Vae Victus!

In a moment of not having anything left to play, I revisited two old games. The first being Dark Cloud 2 (which is still loads of fun), the second being Legacy of Kain: Defiance. I won't bore you with details, but I still say these games are so good that they deserve sequels, quick! The first for the addictive gameplay with replay value stamped all over it. The second for a powerful story that, if you have a clue as to what is going on by paying attention to the well-written script, will draw you into its grip like a giant squid posing as the God of a decaying and corrupted world.

Okay, I promised not to get into details-

Awgh, can't help it. Regarding Legacy of Kain at least, which I just beat twenty minutes ago. If you haven't played any of the series so far, let me at least give you the rundown.

• The world of Nosgoth is kept clean and pure by 12 Pillars each with a respective guardian. (Pillar of Mind, Pillar of Energy... oh, you get the picture.)
• One of them goes mad, and subsequently they all do because he happens to be the Scion of Mind.
  
• Enter Kain, a self-absorbed son of a nobleman who gets turned into a vampire by a necromancer and subsequently gets sent on a quest to kill off the insane guardians (so that new guardians can be chosen). He himself is appointed Scion of Balance.
  
• At the end of this quest of his, he finds out that all the guardians have to be killed for the cycle to begin anew and have new guardians taken in. That means he has to kill himself or the pillars will decay without new guardians.
• He picks not to kill himself, allowing the pillars to decay and Nosgoth to fall into a dark age, with him building an empire out of the ruins.

And that's it. Well, about the world, at least. Things get inevitably twisted eventually as centuries pass and time travel get pulled into the picture. What makes this series so rich is a) the rich history of the world, which, like our world's history, is often authored by the victors of wars. Meaning that at some points, things you thought to be true all along later turn out to be lies, a la St. Ajora and the Zodiac Braves from Final Fantasy Tactics, and b) the characters are all flawed and believable. Yes, it's set in a fantasy setting, but the characters aren't finely divided between Good and Evil. Kain for example is an anti-hero, but not overratedly so like oh, say, (*cough*JamesHowlett*cough*). He has his good drive, but he is definitely out to save his own hide. Raziel, the protagonist of the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver series on the other hand has pure motives, but tends to get led into doing more harm than good.


So look at that, ladies and gentlemen- one guy who does good things for selfish or wrong reasons (Kain), and another who does wrong things for the right motives (Raziel). Their fates inevitably intertwine, chaos ensues, and a powerful story unfolds.

End rant. For that, at least.

And so now we move on to- well, I could rant about comics, but I'd much rather leave you with two comicbook pages which I am *still* reeling from.


Fuck you Bendis. After Whedon, I thought nothing could surprise me anymore. Now THIS. None of the Ultimate departures from 616 have been this severe. It was totally unforseen, and the potential of fun things you can do with this now that it's on the table is just infinite. You're a genius, Bendis. Truly, you are.

(salutes)