ROSS’S GAME DUNGEON: MAGE KNIGHT APOCALYPSE

I feel like a heroin junkie who finally inserts a needle in his arm after a withdrawal.

My face right now:

Man, you know you're in for a treat with a title screen like this.

Great editing on this one!

The Elder Scrolls has lizards with breasts but they actually have a lore reason for it. If you dig deep enough you get tons of details about the sexual characteristics of their beastfolk. Priorities!

Hey Ross, the next time you're thinking about selling your soul try using Cheat Engine first. It works with pretty much any singleplayer game and since you're editing the memory you can do virtually anything with it. 

It comes with a short tutorial that teaches you the basics of editing variables (e.g. maxing out the mp value) which should be all you need for other hellish cases like this. 

On 6/18/2022 at 1:25 AM, JohnmkV said:

Hey Ross, the next time you're thinking about selling your soul try using Cheat Engine first.

that bit about cutscene death reminded me of this

I knew this would be on the Game Dungeon when I found it in a Goodwill and looked it up after buying it. I've got the manual intact and I'll post scans of it. Not really missing anything, but it'd be good to archive it regardless.

Imgur Album: https://imgur.com/a/knmQCbN
Will post scans as they finish to it.

On 6/18/2022 at 8:23 AM, Undead said:

I knew this would be on the Game Dungeon when I found it in a Goodwill and looked it up after buying it. I've got the manual intact and I'll post scans of it. Not really missing anything, but it'd be good to archive it regardless.

 

Imgur Album: https://imgur.com/a/knmQCbN
Will post scans as they finish to it.

 

ohhh, it's all lopsided :(
I'll leave it to Ross to sort it out

Thanks, I'll look into it sometime and see if there's anything there for the follow-up.

About the part where the dwarf PC starts to talk, maybe that's around where he would join you if you were playing as someone else. It would make sense to save any dialogue for when they're sure he'll be there. On the other hand, all the other PCs join in places associated with their people, which would likely put the dwarf joining back in Silverholt (when you got that temporary dwarf ally).

On 6/17/2022 at 10:23 PM, Undead said:

Imgur Album: https://imgur.com/a/knmQCbN

The intro in the manual mentions "Atlantean Technomancers", so I guess they're supposed to be more advanced than the game depicts.

It also has ads for a Mage Knight board game (where you supposedly play as the titular Mage Knights) and another game on the Nintendo DS. Looks like they were trying for a multimedia franchise that didn't pan out.

On the cutscene death, I'd really like you to have checked to see if turning off the god mode in the trainer and getting attacked mid-cutscene actually killed you in this game. Because in some games, the health bar doesn't drop if you get attacked mid cutscene. The NPC continues attacking during the cutscene, and it's really annoying, but when the cutscene ends, your health bar remains what it was before the cutscene began. At least, in some games. Don't ask me which games. I can't remember. That's what my memory tells me.

On the Jewish caricature, honestly this game's writing and gameplay design is so atrociously bad, that I think that the devs' use of that Jewish stereotype(and the unnecessary dark dwarves/regular dwarves distinction) was legitimately done out of sheer ignorance, rather than a conscious deliberate attempt at being racist out of malice. To be clear, the inclusion of that merchant in that manner is definitely racist, and it made me have a "OMG I can't believe you thought that that's an appropriate thing to add in the game!" facepalm moment, but I woudn't read too much into it.

Although..., come to think of it, it is also possible that the game is as bad as it is, precisely because the devs might have, let's just say racist tendencies, and therefore lack the skill to write a complex well-presented plot.

I'm inclined to lean towards the former hypothesis due to the sheer scale of incompetence on display, but it is possible that it could be the latter.

Also the hitbox illustration for looting bodies was really nice. Is that the new editor's work? If so, well done. If not, still, well done.
 

Anyway thanks for the video Ross! Had a blast! Cheers!
 

I breathed it

People in the YouTube comments are saying this was meant to be played in co-op, and that's why the single player is unfairly hard and gives you more items than you have room for and items you don't have the stats to use and so on. That actually makes a lot of sense, since the opening cutscene introduced its cast like they were part of the Fellowship of the Ring, going off on an adventure together.

But, goddammit, if you're gonna make a game like that, just don't even give players the option of attempting it solo. Back in the days before every single game was required by law to be released on consoles and thus pass certification requirements like "must have a working single-player mode" they could have gotten away with that, but they probably figured they'd lose out on sales that way. Yeah, "sales" to people who will just return it when they realize it's unplayable.

On 6/19/2022 at 2:45 AM, SteelPony said:

On the Jewish caricature, honestly this game's writing and gameplay design is so atrociously bad, that I think that the devs' use of that Jewish stereotype(and the unnecessary dark dwarves/regular dwarves distinction) was legitimately done out of sheer ignorance, rather than a conscious deliberate attempt at being racist out of malice. To be clear, the inclusion of that merchant in that manner is definitely racist, and it made me have a "OMG I can't believe you thought that that's an appropriate thing to add in the game!" facepalm moment, but I woudn't read too much into it.

I don't think I would have even noticed if he hadn't mentioned it. He has the body language of a Jewish caricature, but the face says "old-West prospector" to me. I have more questions about what a human is doing living in the dwarf city.

Also the Dark Dwarves might be called that because they come from the DEEP DOWN DARK DEEP DOWN of the mountain.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Duergar

On 6/21/2022 at 2:28 AM, Undead said:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Duergar

yes, that

Once again Gordon Freeman Ross graces us with another Game Dungeon.

About your sensation of they making up the story as they go, I would say it's more like they're dumping lore because they are fully expecting the player to already know about it. The reason why is because this is a licensed game based on a tabletop franchise, also named Mage Knight. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page if you are curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mage_Knight

But then again, I could say it's also a bad way to introduce any potential new fans to the franchise. It can also explain why the story is lackluster because being a licensed game means that the developers either didn't had the freedom they wanted due to mandates, or they didn't really cared much since it was just "another day at the office" for them (and considering the overall quality of this game, I'm leaning towards the latter). And I don't know if this game is accurate to the lore or not because it's a franchise that I think I've heard once before in my life, and nothing beyond that.

I also found out that this wasn't the only video game based on the Mage Knight franchise, there was a Nintendo DS turn based strategy game called Mage Knight: Destiny's Soldiers, and it was also published in the same year. (did heard it sucks also)

On 6/17/2022 at 6:32 PM, ScumCoder said:

Man, you know you're in for a treat with a title screen like this.

 

 

Once I saw that, I knew exactly what kind of frustration was in store for Ross.

Although, I could say that The Chosen had more "soul" than Mage Knight, if you excuse the pun.

I thought that title screen was familiar. 

I suppose we have a new category of bad RPG now: Peashooter Minigun Games.

On the topic of sexy armor, I personally don't mind, but then, I'd be the person to handwave it with "she can dodge lots of things" or "she has super regeneration" or "she has a personal force-field."