Part 63: Prologue (I'm Up in the Woods...)

Let's go for a ride! And what a ride it'll be!













This does not look like a very welcoming place...



It would seem that there is a boss fight in progress here?













I'm pretty sure, there is no reason to worry, we got this in hand!



Yep, looks like a boss fight, with already familiar option buttons.



Since we are alone, nothing else but to choose "Solo"... which leads to the second level of options that seem to have acquired some different/new buttons. More on that soon (but not in this update).



Finally, looks like we are fighting against ???. Ok then. Let's attack.



Well. I guess it's better than nothing, but can't imagine we are doing much against a guy this size...



Luckily he seems to be doing about the same to us... maybe we really CAN manage this one?



Oh, he just healed for 20000 HP at the end of a turn... guess we are dead after all.

After a few turns of this, he pulls out the long animation attack:









Yep. As expected, we are dead.




















There's a guy running in the forest.



Soon, he gets tired. Also, hey, it's the guy that was killed in that boss fight!



Then, his companion appears.













Let's run and see if we can help Rick, whoever that is.



But he appears to currently be devoured by some monsters.









So this is just a normal random encounter fight, so nothing special to report.



And quickly, victory is ours. On game mechanic notes, there seems to now be something called "SP" in addition to HP, MP and money. We'll get to this very shortly, but I suppose you could potentially imagine what it stands for.



























Well then, let's try to get out of here.



On the way, we find an item, and it's good to know that we can still eat chocolate to recover HP.





























Darwin really needs to work on improving his physical condition, I think.



Really?





Even though it looks like one this is not a boss fight. This guy dies in one hit, in fact.







And so we can finally proceed to the exit.



But a slightly weird thing happens as we exit the forest...





And, uh, where did we end up..?







I suppose we can have a look around...?





...
Don't sweat it. We'll make it back home, the two of us. We promised, right?
Right!
This is one mysterious place...
What a strange design. Is it made of... metal?
I can't see the bottom...
It's pretty far from here to the surrounding walls. Guess it's no use trying to jump...
Okay, so how do we get out of here...?



Oh, I don't know, why don't you try standing in the middle of that circle? I mean, what could possibly happen, right?





Suddenly, Darwin disappears.





But three other people appear instead. A woman, a man and a boy. Let's try talking to them?







The boy disappears.







The woman disappears, too.





And then the man is gone too. But it seems that Orlando knows these people--at least he addressed the woman as Li Hua.



Then, another, younger, woman appears.



Oh, that's Marie, his sister, as mentioned a few minutes ago.



















And with this, Darwin is returned. I don't like this talk about "Candidtes" and offering up the lives of people and all that.





Suddenly, Darwin is teleported into the middle!





But Orlando jumps in and somehow manages to take his place!























Why are you lifting your sword like that, Darwin?















Against his will, Darwin's hand is guided to cut down Orlando.



What is this.





Well, certainly it's at least somebody to fight if nothing else. Let's see its name...



Ophan Orlando? Oh... so I guess Orlando transformed into this somehow? Incidentally, not a typo. If you want to know what's an ophan, Wikipedia has you covered. So a typical JRPG religious mish-mash is already starting. Good to know.



In any case, this is a real fight, but really a pretty easy one, so the victory is ours in just a little bit of time.





And the strange beast transforms back into Orlando.



Birds flying through the forest...



...are stopped in mid-flight...



...a wave is frozen just before it crashes down...



...and cherry tree blossoms stop floating through the air...





...a planet is enveloped by some kind of thing...



...and a watch held by a white-gloved hand stops.













Darwin absorbs something from the frozen Orlando...













A what-a? Don't worry, I will explain everything soon.







And here it just does not stop. Who in the world is this guy now?



This actually looks like the guy that was holding that watch, if you ask me.







Yes, I would like to know that too.





Again with the sacrifice!







Oh. I'm going to take a guess that this is where we are located now!



Looks like some things are transported from the planed onto the ship, or whatever that is.



















And these seem to be the people that have already appeared previously...



Well now, this seems a familiar situation, doesn't it? Although the room is different, that's for sure. We could try to talk to them now...





No luck here...



Nor here.



Not here, either.



Marie it is then.

















A lot has happened, let's take a break! We'll continue this conversation next time.


* * *




Hello everyone and welcome to Chaos Rings 2!

Ostensibly a sequel to Chaos Rings, this is more in the vein of the Final Fantasy series where although subsequent games feature a different setting/story and characters, they do retain some basic similarities in gameplay mechanics. Such is the case here too: story and characters are new, but technical elements of gameplay are mostly refinements/improvements of the original two games.

In general, this game is an improvement on the originals in pretty much every possible way. The story is just as good, if not better; it sounds and looks WAY better than the original--it is, without a doubt, one of the best looking games on mobile platforms. Finally, the battle system has been expanded and improved in several ways which now allow for more interesting and varied strategies when fighting enemies and in particular bosses which finally pose actual challenge and require actual different strategies to fight depending on their attacks/characteristics. Also, NO BLOCK PUSHING PUZZLES!!!

So I think this is going to be fun. Also here is what the (pretty cool) title screen looks like:




Oh, did I mention, this game features a branching plot line, so we'll also have reader participation at key moments!