ERPG

by MellowSoul

Star Shape

A week after completing Final Fantasy 7, Rainbow and the rest of the girls reconvened with Twilight to knock off the next game on their bucket list: Shadow Hearts.

"What's for dinner?" Rainbow asked.

"Chili cheese dogs." Twilight replied jovially.

"You been playin' Sonic?"

"Nah. Not really my type of game."

"Fair enough. So what can we expect from Shadow Hearts?"

"It's probably the goriest RPG in the genre. Also, ghosts attack you with their dicks."

"Come again!?"

"You heard what you think you heard."

"Ugh! God! That's fuckin' gnarly!"

"Most of the enemies consist of zombies, ghosts, and demons. It's a lot more biblical than most games. Even the angels are based on biblically accurate descriptions."

"That's insane."

"You have no idea."

"Sounds like it's gonna be one hell of a journey."

"It will be - trust me."

---

After dinner, Twilight booted up the game. The opening cutscene left a lasting impression on Rainbow.

"Did he just regenerate his severed arm!?"

"Pretty badass, right?"

"No kidding!"

"That's just the beginning."

After the boss fight, the second pre-rendered cutscene played.

"Did he just punch through his skull!?"

"Payback for being tossed around on the train."

Rainbow pulled her mane back in a mixture of shock and amazement.

"Holy shit! This is awesome!"

"Unfortunately, things won't really get good again until the second half of the game. There's another guy we have to take care of first before we get rid of Bacon."

"Oh, come on! All that build-up just to have to wait!?"

"It'll be worth it."

"If you say so."

---

By the second act, Bacon's true identity had been revealed as cardinal Albert Simon.

"So he wants to get back at the church because they condemned him for his progressive ideology?"

"Basically sums it up. He wants to summon God to cleanse the earth. God's actually an alien in this game, so it kinda plays off a similar theme to Final Fantasy 7."

"You said there were two more fusions we could get?"

"Amon and the Seraphic Radiance. They're the most powerful transformations in the game."

"You probably won't even need them at max level."

"Not really, but I just like being overpowered."

"Makes sense. You've already put this much time into it. May as well go all the way."

"The Serpahic Radiance has an attack the deals max damage every time. It really speeds up the last few battles."

"How much HP does the final boss have?"

"Twelve thousand. Not very much at all compared to FF7 bosses."

"Guess by this point the devs figured you'd wanna finish the game."

"Before we do, there's one more thing I have to do. There's two endings you can get: the normal ending and the good ending."

"Does it have to do with those creepy ass masks?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Figured there had to be a reason the malice meter was still increasing."

"Not bad. You're pretty sharp."

"No more talk. I wanna see the ending."

"You're the boss."

---

Through a combination of the monk earrings and seal farming, Twilight managed to max out Yuri's stats in the final dungeon.

"Unfortunately, there's no way to max out every character without hacks. Yuri was already the strongest, so I figured beefing him up would be our best bet."

"Good call."

"Anyway, let's go kill God."

"That quote must've predicted this game."

"Probably."

---

During the final battle, the topic diverged.

"Ya know, the reason bosses always lose is because they never stock up on items." Rainbow pointed out.

"That's a good point. Wonder why they never think to save up like us to even the playing field."

"Overconfidence, probably."

"Yeah."

---

When the battle was over, the group waited for the post-credits scene. With the conditions for the good ending met, Alice survived the masks' curse.

"There's a sequel called Shadow Hearts: Covenant that continues the story after the bad ending, but I didn't care for it as much. It's a good game, but they kind of abandoned the horror aspect. It wasn't as grim and depressing as this one, plus you can't name your characters anymore."

"You're really stuck on that, huh?"

"Yeah. It just really bums me out."

"I feel ya."

"Anyway, you've seen the game. Guess we'll have to move on next time."

"Parasite Eve, right?"

"Yeah. That one has more of a sci-fi element to it."

"Sounds interesting. Lookin' forward to it."

"Same here."