Perhaps I should
have called this one “Things I Didn't Talk About In The Prolog”.
Then again, this
stuff fits just as well here as it would have in the last part, so I
suppose it doesn't really matter that much.
Anyway,
the backstory we get for this game is that 900 or 1000 years ago,
Fa'Diel's Mana Tree burned down or exploded or something, which
really made a mess of the world. Chunks of the planet turned into
enchanted artifacts, leaving big craters in their place. Whoever
possessed one of these artifacts could control the fate right down to
the very existence of whatever place that artifact was made from. At
first, there was much fighting and strife over these artifacts as a
result of that fact, but over the course of the next millennium,
people started to lose interest in the artifacts and Mana in general,
instead preferring to go about the act of staying alive. But Mana
itself had not disappeared from Fa'Diel, and over the course of the
centuries, it began to want a restoration. To achieve that goal, it
chose an avatar, which, surprise beyond surprise, is the player
character, who is the guy or gal, depending on which gender the
player chooses, will eventually restore the Mana Tree and bring it
back to the people's hearts.
Now,
for a little personal history here. Back in 2007 or 2008, I tried to
do pretty much this exact same thing in the forums at The
Spoony Experiment. It didn't work out so well, and I gave up on
writing after only a couple parts. Intentionally or not, I'm sure
there will be similar jokes along the way. One thing I'm pretty sure
I won't be doing, however, is repeating the opening gags from those
original posts. Somehow, quoting the Book of Genesis doesn't seem
quite as funny now.
In one last little
bit of housekeeping before I get onto the actual game, I should make
mention of how this'll play out, if you'll pardon the expression.
This first issue will pretty much just be all setup and exploring the
first couple locations a little bit. Next issue, we'll actually go
on a handful of quests. The next few after will probably be the same
as well. At some point, however, I suspect the quests may start
taking multiple issues to complete. I'll make note of the change
when it needs to happen.
So, now, on to the
game. The first thing we need to do is choose the gender of our
character. I'm gonna go with the male character. It's not that I
have a problem with the female hero. Heck, I could even give her the
same name and it would work out well. It's just that this thing is
going to be awkward enough without getting into some of those
implications. So, I'll be playing with the male hero, and I'll give
him my own name: Jesse. At first, I was considering going for some
reference to Doctor Who, but eventually decided against it because it
would at the very least have too many characters.
Next up is
selecting a section of the game's world map upon which to work. I
usually take the section in the southeast corner of the map. Maybe
this is why I wind up reaching a point at which I find myself unable
to continue, but from what I've heard, that may not matter. Just
about any section of the map is selectable, so long as there are at
least a few water features. Those'll be important later on, but I'll
say when I use an artifact where it does.
Once
that's all taken care of, we're given our first artifact: the
Mailbox. This turns into my house. It's a nifty place, but I'll
talk about that in a minute. The map I've chosen has a mountain
range sort of thing in the southeast corner of it. I usually put my
house within one or two spaces of the west end of that, so that
there's a little space all around to put other locations. That'll be
important later, too, from what I understand, but I've never made it
quite that far. Anyway, once the Mailbox is placed on the map and
the Home location springs into existence, a nicely done, if somewhat
long for its era, title
sequence and music video
thing happens. We'll be meeting most, and more than likely all, of
the characters shown in the title sequence before this thing is done,
even if I don't actually make it through the game itself. And it's a
cool song, too. It's just too bad there's no English translation
that I'm aware of
Once we actually
get to a point where we can play again, it's time to explore this
homestead. I would so totally live in this place if I could. The
whole second level of this place is a giant bedroom with lots of nice
windows and a desk. The desk even has a little cactus on it, though
that's a little creepy in its own way. See, the cactus is a sentient
being, with a little face and everything, called Lil' Cactus. He
likes being talked to, and after quests, he'll write a little
something about that quest in his journal. The main floor has the
bathroom, which I can only imagine is real nice, since we never get
to actually go in; a kitchen area, and a study, where we'll keep part
of the rather large in-game encyclopedia set that gets unlocked in
stages early in the game and filled as the game goes on.
Outside the house,
there are four more distinct areas. We'll come and go through the
front door area. There's one path that leads south there that leads
to a garden area, which will come in handy later. There's a path
that leads northeast that leads to a barnyard where we can keep pets
and the other part of the encyclopedia set. There's a third path
that leads northwest to a workshop in which we're supposed to be able
to build things and temper weapons and such. I've gotten all those
areas unlocked, but I've never gotten to a point where I could
actually make effective use of the workshop.
Also outside the
front door is this little leaf guy that kind of reminds me of a
character I thought I once saw Weird Al play in a 90s episode of
either Twilight Zone or Outer Limits, where he was an alien that
looked like a giant lettuce plant that could walk and talk. He's
called a Sproutling, and he tells you that there's an entire species
of him, and they all have this hive-mind thing going on. He also
hands over the second artifact: some magical Legos called the
Colorblocks. He tells you that this is the town of Domina, and that
the place will exist if you make it exist.
I
think I'll put the town of Domina west of my house. Domina's a nice
little town. Kind of reminds me of the town of Dell
Rapids, a place where I at least used to have family. The first
place we come to is Domina's town square. There's a hotel, a pub, a
shop attached to it's owners' house, and some weird area where
two-player things can happen. I've never actually made use of the
two-player stuff, but everything else, yeah. Right away, we see this
annoying little onion kid ragging on some dude named Elazul because
the dude is looking for his girlfriend. We can get a quest from
Elazul right now, but I'm gonna follow the onion kid first. He says
his name, but I'm not going to bother with it. He goes into the shop
owners' house and tells you you're cool for asking so many questions.
He offers hints, but it's all pretty standard stuff if you've played
games like this before. There are some things I'll explain myself
when we get into actual fights later.
The house and the
shop are owned by a husband and wife called Mark and Jennifer. One
of the subplots here is that these folks have a daughter named Rachel
that they got a job for at the pub. The daughter doesn't like her
job. Her dad, who likes to spend all his free time sitting in his
comfy chair at home, is all depressed about that, and that his kid
doesn't like the way he's gone and “girled up” her bedroom,
either. There's also this possessed teapot with a stereotypical
British accent. We'll get to interact with her more later.
Heading west from
there, we come to a park where a pair of transient performers called
Capella and Diddle are putting on their show for the butterflies and
the fountain. They'll introduce and explain themselves for now, but
later on, they'll have a quest for us too.
Further west still
is the residential area of the town. The most important thing here
is Pelican the Mail Bird. She'll kind of help us with our barnyard
later, but for the most part, she's just obnoxious. At the far west
end of the road is an open field. There's a few things that'll
happen here, too, but we'll get to them in due time, as well.
The north part of
town has a church where we meet the closest thing I think I've ever
seen to myself in a video game in Inspector Boyd. Boyd makes a lot
more noise than I do, but he makes up for it by being a lot less
competent at what he does. We'll see him later, too. Inside the
church is a priest focusing on reading his holy book. After a bit he
finally realizes you're there and introduces himself. Nouelle, I
believe his name is. He'll give you a bit of history about Fa'Diel,
but I don't ever recall it being relevant. That could also be part
of the reason I eventually get stuck in this game.
There's another
market area nearby, too. This is where we can find Jennifer if she's
not running the shop. She'll give you any encyclopedias that Mark
doesn't. There's also a fortune teller here who gives largely
worthless fortunes, but they do come in handy from time to time.
There's
also a rabbit guy named Nicollo at the market right now. He's
supposedly a merchant, but I get the feeling that even Deep Space
Nine's Quark
would find him a little greedy. Unfortunately, he's also got an
artifact that will open up quite a few quests for us, which means
he's the guy we'll go on our very first real quest with. But that's
for next issue.
As I
said earlier, we'll more than likely be doing a handful of quests
next issue, in part out of convenience, and also because quite a few
of these are short, and in at least one case, don't have actual boss
fights at the end. See what I mean next time in Issue #02: Hit
The Road, Me!
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