The Dungeon Ecologist @dungeonecologist - Tumblr Blog

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Perhaps my core ethos to this sideblog about asking, "why are these monsters in this dungeon?" can be summed up in an old twobestfriendsplay video where they played the Bear Grylls game on the Wii, and while being attacked by like three different kinds of wild animal all at once Pat just screams in indignation,

"WHY WOULD NATURE CONSPIRE AGAINST MAN LIKE THIS!?"

which I can hear, clear as day in the back of my head any time an RPG throws a random encounter at me where, like... a giant bug, a skeleton, and mold all attack me together in like an opposing party. I don't question why they'd want me dead, but why have they chosen to cooperate to do it???

Now that I've been at EO3HD for a bit I feel like I should've taken up blogging here again, but there's actually just so much going on with Etrian Odyssey's monsters and how they suite their environments in the dungeon and interact with one another that I kind of don't know where to start. Every other game I've dabble with here has had maybe like 3 or 4 monsters to a level, but EO has maybe half a dozen on any single given level? And I'd maybe ignore returning monsters from previous levels when diving into a new level, but then some have unique interactions with new monsters, so that's kind of out of the question. I could probably avoid the grief by just committing to making shorter posts, but endless rambling is just sort of how my brain works....

dungeonecologist

ive got no real notes in line with my usual shtick on this blog, but I've been playing the Fear & Hunger games lately and boy oh boy those sure are some games

dungeonecologist

the first one had its own fun kind of brutality to it, but it was mostly straight forward. there weren't really any "surprises" in the way it gave me no slack, if that makes sense? But now that I'm trying to get a toe hold in Termina, it's wild how every encounter feels like a game of russian roulette. Navigating combat in a game has never felt more like being hurled down a flight of stairs; every new facet of the enemy move set, ai, and holes in my own tactics like an individual step bludgeoning me in the face as my feet tumble overhead as i hurtle toward rock bottom just as fast as gravity can take me.

and every time i load back up it all just keeps on happening all over again

ive got no real notes in line with my usual shtick on this blog, but I've been playing the Fear & Hunger games lately and boy oh boy those sure are some games

I forgot that I'd tried to do a thing on the monsters and dungeons of Suikoden II before... But as good as the story in Suikoden games always are, the dungeon design and monster distribution are kind of unremarkable? Which makes some sense when most of the focus of these games is on the human conflict, rather than the conquest of various magical/monster elements. Most of the levels are just woods and mountains and caves and castles... and most of the enemies tend to be wild animals or else armed soldiers/bandits... It all works, but there's not much to really dig your teeth into. Anyway point being I started cataloging the early enemies in this Suikoden III play through and of course realized there's nothing to say...

These first overworld enemies are returning standards of the franchise.

The Wild Boar being rendered in 3d for the first time is a little sad. Loses some of the flare the old sprite work had. There's no weight or dynamism to the pose now that it's super literally rendered. The whipping tail and flared tusks of the old sprites had a certain way of catching the eye that the 3d model here just doesn't have.

Similarly the Blade Bunny(3)/Cut Rabbit(1)/Slasher Rabbit(2) is now so small on the screen, obscured by its own axe, and just suffering from such a bland nondescript silhouette that just doesn't scan cleanly.

Arachnevore is a melodramatic renaming of "Spider" from Suikoden 2. It's fine? It might be the best of the three here just by virtue of the distinct shape of the legs, which have been given a more distinct shape at the joints. The original was always a little weird, the legs were sort of noodly.

Anyway, point being that I want to see if my attention span lets me keep a little game journal going, but I probably won't get into most monster stuff, because it'll just be a lot of this...

littleeyesofpallas

So, jumping off of this post... Aimless exploration in the starting town aside, here's the basic exposition for what I'm supposed to be doing for this first chapter.

My party for this mundane quest consist of our very good hero boy, Hugo, obviously...; His kind of bratty tween bff who's just tagging along, Lulu; Sgt. Joe a full armed duck the size of a man who is actually here quite sensibly as a bodyguard; and Fubar, Hugo's pet(?) Gryphon who is frankly kind of feral but I'm not questioning the added muscle in this party.

I know they're all supposed to be in a pretty good place politically, what with there being a peace treaty on the horizon, but I really question the judgement of sending what's basically a hand-wrapped political hostage directly into enemy territory.

Also unlike the first two games, which had pretty classic JRPG sprite overworlds, the limitations of 2002 PS2 3D cgi coming from a sprite art focused dev team means ambitious overworld designs would have to be parred down. Instead we get this overworld map in which each stretch of road in between two nodes represents a brief dungeon segment. Some are as small as a single screen of an open field, others can be multiple screens and branching paths.

And of course from here I immediately ignored the plot, because you can't just give me a clear side route in the opposite direction of the plot and not expect me to take it.

littleeyesofpallas

I didnt actually preface my jumping back into Suikoden III at all... My sideblog, @dungeonecologist was where i used to put all my rants specifically about videogame dungeons, how they're designed and whether or not certain enemies make sense to be in them at all. I kinda jumped into things on that basis, but that doesn't really explain anything about what's actually going on in all this...

So, since I'm probably not going to post directly to the sideblog for this, I figured a little briefing was in order...

Suikoden is a jrpg franchise for the ps1 and ps2 that borrowed from an old Chinese novel about 108 rebels/bandits who take up arms in the mountains against provincial forces. Accordingly, the Suikoden games all revolves around political dissidents being driven out of their place in one nation and forced to join and later command an army of rebels, 108 distinct named recruits in all, who become a major faction in a military/political revolution. Each game takes place in a unique region(s) with some adjacency to older games...

So the original game involved overthrowing the Scarlet Moon Empire and replacing it with the Toran Republic(teal w/gold insignia), and the second game involves a civilwar ending in the establishment of the Dunan Republic(deepred with gold bands & crest)... and Suikoden III then picks up in yet another neighboring region, and the conflict between 3 major nations: The Zexen Trade Federation(orange), the Grassland Clans(green, unmarked), and the The Holy Kingdom of Harmonia(light blue).

And this brings me to Hugo, our kind of defacto main character. In fact however, Suikoden III has 3 main characters, who all juggle focus of the plot between them for much of the first half, until eventually uniting for the climax of the story. But Hugo fits the role of plucky coming of age boy hero that previous(and subsequent) games' protagonists all fit, so Ive always treated him as the kind of default true hero.

But one of the fun features of this particular Suikoden story is that there was already a generic plucky charismatic destiny bound boy hero in this region... The Flame Champion.

In fact, the game opens by asking you to name your Flame Champion, even before you're given your choice of player characters. And for a while it won't even be addressed but the Flame Champion is the hero of a bygone age, a mythic figure who vanished after his role in fending off the invading Harmonian army. And I love this idea that a generic Suikoden plot already happened in the background of this game, so you know it won't be as simple as just going through the motions yet again. In fact, each of the 3 heroes has a different generic Suikoden feature... Hugo is the shonen hero, but Chris will be the one to defect from her homeland faction, and Geddoe is the one burdened with magic destiny.

Anyway, to this end I've chosen Hugo as my focal point, although the game will still have my play thru all 3 perspectives. His first task was to deliver a diplomatic letter from his mother --chief of his clan and defacto leader of the collected Grasslands clans-- from his home village to the capital of the neighboring country, the Zexen Federation. To that end we head west across the open plains of our homeland toward the border fortress of Brass Castle... although I made a detour into the northern Grasslands instead to visit the ducks.

littleeyesofpallas

I guess my compulsion has decided that I'm keeping some sort of ongoing character log while I play through this. because why not.

Not nearly as many fresh faces as the starting town, but three still feels like a lot for a random detour. It works for making me want to put a pin in the map to make sure i come back to recruit them all later. They are all surprisingly young travelers out here in the middle of nowhere by themselves, which is cute and also kind of makes Hugo's whole striking out as a young hero thing feel less like magic destiny plot privileges and more like an actual coming of age thing. Sanae is the daughter of some characters from the previous Suikoden games and I love that she's this tiny little thing out here swinging around a full size naginata. Actually kind of makes Hugo venturing away from home at his age seem a little overdue?

Oh and Kidd is of course a shameless Detective Conan pastiche, filling the role of boy detective. As with Suikoden II, our faction will eventually let us recruit the detective to dig up information on various characters, both to give us fun character lore as well as hints on how to recruit others.

This kind of reminds me but I really love that from the get go, in Karaya Village as well, the game has made abundantly clear in both design and some NPC dialog that travel and trade between the games different cultures is the norm. It really makes this whole world feel connected and alive in ways I don't always see anymore.

Even without having traveled very far or seen very much, it really helps gives the sense that there is still so much to this world to see.

littleeyesofpallas

I literally only just got my first plot mission to just get from point A to point B but I'm taking a detour, because DUCK VILLAGE!

Love the distinct architectural difference to set it apart from the Karaya Village. Love the heavy incorporation of the freshwater environment with the swamp plants, the boats, the water wheels, the board walk and elevated buildings; I love how the town is crawling with cats, because it's heavily fishing based.

For how limited these 2002 models are, and in the franchise's first 3d game at that, this is all just so lovingly and meticulously crafted. Good use of the sky box and background. I just wish this fixed camera gave me a few more nice picturesque angles from time to time.

Love how the Ducks have lofted architecture, not just because it's different from the Karaya but because it gives this impression that the Ducks prefer being up high, you know, like birds... And it also makes sense that having to build up from the water bed, they'd capitalize on building up rather than out to maximize floor space. They also have higher tables and chairs in a distinctly western fashion, where as the Karaya seemed more at home on the ground with low tables, not dissimilar to traditional Japanese furniture. And I love that they have dry grass beds, very nest-like. By comparison the Karaya actually sleep in hammocks, although they were easy to miss, tucked into the back of each house.

And where as the Karaya Village had a warm and earthy color scheme of golds and deep-orange/clay-red, with some purple and turquoise accents, the Duck village has this obviously watery scheme of light blues, sea-foam, and leafy green, with just a splash of orange for contrast.

littleeyesofpallas

Love all the little details of the house interiors in the Karayan Village. The smithy being stocked with specifically bronze weapons, because it's established that it's the western style Zexens who use iron. We even get the derogatory term "Iron head" dropped by an NPC before any of the story brings it up. The textiles are super prominent both as decor and with one of the houses being specifically outfitted with the spinning wheels and loom. I love how the patterns used are amalgamated from what looks to be a mix of West African styles, possibly South Western Native American(?), and even hints of traditional Japanese* patterns and color schemes.

*in particular the very distinctive interlocked manji pattern used exclusively in the village chief, Lucia's house.

littleeyesofpallas

Being let loose to explore Karaya Village feels so good, even though it's really a pretty limited town map. But with the open sky in view, and all the game functions like skill training and the blacksmith immediately available, it feels like there's just so much here.

And I love how quickly we're introduced to all these characters who will eventually be our recruits. The fact that there's just so many of them so soon in the game on top of just as many standard faceless NPCs wandering around just makes the village feel so alive. And just look at these gorgeous character designs!

littleeyesofpallas

Damn, I really can't get over how spectacular an intro this whole thing is after all these years... There's just so much going on, legitimately so much visual information packed into it, and often into shots that are barely half a second long; only a few scant frames that still manage to be super emotive and even powerful in the context of the surrounding montage and the music. And so much of it is actually super character and plot specific even, all distinct scenes from the story just deftly rendered into a few brief flashes before moving on.

littleeyesofpallas

ive been in the mood for some kind of jrpg but i couldn't really find the right one that really jived with the headspace im in at a glance. It took me 3 days of having it loaded and minimized in the background but I finally started up a new file of Suikoden 3.

I haven't played thru this in a few years at least. Immediately, I'm kind of blown away by how genuinely charming it all is. Some of it is nostalgia, I'm sure, but even in the face of the clunky dated graphics, there's such a strong sense of vision in all of it; it's one of those cases where having ambitions beyond their mechanical capabilities was much better than trying to cater their vision to the limits of what was possible.

Also props to them just coming right out the gates swinging with this dialog. It's been 5minutes and I know that this very good shonen hero boy is a good equestrian(?) who harasses spirits, and that this large duck is a violent militarist with no respect for religion.

Also my god i forgot the gryphon's name was FUBAR. This boy really looked at this majestic creature at some point and said, "I'm going to name you Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition."

dungeonecologist

forgot i have a side blog for this sort of thing...

oh man i totally forgot there was a passing time mechanic in this... the second dungeon is a different forest, also newly teleported in from another world, where we have to go track down a doppleganger of one of our party members. on our way out of the village a little exposition blurb mentions that Giant Butterflies show up in the northern forests in spring time*, so if we take too long to complete the mission, the monster line up might change on us. I really like this idea but I have no clue if it'll persist meaningfully throughout the game, or be a feature that just kinda gets forgotten about, or under utilized.(like if the monster rotation isn't actually unique and just shuffles around things we'll have already seen)

Really loving these little dungeon illustrations that show up with their title cards. So far they're a little same-y but I can't wait for us to get to some of the weirder or more exotic locales.

Anyway, we are technically in a different section of the same forest as before, so no surprise that Spider Hoppers, Thorny Mushrooms, and Googly Seeds are back. But we've also got Googly Tree Buds now alongside their seeds!

There are Fanged Baboons, although they're weird armless baboons.... i guess we just aren't going to question that... The Geldi Monkey, which seems to hang out with the anatomically questionable baboons, which... i guess makes sense? Im not sure what the word "Geldi" here is referring to, possibly the German geld, meaning "gold" referring to the color? A mistransliteration of Goeldi/Goeldii, which is a type of marmoset? an even more off base attempt at gelada, which is a type of baboon? Dunno...

Venus flytraps and the like are subtropic swamp plants, baboons are African savanna and light woodlands, and the geldi are in fact just very angry marmosets then those would be native to South American rainforest... not that the world here is directly analogous to Earth, but the general habitats aren't really similar.

We also get Saw Kingfisher, a neat tropical looking bird with a saw-like beak, hence the name. Despite the name not all Kingfishers actually do hunt fish, although that's obviously what they're known for. Plenty species also live away from major water sources and prey on insects. Real life Kingfishers are actually really pretty birds, but these things in game are kind of an ugly mess of a design. :/

It's also the first "black beast" enemy we fight, although the term seems a little erroneously translated; I assume it was meant to read as "dark beast." The color palette is a real bad darker version of the basic monster, not "black" at all really, and frankly it's not even a good recolor, as it looks like they just through a dark multiply layer over the original texture. Although the little anime cutscene actually does depict it as a shadowy blob with a purple aura, rather than just a miscolored bird.

I hadnt mentioned but this ds game had little anime cutscenes and BOY O BOY did they not age well. actually i remember them looking bad even when this first came out. the file compression is a mess and every frame is a artifact ridden disaster. Which is a shame because it's all really fun looking otherwise.

Anyway the Black Beasts/Black Monsters/"Renegades" are monsters from other worlds who can apparently only be defeated by people from their own world, or our heroes who've been initiated by magical means. This isn't actually at all important, because our entire playable cast will qualify, which is a shame because it might have been interesting to occasionally run into enemies that we just can't beat and have to run from, or that everyone can damage but only certain party members can finish off.

Going into this i thought this dungeon might be longer, but it was pretty short and the "boss" was just the dark Saw Kingfisher. If these early dungeons stay kinda plain I might skip blogging any of them until stuff gets interesting... We'll see...

*I forgot about this but I went back to futz around on the world map until the season changed. For one it took WAY longer than I realized. There was no way on earth to have accidentally let enough time pass for this to be an issue, and there appear to be no such giant butterflies at all actually.

#suikoden #suikoden tierkreis

So i fired up Suikoden Tierkreis because I remembered liking this game (possibly out of sheer desperation for a Suikoden anything at the time) yet I have like zero recollection of what the enemy designs and layouts were like. Right off the bat we get some fun stuff though, so maybe this is one I can really dig my teeth into. *fingers crossed*

Our first mission with our gaggle of teens is classic RPG pest control intro dungeon. "Laggarts" have taken up residence in a nearby wood and are terrorizing the local inhabitants. A super nice detail is that on our way East toward said animal lair, there is a farm where a (later) recruit corroborates the premise. In the overworld itself we can run into Laggarts already, in teams of 2 or 3, which checks out with the idea that they're forming packs (which, I guess they normally wouldn't?) and encroaching on the human settlement.

Once we get into the Easten Hill dungeon, the Laggarts mostly appear with other monsters; Grass Squirrels and XBees. At a glance this just kinda falls into that typical RPG quirk where nature has conspired against us against all natural orders, but I feel like there's a little bit of potential for headcannon here...

The way the Laggart's appear to me suggests some feeding habits. In the arrangement with 2 Laggarts flanking 1 Grass Squirrel it seems like they could be hunting it in a pack, and in the case of the 2 XBees and long Laggart my first thought is the bees chasing the Laggart away from their hive and its honey. Sadly the enemies don't seem to attack eachother, so those dynamics are purely in my head, but it would've been a clever way to establish that the Laggart are displaying behaviors of an invasive species, overrunning local fauna and overhunting in a way that threatens not only the local human inhabitants but the balance of the local ecosystem overall.

Although I have no idea what these things are... Wolf-like? Rats? Badgers? The scale of the game models does not help this... People are chibi, the Laggarts are proportionally sorta dog sized? But then the squirrel is dog sized(?), the bees are huge(?), or are these all just much smaller than they appear in battle and the countryside has been overrun with large-rat sized things, but also still pretty abnormally large bees?

...so i started typing bits of this up as i was crawling through the dungeon at kind of a snails pace between doing other things... and it just kept going... It's technically a few dungeons nested inside eachother, or like strung together:

We end up in Flesaria Forest, and then in ruins within that, as the pest control quest gets derailed by magical reality warping happenings. Each new area keeps all the old enemies but also adds new ones to the mix;

Thorn Mushrooms and Googly Seeds, as well as Spider Hoppers begin appearing in the Forest, and within the ruins themselves we get Skull Guts. Broadly speaking I guess the roster doesn't make any more or less sense. Mushrooms and carnivorous plant seeds in the thick forests. Spiders, because where aren't there spiders? I do really love this unique take on the familiar man-eating plant type of monster; the little baby sprout with its one snaking head, still carrying around its seed shell, rather than a full grown plant with vine-like tendrils and many flowering heads is a fun way to communicate that these are early game monsters. They babies.

Skull Guts gets to be the fun anomaly because the ruins themselves have only just appeared magically and are otherworldy and alien. It's appearance has the distinct impression of something gone horribly wrong. We won't fully grasp the nature of these phenomena until a little later, but more landscapes will teleport in, each from their own unique parallel worlds, and many with their own inhabitants. The Ruins have no such sentient inhabitants it brings with it, but it could be a cool detail if these were the remains of the people that would've/should've been brought over in the teleportation; like some kind of mangled inside out teleporter accidents.