It’ll soothe what ails you

I recently received Fire Emblem: Engage for my birthday. I’d played through a bit of Three Houses, the previous entry, and while it was interesting, something about the whole military academy setting never really gelled with me. While I applaud Three Houses for at least experimenting with something different, I found myself missing the classic Fire Emblem experience: a more focused story, stakes that are laid out early on, more emphasis on the combat. I know it’s a controversial choice for some, but I was happy that Engage went back to that tried & true formula. Which brings us to today’s word.

vulnerary, noun – a medicine used in the healing of injuries

Learned from: Fire Emblem (Game Boy Advance)

Developed by Intelligent Systems

Published by Nintendo (2003)

Like most people in the West, my first exposure to Fire Emblem as a franchise came through the Super Smash Bros. games: specifically SSB: Melee on the Gamecube. Back in the early 2000s, everyone knew Mario, Donkey Kong, and Princess Zelda…but who the hell were Marth and Roy? Despite having never heard of them, or the series they were from, Roy ended up being my main in that game. And after awhile, I decided I should maybe learn a bit more about this “Fire Emblem” thing.

The only problem was, I didn’t own a Game Boy Advance, and as a poor college student, I couldn’t justify buying an entirely new system, just to try one game (a decision I still regret to this day, considering how good that handheld’s catalogue of games is). So I turned to…other means, to dip my toes into the Fire Emblem waters–specifically, a fan translation of the original Japanese ROM of the first game.

It’s because of this, that I initially wasn’t even sure that “vulnerary” was a real word. It was clear what these healing items did, but I kind of expected their name to be a mistranslation of something, given the source of the game I was playing. I looked it up soon after, and found that yes, it is a real word, but it wasn’t until some time later that I discovered that it was, in fact, the official translation Nintendo decided to use in their official releases of these games, even to this day. And while the earlier games are hard to find (some still haven’t received official English translations), they’re all well worth tracking down if you can. Even if you start later in the series, most of the games aren’t connected, so you can still jump in at any point and have a fun, engaging (see what I did there?) strategy RPG experience.

Except for Fire Emblem: Fates. The games in that branch of the series actually are connected–and the third part is nigh-impossible to find, now that the 3DS eShop is closing down. Unless you decide to get into the series the way I did, I guess (though, for legal reasons, I have to state for the record that I do not condone that).

Though, finding this, right here, complete in the box will set you back a couple hundred bucks. Just saying.

Die a hero, or live long enough to become a villain

If you’re like me, you’ve probably enjoyed watching the stratospheric rise in popularity that Dungeons & Dragons has enjoyed over the past ten years or so. Regardless of your thoughts on the quality of some of the products *cough*Spelljammer*cough* the fact that so many new people were coming into the hobby was objectively a good thing. It made for a healthy community, full of endless creativity and sources for new ideas and settings…and that’s all poised to change.

If you don’t run in those circles, you might not know that, over the past week or so, social media on the topic has been exploding about Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, and their decision to rewrite the license that let third-party sources develop content based on D&D‘s mechanics/settings. Without dwelling on the details, the new license seems to render any previous versions invalid, replacing them with one that is far more restrictive, far more costly, and includes a clause that basically says…well, I think this is pretty cut-and-dry: “You own the new and original content You create. You agree to give Us a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable,
worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.” Emphasis, mine. You can read the full text of the Open Gaming License, version 1.1 for yourself here: http://ogl.battlezoo.com/ The text I quoted is in section X, subsection B.

This sort of thing hurts. I’ve been playing D&D in some form or another for nearly as long as I can remember–be it the tabletop game, video game adaptations, choose-your-own-adventure books, or what have you. And thinking back to the days when the franchise wasn’t operated by a greedy, faceless, multi-billion-dollar company brought to mind today’s word.

hauberk, noun – a chainmail tunic

Learned from: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin (Intellivision)

Developed by APh Technological Consulting

Published by Mattel Electronics (1983)

Aside from maybe ogling the art of the Creature Compendium at a bookstore as a child, Treasure of Tarmin was my first introduction to D&D. It was also my first introduction to the idea of gaming in a 3D world. The game took place in a dungeon of varying size (depending on the difficulty you selected), that you ventured into, searching for a treasure guarded by a minotaur. Each level was laid out on a grid that you traversed in first-person view, one square at a time, fighting monsters, finding weapons, discovering hidden doors, and searching for the ladder that led further downward. Hopelessly simplistic by today’s standards, it blew my young mind. With a hunger mechanic, inventory system, ammunition (arrows) you had to keep track of, and more, it was pretty complex for its time. There were tons of items to find, most color-coded by their strength, including various types of armor: shields, helmets, gauntlets, and hauberks.

I remember the hauberks not looking like much, in the crude, pixelated representation the game was capable of–I think they looked more like scarves than anything. But I have to hand it to the artist for taking a crack at accurately showing what a bunch of loose chainmail would look like, laying on the ground, instead of just drawing it as a shirt. A lot of thought and effort went into this game, from the wide variety of monsters, to the inclusion of traps, to the fact that you could keep going past the minotaur into deeper and deeper randomly-generated levels, as deep as you wanted to go.

It was a wonderful game, complex but accessible, and always with a new adventure to be had. I mean that about D&D as a whole. Seeing what the game is about to become is nothing short of tragic, because some of the best content is often created by third-party studios. And I can’t imagine anyone would really want to keep making content, when it can be taken from them at any time. This will hurt the hobby, but there is hope.

Dungeons & Dragons isn’t the only game in town. There’s a multitude of other systems out there, offering different takes on traditional fantasy, but also sci-fi, horror, spy fiction, and everything in-between. Sure, it won’t feel quite the same, but with some searching, you might find a system and setting that fits you even better. D&D has always been a game about exploration; I think now is the time to take that theme to heart, and go discover what else is out there.

Farewell, old friend. It’s been good while it lasted.

‘Tis the season of giving…

…and of getting back to things. Hello, world, I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long. It’s like skipping time at the gym: You let one day slip by, and before you know it, months have gone by, and you’re 20 pounds heavier. But it’s the middle of the Holiday season right now, and I wanted to do a little something for both myself, and anyone who might happen upon this. Plus, holidays just so happen to be relevant to today’s word.

alms, noun – charitable donations to the poor; specifically: donations of leftover trenchers from the previous evening’s feast

Learned from: The Faery Tale Adventure (Sega Genesis, Amiga, Commodore 64, PC)

Developed by MicroIllusions

Published by MicroIllusions (1987 – Amiga, 1988 – Commodore 64, 1989 – MS-DOS) Electronic Arts (1991 – Genesis)

I don’t remember a whole lot of The Faery Tale Adventure. The terrible spelling on the cover caught my attention at my local video store when I was little, and set my expectations low, even to my young mind. But, it was an RPG, and I hadn’t played it before, so I gave it a shot…and was summarily rather lost, because someone had lost the instruction manual, and this was back in the days when those were actually important.

Most of what I recall from the gameplay is aimlessly wandering around a massive world (for the time), as one of the three playable characters, who might have been brothers or something. Well, that, and the beggar who tried to kill me.

I was traveling along some random stretch of road, and there was a guy standing off to the side, who asked me if I had any alms for the poor. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but I think I said yes, because I was supposed to be the hero in this story, and this man was clearly a beggar…except when I answered, several other guys jumped out of nearby bushes, and they all started attacking me.

During the fight, I remember wondering what I did wrong. Did I actually not have any of whatever “alms” were, and was this guy pissed off that I lied to him? Were “alms” some sort of bad thing? Was this a secret code for a quest I hadn’t discovered yet, and I answered incorrectly?

Later, I looked up the word, and put the pieces together: I’d done the right, charitable thing, but this guy was just a bandit pretending to be a beggar, and I fell into his trap. It’s a moment that stuck with me all these years, and it’s the only solid memory I have of The Faery Tale Adventure.

What brought it to mind, all this time later, is a book I recently read: Medieval Holidays and Festivals, by Madeleine Pelner Cosman. I was trying to get inspiration for celebrations to work into a Pathfinder game I’m running, when I came across mention of what exactly alms are. Durable plates were expensive back then, so many feasts were served on plates or in bowls made of bread, called trenchers. At the end of the meal, the flavor-soaked remnants of the trenchers could be eaten, or donated the next day to the needy. These days, alms refer to any charitable gift to the needy, but during Medieval times, it had a more specific connotation.

And hey, I may have even given you a bonus word this time around, if you didn’t know what a trencher was. Happy holidays, everyone!

With a cover this generic, is it any surprise I don’t remember much from this game?

Blast from the past

Growing up in the ’80s, I was too young to fully comprehend the horrors of impending nuclear annihilation. Granted, those were the last years of the Cold War, and it ended when I was eight years old, but still, my main takeaway at the time was that the Soviet Union was bad…except, someone from there made Tetris, so they couldn’t be all bad. And once the USSR dissolved, I kinda just went on with life, dimly aware that something potentially terrible had been averted.

Fast forward 30 years, and we’ve got the Russians invading Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin implicitly threatening to make this go nuclear. There’s no ambiguity about this in my mind, anymore. Which brings us to today’s word.

megalomania, noun – an obsession with obtaining power, wealth, or importance

Learned from: Tyrants: Fight Through Time (Sega Genesis, Amiga, Atari ST, Super Nintendo, PC)

Developed by Sensible Software

Published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Image Works for the original version, 1991)

I didn’t exactly learn this word from playing Tyrants, but rather from an ad in an old gaming magazine. Similar to Odium being called Gorky 17 in other regions of the world, Tyrants was known overseas as Mega-lo-mania. Both titles fit for a variety of reasons.

Tyrants/Mega-lo-mania was an early real-time strategy game, where you play as one of four gods, differentiated only by their portrait and color palette, with the task of defeating the other three on a variety of islands. You do this by influencing your followers to develop increasingly sophisticated weapons and defenses through a variety of technological eras, from stone axes up to ballistic missiles. While simple by conventional standards, the game featured a surprisingly large tech tree that could even lead you to developmental dead ends, depending on what you decided to research. It also featured some pretty braindead AI, to the point where if you were really backed into a corner, you could just keep spamming the “form alliance” button at the god attacking you, until the RNG would eventually make him give in. If only we could do that in real conflicts…

This too shall pass

Recently, one of my coworkers was out, having surgery to remove a kidney stone. It’s a process I hope never to have to go through (though, surgery almost sounds better than passing one naturally), but it does bring us to today’s word.

ptyalolith, noun – the hard buildup of minerals inside the organs or ducts

Learned from: Vigil: The Longest Night (PC, Playstation 4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch)

Developed by Glass Heart Games

Published by Neon Doctrine (2020)

As the title would suggest, Vigil is a dark game. It’s a 2D platformer, with a heavy emphasis on exploration, that casts you as a member of the titular Vigil, tasked with fighting against an encroaching darkness that seems to have enveloped the world. It would seem you’re not terribly good at your job, but all you can do is your best. Even when your best includes consuming the kidney stones of a dark god to increase your abilities. The Ptyalolith from the Other God feels like an item that would be more at home in Bloodborne, or Blasphemous (both games I’m sure I’ll post more about in the future), but it’s far from the strangest item in the game–you can end up wearing a grapefruit rind on your head, while dressed in a nun’s habit and wielding a broom as a weapon. While it’s a beautiful game, there are times it really doesn’t know what tone it wants to have. Still, there’s a lot of equipment, and a variety of play styles (some of which are pretty broken for a lot of the game), so it’s worth checking out.

Even if the title card does make it look like one of those “find the hidden object” games from the mid-2000s.

Toss a coin to your teller

Hello, all. During the time I’ve been gone, I’ve been pretty consistently burnt out from the never-ending cycle of training in new tellers at work. We’d get close to full capacity, and then someone else would put in their two weeks’ notice; at this point, two thirds of the staff hasn’t even been there for three months. I’d say this long, excruciating ordeal was finally over…but yet another one (who hasn’t even been on staff for a month), has announced he’s moving to Idaho, to become a potato farmer. Or whatever other non-stereotypical things people in Idaho actually do. This constant shuffle has been exhausting, so I haven’t had much energy at the end of the day for gaming, or updating this blog, or much of anything. What I have had the time for, is reading. Which finally brings us to today’s word.

drachma, noun – ancient Greek currency

Learned from: Age of Adventure (Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64)

Developed by Stuart Smith

Published by Electronic Arts (1983)

One of the books I’ve read over the past several months was an absolutely wonderful history of computer RPGs, aptly titled The CRPG Book. In paging through the early parts of the book, I stumbled across one with graphics I swore I recognized, but a title that was unfamiliar (including screenshots of the inventory, with the word “drachmae,” the plural of drachma). But I was sure I’d played this…so I went digging.

Since Bitmap Books, the publisher of The CRPG Book is based in the UK, they used the title this game had, seemingly everywhere else outside of the US: The Return of Heracles (because I guess EA figured American kids are too flat-out ignorant to have known who Heracles was). And to be fair, when I was six or seven, or however old I was when I asked my parents to buy me this game, I was more familiar with Hercules. But its original title is far more interesting than the generic one we got over here. It’s like calling a game “Story of Excitement,” or “Time for Fun.”

Anyway, as you’ve probably guessed, Age of Adventure/The Return of Heracles is all about Greek mythology and history, letting you play as characters ranging from Odysseus to Achilles, to Hippolyta. I guess you could technically call it an edutainment title, but the RPG gameplay was surprisingly solid for a game whose purpose was to teach you things. I’m not sure if I ever beat all of the characters’ scenarios (there were 19 of them, according to the game’s entry in the book), but I did walk away with a greater knowledge of Greek myths and legends, so I consider that a win.

Even the cover is generic. This says less “Greek mythology,” and more “Sylvester Stallone’s arm wrestling movie, *Over the Top*, if it were about pirates.”

Happy Bunny Day

Well, it’s Easter, and while I haven’t really done anything to celebrate the holiday since I was ten years old or so, and my job is closed on Sundays already, at least there’s good candy. Seriously, after Halloween, I think Easter has the best holiday candy. (Though, if they worked maple candies into Arbor Day celebrations, I might be tempted to change that ranking.) But the first thing that pops into most people’s minds when you say “Easter” isn’t candy, it’s probably the Easter Bunny. Which brings us to today’s word.

lapin, noun – a castrated male rabbit

Learned from: BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (Playstation 3, Arcade, XBox 360)

Developed by Arc System Works

Published by Aksys Games (2010)

If it sounds like the word of the day took a dark turn, imagine how I felt when I looked it up–especially since it’s a nickname for a female character in the game! Rachel Alucard is a gothic lolita vampire, of the “looks like she’s twelve, but is actually 200” variety. She has some history with another quasi-ageless character named Hakumen: a tall, imposing figure who may or may not be a living suit of armor. (BlazBlue’s weird.)

Anyway, Hakumen sees himself as being above most people, so he rarely refers to anyone by their actual name, assigning most folks a nickname instead (a la “Grimalkin,” which I believe I featured awhile back). He isn’t the only one who calls Rachel some sort of rabbit name, on account of the bow she wears in her hair that resembles bunny ears, but man is his choice the most scathing! I mean, Hakumen is kind of a jerk to everybody, but the more you think about his particular choice of nicknames for Rachel, the more insulting it seems: Castration tends to stunt a person’s growth (Rachel is quite short), prevent the development of sexual characteristics (Rachel is flat as a board), make the person more docile (Rachel speaks quite softly–though she’s entirely capable of dishing out violence), etc. and so on.

Bit of an extra lesson today. You’re welcome. 🙂

I was so focused on the hair bows, that I didn’t even mention her fat imp and living cat umbrella…did I mention BlazBlue was weird?

Back from the dead

A lot has happened since my last post–most of it work-related. We’ve had a couple people leave, others have been out sick, so I’ve been picking up extra shifts and training in new hires as a result. It’s not over yet, but things have slowed down for the moment–enough that I was able to get my first round of the Moderna vaccine today. Which brings us to today’s word.

ampoule, noun – a small, hermetically sealed glass or plastic vessel used to store solutions for hypodermic injection

Learned from: Silent Hill 2 (Playstation 2, PC, XBox, Playstation 3, XBox 360)

Developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo

Published by Konami (2001)

Silent Hill‘s equivalent of the first aid spray from Resident Evil, ampoules would bring you back to pretty much full health, no matter how close to death you were. Though, I really don’t know how any of the protagonists actually got the stuff inside into their systems, since you never pick up any syringes. Maybe they just drink it? Seems about as sanitary as anything else in Silent Hill: the town where you can get eye tetanus just by reading the street signs.

On the subject of the COVID vaccine though, it was painless. I got it about an hour and a half ago, and the worst side-effect I have so far is a tiny bit of an ache in my arm. So far, it’s not even as rough as the flu vaccine, which is great. Though, seeing just how many people showed up to get their doses this morning made me almost pine for the deserted streets of Silent Hill. A year of isolation hasn’t exactly helped my social anxiety.

Still, it feels good to be back posting here, so it won’t be long until the next one. Cheers, and sign up to get the vaccine if you haven’t already–it really isn’t bad at all.

It’s enough to drive a man to drink.

To say that it’s a stressful time in my country is a criminal understatement. In under two days, we’re going to be ushering in a new president, and while that’s been little more than a formality every other time it’s happened, so long as I’ve been alive, this year is…different. There have already been acts of violence in the past few weeks, and I’m worried something worse is going to happen on inauguration day. On a more personal level, I’m not even going to be home to see it, if something does happen–my job is opening its doors to the public again, starting tomorrow, in a decision that was made rather suddenly. Beyond the anxiety over being stuck at work and potentially missing historic news as it unfolds, I really wish they’d waited until my coworkers and I had gotten the vaccine. All of this brings us to today’s word.

potation, noun – a dring; particularly: an alcoholic drink

Learned from: Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception (Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Playstation Vita, PC)

Developed by Aquaplus

Published by Atlus USA (2017)

I’m generally not big on visual novels. If they offer you choices in dialog or action that affect the story, that helps a bit. If they offer puzzles or combat, that helps more. The Utawarerumono games do offer Fire Emblem style battles, but they’re few and far between, and the narrative portions that make up the bulk of the game are often tedious and hard to suffer through. There’s always a good story there, but it’s always buried under fanservice, mixed attempts at humor, and side events that often contribute nothing to the plot.

Really, the only reason I’ve played two of these games so far, is because the next Dokapon game is a cross-over with this series (for some reason), and I wanted to be familiar with the characters.

One of these characters is Maroro, a court magician with a very…over the top personality. He’s dressed in garish robes and face paint, his mannerisms are downright foppish, and his speech is positively purple. He’s also kind of a sad sack, who always gets taken advantage of by people around him. Following one of these incidents, Maroro ends up at a bar, drowning his worries in potations he probably can’t afford, and pouring his heart out to you in a litany of flowery prose.

Maroro’s kind of insufferable, but it’s hard not to feel a little bad for him.

2020 in a word

I think we can all agree, this has been a terrible year. Does anyone even remember that things started off with a huge chunk of Australia being on fire? Or that the rain forests of Brazil followed suit? When practically half the planet is engulfed in flames, and it somehow faded from the public consciousness, you know it’s been an utterly abysmal year. Which brings us to today’s word.

septage, noun – sewage, human waste, especially: the contents of a septic tank

Learned from: Remnant: From the Ashes (Playstation 4, PC, XBox One)

Developed by Gunfire Games

Published by Perfect World Entertainment (2019)

I recently decided to pick this game back up, after close to a year. Back then, I’d been trying to talk some friends into picking it up to play through the campaign together, but they were too focused on Destiny 2, and later The Division 2, to have time for another game. At the time, I was kind of frustrated by this, so I set the game aside, until this past month, when I decided to just try to soldier through it on my own.

This was a mistake.

Remnant is a perfectly fine game, if a bit light on setup/story. The procedurally-generated levels randomize more than just the maps, but also quests, and even bosses…and this is where things fell apart for me. I was playing a long-range character, and the first boss I came to relentlessly charged in, giving me no room to breathe or set things up. Worse, he periodically spawned other enemies that charged in at me…and these guys explode when they get close. It was a nightmare…for one person. And I realized, Remnant is really designed for multiplayer, but the friends I have who are into these sorts of games probably wouldn’t be satisfied with the loot system (enemies don’t drop anything but money and ammo, meaning you’ll never randomly get a better weapon unless you find one on the map…and items don’t reset once you’ve picked something up), or the slow burn it takes to get any cool gear. Faster-paced games have spoiled them.

But, who cares, right? Where’s the word? Well, the loading screens (which I saw a lot of, from dying so much) cycle through item descriptions, mostly for things I never found, because I didn’t get far enough. One of them was some sort of “calling bell,” the description of which described an alien race whose young were incubated in “holy septage” or something like that. I have no idea what these creatures are, or what story significance this has, but it sounds interesting as heck…so I’m a little sad that (at a respectable difficulty setting at least), I’ll probably never experience more of this world. Maybe one of these days I’ll swallow my pride and try again at “normal” or even “easy” difficulty, but that feels wrong, somehow. Right now though, it’s all too frustrating.

Much like this year, and the way my country has handled the pandemic. May 2021 be less shitty.