New release: Tales of the Drunken Paladin Version II

Steve Gibbon writes in to tell me about Tales of the Drunken Paladin, a comedic jRPG with some very nice custom character portraits. (“Custom,” of course, being relative to the rest of the graphics, which appear mostly to be defaults from RPG Maker.)

The game was originally released way back in 2009. Since that time, Gibbon has come out with two expansions, both of which are now sold as part of the full game in its newest incarnation, “Version II.”

The premise:

The story begins ten years after the invasion of “They” who we do not speak about, their expulsion from the kingdom and its subsequent recovery. We follow one of the great heroes responsible for saving the realm, and come to learn that he has not ultimately been using his riches and strength for the good of the world. Nor has he been using them for ill. Indeed, “Anebriate” the Drunken Paladin mostly prefers neutral things, like drinking and donuts.

However, there are those who have other plans for his riches. Our hero’s strength and memory are robbed along with his great fortune, and he must embark on a grand quest to find out why.

If this were the real world, my guess would be “liver disease, hippocampal disruption, and medical bills, respectively”–but this is a game, so that’s probably not why our hero has lost his strength, memory and savings. (At least, I hope it’s not; I don’t know if health care reform would work all that well for a main quest in an RPG.)

Gibbon states: “The game is pretty heavily modified and scripted, so there isn’t a lot left that’s default from the RPG Maker system except for some of the tiles and animations. It has a side-view battle system with an ATB that has served me well enough, but I think what’s special about the game is that pretty much everything you see in the game is interactive, and in some cases, contextual with the time of day and who’s in your party.” Pretty cool; why don’t we have a look at a trailer?

Gibbon notes that this trailer is outdated, and that the cool new character portraits shown at the top of the article are, in fact, in-game. Gibbon promises 35-45 hours of content, which is pretty darn good for a free game.

Yes, you heard right: this game costs no money. You can grab Tales of the Drunken Paladin for Windows right here for zero dollars. Go for it! And hey: if you like it, there’s even an option to donate some money to the developer so he can continue making games.