Busy news day

I really wish I’d learned the word “haboob” (a dust storm) from a game, because it would be perfect, considering there’s one sweeping across Florida right now. Also, I guess I am perpetually 12 years old. But speaking of 12-year-olds, Elon Musk attested today to the worst-kept secret in the world, by saying Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. And in a roundabout way, that does bring us to today’s word.

seraglio, noun – a harem

Learned from: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (3DS)

Developed by Intelligent Systems

Published by Nintendo (2017)

I don’t think I need to elaborate more on the connection between this word and the Epstein files. But even in the context of the game, it seems damningly relevant.

The story takes place on the continent of Valentia, where the warlike nation of Rigel, and the peace-loving nation of Zofia find themselves at the disastrous end of a long truce. The fantasy hippies of Zofia have gotten so decadent that one villager opines that the king is “more likely to frolic in a seraglio than actually rule” (which, again, seems oddly apropos), while the warmongers of Rigel…well, they didn’t need much more reason to make their move. War is brewing, and your group of backwater youths gets caught up in the middle of it.

Echoes is one of the odd Fire Emblem entries that foregoes the “weapon wheel,” where swords beat axes, axes beat lances, and lances beat swords, making it feel a bit less like a part of the overall series than most installments. Further differentiating it from the classic Fire Emblem style, are dungeons that you can actually run around in, in real-time, finding secrets and trying to get the drop on enemies before launching into the more standard tactical battles. It’s a unique game in the series, but its differences often work to its advantage, letting it stand out from the crowd.

Oh yeah, and I guess some sort of new console from Nintendo came out today, too, or something. So, there’s that.

Find your comfort food

There are times at my job, where I’m told to do things I’m not entirely comfortable with. I don’t mean like in a religious sense, or that I’m being harassed; more that this just doesn’t seem right to do in a given situation. Like, objectively. And because of the nature of my job, I can’t even talk to anyone about it–confidentiality and all that. I’m sure you’ve all probably had something similar crop up in your lives at some point. And at times like this, it’s important to have some sort of “comfort food.”

It doesn’t have to be an actual meal, though it could be. Rather, I mean something you can turn to when for whatever reason, you don’t have someone you can turn to. It should come as no surprise that for me, it’s games. Sometimes books. For you, it might be movies or music, gardening or cleaning, or any of a thousand other avenues that let you escape your problems for a while, and recover. Which brings us to today’s word.

balm, noun – something soothing or restorative

Learned from: Dark Wizard (Sega CD)

Developed by Sega

Published by Sega (1994)

As I may have mentioned in another post, I was one of those kids who actually pestered his parents into buying him a Sega CD (and later, a 32X) for Christmas. I didn’t actually own many games for them, but I rented damn near everything my local video store had in stock at one point or another. Dark Wizard is one of the titles that stuck with me the most after all these years–perhaps a bit ironically, considering how generic it sounds.

I’d always had a love of turn-based tactical/strategy RPGs, ever since cutting my teeth on Shining Force, but Dark Wizard took what I knew and elevated it to a level of complexity I hadn’t seen before: Four different generals you could pick from, each with their own unit types and stories. Terrain that had an entire chart, showing how it affected different types of units. Territory you needed to sacrifice some of your units to defend, even when you were pushing forward on the battlefield. Compared to the simplicity of “forests give +20% defense” in other games I played, this was a lot to keep track of. And I loved it. I don’t think the story was anything to write home about–something about an evil priest trying to resurrect a dark god–but the strategy elements were really engaging.

Oh right, the word. It seems to be something of a trend for different RPGs to have different names for their healing spells and items. Cure, dia, vulnerary, etc. Balm was the term for the basic healing spell in Dark Wizard.

But yeah, find your comfort food, your welcome distraction, your balm. You never know when life’s going to throw something at you that you can’t talk about, and things like this can really help.

Even the cover art looks a bit generic–though kudos for Sega of America keeping the overall anime look to the characters.

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).