[Bilan]

Thats right, itt I am going to playthrough the classic Strategy RPG "Mystaria: The Realms of Lore", released for the Sega Saturn in 1995, and you guys are going to give me input via votes and such to move things along.

Why don't you just play this by yourself RPG?

A good question, I could. I've read through a fair few LP's now, including ones of SRPG's, and I figured I'd give it a try. Its been a good few years since I played it so I no longer remember the majority of things about the game, save for things that annoyed me like the Defend malarkey (more on that below). If this thread fails then I have an excuse to play this game again 'cause I'll have started it anyway >_>

So er, why this game?

Why not?

But I've never heard of it!

Lies, it was in the topic title when you clicked on it (or next to it if you clicked here from IRC). Anyway, Im gonna give a (hopefully) brief overview of the game.

Mystaria plays as a standard SRPG for the most part; you have a group of assorted dudes with various abilities who move around a grid on a variety of maps, bashing other dudes about going through the story until the game is over, with more and more dudes joining along the way until you're eventually forced to leave people out of the party :( While this sounds pretty dull to play (and watch, if I can get sound recording to work, I have videos with stable framerates ready), Id recommend at least giving the genre a try (or watch in this case <_<). However, for those of you that dont want to watch the videos, Ill be screenshotting all of the cutscenes anyway, as well as highlights and such from each battle so fear not.

The storyline isn't particularly strong (as you'll notice >_>), however the character system is where the game really sets itself apart IMO. There are 13 playable characters in the game (all of which you are prompted to name upon meeting), with a variety of different abilities, which level up independantly from the character based on the abilities used. What this means is simply that you can take a character with, lets say, archery and support magic, and turn them into an excellent archer, excellent support mage, or good supporting archer mage. Its not a particularly big thing but its what allows this game to stand up to epic SRPGS like the Shining Force series IMO.

Well thats all fine and well, but just where do we come into all this?

I thought you'd never ask!

What I'd like for you guys to do, is firstly to provide suggestions for character names (the exception being the main character which I have claimed >_>) when prompted. Secondly, Im gonna permit everyone who posts in the thread to "claim" a character as their own (One a first come first served basis incase this thread gets popular enough that there are way more people posting than their are characters available.).

By "claim" I mean, that person chooses how that character develops. Using the above example, if SonicFanTripleEcks21se7en claimed the character and wanted me to raise it as a support mage, I would have it use its support magic where possible, and only use its archery skills if it ran out of MP. Another possibility would be for them to suggest a "style" for the character, using the above example again, if SonicFanWhatever wanted their character to keep as far away from enemies as possible when providing support, I would ensure to do so, similarly if they told me to charge every enemy and cast from close range, I would follow this as closely as possible (Exceptions being the character would die.).

More on those skill classes now, most characters have two and "Defend" though there are exceptions. Anyone that tells me to specialise a character in Defend will be shot. The Defend skills will not be used unless that character cannot do anything else useful. Frighteningly, this is a class and not a single skill. You can level it up by defending. A lot. You get 7 more skills or so in it IIRC. I will not be defendgrinding because it is fucking boring. Also, any characters that are primarily magic users, do not have a melee skill class. So suggestions of "Have my Priestess melee attack every enemy she can" are void. Ill explain each class and skill as we progress through the game and encounter new characters and learn new skills.

And one last thing for you guys to do, while the story is essentially linear, you can choose the order in which you do the initial quests at the beginning of the game, so which I do first will be based upon votes from you all~

I think thats enough of an introduction now, onward we venture to the game itself! :o

Or rather, thats what we would be doing, but the forum is being bitchy with my images, basically: they are 640x448, which is default for SSF, and the forum scales them down to 512x378, which has the unfortunate side effect of sticking terrible looking black lines all over every single one of them and making it impossible to read them. Im trying to get a workaround for this as we speak, but I forgot the admin password to my own websites control panel <_< Besides this, I wonder if it would be possible for Gerbil to increase the size the forum scales images too? If not thats fair enough and Ill try and find another way around this, but if he can it'd be great.

Update 1 is already typed up with the relevant screenshots and is ready to be posted as soon as its actually possible to do so in such a way that the pictures arent ruined.

LP Progress!

Ongoing playlist for all updates so far

Part 1 - Best. Intro. Ever.
Part 2 - Meet the cast!
Part 3 - Escaped and then captured. GJ.
Part 4 - Escape. Again.
Part 5 - Mountain climbing is my favorite pasttime!
Part 6 - Serious Sidequests Part 1!

~RPG

[Bilan]

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS NOTHING

And then there was a landscape.

The greatest company ever.


Behind Door #1


Two folks, one of which has a spiffy suit of armour and a sword, the other we didnt really get much of a look at.

Um, who?



BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL


Whoops, dropped my purse.

Mystery kid in blue.

Oops, looks like I messed this one up.

The Wicked Witch of the West?

Has to be awkward holding his arm like that.

Im not even sure what this is supposed to be.


Its hard to see from the screenshots, but basically he just did a -really- gay twirl.

Wonder how this guy got up on top of this tower in the CLOUDS.

Go claim a BOAT

THERES A WOMAN DOWN THERE UNDER THE WAVES

Oh hey its these guys again. They must be important 'cause this is the second time they've appeared in the intro.

This guy looks pretty evil

I step away from the chair to breathe in.


So uh...is this the guys family or something? Emo son.

Uncle Chuck

Sexy Daughter

Elder more misunderstood Son.

German butler.

The Hell?

Oh its him again.



EPIC FIGHTING ACTION

Ow.

Go go Gadget Cheesy Special FX!



<Director> HOLY SHIT HE CUT OFF HIS ARM! WHATRE YOU DOING!? CUT THE CAMERA OFF AND CALL AN AMBULANCE!
<Cameraman>Uh, ok boss, lessee here...

FADE TO LANDSCAPE.



Wait, what was that

AND THEN THERE WAS NOTHING.



The Hell are these balls doing, lets hope they dont touch :/


Oh dear. :(

Well they blew up.


Wait what was that?

<Medic> Ok, his arm'll be fine, he's good to go.
<Director> Lets get rolling then! You there! Hit the lights!
<Stagehand> Right on it.



TA DA


And so it begins. Now we launch into the game itself, but not before a quick little story introduction!






Wait whats that?

Oh hey its that guy. Guess they must be his subordinates as opposed to his relatives, oops.

SCARY RED TINT AND HUEG PEOPLE

Red Screen Of Death?

Who are these retards.

Oh, er, I guess thats us then...


NEXT TIME ON LETS PLAY MYSTARA: The first battle and some interaction from you guys :O

[Bilan]

Battle time!





<Bane> No.

Default name: Aragon. But this is my guy anyway >_>




Too right. :D


Default name: Saura. Get going guys!



Dirty old man.


Defult name: Hector. Name this old pervert.




Sorry PPA :(
Default name: Ferral. Give this chap a name too.










Default name: Raikou.


Default name: Aletha


Default name: Katzhai



Aaaand thats about all for now, I cant play any further without names and people calling dibs. About that, only the first four characters are party, and one is mine, so currently available are Saura, Hector and Ferral. I took the liberty of getting shots of enemies and such, as well as the current party so we'll take a look at those next, and Ill explain the classes and skills each character has at present.


Ok so, Im weak to mind magic, which means I can be easily controlled by enemies with manipulation magic. I have decent attack and defence, though my int and res are kinda low, so my char is clearly geared towards being a melee attacker. Note: Read the manual, Int affects the strength of -all- techniques, but boost magic more, while res is obviously magic defence. After then looking at the games techniques a bit more, Int is for MAGIC techs and Strength for pshycial, whoddathunkit. I have no idea what the speed stat is used for because each sides takes turns moving their units. Consulting the manual, it apparently affects strength and defence a little. "Energy" is the number of squares the char can move per turn. As for CHL and WWK, well, Im pretty sure WWK is "Waterwalk", which my dude cant do, as indicated by the X, as for CHL, I have no idea at all. According to the manual its is how well the character can traverse bumpy terrain and the like. The luck state tends to only affect whether or not the enemy hits you for full or partial damage or if they miss completely. The two icons with %'s in the lower right; the upper is base evasion and the lower is critical hit. Combine my guys evasion and luck and he has a pretty good chance at avoiding full damage a lot right now. Moving on, lets look at his skills.


Squee, this guy has 3 classes + defend. While this might seem epic in giving him a lot to do, he'll end up pretty crap if Im not careful and blindly raise everything. So, what does he have?

Sword Tech L1
Strike
Range 1
Power: Atk: +0%

Magic Sword Tech L1
Nothing

Attack Magic L1
Fireball
Range 2
Power: Int+40

Defend L1
Defend
I think you know what this does.

:O a class with no skills, how will it be raised!? I guess time will tell because Ive forgot.



Naturally, Sauras a bit lacking in the strength department but makes up for this with good Int. Her Luck and Evade arent too shabby either. She also has a "good" weakness; I dont remember too much dark magic in this game...



She might be a Priestess, but her classes are standard Mage fare

Attack Magic L1
Fireball
Range 2
Power: Int+40

Holy Magic L1
Healing
Range 2
Heals up to 100 HP

Defend L1
Defend
I think you know what this does.



Weakness: None

Wait what. This guy also has nice strength and defence too. Downside? Due to his lack of weakness, he presently cant hit for criticals, is pretty weak to magic due to low res and doesnt stand much chance at dodging enemies.



One class besides defend wut. On the plus side. this means he's a specialised archer, and archers are good in this game.

Bow Tech L1
Arrow Shot
Range 4
Power: Strength + 0%

Defend L1
Defend
I think you know what this does.



This guys stats clearly gear him towards melee combat, which is fine as he has no MP, and thus no magic classes. Unfortunatly his weakness is a pretty nasty one.



Something to note about the Spear Tech; almost all spear moves can hit more than one enemy at once, and do so for pretty big damage, but it takes a while to get new skills in. Hand to Hand on the other hand (>_>), is a class that develops rapidly, and has some killer moves near the end.

Spear Tech L1
Spear Attack
Range 2
Power: Strength + 0%

Hand to Hand L1
Punch
Range
Power: Strength + 0%

Defend L1
Defend
I think you know what this does.

Right, thats the party examined, lets take a look at what we're up against here:




You've all seen dudes like this before. Generic baddy Knights, HP's on par with my average so they should go down easily enough.


Similarly for these.

Lets have a look at those guys we named earlier now



On par with us so we should be able to fell them.

Lets check out this Lord Bane guy then.



Wait, what?

Level 20? SIX THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED HP? On the FIRST MAP!?

Well, whatever, lets go crack his skull open.

What I need from you guys now, is names for:

Saura
Hector
Ferral
Raiko
Aletha
Katzhai

Feel free to suggest names for more than one character, you can call dibs on any one of the first three too~

Coming up after this: The first battle, mayhaps with a commentary on the vid :O and a video of the intro. Because it is -awesome-.

[Rick_242]

I nominate the name PPA Pedobear/Pedolion for Ferral.

[Sephgara]

I suggest giving Katzhai the name "Birdramon" >_> (sans the "s)

[Selphos]

No, rick. Just no.

Anyway if you ever get that ninja guy I claim him, can't think of a name tho :(

[Bilan]

Oh I should mention the 7 char limit. Sorry about that <_<

[Rick_242]

Ok.

List:

Ferral = Dhengis (PPA still open for lion's name)
Priest = Maya (except no)
Birdguy = Krahzy

Thats it for now. :(

[Bilan]

Suggestions from IRC:

Saura: Pinkhat
Hector: Colonel/Bashful/Tingle/Snake
Ferral: PPA/Furfag/Shirley/Furcury
Raiko: Hadoken/Nin!/Jinjo/Nanji/Shinobi
Aletha: Pillows/Maralyn/Dolly P/Bouncy/PPA
Katzhai: Falco/Polly/Harvey/Storm

[Selphos]

Don't forget Starly for Katzhai >______>

[Waxwings]

Katzhai seems interesting. He's also a pirate, which makes him 5x more badass on the spot.

[Sephgara]

Damn, no Birdramon for Katzhai then :(

how about Tweety?

Also, I think he should be all Ninja-tech liek and he should sneak behind all enemies at all times

[Bilan]

Characters claimed thus far:

RPG: RPG >_>
Class: Mostly Sword Tech with Attack Magic thrown in when necessary
Fighting Style: Melee fighter, will protect other units where necessary

Saura: Rolken
Class: Mostly Healing Magic, Offensive when necessary.
Style: Healer

Hector (Snake): Doug
Class: Archer
Style: Hide.  Always. By which I mean shoot from max distance sneak around in a cardboard box.

Ferral: Stefan
Class: Mostly Hand to Hand, Spear where it would be the better option.
Style: Melee

Raiko: Sondow
Class: Ninja Tech
Style: Front line melee unit

Aletha: Cherry
Class: Mix of Support Mage and Archer
Style: Support the party from behind the front line attackers.

Katzhai: Achlys/Sephgara
Class: Ninja Tech
Style: Sneaky bastard

[Bilan]

Time for an update!

First up, That awesome intro in all its glory

Next, the winners of the character names!








That aside, lets dive straight into the first battle, available as a video with commentary or just screenshots for your viewing pleasure~

So, theres really not a lot to say about this battle, if youve watched the vid/looked at the pics so far, you know where the enemies are and where I am; in between is a stretch of grass, thats it. Plus this is the shortest fight in the game.


This is what the skill menu thing looks like. You have 3 boxes which can each have 3 skills, so a maximum of 9 different skills, though you can change skills midbattle anyway as far as I remember.


Yeah this battles a waste of time so all Im gonna do is defend. You'll see why.


Enemy dudes almost come within range...


End of Turn 2.


And Bane gets bored.





Smokin'


No explanation is ever given for how he managed to wipe out only his own troops with that move.



Maybe in the next update we'll get a real battle!

[Bilan]

Ok time to move the next update to the next page.

[Bilan]

...

I typed all this up once last night already, but the forum decided it'd be a great idea to play up and just wiped the whole thing, fucking great, so excuse the lack of care in the screenshot captions this time around.

Right. This is the first real battle of the game, complete with epic combat action, except for Tingle. Video "comntree" over here~

So, when we last saw our intrepid squad, they'd just magically survived an enormous BBQ attack just because. Lets see how they're getting on



Ye gasp












Oh sure, now you're all friendly.



An excellent question m'lady.



Apparently we can hear these guys from all the way over the other side of the map.




RPG is pretty badass for a Prince.

And now its time for some combat. But before that, a quick look at our new dude!


High Str, Def, Speed and Crit is nice, Average Int, HP and Dodge chance, crap Resistance and a weakness to magic. But hes apparently good at negotiating rough terrain. He comes with the Hand to Hand, Ninja and Defend skills, two of which we know all about already.

Ninja Tech
Strike
Range: 1
Power: Str + 4%

Throwing Star
Range: 2
Power: Str + 0%

Into the fray we go!


STRIKE.


THROWING STAR.


They get it too.


PUNCH.


FIREBALL.


DEFEND.


The Killers get Throwing Star too, tends to hurt a little more than the Charger's Strike.




:O

What he just learned here is Mystic Strike.

Mystic Strike
Range: 2L (This hits all enemies in a line up to the maximum number of squares away indicated in the range, in this case, 2.
Power: Str + 8%




...yes, he just learned how to run a short distance before swinging his sword. Why couldnt he do this before? Who knows? Why doesnt this have a little str bonus added to its power? I dont know.


By turn 6, Id cleared out the first two groups of enemies and was pressing ahead with my main force. Tingle was of course cowering like a retard.


Go go Mystic Strike


Sexy healing spell


RPG has this too, but he doesnt do -quite- so much damage with it.




Bzzt.

Lightning Spark
MP: 22
Range: 2
Power: Int + 50

The 5 MP increase for about 10 damage isnt really worth it at this early stage, however it'll get useful in upcoming battles until we get the next spell.




Told you this guy was hardcore.

Kick
Range: 1
Power: Str + 4%

Hand to Hand has the advantage of being the second fastest levelling class early on, the fastest being ARCHERY, but we all know the story with our current archer.


Start of turn 10, with Furcury off slaughtering the reinforcements, Tingle running away and Pinkhat out of MP, its up to RPG and Shinobi to cut down this last group of enemies.


Tingle hid himself among the foilage here and pissed himself. He still smells.



All was well till a Killer got lucky and had a Ground Lock attack land, paralysing Shinobi.



\m/

Heavy Punch
Range: 1
Power: Str+ 8%

\m/


Go go gadget mana potion


OOPS. Sorry Stefan :(

* ARCANE ALBATROSS OF FOREBODING facepalms and kicks doug in the shins

After some healing on Shinobi, I finish off the last of the group and head on up. The reinforcements get confused because my units are right in front of them but they cant head straight up to reach them.


Heading onto the final stretch triggers the arrival of the noob squad!




Yes, its those magical flame retardant killers from the first map. No they are not stronger than the other killers, and if you watch the video youll find out if they're still flame retardant, or just retarded.


FINISHING BLOW


Glorius victory, time for the spoils of my quest through the woods for freedom.

[P.P.A.]

That choice is perfect because I like fairies, always choose to be a mage in games that give me the choice and I want to try out archery (but never did thus far, I plan to however) because it already was fun in Zelda games!

[Bilan]

There, battle clear. Sweet.





Wait, what?



Oh God damnit its that guy. Guess this'll be like a first boss or something.









<Juza> Schnell! Schnell!

Right, lets take a look at those blue guys first.


Wait, Level 11?




Oh God damnit this is another pointless waste of time impossile filler battle.

Due to the extremity of the situation, something extraodrinary happened.


Tingle paniced and FIRED AN ARROW.


Which dished out insane damage.


RPG has similar luck with one of the assassins.


Pinkhat is first to fall.




Wait, what? :O

Lightning Shot
Range: 5
Power: Str + 4%

Epic.




RPG and Shinobi soon fall.


BOOM. This actually hit for 21 damage. This guy can hit hard when he isnt running away to a corner.


And his short stint of awesome is brought to a close.


Real dungeon or dirty sex lair?

With that over, thats the battle finally clear, time for exp!







Everyone hits level 3 apart from Furcury, whoops >_>

Next time on Lets Play Mystaria: The Realms of Lore!

Exciting treasure chest fun.

[Sephgara]

Wow, the videos are much better than i'd have expected from you.

Barely any sarcasm at all, that doesn't seem right considering it's you.

Good going anyway.

[douglas]

WHERE IS THE CARDBOARD BOX HIDING?  MAKE WITH THE CARDBOARD BOX HIDING!

[Bilan]

Doug there is no cardbox, but in THIS FRESH UPDATE I played your character as perfectly as you could ever wish for, you bastard.

[Sephgara]

You pronounced my name right!

Pity Storm died though, oh well, only lost 5 exp instead of 20ish like in the first ACTUAL battle.

[Chuck]

Ohi guys!
I want a character already...when is the next video up RPG?

[Bilan]

IMPENING UPDATE!

However, I need you guys to vote on where we go after this battle:

The options are:

Kingdom of Dragoon: 1
Kingdom of Rossam: 1
Kingdom of Midy: 1
Two forest sidebattles for rare items: 4!

[Sephgara]

Side Battle!

Do it for the lulz.

[Bilan]

Here we go guys, update time!

Need some more votes on where to go after this, might carry it on a little bit further tonight (read: next battle) if we get enough votes~

EDIT: Looks like it'll be sidequests

[Bilan]

SIDEQUESTS IT IS!

But first, shenanigans.

From this point on, we can only take 6 people into each battle (sometimes only 5, but in those cases we get a new party member to fill the last slot).

As such, SOMEONE needs to be voted out of the party for this battle. This someone cannot be RPG, he has to be in the party by default for every battle bar the ridiculous secret dungeon.

Tingle: 4 votes
Pinkhat: 0
Furcury: 0
Shinobi: 1
Storm: 0
PPA: 0

Unfortunatly, this will not be the end for Tingle if hes voted out, as Im going to run this in the fashion of a character cannot be voted out of a battle more than twice in succession. Im going with twice and not once because later on when we have 10+ dudes to choose from, getting forced to do battles where we have to choose 5 might prevent me from being able to only opt someone out once. On saying that, the votes up to you guys. First to 5 votes is out, or, the highest number of votes after....lets say, 8 or so, gets the chop.

EDIT: Im going to change it back to one battle exclusions, with exceptions. The reason Im doing this in the first place is that in the past Ive just dropped party members completely as soon as someone better came along, and this will keep me using the whole party throughout.

[P.P.A.]

Shinobi. Ninjas are overused.

[Sephgara]

do not want Sir Cowers-in-the-corner. (Tingle, for those who don't know what i'm babbling about)

[Selphos]

Tingle can go die

As can Doug >_>