Castle Paradox

[Camdog]

Seconds after beginning my 'fantasy', the 4th wall was promptly smashed by Kain referring directly to the player and the videogame in the intro. From there, I was treated to dialogue that seemed like a parody of ebonics and anachronisms galore. I guess the author was trying to emulate a college environment, but the problem was he emulated a MODERN AMERICAN college, not some badass military training college in some fantasy under some blue moon.

Worse, he did it badly. All the 'dogs' and 'yos' seemed so forced and lame to me, like someone four years too young to go to college writing the dialogue he imagined would be spoken. Also, why the hell are these kids talking about Mel Gibson? Is this really just a college in Des Moines where everyone dresses up like samurai? Maybe it was supposed to be funny, but it wasn't considering that it was basically the same joke every time you talked to someone new.

I also felt the gameplay was way too hard, given that you had figure out the different elemental weaknesses of the three forms of the first boss and levelbust (or at least get enough money for the requisite spells and enough potions to survive) just to beat him. Then you walk outside and promptly get smashed by the monsters lurking just outside of town. Something is wrong when beginning level enemies do three times the damage to you that you do to them.

I dug the notion of spells that could be used or equipped to different effect a lot, but the sheer power of the enemies kind of eliminated any strategy. Since the only spells I encountered early on were basic damage or healing spells, there were no real tactics other than figuring out the enemy's weakness and healing at the proper time. If you were underpowered, you got smashed, and you start out very underpowered. I don't care for any game that forces you to level bust without letting you use your head, and this game threw me into that pattern immediately!

The graphics were pretty, that much is undeniable, but that really seemed to be the only thing going for this game. Is it's popularity due to nostalgia and the fact that when it was released, decent graphics and a complete game were all you needed to garner rave reviews?

(Was it even completed? The guards at the jail mentioned that you would be able to enter it when the game was done, but I thought that might have just been an oversight. Personally, I couldn't slog my way to the end.)

[TwinHamster]

My thief guy got slaughtered after the first boss, and I couldn't find an inn to bring him back to life. I found an OHR cafe, a sleeping inn, and item shops and the such, but no where to resurrect the downed. As you can tell, I was quickly raped minutes after leaving the village.

I should try out the don't-die tactic the next time I play.

[Camdog]

There's an item that will revive. OHR cookie? Bob cookie? Something like that.

[Onlyoneinall]

Bob cookie for 80 PP.

I played this game when it first came out, and I remember thinking it was the best thing to hit the OHR. Now, I'm a little more cynical, and I must agree with Camdog about the dialouge. All the dogs and yos probably has something to do with the fact that White Owl is not well... white. He's black. If I remember correctly, he was somewhere in his twenties at least when he made this game. There was also a blue shockwave update or something, which added a little more to this version.

I thought most of the music choices were great. I've been itching to know the sources but never found any out. Also, Prototype Podo is virtually impossible to beat, unless you go into custom and edit the stats, which at this point is now impossible. However, White Owl handed the password out way back when I brought this up - something along the lines of "Jameelah" it was. I have the unpassworded version if anyone needs it.

This game has the typical too good for his own good hero (Podo), the smart mouthed take no shit from no one best friend (Kain), the cool cat pimpin alumnist (Klaus), the overly nice pussy who gets yelled at all the time by the smart mouthed friend (Vixen), and the super hot all the girls want him extra hero (Dr. Masa). I liked Podo, but thought he was too polite to all the baddies he met up with. Kain had the kind of attitude you'd see from a guy who is beats away from getting his ass kicked. Klaus was sort of there, and Vixen is like... naive. Dr. Masa is just there as well.

Most of this game seems too 'badass' in that everyone has attitude, and they're always looking pissed off. I think this game's sexual contents is more frequent and more... "mature" than the Eight Granasties. It seems every girl you talk to has something sexual to say or will end up saying something related to it.

Undoubtably though, graphics rock. As for the gameplay difficulty, I didn't think it was too bad, but at times it seemed too much. Equipment is most important here over level ups, and it's important not to forget to use your weapon on yourself to learn a new skill (use your Rusted sword on Podo and you should learn Jump for example).

More to come as more people respond to the topic.
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00

[JSH357]

I'm going to stay out of the analysis since I like to remember FUABMX4 as it was back when it first came out. At the time, it was one of the most impressive OHR games there were, and it had a sense of humor that was so lacking in the typical OHR game that it was a breath of fresh air.

The game isn't complete, but it is about 12 hours long and it ends at a major twist in the story. (huge for an early game) The password is 'Jameelah', which White Owl revealed when people were having trouble beating one of the bosses. (Podo's father, I think) Looking back, naturally, it isn't so impressive in several hours, but it is one of the most complete demos available on the engine, and if you look at early OHR games, almost none of the games ever came near completion. (Walthros was the first standard RPG I can recall to be completed, and another wasn't completed for a very long time)

White Owl is one this community's biggest losses, sadly, but he had a life to take care of. (I'm pretty sure he had a son, and he was pretty old back then too) The earlier versions of FUABMX are interesting as well. As I recall, the first one was among the only OHR games that used the level up bug to its advantage. (Your stats would raise based on the improvements that armor gave at level ups)

So anyway, it's ancient now, but at the time I was mesmerized by how big and complete this was.

[Rinku]

I agree with JSH mainly: great graphics and presentation. To this day, very few OHR games have tiles like FUABMX. The only people on his level are Royal/Royale and Orchard-L/Friend.

As an aside, don't downplay graphics, they're half of what a videogame is (video + game). I'd go so far as to say I'd prefer to play a game with great graphics and bad gameplay than a game with good gameplay and bad graphics. Seriously. I'd learn a lot more from the former than from the later, because making a game fun is relatively easy, it's making a game pretty that takes the majority of the work and creativity. For instance, Okami, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ico, Out of This World, etc., would all be worth playing just for their visual style, and I can't think of many games that are worth playing just for their gameplay alone.

What I mean is something like: unless you are capable of making a game that looks like FUABMX, then saying something like 'all it has going for it is its graphics' seems premature. Sure, there are OHR games which had better dialogue and a better premise (though not many), but that's not really white White Owl was focused on. He was focused on presentation, and did that well.

As a bit of trivia, I live within short driving distance of where White Owl lives/lived, though I never met up with him. I was just joining the community when he left it.

As another bit of trivia, this game is called FUABMX V4 for a reason: he remade the game four times. Each time he completely redid the game from scratch, with a new OHR file, new graphics, new text, and so on, but the same game. That's why the game's presentation is so great, it had three earlier drafts. He at one time popped in to the OHR community to show screens of FUABMX V5, again with completely new (and amazing) graphics, it's a shame that version was never released.
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Tower Defense Game

[Camdog]

[The Wobbler]

[Rinku]

I think you're conflating "good graphics technology" with "good graphics" Camdog (which is a common mistake) -- I consider many NES games, Bomberman, interactive fiction (which doesn't have "no graphics", it has text, which is visual), card games, Pitfall, and even Warlords (which is one of my favorite Atari 2600 games) to have pretty good graphics. Having great graphics doesn't mean that it's state of the art. Having great graphics means that what you see on the screen is attractive and understandable, and doesn't hurt the eyes. Most Ohrrpgce games have poorer graphics than most Atari 2600 games, despite having superior graphics technology. Even FUABMX doesn't begin to approach the excellence of the graphics of Pitfall. In other words, if you understand that I meant graphics more broadly than the number of colors used or the number of frames of animation or the number of polygons, I think you'd agree with me.

As for FF7, of course there's varied opinions on its graphics, but I personally believe it's the Final Fantasy game with the best graphics (with FF4 coming in second). The models of the characters are pretty bad (popeye arms and such), but I'm not thinking about those, I'm thinking about the pre-rendered backgrounds, the scenery of the game. Most of those are masterpieces of visual design.
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Tower Defense Game

[JSH357]

Yeah, he never finished, but it's still a wonder to behold. I remember White Owl saying he thought FUABMX V4 was BAD even when it was being praised as one of the best games on the engine.

I'm shocked that Camdog attacked White Owl for the amount of effort he put into improving this game over time. You don't see people with that kind of will to work on their games here (or many places at all for that matter) anymore, and regardless of the quality of this game, saying that rewriting and remaking is a waste of time is just foolishness. The best authors rewrite their stories constantly. Mozart might have through-composed, but I can't name any other composer who never revised his work.

Sure, if he had FINISHED the game, it would have been a waste of time remaking, but he never did. Plenty of OHR games have been started and restarted, made and remade. It doesn't make them any lesser of a time investment than complete games that are pieces of crap like Mr. Triangle whatever.

(I'm amazed that I actually agree with Rinku about something)

Also, why not look at incomplete games? If you're planning on delving into the classics, get ready, because almost 100% of them were never finished. Like I said, aside from games like Arfenhouse, Walthros was the first complete OHR game I can think of, but there are plenty of older games worth playing and analyzing.

[Camdog]

[Rinku]

Well, I guess it's possible some people find gameplay rather than presentation to be more important to how fun they find a game, but I don't. I also find it bizarre that you believe Walthros to have bad graphics; it wasn't as great as FUABMX, but it wasn't bad, certainly in the top 1% of OHR games graphically.

But here's an analogy: do you find novels with a good story or novels which are written well to be better? Personally I prefer novels that are well-written to novels with a good story.
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Tower Defense Game

[Camdog]

[Rinku]

Most Ohrrpgce games don't have any work put into them. Walthros's graphics are horrendous compared to commercial games, but very good for an Ohrrpgce game.

I think it might just be that I find anything engaging (that goes for both stories and gameplay). I'm easily amused, and can find interest in anything. I could sit there staring at a clothing dryer cycle for an hour, and be amused (and have done so). So because I find interest everywhere, and am never bored by anything, what I care about isn't how much something amuses me (because everything amuses me), but how pretty something looks (or how well it reads) as it amuses me.
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Tower Defense Game

[The Wobbler]