More about ‘For Honor’.
To wit, I finally saw the promotional videos of the
Centurion and the Shinobi, and-
Well, the Centurion appears to be something of a hybrid
between, well, an ancient Roman soldier and a gladiator, complete with a facial
mask. He fights with a gladius, which is short, but broad, sword, and an
armored fist. The gladius was one of the oldest swords, it may be a direct and
an immediate descendant of the so-called Iron Age sword, which is probably the
oldest sword of Europe, and it was a very versatile weapon: it could chop, it
could slice, it could cut and stab, as it was shown in the S2 of DW – ‘Roman
Centurion vs. Rajput Warrior’. This is one of the better DW episodes ever, as
it showed the ad- and dis-advantages of both cultures, to wit that the Romans
fought better as a group – say, an army, while their opponents, such as the
Celts and the Teutons fought better one-on-one…which is why the Rajput won that
battle (it was one-on-one). The Romans fought as a shield wall, they possibly
had invented the tower shield, (compare the Centurion’s shield from DW with
that of the Spartan from DW S1, when the Spartan defeated the Ninja, aka the
Shinobi, and you will see the difference). They led with the shields and
followed with their swords, allowing their enemies to break upon the Roman wall
of steel.
The flip side, of course, is that individually the Roman
military was much worse than their ‘barbaric’ opponents which is why so many of
the gladiators weren’t ethnically Roman, but foreigners instead, (gladiator
battles were often fought one-on-one or in small groups, duh!)…
As the promo video shows, the FH Centurion is exactly the
opposite of RL history – it is an individualistic fighter armed with nothing
but a short sword and a gladiator-like armor, (and yes, the word ‘gladiator’ is
probably derived from the word ‘gladius’, RL grammar history rocks, sometimes).
There is a direct statement that the Centurion fights for an ‘empire’, but
whether or not it is for the Roman (Byzantine?) Empire, is another story, and
given that in FH the storytelling is its’ weakest aspect, I am not expecting
too much from this side, information or otherwise.
As for the Shinobi… Again, we’re dealing with a Ninja,
albeit one that is more robust than how the Ninja are usually depicted and
dressed much more colorfully than what is stereotypically expected, and is
armed with a kusarigama, which is something else.
Well, in reality it was a sickle, a farmer’s tool that some
enterprising and inventive soul opted to attach a ball on a chain, not unlike
that of a Morningstar or a flail. The result is an impressive, versatile, and
dangerous weapon, and FH’s Shinobi wields it with pride. Of course, so did its’
DW counterpart, but it still lost to the Spartan…but that was because DW was
kind of naïve in its first season, and it tried to utilize such ‘alternative’
weapons as black eggs – to wit, hollowed, empty eggs, filled with powdered
glass, or pepper, or something similar. Such weapons were not ineffective, but
they scored no kills, zero kills, (officially), so the warriors who utilized
them, lost to their opponents – always. FH seems to have nothing like this, so
their Shinobi/Ninja is proportionally more formidable than DW’s used to be.
As for the Shinobi fitting in with the rest of Samurai… I
have a feeling that FH is beginning to make the new classes purposefully
different from the old ones; we have the Centurion defeating the Peacekeeper (both
are Knights) at the very least, and I think something similar is happening with
the Shinobi and the rest of ‘team Samurai’: he is ‘related’ to them, but stands
apart from the ‘original four’. Again, we will have to wait and see as to what
FH will do with that…
So, that’s it for now, two new classes for FH, coming on May
16, 2017; we will just have to wait and see if the Vikings will have someone
new for them as well…
No comments:
Post a Comment