y’all mind if i just (wears black to symbolize that i’m more mature now)
i recently binged all of @prozdvoices‘ skits and got super inspired to draw tomoko-chan. queen of ignoring everyone for a tv that refuses to acknowledge her existence
You cannot save Prince Horace. I, King Dragon, will strike you down...
[ DENNIS ]
So I went and decided to take my own joke to the ultimate level and designed Sungwon Cho/Prozd’s fake video game series King Dragon as if it were a real, serious RPG after I analyzed and extrapolated an actual detailed plot for it RIGHT HERE. I don’t know what this says about me as a professional artist or as a person.
T-B L-R: Fake RPG poster, character design visdev sketches for Archibald, Dennis, Sonia-Rica, Gunther, Lysanderoth, Prince Horace, Sexica, Chaddicus and Braddicus, and the tragic pre-boss fight cutscene at the end of the first act.
I first posted the WIPs of the poster and designs on my Patreon, where I explained my thought process. The poster came first, but I wasn’t quite happy with the character designs since I just thought of them on the fly, so I ended up going overboard and putting in actual time and effort on something just really silly, as always. So here, have my shame.
I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out: I think I see an opportunity for an actually really good plot for Sungwon Cho (Prozd)’s recurring joke video game IP, the King Dragon series.
According to what we know so far, it’s a generic fantasy RPG in which the player character (Dennis) must assemble a party, complete quests, level up, and eventually rescue Prince Horace from King Dragon before he opens the Chaos Door and brings about an armageddon. Famously, fan favorite character Archibald dies at the hands of the treacherous backstabber Lysanderoth, to the shock of your friends Sonia-Rica, Gunther (Lysanderoth’s brother), and optional party members Sexica, Braddicus and Chaddicus. There is no way to prevent this from happening. And in the end, if you finish every single available quest and gather all 900 pinecones before you actually go and face King Dragon, you’re so OP that you can kill him with a single tap. End game.
Or is it??
Let’s examine the possibility that you could construe an actually meaningful narrative from all of Sungwon’s jokes in all of the skits about this fictional meme joke game. Hear me out.
You start the game as Dennis, who is kind of a shitty dude. You don’t at all care about the story or the lore or anything that’s happening to anyone else at all, so every time any NPC tries to talk to you, Dennis straight up cuts them off in the middle of their dialogue. Yawn. Where’s the quest, gimme. Point me to the monster to grind and shut up. And as the game progresses, this becomes an obviously designed frustration feature.
Archibald was deliberately written to carry the team due to all of Dennis’s stupid choices, but he forgives you and supports you anyway, so you as the player character come to love him. So when the game presents you with a dating option, obviously the best choice is with Archivald, but superficial and unappreciative Dennis only choses between Sonia-Rica or Sexica. Obviously Dennis is ruining the entire Hero’s Journey for himself. He even prevents Gunther from facing Lysanderoth in an obviously plot-heavy interaction scene. Yikes.
All Dennis cares about is going through the rote motions of being the protagonist. He’s doing it all wrong.
All of this comes to a head when Lysanderoth inevitably double-crosses the party and shoots Archibald dead. The player is encouraged to try and scum save and pick a different dialogue option during the negotiation scene, but none of the choices make any difference. And suddenly the party is stuck without their best fighter, and the only one who was leading them on the right path.
Dennis, faced with the direct consequence of his actions, is then psychologically unable to actually progress with the main quest. He becomes an atoner, but a depressed and avoidant one. The game forces the player to follow Dennis down his spiral of self hatred and regret, completing every meaningless flavor quest the world can provide, until there’s literally nothing left to be done except finally go and face King Dragon. Not that Dennis even knows why he has to do this, and not that he even cares. Wearing his ugly-ass OP armor from all over the map, he breaches the castle gates.
Dennis is so crazy overpowered that he goes and kills King Dragon in one blow, but the sheer nihilistic dread and emptiness he feels afterwards actually prevents him from saving Prince Horace in time. He dies, and his soul completes the ritual and opens the Chaos Door.
Dennis wakes up in bed in his hometown, young and healthy, on the fateful day he decided to become a hero.
Confused but ecstatic, Dennis goes out into the world with this second chance at making it right, now determined to do everything correctly. He listens for all the information he can get, but he’s still in a rush: all he really wants is to make sure Archibald survives and that the Chaos Door is closed forever.
But still nothing goes quite according to plan. Dennis already knows that Lysanderoth is a traitor, but without the knowledge as to why or a plan for how to expose and defeat him, he gets caught in a chess game of blackmail against Lysanderoth behind the scenes, and must navigate their relationship all without directly revealing that he knows that he is evil and plans to betray the party.
This time, Dennis is allowed to take the option of romancing Archibald, and learns more about him and his past as a result of unlocking their new dialogue trees. But because of all of his rushing, Dennis never lets himself be truly honest and vulnerable with Archibald in return, and cannot max out his hearts with him.
When Lysanderoth finally reveals his true colors, to Dennis’s horror, there is nothing he can do to prevent Archibald from dying. In his anguish Gunther takes over the party and confronts his older brother, revealing new information about their backstory as well as crucial lore on the world itself, stuff that Dennis never considered important enough to learn, but Archibald still dies and the party is severely weakened.
This time, however, Dennis now knows the value of keeping the party together, and instead of wandering the earth as a depressed atoner, he jacks them all up on a vengeance beeline towards the castle. There they confront King Dragon... But because of Lysanderoth’s meddling, he is very nearly about to kill Prince Horace to open the Chaos Door. The boss fight isn’t nearly so easy this time, but the party manages to kill him in the end. But it’s too late. The sacrifice of Prince Horace’s pure heart opens the Chaos Door.
Dennis wakes up in his bed on the day he decided to go out and become a hero.
This time, he knows what he must do.
This time, he pays attention. He listens. He learns. He studies. He comes to understand everyone’s motivations, and wants to help everyone. He won’t just save Prince Horace and Archibald: he’ll save everyone.
When he meets his friends again, he spends quality time with each of them and gives them the attention and respect and trust and true friendship they deserve. He helps Sonia-Rica get together with Sexica, and he helps Braddicus and Chaddicus stop comparing themselves and find their true selves. And as for Archibald, Dennis is now actually deserving of his love. He grew as a person and became the true hero he always could be. He maxes out their hearts and they become canon endgame.
And with Lysanderoth, Dennis throws out all of his animosity altogether. Because in this timeline, he has yet to kill anyone. There’s a chance to rescue Lysanderoth from his evil fate too. He lets Gunther become the head of the party. With his intimate knowledge of Lysanderoth’s path, they discover all of his secrets and the stirring contempt and bitterness within his soul, and confront them with love and empathy and forgiveness. Lysanderoth, who was once formerly Lygon, legendary warrior, reveals King Dragon’s true motivations for opening the Chaos Door and ending the world.
With this knowledge, the party storms the gates of the castle but instead of attacking, all they do is defend themselves long enough for Dennis to get through to him. He understands King Dragon’s pain. He lost his only son and wants everyone to suffer, for everything to end so he doesn’t have to suffer, so no one has to suffer. But none of this will fix anything. All that can be done is to move forward.
And King Dragon is swayed... but the Chaos Door still opens. Though Prince Horace remains alive, the sheer instability of the constantly rewound fabric of spacetime is going to collapse reality and potentially erase everything in existence for all eternity. But Dennis is determined to stop the cycle. His friends are safe and happy and there is nothing he wants more than to keep it that way.
He stops Prince Horace from using his pure soul to close the door... sacrificing himself in the process. His own soul, purified through growth and experience, permanently seals the Chaos Door. And to revive him, King Dragon bequeaths him his own dwindling life energy, so that he may live while King Dragon is himself reincarnated to perhaps one day meet his son again in a new life and repair their relationship.
Dennis gets to go home as a true hero, with everyone still alive and healthy. Prince Horace is a gracious ruler. His friends go on to lead full lives. Lysanderoth spends the rest of his life atoning for his misdeeds, with Gunther by his side. And Dennis goes back to his humble house and marries Archibald.
Thus it takes three ‘replays’ to get this true ending. Dennis must learn to be a true hero by fucking up first and then learning from his mistakes, but truly earns his happy ending afterwards.
