Bogleech -> Quoting a Post in THE most evil video game enemy ever conceived

Last 10 Posts [ In reverse order ]

MacGyver

Posted on Jun 4 2012, 02:34 PM

Ebe: Actually, my old web site address no longer exists--Fortunecity, the provider that I was using, stopped offering free services, so I had to move my site to another location again a while back. My apologies for neglecting to mention it before. The new address for my site is:

http://www.angelfire.com/ult/ace/MarksArtPage.html

Alternatively, you can simply replace the "http://kramwartap.fortunecity.com/" part of the URL on any of my older links with "http://www.angelfire.com/ult/ace/" and it should work.

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Sunny!: The Wizardry Empire games are pretty much classic Wizardry, gameplay-wise (there's very little story, just dungeon delving and monster thrashing--just the way I like it.) The new character classes, and the unusually large number of levels, are the only real significant changes. Other than the Japanese language barrier, if you've played other Wizardry games, you should feel right at home.

Even though undead don't need to "eat", I believe that, in D&D, that level draining can serve as sustenance of sorts for high-level undead--that, and it's just a shitty thing to do to someone, which any self-respecting evil creature never passes a chance to do. Maybe the Death Slime uses its stolen levels to spawn normal slimes?

I'm not sure who decided that slimes should generally be so wimpy (okay, I lied, I lay all the blame on the Dragon Quest series), as they are generally nasty little buggers in D&D, due to them usually being resistant to most forms of damage (beating on animate Jell-o is a lot harder than your typical console RPG makes it look) and having the capability to dissolve flesh/wood/metal on contact and other detrimental abilities. The Blue Slimes in Wizardry Empire are relatively easy Level 1 enemies, but the Red, Yellow, and Green varieties are no pushovers, and all four variations have breath attacks.

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Oh yeah, I made a bestiary for the PC Engine CD version of Wizardy I: Proving Grounds of The Mad Overlord (I got tired of looking at the NES/SNES sprites so I decided to focus on a non-Nintendo port for once) some time ago, that I don't believe I ever posted here before:

http://www.angelfire.com/ult/ace/WZD_PGMO_bestiary.html

I finally found the Kali and Rakshasa enemies the other night, all I'm missing now is Damned and Norns; where they're hiding, I have no idea. There's a level that has a lot of Valkyries and Sleipnir enemies in it, which one would think would be the perfect place to find the Norns, thematically, but no luck.

And, The Elemental summon did turn out to be EXACTLY the same as the boss, which is pure awesome. That thing wrecks shit like nobody's business and is gloriously unfair and game-breaking (it usually hits for 900-1,000 points of damage with its physical attacks, something no normal enemy can survive, and that's also enough to kill most bosses in two hits.) The only downside is that the game controls the summoned creatures, not you, so you never know when The Elemental will do a physical blow instead of its breath attack or a spell.

Sunny!

Posted on Jun 4 2012, 12:53 AM

Wizardry Empire!... Yeah, I've always wanted to play that. Now more than ever. Gameplay wise, how is it? A Megaten-ish crawl n' story, a straight up Wizardry game, or something entirely different? As for the evilness of Death Slime, it seems to me that slimes are one of those creatures like zombies and normal animals that should actually get some respect in RPGS, but are almost always reduced to grinding fodder. The poor lil' dudes.

But this guy(s). Mans. What an ability! What does it even DO with that drained XP?

Ebe

Posted on Jun 1 2012, 11:08 PM

Speaking of which, all your sprite pages seem to be down.

MacGyver

Posted on May 31 2012, 03:05 PM

The bestiary is a bit more in-depth this time around, so it's going to be a while yet [I found three of the seven monsters I'm missing, only four left to go (Kali, Raksasha, Norns, and Damned)]. In addition to the usual identified/unidentified monsters, spells, and maps, I'm also translating all of the game's 200+ items (I'm still missing 15 of those as well, mostly weapons and armor.)

There are also five new secret prestige classes in this game that can only be created with rare items [Valiant, Avenger, Musashi, Kunoichi, and Summoner (Shoukanshi)], each with its own unique school of magic, that I'm still exploring. Valiant seems to be a basic Paladin type character, the Avenger specializes in inflicting negative status effects with magic, Musashi and Kunoichi are just Samurai/Ninja variants that cater to the Japanese audience, and, of course, the Summoner has an army of beasties to call upon to do battle for the party (the monster essentially serves as a seventh party member that you can't directly control and lasts until its killed or dismissed by the summoner.) Unlike the other character classes, the Summoner doesn't learn spells as he/she levels up, you have to actually go out into the dungeon and find special tiles to recruit each monster, and you have to be at a high enough level to get them to join [so far, I've got Goblin, Skeleton, Carrion Crawler, Dryad, Mummy, Kirin, Ghost, Hellhound, Gorgon, Hydra, Titan, Gas Cloud, Random Insect (various beetles), Greater Demon, Vampire Lord, Valkyrie, Random monster (any), and Fire/Earth/Water/Air Elementals--I've also found The Elemental and Musashi boss summons, but I'm not at a high enough level to acquire them yet [if The Elemental (a composite of all four basic elementals with 1,050-1,900 HP, -38 AC, a breath attack, and physical blows that do hundreds of points of damage and inflict negative status effects) is as strong as the actual boss, then all my enemies are completely and utterly fucked once I get it, because I can't think of anything, short of another boss, that has the slightest chance of defeating it.] There's also a new basic character class, the Archer--basically, these guys/gals just sit in the back row and pepper enemies with arrows/quarrels (and you can find magic projectiles that inflict negative status effects); they're also the only class that has access to the best projectile weapons like the heavy crossbow, cross shooter, and arbalest.

Mesklinite01

Posted on May 31 2012, 07:49 AM

This is probably the coolest variety of slime I've seen.

And I must say I'm looking forward to you completing the bestiary, MacGyver. I like how in depth your rpg enemy pages are!

ScutigeraColeoptrata

Posted on May 29 2012, 06:13 PM

QUOTE (leesamfish @ May 29 2012, 03:30 AM)

Also, I read an article on cracked that talked about how some pirated games were designed to do delete the player's files.

I know that Earthbound did this in one of the most evil (and ingenious) anti-piracy measures ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmyoV1bkXNI

MacGyver

Posted on May 29 2012, 03:11 PM

I was thinking, because slimes are usually throw away enemies in RPGs (how many games have you played where the first creature you encountered was a pathetically weak green slime?), that maybe the developers made the Death Slime as the ultimate revenge character for all those poor abused slimes. My other hypothesis, considering that Wizardry is just one big ripoff of D&D, is that the Death Slime is supposed to represent Juiblex.

Scythemantis: It's actually just called "Critical" in this particular Wizardry game (which I believe is an attempt at downplay/censor the violence in this particular case), but yeah, it's the dreaded one-hit decapitation instant kill. No matter how strong you get in Wizardry, your characters are always in danger of getting their heads lopped off by ninja and other deadly creatures (actually, I like to think of it more like Fist of the North Star, with your head exploding in a shower of crimson and bone, but that's just me.) Of course, if you have a ninja or kunoichi in your party, turnabout is fair play.

leesamfish: Yeah, like Ebe said, you're probably thinking of Eternal Darkness. However, I've also been playing the first Wizardry: Empire game (the one that came out before this one with the Death Slime), and there's a cursed item in that one that I foolishly equipped that causes your party to uncontrollably teleport randomly throughout the dungeon every time they take a step (really "fun" when you teleport into solid stone and utterly destroy your party forever)--until I figured out what the problem was, I was convinced that the game had irreversibly glitched up on me. Moral of the story: never, ever equip, or activate, shit in Wizardry if you don't know what it is and what it does--you will be very, very sorry.

Ebe

Posted on May 29 2012, 04:06 AM

Scythe Mantis: Decapitate is what Wizardry has instead of "Instant Death." It still acts as a one hit kill however.

leeasimfish: You're thinking of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

leesamfish

Posted on May 29 2012, 03:30 AM

QUOTE (scythemantis @ May 27 2012, 09:46 AM)

QUOTE (MacGyver @ May 25 2012, 02:48 PM)

Recently I had the displeasure to run across what I believe to be the most evil enemy to ever appear in a video game:� the Death Slime from Wizardry Empire: Fukkatsu no Tsue (Staff of Restoration) on Gameboy Color.� What makes it so bad?� It can PERMANENTLY drain 99 levels of experience from any of your player characters with a single blow.� There is no way to reverse it either, once those levels are gone, they're gone--hours and hours of work straight down the drain.� The only thing that could be conceivably worse would be an enemy that could erase your save file.� Did I mention that it has a -20 AC and 90-100% magic resistance, which makes it nearly impossible to hit, and that it can poison, paralyze, petrify, and decapitate you, all at once, on top of the level drain?

user posted image

Wait, is "decapitate" a status condition in this game? Please say it is.

This is a pretty awesome monster all around.

I would love to see an enemy that erases your save, though; or at least knocks you back a save point with each hit. Bahahaha.

Which is the game that makes the player think the system froze up or glitched...? It's something that's really common knowledge, that I can't remember right now.

Also, I read an article on cracked that talked about how some pirated games were designed to do delete the player's files.

scythemantis

Posted on May 27 2012, 09:46 AM

QUOTE (MacGyver @ May 25 2012, 02:48 PM)

Recently I had the displeasure to run across what I believe to be the most evil enemy to ever appear in a video game: the Death Slime from Wizardry Empire: Fukkatsu no Tsue (Staff of Restoration) on Gameboy Color. What makes it so bad? It can PERMANENTLY drain 99 levels of experience from any of your player characters with a single blow. There is no way to reverse it either, once those levels are gone, they're gone--hours and hours of work straight down the drain. The only thing that could be conceivably worse would be an enemy that could erase your save file. Did I mention that it has a -20 AC and 90-100% magic resistance, which makes it nearly impossible to hit, and that it can poison, paralyze, petrify, and decapitate you, all at once, on top of the level drain?

user posted image

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