8-Bit Theater is one of three webcomics run by Brian Clevinger. Utilizing nothing but Final Fantasy sprites for his characters, he has created one of the greatest compilations of comedic wit the internet has ever seen. Unfortunately, the strips are not indexed in a manner that makes it easy to find good strips that can be easily linked back to a blog, so if you want to see funny stuff, you'll have to go out and experience the comic first hand. Oh well.
The comic itself is a parody of Final Fantasy in ye olden days. The four main characters, Black Mage, Fighter, Red Mage, and Thief (bet you can't figure out what their classes are), are labelled as the Warriors of Light and sent out to find and kill Chaos, a demon who will destroy the universe if left unchecked. When they are first formed they're told that defeating him is their main objective, but over the course of 1,000 comics (give or take a few hundred) they kind of forget about him until he [spoiler redacted] and forces an engagement. In the meantime, though, they find themselves running errands for an all-powerful wizard named Sarda, who wants them to collect the orbs of power (physical embodiments of the four elements), make him a space helicopter, and anything else he can think of that's likely to get them killed. Somewhere in the course of their travels they get a class change, making them tougher, faster, stronger, and to Sarda's dismay, even harder to kill before (before the class change, at least one of them died per quest).
Black Mage seems like he would be most at home with the Addams family. He's sadistic and cruel, he's got a great sense of humor, and he knows enough Doomsday spells to fry the universe. Twice. He seems eternally bonded to Fighter, much to his dismay. His patron deity is Darko, lord of the Dark, and member of Hell's middle management. As such, he used to be employed by Black Mage. The last time he died, he went to Hell (obviously), but he'd gained so much power on Earth that he managed to take over. He had to step down, though, when one of the archfiends he killed managed to undermine him. His signature spell is Hadoken, a blast of pure energy, powered by love. Doesn't sound so terrifying, until you realize that every time he uses it, the divorce rate goes up.
Fighter is the ultimate swordsman, a graduate of Vargus' Fighters camp of '86. He is a master of the 12 schools of Zodiac Kenshido, and has yet to be beaten in a fair fight. Fighter's IQ is measurably negative, people get dumber by simply being around him and listening to him talk. Thankfully it's not a permanent effect, but it's still vexing to his teammates. Fighter teamed up with Black Mage after his graduation from camp, and Mage's expulsion from a magic academy. BM was skeptical (ok, extremely antagonistic) of the idea at first, but eventually he realized the advantage of having a meatshield who would do anything for him. This skill became one universally recognized and used by the party when the Light Warriors were formed, but that didn't keep him from getting on everyone's nerves in between fights.
Red Mage is a master of versatility, and the only surviving member of the Order of Red Mages. Though his theories are openly ridiculed by his teammates, he firmly believes that everything in the universe is controlled by numbers. Damage done by attacks, defense, various skills... all are controlled by numbers that can be found on one's character sheet. Furthermore, changing the numbers on said character sheet can have dramatic differences in the real world. This is known as the Rite of Stat Swap. It doesn't actually work as far as the rest of the team can tell, but he's gotten lucky often enough that they can't convince him of it.
Thief is the default leader of the team, thanks to Fighter signing away BM's and his own shares of leadership. He is a master of deception and misdirection. He can steal anything that isn't bolted down or on fire (the bolted down thing is more of a guideline than a rule). Heck, he's stolen things that don't exist before. He apparently sold his soul to a totemic raven trickster god to resurrect himself once, although he later tricked the raven into giving up his soul again. No one was really surprised when it happened. He seems to be the the only halfway intelligent person on the team.
Rating this comic, I'd label it PG-13 (R, if I was going by the IMDB's f-bomb rule). Occasional blood, lots of swearing, and a good bit of sexual humor when BM hits on White Mage. No nudity or indecency to worry about, and even if there was... it's a sprite comic. Would you really even notice?
Despite the obvious drawbacks, it's still a solid comic with a great storyline, great art (such as it is), and great humor. This comic gets a B+.
-Defender of the Blog, RTB
No comments:
Post a Comment