swordofseiros.wordpress.com

swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 17 days ago to ShinMegamiTensei

It’s been a minute! I was on vacation and travelled to visit family. I had the best intentions to keep up with my gaming streak but very quickly noticed that I wouldn’t do anything else if I played video games like I normally do. I enjoyed the change of pace and being with family I haven’t seen in a while. We took walks in historical places, went to museums and churches, ate good food and talked about everything we could think of. We also got our share of family drama, but all things considered, I enjoyed my time very, very much.

Between reading, doing crochet, and playing with gorgeous family cats, I found some moments where I could play a little bit of Persona 4 Golden. I’m still reading The House in Fata Morgana, but I think my enthusiasm ended at the end of the main game. A Requiem for Innocence had some interesting, even exciting story arcs, but Resurrection is a slog and so unnecessary. When I’m reading it I feel like I should be doing something else, however I can’t put down something that I’ve already started. It’s just that I don’t really need to know the backstories of everyone involved in the main game when the information is already available there. I don’t need to know their futures either because it deletes the uncertainty that made the ending of the main game so meaningful.

On another note, it isn’t surprising that I’m enjoying Persona 4 Golden as much as I am. It’s the Atlus effect! Their games are good and appeal to me with no effort. I don’t care if it’s high schoolers again fighting against some sinister power because the characters, their portraits, the art, the story, the gameplay, are just pure top tier goodness. I think the story and atmosphere in Persona 3 Reload is more up my alley though. The green fog, the corrupted minds, the certainty of the end of days, the messiah that will save us all – it’s in fact a very familiar story in the sense that it conveys a positive message of love, sacrifice and, ultimately, physical and spiritual endurance. That group of friends goes through everything imaginable to save what they believe in, their connections, the love between each other, and the world at large.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024051400420100_s.jpg?w=1024One of my favourite scenes so far in Persona 4 GoldenPersona 4 Golden is a bit more chill in the story aspect, at least so far. I don’t believe there isn’t any higher power at work, good or bad. Is there in fact any Persona game that doesn’t make us question our beliefs and drives us through hell to make us see the significance of everything around us? It’s the little things, man. The story is more like a thriller – a set of mysterious murders and disappearances in the city of Inaba connected to antennas and the TV. Bodies are found dangling from antennas, people disappear from the world and end up inside a TV program that broadcasts on rainy nights. We soon discover that we can literally enter the TV and save people there before it’s too late.

The main story is focused on the investigation aspect. The Velvet room’s existence feels even more mysterious with the presence of Maria and her dry sense of humour. I haven’t explored Margaret’s social link yet to see if there’s more than a list of boring persona fusions I won’t ever use. Then there’s loads of other social links, all significantly impacting the power of our fused personas. The core group we play with is positively affected in battle the higher our social link is. I’ve been focusing mostly on the party we play with and the characters we can interact with at night.

Persona 4 Golden is the best version of the game there is, but it isn’t a remake like Reload with all the quality of life features these remakes have been spoiling us with. I think the game is perfectly fine, but I can’t say I feel like I’m being as efficient in my time management as I was in Reload. Most of the time I have no idea about what I can do on certain days. I often feel like I’m wasting time in activities like fishing. Fishing makes time pass as well as maintaining the garden, but catching bugs doesn’t. It’s confusing. This is where the voice feature comes in. It’s a feature that lets us see what other players did during the day we’re in. I use it to get some clues about which people are available that day to hang out, and it’s also useful to see what activities got the bigger number of participants. For a first playthrough, it beats having a guide with me at all times.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024051402115400_s.jpg?w=1024Eating watermelonAfter about 30 hours of gameplay, I still don’t have a clue about what’s going on and most likely I’m not supposed to. I believe I stopped playing at the time when I got all the clues about Naoto and I’m ready to step into his dungeon. I haven’t been in the mood for dungeon crawling these days, so I took a little break from the game. Persona games slowly build up and I kind of enjoy the pace. Since this time I’m playing the game in shorter sessions I’m not following the story so thoroughly.

I’ve mentioned on Mastodon how uncomfortable I feel with Yosuke’s homophobia. I don’t want to dwell on it because most people know it’s wrong and unacceptable. I think, however, that situations like the tent scene are all too common among younger and even older people, and still should be represented in video games. I’m not for censuring older games because of their unfortunate takes, but I’d like to have had some agency as a player to tell Yosuke that his masculinity is not at risk by sharing the same tent with a colleague because he’s gay or bisexual.

I know that all this can be seen as good fun and extremely natural interactions between young boys. Besides, I’m far from the intended audience for this game, but since I’m playing it, allow me to express some disbelief and disappointment. I enjoyed Yosuke’s character from the start. He’s the less stupid sidekick I had the pleasure to know and yet later he presents himself as the main sexist and homophobic from the group. I don’t know why I’m so shocked since almost every boy in my class in the 90s was Yosuke. I don’t know how things are between people from that age group today but I guess we’ve come a long way since then.

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On another note, the game is beautiful to look at and it shines with the little stories for every social link. Chie and Marie are two of my favourite characters and I find Hisano and the nurse very intriguing and a bit creepy. The other social links that I’m more engaged with are Dojima and Nanako, who’s struggling with immense solitude. I’m still expecting some weird twists in the main story but I haven’t run into any major events yet. Everything happening in the margins has been so satisfying that I don’t feel any need to rush things.

Overall my experience with the game has been very positive and my level of enjoyment is on par with Persona 3 Reload. Both experiences are very distinct from each other, even when sharing the same Megami Tensei universe. I’m really enjoying these games, what sets them apart and what connects them in a broader sense. It’s not a dull franchise where everything looks the same and feels the same, just with better coat of paint. As soon as I get back into my routine I’ll spend some afternoons with this great cast of characters.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/05/23/into-the-tv/

#atlus #Games #gaming #jrpgs #megamiTensei #megaten #nintendoSwitch #persona #persona3Reload #persona4Golden #theHouseInFataMorgana #velvetRoom #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 1 month ago to Games

The House in Fata Morgana (THiFM) is a visual novel written by Keika Hanada and developed by Novect. According to wikipedia, it was released in 2012 and 2014 in Japan for PC and iOS and then in 2016 by MangaGamer for PC. Later down the line a Nintendo 3DS and a Playstation Vita version were released by Dramatic Create and the more recent versions for Playstation 4, Vita and Nintendo Switch were released by Limited Run. These versions are complete with the two DLC and short stories. It’s called The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition and it’s the one I’m currently playing.

THiFM is very linear compared to my experience with other visual novels like The Letter. By interacting with objects and exploring the mansion when given the opportunity to do so we can pretty much unlock all endings if we save our game at every choice prompt. What’s cool about the Dreams of the Revenants edition is that it unlocks the stories in order, which means you need to get the true ending before you can access the DLC stories. Everything else is marked in grey and you can’t select it before you complete the main story, and the same goes for the DLCs. “A Requiem for Innocence” is the first tale available after playing the main story and it unlocks progressively. It’s a prequel. Then there’s “Reincarnation”, which isn’t available on PC, and as far as I know it’s an epilogue. Additionally we have yet to unlock the short stories and the extras. There’s a lot of content in the PS4, Vita, and Nintendo Switch package.

In this edition there’s also a Back Door. Take it as some sort of funny hack. By answering three questions we can unlock every story in the game. I didn’t use the option, but it’s very useful to those who already know the story and want to play the additional content in whichever order they wish. I’m currently reading “A Requiem for Innocence” and enjoying the little bits of plot that were left to the imagination when I went through the main game. In such intricate stories I tend to prefer staying in the dark about a lot of details and interpret them using the information originally given to me. I think it’s more exciting knowing less and keep wondering about intriguing details or what could have happened during certain events previously left unseen but that were central to the tragedy that followed.

** There’s spoilers for some parts of the story **

THiFM tells the story of a person with amnesia (where did I hear this before?) who ends up at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. They wake up inside the mansion and a beautiful maid – the Maid – calls them Master. We, as the Master, can’t figure things out on our own. The Maid seems to be very motherly and sweet and she’s the first person we see after waking up in a rocking chair. She seems very happy to have found another Master and it looks like for all intents and purposes we are there to stay. However there’s a lot of confusion about how we got there in the first place. The Maid warmly offers a helping hand. After all, she most likely knows more about us than we do ourselves and she’s ready to offer some guidance through the mansion’s halls and rooms enveloped in darkness. Yet, what she’s offering is not a simple guided tour of the mansion; it’s in fact a deep dive into the mansion’s history and the stories of its previous Masters. In order to do that, the Maid asks us to hold her hand and never let go. Then, we open the first door.

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I’m not going to retell the whole story here. I’d like to, but it’s so unnecessary and I wouldn’t count on my memory for that! I think it could be funny to create a shorter version of the story for kids without the bloody parts and the everlasting trauma, as a tale of romance, acceptance, love and sacrifice. It’s a beautiful tale that spans hundreds of years. The first three doors we visit with the Maid are the tales of three different people whose tales ended in tragedy. The mansion is cursed by a cursed witch. I don’t know about you, but I think that a cursed witch is more dangerous than a witch, right? A witch can be good or bad, even though in the story and the period it represents, being a witch is always bad. So a cursed witch is extra terrible and comes with extra misery for everyone touched by her.

I need to confess something. I loved the story from the start. The first three doors with the contained stories of its characters were great. The first door tells the story of a brother and sister, the second door tells the story of a beast and its lover, the third door is about a man blinded by power and status and his best friend. There’s a common denominator to all these stories. A white-haired girl appears in all of them. She’s a pure, wonderful, sweet, shy girl, but she has an effect on the hearts of men and women that ultimately contributes to their demise. Who’s the White-Haired Girl is one of the central mysteries of the story. How come someone so pure and without any ill intent has such capacity to change lives for the worse?

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About what I had to confess. I spaced out a lot while I was reading. It wasn’t because I got bored with the story; it was because I was trying to tie the knots and to figure things out on my own, something I’m still currently doing. What’s beyond the 4th door and all the doors that came after is a bit of a blur. I wasn’t exactly counting, and when the storylines started making more sense in context, I stopped paying that much attention to the door I was at. From a certain point on it doesn’t matter that much, unless we want to make a tier list of your favourite doors and I have none. I loved all of them equally. One door has a false story, but we eventually get the right one, so it wasn’t that important.

Since this was a story of pain, trauma, suffering and, possibly, redemption, it was important for our main character to figure out who they were, who was the White-Haired Girl, who was the Maid and who was the witch. The stories of these characters are central to the plot and are related to the stories of the other characters behind the first three doors. Behind the other doors we have access to the real stories of the witch, the Maid, Michel, Michel and Giselle, more witch and then going back in time to the first story of the mansion and how the terrible curse happened in the first place. The motivation behind all this is the salvation of the soul from the corruption of the witch’s curse, by creating an opportunity for everyone to tell their stories and find redemption. Also, another very strong motivator was the love between Michel and Giselle and how much they were invested in rejoining after death to fix what they couldn’t achieve in life.

The game explores the lengths of human evil. There were some times in the course of the story that I had to take a little break to collect myself. It must have happened three or four times, because the level of torment and torture in some parts was way overwhelming. Rape, domestic violence and transphobia are a central part of some character’s stories. Also, if you happen to be a saint, never tell anyone. Do you know what people do to saints if they spill the beans? The Son of God was the first to go.

Michel’s story was – among many others – very hard to watch. He was born with a girl’s body but never identified as one. If you have ever been in this situation – as a trans person or someone who doesn’t fit gender roles – during your formative years this story will sound equally familiar and painful. He had to deal with a family that wasn’t accepting of his identity and then he was locked up and fell victim to a noble girl’s bullying that lasted until she got bored and moved on. It was awful to see what she did to him. To make matters worse he had fallen in love with her. At first he had a female body but, after getting sick, he woke up with a male body and everyone thought he was cursed. His body wasn’t complete, he wasn’t a finished man, and that fact contributed to even more bullying and hate. It’s not hard to guess what happened to him afterwards: he was sent to the mansion. It didn’t happen only to him; some people were sent there either after a terrible experience or, if they already happened to live there, misfortune between those walls would eventually find them.

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The thing with Michel is that he is a very intriguing character and to me he’s still an enigma. In hindsight I know that he had some physical traits that served as inspiration to someone else in the story, but what the hell happened to him to make him transition only by the grace of God or was it something else more sinister? I can’t wrap my head around it. Maybe I spaced out on that part. My idea is that his suffering resonated with the witch and the only way to call him to the mansion was to make him an abomination (their words, not mine).

It was very pleasing to watch his transformation and his reaction to his changing body, the hope he got when he finally could live as himself. Also we can interpret his existence as some sort of a prophet or an angel, someone who was called to fulfill a role he didn’t exactly ask for – one among many – but with the right motivation and for the salvation of everyone’s soul he fought until the end. Everything is dramatic in the game and the same goes for his relationship with Giselle and his quest to find her soul and be reunited with her at last.

By this point it’s very obvious that I’m just rambling. There’s a handful of souls that were called to the mansion because of the witch’s curse. Why the witch cursed those people is revealed during the real story of her suffering at their hands. It was absolutely awful and degrading. Some souls were mere connections and others were the perpetrators. It’s clear that her wrath inflicted pain to more than the perpetrators, extending itself to their acquaintances and relationships, and employing different means. After some centuries, cursing people is only fun if you have someone to share it with.

On the matter of sharing, something really unexpected happened when I was reading a part of the story between Michel and Giselle but it could also have been a little before that. As I mentioned, I space out or lose my focus sometimes, so using the log is absolutely necessary. When I opened the log – surprise! – I found parts of the dialogue that weren’t on screen. It was the witch’s doing and possibly related with the unique nature of the chapter.

Contrary to other visual novels, in THiFM we know when we’re on the right path for the true ending. The other endings happen quite suddenly and don’t have branching paths so it makes it easier to reload a save and choose the other options. I played the game with the music volume turned to a minimum, because I couldn’t read and hear some loops at the same time especially when the music was more lively. The game’s soundtrack is beautiful but I prefer to appreciate it as a standalone thing.

I think it was a very well written story and I warmly recommend it to anyone interested in gothic horror visual novels with gripping stories and mature themes. The prequel I’m currently reading – A Requiem for Innocence – has a bit more of that goofiness we’re used to, but fortunately THiFM takes itself seriously from start to finish therefore making the story and everyone involved more believable and relatable.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/04/23/the-house-in-fata-morgana/

#curse #Games #gaming #gothic #horror #limitedRun #narrativeGames #nintendoSwitch #novect #playstation #saints #steam #storyRich #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels #witches

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 2 months ago to gaming

I mostly play jrpgs, but after 100 hours of Unicorn Overlord, I needed a break. I have some games for Playstation in my backlog and I don’t normally collect for the console unless I find something at a good price or an exclusive. I bought two more Vanillaware games, Odin Sphere and Dragon’s Crown, which I intend to play later. However, I still had a copy of Cyberpunk 2077 laying around and never got to it after picking it up some months ago. I have a faint idea that the game had serious problems when it came out. If it had, it doesn’t anymore, just the occasional crash here and there. The most annoying one happened on a mission with Claire to participate on a street race. I suck at driving but, for some reason, I ride her pickup truck – aptly called Beast – fairly well. So I was in the middle of the first race and the game crashed. Then, I finished the race and won, and the game crashed. Then, I finished it in second place and the game didn’t crash. Well then, second place it is. I never experienced those crashes anymore and won the subsequent races. After we finished she asked if I’d help her kill her husband’s murderer during the last race. I obliged because I’m not in Night City to be a good person. I kill whomever I want, when I want, how I want and go to bed with everyone I fancy and pay for sex without a second thought.

In jrpgs we have to save the world to get the girl we like in the end. It’s real work and dedication. The character development is also so extensive that by the time we reach the end we have spent a while choosing the right things to say, advancing through a support level system, giving gifts, doing things together, a bit like in real life. In Night City, and also a bit like in real life, we can pay and have someone fake their interest in us. It’s the perspective from the other side. Since I’ve never paid for sex in real life, I might as well try it in a simulated environment and the experience was acceptable. I went to bed with a character after getting an sms to meet and it felt completely random because I didn’t know what was going to happen. It was that unlikeable Corpo executive woman right at the start of the game, when I was still getting my bearings. After the mission where she offered me money to retrieve a Militech drone, I didn’t accept it because I didn’t trust her intentions, and chose the less likeable dialogue options. So, by the time I got her sms, I chose the option «Shame. Was starting to like you…» not because I did but because I was being sarcastic. And then, bang, I ended up in bed with her. I enjoyed Night City.

Not long after, I was in another district ready to meet Evelyn and there were some folks on the street. A guy asked me something and I was so overwhelmed checking the menus and trying to learn the game that I said yes and paid a small fee. I honestly thought it was a mission of some kind. I went to bed with him, or I’d rather say, he went to be with me and that was it. So, I learned how it worked and approached a woman standing on the other side of the street and this time, armed with knowledge, I asked if she wanted to go with me and I paid the fee. I think I went to bed with more people but now, after some hours of gameplay, I don’t remember. In real life I have a preference for women, or I’d rather say, for people who identify as women, despite the body they were born with. One day I was talking about trans issues with my wife and I asked if she would consider staying with me if I transitioned from female to male. The question was relevant at the time because it came from a period where I had to figure myself out. She said yes, she would stay with me. She earned herself rank S++ with me without even knowing it. To those who are curious, I’m still very much a cisgender woman, however that realization didn’t come without some soul searching.

In Cyberpunk, people perform their gender freely and have all types of sexual preferences and fantasies. They also have agency, wants and needs. I met Panam and I was on a spree getting into bed with everyone in my way, or killing everyone in my way, depending on the mission. We were paying for a hotel room and she insisted on getting a room with separate beds. I still made an advance but she said no. Later down the line, another opportunity arose. I had to test the game. I made my advance and she said no again. Ok, a second no is much more awkward than the first one and by then I was just being creepy. I felt ashamed, but at the same time it’s only natural that not everyone is into us, contrary to jrpgs or L-word. Panam likes our V (it’s the name of our character) and that’s what matters. I see her as an annoying friend that’s always getting into trouble and calls me screaming for help and the help always involves me failing at stealth and killing everyone on my path and then getting scolded for it. I like Panam.

In jrpgs our character is usually a young boy. A clueless, naive boy for whom all the female characters fall for no matter what he does. Everyone says yes and the agency is on him to choose his partner. His love interest is by default in love with him. The only thing we have to do as a player is to rise in the ranks until the option to romance is prompted. In games like Persona 3 Portable we can romance several people (I’m not sure if we have to, to get max social link, but I think so – they changed that in Reload) and in Fire Emblem Three Houses we can only give our ring to one person. If the person is female she’ll always be interested in our character if we’re playing as male, as long as we get the A-support rank. In case we play as a female Byleth the same-sex romance options are more limited. If we play as a male Byleth and happen to be gay or curious, there’s only one romance option. This sends a message, doesn’t it? Or am I reading too much into things? All in all, thank the goddess that Rhea is bissexual. It was the only thing I wanted to know, since I refuse playing as a guy in jrpgs if I have the other option.

Back to Cyberpunk, no really means no, much like the no I had to give River Wards when we were having the conversation. I had no intention whatsoever in landing on a relationship with him, but the way they structured the conversation left a tightness in my chest. Still, I had to be true to myself. River is not my type. The last mission of his storyline was great and it had a good dose of creepy moments. The way his parents died when he was young was gruesome and like out of a home invasion horror movie. The mission went well, as much as things can go well in Night City, which is not much, just enough to get by. Then I jumped into another set of quests and I was hunting Cyberpsychos across the city as instructed by Regina.

By this time I’d already driven on my motorcycle collecting tarot cards. They have beautiful designs and I recommend getting all of them. However, the first cyberpsycho came before the tarot card hunt and I thought I had to kill him. After a while Regina started getting a bit passive-aggressive with me because I was killing what she saw as test subjects and it was most desirable to make a tiny bit of effort to keep them alive in order to save them. Well, I didn’t know about that! The last half of cyberpsychos were handled with care and in stealth mode or using my blades to defend from bullets, parrying melee attacks and doing counterattacks, or using quickhacks. Using defensive combat was as effective as using stealth. I had to take a break from my killing spree but the reward was nice in the end – probably could be nicer if I hadn’t killed the first half of them – a Playstation trophy popped and it’s always good when it does.

I still have the police side activities and some minor requests to do before progressing the main story but I don’t know if I’ll finish them. Before I make some progress, I have Judy’s quest to complete. I want to see where the main story goes but I also can’t get enough of Night City and its many secrets. It’s a nice game and much less buggy than Starfield which I also played for hours on end.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/04/03/cyberpunk-sex-romance-and-murder/

#actionGames #adventureGames #cdProjektRed #cyberpunk2077 #fireEmblemThreeHouses #fps #Games #gaming #gender #jrpgs #nightCity #persona3Portable #playstation #romance #rpg #sex #sexuality #storyRich #trans #videoGames #videogames

swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 2 months ago to catholicism

** Massive spoilers for Fire Emblem Three Houses, religious themes and internalised misogyny **

It’s strange when you keep getting an annoying pull to write about a specific subject and yet there’s always something hindering that wish. I don’t want to make this personal space overly heavy with walls of text because I tend to go back to older posts to recall some games and I like it to be accessible to me and to the 5 or 6 of you who read my texts for which I’m very grateful. One of the reasons I write about video games is to remember the games I’ve been playing without jumbling everything in my head like, for example, mixing character names, storylines, or having a faint memory of a game like I do with, say, Dungeon Siege II. I played it for many hours but I don’t remember anything about the story. Or Morrowind. I remember it was the darker Elder Scrolls game I’ve played. I remember emotions, not facts, feelings, not scenes.

My memory is a problem because it deceives me constantly. For example, I love Rhea from Fire Emblem Three Houses, and yet she murdered people, experimented on children (to put it mildly) is a self-proclaimed Saint and a cult leader. The negative things always come to memory. No real live Saint worthy of their station calls themselves a Saint. They couldn’t, in practice, because canonization is a posthumous act and it takes years, if not decades, to recognize. And yet, if you want to respect the canon you have to give credit to the Catholic Church, something I have a problem with, but I don’t judge those who do not. I asked myself why I would be so drawn towards a villain, but if you asked my mother she’d easily recall the times when everything I liked in movies, anime or other media, were villains.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/2023073015022500_c.jpg?w=1024Rhea singing the Song of the Nabateans after the ballIn the case of Rhea what attracted me the most was her power, beauty, sadness and drive. The fact that she’s a woman may have played a role. Then again, she’s fragile, old and afraid. She’s so afraid of Nemesis that her whole convo with Claude at the end of Verdant Green was extremely uncomfortable to get into. I wasn’t expecting so much hesitation and fear coming out of an antagonist, especially one that has been making the life of our main character so confusing. And yet, those who went the extra mile and married her, will be able to read one of the best apologies and love declarations Fire Emblem has ever seen. I think that my timing was perfect after four playthroughs of too much to bear. A character that develops differently across different storylines can easily fall into oblivion because it’s not expected that people invest so much time into a game replaying it constantly and I don’t remember any game with such a rich story hidden from plain sight, intentionally or not.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/2023073016524600_c.jpg?w=1024SothisRight at the start it’s clear that our villain is having many problems dealing with grief after the loss of her mother which has arisen to a goddess status. Sothis is the goddess of Fódlan and protector of the land and all its living things. She’s in fact an overpowered alien force. Many of her children were able to transform into powerful dragons, but the few that are left have lost that power, and the only one who can still summon that power is Rhea. If you consider a dragon to be akin to a god I won’t blame you.

“Just being a woman is enough to make my wings droop, let alone the fact that I’m such a wicked one.” — Teresa of Ávila

It’s clear that the representation of religion in video games, especially the Catholic denomination, is done in a very negative light. It’s better than the alternative, because we shouldn’t be creating works of art to convert people to what many perceive as lies and spiritual misery. A dragon Archbishop that dominates the land is a safe option for everyone. You see, faith is not the problem; you can believe in anything you want if it makes you happy – you get kudos if it’s dragons. It’s what you do with it and in its name that’s the problem. People are the problem. So, if you have any form of faith that helps you get through life and its many challenges, try to stay away from people of the same faith and don’t proselytise. Be aware of any form of organised religion and don’t listen to what other people say, especially if they came out of nowhere and aren’t a part of your safe space. Don’t let them in, ever. In case those zealots are already inside your safe space – run. There – now you’re safe to play Fire Emblem Three Houses.

Yes, the Church of Seiros is very loosely based on the Catholic Church and Archbishop Rhea is very loosely based on the authority of the Pope. Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes mentioned her stance towards other forms of faith in a positive light in bits and pieces of dialogue, but that’s not important for now. Rhea’s rage at the start of the game is nothing but pure revenge against her mother’s murderer. It’s a crime of passion but not only that. She’s both a victim and a warrior. If you see the battle scene where she confronts Nemesis, the fear in her eyes is palpable. After she wins the fight, she’s an emotional wreck.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/2023061600371700_c.jpg?w=1024PaybackMental illness, trauma, grief and suffering gave birth to the Church of Seiros. Since she’s a part of another species – the Nabateans – which are on the verge of extinction, there’s a sense of urgency in survival and what else works best than to dominate through faith and a system of nobility with its inception in the goddess herself? The mythology of Three Houses is complex but it’s very well explained in the Fire Emblem wiki. Those bits and pieces can elude us while we’re actually worried about the best class builds and the wiki did a good job in putting together the mythology in their Three Houses Online Bible, totally free and without pop-ups of priests asking for donations.

The system of nobility is closely connected with the power of crests which are solely gotten by birth – and not always guaranteed – originated from the goddess and imbued with the power of dragons, corrupted by Nemesis – the glutton – at a later stage and retaining a special synergy with a matching relic weapon, giving absolute power over all non-crest-bearers and implementing a hierarchy of power and abuse. Because everyone abuses at a certain point, even Seiros. Of course none of this shitshow should be allowed to continue and someone would eventually start a revolution for the power of meritocracy, because that fallacy is still in good health in current days. The power of humans over the alien dragon, to extinguish anything that could pose a threat to what humans can do “for justice,” not before having had a taste of that very same source by stealing, pilling, destroying and abusing, like humans do so well, and fighting for that objective using the power of another set of beings – the Agarthans – by destroying, pilling and abusing until there’s a big nothing left and people can return to their lives and abusing each other in other ways. The endless cycle.

“Do you think […] that it is an easy matter to have to do business with the world, to live in the world, and, as I have said, to live as worldly men do, and yet inwardly to be strangers to the world, and enemies of the world, like persons who are in exile – to be, in short, not men but angels?” — Teresa of Ávila

“Or priests with a sword,” like my wife says, with a snarly tone. I prefer to use the metaphor of an army of angels and not all of them good angels, however, all of them exalting unspeakable force.

We talk a lot about religion, me and her. Not all the time, but every time we do it, we go on and on for hours. The best chats we can possibly have about religion are either with fervorous atheists like my wife or someone from another faith altogether. It helps with perspective and it exercises tolerance and curiosity. Our last one was about the origins of monotheistic religions, about Judaism – which I still know so little about – and how monotheistic religions are systems that firmly establish patriarchal values, etc. I think this is why the gender of the powerful representative of the Church of Seiros feels so out of place and absurd that’s actually exciting. However, in the eyes of the Catholic church, a woman is naturally wicked, like Teresa, in all her self-deprecating glory, earned the title of Saint, something she wouldn’t have agreed on in life. A woman that was at the mercy of “learned men” for her entire life but who was smart enough at choosing her allies.

[Such endearing words] are very effeminate; and I should not like you to be that, or even appear to be that, in any way, my daughters; I want you to be strong men. If you do all that is in you, the Lord will make you so manly that men themselves will be amazed at you. – Teresa of Ávila

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/04/2023090500115700_s.jpg?w=1024*I want you to transform into a dragon, like the Immaculate One.*The Knights of Seiros were the army of the Church of Seiros but none of them was especially notorious, except Jeralt which was cured with Rhea’s blood, and also Catherine whom had for Rhea a dedication and love that transcended every belief system, solely focused on the person instead of her station. I decided to pair Catherine with another lover, therefore preventing her from having the heartbreak of the century. I paired her with Shamir, a down-to-earth atheist mercenary from the Knights of Seiros whom, at the time, felt indebted to Rhea. The Archbishop herself didn’t mind the lack of devotion. It’s what happens when you need all the help you can get.

This is where my mind can go on a Saturday morning without enough cups of espresso. So, in the end, if we decide to tame the beast and defeat the antagonist, we’re able to save a woman from 1000 years of grief and solitude. In a Japanese game fashion, the power of love and dedication is enough to heal any deep wound and to redeem any misdeeds, even if they include illegal experiments to give new life to a dead goddess. The transformed body parts are akin to the relics of saints. The goddess herself – Sothis – is none the wiser, and the consequence of having to deal with a silent protagonist is a terrible lack of communication that would have breathed new life into the story had it existed in the first place.

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Rhea never knew that Byleth actually saw Sothis or what conversations they were having – one-sided conversations at that – and she was clueless as to why Sothis gave her power away and annihilated herself in the process, fusing with Byleth, therefore putting her power in the hands of a human which was created to serve as a vessel – a human reliquary. What I mean is nothing was going to work as intended by Seiros in the first place. The experiment she made to bring her mother back was a sad attempt at shoving the problem under the rug, the problem being the grief and trauma of having her brothers, sisters and mother killed at the hands of humans, their bodies used to build weapons to spread more misery. A trauma that lasted for centuries and left a semblance of peace where in truth a lot of families of crest-bearers were suffering in silence, never fully aware of the origins of their predicament or the secrets of the long forgotten races of beings that once governed the land.

In any case, Saint Seiros, the self-proclaimed Saint, which is in fact Rhea, traveled across the land to find the other children of the goddess or their descendants. She found two more family members, Cethleann and Chicol from those who were alive and still in possession of their faculties. However, as I mentioned earlier, they were more akin to humans than Nabateans because they lost their powers and their dragon forms even though they were still in possession of their crests which were very powerful.

So Rhea along the storyline had some funny mood swings. She could be motherly and affectionate and then snap into a murderous rage. It has been the source of memes across the internet. Founding a church because of the annihilation of a people and meddling into worldly affairs from a seat of power is something very historically significant and very interesting to experience in a video game. My love for this character is much more than just the religious aspect, which interests me from an intellectual, historical and maybe spiritual perspective, but also because no other character made me write so much and think so much about these matters and about a story that’s clearly half-written and yet so gripping and relatable.

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Well, in the end, I chose to marry her, and I don’t regret having a dragon anime partner. If there was a choice at the end of the game to “leave Fódlan to humans and flee on the back of your dragon,” I’d take it without further thought. Fire Emblem Three Houses is my absolute favorite game, obviously. I love it so much that every missed opportunity to expand on the lore stings a bit more than it should. I’m becoming very critical of the game every time I think about it, but not in a negative sense. I’m certain that the story will still inspire others to write about it and even expand on the lore.

This text is somewhat unfinished, and I don’t even know if I articulated properly what I wanted to convey, but I’m tired of writing about this. The writers working with Fire Emblem Three Houses did a great job with the story, even though its details are a bit scattered across Fódlan and need to be found with patience and persistence.

Yesterday, I had to crucify a man in Cyberpunk 2077. There’s no rest for wicked women like me.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/04/02/seiros-apology/

#catholicism #churchOfSeiros #dragons #faith #FireEmblem #fireEmblemThreeHouses #Games #gaming #goddess #intelligentSystems #koeiTecmo #misogyny #monotheism #nintendoSwitch #religion #saints #seiros #sothis #srpg #strategy #teresaOfAvila #videoGames #videogames

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 2 months ago to gaming

For the sake of our time.

Unicorn Overlord was released in March 8th and I waited a few days to get my copy for Nintendo Switch. I thought that such a cute game should be a perfect fit for the OLED screen and handheld gameplay. I wasn’t wrong and so far I only played a docked session once. The game was developed by Vanillaware and the concept phase was initiated at about the same time 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was in production – another great game that I haven’t finished yet. It was published by Sega/Atlus and it seems that everything on the face of the Earth which bears the Atlus name is condemned to be a success.

Unicorn Overlord is a tactical rpg, but it’s not turn-based like I’m used to. It’s real-time where the actions and the order they should be taken – whom to target and in which situations – are previously set by the played into a number of units on the menu screen. Then, those units are taken into battle and the outcome takes place automatically. 13 Sentinels’ combat is a very, very simplified form of real-time strategy, but I loved it, so I had an idea about how the combat would develop in real-time. Some people mentioned Ogre Battle 64 as the predecessor of this type of combat and we can easily see the similarities between unit builds, classes, maps and interface. No matter where the inspiration is, the combat is very addictive and many late nights are a given.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024032312295400_s.jpg?w=1024This is where we can try different setups and choose each unit’s leadersUnicorn Overlord tells the story of Alain, the son of Queen Ilenia who fell to Galerius’ rebellion in Cornia. The game starts with the battle between both Ilenia and Galerius, also known as General Valmore. Queen Ilenia asked Josef to protect little Alain while the castle was under attack and Josef took Alain to an island called Palevia, raised him and trained him into a fine soldier and future ruler. Alain would later lead the Liberation Army against the established Zenoiran Empire, and with the help of the Unicorn Ring, turn the leaders siding with the Empire into their former selves. Alain soon discovered that the ring had the power to dispel a curse altering the minds of former leaders and commanders into accepting the rule of the Zenoiran Empire.

With this knowledge in hand, Alain sets to Cornia first, to expand the Liberation Army, together with Scarlett, Josef and Lex. Scarlett is then kidnapped by Galerius and Baltro and this event starts the first story arc in Cornia. Unicorn Overlord has a lot – and I mean a lot-lot – of recruitable characters. All have backstories and Alain can unlock rapport conversations with them to learn more about their personalities and motivations. It works like a social link from Persona. If they battle together, interact at the tavern or are given gifts, they increase their rapport points. After a certain amount of points a conversation can be unlocked and accessed from a stabilized region. The funnier part is that all these characters have also rapport conversations between a selected number of other characters they’ve previously met. Considering that we travel across the nations of Cornia, Elheim, Drakenhold, Bastorias and Albion imagine the number of interactions available. It’s a lot of worldbuilding and character development.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024032002302500_s.jpg?w=1024*An example of a rapport conversation between Selvie and Alain. We are all beset by spirits of the dead.*The game isn’t exactly an open-world but it doesn’t have the same linearity as other games where some areas are locked prior to story progression. The quests and side-quests are stage-based. One stage consists of a combat encounter and after clearing the encounter we liberate a city and access its facilities. However, in case we are so inclined we can access higher-level areas and there’s no barriers holding off the progression. If we desire to access Bastorias before clearing Drakenhold, for example, it’s possible to do it. If we manage to clear a level 30 encounter we can access Albion after clearing Elheim and before clearing Drakenhold – which is the nation we should visit after Cornia. I mean we should, but we don’t necessarily have to. The game adapts itself in case we visit a higher-level area first.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024032312351500_s.jpg?w=1024A combat encounter. This will be a win with some damage to my unit. After Cornia, I decided to visit Elheim to know more about the temples and because the Great Sage was about to give a revelation. I had no idea that I was terribly underleveled – my units, not Alain – for the area and I didn’t have many options to deal with magic. However I managed to recruit some crucial characters that helped me clear the first encounters and then everything progressed naturally. By the time I got to Drakenhold I was massively overleveled for the area, therefore Drakenhold should be the first stop after Cronia’s arc to those who worry about being overleveled. Since I don’t, I also unlocked Bastorias and met some adorable furries and then I left the area to progress the story as guided by Josef. This semi-open-world flair is extremely exciting to explore for the first time, because you know that you technically shouldn’t be in certain areas but you can, and then the rest of the game reconfigures itself to accommodate those choices.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024031723465900_s.jpg?w=1024The beautiful area of Elheim – or Elfheim – as I like to call itThe same freedom we get from the traversal does also apply to the innumerable possibilities at customizing our units. Each character has a class and each class has advantages and weaknesses against other classes. Some classes synergize better than others. All the information about classes is explained through characters in the overwold outside the forts or inside the menu. It’s a bit of a learning curve but the information is easily accessible in the library where we can find which classes work better against each other. Around the forts we often get tips about class weaknesses or natural shortcomings – for example, accuracy – and which accessories help mitigate that.

In the tactics menu we can prioritize actions according to the character’s skills and in which conditions an action is taken. I haven’t fully grasped the menu and all its possibilities, but changing the priorities and conditions of certain skill use and then seeing it in action is very satisfying. Certain weapons, shields and accessories provide the character with extra skills and it’s never a bad idea to check how the introduction of new skills affects the tactical actions the character will take in battle, meaning if those actions are given the right priority or if they’re relevant for the character in question. All classes can be promoted to its upgraded form, where the character can get new and better skills as well as a new accessory slot, or a weapon slot to dual-wield.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024032312313900_s.jpg?w=1024The tactics screen with battle conditions and categoriesThe art style is gorgeous in all its forms. The vibrating colors, the character design, the little portraits changing during dialogue, the 2.5D overworld, the landscapes and backgrounds, the food design that leaves me salivating – it’s everything. The little cutscenes are drawn in 2D, the characters are voiced and there’s dialogue boxes. The art style is very unique to Vanillaware. Even in their other games, the art plays with perspective, with light and shadow, and with character proportions. It’s dynamic even though the characters are static because some proportions, like bigger hands and feet, give a sense of movement and reach. At the same time it doesn’t look very exaggerated; it’s just right.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024031613104900_s.jpg?w=1024The stuff of nightmaresI wasn’t expecting this game specifically. When I heard about Unicorn Overlord I was expecting something less addictive, for starters, and much less complex in its mechanics. Since I’ve only played 13 Sentinels, I’ve only gotten the visual novel part of the Vanillaware experience and I thought Unicorn Overlord would be very similar, just in another setting. I haven’t been able to put the game down since I started playing. The other games I’m currently playing are on hold and even though I already have two more Vanillaware games on their way I don’t want Unicorn Overlord to end. Brilliant game!

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/03/23/games-shouldnt-be-this-good/

#13Sentinels #2d #adventureGames #atlus #Games #gaming #jrpgs #nintendoSwitch #ogreBattle64 #rpg #sega #srpg #storyRich #strategy #tacticalRpg #unicornOverlord #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to gaming

Last weekend, I made some progress in Soul Hackers 2 and I am right at the end of the game. The crazy dungeons inside the Soul Matrix got a little more complex to navigate. Saizo’s Soul Matrix is still the hardest one in my view, however I managed to complete a few more things before I finish the story. I reached 4F with all my companions, but only managed to get enough Soul Level to finish Milady’s 4F and get into 5F. There, I couldn’t open any other gates without loads of Soul Level. I’ve read that the amount of Soul Level we gain from hangouts increases significantly in new game + making it possible to complete a 5F from any character and unlock an achievement.

I completed all requests from Madam Ginko in order to get items, money, upgrades, lower prices to summon demons, what have you. It’s very important to stay on top of her requests during the playthrough to make things easier in the end. I completed all The Lost Numbers DLC quests involving a new character called Nana. She was on a journey to find information about her father, a person who worked for Yatagarasu – an organization that protects people from demons – while also learning about the story behind her true nature. This lead us to a new dungeon where we could grind to our heart’s content and defeat powerful bosses.

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One day I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to fuse many demons with the money I had. Now my compendium is over 90% and I’ll maybe take it to 100%, something I could never do on a playthrough in Persona 3 Reload without a guide. With the DLC we also get some powerful demons for free from the start, but I decided to ignore them during early game because they were too overpowered. What I enjoyed the most about the game was the cyberpunk atmosphere, the art, the palette, and the interactions with demons and companions. The game is a feast for the eye, the soundtrack can be a bit limited but I already got two favorite songs – COMP Smith and Eyes of the Iron Mask.

This is as far as I got before I enter the last dungeon, or what I think is the last anyway. My two main characters – Ringo and Figue – are becoming more human by learning through interactions with other humans. They are machines made in human’s image, created by Aion, a big sentient AI, maybe composed of many other life forms, born from the digital footprints of humans. The purpose of their creation was to save the world from great danger, of course, but things didn’t go as expected as they never do. When human emotions formed inside our character’s personalities every action gained a new significance and by consequence emotions started getting in the way of what was otherwise a very objective mission. One of them went rogue and now it’s up to us to fix the world, before saving it.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/20240228223531_1.jpg?w=1024These demons are adorable---

During the weekend, I decided to go back to Steins Gate Elite. It’s a visual novel with primary focus on time travel and creating a time machine. I started reading it some months ago but it was a bit on-and-off, the story and the characters weren’t captivating enough at first. So eventually I abandoned it and played many games in between. Steins Gate was that VN that I would read when I didn’t want to play or read anything else. Okabe was very irritating and over-the-top and I could only tolerate him in very small portions. This time I was a bit under the weather and the best thing I could do was going to bed and reading a VN that could work as a pathway to a good nap. I was at the end of Chapter 4 and initiated Chapter 5. From there on, any idea of a nap diluted in the hands of time and I was very much glued to the screen. It must have happened a little before a certain character was killed. I was instantly shocked and I had to read on. Okabe changed a lot, so much so, that I found myself wishing for his nonsense at times.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024031012194500_s1.jpg?w=1024Suzuha and OkabeThe suffering and confusion brought upon Okabe during his time leaps was palpable. At a certain point even I was giving up hope and questioning the point of saving the world to be. During his hopeless mission to save a special someone he would try again and again at changing something, anything, a few hours or days before a tragedy in order to prevent it, even when it was obvious that the end result would stay the same. At this point we understand the motivations of the cast of characters, especially one that came from 30 years in the future. Real time passed so fast from then on that I ended up unlocking my first ending. The game went full circle and I stayed with Mayuri and Daru in a peaceful world, all of my friends were gone. Very easily I unlocked Suzuha, Moeka, Lukako and Faris’ routes. For Kurisu and the true ending I needed a guide.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024031101403100_s1.jpg?w=1024Makise KurisuThe good part about using a good guide was that I could choose the right sms answers for the true ending and then save the game when I was one answer short. With an answer left to trigger the true ending we can instead see Kurisu’s ending and then reload the save. The funniest part was that, after I watched her ending and wept and laughed and everything, I engaged the true ending and it was exactly the same thing. Same scenes, same conversations, but I couldn’t skip them. Then the credits rolled and I thought I was doing something wrong and checked the guide again. They wrote something like “read on, trust us” and trust I did.

*** Light spoilers true ending, continue to next paragraph ***

What came after was a very substantial part of the game because it was long and tied a lot of loose ends from the beginning. Everything we see at the start of the game is explained and I didn’t notice any major plot holes. However, I played the first 4 chapters a long time ago, and I don’t remember every little detail. Kurisu’s murder in the Beta attractor field, where the game starts, is explained and that moment is revisited by Okabe and Suzuha. Okabe gets a message from his future self and finds motivation to rewrite the narrative of that worldline by use of deception. It’s genius! However, I would have enjoyed watching the deception taking place, I mean seeing the reaction of the real Okabe from that worldline. Also that shift between dead Kurisu and alive Kurisu was triggered by a worldline shift I didn’t see. I didn’t see it but Okabe certainly did because he jumped to an attractor field – Steins Gate – where everyone is alive and living their sweet lifes. In order to start anew on an attractor field without any known convergence – a new start for humanity – Okabe had to save Kurisu, and that he did. It was a beautiful ending especially because of everything that happened in order to get there, all the heartbreaks and so on.

*** End of spoilers ***

Yes, it was a great read, for sure! By pure coincidence or not, Spike Chunsoft has a sale on Steam right now, so I grabbed Steins Gate 0. The story takes place in the Beta worldline, meaning after Kurisu dies. Poor Kurisu. Her death is the first thing we see when we start Steins Gate and it’s always looming in the background even when she’s right before our eyes. Steins Gate 0 starts about the same way, with some variations and it’s intended for people who read the original novel. The very first scenes are a big spoiler! I’m very curious to see what they did with the story. The old art is wonderful. I would recommend playing Steins Gate with the original artwork and then watching the anime.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/03/12/hacking-souls-and-time/

#adventureGames #anime #atlus #demons #dlc #dungeonCrawlers #fantasy #Games #gaming #jrpgs #nintendoSwitch #nitroplus #pcGaming #playthrough #soulHackers2 #spikeChunsoft #steam #steinsGate #steinsGate0 #steinsGateElite #timeTraveling #turnBased #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels

swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 3 months ago to Persona

The first time I played Soul Hackers 2 must have been about two years ago and I found the game to be very strange. It maybe wasn’t the best game to get into the Megami Tensei universe due to the wave of critique it got (it’s a bit hard to unsee that) and the first dungeons and areas weren’t inviting enough from the perspective of a new player (i.e., my perspective exactly.) The whole thing didn’t go very well. I loved Ringo and the art, but it was as far as I got. For some reason, I didn’t pay attention to the music. I played it on Xbox Game Pass and these things tend to happen when we try a new game for “free.” If we don’t get immediately captivated by the gameplay and environment, we can move on to something more palatable, so there’s little effort involved. Also, we need to account for the lack of context because everything in megaten games has a continuous set of references that can and will be lost on someone unfamiliar with the universe.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/20240210213128_1.jpg?w=1024Let’s admit, Ringo is awesomeAnd then there’s this thing I can describe as “it’s not you, it’s me.” I react strongly against new experiences and it’s a constant struggle to counteract that. Even in the real world, if things aren’t predictable and constant, I panic. So, when I manage to get into new things it’s like a miracle and I treat those experiences like so. If I manage to overcome a challenge, I relegate it to the realm of the unbelievable. My biggest life challenge was moving to another country to work and learn another language in adult age. From my perspective this is unbelievable, a miracle. Of course, I had the help of an angel and short thereafter, the help of an army of angels, however I managed to overcome my anxieties and step into new ground making it my own to the best of my ability. This doesn’t digress too much on a micro level from experiencing a new game that’s completely detached from what I am familiar with, or a movie, or a book, or traveling.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/2024021623155100_s.jpg?w=1024An army of angels – Shin Megami Tensei VBack to Soul Hackers 2 we have to fast forward a bit when I landed on my post-Persona 3 Reload situation, which was a very different one. With Persona 3 Reload I finally paid attention to the demons (the personas) and during my hesitant attempts at Shin Megami Tensei V I started comparing them just for fun. They are very similar and sometimes have different names but are instantly recognizable. They’re a joy to look at! Then the battle systems of exploring weaknesses and fusing powerful demons with a variety of skills could have been (and still are) a bit overwhelming but I adapted to it and now I’m not afraid to mess up. The games provide mechanics to correct many mistakes, at least the newer ones.

I started enjoying dungeon crawling with the new Tartarus and now the old Tartarus from Portable doesn’t bother me that much. The same happened with the dungeons from SH2. At first, they can seem barren and very boring, however when we enter the Soul Matrix and progress a little more in the story, the dungeons also develop into a puzzle of sorts and an invitation to test our spatial awareness skills. They can be very laborious in the sense that they’re long, therefore I need to clear them in the same gaming session in order to keep track of where I was and study when I should backtrack to gain access to other areas. I plan my sessions accordingly while completing all the Soul Matrix quests in the process to spare time. I only progress the main story when I don’t have anything else to do inside the Soul Matrix and when I’ve cleared all jobs given by Madame Ginko at Club Cretaceous. I enjoy this loop.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/03/20240303001232_1.jpg?w=1024Saizo sector 3F inside the Soul Matrix is a bit crazyIn order to unlock gates in the Soul Matrix we have to increase our soul level with Arrow, Milady and Saizo by engaging into a number of activities and hangouts. By exploring the dungeons thoroughly, we gain access to objects picked up by the demons doing reconnaissance which in turn are used to unlock more hangouts. When the soul level reaches a certain threshold the gates inside the Soul Matrix can be unlocked. The Matrix also expands through main story progression. The game flow feels very natural and the story, although not as dark as Persona 3 Reload, is well told through the experiences of an older cast of characters way past high school age. It’s a breath of fresh air and I’m glad that I’m finally able to enjoy this game.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/03/05/soul-hackers-2-anxiety-and-dungeon-crawling/

#anxiety #atlus #demons #devilSummoner #dungeonCrawling #Games #gaming #jrpgs #megaten #nintendoSwitch #pcGaming #persona3Reload #ringo #rpg #shinMegamiTenseiV #soulHackers2 #steam #turnBased #videoGames #videogames

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 3 months ago to gaming

Maybe it wasn’t a very good idea to play a game about death right after playing a game about death. However, death is constantly looming, either slowly in the background or right before our eyes. It can be but a little diluted concept in the back of our minds, or it can be announced on a visit to the doctor. It can be a gamble because of our lifestyle, or it can be a gamble because of a diagnosis. It can come due to old age or earlier due to unforeseen circumstances. When people say that we should cherish the moments we have with each other it can come as a big cliche, and indeed it is. You can find the most beautiful words to describe the inevitable but, in the end, it’s very much our nature and the nature of all things living.

Try to imagine a world without death. I’ve tried it many times. It’s the realm of the impossible but we can make the exercise. How many would we be? Would we be constant for all eternity, or would more people be born? How could someone come into existence in a world where there’s eternal permanence? Would there be conflict and consequence like punishment for all eternity, without means to alleviate pain and suffering? Would there be eternal happiness in the arms of a loved one guaranteed to live forever? Would we jump into another relationship after those failed 500 years of marriage? Would there be years and the concept of time even? Would we become of another nature to adapt to a nature without renewal? Why would someone want this? There’s someone who wants this.

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It’s very easy to spoil a game like Slay the Princess (StP) or any visual novel for that matter. Even games from other genres are a little difficult to write about if we don’t decide to include spoilers. Hold your thoughts about death because they will be a constant while you navigate StP. Not everything is about death, there’s more to the game and its nature, there’s loops and loops, of constant coming and going, and in the process, we witness love, violence, despair and our own reflected image in the mirror. All of it happens inside a cabin, or in another cabin in another time. The memories remain, but the path is another, although the same. StP felt more like a roguelike visual novel than a visual novel with many routes. It is in fact a visual novel with many routes and sub-routes and sub-sub-routes, but I liked to entertain the idea of a roguelike game where I was constantly dying and could come back to where I started now armed with valuable knowledge only to be surprised that nothing was how it was before.

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You have to slay the princess; you just have to. And if you don’t, the world is going to end. What will you do? Look, I did everything or so I thought. I played the game for about 6 hours, and I got about three endings. If you decide to play the game the achievement bar is a good indicator of your progress. I’m at 37% therefore I haven’t seen half of the outcomes in the game. The princess is inside a cabin chained inside a basement. Your task is very straightforward, but which cabin you end up in or which princess will you find depends on your choices. It doesn’t matter if you live or die for the princess will always be communicating something. However, how do we know we have to kill the princess? We have a voice – the Narrator – that tells us to do so. But, since we go back and forth (or only forth) in this loop, how many are they?

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The game is not only a quest about slaying the princess and preventing the end of the world. It’s also about the player and their journey to find their own identity. After all, we have to find a clue about why we have to kill a princess in the first place, and where to find some answers as to how to proceed towards the conclusion of our quest. It seems more complicated than it is. Even though it doesn’t look like it at first, the game has a start and an ending, and each route doesn’t take long to complete. The help of a guide for the completionists should come in handy.

Slay the Princess was created by Black Tabby Games and released in 2023 for PC. It has great art and extremely good voice acting. It was one of the indie games I looked forward to playing upon release, in 2023, but I only managed to play it now.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/02/27/slay-the-princess-pc/

#adventureGames #blackTabbyGames #death #Games #gaming #gods #horror #pcGaming #rpg #slayThePrincess #steam #storyRich #supernatural #videoGames #visualNovels

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 3 months ago to Persona

** Contains some spoilers for Persona 3 Reload **

I finally arrived at the end. We people who spend a lot of time playing video games are familiar with the feeling of emptiness after finishing a long game. In my case it was a mix of emptiness, satisfaction, loss, and bliss. Spending more than 90 hours immersed in a crumbling world on a mission to save it alongside my character-friends was exhausting but very, very rewarding in the end. I admit, it wasn’t easy to move on, and I still haven’t, but no immersion lasts forever and the idea of replaying the game right after the first playthrough is not feasible for now. I want to, but I prefer to let this feeling last. I started playing Persona 3 Portable in the meantime, but I don’t see myself able to complete it yet. As I wrote in my last post, even I am on a mission to play a good portion of games this year and we only have so much time to indulge in this hobby many see as a waste of time.

Now, let’s talk about Elizabeth. To those who have played the game countless times, the fact that she’s a secret boss comes as no surprise. I was perfectly convinced that her 100th request – to kill the Reaper – was the last one. I gathered a team with many buffs and debuffs, nothing fancy, just the usual decrease enemy attack/defense/accuracy/evasion and increase those very same elements for my team before performing strong magical and physical attacks. Aigis was, as usual, a godsend, but every team member had something to contribute to the fight. In the end I had to use them all to level up anyway. The first time I killed the Reaper I was overcome with a feeling of immense satisfaction. It wasn’t an easy fight, and I was one-shot a couple of times. With the right items I raised them from the dead and managed to have my team in great condition.

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When I went back to Elizabeth to reap my reward, she came up with another request – to take out the ultimate adversary. At first, I thought she meant Nyx. He’s the ultimate adversary, no? No, no, no, what is this? The last Monad door had a locked door at the end of the stairs. The request specifically told me to come alone and try that door. So I went, with some very strong Personas up my sleeve, completely clueless about what I would find. To my amazement it was Elizabeth herself! She wanted to dance with me. I could think about many things we could do together, but not this, this face-to-face, this duel of titans, except there was only one titan and the other was a rabbit. I performed quite well on my first try. I may have been able to do about 650 damage. No. I managed to survive some turns. I died. Then I was asked if I wanted to change to Peaceful difficulty so I could raise from the dead and try the fight from where I lost. What a good idea, of course! Then, the unthinkable happened. Elizabeth summoned a Pixie and unleashed Megidolaon on me for a modicum of 9999 damage! Do you want to retry? Yes, of course. I attacked her – Megidolaon. I decreased her attack and accuracy – Megidolaon. I increased my evasion – Megidolaon. I guarded – Megidolaon. I knew there was no point, it was an Almighty attack, but I was desperate! I went on YouTube.

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The fight follows a very specific script and involves a lot of preparations and very specific Personas with very specific skills that can only be unleashed at specific times, and the use of a calculator can be very helpful to know when to unleash a specific ultimate attack and defeat her for good. To be perfectly honest I don’t need this. In a different context, were I more knowledgeable about the game and experienced almost every aspect of it, yes, I would’ve accepted the challenge. As I am today, I don’t think I would get much satisfaction from preparing for the fight and from spending more hours at the Velvet Room than those I’ve already spent so far. I decided to leave Elizabeth at the Monad door, and maybe someday, I’ll defeat her. By the way, there’s an achievement to create a Pixie with Megidolaon in Soul Hackers 2. Funny, right?

I decided to continue with the story, and in the last two in-game weeks, I finished Aigis social link and didn’t manage to finish Fuuka’s. I know why this happened. In order to max out other social links I’d already started, I left Fuuka hanging and then this happened. Some mistakes were made in early game when I spend too much time in other activities that didn’t involve the right social links. I honestly don’t know what I’m talking about or where I failed, but since it’s possible to max out all social links in one playthrough I must have done something wrong somewhere. I just didn’t feel the need to use a guide because using one is exhausting and completely destroys the immersion. I know it from experience. I don’t regret having prioritized Aigis over Fuuka on my first playthrough. Aigis is my protector, she’s canon, she’s the holy knight, for her sword are guns, her body eternal, her memories untouched. I watched her friend route and her lover route. Since I was already taken, I decided to be with her as a friend, although at the end of the game something more seemed to be going on and I gladly accepted the outcome. It was meant to be.

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On the 31st of January we would enter Tartarus and would only be able to leave after finishing all battles therein. It was the end. The remaining of the Strega were guarding Nyx, so they had to be defeated as well. It came to Junpei’s knowledge that Chidori was alive and well. The white flowers worked out well in the end! We were able to witness a nice convo between the two at the hospital, however things weren’t exactly the same as the last time they were together. Even confronted with these major changes, Junpei was happy, and it was a good conclusion to his love story. Jin and Takaya were still clinging to their nihilistic ways with pure fervor – Jin for Takaya and Takaya for the end of times – maybe as some sort of revenge for the injustice brought upon them. After all, how much would they last, their worldview already shattered?

You know that in all jrpgs there’s the power of friendship, that if we stick together, we can overcome anything, even the end of the world. I hope the same goes for climate change or war. We aren’t together actually, are we? But video games continue doing the work with diligence. It’s the little things. Finally, we stand before Nyx, everybody a bit surprised by the familiar figure. I wasn’t surprised at all. I was eager to kill him and very curious about what he had to say. Technically, Nyx was pretty much indestructible by normal means. He himself was a creation of shattered hopes, fears, shortcomings, anxieties, frustrations, the devastation of everything that holds together the very fabric of a living, thriving human being with meaningful connections to others. My Lucifer was brimming with desire from inside my sleeve. “Oh yes,” he said, “this I can feed from.” I told him to calm down, for we still had to defeat the twelve Arcana summoned by the winged beast Nyx, his mask holding a faint smile, the surrender of any will to live. The Fallen Angel retreated for a bit, still entertaining the thought of annihilating the beast that would dethrone him from his station, one only threatened by one adversary, the one waning for ages now. “This is not what’s happening right now,” I said, and proceeded with the fight. “Everyone knows that God doesn’t have many friends,” Lucifer stubbornly answered. Messiah shrugged.

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The fight that followed was much more beautiful and creative than what I’d imagined. Yes, there are many other excellent final boss fights in many games, but there’s something special about finishing a long game as this, where the entire 90+ hours are not filled with banter, where the story is heavy, mature, dark, and oppressive, and where many questions about life, death, future, fear, are explored and dissected at the sound of first-class music. During this time there’s attachment to extremely well written characters, all of them with their unique stories and all of them visibly maturing while using their powers to fight an unknown entity, ready to give their lives for any chance at a future.

After defeating the twelve summoned Arcana and surviving Nyx’s attacks, it was finally time to defeat Nyx as a regular boss. I had another little trick up my sleeve, something I’ve learned with Elizabeth, an ultimate to end all ultimates. I could either fight Nyx normally and prolong the fight with my tanking capabilities and many items at hand or I could wait for my Theurgy to charge and unleash my true power over the Death God. I did the later, a cheat code much in the likeness of the one that was used against me inside that Monad door. 9999. Done. The Universe as we knew it was no more. The power of my social links gleaming in the minds of those who loved me and to whom their thoughts were aimed at a moment of need, just like a prayer.

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“Blessings to the believer.” It worked. Nyx was sealed, as were our memories. After ending the Dark Hour slowly but steadily we started to forget everything prior to acquiring the power of our Personas. Everyone but Aigis, the protector, the record keeper, the one keeping our memories alive even after our passing, the one who will not know death, only reboot. Even our romantic interest wasn’t able to forget our still young love story, making plans to include us in her life and to introduce us to her family. Yukari asked for help with her mother, showing that our friendship would go a long way in the future. The boys were a bit forgetful but still wondering about our connection. Until something triggered their memories, at least what was left of them still lingering in their hearts, and we were able to meet again, to fulfill a promise.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/02/25/the-sins-of-others-part-3/

#aigis #arcana #atlus #death #gamePass #Games #gaming #god #jrpgs #lucifer #megidolaon #memory #messiah #nyx #ost #pcGaming #persona3Portable #persona3Reload #soulHackers2 #velvetRoom #videoGames #videogames

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to gaming

Contains some spoilers for Persona 3 Reload

I’ve been having the best journey I could possibly have with Persona 3 Reload. It has been a surge of story twists and side-stories to remember in the future. It’s a game that leaves a lasting impression on us, a rarity, a little gem, a precious treasure, a work of art, a pleasure through and through. I’m so glad I can play this now among many other good games. Atlus is on a spree and the year is only at the start. I believe I’ll be playing Atlus games for the remainder of 2024 but I’ll try to take some breaks with other games in between. Usually, I play one long game and one short game at the same time. When I finish a long game, I play another short game, and then start a new long-running game. However, this time, from all the games I’ve installed on pc or started on Switch, it’s always something in the order of 100+ hours.

When I wrote about Trails of Cold Steel, I thought “how am I going to play this now?” and I really, really want to, but I think it will have to wait a bit. I intend to play Soul Hackers 2 after finishing Persona 3 Reload. On the Switch I’m playing Shin Megami Tensei V and now we have the Vengeance variation coming. Should I finish my version or start the new one? Do I even have time and health for any of this? Why am I even thinking about this? Since my brain is glitching, I need to do two things. Enjoy the games that I’m currently playing and maybe read the internet a little less often. Being on top of things happening this year is exhausting. We already knew this would happen at the start of 2024 with jrpgs. I will buy the Switch games I want, and they will rest comfortably on my display until I have time to play them. And then a new console will come. There’s no point in being on top of things.

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Persona 3 Reload deserves all the time I could put into it and after the events of the first part, where we all thought we would defeat the last Shadow and end the Dark Hour, there was a twist. We were betrayed by the one who guided our steps. It isn’t unheard of, but it hurts nonetheless. When I started Persona 3 Portable on the Switch just to take a peek and compare the character portraits (and I admit, it was also an excuse to hear Tara Platt as Mitsuru again) he showed up and I dreaded him. And what about all the cameras in our rooms? Are they only for my entertainment or was he also spying on us? Everyone seems to be oblivious to those, and I, as a silent character, have no will of my own.

Something bad happened to Mitsuru so she had to take a break to take care of her business at the Kirijo Group. Right after the conclusion of special events and interactions, a text box shows with a few words about what our character’s thinking in reaction to those events. After what happened to Mitsuru our main character showed his highschooler empathy by thinking that Mitsuru cried like a child. You know, as one does with the loss of a dear family member. One cries like a child. Throw in a tantrum for good measure while we’re at it. “I hope you put more effort in when you try romancing her,” I thought. All went well in the end, and our main character behaved more like himself, maturing along with his lover and friends, in the dawn of a catastrophic Fall.

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The story with Elizabeth happened a bit before my romance with Mitsuru. I got an invitation that I decided to accept. After all, I wasn’t yet committed with anyone, all my social links were in friendly terms and Elizabeth had some curiosity about what one does in a gentleman’s room. I boldly accepted her request, only to hear that she cherished every moment with me, but she couldn’t abandon her important station. After the initial grief, I came to terms with it, that her help was invaluable to fight the Fall and abandoning ourselves to love would only mean said love would be very short living. She had her Master, and I had the contract I signed taking full responsibility for my actions. In P3P that contract gave me access to the Velvet Room. If there’s any relation between the contract, the Velvet Room and Pharos I’m none the wiser.

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Speaking of, we got a new transfer student right at the end of the semester. It was strange to see Ryoji so grown up all of a sudden. At the time I didn’t know what to think, and my main character didn’t seem to notice the likeness of an old friend. Aigis reacted strongly against him and I, being as I am on Aigis side at all times, detested his honey voice and his advances on other girls and on myself. I know how much of a hunting ground a high school can be. Put Junpei and Ryoji in the same room and you see what’s the intended audience for this game. I bet Ryoji would have been a success on the beach setting, a setting so familiar to a person who had to witness it from the other side. It was there that Aigis came to us, and that event saved the setting for me, because everything else wasn’t from a world I would like to belong to, although unfortunately I still have to.

Elizabeth’s requests are almost fulfilled. Yesterday I accidentally killed the last boss inside the Monad door that fulfilled the last request she had in store for me before the 100th one, which is to kill the Reaper. I tried it once, but his damage output was too much for my tanking capabilities and for the buffs I had at the time. Once I learn how to trigger his arrival in Tartarus, I’ll bring a team that can deal with him. Having Personas with severe and massive magical damage is a game-changer, especially when they hit weaknesses and debuffed enemies. I love to use Concentrate, prepare a sequence of debuffs, and then finish enemies with my Satan. It doesn’t work every time but when it does it’s a sight to behold.

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I made sure to give Junpei the white flowers for Chidori. I was reading a random guide about gifts and stumbled upon it by chance. The time window to give him the white flowers is short, but I had a save from before the tour to Kyoto. I reloaded it and gave him the flowers. After our tour, the flowers showed at her room when she was visited by the Strega. We still had to fight her, but I think she’s now transmogrified rather that dead. I’m still unsure if the flowers had any effect or if it’s something only featured in P3P. We didn’t kill Chidori. It was an unfortunate circumstance that made her lose her life-force. It was for a good reason, though, and it made for a beautiful part of the story. The post-event thoughts of our character matched the mood, and nobody cried like a child this time.

Then came the revelation of doom, but not before Aigis engaged on a solo mission after finally realizing who a certain mysterious individual was. After running through her long-term memories and connecting the dots (maybe with the invaluable help of Koromaru) she decided to deal with unfinished business from ten years ago by her lonesome. I appreciate the romantic nature of this enemy, the fragility of his docile appearance in contrast with his immense power. After all, death flirts with us during our entire lives. Whether we like it or not, our bodies will ultimately fall into its embrace. However, what I like even more is the machine protector, the one that goes to great lengths to save our lives and does so with stoic disposition. Aigis is one of the best characters in the game.

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I’m happy to have her back. We had to wait a few weeks while she was under repairs. She came to us even better than before, more human and knowledgeable of human ways, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. From that convo at the command room between Ryoji and the rest of the group I sensed danger. My lack of sympathy for him remained even though he’s meaningful in relation to the Arcana he represents. “I’m here and I’m your friend, I love you but my arrival means you’re dead. Could you please kill me now in order to forget everything so that you can get killed later and live the remaining of your lives in blissful ignorance?” What about Aigis? I saw she didn’t forget, however she sided with Ryoji’s opinion about his annihilation. The protector would run out of something to protect, their purpose gone and mankind with them.

This is more or less where I’m at. In terms of social links there wasn’t anything substantial happening before and after the ultimate decision. I maxed more social links than I think I could, but after a certain point I had to prioritize. We had a free week at the start of January, so I used that time for dates during the day and exploring Tartarus at night. My new social link is upgraded but I don’t feel I’ll be able to fuse Messiah on this playthrough. I’m in unknown territory now. Nyx, the Mother of Shadows, is supposed to reveal herself at the top level of Tartarus, and I’ve already reached the point where I can’t proceed yet. Now it’s a waiting game. I see that I’ve still some months left in the game, so I believe that at the end of January I won’t be defeating the last boss. I haven’t started Aigis’ social link yet and some previous dialogue seemed to hint at some future interaction. I may be wrong. My heart may be taken but she’s still my protector so far.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/02/22/the-cold-hands-of-death/

#adventureGames #aigis #atlus #backlog #gamePassUltimate #Games #gaming #jrpgs #mitsuru #mysteryGames #nintendoSwitch #pcGaming #persona3Portable #persona3Reload #ryojiMochizuki #shadows #storyRich #taraPlatt #turnBased #velvetRoom #videoGames #xboxGamePass

swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 3 months ago to gaming

There’s a nice Steam sale going on this week from XSEED and Marvelous! games. I’ve also seen a number of Bandai Namco games on sale, so I grabbed Code Vein and Tales of Arise while I was at it. They have been on sale for some time now. Time means days in Steam time. I’ve seen both games on PS+ for ages and never played them. Under the XSEED/Marvelous! banner, I bought something else.

I reacted so strongly against Trails in the Sky that I decided the best way to move on was buying another Trails game (right?!). This time, I decided to be careful. I would buy it, install it, and see if I liked it as soon as possible. We only have two hours to play and test a game before we either decide to ask for a refund or keep the game. When we run a Trails game for the first time, it displays a configuration tool, and the timer starts even when we’re only trying to figure out the appropriate config for our setup. My setup is not like a setup. It’s a laptop, so it was set up for me, which I am very grateful for. That didn’t discourage me from prying it open and upgrading my RAM because, for some reason, I decided it had to be a weekend project. Imagine the nerves. I never did that before in my life. This must be nothing to you but to me it was dangerous! You can’t imagine the obsessive preparation I did before to make up for my lack of experience. Now, I can proudly say that I’ve gained 500 XP, 100 Knowledge, 50 Endurance, and 1000 Faith.

But back to Trails. Trails in the Sky can pretty much be played in a calculator. I’m sure my Casio fx-991EX Classwiz could play the game if it wanted to. That little config tool was easy to set up, and the game was pretty much ready to go on my very old laptop, where I played it for the first time. I don’t know what I was expecting from a 2004 game. I’ve written somewhere in my first posts that I didn’t grow up playing these games. I don’t know how I should put this, but I do enjoy older games in general. I’m by no means a retro gamer, but I’m curious, and I want to learn about the millions of games I’ve overlooked. However, sometimes my body decides to reject some games, and it so happened that Trails in the Sky was one of those games.

The pastel colors and textures didn’t do any good for my sight, as I couldn’t identify many elements in the open world. During the exploration in the first town, I tried panning the camera, although the way it moved as well as the perspective gave me nausea. Traversing the town was painful, to say the least, and I was constantly losing my sense of direction because I wanted the camera to stay static, except I had to move it, either left or right, to see my characters. I tried the map, maybe it could help me, yet I found it very hard to read. I barely used it, but of course, I had to in order to complete the first quests. Navigating the dungeon (sewers?) was easy, but the combat appeared to be very convoluted. I didn’t enjoy navigating the menus, and at a certain point, I had loads of crap I didn’t know what to do with. The thing is, this was not like Shin Megami Tensei or Persona, where I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to learn it so badly. In Sky, I just wanted it to be over with. -400 Willpower.

I pressed on and completed the quest where we had to save two or three kids. Then we had to go all the way back to the village and then home. I found my way back home (took me a while) and read the conversation between Estelle, Joshua, and their father. It was a cozy moment of respite. Our father had to depart somewhere, and we would be on our own from then on, completing quests to get stronger and wiser. I’d love to see the story through, but I decided to say my goodbyes to our father at the station before closing the game for good. It was the least I could do. I cared about those characters, but I cared more about myself. +100 Dodge.

I even read some guides without spoilers and intended to put my experience out there. I’m glad I didn’t because the Trails community can be very… passionate, especially when there’s conflict of opinions, and I didn’t have the time nor energy to deal with the consequences of my ramblings. Some kind souls on Reddit expressed the need for a full-on remake of the Sky trilogy to accommodate new players. You can only imagine the backlash. It wasn’t violent, but if you’re any good at reading between the lines, there were layers there. It’s like saying in public that you’re happy with the implementation of casual mode in Fire Emblem. Layers.

You could ask me why you want to like a game so badly? Because I lack a personality of my own. It’s because I’ve read countless words of love about the series. I wanted to partake in that love and sense of discovery and adventure. Trails games are known for their long and riveting story arcs. I don’t think it’s wrong to at least experience one of those arcs, even if it’s not the best one. Thus, I decided to dig further, comparing games, taking a closer look at screenshots, and finally going for Trails of Cold Steel on this week’s sale.

Before launching the game, I had to go through the config tool. I enjoy testing different types of settings, but I didn’t have much time. The 2 hours mark, remember? I launched the game. The first cutscene was stuttering at times. Something went wrong, the clock was ticking, I had to quit the game, enter the config tool again, and lower the MSAA. It got better with no visible loss. I just wanted to try the game to see if it was playable or if it had buildings trying to aim at my jaw. And, Seiros in heaven, it was! It’s a 3D game. I’m inside the environment with no camera or angle issues. I was never so happy to experience such an evolution! The map was readable, with zoom in/out and camera angles. The textures were fine, and due to the lighting and sharpness, I didn’t even have to squint!

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I’d like to play more but it was too late yesterday. Estelle isn’t there, nor is the rural setting from Sky. I’m at a military academy, in a special class with commoners and nobles, a bit like in Three Houses. I’d like to have time to try the combat at my level. The game started some months after the initial events, so the first fight went smoothly with no issues. I tried crafts, attacks, and arts. I think it’s possible to build a nice variety of characters with buffs, debuffs, and magic attacks without freaking out about the menu navigation. Making plans is always a good sign. I’m still on the fence, though, but I found this first experience very promising.

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I’ve played a bit more today and decided to keep the game. There’s only so much we can do on a Trails game before the timer runs out. There’s a lot of dialogue, and I didn’t find it necessary to skip anything. The game shows its age in terms of graphics, but everything else seems to be working just fine. Occasionally, I experienced some minor issues with character movement when I break objects, but it’s nothing serious, at least so far. I’m curious about some characters and what they have in store for our group. I only went through the normal introductions and inside the first dungeon. I experimented with the combat and familiarized myself with the ARCUS combat orbment. I’ll learn as I go, as I always do. This can be the beginning of a love story or just a good time! I’m good with either! In the end, I forgot to ask myself if I had the time to play it.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/02/21/trails-through-frustration/

#adventureGames #bandaiNamco #erebonianEmpire #falcom #fandom #gaming #jrpgs #marvelous_ #pcGaming #rpg #steam #storyRich #theLegendOfHeroes #trailsOfColdSteel #turnBased #videoGames #xseed

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swordofseiros.wordpress.com, 4 months ago to gaming

A director calls a number of artists to a meeting. No one knows anything about the next project they’ll be working on. After coffee is served and everyone has gotten their share of cake, a commission is laid out along these lines — create a cyberpunk setting in the form of a city isolated from the outside world; a bit less cyber and a bit more punk. Insert stylish anime characters in it, sporting urban and comfortable clothing, wearing artsy makeup and piercings. With everything else, please go absolutely wild. No limits to the imagination, especially inside a dimension called the Mystery Labyrinth. If you want to defy space, time and gravity, you can. If you want to insert random elements in space disconnected from each other, you can. If you want to play with colors, textures, structures and use those assets you didn’t know what to do with, you also can. This game will be your canvas and we will be here to bring those ideas into fruition. In the city, where the story takes place, neon lights must be everywhere, except in shady areas. The color palette must be pink, pink, yellow, pink, purple, blue and pink. In this city it will rain constantly, which is a great opportunity to make the colors blend into the shimmering water covering the ground.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024011314383200_s1-1.jpg?w=1024Kunai Ward, the neon cityhttps://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024010900450500_s1.jpg?w=1024Inside the Mystery Labyrinth

This is pretty much how I imagined a meeting taking place inside the developer’s headquarters. Since I live in a city where it rains at least once every day of the year, I’d give anything for those neon lights. The urban reality of Rain Code is very similar to my own, except we don’t have a shady mega-corporation responsible for the infrastructure, power supply and secret experiments… or do we? This requires a thorough investigation from the World Detective Organization! I will get in touch and will let you know about any further developments! I’ll try to steer clear from Halara Nightmare to avoid more debt. Even though she’s one of the best detectives, very efficient and insightful, her work is extremely expensive to contract.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024010902330800_s1-2.jpg?w=1024https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024011314383900_s1.jpg?w=1024

Ok, let’s not digress any further. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code is a new series (or I hope it will be) developed by Spike Chunsoft and Too Kyo Games. The CEO of Too Kyo Games is Kazutaka Kodaka, the creator of the Danganronpa series, and the designer of Rain Code. Masafumi Takada, also having worked in the Danganronpa series, composed the beautiful soundtrack of Rain Code in his unique atmospheric jazzy style. The game was released last year (2023) and only for Nintendo Switch. Why the game is an exclusive, considering that many Spike Chunsoft games are also available on PC, beats my understanding. It is, however, a jewel on the Switch that risks being forgotten among the thousands of extraordinary games on the platform. In all its uniqueness, I think Rain Code is a niche game, and even on PC it would remain so. I don’t know why that is, or even why such a beautiful piece of art can be so fleeting. There’s not much people in the community talking about Rain Code, at least in the West (you know, that big country that The West is) but I believe it has a strong fanbase, spanning from East to West, with strength in dedication, although not in numbers.

Rain Code tells the story of Yuma Kokohead, a young man who wakes up in the lost-and-found section of a train station. Wouldn’t you know, he doesn’t remember who he is! Where did I hear this before? Ah, Utawarerumono and pretty much every other Japanese visual novel I could think of. As any other amnesia story, everything just goes a bit crazy from here, maybe a bit crazier than we’re used to. The thing is that Yuma has, within himself, something or someone who perfectly remembers who he is. A shinigami, or as we say in The West, a god of death! A goddess, to be more exact, and a beautiful one at it, who takes the form of a cute little ghost when she travels the real world with Yuma. Of course, this realization was very confusing to him. It seems like sometime in the past, he made a contract with this shinigami a la Death Note, and now he’s stuck with it, not entirely aware, if at all, of its consequences. Within his belongings, he also finds a letter with a contract to investigate something undisclosed at Kanai Ward, a city detached from the outside world and run by the Amaterasu Corporation, an all-powerful company with its fair share of secrets. He’s supposed to take the train and meet with the other Master Detectives, hoping that someone would remember who he is. That he did, but things didn’t go as expected.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024013022452600_s1.jpg?w=1024Shinigami with Yumahttps://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024010823560000_s1.jpg?w=1024Yuma and Shinigami dancing

From the time Yuma enters the train, we initiate our first investigation. At the end of the trip to Kanai Ward, Yuma is pretty much in panic. He doesn’t find the most welcoming party when he arrives either. He’s actually going to get arrested for a string of grisly murders that happened on the train. He is surrounded by the Peacekeepers, a special force dedicated to keeping peace, enforcing law and administering punishment (usually the latter). The good part is that we had time to gather a lot of evidence during the trip, and in the nick of time the shinigami halted time and opened a portal. Yuma was most likely kicked or punched into it by the shinigami and ended up in a place called the Mystery Labyrinth. The purpose of the labyrinth is, with the help of Shinigami, finding the truth about a murder case by solving a variety of puzzles and battles. Our weapon, the Solution Blade, suggestively taken out from inside Shinigami’s throat, holds the Solution Keys used to solve puzzles, answer questions, and battle with bosses.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024012815321100_s1.jpg?w=1024*Inside a Mystery Labyrinth. I love the random elements floating there!*Don’t expect the Labyrinth to be like the castles in Persona 5 convoluted with rooms, backtracking and hidden paths. The Mystery Labyrinth is very linear, despite being an alternate area called labyrinth, no backtracking and no exploration is necessary. The path is straightforward and in order to unlock a room you need to solve the mystery within it, which is always related to the case itself. It can be Crime Scene Recreations, Reasoning Death Matches (RDMs), Shinigami Puzzles, questions that pop up during chase/platforming sequences, and God Shinigami QTE/questions. There’s some variation to this depending on which chapter we’re in. It is, actually, my favorite part of the game, where I can test my deduction skills with the information I’ve learned during the investigation in the real world. No, my skills don’t work that well (heh), but even the failure is funny and it doesn’t bring any punishment apart from stamina loss. I never experienced what happens when we run out of stamina for constantly failing at challenges but I presume we have to restart the Labyrinth from the beginning.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024013022533200_s1.jpg?w=1024Navigating inside a Mystery Labyrinthhttps://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024013111253100_s1.jpg?w=1024There’s always a challenge at the end

The RDMs are interesting because it’s where we fight the phantom of a person from the real world. They try to trick us and deviate us away from the truth. We use Solution Keys to refute statements thrown at us, like attacks. We can get damage if we fail the exact match between a statement and a refute, but the shinigami helps us get there by giving hints. So be careful and read her dialogues when you refute a statement with the wrong Solution Key. These statements are sentences and comments literally thrown at you. You have to dodge the white ones, refute the red ones and repel the blue ones. I experienced a bit of jank while moving my character and not only in battle. Since this is not a game with real combat I can’t see any negatives apart from it being a bit annoying. Our character can either run outdoors or walk indoors but we can’t control how fast the running goes. So crossing the districts to find Gumshoe Gabs (memory shards to unlock dialogues with the other detectives) will require a bit of time and legwork. Fortunately, fast travel is available between areas, and each area, apart from the Kamazaki District, is not very big.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024012623441600_s1.jpg?w=1024A Mystery Phantom is a reflection of a person from the real worldSo, after beating the Mystery Labyrinth, we finally enter Kanai Ward, the neon city as I described above. It’s so pretty, with all the reflections of neon lights against the rain water. Yuma meets his boss, Yakou Furio, the one who kept trying to recruit new Master Detectives but kept getting notices of their deaths. It seems like no one wants them there, but why? Yakou needs help finding the Kanai Ward’s ultimate secret. It can’t be more vague than this! Another group of Master Detectives also arrived at the destination apparently unscathed. I wonder how Fubuki pulled that out… They’re the best of the best, and each one will be Yuma’s companions for the next four chapters, being the fifth the final one. There’s one criminal investigation per chapter without counting the five DLC episodes which focus on investigations from the perspective of the other Master Detectives.

https://swordofseiros.files.wordpress.com/2024/01/2024013022395100_s1.jpg?w=1024*A rainbow Shinigami!*So, if Rain Code doesn’t have traditional combat, and it isn’t a visual novel, what kind of game is it? I’d say it’s part visual novel, because there are many sequences that resemble one, albeit with more action and a faster pace. It has a leveling system, skill trees and side quests but it isn’t exactly an rpg. It’s a detective sim, with the deduction puzzles and the Labyrinth sections. It’s overall a big mystery adventure that shouldn’t be overlooked by any fan of Japanese games. Shinigami sent me a memo later today. It reads like this: I’ll curse you if you don’t play this mysteriful game and find the ultimate truth through perfect deduction.

https://swordofseiros.wordpress.com/2024/01/31/master-detective-archives-rain-code/

#adventureGames #Danganronpa #detectiveSim #gaming #investigation #japanese #JRPG #jrpgs #mystery #nintendoSwitch #rainCode #shinigami #spikeChunsoft #storyRich #TooKyoGames #videoGames #videogames #visualNovels

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