[RKS Freudenstachel] „Gelb schmerzt.“

[Ashan]

Why can you not just pick up an item in this game without 10 minutes of dialogue? Like, you touch the green orb and you get Beat. Why does there need to be 50 pages of useless text?

[Kilgamayan]

Because Isemiya and WOMI had a story they wanted to tell, and that was important exposition to them.

Anyway, Grolla's Game Over screen was a reference to The Final Fantasy Legend, which, despite Square giving it that name, kicked off the SaGa RPG series. (The Japanese name is Makai Toushi SaGa, so hey.) Today's game was spoiled in the YouTube comments, so don't pay attention to those if you're playing along~

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[Voltgloss]

Why can you not just pick up an item in this game without 10 minutes of dialogue? Like, you touch the green orb and you get Beat. Why does there need to be 50 pages of useless text?

Again, Arcade Mode on the title screen turns off all the text. The game clearly recognizes that some folks don't want dialogue and gives them the option to remove it.

[Ashan]

Yeah but I'm watching the LP, not playing the game

My point is it shouldn't take 15 text boxes to explain "this green orb makes it so Lilli can fight with you." I don't like skipping dialogue in games, I'd like to know what's going on but in order to get that with this game you have to sit through the 95% of the dialogue that's just pure fluff

[freshtalk]

I like the story in this game but that scene after picking up the green orb really went longer than it needed to.

[Leet]

I'm not following this playthrough but oh boy is overwriting a massive problem with poor jpn games. I'm not talking about "things with lots of text"; my gotys for the last three years have all been long visual novels. But I was unable to play past the first chapter of Persona 4 Dancing All Night because the considerable amount of writing was 60% characters laboriously reacting to things that happened instead of, uhh, anything that's interesting to read at all.

[Kilgamayan]

Like I said, that cutscene was as long as it was because Isemiya and WOMI had a story they wanted to tell, and that was important exposition to them. It's fine that any given person watching this LP found it unnecessary. Isemiya and WOMI didn't find it unnecessary. That's all there is to it.

Like, the primary purpose was to expand upon the world they were building by including more information about the fairy race and what they're up to these days on top of establishing something important to them. The actual game mechanics were far less important, which is why the game-mechanics significance of the item was only given a couple of lines near the end. One could (and I would) reasonably argue that they didn't spent "50 lines" or whatever explaining that the game-significance of the item, because its in-game purpose didn't actually come up until way late in the conversation, and that part of the conversation didn't last very long.

[Stink Terios]

I'm not following this playthrough but oh boy is overwriting a massive problem with poor jpn games. I'm not talking about "things with lots of text"; my gotys for the last three years have all been long visual novels. But I was unable to play past the first chapter of Persona 4 Dancing All Night because the considerable amount of writing was 60% characters laboriously reacting to things that happened instead of, uhh, anything that's interesting to read at all.

nooooo you're giving me Golden Sun: Dark Dawn war flashbacks.

[Joseph Staleknight]

As far as I know, it would just be incredibly weird and lazy if they didn't explain what that item you went all the way down the shaft for was, let alone why it doesn't look like it belongs there.

But enough about that! Today, the last of the eight Witch Masters Magi has fallen. Here's her bio:

RKS-003: Zorne Zeppelin (/TSOR-neh TSEP-pe-leen/)

The hot-headed adopted daughter of Count Michael Zeppelin, and a notorious pyromaniac on top of that. She has no idea what "restraint" means and even less idea how to curb her nasty temper herself--only defeating her both physically and emotionally seems to get her to listen to reason. Her gauntlet, a gift from her father to replace the left arm she lost, can create bombs and cling to walls. That former ability, dubbed the Zornesbombe (/TSOR-nes-BOHM-beh/), she only reluctantly gives Tia when she's beaten.

"Don't think I'll go easy on you if you get in Father's way!"

GOOD POINT: Pious
BAD POINT: Horrible chef
LIKES: The word "Slipknot"
DISLIKES: Her sister Iris

Trivia:

• Of the eight Magi Tia has to fight, she's the only one whose family namesake was not involved in board game design.
• Interestingly, in her official artwork Zorne's shirts always bear the word "Slipknot", a reference to the American metal band, and her personal theme, "Sinner" by Vampire Revolution (then known as Unlimited Hellest), is strongly reminiscent of Slipknot's fare. This is no coincidence--the devs were big fans of that band.

[Chirei]

dear diary

today mario slipped on a knot and died

he has worn his shoes untied ever since

Zornesbombe - Bomb of Wrath

Uncharged: Tia sets a red bomb that has the range of the max flame in a Bomberman game. Tia may also slide to kick the bomb, and I believe she can attempt to throw bombs she has placed by pressing Fire near them. The explosions thankfully do not hurt her.

Charged: Tia will set a very long row of max bombs, which will almost certainly hit everything on the screen when they explode.

As a random note, if you were to fight Zorne again for some reason, and you actually let the metal blocks on the back of the screen fill up all the way, something interesting will happen. Good luck actually surviving against an enraged Zorne, though.

[Piesonscreations]

"I'm gonna kick your ass!" has been the best line in this game.

[Arctangent]

i wonder if the more modern, casual clothes of trau, zorne, and sichte made more sense when this thing was planned to be a h-game

i mean i guess tia and freu's clothes are pretty modern-ish too, but they also feel more in the spirit of the aesthetic of the levels

not going to say anything about schwer and luste because, i mean, they're not exactly wearing stuff you'd expect someone to wear anywhere. luste especially

[Joseph Staleknight]

Probably, but I imagine that before the rebellion they'd have worn more conservative and similar-looking clothes befitting an imperial army.

Of course, once they decided they didn't want to play by the Empire's rules anymore, anything went.

[Kilgamayan]

Zorne is best girl fight me nerds

I think this was mentioned earlier, but Zorne's dialogue and Trauare's dialogue change depending on who you beat first, with neither of them particularly happy to see you no matter what order you choose but both notably angrier with you if they're selected second. The two of them are Red-Oni-Blue-Oni best friends and pretty unambiguously gay for each other (on par with Tia and Freu in that regard tbh). There is also this official piece of art that exists (general warning for Danbooru, particular warning for an R-15 image - there's nothing NSFW but it's also something I wouldn't want to be caught at work looking at at, so, y'know).

Trau's Game Over screen is a reference to Demon's Crest, a game I somehow had never heard about before RKS despite Gargoyle's Quest being one of my favorite Game Boy games. Today's is another one-shot, with only the right-side text being edited between the JP and EN versions. Today's is also arguably the most obvious reference of the eight.

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[Arctangent]

Probably, but I imagine that before the rebellion they'd have worn more conservative and similar-looking clothes befitting an imperial army.

Of course, once they decided they didn't want to play by the Empire's rules anymore, anything went.

i wasn't really commenting on the fact that they don't look like magic soldiers so much as just their outfits not aesthetically messing with the rest of the game, be they actual battle outfits or just what they were wearing at the time

it kinda makes me think that a naruto thing is going on where there's these random anachronic things going on in an otherwise past-y setting, but ... other than the clothes ( and the cybernetic arm, but that looks like it's actually magitech rather than a tech-y cybernetic ) i haven't actually noticed anything super out of place for a magitech gothic setting

i mean, well, zorne's bombs and bots i guess, but one's an outright reference and the other would look silly in any setting, so they're kinda hard to count

[ano0maly]

I didn't watch yesterday, so catching up on Trauare and Zorne today:

Trauare:

Trauare is a very hard boss in my view. When I was first playing the game I could not understand how to avoid getting hit by the second phase patterns, so I just resorted to spamming her weakness (

Geisterwand

) or burning through cross tanks. I actually gave up on this stage and went to a different stage where I can get some tanks.

Recently I tried fighting her with the buster and I finally understood what to do, but it's still difficult to execute. How you do the jump matters significantly; if you're just a little bit off in the timing or you don't jump from the correct position, you won't avoid the attacks. The whirlpools wait for some time before they move, so if you attempt to jump over them too soon, you won't clear the jump. And you have to factor in that the whirlpools and Trauare herself move at different speeds. In the second phase you're supposed to wait at the walls and jump over both the whirlpools and Trauare, and then quickly slide and jump again to dodge the clones. This is tough to do even if you know it. The reason why she sometimes flies across twice is because she repeats this attack if you're midair at a particular moment after the attack.

The lower path I usually avoided because it's a platforming nightmare. And you can ride the Hover at the top all the way to the end, but there's no need to do so. Maybe the boss fight is easier here, but I felt uncomfortable with the ceiling spikes and the water messes up the precise jumps I practiced in the upper path. (To answer the point about Geisterwand, it does block projectiles as well as enemies, but a single one will erase the shield.)

Yeah but I'm watching the LP, not playing the game

My point is it shouldn't take 15 text boxes to explain "this green orb makes it so Lilli can fight with you." I don't like skipping dialogue in games, I'd like to know what's going on but in order to get that with this game you have to sit through the 95% of the dialogue that's just pure fluff

Well you know what they say, beggars can't be choosers. When you're playing the game you can fast forward through the text and you have a mode that removes text entirely. But in this case the player wants to read the text. I agree with Joseph Staleknight: there's nothing wrong explaining a bit of lore with the Black Forest's Treasure. The RKS gameplay follows the classic games format, but the story and tone seem to be closer to the X/Zero series.

Zorne:

It's odd that raocow isn't using other weapons during the stages but he has no qualms about using Lilli. You can shoot Seelegewehr while Lilli is equipped, although you can't charge the buster.

The stage is quite easy, but the boss can be pretty challenging. The main reason seems to be because she does a lot of damage with each hit. And she walks pretty slow, so it's tricky to jump over her successfully. The patterns themselves looks simplistic, although you have to be careful about the bombs connecting (especially during the first phase when they may or may not).

If you run out of time and the whole room fills up with blocks, that knocks out both you and Zorne.

[Chirei]

It's odd that raocow isn't using other weapons during the stages but he has no qualms about using Lilli.

he just really wants that theorized rabi ribi dlc ok

[Mandew]

my point of view on it is that everything that's explained with 30 lines could easily be explained with just 8.

for example:

Lilli: "Hey! That's our forest's treasure!"
Spiritia: "Huh? You mean you know this thing?"
Lilli: "Yup! With this, we'll be able to rebuild our home somewhere else! Thank you so much Tia!"
Spiritia: "Oh! That's wonderful!!"
Lilli: "In the meantime... I hope nobody minds if I borrow it for a while ~"
Spiritia: ?
Lilli: "I'll be able to use its power to fight with you! Just ask me anytime!"

instead of whatever 30 lines the original text was

[Ashan]

Yeah, there was about 4 points in that dialogue where it could (should) have ended but then the other character has to say their reaction to what the last person said and then the other character reacts to the reaction then the other character reactions to the reaction to the reaction, etc. I'm not criticising the fact that they're telling a story (which seems to be the common rebuttal from everyone defending this), I'm saying the way they're doing it is way too long and generally empty.

[Kilgamayan]

It seems like fairly typical doujin game writing style to me, honestly. I remember people (including raoguy) expressing distaste with Rabi Ribi's writing style as well. It's probably just a cultural difference - Japanese indie game devs write like that because it's the style their Japanese audiences want/expect to see, and I'd bet the preferred writing style of any theoretical possible Western audience doesn't even cross their mind as something significant to consider when writing.

Unrelated: So raoguy how did the fortress treat you

EDIT: It is probably worth pointing out (in the event people don't actually know this) that, when it comes to interpersonal communication in Japan, it is generally considered rude to be blunt and direct. That's why doujin game dialogue tends to be this way. (This in itself is a very general statement from someone that is admittedly only minorly informed on the subject, so anyone with more expertise on the topic that wants to swoop in an add details - or just tell me how much of an idiot I am - is perfectly welcome to do so.)

[raocow]

Unrelated: So raoguy how did the fortress treat you

better than I expected, worse than I'd hoped

[Kilgamayan]

That sound about right. Hopefully Mikhail 3 didn't give you too much trouble - it's pretty unforgiving but also not too long.

Zorne's Game Over screen was obviously a Bomberman reference. Here are today's screens, which we admittedly already saw.

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[Joseph Staleknight]

If it's any consolation, raocow, that Demon Wall today was pretty annoying to deal with for other players, so I didn't mind you breaking out the Sob Shooter to ruin its day.

[Chirei]

Yeah I do not blame you for using weapons on the wall, it's ultra terrible, and it's even worse in the extra mode...

When I buster-only I will still just shamelessly spam jesus tanks on it because it's just that bad. I think with good timing you can outlast it using just one.

[Voltgloss]

I used Lust Atem on the wall, which I gather is not its weakness, but worked well enough. I got in a counter-clockwise rhythm moving around all four of the small platforms to keep out of the way of the vertical lasers.

Apparently the time stopper also works on this thing? Haven't tried that myself.