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With the sheer amount of plot and exposition introduced in Chapter 5, throwing in each Maker’s individual backstories into the mix would only overwhelm, and possibly confuse the players, making it hard to keep track of what the heck is going on with the game’s story. This series of Devlogs will be my solution to that issue. Here I’ll be telling you all the in-game profiles of each of these new characters as well as explain why I chose them to be in the game, how they were designed, etc.

First up is Blizza. Initially, she was going to be the only Maker added to the game. Back then I still wasn’t fully committed to how exactly the story should go, and had her as a placeholder. Once I decided that one of the game’s main focal points would be the controversies surrounding game developers, it didn’t make sense to add just a single new character.

As a real life company, people absolutely love Blizzard. WoW holds a special place in many people’s hearts, as with all their other games. That’s not to say they’re free of faults though. They’ve had their fair share of controversies and flaws as well. Some people may choose to stick with them, while others may decide draw the line at some point. With the way things went in the Neptunia universe, it would seem like her in-game counterpart messed up at some point in her life.

The decisions behind Blizza’s design and appearance (which I would like to once again mention is not 100% my original work) should be pretty obvious. She’s an ice mage who wears a dominantly blue attire, a blatant reference to one of Warcraft’s most iconic characters. Since we’ve already got 2 existing Staff users, the next weapon I thought would suit her was a Grimoire. As you acquire new equipment from shops, the increased stat boosts make Blizza more powerful in the same manner that as more expansion packs get added into WoW, the more content there is to play. You can think of her Grimoires as the different iterations of the game starting with vanilla, then going to Burning Crusade, etc.

For her skills, what better way than to pay homage to the RNG fest that is Hearthstone? Her damaging skills will have chance of triggering some additional effects that can either help or sabotage the party. This will create moments where you’ll feel like she’s doing more harm than good, though just like in Hearthstone, you may be able to find ways to rig the randomness to your favor… I’ve also decided to give her some support utility to further distinguish herself from Rom and Ram. I don’t think it’s necessarily out of place as it complements her ability to quickly come up with battle tactics. This part of her character is a nod to the reflexes that a person needs to have while playing RTS games like StarCraft.

There will be two more Character Profiles leading up to the next major update. I don’t have a particular schedule in mind for these, so just keep checking for when the next one might be out. Actually, maybe don’t do that since development progress is extremely slow right now… it’s up to you…