Champions of Mareth

The demon quickly closes the distance between the two of us, throwing a kick to my ankles that knocks me off guard. I fall to the ground with a crash, but recover quickly, and manage to roll aside just in time to avoid the beast's body slam.

Leaping to my feet, I dash towards my opponent, flapping my wings to boost me up as I jump, launching a flying kick at the monster's head. It connects, and knocks him down to the floor, giving me a brief respite with which to glance at our health bars.

I bite my lip. That was the first damage I've managed to land on him, while my health is in its final quarter. It's going to be tough to make a comeback now, but if anyone can pull it off, it's Rainbow Danger Dash!

I dash towards him again, hoping to launch a combo that would keep him from retaliating. As I get close, however, he springs suddenly up from the ground, slamming both of his feet straight into my chest. I'm winded, but I manage to stay standing, and raise my arms up in a block as I see his fist flying straight me.

At the last second, his fingers uncurl, and he grabs me by the wrist. Whoa crap! Before I can react, he lifts me up into the air, and slams me into the ground like a mallet!

My body crumples up, and I watch the world fade to black, as my HP drops to zero.

K.O.
YOU LOSE

CONTINUE?
YES NO

"Argh, **** this ****!" I cry in frustration, slamming my fist into the "NO" hovering in front of my face. There is a sensation of wind rushing past me, and then I'm stood back in the Main Menu Zone. The MMZ in this particular game was designed to look like the rest area for competitors in the game's martial arts tournament.

Still fuming, I furiously swipe at the air. Nothing happens. I swipe again, even more furiously, and even more nothing happens. I try this a few more times, getting more and more furious, until I finally resign myself to calm down, take a deep breath, and flick the air in a calm, precise manner, that the system wouldn't misinterpret as an attack.

At last, the menu screen appears before my eyes, and I quickly tap the "Exit Game" button.

There is a brief sensation of falling, as all the lights rush away from me, and suddenly I'm on my back, lying in complete darkness. I reach up to my neck, undo the clasp, and slowly slide the helmet away from my face, placing it beside me on the bed.

Sitting up, I give my limbs a stretch, stiff as they are from lying immobile for so long. I'm still seething a little inside: I've played through the arcade mode for "Immortal Kombatants" dozens of times, but can never manage to beat that damn final boss.

I stand up, and do a few more stretches to loosen up my limbs, before walking over to the shelf where I keep my games. So far my collection was rather meagre; the system had only released last week after all. I thumb idly through the stack of boxes, looking for something relaxing that would quell my rage.

I'm still not sure what all the games I have actually are. It'd been chaos in the game stores on release, so my only option had been to grab whatever titles I could get my hands on, until they reached my budget cap.

I'd got hooked on "War Of Shooting" from the very start, but I'd finished the campaign now, and the multi-player was even more rage-inducing than the fighting game. So my remaining options were "Tony Gryphon's Professional Rollerblading", a skating sim where you tried to pull off complicated tricks, "Excellent Lettuce Gentleman", a platformer where you fell off the platforms more often than not, and "Champions of Mareth", an RPG, by the looks of things.

I pull the latter off of the shelf, and give the text on the back a skim read. It seems pretty generic: Fantasy world, wizards and demons, random encounters... All-in-all, your typical RPG.

Shrugging, I walk over to the NeuronGear, plug in the disc-drive attachment, and slip the disc in. RPGs were generally pretty relaxing affairs, after all, so why the hay not? On the bed, I see the lights in the headset spring on, and a loading bar appear on the outer display screen, showing the progress of installation.

Noticing a lull in activity, my stomach decides that now is the time to speak up, grumbling in disgruntlement. Figuring I have a wait ahead of me anyway, I wander away to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich.

Once I return, wiping the crumbs from my mouth, I notice the green light displaying on the headset, indicating that the installation had completed. Flopping back onto the bed, I unplug the disc drive, and push it out of the way, before slipping my head inside of the console and fastening the strap.

Once the strap is connected, the system flares into life, and I'm surrounded by the blue light of my desktop theme. The bed disappears from beneath me, and I start to plummet into the endless sky.

After a moment, the menu flashes up beside me, the icons rotating themselves to be in line with my head-first descent. I reach out, and tap the "Play" button in the games tab. A shining rift opens up beneath me, and I fall straight into it.

Flapping my wings, I prepare myself to land in the Main Menu Zone, but no ground presents itself. As far as I can tell, this area is just as empty as my sky desktop, with the difference being that I'm surrounded by sepia rather than blue, and there aren't any clouds for me to get my bearings on.

For a terrifying moment, I wonder if the NGear might have frozen up on me! I desperately wave at the air, and to my relief, the menu appears in front of me, presenting me with options.

Before me are the buttons for "New Game", "Instructions" and "Settings". I'm a "hop right in and learn as I play" kind of gamer, so I tap the "New Game" button straight away.

You grew up in the small village of Ingnam, a remote village with rich traditions, buried deep in the wilds. Every year for as long as you can remember, your village has chosen a champion to send to the cursed Demon Realm. Legend has it that-

Blah blah blah, I skim through the exposition text quickly. Stuff about famines, diseases and the like striking if they don't send the player through the portal into the game world.

This year, you have been selected to be the champion.

What is your name?

A keyboard flashes up beneath the screen. I ponder whether to give the character a cool name, but can't think of one that's cooler than "Rainbow Dash", so that's what I enter.

Are you a man or a woman?

Whoa, never had that choice before! I thought they hadn't manage to program gender-switching for this system yet. Wait, no, maybe it just can't tell what gender I am without me telling it. Sighing, I tap "woman".

You are a woman. Your upbringing has provided you an advantage in speed and intellect.

"Bullshit, I'd still be this awesome if I were a guy- oh, hey! This game doesn't have censoring. Frickin' sweet!"

What type of build do you have?

Slender Average Curvy Tomboyish

I think of my body, with my toned muscles and shrunken chest, which are perfectly fine with me by the way they make sports easier anyway so whatever!

I sigh, and click "Tomboyish".

It continues on like this for a while. Complexion? Light. Hair colour? Rainbow isn't an option, which isn't much of a surprise. They're probably keeping it back as an unlockable. I select red.

Every person is born with a gift. What's yours?

"Being awesome!" I declare, which of course isn't an option either. Some of the options that are there were rather peculiar, however: things like "Big Breasts" and "Wet Vagina".

"Holy crap, this game's got balls..." I muse.

I'm tempted to go for big breasts, just to see what they'd feel like. But I guess that it's probably a trap, to put players at a disadvantage by robbing them of precious Skill Points, so I instead select "Speed".

The next screen is similar, asking what the character's plans for life were before she became a champion. Since there are no "Become a Wonderbolt" or even "Athlete" options, I decide to go for my second love: "Slacking".

As soon as I press this final option, I feel my body change slightly. My hair feels tingly, and I grasp a lock of it to see that it's now turned a bright scarlet. My back feels lighter, as my chest suddenly gains weight, and I look down to see that, even with the tomboyish body selected, my breasts have still grown a little compared to those of my real body. I heft them in my hands, relishing in the way the soft flesh feels between my fingers.

Looking over the rest of my body, I seem to be mostly unchanged otherwise, although I do feel kinda sluggish. Glancing at the status bar that pops up on my HUD, I realise this is probably on account of my level 1 stats being so low. I'll have to do some serious grinding once I get into the game, it'd suck to not be able to move in the way I want to.

All of a sudden, my vision is bathed in a bright light, forcing me to shield my eyes. A brisk wind blows past me, and as I'm forced to take a step back, I realise that a coarse, uneven ground has risen up to meet my feet.

"Looks like the world's finally loaded," I grin.

As my eyes adjust, I can see that I'm stood on a clifftop or hill of some kind, overlooking a medium-sized village. To my right is a path leading downward, presumably toward the town. To my left, the path ascends even higher, overlooked by a dark, intimidating mountain.

"You are prepared for what is to come," a voice speaks into my ear suddenly, making me jump round, my guard raised. Strangely, there's no-one behind me, at least, no-one visible. I keep my guard up as I glance from side to side, my expression a mix of wariness and confusion.

"Most of the last year has been spent honing your body and mind to prepare for the challenges ahead," the voice continues. "You are the Champion of Ingnam. The one who will journey to the demon realm and guarantee the safety of your friends and family, even though you'll never see them again."

I sigh, relaxing my posture. It's just the narrator.

I cock my ear, waiting for him to continue, but am greeted with nothing but silence. He's probably waiting for me to proceed into the story, I guess.

I look around, pondering my next move. Left is generally the way to go for story in these games, which means that I should go right first, to look for treasure, naturally. I turn to my right, and begin to trek down the hill. However, my journey is cut short at the first corner, where I encounter an imposing wall of rock, that looks to have been formed by a landslide of some kind.

I frown, folding my arms. A move like this probably means there isn't any treasure to be had this early in the game... but, maybe the devs wanted to have different rewards accessible to different players? Most players couldn't climb this, but it poses no problem to me.

Grinning, I unfurl my wings, tense my body, and... release!

And then promptly fall flat on my face.

"Gahh, what the hay?!" I look back, trying to figure out why my wings aren't giving me any lift.

My wings...

Where are my wings?! They're gone!

"Are you freaking kidding me?!" I yell, fists curled. "After all that character creation, I'm forced to play as an Earth human?!"

I slam my fist into the rocks, feeling my earlier rage billowing back up. Focusing my mind, I take a deep breath, and turn to head back up the path. It's no big deal, I tell myself. I saw pegasi characters on the box, so I'll probably unlock my wings back soon.

After returning to my starting point, I continue on upwards, reaching a wide open courtyard situated atop the hill. To one side of it stands a large temple, adorned with all sorts of markings that seem to have some kind of spiritual significance. Outside of the main doors stands an elderly man, dressed in a long dark robe.

"You wipe away a tear as you enter the courtyard and see Elder Nomur waiting for you," the narrator continues. "You are ready."

I feel an odd sensation against my face, and reach up to brush it away. When my finger comes back wet, I roll my eyes, and shake it away, walking briskly over to the old guy.

"Hey there!" I hail him as I approach.

He says nothing, simply nodding his head in reply, before turning around and pushing open the temple doors, stepping swiftly into the darkness within.

I shrug, and jog to catch up with him, falling into step alongside the old guy as he proceeds quickly through the building.

Walking down the main corridor, we reach another ornate door at the opposite side of the temple, which Elder Nomur pushes aside without hesitation, showing a decent degree of strength for one so old.

I cast a longing look at the side-rooms that branch off into the temple, thinking of all the treasure that could be hiding in there. But the Elder shows no signs of stopping, stepping out into the daylight without so much as a backward glance. I sigh, and run to catch him up once again.

"The walk to the tainted cave is long and silent," the narrator states.

"Elder Nomur does not speak."

"There is nothing left to say."

"The two of you journey in companionable silence."

"Okay, okay, it's quiet, I get it!" I yell to the air at large. I cross my arms, tapping my finger in impatience. I want to get on with the game already, but as fast as this old guy is walking, it isn't fast enough.

I wonder if I could run on ahead. There's only one path, it's not like I'd get lost. There is a chance I'd need Nomur to open some more doors for me, but I could always just wait if that were the case.

Deciding to get the show on the road, I sprint ahead down the path, leaving Elder Nomur still walking amiably in my dust.

"Slowly the black rock of Mount Ilgast looms-"

" You shiver and glance at-"

"Despite his age-"

The narrator's lines keep getting cut off, as I pelt down the track. The large mountain does indeed loom in front of me, and after a while I can see the base of it coming into view. At the end of the path sits a large cave, the entrance adorned with large stalactites, making it resemble a monstrous mouth.

"The entrance of the cave gapes open, sharp stalactites hanging over the entrance, giving it the appearance of a monstrous mouth," the narrator reiterates.

I frown. This narrator is really breaking my immersion. It'd be fine if he were at least an amusing character, like the ones from Warphole or The Steve Story, but he isn't, he's just mundane!

I flick open my menu, and am greeted with a text-log of the narrator's lines. Down in the corner, I see a tick box entitled "Enable Narrator," which I promptly click off.

Closing the menu, I turn my attention back to the cave. Cracking my knuckles, I grin, and stride forward. Now THIS is a game! I'm really diving into the unknown here.

As I duck under the stalactites, I notice the air in the cave is stiflingly humid. I tug at the neckline of my beginner's equipment, my face quickly reddening with heat, which then travels further down my body, and seems to pool into my nether regions.

My breathing becomes ragged, as I can feel a dampness building between my thighs. I notice movement on my sidebar, and see that the stat below my HP bar, entitled "Lust", begins to slowly rise. I don't know if the devs made sex such a big part of the game for immersion purposes, or just to be pervy, but either way I don't care. It's a whole new level compared to what I had previously played, and I'm excited to see just how far they'll take it.

As I venture further into the cave, I become aware of a bright pink glow emanating from deep within. Other than a few stalactites, there are no real hazards within the cave, so within a few minutes I'm able to reach what appears to be the deepest level.

On the back wall stands the source of the light, a large purple-pink oval with a swirling, shifting pattern playing across its surface. I know a portal when I see one, and step towards it. For some reason, my body suddenly tenses itself up, as if in anticipation. For a few moments I stand stock still, expecting a surprise boss to pop-out, but nothing happens.

Shaking off my wariness, I focus my resolve, and leap towards the portal. As I come in contact with it, however, an incredible wave of vertigo suddenly knocks me from my senses, and I find myself unable to recover. Falling into a pink void, with no wings to stabilise myself, the dizziness overwhelms me, and I black out.