Let's Play Xenogears, Part 3

Generic cave dungeons.  Where would the genre be without them?



Questions so far:

• Who is the man Citan was speaking to, and who are the Gazel he mentioned?
• How do Citan and Sigurd know one another?
• Sigurd refers to Citan as "Hyuga."  What is the significance of the name?
• Who is Balthazar and what is his true motivation?
• Why does Balthazar refer to Weltall as the "destroyer of god"?
• What is the significance of Weltall's "Black Boxes"?

Various factoids and symbolism

• The term "Gospel" is an account describing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
• The "Fate" the masked man mentions is similar to the end times as told in the Book of Revelation.
• The name "Brigandier" is likely a combination of "brigand" (robber) and "brigadier", a military rank for the leader of a brigade.
• Sigurd is the name of a hero from Norse mythology.
• Balthazar is the name of one of the three Magi (wise men) who visited Jesus after his birth, along with Caspar and Melchior.
• Bartholomew is the name of one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus.
• Fatima is an Arabic word meaning "chaste" or "one who abstains from forbidden things".

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 5

The Lieutenant is crushed and the Master's evil plan is stopped.  We also check out floor 5 of the Glow just to be completionists.

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Bonus and other notes

A couple of logs I missed in the Military Base that fill in some backstory (most notably that of Richard Grey/The Master).  You can download these from the computer in front of the Vats on the fourth floor.

Two talking head characters I neglected, both associated with the Followers of the Apocalypse: Nicole and Laura.  Nicole is the other girl just north of Katja, Laura's acting as a spy in the Cathedral.  If you agree to help Nicole, she'll have three of her followers assist you in combat in the Cathedral (unlike the Brotherhood allies, they will actually follow you into the depths of the base.  However, they're armed with spears, sledgehammers and throwing knives, so they're not too helpful...).  They both provide a little more backstory on their respective areas, but you don't gain any experience for helping them.





A more grisly fate for the Overseer at the end of the game.  This is what you get if you have the Bloody Mess trait, an exceptionally high negative Karma value, or you just trigger combat and then fire a targeted shot at him before the scene ends...



A speedrun of the game shown at Awesome Games Done Quick 2013, played by Lee.  Note that you don't need to collect the Water Chip to complete the game, or indeed visit any towns at all...



Other stuff to try:

• Play a low Int character (3 or less).  Makes the game considerably harder since most quests become unavailable...
• Do a "pacifist" run.  That means you don't witness a single death or cause one yourself.
• Kill Aradesh, Tandi, or both.  All three have different endings.
• Enter Shady Sands after 230 days have passed.  It will be overrun by Mutants.  This also nets an alternate ending for Shady Sands.
• Don't enter the Raiders camp at all.  This gets an alternate ending for the Raiders.
• Befriend the Raiders, kill less than thirteen raiders in the camp, or leave Garl alive and kill less than eight raiders.  This gets an alternate ending for the Raiders too.
• Convince the Raiders that you're Garl's father (requires 9 Luck and a successful roll, determined when you enter the camp for the first time).  This can be used to free Tandi without a fight.
• Take the chip, but don't bother fixing the water pump.   This gives an alternate ending for Necropolis.
• Enter Necropolis after 120 days have passed.  It will be overrun by Mutants.  Another alternate ending for Necropolis.
• Carry out the hit for Gizmo.  An alternate ending for Junktown.
• Carry out the hits for Decker.
• Kill the Blades for Zimmerman.
• Fight your way through the Cathedral and defeat the Master in combat (harder than it sounds!)
• Agree to join the Unity (reveal Vault 13's location to the Lieutenant or the Master).  This gives a (very violent) "bad" ending.
• Take a stealthy approach to the Military Base.  Talk your way past the mutants (easier with the robes), repair the bot to get into the room, then discreetly arm the base and escape before anyone knows what's happening.
• Take a stealthy approach to the Cathedral.  Use the robes to sneak in, the Lou's key to arm the hidden bomb, then escape.
• Try killing the Master in combat.  It's pretty tough!
• Destroy the Cathedral before the Military Base.  This gives an alternate ending as well.  (Notably, the text for doing this and for completing the Military Base first were accidentally switched...)

Special Encounters to see

• A crashed alien saucer containing a velvet Elvis painting and the Alien Blaster, the single strongest weapon in the game.
• "Bob's Pre-owned Car Mart", with a salesman surrounding many broken down vehicles.  His shack contains the Red Ryder LE BB Gun, a rifle that always does a flat 25 damage.
• A herd of talking Brahmin that repeatedly say "Moo!" and "Moo, I say."  A reference to a prank Tim Cain would play in the MUD "Darker Realms".
• A giant footprint with a crushed peasant in the center.  The peasant has a Stealth Boy.  A reference to the original script of Fallout, which contained time travel and dinosaurs.
• A crashed Nuka-Cola truck which has about 3000-6000 caps in a crate, depending on the player's Luck stat.  The amount is doubled if they have the Fortune Finder perk.
• A police call box that disappears as you approach, leaving behind a Motion Sensor.  Reference to Dr. Who.

Some endings do not show up in the game due to incomplete coding or cut content.

• There is a good ending for the Boneyard where the Followers of the Apocalypse gain control of the Boneyard and become a political force in New California.  Presumably you would have to complete the "find the Cathedral spy" quest to see this (which isn't possible since the spy in question was never programmed in...).  Ironically, later games establish this as the canon ending for the faction.
• Junktown has an unused ending where it is razed by mutants; however, Junktown will not be overrun by mutants in game.  Presumably this should have occurred if too much time had passed before the end of the game, as is the case with Shady Sands and Necropolis.  This may also have been intended as the ending if both Killian and Gizmo were killed (or possibly neither), but does not play in those situations.
• The original "pro-Killian" ending for Junktown had Killian turning Junktown into a police state, and the "pro-Gizmo" ending had him turning Junktown into a safe and prosperous resort.  These were changed when the marketing department decided that the game had to "reward good and punish bad".
• The Brotherhood of Steel has an ending where they fall to the mutant army thanks to a traitor in their midst.  Said traitor doesn't appear in the game, and there is no clue as to who it may have been.  (If the player turns on the Brotherhood, they are said to rise again as a technology-worshipping dictatorship that plagues California...)
• There is a good ending for the Hub where Harold and the ghoul population bring prosperity to the Hub alongside humans.  The means to achieve this end were never implemented.

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 4

Fun at the bottom of a nuclear pit and in the Brotherhood of Steel.

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 3

Fun with the raiders, then it's glitchiness abound in the Boneyard.



Undead Razor:

Let's Play Xenogears, Part 2

Fei encounters an unexpected woman in the forest and reunites with Citan.  Then things get strange...



Questions so far:

• How did Fei know Elly's name before she told it?
• What exactly happened in Elly's flashback?
• Who is Grahf and what is his relation to Fei and his father?  
• Fei's flashback also mentions a woman being killed.  Who was she?
• What does Grahf mean by "destroying god", and what part does Fei have to play in that?
• Who was the third person in Fei's second flashback?

Various factoids and symbolism

• The term "lamb" is derived from "Lamb of God", a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. Similarly, Elly refers to the people of Solaris as "shepherds", referring to their role as the overseers of the surface dwellers (and God's shepherding of humanity).
• Abel was one of the sons of Adam and Eve and a shepherd.  He was said to be killed by his brother, Cain, out of jealousy.
• "Jugend" is a German word meaning "youth".  It is most likely a reference to the Hitlerjugend, the youth organization of Nazi Germany.
• "Grahf" is a German word meaning "count" or "earl".
• Yggdrasil is the name of the ash tree that connects the nine worlds in Norse mythology.

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 2

We do good by the Hub and Necropolis and secure the Water Chip.  But our story's far from over.

Let's Play Fallout 2 "Captain Kirk", Part 0

An exponential improvement over the first Fallout, expanding its world tenfold and making some significant improvements to its design and overall balance.  I still maintain that it is the single best CRPG ever released, and I aim to show why in this playthrough.



Two mods were used in this playthrough.

Fallout 2 High Resolution patch - So I can run it windowed and without the colors getting corrupted.

Unofficial Fallout 2 patch - A fan patch. Patches the game to version 1.02.30 and removes over 800 bugs left from 1.2.  A complete list of changes can be found here (spoilertastic).

(I was also planning on using the Fallout 2 Restoration patch, which attempts to restore several features that were cut from the final release for time constraints or other issues.   However, it seems to make the program react badly to both FRAPS and Bandicam, resulting in frequent crashes, so I wouldn't be able to record the game...)

---

As for my character's stats:

5 Strength -  As with the first game, you're best off keeping this at average.  There's no need to start it higher than 5 even with a melee character, since you can boost it by a whopping 6 points in-game...
6 Perception - Again, it helps you get turn advantage in combat, but there's no real need to start with more than 6.  Also handy for a couple quests.
4 Endurance - Still the dump stat - two points equals one extra HP per level, so putting a lot of points into it doesn't make a big difference even in the long run.  4 is usually good enough to start (and enough to get the Lifegiver perk later if you're wanting for more HP).
8 Charisma - Unlike the last game, Charisma is actually quite useful in Fallout 2.  Not only does it come into play in several quests, but it affects the number of NPCs you can recruit at a time (one for every two points).  We're going to be partying with friends in this playthrough.
8 Intelligence - Still an extremely important stat as it governs how many of the all-important skill points you get each level.  We're putting it relatively high to offset the disadvantage of the Gifted trait.  You can boost it by up to three points in-game too.
9 Agility - 9 Agility is ideal to start with, since it's one of two stats that can only be boosted by a single point in-game (the other being Endurance).  More agility means more AP, which means more actions in combat!
7 Luck - Should help us get some of the special encounters, including the two Star Trek references.  Some more critical hits are no bad thing either!

Melee Weapons - Not much point in tagging Unarmed this time around, since it already starts relatively high and there are plenty of opportunities to boost it without spending skill points.  Melee weapons are more useful and much more damaging for most of the game...
Lockpick - Extremely useful.  Not just for crimes, but for legitimate quests too.
Speech - Still as handy as ever.  Plus Kirk is very charismatic.

Sex Appeal - Of course.
Gifted - He's Captain Kirk.  He does it all.

Let's Play Xenogears, Part 1

Definitely one of the oddballs of Square's Playstation-era library.  It began as a pitch for a potential script for Final Fantasy VII and was later made into a separate project after being judged as "too dark and too complicated for a Final Fantasy game" by Square's higher-ups.  It is also Tetsuya Takahashi's debut as a director and writer, having previously worked on Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu and several Final Fantasy titles as a graphic artist/director.  He was accompanied on the project by Soraya Saga and Masato Kato, so this game comprises about 3/4 of all the writing talent Square ever had in its employ...

Upon its release critics and fans alike were sharply divided, with some loving it for its dark storyline and game mechanics while others derided it for its slow pacing and uneven difficulty level.  I fell into the latter category at first, but after visiting a couple of Takahashi's later works (Xenosaga and Xenoblade, both of which are excellent) I decided to give it another chance.



Questions so far:

• The relevance of the introductory sequence.  What was on-board that ship, and who was the woman from the wreckage?
• What exactly happened that caused Fei to lose control and level Lahan village?
• How much does Citan really know about what's happening?

Various factoids and symbolism

• The opening quote is a recurring phrase in the Book of Revelation, referring to Christ or God.  The words "alpha" and "omega" also appear numerous times in the opening cinematic.
• "Deus" is a Latin word meaning "God".  It pops up once or twice in the intro as well.
• The quote that pops up onscreen during the opening cinematic reads "you shall be as gods".  This is a quote from Genesis 3:5 referring to the forbidden fruit. "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
• Kislev is the name of a month on the Hebrew calendar.  
• I'm not sure if Aveh means anything - possibly a corruption of the name "Yehovah" (YHVH)?
• "Ethos" is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology.
• Gebler is likely a mistranslation of "Gevurah", the fifth sephirot of the Tree of Life.
• Weltall's name is the German word for "Universe".
• The surname "Uzuki" was later reused for Xenosaga's protagonist, Shion.  Her brother Jin also bears a strong resemblance to Citan...

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 1

We exit the vault in search of a water chip and find a harsh, barren world waiting for us...

Let's Play Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game "Die Hard", Part 0 (Intro/Character Generation)

My favorite western RPG franchise of all time for the sheer depth of its world, its great sense of humor and its fantastic writing and design from the likes of Brian Fargo and Tim Cain.  Fallout 1, while a bit rough around the edges, was a solid start for the franchise, bringing to the table a true feeling of player freedom of choice as well as some great atmosphere.  Plus it helped pave the way for Fallout 2, which is, in my opinion, the single best CRPG to date.

I'll just let you soak up the atmosphere with the introduction and let you see what kind of character I'll be playing with the generation screen.  We'll dig into the game proper in Part 1.



"The first rule of RPGs is to never use prefab characters because they're rubbish."

A quick rundown of stats, skills and traits I chose.

Stats

• 6 Strength - Strength is the least important stat to boost.  You can boost it by a whopping four points in game, so there's no need to ever go above 6 when you start, even if you're playing a melee character.  Dropping below 4 will give you a hard time wielding some weapons though, so I'd say set that as your minimum.
• 6 Perception - Determines your turn order and, to an extent, your accuracy with guns.  6 points is enough to give you initiative in most combat situations and you can boost it by another point in-game.
• 4 Endurance - This boosts your resistance to damage and poison (slightly) and the HP you start and gain (slightly).  It honestly doesn't make too much of a difference in the long run though, so 4 is usually plenty regardless of your character type.
• 1 Charisma - Theoretically this helps with stuff like Speech checks and bartering, but in practice it's far less useful than just putting more points into those respective skills.  It's better utilized in the second game where it determines (among other things) how many followers you can have, but in the first game it's virtually useless.  Feel free to cannibalize it to boost your other stats.
• 9 Intelligence - Affects a large number of skills and gets you more skill points to spend per level; I'm sure you can see the value in that.  Seven should be the bare minimum for this unless for some strange reason you want to play an idiot character...
• 9 Agility - Another useful stat, as it boosts weapon skills and every two points of it will get you another AP.  Start with either seven or nine; you can earn another point in-game to push you up to 8 or 10.
• 6 Luck - Luck is helpful to a degree, gaining you more critical hits and a higher chance of finding special encounters and boosting certain useful perks (like Sniper).  Keep it at 5 or 6 unless you're going for a Jinxed playthrough.

Traits

• Small Frame gives you another point of Agility at a significant hit to your Carry Weight.  This isn't too much of a concern, though, since allies you recruit can carry an unlimited amount of weight...
• One Hander gives you a major accuracy boost with one-handed weapons, but a penalty with two-handed ones.  Since we're going to be punching a lot and all Unarmed weapons are considered one-handed weapons, that suits us just fine.

Skills

• Energy Weapons are, quite frankly, the best artillery in the game.  Lightweight, very powerful and even relatively common in the later stages.  I don't bother tagging any of the other weapon skills since I decided to do a melee character, and both Melee and Unarmed skills start relatively high.
• Lockpick.  If you've played any western RPG before, I'm sure you already know how handy being able to get into locked doors and chests and stealing the goodies within is.  Fallout is no different.  Just to add insult to injury, tagging this also starts you off with a set of lockpicks, which give a 25% boost to the skill, so you can unlock almost anything right from the outset of the game (not so much on Hard Mode, but still)...
• Speech is a very important skill as well, enabling you to resolve situations without a fight and weasel your way out of trouble in too many ways to even count.  It's simply too handy to not be tagged and pushed up to at least 90% straight away...