to have ?

That's the problem with big worldbuilding. As ambitious as it is it comes with the downside of requiring a lot of screen time to make every bits of it story relevant in a way or another and to flesh it out well. Do Fates and 3H do it well ? Well, Fates is a tought subject seeing how the localization removed a lot of its worldbuilding and created incoherences and inconsistencies on top of that, but we do see that in the original there were some of them not that developped such as the 12 dragons having only 3 at least that are very plot relevant : Hydra, the Rainbow sage and Moro. You don't learn a lot about 3 more of them, the Ancestor of the tribe we do meet in Fates and the one that shared their blood with the Royals, but there is still some stuff missing and that could have been developped more. And this problem Fates had, 3H had this too, but multiplied by 4 because of 4 routes. And the Hopes recton. And I know Hopes takes place in an alternate timeline but some of the change are way to weird to attribute it just to Shez's survival. Like, the complete shitf of personality from Dimitri's uncle : in Houses he is supposed to be a useless lecher, in Hopes he is a depressed Claudius trying to kill Dima.... what happened exactly ?

What those game tried to do was waaay too big. They have the exact same problem in the story and lore. They also have the same strengh as in a strong cast with good characterization. And if I consider 3H's stories to be weaker then the 3 stories in Fates, I think the 3H''s cast had a stronger characterization compared to the Fates one.

Again, I can salute the ambition, but if we encourage the devs to follow that direction, we are basically begging them for half finished story with improper lore and worldbuilding.

A good worldbuilding isn't a gigantinc epileptic. It's one that is consistent, well used in the plot and despite of his tenght is rich enough. Take Pandora hearts. It's worldbuilding is small. Literaly. We only know the name of 2 city, Sablier and Reveil. We don't even know the name of the country we are in ! All that we can recognize is that the character are dressed in the 19 century victorian era seetings and have English name. But the country has 0 name. You can look, it's called and I quote the material world only to distinguish it from the Abyss !!! Even the characters comming from another country such as Isla Yura or the Duc Barma's family, characterized by their red hair and special clothing, we never learn which country they come from not the name ! And that is perfectly FINE. Because learning the name would eventually change nothing. Not having the name removes nothing from the story because PH focus only on those setting in a way that matters for the plot. Reveil being the capital of their country only matters to localize Gil's appartement and the Pandora's base. Sablier matters because it's at the core of the plot, the only historical aspect that matters is the tragedy of 100 years ago. All the other important place such as the Abyss, the monster, the chains, the system of contractor etc all of this is detailed in a way that is not thousand of data but only the essential to keep the plot moving foward so the story feels focus and only has some elements to flesh out rather then 1000000. And even then, Sensei still managed to improve that with the VNC worldbuilding that is much richer but that still is focused and that focus comes from how she is using a size that fit for the medium she writes for !! And the PH lore is still rcih in references, metatextuality and wink wink to Alice in Wonderland

And the main reason why I think Awakening and Engage had stronger stories then these 2 game was because they knew what they were doing. And by that they knew what they were : video games. Think about it 2 seconds.

Awakening was written as a random regular video game script. Fates became a novel. 3H had an over 10 thousand years woth of lore chronicle going on. Engage was written as a random regular video game stories keeping with a traditional RPG vein.

And out of the 3 Engage is the most consistant. It's not without its flaws, but it objectively does better because it knows the format it has. It knows it is a video game. You can't expect a video game to be has rich and have the same writing as a novel. Each medium as it's own rules : that's why when manga or novel can adapted on screen, the screewriters as to adapt it to the medium he is dealing with. Because it's not the same medium, it has different rules, different challenges etc. If a video game adapts a novel, you can't expect it to be as much in depth because a video game is supposed to be shorter then a novel. Same for a manga. Same for a movie.

Engage and Awakening knew their size. They knew what they were doing and avoided being so big. Because even if the 3H writers had kept in check all of the ten thousand years of lore they wrote, nothing would change the fact that they don't have the time to flesh that out in that game. The data doesn't allow it. The timing doesn't either.

Another example. Recently, Goody two shoes came out. And despite it being a prequel to Pocket Mirror, it has a very good story and a simple one with a few very important characters and enough lack of information for it to be a mystery and not just something that was left as is without proper developpement. And that's because it knew what it was and stick with it : being a prequel to Pocket Mirror.

Engage and Awakening, while not perfect, also stick with what they were : video game stories. Fates and 3H were more then that because they have enough of information to be literal novels. If you compare Engage to the manga, you'll noticed that the manga get to expend more on a lot of things and again it's all because of the medium. If Engage had a serialization as novel, it would be the same, more dense. If Engage had an anime, same. The same story will have different management of its ressources depending on the medium you are writing it for. Fates was written like it was a novel when it was supposed to be a video game. Same thing for 3H.

When the fandom says they want a story or writing on the same level of 3H they don't think about how a lot of 3H's flaws comes from the very core of the project, the size not fitting the medium or try to handwave it as "a game can be ambitious" but the problem is that 3H and Fates biggest flaws WERE their ambitions. The more your project is ambitious, the more it requires you time and effort and date for it. So when it doesn't suit a video game format because of the several restrictions, you know your project will end up feeling incomplete. The writers of 3H themselves said it. 3H is the smaller picture of a bigger one.... so how many Foldan game do we need to have the FULL picture ??? Knowing that Fire Emblem's settings keeps changing, 2 are clearly not enough.

Again, it's the aesthetic of depth that speaks. The fandom loves big stuff. And while 3H's worldbuilding isn't an empty shell, it has way too many elements to flesh them out entirely leaving holes that aren't of the level of mystery or ambuiguity, but of half cooked. However, fandom LOVES HOLES, it adores void so each time they'll spot one they will try to fill it imagine something bigger then it could have been implanted within the canon. Because it's more interesting to them then whatever IS could have actually written. And it shows that the aesthetic plays into this because 3h and Fates have the EXACT SAME LEVEL OF WORLBUILDING and it follows Seisen's too. 12 important figures ? Check ! Weird wonkery of blood givins special power to an elite of favored people? Check ! Lizard like creature revered as deities ? Check ! Magical weapons only some people can wield ? check ! The list goes on. But for some reasons people acts as if Fates had no lore (that's wrong, you can even check what the FE wiki says on that matter) because it doesn't have the same aesthetic as 3H despite all the common points these 2 games have.

And even if they decided to do 3H but less big, I don't think it would work because 3H's story also ended up being relying on its size and it would have worked had it had more lore... but that's the thing ! it already had TOO MUCH lore for a random video game and it was over 400 hour long and no matter how many DLC they would have released they just can't dwell into all of this ! Might as well create a new franchise entirely focused on the world of Foldan !!!

So really, be careful what you wish, because if you keep making believe to the devs that what they did with 3H was the way to go even though it's clearly disadvantaged by the size and the format of the medium, they will never manage to improve what was flawed in 3H. And that's mainly because what was flawed in 3H was that it needed more then it did when it already did something gargantuan which imo is the evidence that the level writing of 3H doesn't work on a video game. At all.

Again, take Goody two shoes. It had little going on but it explore it to its fullest resulting in very simple story with little stuff yet very rich and full of emotion and its simplicty made it work very efficientely. That's good writting. Not throwing in very big stuff and struggling to finish it, but managing to exploit to the fullest even the smallest thing to create a rich experience. Something that manages to be rich even though simple is what's actually impressive. That's the route to follow for a good game story.

So you wanna know what IS should do ? Follow what they did for Engage but simply improve what in Engage was flawed. Because Engage has the right size for a video game format and even if you think they would have expanded on more, the additions are so easy to spot that you can see it's not level of 3H big, but simply some polishing, maybe some chapter added, but not something as astronomically tall as Fates or 3H since those game had the problem of not going more in depth with the lore, requiring more lore to something that was already too big and too long for a video game. And again, I am not saying they can't take anything from 3H cause 3H does a lot of good things notably regarding the characterization, such as the idea of personal paralogue for the characters. That's great. This should come back. But when it comes to the story itself... gneee... nope. No. 3H's ambitions and tenght is way too close to to the core of the project yet it's the main thing that hold it backs and lead it to slip so often.

Imo the perfect FE story would be able to managed to combine simplicity and ambitions since the more simple story could feel like it needed more, but that's the same problem with the much more ambitious project. The writers of IS should try to find a balance between the two to fix that issue, but I don't think 3H has this balance

#3H critical

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neathbound-fiends · 1 year

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A Spoiler-light Guide for Fallen London

A couple friends have recently started playing FL, or were curious about the game and setting, and I thought it would be handy to try and put together a little guide to the basic setting and lore that ground you into it, and. well. brevity is the soul of wit, but it is neither a virtue nor a friend of mine. So I figured I would post it for other people to enjoy as well!

I don’t really delve into the mechanics too deeply, and also avoid a lot of the really lore-heavy stuff (Ambitions, Parabola, the Railway, etc), and have kept it pretty narrowed on Fallen London in particular

If you see any glaring errors, let me know, and if you find it handy, consider giving it a reblog! Guide beneath cut

Fallen London is a text-based role-playing/interactive narrative browser game with gothic overtones, in the gaslamp fantasy and alternative history genres. There is art for icons for characters, for banners, and two different interactive maps, and social options with other players to help/hinder them in certain aspects, but the gameplay itself is entirely text-based and is single-player. The central conceit of Fallen London is as follows:

Forty years ago, in December of 1861, Prince Albert dies. In our timeline, his wife remains in mourning black for the rest of her life. In this timeline, however, she is approached by shadowy figures, referring to themselves only as the ''Masters of the Bazaar'', or occasionally simply the ''Masters''. They offer her back her husband's life, in exchange for one thing: the city of London. She accepts their terms, and in the beginning of 1862, the city disappears overnight, swallowed by a cloud of bats. London, now referred to as Fallen London by its inhabitants and much of the rest of the world, now resides quite cozily in a vast subterranean cavern referred to as the Neath. The above world is referred to simply as the Surface to any of the Neath's citizens

BASIC GEOGRAPHY OF FALLEN LONDON

The Neath itself is quite vast, enough so to contain an ocean of its own, and is located in rough proximity to a variety of interesting locations, which will be touched on further below. The city itself, referred to as the Fifth City, as it's the fifth to be swallowed into the Neath, has been rearranged terribly, with all the streets twisting and labyrinthine, leading to the Bazaar at the center of it, wherein the Masters conduct their business, and which is their main focus of power. Beneath the Fifth City lies the Fourth, beneath that the Third, the Second, the First. When a new City is stolen purchased, it is simply dropped atop the previous one, crushing it. There are remains of previous Cities to be found if one looks hard enough

The Fifth City itself is divided into various neighborhoods, each of which carries its own reputation, notable locations, and faction(s) it caters to. The main areas of the City are as follows:

These places, for the most part, correspond to the names of locations in their prelapsarian counterparts, but have had their names changed due to the outlawing of their continued use (along with the confiscation and ban on any former maps, or of the street signs that once made the City more traversable on the Surface.) Ladybones Road was once Marlyebone, Veilgarden was once Covent Garden, and so forth. Most of the new names are, roughly, analogous, or able to be parsed somewhat from their old ones

+Spite, a district which is known for its rookeries, its silk weavers, and primarily its Criminal elements, and housing Mahogany Hall, the notorious venue of magicians, stageplays, operas, and other forms of theatrical entertainment, the Orphanage, one of many but most notorious for something going on there, and Doubt Street, where the City's newspapers are printed

+Veilgarden, the Bohemian center of London, which is home to drug dens, brothels, bookstores, one of the most notorious pubs in all of London, and housing, on one end, the University (itself divided between Benthic and Summerset Colleges, which cater to any and everyone, including women and the infernal, and the much more posh and well-bred of Society, respectively)

+Ladybones Road, haunt of spies, Devils, and detectives, housing Moloch Street Station, which runs a direct train line to Hell, the Brass Embassy, Hell's Embassy in London, Concord Square, the base of the Constables, and the notorious home of the Honey-Addled Detective

+Wilmot's End, the true haunt of spies playing the Great Game, and housing little more than a large quantity of statues, memorials, etc, as well as the Foreign Office, an office catering to those with interests beyond London

+The Flit, knotted rope bridges and rickety platforms of scrap wood and metal, and the haunt of the orphan gangs, Revolutionaries, and housing the court of the mad beggar known as the Topsy King, and his ''court'' the Raggedy Men, used as a safe haven from the Constables who won't chase you that far

+Mrs. Plenty's Carnival, home to the City's carnival and a neutral ground in which to meet the major factions of the game (detailed further below), with the dangerous House of Mirrors, and housing Madame Shoshana's fortune telling tent

+Watchmaker's Hill, a haunt of no one in particular, and home to the Department of Menace Eradication, the base out of which the monster-hunters of all stripes take contracts, the notorious pub the Medusa's Head, run by a Criminal kingpin known as the Cheery Man, and an observatory which employs only the blind; the secret fight-rings, run by a self proclaimed Prince, are also operated out of here, though they take place in various locations across the City

+Wolfstack Docks, home to Zailors, dockworkers, and factory workers, and home to the notorious pub the Blind Helmsman, and a large quantity of the City's factories, as well as the offices of one of the Masters

+Bazaar Side-Streets, the crowded and elite establishments which cater to the well-heeled and well-connected enough to have earned a spot with such obscene rent, including a large number of social clubs, the most fearsome law firm in London, Baseborn & Fowlingpiece, Solicitors at Law, and other businesses which cater to Persons of Some Importance

+The Forgotten Quarter, ruins of the Fourth City which serve as the haunt of outcasts of all stripes, including Devils, Tomb Colonists, and Rubbery Men, and home to nothing but a Base Camp one can establish for expeditions and ruin diving, and the Temple Club, a mysterious club whose entry is nearly impossible to gain

+The Shuttered Palace, the home of Her Enduring Majesty, known most commonly and widely as the Traitor Empress, and the Court within caters to Society types, Constables, the Church, and those connected to the Duchess, and barred to anyone who's displeased the Empress or Prince Consort

BASIC ECOLOGY AND WEATHER

The Neath, due to the lack of sunlight, and owing to the nature of being a cavern, also lacks the majority of weather. It does maintain seasonality, somewhat, with the False-summer being exceptionally hot and humid, and also being the season for ''spore-fever'', when the majority of the fungal and mycological life sporulates, and is described as a City-wide allergy season. There is also a winter, in which the City is bitterly cold, and paths to lodgings are blocked by the ''snow'', an oddly textured slurry that smells of ammonia and is considered dangerous for the soul, and lasts about a month. The rest of the time, the weather is fairly consistent; a bit cold, often damp, with a tendency towards thick fog at the Docks, and along the edges of the City. Occasionally it drizzles lightly, and seldomly it will open in a violent downpour that matches the ferocity of a true rainstorm as one might encounter on the Surface

Due to the lack of sunlight necessary for most plant life, the Neath is primarily filled with species that have adapted to this. Algae blooms, insects with bioluminescence, and a vast array of mushrooms and other fungus which thrive in the dark and damp, and have been converted into all manner of commodity and service. Fabrics made of strange pelts, or woven from the silk of massive tarantulas, or feathers of the few birds that can be caught. Food made of all forms of insect, of zee-creature, of meat of questionable origin, of mushrooms turned into nearly any delicacy you can imagine. The people have adapted to the darkness as well, with an extensive use of candles, gas lamps, lanterns, and, rather sparingly due to the immense cost, electric lighting

NON-HUMAN CITIZENS

One of the changes in the animals of the Neath, aside from the physical changes which are adaptations to their new surroundings, are that cats and rats have both gained the miraculous (if obnoxious) gifts of speech and sentience. Cats guard the secrets of the City, and rats have formed their own industries and societies beneath the streets and in the forgotten corners of the City. They are granted some of the same rights as humans, though not fully. One of the former mayors of London, the very last one before the position was abolished, was a cat

In addition to rats and cats, the Neath also boasts several other species of nonhuman inhabitants imbued with sentience milling about. These are:

Clay Men, (note that not all are men), a species primarily created for the purpose of cheap labor. They do not require sustenance, can be repaired with mud, and are generally obedient. Those who are freed are free to pursue other avenues of employment, for themselves, though they are met with harsh backlash from the City, as well as their own kind. Unfinished Men, Clay Men who lack something physical or metaphysical, are often hunted for being dangerous. Notable Clay Men include Jasper and Frank, enforcers for the Masters, and the Familiar Footman

Rubbery Men, who are almost exclusively considered non-men, but are considered Rubbery. They are squid people, or at least something near to it, who are unable to speak human/humanoid languages, with a deep affinity for amber, and who are reviled by polite society, though they all appear to be incredibly mild mannered, and often skittish. They occupy an obscure and nigh inaccessible locale known as Flute Street. Notable Rubbery Men include the Tentacled Entrepreneur

Devils, who are discussed in more detail in a further section. Notable devils include the deviless Virginia, former Lord-Mayor of London

THE BASIC FACTIONS

There are twelve factions with whom you can gain Favors (used as a currency to spend using their connections for rewards), and Renown (a system ranking one's closeness to any given faction, and occasionally used as a check for certain options, and can grant special items upon reaching certain levels). There are also several additional factions that don't grant Favors/Renown, but are instead measured through Connected:, a level which you can spend points of like Favors but lacking in the special Renown items. The major factions of Fallen London are as follows:

THE UNTERZEE

+Bohemians: the artists of Fallen London, primarily through sculpture, paintings, written forms, and fashion. Known as being rather outre, and less than respectable. Often associated with criminal elements to a lesser degree, and with drugs, alcohol, and hedonism

+Constables: the law of Fallen London. They form the police force, and are often considered to be in the pocket of the Masters and the rich. They occupy Concord Square, run the prison of New Newgate, and have a large outpost in late game content

+Criminals: the organized crime of Fallen London. There are numerous heavy hitters once can back behind, running conflicting and overlapping enterprises, and in innumerable different varieties. The biggest names in the Fifth City's crime are the Cheery Man, the Gracious Widow, and the Topsy King, though it is difficult to cross any part of the city without encountering a Criminal

+Hell: the infernal denizens of the Neath, and frequent visitors to Fallen London, touched on in a later section

+Revolutionaries: the anarchists, the pamphlet-pushers, and the counter culture of Fallen London. They run contrary to the Masters, to the Constables, and to anyone else attempting to oppress them. Their influence is felt most in shadowy areas, though many of them can't agree what it is they should all be fighting for. Factions within, falling beneath different organizers and goals, leads to infighting--and bombs

+Rubbery Men: the tentacles outcasts of Fallen London, touched on briefly above

+Society: the wealthy, privileged elite of Fallen London. They are respectable upper crust, who are mostly old money (though some new), and who hold sway within the court of public opinion. Many of them are found in exclusive salons, or in the Empress's Court, and who frown upon any unseemly things (the impoverished, the outre, the daring, etc)

+The Church: the clergy of Fallen London. This is, very notably, the Anglican Church. They are opposite of Hell as a faction, and are generally regarded with a mixture of veneration and scorn, depending on one's opinion of ecclesiastical matters, and there is noted tension between the Bishop of St. Fiacre's and the Bishop of Southwark

+The Docks: the maritime workers of Fallen London. They are the stevedores, the zailors (discussed in the next session), the captains, and any other maritime occupation, and are mostly centered around Wolfstack. They are highly superstitious, and their favor is capricious with it. Many are known to, or suspected of, engaging in smuggling as they represent the connection to the Surface

+The Great Game: the spies of Fallen London. The Great Game represents powers from every country and every continent, and its agents and actors are often known for their ruthlessness with their fellow spies. They are often noted for using the game of chess as a motif, and perhaps as a more direct usage of their power

+Tomb-Colonists: the elderly, and the ugly of Fallen London. When one has gotten too old, or gained too many scars to be fit for polite society, they are exiled to the Tomb Colonies, a series of Quiet Cities which serve as a retirement community of sorts. Dusty and ancient, they are wrapped in bandages like mummies, and know the secrets of Cities past. The most famous Tomb Colony city is that of Venderbight

+Urchins: the orphans of Fallen London, who are commonly located between the roofs themselves and the Flit. They've formed several notable gangs, who wage warfare with eachother and against the people around them. The named gangs are the Regiment, the Knotted Sock, the Fisher-Kings, the Noughts, and the Crosses (the most bitter warfare is between the latter two)

Touching London, and the purpose of the Docks, is the Unterzee, often shortened to the Zee, a massive brackish lake originally explored by Dutch sailors, who gave it its name. Zailors, those who ply their trade on the water, are often given to dropping a nautical Z into their speech (though an overuse of this is a sure sign of a landlubber who's trying too hard). The Zee itself has numerous islands, and several ''continents'', as well as other landmarks and dangers within it. Pirates, brawling monks, and Devils are just some of the other people along the waters who will hinder your progress and pose a threat to the merchants and private vessels that plow through the dark waters of the Zee. Maps are notoriously useless in the Neath, but especially so when zailing; the geography occasionally opts to rearrange itself in a vast shifting of land, though it stays somewhat consistent as to allow experience to be a guide, and to help correct the inconsistencies

In the waters, some of the zee-beasts one might encounter include vicious seals with armored hide, massive crabs with a penchant for malice and murder, feral crocodiles, and massive icebergs that consume and destroy everything in their path. Some of the less hostile zee-life take the form of starfish with a massive eye on each of the arms, some type of aquatic life with beautiful rainbow fins, some horrible aquatic spider-adjacent creature that spits webs on you, and massive jellyfish. Also in the waters, neither animal nor human, are the Drownies, who are the victims of drownings and who are alive...sort of. They're drowned corpses, who are animate as much as any other person, but whose bodies tend to retain the dimples from being touched, who are always frigid and shivering (and complaining), and who are keen on drowning others to join them. They serve an entity known as the Fathom-king

Zee captains are the only way in which you can receive any goods from the Surface, as their heavy black cloth draped vessels navigate the canal that connects the two, at great expense. Fresh goods are prohibitively priced due to the cost involved in getting them down to the Neath, so only the wealthy enjoy anything that isn't native to the Neath

HELL

Not quite touching London, but near enough to the west to have grabbed London's attention, lies Hell. There is debate among theologians whether or not it's the Hell spoken of in the Bible, or some other region that contains some of the fanciful elements, and the Devils themselves are no help. London entered into a war with their infernal neighbors, intent on conquering them, and were defeated so terribly that the infamous Campaign of '68 still has scars on the surviving veterans and forced the City to make some concessions

Chief among these was the establishment of an Embassy in London, and a railway that runs back to Hell for any hardworking Devil to return home after a long day's work. Those who don't have apartment in the Embassy, and along Moloch Street are a number of establishments by and for the infernal, including Dante's Grill, and Abbadon and Bael (a trading company). The Embassy is also known for its extravagant masked balls, for its floors of molten brass, and for the thriving soul trade that runs through it

The nature of souls is also much debated. Souls are physical things that can be extracted, that can be sold, melted, consumed, or otherwise changed. The soul trade is strictly regulated through the Bazaar; Hell imports souls, and charges its Devils with, first and foremost, gathering them from the residents of London, and in exchange, Hell exports brass, hydrogen, devilbone, and other little odds and ends. Souls possess different qualities, and different flaws, which correspond to the appearance, as well as to the taste, of it. More experienced Devils are able (or at least claim to be able) to discern the person a soul came from just based on examination of it, and are regarded and referred to as sommeliers for this purpose. Living without a soul is perfectly manageable, though you may find yourself barred from certain well-respected establishments and persons, as they don't associate with the soulless

The Devils themselves are somewhat of an anomaly. They are not human, certainly, but they are quite humanlike. They eat, they sleep, they breathe. They possess eyes that range from shades of yellow to amber to dark orange or red, sharp teeth, and a faint but noticeable aroma of roses, rot, and brimstone. Despite persistent rumors, they don't actually have horns, nor do they have tails, but they are almost painfully hot to the touch, and their saliva and tears are both hot enough to burn

With a propensity towards law, they regulate their soul trade through the use of contracts, and can be terribly charming when they want to be. They appreciate art, they appreciate cuisine, they appreciate lavish and flashy lifestyles. They are all fake. Their affection and attentions only run so long as there is something to be gained. Their vengeance is patient, as they will inform you that the oldest among them are thousands of years old, that they will eclipse your lifespan by tens or hundreds of times. They are ruthlessly efficient, often hedonistic, and value the worst traits of people. To be beloved by the Devils is to be reviled by the upper echelons of Society, and one must be either foolish or reckless to seek their company

Just as there is regulated soul trade, there is also unregulated soul trade, which is referred to as spirifage. Spirifage, practiced by spirifers, are almost exclusively humans, who tend to steal the souls of the desperate and downtrodden in order to sell them directly to Hell for a better rate, as they're able to avoid all the tariffs and the red-tape that one encounters when going through the legal channels of the Bazaar. They often work for Hell, under the auspices of a Devil with questionable goals or needs, as anyone caught engaging in spirifage is severely punished, so as to prohibit the lucrative trade from being outside of the control they hold

One of the most notable things about the Devils, aside from their inhuman nature, is that they are also, undeniably, anachronistic. Fallen London takes place in the 1890s (perpetually. The current year is 1901 1899 III, due to a decree that the new century has been canceled indefinitely.) The Devils, however, possess fashion, technology, turns of phrases, tastes, and other features associated with the American 1920s. Their architecture and clothing are described as shockingly modern, from a time which has yet to pass, their music featuring a lot of brass, their accents thick (New Yorkers, the lot of them). The reasons behind this are rather lore-intensive, but this is worth noting (in my opinion) nonetheless

THE MASTERS

Up until now, I've been relatively vague regarding the Masters, and mentioning them but without actually explaining anything about them. They are massive cloaked figures, standing at 7+ feet, even hunched as they are, who speak in shrill voices and regulate the trade in London strictly. Despite the Parliament and the Queen, they are undeniably the ones in charge, though they tend to involve themselves mostly with infighting and legislation. The Masters, and their domains of trade, are as follows:

Some Masters are seen often, others rarely, and each, in addition to its own whims and personalities, also run various other enterprises. They range from stalls or shops in various parts of the City, to schemes with and against eachother, to factories and businesses. Regardless of one's feelings towards them, it is impossible to avoid some aspect of London which they have put their gloves hands on.

+Mr. Apples, who governs the trade over wood, fruits, breads, and immortality, among other things

+Mr. Cups, who governs the trade over tableware, crockery, relics, and clocks, and collects garbage interesting trinkets through its Relickers and their carts

+Mr. Fires, who governs the trade over gas, candles, and coal, as well as maintaining the majority of the factories along the Docks. It frequently dispatches the Neddy Men, their personal enforcers, as strikebreakers, and manages the dirigible systems

+Mr. Hearts, who governs the trade over meat, bones, organs, and other exotics

+Mr. Iron, who governs the trade over printing-presses, engines, tools, and weapons, among other entrepreneurial pursuits in the Zee

+Mr. Mirrors, who governs the trade over in glasswork, most notably mirrors and windows. It is rarely seen.

+Mr. Pages, who governs the trade over the written word, and also manages the Ministry of Public Decency, censors who confiscate offensive and dangerous materials from the public

+Mr. Spices, who governs the trade over honey, spices, and smokes, and is in vicious and contentious competition with Mr. Wines for control of dreams

+Mr. Stones, who governs the trade over minerals and gemstones of all varieties, as well as a preoccupation over "value" itself

+Mr. Veils, who governs the trade over cloth and clothing, and who resents the notion that it may be in charge of the ladies of the night attributed to it in zailor's songs

+Mr. Wines, who governs the trade over drinkables, ranging from wine, to medicine, to coffee, to other more sinister potables, and, curiously, excluding water. It is in charge of the prostitutes of the City, and is in contentious competition with Mr. Spices over the domain of dreams

Being that they are excessively large, cloaked head to toe, and speak in shrill whispers (aside from Mr. Iron, who never speaks, and only writes), the general consensus is they are inhuman, though no one is quite sure what they might be. It's unwise to be caught speculating. Their gender, also, seems to be iffy at best. No one seems to really think they consider themselves men; the title ''Mr.'' appears to be a formality

DEATH AND ITS FORMS

Death as a concept is something that is rather complicated in Fallen London, owing to the fact that it is, rarely, permanent. Most people have died at least once, some more than others (and some much more than others), but you wouldn't know it aside from perhaps a novel and dashing scar, or a story surrounding the circumstances of it.

Temporary death lands one on a slow boat in a river, headed by a skeletal man (known, quite simply, as the Boatman) who carefully steers away from the hungrier parts of the river and away from the banks. There are a number of ways for one to return to life, whether you choose to steal the breath of your fellow passengers, to play chess against the Boatman, or to think very, very hard about being alive again, or a few others

There is no consensus as to what exactly your body in the slow boat is, because your body--your real one, perhaps--is still located where it fell. People may rummage through your pockets, or do you a good turn and patch you up a bit, or drag you off to someplace less obtrusive until you return to it, but it is very much present wherever it was

Temporary death, the kind that is the most abundant by orders of magnitude, is achieved through a great number of means. One could die in the fight rings, or receive a fatal wound from an overzealous player of Knife-and-Candle, the boyish game of murder, or have caught the wrong end of Jack-of-Smiles--or, at least, one of his many incarnations; the ways to meet your end in Fallen London are many, and the consequences are generally negligible. Those who acquire too many deaths, and in so doing too much scarring, are exiled to the Tomb Colonies

Though inconvenient to die (it really doesn't feel good at all), it's regarded by the general populace as being no more inconvenient than a few bee stings, or other such troubling but trifling circumstances. Pain, and much of your day lost to attempting to recover, but little else otherwise

The biggest consequence of a death is that your first one guarantees you will belong to the Neath, forever. You will never again be able to return to the Surface, because contact with the sunlight will kill you permanently. This is also true, of course, if you have spent long enough in the Neath, but the timeline is hazy at best. No one can say for certain that it's been too long unless you attempt it, and that's a risk rarely actually taken beyond in one's daydreams. With a death, however, there is no longer any doubt about the situation. You know, for certain, that you have officially lost your chance, and that this is your new home, now and forever

As mentioned above, there are a few methods of permanent death. For example, there are a select few poisons capable of killing you permanently, though they're rare and expensive. You could be exposed to sunlight (and, in fact, some Tomb Colonists, when they feel they've lived long enough and are ready for it, will return to the Surface to allow themselves to be consigned to the sunlight and witness it one final time.) If you're chopped apart properly and dismembered, or sustain a few truly grievous injuries that destroy your body too terrible to render it repairable, you will be permanently dead

Permanent death is such a rare visitor to the Neath that there are often vigils held for the permanently dead before being interred, just to ensure there is truly no chance of their coming back. Surgeons pay citizens who are capable of lying quite still and can tolerate the pain to allow themselves to be cut open to demonstrate to their students

#fallen london #fallen london guide #fallen london lore #failbetter games

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crypt1c-gho3t · 1 year

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Portal and Feminism

okay because it was 12 years of portal 2 yesterday I thought my first official post should be my thoughts on feminism in the saga

the main problem is that a lot of the times in the media violence against women is used as a plot device to make a character stronger. it’s not empowering to be a sexually assaulted and/or abused but the media often makes these themes a “phoenix” moment for women.

and while it is satisfying to see women stick it to their abusers, This portrayal often boils women down to their only defining trait being their sexuality and the only real “motivation” for women to be powerful is having that sexuality threatened.

This abuse also enforces the point that you have to become more masculine and drop feminine traits in order to become stronger and more powerful.

women do not need to go through abuse in order to be considered powerful, being a woman is powerful enough. being feminine is being strong

This is where portal comes into play. I’ll start with what i’m sure you all guessed i was going to bring up first but in the actual games and mods every main playable character is a female (portal 1& 2 and portal mel stories) or doesn’t have a specific gender to interpret( portal 2 multi player & portal reloaded).

in addition to this one of the main “villains” is also a woman. in the first game she is given no redeeming qualities but gets “redeemed” anyways showing fleshed out characters with interesting character development and even though this development get erased (sry caroline) it’s GLaDOS’s choice and not somebody else taking it away or making that choice for her

most importantly the women in this game are influential. The classic comparison of “can this character be replaced by a lampshade” doesn’t apply to the game. whether she’s a villain or a playable character everything is biased off the decisions women make and their influence.

and while there are male side characters(the cores) the portal women are never shown to be dependent on them for coming up with solutions to problems or saving them. In fact the cores are very rarely shown to do anything that isn’t driven by what the portal women do.

the fact the chell isn’t pointed out to be a woman, she is mainly a blank slate except from the player views her through portals, is also a prime example of this feminism because it isn’t calling attention to the different ways that men and women act it forces you to focus on not the gender of the character but of the actual gameplay

now i know nothing about game development and in the mod mel stories it may have been simpler to keep the main character a female when designing. but the choice to keep mel as an olympian and how they chose to portray female olympian instead of a male shows the dedication to having powerful woman “outside” the game and inside the game meaning that she was already strong but was made even stronger by what she went through in aperture.

and yes, they do go through hardships and are exposed to many challenges yet they are never shown to be abused or sexually assaulted. they have their “phoenix” moments anyway

anyways thanks for reading and another great example of this is Ashoka Tano and her journey!

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sapphire-weapon · 9 days

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I said a few days ago I wanted to talk about this, and I still do.

With all of the rumors and speculation about RE9, there's a sentiment throughout the fandom of "x character needs to come back" or "it better not be Leon or Chris" -- and I've got some bad news, guys.

Until the legacy cast gets retired, it will always be either Leon or Chris. One of them will be there in some capacity. Chris has been designated as RE's primary protagonist, and Leon is its secondary protagonist (deuteragonist). It's that simple.

Part of it is brand recognition. Chris and Leon were the faces of the two most successful RE titles ever released (RE5 and RE4).

But what it really comes down to is that video games are a uniquely terrible medium for ensemble casts -- and that's only become more and more true as time has gone on.

When RE first started, games had an approximate development cycle of a year to a year and a half. RE1 was 1996, RE2 was 1998, RE3 was 1999, and CVX was 2000. Four mainline titles in four years. And other spinoff titles were getting released in between them, too. There was a stretch of time when we'd get 2-3 RE releases a year.

RE9 will come out in 2025 -- 5 years after RE8. It was 3 years between 7 and 8. And another 5 between 6 and 7.

And RE8 and RE9 were in development concurrently.

There's no yearly turnaround for game development anymore. Game development these days is 4-6 years. It requires teams in the hundreds. We only get one RE title a year if we're lucky, and it's going to be a mainline OR a remake OR a spinoff. Only one. There's no more simultaneous releases, because game dev can't support that anymore.

So in order to keep any semblance of a story straight at all, the focus has to be kept on either one or two characters, and that's it. Consider that it's already been 12 years between Leon's last game appearance and his next one. If Capcom was to give the spotlight equally to all of its characters, there might be 20-25 years between their titles -- and that's not an exaggeration.

So the complaint would still be the same. It would still be "where's x character???" But now with a completely disjointed story that jumps all over the place and has no central focus point for the audience to orient themselves on. RE would basically become Final Fantasy -- the games would be connected by name only but really have nothing to do with one another. And I don't think that's what RE fans want, either.

But it's not even just dev times between games, either. It's also the demand of the development process itself. You can't just put more of the characters into each game. RE is survival horror; it has to have a small cast by default. But even if that wasn't the case, it's actually really fucking hard to include more characters into a game's story due to the progression of gameplay.

An ensemble cast in films or books is intricately woven into the story in a way where everyone is relevant and their contributions matter for a big payoff at the end. Even in the 90s, that was pretty much unheard of; any RPG you play will have at least one or two "useless" party members -- characters that exist strictly for gameplay purposes because there wasn't enough room in the story for them to play a meaningful role.

It's impossible to keep everyone relevant in RE in a way that gives a satisfying payoff. It's just not possible. The cast has to be reduced for the story and the gameplay to stay tight.

Keeping the focus on Leon and Chris keeps things connected and keeps the audience engaged. Capcom is following the principle of "If you try to please everybody, you'll end up pleasing nobody." At least this way, the core audience of fans from the most successful games stay catered to.

This is part of the reason why I don't want Ada to be in RE9. There's so little room left for a large cast. Jill and Claire need to become the guys' main supports, because they're objectively more important. Cuts need to keep happening. The cast still needs to be pruned.

Because there's just not enough room for everyone. Dev takes too long. And for RE to keep its identity, the focus has to be kept on just a few core characters, or else literally everyone is going to get left in the dust.

#idk if i like this post #i wrote it at work while ppl were talking to me #but i wanted to get this conversation started #because RE fandom's expectations are unreasonable #this series will never give them what they want

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thunderboltfire · 26 days

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Chants of Sennaar: a review

What if You had modern dictionaries at the Tower of Babel?

It's been a while since I've played a proper point-and-click game and I've got charmed by the fact I've seen Chants of Sennaar described as Dark Souls of Duolingo, so I've decided to buy it.

Is Dark Souls of Duolingo an accurate description of the game? Not really, I wouldn't describe it as exceptionally difficult. It's pretty innovative in its gameplay though, and it definitely draws a bit from Duolingo in its mechanics. Especially in the way the main character learns languages.

Chants of Sennaar puts you in the boots of the Traveller, whose main goal is to explore the mysterious, ziggurat-like Tower. In order to do so, he has to find passage through several floors and learn the languages of its inhabitants to move upward the Tower.

Armed with contextual clues and a notebook used as a dictionary, we learn the meaning of foreign glyphs and decipher the grammar, which helps us solve problems and uncover mysteries.

From a linguistic perspective, the interesting choice that simplifies the language learning is that the Traveller mostly listens, and rarely ever needs to speak/write in learned languages. Also, technically speaking the entire conversation goes on in writing - the inhabitants of the Tower speak in comic word bubbles, which removes the problem of the phonetics, but to compensate for lost complexity, each language has its own writing system. Most of the complex glyphs are based on combination of concepts related to simpler glyphs, which makes them a neat puzzle on their own.

To not spoil too much - the grammar and syntax of the languages are mostly similar, with one big exception and individual exceptions for some grammatical phenomena. For the linguistic nerds out there, all the languages of the Tower are isolating languages, which makes the sentence structure more of a concern but also makes inflexion pretty much nonexistent.

The story has an air of a parable, with the characters not having specific names and most factions representing certain concepts and approaches to life in an archetypal way. The effect is reinforced by the fact that none of the inhabitants of the Tower has a visible face - including the Traveller, whose face is obscured by a hood. It feels like a fable, and the feeling is enhanced by the monumental architecture (which can be considered a separate character telling a large part of the story) and the deliberate color schemes, drowning the locations in gradients of colored light.

The game's visual style is both simple, utilising low-poly models, and very well-executed, with well-thought out color palettes (we don't talk about the water on the bards' level XD), camera angles and stylisation which builds fantastic atmosphere. The UI is extremely minimalistic, which puts further focus on the visually intriguing world. The OST is beautiful and haunting, and while the whole plot is rather uncomplicated with a simple moral, the legendary, cryptic air of it and the feeling of discovery makes it work.

Putting an innovative spin on a classic genre and building amazing atmosphere through visuals and music are definitely the strongest points of Chants of Sennaar.

I have two points of criticism - the last floor of the Tower, which seems to be a little rushed, and the sneaking sections. The game is generally very relaxing, apart from a few small sections in which there is some sneaking or one has to move quickly. To be fair, these sections fit the concept of the levels they're in, and are very forgiving (you can die, but the checkpoints are placed in a way that don't make you lose progress), but for someone looking for pure point-and-click they might seem unnecessarily stressful.

Overall, it's a great adventure and I thoroughly recommend it, especially if You like linguistics or interesting point-and-clicks!

#chants of sennaar #recommendation #review #this game is pretty short but I love its aestetics and atmosphere #the colors seemed a little harsh to me at first but they really grew on me #also I've got attached to the Traveller despite them being a literal pawn figure with arms #point-and-clicks will do that to you

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themuskrater · 9 months

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I just played and finished Gotham Knights for the first time

And I have a LOT of thoughts. I might go in depth on certain things in other posts, but I want to kinda go over my general thoughts and feelings about this game. Spoilers ahead for:

First things first, if you want this to be "Arkham: Gotham Knights", you are going to leave very disappointed. The game's reception was hurt pretty bad by comparisons it to the Arkham series. Arkham is a masterpiece. Gotham Knights is very good at what it wants to accomplish, but comparing it to Arkham feels unfair. I mean...I'm gonna do it anyways, but I'll compare them with the intention that the Arkham games and Gotham Knights set out to accomplish two different things

The Good:

•By far, the best aspect of this game is the scripted moments between the Batfamily. This game features Nightwing (Dick Grayson), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), Red Hood (Jason Todd), Robin (Tim Drake), and Alfred. It's very clear this is the aspect the developers put the most focus into and it really pays off. It gives me the same feeling as reading "Batman: Wayne Family Adventures". If you just want to see the Batfamily interact and support each other, you're gonna love this game

•While it took me a while to get used to, I really fell in love with the art direction of this game. The skyline of Gotham City is gorgeous. I love the way the bright neon signs illuminate the low hanging fog giving everything a sort of colorful haze. And while I don't love every suit design, I think the customization let's me really like most of them. Batman especially looks really great in this game. His suit in this game is inspired by his look in the Rebirth comics and it translates beautiful

The Bad:

• I'm genuinely confused by the characterization of Mr. Freeze in this game. His motivations are all over the place to the point that I wonder if WB Montréal decided to combine Victor and Nora Fries into one character. At the beginning of the Mr. Freeze side mission, it's explained that Mr. Freeze had given up crime because Batman had promised to help develop a cure for his condition, but now that Batman is gone, he's back at it. Victor doesn't normally care about his own illness, he just wants a cure for Nora. But Nora is never mentioned in this game. Even weirder, nothing he does in the story is ever to cure his condition. SO WHY DID HE STOP CRIME IN THE FIRST PLACE IF HE DOESN'T EVEN CARE ABOUT FINDING A CURE AND HE JUST WANTS TO FREEZE GOTHAM!? It's just a weird creative decision to take

•Yeah so this one isn't a big deal, but at one point in the story, a cat sneaks into The Belfry and the Batfamily just kind of adopt it. It stays there for the rest of the game. You can't pet the cat. I know this isn't important, but it actually made me genuinely sad when I found this out

The Ugly:

•To call this game underdeveloped would be a compliment. I wouldn't call it unpolished, because the game runs perfectly as intended in my experience. I didn't encounter a single bug or crash. But the story and the gameplay feel half-baked, which really sucks considering those are the two main aspects of a video game

•In the gameplay department, combat is passable but the skill ceiling is REALLY low. It reallys very restrictive in what you're actually able to do, but the combat by itself isn't so bad that it isn't fun.

Traversal on the other hand is awful. All the characters use a grapple to get around, but there's no momentum, so you feel like you're barely moving. You stop and lose all momentum between grapples. Arkham also has a grapple gun but it allowed you to string multiple grapple points and keep your momentum through them so they'd be more fluid and you keep your speed going

The Batcylce is also not great. It's REALLY slow and despite the added movement lines around the screen to provide the illusion of speed, you're barely moving faster than the cars on the road. Again, compare this to the Batmobile in Arkham Knight. I did not love the Batmobile in Arkham Knight, and I outright hated the Riddler races, but it was fast and you could really feel the speed in it

Finally you don't actually unlock the ability to glide or any of the other weird traversal abilities if you're playing as anyone other than Nightwing or Batgirl until you complete the Knighthood challenges. Locking an essential traversal ability behind an option set of challenges is weird to say the least. I don't have much to say about gliding, it controls fine but feels slow compared to Arkham

•Lastly, the story of this game isn't bad for what is is, but is disappointing when you realize it had the potential to be so much better by including two characters who are absent from this game: Kate Kane Batwoman and Damian Wayne Robin. The game is set up as a sort of gang war between the The League of Assassins lead by Talia Al Ghul and The Court of Owls lead by Jacob Kane. Both of their child are members of the batfamily, but were weirdly excluded from this game. Including them as playable characters could have made the conflict more personal and interesting.

Additionally, Catherine Kane, Kate Kane's step-mother, is the current anti-vigilante Commissioner of the GCPD. Her daughter being Batwoman would be great character drama that goes completely unexplored. As is, Catherine is a one dimensional, underdeveloped character. And Damian could be shown as torn between the recent death of his father and the re-emergence of his mother in Gotham City. These characters feel like obvious inclusions for the story of this game but are missing without any explanation

In Conclusion:

This game has a lot working against it. I couldn't even fit half of my thoughts into this already way too long rant. The game is just average in the gameplay, mediocre in the story, but absolutely phenomenal in the inter-character relationships. I compared it to Wayne Family Adventures earlier, and if you love stuff like that and want more of the Batfamily being supportive and wholesome to each other, you'll love this game. And I think that's genuinely the main appeal of Gotham Knights. But if you're not interested in the characters and just want a Batman action game, it's passable, but you'd be better off playing any of the Arkham games

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hopeymchope · 4 months

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DanganLike, Ahoy: 'Inescapable' is a rollercoaster of highs and lows

I've previously laid out what "Inescapable: No Rules, No Rescue" is about and how its gameplay works, so I'm not going to reiterate that here. Right now, I'm going to focus on explaining what's great about it... and sadly, why it ultimately disappointed me.

You might say that Inescapable left me a bit 'upsetty spaghetti.'

It's blatantly obvious how much time and effort were put into this game... not only because the art is gorgeous and there's clearly a lot of love poured into the dialogue, but mostly because each of the game's four "routes" contains so much unique material. You spend the first half of your playthrough making the decisions that wind up deciding what the second half will be, meaning that the entire second half — 50% of a given playthrough's runtime! — can be completely different on four different runs. Although plenty of visual novels have alternate routes/endings, few I've encountered do it to this extent. And even when they do contain such extensive differences between routes, they don't usually do this MANY routes; consider 'Steins;Gate 0', which has only two major routes once it breaks off.

Literally the first line of the entire game is a reference to another piece of media. It will not be the last. And I say that with affection! I found these references fun.

In essence, the devs at Dreamloop games have scripted, directed VAs, and made distinct CGs for 2.5 complete runs of a a story that tkes roughly 12 hours on the first pass, giving you well over 30 hours of playtime... provided you want all that. Some of the routes even have unique gameplay mechanics JUST for them!!

Searching 3D environments where our characters stand as 2D cutouts... seems familiar.

Dreamloop's European team wear their affection for Danganronpa on their sleeve, too. Early on, the characters participate in a pretend murder-mystery where they are challenged to find "the Blackened." When/if blood is spilled, it's usually bright pink. Someone breaks into Monokuma's signature laugh at one point... these devs are people of refined tastes. :)

One of many overt references to the devs' love for DR.

And oh god, that voice acting. Most major scenes are fully voiced in English, but of the four routes in the game — Greed, Lust, Suspicion, and Trust — it's the Suspicion route that really shows how excellent their VAs can be. They will break your fucking heart in that storyline. Highest possible kudos for those performances.

But let's dip deeper into those four routes, because their presence is both a big brag point (tons of content!) and also the game's biggest downfall. The main problems with them are twofold:

If you're going to have four different second-halves of your game, they ALL need to align with that first half. But because the game uses such arbitrary reasons for why it slots you into one of its four routes (I'll circle back to that), the player character — Harrison — can suddenly come off as being WILDLY different after doing very fucking little to justify it. Two of the routes just... don't feel like you're playing the same character any more after the transition into the back half; Harrison goes from being well-meaning but nervous and full of self-doubt to suddenly being defined and dominated by some new trait that has NEVER existed before then.

But there's an even bigger issue with the four routes. See, most visual novels with multiple endings/routes keep the characters consistent across all the story branches; it's only your choices that change what storyline you wind up on. Even in Danganronpa, when you play any bonus modes or side games (Island Mode, UTDP, Danganronpa S), the characters remain inherently the same people. 'Inescapable' doesn't adhere to this logic, though; the personalities, behavior, and background motivations of the characters are completely different on different routes. And I don't just mean "In one route they are mean and in another they are nice." I mean they are so FUNDAMENTALLY different that you just have to accept that this person containing the same name, VA, and sprites is a completely different character. If the same person opens up/reveals more of themselves to you (i.e., Harrison) on two different routes, then one route could have that person reveal their fears, insecurities, and innate kindness... while the other route reveals them to be a sociopathic, Machiavellian figure (sorry for the bad rap, Nic). If you a character see fall from grace into becoming basically a Nazi on one route, another route might show you that same character as someone who holds onto their best ideals even in the face of brutal hardship. It's hard to even explain how INCREDIBLY different these characters are between routes. In one route, a quiet character is just a shy sweetheart waiting to be brought into the light... in another, they're a complete sociopath who tortures with detached curiosity. These people are ALL-FUCKING-OVER the place!

Mia is Harrison's closest confidant and ally throughout the first half of the game. And the sprite shown here is giving major Chiaki vibes.

I can truly say that I've never seen another visual novel take that approach before... and this break from the norm only helps to make it clear WHY we established that norm. It's hard to embrace and love a character who winds up an important, trustworthy ally on one route when you've already seen the same person be your most aggressive, duplicitious nemesis on another route. It serves as a powerful deterrant to establishing much emotional attachment to these people. Everybody I loved in the first half of the game eventually became people I no longer cared about, because the routes make it clear that they can each suddenly become ANY type of character at ANY time the writers demand it.

There's some commentary on modern politics as well as representation of gay, non-binary and asexual people in here. But is it still desirable representation if those characters only reveal their sexual preferences on ONE story route — and worse, they're evil on some other route???

As long as we're talking about routes, though, let's break them all down in regards to how you reach them. (Yup, this is the time for that circle-back I promised y'all earlier.) The game does NOT provide any hints or insight into how you get onto the routes, but people who've brute-forced the game and looked into the files have figured out quite a bit. And boy, these triggers are... some bullshit.

You get Greed by winning competitions or playing built-in mini-games. I wound up on this route during my first playthrough SOLELY because the game includes a daily (in-game daily, that is — and a 'day' in the game is usually around seven minutes) Wordle mini-game, and I played it regularly. I also played the three Arcade cabinet mini-games (an Asteroids clone, a side-scrolling infinite runner, and... Seagull BBQ, which is by far the most fascinating/weird one IMO). And playing mini-games apparently means you're greedy, because it tosses you onto this route where your character suddenly values money over all else. (????) Other stuff that leads you down this path includes winning any games in the story, such as when the characters do a tug-of-war or host a trivia quiz about each other. YEAH, playing the quiz well evidently is a sign of Greed... THIS is the kind of shit that makes these triggers so frustrating.

You get Lust by talking a lot to any characters the game deems "scantily clad" or possibly, uh... fetish-ize-able. That means spending time with the innocent maid (Annika) counts for this ending because she's dressed as a maid, and that's a potential fetish, so fuck you. :P Talking to Giovanni the Italian 50something dude ALSO counts, because his shirt is hanging open to reveal his musculature. The twin-tailed teenage heir to a fortune? That fuckin' counts, too — she's young and small, ergo it's now a "lust' point. Talking to Eva, the excessively flirty social media diva in small clothing? OBVIOUSLY counts... but that's really the only one that legitimately makes some sense. (Weirdly, spending time with the huge-boobed Portuguese mechanic who always sports her midriff seemingly does NOT count towards this route. Is it because she's in her 30s? Is this sexist ageism shit?) Other triggers for this one are thankfully more obvious: Choosing to play around with or be alone with any girl (even if it's part of a meta-game, such as when the cast are playing 'Caverns & Wyverns'... yeah, that's a thing), going to the sauna alone with a girl, etc.

Off-brand Fast & Furious movies are somehow a plot point on MULTIPLE routes. Starring "Bill Petrol"!

You get Suspicion by spending most of your time talking to your most trusted confidant (Mia) and/or to the most suspicious/secretive person around (Sasha). Also eavesdropping on conversations or spying on people to learn what they're up to will get you here. Oh, and when the producers tell you that you can use in-game points to unlock bits of "Dirt or "Gossip" that will reveal secrets about the other contestants? Yeah, going for "Dirt" whatsoever will ABSOLUTELY get you on this route. This is the route that most heavily caters to Danganronpa fans, because this is the one that leads to you solving a series of murders on the island. And yes, you'll be investigating crime scenes, collecting evidence, and presenting it at opportune times to corner the killer! Unfortunately, the ultimate thesis is pretty much the opposite of Danganonpa: There's no hope to be found on this route. Instead, this is the perfect route for those oddballs who mostly liked Danganronpa but really felt Despair should've won. :P

Like I said, the hardest route to get is definitely Trust. You have to be RIDICULOUSLY pure and avoid ANY/ALL of the triggers for the other three in order to wind up on "Trust." In other words: Spend almost all your time with Daan, Lumi, Francisca, and/or Isak (because these are, for some reason, NOT triggers for other routes). Refuse to ever look at the unlockable "Dirt" or "Gossip." Never eavesdrop and never spy, no matter how sus a character is acting. Refuse to participate in as many in-story games as possible — even when you are prompted by the game to enter an answer or choose from a set of choices, try to find a way to refuse or to enter blatantly fake responses. Like, if the game says "Guess who the answer is to this question"? Just say "Nobody" or some crap like that. :P Don't play mini-games, because Wordle and Asteroids are somehow vaguely evil for reasons I don't get. At one point, there's an in-story competition where you have to choose to either take money (Greed) or expose someone's secrets (Suspicion), and you either need to know which characters to speak with in order to avoid BOTH options, or you need to keep them both as balanced as humanly possible.

It's unsurprising, I'm sure, that Trust is basically the mega-happy ending. But because Trust is easily the hardest route to access, you'll probably see these characters spiral into some shitty behavior on those OTHER routes well before you see them settle into something more peaceful. Which means that unfortunately — due to what I said earlier about the characters being wildly different people on different routes — this happy ending feels pretty unearned, maybe even unwanted. Because no matter how much of a pal they are on the "Trust" path, someone with the same name who looks and sounds the same was willing to go full fucking psycho on you with VERY little provocation on another route. So do you really think these people deserve this mega-happy ending? (It doesn't help that "Trust" also runs pretty long without much happening for 1/3 of it... it can turn into the most boring of the four, imo.)

The story supposedly takes place in 2017, but it sometimes makes references to things that didn't yet exist then. Oh well.

None of these routes are free from writing issues, unfortunately, Where the game excels at making very distinctive characters who are initially interesting despite their Choose-Your-Own-Adventure personalities, the actual overall plotting are where things always seem to fall apart. For example: In "Trust," a character disappears to go work secretly behind-the-scenes to free the group. And this staged disappearance of a major ally is probably the BIGGEST plot point in the final act of this route. Yet, ultimately, said ally... does nothing. They just vanish for most of the story, only to show up at the end and be like "Oh yeah I'm fine but there was no reason for my disappearance, I didn't do anything." It's not even clear why or how the whole 'Inescapable' broadcast/game ends on this route! It just... STOPS, after the characters are told multiple times by the producers that it WON'T, without any explanation. In "Suspicion," on the other hand, we have one major murder case where no motive for the premeditated brutal killing is ever established. This perpetrator isn't some maniac, but... I guess maybe they are, because the game never establishes ANY reason for why they did the horrible thing they did. It just... kinda happened. THESE are what I mean when I say there are big PLOT issues. On more than one occasion, it's just like "This shit happened for some reason. We either don't know or won't say why."

And I get that maybe my expectations/demands are just really high. There's a LOT that goes into high-quality writing, after all - you have to develop characters that are interesting, you have to have consistent characterization for them, you have to write dialogue that feels engaging, and you have to create coherent and intriguing plotting throughout. To its credit, Inescapable's writing absolutely succeeds in TWO of these things. But one of them, it fails in. And one of them? It doesn't even TRY to do.

I think you get the picture by now. I was ultimately let down by this latest attempt to recapture the magic of titles like Danganronpa, Zero Escape, etc. In the past two years, my favorite "Danganlike" attempt remains Yurukill — I still think about that one fondly and with surprising regularity. By comparison, Inescapable is a much longer/more complex game ... that I sadly have a markedly lower opinion of.

Both Yurukill and Inescapable ultimately end with a tease for a potential sequel. I would ABSOLUTELY play a Yurukill 2, but I feel like that's not looking too likely right now. Would I play an Inescapable 2, though? .... Eh. Maybe. If I was in the right mood or I heard/read something about it that sounded good, I may risk it.

#inescapble #visual novels #inescapable: no rules no rescue #screenshots #review #visual novel reviews #danganlike #danganlike ahoy #danganronpa

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perfectlovevn · 4 months

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(i'm so sorry, i'm not sure if you accept reviews or not so feel free to ignore this)

Helloo!! I'm brazilian and i'm still learning english so forgive me for any grammar mistakes. I've gotten all endings (i guess- please let me know if i missed anything!) so here's my review of Perfect Love! ♥

I loved this game sooo much! I never played an visual novel with a mean main character and it was just amazing. The trope of ''us'' being the actual villains is very interesting and it made the game super unique! It's also pretty obvious the amount of effort and hard work that's in the game, I was impressed by the quality of it all.

The music and sound effects are pretty good, I loved it all! The artstyle is very pleasing to look at and the black/white/grey contrast with Milo's blue/red eyes are such a nice touch too. I also loved the amount of easter eggs (you couldn't imagine the face I made when I named myself 'Ren') and secret endings/scenes.

Fortunately, when I first played, I knew nothing about the game nor about Milo (which I believe made the experience better since everything turned out to be surprising) and the endings were really good. Through the gameplay, I've encontered one grammar mistake (which I forgot to screenshot it, sorry) and one sprite glitch but nothing that made me annoyed.

After finishing the 8 main endings, I decided it was time to look a little bit on the official Tumblr's page of the VN and that's when I decided to test out all of the easter eggs and that's when I discovered the secret scenes.

So, to summary it all: absolutely 10/10! I can't remember the last time I had so much fun playing a game and being so invested in unlocking all of it's content! I was flabbergasted when I lost all of my endings heh

Please let me know if I missed anything- I'd be more than happy to clear the game entirely.

Hello there! I love reviews. On my other blog I always write recommendations/reviews for other vns, so I'm always open to seeing what people like and dislike about the game. I hope you don't mind that I'm just gonna mash these two asks into one ask.

Thank you! I also think that a lot of vns don't always focus on being the bad guy in the story and those that do I usually enjoy quite a lot! I'm glad you like the quality of it, it was a lot of fighting renpy and it's UI because I have a one sided rivalry with the base renpy UI. I tried to make it look good though I think I maybe should have attempted to redraw some of the sprites for Milo (for like the third time).

For the art style itself, I actually did it in black and white because it was originally for the 2023 yanjam and I wanted to make a style that wouldn't be extremely tiring for me, and I really like lineart so I made everything in black and white (and also because I'm lazy, I say as I animate half of my assets). The red and blue really make it pop at the end since it's one of the few time color is used in the game. I love when people put easter eggs in their game and I know of a lot of yandere vns so I wanted to put in a ton! I'll probably put in even more in the update when I get all of the extra stories done because putting easter eggs like that is very fun.

Having no knowledge of a game is always a good way to be surprised about the premise and I think it definitely was something good in your case too! For the grammer/ sprite errors if you do ever play or remember what they were, please let me know. I'll try to fix it in the next update if possible.

It's always so nice seeing that people like my game though! I tried my hardest to make it a worthwhile experience and considering it's (technically) my first game, it really makes me happy to see that people really like it! Hopefully it doesn't have too much of the first game amatureness that tends to come (nothing wrong with it, but I hopefully have showcased I kind of know what I'm doing, I say, sweating profusely) .

Yup! That is all of the scenes in the game so far. At least that you can access. If you look inside of the code, I actually have two scenes that I put in there. One of them is pretty much a test scene featuring the character from the next game I'm making, and the other is a special scene where you go to Milo's apartment. You can't access those in the main game, but you can play them if you edit the code a bit.

Basically (for those who don't know), all you have to do is put "jump" and then the name of the label afterwards (so for instance if the label is "rabbit" you would put "jump rabbit") after label start in the code. The two scenes that are not accessable in the game are the last two scenes in the script.rpy file just to make it easier for you. (I put a note that says like "#I'm very dedicated to my craft I say as I disect Milo and then beat him with a stick" because I'm sorry Milo, you deserve better)

But yes, thank you for taking your time and writing your long review! I love it so much.

#perfectlovevn #male yandere #milo asks #yandere #yandere vn #yandere boy

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grandprovidence · 3 months

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Gameplay Diary 3/11/2024

Hello, short post this week as things were mostly the same as the last session. A lot of roleplay and trying to learn about NPCs. The main topic I want to focus on is actually my friend's game, which we played right after mine. To give background, the other players and I were sent to find out what was making the population of a dungeon act aggressive towards the inhabitants of the village. The first issue that we came across was the fact that we were told that our reward for the quest was based on how many creatures in the dungeon we left alive. The second was the fact that we were on a time limit without information on how long we would need to spend in this mine. The third was that the NPC who gave us the quest had no other information or leads to give us outright. This leads to a group of four adventurers going into a dungeon with a strong “Do not kill” protocol in mind which then leads to all of us running through the dungeon to find the source of the issue as fast as possible. Not ideal if you worked on the dungeon as he did but the optimal strategy for a group who has such limited knowledge. Now the blame can easily be placed on us as players. We didn’t search out any information but, to us, this dungeon could have been large and demanded every second of our time. The problem with a GM blaming players is that it never works. As a GM you should expect players to show up, play your game, and do nothing else. The people you play with are smart, cunning, and good problem solvers. Players, with a capital P, are flighty, quick to act on limited knowledge, and prone to running into more problems than they can solve. All of this made me consider the idea of how GMs make dungeons. There is a large amount of information on how to make an interesting dungeon. The five room rule being one that many people look to along with the ideas of different elevations, a theme that spans through the puzzles, fights, and lore, and ways to guide players through a dungeon so they see everything you want them to. I would like to take all of this game design knowledge and transform it into a way for Providence’s to follow a few steps or guides that will lead them to making an adventure, dungeon included, that helps the Providence know how much EXP each section gives, what kind of knowledge is necessary for the players to not get blindsided, what kind of knowledge is beneficial but not crucial for the players, and how to have different parts of the adventure flow into one another. This is a daunting task as the modularity of an adventure and the Providence’s ability to improv when the players go off of the plan is one of the largest draws for TTRPGS. The idea of just throwing a Providence to the wolves, saying something along the lines of “Dungeons are things in the ground and adventures are fun romps you experience with friends, you figure out the rest” irks me as the GMs, especially those who are new or don’t research level design, can fall into simple pitfalls that make an adventure not live up to what they expect. My main goal of the mechanic will be to assist in avoiding these pitfalls while also keeping the “Adventure outline” simple and easy to make so that a Providence can make up additional sections or entire adventures using the system without too much strain and without ruining the flow of the game. If anyone has any advice with things that are similar to this or have any questions, feel free to send an ask or a message!

#grand providence #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #tabletop roleplaying #ttrpg dev #game design

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year

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Is Lilia hiding his depleting magic really that unusual for someone like him? As a father-like figure, I assumed he hid it until he couldn't so Malleus, Silver, and Sebek wouldn't fret over it since there's nothing they can do.

[Referencing this post!]

I think some of the surprise isn’t so much directed at Lilia hiding his depleting magic for so long (as I said in original post, I haven’t personally seen anything major which would outright imply he’s lying) as much as is directed at the announcement that he’s retiring in a week’s time? It seems really rushed from the perspective of those closest to him, as well as the players (even if it personally makes sense for Lilia). It also comes off as slightly insensitive to some, especially because Lilia is very aware of Malleus being lonely and relying on him as a friend and ally. Major life decisions like retirement/leaving a close-knit group don’t happen that quickly irl, so that adds to why most are suspicious that Lilia is hiding more/other motivations for this move.

From what I understand, it seems that those that believe the theory of “Lilia is lying about his magic waning” often reference some voice lines in which Lilia claims he is actually growing stronger, not weaker. However, the voice lines being pointed out are… level up voice lines. These are inherently tied to game meta (gameplay), not the in-game lore itself. All of the characters make their own similar remarks whenever you level them up in some aspect because it’s meant to be a “reward” to the player for helping them grow stronger. It doesn’t reflect the character itself actually becoming stronger in the canon. (If this were the case and meta strength = canon strength… wouldn’t having level 100 Ace and Deuce cards with 10/10 spells mean that the duo is stronger than NPC Riddle, and thus able to overpower him in their episode 1 duel? Wouldn’t having any Malleus card, regardless of his level, mean that he instantly wins every battle since Malleus is canonically so much stronger than everyone else?)

As I said in my original post, some of the suspicion is also coming from the updated Diasomnia CM, which clearly shows Lilia teleporting despite him claiming he couldn’t anymore in episode 7. (But of course, we don’t know if the shot we’re seeing in the CM comes before or after Lilia’s magic weakens to the point of him being unable to teleport.)

I really do think most of these feelings come from people not wanting to believe Lilia would “betray”/suddenly abandon his family like this, or not wanting to see the inevitable angst that will come as a result of his decision. I know a lot of people have been truly dreading the Overblot for this episode and don’t want to see their favorite characters in pain, so 🥲 The fandom has been really hyped up on the “Diasomnia found family” concept (due to various fan creations, the long wait for episode 7, and all the main story buildup to it) that the fandom also feels betrayed and upset that Lilia is suddenly leaving his loved ones without really getting to see the four really interact with each other 😅

I see valid points on both sides, but I also believe that there is sometimes too much of a focus on the perception of Lilia as a “good father” that we fail to see other traits in his character—namely, the ability to be cunning and to deceive others, even his own family at times (ie Endless Halloween Night, Happy Beans Day, etc). In the context of those events, they were all harmless pranks but… it still demonstrates Lilia’s capacity to think like a strategist, and to even make sacrifices and to lie to achieve his goals, however well-intended they may be. It’s entirely possible that Lilia have just been hiding his condition so as to not worry others, but I think there are also other possibilities there if we consider him from angles other than Diasomia’s father figure (ie unforeseen ulterior motives, though not necessarily malicious in nature).

chsksbkew Sorry if that was a long ramble about seemingly nothing 💦 I guess what I’m trying to say is, no harm in speculating either way! It’s been really interesting for me to read up on everyone’s different thoughts about this.

If my opinion wasn’t clear before (and if anyone was curious about it), it’s this: I’m inclined to believe Lilia when he says his magic has been waning and he legitimately thought he could hold out for another year. That’s why he didn’t say anything to anyone—his time just came way earlier than expected. Until I see more solid proof for the latter, this is my personal stance. However, I don’t believe that he’s retiring so quickly just because that’s kind of out of nowhere and very hasty (and insensitive) timing considering his role as a mentor. I think there’s some unspoken secondary motive (given his character) or another reason for Lilia so suddenly embarking on a trip.

#he’s leaving to get milk/j #Lilia is fleeing to avoid persecution for his war crimes/j #Lilia struck a bargain with Silver’s parents to return him at a certain age and now Lilia has to go into hiding/j #Lilia Vanrouge #Malleus Draconia #lots of fun theories 👁#notes from the writing raven #spoilers #twst theory #twst theories #twisted wonderland theory #twisted wonderland theories

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undercityrezident · 9 months

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My Thoughts on TotK's Lack of DLC

So, according to a dev interview, there’s no DLC coming out for TotK.

I do have some mixed feelings about that. Spoilers below the cut:

To be honest, I’m a little surprised at this decision, considering the precedent set by both Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity (though the latter isn’t a formal Zelda game, so I suppose it shouldn’t be used to try and establish a trend).

On the other hand, I don’t think this decision is too surprising either since TotK began its life as additional DLC for Breath of the Wild before the dev team decided to expand it to a full-fledged game of its own. In a sense, this is a project that likely began as a final hurrah for this era of Hyrule and its characters, but grew out of control as creativity flourished with devs. Tears of the Kingdom might be the last the devs wanted or needed to say for this iteration of the titular kingdom.

That said, there are numerous information gaps and questions left by Tears of the Kingdom that I had dearly hoped would be answered by a batch of prospective DLC.

My biggest hope was to have questions answered about the ancient sages. Mineru, Zelda, and Rauru aside, we know so little about them, and I would’ve loved to have learned more about them and the people they represented in that era.

Moreover, I think diving into the sage's history could’ve also illuminated the history of their respective temples, adding more life to these locations that would’ve added to their presence in the main game. Imagine being able to explore these dungeons as they were in their prime or fight along the sages to defend these places against Ganondorf if we were somehow taken back or projected our spirit back in time.

Defend them, you say? In the past? Yes, and while general gameplay tends to focus on Link, and while we could use further time travel or spiritual projection shenanigans to allow for him to make an appearance in that time period, I think this would be the perfect way to include gameplay as Zelda herself. This is something I was yearning for before the launch of TotK, and this would’ve been the perfect excuse to get to play as her in a main-line Zelda game. While I could argue that she was incredibly central to this game’s plot, nothing can really substitute for gameplay interaction with or as her.

What’s more, the Imprisoning War, for all the influence it had in the game, is largely unknown to us as the player outside of its beginning and end. There were mentions of engagements in locations outside of what we saw in the memories, specifically the fall of Gerudo settlements, as mentioned by the Gerudo sage. DLC focusing on Zelda and her role in the past would’ve given us the triad benefits of exploring the sages further, getting to play as Zelda and further emphasizing her importance in the plot, and expanding on these events.

Alternatively, I would’ve loved DLC that expanded on the dragons of Hyrule, namely Farosh, Naydra, and Dinraal (and I will admit to a faint hope that my headcanons about the connections between Zonai and the three dragons would be affirmed in canon). If draconification had anything to do with how they came to be, I would've loved to hear those stories.

But, if we’re looking to use DLC to fill in on something truly underutilized in the game, I would say that additional content in The Depths would’ve been one of the best choices. The Depths, while compelling through their intimidating and disorienting nature in the early game, lose a lot of wonder, mystique, and even interest later in the game once you’ve illuminated it all and completed the Mineru and Yiga questlines.

Overall, while dangerous, The Depths feel very empty and don’t live up to the potential I see in it. The Depths could’ve been host to additional dungeons and challenges, and there are even hints of previous civilization down there that could’ve been expanded on. The dark skeletons are yet another mystery that we don’t have answers to, and evidence of the other surface races having had presences down here (I’m looking at you Gorondia and the Gerudo Underground Cemetery) are pieces of content worth further consideration.

And, of course, there’s the mystery of the final reward for completing all the game’s shrines: the Ancient Hero’s Aspect. In-game dialogue speaks to this being a reference to the hero that stood against the calamity 10,000 years ago, yet no race in-game or referenced in its lore seems to match this humanoid that Link embodies when he equips the Ancient Hero’s Aspect. This ancient hero undoubtedly has some connection to the Zonai, given that the design of the aspect armour and how its three facial designs reflect the boar, the owl, and the dragon: three important figures in Zonai culture and the three beasts that are emulated or revered by those who designed the three labyrinths.

Sadly, these questions, alongside many other smaller mysteries, will go unanswered unless Nintendo decides to put out alternative materials (such as books, videos, or third-party titles). From the consumer side of things and from someone who genuinely enjoys ingesting and speculating on Zelda lore, I’m a bit disappointed. But, at the same time, I can see why the devs might want to move on from this particular iteration of the Zelda franchise to focus on their next work. Something new and fresh for them is as good for them as it may eventually be for us when we get to see what direction they take the Zelda series next.

And at any rate, all of my above hopes and speculation on what the DLC could’ve been is quite expansive and, given Nintendo’s history, probably unrealistic. While I enjoyed the Champion’s Ballad DLC, it wasn’t anything groundbreaking that shook our views on how we perceived Breath of the Wild.

I can’t imagine DLC for Tears of the Kingdom would’ve been much different. But that won’t stop me from looking back at Tears of the Kingdom and asking asking: "what if it did answer those questions?" However, I'll have to rely on myself and the creativity of others to fill in those gaps.

I suppose there’s a certain appeal in that, too.

#The Legend of Zelda #Tears of the Kingdom #TotK #TotK DLC #Tears of the Kingdom DLC #Rez Rambles #TotK Spoilers

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sneakyscarab · 6 months

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hello! it's been a while since ive written out my thoughts about touhou! part of the reason why is that i've been working on a website of my own, which now hosts all my grimoire of nina entries with enhanced bonus features! plus a lot of other things on other pages but this is the relevant part to this post. i'm not sure whether i want to continue making tumblr versions of the posts now that i've set this up, but for now im gonna do both a tumblr edition and a neocities edition. with that out of the way lets get started on...

Touhou 1-5 PC98 Extravaganza!

after finishing the main series (and taking a probably needed break from bullet hells for a bit) I went back to the beginning and checked out the first wave of Touhou, the 5 PC98 games!

putting this up front, while i absolutely respect what these games did to kick off the series and get things going, i cant say i was very fond of them, so the overall tone of this writing is on the neutral to negative side. just something i feel i should note. with that said, let’s get started.

Touhou 1 - Highly Responsive to Prayers

Highly Responsive to Prayers is a weird game. contrary to what one would expect, the First Touhou Game is not a vertical scrolling shooter like others. HRtP is instead a sort of breakout/arkanoid type game, where you control a miko-shaped paddle named Reimu running back and forth bouncing a giant yin-yang orb that clears up tiles, beating a stage once you’ve cleared the screen. it does actually have whispers of the series’ future though, with turrets in levels that shoot bullets towards you, Reimu having a amulet-shooting ability (influence the orb's movement), screen-clearing bombs, and menacing boss fights.

you heard me right, this breakout clone has boss fights, and theyre kinda wild. every 5th stage is a boss, which have big hitboxes and shoot out tons of bullets and other attacks which you have to simultaneously avoid while also manipulating your orb in order to hit the boss (because only the orb does damage). After beating the first boss youre given a branching path between Makai or Hell, and either choice gives you 15 more stages for a total of 20.

overall HRtP is a very bizarre and not particularly great game, but its uniqueness makes it really stand out, and if you're in the market to play a weird breakout/bullet hell game for whatever reason you should try it out.

Touhou 2 - Story of Eastern Wonderland

now This is a Touhou game! released alongside HRtP at Comiket 52, Story of Eastern Wonderland is what i would say is the true first Touhou game, being a vertical scrolling shooter with 6 stages, fancy boss fights, and ridiculous characters.

right out of the gate SoEW shows off how wacky the PC98 era lore is, with the first stage containing not one but two military tanks as boss fights. the third stage's boss as well is a weird metallic wall with 5 "eyes" and innumerable laser cannons. its wild. as for gameplay, it's pretty much what you would consider Standard Touhou, although with some features missing that havent been invented yet, notably the movement-slowing Focus mechanic.

one interesting thing about this game is the colour choice: likely due to palette restrictions pretty much the entire game is a combo of red+purple, with the occasional blue+green sprites. even marisa is not immune, having bright red hair only in this game alongside a purple robe+hat.

its very surprising how close SoEW already is to the modern gameplay loop, although i guess it shouldnt be Too surprising considering scrolling shooters are like one of the first game genres ever made. its a pretty fun time, but also pretty rough around the edges.

Touhou 3 - Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream

if you thought we would stablize into the regular style now that we've seen SoEW, you'd be off the mark. Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream is actually a VS game in the same style as the later PoFV and UDoALG titles! it was really surprising to me seeing just how much experimentation was going on with the series this early in its lifespan, but I suppose that happened a lot back then.

in terms of gameplay PoDD plays surprisingly similar to PoFV, with the same enemy combos, sending spells at each other through a charge meter, and summoning yourself as a boss fight on the other guy's screen as an ultimate move. it even has the same insane boss summon rebound mechanic and the same cheating bastard final boss ai!

one funny difference is that, since faeries hadnt yet been established as go-to mooks, the enemies during duels are a variety of random things. besides ghosts you just have star, moon, or heart shapes with ' ' and ^^ faces. theyre so abstract I kinda love it lol.

like SoEW its surprisingly functional for its age, although also like that game it still lacks features like focus, leaving it being unpolished in comparison to newer variations of this formula. unless youre a PC98 enthusiast id recommend playing PoFV or UDoALG instead, especially since the multiplayer on this one is local-only.

Touhou 4 - Lotus Land Story

now things are starting to standardize. Lotus Land Story is another vertical scrolling shooter and adds in a bunch of features not in SoEW that would go on to be series mainstays: focus, boss phases, boss item drops, and most notably having Marisa as a deuteragonist! if SoEW was a standard touhou missing some features, LLS is taking steps to a full on touhou game, missing just a few mechanics from EoSD, notably the spell card system and point-of-collection line.

LLS is also notable for a few other reasons, one being the character Yuuka who is one of the few PC98 characters to get remade in the windows games, and the other being the origin of the iconic song Bad Apple!! which got remixed by nomico and memed half to death.

Its pretty good, albeit still rough around the edges and missing the sort of spark thats found in later entries.

Touhou 5 - Mystic Square

Mystic Square is where we settle in, playing identical to LLS, which means theres not much to talk about. there are 2 more playable characters than LLS, with both Mima and Yuuka. Mystic Square also includes the 4th and final PC98 character to get remade later in the Windows canon, Alice Margatroid. besides the name and the blonde hair though theres pretty much nothing connecting the two Alices together. if you liked Lotus Land Story you'll probably like this too, i dunno.

alrighty with all those games out of the way its time to talk about the characters of note. and of course if theres one name thats synonymous with PC98 its...

Mima! appearing in four of the five games of this era, Mima is the most consistent character besides Reimu and Marisa, and yet she has never been seen since Mystic Square. this may be a hot take, but i think Mima is emblematic of a lot of the qualities of this era that make it hard to get into from a story perspective. for starters, Mima is incredibly inconsistent. She shows up 4 times and is basically a different character each time; being a random Hell boss in HRtP, a vengeful spirit bent on destroying all humanity (except Marisa i guess?) in SoEW, a woman of few words and a short temper in PoDD, and a snarky bully who tells blatant lies just to see how people react in MS. she also has a weird conceptual design and wack power scaling, being a ghost who was never alive, always been a ghost, who also for some reason has like dragon wings but only when she gets angry (Marisa also has these in PoDD which is really bizarre) and shes able to simply escape being magically sealed away as if she was cracking the seal on a pickle jar and casually beats up everyone in Mystic Square without even blinking. While i do like elements of her character (her lying bastard personality from MS is pretty funny and I see why people would want that back) i think its for the best that she stays in the PC98 era, the one seal she cannot break free of. If she were to come back, so much would have to be rewritten either of the world around her or Mima herself that she would basically be a different character entirely, which i think would cause way more drama than her return is worth.

moving on, lets talk about Genjii! this old fart is basically Reimu's grandpa who is also a magical flying turtle. since Reimu doesnt know how to fly in these games, her pops Genjii gives her a ride whenever she needs to go solve an incident. He also acts as a straight-man to Reimu's comedy in her storylines, often questioning the bizarre things that she says or weird noises she makes. he's just a funny turtle grandpa and i'm here for it. while Genjii has never officially appeared in a game in the Windows era, ZUN has stated that the reason is that he's just enjoying his retirement. Reimu can fly on her own now, so he's just resting in the pond out behind the shrine, doing whatever it is grandpa turtles do in their free time. good for him :>

the last character spotlight is for Meira! she's a cool samurai lady from stage 2 of SoEW who was also Reimu's gay awakening :P (for context, Meira and Reimu's pre-battle conversation is a bit where Meira claims to seek the Hakurei Maiden [for her power] but Reimu assumes that Meira's hitting on her. After clarifying that Meira wants to fight Reimu and take her power after winning, Reimu counter-offers by implying that she'll take Meira as her girlfriend if she wins.) this was almost certainly just intended as a joke, but considering that Touhou Project is basically a yuri wonderland its very funny to see gay implications in literally the second spoken conversation in the entire series. besides that, Meira also has cool attacks utilizing her sword where she makes huge slashes in the air that explode into bullets after a second, which were probably inspiration for Youmu's sick swordplay five games later.

and thats the PC98 era! with these games under my belt ive now played each whole-numbered entry in the series, woo~! so having played them all, what are my thoughts on the origins of Touhou?

i'll start by clarifying that i am generally not a 'Retro Gamer'. while i acknowledge the importance of early entries into series, they are very frequently rough, unpolished, or just straight up unfun because the devs are still working out the kinks on how they want the series to go. this is doubly so for games from this pre-2000s era, where game design in general was still a new concept and most games were working off arcade standards of high difficulty to steal quarters. early Touhou is not exempt from this, these games are missing a lot of features added later that make the games more fun, and the difficulty is much higher with a lot more 'bullshit' design like bullets that spawn on your character or a lack of proper resources given on respawn leading to a cycle of death.

all said, i cant say i really enjoyed my time with the PC98 titles. you may have noticed that i didn't mention 1cc runs so far in this article, and the reason for that is i couldnt find the motivation to keep trying for more runs like i did with the future games. mix that in with the bizarre, nonsensical, and often self-contradictory writing and you have a recipe for mediocrity. PoDD in particular is an absolute dearth of writing and worldbuilding. most character interactoins are like one sentence long, and the plot involves two scientists on a "Probability Space Hypervessel" who somehow invited in the characters from Gensokyo to the real world so that they could capture them and steal their magic for clout. In Marisa's route after she beats them up they give her a weapon as a reward which is a ICBM with a smiley face that Marisa names Mimi-chan and rides around instead of her broom. like its all so ridiculous you can just tell that these were like student projects done by a dude in his free time and not a serious attempt at making a world or story.

overall i just really have trouble finding passion for these titles compared to the later entries, to the point that i had to shove all 5 of these games into a single article and its about as much writing as Subterranean Animism alone. im sorry if youre a big PC98 and/or Mima enjoyer but theyre not for me, and i have to say im glad that Touhou moved on and evolved past this point.

thank you for reading, and i'll see you next time, whenever that is!

#grimoire of nina #touhou #touhou pc98 #touhou 1 #touhou 2 #touhou 3 #touhou 4 #touhou 5 #touhou project #highly responsive to prayers #story of eastern wonderland #phantasmagoria of dim. dream #lotus land story #mystic square #wow thats a lot of tags lmao woops

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