Live Blogs Let’s Play and Wish We Hadn’t

Bismuth832017-09-12 06:59:08

Okay, so it's actually time for me to start liveblogging this garbage... Oh, and by the way, I'm using a Mac-exclusive emulator called OpenEmu, which can emulate multiple systems (even more if you have the experimental version). Are we ready? Let's commence! The game starts out with a bunch of logos. Thanks for telling me who I should hate for making this piece of shit! The game starts off by asking "Does the Kingdom of Fantasy really exist? And is it possible to travel to it? Perhaps yes, perhaps...", assuming you know what the Kingdom of Fantasy even IS. For those of you who don't know, it's the most generic Fantasy Kitchen Sink ever. It then introduces us to "the protagonist of the adventures we're about to live," Geronimo Stilton, the annoying, panphobic, Obsessively Normal journalist who is ironically voiced by Brian Drummond (Yes, the same guy who voiced Vegeta, Ryuk, and Heatman.exe plays THIS loser...). It goes on to explain how he's the editor of "THE RODENT'S GAZETTE (yes, it's all capitalized in game), the most famous newspaper on Mouse Island." Okay, I do have 2 compliments for this game: 1. It averts the headache-inducing "concrete prose" (words will be written using fonts, colors, and positioning that reflects their meaning) the books have, and 2. it averts the use of horrendous mouse puns (they tend to crop up in words that have "ous" in them: famouse, enormouse, fabumouse, horrenmouse, lumimouse, egremouse, you get the picture.) that show up in the book. These are where my compliments end. We flash cut to a rainy night at presumably his house, where he's working on his latest book (and leaving his laptop plugged in during a lightning storm like the dumbass he is), when suddenly... POWER OUTAGE EX MACHINA! Going up to the attic (because apparently, he can't use a computer unless the lights are on, either that or the power outage did something to his computer), he goes to get some candles (Okay, nobody in this universe has flashlights?) when a MYSTERIOUS YELLOW-GREEN LASER OF PLOT illuminates an ornate-looking box on the ground. It opens to reveal MYSTERIOUS PINK ENCIPHERED SCROLL OF DESTINY and then HARD LIGHT STAIRWAY OF AMIGARAN COMPULSION! Placing the two items in his backpack, our "hero" ascends up the celestial stairway... and dies of lack of oxygen... I wish. No, instead he reaches a MYSTERIOUS GOLDEN DOOR OF NON-MELTING! A message reading "YOU MUST GO BACK TO BEING SMALL, IF YOU WISH TO ENTER AT ALL!" pops up. And then the door opens, completely nullifying what it said. And then... TITLECARD! Inside the door is a cave filled with cyan crystals. Yeah. Generic setting is generic. Then, a frog in... I can't even tell what his clothes are supposed to be. They're sort of pirate-ish, but at the same time they have a sort of 18th-century British soldier feel to them. Anyways, this frog in indescribable clothing and carrying a feather pen named "Scribblehopper" (Grignr is starting to look like a nice name now, isn't it?) shows up and refers to GS as "Fair Knight in Shining Armour" (This game was only released in Europe, BTW) and asks him "what wonderful deed will you perform today?" Gigasecond, being the everything-ruiner that he is, introduces himself as "Stilton, Geronimo Stilton", and informs us that he's not a knight, not in shining armor, and then attempts to explain how he got into this dimension. SH explains that his story is too boring, and that he wants something "heartpounding, something with sword fights, dragons and treasure." Recommendation, SH? #ShamelessPlugging. Gold/Silver tries to reiterate that he's not a knight, with Sodium Hydroxide denying his denial at every turn... and then a rather disturbing image of a Bishōnen-esque knight mouse similar to him comes up, with the narrator explaining that that's supposed to be him. Uh... Let's just move along. Genus/Species denies that, claiming that his lack of blue eyes, blond hair, and the fact that armor would clash with his tie (You ever seen the Order of No Quarter? Half those guys aren't even WEARING traditional armor!) Superhighway then states that he's never seen a knight with a pimple before, prompting Grand Star to deny knighthood in ALLCAPS OF FRUSTRATION! Self Harm explains that he's a "Literary Frog" writing a bestselling adventure novel centered around Gravity Suit over here. He explains that in the KoF, one can have lots of adventures where they can meet dragons (Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt), giants (been there, done that, bought the entire place), and sea serpents (been there, done that, bought the entire place, and then used the fortune generated off of that to build subversions.) Can't we have something unique and original for once? See, this is supposed to be the appeal of fantasy: The ability to create things outside the norms and boundaries of reality. That's why fantasy is such a popular genre: It rewards innovation! This game... The fantastical creatures are all so...generic! I mean, the cliches aren't even PARODIED! It's just played straight! I can't believe I'm saying this, but this game is actively making me WANT to play Hydlide just because the difficulty will at least distract me from the genericness of it all! Anyways, Gyroscope shows him the box and asks him who it belongs to. Same Here states that it belongs to Blossom, the queen of the fairies. The scroll becomes surrounded by MYSTICAL YELLOW AURA OF POWER! We learn that it's a scroll in "Fantasian Alphabet," which basically translates to "Too lazy to make up a Conlang, so we're just putting English into a cipher!" UGH... This seems to be one of the most common fictional language fails: Aurabesh, Saurian, and Al Bhed just to name some, and at least Al Bhed has a REASON to be a cipher! This is just lazy! Anyways, the scroll states that Blossom's in Generic Terrible Danger ∞^40, and that only Glass Shards can save her. Okay, if only he can save her, then why'd she write it in a language he can't read? It's even lampshaded in game, as Gyro Sensor even asks why she chose him! Super Hang-on says he doesn't know, but they have no time to explain. They have to save the 7 kingdoms that make up the Kingdom of Fantasy, in direct defiance of how a kingdom actually works. That's like saying that our galaxy is made up of several galaxies! Grand Slam says that they'll need help, and then turns to me, the player, and asks if I'm going to help. Normally I would say no, but since Tv Tropes needs to see this, I will. When prompted to input my name, I choose クソゲーム　(Kusogēmu, Japanese for a poorly-designed video game)... Only for it to show up as three blue rectangles! WHAT. THE. FUCK. CONFIRMED: ELISABETTA DAMI IS RACIST. Telling us that we have no time to lose, Sulfur Hydride urges us to "get hopping." Actually, no. I'm actually not going to play along with you. Instead, I'm going to save here, come back some other time, and play Super Metroid in the hopes that it'll restore the sanity this game made me lose. TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO SEE SOME RANDOM GEEK COMPLAIN HIS WAY THROUGH THE KINGDOM OF THE WITCHES!

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