The Goofy NPC Dialogue of Efera & Jiliora
Onna Senshi Efera and Jiliora (“Lady Warriors Efera and Jiliora”) is a fantasy novel series by Reiko Hikawa from the late 1980s and early 1990s. While none of the novels were translated into English, there was an anime OVA adaptation, which was localized in North America by ADV Films under the name Gude Crest. There was also a Japan-only PC Engine CD action-RPG game based on the series called Efera & Jiliora: The Emblem from Darkness. It’s a pretty bad Ys clone that suffers from awkward controls, terrible balancing, and general jankiness, the typical kind of game where most of the budget was probably spent on the voice actors rather than development. But it does have two high points – like Ys, it has some excellent music, plus it also has plenty of legitimately funny NPC dialogue. Some of it is the normal worldbuilding and storytelling stuff you’d find in any 16-bit RPG, but you’ll also find lots of off-kilter text – some will reveal their most random thoughts, others are unnecessarily hostile, and still others seem clearly aware that they’re in a video game. A few even insert emoticons into the text. It’s all the sort of thing you’d expect in a Working Designs game, except rather than being jokes inserted during localization, they’re a part of the original Japanese text. It seems like the dialogue writer got bored and decided to have some fun with it. Here are a few examples from the game’s first town.
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