It’s about a week later than I was hoping for this post, but hey. Anyway, this one’s gonna be a lot shorter, since a lot of my thoughts from part one still stand. As always, spoilers for the last half of the series from here on out.

The Good – I’m fairly pleased with how the new characters turned out (Rotwang, in particular), and it feels like they had more of a presence than in the original language. Granted, part of that probably has to do with, y’know, actually understanding the language this time around. Also, fairly huge props to everyone involved in the Kriem breakdown scene in the hospital. She sounded absolutely crazy at the end of the whole thing.

The Bad - I’ve got one major problem: Samantha’s voice actor. It isn’t that the voice is bad (although she did sound suspiciously like Mrs. Garret from the Facts of Life), it’s that…  You guys know the scene where she’s discussing the murder with Barnaby over the phone while he’s in Maverick’s office? Yeah, her concern or worry or whatever emotion she’s going for in that scene sounds entirely over the top and forced. I’ll admit that it kind’a ruined that scene for me and I stopped being able to take her seriously.

Anyway, outside of that, it’s still probably the best dub I’ve seen in a long while. I would recommend picking it up whenever they release a complete collection, though, because unless you’re a huge fan of the series or some of the actors, it’s probably not worth dropping roughly 65-70 bucks on. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to do stuff digitally, NeonAlley seems to stream it, although I haven’t used the service and can’t vouch for it.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. In the end, Tiger and Bunny was a damn fine show (if fairly expensive) and I really hope we get more of it sometime. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un.

http://i.imgur.com/RseMcEN.jpg

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is one of those games I never saw myself picking up. I had a bunch of issues with the original Tri on the Wii and never ended up playing it as much as I should have because of those issues. When I heard that they were doing an updated rerelease of the game, I wasn’t terribly excited. However, my buddy (the same one I discussed the lack of augmented reality on the 3DS with!) decided to grab the demo while he was here, and we gave it a shot. Have I mentioned that I love it when I’m wrong?

If you’ve played Monster Hunter Tri, you know what you’re getting with Ultimate. The offline campaign deals with you assisting Moga Village, you get a little masked dimwit as a sidekick, and you can spend (in my case entirely too much) time working on a farm. While it’s pretty much the same thing, you also get a whole lot more. Classes and monsters imported from other Monster Hunter games, an improved online system, and a hell of a lot of customization and extra stuff not present in the original really sets it apart from Tri.

My personal favorite addition has to be the new weapons. I’ve never found a weapon that totally resonated with me, but sword and shield was pretty close to perfect. In Ultimate, they’ve added (among other things) the Dual Swords weapon. A fast, combo-centric, all-in weapon set that fits me perfectly. This isn’t the only new equipment addition, either. Weapons such as the Hunting Horn and Gunlance from the second generation of games make a reappearance.

In addition to this are returning and brand new monsters and subspecies. You thought Jhen Mohran from Tri was huge and terrifying? Well, now he’s got a more aggressive subspecies in the form of Hallowed Jhen Mohran. Alternatively, if you’re tired of beating up on big enough to climb on, you could go hunt down the all new Brachydios and hopefully not get blown up by his explosive slime. Granted, I haven’t fought either of these, but hey.

Finally, I cannot give enough props to the online system in this game. Gamepad-centric keyboard for typing, built-in voice chat, and an overall better connectivity issue makes it an absolute joy to play. For reference, I think I would disconnect… once every three hunts in the Wii version and would have issues connecting to the server in general. I’m not sure if this is a change with something on Capcom’s end or Nintendo’s end or my end, but I’ve only had a brief connection drop with Ultimate. It’s a massively welcome change.

I honestly can’t think of anything else to talk about. I will recommend you try out the demo, but it’s not the world’s greatest demo. It kinda throws you into a fairly big hunt totally blind, but it helps give you a sense of what you’re getting into. Anyway, if you were a fan of Tri or any of the series, I definitely recommend picking this one up if you’ve got a Wii U, as the 3DS version apparently lacks real network play. So yeah, I’m out for now. Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with some more stuff, but until then, thanks for reading and have a good’un!

A bit of a backstory to this post, just so you guys can hopefully get the ‘this was amusing based on circumstances’ feeling that I got from it. A buddy of mine had visited yesterday and we started talking about the 3DS and the woefully-underused augmented reality features. If you know anything about this game, you’ll get a tiny chuckle out of the fact that I discovered it about five hours later. If not… Well, that’s what I’m here for.

Denpa Men’s main gimmick is exactly what everyone hoped Pokemon would do since the words ‘augmented reality’ started to mean something to us. In this quirky little dungeon crawler, the player needs to assemble a party of little, silly men who live near radio/wi-fi waves. Instead of hunting them down in game, you get to catch these little dudes with the 3DS’s camera and AR features. Selecting the Antenna Tower will let you view the real world through the 3DS’s top screen and hunt for Denpa Men.

Gimmicks aside, the coolest thing about this game is that (to my understanding) everything is randomized. Your ‘hero’ character/starter Denpa Man, the dungeons, even the Denpa Men you find floating about. Hell, even their personalities and appearances are randomized! This means that nobody will have the exact same experience, and that’s pretty damn nifty.

I wouldn’t be going on and on about this if the gameplay wasn’t good, though. At it’s heart, Denpa Men is a surprisingly challenging little dungeon crawler with traditional, turn-based RPG battles. New enemies will kick you in the face a bit, but once you get used to things, Genius Systems has done what more developers need to do: They added a single-button method to put your miniature army on autopilot and made the AI pretty good at reacting. Someone needs healing? Well, if you’ve got someone with healing, he’ll get them back on their feet instead of smacking something for an extra few damage. Also, battles are quick, with every attacking Denpa Man going at the same time in a crazy, multi-colored bumrush vaguely reminiscent of Pikmin.

The game’s also got a few little touches that I’m pretty fond of, too. Denpa Men not in your active party will be put in the Denpa House, which is essentially the PC from Pokemon, except less cold and unfeeling. Normally, it would be a pain to swap out to a different Man or ‘Mon, except for the fact that Denpa Men gain experience alongside your regular party (although perhaps at a slower rate) and will level even when not being used. Another cool little addition is Manner Mode for the Antenna Tower. Since most people don’t like having cameras pointed at them in public, Manner Mode covers the ‘real world’ visuals with a wireframe graphic, showing only Denpa Men in the vicinity. It admittedly takes a bit away from the AR magic, but it’s a nifty setting if you’re hunting for Denpa Men in public.

There are a few problems with it, though, although it’s nothing too huge. Being in a fairly rural area means that I don’t necessarily have an abundance of wi-fi around me, so most of my Denpa Men came from my router. Seeing as how big the AR catching thing is, it’s less than amazing that I’ll likely need to go into town to find a bigger variety of dudes.

Anyway, it’s a cool little game that uses a feature that definitely could use some more spotlight. If you’re not sold by the idea of catching tiny floating men with a camera, the 3DS eShop has a demo that lets you explore the first dungeon (roughly a half-hour of gameplay depending on how catch-hungry you are). Also, there’s a sequel coming on the 30th, which I might pick up on launch day, so keep an eye out for that. Also, if the price point (1o USD) is a bit high, we might even get a price drop when the sequel hits, so it could be worth holding out. Anyway, I’m out for now. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un!

Anyway, yeah, I’m still around. Just got through graduating (Bachelor’s in Communication) and getting finals and stuff out of the way. I’m taking a month or so off to just sit back and relax (and get caught up on my ever-growing ‘stuff to watch’ list) before hitting up the job market and hoping people still hire around here. This means you guys are probably gonna get more Grass Pants goodness (or badness, whichever you prefer) in the coming weeks.

Thankfully, this isn’t one of those times where I say I’m coming back, post one thing, then disappear again for two, three months (hi, second half of 2012). Time off from Guild Wars and League of Legends has given me the opportunity to give some… less-talked-about, we’ll say, games a shot. Mostly RPGs, as I am a weak man who fears change.

So yeah, new stuff is indeed coming tomorrow and it’s feeling pretty good to actually have stuff to write about again. Also, I may or may not be giving this whole ‘video content’ thing a shot. I’ve got a few ideas, but I’m really picky about quality and presentation, so nothing’s set in stone yet.

Anyway, thanks to you guys for putting up with this super-erratic schedule I’ve had lately. I can’t promise it’s going to get better, but I’ll certainly try to be a bit more consistent or a bit more transparent if I’m going to drop off the face of the internet for a month or so. Anyway, it’s nearly 4 AM, so I’m out. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un!

I know this is really late, considering that EO4 came out a few months ago, but I like to get things nice and beat (not 100%’d) before going in for a review. I’ve never actually played the others, so get ready for lots of EO3 comparisons! Anyway, while EO4 isn’t my first shot at the series, it is by far the best and was definitely worth the pre-order.

Graphics and Sound:

I don’t normally talk too terribly much about graphics, but Tharsis and the surrounding dungeons are pretty damn beautiful. Everything is nice and fitting for the area its in and the variety of dungeons (we’ll talk about this later) gives the game a great variety of scenery. A nifty little thing is that hidden passages are usually marked by being slightly different than the rest of the walls. Also, the addition of 3D models as opposed to sprites not only make the game look better, but also give you a pretty great feel of when something’s about to die. Speaking of 3D, the 3D effect looks pretty decent and isn’t too obnoxious. It’s nothing to write home about, but it’s a nifty little effect.

Music is excellent, although you could say that about anything Atlus gets its hands on. Yuzo Koshiro, series composer, did a bang-up job for this one. While I’m not the biggest fan of the more common music (saving and the shop, mostly), everything is really great. The bonus dungeon and final boss theme get special mention for being super-creepy and super-ominous (without resorting to chanting!), respectively. No idea if this is a ‘thing’ for the series (I’ll admit, I got to the second stratum of EO3 before losing interest), but the fact that the basic encounter music changes as you hit harder and harder dungeons is really, really cool and something more games should do.

Gameplay:

From what I can see, not a huge lot has changed since the last Etrian Odyssey. However, there have been some massive improvements, such as the ability to move the map around in a natural way that doesn’t make me poke the screen in the vague location that I want to focus on. Everything seems so much more… organized and streamlined and I bloody love it. I’m especially fond of how they’ve ditched the ‘common’ skills from EO3 (because they were boring as sin) and how they’ve redone the gathering mechanic. Each point has a set number of gathers per day. No making a ‘B Team’ of farmers, no investing hard-earned skill points into unlocking the ability to gather. Just go up, hit A, get loot.

The battle system seems to be pretty much the same as EO3, except better. A few abilities have been shuffled around and some classes have been renamed or combined (Landsknecht seems to be Buccaneer’s chase/link abilities mixed with the Gladiator’s ability to beat things up). What I’m really fond of are the passive skills of the Proficiency line. They’re main-class specific and it really gives a reason to have a main-classed whatever hanging around.

I also have to give huge, huge props to whoever designed the ‘gimmicks’ of the unlockable classes. While the Bushi’s Blood Surge is fairly underwhelming, Circles make AoE support/debuff work ridiculously fun and Drive Blades… Well, nothing beats seeing absurdly huge numbers pop up over the enemy’s head, even if you can’t use that skill again for X turns.

Easily the best decision made by the developers this time around was the world map. While Etrian Odyssey 3 was more akin to Persona 3′s Tartarus (one giant dungeon), Legends of the Titan offers up so much more variety. First off, there are four reasonably-large overworld maps to explore. You can gather food for buffs or money, find treasure (something I need to do more of, honestly), and take down – or outwit – super-powerful FOEs. Also, you get to discover new mini-dungeons (‘caves’) by exploring, so unless you’ve 100%ed a particular map, there’s always some reason to go back. Even after you beat the main storyline, you still haven’t seen everything, as new FOEs pop up and new airship parts allow you to visit previously unreachable locations.

If I had to say anything was lacking about the gameplay, it would have to be the Bushi being underwhelming (in the sense that they kill themselves about as well as they kill the enemy: incredibly well) and how absolutely anticlimactic the final (story) boss was. I mean, without spoiling to much, you’re basically killing a god. I should not be able to go in, completely unprepared, half-asleep at 3:00 AM and kill this dude on my first try! It didn’t help that the boss before it was an absolute pain in the ass that took me a good five or six shots even after I figured out his gimmick. Oh, right, and I miss the Wildling class. Give me a summoner in EO5, please!

Speaking of gimmicks, I love love love how every dungeon (to my knowledge) seems to have its own gimmick. The first one? Rampaging FOEs need to be guided into breakable walls. Weird, logical defying pathways in the second. The third one’s got two modes. The final dungeon has you playing stealth with robots. It’s great because it breaks up the ‘go here, kill this’ dungeon-crawling gameplay. Although screw the robots. Ragequit for a good week because of those jerks.

Narrative and Setting:

I know that nobody goes into an EO game looking for the world’s greatest story. I’ve got to say though, the citizens of Tharsis won me over. Everyone is so much more personable in this than the previous game and nobody is a pain in the ass to deal with (hi EO3 shopkeeper). I think one thing that put me off EO3 was the fact that you were always, always alone, except for the random guard or other guild scattered about.

I think it helps that there are other, non-Tharsis civilizations out there which gives you a nice, reasonably diverse amount of dudes to narrative with. It also helps that the game makes excellent use of that empty sixth spot in your party; occasionally, NPCs will join you as guests. This serves a few purposes. First, it lets you get the feel of the new class you’re about to unlock by letting you play around with their NPC (Wufan for the Arcanists, Kibagami for the Bushi and NopeNotTelling for the Spoiler). Secondly, it gives you some actual narrative and/or emotional tie to the dungeon.

Wufan joins out of wanting to save the Medium from the Hollows, Kibagami joins because he feels duty-bound to kill the Boiling Lizard. I’d also be willing to argue that this is what led Atlus to give you actual characters in Etrian Odyssey: Millenium Maiden. Honestly? I would be totally okay with that. Keep the dungeoneering nice and nail-bitingly hard, but give me more story because I am a huge lore geek and I love a good story. Although I have to admit, as cool as EO4′s story was, it did have a fair share of letdowns.

First, the Hollows, the main ‘bad guys’ of the second dungeon. I’m not too terribly far into the bonus dungeon where they (one type so far) makes a cameo appearance, but it’s never explained what they are! All we know is that they’re creepy, fast, and hell-bent on murder. My second narrative gripe is the really obvious twist. Without spoiling … too much, we’ll say, it’s this: You get betrayed. It’s completely, totally obvious who is gonna do it (Hell, they admit having an ulterior motive early on anyway) and you know without a half-doubt that it’s going to happen when it does. My final complaint is the fate of the penultimate boss. Can’t really say anything else about that without spoiling things, but… Seriously. Screw that guy and his ridiculous hair.

Anyway, Etrian Odyssey 4 has been an absolute joy to play through. The improvements from the third make me super happy and the less than great stuff just comes down to a numbers problem (Bushi) or some subpar writing, which I’m hoping the more narrative-focused Millenium Maiden will fix. If you’re into dungeon crawlers or thought that EO3 was good, but not great, definitely check out the demo on the 3DS eShop. If you’re not sold after that, I can assure you that it definitely opens up more and you get a ton of options as you go along. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un.

I love champions who can gank in new and interesting ways. Zac is certainly new and interesting (and all kinds of silly), but is he worth dropping the money or IP on? Let’s find out!

The coolest thing about Zac is (outside of his aesthetics) his massive jungle sustain; if you stay on top of getting the goo from your passive, you’re probably not gonna have too hard of a time in the jungle. He also clears reasonably quickly, thanks to his low-cooldown AoE spell in the form of Unstable Matter (W). His ganks are also really powerful… assuming you can land his knockback and slow (E and Q respectively), which I’m really godawful at, so don’t take any ganking advice from me. His passive also lets him dive quite nicely, but… Well, that doesn’t help if you forget that it exists. My apologies to every laner whose gank I’ve botched because I forgot that I’ve got a less-amazing version of Eggnivia.

In terms of teamfights, Zac seems really slow to get going. I’d argue that early-game is his worst enemy; without a lot of HP and resistances, you’re going to get crushed pretty quickly. He also doesn’t put out a huge lot of damage, so you need to bet on initiating with your slingshot or ultimate, then having someone else clean up. Don’t be afraid to die, either; that passive really helps if someone decides to tunnel-vision your bloblets. Also, if you can poke people down with Q or W, make sure to pick up your dropped goo so you don’t get half-dead when the actual fight starts.

Regarding how to build him: Forget about a lot of the AP items early on. Zac definitely needs tankiness. While I’m sure he could do a ton of damage if you built right, it’s not really worth it if you go in, get your passive popped, and then die. He’s one of the few champions that I’d argue for Warmog’s Armor as a super early item.

All in all, I’ve had a pretty good time with Zac, but… He’s definitely not for everyone. If you’re really looking for another jungler (in case the others aren’t quite doing it for ya), then by all means grab him. Otherwise, wait until free week to give him a shot. Anyway, as always thanks for reading and have a good’un.

So, think of the best series of news you can for this game. An under-appreciated and awkward champion rework? Check. ARAM queue with dodge penalties? Check. Hints at a flawed design being updated? Check. Alright, so we’ve got a pretty nice list, yeah? Well let’s add to that with the biggest, coolest-in-my-opinion thing Riot has done in ages: Everyone’s favorite troll is being given an icy, beard-tastic makeover!

That ain’t all, either. People who own Trundle already (obligatory secret society of trundle players joke here) are getting a free skin that reflects his old look, just like with Karma. So, as a guy who has been playing Trundle for a long, long bloody time (he was the first champion I ever grinded out a lot of IP for!), I’ve decided to give my thoughts on what little we know about his rework.

First, the visuals. Yeah, yeah, I know that this looks nothing like him. He’s buff and tall and has a beard. I’m totally fine with that, though. I like the new look well enough. It’s definitely more visually appealing (red/blue contrast, mostly) than his original one. It’s

bright, it’s colorful, it just flat-out looks better from an aesthetic point of view. As much as I love the old Trundle, you’ve got to admit that his classic skin was kind of… not very eye-pleasing and murky. I think that’s about all I’ve got so far, outside of spell effects and other crap we don’t know yet. Onto the lore!

What little we know about Trundle is that he’s now a ‘troll king,’ if Quinn’s journals are to be trusted. I gotta say, this is a hell of a step up from his old position as ‘hated and bullied runt of a cursed tribe.’ I’m curious if Riot will actually change his title (Cursed Troll to Troll King, again assuming that he really is a king), though. Would be pretty cool and I

think it would be the first time they changed a champion’s title post-release. I recall that Talon’s was screwed up a few times before it was finalized and Orianna’s was changed, pre-release, from the nice’n simple ‘Clockwork Girl ‘ to the awkward and word-stumble-y ‘Lady of Clockwork.’

Right, back to lore. Anyway, I’m curious if he’ll be as much of a loveable, self-serving asshole that he used to be. Also, before anyone gives me that ‘He was a good guy for taking on his tribe’s curse/disease!’ nonsense, read his League Judgment. Even though he learned that he doomed his tribe by taking the disease, Trundle basically said ‘screw that, I’m keeping it because they’re assholes,’ because he had been a victim of their crap for his entire life.

Other non-Trundle related lore bits include the mention of an Ice Witch. On first reading, I was suspecting that it’d make a nice title for Lissandra, the final Freljordian sister! …

until the journal specifically mentioned that Ashe and Lissandra would likely be going against the Ice Witch. Either way, I hope it’s not one of those cases where she (Ice Witch) just flat-out doesn’t exist after now. We’ve had that time and time again with General Du Couteau (Katarina’s father), all of Boram Darkwill’s children (although Keiran gets a pass for being straight-up decapitated by Darius), and probably some others I’m forgetting. Anyway, with the mention of impaling victims on black ice shards, I could see her becoming a champion because that visual is too cool to pass up, right?

Anyway, just decided to drop by and give folks a heads up about the changes as well as my very, very early impressions. Expect more stuff when Trundle’s reworked lore and stuff shows up. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un, because this Trundle gif sure as hell is.

Well that certainly was a month off. Can’t promise things are going to be Monday/Wednesday/Friday levels of posting again, but I should be somewhat more regular. Maybe. Anyway, just got done watching the first half of Tiger & Bunny dubbed. Aside from a few nitpicks and flubbed lines, this is honestly the best dub I’ve seen in years. Join me after the jump and I’ll break down the good and the bad of the series so far.

The Good – Everyone fits! Whether it’s Wally Wingert as Kotetsu/Wild Tiger or Liam O’Brien putting on ‘War’ voice from Darksiders for Lunatic or, and this is by far the best, Stephen freaking Blum as the series’ first big antagonist, Jake Martinez, everyone fits. While it wasn’t quite how I’d imagined they’d sound, it works well enough. I was also really happy to see some of my favorite voice actors show up, so huge props to whoever decided these guys should be the voices of Sternbild City’s heroes and villains. Oh, and Blue Rose’s catchphrase is infinitely less cringe-y.

Also, there are very, very few liberties taken (at least from my memory and/or limited understanding of Japanese terms) with the script. No awkward translations or having to switch words around for the sake of the audience (Lookin’ at you, Bleach! Friggin’ ‘tanuki note,’ man…); anyway, even if there were some changes made, everything still fit well enough together. Unfortunately, no dub is perfect, which leads me to…

The Bad - Ouroboros is a really awkward word. It seems like all of the awkward lines involved it in some way or another. The most noticeable one would have to be Kotetsu asking if a criminal (the guy who planted the bomb on the elevator and who was later killed by Lunatic) was with the group. It seemed really forced, honestly, but it was the only ‘big’ flaw with the dub.

Kotetsu talking while eating also came out… weird. Again, it’s one scene, so it shouldn’t bother me that much, but it does. Can’t put my finger on it, but eh.

Anyway, all in all, I absolutely love this dub. If you guys liked the original, definitely give it a shot. You can actually check out the first episode on Viz’s youtube channel if you’re a bit on the fence about picking it up. If all things work out nicely, I should be able to grab the second half when it launches in May. I’m out for now, though. Until then, thanks for reading and have a good’un. Feels good to be back, folks.

The only things I can promise is Quinn first impressions for you League of Legends types and an Etrian Odyssey 4 review when that shows up. Also Pikmin 3, assuming it ever stops getting pushed back.

So, yeah. Apologies for taking nearly ten days to say this, and even more apologies for being all spotty and non-existent. Hopefully when I come back on a regular basis (remember the good ol’ days of M/W/F updates?), I’ll have more to talk about.

Until then, thanks for reading and have a good’un.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter (why would you do that to yourselves?) probably saw my most recent post (tweet?) regarding Guild Wars 2′s ‘Living Story’ event, Flame and Frost’s upcoming second part, The Gathering Storm. Seeing as this likely signals the beginning of the end of the first section, I figured it’d be a nice time to write about. Since talking about narrative is kind of my thing, this is going to be strictly focused on the actual story, rather than the mechanical updates that come with it.

To give newcomers a quick TL;DR of what’s going on, the gist of Flame and Frost is this: Bad stuff is happening in the northern chunk of the explorable world. Steam vents are erupting and changing the climate in Wayfarer Foothills, a region covered in snow and ice and dust storms are pissing off elementals in Diessa Plateau, a war-torn land that hardly needs to be ravaged further.

In Prelude, characters acted as volunteers by retrieving mementos from refugees, erecting signposts, and lighting campfires. As the days went on, more and more refugees poured into their regions’ capital cities and, by talking to them, players could gather information about what’s causing the disaster. We find out that the Flame Legion, a group of charr hellbent on world domination, and the dredge – communist moles with an affinity for sonic technology – have been stirring up trouble and causing at least some of the evacuations. That’s what we know at the time of this writing. Now it’s time for speculation.

While ArenaNet said that a dragon won’t be coming in Flame and Frost, I’m going to assume that they were doing what developers do best and being very careful with their choice of words. Here’s my guess, and we’ll get to the evidence and some counterpoints in a moment. Either directly or indirectly, Flame and Frost will either bring about the Depths of Tyria as a zone (or handful of zones) or we’ll see an increased amount of Destroyer – the minions of the Elder Dragon Primordus – activity.

Image from Dulfy’s GW2 Living Story Refugee Volunteer events guide. Link to the guide embedded in the image.

Why do I think this is gonna happen? It’s mostly the fact that whatever ‘bad stuff’ is going on, it’s coming from underground. Since Zhaitan is dead as of The Lost Shores update, that gives us a few things. First, it opens up the need for a new ‘bad guy,’ and I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet doesn’t want to devote a single dragon to each expansion or we’ll be fighting them for a good ten to fifteen years. Zhaitan’s death also meant that other dragons can start making moves now. If the dragons’ collective goal is to either destroy or corrupt Tyria, why not hit us while we’re still weak from fighting the last guy?

Now, regarding the dredge and Flame Legion mentions by refugees. The Flame Legion once worshiped the Titans, horrible otherworldly creatures that… … Alright, I’ll admit that I honestly don’t know all that much about those guys and they seemed to come out of nowhere. Anyway, like their name says, the Flame Legion is all about fire and brimstone and pain. They’re also not above corrupting their own dudes (as seen in any high-level content dealing with the Flame Legion) and Primordus appears to be the only dragon that doesn’t corrupt things for his minions. I’m not entirely sure if he’s incapable (doubt it) or if shaping earth and fire and hate into a solid form is easier than hunting down some dudes or conveniently sleeping under a sunken kingdom. I’d be willing to bet, assuming Gaheron Baelfire, leader/pseudo-god of the Flame Legion is actually dead, that the Flame Legion has turned to worship Primordus or at least the idea he represents. I could even see Destroyer’d Flame Legion troops, assuming that Primordus promises power to the charr like he did to the Sons of Svanir.

For the dredge? Keep in mind these dudes live underground, much like the last race that got ran out of the Depths, the asura. The dredge are likely terrified, fleeing, and having their own refugee issues to deal with. The reason the norn are assuming the dredge are responsible is because, well, those two haven’t been on the best of terms. The dredge have been a constant thorn in the collective side of the norn and let’s face it, some norn are kind of jackasses who want to start fights for the sake of itself. In the panic and confusion, there’s a good chance that someone got shot and rumors are spreading.

Now, I could be totally wrong, like I have been on several occasions, but something about this seems like it’s going to eventually point to Primordus and his Destroyers. Either way, I can’t wait to see what The Gathering Storm has for us and I might do more of these things as the Flame and Frost arc rolls out. Anyway, that was super fun to write, but I’m gonna head out now. As always, thanks for reading and have a good’un.