Kanes Level 1 CPU
4
| Subject: Pious Augustus (Eternal Darkness) Discussion: My death is only the beginning! Wed Jan 07, 2015 12:44 pm | |
| - Spoiler:
If you bothered to actually click on this thread, there's a pretty decent chance that you have no idea who Pious Augustus is. Allow me to enlighten you! Pious Augustus is 1 of 12 playable characters in the Gamecube Horror Classic Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. He also happens to be the main antagonist. Pious Augustus is a Roman Centurion in 26 BC who stumbles upon an ancient Eldritch artifact in some Persian Ruins one day. Depending on the selection the player makes during Pious' chapter of the game, the artifact corresponds to one of three nefarious Ancient Gods who used to lord over the primordial Earth before being banished to an alternate plane of existence: Ulyaoth, God of Magick, Chattur'gha, God of Matter, and Xel'lotath, God of Madness. There's also a fourth "neutral" Ancient: Mantorok, God of Chaos still living in a temple in Cambodia, who was responsible for the banishment of the other three. Upon touching the artifact, Pious Augustus is corrupted, becoming wholly devoted to his chosen God and transforming into an undead warlock, or Liche. With his newfound immortality and mastery of the dark arts, Pious Augustus begins the process of resurrecting his chosen Ancient into the earthly plane. To do this, Pious Augustus becomes the architect of a 2000 year globe-spanning conspiracy to perform the necessary dark rites and bind the powers of the rival Ancients so that the resurrected Ancient can rule over the Earth by itself, plunging the world into... Eternal Darkness. - Spoiler:
- Spoiler:
The game, despite being a critically beloved cult classic and offering a unique Nintendo spin on Survival Horror, initially sold very poorly, and was developed by a studio: Silicon Knights, that broke ties with Nintendo shortly after release and then went on to never make a good game again before getting sued by Epic and declaring bankruptcy. Nintendo still owns this marvelous IP, but has basically not acknowledged that at all since it was released except to renew the trademark every couple of years. In addition to Nintendo essentially forgetting the game exists, Eternal Darkness was an at times highly disturbing, graphically violent M-Rated Survival Horror game. When people suggest an Eternal Darkness rep, they pretty much exclusively go for Alexandra Roivas, as she is the central protagonist but he's the main monster from a horror franchise, he's the only character featured in every chapter of the game's story, he's a master of magick, and Alexandra is by far the most generic playable character. villains have a greater roll in survival horror games than the protagonist do. Example: Freddy, not the security guard, is the main character of Five Nights at Freddy's. Same for Outlast. Resident Evil has predominate heroes, but Wesker is in every game. The same is true here. Actually, Alexandra is a boring character with no cool abilities. Pious looks a lot different than the other fighters and can use the abilities in the game like Alexandria does (as he had the tomb of eternal darkness too). I think he fits the bill better. Eternal Darkness is a horror game and Pious embodies that far more than Alexandra ever could. If you were new to Eternal Darkness, Pious would make it perfectly clear what to expect. First of all, Eternal Darkness has 12 playable characters, and out of all of them, Alex is far and away the least interesting. In Eternal Darkness you get to play as a Roman Centurion, a Cambodian slave girl, a courier for King Charlemagne who is slowly turning into a Zombie throughout his chapter, a Persian swordsman, an insane physician with a powdered wig living in a mansion in colonial Rhode Island, a guy who's essentially Indiana Jones, a Franciscan Monk accused of murder, an architect from Renaissance Venice, a field reporter during WWI, a Psychologist studying the occult who has to find and kill an invisible vampire in his home, a badass Gulf War fire fighter, and... Alex, a largely generic college student who kinda looks like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seems a waste to send Alex as this wildly creative game's representative when she essentially has the least to offer, especially in terms of character design. Pious Augustus on the other hand, has a *****in character design. He's a deranged zombie priest dressed in blackened centurion armor! What's cooler than that? And he's voiced by Richard Doyle! - Spoiler:
Secondly, Eternal Darkness is a horror game, and the protagonists of horror stories are rarely the focus. Rather, it's all about the monster! Jason Vorhees, Freddie Krueger, Michael Myers, Scream, Alien, Frankenstein, Dracula, Pyramid Head, the many bioweapons of Resident Evil... these are the most iconic characters of their respective movies, stories, and games, and not one of them is the protagonist. The monsters in Eternal Darkness are the Ancients, the Lovecraft inspired, all-powerful ancient Gods from another dimension. Think Cthulhu or Nyarlthotep but with a rock-paper-scissors triangle of "elemental" affinities: magick, matter, and madness. And Pious Augustus is their envoy on Earth, their chosen one. He's a much better representation of what the game is about than Alex, and would be a much more intriguing ambassador of Eternal Darkness for fans who aren't familiar with the game. Finally, Pious is the best possible character for representing Eternal Darkness' extremely unique combat system in a Smash moveset. Combat in Eternal Darkness generally consists of the use of a primary Melee Weapon, a secondary projectile weapon, and a whole mess of magic(k) spells, with some variation between playable characters. It's these magick spells that are the most interesting part, as they are cast by combining various Eldritch runes to form sentences (although you can designate buttons for quick access to your favorites). These sentences consist of three basic parts: the ancient whose alignment you want to want to cast the spell under (magick, matter, madness, chaos), the kind of spell you'd like to cast (protect, summon, absorb, dispel, project), and what the target of the spell is (item, area, creature, self). For example, the spell for "Enchant Item" is this: ANTORBOK (Project) MAGORMOR (Item) XEL'LOTATH (Madness) So this spell would allow you to magic(k)ally imbue your weapon with the power of madness, making your foes turn on each other when you strike them. These runes can be combined in all manner of ways, with an additional rune, "Pargon", increasing the power of the spell for each time its added to the end of the "sentence", up to four total. These spells let you do everything from launching magic(k)al fireballs, to summoning zombies, to healing, to creating forcefields, and while every playable character has access to them after finding "The Tome of Eternal Darkness", Pious Augustus is the most experienced master of this arcane art. Thus, casting "magick" would be the central gimmick of Pious Augustus' moveset. Whenever I see an Alex Roivas moveset, it generally centers around the use of her shotgun and Roman "Gladius" shortsword, with little attention paid to the unique spell system that serves as one of the central mechanics of her game. While Pious Augustus lacks a shotgun, the Gladius Alex uses is actually his from his time as a centurion, and he is twice the magician she is, able to cast spells two orders of magnitude more powerful than the player when fought as the final boss. Alright, that actually sounds pretty cool... You've got my attention. But how would he play? I have some really cool ideas for his moveset: Pious' playstyle would primarily revolve around evading attack and creating space with the Gladius and casting spells one rune at a time. Each of his specials would cast a rune corresponding to one of four ancients, spell types, or targets, depending on which runes you've already cast, allowing you to build spells one rune at a time. Pious casts each rune fairly quickly, standing in place just long enough to shout out its name, and each rune appears above his portrait at the bottom of the screen after it is cast, similarly to Dragoon Pieces. Once all three runes have been announced, Pious can either press b to cast the spell immediately, or charge the spell by holding B with up to four "Pargons", but this leaves him highly vulnerable to attack, as he stays in place while the runes form a circle around him one at a time. If Pious gets hit before completing a spell, all the runes disappear and he has to start the spell over, though if a spell is mid-cast and is interrupted by an attack, it will cast at whatever power level it had at that point. Pious would be all about risk and reward, as more powerful spells would be his best kill moves, while low powered spells would be fairly wimpy. I think a moveset like this would make him one of the most unique characters in any fighting game, although a decent approximation of how he plays would be Phoenix Wright in UMvC3. Pious would be one of the characters with the highest learning curve, as you would need to learn which rune each of his specials corresponds to at each point in the spell, and what every combination does. However, mastering Pious' spells would allow you to have a massive amount of options at your disposal, as he would have 16 spells with four different elemental variants each, plus a decent-hitting disjointed hitbox for his A moves so that he's not always having to run away. Other ideas: - Spoiler:
Animations Entrance: steps out of portal holding his staff with one hand. Idle standard: stands holding his staff in both hands (alt. stands holding his staff in one hand). Idle waiting 1: holds staff in one hand and taps it on the ground a few seconds before returning to standing animation. ( alt. taps holds staff in both hands for a little bit before returning to standing animation). Idle waiting 2: looks around holding staff in both hands (alt. looks around holding staff in one hand). crouching: kneels down on one knee holding staff with both hands . (alt. kneels down on one knee holding staff in one hand). walking: walks forward holding staff in both hands. running: runs forward holding staff in both hands. stopping: slides forward holding staff in one hand. turn around: plats staff in ground and holding it with one hand swings around to run the other direction. jump: jumps holding staff in one hand (alt. jumps holding staff in both hands). double jump: does a front flip holding staff in both hands (alt. does a front flip holding staff in one hand). back jump: jumps and twists holding staff in both hands (alt. jumps and twists holding staff in one hand). back double jump: does a back flip holding staff in both hands (alt. does a back flip holding staff in one hand). falling: holds staff in one hand while looking down. landing: crouches on impact, then gets up and quickly swings his staff out with one hand and returns to standing animation. Hit by opponent: opens mouth and hunches forward holding staff in one hand. Sent flying by opponent: tumbles forward. Landing after hit back first: lays down holding staff on his chest with both hands. (alt. lays down holding staff in one hand off to the side) Getting up after landing back first: uses his staff for support as he sits up. Landing after hit face first: lies on the ground with his staff outstretched in one hand. Getting up after landing face first: uses his staff for support as he stands up. Footstool: crouches than goes to jump animation Footstooled by opponent on ground: bends down forward holding staff with both hands (alt. bends down forward holding staff with one hand) Footstooled by opponent in air: stretches out arms, holding staff in one hand and tumbles sideways Hit by bumper: same as hit by opponent Buried: holds staff out with one hand, with his mouth wide open Stunned by laser: outstretches arms holding staff in one hand, twitching with mouth open Dazed: holds head with hand, staff with the other staggering back and forth. recovery from daze: shakes head and resumes standing animation. shield: plants staff in ground and holds it with both hands while looking down. side shield: plants staff in with one hand and quickly swings to the other side of it. down shield: taps staff on ground with one hand and steps back. air shield: leans back with outstretched arms holding staff in one hand. ledge shield: climbs with his staff and swings around on his staff with one hand to safety. grab: holds staff in one hand and reaches out to grab with the other. grabbing opponent idle: holds opponent with one hand at the chest and looks at them menacingly with his other hand holding staff. grab release: leans back and lets go of the opponent. grabbed by opponent: struggles while holding staff in one hand. released from opponents grab: twirls around holding staff with one hand. Star KO: same as launched by opponent. Screen KO: Hits screen with arms outstretched, mouth open, and holding staff in one hand.
A moves a: with one hand holding staff swings staff forward aa: with one hand holding staff swings staff forward then swings back optional (aaa: with one hand holding staff swings staff forward then swings forward from the other side then swings up) side a: thrusts staff out with one hand down a: whacks staff down on the ground holding it with both hands (alt. whacks staff down on the ground holding it with one hand) up a: swings staff upward with one hand
Smash attacks Side smash: charges up magic from his hand then swings it forward. If it connects with an opponent the magic does a small explosion. Down smash: holds staff above his head with both hands then smashes it into the ground, magic affects appear from the bottom of the staff when it makes contact with the ground. Up smash: holds staff back with both hands then swings it forward above his head, down to the ground.
Air attacks Neutral air: swings staff around with one hand. Forward air: smashes staff forward with one hand. Back air: swings staff behind him with one hand. Up air: thrusts staff above his head with one hand. Down air: grabs staff with both hands then plummets to the ground, can spike and bounce off opponents.
Grabs Neutral: whacks opponent on the head with staff. Forward throw: whacks opponent forward with staff. Back throw: throws opponent behind him and outstretches staff behind him Down throw: throws them on the ground then smashes his staff down on them. Up throw: throws opponent up and jumps to hit them with the top of his staff.
Special moves
Standard: charges up magic in his hand then shoots it downward in the form of a beam with the tip of the beam doing the most damage and knock back and creating a little pillar of magic. Can also fire it without charging,but will do less damage and have less range or 1: charges faster, but does less damage 2: charges slower, but does more damage Side special: Is surrounded in magic and travels forward, with staff outstretched in one hand, dealing some damage along the way and if he connects with an opponent at the end swings upward for more damage. ( looks similar to flame choke). or 1: goes further and is faster ,but does no damage. 2: goes less distance, but deals more damage. Up special: outstretches his arms,holding staff in one hand, as magic charges around him, then shoots upward while spinning. ( similar like Fire Fox). or 1: has no charge time and goes higher,but does no damage. 2: deals more damage, but doesn't go as far. Down special: Counters the opponent and laughs, glowing orbs surround him in the beginning phase. or 1: faster counter, deals less damage. 2: slower counter, deals more damage.
Final Smash: creates a portal and if an opponent gets sucked in they are transported to Ulyaoth, Chattur'gha, and Xel'lotath who deal damage to fighter and then a knock back blow.
Taunts Up: outstretches arms and glows with magic Side: spits and says I spit on thee. down: swings staff around with one hand then plats it in the ground.
Victory Poses 1: Says the Darkness shall be eternal 2: Says fear the wrath. 3: Says you shall succumb to the horrors.
|
|