Day 96: The Turtles Get Their Party On

Does everyone remember that time I met Felicia Day and wrote a really long blog post about it? Well this one kind of is about her too, but not entirely. And I didn't meet her again, unfortunately.

The title of today's post might be a bit misleading. The Turtles aren't partying, but they are in a party. Party in this instance referring to an RPG type party of characters. This post has a couple of inspirations. I first thought about drawing the turtles as fantasy/RPG style characters when I was talking to my friend Mandy about which Hunger Games district they would be assigned to. I gave her a brief character synopsis in which I assigned them each to an RPG player class.

The second and more immediate inspiration comes from Dragon Age II. I loved Dragon Age: Origins much to some of my friends' dismay. I really credit Dragon Age with being the game that taught me not to be so serious when playing an RPG and that it's OK to give your character a little, well, character beyond being the stoic hero. I haven't played the second one yet, but today's the day. I borrowed it from a friend and I'm finally ready to start. As a matter of fact it's installing an update on my PS3 as I type this.

But that's not all! Not only is today the day that I'm starting my first Dragon Age II playthrough, but it's also the premiere of the Dragon Age: Redemption web series written by and starring Felicia Day! I just watched the first episode. It's pretty good. I'm a little confused about the Qunari because they don't look like I remember Sten looking from Dragon Age: Origins, but maybe it will make more sense when I've gotten into the game. I found myself looking closely at little details on the costumes and weapons. Felicia's costume has been all over the internet the past few months and it is pretty impressive, but the other costumes look like they were taken straight out of the game. The series is only running for six weeks and I can't wait to see where it goes.

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I have a confession. I had this mostly typed up and the picture scanned and added to the post and ready to go, but I put off finishing it so I could play the game. I'm only a few hours in, but it's really good so far. It's a slightly different feel from the first game and maybe a little brighter and more animated art style, but I think it works well. The combat is much more fun for sure. I haven't gotten much into the main story because I've been playing the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC that was released yesterday in conjunction with the Redemption web series.

BioWare wrote an entire side quest around Felicia Day's Tallis character and even included her as a party member. I'm not sure how this compares to the rest of the game because as I said I haven't gotten very far in it yet, but the writing is really good and often very funny. It is a little weird seeing Felicia Day as an elf in-game, though. They did a good job, but being an elf her features are slightly out of proportion to her human self so she looks like her, just... a little off.

Her character is a great addition and the voice acting is great all around. I've even met up with a few old friends from the first game. Of course they don't know me since the player character from Dragon Age: Origins is gone, but I remember them. It's a lot of fun and I'm excited to have the next three days off to put in some time. Speaking of which I better wrap this up so I can get back to it.

To finish I'll talk a little about the picture. These are the roles I assigned the Turtles when describing them to Mandy. Starting from the left Raphael is definitely a rouge. He's hot headed, but sneaky and he duel wields dagger-like weapons. Donatello I made a mage. There are usually engineers in fantasy, but that's really more of a profession than a class. His science is closer to magic anyway so I figured he would make a good mage. Leonardo I think of as a paladin with swords. Dragon Age doesn't have a paladin class, they have Templars, which are sort of the same thing. He's a pious warrior in charge of keeping mages from using their magic for evil, but Templars can do some holy magic themselves which seems to go against their beliefs. I guess even in Thedas the power of religion allows for servants of the church to get away with these things for what they perceive is the greater good. Michelangelo is pretty much just a brute-force warrior. He's the tank of the party.

There you have it. The Ninja Turtles as RPG characters. If you disagree with my assessment feel free to draw your own picture and submit it. I'll leave you with episode one from the Dragon Age: Redemption series. Enjoy!