arts // no. 8

Comic Corner: A solid mediocre

> ‘The Dead God’ comic review

Brittney MacDonald Life & Style Editor

OOOO

s cliché fantasy that is done

well still cliché? This is the question I asked myself as I examined The Dead God by Erik Bear. Yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I felt it was immersive. But the entire experience left me with an itch in the back of my mind, a little tingling that said this was all too familiar.

This graphic novel is part

of the Foreworld Saga, which began with The Mongoliad, a serialized prose narrative that was available on various mobile devices. The Dead God is meant to act as a pre-cursor to that narrative, as it takes place nearly a millennia before the events of The Mongoliad. Basically, it’s a heroes’ quest. Three chosen people seek the head of a god in order to obtain knowledge. You have the generic fantasy character classes—the warrior, the ranger, and the rogue—as

ERIK BEAR

(120 DT NDRGO)D

ISSUE |

well as the usual epic journey scenario, similar to the one found in works like The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There’s nothing really unexpected here. It’s all pretty standard. This is a problem, because it puts this narrative in direct competition with other, more established fantasy authors such as J.K. Rowling or J.R.R. Tolkien. The art is done by Haiwei Hou, who I will admit is probably a big reason why | was so engaged in this book. The art is amazing, and Hou’s name will definitely be one | keep on my list of artists to watch for. Overall, unless you're a die-hard fantasy fan, I wouldn't really recommend this graphic novel. It has its moments, but overall it’s a bit of a flop in terms of narrative quality. | have never read The Mongoliad, and based off of this I probably won't go out of my way to search the app store for it.

Image via amazon.com

theotherpress.ca

Image via gamers-haven.org

New JRPG brings the challenge

> ‘The Legend of Legacy’ game review

Lauren Paulsen Senior Columnist

OOO0S

T* Legend of Legacy isa Japanese roleplaying game

for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the spiritual successor to the SaGa series, and many of the staff that worked on that series also worked on this game. Some gamers might recognize these people, or more likely, the games they worked

on, including Masato Kato, the writer of Chrono Trigger; Masashi Hamauzu, the composer for Final Fantasy XIII, and the illustrator and the designer for the SaGa series, Tomomi Kobayashi and Kyoji Koizumi, respectively.

To begin with, the player can choose to play as one of seven different adventurers. Meurs, the last elementalist alive, is travelling to the island to find out why all of the elementals are gathering there. Bianca is a very optimistic girl who wakes up on the island with no memory of who she is. Liber is a young treasure hunter and thrill seeker searching for a legendary treasure called the Star Graal. Garnet is a Templar sent by her church to prove that there are no heretic

gods on Avalon. Owen is an experienced bounty hunter sent by Garnet’s church to eliminate those claiming to be the gods. Eloise is an alchemist searching for the Star Graal, hoping to use it to obtain eternal youth. Lastly, Filmia, the heir to a lost kingdom, is a frog prince who likes to randomly burst into song and the only non- human playable character. Choosing your character determines the reason you are on the island, and therefore the opening scene, as well as who the other two characters in your party will be in the beginning. It isn’t necessarily a big deal, because aside from the slight dialogue differences, the plot ends up being the same. You can still gather the other four characters to switch out your party, albeit not your main character. Plot-wise, the game really doesn’t have much of one. You are only given a vague goal at the beginning, and you spend the rest of the time exploring various areas in whatever order you like to collect elemental shards and defeat monsters. Mapping out the areas is interesting, as you can actually sell the maps. After you sell the maps—hopefully after thoroughly exploring,

because you can only sell them once each—you can find NPCs and the other characters who are not in your party roaming around the areas you've mapped. Even though it may not be very rich in plot, The Legend of Legacy has two major strengths going for it. The first is that the art is gorgeous. Each area is hand-drawn, like an artistic pop-up book. When you move around, the trees, boulders, and whatnot literally pop up from the ground. The characters are also quite cute: the chibi style is similar to that of Bravely Default. The second boon the game has to offer is that it is really hard. A lot of time needs to be spent grinding to level up your characters, particularly in the beginning, to avoid constantly dying. It doesn’t help that you often come across really tough foes without meaning to. Unfortunately, this could also be seen as a problem, as those with short attention spans will likely get tired of grinding or frustrated with constantly dying. So, depending on what type of gamer you are, you'll probably either love The Legend of Legacy and spend hours playing it, or you'll hate it and move on to another game.