I have to think about this one carefully... (Radiant Historia)

Which is difficult, because I once tallied how often everyone dies across all the timelines and Rosch has the most deaths by a mile.

Spoiler: Spoilers

Which is another thing I love for the frankly terrifying implications it has about Darth Homura...

 

I noticed that he gets knocked around an awful lot. :( (Currently events have me in Celestia... idk if Rosch is going to thank me considering how awful everything has gotten.)

Also...

Spoiler: What is that I see?

Is that...



a polyship? :D

edit: "I don't know what happened to his arm and it would be too intrusive to ask... so I'm going to ask you instead!" Stocke...

 

I call that "the Obvious OT3" and it is also criminally underwritten. :::PPP

 

That's a damn shame.

I'm glad it's not weird love triangle bullshit in the game (well, and the game kind of punishes you if you try to have Stocke keep Rosche for himself...).

 

Oh my god, an Obligatory Sewer Maze? >:(

 

With monsters that drop on you from the ceiling, at that. I should draw a map sometime to save future players pain. And a small child who I have many questions about, and if you save her the first time through you miss out on the only missable fight in the entire game (which isn't particularly remarkable except for the fact that it is missable).

 

... wait just a damn minute!

Spoiler: Stocke just met Eruca and--

He's got a secret identity that he doesn't remember, doesn't he? What did happen to Prince Ernst, anyway?

 

What did happen to him? :::))) #dysfunctionalroyalty

 

(Seriously though, she's got a job, but instead she's wandering around a dead end in the sewers behind raised drawbridges with the controls on the other side, so either she swam through the sewer to get there and wasn't willing to swim back or somebody raised them behind her.

Spoiler: not that much of a spoiler

Despite the fact that nobody bothers raising them after people REPEATEDLY BREAK INTO THE CASTLE THAT WAY.

She gives no reason for why she's there and

Spoiler: slightly more of a spoiler but not a big one

she's carrying around a goddamn FLARE and just kinda hands it off to you after you get her out of the sewer.

What the hell, Claire.)

 

Yeah, RH is E10+, despite moderate swearing, occasional alcohol use, and don't forget the

Spoiler: massive spoilers

child slavery, calls for genocide, Protea creepiing on choir boys, that little girl at the inn in Granorg talking about "amenities", oblique references to attempted rape, and of course the whole human sacrifice thing.

Slight derail: I once emailed the ESRB to ask why FF7 got the "comic mischief" (the most mild-at-the-time descriptors for suggestive content) despite some icky stuff of questionable consent at the Honeybee and the outright attempted sex trafficking, but Suikoden II had the next-level-more-serious "suggestive themes" descriptor for... I'm guessing the thing with Rina suggesting that the border guard might enjoy some Adult Conversation off-camera and then let them through the checkpoint?

The response I got was basically "We rated Final Fantasy 12 the way we rated it because that's how we rated it." Thanks ESRB.

That is the best take on the Red Letter Day bad ending I have seen, I kind of want to frame it.

A friend of mine once commented that the Stocke-Rosch-Sonja dynamic is a bit like Cecil, Rosa, and Kain, except healthier and functional. I desperately want OT3 fic but am unable to write it properly. :(

 

I'm pretty good at writing triads... :) If I can get a good enough grip on their character voices by the time I finish the game, I'll give it a try.

 

Spoiler: Oh no

OH NO



nooooooooooooo щ(º̩̩́Дº̩̩̀щ)

 

Ah, the Radiant Historia experience. :::)))

 

I was getting totally owned in AH ch. 4 battles, so I looked up a guide for equipment recommendations and see that the guide's recommended level is 40.

Stocke's level was 25. :')

A considerable amount of level grinding later he's only up to 34, but I'm going to try my luck anyway. What a headache.

 

I know the guide you're talking about and it expects a bullshit amount of grinding and overleveling. You'll be comfortably overleveled for the entire game if you fight everything once, and if you don't there are only two points there's really a wall where you might have to grind (the AH Ch. 4 difficulty jump and the first spider, which you basically need to G-[element] spells to take down effectively). You can beat the final boss pretty easily with levels in the 50s.

 

I'm glad to hear this! I really don't want to grind up six more levels. The fighting is kind of tedious to me, but overleveling just so I don't have to sweat strategy at any point seems even more tedious.

 

Incidentally, tell me when you meet King Bara. :::PPP

 

You mean the guy who shares a name with a Final Fantasy 4 villain? I've already done! I laughed when Stocke told him he needed to find better jokes. :') (Stocke is my kind of grouch.) I've progressed that timeline to the point that I've gotten Aht back and found out she can see the twins. She's also acting weird.

 

Well then, I offer for your consideration the suggestion that everything Garland does is at least four times as entertaining if you assume 90% of his dialogue is him hitting on Stocke like crazy and Stocke just. Not noticing. :::PPP

("Then you should tell better jokes" is the second-best line in the game. NAILED that diplomacy check, Stocke.)

 

I'll have to replay that initial scene with this in mind. :3