Five items from Oracles of Ages used in a quest for vengeance.
Broken Sword: The broken sword is the final item Link trades for in the Oracle of Ages trading sequence. An old Zora living in a sea cave along coast of the Sea of No Return is nostalgic about their younger days of being a famous musician. They are willing to give Link this broken sword in exchange for Rafton’s sea ukulele. They mention that they can fix anything, which begs the question, why didn’t they fix the broken blade? To really finish off the trading sequence, Link has to take the broken sword to Patch on the Restoration Wall to have the Biggoron Sword reforged from the shards.
Pure evil had manifested itself in her world as a living blade that spreads its corruption to any it touches. Those in service to the evil blade destroyed everything and everyone she held dear, leaving her with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. No mundane blade could combat the living blade of evil, so she spent decades in the single-minded pursuit of creating a living blade of her own.
Eternal Spirit: This is the first Essence of Time that Link recovers in his quest to defeat the villainous Veran and save Labrynna from her machinations. The Eternal Spirit is guarded by the ghost Pumpkin Head who is the final boss of the Spirit’s Grave, the first dungeon Link discovers. He must return all eight Essences of Time to the Maku Tree so she can create the Huge Maku Seed which can pierce the barrier protecting the Black Tower.
With a living blade in hand, she ventured into the world to search out and destroy anyone who had come into contact with the blade’s corrupting evil. After years of killing, she began to realize that she had been more deeply corrupted by the blade’s evil than anyone. Knowing that all corrupted souls were long forfeit, she turned from her path of destruction. She now works tirelessly to craft new souls, pure of evil’s taint.
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I love the Soul Calibur/Soul Edge games. I remember the first time I played as Nightmare in the Soul Calibur arcade machine. Swinging around that massive blade with that demon fist was an amazing experience. With that in mind, I want to talk about how deeply problematic the character design is in these games.
Overall, the design for the female characters is sexist and hyper-sexualized. The following complaints about Ivy apply to most of the female characters in the series. Ivy’s body is ridiculous. She is built to be a masturbatory idol to be fantasized over by adolescents. Her clothing, if it can be called that, is beyond impractical. Nothing is covered and nothing would stay where it was put during a dynamic fight. Also, her breasts are over-animated. It is a depressing thought to realize hours of human labor went into adding so much soft physics to the breasts of female characters in the Souls games. This is a shortlist of my biggest problems with the look of Ivy.
I really love Ivy as a concept though. Her whip sword was revolutionary. Allowing for a mix of near, mid, and far combat strategies with some amazing visuals. I also love her asymmetrical armor ending in a vicious claw and how her main color is royal purple. I just wish the creators of the Souls games had made things better and not much much worse with each title in the series.
Be better Namco Bandai. Be better.
Please use my work personally however you see fit, but do not profit off my efforts without my consent.
Don’t forget to be excellent to everyone.
-Ceph
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