Topic: Adventure Log: Nintendo Life Light Warriors

Update (7/17/2010): I, along with everyone I know, have died. Oh well. Restarting the adventure in the near future, possibly.

(A log in which I narrate my first Final Fantasy adventure, featuring a cast of characters named after whoever happened to be in the NL Chat at the time I started the game. The game does not have much of a story, so I decided to change that.)

DAY ONE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16

When first I heard the princess was captured, I knew I had to do something. After all, there is nothing else to do in this world, just a castle, a town, and a tower. Might as well check it out, maybe steal some jewlery off her, being the thief that I am. My white mage friend, Fenx, assured me she's hot, too, and since that alluring dancer in town has been shrugging me off (imagine, introducing herself every time we talk as if we'd never met!), I need to meet some new women.

So I gathered my other two friends, Brut the fighter, and Pixl the red mage. Brut came up with a fancy name for our group, LIGHT WARRIORS. He thought with a name like that he'd seem less chicken, but I'm not sure if it worked. Fortunately the King is convinced of some prophecy about four guys called the Light Warriors and has agreed to hire us. What luck. We scoped out the castle, but there seems to be a problem with the castlefolk. They mostly speak in incomplete sentences, and some repeat each other word for word. Must be from all the in-breeding these nobles are known for. We did find out that one of them has a sister though. Oh.

The going was tough at first, but after collapsing in battle twice, Fenx had an excellent suggestion: let's equip some stuff. We did, and it was everything I ever hoped for and more. After destroying helpless imps left and right, we ran into one of Prosody's mad ponies, but even it was no match for the supposed light warriors.

When we reached the northwest tower, we found the princess and I immediately knew that she was the most beautiful girl in the whole room. Some of the bats might have been female, but we won't count them as I'm not sure what standards of beauty apply in the eyes of bats. But excluding all rodents, she was definitely the most beautiful female in the room, and I was mesmerized.

Some guy named Garland (hehe, Garland, what a name) tried to step between us, but we dispensed with him easily. And after risking our lives and walking through bats for her, I knew the princess would be mine.

...what? All I get is this stinking lute? Some reward. And then she says she hopes we can make the orbs shine again. I had hoped she'd shine my orbs, but I guess royalty can be prudes. Oh well, guess I'll check out this bridge tomorrow. How exciting, a bridge. Thanks a lot, m'lord.

(Thoughts on the actual game so far: pretty darn cool. I like being able to choose the jobs of my team unlike in IV, V, and VI, the only other 2D FF's I've played so far. Really makes the game and story feel like it's mine. The later games are fun, but there's no room for imagination when story is so in your face. Grinding is actually fun, as the battles are interesting, though I wish there were a Defend option. Very cool game so far, looking forward to playing it tomorrow.)

Nice log Adam. Glad to see you're enjoying the game so far.

I'm more than positive cooladam probably cares and doesn't mind if people comment.

By all means, comment! I'll probably continue it with shorter entries in the future to make it more readable, (and because I doubt I'll play quite as long each day). I mean for it to be open to discussion of the game itself, too, not just my goofy story, as I've tried to indicate with my parenthetical thoughts.

I quite like this kind of game. I love how light the story is in this game so I can really ignore it and/or fill in the gaps with whatever I so please. It's just the right balance between abstract and 'realized' (not realistic, but hopefully you know what I mean).

I hope the Dragon Quest / Warrior games come to VC eventually, as I'd love to try them. I enjoyed the first DS one a bit, but the story was too bad and there was too much of it to ignore.

Yeah, well, unfortuantely girls can be jerks sometimes, Adam. I really did think she'd she'd appreciate being saved, though. Ah well, I'm sure there's another princess out there that will appreciate your rogueish charm.

And if that doesn't work out, you can always wear a dress. I started doing just that myself, and I must say, the guys are a little bit easier to get a date with.

Anyways, I look very forward to our continued adventures throughout Final Fantasy. They're quite the hilarious read.

Hmm, maybe next time we decide to go on an adventure together I'll put on a white mage dress, too, but don't get any funny ideas! I'm planning to try a fan translation of FFIII this weekend since I hate how the DS remake looks. Maybe I'll test out your "tactic" in that game.

Haha, awesome Adam. By the way, you need to buy me a new spell.

Awesome Adam, LOL.

Ha, ha! That's some great stuff there Adam! I really enjoyed reading that! I look forward to the further adventures of your mighty Nintendo Life Light Warriors! By the way, I am currently in the middle of a playthrough of Dragon Quest V on my DS and both you and Chicken Brutus have managed to make their way onto my own team of warriors. The thing is that both of you are monsters in the game but still great additions to my team.

Hahaha, awesome! What kind of monster am I? I always love naming characters in games. It's amazing how much more invested I feel when given a little sense of ownership like a name. I can spend more time making characters and changing jobs in Final Fantasy Tactics than in the actual battles some time.

I've heard so much great about DQV. I only played IV so far, but I got bored when they made me play as that shop guy. I didn't want to part from my previous team and their adventures. I wish I had more patience because I'm sure it couldn't have been long until I met up with them again, but I just threw in the towel. Too many other games to play. I don't quite like the DS remake style, but it's a million times better than the FF remake look, so I think I'll get it when I'm all Final Fantasied out.

Funny ideas? Me? What would give you that impression? Don't worry, my boyfriend and I are doing quite well at the moment, though I fear what he may think when he finds out I'm not a woman. That won't be for a while, though, as I can already tell we've got quite the journey ahead. Onward NL Light Warriors!

Oh, and Final Fantasy III is another good one. I have the DS version and I've also started a run on vNES, and I love it as well. I hope you enjoy it!

@Adam: I think that you would enjoy Dragon Quest V a lot more than IV. I enjoyed and completed DQ IV but I found the story is a lot more interesting in DQ V plus the ability to recruit monsters into your party and rename them is a pretty cool feature. I would recommend you give it a try sometime. As for the monster, you are a Rotten Apple. It is a giant one-eyed demonic apple with some incredibly good stats. He is actually one of my favorite monsters to have in my party and his abilities are very useful. Yeah, I know, an apple named Adam. Pretty original huh.

DQ V is one of my favorite games of all time. I love the whole progression of time in it and the story of the two kids growing up. It's a beautiful game.

DAY TWO, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17

Today we crossed a bridge. Did it seriously never occur to the king before to build a bridge when the continent is right there? I mean, it clearly didn't take much effort or time. Anyway...

We traveled east fighting Creeps and humming Radiohead songs all along the way to our next port of call. Blue is seriously in fashion in this place. The people have even died their hair blue. I keep expecting to be attacked with blue paint, but fortunately they're not quite that cultish.

However, there was an even more sinister explanation for the odd silence: Pirates! According to the whispers on the street, the town was overrun by pirates. We were less than impressed when we found a single pirate in the whole place. But Machu the Pirate quickly called over his shipmates, who came apparently from nowhere, more ninjalike than piratelike. Pixl put them to sleep with a lullaby or spell, I can't remember, and it didn't take long from there. The pirates were so remorseful that they gave us their ship. I knew we helped these blue freaks for a reason.

We set sail on the open sea... and then came right back. It's dangerous out there. We got lost, but as our team is all-male (except questionably Fenx), we decided not to stop for directions and just came back to the blue town. Maybe tomorrow we'll fare better.

(Geez, the sea is wide open. Not quite sure where to go, and almost died a couple times. I sure beat up those pirates though, so that's enough progress for one day. Still having fun, though it's definitely getting harder quick.)

Geez, I feel so cool, helping to beat up a band of pirates and taking accepting their generous offer of a ship. These pirate hats are a nice touch as well. Mine goes well with my pure white dress, I think. I'm ready to take to the high seas next time, Captain! Arrrrr...

(Yeah, this is where the difficulty ratchets up and the objectives become much more vague. It'll take some trial-and-error and periods of wandering for us since we're not asking for directions. )

How could you mention ninja-like pirates without including ME?

I wouldn't mind talking up some locals for directions, but I'm really not into blue chicks, personally. Is that racist? I just think they smell funny and are stupider than us, is all.

EDIT: V8, you're a NINJA, not a pirate. There's a difference.

Am I in your party now? I thought you said i was the black mage

Well, I thought one of the chicks was kinda cute, but she ignored me because of the dress. Ah well, the burden we White Mages must face...Anyways, I'm pretty sure that's not racist and yes, they do smell odd and are less intelligent than us, so I don't blame ya. Just don't tell the cute one that I agree; I want to come back someday and see if she'll like me with the dress off...

I am playing FF3 on emulator (or was playing, probably won't play it much as the translation is bad / buggy and I'm not fond of playing long games on emulator unless they have Mother in the title). My team in that is Adam (Fighter), Wolf (Blackbelt), SuperZ (Black Mage), Machu (Red Mage). Together we rescued a princess... and promptly died.

The game is more plot driven than FF1, which makes me more eager to bypass necessary grinding and get right on with the story. I see this as a necessary divide for an RPG: Either make it plot-driven and easy (or at least not a grindfest), or make it more abstract and open to user storytelling / emergent narrative if you're going to make it hard. If there is a key plot event ahead, I don't want to dilly dally beating up generic monsters that don't fit in the story hardly. Takes me out of the mood.