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 I swore up and down that I would never do this, but I am legendary apparently for breaking promises. So, by popular demand, because I’ve actually had a fair number of people ask me whether I was going to tackle it eventually or not, here we go… Welcome to Let’s Play White Knight Chronicles: Origins. Because, gently caress it, if The Dark Id can go back to his brand of LPing Yoko Taro mindfuck games, then I can go back to my brand of ripping off his schtick too!   White Knight Chronicles: Origins (白騎士物語 -episode.portable- ドグマ・ウォーズ Shirokishi Monogatari Episode Portable: Dogma Wars) was an action RPG for the Sony PlayStation Portable released in 2011 in Japan and Europe. It was designed to be a companion piece and prequel to White Knight Chronicles II, allowing you to swap save data between the two games and unlock certain bonus items and amours in each game. Instead of Level-5 being at the helm this time around, development on Origins was handled by Matrix Software, known for its various mobile ports and/or spin offs of preexisting JRPG titles and franchises. And if you think that forcibly removing the franchise from Level-5’s butterfingers grip did anything to improve its quality, well… I have some bad news for you. This is probably a good time to remind everyone to go check out my original LP of White Knight Chronicles I & II (aka the Original Duology) up on the LP Archive. Because trust me, by the time we will be finished with this slip and slide shitshow, you will come to appreciate the master class in game design and script writing that was the franchise-killing critical and commercial disaster White Knight Chronicles. White Knight Chronicles: Origins, even among fans of the series, is derided as a black sheep among already dark-coated sheep. Mostly due to the fact that it wasn’t very good. It was kind of abysmal, actually. I have not encountered a person yet who has actively enjoyed playing Origins. It doesn’t even have the decency to be the FUN kind of bad the original duology was. It was so terrible and ultimately inconsequential to the franchise that D3, who localized White Knight Chronicles II actually passed on publishing it in North America, even though the game had already been translated into English and had (meager scraps of) English voice acting already recorded for it and was an in-house Sony co-production already itself. Of course, D3 is ALSO a lazy and cheap publisher, so they probably didn’t want to waste any money to publish a game that would be dead on arrival for a mobile platform that was already six years past its expiration date while publishing another game that they had to have known would be DOA at launch itself. That’s money better spent on shoveling out Cartoon Network and Magic the Gathering mobile games, am I right? Suffice to say, you are not missing much by D3 opting out of bringing this game stateside. If anything, I am a bigger idiot than any of the lazy fucks at D3 were with regard to this game, because I actually spent like $20 to have a used copy shipped over from Germany. It took like 4 months to cross the Atlantic, but it did come with a lovely thank you card and some penny candies tucked inside the box from the retailer I bought it from, so thank you to the good people at Sammelparadise for making this LP possible.  One of the major things that got people up in arms about the game was that for a story that bills itself as Dogma Wars in Japan, the game does not, in fact, have anything to actually do with the Dogma War itself. You know, the big worldbuilding event that shaped nearly 100% of the original two games’ plots? While the game itself is set during the time of the Dogma War, 10,000 years prior to the start of the first game, and the Dogma War itself is indeed playing out in the background of the game, it lies tantalizingly out of reach of the scope of the story the game has chosen to tell. The game focuses instead on the travails of a group of people doomed to be forgotten by history and accomplish nothing that actually matters to the plot of the main dugology. Actually, no, that’s a lie. You deliver Talion to Thaumus so he can go kill a fuckton of Knights with it about halfway through the game. So at least one thing you do matters in the game. As for the actual story, you once more assume the role of an Avatar character you create at the start of the game. The Avatar finds themselves thrust against their will into the company of the Mobile Corps, a mercenary company who operate out of a massive train base that rides the rails through the no man’s land between the empires of Yshrenia and Athwan, the two key players of the Dogma War. Only Origins doesn’t give a gently caress about either of them, and instead focuses its energy on exploring the pointless mystery of the Kingdom of Verkh. What’s the Kingdom of Verkh? Why have we never heard of it before? Why isn’t it mentioned in the original games? Who gives a poo poo! Also to sidestep around the whole “the Knight are evil and work for the bud guys in the Dogma War” part of the series lore, instead of gaining the power to turn into a Knight yourself, you rather get the power to change into something called an Optimus. Which is just a human-sized Knight, so really you can occasionally become a Power Ranger in this game. Again, who gives a poo poo?  Just like in the original LP, straight formatted material is either stuff that’s in the game or my commentary in it. Chat heads with italicized fonts are things I have made up myself in the name of making this game more palatable to get through for both you and me. Meanwhile, new to this LP, blocks of non-dialog italicized fixed width text are bits of in-game text narration, because that is a thing is game does because there’s no actual voice acting in it.  Some ground rules for this adventure: #1 –  I DON’T CARE ABOUT SPOILERSAnd neither should you. If you want to talk about anything that happens at any point in this game, go nuts. Spoil the whole drat thing. I don’t care. Have at it. Casually drop entire plot points in your rants on this game or openly talk about characters who haven’t even shown up or been alluded to yet. gently caress it, I’ll do it myself: Ledom shows up in this game. And he’s written like poo poo compared to how he is in the proper games! You also get to see Madora’s original unfucked up human form for like two seconds at the very end. From behind. And in shadow only. It looks really boring compared to Anime Satan David Bowie. Or better yet, just make up your own bullshit spoilers and try to fool the thread with them. This game does not deserve your respect as an audience. Anarchy reigns. #2 – Constructive criticism is always welcome Don’t be afraid to point out where I mess up here and there because I will be giving this game about as much care in LPing it as Matrix did in making it. So please do not feel put off in approaching “LP Subforum Supervillain nine-gear crow TM” and pointing out where he may have made a misatke. #3 – Don't Be A Dick Live by Wil Wheaton’s Words of Wisdom. There are enough wholly awful people out there in the wild already. Please do not join their numbers. Now sit back and enjoy the show!   
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 Perhaps I'm being presumptuous, but I have a strong feeling this one is going to inspire about as much fan art as the previous LP did, which was a lot. SystemLogoff shows everyone how to properly LP White Knight Chronicles: Origins:  I'm starting to worry about No Gravitas's sanity: https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=147211 nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Apr 19, 2017 |
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Apr 1, 2017 10:47
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 I have a feeling I may well regret this, but it’s too late now. Let’s get this train wreck rolling.  We begin, as always, with the perpwalk. The following parties stand accused of the crime of “Making White Knight Chronicles: Origins”. Our first defendant is of course big daddy Sony, without whose consoles and mobile platforms the world would be blissfully free of White Knight Chronicles and all things associated with it.  Next up of course is SCE Japan Studio, who, even in the PSP game that nobody played or cared about, still have to hang their head in shame and admit “Yes, we had an incalculable hand in making this debacle.”  And lastly, our actual developer credit for the game: Matrix Software. Yes, this is how you can tell that this game is cast-off refuse even from a franchise that itself was banished from all acknowledgement by Sony quicker that PlayStation All-Stars was. This game is not Level-5’s baby. This is not a single trace of Akihiro Hino’s fingerprints on it. His name doesn’t even appear in the credits. This game is 100% the work of the good people at Matrix Software. Okay, things might be looking up then, because we’ve all seen by now what the franchise looks like under Level-5’s stewardship. So then, that begs the question: what’s Matrix like as a developer? What have they done lately that we can gauge their competence with? Well… Well, they were the folks behind the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy III… Oh. And the second and third (but not first!) Lost in Blue games. ...Not inspiring a lot of confidence guys. What’s your next offering? Oh, they also did Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light! …A game I once almost fell asleep playing. Okay. …Well, Final Fantasy Dimensions was supposedly good… for an weird mobile phone game. And they did make the PS2 remake of Dragon Quest V… or at least they claimed credit for it when it looks like ArtePiazza actually did all the work on it. Well then… They also made the abysmal PSP remaster of Final Fantasy IV, the universally reviled Android/iOS remakes of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, just for that final nail in the coffin of your expectations for this game. Origins has all the hallmarks of a Matrix mobile game: minimal effort or polish, dodgy and flat storytelling, unnecessary repetition and grinding, a hilarious disregard for its franchise source material, a smattering of base-level game design flaws, and zero sense of accomplishment after everything is finished. I had said years ago that the reason I’d put off tackling this ‘prequel’ (and I use that term in the loosest possible sense) was that White Knight Chronicles: Origins was a fundamentally un-LP-able game just from how much of a vacuous wet fart it is. There’s no ‘there’ there to it. Say what you will about the original duology, compared to Origins, at least I & II had a measure of heart and personality to them that made them at least rizzable. Then I suppose the only thing to do with Origins then is to take it as a challenge and see what comes of it. So enough stalling, let’s get right into it. It’s time to put our archeologist caps on, because we’re going back in time 10,000 years from the start of White Knight Chronicles I.  We begin, as any good no-budget fantasy schlock does, with expository narration to set the scene: Turmoil reigned after the great Sage-King’s death. This of course, if you’re familiar with the general WKC lore, is the Sage-King Falcyos, for whom that sword that Leonard obtains in White Knight Chronicles II, then fails to destroy the Sun King with, and then forgets about completely—is named after. The flames of war consumed our continent. Falcyos once ruled the entirety of Nadias, the continent on which the WKC games take place. He held the whole place together with I’m guessing some kind of hosed up cult of personality, and then when he died all the disparate provinces flew apart into war and chaos as their leaders tried to fill the power vacuum he left, because he kind of Alexander the Great’d this poo poo: big giant empire… and no legal successor. Countless fiefdoms struggled for supremacy. Like I said… Some triumphed; most fell. This age of strife would one day have a name. It would be known as the Dogma Wars. And there you go, that’s how the game justifies being called White Knight Chronicles: Dogma Wars in Japan: it gives you a two minute power point presentation on what the Dogma War was really about and paints a clearer picture than any of the rambling Eldore did on the matter over the course of the original two games. Also, spoiler alert: this is the closest we’ll ever get to the actual Dogma War. Yeah, I know, Matrix made a game called Dogma Wars, and we never actually see any of the goddamn Dogma War. But I digress, let’s move along to the other half of this mural and get the ‘complete picture’ as it were. Huuuurr.  In the twilight of the age… …two nations rose to prominence. One was Athwan, a kingdom steeped in magic. Ruled by the insane, manipulative, and callous, yet still presented as a Good Guy by Level-5, tyrant witch Queen Mureas. The other was Yshrenia, masters of technology. Ruled by the equally insane and monstrous David Bowie cosplaying and part-time Rusty Venture impersonating megalomaniac Emperor Madoras. In the time of Yshrenian Emperor Madoras… Towering humanoid weapons were unleashed. These giant Knights were known as Incorrupti. It’s an irony that I never touched on while covering the original duology, but I find it darkly hilarious that the inherently evil baby soul-powered death machines created by Anime Satan are crowned with a name that shares a root with “incorruptible.” Someone at Level-5 didn’t think that one through. And by someone I mean Akihiro Hino, most likely. But no, no, this is not Hino’s game. I will endeavor to leave him out of my prolonged making GBS threads upon it. He’s paid for his sins already… and been rewarded with a sequel to Ni no Kuni. Ain’t that a kick in the shitter with a filthy boot. Though recent years have taught me never to underestimate certain peoples’ abilities to fail upward spectacularly. ANYWAY! Wherever they marched, nations collapsed… …until only the Kingdom of Athwan remained. No other nation could withstand Yshrenia. Because nobody out-bugfuck crazies Mureas, and if you try to dispute that she will skullfuck your charred and broken corpse with the bayonet strapped to the triple-barreled nuclear bomb made out of rabid spiders, barbed wire, glass splinters and rusty pick-up jacks that she personally filed down to all have sharp pointy ends which she commanded her army of hybrid shark/amazon handmaidens to personally deliver to wherever the gently caress you were unfortunate enough to be inside of her dominion. Which is, of course, all existence. It is summer, the 38th year of Madoras’ reign… Yshrenia finally moves to crush Athwan… Again, just a quick crash course on how this all ends: after securing dominion over every inch of Nadias but Athwan, Madoras is getting ready to end the Dogma War and set about to the task of ruling Nadias as its next Sage-King, following from where Falcyos left off. But Mureas, unable to accept defeat, blows up the continent, plunging Nadias into a Dark Age, turning Athwan into a frozen deadland with a literal speed dial to hell in the middle of it, and mortally cripples Yshrenia to the point it utterly collapses and leaves only scant vestiges of its former glory buried across Nadias. Neither of these people or their empires are the good guy in this story and neither is worthy of rooting for. So again, it’s a matter of unsmall hilarity that the actual “plot” of this game doesn’t directly involve either of them as they slug their way down to Armageddon literally in the background of the comically small things we concern ourselves with between here and the end credits. A lethal Knight marches among them. Five guesses as to which one it is… Yshrenia’s final push as begun. Ominous words to open a game on, huh?  Our story properly begins in Xarmgand, an Athwani-allied fortress city located on Xarm Plains, the last buffer of neutral territory between Yshrenia in the east, and Athwan in the north west. As for where we are specifically, if you think back to the full map of Nadias from the original duology, Xarm Plains is the small blank stretch on the southern portion of the western half of the map past the Dogma Rift and Vellgander right before you get to the Lost Forest and Farian territory. As a matter of game development minutia: Xarm Plains was one of a number of new locals on western Nadias that was originally intended to be visitable in White Knight Chronicles II so that both halves of the map would be filled in by the time the duology ended. …That was before Sony crushed its budget and development cycle and told Level-5 “no, you’re done, finish the story, ship it and get out” after the original White Knight Chronicles—a game Sony once banked on selling PlayStation 3s with as a launch title—spectacularly faceplanted and bombed up on release. So everything but the barest essential new locations, Faria and the Lost Forest, were cut and the game was rewritten to take place in locales Level-5 had already made so their assets could be easily reused. Oh how I’ve missed making GBS threads on White Knight Chronicles. It feels good to be back.  We pan up to a qualifiably impressive wall. It’s impressive because this is the last time the game will feature a) cinematography, b) structures over 1 story tall, and c) voice acting.  Things start off deceptively Shakespearean as a literally spear carrier character comes in to say the first line of dialog for the game.  Guard #1: I have the watch now. Guard #2: My thanks, brother! Despite him “having the watch,” the spearman begins to walk away from his post while the dude he just relieved is actually the one who spots something amiss. Guard #2: Huh? …Look! The shouting of a charging horde fills the air as the music begins to swell.  It’s not readily apparent at first, but as it gets going you can clearly tell it’s a more sinister, minor key remix of the White Knight’s theme. This game actually has a half-way decent soundtrack, just like the original two did. While Matrix’s in-house staff worked on it, it was overseen by Takeshi Inoue, who was responsible for the majority of the work on the first two games’ soundtracks, making him one of the few Level-5 staffers with their name attached to Origins. This is a net plus, because the literal best thing about the original games was their soundtracks. The thing that inspired me to seek out and pick up the original White Knight Chronicles after it dropped off the radar between its initial headline grabbing announcement and its eventual whimper fart release actually was its soundtrack, interestingly enough. I’d stumbled across it online and used it for background noise while I studied in school or worked on other projects and found myself enjoying listening to it, so I decided just on the soundtrack alone to give the game a second chance after losing interest in it initially following those years of radio silence. I try not to live in regret. This LP, however, will not have a musical accompaniment like the last one did because, wouldn’t you know it, Matrix didn’t release an actual soundtrack for this game in any format. There’s game rips of select tracks out there on YouTube, mainly battle themes and generic area background music, but gently caress that noise if I’m including any of those.  As the music swells to the point where it becomes inescapably clear that this is the White Knight’s theme playing, lo and behold, the White Knight itself appears behind Yshrenia’s intimidating army of six dudes with melee weapons.  Guard #1: It’s an attack! We’re under attack! The bowman prepares to fire and the spearman rears back to toss his only weapon into the approaching… I don’t even want to say “army” more like “small crowd.”   The White Knight lumbers forward, flanked by a couple of Yshrenia’s other favorite toys: gigantes. Another thing to point out is that Matrix clearly had access to all of Level-5’s model and texture resources from the PS3 games to make the PSP spin-off. Assets from the original games are reused whole cloth in Origins with no other thought behind them than “making our own stuff is hard, guys.” So I find it sadly hilarious that they just used a crop of generic armor for the Yshrenian soldiers here instead of the already modeled iconic Yshrenian/Magi armor from the original games, which is canonically based off the ancient Yshrenian army armor, aka the stuff these jagoffs should be repping. Again, you can see that “careless disregard for source material” feature at play here. Much like how Leonard’s little moments of initially innocuous stupidity prime you to be on the lookout for his monumental fuckups later on in the original duology, so too does Matrix not giving a poo poo about the little details like this prime you for when they fail to give a poo poo about the big things later on in the game.  Speaking of big things, the game wastes little time in re-establishing just how dauntingly big the Knights actually are and how utterly hosed all of these tiny humans in Xarmgand are now that the canonical Avatar of Death and Destruction in the White Knight Chronicles franchise has entered the fray.   The White Knight takes a running start at the wall, a wall it is taller than and could easily vault over with all its (alleged) power.    Which it actually does. Holy poo poo.  God, not even a minute into the PSP spin off and the White Knight is already being more badass and threatening than it ever was across both original games until loving Madoras got his hands on it.  Oh yeah, those two mooks are toast.  Credit where it’s due, for all the poo poo Matrix gets wrong about Origins, it at least manages to succeed in one area that Level-5 ultimately squished in. It embraces the fundamental premise of the Knights as unstoppable, barely controllable forces of unmitigated destruction. Level-5 quickly abandoned this premise because it was intimidated by the ramifications of it. It was trying to tell an unambiguous Saturday Morning Cartoon fantasy story about good guy heroes and bad guy villains, and in those kinds of stories, Superman doesn’t level half of Metropolis accidentally with his unrivaled god-like strength. They realized early on what would happen if they played to their premise, and they didn’t like it so that’s why post-prologue, the Knights are practically made of Styrofoam and silly putty when it comes to the impact on their environment as physical entities in it. Matrix just throws that caution to the wind and gives it the finger as it lets fly for good measure. And for that, we thank them.  Case in point: those two men are loving dead now. That grey splotch there by the White Knight’s head? That is one of the two guards falling into the chasm the White Knight just tore open in the wall with Whitesteel and about to be crushed by several tons of rubble.  There he still goes, plummeting to his doom as the White Knight finishes tearing clean through the wall.   To quote Men In Black once again: You know what the difference between you and me is?  I make this look (momentarily, and then never again from here onward) good.  Further inside the city, the local guard lucky enough to not be posted on the wall and just crushed to death by some combination of rubble and Incorruptus, is rightly panicking as the smoke and flames rise in the distance. Xarmgand Soldier #1: That… that thing breached the gate! In the name of the gods, what is that?! Xarmgand Soldier #2: A Knight! It’s an Yshrenian Knight!  We transition to a young man observing the slaughter from farther back. You can tell he’s an Important Character because he’s one of the few people we come across who’s not wearing clothing or armor ported in from the PS3 games. Though he’s credited right now as “Mysterious Boy,” this young man is a character by the name of Ardyn. If you’ve played the original two games and delved even ankle deep into the Adventurer’s Guild shop, you may recall that in the Game 2 section of the duology, upgraded versions of the main cast’s default clothing armors are unlocked. Each of these armor sets (aside from Kara’s, because Kara always gets the shaft) are named after characters who appear in either Origins or the Episode 0 prequel manga that serves as a companion piece to the PSP game. Eldore’s armor set is named after Ardyn.   Ardyn: So much for the mighty ramparts of Xarmgand, toppled like a sand castle.And burnt down, from the look of it. You could almost say then that it looks like Yshrenia… burned down the Sandcastle?  Ardyn: The power of the Incorrupti is a terrible thing indeed...Also this is the first instance of the series using the term “Incorrupti” to refer to Knights in the plural sense. Every time I used the term in the original LP I was using it by the seat of my pants and just assuming that that was how you referred to more than one Incorruptus, so it’s nice to be proven right post-facto at least.  Something catches Ardryn’s attention behind him and he turns to face the camera.  Oh why it’s a generic video game protagonist. Ardyn: Hmm…? Who are you? A city dweller? Blank: Yo man. Why’s everything on fire all the sudden? Am I like fuckin’ baked or something? Is this real life? Ardyn: You won’t have a city to dwell in for long. Xarmgand’s walls are breached. It will fall soon. Blank: That’s rough buddy. Ardyn: If only he city elders had deigned to hear me… Such senseless loss of life could have been prevented. Ardyn: Mureas is gonna be piiiiiissed. Ardyn: Your brave troops will fight Yshrenia to the last man, yet the battle is already lost. What shall you do? The camera flips around on us for the first time and we get a good look at our white bread blob of flesh who we, and by that I mean I have decided to be our Avatar character for White Knight Chronicles: Origins. Sadly, Orren he is not. This is Blank, but don’t worry. He shall not remain blank for long. This is just a placeholder I have thrown together for the sake of this intro update. We shall craft a suitable avatar for this speedbump of a story together and name him or her in due time. Anyway, it’s at this point that Blank is given a slate of prompts as to how he (or she if you’re into playing as lady types) can respond to Ardyn’s incredibly stupid question. Because, surprisingly, White Knight Chronicles: Origins actually treats the Avatar like they’re an actual character in its narrative. A character that other main characters (not just some random lunatic handily detached from the main story) will speak to regularly and respond to when they say things on rare occasion. This is where the PSP game having near-zero voiced dialog is actual a strength over the PS3 games because it does allow the Avatar a limited amount of actual interaction with the main cast. Anyway, the responses to these questions should be weighed carefully, because YOUR CHOICES MATTER to what colour and type of Optimus you get stuck with initially at the start of the game before you can acquire different ones and swap it out. Let’s explore each subset of responses and what that yields: First option is REMAIN: CHOICE: REMAIN Ardyn: What do you want to do? Blank: Remain in the city. Ardyn: You really wish to stay? To what end? The die is cast. Xarmgand will soon be nothing but rubble. Blank: Yeeeeah, but like all my poo poo’s here man. Plus my rent is super cheap. What am I supposed to do? Look for a place in Vellgander? You need to be rich just to be homeless there!This response then gives you the choice of FIGHT or AID. Let’s follow the FIGHT choice down to its conclusion first. CHOICE: FIGHT Ardyn: Why do you wish to remain in the city? Blank: To fight the Yshrenians. Ardyn: But the Yshrenian force is fifty thousand strong. And they have a Knight. Blank: More corpses! Ardyn: The city’s defenders are hopelessly outmatched. How could one person possibly help them? Blank: More corpses! Ardyn: (Perhaps I should introduce him to Her Grace?)At the end of this branch you’re given the choice of either ALL-OUT or CAUTION. CHOICE: ALL-OUT Ardyn: How will you fight? Blank: All-out. Like there’s no tomorrow. Ardyn: So reckless… and yet so brave. Ardyn: Yes, I suppose desperate times require desperate measures from passionate souls such as yourself. Blank: You can take over control of a Knight if you kill its pilot right? Ardyn: The term is Pactmaker, and yes, but it’s a statistical impossibility that you— Blank: I’m gonna paint it green and find a really big hammer for it! Ardyn: (Whatever you say, Niles.)CHOICE: CAUTION Ardyn: How will you fight? Blank: Cautiously, waiting for opportunities. Ardyn: My, you certainly seem calm and collected. Perhaps the times call for folks who can wield wits as weapons.Now let’s go down the REMAIN-AID branch: CHOICE: AID Ardyn: Why do you wish to remain in the city? Blank: To aid fellow citizens. Ardyn: Your fellow citizens...? I see. But how could you possibly help them? Blank: Look, dude, I owe a LOT of people here money. Maybe if I help them they’ll get off my back. Ardyn: Or just leave them to their fate because dead men don’t collect debts? Blank: Hmmm. Choices.At the end of this branch the options are DEFEND and CHEER: CHOICE: DEFEND Ardyn: How will you aid your fellow citizens? Blank: Defend them to the bitter end. Ardyn: Fascinating… You would stand and fight, despite impossible odds? Ardyn: How noble of you. Perhaps the times call for honorable folk such as yourself. Blank: How do think I should pose for my statue? BLANK: SAVER OF THE CITY. Ardyn: You spelled that—no. It’s not worth it.CHOICE: CHEER Ardyn: How will you aid your fellow citizens? Blank: Cheer on my compatriots. Ardyn: You are a kind and compassionate soul. Perhaps it is time for the compassionate to inherit the earth. Ardyn: I, meanwhile, will sit back and laugh at you for doing nothing of actual use or worthwhile you make everyone here feel a tiny bit better right before they die horribly by cheering for them.Going back to the top of the choice tree, let’s go down the opposite choice from REMAIN which is of course FLEE. CHOICE: FLEE Ardyn: What do you want to do? Blank: Flee the city. Blank: I am getting the unholy gently caress outta here before I get killed. You wanna go on a road trip? I’m trying to square three other guys and a car. Ardyn: The only logical decision, really. And then what?I love how in the midst of the game’s SECRET CHARACTER TEST it has the balls to snark about you making the “right” choice. At this point we’re given the choice of LIVE FREE or SURVIVAL: CHOICE: LIVE FREE Ardyn: What’ll you do once you flee the city? Blank: Live free, like dust in the wind. Ardyn: That was really corny. Did you practice that one or something? Blank: Little bit. Ardyn: Ugh. Ardyn: Ha! How poetic… Aren’t you the intriguing person?Unlike the other options, there is no third choice once you answer LIVE FREE, it just stops right there. The final choice, SURVIVAL, does include a follow up question though: CHOICE: SURIVAL Ardyn: What’ll you do once you flee the city? Blank: Focus on survival. Ardyn: And how do you plan to survive in these war-torn times?CHOICE: HOPE Ardyn: What do you need to live? Blank: The light of hope. Ardyn: Fuckin’ gag me. Ardyn: So, you’re an eternal optimist. Hope is in short supply these days. I admire you keeping it alive.CHOICE: DARKNESS Ardyn: What do you need to live? Blank: The might of darkness. Ardyn: (CRAAAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIIN). Ardyn: Hmm… Darkness. is it? I won’t condemn your plan, but I urge you not to let power corrupt you… Another explosion shakes the town. Ardyn and Blank look the very poor draw distance ahead of them and the sounds of battle inch closer to the square. Ardyn: It seems the Knight has smashed its way deeper into the city. This is no time for idle conversation. Ardyn: I must return to my own lands. Perhaps the fates will conspire that we meet again. Ardyn: Until then, farewell. And then he takes off running leaving Blank to the mercy of the advancing horde and whatever boneheaded choice he ultimately made as to what kind of lovely JRPG protagonist he wants to be.  Blank: Wait, here’s a thought. Why don’t I just go with you? You seem competent and like you know what’s going on. Hey, wait up— Ardyn: Bollocks to that noise, blondie! Every man for himself. Ardyn: Also, you don’t want me to bring you home to my boss. She’s worse than the Knights. So with his only chance of probably getting out the city alive running headlong in the opposite direction towards the nearest exit, Blank too takes off running in a different direction. Seemingly running toward the White Knight, if the blocking of the previous cutscene made any sense leading into this one.  Blank: Huff. Huff. Man! Why’d I have to get stuck doing Discount Final Fantasy X? Even my Auron went and ran off on me. gently caress. And oh hey, what do you know! It turns out our dumbass flesh blob really WAS running towards where the White Knight was! NOTE: This scene plays out no matter what options you picked in the previous scene; flee, fight, poo poo yourself, DARKNESS OVERPOWERING!!!!!  you always run into the White Knight.Your choices don’t matter.  Blank narrowly avoids becoming the victim of someone’s stomp fetish as Wizel plants its colossal metal foot down harmlessly in front of him, but forcefully enough to kick up a huge cloud of dust. Oh poo poo, I think Level-5’s stepped in and grabbed the tiller away from Matrix and put the safeties on suddenly.  With no weapon, no armor, and no loving chance because he’s just a normal human staring down a 20 foot tall indestructible walking magic tank, Blank can do nothing more but cower in fear before the White Knight.  Blank: Oh gods, I had so many things I wanted to do with my life. Stupid rear end Knights! I hope whoever’s piloting that awful thing dies horribly and is replaced by a real loving moron! That’ll show you!  White Knight: What have we here? Another Athwani insect, eh? Wizel levels Whitesteel at Blank’s head. I wonder, is it possible to ‘Leonard’ someone, even though Leonard literally hasn’t been born yet?  White Knight: You’ve reached a dead end, bug!Now, you might be wondering, why is the White Knight talking? I thought during the Dogma War the Knights were piloted by babies because that’s where Leonard, Kara, Caesar, Yulie and Grazel came from? And you’re half-right. However, Origins and Episode 0 retcon that really, REALLY stupid plot detail. Yshrenia switched over to Baby Power only near the end of the war. At this point, the Knights were still piloted by full grown adults and trained Yshrenian soldiers. The White Knight, for a pertinent example, is currently under the command of a man named Wylde. Wylde never appears in person in Origins (because this game is too cheap and dumb to actually focus on the real meat of the Dogma War), but is ostensibly the protagonist of Episode 0. He plays a pivotal role in the backstory to the original duology, so of course we should not for one loving second actually treat him like a real character in this game. And to hammer home the connection, Leonard’s upgraded default armor in the PS3 games is called the Wylde set. Basically, the long and short of Wylde’s story is that he was the original Pactmaker of Wizel, the White Knight. The White Knight was made specifically for him, and as its Pactmaker, he served as the head of Madoras’ army and the symbol of Yshrenia’s military might along with the original Pactmakers of the Black Knight, the Dragon Knight, the Moon Maiden, and the generic Arc Incorrupti that served as super powered shock troops. The Sun King, meanwhile, was Madoras’ personal Incorruptus and was only used in battle on the rare occasion when Madoras wanted to personally gently caress up someone’s day. How it ultimately wound up in Setti/Grazel’s hands, I don’t know or care. But that right there is the entire basis for Grazel believing he was the reincarnation of Madoras; he commands the Sun King, the Sun King was Madoras’s Incorruptus, ergo he must be Madoras. Man, Ledom screwed him up something harsh, didn’t he? Anyway, back to Wylde. Things went swimmingly for Yshrenia until the day Queen Mureas got captured by the Empire. Wylde was sent in to personally and publically execute her using the White Knight to do the deed because Madoras wanted to send a huge loving red text message to the Athwani military and government that he’d ruined their poo poo completely. Though instead of killing her, Wylde was instantly captivated by Mureas’s beauty and grace (some sources say she actually entrapped him with a powerful spell and whammied him into defecting). He turned the Knight on Madoras, his fellow Pactmakers, and the Yshrenian army in general and escaped Vellgander with Mureas, spiriting her back to Athwani. Wylde’s defection to Athwan enraged Madoras, and he ordered him captured and returned to Vellgander immediately, which he ultimately was. He was stripped of his Knight by Madoras’s magic and his bond with Wizel was forcibly broken. Wylde was then flung into the Magic Plane to be tormented by the spirits who called it home for all eternity along with Guido Kantarabe, Yshrenia’s chief scientist who also defected to Athwan along with Wylde and turned over vital information on how to counter the Knights to Mureas. Madoras then stupidly proclaimed that no living adult whose mind could countermand the inherent will of the Incorruptus armor could be trusted to pilot one because they’d all ultimately betray him like Wylde did. So he had all the remaining Pactmakers except one (a very special one) executed and their Knights were forcibly bonded with a collection of newborn babies stolen from their parents around the breadth of the empire. The infants’ souls would power the Knights, who would then be 100% loyal to Yshrenia because Madoras is a crazy person who thinks the Earth is propelled around the Sun by him consciously not thinking about it happening. The Sun King was then given over to some random boy because… I don’t honestly loving know. So that’s the plot that is taking place parallel to the plot of White Knight Chronicles: Origins which we intersect with only occasionally and in infuriatingly oblique ways, if even, as we squirrel our time away trying to solve the problems of a kingdom that is politically powerless and unimportant even in the immediate timeframe of Origins and is wiped out of existence with no surviving trace anyway at the end of the Dogma War anyway. You have my formal permission to be furious with this game and Matrix for making it now. Also, that final Pactmaker? The one that survived Madoras’s purge purely because he was too integral and useful to Madoras’s plans to actually kill? That was Ledom. I’m not making that up. Ledom was the original Pactmaker of the Black Knight. We come across him several times over the course of Origins. Of course what he is doing in Origins is of little to no impact or import to what we’re doing in Origins, so again it’s basically like we’re brushing up against a much more interesting story occasionally and getting to peek enviously in the window at it before we’re pulled away by the schoolmarm back to our boring and useless history of [insert a culture that wiped itself out without leaving a meaningful impact on the world here]. This remains my biggest pet peeve with White Knight Chronicles as a franchise: there’s a great story in there somewhere. It’s just told by a gaggle of idiots who keep focusing on the wrong parts of it. Anyway, we’re given another series of multiple choice questions on how we want to try and fight this hopeless battle we’re about to enter with the Knight. They basically decide how your initial stats will be allotted and what kind of weapon you will be inherently suited towards. I’ll spare you the details of the decision tree this time because things are wearing a bit thin as it is and I just want to be done with this madness for real this time. So let’s say that Blank decides to face the Knight head-on up close because he’s a headstrong idiot who thinks he can somehow through the power of JRPG Protagonistism maybe punch the White Knight into the stratosphere. White Knight: Ha! How amusing! You’re certain brave for an insect! Blank: You’ll find I’m full of surprises! White Knight: Nah. White Knight: Or perhaps… You suffer from delusions White Knight: OF GRANDURE! The Knight draws back it gigantic sword and the screen begins to fade to white. Something awesome is about to happen. I know it.  I mean, we were asked all those meaningful questions for a reason, right?  And the main theme of this game is all about finding the power inside yourself to overcome any obstacle.  No matter how daunting or dire.  *KER-SLASH!* Oh… Wow… Uh… I guess he died then. Okay. So, then, that’s Chapter 1 done… I guess. I have to wonder though, on that bleak of a cliffhanger… Just where do we go from here, anyway?  NOWHERE, you dumb motherfucker! That’s it. That’s the end of the story. Did you REALLY think I was gonna sit here and tell you about some pointless bullshit that happened 10,000 years ago? Okay, here, here’s how that story goes: nothing you did mattered, the people you helped all died and were forgotten about without changing anything, the power you unlocked was lost to history, the war you ignored and ran away from tore the world apart and set civilization back thousands of years, and then 10,000 years later, I came along and settled all that garbage you left dangling with a lot of blunt force trauma, swearing and screaming. The end. Period. Forever. Now gently caress OFF already, you’ve been sitting around here too long anyway, I think you’ve just worn out your loving welcome. Get out of my town. …Oh, and that kid? Yeah. That was totally Eldore. Ponder that one while you’re on your way out. And one more thing before you leave: APRIL FOOLS, MOTHERFUCKER
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Apr 1, 2017 10:47
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Crow, no! You have so much to live for! ...Is what I would say if you weren't a dirty traitor.  Yeah, I kind of suspected this once I realized what day it was. Still wasn't expecting to see this at all.
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Apr 1, 2017 11:08
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Ah, a true return to form. Bravo, Crow. Even if it was an April Fools joke, it still had the style and utterly baffling subject matter of the real deal.
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Apr 1, 2017 11:12
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Crow you motherfucker 
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Apr 1, 2017 14:11
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If you do continue this like a broken machine, Blank is the perfect avatar name. You did get me though.
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Apr 1, 2017 15:12
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Ahahaha, you fucker. Still, it's concerning that you actually have the game enough to play through that opening bit...
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Apr 1, 2017 16:00
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You shouldn't put all this effort into presentation then not see it through to the end imo
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Apr 1, 2017 16:06
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Well done. Still gonna bookmark this one just in case.
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Apr 1, 2017 17:48
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crow... no... 
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Apr 1, 2017 17:52
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I vote go righ--oh, this place again? How do I get out of here?
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Apr 1, 2017 19:11
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quote:Instead of Level-5 being at the helm this time around, development on Origins was handled by Matrix Software, quote:Instead of Level-5 being at the helm this time around, development on Origins was handled by Matrix Software, quote:Instead of Level-5 being at the helm this time around, development on Origins was handled by Matrix Software, *vomits blood*
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Apr 1, 2017 19:57
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Remember to vote  if you want more content. If this thread goes gold I will post a new update.
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Apr 1, 2017 20:49
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nine-gear crow posted:
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Apr 2, 2017 19:34
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My vote will remain the loneliest 1 until proven otherwise.
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Apr 2, 2017 19:39
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Why, yes. There is a good story in here. I extracted it: https://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=147211
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Apr 2, 2017 21:20
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Man I'm at the ground floor for 2 of my 3 favorite LPers doing sequels of things I love them for? Now I just need Vilk to show up and do Tierkries. If I remember correctly, your WKC Lp was actually what finally inspired me to buy an account, well that and Gently Caress. Is there a way to bring that back with an account? Edit: And thats what I get for being a day late to notice this and commenting before reading. If I saw it yesterday.... I still wouldve been fooled. MythosDragon fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Apr 3, 2017 |
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Apr 3, 2017 03:22
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crow, don''t disappoint your fans. give more fuel to feed no gravitas' madness. show us what it means to fail. fail for us.
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Apr 3, 2017 03:39
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Starting something and not finishing it? That sounds like something Matrix Software would do, crow.
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Apr 3, 2017 03:48
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*sadly pokes the '5' button again*
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Apr 3, 2017 05:11
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Crow, you have my axe and my 5! But seriously dude, a hate LP of this would be as amazing as your original WKC LP and you know it
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Apr 3, 2017 05:29
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TravelLog posted:Starting something and not finishing it? That sounds like something Matrix Software would do, crow. now, now, have you not seen crow's PoP2008 LP? This is totally something he'd do.
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Apr 3, 2017 06:05
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You are a wild and crazy guy. Crazy. Subject yourself to hell.
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Apr 3, 2017 06:53
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 well look what we've got here
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Apr 3, 2017 07:49
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 Well then, since we have (astoundingly) met our Stretch Goal for a followup update, it looks like people actually do want to see where this pointless waste of time of a game actually goes. So then, on that note let us continue from where we left off and see just what has become of our poor hero Blank and his unfortunate night of being in the wrong place at the wrong time....  Yep. He's still dead. What the hell were you expecting? I am NOT LPing Origins. Ever.
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Apr 3, 2017 09:06
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Apr 3, 2017 09:51
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I want my money back! 
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Apr 3, 2017 09:54
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Something something, Prince of Persia 2008, "Dirty Cop-Out" is Crow's middle name, yadda yadda.
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Apr 3, 2017 09:58
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And after they sent you penny candies and everything!
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Apr 3, 2017 10:10
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I said subject yourself to HELL, dammit!!!!
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Apr 3, 2017 10:28
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nine-gear crow posted:What the hell were you expecting? I am NOT LPing Origins. Ever. By which you mean Blind Sally's going to pick this up four years from now? 
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Apr 3, 2017 11:17
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Apr 3, 2017 14:48
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nine-gear crow posted:I am NOT LPing Origins. Ever.  EDIT: Now you have me intrigued, how does our
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Apr 3, 2017 15:55
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TDI ended his early retirement to LP Nier 2. It's what he'll be remembered for, LPing strange and terrible Japanese games with sparkling wit. This could've been YOUR destiny, but no. And I 5ed the thread and everything. 
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Apr 3, 2017 16:13
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queserasera posted:TDI ended his early retirement to LP Nier 2. It's what he'll be remembered for, LPing strange and terrible Japanese games with sparkling wit. Yeah, but Nier Automata is actually a good game.
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Apr 3, 2017 17:21
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 A fate well deserved.
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Apr 3, 2017 18:26
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:
I straight up don't know. I'm being 100% honest here. There is a brief interlude where a mysterious green crystal goes "lol ur not ded now" and sets up the base plot in an incredibly obtuse way, and then you wake up on the train that acts as the main hub area of the game and the two central story characters explain everything BUT how you survived a run-in with a Knight that by all outward appearances killed you. And they never return to the subject. The game literally does not care. They're more focused on selling you on joining the Mobile Corps as a member than on explaining how they found you, how you woke up on their train, or how you survived crossing paths with the Knight. The prologue in Xarmgand isn't even mentioned, not even a quick "Wow, when we pulled you out of Xarmgand, we thought you weren't going to make it!" or "We rescued a few people from Xarmgand... You were the only one who survived the trip." Or whatever. If it wasn't for the fact that
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Apr 3, 2017 19:15
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CommissarMega posted:By which you mean Blind Sally's going to pick this up four years from now? heck, i'd be willing to pick this up right now! (and by that, i mean do some of the work, but not all of it). send me the images, crow, and I'll co-LP this game with you. you take odd numbered updates, and I'll handle even number updates.
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Apr 4, 2017 02:25
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Blind Sally posted:heck, i'd be willing to pick this up right now! (and by that, i mean do some of the work, but not all of it). Now that's a great offer! You'd be a fool to pass this up, crow.
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Apr 4, 2017 04:52
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