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Felipepepe's Videogame History Articles Thread

Archibald

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What Jaesun said. For example I disagree on some Arcanum stuff too (love the game thou), but its an interesting topic and without couple of examples where this actually was done (to certain extent) its difficult to construct an argument that random retard on internet would be able to grasp. So in that sense I agree with DC's usage. Besides, its not like our :ehue: is saying that DC is a perfect game, he is just highlighting that politics minigame which did an okay job of presenting political points without devolving into GOOD VS EVIL FUCK YEAH BITCHES levels of retardation. If its lazy to use certain themes or if it makes much sense in the context is irrelevant, presentation is in this case more important.

As to add something to this topic, I think that problem for fantasy games is that most of them are derivatives of Tolkien by either trying to copy him or trying to to be different on purpose (our Orcs are totally good guys!). I'm not well versed on fantasy literature, but I'd assume there were more complex stuff (as far as politics/economy goes) written by talented people, its just that they never got much attention when compared to Tolkien?
 

Unkillable Cat

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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Name games that had politics in them, and they would affect the outcome of the game?

...does this one count?

196715-yes-prime-minister-the-computer-game-zx-spectrum-front-cover.jpg


(Though from what I heard, the game is a COYA-type thingie where the goal is to survive one week in office, and past decisions can and will come back to haunt you.)
 

Neanderthal

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You know its strange to think about all the propaganda Felipepe points out has taken over from nuanced perspectives, I mean even Ultimas where your playin Avatar o fuckin Virtues dunt feel as clunky an obvious in deliverin its messages as most modern games tryin to enforce their vision, never felt uncomfortable or out o place maybe due to unattainable nature o perfection that Garriot admits.

Makes you wonder what kinda folk feel comfortable blatantly preachin at strangers like this, an obviously judgin em even when they don't know em, and why do they feel entitled to do that? Is it because of how far games have fallen, how simplified an dumbed down they've become, where they basically play emsens as you follow quest markers an experience what devs chosen for you to experience? Do devs look down on players for acceptin the shit they're makin an not speakin up, or even clamourin for less features, less content, more streamlinin an more clingin to the core of the game, rather than askin for ambition an more bang for their buck? Is this a vicious circle that were all involved in, where dev looks at Skyrim an Diablo 3 sellin millions an thinks, fuck it i'll make idiot games for idiots an preach at em how I want, cos they're dumb kids?

Everybody seems to say that they want innovation but excuse modern games from matching what were done twenty or thirty years ago, an cheer on insultin simplification an treatin their audience as fuckin retards who can only handle most basic tasks, an not many o them at same time. An yet you watch a fuckin Youtuber get lost in a fuckin linear level, doing same thing over an over again, instead o explorin an experimentin an you winder whether this preachin an handholdin is justified. You read on a forum that money changin in New Vegas were such a fuckin onerous task, an shoulda been stripped from game or automated because baby can't wipe his own arse let alone click mouse a couple o times, an you feel fuckin depressed cos you know devs gonna listen to that retard rather than you askin for more work an graft.

Oh fuck it.
 
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Problem neanderthal is everybody in the niche community seems to want a different kind of innovation, leading to arguments. I guess that's what the codex exists for? Only tying in common we have is we hate the mainstream.
 
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Zed Duke of Banville

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Can you elaborate on what these undertones are? I have some in mind (Cyclic understanding of history. Distinct races, sometimes conceived as separate species (no hybrids), each with their own advantages and disadvantages) but would like to hear more.
The fantasy literature that inspired D&D spans almost a century by a multitude of authors, so there aren't themes ubiquitous to all the literature, but we can identify themes that frequently occur.

The Arthurian mythos, as well as the Carolingian mythos and other medieval romances, inspired the settings for novels from The Well at the World's End to Three Hearts and Three Lions and beyond, and also had a direct influence on D&D and CRPGs. Not explicitly political in itself, this lends itself to more precise elements, such as a pseudo-medieval setting.

Romanticism, if not full-blown then at least a Romantic sensibility. This also ties into numerous other aspects, including revived interest in Arthurian and other medieval legends, glorification of the middle ages in contrast to the modern era, etc.

Discomfort with many aspects of modernity, especially the industrial economy. A longing to preserve disappearing agrarian (e.g. Tolkien) and artisanal (e.g. Morris) society.

Derived from the above, a fascination with the middle ages, resulting in medieval Europe becoming the standard fantasy setting. An acceptance or embrace of feudal structures, nobility, hierarchy.

A belief in natural aristocracy, in which exceptional individuals (not necessarily noble-born) will arise and establish themselves as Heroes. The importance of Great Men in History over determinism and the masses.

A cycle of civilization, from barbarism to civilization to decadence to collapse.

Emphasis on maintaining civilization in the face of internal rot and external hordes.

Embrace of particularism over universalism. Empires of evil threaten coalitions of free nations.

Embrace of eternal verities over moral/cultural relativism, which are agents of decadence and collapse.

Taking religion seriously. Works stemming from the Arthurian/Carolingian mythos and set in a fantasy version of Europe had Christianity as an established part of their setting, and some others made serious attempts at integrating a fantasy religion into their setting. D&D early on dropped Christianity in favor of fantasy pantheons, but the latter tended to be poorly fleshed-out in campaign settings. CRPGs only rarely include religion as a meaningful presence (e.g. Morrowind).

Violence is (usually) the answer. Heroes do not shrink from using violence to defend civilization and to defeat evil.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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.......???????????????
Most of the original DND fiction is from Appendix N and 90% of it is people being accidentally transported to fantasy worlds and being really good at murdering anyone who got in their way. Planetary Romance, Tolkien, sword and sorcery. Most of what was released was really recent to 1974 and it would be on the bookshelf of your average nerdy teenager.
Gary Gygax's account of "inspirational and educational" reading from 1979 is not a completely reliable account as to what literature influenced Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax in their creation of D&D in the early '70s. Hence it being weighted to more recent authors, who in any case were influenced in turn by earlier fantasy writing, extending back to the later 19th century. Not to mention the many others who would become involved in writing D&D modules and other material.

For example, the title of module B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (by Gary Gygax from 1980) is an homage to the W.H. Hodgson novel The House on the Borderland from 1907.
 

Archibald

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But by similar reasoning can't everything be traced back hundreds of years ago? Lots of todays writers have been influenced by previous generation which was influenced by generation before them and so on.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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But by similar reasoning can't everything be traced back hundreds of years ago? Lots of todays writers have been influenced by previous generation which was influenced by generation before them and so on.
How far back can you trace fantasy literature before it's reduced to nothing but recapitulations of Arthurian mythology and other medieval legends? I'd say the late-19th century.
 

Neanderthal

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Always thought Elric were inspired by Kullervo from Kalavela, pretty obvious similarities wi stupidity, self destructive shit an sword wi living will to harm. Bit o Cuchulain, Beowulf, an o course sagas in most RPGs an all, but then again as Zed points out most o these became popular again wi retro movements in 19th century onwards. The solve any problems by scrappin though, thats common theme for all Howards menagerie.
 

TigerKnee

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Devil Advocating: Fable III's real moral lesson was exactly in the long-term view of things - that statement about "We'll all be dead in a year but at least the children can go to school" - it hangs the Sword of Damocles over the player to demonstrate that it's easy to make all the "obvious good moral" ruling decisions when you don't actually have an idea of what the stakes are against you - pick all the good choices and you won't have the money to defend yourself against said incoming external threats, pick all the bad choices and you question whether the ends justify the means.

Or so that's what I think it was attempting to do. In practice, it's not executed well because as pointed out, it's not particularly nuanced and you can also break the game in several ways that makes it so you can choose all the "good" choices while still having enough money to win.
 

felipepepe

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Did a quick one today, this time continuing my "CRPG History Abridged" series with some niche RPGs: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Feli...s_that_brought_something_new_to_the_table.php

Cobra Mission: Panic in Cobra City (1991)

Erotic Japanese RPGs aren't something new. They date to the early 80’s, before even Dragon Quest andFinal Fantasy existed. Titles such as 団地妻の誘惑 (roughly “Housewife Temptation”) had players cast as a salesman, visiting apartment blocks, fighting gangsters and trying to “score” with the ladies, way back in 1983:

va54ITu.jpg


However, Cobra Mission is particularity infamous as the first erotic Japanese game to be fully translated into English and released in the US, courtesy of Megatech Software (who later released a few more erotic Japanese games, like Knights of Xentar, before closing doors).

This was before the sex & violence controversies surrounding Mortal Kombat and Night Trap which led to the ESRB being formed, when game publishing was still a wild, new frontier.

BlIdsRL.jpg


Besides the titillation, it's an interesting title, as the localization team not only translated the game and changed some girls to be less-anime & more-AMERICA!!!, but also changed its gameplay!

While the original game sported a traditional JRPG-like turn-based combat, the US version uses a sort of ATB system, where the enemy's attack bar slowly charge but you can act freely, and must use the mouse to repeatedly drag your weapon to the enemy as fast as you can - there's even weak points in each enemy you can target for massive damage.

8QoFxAM.jpg


Another oddity is that the supposedly selling point - the sex scenes - are extremely hard to get, as they require players to please the ladies in a specific way under a very short time limit - or be dumped.

Overall, Cobra Mission is a rather mediocre game, but it's a fun historical curiosity that felt like an exotic, sexy and slightly off-limit treat to teenagers in the 90's. And its "so-bad-that's-good" appeal just might be enough for a quick look.

Chinese Paladin (1995)

No matter how globalized and connected the world might be, there’s still some local products that never seem to reach other lands, no matter how popular they are in their native region. Chinese Paladin is one of such hidden gems.

Developed in Taiwan, it’s a game know by several names – 仙劍奇俠傳, XianJian QiXia Zhuan,
The Legend of Sword and Fairy, Chinese Paladin
or simply “PAL” (the name of its .exe file).

You play as Li Xiaoyao, a young man that visits an island of fairies in search of a cure for his sick aunt. There he falls in love with a girl named Zhao Ling’er, who gives him the medicine. He leaves, promising to come back to marry her once his aunt is well On his way, he loses his memory, and from there unfolds a fantastic journey, full of romance, tragedy, poems, mystical creatures, powerful martial artists, gods and demons.

B5t0cXM.jpg


It’s a gripping tale, one of the best stories in any RPG I've played. If The Witcher is a folklore-based RPG,Chinese Paladin feels like an epic poem in video-game form.

While some parts of the game are too dungeon-heavy and grindy, it compensates with unique set pieces such as a power you can only use 9 times during the entire game, or a battle where you simply must endure the full sword sequence of a wushu master.

dxE4g6D.jpg


A neat detail that adds a lot of weight to battles (and more games should copy!) is how powerful attacks scar the area, making some battles not only feel challenging, but also look the part.

A massive hit, Chinese Paladin is widely considered the most important RPG ever made in China. Its immense popularity led to several sequels,spin-offs, remakes and even a 2005 live-action Tv series.

After decades as a Chinese-only treasure, the English fan-translation finally broke the language barrier, allowing anyone to experience this hidden classic.

PS: If you wish to give it a try (and you should), the original release is now Freeware, and you can grab an updated translation here.

Mordor / Demise (1995/1999)

In 1995 David Allen released Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol, a shareware RPG about creating a party and delving into a massive, 15-floor deep dungeon.

While that sounds very standard, the twist here is that the focus is less on micro-managing individual battles and more on foresight and macro-management. It starts with a large variety of races, stats, alignments to create your character, then several guilds you'll join to level up.

A lot of thought is required here, as an unoptimized character can become unable to progress dozens of hours later. Reaching the bottom of the dungeon is a slow and iterative process, build upon many failures. A tailor-made challenge for min-maxers.

Battles play automatically as you enter each room (though you can pause to give direct orders), but while an unlucky roll or encounter can crush you, managing your resources and enduring the wear of the long descent will prove a much bigger obstacle than individual battles.

IwFDVtn.jpg


While death isn't permanent, you're required to pay for rescue & resurrection services, which can get exorbitant later on. As such, a high-level character may be lost until your other characters make more money or rescue his/her's body from the depths. Punishing, yet quite fair.

Overall, Mordor feels like a weird mix of Wizardry and Football Manager - an extremely interesting (if definitely niche) blend that more games should play with.

In 1999 a sequel called Demise: Rise of the Ku'Tan arrived, now sporting full 3D graphics, multiplayer capabilities plus larger dungeon floors (45x45 squares each!).

zThyVG7.jpg


While the press utterly hated the game (PC Zone rated it 1/10 and called it "a deep hole full of shit"), its extremely niche appeal found its mark and the game gained a cult following. The community remains somewhat active to this day and there's even two parallel (and legally conflicting) development branches:Ascension and The Revelation.

Definitely not a game for everyone, but an addicting and nearly endless time-sink for some.

Yumina: The Ethereal (2009)

Yumina is an officially translated PC-only JRPG - an extremely rare sight in the West, and a very different beast from the more mainstream-oriented console counterparts like Final Fantasy.

Made for a very specific audience, these game usually feature a Visual Novel-like presentation, hardcore battle systema with a billion stats, abilities, items and high difficulty, old-school dungeon-crawling and several routes & endings. Also, sex scenes - reason why you likely never heard of most of them.

Here you play as Yumina, a school girl that wants to be the next School President, and for that she must win literal battles against other candidates in the "Election War", presented as "debates" where each party shouts out arguments together with their attacks:

OABNNOY.jpg


Quite unique.

But what I would like to highlight here is a single mechanic - the mana bar:

Every ability require mana, and each character has an affinity with one of four mana colors. The twist is that both you and your enemies use the same mana pool, which is (usually) locked at 100.

So if you use an ability that costs 15 blue mana, the blue portion of the bar will decrease by 15, while each of the other 3 colors will get +5 mana.

ZOnm0wS.jpg


This effectively turns battles into a tug-o'-war, where you must carefully use your characters to always have the mana you need & build up for more powerful attacks, while also observing which color of mana your enemies favour and trying to dry them out.

A neat little concept, that completely changes how this turn-based JRPG plays.

Personally, I find it mind-blowing how hentai JRPGs like Yumina, Sengoku Rance, Kamidory Alchemy Meister, Tears to Tiara and the likes present much more original and solid gameplay than more mainstream titles... the erotic scenes (and overwritten dialogs) are a huge barrier but, it's always amusing to read people saying "came for the sex, stayed for the gameplay".
 

mindx2

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Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Too much jRPG for me this time felipepepe. Won't be digging up these boxed copies except for Mordor and Demise which I already own. Briefly looked for Chinese Paladin but only saw links for Paladins III, V or 6. Is the one you write about the 1st one or one of these other numbered versions? Are they even the same series?
 

felipepepe

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Briefly looked for Chinese Paladin but only saw links for Paladins III, V or 6. Is the one you write about the 1st one or one of these other numbered versions? Are they even the same series?
It's a huge series by now, with even a Inn-Management Sim spinoff and a TV soap opera. The one I wrote about is the original from 1995. They also made a 1998 updated version, and a 2001 remake (which is crap).
 

felipepepe

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Meh, tackling on all those obscure Japan-only JRPGs sounds like a nightmare. Not to mention I would spends 20 lifetimes just doing random encounters...
 

felipepepe

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Cobra Mission is bad for your sexual life bro... sex is impossible, you need to perform a bunch of actions in the correct order under a short time limit. Here's the "walkthrough" for ONE girl:

<Sitting on the bed>(20)
-Hand on hair
-Lips on mouth
-Whisper
-Lips on mouth

<Lying on the bed>(20)
-Lips on breasts
-Lips on mouth
-Hands breasts
-Hands on hair
-Lips on no-no place

<Lying on her back>(20)
-Lips on breasts
-Lips on mouth
-Hands on hair
-Hands on breasts
-Rotating vibrator
-Repeat
-READY to GO!!

All this for a single 320x200 static image of a poorly drawn animu girl. Kids these days don't know how hard fapping was back then.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Well, not ALL the girls needed a walkthrough for players to get to the good stuff. That Monique slut in the screenshots would put out if you visited her once the ol' ball & chain was "occupied"...and then the ol' ball & chain herself puts out at the end of the game. Then there's that encounter in Kaiser's fortress, but that one kinda breaks the plot.

To me, that's the sign of a clever game designer at work: Have most of the good stuff dependant upon players to use some :effort: (but seriously, you can just call the girl back and try again if you screw up) but leave a few "easy-peasy" bits out there for them to sink their teeth into and want more.

(You'd be amazed at how much psychology is put into the design of porn games, especially commercial ones.)

To try to dispel the image that I'm some filthy pervert, I'll just state this: I had an interest in porn games like these during my teenage years...just like everyone else did at that point in their lives. Except for the fact that I own a boxed copy, I haven't touched Cobra Mission in over 20 years. And compared to the "competition" of other porn games, there's actually a decent game in there as well. By high-brow RPG Codex standards it's not much, but it's enough to keep people occupied while they're waiting for the next porn scene to roll along.
 

Ignatius Reilly

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Late to the party here, but really enjoying this read. Some real gems of innovative design here. Thanks for the write up and research.

Worth it just to read about the RPG where you meet Sigmund Freud and Rasputin. Hell yeah!
 

TigerKnee

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To try to dispel the image that I'm some filthy pervert, I'll just state this: I had an interest in porn games like these during my teenage years...just like everyone else did at that point in their lives. Except for the fact that I own a boxed copy, I haven't touched Cobra Mission in over 20 years. And compared to the "competition" of other porn games, there's actually a decent game in there as well. By high-brow RPG Codex standards it's not much, but it's enough to keep people occupied while they're waiting for the next porn scene to roll along.
The Codex porn game standards is Sengoku Rance, you filthy pleb. :obviously:
 

Deuce Traveler

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Played both of those, and liked them, though Sengoku Rance was better than Knights of Xentar. I like Alchemy Meister second to Sengoku Rance, but that's because it reminds me of older games I enjoyed like the Shining Force 1 and 2 games. So if I was going to make suggestions on folk's personnel playing styles I would say:

Strategic RPG=> Sengoku Rance
Classic jRPG=> Knights of Xentar
Tactical RPG=> Alchemy Meister
Dungeon Exploration Blobber=> Bunny Black

And the thread just took a new, unsurprising yet unsuspected turn...
 

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