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EFWQ XV: Dance of the She-Priestess

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Epic Fantasy Warrior Quest XV: Dance of the She-Priestess

The fifteenth game in the award-winning Epic Fantasy Warrior Quest videogame franchise, it is one of the top fifteen best-selling videogames of all time, and frequently voted "Best Videogame of All Time" in Japan, while praise in the west was sigificantly more subdued.

The game makes a return to the franchise's previous styles of detailed art and overly complicated plots, eschewing the simplified art and story of the fourteenth game.

Story

Elliot Billy, a whiny, effeminate, and not especially bright Dancer is sucked into the world of Battal from his home in an unnamed alternate dimension. There he finds that Ragnaross, a time-lost Ghost of Yar the Sorcerial has created a time-space fluxtuation that is sucking the Death energy out of Battal. With no one and nothing dying, the planet begins to become overpopulated, the sick and wounded live on in endless agony, and hoardes of undead rise again to feast upon the living. Teaming up with the last Doomenor who still retains her powers and her bodyguards, Billy sets out to find some way to disperse Ragnaross.

Gameplay

Unlike previous EFWQ titles in which each character had a Profession that determined their use in battle (however loosely defined), XV eschews that set-up and replaced it with a "Rubian Maze". Essentially, the characters do not level up via fighting, but must search the world over in search of Rubian Shards, which are then placed into a branching maze that can unlock new skills and stat-boosts.

The system is incredibly confusing and difficult to use early on in the game, making in a three-hour chore to even find enough Rubian Shards to increase your character's stats by 3 in any category. Later in the game, it becomes easy to exploit this system - teaching every single character Catacaust and allowing the player to win every single battle in less than two turns.

The Qwik Time Battle System also makes a return, albiet tweaked so that the player does not get time bonuses for jamming down commands as fast as possible. Also, the number of in-battle characters is reduced back to three, although the other four can be switched in at any time.

The Elemanifestation system returns, more powerful than ever. Although only 10 are available to the Elemenstors in the game, each is several times stronger than all the characters and replaced the main party in use.

As a result of the game's plot, none of the characters ever actually die in battle, neither do the enemies. Instead of traditional HP systems, the game features a "Lost Limb" system, in which damage to every entity on the field causes a limb to be lost. When one of the characters loses all of their limbs, their only command available is "Gnaw Their Ankles". The game ends if all party members lose all their limbs. Similarly, enemies are finished when they have been totally defeeted and dearmed (yes, that is a pun from actual in-game dialogue).

There is a lengthly Agash mini-game that must be played at least once in the story. It is ridiculously cumbersome and resembles something like playing "Pong", but with stat-based turns and more blood.

Characters

Party Members

  • Elliot Billy: Energetic but spoiled dancer from another world.
  • Demonia Angelnight: Gentle and timid Death Elemenstor, the last of her kind with any powers. The titular She-Priestess.
  • Kurowsawa Yojimbo: Undead, bad-ass, drunken, Vampyre Samurai. Speaks only in Haiku.
  • Beaver: Foul-mouthed Quilp Blue Magickian.
  • Sunkiss: Perky Alchemenstor designed to appeal to the Lolicon set.
  • Frigina Winterhart: Gothic, frigid, Betterthanwatermenstor.
  • Co'ner the Bright Eyed: Drunken, angsting, immortal Bard who is feeling smug that the rest of the world knows how much it sucks to live forever.

Other Characters

  • Arnabad Skinner: Vampyre Elf aristocrat who lusts after Demonia and won't take a hint.
  • Ragnaross: Twisted time-lost monsterous ghost of Yar the Sorcerial who is siphoning all of Battal's death into its body.
  • Freddy and Quiet Tom: Comic relief Herbalists who appear in random places throughout the game to mock the characters, give advice, and sell items and "medicine" at ridiculously overcharged prices.

Trivia

The game was harshly criticized for its English voice acting. As one reviewer on GameFaqs put it:

"OMG! Why can't they leave the seiyu-chan of the original actors alone? English suxxors, desu! I wanna hear Demonia-chan hanashimas no nihongo please gomen-nasai!?! America suxxors!"

Ironically the game with English-voices was released in Japan and sold better than the Japanese version in its own country, which just goes to show you - every moronic dickhead thinks any language but their own is more "exotic and cool".

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