what even is the plot in this game

[nimrod]

3 hours in and im confused help

[kaymarciy]

This is mainly due to the fact that the prologue - which was supposed to stage the backstory - doesn't follow the book for some reason and the opening cutscene doesn't really help. It will be gradually covered through the course of the game, but here's a recap if you want.

The action happens in the world Terminum. There was another world named Kals (or whatever it's transliterated in latinic). That world had 5 gods, each one had an angelic servitor called Umbra Magna (Greater Shadow) and each of those had four Umbra Minor (Lesser Shadows), twenty five shadows altogether. Some weird magical plague reached Kals and destroyed the life inside. Gods devised a plan - they put all surviving creatures into a pocket dimension and send it to Terminum, then self-sacrificed in order to create a net of Menhirs that cover the land and create defensive Veil around the world to protect it from the upcoming plague. But "something went wrong" and only Umbrae were able to leave the Ark, while all other creatures remained sleeping inside. Even more, Lesser Shadows who until now were little different from shadow on wall with no freedom of actions, they suddenly became free, but could technically be forced back into slavery by their respective superiors. And here goes the catch - Greater Umbrae turned quite demonic and ordered Lesser Umbrae to genocide humans in order to drain their blood and souls to feed Menhirs. It was called Reaping and Greater Umbrae became known as Reapers. Lesser Umbrae didn't like this and rebelled. Greater Umbrae founded Temple in the northern empire and 3 Lesser Umbrae (Annanael, Enei and Coranzon) founded the opposing Temple on the south.
Three hundred years after the first Reaping the second one started. The Lesser Umbra called Zong destroyed one of Menhirs (made directly out of the divine essense, mind you) and reforged it into 14 daggers. Here come out two other Lesser Umbrae: Blance reknown for his ability to see into the essence of things, events and people and Ammah reknown for her ability to see through past, present and future. When the second reaping reached its apex and legions of north were supposed to meet legions of south to die in bloody massacre, she got a prophecy - more than a half of 25 Umbrae will die in this battle and remaining ones will be forever banished from Terminus into Oblivion together with the Ark containing remnants of Kals. Ammah loved Blance and took some of his time before the battle to bid him farewell, yet she never told him of the prophecy. Due to this small detention Blance came late to the battlefield and didn't know the plan of his comrades; in fact he didn't even know that daggers can perma-kill Umbrae, he thought there will be only a couple of Greater Umbrae on the field, daggers will be used to excorporate them for some prolonge time enough for southerners to win. But all five Greater Umbae came in, clad in the divine might of long-dead gods and suppressed Lesser; those in turn used their own daggers against themselves. Blance chose to do the same since he would rather prefer death over slavery. But because he didn't expect this turn of events (unlike others), he wasn't mentally prepared, lingered for a moment and suddenly he's got touched by the divine grace out of nowhere. This made him delighted and confused for a moment, a moment long enough for Childao the Archeress to shoot his arm, staking it to his chest preventing from suicide. Blance was unable to kill himself, only 12 out of 25 (less than half) Umbrae died and Ammah's prophecy has got severed.
After the battle Blance had conteplaited over his experience and come to the conclusion that the divine grace he felt belonged to the Thrice Advented - the deity worshipped in Terminum before Umbrae reached it. Blance spent following seven hundred years searching for artifacts of the Thrice Advented in hope to find a way to stop next Reaping. So he comes to a place where one of the oldest temples of Thrice Advented stood once and meets Ammah who's been hiding there for last 6 years. She gives him a revelation: behind Greater Umbra stands some other entity - one of their gods who somehow survived, that god sends Greater Umbra on their Reapings and the thrid one is about to start. Yet only four of them keep the Serviture for real and one rebelled. Two mortal men will come, one on North and one on South, who are destined to stand against the upcoming Reaping and help with the plan of the rogue Greater Umbra. So the game follows those three - two mortals and one fallen angel - in their travels staged by the fate. And eventually everything will come down to a single place prepared for the Grand Finale.

It also worth mentioning that the game follows only the first book of the trilogy, so the ending is rather open.

[bijou]

This is mainly due to the fact that the prologue - which was supposed to stage the backstory - doesn't follow the book for some reason and the opening cutscene doesn't really help.

That's because the game was prior to the book. Not vice versa. Sergey Malitszy, the writer behind Ash of Gods, was working on the book during the development of Redemption but there were no book without the game. Thus, when the game needed some changes in the plot, Sergey changed the book accordingly.

[nimrod]

Thank you

[AVGAMER]

Originally posted by kaymarciy:

This is mainly due to the fact that the prologue - which was supposed to stage the backstory - doesn't follow the book for some reason and the opening cutscene doesn't really help. It will be gradually covered through the course of the game, but here's a recap if you want.

The action happens in the world Terminum. There was another world named Kals (or whatever it's transliterated in latinic). That world had 5 gods, each one had an angelic servitor called Umbra Magna (Greater Shadow) and each of those had four Umbra Minor (Lesser Shadows), twenty five shadows altogether. Some weird magical plague reached Kals and destroyed the life inside. Gods devised a plan - they put all surviving creatures into a pocket dimension and send it to Terminum, then self-sacrificed in order to create a net of Menhirs that cover the land and create defensive Veil around the world to protect it from the upcoming plague. But "something went wrong" and only Umbrae were able to leave the Ark, while all other creatures remained sleeping inside. Even more, Lesser Shadows who until now were little different from shadow on wall with no freedom of actions, they suddenly became free, but could technically be forced back into slavery by their respective superiors. And here goes the catch - Greater Umbrae turned quite demonic and ordered Lesser Umbrae to genocide humans in order to drain their blood and souls to feed Menhirs. It was called Reaping and Greater Umbrae became known as Reapers. Lesser Umbrae didn't like this and rebelled. Greater Umbrae founded Temple in the northern empire and 3 Lesser Umbrae (Annanael, Enei and Coranzon) founded the opposing Temple on the south.
Three hundred years after the first Reaping the second one started. The Lesser Umbra called Zong destroyed one of Menhirs (made directly out of the divine essense, mind you) and reforged it into 14 daggers. Here come out two other Lesser Umbrae: Blance reknown for his ability to see into the essence of things, events and people and Ammah reknown for her ability to see through past, present and future. When the second reaping reached its apex and legions of north were supposed to meet legions of south to die in bloody massacre, she got a prophecy - more than a half of 25 Umbrae will die in this battle and remaining ones will be forever banished from Terminus into Oblivion together with the Ark containing remnants of Kals. Ammah loved Blance and took some of his time before the battle to bid him farewell, yet she never told him of the prophecy. Due to this small detention Blance came late to the battlefield and didn't know the plan of his comrades; in fact he didn't even know that daggers can perma-kill Umbrae, he thought there will be only a couple of Greater Umbrae on the field, daggers will be used to excorporate them for some prolonge time enough for southerners to win. But all five Greater Umbae came in, clad in the divine might of long-dead gods and suppressed Lesser; those in turn used their own daggers against themselves. Blance chose to do the same since he would rather prefer death over slavery. But because he didn't expect this turn of events (unlike others), he wasn't mentally prepared, lingered for a moment and suddenly he's got touched by the divine grace out of nowhere. This made him delighted and confused for a moment, a moment long enough for Childao the Archeress to shoot his arm, staking it to his chest preventing from suicide. Blance was unable to kill himself, only 12 out of 25 (less than half) Umbrae died and Ammah's prophecy has got severed.
After the battle Blance had conteplaited over his experience and come to the conclusion that the divine grace he felt belonged to the Thrice Advented - the deity worshipped in Terminum before Umbrae reached it. Blance spent following seven hundred years searching for artifacts of the Thrice Advented in hope to find a way to stop next Reaping. So he comes to a place where one of the oldest temples of Thrice Advented stood once and meets Ammah who's been hiding there for last 6 years. She gives him a revelation: behind Greater Umbra stands some other entity - one of their gods who somehow survived, that god sends Greater Umbra on their Reapings and the thrid one is about to start. Yet only four of them keep the Serviture for real and one rebelled. Two mortal men will come, one on North and one on South, who are destined to stand against the upcoming Reaping and help with the plan of the rogue Greater Umbra. So the game follows those three - two mortals and one fallen angel - in their travels staged by the fate. And eventually everything will come down to a single place prepared for the Grand Finale.

It also worth mentioning that the game follows only the first book of the trilogy, so the ending is rather open.

You seem to have read the books. Whats the deal with frisia and the reapers they seem to have an open allience but nothing in the game really seems to explain it.

[kaymarciy]

In Frisia the Temple (led by Reapers Atraakh and Tibiber) sits above secular powers, so they can simply order people around. It's mentioned several times in the game. For example, in the very beginning when Prince Trig has a dispute with Coranzon, Blance makes a note that in Frisia the Prince would already be executed for raising an objection to a cardinal. And when the frisian army reaches Berkana, they are all pretty much mind-controlled and don't care whether it;s a Reaper leads them or whoever (Gleda says it in the cutscene after her brother is saved).

[suzy_age_8]

I beat the game and never was able to figure out this plot. Just enjoy the battle system because its very good and gets better as you progress through the game.

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by suzy_age_8:

I beat the game and never was able to figure out this plot. Just enjoy the battle system because its very good and gets better as you progress through the game.

Is it tho? instead of looking for clever stuff i find myself always trying to avoid having someone dying. Since health pools are very small and some characters like spearmen can be 2 shot from an archer.

Personally i've seen much better fighting systems. This game's system is probably in the bottom 20%. I would not say it's the best. It's just different and original, that's all.

[FroBodine]

The battle system is the only thing keeping me from buying this game. I hated The Banner Saga system, and this is apparently exactly the same, but with some cards.

The fact that the less units you have, the more turns you get is just ridiculous. How does anyone think this is a good battle system. You have to game the system, as Drakenkin explains, by keeping enemies hurt but alive, just so they don't get so many turns.

That, with the inability to shoot diagonally just kills it for me. It's too bad, because I really love turn-based combat RPGs. But, I'm just not sure I can take this one.

I would love to hear an explanation of how this combat system is enjoyable and fair. I will buy the game if I could understand the thinking behind the combat system better.

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

The battle system is the only thing keeping me from buying this game. I hated The Banner Saga system, and this is apparently exactly the same, but with some cards.

The fact that the less units you have, the more turns you get is just ridiculous. How does anyone think this is a good battle system. You have to game the system, as Drakenkin explains, by keeping enemies hurt but alive, just so they don't get so many turns.

That, with the inability to shoot diagonally just kills it for me. It's too bad, because I really love turn-based combat RPGs. But, I'm just not sure I can take this one.

I would love to hear an explanation of how this combat system is enjoyable and fair. I will buy the game if I could understand the thinking behind the combat system better.

It's awkward, and sometimes unfair. But it's doable and beatable, i am doing good progress throught my first run. Getting the hang of it.

Some times i only use 1 character that can blitz everything by having more turns. Sometimes i use a squad. Currently my best squad is composed of 1 AOE melee guy, 1 stunner melee guy, 2 archers that can one shot almost anyone (you need a few levels to be able to do that and all points into +damage), the other 2 spots are combination of more dps, debuffers, or healer depending on the battle.

I am able to get by without injuries and without ever having to heal. When i get injuries, i just stash the character and play with someone else, or keep him if the loss of stats is bearable.

Why do i keep playing it if the system is so bad? because there are very few "rough" tactical games like this, and even if the system is awkward, i welcome the difficulty. So maybe that's something you want to consider in your buying decision.

[FroBodine]

Check out Dungeons of Naheulbeuk and play on Epic Gest difficulty. That is pretty tough. Great game, though! One of my favorite turn-based combat games. If you can stomach the goofy story and one-liners (I loved it!) the combat is no joke. It can be a bit puzzly, but that's ok in my book.

[DrakenKin]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Check out Dungeons of Naheulbeuk and play on Epic Gest difficulty. That is pretty tough. Great game, though! One of my favorite turn-based combat games. If you can stomach the goofy story and one-liners (I loved it!) the combat is no joke. It can be a bit puzzly, but that's ok in my book.

Will do, thanks!