Tag: noun

United States of SMASH

With the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate just a few days away, I felt I should do something in honor of the series…in a roundabout way.  The first Smash Bros. game I played was Melee, on the Gamecube, yet I learned that word many years prior.

melee, noun – A close-quarters fight among several people.

Learned from:  Dungeon Master (Apple IIGS, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, SNES, Turbografx-CD, Sharp X68000, PC-9801, FM Towns)

Developed by FTL Games

Published by FTL Games (1987)

I remember being six or seven years old, and unwrapping this game on Christmas morning, only to see the sticker on the box that said it required an entire megabyte of memory to run.  I also remember the feeling of surprise and awe, when my father told me he’d upgraded our Apple IIGS from 512k to a whopping TWO megabytes of RAM for the occasion–to this day, I do kinda wonder if he bought the game as much for himself, as for me.

And I can understand why.  Dungeon Master is still close to the epitome of the first-person dungeon crawler, for me.  Its levels were huge and mysterious, its puzzles actually made you think, and you were just as likely to die of starvation or dehydration, as you were by falling down a pit or getting killed by monsters, if you weren’t careful.  Magic worked by entering the arcane alphabet of each spell, no area was entirely safe, and weapons and armor didn’t have obvious numerical stats, so you had to experiment to see which ones worked best for your party.

This carried over to attacks as well, where one sword might offer a slash and a slice attack, while another might be designed for thrusts.  Each type of attack used a different amount of stamina, and seemed to work better against certain types of monsters, though the more stamina used, the stronger the hit, generally.  Which brings us to the battle ax, which had a strong (yet inaccurate) attack simply labeled “melee.”  As a child of less than ten, I probably relied on that attack (and others like it) way too much, which explains why I didn’t do very well in the game until years later.

And I know a dungeon crawler is about as far from a Smash Bros. game you can get, without delving into sports, but I learned a lot of words from Dungeon Master, so this seemed like a good opportunity to get one out of the way.

dungeon_master_logo

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a holiday about family, friends, and togetherness, but say the word, and the first thing that comes to mind for most people is probably food.  So, it made sense to me to kick this whole project off with a food-based word.

coulis (noun) – Fruit or vegetables, pureed into a thick sauce, and used as a garnish

Learned from: Odin Sphere (PS2, PS4, Vita)

Developed by: Vanillaware

Published by: Atlus (2007)

George Kamitami seems to love two things in life, above all else: food and women.  And he draws both subjects in exquisite detail.  Playing a Vanillaware game is a feast for the eyes, as each one features jaw-dropping spritework, fluid animations, and character designs that are somewhat exaggerated, but very distinctive.  Most of them also involve an emphasis on cooking.

Odin Sphere has several locations where your characters can rest and order food, all of which are run by Pookas (rabbit-like critters).  One such place specializes in desserts, where you can order (among other things), ice cream with coulis, if you’ve collected the right ingredients on your travels.  These regenerated your health, raised your stats, and if memory serves, most were drawn well enough that they looked like things you might actually want to eat in the real world.

I’ve yet to try a dessert with a coulis sauce, but it’s on my bucket list.