ERPGby MellowSoulChaptersTo the LimitStar ShapeMitochondriaGrowing Up (Interlude: Part 1)Growing Up (Interlude: Part 2)Growing Up (Interlude: Part 3)Growing Up (Interlude: Final Part)37,000: Reconstruction (Interlude)Quality Check (Interlude)RelativityKaiserWhat It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 1)What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 2)What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 3)What It's Like to Feel Loved (Final Part)Rage (Interlude)To the LimitAuthor's Note This is just me sharing my thoughts on games among other things. There's no Japan in Equestria, so I just stuck with the general concept of turn-based RPGs being from eastern countries. To the Limit Twilight opened the door for her friends. The familiar waves of melodic metalcore pervaded their ears. "Hey, guys." Twilight greeted tenderly. "'sup, bitch." Rainbow replied in a cheeky tone. Twilight's expression shifted to a half-hearted smile. She further opened the door to allow the others inside. "Come on in." The girls obliged. Rarity nuzzled Spike when the two were close enough to make contact. "Looks like it's gonna rain soon." Rainbow noted. "Guess it's a good thing I called when I did." Twilight acknowledged. Rainbow raised a brow. "You okay? You sound kinda...Down." "Some days are better than others." "Ah..." "Anyway, you guys wanna order the food before we get started?" "Sure." Rainbow dialed the pizza shop where she and the others originally met Twilight. Twilight offered to pay for individual pizzas tailored to everyone's specific preferences. While they waited, Twilight led them to her room. The shelves had recently been set up to organize her games. "You guys know I have a pretty balanced collection, but I tend to prefer RPGs. With how much time you can sink into 'em, it feels like you're getting your money's worth, and there's always something new to find." "How many hours have you spent on these?" Rainbow inquired. "Thousands, especially Final Fantasy X." "You really are a nerd." "I was a shut-in during high school and college. Aside from that and exercise, I didn't really do much but listen to music and play games." "What are your favorites?" "It's a tie between Final Fantasy 7 and Shadow Hearts." "Never played those, but they looked fun as hell." Twilight levitated copies of each game for the girls to see. "These were the games that made me realize how much I fucking hated the education system. It's broken and outdated beyond belief. I wanted to make stuff like this, but I had to learn coding on my own because no one cared enough to teach me. With how much math is involved, it would've been an extremely effective way to boost my grade." "Yeah. Common core is bullshit." "You can say that again." "What's with the bulky packaging?" "Funny you should mention that. The packaging was one of the things that made me want to play Final Fantasy in the first place. The game's split into three discs. With that much space available, you can put in a shitload of content. Shadow Hearts was supposed to be put onto four discs, but when the PS2 came out, they improved the graphics a bit and put everything together on one." "Imagine if they'd made extra post-game content on a second disc." "Don't tease me like that. It's hard enough to keep sheets clean as it is." "Hah! Gross." The pizza arrived just as they finished their conversation. Rainbow and Twilight carried the pizzas back to the room. Twilight closed the door behind them, simultaneously using her magic to turn on the heater. "Damn, this smells good." Rainbow commented. "I'll get the game ready." Twilight opened the tray of her PlayStation. She inserted the first disc of Final Fantasy 7 and booted up the system. "I don't know whether it was time constraints or if they didn't want to spoil the game, but there's no opening movie. It's just credits for the developers." "They probably wanted to conserve the budget for the game itself. Pre-rendered cutscenes cost a shit-ton to make." "Huh. I never thought of it that way. There are a few pre-rendered ones in the game, but they're few and far between. They were pretty much pushing the boundaries of what was possible in terms of graphics at the time." "How much space does the game file take up, anyway?" "A little over a gig." "For real? Damn. If it's that good with that little space, the rest of the industry needs to step their game up: no pun intended." "This was the most expensive game ever made when it came out in '97. It cost around forty-five million bits to develop." "Jesus Christ. That'd probably put a decent dent in your net worth." "Not really." Rainbow's jaw dropped. "Money's no obstacle for me. If I had to go through almost two decades of school, I was gonna get rich off it. Fortunately, circumstance was on my side." "You'll have to teach me your secret." "Sure. I don't mind." "Sweet." Twilight pressed New Game. After a brief cutscene, a name entry screen appeared. "This is one of the features I wish developers would've kept. You can't name your characters in games like this anymore." "Why?" "Voice acting." "Well, that blows." "I'd rather read text if that's the trade-off. Removing it as an option takes away from the player's investment in the story." "I hear ya." "Hope you guys are ready to stick around for a few days. Once I get sucked in, I'm focused for the long haul." "Fine by us." "Excellent. Let's do this!" Twilight played for three days straight without sleep, only pausing for food and restroom breaks. The others rested between grinding sessions. By the time they reached the northern crater, Twilight's party was level ninety-nine with maxed out stats via source farming. "We're almost at Sephiroth." "Holy hell. No wonder you're so into this game." "The gradual shift in tone to something more insidious really hits you by the end. It's not something you see very often." "I imagine Shadow Hearts is the same way?" "No, actually. It's dark and gritty right off the bat. There's a strong horror influence I've only seen in one other game." "Which one?" "Parasite Eve." "You must've had a roster lined up for a while." "I always try to plan ahead." "That's a pretty useful strategy to have on hoof." "Agreed." During the final showdown between Cloud and Sephiroth, Rainbow noticed something peculiar about the limit bar. "It's filling by itself!?" "This is probably the most unique part of the game, and something I haven't seen in any RPG since. Think about it: if someone betrayed your trust and ruined your life multiple times over, you'd be pretty pissed too, right? That's what Cloud was hinting at in the tutorial. He outright says limit gauges build the angrier you get. Now we get to see the most gratifying part." When the limit gauge was full, a new technique Twilight had intentionally ignored appeared on-screen: the legendary Omnislash. She selected the attack, and everyone in the room gazed in awe of its sheer destructive might... Star ShapeA week after completing Final Fantasy 7, Rainbow and the rest of the girls reconvened with Twilight to knock off the next game on their bucket list: Shadow Hearts. "What's for dinner?" Rainbow asked. "Chili cheese dogs." Twilight replied jovially. "You been playin' Sonic?" "Nah. Not really my type of game." "Fair enough. So what can we expect from Shadow Hearts?" "It's probably the goriest RPG in the genre. Also, ghosts attack you with their dicks." "Come again!?" "You heard what you think you heard." "Ugh! God! That's fuckin' gnarly!" "Most of the enemies consist of zombies, ghosts, and demons. It's a lot more biblical than most games. Even the angels are based on biblically accurate descriptions." "That's insane." "You have no idea." "Sounds like it's gonna be one hell of a journey." "It will be - trust me." After dinner, Twilight booted up the game. The opening cutscene left a lasting impression on Rainbow. "Did he just regenerate his severed arm!?" "Pretty badass, right?" "No kidding!" "That's just the beginning." After the boss fight, the second pre-rendered cutscene played. "Did he just punch through his skull!?" "Payback for being tossed around on the train." Rainbow pulled her mane back in a mixture of shock and amazement. "Holy shit! This is awesome!" "Unfortunately, things won't really get good again until the second half of the game. There's another guy we have to take care of first before we get rid of Bacon." "Oh, come on! All that build-up just to have to wait!?" "It'll be worth it." "If you say so." By the second act, Bacon's true identity had been revealed as cardinal Albert Simon. "So he wants to get back at the church because they condemned him for his progressive ideology?" "Basically sums it up. He wants to summon God to cleanse the earth. God's actually an alien in this game, so it kinda plays off a similar theme to Final Fantasy 7." "You said there were two more fusions we could get?" "Amon and the Seraphic Radiance. They're the most powerful transformations in the game." "You probably won't even need them at max level." "Not really, but I just like being overpowered." "Makes sense. You've already put this much time into it. May as well go all the way." "The Serpahic Radiance has an attack the deals max damage every time. It really speeds up the last few battles." "How much HP does the final boss have?" "Twelve thousand. Not very much at all compared to FF7 bosses." "Guess by this point the devs figured you'd wanna finish the game." "Before we do, there's one more thing I have to do. There's two endings you can get: the normal ending and the good ending." "Does it have to do with those creepy ass masks?" "How'd you guess?" "Figured there had to be a reason the malice meter was still increasing." "Not bad. You're pretty sharp." "No more talk. I wanna see the ending." "You're the boss." Through a combination of the monk earrings and seal farming, Twilight managed to max out Yuri's stats in the final dungeon. "Unfortunately, there's no way to max out every character without hacks. Yuri was already the strongest, so I figured beefing him up would be our best bet." "Good call." "Anyway, let's go kill God." "That quote must've predicted this game." "Probably." During the final battle, the topic diverged. "Ya know, the reason bosses always lose is because they never stock up on items." Rainbow pointed out. "That's a good point. Wonder why they never think to save up like us to even the playing field." "Overconfidence, probably." "Yeah." When the battle was over, the group waited for the post-credits scene. With the conditions for the good ending met, Alice survived the masks' curse. "There's a sequel called Shadow Hearts: Covenant that continues the story after the bad ending, but I didn't care for it as much. It's a good game, but they kind of abandoned the horror aspect. It wasn't as grim and depressing as this one, plus you can't name your characters anymore." "You're really stuck on that, huh?" "Yeah. It just really bums me out." "I feel ya." "Anyway, you've seen the game. Guess we'll have to move on next time." "Parasite Eve, right?" "Yeah. That one has more of a sci-fi element to it." "Sounds interesting. Lookin' forward to it." "Same here." MitochondriaAuthor's Note Major spoilers if you haven't played Parasite Eve. Read at your own discretion. Mitochondria The process for the previous two games was repeated with Parasite Eve. As they went along, Twilight explained the mechanics and how they differed from other horror RPGs. "Basically, Aya is the only playable character in the game. The battle system is a combination of free motion and the ATB style from Final Fantasy. You can move around to avoid attacks and make your move when the ATB bar is full." "I follow you so far." Rainbow acknowledged. "Just like in FF7 and Shadow Hearts, you can manually upgrade Aya along with regular grinding. The only drawback is the inventory system. For some reason I guess they had to limit your space, because even at max level with the best gear, you can only hold forty-five items." "Aw, weak, dude." "It's not the worst thing in the world, but it gets tedious having to backtrack to Wayne for storage." "I'd imagine." "The story is actually a continuation of a novel under the same name. Aya and Eve's mitochondria evolve as the game progresses. We find out later that Aya and Eve's original host, Melissa, both received transplants from Aya's twin sister, Maya, who died in a car accident when she was little along with their mom." "So the parts that were transplanted determined who was good or evil?" "Not exactly. Melissa's cells were overtaken by Maya's mitochondria because Maya was the original Eve. Aya's situation more closely resembles true evolution. She was able to use Maya's power while her cells developed a defense mechanism: a theory Maeda later refers to as the selfish gene." "The lore sounds almost as complex as an MMO." "Luckily that's where the complexity stops. The devs probably knew we could only digest so much information at once." "Good thing you're fluent in nerd." "Wanna hear a joke?" "Sure." "What's a high school student's favorite subject?" "I have no idea." "Biology." "Hah! Sex." "You ever watch that movie Billy Madison?" "I love that shit. Had me in tears the whole way through." "Same here." "So what's the bonus stuff in this one?" "There's only two optional dungeons. The first is the warehouse. It's a joke if you know what you're doin'. The other is the Chrysler building on the second playthrough. The layout changes every time you go in. Getting around can be a bit frustrating, but the boss is worth it." "Figures there'd be an optional boss. Who is it?" "Maya." "And here I thought Dante had a dysfunctional family." "Just a tip I learned the hard way: Don't add any elemental abilities to your gun. She's immune." "How bad did she murder ya?" "I was only doing thirty damage each attack." "Fuckin' hell. You had to play the game four times?" "Yep. Pissed me off until I finally beat it. Felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders." "Ruby Weapon, eat your heart out." Growing Up (Interlude: Part 1)December's icy air settled over the city. Between the girls' gaming sessions, there was a month gap during this particular interval. The reason was that Twilight informed them of a secret project she'd been working on for quite some time. By her revelation, it was finally complete. "We picked up some hot dogs and onion rings on the way here," Rainbow revealed, "Sorry we took so long." "No worries. I was getting hungry anyway. Makes dinner easy for the night." "So, spill it. What's this super secret project you've been goin' on about?" "I'll pull it up while we eat. Come on." They returned to Twilight's room, shutting the door behind them once more. Instead of the TV and consoles, she approached the computer. She opened a file under the name 37,000. "I've been developing a fan game based on the Powerpuff Girls cartoon. I used to watch it with Spike when he was little. It helped keep him distracted when I was studying sometimes." Rarity giggled. "It seems my little Spikey-Wikey has a feminine side after all." Spike shrugged. "Used to watch Sailor Moon, too," the dragon admitted freely, "It's part of how I got into anime." "Of course, I assume you all know by now there's more to the story here than there was to the series. It really starts with the name itself." "The name?" Rainbow inquired curiously. "It's a reference to the projected number of days in a human being's lifespan. Based on their biological structure and assuming they would've evolved to modern standards, they would live to be around thirty-seven thousand days old, or one hundred years in layman's terms." "We have the same age range," Rainbow noted, "That's spooky." "The thing to note here is that the girls aren't normal humans. They were about eleven or twelve by the end of the series, but they still looked five, and they attended the same kindergarten for the entire series' run. Bet you can guess what that means." "They age a lot slower." "By my calculations, it would take about sixty-four years before their first growth spurts: sixty-four years before any noticeable changes would occur." "But that means they could live to be hundreds of years old!" "And that's what this game is all about: mortality." "How's this gonna work?" "You have to look at it from a perspective where they behave like us with complex thoughts and emotions. We know Blossom is intelligent and studious. She has a level of foresight most children don't have, and she would likely tutor her sisters in their spare time." "I get where you're going. Let's boot this bad boy up." Twilight pressed the start key. A brief list of choices emerged: New Game, Load, and Options. "I included options for the music and sound effects volumes and the controls. The default controls are set to my preferences, but you can change them when I send you your copies." "Sweet." "The fortunate thing about the cartoon is that the art style translates well to 16-bit graphics, so I was able to focus more on visual effects, gameplay, and sound design without taking up too much storage." "You already optimized everything?" "I worked non-stop until it was finished. You can ask Spike how many cups of coffee I downed." "I can imagine." "Anyway, I'm digressing. I'm gonna hit new game. When I do, a list of difficulties will show up. They each have unique titles relating to the game's plot. Easy mode is called Life, Normal is Support, Hard is Flat Line, and Ultra Hard is Creation." "This game's gonna make me sad, isn't it?" "That's part of why I rushed to get it done. It's the middle of winter when Seasonal Affective Disorder affects the largest number of people. It's a common form of depression that flares up or dies down based on the time of year. Combine that with being more reclusive and introspective during cold weather, you have a game many will relate to." "So your target demographic is depressed folks? Sounds kinda messed up." "It does until you unlock Creation mode." "How come?" "You'll see when we get there. For now, let's start on Life mode." "You're the boss." Twilight started the game on Easy difficulty. The music continued through the loading process. "I'm really digging the soundtrack so far. Nice and peaceful." "I saved some heavier stuff for the endgame when the story's at the height of its intensity." "Makes sense. Don't wanna start off makin' the player anxious." "Right, but I didn't want to lie and trick them into thinking this was gonna be cute and fluffy. That's why I gave Blossom's avatar picture a new casual outfit for the menu instead of her usual uniform." "I'm assuming you get new clothes at some point for all of them?" "Right at the start of the game." "Why did you wanna make something dark and gritty out of a kiddy cartoon, anyway?" "You can thank Top Dollar from The Crow for that." "'Childhood's over the moment you know you're gonna die.'" "You remembered." "That kinda delivery sticks with ya. He nailed that bit." "You'll see all kinds of influences as the game progresses. There was an interview with the singer of Zao a while back where he talks about his conversion to religion because of things that were going on in his life. You could see how defeated he felt." "The thousand-yard stare." A name input screen appeared for each character. Unlike their previous sessions, Twilight kept the default names. Author's Note Where blood and fire bring rest. Growing Up (Interlude: Part 2)The story began with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup getting ready for school. That was where the normalcy ended. The cutscene followed the girls to the kitchen, where they expected the professor to be waiting. He wasn't there. The game took Twilight's trademark dark turn when they went to check his room. "He's dead!?" Rainbow cracked. "Natural causes. One of the most unexpected ways to go. There weren't many clues to his age in the cartoon, but he was almost fifty years old." "How did you even figure that out!?" "The episode Get Back Jojo. He was eight years old in 1959. Add thirty-nine years and you get the beginning of the series in 1998." "That's insane!" "If you converted that to real time, he'd be fifty-three now." "Holy crap..." The music from the title screen began to play. Rainbow read through the dialogue intently. "Guess we can drop the act now..." Buttercup said somberly. "They were expecting this?" Rainbow questioned. "I told you Blossom possessed tremendous foresight. She was well aware he could go at any time for any reason. That's not the kind of thing you can keep from your siblings for too long. Friends, family, teachers, they all fade away with time. The question is, what do we do when it happens. Keep reading." "Jesus Christ, this is horrifying!" "That's the intended purpose. Real life's scarier than any horror movie if you ask me." "You're not wrong, but damn. We just started and I already feel like shit." "We got the biggest shock out of the way early. Now we can concentrate on the game. There's a few twists and turns I think you'll find rather fascinating." Twilight gained control of Blossom's avatar. "We can change clothes now." Twilight used her keyboard to guide Blossom back up the stairs. She approached the closet by the southern wall. "How long did it take to design the stages?" "Not long after I binged the show. I made detailed notes of where each building was located and improvised stores for items, weapons, and accessories. I took influence from Shadow Hearts and gave the player three accessory slots instead of just one." "What kind of weapons are there?" "Blossom uses swords, Bubbles uses staves, and Buttercup uses guns: a reference to DoomGuy's version in Mugen. You can even fight bare-fisted if you want. I'll show you how combat works after I collect our gear." Twilight located the Toy Staff for Bubbles in the toy box, a rolling pin for Blossom, and a nine millimeter pistol in the professor's room. "I did something a little sneaky and put a side-quest here. If you examine the professor's body, you'll bury him in the back yard. Blossom will take the key to his lab where you can stock up on a few healing items and a new piece of armor for Buttercup." "Does the armor change your look in battle?" "Nah. I prefer the aesthetic of hoodies and jeans over fantasy armor. It's solely for defense and evasion. The only thing that changes are weapons" "Fair enough." "Anyway, now that that's out of the way, let's get out of this hellhole." "Agreed. I'm gettin' chills just thinkin' about the plot." Twilight exited the former home of the powerpuff girls. "You can see the enemies on the map?" "Yeah. Figured it'd be less frustrating if you could avoid battles at will like in Chrono Trigger and newer versions of Dragon Quest." "Speaking of which, we should play Chrono Trigger sometime." "It's already on my bucket list." "Didn't expect any less." "Just let me open the menu real quick and get everybody geared up." "Damn. You matched up everything to their colors." "It's the same in battle. I wanted to give them each unique traits." "Seems like it worked out pretty well." "Glad you think so." After a few moments of flying, Twilight encountered their first conflict: a robot created by Mojo Jojo. "The command screen is here at the bottom. The frame is solid black while the outline changes color depending on which party member's turn it is. They're the only playable characters in the game, so I didn't have to put too much effort into it." "I just hope Bubbles' animation is better than Aerith's or Alice's. Mages always look stupid attacking." "I thought so too, so I had her do an impalement attack with the end of the staff before doing a rightward swipe. It's way more fluid and pleasing to look at than most mage animations in single-player RPGs." "I see two of the options are question marks. I know one of them's magic. What's the other?" "Summons. You can use those later on to deal heavy damage." "Sort of like FF7." "Kinda, except you don't have to attach materia to your equipment. All of your abilities are gained through leveling, side-quests, story progression, optional bosses, and weapons." "I follow you so far. What about the gauges?" "Well, there's you health which correlates to the girls' colors again. The dark blue meter is your energy, used for summons and abilities. The third gauge is taken straight from FF7, but instead of limit breaks, they're called fatalities." "Another Mortal Kombat reference." "Yep. Your fatalities change depending on what weapon you have equipped, and they build up depending on the damage you deal. In other words, the stronger you are, the easier it is to fill the gauge. Much more sensible than in FF7 where they got harder to fill as your level increased. Here, you're free to grind to your heart's content without being penalized for it." "I definitely like that feature." "One more thing. To compensate for the difficulty in Creation mode, I made them deal ten times damage instead of two like the devs did in FF7. If you're looking for a challenge, that's the mode you want. I gave the bosses skills exclusive to that difficulty specifically for replay value." "Gotcha." "The last feature I added is the ability to dodge at will. The higher your evasion and agility, the more frequently it does it automatically, but in the early game, it helps out on higher difficulties. When an enemy's about to attack you, press the D key to jump backwards." "Nifty." "Let's finish this and move on with the story." Author's Note The children cry for help. Growing Up (Interlude: Part 3)After the first battle, each of the girls gained a level. Bubbles learned a low-level cure spell to heal HP. "Should we go into town and buy some more items?" Rainbow asked. "These enemies give crap money and experience. We'll be fine until after the first boss." "Let me guess: Mojo Jojo?" "Good guess, but how much you wanna bet it's not for the reasons you think?" "Probably not." "When we get to level four, we can start upgrading each girl via skill points. Unlike Dragon Quest, you can max them out without too much trouble." "How do you save?" "Glad you asked. We took some inspiration from Spike's comics and made the save points blue glowing lights filled with spiritual energy. They expand when you walk into them and contract when you leave." "Hell yeah." "There are two entrances to Mojo's observatory. The first takes you directly to Mojo. The second is on the side of the volcano. It's a bit more dangerous, but there's an upgraded weapon for Blossom there." "Which one?" "The rusted sword." "Getting her a real weapon, eh?" "I programmed the enemies to always drop items to cut down on the frustration of grinding. Right now they're only dropping weak healing items, but later on we'll get some really powerful stuff." "Lookin' forward to it." Twilight made her way through the volcano, quickly reaching the observatory where Mojo lied in wait. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup told him of the professor's passing, and their intentions thereafter. He challenged them to test their skills. "This is pretty sobering," Rainbow confessed, "They were all created by the professor. It makes sense Mojo'd be upset he's gone." "I originally thought about having him ask the girls to kill him, but in the end I decided it didn't fit his character." "The fact you have any sense of self-censorship at all is nothing short of a miracle." "I even amaze myself sometimes. Don't worry, though. It all goes downhill from here." "Fun." Twilight defeated Mojo, just barely reaching level four. She put Blossom's allotted points into swords, unlocking the throat slash ability. Buttercup's went into guns, opening up the Point Blank skill. Bubbles' went into energy, granting her the Light Blast technique. Author's Note Last Words. Growing Up (Interlude: Final Part)Author's Note "Flying through space to fight a space god!" -DeathTronHammer Growing Up (Interlude: Final Part) As the game continued, Twilight collected more powerful items, equipment, and skills. Many of the side-quests revolved around the girls' allies, creative mini-games, and secret boss fights from other series', Including Maria from Spike's comics, who was necessary to defeat for Blossom's ultimate weapon: the sword of sorrow. After Mojo, the girls picked off their old foes one by one. Once again, Twilight went several days without sleep. "Guess Lucifer is the final boss." Rainbow commented. "Seems so." "Good thing you did the same thing as FF7 and gave us an accessory that doubles EXP, not to mention the enemies here give us a crap-ton already. Tack on the power, energy, and defense orbs to max out our stats and we're pretty much unstoppable." "The northern cave was a prime example of how you do a grind properly without pissing off the player. Let them level quickly and use items to further power up their characters. With all three ultimate armors, our evasion rate is 70% for each girl, which means we'll be auto-dodging most of the time at this point. Our status immunity and triple money accessories make the endgame a cakewalk." "Let's save and finish this nightmare of a game. I love it, but damn if it doesn't bring me down." Twilight engaged the final boss of the game...Or so Rainbow thought. Lucifer was extremely easy to take down with all the girls' buffs added to their characters. That was when Rainbow realized what the real story behind the scenes was. "Holy shit..." "We're going to overthrow God." "Now that right there is sympathetic villainy I can get behind." Lucifer transported Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup to the gates of heaven. After an unexpectedly heartfelt exchange of dialogue, he left them to their fates. "Here we go." Twilight hammered home. "The final battle to avenge all life on Earth." "Exciting, isn't it?" "No question." Twilight opened the battle by having the girls summon their fiery auras to further boost their power. God's punch barely registered against the awesome might of the tiny titans. One swing from blossom's sword dealt a critical blow for an easy nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine HP. In response, God attempted to inflict a flurry of status ailments. "Not gonna work." Twilight said to the screen. On Twilight's next turn, she invoked the fury of Blossom's Interdimensional slash, cutting her opponent down in every conceivable fashion. She followed up with Bubbles' Holy Barrier ability and Buttercup's Rapid Fire artillery. "You couldn't make this anymore one-sided if you tried." Rainbow chuckled. "If we were on creation mode, it'd be a different story. Remember when I stocked up on the strongest healing items I could buy? In Creation mode, we'll actually have to use them. He can remove our status protection on that difficulty." "Takin' a page from Lavos' book, I see." "My fatality gauges are full. These should finish him off." Twilight harnessed Blossom's strength first. The leader of the powerpuffs split herself into multiple incarnations, attacking across the screen at incomprehensible speeds. Bright colors flashed from Twilight's monitor. Just when it seemed like the afterimages were through with their assault, they swung their swords together, shattering them into hundreds of microscopic pieces. Each fragment thrust itself into the enemy's body, stinging him with countless particles of molten-hot death. The specters disappeared, leaving the sword to reform as though nothing had happened. "Think that's enough?" Rainbow teased. "Nope." Twilight responded assuredly. Bubbles' ultimate technique proved no less ferocious. One million lightning bolts cracked from the sky, frying her foe where he stood before drowning him in a torrential downpour of tears. The cleansing water healed the entire party to max health and energy. Finally, Buttercup took the reins, unloading thousands of rounds of ammunition between two Gatling guns before charging her opponent. She impaled him with both barrels before firing off the finishing blow. "Buttercup is every military guy's wet dream." Rainbow joked. "That sounds so wrong." "And yet I didn't know it 'til I said it. Funny how that works, ain't it?" "Yep." "I sense your inner Big Mac coming out." When the battle was over, the screen flashed repeatedly before fading to white. Without warning, the monitor cut to black, and the credits began to roll... "You know what? While we were playing, I noticed a few things that could use touching up. Give me some time to update a few things before we start Creation mode." "I'll be waiting." 37,000: Reconstruction (Interlude)Twilight opened the updated version of 37,000 for her friends to see. The artwork was cleaner and more detailed than the original, and the music was mixed to draw the player deeper in using state-of-the-art surround sound quality. "I sub-titled this as the reconstruction version of the game. I fixed the blunder where I forgot to include luck and agility orbs, and I added a bunch of new content. I even changed some of the boss music during the endgame for a darker, more depressive feel." "What'd you put in?" Rainbow asked eagerly. "You remember the masks from Shadow Hearts?" "How could I forget? They were my favorite enemies in the game. Beating their faces in felt so satisfying." "Agreed." "Is Atman in here, too?" "You can fight him right after you beat the masks." "That's badass." "I also made Sae and Yae from Fatal Frame 2 optional bosses." "Glad they're getting some love. Not many people have played the series in general." "One of the last things I added was a second form to the true final bosses in creation mode." "Bosses with an s? Who are they?" "I won't spoil it. I think you'll want to see for yourself." "How long will it take to get there?" "I've already played through Flat Line difficulty and unlocked Creation mode. I can breeze through it since I've had time to develop an optimal strategy." "Cool." "I also put in a Rowdyruff fight. We only saw them a few times in the series, and they never fought the girls at their full potential. They only had limited time to train in the cartoon. At the height of their power, it'll be a much different fight." "I figured as much." "Like with the other side-quests, you can do the new stuff at any point in the game once you get to a certain point. I always hated how FF7 and Shadow Hearts blocked off certain quests when you progressed with the story. Once you unlock the quests here, you can do them any time." "Good to know. Least we won't have to freak out if we miss anything." "Well, shall we begin?" "That's a big 10-4, partner." "That's my line." Applejack teased. Twilight began the game again. After the cutscene, she went upstairs to change the girls' clothes. She opened the menu immediately after. "Remember when you asked if there was a way to change costumes? I put that in as its own separate feature. You can change into Halloween costumes, their classic uniforms, their story clothes, and a bunch of others once you unlock them." "Did you put in goth costumes?" Rainbow questioned, knowing full-well what Twilight's response would likely be. "Of course." "Nice." The difficulty during the early game was surprisingly intense. The enemies moved faster, making it harder to time dodges. Despite this, Twilight quickly adapted and proceeded with the story as normal. This time, however, there was one major change. The Gangreen Gang and Princess were spared - offered one last chance to redeem themselves. After witnessing the girls' true potential in their depressed state, they couldn't help but oblige. "Ace is the oldest of the minor protagonists," Twilight explained, "He was seventeen in the series, so I decided the girls should give them a chance to turn their lives around before the end of the game. It's kind of redundant, but I didn't want them to seem heartless." "Good point. Having anti-villain protagonists show mercy makes them more sympathetic." Rainbow concurred. "Now that you brought it up, I've never seen a game where you play as an anti-villain. It's usually conventional or anti-heroes." "Probably 'cause they're hard to write. They behave like real people. All of us would fight to make the world a better place, even if we had to use questionable methods to do it. In this case, we're killing the worst criminals in Townsville before committing suicide to fight Satan and God. Now that I'm hearing it, this all plays into the true final battle of the game, doesn't it?" "You got it." "The main difference between The Crow and this game is that Eric's motive was purely revenge-driven. He wasn't really concerned with the overall well-being of the city. Here, the girls are trying to change the whole world. It's a much grander scenario and what separates anti-heroes from anti-villains. We're committing murder now specifically to prevent further tragedy in the future." "We'll be able to atone soon enough. Just a little longer." "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get moving!" Twilight nodded. The true endgame bosses were revealed to be the girls' darker halves. In order to take God's place and rebuild the universe, they had to come to terms with their selfish desires and discard them, for only those truly just would gain the power to reshape existence in their image. "Now I know what you meant by atonement," Rainbow remarked, "We killed the girls' old foes to save Townsville, but it came at the cost of their faith and their sanity. Now we've gotta bring the bad guys back and give 'em another shot at life." "This battle is one of penance," Twilight replied, "We're often our own worst enemies." "Why do I get the feeling this is gonna be exceptionally brutal?" The girls' inner demons opened with a status technique, Breath and Bone. It removed all the girls' defenses and buffs, only leaving their base stats intact. "Fuck." "They have two main attacks they'll use: Soul Crush and Eternal Darkness. Soul Crush takes your entire party down to 1 HP, but won't kill you. Eternal Darkness deals exactly 4,999 damage. Neither attack can be dodged. Maxing out your stats is crucial to winning this fight." "So what's the strategy?" "Having maxed out HP is the first step. The dangerous part is if they get the chance to combine both attacks for a combo. That's a guaranteed game over. The only way to circumvent this is having max health and agility." "Agility determines turn order." "Exactly. That's why I made Megalixers cure status ailments in addition to healing the entire party for max health and energy. That's what all the farming was about earlier." "I know you. You put some back door bullshit in to cheese this fight, didn't you?" "Ya got me. Here's the trick. Take your turn first, then wait for them to attack. While you're healing and whittling down their health, your fatality gauges will build. Wait until all three girls' gauges are filled, then let them cast Soul Crush on you. When you press the command button, a new team fatality will replace the individual ones. It's called Emotional Breakdown, and it's by far the strongest fatality in the game." "You mean we've had a secret fatality this whole game and you're just now showing us this?" "It would've been almost impossible to do in any other battle. All three girls have to be at one HP to use it." "So it's kinda like a desperation attack." "That's exactly what it is. Just remember to have a megalixer lined up during Bubbles' or Buttercup's turn. It'll take a few uses to take 'em down." "I'll keep a note on the fridge." Twilight chuckled. Following her own advice, Twilight fulfilled the conditions to unlock the Emotional Breakdown ability. Once she pressed the command button, a chaotic, grief-fueled firestorm erupted. Bubbles summoned a tornado that encompassed the entire screen. Millions of lightning strikes rained down upon the girls' malevolent counterparts. Blossom rushed forward, randomly teleporting between opponents and slashing through them with all her strength. Buttercup joined in with her double Gatling guns, unloading round after round into the evil that once festered within herself and her sisters. "Holy shit! Your health's regenerating!" "I completely forgot I put that effect in here. Still, the megalixers will help with the status ailments." "How much damage are you doing!?" "I believe the damage caps out at 159,984 - the same amount Cloud does to Sephiroth if you manage to deal max damage every attack. The only difference is, it damages all three of the girls' counterparts." "How much is that in total?" "479,952." "Jesus Christ...!" "'Jesus Christ walks into a hotel.'" Rainbow smiled. "'He hands the innkeeper three nails and he asks...'" The two equines finished the line together. "'Can you put me up for the night?'" The second phase of the fight saw the girls' other selves merge using the potara earrings from Dragon Ball Z. "Never seen a three-way fusion before," Rainbow admitted, "Now that I have, I love the idea." "This boss can take away two thirds of your party's health with a single attack. Keep your megalixers ready and use your strongest attacks." "Can you use Emotional Breakdown again?" "Only when she gets down to 25% HP. She'll cast a spell called Void of Consumption. That's when you'll be able to finish her off, and it looks like we're just about there." After a few minutes, the newly-formed entity, titled Gospel, unleashed her void attack: a massive black ball that expanded on the girls' side of the screen. With the girls down to their last bit of HP, the game was officially over. "You remember how in the original ending, the screen faded to white and randomly cut to black without another scene playing?" Twilight inquired. "Yeah. Probably the shittiest ending ever." "The implication was that the universe ceased to exist. All the hell we went through on this mode was for the real ending. Little by little, the stars and planets will start to reform. The power to remake and improve humanity is at their disposal now, and I don't mean in a vague spiritual sense. They're literally manipulating sub-atomic structures to re-write genetic code." "Holy balls! That's insane!" The final screen of the game showed a futuristic, yet modern and lively version of Townsville. All the girls' friends and foes of the past had been reborn as kind, gentle souls. Far above the veil of space, they observed closely, marveling at the harmonious state of being they'd worked so hard to create. "Will they get to see the professor again?" "Sooner than you think." After a few more lines of dialogue, the girls departed for Earth. The final frame showed them re-introducing themselves to the professor - this time under more ideal circumstances. "I've thought about offing myself a number of times over the years," Twilight admitted, "But if there's even the smallest chance I can achieve what I've written into this game, then I have to live, and learn as much as I can about our existence. Maybe one day, I can be the benevolent goddess we're so desperately searching for. If not me, then perhaps another." "Amen to that." Rainbow responded. "Thanks for supporting me, guys. It really means a lot: more than you'll probably ever know." "It's the least we can do, after all you've done for us." "I love you guys." "Back at ya, homegirl." Everyone gathered together in a tight group hug. Author's Note Overdose. Quality Check (Interlude)A few days before Christmas, Rainbow awoke to a message from Twilight. The Alicorn had checked over 37,000's code one final time and made a few more minor improvements. "This is the definitive edition. I added a few more features to lend extra depth to the world and story. There are three new side-quests, a dash feature with the color streak from the cartoon so you can travel the map faster, a secret shop after you beat Maria, and you can learn enemy skills like in Final Fantasy 7 by using the guard command. There are numerous rare enemies and formations where you can learn brokenly overpowered skills similar to big guard and magic breath. To make things easier, they always use the learnable skill as their first attack." "Fuckin' hell. Just when you think a game can't get any better. Gimme details." "The side-quests are taken from Spike's comics. The first involves saving a woman from being tortured by an evil spirit. For the second, you have to exorcise similar spirits haunting the abandoned religious school where you fight Maria near the end of the game. The last one revolves around saving hospitalized children from having the life drained out of them. If you complete each quest in Creation mode, you'll receive three copies of a special accessory that bypasses bosses' de-buff skills. You'll have guaranteed status protection and three other accessories which will fill your fatality gauges after one attack." "What about the secret shop?" "Maria will sell you elixers and megalixers if you wanna stock up on both. They're pretty expensive, but you can easily afford it by that point if you're grinding." "I can't wait to try it." "Have fun." "Will do." Rainbow downloaded the game, booting it up after the installation finished. Once again, the artwork had been cleaned up with further attention to detail. In the options menu, a new feature was implemented to change which girl appeared on the start screen, along with a final portrait that could be unlocked via beating Creation difficulty. Rainbow selected Support mode and changed each girl's name. Blossom became Eleanor, Bubbles became Whitney, and Buttercup assumed the role of Mary. After getting a feel for the controls, she customized them to her liking. Author's Note Some Shadow Hearts gameplay. RelativityAuthor's Note Relativity For their next game, Twilight and the others returned to official titles, starting with the original Super Nintendo port of Chrono Trigger. "The plot's pretty straightforward. There's an evil creature living in Earth's core called Lavos. The twist is that you have to weaken him by traveling through different time periods. Like I mentioned before, he can remove your status protection, which is a real pain in the ass if you're unprepared. He tries to trick you during the final fight by making you think the center's his core, but it's actually one of the small extensions on the right side of the screen. Really fucked with my head the first time I played through the game. There's a port for PS1, but the loading times are God-awful. They didn't even add anything new." "That was the thing with PS1 games," Rainbow replied, "The load times were ridiculous. Even during good games they were frustrating as all hell." "Fortunately, I have nothing but time on my hooves these days. Kinda funny how trivial minor gripes seem when you have time to put up with them." "How's the combat work?" "It uses an ATB system like Final Fantasy. Your special skills are called Techs. You learn them by gaining tech points through fighting. What makes Techs unique are the varying types. You can do a solo, dual, or triple tech. The dual and triple techs you can use depend on your party members and what techs they know. Some of them can get stupidly overpowered, especially when you're farming power tabs, which work like source and seal items." "Sounds pretty cut n' dry." "It is, but it's pretty fun. It's colorful and has a wide variety of music. The art was made the guy who wrote DBZ." "Just like Dragon Quest." "Dude's had an illustrious career." "No kidding." "This one's only about a quarter of the length of Final Fantasy 7. I beat it in twenty hours my first time. These days I can shave between two to three hours off if I have a guide on-hoof. Speaking of which, I'll go ahead and pull one up." Twilight used her magic to open a search tab on her computer. "One thing to note is that the game has fifteen different endings. You can get them by skipping ahead to Lavos at various points. I wouldn't recommend it though. He's one of the trickier bosses in RPG history as I've already pointed out. I usually go for the perfect ending. To get it, you have to do a recurring side-quest where you feed your cat at Crono's house. It's tedious, but worth it in the long run." "Fifteen endings? Jesus Christ." "He's just gonna keep goin' to that same hotel, isn't he?" "Guess so." KaiserThe next series on the list turned out to be one of Spike's favorite: Breath of Fire. "The lore follows a dragon named Ryu who can take on human form," Twilight explained, "The original never made it clear whether he was a full-fledged dragon or a hybrid. In the sequels, it's assumed his reincarnations are half dragon, half bird because of the second game's story. The first two games on Super Nintendo were fairly straightforward and linear. The third one came out on PS1 and introduced new battle formations and a mastery mechanic where you can learn spells from sages you find throughout. Some are easier to find than others." "Don't forget about the gene system." Spike reminded. "Oh, yeah. You can combine different genes you find across the world. The most powerful combination is called Ultimate Kaiser. It makes you between three to four times stronger and turns Ryu's hair gold like a super saiyan." "Sounds pretty powerful." Rainbow replied. "The first time we played, I killed one of the mini bosses in two hits." "Sounds about right." "There are items you can use to increase your stats, but by the end of the game, they're not really worth getting. Your stats can technically go up to 999, but they stop influencing battles around 300. The only ones it helps to collect at that point are HP and Magic shards. Magic shards in particular will be the most useful. Combining ultimate Kaiser with the Focus and Shadow Walk skills takes up a ton of AP, but it's worth the trade-off because you can deal upwards of ten thousand damage every attack if you know what you're doing." "What's the strongest gear you can get?" "The Goo King Sword and the Life Armor. The Goo King sword is a rare drop from gold Goo Kings, but it's not really worth getting. The encounter rate is completely random, and you only have a 1 in 256 chance of getting it. You're better off just stealing the Dragon Sword from Teepo and leaving it at that. The Life Armor is a lot easier to get. You just have to follow a specific path in the desert of death. Once you equip it, it'll heal you while you're walking on the overworld screen." "Sounds pretty useful." "It's worth picking up, but not really necessary. Status ailment protection is still the most important factor." "Are there any grinding tricks?" "Each game has its own variation. In the first one, you have to fight giant gold slimes called M. Slimes. The second game has a spot called monster island where you fight gargantuan versions of monsters from the world map. The third and fourth games are a bit trickier. You have to power up specific enemies and use a skill called Monopolize so one character reaps all the experience." "It's divided between party members? Aw, that's so gay!" "Yeah, but it's not too bad if you know how to work around it." "Well, I'll let you do your thing. At least getting through all four games should take a while." "Yeah." What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 1)After catching up on sleep, Twilight began development of a new project. Unlike her previous foray, this one was unique. It was, for all intents and purposes, completely original. "This one's based on a novel I never finished," she revealed, "I started writing it back in 2001, but I never got around to completing it. It was titled Conspiracy of the Angels, named after the song by Sevin." "Oh, yeah! I remember that one," Rainbow acknowledged, "That was one of the songs I found on your playlist back in high school!" Twilight strolled toward her computer, continuing her explanation. "The concept was a love story between a mortal earth pony and an angel created by God. The earth pony was named Harmonic as a reference to musical harmonies. The first couple chapters followed his development from colt to stallion while alluding to his connection with Atmospheric." "Atmospheric's the angel I assume?" "Yeah. I remember I was obsessed with Blood: The Last Vampire and Phantom of Inferno. My main goal was to write something compelling without all the angst and tragedy. Sometimes less is more, ya know? You can write something impactful without being melodramatic about it. The main focus was always the romance. Everything else was just for the sake of building an interesting world." "You ain't goin' boy band power of love bullshit on me, are ya?" "Back to the Future did it without boy bands, didn't it?" "True." "The whiniest it gets is a passing mention of alienation by Harmonic, not knowing where he fit in or what his purpose in life was. That's something I think speaks to all types of people, not just hormonal teens." "Fair enough. Why don't ya fire it up so we can see what it's all about?" "Roger." "Polly." Twilight grinned. "Smartass." "Better than bein' a dumbass." "Depends on who ya ask." Twilight opened the file containing the game. The title screen art showed an angel with with white fur stroking a black stallion's mane by a campfire. "Damn! They're both smokin' hot!" "As you can see, there's the usual three menu options. Just like last time, you can set the sound effects and music volumes individually. Custom controls are available again, too. I didn't include custom title art like last time, but i did put in a gallery you can unlock after beating the game." "Did you program a difficulty selection like last time?" "Of course. Appealing to all skill levels is part of what makes a game marketable." "Wait...Are you actually gonna release this one!?" "I'm considering it, but there's something I'll have to remove before I can." Rainbow's face twisted in confusion. "What?" "You'll see." Twilight selected New Game. "The difficulties are named after stuff in the game again. Easy is Mortal, Normal is Spirit, Hard is Insidious, and Ultra Hard is Seraph. In religious texts, seraphs belong to the highest class of angel. Obviously, Atmospheric is a pop culture interpretation of what angels in general look like, but you get the idea." "I'm guessing you have to beat Insidious to unlock Seraph mode?" "Yeah, but there's not much incentive to beat Seraph mode other than challenge. Unlike 37,000, there's only one final boss and ending you can get. I thought about adding multiple endings and even separate stories, but I figured a singular experience would be enough for a story like this." "I'm kinda disappointed. I was hoping there'd be more replay value." "Technically, there is, but that's what I'll have to remove if I decide to release it for other players. Our versions will be a bit...Special." "Still not sure what you're getting at, but I'll roll with it 'til we find out." "Trust me. It'll be one hell of a surprise." "If you say so." Twilight began the game. Just like the others the group had played so far, a custom name input screen appeared. What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 2)The game opened with a line of narration text from Harmonic's point of view. At the tender age of two, he had his first dream about Atmospheric. Of course, he didn't know who she was or that she existed in the first place. "There are a few changes I made compared to the novel. I originally opened with Atmospheric's creation, which was actually happening as he was dreaming, but I left the details on her end out here so they would come as a surprise later. The other change was a major plot point. I planned to have her take a job as a teacher so she could get close to him, but I think you know why I scrapped that." "You mean the news headlines where teachers were being exposed for molestation and statutory rape." "Yeah. I didn't want her coming off as a groomer." "How'd you get around it?" "I had her enroll as a senior at the same high school Harmonic's brother goes to. She befriended him and met Harmonic for the first time at the start of the school year. That's where she had the chance to learn about him and what his life was like. Obviously, he doesn't have a developed personality here. He's a toddler at this point in the story, but he does recognize her." "This is where it diverges from other RPG love stories." "Yeah. Most relationships develop over a short period of time. Here, there's a pre-established history of friendship and trust. Her influence is part of what shapes him into who he becomes." "Least he's in good hooves." "The story and graphics share some similarities with Breath of Fire 2. The character models are really small and basic in the overworld. During combat the art style is way more detailed. Later on when the story picks up, you'll see custom art pieces that resemble realistic characters and environments. That's where the gallery comes in." "Gotcha." When the prologue was over, a time skip of twenty-one years occurred. "This scene is fairly lengthy, but the gist of it is, Atmospheric tells Harmonic the truth about who she is and why she was created. There's an army of creatures with no name and a vague description. From what Atmospheric was told, they're as old as God himself. Their goal is to gradually snuff out all life on Equestria. Their main method of achieving this is asphyxiation via smoke inhalation." "Cue papa roach." "Haha. Very funny." "I thought you said this wasn't gonna be all doom and gloom." "It's not. Atmospheric's training is almost complete. This is where our first objective comes in. We have to find Lucifer and learn about the battle system." "Isn't it just your typical turn-based style?" "For the most part. We just have to go over the parry mechanic and pick up a healing spell." Twilight opened the menu screen. "This is pretty much your standard menu. You can equip weapons, armor, and accessories. Each character has their own unique abilities you can obtain through grinding and side quests. One thing to note is that Harmonic uses a street fighting style, so he can't actually equip any weapons. To compensate, his accuracy, luck, and strength get massive boosts every time he levels up. In contrast, Atmospheric uses swords. Her strength is increased by getting better ones and farming trinity items to boost everyone's stats." "Sounds simple enough." "I'll go ahead and save real quick." Twilight approached the save point. It was the same style she'd used in 37,000: a column of deep blue light enveloped by spiritual energy. What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 3)Author's Note Just a quick warning. There's a passing mention of sex in this and the next chapter. If you're uncomfortable with such subjects, feel free to skip them. As a side note, Rainbow's opinion on Bride of Chucky doesn't reflect my own. I'm really just indifferent towards it. What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 3) During the tutorial, Twilight demonstrated how to parry enemy attacks. "It's pretty much the same as the dodge mechanic in 37,000. The only differences are, instead of D, you press the P key when they're about to attack, and you do a retaliatory strike in return." "You should add that feature to 37,000. It'd make the combat even more engaging." "Yeah. I can do that. Sort of like a special edition. I'll see if there's anything else I can add, too." "Sweet." After the battle, Twilight was given the option to change Lucifer's name. She kept the default for her first run. "One of the things I kept from the novel were the four original angels. Atmospheric is the fourth. The other three are Lucifer, Michael, and Azazel." "Literal holy hell." "Pretty much." "Can we get 'em in the party?" "Of course." "I'm on board." "Lucifer uses swords like Atmospheric, but his are a bit more stylized to fit his bad boy streak. Michael's extremely skilled with lances, and Azazel's adept with battle axes." "Nice choices." "Now that we know the basics of the battle system, we can move on with the game." After the prologue, the game proved relatively straightforward. There were a few side-quests spread throughout, but the main focus remained centered on the story. It was the scene before the final stretch that threw Rainbow and the others off. "Wait a minute...Are they about to...!?" "To put it in Supernatural terms, he's gettin' himself a slice of angel food cake." "At least he had the presence of mind to propose before they got busy. You know how awkward it is to have that happen during sex?" "Do you?" "Well...No, but I've been told that's not something other chicks are into." "Fair enough, but ya gotta remember, there are exceptions to every rule." "I guess." "This is where it gets really fun." The next scene showed one of the art pieces Twilight imported to the engine. Atmospheric's jacket had changed from her fur's snow white color to the nightshade black of her fiancé. Her lips were coated in a similar shade. She was smoking a cigarette under a tree, smiling. Rainbow verbally noted the drastic shift. "I'm no Star Swirl, but I'm pretty sure she just pulled a complete one-eighty." "This is the sort of thing both erotica and regular romance novels often leave out. I've got nothing against casual hook-ups, but I'd imagine fucking somebody you love is on a whole other level. Nobody really talks about the differences between the two. Ironically, I got the idea from Bride of Chucky." "Ew! Are you serious!? That movie sucked!" "I know, but even crappy movies usually have at least one silver lining." "If you say so. As for me, I wouldn't touch it with a hundred-yard pole." "So you're saying she didn't just go from Habanero sauce to Dragon's Breath pepper?" "She's fucking gorgeous! I just can't believe something good came out of that stain on cinema." "Lucifer will give her her ultimate weapon before the cutscenes over. She'll get the dual swords whoch attack two times when she parries. One was created by Lucifer as a gift. The other belonged to Harmonic's brother. He swiped it before they left the city. Now that we're at the end, Atmospheric's fighting style will be a lot more aggressive and flashy. She'll learn a tag team skill she and Harmonic can use if they're both in your party." "Are we almost at the final boss?" "Yep. Just one more save point and we'll be there." "Good thing we stocked up on megalixers." "We won't really need too many since we're on easy, but they'll come in handy on higher difficulties. The boss can't remove status protection, but it deals a lot of damage on hard mode, especially ultra hard. I'd recommend having one ready every other turn." "I hear ya loud and clear." Twilight stretched back in her chair, loosening her limbs for the final confrontation. "Well, without further ado, let's kill this assface." What It's Like to Feel Loved (Final Part)Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.Rage (Interlude)Author's Note Made the mistake of trying to play Dragon Quarter again. I implore you all not to torture yourselves with that piece of shit. Grinding did not help at all. Rage (Interlude) Twilight placed the controller on the ground with a face that betrayed tranquil fury. After completing the first four Breath of Fire games, she'd figured her skills had improved enough to give Dragon Quarter another shot. As it turned out, the game was just as needlessly difficult as she remembered. She strolled over to her bedroom wall and proceeded to slam her head against it repeatedly. "Fuck. This. Fucking. Piece. Of. Shit. Game. Why. Is. It. So. Goddamn. Hard. Fuck." "How far'd ya get this time?" Spike questioned. "I just got Nina in my party and died to Spiders." Twilight resumed bashing her head against the construction material. "Why don't you just make another game like you did with the Powerpuff Girls thing?" Twilight ceased the assault on her surprisingly durable skull. "You know what? That's not a bad idea actually, and I know just where to start."
To the LimitAuthor's Note This is just me sharing my thoughts on games among other things. There's no Japan in Equestria, so I just stuck with the general concept of turn-based RPGs being from eastern countries. To the Limit Twilight opened the door for her friends. The familiar waves of melodic metalcore pervaded their ears. "Hey, guys." Twilight greeted tenderly. "'sup, bitch." Rainbow replied in a cheeky tone. Twilight's expression shifted to a half-hearted smile. She further opened the door to allow the others inside. "Come on in." The girls obliged. Rarity nuzzled Spike when the two were close enough to make contact. "Looks like it's gonna rain soon." Rainbow noted. "Guess it's a good thing I called when I did." Twilight acknowledged. Rainbow raised a brow. "You okay? You sound kinda...Down." "Some days are better than others." "Ah..." "Anyway, you guys wanna order the food before we get started?" "Sure." Rainbow dialed the pizza shop where she and the others originally met Twilight. Twilight offered to pay for individual pizzas tailored to everyone's specific preferences. While they waited, Twilight led them to her room. The shelves had recently been set up to organize her games. "You guys know I have a pretty balanced collection, but I tend to prefer RPGs. With how much time you can sink into 'em, it feels like you're getting your money's worth, and there's always something new to find." "How many hours have you spent on these?" Rainbow inquired. "Thousands, especially Final Fantasy X." "You really are a nerd." "I was a shut-in during high school and college. Aside from that and exercise, I didn't really do much but listen to music and play games." "What are your favorites?" "It's a tie between Final Fantasy 7 and Shadow Hearts." "Never played those, but they looked fun as hell." Twilight levitated copies of each game for the girls to see. "These were the games that made me realize how much I fucking hated the education system. It's broken and outdated beyond belief. I wanted to make stuff like this, but I had to learn coding on my own because no one cared enough to teach me. With how much math is involved, it would've been an extremely effective way to boost my grade." "Yeah. Common core is bullshit." "You can say that again." "What's with the bulky packaging?" "Funny you should mention that. The packaging was one of the things that made me want to play Final Fantasy in the first place. The game's split into three discs. With that much space available, you can put in a shitload of content. Shadow Hearts was supposed to be put onto four discs, but when the PS2 came out, they improved the graphics a bit and put everything together on one." "Imagine if they'd made extra post-game content on a second disc." "Don't tease me like that. It's hard enough to keep sheets clean as it is." "Hah! Gross." The pizza arrived just as they finished their conversation. Rainbow and Twilight carried the pizzas back to the room. Twilight closed the door behind them, simultaneously using her magic to turn on the heater. "Damn, this smells good." Rainbow commented. "I'll get the game ready." Twilight opened the tray of her PlayStation. She inserted the first disc of Final Fantasy 7 and booted up the system. "I don't know whether it was time constraints or if they didn't want to spoil the game, but there's no opening movie. It's just credits for the developers." "They probably wanted to conserve the budget for the game itself. Pre-rendered cutscenes cost a shit-ton to make." "Huh. I never thought of it that way. There are a few pre-rendered ones in the game, but they're few and far between. They were pretty much pushing the boundaries of what was possible in terms of graphics at the time." "How much space does the game file take up, anyway?" "A little over a gig." "For real? Damn. If it's that good with that little space, the rest of the industry needs to step their game up: no pun intended." "This was the most expensive game ever made when it came out in '97. It cost around forty-five million bits to develop." "Jesus Christ. That'd probably put a decent dent in your net worth." "Not really." Rainbow's jaw dropped. "Money's no obstacle for me. If I had to go through almost two decades of school, I was gonna get rich off it. Fortunately, circumstance was on my side." "You'll have to teach me your secret." "Sure. I don't mind." "Sweet." Twilight pressed New Game. After a brief cutscene, a name entry screen appeared. "This is one of the features I wish developers would've kept. You can't name your characters in games like this anymore." "Why?" "Voice acting." "Well, that blows." "I'd rather read text if that's the trade-off. Removing it as an option takes away from the player's investment in the story." "I hear ya." "Hope you guys are ready to stick around for a few days. Once I get sucked in, I'm focused for the long haul." "Fine by us." "Excellent. Let's do this!" Twilight played for three days straight without sleep, only pausing for food and restroom breaks. The others rested between grinding sessions. By the time they reached the northern crater, Twilight's party was level ninety-nine with maxed out stats via source farming. "We're almost at Sephiroth." "Holy hell. No wonder you're so into this game." "The gradual shift in tone to something more insidious really hits you by the end. It's not something you see very often." "I imagine Shadow Hearts is the same way?" "No, actually. It's dark and gritty right off the bat. There's a strong horror influence I've only seen in one other game." "Which one?" "Parasite Eve." "You must've had a roster lined up for a while." "I always try to plan ahead." "That's a pretty useful strategy to have on hoof." "Agreed." During the final showdown between Cloud and Sephiroth, Rainbow noticed something peculiar about the limit bar. "It's filling by itself!?" "This is probably the most unique part of the game, and something I haven't seen in any RPG since. Think about it: if someone betrayed your trust and ruined your life multiple times over, you'd be pretty pissed too, right? That's what Cloud was hinting at in the tutorial. He outright says limit gauges build the angrier you get. Now we get to see the most gratifying part." When the limit gauge was full, a new technique Twilight had intentionally ignored appeared on-screen: the legendary Omnislash. She selected the attack, and everyone in the room gazed in awe of its sheer destructive might...
Star ShapeA week after completing Final Fantasy 7, Rainbow and the rest of the girls reconvened with Twilight to knock off the next game on their bucket list: Shadow Hearts. "What's for dinner?" Rainbow asked. "Chili cheese dogs." Twilight replied jovially. "You been playin' Sonic?" "Nah. Not really my type of game." "Fair enough. So what can we expect from Shadow Hearts?" "It's probably the goriest RPG in the genre. Also, ghosts attack you with their dicks." "Come again!?" "You heard what you think you heard." "Ugh! God! That's fuckin' gnarly!" "Most of the enemies consist of zombies, ghosts, and demons. It's a lot more biblical than most games. Even the angels are based on biblically accurate descriptions." "That's insane." "You have no idea." "Sounds like it's gonna be one hell of a journey." "It will be - trust me." After dinner, Twilight booted up the game. The opening cutscene left a lasting impression on Rainbow. "Did he just regenerate his severed arm!?" "Pretty badass, right?" "No kidding!" "That's just the beginning." After the boss fight, the second pre-rendered cutscene played. "Did he just punch through his skull!?" "Payback for being tossed around on the train." Rainbow pulled her mane back in a mixture of shock and amazement. "Holy shit! This is awesome!" "Unfortunately, things won't really get good again until the second half of the game. There's another guy we have to take care of first before we get rid of Bacon." "Oh, come on! All that build-up just to have to wait!?" "It'll be worth it." "If you say so." By the second act, Bacon's true identity had been revealed as cardinal Albert Simon. "So he wants to get back at the church because they condemned him for his progressive ideology?" "Basically sums it up. He wants to summon God to cleanse the earth. God's actually an alien in this game, so it kinda plays off a similar theme to Final Fantasy 7." "You said there were two more fusions we could get?" "Amon and the Seraphic Radiance. They're the most powerful transformations in the game." "You probably won't even need them at max level." "Not really, but I just like being overpowered." "Makes sense. You've already put this much time into it. May as well go all the way." "The Serpahic Radiance has an attack the deals max damage every time. It really speeds up the last few battles." "How much HP does the final boss have?" "Twelve thousand. Not very much at all compared to FF7 bosses." "Guess by this point the devs figured you'd wanna finish the game." "Before we do, there's one more thing I have to do. There's two endings you can get: the normal ending and the good ending." "Does it have to do with those creepy ass masks?" "How'd you guess?" "Figured there had to be a reason the malice meter was still increasing." "Not bad. You're pretty sharp." "No more talk. I wanna see the ending." "You're the boss." Through a combination of the monk earrings and seal farming, Twilight managed to max out Yuri's stats in the final dungeon. "Unfortunately, there's no way to max out every character without hacks. Yuri was already the strongest, so I figured beefing him up would be our best bet." "Good call." "Anyway, let's go kill God." "That quote must've predicted this game." "Probably." During the final battle, the topic diverged. "Ya know, the reason bosses always lose is because they never stock up on items." Rainbow pointed out. "That's a good point. Wonder why they never think to save up like us to even the playing field." "Overconfidence, probably." "Yeah." When the battle was over, the group waited for the post-credits scene. With the conditions for the good ending met, Alice survived the masks' curse. "There's a sequel called Shadow Hearts: Covenant that continues the story after the bad ending, but I didn't care for it as much. It's a good game, but they kind of abandoned the horror aspect. It wasn't as grim and depressing as this one, plus you can't name your characters anymore." "You're really stuck on that, huh?" "Yeah. It just really bums me out." "I feel ya." "Anyway, you've seen the game. Guess we'll have to move on next time." "Parasite Eve, right?" "Yeah. That one has more of a sci-fi element to it." "Sounds interesting. Lookin' forward to it." "Same here."
MitochondriaAuthor's Note Major spoilers if you haven't played Parasite Eve. Read at your own discretion. Mitochondria The process for the previous two games was repeated with Parasite Eve. As they went along, Twilight explained the mechanics and how they differed from other horror RPGs. "Basically, Aya is the only playable character in the game. The battle system is a combination of free motion and the ATB style from Final Fantasy. You can move around to avoid attacks and make your move when the ATB bar is full." "I follow you so far." Rainbow acknowledged. "Just like in FF7 and Shadow Hearts, you can manually upgrade Aya along with regular grinding. The only drawback is the inventory system. For some reason I guess they had to limit your space, because even at max level with the best gear, you can only hold forty-five items." "Aw, weak, dude." "It's not the worst thing in the world, but it gets tedious having to backtrack to Wayne for storage." "I'd imagine." "The story is actually a continuation of a novel under the same name. Aya and Eve's mitochondria evolve as the game progresses. We find out later that Aya and Eve's original host, Melissa, both received transplants from Aya's twin sister, Maya, who died in a car accident when she was little along with their mom." "So the parts that were transplanted determined who was good or evil?" "Not exactly. Melissa's cells were overtaken by Maya's mitochondria because Maya was the original Eve. Aya's situation more closely resembles true evolution. She was able to use Maya's power while her cells developed a defense mechanism: a theory Maeda later refers to as the selfish gene." "The lore sounds almost as complex as an MMO." "Luckily that's where the complexity stops. The devs probably knew we could only digest so much information at once." "Good thing you're fluent in nerd." "Wanna hear a joke?" "Sure." "What's a high school student's favorite subject?" "I have no idea." "Biology." "Hah! Sex." "You ever watch that movie Billy Madison?" "I love that shit. Had me in tears the whole way through." "Same here." "So what's the bonus stuff in this one?" "There's only two optional dungeons. The first is the warehouse. It's a joke if you know what you're doin'. The other is the Chrysler building on the second playthrough. The layout changes every time you go in. Getting around can be a bit frustrating, but the boss is worth it." "Figures there'd be an optional boss. Who is it?" "Maya." "And here I thought Dante had a dysfunctional family." "Just a tip I learned the hard way: Don't add any elemental abilities to your gun. She's immune." "How bad did she murder ya?" "I was only doing thirty damage each attack." "Fuckin' hell. You had to play the game four times?" "Yep. Pissed me off until I finally beat it. Felt like a weight being lifted off my shoulders." "Ruby Weapon, eat your heart out."
Growing Up (Interlude: Part 1)December's icy air settled over the city. Between the girls' gaming sessions, there was a month gap during this particular interval. The reason was that Twilight informed them of a secret project she'd been working on for quite some time. By her revelation, it was finally complete. "We picked up some hot dogs and onion rings on the way here," Rainbow revealed, "Sorry we took so long." "No worries. I was getting hungry anyway. Makes dinner easy for the night." "So, spill it. What's this super secret project you've been goin' on about?" "I'll pull it up while we eat. Come on." They returned to Twilight's room, shutting the door behind them once more. Instead of the TV and consoles, she approached the computer. She opened a file under the name 37,000. "I've been developing a fan game based on the Powerpuff Girls cartoon. I used to watch it with Spike when he was little. It helped keep him distracted when I was studying sometimes." Rarity giggled. "It seems my little Spikey-Wikey has a feminine side after all." Spike shrugged. "Used to watch Sailor Moon, too," the dragon admitted freely, "It's part of how I got into anime." "Of course, I assume you all know by now there's more to the story here than there was to the series. It really starts with the name itself." "The name?" Rainbow inquired curiously. "It's a reference to the projected number of days in a human being's lifespan. Based on their biological structure and assuming they would've evolved to modern standards, they would live to be around thirty-seven thousand days old, or one hundred years in layman's terms." "We have the same age range," Rainbow noted, "That's spooky." "The thing to note here is that the girls aren't normal humans. They were about eleven or twelve by the end of the series, but they still looked five, and they attended the same kindergarten for the entire series' run. Bet you can guess what that means." "They age a lot slower." "By my calculations, it would take about sixty-four years before their first growth spurts: sixty-four years before any noticeable changes would occur." "But that means they could live to be hundreds of years old!" "And that's what this game is all about: mortality." "How's this gonna work?" "You have to look at it from a perspective where they behave like us with complex thoughts and emotions. We know Blossom is intelligent and studious. She has a level of foresight most children don't have, and she would likely tutor her sisters in their spare time." "I get where you're going. Let's boot this bad boy up." Twilight pressed the start key. A brief list of choices emerged: New Game, Load, and Options. "I included options for the music and sound effects volumes and the controls. The default controls are set to my preferences, but you can change them when I send you your copies." "Sweet." "The fortunate thing about the cartoon is that the art style translates well to 16-bit graphics, so I was able to focus more on visual effects, gameplay, and sound design without taking up too much storage." "You already optimized everything?" "I worked non-stop until it was finished. You can ask Spike how many cups of coffee I downed." "I can imagine." "Anyway, I'm digressing. I'm gonna hit new game. When I do, a list of difficulties will show up. They each have unique titles relating to the game's plot. Easy mode is called Life, Normal is Support, Hard is Flat Line, and Ultra Hard is Creation." "This game's gonna make me sad, isn't it?" "That's part of why I rushed to get it done. It's the middle of winter when Seasonal Affective Disorder affects the largest number of people. It's a common form of depression that flares up or dies down based on the time of year. Combine that with being more reclusive and introspective during cold weather, you have a game many will relate to." "So your target demographic is depressed folks? Sounds kinda messed up." "It does until you unlock Creation mode." "How come?" "You'll see when we get there. For now, let's start on Life mode." "You're the boss." Twilight started the game on Easy difficulty. The music continued through the loading process. "I'm really digging the soundtrack so far. Nice and peaceful." "I saved some heavier stuff for the endgame when the story's at the height of its intensity." "Makes sense. Don't wanna start off makin' the player anxious." "Right, but I didn't want to lie and trick them into thinking this was gonna be cute and fluffy. That's why I gave Blossom's avatar picture a new casual outfit for the menu instead of her usual uniform." "I'm assuming you get new clothes at some point for all of them?" "Right at the start of the game." "Why did you wanna make something dark and gritty out of a kiddy cartoon, anyway?" "You can thank Top Dollar from The Crow for that." "'Childhood's over the moment you know you're gonna die.'" "You remembered." "That kinda delivery sticks with ya. He nailed that bit." "You'll see all kinds of influences as the game progresses. There was an interview with the singer of Zao a while back where he talks about his conversion to religion because of things that were going on in his life. You could see how defeated he felt." "The thousand-yard stare." A name input screen appeared for each character. Unlike their previous sessions, Twilight kept the default names. Author's Note Where blood and fire bring rest.
Growing Up (Interlude: Part 2)The story began with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup getting ready for school. That was where the normalcy ended. The cutscene followed the girls to the kitchen, where they expected the professor to be waiting. He wasn't there. The game took Twilight's trademark dark turn when they went to check his room. "He's dead!?" Rainbow cracked. "Natural causes. One of the most unexpected ways to go. There weren't many clues to his age in the cartoon, but he was almost fifty years old." "How did you even figure that out!?" "The episode Get Back Jojo. He was eight years old in 1959. Add thirty-nine years and you get the beginning of the series in 1998." "That's insane!" "If you converted that to real time, he'd be fifty-three now." "Holy crap..." The music from the title screen began to play. Rainbow read through the dialogue intently. "Guess we can drop the act now..." Buttercup said somberly. "They were expecting this?" Rainbow questioned. "I told you Blossom possessed tremendous foresight. She was well aware he could go at any time for any reason. That's not the kind of thing you can keep from your siblings for too long. Friends, family, teachers, they all fade away with time. The question is, what do we do when it happens. Keep reading." "Jesus Christ, this is horrifying!" "That's the intended purpose. Real life's scarier than any horror movie if you ask me." "You're not wrong, but damn. We just started and I already feel like shit." "We got the biggest shock out of the way early. Now we can concentrate on the game. There's a few twists and turns I think you'll find rather fascinating." Twilight gained control of Blossom's avatar. "We can change clothes now." Twilight used her keyboard to guide Blossom back up the stairs. She approached the closet by the southern wall. "How long did it take to design the stages?" "Not long after I binged the show. I made detailed notes of where each building was located and improvised stores for items, weapons, and accessories. I took influence from Shadow Hearts and gave the player three accessory slots instead of just one." "What kind of weapons are there?" "Blossom uses swords, Bubbles uses staves, and Buttercup uses guns: a reference to DoomGuy's version in Mugen. You can even fight bare-fisted if you want. I'll show you how combat works after I collect our gear." Twilight located the Toy Staff for Bubbles in the toy box, a rolling pin for Blossom, and a nine millimeter pistol in the professor's room. "I did something a little sneaky and put a side-quest here. If you examine the professor's body, you'll bury him in the back yard. Blossom will take the key to his lab where you can stock up on a few healing items and a new piece of armor for Buttercup." "Does the armor change your look in battle?" "Nah. I prefer the aesthetic of hoodies and jeans over fantasy armor. It's solely for defense and evasion. The only thing that changes are weapons" "Fair enough." "Anyway, now that that's out of the way, let's get out of this hellhole." "Agreed. I'm gettin' chills just thinkin' about the plot." Twilight exited the former home of the powerpuff girls. "You can see the enemies on the map?" "Yeah. Figured it'd be less frustrating if you could avoid battles at will like in Chrono Trigger and newer versions of Dragon Quest." "Speaking of which, we should play Chrono Trigger sometime." "It's already on my bucket list." "Didn't expect any less." "Just let me open the menu real quick and get everybody geared up." "Damn. You matched up everything to their colors." "It's the same in battle. I wanted to give them each unique traits." "Seems like it worked out pretty well." "Glad you think so." After a few moments of flying, Twilight encountered their first conflict: a robot created by Mojo Jojo. "The command screen is here at the bottom. The frame is solid black while the outline changes color depending on which party member's turn it is. They're the only playable characters in the game, so I didn't have to put too much effort into it." "I just hope Bubbles' animation is better than Aerith's or Alice's. Mages always look stupid attacking." "I thought so too, so I had her do an impalement attack with the end of the staff before doing a rightward swipe. It's way more fluid and pleasing to look at than most mage animations in single-player RPGs." "I see two of the options are question marks. I know one of them's magic. What's the other?" "Summons. You can use those later on to deal heavy damage." "Sort of like FF7." "Kinda, except you don't have to attach materia to your equipment. All of your abilities are gained through leveling, side-quests, story progression, optional bosses, and weapons." "I follow you so far. What about the gauges?" "Well, there's you health which correlates to the girls' colors again. The dark blue meter is your energy, used for summons and abilities. The third gauge is taken straight from FF7, but instead of limit breaks, they're called fatalities." "Another Mortal Kombat reference." "Yep. Your fatalities change depending on what weapon you have equipped, and they build up depending on the damage you deal. In other words, the stronger you are, the easier it is to fill the gauge. Much more sensible than in FF7 where they got harder to fill as your level increased. Here, you're free to grind to your heart's content without being penalized for it." "I definitely like that feature." "One more thing. To compensate for the difficulty in Creation mode, I made them deal ten times damage instead of two like the devs did in FF7. If you're looking for a challenge, that's the mode you want. I gave the bosses skills exclusive to that difficulty specifically for replay value." "Gotcha." "The last feature I added is the ability to dodge at will. The higher your evasion and agility, the more frequently it does it automatically, but in the early game, it helps out on higher difficulties. When an enemy's about to attack you, press the D key to jump backwards." "Nifty." "Let's finish this and move on with the story." Author's Note The children cry for help.
Growing Up (Interlude: Part 3)After the first battle, each of the girls gained a level. Bubbles learned a low-level cure spell to heal HP. "Should we go into town and buy some more items?" Rainbow asked. "These enemies give crap money and experience. We'll be fine until after the first boss." "Let me guess: Mojo Jojo?" "Good guess, but how much you wanna bet it's not for the reasons you think?" "Probably not." "When we get to level four, we can start upgrading each girl via skill points. Unlike Dragon Quest, you can max them out without too much trouble." "How do you save?" "Glad you asked. We took some inspiration from Spike's comics and made the save points blue glowing lights filled with spiritual energy. They expand when you walk into them and contract when you leave." "Hell yeah." "There are two entrances to Mojo's observatory. The first takes you directly to Mojo. The second is on the side of the volcano. It's a bit more dangerous, but there's an upgraded weapon for Blossom there." "Which one?" "The rusted sword." "Getting her a real weapon, eh?" "I programmed the enemies to always drop items to cut down on the frustration of grinding. Right now they're only dropping weak healing items, but later on we'll get some really powerful stuff." "Lookin' forward to it." Twilight made her way through the volcano, quickly reaching the observatory where Mojo lied in wait. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup told him of the professor's passing, and their intentions thereafter. He challenged them to test their skills. "This is pretty sobering," Rainbow confessed, "They were all created by the professor. It makes sense Mojo'd be upset he's gone." "I originally thought about having him ask the girls to kill him, but in the end I decided it didn't fit his character." "The fact you have any sense of self-censorship at all is nothing short of a miracle." "I even amaze myself sometimes. Don't worry, though. It all goes downhill from here." "Fun." Twilight defeated Mojo, just barely reaching level four. She put Blossom's allotted points into swords, unlocking the throat slash ability. Buttercup's went into guns, opening up the Point Blank skill. Bubbles' went into energy, granting her the Light Blast technique. Author's Note Last Words.
Growing Up (Interlude: Final Part)Author's Note "Flying through space to fight a space god!" -DeathTronHammer Growing Up (Interlude: Final Part) As the game continued, Twilight collected more powerful items, equipment, and skills. Many of the side-quests revolved around the girls' allies, creative mini-games, and secret boss fights from other series', Including Maria from Spike's comics, who was necessary to defeat for Blossom's ultimate weapon: the sword of sorrow. After Mojo, the girls picked off their old foes one by one. Once again, Twilight went several days without sleep. "Guess Lucifer is the final boss." Rainbow commented. "Seems so." "Good thing you did the same thing as FF7 and gave us an accessory that doubles EXP, not to mention the enemies here give us a crap-ton already. Tack on the power, energy, and defense orbs to max out our stats and we're pretty much unstoppable." "The northern cave was a prime example of how you do a grind properly without pissing off the player. Let them level quickly and use items to further power up their characters. With all three ultimate armors, our evasion rate is 70% for each girl, which means we'll be auto-dodging most of the time at this point. Our status immunity and triple money accessories make the endgame a cakewalk." "Let's save and finish this nightmare of a game. I love it, but damn if it doesn't bring me down." Twilight engaged the final boss of the game...Or so Rainbow thought. Lucifer was extremely easy to take down with all the girls' buffs added to their characters. That was when Rainbow realized what the real story behind the scenes was. "Holy shit..." "We're going to overthrow God." "Now that right there is sympathetic villainy I can get behind." Lucifer transported Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup to the gates of heaven. After an unexpectedly heartfelt exchange of dialogue, he left them to their fates. "Here we go." Twilight hammered home. "The final battle to avenge all life on Earth." "Exciting, isn't it?" "No question." Twilight opened the battle by having the girls summon their fiery auras to further boost their power. God's punch barely registered against the awesome might of the tiny titans. One swing from blossom's sword dealt a critical blow for an easy nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine HP. In response, God attempted to inflict a flurry of status ailments. "Not gonna work." Twilight said to the screen. On Twilight's next turn, she invoked the fury of Blossom's Interdimensional slash, cutting her opponent down in every conceivable fashion. She followed up with Bubbles' Holy Barrier ability and Buttercup's Rapid Fire artillery. "You couldn't make this anymore one-sided if you tried." Rainbow chuckled. "If we were on creation mode, it'd be a different story. Remember when I stocked up on the strongest healing items I could buy? In Creation mode, we'll actually have to use them. He can remove our status protection on that difficulty." "Takin' a page from Lavos' book, I see." "My fatality gauges are full. These should finish him off." Twilight harnessed Blossom's strength first. The leader of the powerpuffs split herself into multiple incarnations, attacking across the screen at incomprehensible speeds. Bright colors flashed from Twilight's monitor. Just when it seemed like the afterimages were through with their assault, they swung their swords together, shattering them into hundreds of microscopic pieces. Each fragment thrust itself into the enemy's body, stinging him with countless particles of molten-hot death. The specters disappeared, leaving the sword to reform as though nothing had happened. "Think that's enough?" Rainbow teased. "Nope." Twilight responded assuredly. Bubbles' ultimate technique proved no less ferocious. One million lightning bolts cracked from the sky, frying her foe where he stood before drowning him in a torrential downpour of tears. The cleansing water healed the entire party to max health and energy. Finally, Buttercup took the reins, unloading thousands of rounds of ammunition between two Gatling guns before charging her opponent. She impaled him with both barrels before firing off the finishing blow. "Buttercup is every military guy's wet dream." Rainbow joked. "That sounds so wrong." "And yet I didn't know it 'til I said it. Funny how that works, ain't it?" "Yep." "I sense your inner Big Mac coming out." When the battle was over, the screen flashed repeatedly before fading to white. Without warning, the monitor cut to black, and the credits began to roll... "You know what? While we were playing, I noticed a few things that could use touching up. Give me some time to update a few things before we start Creation mode." "I'll be waiting."
37,000: Reconstruction (Interlude)Twilight opened the updated version of 37,000 for her friends to see. The artwork was cleaner and more detailed than the original, and the music was mixed to draw the player deeper in using state-of-the-art surround sound quality. "I sub-titled this as the reconstruction version of the game. I fixed the blunder where I forgot to include luck and agility orbs, and I added a bunch of new content. I even changed some of the boss music during the endgame for a darker, more depressive feel." "What'd you put in?" Rainbow asked eagerly. "You remember the masks from Shadow Hearts?" "How could I forget? They were my favorite enemies in the game. Beating their faces in felt so satisfying." "Agreed." "Is Atman in here, too?" "You can fight him right after you beat the masks." "That's badass." "I also made Sae and Yae from Fatal Frame 2 optional bosses." "Glad they're getting some love. Not many people have played the series in general." "One of the last things I added was a second form to the true final bosses in creation mode." "Bosses with an s? Who are they?" "I won't spoil it. I think you'll want to see for yourself." "How long will it take to get there?" "I've already played through Flat Line difficulty and unlocked Creation mode. I can breeze through it since I've had time to develop an optimal strategy." "Cool." "I also put in a Rowdyruff fight. We only saw them a few times in the series, and they never fought the girls at their full potential. They only had limited time to train in the cartoon. At the height of their power, it'll be a much different fight." "I figured as much." "Like with the other side-quests, you can do the new stuff at any point in the game once you get to a certain point. I always hated how FF7 and Shadow Hearts blocked off certain quests when you progressed with the story. Once you unlock the quests here, you can do them any time." "Good to know. Least we won't have to freak out if we miss anything." "Well, shall we begin?" "That's a big 10-4, partner." "That's my line." Applejack teased. Twilight began the game again. After the cutscene, she went upstairs to change the girls' clothes. She opened the menu immediately after. "Remember when you asked if there was a way to change costumes? I put that in as its own separate feature. You can change into Halloween costumes, their classic uniforms, their story clothes, and a bunch of others once you unlock them." "Did you put in goth costumes?" Rainbow questioned, knowing full-well what Twilight's response would likely be. "Of course." "Nice." The difficulty during the early game was surprisingly intense. The enemies moved faster, making it harder to time dodges. Despite this, Twilight quickly adapted and proceeded with the story as normal. This time, however, there was one major change. The Gangreen Gang and Princess were spared - offered one last chance to redeem themselves. After witnessing the girls' true potential in their depressed state, they couldn't help but oblige. "Ace is the oldest of the minor protagonists," Twilight explained, "He was seventeen in the series, so I decided the girls should give them a chance to turn their lives around before the end of the game. It's kind of redundant, but I didn't want them to seem heartless." "Good point. Having anti-villain protagonists show mercy makes them more sympathetic." Rainbow concurred. "Now that you brought it up, I've never seen a game where you play as an anti-villain. It's usually conventional or anti-heroes." "Probably 'cause they're hard to write. They behave like real people. All of us would fight to make the world a better place, even if we had to use questionable methods to do it. In this case, we're killing the worst criminals in Townsville before committing suicide to fight Satan and God. Now that I'm hearing it, this all plays into the true final battle of the game, doesn't it?" "You got it." "The main difference between The Crow and this game is that Eric's motive was purely revenge-driven. He wasn't really concerned with the overall well-being of the city. Here, the girls are trying to change the whole world. It's a much grander scenario and what separates anti-heroes from anti-villains. We're committing murder now specifically to prevent further tragedy in the future." "We'll be able to atone soon enough. Just a little longer." "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get moving!" Twilight nodded. The true endgame bosses were revealed to be the girls' darker halves. In order to take God's place and rebuild the universe, they had to come to terms with their selfish desires and discard them, for only those truly just would gain the power to reshape existence in their image. "Now I know what you meant by atonement," Rainbow remarked, "We killed the girls' old foes to save Townsville, but it came at the cost of their faith and their sanity. Now we've gotta bring the bad guys back and give 'em another shot at life." "This battle is one of penance," Twilight replied, "We're often our own worst enemies." "Why do I get the feeling this is gonna be exceptionally brutal?" The girls' inner demons opened with a status technique, Breath and Bone. It removed all the girls' defenses and buffs, only leaving their base stats intact. "Fuck." "They have two main attacks they'll use: Soul Crush and Eternal Darkness. Soul Crush takes your entire party down to 1 HP, but won't kill you. Eternal Darkness deals exactly 4,999 damage. Neither attack can be dodged. Maxing out your stats is crucial to winning this fight." "So what's the strategy?" "Having maxed out HP is the first step. The dangerous part is if they get the chance to combine both attacks for a combo. That's a guaranteed game over. The only way to circumvent this is having max health and agility." "Agility determines turn order." "Exactly. That's why I made Megalixers cure status ailments in addition to healing the entire party for max health and energy. That's what all the farming was about earlier." "I know you. You put some back door bullshit in to cheese this fight, didn't you?" "Ya got me. Here's the trick. Take your turn first, then wait for them to attack. While you're healing and whittling down their health, your fatality gauges will build. Wait until all three girls' gauges are filled, then let them cast Soul Crush on you. When you press the command button, a new team fatality will replace the individual ones. It's called Emotional Breakdown, and it's by far the strongest fatality in the game." "You mean we've had a secret fatality this whole game and you're just now showing us this?" "It would've been almost impossible to do in any other battle. All three girls have to be at one HP to use it." "So it's kinda like a desperation attack." "That's exactly what it is. Just remember to have a megalixer lined up during Bubbles' or Buttercup's turn. It'll take a few uses to take 'em down." "I'll keep a note on the fridge." Twilight chuckled. Following her own advice, Twilight fulfilled the conditions to unlock the Emotional Breakdown ability. Once she pressed the command button, a chaotic, grief-fueled firestorm erupted. Bubbles summoned a tornado that encompassed the entire screen. Millions of lightning strikes rained down upon the girls' malevolent counterparts. Blossom rushed forward, randomly teleporting between opponents and slashing through them with all her strength. Buttercup joined in with her double Gatling guns, unloading round after round into the evil that once festered within herself and her sisters. "Holy shit! Your health's regenerating!" "I completely forgot I put that effect in here. Still, the megalixers will help with the status ailments." "How much damage are you doing!?" "I believe the damage caps out at 159,984 - the same amount Cloud does to Sephiroth if you manage to deal max damage every attack. The only difference is, it damages all three of the girls' counterparts." "How much is that in total?" "479,952." "Jesus Christ...!" "'Jesus Christ walks into a hotel.'" Rainbow smiled. "'He hands the innkeeper three nails and he asks...'" The two equines finished the line together. "'Can you put me up for the night?'" The second phase of the fight saw the girls' other selves merge using the potara earrings from Dragon Ball Z. "Never seen a three-way fusion before," Rainbow admitted, "Now that I have, I love the idea." "This boss can take away two thirds of your party's health with a single attack. Keep your megalixers ready and use your strongest attacks." "Can you use Emotional Breakdown again?" "Only when she gets down to 25% HP. She'll cast a spell called Void of Consumption. That's when you'll be able to finish her off, and it looks like we're just about there." After a few minutes, the newly-formed entity, titled Gospel, unleashed her void attack: a massive black ball that expanded on the girls' side of the screen. With the girls down to their last bit of HP, the game was officially over. "You remember how in the original ending, the screen faded to white and randomly cut to black without another scene playing?" Twilight inquired. "Yeah. Probably the shittiest ending ever." "The implication was that the universe ceased to exist. All the hell we went through on this mode was for the real ending. Little by little, the stars and planets will start to reform. The power to remake and improve humanity is at their disposal now, and I don't mean in a vague spiritual sense. They're literally manipulating sub-atomic structures to re-write genetic code." "Holy balls! That's insane!" The final screen of the game showed a futuristic, yet modern and lively version of Townsville. All the girls' friends and foes of the past had been reborn as kind, gentle souls. Far above the veil of space, they observed closely, marveling at the harmonious state of being they'd worked so hard to create. "Will they get to see the professor again?" "Sooner than you think." After a few more lines of dialogue, the girls departed for Earth. The final frame showed them re-introducing themselves to the professor - this time under more ideal circumstances. "I've thought about offing myself a number of times over the years," Twilight admitted, "But if there's even the smallest chance I can achieve what I've written into this game, then I have to live, and learn as much as I can about our existence. Maybe one day, I can be the benevolent goddess we're so desperately searching for. If not me, then perhaps another." "Amen to that." Rainbow responded. "Thanks for supporting me, guys. It really means a lot: more than you'll probably ever know." "It's the least we can do, after all you've done for us." "I love you guys." "Back at ya, homegirl." Everyone gathered together in a tight group hug. Author's Note Overdose.
Quality Check (Interlude)A few days before Christmas, Rainbow awoke to a message from Twilight. The Alicorn had checked over 37,000's code one final time and made a few more minor improvements. "This is the definitive edition. I added a few more features to lend extra depth to the world and story. There are three new side-quests, a dash feature with the color streak from the cartoon so you can travel the map faster, a secret shop after you beat Maria, and you can learn enemy skills like in Final Fantasy 7 by using the guard command. There are numerous rare enemies and formations where you can learn brokenly overpowered skills similar to big guard and magic breath. To make things easier, they always use the learnable skill as their first attack." "Fuckin' hell. Just when you think a game can't get any better. Gimme details." "The side-quests are taken from Spike's comics. The first involves saving a woman from being tortured by an evil spirit. For the second, you have to exorcise similar spirits haunting the abandoned religious school where you fight Maria near the end of the game. The last one revolves around saving hospitalized children from having the life drained out of them. If you complete each quest in Creation mode, you'll receive three copies of a special accessory that bypasses bosses' de-buff skills. You'll have guaranteed status protection and three other accessories which will fill your fatality gauges after one attack." "What about the secret shop?" "Maria will sell you elixers and megalixers if you wanna stock up on both. They're pretty expensive, but you can easily afford it by that point if you're grinding." "I can't wait to try it." "Have fun." "Will do." Rainbow downloaded the game, booting it up after the installation finished. Once again, the artwork had been cleaned up with further attention to detail. In the options menu, a new feature was implemented to change which girl appeared on the start screen, along with a final portrait that could be unlocked via beating Creation difficulty. Rainbow selected Support mode and changed each girl's name. Blossom became Eleanor, Bubbles became Whitney, and Buttercup assumed the role of Mary. After getting a feel for the controls, she customized them to her liking. Author's Note Some Shadow Hearts gameplay.
RelativityAuthor's Note Relativity For their next game, Twilight and the others returned to official titles, starting with the original Super Nintendo port of Chrono Trigger. "The plot's pretty straightforward. There's an evil creature living in Earth's core called Lavos. The twist is that you have to weaken him by traveling through different time periods. Like I mentioned before, he can remove your status protection, which is a real pain in the ass if you're unprepared. He tries to trick you during the final fight by making you think the center's his core, but it's actually one of the small extensions on the right side of the screen. Really fucked with my head the first time I played through the game. There's a port for PS1, but the loading times are God-awful. They didn't even add anything new." "That was the thing with PS1 games," Rainbow replied, "The load times were ridiculous. Even during good games they were frustrating as all hell." "Fortunately, I have nothing but time on my hooves these days. Kinda funny how trivial minor gripes seem when you have time to put up with them." "How's the combat work?" "It uses an ATB system like Final Fantasy. Your special skills are called Techs. You learn them by gaining tech points through fighting. What makes Techs unique are the varying types. You can do a solo, dual, or triple tech. The dual and triple techs you can use depend on your party members and what techs they know. Some of them can get stupidly overpowered, especially when you're farming power tabs, which work like source and seal items." "Sounds pretty cut n' dry." "It is, but it's pretty fun. It's colorful and has a wide variety of music. The art was made the guy who wrote DBZ." "Just like Dragon Quest." "Dude's had an illustrious career." "No kidding." "This one's only about a quarter of the length of Final Fantasy 7. I beat it in twenty hours my first time. These days I can shave between two to three hours off if I have a guide on-hoof. Speaking of which, I'll go ahead and pull one up." Twilight used her magic to open a search tab on her computer. "One thing to note is that the game has fifteen different endings. You can get them by skipping ahead to Lavos at various points. I wouldn't recommend it though. He's one of the trickier bosses in RPG history as I've already pointed out. I usually go for the perfect ending. To get it, you have to do a recurring side-quest where you feed your cat at Crono's house. It's tedious, but worth it in the long run." "Fifteen endings? Jesus Christ." "He's just gonna keep goin' to that same hotel, isn't he?" "Guess so."
KaiserThe next series on the list turned out to be one of Spike's favorite: Breath of Fire. "The lore follows a dragon named Ryu who can take on human form," Twilight explained, "The original never made it clear whether he was a full-fledged dragon or a hybrid. In the sequels, it's assumed his reincarnations are half dragon, half bird because of the second game's story. The first two games on Super Nintendo were fairly straightforward and linear. The third one came out on PS1 and introduced new battle formations and a mastery mechanic where you can learn spells from sages you find throughout. Some are easier to find than others." "Don't forget about the gene system." Spike reminded. "Oh, yeah. You can combine different genes you find across the world. The most powerful combination is called Ultimate Kaiser. It makes you between three to four times stronger and turns Ryu's hair gold like a super saiyan." "Sounds pretty powerful." Rainbow replied. "The first time we played, I killed one of the mini bosses in two hits." "Sounds about right." "There are items you can use to increase your stats, but by the end of the game, they're not really worth getting. Your stats can technically go up to 999, but they stop influencing battles around 300. The only ones it helps to collect at that point are HP and Magic shards. Magic shards in particular will be the most useful. Combining ultimate Kaiser with the Focus and Shadow Walk skills takes up a ton of AP, but it's worth the trade-off because you can deal upwards of ten thousand damage every attack if you know what you're doing." "What's the strongest gear you can get?" "The Goo King Sword and the Life Armor. The Goo King sword is a rare drop from gold Goo Kings, but it's not really worth getting. The encounter rate is completely random, and you only have a 1 in 256 chance of getting it. You're better off just stealing the Dragon Sword from Teepo and leaving it at that. The Life Armor is a lot easier to get. You just have to follow a specific path in the desert of death. Once you equip it, it'll heal you while you're walking on the overworld screen." "Sounds pretty useful." "It's worth picking up, but not really necessary. Status ailment protection is still the most important factor." "Are there any grinding tricks?" "Each game has its own variation. In the first one, you have to fight giant gold slimes called M. Slimes. The second game has a spot called monster island where you fight gargantuan versions of monsters from the world map. The third and fourth games are a bit trickier. You have to power up specific enemies and use a skill called Monopolize so one character reaps all the experience." "It's divided between party members? Aw, that's so gay!" "Yeah, but it's not too bad if you know how to work around it." "Well, I'll let you do your thing. At least getting through all four games should take a while." "Yeah."
What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 1)After catching up on sleep, Twilight began development of a new project. Unlike her previous foray, this one was unique. It was, for all intents and purposes, completely original. "This one's based on a novel I never finished," she revealed, "I started writing it back in 2001, but I never got around to completing it. It was titled Conspiracy of the Angels, named after the song by Sevin." "Oh, yeah! I remember that one," Rainbow acknowledged, "That was one of the songs I found on your playlist back in high school!" Twilight strolled toward her computer, continuing her explanation. "The concept was a love story between a mortal earth pony and an angel created by God. The earth pony was named Harmonic as a reference to musical harmonies. The first couple chapters followed his development from colt to stallion while alluding to his connection with Atmospheric." "Atmospheric's the angel I assume?" "Yeah. I remember I was obsessed with Blood: The Last Vampire and Phantom of Inferno. My main goal was to write something compelling without all the angst and tragedy. Sometimes less is more, ya know? You can write something impactful without being melodramatic about it. The main focus was always the romance. Everything else was just for the sake of building an interesting world." "You ain't goin' boy band power of love bullshit on me, are ya?" "Back to the Future did it without boy bands, didn't it?" "True." "The whiniest it gets is a passing mention of alienation by Harmonic, not knowing where he fit in or what his purpose in life was. That's something I think speaks to all types of people, not just hormonal teens." "Fair enough. Why don't ya fire it up so we can see what it's all about?" "Roger." "Polly." Twilight grinned. "Smartass." "Better than bein' a dumbass." "Depends on who ya ask." Twilight opened the file containing the game. The title screen art showed an angel with with white fur stroking a black stallion's mane by a campfire. "Damn! They're both smokin' hot!" "As you can see, there's the usual three menu options. Just like last time, you can set the sound effects and music volumes individually. Custom controls are available again, too. I didn't include custom title art like last time, but i did put in a gallery you can unlock after beating the game." "Did you program a difficulty selection like last time?" "Of course. Appealing to all skill levels is part of what makes a game marketable." "Wait...Are you actually gonna release this one!?" "I'm considering it, but there's something I'll have to remove before I can." Rainbow's face twisted in confusion. "What?" "You'll see." Twilight selected New Game. "The difficulties are named after stuff in the game again. Easy is Mortal, Normal is Spirit, Hard is Insidious, and Ultra Hard is Seraph. In religious texts, seraphs belong to the highest class of angel. Obviously, Atmospheric is a pop culture interpretation of what angels in general look like, but you get the idea." "I'm guessing you have to beat Insidious to unlock Seraph mode?" "Yeah, but there's not much incentive to beat Seraph mode other than challenge. Unlike 37,000, there's only one final boss and ending you can get. I thought about adding multiple endings and even separate stories, but I figured a singular experience would be enough for a story like this." "I'm kinda disappointed. I was hoping there'd be more replay value." "Technically, there is, but that's what I'll have to remove if I decide to release it for other players. Our versions will be a bit...Special." "Still not sure what you're getting at, but I'll roll with it 'til we find out." "Trust me. It'll be one hell of a surprise." "If you say so." Twilight began the game. Just like the others the group had played so far, a custom name input screen appeared.
What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 2)The game opened with a line of narration text from Harmonic's point of view. At the tender age of two, he had his first dream about Atmospheric. Of course, he didn't know who she was or that she existed in the first place. "There are a few changes I made compared to the novel. I originally opened with Atmospheric's creation, which was actually happening as he was dreaming, but I left the details on her end out here so they would come as a surprise later. The other change was a major plot point. I planned to have her take a job as a teacher so she could get close to him, but I think you know why I scrapped that." "You mean the news headlines where teachers were being exposed for molestation and statutory rape." "Yeah. I didn't want her coming off as a groomer." "How'd you get around it?" "I had her enroll as a senior at the same high school Harmonic's brother goes to. She befriended him and met Harmonic for the first time at the start of the school year. That's where she had the chance to learn about him and what his life was like. Obviously, he doesn't have a developed personality here. He's a toddler at this point in the story, but he does recognize her." "This is where it diverges from other RPG love stories." "Yeah. Most relationships develop over a short period of time. Here, there's a pre-established history of friendship and trust. Her influence is part of what shapes him into who he becomes." "Least he's in good hooves." "The story and graphics share some similarities with Breath of Fire 2. The character models are really small and basic in the overworld. During combat the art style is way more detailed. Later on when the story picks up, you'll see custom art pieces that resemble realistic characters and environments. That's where the gallery comes in." "Gotcha." When the prologue was over, a time skip of twenty-one years occurred. "This scene is fairly lengthy, but the gist of it is, Atmospheric tells Harmonic the truth about who she is and why she was created. There's an army of creatures with no name and a vague description. From what Atmospheric was told, they're as old as God himself. Their goal is to gradually snuff out all life on Equestria. Their main method of achieving this is asphyxiation via smoke inhalation." "Cue papa roach." "Haha. Very funny." "I thought you said this wasn't gonna be all doom and gloom." "It's not. Atmospheric's training is almost complete. This is where our first objective comes in. We have to find Lucifer and learn about the battle system." "Isn't it just your typical turn-based style?" "For the most part. We just have to go over the parry mechanic and pick up a healing spell." Twilight opened the menu screen. "This is pretty much your standard menu. You can equip weapons, armor, and accessories. Each character has their own unique abilities you can obtain through grinding and side quests. One thing to note is that Harmonic uses a street fighting style, so he can't actually equip any weapons. To compensate, his accuracy, luck, and strength get massive boosts every time he levels up. In contrast, Atmospheric uses swords. Her strength is increased by getting better ones and farming trinity items to boost everyone's stats." "Sounds simple enough." "I'll go ahead and save real quick." Twilight approached the save point. It was the same style she'd used in 37,000: a column of deep blue light enveloped by spiritual energy.
What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 3)Author's Note Just a quick warning. There's a passing mention of sex in this and the next chapter. If you're uncomfortable with such subjects, feel free to skip them. As a side note, Rainbow's opinion on Bride of Chucky doesn't reflect my own. I'm really just indifferent towards it. What It's Like to Feel Loved (Part 3) During the tutorial, Twilight demonstrated how to parry enemy attacks. "It's pretty much the same as the dodge mechanic in 37,000. The only differences are, instead of D, you press the P key when they're about to attack, and you do a retaliatory strike in return." "You should add that feature to 37,000. It'd make the combat even more engaging." "Yeah. I can do that. Sort of like a special edition. I'll see if there's anything else I can add, too." "Sweet." After the battle, Twilight was given the option to change Lucifer's name. She kept the default for her first run. "One of the things I kept from the novel were the four original angels. Atmospheric is the fourth. The other three are Lucifer, Michael, and Azazel." "Literal holy hell." "Pretty much." "Can we get 'em in the party?" "Of course." "I'm on board." "Lucifer uses swords like Atmospheric, but his are a bit more stylized to fit his bad boy streak. Michael's extremely skilled with lances, and Azazel's adept with battle axes." "Nice choices." "Now that we know the basics of the battle system, we can move on with the game." After the prologue, the game proved relatively straightforward. There were a few side-quests spread throughout, but the main focus remained centered on the story. It was the scene before the final stretch that threw Rainbow and the others off. "Wait a minute...Are they about to...!?" "To put it in Supernatural terms, he's gettin' himself a slice of angel food cake." "At least he had the presence of mind to propose before they got busy. You know how awkward it is to have that happen during sex?" "Do you?" "Well...No, but I've been told that's not something other chicks are into." "Fair enough, but ya gotta remember, there are exceptions to every rule." "I guess." "This is where it gets really fun." The next scene showed one of the art pieces Twilight imported to the engine. Atmospheric's jacket had changed from her fur's snow white color to the nightshade black of her fiancé. Her lips were coated in a similar shade. She was smoking a cigarette under a tree, smiling. Rainbow verbally noted the drastic shift. "I'm no Star Swirl, but I'm pretty sure she just pulled a complete one-eighty." "This is the sort of thing both erotica and regular romance novels often leave out. I've got nothing against casual hook-ups, but I'd imagine fucking somebody you love is on a whole other level. Nobody really talks about the differences between the two. Ironically, I got the idea from Bride of Chucky." "Ew! Are you serious!? That movie sucked!" "I know, but even crappy movies usually have at least one silver lining." "If you say so. As for me, I wouldn't touch it with a hundred-yard pole." "So you're saying she didn't just go from Habanero sauce to Dragon's Breath pepper?" "She's fucking gorgeous! I just can't believe something good came out of that stain on cinema." "Lucifer will give her her ultimate weapon before the cutscenes over. She'll get the dual swords whoch attack two times when she parries. One was created by Lucifer as a gift. The other belonged to Harmonic's brother. He swiped it before they left the city. Now that we're at the end, Atmospheric's fighting style will be a lot more aggressive and flashy. She'll learn a tag team skill she and Harmonic can use if they're both in your party." "Are we almost at the final boss?" "Yep. Just one more save point and we'll be there." "Good thing we stocked up on megalixers." "We won't really need too many since we're on easy, but they'll come in handy on higher difficulties. The boss can't remove status protection, but it deals a lot of damage on hard mode, especially ultra hard. I'd recommend having one ready every other turn." "I hear ya loud and clear." Twilight stretched back in her chair, loosening her limbs for the final confrontation. "Well, without further ado, let's kill this assface."
What It's Like to Feel Loved (Final Part)Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Rage (Interlude)Author's Note Made the mistake of trying to play Dragon Quarter again. I implore you all not to torture yourselves with that piece of shit. Grinding did not help at all. Rage (Interlude) Twilight placed the controller on the ground with a face that betrayed tranquil fury. After completing the first four Breath of Fire games, she'd figured her skills had improved enough to give Dragon Quarter another shot. As it turned out, the game was just as needlessly difficult as she remembered. She strolled over to her bedroom wall and proceeded to slam her head against it repeatedly. "Fuck. This. Fucking. Piece. Of. Shit. Game. Why. Is. It. So. Goddamn. Hard. Fuck." "How far'd ya get this time?" Spike questioned. "I just got Nina in my party and died to Spiders." Twilight resumed bashing her head against the construction material. "Why don't you just make another game like you did with the Powerpuff Girls thing?" Twilight ceased the assault on her surprisingly durable skull. "You know what? That's not a bad idea actually, and I know just where to start."
