Tag: mayu posts

In any case, the discovery yesterday means with we can figure out where everyone in the active party in Ys8 comes from with the exception of Dana(?) and Ricotta!

Adol’s from the Alps, since in Memories of Celceta he mentions going east to Promalock when first setting on his journies, that he didn’t know what the sea was as a kid and also that his hometown/village was pretty isolated.

Dana’s birthplace(?) isn’t explicitly said but from her first memory scene being of herding and that of missionaries from “over the mountain”(which likely refers to Gen D’armes), she might be from the southern part of Seiren.

Laxia’s from Garman since she’s, well, a noble from Garman, although if we compare the place to irl maps, she’s technically from Poland.

Sahad’s from Greek, obviously. It’s all but said he’s a Greek fisherman.

Hummel, as I found out, has his name derived from irl German, so it’s likely that he’s from the region where Felghana and Steldum is, aka in the Garman region. (His family must’ve had really high hopes of him to name him after bumblebees, lol)

Ricotta’s a drifter onto Seiren Island, which means we really don’t know where she comes from, but considering she’s named after a type of irl Italian cheese, we can assume the person who named her, to be from in-game Italy, which when converted to the Ys map up there, pretty much is represented by Romn.

It’s a long story

Gist of the main plot:

  Protagonist is the captain of a small squire squad, tasked with escorting some nobles from their home kingdom(temp.name K1) to another kingdom(temp.name K2). 2nd big bad attacks the band of people and everyone gets killed. Protagonist too, except there’s this presence that claims that they’ll have to rely on each other. Protagonist is found and transported to his original destination. 

  Some days late, protagonist can function normally after treatment, but since 1. K1 hasn’t responded, 2. K2′s leader worries and 3. K1 and K2 aren’t that far away, protagonist leaves K2 accompanied by side character 1(SC1), who is one of the potential successors of K2 leadership. Along the journey SC2, a mercenary and SC3, who none of the characters have any idea why they’re tagging along joins. Skipping the side character plots because I haven’t come up with them yet.

  K1 reached. Shit goes down in K2 because the big bad just got released. The team goes back to K2(hurrah instant travel) and try to figure out how the fuck they’re supposed to deal with the big bad. Eventually they face off with the 2nd big bad. The presence gets revealed as the long-ago prince of K3, which was destroyed millennia ago partially because of the big bad. The gang travel to K3 and find the last pieces of hints to make the big sealing spell. Sealing spell is done on big bad and last hurrah.

Lore of K3(because no one knows the prince isn’t exactly dead):

  A long time ago, K3 awakened to magic and prospered. During the peak of K3′s prosperity, a malevolent force appeared and the prince then attempted to seal them away, with the help of magicians. However, the lead magician betrayed them, killing the team, and the prince, at his last breath, took it on his life to seal away the malevolent force, holding a chip of the stone to channel what magic he had. The grieving king and queen cast a spell to bury K3 in the ground with the mad lead magician, and left the kingdom with their people. The crystal the malevolence was sealed in was taken to K2, and the chip the prince had was made into a beautiful accessory to honor his sacrifice.

So what the fuck is up with the lead magician?

  They’re the second big bad, all right. But they’re also from what counts as the deities of the story’s world, the Stargazers, who watch over the progression of the worlds in various dimensions. SC3 is also a Stargazer, and was close to the second big bad. They’re also dimensions themselves, which 1. is because ruling something will take something else of equal power, and 2. will be important later.

  The second big bad was tasked with watching over the story’s dimension, and came to love the world so much that they went to the world and gave the prospering kingdom(which the prince would be born into later) some of their own abilities and magic. However, jumping a world beyond what it should have progressed to has consequences(which were vaguely cautioned by the other Stargazers, but no exact data was given because it had close to never happened), and the big bad, which is a non-sentient, world-erasing entity was generated. Out of defiance and an actual need to concentrate on dealing with the entity without the gazers breathing “it’s useless, you can’t fight the world’s fate” down their neck all the time, the second big bad cut their, and by extension, the world’s connections with the other gazers and became what they called a Rebel. 

  At the time, the second big bad tried to come up with the sealing crystals as a plan from their now limited ability, but when they faced it, they found that sealing it away was possible, but it was temporary and made whatever was sealed indestructible for the time being. In addition, since magic was still there in the world, the reason for the world eater to exist was still there, so their world would still be erased sooner or later. 

  As a result, the second big bad came up with a gambit. For this, they needed someone from the far past who had the will to save the world and also knew the truth of the big bad(the prince),  1, Due to the Rebel being a close friend of the prince’s, the prince knowing the sealing spell and the Rebel knowing that the prince would rather seal himself away without a body to be a hope for the future than to die to the big bad, they pretended to go mad from the revelation, attacked the team and was sealed in K3 as a result. 2, K3 was buried underground, but there was still a lot of paper and books to go by, and the Rebel was able to research their own magic and come up with a spell that would transfer the world eater to themselves. After all, by giving magic to the world they were governing, they had connected their essence to it, and the two dimensions were already partially fused. Having finished the spell and sealed the book they wrote it down in, the Rebel could then wait for the opportunity.

Then what the fuck is up with SC3?

  A friend who’s finally found their way to the dimension the Rebel is in, knows what the Rebel is trying to do and simply wants to see the Rebel before they are truly lost to their own gambit.. Anything that’s beyond the Stargazers, even things that they had controlled in the past, is in the unknown and takes an agonizingly long time to find. With the timelessness the Stargazers are, SC3′s done pretty well to find their friend in that amount of time.

And what the fuck is up with the protagonist’s eyes?

  They’re indication of the prince being there. Eyes are windows to the soul. For one, there’s the Supernatural Gold Eyes trope, and for two, they’re the actual color of the prince’s eyes. When the identity of the prince gets revealed by more or less exorcism, the protagonist actually has dark brown eyes(which happens to be the color of the shaded portion of the eyes). At the beginning of the story, the prince is the one moving the protagonist, and because they’re from millennia ago, they have to slowly learn the language from the protagonist and therefore doesn’t speak much. The protagonist himself is a quiet person, too.

Quick mobile game review: Graffiti Smash

Game mechanic overview:

  It’s Monster Strike+Splatoon. Not sure how they did it but it works! Covering turf gives a boost to your fighters’ Link Combos, and allows items to be spawned on turf(including HP recovery, speed up, attack up, turf up, and quicker Extra Skill.), and if you cover a certain area you get to activate the titular Graffiti, which can obliterate bosses and minions if you do it right. 

  PVP is available and I’ll get to that later. 

  There’s a function that I’ll translate to Adventure a la Shironeko Project, where you send your fighters to other parts of the place on a map. It’s pretty extensive as of now, and every time you open a bit more of the map for even more adventuring.

(The exclamation points are extra long adventures with much more beneficial finds, so try to aim for these first.)

  Unlike Shironeko, your fighters are still available for stages while adventuring, so feel free to send your strongest buddies. It’s recommended that you do that.

Characters/Gatcha:

  The highest star rank you can roll for in this game is 4*, and you can raise it to a maximum of 5* by weapon catalyst. Each 4* character has their specific weapon stages, but you should have some gatcha crystals on hand when you challenge them early game. Skill can’t help you from getting wiped at least once because of the sheer power difference. Thankfully, your first successful stage clear awards you with the 5* weapon by default, so just grit your teeth and try not to die too many times.

(Example here: The 5* weapon is this guy’s specific weapon, which is retrieved from its specific stage. The 4* star weapons can be received from weekly weapon stages, although getting that specific axe/book and the ring is still a thing of luck. You can raise your character’s luck for more chests, if you want to.)

  You can set your fighters as supporter, for other people to use, and/or partners, which is pretty much for aesthetic. For 4* characters, there’s a bond system(the heart thing), and when you raise it, you get to see a character blurb(and get rewarded with gatcha crystals), and setting as partners gives a small bond boost, which allows you to raise the bond level a bit quicker. It also sets the character in the main menu. 4* characters are voiced, so every now and then the character pipes up to remind you of an event you set as registered, presents, or just a bit of commentary.

(Like here. She’s commenting on lunch, I think.)

  Not limited to 4*s are character profiles, which are purely aesthetic. 

(He doesn’t like waking early or sleeping early. Relatable.)

PVP: 

   Oh boy here comes the hectic part

  So far we only have ranked matches, but free matches will eventually be opened up. How do you play it? 

  It’s turf wars! Really! You have 20 rounds to cover more turf than your opponents(and your moves will be simultaneous, so you and your opponents are moving at the same time in the rounds). But here’s the catch: There are items that spawn every round, especially Extra Skill turn reducers(which if your opponent snatches a few, all of their fighters can release their Extras and easily wipe yours), and HP recovery(not only does that recover the damage you did to them, but revives downed fighers), and there’s a specific Graffiti point(only available once per battle; if you don’t keep a part of it colored, the opponent can use it on you) that you need to keep track of even if it isn’t as damaging as it would be in normal stages. So you need to turf, snatch items, and turf the Graffiti at the same time. If you don’t have 4 strong fighters, you can still seek help by making tag teams, but don’t screw it up for the other person or they will happily abandon you to a loss. Not recommended to join until you’ve at least trained your fighters.

Other points: 

  The music’s surprisingly good. The battle stages have some nice techno music going down(and one seperate piece for each element), and the main menu has a tune going on, especially at evening(They have three themes for day, evening and night. Gotta love that evening accordion.). Even the gatcha menu has a jolly theme to laugh at how you’re not getting a single 4* in your ten rolls. 

  Each boss in the main story has a small gimmick which is pretty fun. I’ll not go on for spoilers.

Conclusion:

  It’s only available in Japanese, but if it ever gets a release outside of it, it’s definitely worth a try. As of now I’ll give it a 4/5, mainly due to the hell that is early game.