Three The Hard Way is one of the classics of exploitation cinema.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25RdRdiw2Uo Parodied and referenced in virtually every homage to the blaxploitation genre, from I'm Gonna Git You Sucka to Black Dynamite, and built around an all-star cast, it's one of the many, many movies well worth watching from the 1970s- Excuse me.  Three The Hard Way is one of the classics of RPG Maker 2000. In the canon of the nebulous world of Game Maker, RPG Maker, and all the other funky GUI systems to make making video games easier, TTHW stands up there with Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Released in 2003 by a guy with the handle "iishenron", with only a Dragon Ball Z fangame under his belt, and much beloved, blah blah blah, TTHW is many things, and we will experience them together, but above all, it is known as a hard game. So I'm going to take the time to break things down a little, peek at the mechanics, and blather about amateur game design. Thread Junk: I, personally, don't care about spoilers, but the rules thread suggests you put them in tags. More to come as the thread degenerates. Formatting Junk: Plain text is my commentary. Italicized text is direct quotation from the game. Co-commenters will receive bold or underlined text as necessary. I'm currently recording the game in its native resolution, which produces fairly small images compared to the text. Let me know if you would prefer me to stretch them slightly and I will update them. Table of Contents: Chapter One: Prologue and Act One, Scene One Chapter Two, Part One: The Job System Chapter Two, Part Two: The Job System With that said, let's begin! Effectronica fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Aug 30, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 03:26
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Part One: Prologue, and Act One, Scene One Today I will be joined by WindmillSlayer, commenting boldly.    Already we can see that Three The Hard Way has been sponsored by not just two Japanese companies, but also the world's most popular character-encoding scheme. Heavy poo poo. TTHW has a lovely soundtrack consisting of an eclectic mix of anime songs, jazz, funk, some Marley, the Toreador song from Carmen, and ripped videogame tunes, all in MIDI and WAV formats. Apart from the copyright issues from uploading these en masse, puzzling out the exact locations of all of these is not the easiest task, so I will be using this playlist as a guide. Unfortunately, some of the songs have been pulled for copyright violations, so not all of them can be determined at this moment. The title tune is one of these, labeled within the game's internal files as simply "Three The Hard Way". It's nice and catchy, and helps get the spirit of the game in mind. Why, you could sit for a few minutes, humming along. I did this. Effectronica originally showed me a 20 minute video where almost five minutes was a single screen, and I stuck around and just hummed.  Starting the game, we are confronted with this Hegel quote. "What experience and history teach us is this- that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it." This is somewhat relevant to the game, but by the time you get to that point, you've probably already forgotten it. Nifty trick for the dedicated TTHW fanbase, who replay the game every year, puzzle out the hidden meanings, hold a tiny convention in the Marion, Ohio VFW hall... I tried to google this, and the first result for "Three the Hard Way convention is about trout.  This... was my story. A great evil had arisen to plague and ravage the world I lived in. No one knew where the monsters known as Kaibutsu came from, but their goals were quite clear... The sound of wind begins to play, as the curtains part onto:  Genshu, from Suikoden 2.  Many villages had suffered this fate at the hands of these wicked creatures that appeared, but now it was different. My own family had been murdered by them...I swore that day to fight with the best of my ability until the last of them was destroyed.   The BGM shifts to a song labeled "FreezerSon.mid". They decided to go forth and destroy the menace, no matter the cost.   It soon became apparent to me that, I, Carolus, was mankind's last hope. The only thing standing in the way of victory or destruction. But why had these monsters attacked? Who was behind it? I set out to learn the answers to these mysteries. Lightning flashes and thunder rolls.  Olanta: The Kaibutsu are completely under my control. Now is the time to begin cleansing the world of the humans. I now focus the mystical energies of the world...I like to pretend that this part is dubbed like it's a 1965 Hong Kong import. It fits really well. Who's coming? Now a song labeled "urotski" starts playing. How can this be... How can my sister be the one behind these creatures... and all of this destruction?You'd never understand what I'm trying to do.I can't allow this to continue any longer. What? What is that power?!A blade forged from the hope of the people you have tormented, sister. A blade I call Kibou.The power... I can't believe the power!I have no choice... you MUST DIE!  After I defeated my sister, the Kaibutsu lost their great power, and disappeared. In their wake was a world devastated by the effects of constant fighting. People looked to me, the one who had defeated their invincible enemy, for answers.And thus I became their king.However, these events occurred 65 long years ago. I am no longer the man I once was... no longer able to lead a lost people. But do they really need my leadership? What happens when the one that saved the world and gave the world hope becomes old and infirm? Who or what fills the void?So Carolus is at least 79 years old, and probably somewhere in his eighties. Boy, this sure is going to be unconventional!   Jazz classic "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" plays as we open up our first act with a young man speaking to his father. Dad, along with anyone else without a face, will be played by the veteran character actress "Question Mark against a Black Background", with her understudies assisting as need be.  Yeah, I did. The neighbors are upset. They believe you stole their kitten and skinned it alive. So what do you have to say for yourself? Like I'd tell you. What was that?Look, I'm sorry. I'm just tired, OK?Listen, all I ask is that you pull your fair share around here.Hmpf.The shut the gently caress up dad meme.  Or should I say, boring Somerset. There's nothing to do here but help my father serve the idiots who stop by for drinks every night. I hate this town. There's nothing to do here, nobody to meet here. If I had enough money I'd blow this town, see the world, and make a load of money while I'm at it. I just need the right excuse to get out of here... who am I kidding? I'll never get out of this dead-end town... with no cash. Hmm... might as well head to North's and see what he's up to.And with that, a track named "SukiTpItte" (a midi-d version of this Sailor Moon song) begins to play and we are thrust into the embrace of gameplay. TTHW uses the standard set of RPG Maker controls. Enter/Z interacts with things, Escape/X cancels things and opens the menu, the arrow keys move you around. Before we do anything else, let's open up the menu.  Standard stuff. Items, (we have none), Techniques, Equipment, Save Game, Quit. Vance, here, has 15 HP and no MP.  He completely lacks skills.  And his numbers are tiny. The Dull Switchblade adds 1 to Attack, while Vance's Cloth Shirt adds 2 to Defense. Vance uses knives and swords as weapons, and equips heavier armor. Of course, without any context this won't mean anything, so let's get back to playing, shall we?  First, let's explore the town. Right outside of the bar is a little girl who says hello to Vance.  Heading north, we find another building,  with a fairly hostile occupant. One day she'll look back and be depressed she didn't go on an epic adventure with Our Hero.  Heading westward, we find this friendly fellow. Yeah?Have you taken a look at your stats recently?What about them?I'm sure you've noticed that you're pitifully weak.So? I might not have high stats, but I know how to have fun. Plus I'm good looking.Whatever. I just heard you're thinking of leaving town and I wanted to warn you about the monsters out there.Heh, the day I lose hair worrying about a couple of slimes is the day I settle down and serve drinks like pop.This completely naturalistic conversation serves to inform us obliquely that our numbers are tiny and not going to get gigantic, but that monsters also have numbers on par with ours. It doesn't matter if the numbers are small, it's all about how you use them. This actually doesn't seem to be very true, based on how many times Effectronica died while getting these screenshots. Moving northward, we find  a cat, that when interacted with,  meows and runs away, Vance cracking a grin. Vance. Vance baby.  To the west, we find a large house. Heading inside,  Thanks.We meet our buddy's dad.  And his mom.  (There's more air between her ears than a balloon...) Upstairs, North is nowhere to be found, unless this is an homage to classic adventure games.  Let's go outside and see if he's still around town and going to invalidate our protagonist's nascent motivations, the fuckface.  This door has a completely empty room behind it, that will remain completely empty for the rest of the game. Generations of gamers have been driven mad trying to understand this, but I consider it an excellent use of negative space in the vidcon context.  To the west, we have Somerset's only shop, which is closed right now.  This tutorial is dull enough to not be worth screenshotting in full, so I'll just summarize it. In TTHW, instead of buying healing items, you take items you receive from chests and enemies to the shop and pay to have them turned into medicines, and due to RM2K's limitations, there are two or three items at most per store. In other words, healing items are a lot rarer here than in basically any commercial JRPG. To make matters more interesting, the vendor trash you need is often fairly difficult to find until the game opens up about halfway through. The key thing here is that most JRPGs give you far more healing than you'll ever need, so TTHW's healing items handed out in chests are common enough to keep this from making the game too hard, or really hard at all. Well, there is one interesting tidbit from the tutorial.  SPOILER ALERT: This will be relevant at some point in the game! With that finished, we have explored every building in Somerset, and having explored the outside, North is not anywhere to be seen. Before we leave, let's head back to the bar and see if there's a save point or anything inside.  Or we can talk to dear old dad.  Can I go now?Go do what? I need your help lifting boxes.Sure, whatever. See ya 'round, pop. Downstairs, we find a magic circle, (a relic of Vance's Goth stage), beds, boxes of swords, or maybe umbrellas, and a nightstand.  The nightstand is the only thing with a comment from Vance, while the magic circle is a save point. I save. We can also use the bed as a free inn, which is pretty important as money is fairly scarce in this game.  Finally, we have one last guy to visit.  Well, the Kita style that North practices is really simple to learn compared to the Minami style because it uses MP.What's MP?I don't really know. But the Minami styles use HP. I hear it's a real drag, but the Minami techniques are more powerful and versatile than the Kita techniques North uses.Heh, I bet North would have something to say to that statement.I know there are people out there desperate to make some sicknasty jokes about fourth walls, "meta", and so on. Let me stop you right there. MP is a completely real thing within the rich, detailed Three The Hard Way Universe, or "Hardverse" as the true fans call it. Hahah, yeah, this game never breaks the fourth wall. More importantly, this guy provides some more foreshadowing, but also lies.  See, it's ironic because we're leaving Somerset! Ahahaha!! Irony doesn't belong in the grey forums, shame on you.  Leaving the town, we venture forth onto the world map, and hear our first overworld theme: ElHazardOAV2_Open, this little ditty. Taking a few steps forward,  we enter another map, and are confronted by a heavyset man in a suit and glasses. Looks like the FBI has a few questions for Vance, but he cleverly takes advantage of their one weakness- being asked questions first. Can't say that I have. I'm here to talk to you, Vance.I'm a pretty popular guy today, it seems. What's up?I'm here to warn you. You're about to embark on a series of trials, and I'm not sure that you'll live through them all. Yeah, whatever. Now out of my way.Of course, this rascally expositor doesn't move out of the way, but gives us a quick tutorial on how character development and skills work. Instead, I'll provide a more in-depth explanation. In Three The Hard Way, nobody levels up, or gains experience. Instead, each group of monsters has a number associated with it. If you defeat them, after the battle, each character has their four base stats, 1/2 their HP, and 2/3rds their MP added together. This number is then subtracted from the monster number, and this value is compared to a random number generated between 1 and 10. If this number is greater than the random value, the character gains stats, otherwise nothing happens. In other words, if the monster number is eleven or more greater than your stats value, you'll always gain stats (HP and MP in units of 2), if it's between one and ten greater you have a chance of gaining stats, and once your stats value is equal or higher then you'll never gain stats. Boss values are almost always set so that you'll gain stats from them. Once that's settled, each character has weighted chances for any given stat to go up, like in Fire Emblem. Vance has perfectly even growths, so combined with his base stats he'll generally be fast and an all-rounder. In addition, you have skills. There are four different categories of skills. First of all, you can get skills from certain items or plot events. You can also gain temporary skills, marked with a little sun icon, from equipping gear. Third, you can get some permanent skills from fighting battles with certain temporary skills, or just fighting battles. Finally, there are also "desperation skills" which are acquired in any of these ways. These go off randomly when your character is very low on HP. With that, here are some highlights from the tutorial:   Fun fact: Vance starts with 0 MP, so this is a literal statement.  In addition, we get a "menu prism", which records exposition like this, gives gamestats, allows you to change the difficulty, and basically supplements the shoddy default menu screen.  I picked hard, of course, but it doesn't matter for this dungeon. The only things affected by difficulty are the bosses, and the first boss doesn't have a hard mode form. We can change back freely, but I probably won't.  With that out of the way, Me and Mrs. Jones starts to play and we can begin dungeon number one: Somerset Forest. First of all, that branch isn't walkable.  The branch down here, however, is. I think I'm gonna call this, "challenging the player to think creatively" and pick up some of that sweet kotaku clickbait bread. I write for kotaku, by the way, you can read my articles here. Anyways,  This chest has a tonic, the basic healing item. It recovers 25 HP, which is going to be a substantial number for the majority of the game. Before I can go over and inspect the chest on the previous screen, we get into a random battle.  Slimes have one thing they can do.  This one doesn't get a chance to show it off because I kill it in one hit.  We get a  We win our first "level", which I won't put in quotes from now on, gaining 1 point of Mind. The rest of the dungeon before the boss yields us two shots of 2 MP.  Finally, a slime showing off its single ability- it can hit us for 0 or 1 damage. They also miss us a lot, thanks to our high agility. Sometimes they show up in packs of two The other two enemies here, the Bat and Leech, I didn't encounter this time around. They're genuinely dangerous, thanks to their HP-draining abilities, which knock off around 4-6 HP.  The chest up to the north contains this mysterious item.  Slimes are weak enough you'll start seeing these very quickly.  Remember this log, which is currently impassable.  Finally, we reach the obligatory puzzle.   "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." This maze can be brute-forced, but the initial move is so unintuitive that I doubt anyone would figure it out without a lot of work. Thankfully, going right always takes you back to the previous screen.  A save point. Boss fight coming up, spoiler alert. I save.  The following sequence deserves to be shown in full. The music stops. *hissing sound*  *hissing again*    What sounds most like a remixed, midi'd version of the boss theme from Super Double Dragon starts playing, and we begin our first boss fight, against...  A cobra-looking rattlesnake.  We hit for a consistent 2 damage, while the Rattler has 30 HP.  The Rattler's most dangerous move is this, hitting for 4-6 damage.  However, the Rattler's ordinary attack, its only other move, is only as powerful as the slime's. It prefers this attack slightly, which is good, because we can easily be taken out in three rounds of bites. These early stages, before you have any skills, and with a limited ability to gain stats before the first boss, are the most dependent on luck. Rattler biting you six times in a row will almost certainly bring you down, even with your tonic. Even if it rolls low, you still only get seven turns instead. You need 15 turns to kill the Rattler. This is probably why people think of TTHW as an incredibly hard game, because even in, say, SMT Nocturne or Strange Journey, other "hard games", Forneus or Orias generally can't kill you without you making boneheaded mistakes. In the video Effectronica died to the rattler repeatedly a few times. It took me a second to realize that it wasn't that he was playing badly, but that there legitimately isn't another way to kill it beside just hoping it'll all work out in the end. This is possibly a symptom of a common problem with RPG Maker and other amateur games- where most commercial games are frontloaded to get better reviews, amateur games tend to be backloaded as the makers refine their skills throughout the development process. It's also a natural problem with having small numbers- you have a smaller margin to do things in. But this is basically a hump for TTHW. Pass this, and you start getting the tools necessary to minimize pure luck.   When Rattler goes down, it gives us ten whole Disney Dollars and vendor trash. All ordinary enemies (barring one sidequest enemy) only drop 1 GP each. Bosses give you a bit more, but monsters aren't pinatas full of cash here.   Vance is a pretty good protagonist, and gives this game a large part of its feel.  And we pick up 2 HP as well.  I dunno why this little screen is here, since, alerte spoiler, we don't have to go through all of this dungeon again to get back to Somerset. It's all part of the puzzle, this room, the empty room from before, and any subsequent completely empty rooms when all overlayed with %99 percent transparency will show a picture of Samus in a bikini..  In any case, here's a good place to stop. Next time: Vance finds honest employment, exposition, his buddy North. Effectronica fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 03:30
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wait what does this have to do with black people
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Aug 27, 2014 03:39
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gently caress trophy 2k14 posted:wait what does this have to do with black people Wow, dude, spoilers already? I'm gonna call the thread police on you.
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Aug 27, 2014 03:42
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This game is loving great. I've never met anyone else who ever played it; it'll be cool to see some of the stuff I inevitably missed in my own playthrough.
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Aug 27, 2014 03:47
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I'm more of a Disco Godfather man myself, but to each their own!
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Aug 27, 2014 03:48
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tane
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Aug 27, 2014 04:06
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I like the degree of analysis that is going into this LP, and the game doesn't seem to be as aggressively terrible as most RPG Maker products I've seen. Definitely going to follow this.
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Aug 27, 2014 15:43
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So you've got a tutorial dungeon you can never return to? That's... certainly a thing.
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Aug 28, 2014 00:03
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Could you make your screenshots a bit bigger? They are pretty tiny.
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Aug 28, 2014 18:15
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Chapter 2, Part One: The Job System Welcome back to Three The Hard Way. I'd like to apologize for the grotesque and unappealing nature of some of the screenshots today. Fortunately a solution has been found, but not in time to repair these.  We start off with a wide world to explore. What places shall we visit on our quest to find that rascally North?  Let's go for the nearest place, the first one visible on our map.  I chose to stay with my father, because as boring as Somerset is, it's even worse out here. We can go up and knock, but all we get is this. This map's position in the game's internal files suggest that Vance's mom was added fairly late in development, and there are a couple of other pieces of evidence to suggest this that will come up next update. Unfortunately, she's placed in exactly the right position to distract players from going on to the real objective, but that's not a big deal in and of itself. The music here is another unknown tune, known solely as TTHW- Final Act bgm.mid.  Next, we can try to cross the bridge.  Of course, we can't just yet. After we finish talking to the guard, night falls. TTHW has an internal clock ticking along that every so often switches day to night and so on. At night, the screen is dimmed, and different characters will appear in certain locations. The music playing here is supposedly the Cave Theme from Sailor Moon: Another Story. It's what TTHW uses as a general theme for outdoor locations that aren't cities or outright dungeons.  This mildly conspicuous open patch turns out to contain:  Another tutorial! This one, well,  Rope.  Little patches of discolored ground.  Combine to provide our first skill scroll. Only Vance can use this one, and it teaches him "charge-up", which boosts his attack by a substantial amount.  After putting it on Vance, let's check out the Menu Prism.  In addition to Tutorials and Difficulty (fairly obvious), we have Game Stats, which tells us all this, and how long in real time until sunset/sunrise. There are also three locked items.  We head westward, and come to this little town, called Branchville.  Where am I? What is this place?The little kid, seeing an opportunity, runs on by. Hey! You little thief! Come back here with my money!drat! He got most of my money!There goes our Monopoly money.  I didn't see anything... It happened too quickly.Branchville's music is called "maruko.mid" and probably has something to do with Chibi Maruko-chan, a long-running girl's manga and anime.    The people of Branchville have bounty hunters on the brain, barring this elderly lady, who is contemplating existentialism. If only we were playing Being and Nothingness instead.  In the illegal English translations of RPG Maker 2000 and 2003, and for all I know in the Japanese as well, the default name for character slot 1 is Alex and he uses this sprite.  Branchville's shop is only open during the day, while the bar and the weapons shop are, despite the lighting problems, only open at night.  More right-wing leaning parts of the kingdom will tend to have better weaponry. But of course, there are always exceptions.Uh... yeeeah...Inside, a vacationing soldier of Final Fantasy 6's Empire tries to explain why gear gets better as we progress through the game via politics.  The kid steals all but 5 GP from you, unless you didn't have that much. I won't bother with this stuff for now because we can get free equivalents or even better stuff starting in about five minutes.  I'm waiting for the next job.Going back up to the pub, we can see that these Imperial soldiers are actually bounty hunters. Whew!  For instance, do they think most places would allow bounty hunters to operate freely like this? Anyway, what would you like? Coffee cures the Stupor condition, aka drunkenness. Sake is split between the party and causes drunkenness. It's a vicious cycle. I do my part by buying two of each later.  This seems somewhat ominous with the ellipsis.   I'm thinking of starting an anti-Duke Salem front cuz I'm tired of the poo poo he's been doing. Damned government... we ought to do something about that damned Duke Salem and his tyranny.Leaving the curiously blue teenage Marxists behind, we complete our right-handed spiral here.  Whatever. Heh, why don't you do yourself a favor and stick your attitude where the sun don't shine? You talk a lot for someone who can't back it up.It doesn't matter if I'm against a fiery dragon or a drunk like you, a well-placed shiv will do in either one.You're out of your league. Allow me to demonstrate. John Coltrane's Blue Train starts to play. Get him out of my sight. Nothing, Lauren. Just a young punk causing trouble. I'll get rid of him. No, I have a better idea. Take him downstairs.But... very well, if you insist.As we awaken, a song called "special.mid" plays.  So how long have I been knocked out?Two days.Two DAYS?!By the way, what's your name?I'm called Vance.Vance. You're lucky to be alive. Clifton used the Konsui pressure point technique on you. It's impressive that you're awake again after only two days. You have a lot of potential.Potential for what?I think someone with your potential could make a lot of money.Is that so? Sounds interesting.I think you'll make a good bounty hunter, in time.A bounty hunter, huh? Well... I don't really know...Why not?This involves work, right?It involves pay, too. Potentially a lot of it.Tell me more.  I'll start you with some easy jobs. Or do you have somewhere better to go?(I wanted to find North, but if it's been 2 whole days... I'll have to catch up with him another time.) Okay, I'm listening. What kind of jobs are you talking about?Right now I have three jobs available. Take your pick, but I have to warn you, it's sometimes hard for beginners.Hey, you DID say I have a lot of potential, right? I just want to make some money.Right. Take your pick. Now we get to the critical part of Three The Hard Way. These decisions will determine the course of our actions for minutes to come. In any case, later on in the game bounty hunter jobs will be completely optional,but here all three of them need to be completed. I'm sure that you can figure out what job #1 involves, so I'm going to instead do things the first way I played the game and go through #2, then #3.  Doesn't sound like all that much.Perhaps not, but the boy's father runs a shop, and has quite a bit of money. He's offering 25 GP to find the dog.(If I'm supposed to be some big bad bounty hunter now, I don't know if I wanna waste my time with a dog.) We take it anyways.  Right.Remember, no matter what, you must complete your mission.Right. And I'm getting paid when this is over?If you're successful.Sounds like I'm about to have some fun.Lauren is our first Heroes of Might and Magic face, but not our last one. Anyways, let's head on over.   Rather than go through this whole conversation, let me summarize: Lassie fell down the well and little Timmy is useless.   We find what looks suspiciously like a dungeon down the well. Aw, man, this sucks! That dog could be anywhere down here!Well, well, well.I admire the psychological realism in making the hard-drinking bounty hunter tell lovely jokes and probably chuckle to himself about them. What are you doing down here, Clifton? Let me guess... like all worms you're digging as far underground as possible.And here I was gonna lend you a hand. But... if you don't WANT my help, kid...Actually, I don't.Well, you're gonna get it anyway. Lauren sent me, so as much as we both hate it, this is something we're gonna have to do together.Fine, you can come. But I get the money from this job. All of it. The writing here in TTHW uses fairly stock characters, drawing slightly broader than from JRPGs alone into the realms of 90s anime, and you'll see what I mean as we meet more people, but they interact really well with one another.    Clifton has fairly useless innate skills, as Konsui Strike does nothing and Scan doesn't work on boss enemies, where you'd want it the most. However, he's well ahead of Vance in stats for right now, and it's good to have him along here. His growths are even except for good HP and bad MP. He uses swords and equips heavier armor.  Heading north, we follow the obvious trail,  And discover a secret room with Hide Armor, which is better than Clifton's gear and adds a defense buff skill. It goes right on Vance.  Further north, there's a t-junction. I go right.  We get ten bucks, an antidote, and a reminder to look for secret rooms in dungeons.  Spiders are the only enemy down here, and they are about three times as strong as a slime, (HP of 13 versus 4, stats of 6 versus 2) but otherwise identical.  Going left unveils this little chamber. It's puzzle time.  Here are the rules.  Here's the initial condition.  Here's the solution.  Remember way back in Update 1 when I talked about frontloading versus backloading? TTHW's dungeons are pretty good examples of this. The first three (spoiler alert) are all simple linear treks with a basic puzzle towards the end. They improve markedly as the game goes on. Of course, the dungeons are still generally ways to block you from going somewhere, so there are only a handful that are internally non-linear.  Oh, and we're almost at the boss!  A dog's barking plays. I take it that's the mutt you're looking for.Yeah. How about that. I wonder what the gently caress it's barking at.Well, what are you waiting for? Pick up the dog so we can get out of here.Hold on a second. There's something coming up from down in the water.What in the...What IS that thing?! And here's the boss. Sanshouo is a lot like the Rattler. More than twice as much HP (65 vs. 30), much bigger stats, but generally Sanshouo will have the same basic pattern. Attack, stronger attack, move between targets. It does have a debuffing "acid breath" attack it never used, for whatever reason.  This time, we have more things we can do, although I stupidly didn't bother to grind out Vance's tech Charge Slice, which drops defense and damages, before facing Sanshouo.  Clifton has enough MP to take a bit less than half out of Sanshouo's HP before going to grinding it down with normal attacks.  Vance has just doubled his attack strength, but I forgot that buffs don't stack easily so I stupidly wasted the rest of my MP on this.  As a result, Clifton dies and Vance is on the verge of death before  Sanshouo collapses.  We get 15 GP out of this. You know, you weren't that bad there, but don't let it get to your head. I can still kick your rear end.Whatever. Let's just get out of here so I can get paid. I'll check it out. You stay here with the mutt. Fine. I'll pay you when I get back.  Before we leave, I strip away Clifton's weapon and helmet, and give them to Vance.  The Bokken adds +4 attack, and the tech Bokken Slice, which Clifton showed off in the Sanshouo fight. The Leather Helmet just adds 1 to defense and no techs.  Vance finally learns Charge Slice on the way out.  Yeah, whatever.Clifton leaves, and we head back to the house.   But as we go up,   Vance terrorizes a small child. There, I think that's all the money you stole. Now where's the chest?In the hallway. Please... don't tell dad, OK? I just wanted some cash, but my allowance is too low.And yet they had enough to put out a bounty on a mutt. Get out of my way.Yes, sir. This update is getting pretty unwieldy, so I'm going to split it into two parts. Next time, we finish out the jobs, find North, and discover the game's first big dick move.
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Aug 30, 2014 18:55
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Chapter 2, Part Two WindmillSlayer continues to comment in bold.  We head back on over to Lauren's only to find Clifton kicking back.  Vance takes the mature, reasonable course of action.  Downstairs, we meet back up with Lauren, and we get a basic spiel about how if we want more money we've gotta negotiate that with the client. That done, we pick the "Escort Services" job.  A challenge, eh? Sounds like it'll pay a lot.25 GP. You have to help escort two traveling merchants to the town of Elloree. Escort...They have more details, and they're waiting in town for us to send them an escort.And I'm your guy, if the price is right. Sure, why not. A couple of merchants... sounds like I could make a great deal more than 25 GP off of them.They'll be waiting outside of town.Then we get the little spiel again about completing our mission.  We take a nap so we can start bright and early.  Leaving town from any direction tosses us into a meeting with these fine folks.      We should leave out as quickly as possible. We don't want our merchandise to fall into the hands of those bandits to the south of here.Cool. Raynham has no MP or growth for it, rock-bottom Mind, low Agility, and high-end Attack, Defense, and HP. He hits like a freight train, but magic will tear him apart and he'll always go last except against trash enemies.  McDonald is less imbalanced than Raynham in terms of growths. Ordinary HP and Defense, high MP and Mind, poor Attack and Agility. He's good for techs and not much else. Raynham has a bunch of techs he could get from equipping gear, but he can't use any of them. McDonald has techs he could use, but both of them have locked gear and so the only tech he can use is Static Bolt, which does a good bit of damage to one enemy. This may be a relic of development.  We head south from Branchville.  Ordinarily, like in Chrono Trigger, there are no encounters on the overworld. However, certain areas of the map (only two or three) have random encounters due to plot events. This is one such area.  The encounters here are bandits, in groups of two or three.  They can't do much.  Like most ordinary enemies in JRPGs, they're there to annoy and wear you down.  Heading to the cave nearby, we face this puzzle. Good thing we had that tutorial!    With that, we enter dungeon #3- Elloree Pass.  On any screen where there's no light from outside, this lensflare is supposed to represent the lanterns the party would be carrying, according to the internal files. Eh. It's harder to see in the screenshots, but the lensflare doesn't move. It's stuck in the center of the screen, and really proves to do less to set the scene than to just be annoying.   There's really not that much to talk about here. The music is "At the Gates of Hell", from DooM  We go into the next chamber, which has a bunch of side-passages that end in chests that give us four total of these "Diamond Tiles",  leather gloves,  and eventually a tonic.  Finally, we come to the puzzle for this dungeon.  First, we place one here.  This takes us over here, where the blue crystal allows us to reset the puzzle and get our tiles back, if need be.  Next, let's place one over here.  Finally, this one allows us to leave the dungeon with a souvenir tile for our troubles.  Might as well pull this switch.  This allows us to bypass the whole of the dungeon if we ever come back here.  As you can see.  Going the other way gives us a save point and an exit to the outside.  Out here, we have another tonic to grab, and heading south leads us to  A cutscene. Yeah, that's what I don't get. You and your bodyguard seem to be able to handle bandits pretty well, so why hire me? I'm not complaining, I can certainly use the money, but well, you know...In these politically troubled times, we can't afford to take unnecessary chances. Surely you understand that.Political trouble? Hmph. Yet another wise rear end young punk that doesn't know diddly.The big guy speaks. Anyway, what political trouble would we have with King Carolus around?Carolus was once a powerful warrior, but age has ravaged him. He's barely fit to rule anymore. About six years ago he delegated the three dukes to serve as regents for him: Duke Salem of Burlington, Duke Winston of Beaufort, and Duke Greene of Dillon.I've heard of Duke Salem, but I've never heard of those other two dukes.Yeah... Duke Winston is rather milquetoast and runs things as Carolus did. From what it seems, he's not interested in changing anything. Duke Salem is rather libertarian in his ideas and believes in as few restrictions and regulations as possible. Duke Salem believes it is necessary for mankind to "evolve".Oh, he's a transhumanist libertarian-MRA pickup artist. With a fedora. Bet he has a reddit account, even in this semi-medieval fantasyland. I can see where that might get Salem in trouble if Winston doesn't want to change things.True, but they're not the major source of the tension. That would be Duke Greene of Dillon.What about him?      Those who stand in our way will be wiped off the planet by our great power. Judgement for them will be swift and merciless. Perhaps so, but he has a lot of power right now. The rumor is if he doesn't get his way... He'll break off from Carolus and form his own kingdom. With all of this going on, this is why I felt it necessary... To hire as much help as I could get. I see... interesting stuff.They all stop. Why are we stopping?COME OUT!!More bandits. Don't they have anything better to do? We're thrust into battle against a group of five this time. They're not any stronger.  By the end of turn three, only one guy is left.  We don't even get boss money.  We should be on our way to Elloree now. Hopefully now that it's daylight we won't see as many bandits.Yeah. This traveling McNeil-Lehrer hour has been a lot of fun, but I do need to get paid at some point. Back on the world map, Elloree is just a short ways away.  Four shacks across from pasturage, to the tune of Bob Marley's Roots Rock Reggae. God drat. Thank you for the escort, young man. Please follow us into the shop for your pay. In the shop, we have McDonald's granddaughter, and so presumably Raynham is his son or son-in-law. Or boytoy, whatever. You handle yourself well, kid. Continue to improve, you have a lot of potential.If we approach McDonald from behind his desk... Please, Vance, give this old man some space.Otherwise, Thanks again for your help. Now we can get settled in and make the potions and other items that the people up here need. Now for your pay...1000 GP.25 GP.Well, it was worth a try.Heading outside,  Usually, it's the Jim Bob types that say that.How did you know my daddy's name?Figures. Well, howdy, got anything else to say besides your name?I'm Jim Bob.Yeeeah... Inside Jim Bob's house,  We get a wooden sword.  Only 1 point better than the Bokken, and we don't get any techs from it, but it's free and Bokken Slice is obsoleted by Charge Slice anyhow.  The inn only costs four bucks.  But we head into the cave at the back of town.  It's just a straight line, playing the same music as Elloree Pass.  Along the way, we encounter a Leech. While they were dangerous just thirty minutes ago, now they're trivial since we can kill them in one hit.  We also encounter some Brown Slimes.  They're about as dangerous as their green cousins.  Even when they self-destruct, it causes minimal damage. At the other end,  At least I got paid. I better head back to Lauren and see if she has any more jobs... I could use the cash.Before we do that, let's see what happens when we go back into Somerset Forest.    Let's also see what's to the north of Branchville.    Sure, why not. Basically, we specialize in the power of long-lost runes. Or rather, we used to, back in the days before the Kaibutsu War... 65 years ago. Now we're committed to the reunification of our long-lost rune tablets. Basically, we need 8 rune tablet fragments for full reconstruction, so if anyone were to bring them to us... they would be rewarded with one of our many special treasures.Special treasures... I think I might keep a lookout for those, then.This area is the start of the biggest dickmove in the game. All I'm gonna say for now is that I won't collect any Rune Tablet Fragments, because the treasures here are really good and there are enough fragments to get two of them. I will point them out, though.  When we return to Branchville, it's still daylight.  Three tonics is 12 GP. That works out to 4 GP/tonic, but I will note that Hardened Slime is required for every HP healing item in the game, and there are only four monsters that drop it. We've already met two of them. Hi-ho!  Lauren once again has the same basic things to say.  After that, let's get down to business and find North.   Lauren has nothing else, so let's go find our buddy. I'm sure it will be a lengthy quest with a dungeon, puzzle, bossfight and- hey.  That wasn't open before.  Hana Meikyuu no Shitou starts to play.   That's his problem...*ahem* If I'm interrupting, I'll just leave now and get my pay. Hey, North, you didn't tell me about this! So, who's the girl?She's my fiancee. Her name is Cary.FIANCEE?! How do you do?Man, I've been looking for you for days... I thought you had gone out training again with your martial arts or something.I'm still training. In fact, that's how I met Cary. I'm here collecting flowers for the shop I work at in Burlington.What? Did she say she was from Burlington? She's seen way too much. We'll have to get rid of her now.What do you guys think you're doing? Back away from her, or else!What? Get him  We're in love with each other. I can't live without her, dad.We would really like your blessing, sir. It most certainly is not. I've worked too hard to make this family rich, and I don't want to see it squandered by your marrying down. You will marry up and improve our family's standing in the world. I've worked too hard, done too much and made too many hard deals for you to throw it all away!Fine. This isn't over. I don't need your blessing, and you know what? I don't need you either.  And we decided to run away. I'm going to open up a flower shop here.I'll help out as much as possible. I managed to steal quite a bit of Dad's money before I left.Heh, I didn't take you for the thieving type.Why not? It's basically what my dad did to make them money. He made most of it in some rather shady deals he refuses to discuss. Some of his later clients seem decent, and the others... the last group was ranting about Duke Salem's "wickedness".Sounds like an interesting bunch.Real low-lives. Bounty hunters, thugs, and others. I wish I even knew what business they'd have with him. In fact, I imagine that my loving father might even try to use one of those bounty hunters to find me.Oh man, don't tell me they got YOU to do it.Yep, and I don't get paid unless I tell... hey, they only said I had to find you. They never said I had to tell where you were.Cool, here, take this note. I'll sign it as proof you found me.Thanks, you're a lifesaver. Listen, take care, ok, and good luck. And Cary, take good care of North. He's a martial arts nut, but not too much good at anything else.Hey!(laughing) Just kidding. Let's rob from our best friend.  Of course. It's free food. Aw, man, you're getting soft!Going back to Lauren, things play out a little differently after her greeting.   Now, I've er... forgotten how much I was supposed to be paid for this job.25 GP. Take it.Thanks. So, do you have any other jobs. I'm getting a little tired of the 25 GP ones. I want to make some REAL cash.I'm afraid not right now.Come on... with all that Duke Greene chaos going on I know there has to be a job or two.Duke Greene of Dillon? What about him?I've heard and seen some strange stuff. Weird soldiers running around stashing stuff. Random attacks... and some rumors from a friend of mine. Something big's about to go down with that Duke Greene stuff.I... wouldn't know anything about it. You should probably leave now.OK then, I'll go. If I'm really a bounty hunter now, I'll find out myself what's going on and make some more money.   Next time: We don't tell our dad we're going to take on Duke Greene, and we meet our first sidequest.
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Aug 30, 2014 20:11
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DARPA Dad posted:tane
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Aug 30, 2014 21:12
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This game is so loving bizarre, from the plot down to the weird way it handles leveling. I want to see where this goes.
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Aug 31, 2014 10:22
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I like how North doesn't apologize for tarring all bounty hunters with the same brush when he learns we are one. Stick to your guns, buddy.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:29
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Grapplejack posted:This game is so loving bizarre, from the plot down to the weird way it handles leveling. I want to see where this goes. You ain't seen nothin' yet. This game is gonna get way weirder.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:56
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Night10194 posted:You ain't seen nothin' yet. This game is gonna get way weirder. This is honestly one of the more normal sections of the game. It'll get wild soon enough. It'll also get less openly amateurish. I have to say, I'm really glad someone made an LP of this game. For a while as a teen, it was my favorite game and it still holds up. I used to be good friends with the creator, but we fell out of touch years ago. Fun fact: Every (human) character and location in this game is named after a location in the Carolinas. Mostly North Carolina, but there's a South Carolinan name that creeps in every so often.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:50
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The Wondersaurus posted:This is honestly one of the more normal sections of the game. It'll get wild soon enough. It'll also get less openly amateurish. Not just the human characters, really, but yeah. I was going to mention that at some point.
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Sep 1, 2014 02:18
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Effectronica posted:Not just the human characters, really, but yeah. I was going to mention that at some point. I was going to make a post about Manteo, North Carolina but I just googled it and the joke is on me. But that said, sorry for spilling that secret a little too early. I didn't know you knew it, I only figured it out when Ii Shenron told me one time.
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Sep 1, 2014 03:01
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The Wondersaurus posted:I was going to make a post about Manteo, North Carolina but I just googled it and the joke is on me. Well, there are a couple of names that are blatant, and a couple more that are the names of towns near me here in Michigan, and then I realized Carolus => Carolinas and I was illuminated.
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Sep 1, 2014 03:15
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Effectronica posted:Well, there are a couple of names that are blatant, and a couple more that are the names of towns near me here in Michigan, and then I realized Carolus => Carolinas and I was illuminated. Yeah, the most blatant name is about to arrive at the end of Act One, and from there it all opens up.
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Sep 1, 2014 03:42
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So I've only read the first update so far. Do you consider this game to have legitimately good gameplay and be worth playing (at least as far as RPGmaker games go) or worth playing for ironic reasons. Cause I've been looking for a decent RPGmaker game to play.
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Sep 1, 2014 06:45
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Genocyber posted:So I've only read the first update so far. Do you consider this game to have legitimately good gameplay and be worth playing (at least as far as RPGmaker games go) or worth playing for ironic reasons. Cause I've been looking for a decent RPGmaker game to play. It has legitimately good gameplay within the bounds of a Dragon Quest-knockoff battle system. The thing is, it does require two playthroughs to see everything at an absolute minimum, and potentially more.
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Sep 1, 2014 12:39
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