... Ever since becoming a fan of my most recently adopted hero, The Spoony One, and his legendary rants on craptastic movies and video games, I have always wondered how I myself might conduct an ongoing review of something I have neither played nor seen ever before, and so, with Lantis's idea of a text-based LP that would be entirely new to the Mag, I have decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, i cannot do an actual LP of the game of interest here since I neither possess the resources nor does my computer's DS emulator work well anyway, but I will try to keep it entertaining. A lot of people in the past have said that I am an entertaining person without my even actively trying to anyway, so maybe that will work in this thread as well. I'll also try to use screenshots from occasional Google searches or something to give the thread a bit of pleasant decor as well as, more importantly, give you a visual of what is currently happening as I write. Of course, being an RPG, I couldn't possibly touch up in full ongoing detail of every part of the game as I play it, but rather, I will simply come back and post every few days at random scenes, with a short synopsis of what has happened in the meantime since the last post. This is just an idea I am merely acting on with impulse, so of course I realize that it may bore the Magonians as soon as it would keep them reading.



"Two Children, One Book." My god, why does it still sound so disturbingly pornographic?


Tonight I will be venturing into the world of Avalon Code for the first time. I really do not know what enticed me to purchase it; I had never even heard of the game until it showed up in the recommended buys section of my Amazon.com account shortly after my purchase of the DS version of Chrono Trigger. As of now, the two afore-mentioned games are the only titles that I officially own for the DS. ... Naturally, it's good to be a pirate.

I suppose it was the cover art for the game that enticed me; it somehow reminded of the fantastical style of drawing that is the artwork of Final Fantasy VI, although they are hardly similar. Well, that, and the idea of "writing the story of a new world" that the game suggests as its premise on the back cover. Why am I trying to develop a Spoony One-style review on a game that I myself willingly bought because I thought it would be a good one? Precisely because I am expecting it to be good; that means that more than likely Avalon Code WILL SUCK. It hardly ever fails, and you'll have the advantage of seeing me get pissed off firsthand at game elements that I will be experiencing unexpectedly, simply because I have never played this before and therefore will not know what is coming. Here goes nothing.


... We open up with a fairly impressive intro movie that first shows a self-turning hardcover book (no doubt entitled "The Neverending Story - Part DS"), and then primarily sports sprawling gorgeous landscape that you would always expect to see in most by-the-book RPG's, giving us the impression of a story taking place in a perpetually magical and peaceful kingdom straight out of a fairy tale (before the great face of Evil wandered onto the scene and changed its history forever, of course). The so-far-unnamed boy and girl randomly make appearances in various battle and childlike poses, and words - no doubt mystical prophetic text concerning the world in Avalon Code - also scroll across the screen in fancy cursive. ... Okay, pretty typical, but I'm impressed so far. Nothing to legitimately gripe about yet. ... Oh, and the only words of the intro song that I understood at all came at the very end - 'Fly awaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy .....!!!" You gotta love the Japanese. They must really be otaku for the English language.





And now comes the start screen. After finally figuring out that I am supposed to use the stylus when the screen practically yells at me to "TOUCH!", I don the Gaming Pen of the High Console Gods and opt to start a new game.

... Hunh. The two main characters (whom I'll assume are the only two playable heroes in the whole game; sort of a Threads of Fate kind of deal) are standing back-to-back, looking like they've just been surrounded by a horde of hungry goblins that caught the scent of human flesh in the dark of night. You have absolutely NOTHING to worry about in that case, kids. I've never even been in a high-school fight before in my life (not a real one, anyway, because they're never real) and I bet that I could take on two or three goblins at a time if you just handed me a discarded broomstick to use as a weapon. Here I must select to play as the boy or the girl. ... Okay, well, I am a boy in real life, so .... Strangely, the game asks me twice if I am sure that I want to play as the boy character. Well, the girl is certainly a cute one, but only in a non-lolicon-fanatical way. Nevertheless, let's stick with the boy.

... Hey, is that kid voiced by Mona Marshall? Sweet. That's the same guy (or girl, possibly) who voiced Ascot from Magic Knight Rayearth and Kite from the dot.HACK games. I always liked him/her. The still-unnamed boy talks at a bit about what obviously happens to him during the course of the story, ending with the over-dramatic words, "As long as corruption exists, the flame of darkness will continue to burn," or something like that. We now see him standing at the entrance to something like a large tomb, a noticeably valuable book of magic in hand. A giant growling behemoth of a man in full battle armor (hereby known as the Imperial Soldier) walks up behind the boy and demands for him to fork over "The Book of Prophecy." *sigh* I get it, already. When the boy refuses, the soldier transforms into a freaking minotaur and attacks! And I am thrown into battle.

And that's what we all love about RPG's, right? A completely unarmed child at level 1 will still somehow best a trained soldier in full battle regailia in the game's opening sequences. Good Lord. This will probably be embarrassingly easy for the protagonist, too. An elfish creature pops out of the Book of Prophecy and, calling himself a "mighty Fire Spirit" named "Rempo", offers to teach me on the fly about the art of fighting. Apparently I am supposed to select my weapons straight out of the Prophecy Book using the stylus, and right now there is but one sword called "Genesis" at my disposal. Oh, well, I am sure it will be enough. So here we go.

... Holy crap, are you SERIOUS? I deliberately let the giant cow-person just take a two-handed swing at me first with his battle axe and I incurred precisely 1 HP of damage?! Oh, yeah, I am SO going to over-analyze, here; an attack like that would easily tear a person my size completely into half with just one blow. I must be wearing the fabled Flying Hawk Robes or something. This'll be a short battle for sure. As of right now, it seems the only way I can fight in battle is to simply press the attack button at will to swing the dual Genesis swords (stupid name?) at my opponent. Considering I do at least 50 HP of damage with each attack on average, and 200 if I get him in the back - which I am doing quite often, because for some reason my opponent very stupidly turns his back on me a whole lot for no logical reason I can see - I expect this will only take a few swings at most. ... But no, even though the minotaur I am being pitted against fights like an infant orc, he surprisingly takes as much as 2500 HP of damage before going down, and I also discover that I actually only possess six or so max HP at this time, having finally taken note that my life gauge is not represented by numbers but a sort of vine with five or six leaves that wilt one at a time when I incur a hit. In any event, consider the battle on this grassy knoll won.

As you may have guessed already, this is apparently going to be an RPG based on battle in real-time, not turn-based. Not that I have a particular preference either way.


The epic battle with the minotaur. Naturally, I win.

The "mighty Fire Spirit that can incinerate anything" looks really ridiculous now that he is actively talking to me again. I just noticed that he has two really stupid-looking balls-and-chains for hands, as well as authentic DBZ hair, and now I am told that my Genesis has lost all of its power in the throes of the battle. Terrific. ... But at least Rempo actually notices my weird stare and admits that his arms really don't look like normal arms, although according to him it is because his arms are actually figurative shackles that "bind him to the Book". ... Whatever. Just admit that whoever on the game staff designed your character very stupidly thought that that would look cool. Rempo now asks for my name now that he's decided to follow me around for a while (it's funny how spiritual, magical, or even other human companions that get caught up with a protagonist in these kinds of RPG's go through just one short ordeal with them by seeming pure chance and somehow already know that they're about to go on to save the world together and therefore inevitably form a lasting bond stronger than those of marriage). Well, the game automatically sticks me with the "official" name of "Yumil", which at a glance isn't bad, but nevertheless, screw that. My name is "Will", dammit. Because it's my name in real life; it's the name of a Protector.


This is Rempo. As you can see, he may have a few anger management issues.

After the introductions between Will and Rempo, another soldier who was not too far behind the one that turned into the minotaur walks onto the grassy hill, and without any rational thought whatsoever Rempo orders me to bust out the sword yet again, because like any good-natured adolescent, I should kill first and ask questions later. Just ask the kid from Iron Eagle. I have the option to stay and fight or run away, which alludes to the game's selling point that reeled me in as to my being able to "write" the game's story myself, which I anticipate to mean that I'll be given very frequent choices like this one that will open up just one of many hundreds of turns for the story to take. Very stupidly I accidentally press the confirm button at "Fight", which I worry that will, like how it might in Fable, result in my being viewed as a bloodthirsty kill-crazy bastard by others in the game. But in the end Rempo tells me to book it because a human approaches the scene along with the second imperial soldier, with no further explanation. (Does that mean that Will and the soldier aren't human? Maybe we're hobbits, instead. You know, Halflings.) The soldier notices the discarded armor where the first one I fought used to be standing, and the human, named Heath, tells him to go report it "to the prince". .... Uh-oh. You know what that means. Avalon Code has just unofficially set a record for speed at putting the main character's face on a wanted poster by the signature "evil empire" of the story. Five minutes, one random fight with an overzealous soldier, and BAM! Instant fugitive sought by an entire intercontinental army.


You rang, General Heath?

Rempo tells me to stop running, now, and gives the whole ball-busting speech about how the legendary Book chose me personally and everything (for what? We don't know just yet, but by golly it CHOSE ME), and my fate was altered the moment I touched it. ... I've been carrying it around with me for as long as I can remember, as far as I am able to tell. I've been touching the stupid book! Will just gives this dopey naive smile, and somehow Rempo takes that as a look of utter shock, because he's obviously a total idiot who has a 1 in 80 success rate of correctly making a generic interpretation of facial expressions. Rempo also says that the world we now live in will soon pass away, hinting that it will be of natural causes, however a new world will be born in its place, and it is my duty as the new keeper of the Prophecy Book to "record things worthy for the new world!" If Rempo isn't just being figurative when he say this, then this is a profoundly stupid idea for a main storyline point. Either that, or I just went into this game with a very negative attitude.

Rempo finishes by telling me to "Code Scan" the nearby patch of flowers, as a demonstration to how I can record vital information about anything I smack with the Prophecy Book. I don't know what a patch of common-looking flowers is going to tell me about the "fiery legend" that i am about to begin writing, but whatever. That's right; according to Rempo, we're about to embark on an epic adventure to write one helluva FIERY LEGEND!

And so begins Chapter One - "Fiery Spirit". ... I can't help but feel that this makes for a great song title by Tokio Hotel.


A brief passage tells us that when a "Fiery Angel" comes to Earth, the gates of Hell spew forth dark demons and the people of the world above take up their swords and fight, presumably against the Dark forces who got bored with rolling large rocks around in the fourth circle of Hell and decided to come pay the human world a visit. And now we are given full control of Will again, who is still standing in the grassy plains area where we were previously fighting the minotaur, this time with dual Genesis swords back in hand. It looks like we are about to start the first official "dungeon" of the game, based on the premise of Will making his way out of the area before more soldiers or Heath finds him.

And that's it for the first section of this LP.



If you didn't mind the lengthy reading, then just voice a few posts on the side of "for" my continuing this as an LP, and I'll try to return with more tomorrow night or sometime soon when I begin playing more in depth. If you'd rather not have me continue, then simply suggest against it, and I suppose I will simply leave this thread as a witty little one-time run-through of my inner thoughts being spoken aloud as I began playing through a new game for the first time ever.

Sarah's Knight out.

*cue for the song by Simple Minds, "Don't You Forget About Me", to begin playing*

In all fairness, text based LPs aren't my idea, they were actually the way LPs were done BEFORE video LPs by Something Aweful. In fact, you can check their archive for a crap load of them. I think there's even a 'type' filter in their search funtion that you can set to either text, video, screenshot, or hybrid. I think the screenshot type is used more than just text though.

Anyways, that aside: I think that you're doing just fine. If you want, maybe you can youtube some of the boss fights. But yeah, your writing make it interesting enough to read that I don't feel as though I'm missing out too horribly much just reading it. So I say keep it coming.

... Okay, guys. Quite frankly, I'm still on the first chapter of this game, even after all of this time, because, well, while I think Avalon Code has a lot of potential for a nice little RPG romp that, while exciting on its first playthrough, will not quite ever be legendary like most Final Fantasy games, I honestly haven't figured out what the heck it is I am even supposed to be doing. This business with using the Book of Prophecy to Code Scan and write fiery legends and stuff just seems as unnatural and obscene to me as the science of cloning. The only new part of the story I have uncovered in the last two weeks since my first post is that a short walk through the plains where the game started has brought me (Will) back to my hometown of Rhoan (interestingly rearranged to make the word "Rohan", I immediately noticed), whereupon everything I have done there has amounted to trying to learn the art of using my Code Scan abilities to screw around with the vitals of not only flowers and swords but other human beings as well. Apparently every living being is comprised of "codes" as well in the world of Avalon Code, and I can freely mix and match "codes" in people and things to cure illnesses, make new swords, and generally single-handedly alter fate itself (at least I assume that that is what I will ultimately do in the end to make the credits roll).

.... It's just that ... that is only what I am guessing I am doing, here. It's going to take a long while to catch on to using my handy-dandy Book of Prophecy responsibly and in the way that the game intended. This is some really crazy stuff that the staff at Marvelous Entertainment, Inc. (I know; I've never heard of them either until Avalon Code) have tried to bring to the table for RPG ideas, but then, I am willing to try to learn, I guess, because I have to remember that we have long been living in a time of video games when a book-wielding pre-teen girl in a long red coat ->

(... So red it's practically BRITISH)

... equals badass monster-slaying superhero just as frequently as does a sword-wielding, grizzled half-demon man in a long red coat ->



I'm sorry; I just still can't easily put these two side-by-side and visualize them symbolically kicking equal amounts of ass. But, hey, anime has done far crazier. Little girl superheroes are nothing if not normal in gaming society, I guess.

NOTE: Speaking of which, in my attempt to restart the game to make certain I have not missed something vital in successfully completing my first storyline task of using the Code Scan to achieve a certain goal (which I'll go into later), I have chosen to forsake Will in favor of Tia, who is the second playable character, and the girl in the above picture. Having come back to the point in the game where I left Will and restarted, I was a little disappointed to find that the story appears to take the exact same course with her as it does Will. Threads of Fate held a major plus with me in that Rue's and Mint's paths often progressed down separate but parallel roads, and I guess it would have been sort of nice to do the same with Avalon Code, but no big. From here on, if I also happen to use "me" in place of "Tia", I mean one and the same; just "me" as in the character I am playing as. It'll probably just be a reflex reaction to say "me", sometimes.


The far east part of Rhoan, also with the Book of Prophecy turned to its handy map section just below on the DS's lower screen. I would like to mention here that it is intensely convenient and ingenius to have the Book always open and on-hand to carry out the game's vital functions. Just turn the page with a stylus to switch from saving your game (at ANYTIME! SWEET!), to a detailed map of your current locale, and to playing god with the elements that make up weapons and NPC's.



But for right now, I have left off still in Rhoan, and the following is what I have done or learned about this town:

1. Soldiers stand guard at all entrances of the town. 'Don't know why, but they don't seem to be on the same side as the "Imperial Soldiers" who were wanting my Book of Prophecy earlier at the game's beginning.

2. I know pretty much everyone in town more or less on personal levels.

3. At the far east end of town, an old man named Vis with a creepy pedo crush on me (in the picture just above) explains the function of giving gifts to certain NPC's to increase their affection for me. So far, I have only the flowers that I Code Scanned (which is pretty much synonymous with "obtained" in this game, somehow) back at the Grana Plains to use as a love offering, which I'll sure as hell NOT give to the old man (although he makes no secret as to wanting me to give them to him. Freaky).

4. Being Sarah's Knight, I WILL, however, promptly give said flowers to the stereotypical young-girl-with-terminal-illness named Fana who lives in the center of town. Fana is thankful, and asks me to come visit her again; house visits from other townsfolk appear to be the highlight of the day when you are perpetually confined to bed (but always next to a huge curtained window overlooking a beautiful city landscape that is bathed in sunlight, right?). The walkthrough I am using right now also wisely prompts me to Code Scan Fana before departing, and while I hesitate to literally smack a poor sickly girl in the face with a heavy textbook, as what happens whenever you perform a Code Scan, apparently the subject will never even realize that you just made such intimate contact with them, so I do it, eliciting nothing more than a question mark above Fana's head. Looking at her information on page 300 (whoa ....) of the Prophecy Book, she appears to harbor a code entitled "Hope". That's our brave little Fana, clinging to life with everything she has in spite of her physical limits. That's it; I MUST find a way to save her! Perhaps the game will allow me the chance to, sometime.
Well, after leaving her house, Rempo pipes up on cue and snidely asks me if I want to waste my time trying to save Fana from her illness. I don't care that you were being sarcastic, son, you know I will want to try. The Protector of Angels never turns a blind eye to a girl, especially a frail and sickly one. It's like taking care not to shoot a man in his vitals, even when your full intentions are to kill him; doing otherwise is clearly against the Man Code. So, finding a cure for Fana is made a goal "for later", according to Rempo. Apparently, the storyline demands that I do something else important in town before leaving.


My visit with Fana, which like any other meeting with another living creature will always end with a prompt smiting of the fragile human skull with the great Book of Prophecy. 'Couldn't find a bigger pic. That's Will in the picture, though - not Tia.

5. Fana's neighbor, Kamui, is a guy slightly older than me who apparently has traveled and seen much of the world, as he will explain the species name, purpose, and origins of any flower that I Code Scan and bring back to show him (meaning I hold the Book of Prophecy up to his face, turned to the correct page, I am sure - not actually handing the flower to him).

6. The west part of town is known as the Fortune-Teller Alley (I really hope that Royce from Lunar:SSS doesn't show up in that case, then; she was a really creepy lady), but the only event of any interest at all was my meeting with what Rempo calls a "mysterious little girl" (remember, video games come from JAPAN!) named Meenya who wanders about outside all day in this area looking for someone to play hide-and-seek with, and for some reason she is the only one other than Tia so far who can see Rempo. ... Oh, of course, I nearly forgot; she's a mysterious little girl. ... Apparently, she's also a ghost.

7. To progress the storyline, Tia goes to see her swordmaster in the Training Hall - a man named Gustav (I totally saw that one coming) - and tell him about her earlier discovery with the Book of Prophecy back on the plains, as well as learn his Secret Sword Technique (tm*). Gustav responds in exactly the same way you would expect an elder teacher to whenever the story's young main protagonist asks to be taught some of the finer secrets of martial arts, and that is tell Tia that she can't possibly handle it, generally in the form of calling her names that directly attack her age level; a naive little kiddy like her couldn't possibly take on the heavy responsibilities that come with these kinds of things. Naturally, Rempo sticks his nose in our business like any good-natured sidekick who is essentially meaningless to the game and primarily displays his/her annoyance by kissing the main character's butt (e.g. Nall, Ruby, etc.) and speaks on Tia's behalf, adamantly telling old man Gustav to go screw himself and Tia is more than a match for the challenges he'll set for her. We proceed to follow Gustav through his fun-filled basement of rooms filled with utterly meaningless trials that are not going to in any way teach me how to better play this game, nor so much as require that I use brain power to think. After hitting switches and slaying monsters that don't really fight back, Tia finally catches up with Gustav and spars with him to learn a pretty awesome-looking skill called the Whirlwind Blade. According to his instructions, I just need to hold down the Y-button for a second or two to use it in battle, and there is no mention of it costing any MP or anything to use. Pretty good deal, I guess. As Tia walks out of the Training Hall, Gustav muses to himself, "So ... the time has finally come ...." Cli-cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' ....


Me in Gustav's basement doing meaningless tests. Of importance however is the visual of a monster's code that I have just obtained my Prophecy Book by Code Scanning it. I couldn't find a picture of Gustav himself, but, if it helps, he looks almost exactly like Brom's character as played by Jeremy Irons in the Eragon movie.

8. The last character in town I can remember meeting is apparently Tia's childhood friend/rival who saunters up to me like some fat little gnome and proceeds to tease me that I am just an immature little kid who can't possibly handle the outside world. Hey, screw you, pal. I just slew a giant axe-wielding cow and handed my own swordmaster's ass to him. What can you do?



Finally, a visit up to the gates of Rhoan Palace has me bump into a snooty Princess Dorothea (Italian for "Dorothy", maybe?) who says that she is chasing after an Imperial Soldier who is rumored to have sneaked into town and, since I so had the audacity to bump into esteemed royalty, I had better help her find this guy or else.


Princess Dorothea and her weird cat guardian, Guri. It would be awesome if the cat's name was something more like Cincinatti Jake.

... Princess you may be, Lady, but don't expect me to so willingly come to your rescue later if you need it. I choose to help because I know that doing otherwise would be absolutely futile, but no sooner than we proceed to look around town that the soldier in question comes to us, scaring off the uppity princess and eyeballing my Book of Prophecy like it was prime rib. ... Well, you know what this means.


.... BATTLE!!! (That's my Whirlwind Blade in action, by the way, although not against the soldier I am currently fighting. In fact, this doesn't look to be anywhere near Rhoan.)

It turns out that he fights no differently than the soldier who transformed into a minotaur to kill me and take my Prophecy Book at the beginning of the game. And with my new Whirlwind Blade skill at my complete disposal, I don't even incur any damage while shaving off his meaty chunk of 2500 HP. According to the walkthrough, I could also have put my Code Scan to use here by removing the "Sickly" code from Fana's information in my Book and adding it to the soldier's in order to reduce his max HP from 2500 to 1750. Interesting, I guess, but, much like the junction system in Final Fantasy VIII, this is not only going to take quite some time to get used to, but I sincerely doubt that I'll ever learn to take full advantage of its potential benefits.

After the soldier mysteriously dies and disappears into another dimension like the zombies in Resident Evil after you leave the room and come back, Dorothea and her maids (one of whom is wearing that awesome pointy hat with the ribbon on one end that noble women used to in the Renaissance times or something) gather around Dorothea's wounded cat, Guri. .... I can't believe that the Imperial Soldier from before took a free swing with his axe at a housepet and couldn't kill it that way. That's our typical henchman soldier from the "evil empire"; just plain cannon fodder for the one main bad guy leading the empire who can actually kick a little bit of ass in battle. Anyway, Rempo prompts me to instill the Vitality property (I've no clue) into Guri in order to remove its "Wound" code, and I can do this by combining the Hope code from Fana and the Light code from the nearby maid with the pointy hat into the free spaces on Guri's code. After Code Scanning the maid to get this "Light" code as well, I am midly surprised to find that this has yet to remove Guri's wound from him. Well, what both the walkthrough I am consulting and the game itself fail to tell me is that I must also remove the "Freedom" (at least that's what I think that FRDM stands for) code from Guri after adding Light and Hope in order to make this work. ... I'm starting to hate this, already. Hopefully it was just a fluke.

When Guri perks back to life, instead of thanking me, the Princess and her maids inconveniently find this a good time to simultaneously take their their PMS out on me and accuse Tia of witchcraft, whereupon they demand to throw her into the abyss where the other evil pagans who practice foul sorcery end up. Poor Tia looks scared out of her mind when all she was trying to do was help, but just then a purple cloud of smoke places a wall between Tia and the Princess and an actual witch dressed as a total harlot walks calmly onto the scene. I really like the way her cape somehow drapes over her body on just one side in such a way as to give the appearance of an angel protectively covering herself with her wings ... except the wing is blacker than devil's food cake, so I can't really find much in the way of ethereal beauty in this image. The witch, wearing the impish smirk of any typical seductress who has spent a lifetime luring unsuspecting men into her house of forbidden fruit, from which they never return alive, calls herself Nanai, and whisks me away to what appears to be the basement of her own residence. If I am about to endure another series of meaningless monster-filled rooms simply for Nanai's amusement, much like I just did in Gustav's estate, I am going scream.


... If I were still playing as Will instead of Tia, I would be scared right now.

You know, it kind of burns me up to about that walkthough/game misshap earlier. Seriously... why is it so freaking hard to write a propper walkthrough?! You write down WHAT YOU DID to progress the game. I wrote one for Chrono Trigger many years ago and I'll be damned if it isn't the best fan made walkthrough ever made for any game ever. You know what? Gamefaqs needs a rating system by all of their walkthroughs that'll let you rate from 1 to 10 how usefull the fool thing is. That would really help things out.

Anyway, I see you haven't gotten much father since the Oklahoma trip we made a ways back. From what I saw... I'm not sure I'd pay for that game. But from what you say about all this code stuff, it seems a bit more interesting. If there's a way to see the results of you mixing and matching codes before doing so, then maybe this'll turn out to be somewhat awesome.

Oh, and:



Duhhhhhh, nuh...

Duhhhhhh, nuh...

...

Duh, nuh, duh, nuh, duh nuh duhnuhnuhnuhnuhnuh-

Thirty more minutes spent progressing in this game and I am none the wiser, but at least the Internet walkthrough I am using as my Nav-com for my trip through Avalon Code (written by someone who clearly displays his unprecedented knowledge for basic chemistry by calling himself "Heliumsy" - well, at least his walkthrough doesn't tremendously suck so far) suggests that I'll be closing chapter one ("FIERY SPIRIT!!!") by the end of this post. Maybe I'll grab some semblance of sanity in my being forced into a quest to "write a story for the new world" with the coming of chapter two. Much like in The Neverending Story, clearly so arduous a task can only be completed by an adolescent child (no, "pre-teen" is more appropriate).


I feel like I am living a terrible dream I once had many years ago when I was still a little SK, in which I and a girl my age were captured by a diseased married couple who practiced extensive black sorcery and foul, crazy sexcraft when we had trespassed onto the private property of their big looming mansion on a dare (as in "I triple-dog dare you to climb that fence and walk all the way up to their front door, Suzy!"), whereupon we were promptly and mercilessly thrown into their lion-filled dungeon to be gobbled up by the feral beasts, while the eccentric couple presumably went back upstairs to hotly engage in more intercourse to the sounds of our nine-year-old high-pitched screams. I thankfully woke up before too much of me was torn apart by giant lion paws. Scary dream, I know (in a number of ways), but that's exactly what came to mind first when I fully grasped the notion that I as Tia had been thrown into the maze-like basement of an eternally young and beautiful witch with all of the appearance of a lust-crazed charlatan of black magic named Nanai. As the Book of Proverbs might say about her, pretty her face may seem, but her heart and very footsteps lead straight to the fiery depths of Hell ... or something.


... This is one thing. Nanai is another. ... Nanai scares me.

As the Protector of Angels, I cannot help but be extremely sensitive to the mere presence of a scantily-clad sorceress with Nanai's coolly grating demeanor. It's like placing a little girl in a floral dress who carries a worn teddy bear named Ruxpin around with her at all times in the immediate presence of Marilyn Manson. It just instills the very essence of the word cringe into the former-mentioned party.

But Nanai's basement is clearly the same boring and pointless setup as Gustav's sword training funhouse, but at least in Gustav's case I could tell that the game was trying to get this air of "hey, we're in training right now" across. Trying to use the theme of a chain of rooms with switches, monsters, and lighting torches in a time constraint AGAIN so soon in the game, and as an excuse for an actual dungeon, is just beyond unoriginal.


Yes, I am using this same picture to illustrate my trip through Nanai's cellar because it is the exact same freakin' thing.

This game just went down half a point on a 1-10 scale with me for that. The only difference I noted is that in Nanai's case there was one room full of weird white cooshball monsters (that constantly make yipping puppy sounds) that I had to fight off in forty seconds or less to get any sort of reward, which is impossible because there were at least ten of them and each had several hundred HP. The hard part was just surviving the encounter because I only had 3 HP left to survive on. The creepiness factor of having remembered my above-described nightmare upon coming to Nanai's house just exponentially went up because I really hate fighting monsters that want to kill me but otherwise make noises and gestures like they just want a hug. It's scary for the same kind of reason that the baby-faced monster that walks on its hands in Silent Hill 4 is scary. I also want to note that in the last room, there was a protective helmet up for grabs that looks exactly like the helmets you see on knights put up for display in museums and rich peoples' houses, you know, made of iron and with a visor. As with the katana I found in Gustav's house earlier, nonsensically all I have to do is Code Scan the helmet in order to equip it, because, you know, you can wear a piece of armor just by writing down information about it in a magic book instead of actually picking it up. Of course, since Avalon Code like some other RPG's had the strong sense of detail to change the appearance of its characters according to what specific sword or armor they presently have equipped, Tia now looks really silly wearing this helmet. Seriously, I wish I had a picture of this right now. Think of a little kid trying to fit himself into his war veteran father's military uniform, which would naturally be big enough to flow way over his feet, and that's just talking about the coat alone.


But, anyway, Nanai isn't very good at her job if it is magically summoning people to her house to torture them, because there wasn't even a boss fight down here. When Tia and Rempo make it back upstairs, two soldiers from town have the balls to charge right through the front door of Nanai's spooky crib and accuse her of being a traitor to the Rhoan kingdom. They demand that she come with them quietly and see the king to be judged.

........ I know; this makes no sense to me, either.

They need to stop for just one quick second and look at Tia long enough to realize who they are talking to. Tia's helmet is falling down over her eyes it's so loose-fitting on her head, and yet they are accusing this girl of conspiring with a witch of ill fame to bring about the downfall of an entire kingdom. Sure Tia has proven herself to be quite the fighter by now - I mean, you can't be a hero in nearly any video game without being stronger than the average mortal human being - but for all these soldiers know, she should be about as dangerous as a carbonated beverage that has been shaken up to spew in your face when you open it. But, I suppose, better to err on the side of caution when as a soldier you are charged with the protection of your country. Rempo, as you would fully expect of him by now, pipes up and asserts his lousy two cents on why Tia doesn't need to obey them, but Tia wisely ignores him and submits to the soldiers. As ridiculous as this scenario of me being arrested on charges of high treason is, I am sure that just a few words with the king will have my innocence made apparent.


"I thought I told you to shut up and stay inside the Book, Rempo."


We come before the king of Rhoan and his daughter Dorothea and proceed into one of the most witless throne room conversations I have ever seen in movies, books, or video games. It ranks right up there with ->
Gandalf: "Sir, me and this here Hobbit have come to warn you that your country will soon be attacked by six thousand orcs."
Steward: "Why didn't you ever tell me that my son is dead?"

Considering that I am writing up this particular part of the post a few hours after it actually happened, I can't really remember the words, but it remains that I can easily tell neither Dorothea or her father are fit to occupy the throne of a bathroom, much less of a kingdom. They both sound even less intelligent than Ellis from Left For Dead 2 with every word they speak. Dorothea is particularly a moron for not even mentioning that I had saved her life from a giant minotaur not three hours ago, even though she has to recognize Tia under the circumstances. Maybe she really is just an idiot, I guess. Either the development team wanted to give us this impression, or we already have strike one in this game for poor script writing.


"Young lady, I cannot very well just acquit you of these charges because I am a complete tool when it comes to being King. This has nothing to do with taking my duty seriously."


The king actually appears to let me off in the end, but the two soldiers who arrested me in the first place are like trigger-happy hicktown cops who just want to bully me for the heck of it, now. They throw me into prison, anyway. .... Oh, god. Not the training ground rooms. Are we really going to do this again?

I am dreading it every second, now. As expected, Rempo makes an observation that easily leads Tia out of her personal cell and in the next room we find a weird dwarf with Groucho Marx glasses who Rempo calls "Fro". Actually, I had a choice here as to whether to let Rempo call him that or not, but at this point, I actually have to agree with Rempo's assessment, because this dude has some serious Bozo the clown hair, and all of this shiny gold and expensive weaponry behind him appears to be his personal treasure hoard, too. Seriously, what is this doing here? Oddly, Fro asks me to retrieve a "hat" for him from a room east of here, and in exchange he will tell me the way out.


Hey, why don't you wear this as a hat instead, you fat gnome?

... And so I go find and Code Scan it to find that, well, indeed it is just a hat. well, at least it now looks as though I am not going to have to endure a training rooms scenario for the third time in a row. This prison actually appears to be a serious dungeon attempt for once. It's just a shame that it took two game hours to get to one. Back to the east, through a few rooms full of bats (how typical for a first-dungeon monster) and sorcerers who summon giant bouncing skulls to kill me, and I come to a large steel door that takes up one fourth the area of the wall. Rempo tells me that we need to find the key to the door back above ground in the town graveyard. .... Wait, what?


"... I don't understand this damn Book! It reads like the story to Usuru's Quest!"

.... The above expression is pretty much what I am wearing right this moment. If we're trying to escape this prison and all we have to do is climb the nearby ladder to get back above ground, then why in the world would we bother to go back and unlock that stupid door?! Of what importance could anything behind it be?! Let's just leave! ... And how would Rempo know where the key to this door is, anyway?!

Unless the two soldiers who threw me into prison in the first place put out an alert to every other soldier in town to not let me out of Rhoan if they see me, just to be that much more obnoxious, then there is no reason for me not to just waltz up that ladder right now and breathe the outside air again. Sure enough, the ladder leads up to the same graveyard that I was free to visit while wandering around Rhoan earlier, and a Small Key is lying carelessly on one of the gravestones, just waiting to be Code Scanned. *sigh* ... I didn't realize that a single key designed to unlock just one of many millions of doors on this planet is an essential part to the legendary Book that's going to tell us all we need to know about the "new world" when it is born. Just what heading will this key fall under in the Book, anyway? Maybe it belongs somewhere on page 287,103,995,042, along with other meaningless pieces of common household hardware.

Just to hold out hope that this game's storyline isn't deliberately trying to make a complete ass of itself, I try to leave the graveyard with Tia via the gates back to the other parts of Rhoan, but no go. I guess Rempo really is dumb enough to not realize that we could just leave right now and consider ourselves successfully escaped from prison without having to venture further through the dungeons below. After scanning the Small Key, Rempo says that we should go to the forests (don't ask me which ones) to find Mieli, another one of the Four Spirits from the Prophecy Book like Rempo. Mieli is the Forest Spirit, apparently, and a feminine one at that. I just hope that she is cute and not-annoying enough to be able to offset the undesired perpetual company that Rempo presents to me.

Back through the locked door and we automatically continue on all the way back to the Grana Plains from the beginning of the game via a moving line on the Illusion-of-Gaia-like world map. No real dungeon after all down there, then, I guess. This game really needs to pick up on a few aspects, here.

We now begin Chapter Two - "Forest Spirit".


... Anyone else detect a crummy theme here?

Before I go, I just want to repeat the few really creepy lines of Chapter Two's prologue here, which makes a really poor attempt at sounding poetically ominous and prophetic ->

"When the Forest Angel comes forth from the great forests of the world,
The people shall rise up (underscore: from the grave) and set upon and devour one another,
And war shall ravage the land forever."


.... Tell me again why we want to find this Mieli?

You know, the mixing of key words to change things in battle and in story seem to be the only redeeming factors in this game... otherwise is really seems like crap. Maybe when you "accedently" revive the forest-whatever and make zombies overtake the world... maybe then things will pick up.