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 WitchSpring R is a 2023 JRPG/crafter by Korean developer Kiwiwalks, known solely for their other WitchSpring titles (don’t worry if you haven’t played them, apparently all you’re missing is a few cameos). It’s a very cutesy game, featuring an endearing protagonist, an adorable art style, and a warm sense of humor. Every review you’ll find raves about its ability to give you warm fuzzy feelings. The game is about the perils of fascism, child abandonment, and a nearly successful genocide. … What? Yeah, sometimes I feel like I’m playing a slightly different game than everybody else. WitchSpring R is ten gigs of  in a five gig downloadable, but there’s something really loving dark swimming under the slapstick and cuddly characters. Instead of clashing, though, the game’s two sides just make each other pop: the friendly atmosphere makes the dark poo poo all the more disturbing, and the darkness under the positivity makes it feel rounded and vibrant instead of boring or fake. There’s something truly remarkable about this game that kinda needs to be shared.So what’re we looking at? This will be an informative screenshot LP, semi-blind: I made it about ¾ (I think) of the way through before my last LP succumbed to technical issues and I made the switch, so there will come a point where I don’t know any more than you do. Expect a post probably once or twice a week, barring anything unusual. E: I lied, we're looking an update every 1-3 days. Content! Cool, just another JRPG screenshot LP. Not quite! First off, while the game features a robust English translation, the voice lines are Japanese and Korean only. Whoever translated it went for preserving the feel of the lines instead of keeping it literal (the correct choice) and a lot of atmospheric dialogue isn’t translated at all. I know a little Japanese, not enough to speak it but enough to pick out the operative words, and there’s a lot of odd overlap and cultural nuance I’ll be pointing out as we go through. If you know better, please let me know, I’ll credit you in the second post. But more than that, I wasn’t kidding when I mentioned the rise of fascism earlier. While I don’t work in the field anymore, I was originally trained as a historian, and WitchSpring R offers a bizarrely good look into how a fascist regime works for a game ostensibly about riding your pet boar into a flower patch. Don’t expect it too often (every few updates at the absolute most), but I’ll write up similarities as we bump into them. Feel free to add your own commentary (I might credit it in the second post too), just keep it civil and don’t get lost in the sauce. Speaking of which!  Thread Rules! First, spoiler policy: Do not discuss any plot developments or major mechanics I have not shown in the LP. No spoiler tags, no nudge-nudge-wink-wink poo poo, nothing. That is a hard rule and I will not hesitate to turn this thread right around. Feel free to speculate if you haven’t played, but keep things you know to yourself. Minor mechanical content, stuff like parts of dungeons we’ve already completed that I missed or aspects of past boss fights I didn’t cover, mechanics I got wrong outright, that’s free game, but keep in mind it I haven’t talked about something yet there’s probably a reason why. Feel free to discuss other WitchSpring titles as much as you like as long as you don’t talk about anything we haven’t gotten to in this game. Beyond that, standard forum rules apply: don’t be a dick, don’t derail the thread, and if people are telling you to stop doing something, stop, even if you’re right. I don’t anticipate any serious trouble, but it pays to be prepared. Why do you repeat text after screenshots like that? Same reason I include both portraits and names for dialogue: it’s an accessibility measure, it increases clarity, reduces eyestrain over long reading sessions, and keeps the reading experience consistent for people with different screens. I’m always looking to make this experience better, and if you see mistakes or something I can improve, please let me know – especially because I have to use dictation software and it has a habit of trying to undermine me. If you spot odd word choice or grammatical errors, please let me know so I can fix them. TABLE OF CONTENTS  Chapter 1: Collector of Pies and Strawberries Update 1: In the Beginning, There Were the Gods Update 2: Lalala ♪ Did everyone get their pies ready? Update 3: ...You Mean Warriors' Rations? As Expected of a Child... Update 4: You're My First-Ever Underling Update 5: ...l Will Serve You for Life Update 6: I Can't Really Use It, But I Know Some Stuff Update 7: Just in Time to Test Out My New Magic! Update 8: Happy Falling, Demon! Update 9: It's the Only Memory that Makes Me Happy. Update 10: The Nightmare... Felt Familiar... Update 11: Every Path You Take Will Lead You to Greater Dreams  Chapter 2: Find the Pie Maker Update 12: I'm Asking If You're Going to Let Us Capture You or Not Update 13: A Witch! Just Like Me! Update 14: No, I Mean I Did a Great Job Requesting This Update 15: Take This Helmet, Supreme Warrior! Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Feb 18, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 15:03
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this post for rent
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Jan 22, 2024 15:03
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Update 1: In the Beginning, There Were the Gods WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Title WitchSpring R has wonderful soundtrack. It’s not that long – 35 tracks, including alternates, for a full JRPG – but it’s perfectly suited to the job: warm, upbeat, and whimsical, but neither saccharine enough to get glurgey or obtrusive enough to get repetitive. I strongly recommend giving the songs a listen if you have the time.  Normally I’d be more eager to show off the start screen, but right now it’s packed with spoilers. The rooftop fills up with characters you’ve encountered over the course of the game, so I’ve taken a few steps to obscure them. The first thing you do is select the difficulty, but R is not a difficult game; my first time through I chose normal and I didn’t struggle in a fight until like halfway through. We’ll be going normal as well.  You also get to choose your costume. I think you get new ones from endgame achievements and DLC, but even if I had any available, I think I’d still go with the classics. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Ancient Times We promptly drop into a cutscene as the camera slowly pans past elaborate statues and murals.  ???: In the beginning, there were the gods. They brought rain for humanity, and would sometimes even return the dead to life. Understandably, the humans came to worship them and served them with wholehearted devotion. (The word they use for gods is kamigami, effectively the plural form of kami, or spirit (Japanese doesn’t really have a dedicated plural, it’s a thing). Kamigami sees a lot of religious use as a collective term for all supernatural entities, great and small. Make note of this, it’ll be on the test.)  ???: However, in time this reverence warped into a craving and desire for their power.  ???: I want it all. For 600 years, humans hid their thirst behind awe and praise. Until one day, they finally discovered the source of divine power. We too can become gods!  ???: The humans slaughtered the gods they once worshipped, branding them demons, and stripping them of their power. New nations and religions were founded, and like their predecessors, they performed countless miracles and wonders. Nothing seemed to have changed except the gods were now gone. (The word they use for demons is mazoku, a term for evil spirits that implies they belong to the structure or hierarchy. You see it a lot in fantasy, especially isekai; if you’ve ever run into somebody in the Japanese media talking about “the demon clan”, that’s a literal translation of the term. This is also important, keep it in the back of your head).  ???: But at some point, there began to be offspring born of demons and humans that fully embodied their demonic nature. These demonic offspring came to be known as Witches, and were swiftly killed at birth or abandoned in the deep woods.  ???: But those witches who survived were forced to defend themselves from witch hunters and grew even stronger as a result. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Home 3 (RECOMMENDED LISTEN)        PIEBERRY: Rise and shine!  PIEBERRY: Got to...   PIEBERRY: Stretch!  PIEBERRY: Hmm!  PIEBERRY: Hah! She jogs in place.  PIEBERRY: Phew! I feel so much better now! No more aches and pains! Oh no, I've run out of healing potions. I ought to make some more.    PIEBERRY: Shall we gather the ingredients first? All the major characters get these large, detailed portraits. Most have a bunch of different portraits for different expressions, and few minor characters get portraits too as a consolation prize. Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t like them at first; I felt they clashed with the art style of the rest of the game, but they grew on me and now I wouldn’t want it any other way. Helps that the expressions are often really funny.  Anyway, time to start playing. We’ll spend a lot of time at home – you can see all the icons in the bottom right – but we won’t explore our options yet.   WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Field   PIEBERRY: The quickest healing potion to make is Ruaret. Let's start collecting leaves!  WitchSpring R is pretty linear and more than a little handholdy. At any point, the game will just tell you what to do next at the push of a button. It feels a little condescending at first, but as the game goes on, the hints get vaguer and vaguer (from “gather this many seeds” to “there’s something important in this dungeon”) and they never mention side content. While the plot and area unlock progression are linear, the map very much isn’t, so the hint system functions as a memory aid and points out things you could’ve caught but might’ve missed, just as a good hint system should.  Anyway, our first mission is  . The overworld is covered in little glowing spots full of crafting materials, and after you harvest a spot once, you can just run over it and auto collect the contents in the future (after they respawn, but I’ll get to that later). In this area, all the resource points spawn Crisp Dry Leaves, half of what we need to make potions. I intend to harvest all the leaves I can every time I pass through here. After we clean out the area…PIEBERRY: Now I have all of the leaves, it's time to find a rabbit! … We move to step two.     A few of the more forested areas have critters running around.  Hunting is a simple minigame, the first of many: after approaching the target (without getting too close, you’ll scare them off), you conjure up a magical bow and arrow and have a few seconds to aim. If the timer runs out or you miss, it skitters away and you have to wait for it to respawn, but unless you misjudge its hit box (I found out rabbit ears don’t count the hard way), you’ll always catch your quarry.  Once we’ve murdered all the wildlife in the area, time for us to head back.   After walking around and fighting, you’ll spend more time crafting than anything else. Basically everything we use or equip will pass through the crafting system at some point. I’m generally not a fan of crafting systems, especially when you need to engage with them to get anything done, but WitchSpring R’s is as inoffensive as you’ll find.   Recipes are neatly divided into categories that gradually unlock over the course of the game. Right now, all we have to do is brew three Ruarets, modest HP/MP recovery items, from our gathered materials. After a brief brewing animation, we get our potions and progress the plot. PIEBERRY: All right, now I don't need to worry about running out of healing potions. Next up is... The screen shakes. PIEBERRY: ...What's that sound coming from outside? A beast??  PIEBERRY: Huh, there's nothing? Warrior I: We have you surrounded!  PIEBERRY: Eek! They're everywhere! Warrior I: See, I told you she would come out if we knocked. Warrior II: We should have snuck in for a surprise attack instead! Warrior I: Idiot, there could be traps in the house. Warrior III: Right. At least out here we have the terrain to our advantage. PIEBERRY: Phew, good thing I made a bunch of Ruaret as soon as I woke up. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Battle (Normal)  PIEBERRY: Guys! Bring it on!  Combat in WitchSpring R doesn’t have many moving parts, and that’s when the game isn’t gently guiding you through everything. We open with our magic spells.   Most fights will put you up against large groups of enemies, and most magic has some area of effect component; you cast a lot of spells in this game. Right now, the only spell we have worth casting is 3-Orb Flame Circle, which hits a small area and inflicts targets with damage over time by setting them on fire.   One good cast isn’t enough to take these guys out, but it softens them up considerably.  Now it’s their turn. Groups of the same type of enemy usually act together in combat, making crowd control extremely important. If you get unlucky and enough enemies bunch together in the turn order, you can find yourself dropping from full health to zero before you can act. Every time I see a bunch of dudes in armor crowd together to beat up a child, I remember this halcyon moment. Also, uh, I record myself playing and capture screenshots from the footage. What you’re seeing here is what happens when that process goes wrong. I may have a couple LPs in the archive already, but that doesn’t mean I’m good at this, and I was serious in the OP when I asked you to let me know if you see anything that looks off. But, you see that “miss” floating just above Pieberry?   If an enemy misses you, you counterattack automatically, landing a free melee attack. Misses seem rather rare, only popping up once every few combats, so counterattacks don’t matter much, but at least it’s free damage.   Every time you take out an enemy with a melee attack on your turn, you automatically get another turn. I think Turn Bonus can only trigger once per turn (otherwise the game’s even easier than I thought), but strategically targeting weakened enemies on the fringes of their formation makes crowd control a lot easier. More importantly, it advances your crit meter.   Every fourth action automatically crits on landing, boosting damage by (I think) 50%. Crits pop up occasionally in regular combat, but they’re rare, and they only trigger for individual hits. For big AoE spells or special attacks that’s a massive damage multiplier in a swingy combat system, so you end up planning long fights around the crit meter sometimes. Or you can spend that turn doing something that doesn’t cause damage, in which case the meter resets and your crit goes to waste. Idiot. Even if we’d wasted our crit, we still would’ve won handily. This is a tutorial battle, after all, and Pieberry’s more than a match for three random chumps. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Feb 11, 2024 |
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Jan 22, 2024 15:06
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This game looks cute, can’t wait to get to the existential horror of systemic oppression! quote:While the plot and area unlock aggression are linear I think this should be progression?
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Jan 22, 2024 15:28
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You're not fooling me, that healing potion is just rabbit stew.
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Jan 22, 2024 16:15
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TeeQueue posted:This game looks cute, can’t wait to get to the existential horror of systemic oppression! Apparently it's Nazis all the way down so, maybe it really is unlock aggression (Kill the Nazis cute witch!!!)
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Jan 22, 2024 16:46
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Well this looks interesting.
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Jan 22, 2024 18:24
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TeeQueue posted:This game looks cute, can’t wait to get to the existential horror of systemic oppression! And I noticed a bunch of formatting errors when I went to fix that  . This is my first time using this workflow. Can you tell?Obligatum VII posted:You're not fooling me, that healing potion is just rabbit stew. Psychoactive rabbit stew, it restores MP as well as HP.
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Jan 22, 2024 19:49
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Okay I have no idea where this is going to go but I'm on board for this ride.
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Jan 22, 2024 21:28
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I have no idea what this is except that your preamble leaves me bracing for major tone whiplash.
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Jan 23, 2024 02:18
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This is a game that I saw in my Steam recommendations that was tempting to pick up, but my backlog is a little too extensive and this game was a little too pricey for me to want to work it in. Excited to see it in action to see if I missed out on anything.
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Jan 23, 2024 02:48
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Oooh, gonna echo Cullen, I've passed this game over a few times for looking a little too simple(Cute girls doing Cute Things game is good but I got enough of that in the log) and pricey for my taste, so I'll try and keep up, esp if its as depthy as you're saying!
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Jan 23, 2024 16:47
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I saw this game come up on Steam and was quite curious, but ended up buying Persona 5 for my JRPG title, so I'll be watching to see where this goes. It looks aggressively cute.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:07
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I am also in the "on my wishlist, but oof my backlog" club. Still, it'll be good to see this in action, or as close as screenshots come to that anyway. 
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Jan 23, 2024 23:25
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Update 2: Lalala ♪ Did everyone get their pies ready? PIEBERRY: Now to collect the pies! Pieberry skips over to the bodies, bending down and retrieving a Dried Pie from each. PIEBERRY: Hmm...! I never expected them to try to lay a trap for me... In that case... I better deal with the ones in the forest first!  Presumably because they couldn’t fit this part of the tutorial in the last combat, they insert a panel on Weapon Stimulation right before they let you roam wild again. Apparently, every forth melee strike does a bunch of extra damage. I never quite figured out exactly how this works, I guess you can pair it up with crit meter manipulation for tons of damage, but I never needed to learn it either.   Off right is our first group of enemies. No random encounters here: outside of fights forced on you by the plot, you will only ever find knots of enemies in the overworld. When you bump into a potential encounter, the camera pans to show you everyone you’re about to fight and lists the stats of the most powerful enemy in the group. The game also tells you whether you fought these guys before, since encounters respawn but only give you experience after your first victory. It’s a little annoying, but combat experience only plays a limited role in WitchSpring R’s complicated leveling system and you still get drops for crafting from later combats, so  .  The moment we pick a fight, the tutorial kicks back in and tells us what tools are – items, they’re JRPG items, don’t worry about it. The tutorial also explains a few mechanics about the bottom couple options that I really shouldn’t cover until we get far enough we can make full use of them.  Anyway, they go down easy.  PIEBERRY: Lalala ♪ Did everyone get their pies ready? She gives a little twirl, only to stop when the screen shakes again.    Warriors: Arrgghhh!!  Meet Balt.  PIEBERRY: Balt! How can you get rid of them so soon? I haven't gotten any pie yet!  PIEBERRY: ...Forget it. It's like talking to a brick wall. It's good that you're diligently handling the warriors. You only get this quiet whenever I'm around. But whenever I get close to you, you attack me... I just don't understand. You are a very strange golem!  PIEBERRY: This should be enough, right? Hmm, but there are more warriors than ever... to the point that even Balt failed to handle them. This is dangerous. I need to do something... Hmm...  PIEBERRY: That's it! I need to train! Did I mention I love the portraits in this game?  On our way back to the house, I stop by this green rock thing. These are Recovery Stones, you can usually find one per location and they bring you back to full on contact, regenerating every time you leave the area. WitchSpring R, as I’ve mentioned, gets very swingy, so you’ll find yourself topping up a lot. Wait, I forgot something – you know how she said “warriors” there? The Japanese word is yuusha which can be translated as “brave person” but usually means hero in fantasy, especially isekai. It’s a bit of an odd choice; kamigami and mazoku both imply groups, but at least in my experience yuusha is either singular or only refers to a few people. The word implies there’s something inherently special about them. But as we’ll see, there’s gonna be a lot of “heroes” running around getting their asses beat by a little kid. “Warriors” is kind of a weird translation, but it does fit what we see of them better. So what gives? E: Polsy posted:It's actually yuushi (勇士) which explains the disconnect, more like one (apparently of many) brave/heroic warriors than The Hero (sorry to upset the premise of the writeup but it's still notable that they're specifically called heroic warriors and not just random soldiers). Oh, that’s what gives. I don’t claim to be perfect. But still, the fact that these hapless losers get a title that seems to have some connection to groups of heroic figures kinda feeds my point in a different way. But I can’t go too deep into why without spoilers, so let’s pin down some fundamental poo poo right away instead. Biological essentialism is the idea that a person’s behavior is shaped by their biology in ways they inherently cannot change. In its weakest forms, there’s a lot of truth to it, in that your biological needs, hormones, and physical condition at least in part dictate your behavior. But scale it up and you get wilder stuff, the idea that biology so heavily determines your behavior that relatively small aspects of an organism like their phenotype or role in reproduction cause major and consistent differences in a person’s capabilities and actions, and that there’s nothing you can do to change that. Where it came from and how it spread is a whole other story, but biological essentialism is the philosophical concept that makes all sorts of -isms possible – whether the -ists in question have ever heard of it or not. Fascism is (among other things, I’m REALLY only scratching the surface here) biological essentialism as a social philosophy. If capitalists see society as a horde of competing individuals and communists see it sliced into competing social classes, fascists see it as collections of competing biological groupings: nationalities, genders, races, what have you. Each group has behavioral traits, physical capabilities, and cultural tendencies unique to it because they’re just built that way. You can believe this without being a fascist (though I really don’t want to hear what you think about poor people), but fascists attach value judgments to those differences and almost inevitably conclude whatever groups they belong to deserve the best value judgments. They tend to assume that, because those groups have so much in common, they naturally trend towards working together, so you get a lot of conspiracy thinking and people reasoning by their gut on the assumption their natural superiority will guide them. You also get a weird phenomenon where the individual is exalted but only in the context of a limited collective: national heroes (including the local dictator) are capable of impossible feats, but they can only achieve them when playing to the strengths of their particular group. Most people today either grew up during or live in the wreckage of a cultural clash between purer forms of individualism and collectivism, so this weird individualism-in-collectivism thing doesn’t square right with a lot of people; we sometimes assume it’s actually just one of the other in disguise, or that everyone involved is completely cynical and don’t believe in it. But that combination of belief you have endless potential and belief that everybody at your back has it too can be extremely motivating and make for very dangerous people. The hero is inherently exceptional. If a group of people is inherently exceptional, all of them can be heroes. They can only all be heroes if they have the correspondingly unheroic to square off against. Such are some of the most basic tenets of fascism. There’s more going on here of course, both in the game and in fascism (there’s a whole Wikipedia article on the slapfights people get into even trying to define the term), but if we’re gonna look at the game like this, I want you to keep those points in mind. … Talk about tonal whiplash. gently caress, where was I?   Right, training. You know how I mentioned combat experience doesn’t matter that much? It’s because WitchSpring R levels you up in four ways, each completely independent from each other (  ). The first method, training, directly interfaces with your stats:
  Every time you train you play the minigame associated with a randomly selected activity from the ones you picked, and failing, passing, and acing the activity alters your stat gain accordingly. Also, perfecting an activity 3 times lets you play a more difficult version for a bigger potential stat boost – which is infuriating, because that means you should be using each training charge individually to maximize stat growth and the game makes you blow four of them at once  .  Training directly boosts your stats, but spending enough charges also gives you an added bonus. Half the trainings influence some combination of MP and Magic, while the other half (including swimming) cover the rest of the stats. Spending enough charges in either category grants you a significant blanket boost to those stats, at least worth a couple trainings for each. Charges only accumulate slowly, which makes training maybe less useful than it could be, but at least you don’t have to pay anything for it.  Speaking of time passing, anytime you can get back to your house, you can opt to take a nap. Sleeping restores your HP and MP and force-completes respawn timers, making it a great substitute for wandering around aimlessly. It’s free, too, so there’s little reason not to get your beauty sleep.   With a great many things accomplished, Pieberry makes a well-deserved rest. I swear, once we get past the first few updates I won’t be spending nearly as much time covering gameplay mechanics.  Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 24, 2024 15:44
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Like how the game makes it look like Pieberry kills anyone who wanders into the forest and loots their corpses for a few minutes before establishing Balt just yeets the unconcious warriors on out of there.
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Jan 24, 2024 16:35
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I mean maybe she does flat kill these fools. Death may be a solved problem in this world, especially for the designated hero class.
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Jan 24, 2024 18:56
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I apologize in advance for possibly spoiling the thread, but F111 made a big deal about the use of the word 'warrior', and there's a piece of analysis by historian Bret Deveraux about the use of that term in waking life... https://acoup.blog/2021/02/19/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iii-the-cult-of-the-badass/ ...OK, it's actually four blog posts, so I'll summarize the meat of the business in here. quote:In short, Pressfield presents a moral framework in which the capacity to produce violence – either literal, physical violence or the symbolic violence of the ‘inner struggle’ explicitly metaphorically equated with the former – is the highest human virtue. [...] That thesis – that the capacity to produce violence is the highest human virtue – is what I’ve come to call (borrowing the term from this video) the ‘Cult of the Badass.’ I strongly recommend reading at least the linked post, because I've done condensing with the textual equivalent of a machete, but the shortest version is: using the word 'warrior', especially as opposed to things like 'soldier', for fighters as a self-descriptive choice, is typically linked to an ethos that has tendencies linked to facist-type ideology, as famously pulled out and identified by Umberto Eco in his essay "Ur-Fascism". I'll bet a dollar that's what's going on here, especially since F111 took time to highlight that translation choice.
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Jan 24, 2024 19:48
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I hope she is killing them because it'd be a mercy. Life without one's dried pies is not a life worth living
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Jan 24, 2024 19:48
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Maybe it follows Dragon Quest rules, where unless you die in a sufficiently dramatic cutscene, you can simply have your corpse hauled off to the church and be given a mulligan at life for a nominal fee.
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Jan 24, 2024 20:02
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Update 3: ...You Mean Warriors' Rations? As Expected of a Child... Just after we wake up…  … We get a bit of extra tutorial. The turn after you use a spell, any melee attacks you use get a boost based on how strong that spell was. The game really, really wants to incentivize melee combat for some reason, probably to make up for the sheer power differential between magic and melee. It doesn’t work too well.  We also immediately notice we picked up a training charge, so we turn around and go right back in.  Swimming is a three-lane runner, the kind you would’ve seen an old flash games. Move between the rocks not to fail, hit the flags to get the perfect bonus at the end. The minigame’s a little harder than it looks since planes aren’t clearly marked, so you can stumble into a rock by accident misjudging how long it takes to get between lanes. Still, not terribly challenging.  PIEBERRY: I could throw a rock at it and it wouldn't even react. How can anything sleep this much? Some areas have little interactables, people you can talk to or things you can investigate. I made it most of the way through this game without figuring out what to do with this guy, but usually, if something shows up on the map, you’re ready to engage with it.   Low-Rank Palace Warrior: Ahh! PIEBERRY: Huh!? Low-Rank Palace Warrior: ...Where am l? PIEBERRY: Why is a warrior coming out of the wall!? Low-Rank Palace Warrior: A w-w-witch! It's a trap! A fearless young witch playing tricks on a warrior... Prepare yourself! Warrior Cadet: Wait, no!  Low-Rank Palace Warrior: Don't interfere. This witch is mine! Warrior Cadet: Last time I was in the forest, I saw that witch single-handedly defeated a whole group of warriors! Low-Rank Palace Warrior: ...Is that so? Hmm, I almost underestimated her. Fine, help me fight her then. But I'll take all the credit!  One fight later… PIEBERRY: Hmph. They were pretty strong and their armor was solid. Now back to the pie hunting! … Huh? No pie? What a disappointment! ...But this shiny stone is a good consolation prize. I'm going to take it with me. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Joke  PIEBERRY: Why do warriors keep coming out of the walls?!   RALPH: I must have run into some sort of barrier. Is this the Black Witch's Forest I've heard so much about? I'd assumed it was just another fairy tale the warriors tell. PIEBERRY: ..Are you not afraid of me? RALPH: What's so scary about such a little witch? PIEBERRY: Hmph. Raise your sword. Time to see if all that training was worth it!  PIEBERRY: Huh? Why are you sitting down? We should be fighting! RALPH: You got it wrong. I'm not a warrior. PIEBERRY: ...Then what are you? RALPH: Let's make a trade. PIEBERRY: A trade? What does that mean? RALPH: Give me that stone you're holding, and I'll give you something in return. PIEBERRY: No way! This is mine! ...Unless you have pie. RALPH: ...pie? PIEBERRY: You know, the delicious stuff warriors carry! RALPH: ...You mean warriors' rations? As expected of a child...   RALPH: Here, a pie made by the finest chef in all the kingdoms. Would you like to try? Pieberry ate some of the pie Ralph handed over.  Pieberry is enthralled by the delicious pie. PIEBERRY: Wowie...! It's delicious!!! RALPH: Trade comes first. Now hand that jewel over. PIEBERRY: ..Are you really going to give me the pie? I'll make you regret it if you don't. RALPH: Don't worry, I'm the most reliable merchant on the continent of Vavelia. PIEBERRY: Continent of Vavelia? I think I've seen it mentioned in a book... RALPH: I thought it was strange how naive you were, even considering how young you are. You have no idea what it's like outside the forest, do you? PIEBERRY: What do you mean? Outside the forest? RALPH: Maybe this is one of those "ignorance is bliss" situations. Anyway, do you have anything to trade? PIEBERRY: All right, fine. We have a deal! Here's the shiny stone. Now hurry up and give me the pie! RALPH: Well received. Then... Huh?  PIEBERRY: Oh... ohh...? My pie!! Not again, Balt! That was the kind of pie you hear fairy tales about! What am I going to do now?  PIEBERRY: Huh? There were more warriors! They were lucky, though! They avoided Balt and ran into the Pudding Cave! Hehe, now it's my turn to surprise them! Before we paste them, though, we can now go talk to Balt!  PIEBERRY: Balt! You're always standing in the same spot. If I go near you, you'll attack again, won't you? Talking to Balt is a waste of time! Oh well, next area. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Cave Light    PIEBERRY: I should be able to find a lot of materials for making recovery tools in Pudding Cave. I should keep an eye out for them while pursuing the warriors.  The first thing we run into in the cave is this little pedestal thing. This matters, remember you saw this here.  WitchSpring R doesn’t strongly distinguish between dungeons and overworld areas: both have enemies, collectibles, occasionally puzzles or bosses. The closest you get to designated dungeons are areas with only one entrance, like Pudding Cave here.  While you can see every encounter before you run into it, not all encounters are created equal. Some barely count as speedbumps.   Others, like this guy, will smack you down if you challenge them your first time through an area. But you shouldn’t be overcautious; dying in a fight just gives you several points you can reload to, including warping back to the beginning of the encounter without penalty. If you just want to bail entirely, you can give up on your turn and the game will rewind to immediately before the fight so you can make better decisions. I hear WitchSpring is actually a series of gacha games and R is the studio’s first foray into proper JRPGs, and you can see bits of free-to-play design philosophy scattered through the game if you know where to look.  PIEBERRY: Every time I come here, I can't get over how strange this pond is. I tried swimming in it once, and it drained my magic from me. I should be careful not to touch the water.  See that icon in the middle left? Whenever you run into a puzzle (and there’s a few of them), the game pops that icon up to let you know a puzzle is in progress. Since most puzzles kick in seamlessly when you enter their location, you wouldn’t always know you’re dealing with a puzzle otherwise. This here barely counts as a puzzle, the water rises and falls in a regular pattern and if you touch it while crossing the rocks, it slowly drains your HP (not MP like the dialogue implied, I guess witches are just that magical). We just have to wait for the tide to go out.  To the left we find more and more challenging encounters, one of which blocks access to a chest; the game’s very fond of gating plot progression or treasure behind major challenges. The chest in question gives us a couple healing items that only restore HP but blow Ruarets out of the water.  In the next room we… Run into more technical difficulties . We encountered the couple warriors we saw running into the cave and they mention somebody deeper in has bag full of pies after we beat them into the dirt, but after three recordings I couldn’t get the footage of those 120 seconds to work, so here we are  . Anyway, we also find another pedestal and learn how to activate it. Most large dungeons have fast-travel pedestal scattered about, usually one per room; some of them have major pedestals, but that mechanic will have to wait until we leave the forest.  PIEBERRY: Huh? The Pudding is wearing a helmet. Did it already find and defeat the warrior?   This helmet pudding thing is the closest thing we’ve found to an actual boss. It’s several times tougher than other puddings and hits like a truck, but it doesn’t have anything going on other than sheer HP and Strength. It dies, leaving its helmet on the map. I promise, someday we’ll run into a fight worth more description than “we use a new mechanic and it falls down”. PIEBERRY: Maybe the bag of pies is somewhere around here!  The helmet starts to shake.  PIEBERRY: Huh? Why is a warrior coming out of the floor?   ALFREDO: Hmm...? Eek! Dark skin, large ears... white hair... A witch!! An evil White Witch!! PIEBERRY: I smell pie on you!! I found you! You're the one with the bag of pies!  ALFREDO: I-I'll capture you right here!  PIEBERRY: You're sure full of enthusiasm! All right then, let's fight! You all ready for our first fight with a named warrior?  Alfredo’s so weak it’s statistically impossible not to take him down with one hit. We don’t even get experience for it  .E: Forgot to mention, he shouts "Mommy!" when he falls over. PIEBERRY: Alright! Shall we go find the pies?  The witch found a bag full of pies. PIEBERRY: Yippee! There are so many of them! And they all smell delicious! ALFREDO: Hah!  ALFREDO: Just wait, White Witch!  ALFREDO: I'll get my stolen pies back one day!! He actually runs serpentine trying to get away  .PIEBERRY: Wow... His escape was lightning quick. Huh? He dropped something.  We have now unlocked the ability to use mind control. Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jan 27, 2024 |
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Jan 27, 2024 16:44
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Makes sense. I'd do just about anything for a good piece of pie
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Jan 27, 2024 18:58
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I'll take a guess that Alfredo is the Don Quixote analog for this game.
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Jan 27, 2024 19:05
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Oh hey, Witch spring! very cute series, but god drat does it love getting grindy if you want to 100% it.
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Jan 27, 2024 20:33
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I suppose this confirms that the soliders actually do carry pie. Instead of being turned into mystery meat pies.
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Jan 27, 2024 20:37
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Sad day that the Long Pork Pie theory has been buried, they’re just rations from Metal Gear.
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Jan 27, 2024 23:32
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Why do soldiers carry around delicious pies? Well, I have no clue, but it seems cool.
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Jan 27, 2024 23:44
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That said - did they remove the mechanic the original release (Witch spring, without R) had, which limited the benefits of sleeping and training?
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Jan 28, 2024 01:22
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Quackles posted:Why do soldiers carry around delicious pies? The "pies" carried by the warriors could be Nutraloaf for all we know. The one offered by the merchant seemed to be a serious few steps up.
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Jan 28, 2024 02:26
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Regallion posted:That said - did they remove the mechanic the original release (Witch spring, without R) had, which limited the benefits of sleeping and training? I think? You can sleep as much as you want and train as much as you have charges, though there are better ways to farm stats. I was lead to believe the main series and R were different games with similar elements, Final Fantasy style , so I couldn’t say. IMJack posted:The "pies" carried by the warriors could be Nutraloaf for all we know. The one offered by the merchant seemed to be a serious few steps up. I need to show you guys the icon for the Dried Pie low level warriors drop. It’s brown and visibly wilting 
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Jan 28, 2024 03:10
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I suppose it's fitting for a game where the main character is named Pieberry that pies are a major fixture of the game as a whole.
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Jan 28, 2024 03:13
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Falconier111 posted:I need to show you guys the icon for the Dried Pie low level warriors drop. It’s brown and visibly wilting If the warriors are eating sad pies, does that imply that the forest is being colonized by the English?
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Jan 28, 2024 11:48
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Falconier111 posted:Wait, I forgot something – you know how she said “warriors” there? The Japanese word is yuusha which can be translated as “brave person” but usually means hero in fantasy, especially isekai. It’s a bit of an odd choice; kamigami and mazoku both imply groups, but at least in my experience yuusha is either singular or only refers to a few people. The word implies there’s something inherently special about them. But as we’ll see, there’s gonna be a lot of “heroes” running around getting their asses beat by a little kid. “Warriors” is kind of a weird translation, but it does fit what we see of them better. So what gives? It's actually yuushi (勇士) which explains the disconnect, more like one (apparently of many) brave/heroic warriors than The Hero (sorry to upset the premise of the writeup but it's still notable that they're specifically called heroic warriors and not just random soldiers).
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Jan 28, 2024 17:20
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Polsy posted:It's actually yuushi (勇士) which explains the disconnect, more like one (apparently of many) brave/heroic warriors than The Hero (sorry to upset the premise of the writeup but it's still notable that they're specifically called heroic warriors and not just random soldiers). Welp. It doesn't weaken my premise all that much, anyway. With your permission, I'll edit that into the post.
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Jan 28, 2024 17:44
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Early update because it happens to be ready early. Update 4: You're My First-Ever Underling  PIEBERRY: Whoa! Th-This is...! A Mind Control Magic Circle? Not even I can do magic this advanced! I got a lot of stuff today. I should go home! WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Home 3  PIEBERRY: Yahoo! Hehe, these pies were delicious, though not as good as the one the guy with the mustache gave me.  PIEBERRY: Now, how do I get this mind control thing to work? If I can control the minds of the warriors, I can make them give me all their pies without fighting! Hm, but I read in a book that it's hard to mind-control beings that are mentally strong. And there's no use in trying to mind control a Pudding... Or even a rabbit. How about an animal with big sharp teeth? Hmm... Let's see if there are any decent candidates nearby the house! I feel like Pieberry has an unnervingly blasé attitude towards turning things into her slaves. But then, Pieberry’s been fighting soldiers trying to capture or kill her for so long she’s adapted to living off their discarded food like she’s urban wildlife, so her grasp of the philosophy behind personal autonomy probably isn’t that great. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Joke  PIEBERRY: Oh, a bird! Looks like it's hunting a boar... How does it fly while carrying something so heavy? Aha! Maybe it could carry me around too!    PIEBERRY: Ah, I lost him.. He's too fast.    PIEBERRY: Is it h-hurt...? I was trying to get the bird, but...   PIEBERRY: Even though you can't fly, you're quite speedy on your feet. I'll take you then! God, I love this portrait. If I could I’d rip every character’s portraits and make the in-game and in-LP ones match, but without a clean sheet of every portrait, that just isn’t happening. I already know tracking down every possible portrait and keeping which ones I’ve already prepped for posting straight would drive me out of my mind, and it’s not like they’re on the Internet. I checked.  Anyway, it’s time to forcibly domesticate some wildlife. A very small number of enemies – usually one per overworld region, if that – are eligible for mind control; the game always tells you the moment you enter combat with them. For the spell to work, you need to weaken them Pokémon-style past 30% of their health bars.   Then you pull up the slabs. There’s a lot going on in the magic menu, but for now all you need to know is you can set up to three of your spells in your quick menu, and each spot grants a small bonus to whatever spell you put in. You can still cast any spell you have access to, you just have to go down to that plus icon at the bottom and tab through until you find what you’re looking for.     If the stars align, the spell lands. Except that’s not everything. You see that little 14 in the lower right? The mind control spell does damage – usually a small amount, but when you’ve got somebody’s health down low, even that can kill them. And since the mind control spell only works like 20% of the time but always does damage, you will find yourself trying to catch most pets repeatedly after killing them by accident. After which you have to wait for them to respawn, and then you’ll accidentally kill them again. The game makes the little guy invincible at 1 hit point and guarantees your first mind control spell succeeds, but even then the random crit and counterattack I got off without been trying should have killed it twice over.   Fortunately, if the spell succeeds, you get your pet even if it also kills them.  PIEBERRY: Mind Control succeeded in one go! Lucky me! Now take me home, Boar!   Boar Junior's the first of many pets we’ll be enslaving. Pets take a set amount of MP to summon (Junior’s summon cost is a drop in the bucket, but more powerful pets will drain our MP bar), and summoning them outside of combat lets them follow you around the overworld and autodeploy every time you get in a fight.   Some of them you can also ride around, with more powerful pets often running faster. 28% may not seem like much, but it really compresses travel times through dungeons, so you’ll spend most of the game with a rideable pet deployed even if you have more powerful pets in reserve. Mounting a pet changes your model until you get off, even in minigames and cutscenes.  They also all have unique animations, some of which are adorable. Look at her bobble back and forth, she’s bigger than he is  . PIEBERRY: Hehe. You're my first-ever underling, so I'll give you the honor of staying in my house! Boar Junior: Oink… PIEBERRY: You look a little weak... Are you hungry? Boar Junior: Oink oink… PIEBERRY: Do you want some pie? I'll give you one of mine as a treat! Boar Junior: Ek. PIEBERRY: You don't seem like a fan of bread. How about pudding? Boar Junior: Kwek! PIEBERRY: Even worse... Well, in that case...! Boar Junior: Oink…? PIEBERRY: Let's try strawberries. They're even harder to find than pie! Strawberries can be found in the woods every now and then, but I haven't picked any in a while... I'm sure there would be some around at this time though. I'll be back soon!  While we come to terms with something this game not liking pies (  ), we step outside and abruptly see something interesting. PIEBERRY: Woah!! A Lightning Dragon! I've seen it in a book, it's amazing. I read that it shoots lightning from its mouth... That was a long time ago, but it's even cooler looking now. Welp! Onto the next task.  As far as I can tell, this is the only point in the game you can find Dried Strawberries. They have a secondary use, and we won’t be using them all for this quest, but I won’t be covering that aspect for several updates. We just have to find three new item spawns and interact with them. PIEBERRY: Your strawberries are on their way, Boar! Remember this screenshot? You see that heart in the lower right of his portrait? All pets have affinity scores, but this isn’t Pokémon, you don’t have to worry about obscured mechanics. Every pet has an item they like, and you can feed it to them boost their affinity; once it maxes out, the pet picks up a special attack and you’re done. Boar Junior only needs one Dried Strawberry, but most pets take three or four moderately rare items that you’ve probably picked up by the time you catch them. In my first playthrough I never needed to go hunting for anything, I just followed adventure game logic and used every item in my inventory until one worked. Worth noting: raising affinity is the only way to increase a pet’s combat utility, so you tend to cycle through pets as they gradually get useless the longer the game goes. PIEBERRY: Should I go home and get some rest now?   PIEBERRY: Eh...? What?!  PIEBERRY: S-Stop! My pie!!! The bird bangs the bag against the window a couple times before slipping out.  PIEBERRY: It went towards the Swamp! I really don't want to walk through that...! Wait! I can ride my Boar across the Swamp! Well, we can, but we have a training charge to use real quick.  Push-ups boost your Strength and Defense, while the first I could take or leave, it’s one of the best sources of the latter. It’s a button mashing minigame: hammer the button enough every time the icon comes up three times to pass, five times to perfect.  Anyway, sometimes you’ll run into environmental barriers you can only pass on a pet’s back. You don't see this much, but it is the key is several puzzles. WitchSpring R OST / BGM - Cave Light   ALFREDO: That witch took almost all of my pies. This is the only one left... I must eat sparingly... I can't die here! Grrrrr... Or maybe I'll just eat this and die. ...But won't mom be sad if I die? Hnng... I miss my mom. PIEBERRY: What are you doing?  ALFREDO: Eek! A witch!! PIEBERRY: You've done a good job of evading Balt for so long. ALFREDO: A brave warrior never lets himself be caught by a monster! PIEBERRY: How did you get here? Did you swim through the swamp? ALFREDO: A warrior finds joy in exploration! A swamp won't stop me! PIEBERRY: Interesting... Let's see what you've got this time, shall we? Be a good boy and behave!  ALFREDO: Never!! I-I'm not giving you my last pie! PIEBERRY: He ran off again. How much longer will he last?   New area means new enemies. These guys are hardier and hit harder than the last round of enemies, and if we had to handle them alone, we’d find ourselves burning through our MP stocks almost every battle.  Fortunately, we don’t. WitchSpring R doesn’t give you a traditional party, but your pets fill that niche. Pets don’t work quite like full party members: you can’t level them, they can only attack in a set pattern, and you can’t make them not attack without dismissing them outright. Ironically, having a pet on the battlefield makes it much harder to capture another because they’ll just keep ramming them past 30%. On the other hand, enemies can’t target pets, and while their basic attacks sometimes leave something to be desired, their max affinity special attacks always pack a wallop. Plus, you can bring in more of them. Every pet has a summon cost (two for most, four for real scary ones), and the longer the game goes, the larger your summon budget gets. We only have two points to spend now, but by the endgame you can have three or four pets firing off attacks at once – in big boss battles they sometimes end up your primary source of damage.    The game clearly tries to lead you by the nose into the next part of the dungeon, but, well, this is an RPG. It’s smaller and more streamlined than most, but you can find side quests if you know where to look.  Alfredo, for instance, has a whole questline we can miss if we don’t explore the rest of the area. ALFREDO: Hnng… Waaah! I can't wait to get out of this forest! PIEBERRY: Hey. Are you crying?  ALFREDO: Argh! PIEBERRY: Is it really a good idea to hide here? I don't think the golems will leave you alone. ALFREDO: I'm not hiding! I'm... I'm exploring! Golems are no match for me! PIEBERRY: Be honest. You're lost, aren't you? ALFREDO: L-lost…? PIEBERRY: You said you wanted to get out of the forest, right? Well, I'm feeling sorry for you, so I'll show you how. Even if it's impossible for me to do so myself... ALFREDO: A warrior? Accepting help from a witch! Th-That's absurd! PIEBERRY: Is it? I guess I'll just leave you to find your own way home then... ALFREDO: Eh?! Y-you're not really going to just leave me here, are you? PIEBERRY: Sure I am. I don't think you have any pie left anyway. ALFREDO: W-wait! Please save me... Just this once... PIEBERRY: You should have asked earlier. You let your ego get the better of you. ALFREDO: ...Is it really possible to leave this forest? PIEBERRY: You can definitely leave. I just don't know where you'll end up. Follow me! ALFREDO: Thank you so much! Please show me!  ALFREDO: Aaaaaaah!!!! 
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Jan 28, 2024 17:48
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Golem Yeet travel probably works on the same principles as cannon travel from the Mana series.
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Jan 28, 2024 18:32
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Falconier111 posted:Welp. It doesn't weaken my premise all that much, anyway. With your permission, I'll edit that into the post. Of course, feel free
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Jan 28, 2024 18:56
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Polsy posted:Of course, feel free Feel free to keep telling me I’m wrong. I make a policy of always confirming I have people’s consent before I add their stuff to my posts. Remember kids, not rigorously checking consent from people you gather info from is you how you end up like Laud Humphreys. Don’t end up like Laud Humphreys! quote:By assuming the role of a “look-out,” Humphreys gained the male subjects’ trust, which enabled him to observe complete strangers engaging in brief, impersonal sexual encounters with same-sex partners in public restrooms…Without the subjects’ knowledge, Humphreys recorded their license plate numbers and tracked them down a year later. After changing his hair, attire, dress, and car, Humphreys visited the homes of the subjects. Under the guise of a social health surveyor, Humphreys interviewed the subjects about their lives without disclosing that he had already met them before… 
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Jan 29, 2024 03:55
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Update 5: ...l Will Serve You for Life A short ride back from Balt later, we reach the same part of the swamp we saw that bird. This time, though, something interrupts us.   PIEBERRY: Eek! oh my! [sic] I can't lose that bird... I need to deal with this swiftly! (That portrait ) This Giant Frog’s no slouch as far as enemies go: buckets of HP, solid Defense, and poisons you for (very minor) ongoing damage. But the worst part is what’s up its sleeve. You can see the initiative order in the bottom right bearing battles, just keep in mind it goes right to left (which hosed me up a couple times but I figured it out). You may notice that little red circle around the frog at the far end. That usually means the enemy will unleash some special attack on that turn, usually taking the turn before to charge up. But you may also notice something else.   Pieberry doesn’t get a turn between the charge and the release, meaning if you aren’t carefully watching the initiative tracker you can get slapped with major damage before you can do anything about it. Since the initiative tracker displays enemies in groups individually even though they act together, it’s next to impossible to spot incoming charge attacks during real furballs – a fact the game likes to exploit for later bosses. But we have a solution. You remember like three updates ago when I said there were two options on the battle menu I’d explain later? One of them, Pets, lets you summon or dismiss pets without using your turn, obviously useful. The other is Defense, which doubles the appropriate stat until your next turn and restores a little HP and MP. In a lot of games, defendant is what you do if you’re completely out of options. But here? Enemies only target you and a sufficient menagerie will pour on damage no matter what, so spending every other turn defending is a very viable way to deal with even the toughest boss fights. Not that this guy counts, but at least now we know it’s an option. Anyway, we enter the next area.     Now Giant Frogs are just regular monsters, usually paired with couple other frogs as chaff. What you’re seeing here is what happens when battle lasts long enough for our boar to fire his own special attack off; he does triple his normal damage, more than we can do right now even with crits on spells, and stuns the enemy to cost them their next turn. Pets rule.  PIEBERRY: I found you, pie thief!  BLACK JOE: Kyahaha! PIEBERRY: I don't think this is the time for you to be so relaxed. BLACK JOE: What did you say, you ugly witch?  BLACK JOE: Stop interrupting my meal and go away. PIEBERRY: What? You can talk?! I've never seen an animal talk before! ...That isn't important. Give me back my pie! BLACK JOE: Well. I already ate it.  BLACK JOE: I was just quenching my thirst with tree sap. Kehehe! PIEBERRY: Not my precious pie...! I'm going to mind control you into being my servant for life. Prepare yourself!   PIEBERRY: It dodged?! BLACK JOE: How do you expect to hit me with such terrible aim? Still way off—    PIEBERRY: How about now!? BLACK JOE: You wicked witch...  Yeah, uh, he goes down in one boar charge. 1 damage  PIEBERRY: Enough running. You're going to submit to my mind control! BLACK JOE: Kyeeek! PIEBERRY: Now call me master! BLACK JOE: Who would have thought a kid like you... PIEBERRY: Ugh... Is the mind control spell not working? Does it not work well on talking animals? I failed... BLACK JOE: Can you let me go now then? There's no pie left anyway.  PIEBERRY: But wouldn't you be delicious if you were baked into a pie?  BLACK JOE: ...l will serve you for life. PIEBERRY: No, this isn't how it was meant to go! Repeat three times after me, and I'll forgive you. “Pieberry is the greatest in the world!" (Another interesting translation: in the Japanese, she directly tells him to call her goshujin-sama, his master, though I know there’s nuances in the sentence I’m missing.) BLACK JOE: Eh? PIEBERRY: No? Then I'll have to go warm up the oven.’ BLACK JOE: Pieberry is the greatest in the world! Pieberry is the greatest in the world! Pieberry is the greatest in the world! PIEBERRY: I like what I hear! Good. From now on, you are my servant! Well, then... What's your name? BLACK JOE: Call me Black Joe! PIEBERRY: Alright, Black Joe. Let's go home and discuss what to do next! Before we return home, I want to call something out. In the Japanese, “Black Joe” isn’t translated from anything, it’s English words as transliterated into Japanese, straight up ブラック・ジョー. The game does that with names from time to time; that lightning dragon that flew overhead got the same treatment. You also hear English loanwords from time to time (when Pieberry said “lucky me” last update, she literally said rakki (ラッキー)), but I guess that’s pretty normal. I know caring about that is kind of like getting worked up when someone says “leopard” instead of the original French le.ɔ.paʁ, but I always end up wondering how words and expressions got where in a fantasy world when I hear that. Like, I was watching a Tales of Vesperia LP a while back and when one character was asked about an explosion she obviously caused, she said “I plead the fifth”. The fifth of what? Also, I want to take a moment to talk about the voice acting. I’ve spent some time scouring the Internet and I can’t find a cast list, so I don’t have names for the seiyuu or information on what other roles they’ve taken. I also haven’t listened to the Korean dub, so I can’t speak for that. But the Japanese voice acting stands out: Pieberry’s voice is high and sweet without getting grating, Alfredo and the other warriors strike the appropriate mixes of haughty and hapless, and the seiyuu in general do an excellent job of keeping their voices well suited for the specific troops their characters embody while dramatically breaking from them when the situation calls for it. But Black Joe? His voice is shrill, just a little high, switches from disdainful to comically terrified at the drop of a hat, and carries subtle nuances you don’t pick up your first time through on certain very important lines. I’ll be calling out other stellar performances as we go forward, but Black Joe’s is probably my favorite.  Note Black Joe languishing in the cage to the right. It should be obvious, but I managed to miss it my first playthrough. PIEBERRY: Hmm. How can I put you to use? Maybe I can make you clean my house? BLACK JOE: Why? You already have so many Bakus in here. PIEBERRY: Baku? BLACK JOE: Those dust eaters are called Baku. Bakus are fed by dust that has a little bit of their master's magic in it. They are very good at cleaning. (In case you’re confused…) (He’s talking about the Studio Ghibli-looking things on her bed here. They float around in the background whenever you’re at home, occasionally generating puffs of cartoon dust they immediately swallow.) PIEBERRY: Aha! You call the cleaning fairies Bakus? So what are you good at? BLACK JOE: Nothing, so don't try to make me do anything. PIEBERRY: You're good at flying, aren't you? I've seen you fly with a boar. BLACK JOE: So? PIEBERRY: Hehe. I'm going to hold onto you so I can fly over the hill I couldn't climb. BLACK JOE: Why bother with that...? PIEBERRY: There must be some good magical ingredients on the hill inside the Golem's cave. I can smell the magic! BLACK JOE: You enjoy exploring, don't you? PIEBERRY: This isn't about having fun, this is work! Your master isn't such a slacker. There are more and more warriors lately, and their armor is getting tougher. So I need to work out a way to get stronger too. BLACK JOE: But there's one problem with flying you around. PIEBERRY: What’s that?  BLACK JOE: You're heavy. PIEBERRY: Hey! You carried a boar! BLACK JOE: I really wanted to eat it, so I used all my strength. Idon't have the motivation to fly you around... PIEBERRY: There's plenty of motivation.  PIEBERRY: For example, I could set your cage on fire if you don't. BLACK JOE: Let's get flying right away! PIEBERRY: Just as I thought, my faithful servant!
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Jan 30, 2024 17:22
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Wow, Pieberry is gleefully murderous.
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Jan 30, 2024 21:24
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