A Splendid Little Holy War: Let's play Chaos World!

Downstairs, the guard leads Swift into the arena, where she prepares to face a most fearsome foe!


…
That... that is not a monster. That's a slug. Granted, it's about the size of Swift herself, but it's still a slug. Like, it isn't even named anything special like "Dire Slug" or anything, it's called a Slug.

This is our first look at Swift's battle sprite. The hero you picked will always have this ugly green and orange palette. Allies will use a deep blue and bright red.


As you can see, more garbled text. The bar in the center of the screen says what's happening. In the first screen, Swift is taking 1 HP of damage (the garbled text below her name and beside the 1 should say "damage"). In the second, she's hitting the Slug for 6 HP. The last screen shows the money and experience she obtained for defeating it: 3G and 1EXP.

This really isn't the best time to discuss the battle system, so let's just say that Swift ends it in two attacks and move on with the intro.


The guard congratulates her on exterminating a slug and directs her back to the King. He also congratulates her. Good job Swift, you did something a little bit of table salt could do! I wonder if this means Mars was actually the kingdom's pest control? Anyway, the King gives Swift his blessing, and more importantly, 100G and a Donkey.


Heck. Yes. The donkey doubles the number of items Swift can carry. The 100G can be traded for good and services around town.


Let's hit up the Equipment Shop first. It's the building with sword sign. The shop menu has really neat music, but I have no way of capturing it for you folks. Actually, the whole game's got some neat tunes, and there was even a soundtrack CD released, but for some reason a CD released for an obscure FC game from the end of the console's lifespan is next to impossible to find. Go figure!

Anyway: The equipment here in Rodetia is heavily geared toward casters. Not that you would know that, because there's no way of knowing who can equip what or what stats an item has until you buy it.

Thank God it's 2011 and these days are far, far behind us.

• Ancient Staff: 8 Atk, 4 Int, 4 Mag, for the caster classes (Shamn, Priest, Mage and Bshp). This is literally double that stats of the Old Staff that the Priest, Mage and Bshp classes start with, but even so it isn't worth blowing the entire budget on.
• Silk Clothing: 5 Def, for every class but Ftr and Knight. This is technically a one point improvement for Swift's Def, but that's a pretty penny right now.
• Leather Shield: 3 Def, for Ftrs and Knights.
• Magic Bracelet: 3 Def, 1 Mag, for every class but Ftr and Knight.
• Leather Hat: 3 Def, for everyone.

Swift only picks up a Leather Hat, because it's the cheapest thing on the menu.

The Item Shop has a Potion on its sign. Item Shops are the only place you can sell off unwanted inventory (you can also discard stuff you don't want or need, but you might as well try to make some scratch when you can).

• Herb: Restores a small amount of HP.
• DualHerb: Restores a medium amount of HP. Apparently has two blossoms.
• TriHerb: Fully restores HP, I think.
• PoisHerb: Cures Poison.
• ParaHerb: Cures Paralysis.
• StonHerb: Cures Petrification.

Swift picks up three PoisHerbs, because much like in Dragon Quest games, not having a means to cure poison early in the game can make things really annoying, really fast.

The Magic Shop has a Spellbook on its sign. Swift herself doesn't want or need any of these spells, so she leaves without buying anything (That's actually a lie - she wouldn't mind the Pois-C spell, but she can't afford it). All of the shopkeepers have different dialogue depending on whether or not you buy anything. The Magic Shop keeper is the bitchiest.

We'll go over the spell selection here when we actually have magicians in the party.


The Church actually has an interior. The Priest here can revive fallen allies for half the party's G. In proper old school fashion, he only revives them with a single HP.

Also, look how creepy his eyes are.


This odd, gingerbreadish-looking building is a Guild. Guilds will become be extremely important, but right now Swift lacks the King's permission to use it, and she won't have that until she cures the princess.

The guards at the town's entrance will finally move, although Swift will have to speak with them when she comes and goes to get them to move out of the way until she cures Meldi. One suggests she head to the town of Rarm in the north and speak with the chemist that lives there. The other tells her to keep her trap shut about the rapidly approaching end of the world.


The donkey will follow Swift around on the world map and in dungeons. :3
Rarm is to the northwest. It's pretty much the only direction Swift can head in: Every other way only leads to the coast or strangely pointy mountains.

The horrible monsters running amok outside include Slugs, Mantises and Bee Lords. Truly, this world is doomed.

Hey let's talk about the battle system! Put on some quirky tunes that you'd expect from a tutorial and get ready to learn:

Chaos World's battle system is, like I mentioned earlier, where the game completely falls apart. It's completely automated. When you enter combat, you're given three options: Fight, Plan, and Flee.

Fight begins the battle, and once you've selected it there's no stopping until one of the sides is wiped out. Party members will automatically attack, use magic and items. The faster the character, the more frequently they'll attack.

Flee is an attempt to run away. Like in most games, there's a chance it'll fail and you'll be forced to fight.

Plan will allow you to change the Order and Formation of your characters. In general, the first two positions will take the brunt of the enemy's attacks. The order your characters are placed in also has a minor effect on the actions your characters will take: Characters in the first two positions will be more likely to attack and attack faster, while those in back will focus more on support.

However, the party's Formation has a much bigger impact on their actions than their Order. There are several Formations to choose from, and they all have different effects.


Attack
This is the basic formation. Fighting-types will focus on attacking, Casting-types will focus on supporting the party.


Assault
Despite the Thf being closest to the enemy, the Knight is still in the first position and still eats most of the hits. This formation focuses on dealing damage, and not much else. Characters will be less inclined to use healing items or magic, and you can forget about support spells.


Use MP
Caution: This formation should be "No MP." The party won't use magic and focus on only attacking with their weapons. Healers will sometimes go ahead and cast healing spells if the party's in dire straits, but that's not something you'd want to rely on.

Recover
Caution: This formation should be "Focus." In this formation, the party will all focus their attacks on the same target until it dies, then move on to the next one. It's a good one for folks who believe it's better to face two enemies at full health than three at 75%.


Mag Atk
This formation focuses on using magic, both offensively and defensively. Given that MP is a limited resource, I can't really recommend using this formation much.

Pyramid
So. There's one other factor I've neglected to mention. In addition to positioning and formation, each character has their own "personality" that also modifies the actions they take in battle. For example, some characters may be less likely to heal their allies with items or magic. The Pyramid formation supposedly leaves the AI in the hands of each character's personality. Please do not assume there is an appreciable difference between Attack and Pyramid.

Save MP
Party members will focus on conserving MP and only cast when it's necessary, which will be more frequently than in the Use MP formation. I consider this preferable to that formation for long dungeon trips since they won't sling spells like crazy or skimp too much on the healing.


Defend
This is the "focus on healing" formation. Party members will prioritize healing HP and status effects, as well as casting support magic. Well, they'd focus on using support magic if any of Swift's allies equipped any, and I assure you they won't be.

While parts of it may sound interesting, I assure you it isn't. You have very little input ("The game plays itself!"), and, well, there's a reason the AI in Dragon Quest doesn't use consumable items anymore.

This concludes the explanation of the battle system. We now return to Swift's adventure.

Even though most enemies only deal 1 HP of damage to her, they come in groups so battles tend to shave off about 3 of her HP, and she's only got 12. With no means of healing herself, it doesn't take many battles before Swift has to retreat back to the warmth and safety of Rodetia's Inn. Even though she lives in this city, she can't sleep in her own bed to recover HP and is forced to use the Inn. Curiously, the Inn is the only shop where the proprietor doesn't have a face graphic. Inns have a bowl and spoon on their sign, and charge by the person. They're also the only means of saving the game. Yes, that's right, we're back in the dark days where it cost money to save the game.


After a refreshing night's sleep, Swift ventures out to the world map again in hopes of leveling up. And just after nightfall, she does! Level 2 brings her more garbled text, 9 (!) HP, 2 Agi, and 1 point to both Int and Mag. At this point in the game, 9 HP is nearly doubling her survivability. Astute RPG players know that it's a good idea to save after gaining a level, and Swift is nothing if not astute.

...but on her way back to Rodetia, she's killed by a gang of Slugs. That must make her nothing, because she sure as heck isn't astute.

Oh well, I guess that's that. Thanks for reading everybody!

You posted the magic shop bitchiness twice.

Enjoying so far.

Previously on Chaos World:

DANoWAR, thinking that this was some other Famicom RPG, an action RPG he obviously doesn't remember the name of: "This game is so, so good."

After realizing that it was another game:

"This game is so, so good."

Next time, on Chaos World:

"This game is so, so good."

Eventually:

This... game

Then it turns in HC Bailly just saying "GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!"

You used strike tags on the wrong part. It should say "This game is so-so good."

You were thinking of Radia Senki, I think? That is a far better game. (I was actually thinking of changing to Dragon Quest TacticsJust Breed at the last minute, because at least I could sperg out about that game)

Edit: Hey look what the fourth result for "Radia Senki" on Google is.

The graphics are pretty good, but everything else about this game so far is baffling.

And I guess that Mars must have been a drunk, or some other class of worthless deadbeat, because on top of everything else Swift starts out without a penny to her name, with nothing but the clothes on her back, and without the strength to kill a Slug with one blow.

How long is this game, anyways? Around the same length as say, Final Fantasy?

I am very upset that this game does not feature adoreable little anthropomorphic vegetation. You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly.

Good LP, Turnip. Can't wait for your next one.


... what?

Ehhh it's hard to say, Chaos World doesn't have the same benchmarks that Final Fantasy does. For right now, let's just say that it takes significantly more time to complete the "Save the Princess" opening mission in Chaos World.

I leave it in the hands of all the rom hackers out there.

Episode II: Catching a Quick Cat Nap in the Dirt


Immediately after awakening Zombie!Swift skips over to the Item shop and buys three Herbs. Seriously y'all, going anywhere without healing items or magic is basically a death sentence.

This time, she sticks close to Rodetia while leveling up. She even gets better stats when she hits Level 2 this time, and to top it off she doesn't die horrible on her way back into town to save! It looks like things are finally turning around for our girl Swift!

(Things are not turning around for our girl Swift)


After saving and buying a couple more Herbs, Swift sets out for Rarm to see the Chemist. She makes note of a cave just a little ways northwest of the town. Surely that won't be relevant in five seconds.


The Chemist is located on the upper left side of the village. It has the same sign as Item Shops, but the proprietor looks different. He informs her that "the potion" requires a Flower of Impression as an ingredient, but doesn't deem it worth his time to point Swift in the direction of said flower.

Let's see what the townies have to say:

That answers quite a few questions, thank you. Yes, as it turns out the major obstacle that's stopped adventurer after adventurer is a hole in the ground. If only they had taken a level in bridge building!

The kid up there isn't talking about cure magic, in a general sense. There's actually a spell called Cure that we won't be seeing for quite some time. I believe it's a full status/HP heal for one character.

Another adventurer reveals that the thing thwarting the forces of good isn't even their lack of knowledge of bridges, it's a lack of rope.

We're hitting an all time low here, folks.

Someone else around town mentions that they saw someone with some rope, but the person refused to join them. I smell... a party member. There's a building here in Rarm that looks like a Guild, but it's actually just a pub that's only open at night. Maybe our rope-haver will be there come nightfall, drinking his or her sorrows away? We'll have to check back.

The only new piece of equipment here is the Chain Mail, a piece of body armor for Ftrs, Knights and Thfs that raises Def by 9. This is a pretty big improvement for Swift, but alas, she can't afford it.

Let's check out that cave while we're waiting for nightfall. It's garish shade of cyan and full of monsters. As a Thf, Swift knows the old saying, "Discretion is the better part of valor" is a true one. The first floor is a small-sized room with stairs leading down to...

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the greatest threat to Rodetia's National Security: The Pit. They must be descended from ninjas.


There's nothing Swift can do except vainly try to fight battles where's she's outnumbered four-to-one. Back to Rarm it is! Curiously, the Pub's lights are out, unlike every other building in town, despite it being the only establishment that's open (well, aside from the Inn).

Now let's see if our rope-haver is in here.


No dice: Half the patrons are complaining about how the barkeeper is making mad cash from adventurers coming to town looking for the cure, one guy has a hot tip about the Rodetian Priest's huge belly button, and one guy is so sloshed he's imagining out loud what will happen when he cures the Princess.

So where in the hell is the guy with the rope?
Hint: He is in this image.


You know the first Dragon Quest game waited until the final town in the game to pull crap like this.

This fella stands in spot that you can't miss when you talk to the Chemist. The man immediately recognizes Swift as the Spawn of Mars, and lays out the situation: He went to the cave, used his trusty rope to cross the pit, but had to retreat because the monsters were too tough.

He suggests traveling together. This is the only way to get the coveted Rope, so Swift has to take him. This is Baran, the Mal Knight and our first party member!

~Toot-to-a-toot~

Baran isn't so great right now because he's at level 1, but two targets are better than one, right? He'll definitely be a valuable ally, if only to soak up damage!


So, as it turns out, it's preferable to stick a Level 3 Thf in front over a Level 1 Knight. Swift got the bright idea to go north to the town of Nazaal so she could fight enemies that give more moneybuy some better equipment for her new friend. Sadly, the Cavemen conked Baran over the head a few times too many and he died. Swift fared much better: They could barely land a hit on her as she picked them off with arrows.


Swift managed to haul his rotting corpse to Nazaal, and they arrived just after daybreak. Then she proceeded to make the fatal mistake of going to the Church for resurrection before buying any equipment or items. That's 53G flushed right down the drain.

(I knew I should have put points into her Int.)


People in Nazaal have things to say. None of it is important or even interesting. Between Baran's resurrection and a stay at the Inn, Swift doesn't have enough money to buy any of the equipment she was coveting. With a sigh, she turns around and begins her trek back to Rarm.


Oh for fuck's sake.

One quick reload later...
Swift and Baran make it back to Rarm unscathed, and spend their days beating up bugs and vaguely erotic plants to gain levels. Baran's level ups net him tons of HP and decent Str. Once he hits level 3, the pair decide to go for the Flower of Impression.

After stocking up on Herbs and PoisHerbs, of course. I painfully overestimated my need for one of these items while underestimating my need for the other.

Back in the cave...
Hey guess what the "P" in P.Snail stands for. Hint: It ain't "Purple." It's a wise choice to run away.

Orclords and Orcs are more manageable because all they do is attack. You'll also note that we switched to Assault formation. This is mostly to conserve our precious few healing items.

(It doesn't work)


Everything in an RPG has to be such a goddamn ordeal.

There's not much on the other side, it's just a few steps to some stairs leading up. This dungeon isn't what most would consider complicated.


The next floor is where Swift catches her first glimpse of a treasure chest. Inside is a Pegasus Wing, a handy little consumable item that will let you teleport to any town you've visited that has a Guild. Swift is eventually gonna have a spell that does the same thing, but until then she'll want to have at least one of these in her inventory at all times.

The stairs on the left lead to world map.

We made it! Heading toward the center of the conspicuously-shaped forest leads Swift to a new, mazelike area filled with trees, shrubbery and flowers.


See, Swift has to go around and check the flowers to see if it's the Flower of Impression. Luckily, the Flower of Impression is always located in the same spot so if you know where it is you don't have to sit through this bullshit.

The forest is also filled with bees, and Baran's already burned through the party's Herbs. The good news: Swift managed to give those nasty bees what for and level up! The bad news: Baran was killed by bees and Swift is only halfway to the Flower of Impression.


She had no chance to get to the flower, so she ran out of the forest with her tail tucked between her legs and blew the party's only Pegasus Wing to fly back to Nazaal. Having learned from her previous embarrassing blunders, Swift hits up the equipment store first before the Church.

Nazaal's shop is the first one we've come across that's really geared towards the physical fighters.

• Iron Sword: For Ftrs and Knights, raises Atk by 9.
• Iron Spear: For Knights only. Raises Atk by 11.
• Iron Helmet: For Ftrs and Knights. Raises Def by 5.

That Chain Mail would look mighty fine on Baran. You know, if he were alive. Unfortunately, Swift is just a few G shy of it.


So she sells off one of her PoisHerbs over at the item shop for 3G, giving her just enough for the Chain Mail. She hawks his old armor and more PoisHerbs for money to revive him and some regular Herbs to restore his HP. After a few battles outside, they have enough G to stay at the Inn and purchase even more Herbs.

This time they will succeed.


Back in the forest...
The Flower of Impression is always located up in the top northeastern spot, a convenient location because you can get back to the world map in only seven steps. Now, with the flower in hand, Swift heads back to Rarm so she can get the Potion that will cure Meldi so she'll gain Fame and Glory.


Say, what's that thing that Road fellow says? Something about cutting it close? Swift and Baran barely make it back to town.


The Chemist whips up the Impress Potion real quick like after Swift gives him the flower.


A few Rodetians congratulate Swift for getting the potion, but more seem to be focusing on the prophecy. Granpa urges her to continue on her adventure so she can bring peace to the world, but otherwise has nothing of importance to say.


The King simply instructs Swift to give the potion to Meldi. Her chambermaid will now step aside to let Swift in. Meldi is unresponsive, because this is one of those games where you have to use an item from the inventory instead of things automatically happening.

Meldi awakens and thanks Swift. My, that was certainly anticlimactic. Let's see what the King's got for us.


Ok~
Swift gets:

• The Go Ahead to use the Guild
• The Go Ahead to enter the Kingdom of Ruval
• Information about the game's backstory
• Veiled instructions to wipe out the infidels of Ideia

In Chaos World, there are two religions: Maria, which is the good and pure, vaguely-Catholic religion practiced by the good guys; and Ideia, which, if I'm remembering correctly, is basically Satanism. Ideia is supposedly responsible for the civil war that tore the Ancient Kingdom asunder. Since this latest turn of events basically makes Swift a Crusader, Thf was a surprisingly apt class choice. Good job, Tyrants!


Around town...
Gramps is disinterested as usual. The woman from earlier - the one whose husband was missing - had her plotline resolved off screen. Your guess is as good as mine.


Now that Swift is recognized as an CrusaderAdventurer, she can use the Guild.


More menus! The big box on the left shows all of your allies. There are fourteen spots, one for Mal and Fem for each class. A P indicates that the character is currently in the party, while a * indicates the character is at the current location but not in the party.

The Change command will let you change your party. Swift has to be in the party at all times. You can only put a character in the party if they're at the current location. If Swift were to ditch Baran here in Rodetia, he's gonna stay here unless she uses the Call command to call him to another Guild. It'll take characters a few days to travel to other Guilds.


Guilds are also where Swift's gonna find most of her allies. The Recruit command will bring up a list of characters currently hanging around in the Guild. Some won't join you until you've reached certain parts in the storyline (usually it's after whatever local trouble has been resolved), but others will jump at the chance right from the get go.

The gibberish below their names is supposed to be their class and gender, I believe.

Nande is the Mal Priest, while Wendy is the Fem Mage, and both join with no fuss.


The Job command works not unlike the propositions from Final Fantasy Tactics: They're little odd jobs you can send a character for a few days. Some are required to complete the game because they reward the player with key items. Some have class or gender specifications, like the Waitress Needed job here can only be completed by a female. Since Swift is our hero, she can't be deployed. That leaves this waitressing job up to Wendy.

While she works, Swift, Baran and Nande head out to fight battles for two days, at which point Wendy returns.


The Waitress job always ends the same: The character gets fired for beating up a customer that touched her butt. They'll always get paid though.


Both Nande and Wendy joined at Level 5. Nande has Feel, the basic, single-target healing spell, while Wendy has Flame, the basic, single-target fire spell. Both have craptastic equipment. I guess we know where that 200G is going.


Here's a look at the party's stats. Baran is really starting to come into his own, and that, combined with Nande's Feel spell, means he'll finally start being an effective meatshield. Everyone's close to getting a level up too (well, everyone but Swift). I think the future's gonna be a lot brighter now y'all..

Swift and Baran's Kingdom Clout has increased across the board, not that it means anything to us.

That night at Rodetia's Inn...
When you stay at an Inn, there's a chance one of your current allies will offer up some advice. Here, Nande cautions Swift about the dangers of relying completely on magic for your healing needs. He's not wrong, but magic will go a long way in keeping the party alive. Right now, Nande can cast Feel ten times before having to rest. On the other hand, the party only has twelve inventory spots, so ten shots of healing is a pretty good deal.

Next Time: Killing Things, Buying Things.

*blink* I can imagine what it probably was going to be, but that...wow.

So the other party members, if you started as that class/gender, would that be your portrait?

I would think it's meant to be like laying on of hands, but then the next tier up is called Field. In conclusion, games from this era are weird.

Yep. If we had chosen a Fem Mage, the hero would have had Wendy's portrait. The sprite on the map is determined by gender.

Probably both of them (Radia Senki or Just Breed).

Anyways, do the people doing jobs get battle experience? I forgot/always slept through the jobs at the inn.

Oh no Swift has been badly stabbed in her chest better ask Nande the Male Priest to "Feel" her up to full HP...

What was the highest spell? Felt? Fellow? Full? Falala?

(Gently) "Caress" sounds right....

Yeah, that's what I'd think too. It could also be a badly-translated "fill" [your hp] if it was kana.

Do the other party members you get depend on which class you are?

So this game used party strategies before that was even a thing? That's pretty cool. Kind of a shame it doesn't really work, though. :/

Feeled.

Should have been felt, but it was bad translation!

Nope, the characters are all preset in specific locations no matter what class you're playing as. The only exception is the Mal Ftr, who'll take the spot of whatever class you're playing as. So like, if we were playing as a Mal Priest, we'd find the Mal Ftr in Rodetia's Guild along with Wendy, or if we were playing as a Mal Knight, the Mal Ftr would be the guy with the Rope.

It was a thing in Dragon Quest IV which came out in early 1990 in Japan.

It didn't really work there, either, for what it's worth (I think Mara used blazemost once during all the boss fights of the last chapter during my first playthrough).

I'm actually interested to see if this game takes off now that you have a full party.

I apologize for not having played Dragon Quest IV!

This is a representative image of an entire dungeon's worth of gameplay: