Naturally, to fill the empty void in my soul caused by internet deprivation, boredom and the pain I felt via the psychic screams of my followers unto a Internet God that had forsaken them (namely me), I had to improvise, and make do with games I had on my computer.
Before I show you my so called improvisation, I have a very important question to ask about a certain phenomenon. It puzzled me greatly.
What's that hot, yellow thing that comes down out of the sky when you're not under a roof, and it hurts your eyes when you try to look at it? I've never seen it before...
Umm, so yes, back to improvisation.
Pictured below, improvisation:
The Elder Scrolls 3
I was playing this a bit before the internet started acting up. Despite the fact I spent a bit over a month without the internet, I still haven't finished it. Its a great game, but the constant trekking all over the map, and the running back and forth really does get on my nerves. Technically, although running up and down to do quests is a classic RPG gripe, it's exacerbated in Elder Scrolls, even with the quick transport mechanisms available ingame, considering the sheer size of the game map (insert dick joke here).
What I love about Elder Scrolls however, is how immersive they made the world. I've counted at least 50 books so far, and a majority of them have been 15 or 20 pages long. Their contents are quite varied and include among other things: the history of the world, anecdotes about people, or sermons for the Tribunal temple (an ingame religion, which of course, in classic RPG cliche fashion ties in with the well written main plotline and backstory).
"The Axe Man" is one of my favourite anecdotes from the game. Here it is, in its entirety. It's short anyway. Quick definitions: Morag Tong - Bunch of ingame assassins, Dwemer - dwarves, saltrice - ingame crop
Of all the members of the Morag Tong I've spoken with, none disturbed me as much as Minas Torik. A quiet and reserved man who never drank, never visited a brothel or even uttered a curse, he was famous for his ability to make people disappear. Once a person was targeted by the Brotherhood and Torik was sent to them, they would simply cease to be. I asked him once what his weapon of choice was, and was equally startled by his answer.
“I only likes to use axes,” he said in his typical, quiet voice.
The image of this silent, dour fellow attacking anyone with a weapon as inherently bloody and violent as an axe so frightened and intrigued me that I questioned him about it further. This is an inherently dangerous activity, for assassins are not typically keen to give out their stories. Torik did not mind the questions, though it took some time to get the full story out of him, as naturally shy and reserved as he was.
It seemed that Torik had been orphaned as a very young age and sent to live with his uncle, a saltrice plantation owner in Sheogorad in northern Vvardenfell. The man promised to show his nephew the business and eventually make him a partner when he was old enough. In the meantime, the boy was put to work as his uncle's house servant.
It was a grueling life as the old man was very particular about how things should be done. The boy was first required to give all the floors in the house a thorough scouring, from the attic to the cellar. Whenever the floor was not cleaned to the uncle's satisfaction, which was frequent, Torik was thrashed and forced to begin again.
The boy's second duty was to ring the bell that would bring the laborers into the house. This was done at least four times a day, once for each meal, but if his uncle had any news or additional instructions for the laborers -- which he frequently did -- the bell might need to be sounded a dozen times or more. It was a huge iron bell in the tower and the boy quickly discovered that he had to throw his entire body into the motion of pulling the chain in order to have it sound loud enough to bring everyone in from the field. If he was tired and did not pull the backbreaking chain hard enough, his uncle was soon at his side to beat him until he rang the bell loud and clear.
Torik's third task was dusting all the shelves in his uncle's vast library. As deep and old as the shelves were, he was required to work with a long, heavy duster on a rod. The only way that he could reach to the back of the shelves was to hold the duster at his shoulder and then swing it out in a sweeping motion. Again, if the uncle saw any dust left over or felt that the boy was not working as hard as he ought to, the punishment was swift and severe.
After several years, Minas Torik grew into a young man, but his job responsibilities were not increased. His uncle promised to teach him the business, once Torik had demonstrated his mastery of his servile assignments. Divorced from any knowledge of any work other than his own, Torik never knew how badly in debt his uncle was and how poorly the farm's yield was.
In his eighteenth year, Torik was called into the cellar by his uncle. He thought that he had not done a good enough job scouring the floor down there, and was frightened of the beating to come. What he found, however, was his uncle packing his goods into crates.
“I'm leaving Morrowind,” he explained. “The business has gone sour, so I thought I'd try my luck running a caravan in Skyrim. I understand there's good money to be made, trading fake Dwemer artifacts to the Nords and Cyrodiils. I wish I could take you with me, my lad, but there won't be much need for scouring, bell pulling, and dusting where I'm going.”
“But uncle,” said Torik. “I can't read, I knows nothing of the business you promised to teach me. What wills I dos on my own?”
“I'm certain you can find a job in some domestic capacity,” shrugged the uncle. “I've done my best with you.”
Torik had never stood up to his uncle before, and felt no anger only a sort of coldness that gripped his heart. Among his uncle's possessions being packed away was an old heavy iron axe, allegedly of Dwemer manufacture. He picked it up in his hands and was surprised to find that it was not much heavier than his dusting rod. In fact, it felt very comfortable as he pulled it over his shoulder and swung it out as he had done so many times before. In this instance, however, he swung it into his uncle's right arm.
The old man screamed with pain and rage, but for some reason, Torik didn't feel frightened anymore. He propped the axe against his other shoulder, and swung it out again. It cut a swath across the old man's chest and he fell to the floor.
Torik hesitated before lifting the axe above his head. It was another natural position for him, like he was ringing a bell. Over and over again, he swung down as if he was calling the laborers in from the field. Except that this time, there was no sound except for a wet thump, and no laborers came in from the field. Of course, his uncle had sent them away hours before.
After a time, there was nothing left of his uncle that couldn't be washed down the cellar drain. The process of cleaning up came easily to Torik as well. Blood scrubbed up much quicker than the usual grime and saltrice flour that littered the cellar floor.
It was well known that Torik's uncle was planning to leave Morrowind, so his disappearance provoked no suspicion. The house and all the belongings were sold to the debt collectors, but Torik took the axe. It seemed that his uncle had given him some worthwhile business skills after all.
Good stuff huh?
In the game, I've currently entered the Ghostgate and killed 2 people that I was supposed to kill to recover certain items (I wrote it like this to avoid any spoilers, just in case your interest has been piqued and you decide to play it too). My Redguard Battlemage is quite epic (max proficiency with axe and heavy armour skills, and maxed out strength attribute), but for a magic using character, his MP is really low.
Lets move on before I have a nerdgasm.
Morrowind isn't the only game I played during my little sabbatical. Honestly, I would have gone mad if that were the only thing I had to play. This brings us to:
Yggdra Union
Yes, I've mostly been playing 2D RPGs. Thats usually my preferred choice of game anyway.
I started playing Yggdra Union MONTHS ago, but my playing was intermittent, due to me constantly being distracted by trivial matters like school. I started playing again about 2 weeks ago. It's a really great game (and it seems to be in the same story universe as Riviera: The Promised Land).
*PSEUDOSPOILER ALERT*
Anyway, after much stress and toil, I finally defeated Gulcasa. As my troops were leaving the castle, something happened. Milanor's reaction corresponded to mine quite well....
...although admittedly, my reaction was more alone the lines of "Cho bumboclaut, what now?"
And yeah, long story short, this other thing involves like 4 or 5 more battles before you reach the ACTUAL end of the game. It's still a bit of a nasty shock after you've played through almost 40 hard fought battles and you think you're finally done. Ugh.
But it was a good game, and time well spent. Onto the next one:
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story
I'm still trying to figure out if the fact that they spelt the word as "night" instead of "knight" is some sort of Engrish, a clever pun that went right over my head, or some god-forsaken combination of both.
I'm a bit of a 2D RPG aficionado, and I really enjoyed playing this game. I never minded the level grinding I had to do at times, because the combat system is really fun.
Why?
Well kids, it uses a combat system similar to the original Star Ocean or the 2D entries in the Tales series (eg. Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia). This type combat system is one of my favourite RPG combat systems because it causes the RPG to play more like a mix of a fighting/strategy game than a normal "wait for the bar to fill, pick a command, if it doesn't kill your enemy wait for the bar to fill again and repeat the process" sort of RPG (I'm looking at YOU, Final Fantasy).
The story is a bit cliche, but it does have a few interesting plot twists. Its definitely worth the 15 hours of your life or so it takes to finish it. I won't say more apart from the fact that you have my wholehearted recommendation to go and play it.
I played a many more games than these 3, but these are the ones I played the most. I don't have time to go into the other ones I played. As a side note, I finally beat Final Fantasy 3 (FF6 in Japan) as well, after procrastinating with it for over 6 years. Can you say "no more closet skeletons"?
My game choices have helped me come to the realization that Atlus has the potential to displace Square Enix as the king of RPG game production, but they need to make more worthwhile forays into 3D RPGs, and they need an epic flagship series. More on that in another blog post though, because I could write and epistle on it.
But thats enough about video games now. Movie time!
I only really have one recommendation (because Elder Scrolls sucked up most of my time).
Anyway, one night, after a 7 hour Elder Scrolls run, I turned on the TV (which was on TVJ because I'd turned it off right after the news and gone back to Elder Scrolls). I caught a fantasy movie as it was starting.
The name of this movie was Legend of Earthsea, and it technically wasn't even a movie; it was a miniseries. I spent the next 2 hours or so watching it. It seemed like a relatively low budget production, and the acting was a bit iffy in certain parts, but I loved the simplicity of the plot. Nevermind the fact that I later found out that the miniseries butchered the story of the actual book series (as film adaptations tend to do anyway), I liked the simplifications.
It had plain wizards trying to stop a plain hostile army. No fantasy names to twist your tongue and give you a headache. Just wizards, monsters, rivals, love interests and evil generals. It's pretty much the complete opposite of almost every fantasy production, in any media, that has been produced for like the last 50 years or so.
The only REAL complicating element in Legend of Earthsea was a summoned demon that was chasing one of the main characters for most of the film. That was of course, solved satisfactorily by the time the ending credits rolled.
There is a LOT more that I could write about the time I spent without the internet, but frankly, I think you're all getting as tired of reading as I am of writing. I'll leave it here for now kids.
I hear there's an anime adaptation of the Earthsea series. I think my first order of business back on the internet will be trying to source it.
Yours truly, now and always,
Lord Robinson.
