Vexsom
2010-08-05, 12:21 PM
Welcome to Let’s Play Shining Force! It just so happens, also, that I lack sleep. If you don’t know Shining Force (The Legacy of Great Intention) then let me briefly explain. It’s a turn-based strategy RPG where you take 12 characters (must include main) onto the battlefield and face off against the hordes of the evil Runefaust army. Each battle is fought a single time (unless you cheat or die, which I wont be doing (on purpose?)) so there is never tedious level grinding. Along the way your units get promoted gaining new strengths until they reach the pinnacle of success.
Kind of like Chess only the pieces have names and every single one can be promoted in some way. For more information I would suggest wikipedia. Although I’m apprehensive about this project I’m also ready and revving to go! ZZZzzz…
Note: Translation issues plague all sorts of games. In this case the errors should prove amusing mainly due to a lack of certain story elements. Ok, ok, let’s go!
Introduction
First and foremost there is a brief story about the events leading up to your part in things. Though it’s somewhat cliché you’ve got the light, then some Dark Lord comes with a Dark Dragon and they mess everything up until The Ancients, the A-team of a thousand years past, mess them up in turn. Dark Lord and Dark Dragon are banished from the material dimension only to vow a return. They never come back. Hurray, game over, let’s go home.
What? That’s a happy ending! You aren’t satisfied? ~grumble, grumble~
Well, apparently the kingdom of Rune was enjoying some long lasting peace and so some monsters, with nothing better to do, decide they want to wreck something to make life more interesting. Runefaust, the nation of apparently pure evil, has decided that the world needs a little monster love. I mean when you've got 'faust' in your name things don't really go up hill.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart1.jpg
Oh no, no, no, no! I’m not taking her into battle am I? Shouldn’t you be in bed?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart2.jpg
Well, aren’t you just Miss Conspiracytheorist. I mean, they trapped him in another dimension for a thousand years. It isn’t like he could live that long. Besides, I’m sure he’d have cooled off by now. Right?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart3.jpg
Oh no! I don’t have any interest in adventures! Count me out.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Alteredintro1.jpg
Oh god! Paint edited psionic power eyes! NUUUUUUUUUU-!
Chapter 1, Event 1
The elf girl, Simone, is the pretense for the menu screen which consists of speech bubble options she gives. I press New, then choose a slot, bingo bango! So I named the protagonist Mute since the only responses he ever gets involve nodding or shaking his head. It’ll be a bit more amusing later on in certain situations, but for now it’s mild comic relief.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part1.jpg
Uhhhh… the last thing I remember is a little girl screaming about cake…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part2.jpg
Oh god! Wait, what? You hit me? Maybe it was all just a horrible dream…
Ok Mr. I’ll be off then. It isn’t like hiding around the next corner will be my stereotypical BFF.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part3.jpg
Noooooo! I was horribly wrong! Er, um, hi Lowe.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1partpoint5.jpg
This couldn’t possibly get any worse right? Wrong! You can’t even hear me can you?
Apparently my sword fighting teacher’s name is Lord Varios and I hope you aren’t very attached to his bizarre manly bush face because plots about to hit the fan. I’ve decided that if no one can FREAKING understand me I might as well brood!
Folks are milling about talking this and that in town. Blah, blah, blah NPCs. Mostly they seem eager to learn how to fight or give excuses as to why they haven’t yet ventured to various future plot locations for magical training of some kind. Hell I almost ran a guy over with a cart! Fortunately, I end up at the kings throne room…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part4.jpg
Oh! That’s why they call this kingdom Guardiana. Nice goatee man - mean Mr. King Sir Your Highness.
King Goatee goes on to explain that something unknown is sealed behind the gate and only the ancients knew what it was. Gee, I wonder what possible thing the ancients would want to seal behind enormous mystical doors with only hidden magical keys as the only means to open them. It makes you wonder why they didn’t just, I don’t know, seal the gates entirely?
Apparently Runefaust is snooping around at the ancient plotgate - I mean, the Gate of the Ancients! A small group of monster murderers is to be dispatched so it doesn’t alarm the people. Presumably this is also so the main body of soldiers in Guardiana can defend the city and not give the armies of Runefaust the opportunity to smash up the city… right?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part5.jpg
AHHHHHH! I thought the psychic elf kid was bad, but what the hell are you?! A goat? A man? A fish? Why do you have gills?! It hurts my brain!
Apparently his name is Nova and he’ll serve as our adviser for the rest of the game. Keep in mind that being my adviser will be of little consequence seeing as all he does is sit on his ass in the headquarters. Even though he could be bad-ass he must have some sort of fish-goat-man disability that keeps him behind a desk. Anyway, they send me off to gather my forces.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/portraitofinsanity.jpg
There they are. Guess which of each shot is my own insomnia riddled amusement colored by MUTE PROTAGONIST RAGE!
Left is Luke the warrior, next is Ken the centaur, then Tao the mage, and finally Hans the bowman. We also get Lowe who happens to be a healer. I bet you can guess which one is the hardest to level since you have to cast a spell or attack something to get experience on any given character. Yep, that’s right, the healer.
I might just imagine some backgrounds for these folks by next time. Anyhow, onward! Now that we have our team we should head out to the battlefield! Wait, maybe Nova has some useful advice for us.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part6.jpg
Ok Nova, I’ll do that. It just sucks that I’ll have to enter combat and then leave it just to do so.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/insaneportrait2.jpg
Well Nova, your first tidbit is a great help! Thanks man! Hey Gong the monk healer. You must be pretty good with those fists huh? No? You’re being humble right?
Chapter 1, Battle 1
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battle1.jpg
Oh yeah, the ancients leave their keys laying around their ancient forbidden mystical doors. That makes perfect sense. Maybe there’s a fake rock somewhere…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battle2.jpg
Holy goblin biscuits! This is way too coincidental! There must be something important about this!
Screw it, YOUR PLOT DRIVEN EXISTANCE FILLS ME WITH MURDER FRENZY!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/battleformation.jpg
So this is how the baddies line up regardless of your early actions. They may react in different ways if you use certain characters in front verses others, but that’s only because they like to be mean. Like, if you put a healer in front they suddenly get a hankering for some spell caster jerky.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battleform2.jpg
As you might have guessed I threw melee in front, ranged a tick behind, and smashed the front line with ease. Hitting or healing gives minimal experience so the best way to level is by getting the killing blow. Due to the timing of the attack Main, Luke, and Tao got the brunt of XP.
With relative ease I lured over the Dark Dwarves. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that they hit like trucks against level 1s. Knocked Mute and Luke down to half HP in a snap. Luckily as you can see I positioned healers to compensate.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battleformoops.jpg
Unfortunately Lowe was slow as hell and the Dark Dwarves got three turns a piece before this happened. Mute is dead, game over! Stupid Lowe! YOU ARE NO LONGER MY BEST FRIEND! Gong the octopus head is!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Ohnowheal.jpg
Second try and - oh NOW you heal me? You dirty commie! In soviet Guardiana, Mute heals you!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/TriedasImight.jpg
Lowe, stand over there. Yeah, right there in line of sight to the Rune Knight. Ok, kill him! What? Lowe is so pitiful even YOU don't want him?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Bumrush.jpg
Well, sucks to be you, because they only sent a rag-tag team here to fight your sorry self! I’d hate to see what happened to your main body of forces!
I guess fortunately my experience from the first attempt carried over. Wow, I really haven’t played this in forever! TAKE THAT YOU STUPID DARK DWARVES! How do you like me now?!
If you thought the Dark Dwarves were bad though you should see the Rune Knights. Either way I should also mention a goblin cheap shotted my main for two strikes even *out* of the main fray. There are chances any given unit will attack twice in a row or counter attack. Unfortunately, those chances don’t apply to magics of any kind. I bum rushed the Rune Knight and nobody died, hurrah!
Like many older turn based strategy games the AI can be pretty thick and predictable. Sometimes you get too cocky or they turn around and smack you though so I’m usually pretty cautious. So that’s where I’ll leave off for now. Was it interesting? Did you like my bizarre doodles? Would you like to see more? Well, I’ll wait on some feedback and then give it another update!
Some points of discussion to spice things up.
First, would it have been amusing if I‘d done the LP in the form of a narrative story context? As in, from the perspective of a guy sent back in time forced to fight the monsters who just so happens to be so distracted with playing Pokemon that he doesn’t get any lines of dialogue?
Second, I named the main character Mute. What sort of name would you think suited a nameless silent protagonist in a fantasy setting like this?
Third, what the hell is Nova? I’ve played through this game 3 times in the entirety of my life, this being the fourth, and never figured out what he is. He has the head structure of a goat, but he’s blue and has face flippers. I mean, what, is he a goat-mer-man?
Fourth, if this lasts some time, would you like me to make a table to show the growth of the characters stats and levels? Like one updated between battles to give people an idea for who they may wish to vote in or out of the party. Thoughts?
Fifth, tired of questions yet? I resized on photobucket which seemed to work for other sites, but in the previews I was getting they never changed. I considered going back and resizing the originals, but decided that I’d do so only if need be the next update since I’d already put everything together. Thoughts?
Kind of like Chess only the pieces have names and every single one can be promoted in some way. For more information I would suggest wikipedia. Although I’m apprehensive about this project I’m also ready and revving to go! ZZZzzz…
Note: Translation issues plague all sorts of games. In this case the errors should prove amusing mainly due to a lack of certain story elements. Ok, ok, let’s go!
Introduction
First and foremost there is a brief story about the events leading up to your part in things. Though it’s somewhat cliché you’ve got the light, then some Dark Lord comes with a Dark Dragon and they mess everything up until The Ancients, the A-team of a thousand years past, mess them up in turn. Dark Lord and Dark Dragon are banished from the material dimension only to vow a return. They never come back. Hurray, game over, let’s go home.
What? That’s a happy ending! You aren’t satisfied? ~grumble, grumble~
Well, apparently the kingdom of Rune was enjoying some long lasting peace and so some monsters, with nothing better to do, decide they want to wreck something to make life more interesting. Runefaust, the nation of apparently pure evil, has decided that the world needs a little monster love. I mean when you've got 'faust' in your name things don't really go up hill.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart1.jpg
Oh no, no, no, no! I’m not taking her into battle am I? Shouldn’t you be in bed?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart2.jpg
Well, aren’t you just Miss Conspiracytheorist. I mean, they trapped him in another dimension for a thousand years. It isn’t like he could live that long. Besides, I’m sure he’d have cooled off by now. Right?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Intropart3.jpg
Oh no! I don’t have any interest in adventures! Count me out.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Alteredintro1.jpg
Oh god! Paint edited psionic power eyes! NUUUUUUUUUU-!
Chapter 1, Event 1
The elf girl, Simone, is the pretense for the menu screen which consists of speech bubble options she gives. I press New, then choose a slot, bingo bango! So I named the protagonist Mute since the only responses he ever gets involve nodding or shaking his head. It’ll be a bit more amusing later on in certain situations, but for now it’s mild comic relief.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part1.jpg
Uhhhh… the last thing I remember is a little girl screaming about cake…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part2.jpg
Oh god! Wait, what? You hit me? Maybe it was all just a horrible dream…
Ok Mr. I’ll be off then. It isn’t like hiding around the next corner will be my stereotypical BFF.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part3.jpg
Noooooo! I was horribly wrong! Er, um, hi Lowe.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1partpoint5.jpg
This couldn’t possibly get any worse right? Wrong! You can’t even hear me can you?
Apparently my sword fighting teacher’s name is Lord Varios and I hope you aren’t very attached to his bizarre manly bush face because plots about to hit the fan. I’ve decided that if no one can FREAKING understand me I might as well brood!
Folks are milling about talking this and that in town. Blah, blah, blah NPCs. Mostly they seem eager to learn how to fight or give excuses as to why they haven’t yet ventured to various future plot locations for magical training of some kind. Hell I almost ran a guy over with a cart! Fortunately, I end up at the kings throne room…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part4.jpg
Oh! That’s why they call this kingdom Guardiana. Nice goatee man - mean Mr. King Sir Your Highness.
King Goatee goes on to explain that something unknown is sealed behind the gate and only the ancients knew what it was. Gee, I wonder what possible thing the ancients would want to seal behind enormous mystical doors with only hidden magical keys as the only means to open them. It makes you wonder why they didn’t just, I don’t know, seal the gates entirely?
Apparently Runefaust is snooping around at the ancient plotgate - I mean, the Gate of the Ancients! A small group of monster murderers is to be dispatched so it doesn’t alarm the people. Presumably this is also so the main body of soldiers in Guardiana can defend the city and not give the armies of Runefaust the opportunity to smash up the city… right?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part5.jpg
AHHHHHH! I thought the psychic elf kid was bad, but what the hell are you?! A goat? A man? A fish? Why do you have gills?! It hurts my brain!
Apparently his name is Nova and he’ll serve as our adviser for the rest of the game. Keep in mind that being my adviser will be of little consequence seeing as all he does is sit on his ass in the headquarters. Even though he could be bad-ass he must have some sort of fish-goat-man disability that keeps him behind a desk. Anyway, they send me off to gather my forces.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/portraitofinsanity.jpg
There they are. Guess which of each shot is my own insomnia riddled amusement colored by MUTE PROTAGONIST RAGE!
Left is Luke the warrior, next is Ken the centaur, then Tao the mage, and finally Hans the bowman. We also get Lowe who happens to be a healer. I bet you can guess which one is the hardest to level since you have to cast a spell or attack something to get experience on any given character. Yep, that’s right, the healer.
I might just imagine some backgrounds for these folks by next time. Anyhow, onward! Now that we have our team we should head out to the battlefield! Wait, maybe Nova has some useful advice for us.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/chp1part6.jpg
Ok Nova, I’ll do that. It just sucks that I’ll have to enter combat and then leave it just to do so.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/insaneportrait2.jpg
Well Nova, your first tidbit is a great help! Thanks man! Hey Gong the monk healer. You must be pretty good with those fists huh? No? You’re being humble right?
Chapter 1, Battle 1
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battle1.jpg
Oh yeah, the ancients leave their keys laying around their ancient forbidden mystical doors. That makes perfect sense. Maybe there’s a fake rock somewhere…
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battle2.jpg
Holy goblin biscuits! This is way too coincidental! There must be something important about this!
Screw it, YOUR PLOT DRIVEN EXISTANCE FILLS ME WITH MURDER FRENZY!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/battleformation.jpg
So this is how the baddies line up regardless of your early actions. They may react in different ways if you use certain characters in front verses others, but that’s only because they like to be mean. Like, if you put a healer in front they suddenly get a hankering for some spell caster jerky.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battleform2.jpg
As you might have guessed I threw melee in front, ranged a tick behind, and smashed the front line with ease. Hitting or healing gives minimal experience so the best way to level is by getting the killing blow. Due to the timing of the attack Main, Luke, and Tao got the brunt of XP.
With relative ease I lured over the Dark Dwarves. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that they hit like trucks against level 1s. Knocked Mute and Luke down to half HP in a snap. Luckily as you can see I positioned healers to compensate.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Battleformoops.jpg
Unfortunately Lowe was slow as hell and the Dark Dwarves got three turns a piece before this happened. Mute is dead, game over! Stupid Lowe! YOU ARE NO LONGER MY BEST FRIEND! Gong the octopus head is!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Ohnowheal.jpg
Second try and - oh NOW you heal me? You dirty commie! In soviet Guardiana, Mute heals you!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/TriedasImight.jpg
Lowe, stand over there. Yeah, right there in line of sight to the Rune Knight. Ok, kill him! What? Lowe is so pitiful even YOU don't want him?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Vexsom/Bumrush.jpg
Well, sucks to be you, because they only sent a rag-tag team here to fight your sorry self! I’d hate to see what happened to your main body of forces!
I guess fortunately my experience from the first attempt carried over. Wow, I really haven’t played this in forever! TAKE THAT YOU STUPID DARK DWARVES! How do you like me now?!
If you thought the Dark Dwarves were bad though you should see the Rune Knights. Either way I should also mention a goblin cheap shotted my main for two strikes even *out* of the main fray. There are chances any given unit will attack twice in a row or counter attack. Unfortunately, those chances don’t apply to magics of any kind. I bum rushed the Rune Knight and nobody died, hurrah!
Like many older turn based strategy games the AI can be pretty thick and predictable. Sometimes you get too cocky or they turn around and smack you though so I’m usually pretty cautious. So that’s where I’ll leave off for now. Was it interesting? Did you like my bizarre doodles? Would you like to see more? Well, I’ll wait on some feedback and then give it another update!
Some points of discussion to spice things up.
First, would it have been amusing if I‘d done the LP in the form of a narrative story context? As in, from the perspective of a guy sent back in time forced to fight the monsters who just so happens to be so distracted with playing Pokemon that he doesn’t get any lines of dialogue?
Second, I named the main character Mute. What sort of name would you think suited a nameless silent protagonist in a fantasy setting like this?
Third, what the hell is Nova? I’ve played through this game 3 times in the entirety of my life, this being the fourth, and never figured out what he is. He has the head structure of a goat, but he’s blue and has face flippers. I mean, what, is he a goat-mer-man?
Fourth, if this lasts some time, would you like me to make a table to show the growth of the characters stats and levels? Like one updated between battles to give people an idea for who they may wish to vote in or out of the party. Thoughts?
Fifth, tired of questions yet? I resized on photobucket which seemed to work for other sites, but in the previews I was getting they never changed. I considered going back and resizing the originals, but decided that I’d do so only if need be the next update since I’d already put everything together. Thoughts?