Fou-Lu And The Mystery Of Iniquity

I recently finished Breath of Fire 4 on the PS1 which had been my project for some time.

I wanted to play the game after noticing on a pretty large poll that the game's antagonist Fou-Lu, is considered one of the most "highly rated characters" across RPGS, in fact, he secures first place in that poll, with Vivi registering second.

What to make of Fou-Lu? Here is the summary for those who don't know about him. 7 facts about his character. Spoilers? Absolutely! But the game is about 20 years old now!

1) An incarnate dragon-god who comes to rule the world as its rightful emperor. Extremely powerful, great weapon, cool look, awesome magic.
2) His coming is foreknown by political powers who pursue him, jealous of their position, they attack him and attempt to kill him.
3) While his powers are still weak he is aided and supported and protected by a human women, to whom it seems he falls in love with.
4) A god who decides to just live out the human existence, who slots into the mundane, who loses the desire to rule and conquer the world, to put it under his subjection.
5) Eventually the political powers find him, they do their upmost again and again to kill him, they cannot, he is a dragon god! But in the end they turn him, they chase him from his village, I think they kill his girlfriend, and they cause him to grow hateful towards humans, for him to return to his first thought, that as god he ought to rule them, but now as one who is evil, destroying all humanity.
6) Fou-Lu is the 'other half' of the game's dull, non speaking, personality-less protagonist Ryu. The two must be fused into one (destiny, as always)
7) Eventually they meet up and fight it out, if you win the game, well Fou-Lu is destroyed, sucked into the dominant Ryu. If you get game-over presumably Ryu gets sucked into Fou-Lu but unfortunately we don't get to see the consequences from that one.

So, What to make of him?

Fou-Lou essentially grows to hate humanity because it's leaders have hated him, have rejected him as their god and rightful ruler. He allows this hatred to pervert him, to corrupt his goodness and the compassion for the greater part of humanity that he had developed.

He's interesting, and by far the most developed character of the otherwise mediocre game, but in terms of philosophy, profundity of thought- Fou-Lu is really nothing more than a typical revenge driven bad guy.

The highlight of his story is most definitely point (4), the period in which he strips himself of his greatness, of his power, and in humility sets about just living the mundane human existence and finding dignity in his humble farm work. There is something beautiful here, seeing a powerful dragon god choosing to put destructive powers to one side for the sake of helping a village and out of love for a woman who has saved his life.

But from then on, it goes down hill and we find nothing more than a revenge driven villain who has decided the best thing to do is to destroy absolutely everything. Nihilism. What will it gain? Nothing? Is it a reasonable choice? No, only a small group of humans has persecuted him. Is it a moral choice? Clearly no... to inflict great suffering indiscriminately, to destroy the world.....

Scratch and RPG villain and almost always you reach Kefka, deep down they are almost all Kefka with a different backstory.

In Kefka we find raw nihilism, someone who destroys simply for the sake of it, because he wills it. Kefka and all RPG villains are utterly incomprehensible, their actions never add up. And that is because of what theologians call "the mystery of iniquity".


The nature of evil is that it is dark, that the more you look and contemplate it the less "sense" it makes, they are dark, you don't get anything deep or rich out of contemplating them.

Often in our world, we hear evil or wicked people pathologised, or their evil rationalised in terms of some illness, as if they cannot help do this irrational and hurtful thing, typically we hear the guy is mentally ill or was abused as a child. This is the easy option, it makes you think you understand the criminal and what he has done. It is not the full truth though, the real truth is "the mystery of iniquity", the evil person has chosen to do evil, he has willed it, and that is the explanation, it is irrational, it is dark, it cannot be understood, that is what it means for something to be truly evil, for good to be tarnished, perverted, simply out of will. Try and get your head around it, you can't.

Divine truths, goodness, holiness, the dogmas of the faith, these on the contrary are mysteries of depth, the more you look at them, they more sense they make, the greater profundity they are shown to contain. They are light, you can gaze at them forever and always see more and rejoice more.

We shouldn't expect the 'greatest character' in RPG history to be aligned with evil, because ultimately evil is shallow, hollow, empty, ignoble, un-admirable, dis-edifying. There is no likeness of Christ, the true man, Who carries all perfections to their completion.

If there is greatness in any character it is due to his nearness to our Saviour and His virtues, this is even true of fictional characters. Christ must have the glory, all creatures must kneel before Him.

The Hunt Begins...For A Better Set Of Rules

Alien vs Predator: the Hunt Begins by Prodos Games began life as a very troubled Kickstarter campaign, followed by a high-priced retail boxed set, and despite being a massive fan of the Alien and Predator franchises, this kept me from showing much interest in the game. However, the release of a much more reasonably priced second edition, combined with my interest in the emerging category of skirmish/board game hybrids such as Conan and Mythic Battles, prompted me to take another look.

The components are, for the most part, very high quality. The miniatures look great, and the game's three factions are cast in different colors so you can start playing right away without struggling to tell who is who. The interlocking tiles that make up the board are quite nice too, with artwork that evokes the industrial look of the first two Alien films. The cards and counters leave a bit to be desired, but more on that later.

I wish I could say that the game lives up to the quality of its components, but unfortunately it is marred by convoluted rules, as well as some ill-considered graphic design that makes the rules, cards and tokens very difficult to read.

The basic structure of the game isn't bad at all. The board is constructed from the tiles based on the scenario being played, and as I already mentioned, it all looks great on the table. Players take control of either a large group of Aliens, a small group of human Marines, or 1-2 Predators, and from there it's a pretty straightforward move-and-shoot tactical game. However, the rules governing the moving and shooting are very obtuse and difficult to follow, with tons of modifiers and exceptions to keep track of.

One feature of the rules that seems like an interesting idea in theory is the use of what the game calls "ping" tokens. The idea is that at the start of the game, players don't know anything about their opponent's forces, so figures are represented by face-down tokens until the move into view of another player's team, at which time the token is revealed and replaced with a miniature. This semi-hidden movement seems quite thematic, evoking the tension-filled motion tracker scenes in the Alien films, but in practice it means that you're playing a fair amount of the game with flat cardboard disks instead of awesome-looking miniatures.

The stat cards for the figures are another problem, with very small white-on-black text that is impossible to read, and a system of symbols that is too involved to memorize, prompting constant referral to the rule book just to translate what's on your card.

A game element  that I do quite like is the addition of a deck of strategy cards for each player, themed for each faction. Cards such as Cloaking Field for the Predators, Covering Fire for the marines, and Acid Blood Splash for the Aliens allow players to introduce unpredictable elements into the game. There is also a deck of environmental cards that are drawn at the end of each round, creating effects that all players must work around. 7TV does something similar with its Gadget and Countdown decks.

Ultimately, I am a narrative gamer: what I want out of a miniatures game is a conduit into whatever world the game takes place in. The rules are there to provide a structure for that, and then get out of the way. The complicated rules system for AVP: The Hunt Begins seems aimed at tournament-level play, where being able to manipulate the rules to your advantage is more important than enjoying the theme and setting.

The miniatures and tiles are so good, though, that I'm really interested in finding another rules system I can use them for. There's a fan-created set of cards for 7TV detailing the Aliens, Predators and Marines, and a thread on BoardGameGeek dedicated to expanding the rules for the excellent Aliens board game published by Leading Edge Games in 1989. I've even thought of adapting the Aliens Predator CCG to include miniatures and more tactical movement.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) I'm reluctant to give this game a rating at all since the tactile components are so out of line with the game itself, but ultimately it fails to deliver a satisfying game experience.

• Aliens vs. Predator: the Hunt Begins official website
• Aliens vs. Predator: the Hunt Begins (Second Edition) on BoardGameGeek

Game 327: Darkwood (1992)

               

Darkwood

United States
Published as shareware in 1992 for the Macintosh
Date Started: 15 May 2019

Date Finished: 16 May 2019

Total Hours: 4
Difficulty: Easy (2/5)
Final Rating: (to come later)
Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

               

You are an orphan named Derek who wants to join the elite city guard of Darkwood, the safest city in the kingdom. Anyone who defeats the toughest creature in the arena will become Captain of the Guard. You start at Level 1 with no experience, a dagger, and 10 gold pieces. In front of you lies a town with a weapon shop, an armor shop, a magic shop, an inn, and an arena.
           

Starting the game. You click on buildings to enter them.

           

Because it's all you can afford, you buy some leather armor for 5 gold pieces before heading into the arena. You are offered battles against 20 creatures, listed in order of difficulty from a giant rat to a red dragon. You choose the giant rat. You defeat him in a few rounds of combat and get 10 gold pieces and 75 experience points. You rest up at the inn, and with your newfound wealth, you upgrade your weapon to a short sword. Back you go to the arena to face the next monster.

                   

Over the next several hours, you kill successively harder monsters, buy successively better equipment, and level up. You can save at any time, so death is not permanent. Eventually, you make your way to the arena wielding a Sword +5 Holy Avenger and wearing Full Plate +4, and you defeat the red dragon. Then the game is over.
         

Battering away at an enemy.

         
As tempting as it is to go immediately to GIMLET and make this the shortest entry of all time, there are a few more things to talk about. The first is that I've played this game before, when it was new. Someone had loaded it onto one of the lab computers at my university, and I copied it to floppy disk and brought it home. (This would have been around 1993, in my only Mac-owning period.) The entire time I played, I assumed I was playing a prologue, and once I was named Captain of the Guard, the game would open up and I'd perform a bunch of quests in my new role. I couldn't believe that it was over when it was over.
                                                            

Dad would be so proud.

          
I mis-remembered a few things about the game. I thought I remembered that you could only fight each creature once, but not only would this make for a 10-minute game, it would be impossible. You need to grind relentlessly against low-level creatures to survive and build wealth. The game doesn't really encourage you to test your limits. Even with reloading, if a goblin gives you 25 gold pieces and 110 experience points, and you can kill him 100% of the time (which you can after Level 2), what is your incentive to move up to a bugbear, which offers 40 gold pieces and 250 experience points but a 50% chance of death? Just fight the goblin twice. It only takes a few seconds.

You have to be careful not to be lured by the ghoul (400 gold, 500 experience) or the wight (500 gold, 700 experience). They can drain levels, so their rewards aren't worth it. If you can get to the point that you can defeat the troll, he's a reliably rewarding enemy, offering 1500 gold and 1800 experience. He's the third-to-last enemy, so he should be a lot harder, but something isn't programmed properly. He almost never hits you.
       

Grind all those experience points again? Or just reload?

        
I bought the best weapon and armor in the game, as well as a ring of protection +3, before purchasing any healing potions (easier just to reload than chug a 1000-gold-piece potion) or tomes. The tomes cost 2,000 gold pieces each and allow you to increase your dexterity and constitution to 18 and your strength to 18/100. (I don't think intelligence, wisdom, or charisma do anything. They can't be improved.) After that, the only things to spend money on are wands and potions.
          

Using a tome.

           
I made it to Level 8. It was taking too long to grind to Level 9. I found that the red dragon was unconquerable with melee weapons, even with a full stock of healing potions. But it was vulnerable to the lightning wand that you can buy in the magic shop. Four or five blasts and I was Captain of the Guard.
          

I don't want to accuse the author of anything, but our past experience with shareware titles makes me suspicious of the provenance of these graphics.

         
In a GIMLET, it earns:
           

• 2 points for the game world, featuring a basic backstory commensurate with the scope of the game.

• 1 point for character creation and development. There's no creation, and leveling doesn't seem to do much more than confer extra hit points.

• 0 points for no NPC interaction.

• 1 point for encounters and foes. The bestiary is Dungeons and Dragons standard, and the level-draining attacks of the undead are the only special attacks programmed in.

                 

A few statistics help you determine what foe you'll want to defeat next.

              

• 1 point for magic and combat. Your options are only to attack, use an item, or surrender.

                     

Using the Wand of Lightning in the final battle.

          

• 3 points for equipment. Only one weapon and armor slot, but the magic item selection is decent.

• 4 points for the economy. It lacks any complexity, but it remains relevant until the end.

• 2 points for a main quest.

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. There are only a couple of sounds: hit, miss, and "you won!" Graphics are sparse enough that it might as well have been a text game. It's disappointing how all the monsters are represented by the same helmeted figure. I found the all-mouse interface annoying, as I do all all-mouse interfaces, but it was easy enough to determine what to click on.

• 2 points for gameplay. Too easy, too limited, and not replayable, it's at least short.

              
That gives us a final score of 18. It's about as minor as you can get and still qualify as an RPG at all. Author Robert Chancellor returned to the setting with Siege of Darkwood (1993), a light strategy game that he published through Pointware. Based in La Verne, California, Chancellor would later go on to work for Blizzard and Amazon Game Studios.
              

He sure got a lot of mileage out of that graphic.

             
What Darkwood does best is raise uncomfortable questions about what makes it a "lesser" RPG. Imagine that it is the menu town of something like a Gold Box game. Instead of leveling up and gaining wealth by fighting monsters in the arena in 30 seconds, you have to spend hours questing in dungeons, only to ultimately return to the city to spend your money and level up. What have all those extra hours gained you? Are they anything more than sound and fury? In stripping away the frills of typical, more elaborate RPGs, does Darkwood also strip illusions about the value of time spent playing those games? Can I honestly say that the endgame screen is less satisfying than a typical era title that takes 5 times as long but introduces no extra plot?

Those questions might be more worth thinking about if the combat in Darkwood were a bit more elaborate, a bit more tactical. I feel like if you're going to set your title entirely in the confines of an arena, combat needs to offer something more than clicking the icon of a sword until someone is dead. (Has any good RPG been set entirely in an arena? I'm open to the possibility.) Perhaps an action-oriented approach drawing upon the underlying attributes. Perhaps the ability to team up with other NPCs. As it is, Darkwood leaves me uncomfortable and unsatisfied. Perhaps I can pretend it's a prologue to Darklands.


****

I've removed Dragons Shard from the list after playing it for a while, then realizing that the shareware version caps character development at Level 5. This is my third half-hearted attempt to play a Bit Brothers game, all of which seem to feature the same engine. Until I can somehow obtain a full-featured copy of the game, I can't get far enough to bother writing about it.

Also gone is Mission: Thunderbolt, which it turns out is not really a 1992 game but a 1991 Macintosh release of a single mission of a mainframe game called Doomsday 2000 (1987). The game has been moved to re-consideration in its appropriate year.

28Mm Village Sections

New Russian Villages:

I've made up a few Russian village sections for WWII (although they'd do fine for Napoleonic too) These are mostly MDF kits from "Things From The Basement" in the USA with a few more extra bits from the excellent Charlie Foxtrot models here in the UK

Love these...2 cabins, and high fences
All lovely models, easy to construct, and fun to paint. One of the things which attracted me to them was how there are very few lugs on display - most MDF kits have these rather unsightly points where the various bits fit together- These don't- makes them look so much better- I thought it would be more fun to put these together as based village units, to allow a little bit more detailing and customisation. 

Simple Russian barn, but will do for pretty much anywhere

Pigs.....
Couldn't resist this...the little pigsty base is from TFTB, pigs from Pegasus

Small cabin, rough fencing- Warlord Russians!
The bases are all slightly different sizes, but generally about 10' square, big enough to make an impact on the wargames table and to allow the addition of more "stuff" to pretty them up

Larger Villa with small garden
These are for sale....feel free to contact me if you wish for prices etc- I'm going to be making a lot more terrain and buildings over the next few months, if you have a specific request just ask, or keep an eye out here or look for CAC terrain on facebook

Smaller cabin and woodshed by Charlie Foxtrot, Everything else from TFTB. Love the well.

Farming Simulator 19 [Updated To V1.2.0.1 + MULTi18 + DLC] For PC [5.2 GB] Highly Compressed Repack

Farming Simulator 19 - is a farming simulation game developed by Giants Software and published by Focus Home Entertainment, and it was released on the 20th of November, 2018. Download this video game for free.

Farming Simulator 19 takes the biggest step forward yet with the franchise's most extensive vehicle roster ever! Take control of vehicles and machines faithfully recreated from all the leading brands in the industry, including for the first time John Deere, the largest agriculture machinery company in the world, Case IH, New Holland, Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson, Valtra, Krone, Deutz-Fahr and many more. Farming Simulator 19 will feature new American and European environments in which to develop and expand your farm.

..:: Purchase the game here and support the developers ::..

1. FEATURES OF THE GAME

• Biggest step forward for the Farming Simulator franchise, Offering the most striking and immersive graphics ever.
• Use and drive hundreds of faithfully reproduced farming vehicles and tools including for the first time John Deere.
• In this video game, Tend to your livestock including Pigs, Cows, Sheep, Chicken and for the first time with Horses.
• Ride your own horses and explore the new vast areas offered in huge open worlds loaded with Farming Activities.
• Develop your Farm online with up to 16 players & Enrich your Farming experience with Community-created mods.

Game is updated to latest version

Included DLCs

▪ Farming Simulator 19 - Mahindra Downloadable Content

2. GAMEPLAY AND SCREENSHOTS

3. DOWNLOAD GAME:

♢ Click or choose only one button below to download this game.
♢ You need μTorrent program to download torrent files, download here.
♢ View detailed instructions for downloading and installing the game here.
♢ Use 7-Zip to extract RAR, ZIP and ISO files. Install PowerISO to mount DAA files.

FARMING SIMULATOR 19 [v1.2.0.1 + MULTi18 + DLC] - DOWNLOAD LINKS

      

PASSWORD FOR THE GAME

Unlock with password: pcgamesrealm

4. INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS GAME

➤ Download the game by clicking on the button link provided above.

➤ Download the game and turn off your Antivirus and Windows Defender to avoid file corruption.

➤ When the download process is finished, locate or go to that file.

➤ Extract the downloaded file by using 7-Zip, and run the installer as admin then install the game on your PC.

➤ Once the installation is complete, run the game's exe as admin and you can now play the game.

➤ Congratulations! You can now play this game for free on your PC.

➤ Note: If you like this video game, please buy it and support the developers of this game.

Turn off or temporarily disable your Antivirus or Windows Defender to avoid false positive detections.

5. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
(Your PC must at least have the equivalent or higher specs in order to run this game.)

• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 | 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i3-2100T @ 2.5GHz or AMD FX-4100 @3.6 GHz
• Memory: at least 4GB System RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 20GB free HDD Space
• Video Card: Nvidia Geforce GTX 650, AMD Radeon HD 7770 graphics card (2 GB VRAM)

Supported Language: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Turkish, Chinese Traditional & Simplified, Japanese and Korean.

If you have any questions or encountered broken links, please do not hesitate to comment below. :D

Devil May Cry 5 | Release Date, Gameplay Preview, Trailer, News, & More..

Devil May Cry 5 | Release date, Gameplay preview, Trailer, News, & more..


Devil May Cry 5 is turning out to be one of the great game from Capcom in the principal quarter of 2019, and it's set to highlight new and old characters alike. Going about as a continuation that fans have been holding up a long time to play, Dante and Nero return close by newcomer V, the last of which we've just observed a little bother of up to this point. 

It feels so fulfilling to have capcom's badass child back and all prepared to kick some ass. So here Pro-GamersArena has compiled everything you need to know about DMC 5 including all the latest gameplay, news, trailers, and more...


Quick facts:

• Release date: 8 March 2019
• Developer: Capcom
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Devil May Cry 5: Release Date

Capcom has affirmed that Devil May Cry 5 will release for PS4, Xbox One and PC on March 8, 2018. This is an entirely bustling quarter of 2019 as DMC 5 will contend with different blockbusters like the Resident Evil 2 Remake, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Anthem, and more. 

Devil May Cry 5: Trailers

We've compiled two of the most recent trailers for Devil May Cry 5 beneath. The latest trailer from Tokyo Games Show uncovers V as the third playable character and a broad take a gander at how Dante plays both in investigation and battle. He can part his bike into two swords and murder evil presences with them, which is pretty F**king cool.

Somewhere else in the trailer simply above, we can see the third playable character, referred to just as 'V'. There's valuable little to go ahead about this newcomer at the present time, however we do realize that we'll be playing as him for specific segments of the game, and we'll additionally have the capacity to pick which character we need to play as in a few segments of Devil May Cry 5. 

Gameplay Preview:

Devil May Cry 5 is an immediate continuation of the fourth part that knows precisely what it's doing as far as story, style and being a total rebel. 

So the demo starts as Nero and colleague/tricky specialist Nico walk around a crushed Redgrave City on board a corroded old van with 'Devil May Cry' disdained over the side in splendid, fluorescent neon. It's obvious from an initial couple of moments that DMC is back, and it's prepared to let you know it. 

Subsequent to dropping you off, Nero is tossed straight into some renegade activity. London has been crushed, with evil spirit going crazy among the nearly non-existent, post-Brexit populace. Clearly, being evil presences, they focus on Nero like a flash, which means it's the ideal opportunity for a battle. This is the place you get the chance to see Devil May Cry 5's most inventive new highlights: Devil Breaker.

This is Nero's arm and can be separated and modified to your loving with a variety of gnarly powers. Squeezing the circle catch evokes a little punch, yet holding it is a totally extraordinary story. When you will do as such, Nero throws an appallingly hard left hook before his arm heaved forward a consistent light emission that managed silly measures of harm. 

Obviously, Nero's Red Queen (Sword) and Blue Rose (Revolver) make a merited return and have additionally been skilled a shocking update that enables his character to pop simply more. They're massive and satisfying to use, and show that Devil May Cry 5 is expecting to make battle feel weightier and more noteworthy than past sessions. Sending demons back to the profundities they originated from is an impact, particularly when they look so awful.

The boss fight that finished the demo was with Goliath. Obviously, he was a transcending behemoth that any consistent individual would run and escape. Nero, in the entirety of his astuteness, chose to experiment with his comic drama hacks and estrange the devil. The fight itself partook, to begin with, on the top of a building, at that point inside the building lastly in a gigantic open square. The progressions were consistent and striking as Goliath made short work of anything around him.


So, How's It?

Devil May Cry 5 is a wonderful return for the outrageous action series, displaying all the vital trademarks while pushing the limits of what we anticipate from it. 

So subsequent to viewing the gameplay, it's simply tingling to kill a cluster of evil spirits, however we should hold up until 8 March 2018 to accept the rules as a portion of the world's most noteworthy devil hunters.

Darkwing Duck (Demo) (PC)

Developer:

Headcannon

|

Release Date:

2019 (or never I suppose)

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac, Linux

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Darkwing Duck! Not the NES game, I played that already way back in the first year of my site. In fact it was so long ago that I'm scared to check what I wrote about it. Probably best to forget I told you about it actually. (It's not the Game Boy or Turbografx game either by the way.)

What this is, is a 1 level prototype demo thing inspired by the NES game, developed as a pitch to Capcom and then released to the world for free last month when that didn't work out. There's so many amazing AAA games in my Steam backlog, so many indie games fighting for exposure on Steam and Itch.io, and yet I'm spending my time playing a game that won't ever exist.

The demo was developed by at least one of the people who worked on the similar Sonic Mania, though it uses the Headcannon Game Engine instead of the Retro Engine. Incidentally the original Darkwing Dark on the NES was basically built on Mega Man's engine, so there's some Wikipedia trivia for you I expect my past self completely neglected to mention in his article back in 2011. In fact I bet that article is just him spending like 30 minutes failing to beat the first stage, whining a bit about it being too hard and then quitting.

Speaking of running into unexpected challenges, for classic platformers I usually display my screenshots at exactly double the resolution to keep them sharp, but the game has too wide a resolution for that so I had to decide whether I wanted to leave the screens tiny, make them a fuzzy mess, or crop them. Or make the site wider. I figured that cropping them would be the least painful of those options so I went with that, but if you click an image the original uncut screenshot will pop up.

Read on »