Duke Reivier's Grand Game Emporium

 Last time, the plot thickened as Lunair's dad announced that he was going to marry her off and make her Duchess. Turns out, all of that was a ploy to bind her to Aeria and make her his puppet. In addition, he was going to continue using her as a test subject and unknowingly feed her a love drug. After learning all of that, Lunair took this as an opportunity to sneak Revier in by killing off her future husband, Heath. The Intrigue With those dramatic details out of the way, they finally make their way into the Duke's quarters through the same path Lunair took. However, complications soon arise as General Dirk, the Duke's right hand man, pays a visit to their house. Lunair quickly realizes that Dirk would be expecting to observe the effects of the love drug on her, and makes Revier impersonate her for a while, while she takes Heath's form. This works out, as Dirk doesn't catch on to Lunair acting oddly, while Heath(to him) reassures him that she was administered the ...

Last time, we summarized the circumstances leading to this part of the plot, then took a quick dive into Lunair's past. This ended up being informative on both Lunair's current character, as well as Rayne's general nature.  Today, Lunair and Revier continue their journey to Aeria to rescue Serai. It's worth noting that even this early in his career, Kan's musician tendencies showed quite prominently - the entire(largely uneventful) trip is represented through a music video . Every Arc is ended with one too, and of course, later the emotional climax of To the Moon takes a similar form. The Intrigue Anyway, they reach there, and Lunair leaves Revier behind to get a feel of the situation in the capital first. She is given an appropriately royal welcome at the gates, however her dad is predictably upset at her early return. He reveals that he would have preferred her to stay for a year more, but it isn't much of a problem since he has a backup plan for her. However...

I've been streaming Quintessence  on odd days, usually the weekends, in my chatroom, and it's been quite enjoyable going through it with someone else. While the game has some noticeable flaws, especially with its really confused and slow start, it still remains a very intriguing and compelling story, especially for being Kan's first outing.  Of note, the middle portion of the story is a large, delicious pile of scheming, intrigue and revelations. I plan to cover it through my small series here, hopefully highlighting its great moments well for everyone else to see. The Setup The story centres around a drug, naturally called "Quintessence". It was developed by a brilliant physician for Aeria. Aeria is one of the two huge empires of this setting, the other being Prion. We're not given much information about the latter, though it is implied to be roughly similar in power to Aeria. Anyhow, they had plundered a foreign land(which looks roughly like a fantasy take o...

 Ogre Battle 64 is a niche within a niche. It was a game made for a largely unpopular system, and belonging to a genre that, for its high ambitions, was never particularly popular. It is no surprise then, that people have largely glossed over a lot of its aspects, despite it having done some remarkable things. While its execution is lacking in many aspects, especially when we focus on its storytelling, it still has quite a lot of interest here. One such aspect is the character of General Godeslas. Initially presented as merely a rather stern, disapproving superior, Godeslas undergoes a fairly remarkable transformation into someone more humane and a bit tragic even as the story progresses. Note that, by its very nature, this study will involve spoilers for the game. Avoid reading any further if you wish to avoid them. Background Godeslas starts as, and remains, the general of the southern part of Palatinus. Of late, the state has been facing rebellions in that area. The protagonist ...

  As usual, my commentary is in italics, except for dialogue. Last time, Watts warped onto a bridge with a distant view of the NASA headquarters, on the day of the launch. It's quite awkward to start out with some criticism, especially since this is the very last part of this series, but how is Watts here? Aren't these supposed to be derived from Johnny's memories? Shouldn't he be in the headquarters, preparing for his space trip with his wife? Did Rosalene just bend reality completely within his memory? Maybe she's just extraordinary about this memory editing business. Watts passes by various silhouetted people, and runs into Isabelle, Nicolas and Joey watching the shuttle from afar. Isabelle converses a little with Nicolas about how unbelievable it was that Johnny and River made it this far. Nicolas himself talks about how hard Johnny worked to get here. Joey boasts about how it's his brother going to travel in the shuttle, and talks briefly about how he wrote...

  As usual, my commentary is in italics, except for dialogue. Last time, Watts was left all to himself in a long, dark hallway. He can enter the two classrooms downwards, but there's nothing there. Going right, he runs into globes and computers being flung at him, and spike traps appearing on the floor. He admonishes Eva a little, and she just tells him to stay put till she's done. He then threatens to unplug the machine, but Rosalene points out that that would distort his memories. The lights go out again, and she asks him to meet her at the end of the hallway.  At some point, Rosalene releases literal zombie clones of herself to stop Watts. Watts comments on how ridiculous this is, then conjures some plants to throw at them. Yes, this is exactly what happens. The author ended up inserting slapstick humor into an action sequence of all things. In part, this is also a reference to Plants vs. Zombies, albeit an incredibly forced one. Going forward, he runs into a part of the ha...