Part 7: SUB-UPDATE A: A New Character And Also A Thing I Forgot To Hold A Vote On Earlier

Short non-update thing tonight because (a) I'm still tired after being hung over this morning, and (b) there's a detail which I should have remembered to get ironed out the first time we voted on something. Let's get creative!

Sub-Update A: A New Character And Also A Thing I Forgot To Hold A Vote On Earlier



To begin his new life as Captain Freddie Gallant, Professional Rebel-Buster, the first thing Freddie must do is schlep all the way over here for days and days.



Once they get to Crenel Canyon, I guess Hugo is late for his own meeting or something and Freddie and Dio are just kind of sitting around the big table in the Hugo Room waiting for him in awkward silence. Note: Now that Freddie is an officer, he gets to sit in the VIP Seat.



Enter a unique sprite.

: "I heard there's a guy named Freddie here. ...No, it can't be you. You're the one, am I correct?"

Dio could NEVER be named Freddie.

: "...And you are...?"

: "My troops and I have been assigned to your battalion, effective immediately. My name is Leia... Leia Silvis. Nice to meet you."

Thread, Leia. Leia, thread.

Leia doesn't stay relevant for long in this game, but I like her as a character. I'm sure you'll notice that OB64 is a bit of a sausagefest -- there are plenty of female generics and the army itself is pretty egalitarian when it comes to gender (sort of), but other than a cleric who had one line in a cutscene earlier, Leia's the first actual woman to get a sprite, a dialogue portrait, and lines of her own.

The beautiful part is that even though she is in a position where you might expect it, Leia never gets shoehorned into an awkward, pointless cringe-worthy JRPG romance subplot. It's so refreshing. She, Freddie, and Dio are bros and nobody ever has to blush and say "..." (at least not for THAT reason).

As a matter of fact, OB64 is relatively unique among JRPGs of this era in that it contains NO awkward pointless cringe-worthy romance subplot (not onscreen, anyway). I can even tell you why. In order to execute a classic Awkward Pointless Cringe-Worthy JRPG Romance Subplot, you need two things: (a) an idealistic, young, impulsive, smart-talking Player Avatar who is the main character, and (b) a shy, demure, cheerful girl who would make a good traditional Japanese housewife. A Yuna or a Colette. Ogre Battle 64 got so caught up with telling a story about a war that the closest they got to category (b) was Yumil (and  Mari , I guess, but I maintain that she doesn't count due to  never really interacting with anyone in our party ). Leia, in case you're wondering, is a Spunky Feisty Teenager with a Short Fuse. Come to think of it, so is Dio. Freddie is too much of a consummate professional to let anything silly like romance or anime tropes distract him from his job anyway (like most 18-year-olds!) so we get a nice, relaxed, cringe-free experience. Enjoy the lack of puppy-dog eyes!



Anyway I think I was supposed to be playing a game or something so let's get back to that. Enter Hugo.

: "So you're the Fünke Silvis everybody's talking about... Watch out, Freddie. She may look cute, but from what I've heard she's quite a... um, let's just say she's difficult to handle."

Hugo's kind of acting out of character here. Usually saying weird, condescending stuff about subordinates that would probably get him sued nowadays isn't really his thing.

(his thing is yelling at Dio because Dio is always wrong)

Speaking of which:

: "...Excuse me, who's cute?"

The lack of submissive waifs or pointless romance subplots, of course, does not make Ogre Battle 64 a model of feminist art. For reference, see this conversation about how attractive the first female character in the game may or may not be, 30 seconds after she is introduced. Oh, Japan.

: "...I hope you're not as dumb as you look."



: "What'd you just say!?"

: "You got a problem!?"

: "For crying out loud..."

dude you started it

"By the way, Freddie, why don't you give this company a name? We are now an official battalion of the Southern Division. We need a name to distinguish ourselves, eh?"

Oh, right.



I need you guys to give me a battalion name. It's usually preceded with a "The"; i.e. in the default case, someone would say "The Blue Knights are here", etc, etc. For some reason they opted to make the character limit on this name 12, or one higher than the character name limit. I dunno. Gimme something good!