RPG

I haven’t really been blogging, streaming or even talking about my progress in Ogre Battle lately. I’ve been mostly just working my way through the story. The last time I wrote, my character was headed for the very worst of endings. Her alignment was the absolute worst. Her charisma was headed to the same point. Cities hated me. I couldn’t get the good character promotions. I found a solution. It was obvious, really: I had to stop playing the main character, and I had to stop liberating cities and temples if there were any possibility that the enemy could retake them. ...

Before I decided to consolidate my groups a bit, my lord’s alignment and charisma were sky-high. I’m even proudly wielding the holy sword Brunhild. They just don’t toss those out to just anyone. But now, I am in dire straits. My charisma is a nice, round zero – and it’s the same for the rest of the group. My alignment has plummeted – wasn’t too long ago it was at 100, shining like a star. Now, my moral compass is pointed to a dark place. ...

The first time I tried to play Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, I didn’t know how there could be any sort of strategy or planning when every map was just continually battling enemies that are continually attacking you. How anyone could take the time to be concerned about making sure each unit only fought higher level enemies with lower alignment (if the unit contained good characters, like Knights), or ignored those rules (if the unit contained evil characters (like Wizards), while also juggling reputation, the time of day (good characters stronger in day, evil ones at night) along with fifteen thousand other fiddly bits… every time, I put the game aside and promised to get back to it later. ...

I took Wednesday night off to watch the VP debates, which were way more fun than any dumb game. Thursday, with the drop of Fall Guys Season 2, was already pretty full, but after embarrassing myself for awhile dodging swinging axes and spiky rollers, I thought it was about time to check in on the battling ogres. Deneb is the Ogre Battle series’ answer to Final Fantasy’s Cid. She’s always going to show up somewhere. Rumor has it that she’s not even human – in reality she is an evil spirit that possesses young women, though she denies this. ...

In a little bit of serendipity, fan site RPG Site posted up on Twitter yesterday that the successor to : turned 25 yesterday. ...

I just don’t know about this game. Other tactics games, you take your best guys, you win a fight, you’re done, grats, everyone cheers. Sometimes you save someone, sometimes you condemn someone, sometimes you take the left path and other times the right. Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen weaponizes fighting itself. You could win the battle and lose everything. That’s what happened to me in the Pogrom Forest. ...

Before Final Fantasy Tactics, my favorite fantasy tactical battle RPG, there was the Ogre Battle series. I discovered the franchise the other way around, though: after loving and completing FFT on the PlayStation back in the day, I looked around and found Ogre Battle: Let Us Cling Together, the second game in the series, and was again blown away. Both games shared a creator – Yasumi Matsuno – who, along with the Ogre Battle series and Final Fantasy Tactics, also went on to work on Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIV, and the Vagrant Story PS2 game (which I also found). ...

I finished Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning today at 51 1/2 hours, making it one of the shorter RPGs I’ve finished. According to the Steam achievement, only 2% of the people who purchased this remake on Steam have killed the final boss as of today. Achievement%Destiny Defiant (final boss)2.0Hero of Mel Senshir (reached final continent)5.1Turning the Tide (completed the Adessa plot)7.1No Destiny, All Determination (midgame point)17.7Reborn (started the game)87.9 I’ve played the original twice before, but never finished it. From my Steam achievements on the original game, I can see that I got past the “No Destiny” point, and was into the desert area leading to Adessa when I stopped playing. Interestingly, according to Steam achievements, only 2% of the players of the original game reached the end – same percentage as in the remake. ...

Rathir and Mel Senshir are twin cities, on either side of a strait that separates the lands of mortals and Fae from the land of the Tuatha, fallen Fae who seek to destroy the mortal worlds. Mel Senshir holds back the evil horde, but just barely. Like Minas Tirith, everyone feels the fall of Mel Senshir is the will of Fate, and after the bulwark falls, the Tuatha will cross the strait to Renthir, and then their victory will be assured. ...

I’ve uncovered some unsettling truths about this game, or rather, the original version of it that I played when it came out in 2012, and then again a few years later in 2016. I was pretty sure I’d made it to near the end of the game in my first playthrough, and then had made it quite far in the second playthrough before again getting distracted by a new shiny. ...