Oblivion Adventures Part 12: Sweet Dreams

[Normally I alternate different posts with Oblivion ones, but all my other ideas were half-baked by the time Wednesday rolled around, and I’ll be damned if I post a late update twice in a row. Side note: please forget about the update rate in the first three years of this blog.]

“Thank you so much for retrieving Ardaline’s staff! You’ve performed well and will have your recommendation.”

“Oh, it were real easy. All Shush had ta do was-“

“You needn’t tell me the details of what was involved in getting it. It’s perhaps better that I know nothing about it.”

“Oh, okay. Den Shush won’t tell nothin about it.”

Don’t worry folks, we’re really not missing much. One of the dullest of all mage’s guild quests, this one basically boils down to using a bunch of free charm scrolls to bypass persuade checks. I suppose it did culminate with me stealing a staff back from someone, but I didn’t even have to do that. I just wanted to make use of all those sneak points for once.

Shush turned to leave when de lizard lady dat ran dis guild spoke up again.

“Excuse me...Shush, was it? I was wondering if you could help me with something else.”

“Hey, dat’s no fair. You said Shush just had ta get de staff back an you’d give him de ricky-mandate-hun.”

“Oh don’t worry, you’ve already earned your recommendation. But if you’re interested in some further rewards, I have another job I need help with.”

“Rewards IS a gud ting” said Shush. Shush nodded. “Wot does you want Shush ta do?”

“It’s about my friend Henantier, I need help locating him. Would you please follow me to his house?”

So den Shush an de lizard lady walked out of de mage-y guild at Bra-ville an walked across de street to her friend’s house.

I quite like Bravil’s aesthetic of multi-level ramshackle huts. It adds some variety to the mostly generic medieval architecture. All the same, building the mage’s guild out of flimsy wood seems...unwise.

Oblivion Adventures Part 11: A-mage-ing Adventures

In what used to be common practice but is now actually worth noting, this update is a bit late. Apologies to all my regular weekly readers, so basically just this one guy I know named Matt. A combination of sickness, holidays and personal procrastination moved back the post. I didn’t want to skip an entire week, so I’m trying to return to Wednesday updates. Hopefully this holds until at least the next holiday. Enjoy!

Final Fantasy 4: The 5 Worst Character “Deaths”

As a general rule, I don’t like my writing to become too negative. I want to keep things positive and constructive enough that it eases the reading experience. I don’t want to sound like a petulant, whiny child. But it’s easier to talk about why something doesn’t work than why it’s good, and easier to make that fun to read. So you may experience some trepidation and brace yourself for the coming storm when I say...

Final Fantasy 4 is a good game.

But it is a good game. Final Fantasy 4 is a widely regarded classic. It had solid mechanics and a much more involved narrative than most games of its 1991 release. It influenced the rest of the series and an entire genre for years to come. I respect its legacy and even had fun replaying it. And yet we all know what’s coming, don’t we? You’ve all read the title of the article. I enjoyed Final Fantasy 4.

...buuuuUUUUUUUUT...

Oblivion Adventures Part 10: The Road Stretches On

A bright sun shone through a deep blue sky on an idyllic, Cyrodilic stretch of country road. Shafts of light trickled through the trees onto vivid seas of multi-colored flowers, casting a dreamy glow on the scene as insects chirped and butterflies fluttered past. Birds were softly singing, grass was swaying in the breeze, and mudcrabs were keeping to themselves far away from the worthwhile species of the world. All in all, it was a peaceful scene on a perfect day.

And then the flowers gave a muted “splat” as they were pelted with what looked like the fragmented remains of an eyeball.

“Have you ever considered using a less...messy weapon?” asked Martin as he gingerly stepped around the pooling blood of the seventh wolf corpse today.

Dragonball Xenoverse: Why Do I Enjoy This?

Video games, like any artistic medium, are highly subjective in quality.  Reviews try to objectify their critique as much as possible, neatly placing positive and negative features on both sides of a scale and extracting the numeric solution. But games are more than the sum of their parts, because every person weights these pros and cons separately. If you really hate something a game does, you may dislike it even if it’s widely adored. If a game feature scratches an itch like no other, you may engage subconscious blinders that keep you from seeing the roiling sea of feces surrounding your island of enjoyment. This phenomenon inspired me to start what may become a reoccurring feature on this site. Or not! Consummate professional that I am, I haven’t planned that far ahead. Regardless, it’s called Why Do I Enjoy This, or Why DIET if ur dwn w abbrevs.

Simply put, I’m going to examine mediocre games and determine specific things they do really well and/or really poorly. This gauntlet of guilty gaming pleasures begins with Dragonball Xenoverse. Dragonball Xenoverse, released back in February this year, is an aggressively average game. Yet it sold a huge number of copies (over 2.5 million) and was met with a generally positive response. I heard of the game. I knew how mediocre it was, and yet I bought it on a Steam sale. I proceeded to play it for over a couple dozen hours. A completely valid question to ask at this point is: Why? Am I just an easy-to-please simpleton?

Well I found this image hilarious, so that gives away the answer.

Yes, but we’ll have to go into a little more detail.

Oblivion Adventures Halloween Spooktacular

Little notice before we start. I played an indie game this week called Undertale. I heard of its release over a month ago, but was too busy to play it. From what I heard, I expected it to be some fantastic triumph of a game that I would remember for years to come. It was. The combat is fun, the writing is fantastic, the music is excellent, and it has its own style not quite like anything else. I don’t yet have enough to say on it to fill an article, so I’m saying here: Undertale is an amazing game and I sincerely recommend people play it. We now return to your regularly scheduled rushed holiday special.

“Well it looks like we’re stuck here for a while” said Martin glumly, sittin down on de curb next to Shush.

It were just after Shush an Martin left de inn at Skin-guard. When Shush had gone to da gate de guards said dey couldn’t pass. A wanderin herd a cows was blockin de gate an dey needed some time to shoo dem away. Since Martin seemed a bit grumpy bout dat, Shush tried to cheer de guy up.

“Hey, Shush have an idea!”

“And what would that be?”

“We can tell each other scurry stories ta pass de time!”

Oblivion Adventures Part 9: Road Trip

On our last installment of Shush’Ogar’s adventures, he single-handedly stopped an army of vicious demons from destroying what was left of the city of Kvatch. That he was partially to blame for their attack isn’t worth focusing on. We return as he enters the town chapel, hoping to find what he came searching for in the first place...

“Ey! Any of de people here named Martin?!” yelled Shush.

De people inside looked up all surprised at dat, prob’bly cause Shush weren’t not a demon guy. A dark-skinned lady in guard clanky clothes walked up to Shush an de captain Savvy-lion.

“Gods above, I thought I’d never see another friendly face! I don’t know who you are, but-“

“Are you Martin?”

De lady gave Shush a funny look. “Martin isn’t typically a name for women, no. Brother Martin is back near the altar there if you’re looking for him.”

Shush left de confused lookin lady to talk to de captain an walked over to Martin.

“H-hello?” he said as Shush got close. “I head you calling my name, how do you know it?”

“Hey, yeh Shush were lookin for ya. You’re de priesty guy Martin?”

For some reason I’m getting the impression that he’s a priest.