Do you remember your childhood, when you could spend hours upon hours playing video games and marveling at the wonderful worlds they could offer you? Talking about your favorite video games with your friends, discussing all the tricks, tips and secrets you'd found, and talking about your favorite characters, and how incredibly cool they were. And of course, those conversations always led to one specific, burning question...
"Who would win in a fight, though?"
And then you'd spend your whole break arguing about all the stuff your faves could do, and why they would beat the crap out of those posers your best friend stood for.
Now let me ask you something: What if you could relive those days, but prove, once and for all, that you were totally right? What if you could personally lead all your favorite characters to victory through the power of your strategic brilliance, your impeccable understanding of their capabilities and your silver-tongued eloquence? All of this, and more, is possible in one of the most long-lived and fascinating forum games of all time. We call it...The Mercenaries.
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Mercenaries is a game built around the concept of 'character fights', and the debate they inevitably spark. In it, you spend resources to add video game characters to your faction, and then send them out to fight the squadrons assembled by other players. Each fight is presented as a debate in which you and your opponent argue out your cases for why you'd win, and third parties vote to determine who's wrong and who's right -- with a twist. Picture these fights for a moment:
Solid Snake battles Arkham Series Batman on Shadow Moses Island. Snake has the home field advantage, and time to set up a good ambush...but Batman has worked out what his plan for the battle is, and has come to the fight prepared for it, as only the World's Greatest Detective possibly could.
Mario, Sub-Zero and the Heavy (from Team Fortress 2) fight Ryu (from Street Fighter), Cao Cao (from Dynasty Warriors) and Meta-Knight. Mario can use Cappy to possess Ryu, for a time, but Heavy's been forced to ditch his minigun for a sword to challenge Meta-Knight in a knightly duel. With Sub-Zero and Cao Cao having temporarily frozen each other in a clash of ice on ice, which side can gain the upper hand before the two ice masters can escape their frosty prisons and potentially turn the tide?
Hot off acquiring the Ringwraith powers of Talion (from Middle Earth: Shadow of War), Mega Man has come to Viñedo Yates, Mendoza, where a strange pink alien puffbull has been sighted at a large party. Little does he know, however, that Agent 47 has been hired to asssassinate him, with Kirby acting as the bait. Can he survive the ambush and turn the tides against another master power copier?
Crazy ideas, aren't they? These fights totally sound like they should be animated videos, or possibly part of a comic book or manga. Battles as interesting as these and more are not just possible in the world of Mercenaries, they're the default... and you set them up.
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There's more to Mercenaries than just the fights (which we call 'match topics') themselves, however. Using abilities representing characters' histories, video games and legends, you can give your team an advantage, stacking the odds in your favour to seize the upper hand. You can see a few examples of what capabilities mercenaries might have here:
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/donkey-kong
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/master-chief
http://mercs5wiki.wikidot.com/dracula
(Don't worry if the exact game mechanics don't make sense, by the way! What's more important is how these effects lean heavily on affecting the match's narrative and providing unique advantages to your team.)
But of course, your opponents will be looking to do the same thing, forcing you to think carefully about your decisions — it's not just an argument for which characters are cooler and stronger, it's an all-out war to prove your vision right in the eyes of everyone who sees the topic and weighs in on it.
Did you ever watch or read Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Duelist Kingdom arc? Mercenaries is almost exactly like it (down to ridiculous combinations like using a catapult turtle to blow up a flying castle to win a match), except it's real and you can play it! You'll always have to keep your fellow players in mind when trying to carve a path to victory, as you'll compete with them to acquire your mercenaries of choice, work together with them to topple the strongest players by combining your abilities against them, or engage in bitter feuds as the quest for supremacy takes a backseat to mangling the guy who outbid you on Jill Valentine this week (the bastard). Your fellow players can not only vote on your matches (as long as they aren't fighting you, of course), they can also be close friends you work out strategies with. Allegiances can turn on a dime, and only one player can win the title of King of Mercenaries, but nothing says you can't work together to make it to the finals. Mercenaries doesn't just encourage good, persuasive arguments in matches and keen-eyed strategic vision when planning your ability phases to win said battles -- it also is a game of diplomacy and dealmaking, and this explosive combination makes it unlike any other game in the world.
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If any of the above has caught your attention, I invite you to join us on the Mercenaries Discord, where the game will be organized. You can find the link here: https://discord.gg/mZpQEgc4
The world's greatest game is about to begin and leaders are already gathering, seeking to seize victory. Will you be the one to claim the crown?