Results.
1a. I am a great hero, known by many names.
b. But despite what you might think, I am not technically an Australian.
c. My mother may or may not have overseen scandalous sleep-over parties for me and my "friends."
d. I'm king! Sort of. Maybe. For a time. Okay, not really.
e. Man, how'd my stuff get so dispersed? It must have been really annoying to go pick it all back up.
f. This land sure feels familiar...
This is
Edrick / Loto / Hero of Dragon Warrior III. His name is whatever the player enters, and he gets renamed at the end to the hero's dad of DW1 who saved Alefgard the last time (PLOT TWIST: DW3 is the "last time.") Which varies based on whether you're in Japan (Loto) or the US (Edrick) (Clue A). Edrick's equipment is inconveniently scattered all over the dang place in DW1 and DW2, generally at the bottom of dungeons and the like (E). As for (F), this refers to both The World of Darkness, Alefgard, being awfully familiar to people who played DW1 first, and to the fact that the
world map of the main setting is blatantly based on Earth. Speaking of which, Our Hero comes from Aliahan, which by the map is basically Australia (big island southeast of Asia) - though there's another island which is arguably Australia as well (or a Sri Lanka that drifted way south), so who knows (B). Also, in the GBC remake, the Hero can equip Boomerangs. (C) is your parents cheerfully inviting you to use your home as an inn, with your mom even waiting for you at the doorstep every night and reassuring you that bringing your friends along is fine, even if you've brought 3 Goof-Offs of the opposite (or same?!) gender. Curiously, there are only 3 beds in the house, with two in your parents room, so, uh. Silly, I know, but since teleporting back home once you learn Return for a free inn is SOP, figured it might help. (D) is a plot point in-game: the King of "Romaly" (Rome) forces you to be King because you are awesome, but after being King for a day you refuse and let him go back to it.
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2a. I see dead people.
b. Damnit, amnesia? How cliche. Suppose I should have been able to predict this.
c. In fact, maybe I did, and didn't care.
d. What kind of assassin uses a sword as big as this? That would be "me." I guess.
e. How come I don't get Kuja's sweet music? I certainly deserve it. In fact, I deserve an even better theme.
This is
Slayn from Growlanser 3. As E notes, he's not merely a Dark Messenger (Kuja's boss theme which sadly lost to the also excellent Water Prison in the Music Tourney), but the Dark Spirit Master. After his death, he used some secret technique to not die, and instead possessed the dying assassin Gray Gilbert (D, the huge sword and all). Except a side effect of the possession was memory loss (B), which the other Dark Spirit Messengers suggest Slayn knew would happen but didn't care as he figured he was needed to defeat Zion (C). Dark Spirit Messengers deal with death and such and Slayn chats up ghosts several times in game (A).
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3a. Ah, the perks of nobility... the devoted bodygyard... the adviser crone... the ninja maid... the giant robot... yup, good times.
b. On the downside there's also the evil adviser.
c. And the one I thought was loyal but was a spy.
d. Hah, this fine catch will soon be mine, all mine! I seriously doubt one of my servants is much of a romantic rival.
This is
Sadira from Vanguard Bandits. Was hoping the silliness + giant robots would be a tipoff here, though this one is admittedly tricky if you never play the Empire path. A is Franco / Halak / Cecilia / Sylpheed, B is Faulkner, C is Cecilia, and D is Cecilia again - Empire path splits based on how wimpy Bastian is with Cecilia which apparently is the game's barometer for if he picks Cecilia or Sadira. (Still, there totally needs to be an option for "look, if you're confessing to *me* you're a spy, you need to talk to Sadira and come clean or else I'm totally turning you in.")
Super guessed Freyajdour here, which is pretty amusing. Lucretia was not amused at being called a crone, though Lyon is pretty darn close to a ninja maid.
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4a. If you help me, you can gain holy power.
b. If you would help me, you must sacrifice one of your own.
c. The best retort to an enemy invasion? Dispatch their commander.
d. Don't trust her. She's dangerous.
This one is
Cyan. Figured that the DL would be better at remembering some mildly obscure system related stuff... A is the Alexander magicite from Cyan's quest, B is the Wrexsoul battle, D is Celes. C is Cyan's intro, and what I hoped would be the big tipoff - the best "retort" to "dispatch" the commander indeed.
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5a. Madam, I'm Adam.
b. Apparently I'm one of those lads with a Great Destiny.
c. Remind me why I'm hanging out with these losers again? Oh, right, that annoying wench won't let me leave.
d. A sword? No, my weapon definitely isn't a sword. Why would you assume that?
e. My memory problems are
even worse than my friends, which says something.
Jet from Wild Arms 3. Jet is the "Filgaia Sample" which is an android created that is the memory of the (former green) Filgaia and can use the Yggdrasil system to control the world's nanomachines (B). Or, uh, something. What the hell was going on here never made tons of sense to me. His true name is Adam Kadmon (A), which is a random Kabbalistic reference apparently -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Kadmon . Basically the Platonic prototypical Human, perfect and first and heavenly and awesome. Obviously Filgaia's Adam didn't turn out as well. Being very young, he has no memory (ironic since he IS Filgaia's memory?) (E). Jet tries to leave at least twice, and Virginia catches him and nags him and stops him from wandering off (C). And Anastasia's Argetlam holy sword seems to have become a machine-gun (D). This one was pretty tough, but I figured that there was a large Wild Arms fanbase at the DL, so that was okay. Nobody got it though.
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6a. I can't die! Woo-hoo!
b. Okay, so maybe I can die, but only if those bastards come around and take away my special friend.
c. This whole adventuring thing is way more fun than school. The drinking age is clearly lower, too. The rules can be kind of annoying, though.
d. But what are
those guys doing here? I thought their version of this reality was rather different... at least parts of it...
Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2. (A) is from the first scenes of the game - if you join a clan, you can't die so long as it remains under the protection of the judge. (B) refers to the nasty folks who can blow away your judge. (C) is mostly flavor; Luso sure hangs out at taverns a lot for a schoolkid, and the "rules" are the insane laws the judges set. (D) is Vaan & Penelo; apparently they're visiting fun adventure-time Ivalice from brutal political struggles Ivalice. Judges are basically elite generals of Archades, you say? Nonsense, they're more like crazed spirit protectors!
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7a. Where is my soul?
b. This place... it's getting to me.
c. Do not be fooled by my organization. I am no knight.
d. Though... what precisely am I? My past... is tragic.... but mayhaps 'twas my fault? Who can I trust?
e. My partner might have been captured, but I can still monitor her.
f. This job is breaking me. I must stop 'ere I go mad.
It's Ivalice season - this is
Ashley Riot, the reinforcements from Vagrant Story. http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Ashley_Riot
Attempted to write it up in Vagrant Story's semi-Shakespearean style. Anyway, Ashley's a member of the Valendia Knights of the Peace, but he's more like an assassin, and also a line from Sydney ("You're no knight, are you?") in the opening (C). (A) is a line from Sydney about Ashley's soul being funny and not connected with his body. (B) is Lea Monde, which is pouring dark energy into Ashley & leveling him up basically, and also giving him crazy memory visions. Depending on which version is correct - of which the game never really confirms - either Ashley's family was slain by bandits and he wasn't able to stop them, or Ashley murdered his own family, or Ashley murdered some random innocent bystanders, but was brainwashed into thinking they were his family (D). Ashley also has clairovoyance powers from Lea Monde, aka "We have an in-character excuse for villain-cam while maintaining a first-person perspective." (E) Ashley quits and goes wandering as the vagrant in the end (F), also "breaking" for Riskbreaker reference.
I never actually finished Vagrant Story out of frustration with the system, but I did read the full script. Interesting stuff. http://www.midgar.net/fandom/resources/vsscript/
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8a. I'm involved in a love triangle? ...I guess I am.
b. I go to jail for love's sake! Alas, this is less romantic and much stupider than it sounds.
c. My two family heirlooms serve me quite well, and I'm sure they'll continue to do so for my kids. Thanks, lots-of-greats-granddaddy!
d. We've got plenty of money, so why are we jumping into fountains? Do we need change that badly?
Man, I thought this one would be easy. Hasn't everyone played the first part of Phantasy Star III?
Rhys's bride Maia is kidnapped by a Layan dragon, Rhys swears he'll go kill some Layans and save his bride, and.... his dad tosses him in prison to "cool off." (B) Right. This is all your fault, dad, for the open-air throne room. Rhys is informed that Lena is also a possible bride literally at the end of Gen 1 with really no buildup before (A). (I guess she does let Rhys out of prison. In a game with more script, a friendship between them with some romantic tension crackling under the surface would be cool, but alas.) Layan monsters hide in the underground passages of their cities and pop out of the fountains, so when you want to break into the Layan castles, it's go diving into fountains time (D). And Mieu & Wren are cyborg servants of Orakio's line, and get passed down to the next two generations. (C)
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9a. I was the star of my own game... almost.
b. But I can't complain too much. Even if that didn't work out, I still became a pretty major character.
c. I'm pretty much Moses and Joshua rolled into one. A religious seer who escapes bondage, crosses the sea, goes to a new land, and proceeds to both fight and ally with the native inhabitants.
d. It's too bad I had to take down my friend and mentor. Evil corruption ends up possessing half the characters in this world.
e. I think I've gotten lazier recently. Much easier to ask others to solve problems than get down & dirty nowadays.
f. And the problems seem truly endless.
This is
Thrall from the Warcraft Universe (or, for the RPG part specifically, World of Warcraft.). http://www.wowwiki.com/Thrall
He was the main character of Warcraft Adventures, which was a finished game but apparently not good enough for Blizzard's standards, so it was never released (but was made story canon anyway, go figure) (A, B). (C) is the events of WarCraft III basically: he escapes from slavery, leads his band of orcs across the sea to Kalimdor, and proceeds to ally with the Minotaurs / Trolls and fight the Humans / Night Elves / Undead. Though eventually he allies with the Humans & Night Elves as well. Also, his class is "Far Seer" and he leads a revival of Orcish Shamanism, hence the "religious seer." (D) is Grom Hellscream and a world-building clue - man, Blizzard's worlds seem to have everyone succumbing to demonic powers. (E) and (F) refer to Thrall, quest-giver in World of Warcraft, where no matter how many times heroes solve his problems, things have degenerated back to the way they were before 10 minutes later and he needs them solved again.
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10a. I'm dead before the game even starts.
b. But I'm also alive...?
c. No, we don't have multiple personalities. I'm not REALLY talking to myself, though it might seem that way.
d. At least I exact vengeance upon my murderer and kill him, even if I don't know it at the time.
e. Man, that time I slept for a week? That sucked.
f. Almost as bad as that time I had my power stolen.
g. Though, not to harp on it too much, my death off-screen probably still takes the cake in the suckitude prize.
h. I... I can't escape. Get me out of this! Somehow!
i. See clue a.
Okay. Most clues, hardest question. This is
King Lemele / The Apprentice, from The 7th Saga, and pretty much requires beating the game to have a chance. It's probably easier to just recap the game's plot.
At the beginning of the game, King Lemele assembles 7 Apprentices and trains them for 5 years. He tells them that finding the 7 Runes will give you ultimate power, so go to, folks. There is no option to ask him why he's so chummy about letting others go gain ultimate power. In the course of the quest for the runes, a village elder seals your spells for a time due to a bad dream he had. (E) Eventually the PC Apprentice collects the 7th rune. King Lemele teleports in, and congratulates you for restoring his powers. Turns out "Lemele" was actually Gorsia, the big bad guy from 5,000 years ago, who in his defeat was shot 5,000 years into the future with his power sealed in the 7 runes. He killed King Lemele and then impersonated him, then set about finding some patsies to go collect the runes back for him. Gorsia uses the power of the runes to travel back to his own time to finish his grudge with the hero Saro who sealed him, taking the Apprentice with him back in time. The Apprentice sleeps for 7 days straight (F). The Apprentice finds out Saro was defeated by a mysteriously revived Gorsia, and then goes to fight Gorsia himself, re-sealing his power with the Runes like Saro did originally. (The legends were right that Saro defeated Gorsia, they just left out the part where a mysterious stranger had to finish the job...) The Apprentice kills Gorsia, but Gorsia does a "From hell's heart I stab at thee" and mortally wounds the Apprentice. Saro steps in to "save" the Apprentice, by making it so he is "reborn" 4,960 years or so in the future... as King Lemele.
So, let's recap. Lemele is dead when the game starts, murdered by time-traveling Gorsia (A, G). But the Apprentice is alive (B). "Lemele" then talks to the Apprentices, but it's not really Lemele (C). The Apprentice kills Gorsia, but before he knows he'll be reborn as Lemele (D). The instruction manual mentions some documents with crazed ramblings to the effect of (H) found in a cave from the future, clearly from a Lemele who has dimly realized he's stuck in a time loop (I) and can never escape dying repeatedly. Nice kick in the pants, eh?
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11a. I designed a superweapon! For purely peaceful purposes, of course.
b. ...which, as usual, falls into the hands of the Other Team.
c. I go completely bonkers... some of the time. But when I'm sane, I've always been sane. ...look, it's complicated.
d. Speaking of those twisting realities. It's possible for me to fall in love with my sister's brother?
e. Yeah, family relations are weird. Another not-really "brother" is out to get me. He's the First.
f. They say diamonds are a girl's best friend, but I find that gold is even better.
This is
Emma from Front Mission 3. She designs the gold-based MIDAS super-weapon which gets used to clean-nuke the Phillipines (A, B, F). Oops. And runs around with the USN trying to recover it. (C, D) hint pretty strongly at the split-path, which I hoped would narrow the game list down... Emma, in Alisa's scenario, gets captured by Lukav and reverts to a child-like state or something. But in her own scenario, she falls for Kazuki. Emma & Alisa are "sisters", and Alisa is Kazuki's adoptive sister, so there you go. (E) is Lukav, the first Imaginary Number, trying to capture Emma and use her to make more gold-nukes.
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12a. An eye for a mind.
b. My best friend and girlfriend died when I was young and all I got was this title.
c. I was nicer back in those days. Just ask that emo princess I was using to break the sealed tomb.
d. I did survive despite my allies betraying me in the end.
e. The Pope himself made me a Templar.
Lans Tartare from Tactics Ogre & Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, aka "the evil Lans." This was superaielman's submission so I'll let him explain this one if he wants.
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13a. Despite first impressions, I actually am *not* one of those "I AM JEALOUS OF THE MAIN CHARACTER FOR HOW AWESOME HE OR SHE IS AND WILL GO BE A STOOGE FOR THE REAL VILLAIN" types.
b. Though I do become a puppet of the real villain, of course. Damn it.
c. And my master plan could probably have used some more work, I'll admit. Especially the whole kidnapping part.
d. Careful, or I'll freeze you in place. Just like those others...
e. Teleportation: It isn't just for showing-off cutscene dodges!
Albus from Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. He sure seems to be one of the Castlevania series many, many, many foils of type (A) (See: Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, Lament of Innocence, Aria of Sorrow sort of...) from his intro. And he does, in fact, get possessed by Dracula (B) (remind me why he needed to *equip* the Dominus again rather than simply run off with it and hide it in Sweden?). His plan to equip it at all involved draining Belmont blood from the villagers, fine (C)... except he then drops and seals them, Torpored up (D), in caves in monster-infested lairs rather than simply putting them back in the village. Right. If you attack Albus in his conversations, he teleports out of the way, and teleportation via Stylus is how he gets past all the random obstacles in Albus mode. (E)
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14a. I'm quite the hunter of the undead, albeit not always so successfully.
b. I have a special attack that is pretty much identical to another character's, but I prefer to think that they stole it from me.
c. My skill in combat is... highly variable, let's say. Look, I had an excuse that one time.
d. I bet you were completely surprised by my masterful disguise. She was, at least.
e. Am I the only member of my group who knows how to follow orders?
Hrist. Valkyries hunt the undead, and Hrist goes for Brahms specifically (in spectacular failure) (A). She's the eldest valkyrie, so Nibelung Valesti might even be hers originally (B). VP1 Hrist vs. Leone vs. Boss Hrist vs. PC Hrist (C), and she did have an excuse in VP1 - she was just reborn. (D) is Leone & Alicia. Silmeria's quite the malcontent, and eventually even Lenneth grows a rebellious streak (E). I bet Hrist gives all artifacts to Odin, their rightful owner.
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15a. With my giant robot and technobabble shield, I am invincible! (Without, not so much.)
b. Think of me as Bill Gates' biggest rival.
c. Man, you know you're the worst PC in the cast when your main ability revolves around drinking coffee.
d. I'm still a better Lancer than Kain!
Jupis from Rogue Galaxy. This is Djinn's clueset, so I'll let him explain it. I did add clue A myself after watching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti1FC9V4-do---
16a. Close-up combat isn't my specialty.
b. I'm really not THAT bad a guy, even though I may seem like it.
c. After all, how can you hate on a guy that's just trying to help a family member in trouble?
d. And I just want people to get stronger. Is that such a bad thing?
e. Screw the rules, I have blue hair.
f. One word: Lockbox.
This is
Ovan from .hack.
http://dothack.wikia.com/wiki/Ovan It's not my clueset, and I haven't played the .hack games, but apparently he runs around telling people they need to get stronger and is a l33t haXX0r who can screw the rules. And basically plays the antagonist who gets plot twisted to be retroactively sympathetic.
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17a. So, I'm the bookish, religious, and demure one wary of my allies' crazy impulse to betray our patron..
b. ...but I'm also a hot blonde in fetish gear with superpowers...
c. ...and have two potential love interests chasing me, including the otaku-esque obsessed nerd...
d. ...yet my special attack is with another woman and has strongly homoerotic overtones.
e. It almost seems anticlimactic to mention that I can raise the dead.
f. Damn it, Japan.
This is
Cecille from Lumious Arc. Uh, pretty much as the clues say. Cecille is the bookish, shy, rules-following brunette who actually expresses some mild concern about the whole "let's betray the church that raised us our entire lives!" thing (A)... who transforms in a major plot point into dominatrix gear for the rest of the game, complete with hair color change to go with the costume shift (B, F) (Wish-fulfilment much here?). See, she was actually the Twilight Witch with power over life & death (E) who was sent to be educated by the Evil Church to hate and despise witches because.. um... because... don't think about this one too hard. Both Nikolai & Leon are pursuing her (C). She's got a special attack with Saki that involves them kissing each other for massive damage to the enemies or something (D) (and it's called "Lily Rondo" which presumably was "Yuri something" in Japanese, since yuri literally means "lily" according to the wisdom that is Wikipedia).
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18a. I definitely take after my father in the vibrant shade of my hair, not my mother.
b. My mom? A fine lady, truly exceptional. I know all about her of course, but don't expect me to say anything specific to
you.
c. Oddly enough, the exact same things are true of one of my closest allies.
d. People scream my name, but why must they also reference that other? I barely know of him.
e. A club? No, my only weapon of choice is the sword. And my best is a really awesome sword, I might add.
This is
Roy from Fire Emblem 6: The Sealed Sword, with a cameo in Fire Emblem 7. http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/Roy
(A) and (B) are rather FE7-centric clues - Roy's mom is potentially Lyn, Ninian, or Fiora, all of whom have turquoise or green hair. (Side note: Ninian feels like the most canon of the pairs, but that would mean Roy is a half-dragon?! Which never comes up if so.) The same is pretty much true of Lilina (C) - Hector's pairs are Lyn / Florina (!) / Farina, who have green/lavender/purple hair. Apparently Eliwuss & Hector's wives never appear in FE6, so maybe they knew FE7 was coming. (E) is Roy responding to somebody confused about his weapon; it's the Sealed Sword, not the Seal Club.
Also, ROY NOT MARTH! ROY NOT MARTH! ROY NOT MARTH! (D)
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19a. While I don't exactly save the world myself that often, I certainly help another to do so all the time.
b. And, in one sense, I created the entire world anyway.
c. Yeah, my buddy and I are pretty much the ultimate heroes. Just yet compassionate, valorous yet humble, etc.
d. What?! Someone attacking me? Hah, that's no concern - WHAT?! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. I... AM... INVINCIBLE! NOOOOOO!
e. Thankfully I was promptly revived after my treacherous, impossible, and technically non-canonical murder. And we didn't just kill our assassin -
we wiped him out from existence. Still doesn't change the fact that there were hordes of witnesses to this humiliation.
f. 9 is not my favorite number.
This is
Lord British from the Ultima series. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_British
He actually did save the world himself in the prehistory of Ultima, and occasionally chips in in the later games apparently, though it's mostly the Avatar. (A) Lord British is also programmer / game creator Richard Garriot (the games say "A Lord British production"), hence (B). (C) is a series clue - "ultimate" heroes, rattling off 4/8 of the virtues introduced in Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, probably the best known of the series. (Heh, Wikipedia still has an article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtues_of_Ultima like from the old days; I bet someone will try and delete that eventually). Was hoping that the clue's seeming worthlessness would hint that there was something up with that list in specific. (D) and (E) are referring to what seemed to me a fairly famous event to gamers who never played the Ultima series: Lord British's assassination on the Ultima Online beta. This was the first really famous PK that was prominently covered in PC Gamer at the time, I remember. The person who did it - via stealing a fire scroll from somebody else's inventory on the spot (!) - was banned, though not for the crime of assassination (he'd not reported bugs but rather exploited them, which defeats the whole point of a beta). Ultima IX was supposed to have sucked, and basically killed the series (F).
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AND THE WINNER IS.... superaielman. Also Djinn wins for being the only other person to submit answers. Ah, well. super got 1 (Edrick), 4 (Cyan), 12 (Lans - His own clue) and 14 (Hrist). Also 18 (Roy) with some prompting. Djinn got 15 (Jupis, his own clue) and 18 (Roy). Guess these were too hard? Or just the perils of obsurca in general?
