Good day gamers and welcome to another edition of Games with Coffee! My friend, Athena, has declared this year the to be the “Year of the RPG!” To celebrate, she and BadgersAndBowties have picked a bunch of iconic games and asked the community to contribute and show some love for this amazing gaming genre! Learn more about it here!

The first on this list is the much-beloved Chrono Trigger: a game I’ve played to death! Throughout their journey, my characters will be writing in about their experiences as they adventure onwards. With that, let’s begin!

Dear Athena,

I had an odd dream where someone was telling me to write a letter to you. Weird huh? I wasn’t going to at first, but that voice was pretty insistent. Or maybe it was my mom telling me to wake up? God, I overslept…

So, since I’ve already started writing this thing, let me start with my name: it’s Koffi. Like coffee, but with a K. If my name doesn’t make it obvious, I’m also a coffee addict. Can’t get my day started without it. I also practice swordsmanship, and I’m told that I got some talent in it. Must be from my father; he was supposedly a great swordsman or something. I dunno, he’s not here anymore. Whether he’s dead or disappeared, no one knows or asks about it… I wonder why?

Hm, what else… so, I’m a firm believer of doing the right thing, but at the same time too, I’m a bit of a rebel. Call it a byproduct of my training and a lack of a proper male role model, but I aim to be chivalrous and honorable and all that stuff to live up to my dad’s supposed ideals, and I also want to get out, see the world and experience all that it has to offer and maybe make a few new friends along the way. Mom says I’m too young to leave home; please, I’m 16! Four hundred years ago, guys my age were sent into the battlefield to battle some magic dude and his demons! If they can go do that, I can definitely travel the world on my own!

Anyways, today is the first day of 1000 AD and the kingdom is celebrating by holding a big fair in Leene Square. No big whoop. Except it looks to be an all year kind of thing, at least according to my friend, Perks. Seriously, does the monarchy really have the money to hold a year round event like this? I dunno… I bet they’re selling off items in the Royal treasury to pay for it! That has to be it!

Oh, whose Perks you ask? Well she’s my closest friend here in the village; her real name’s Lucca, but I call her Perks, since she gets all perky and weird around machinery. I joke that she should marry whatever the heck she’s working on, which always gets me a dirty look from her. Heh, classic.

Anyways, Perks is super smart, ambitious and headstrong, and is always making new inventions with her father, Taban. She wears glasses – that has to be a sign of super smartness, right? (Is that even a word?)

It just so happens that her latest invention is making its debut today at the opening of the fair. I hope it goes better than the last time she showed off an invention – it took me four months to regrow my eyebrows.

She invented something called a”flamethrower,” which she claimed it could be used as both a tool to aid ironworkers and a weapon to defend the kingdom, or something like that. She decided to use me as a guinea pig, which backfired spectacularly, giving me the name “No-Brows Koffi” until they grew back. Seriously, the people here have no originality…

Anyway, this letters becoming long-winded, so I better get going; Perks’ll kill me if I don’t show up on time. But first, coffee!

You know, this actually is kinda fun! Maybe I’ll keep writing to you? Though I’m sure it’ll be boring; nothing exciting ever happens around here, except when Perks’ experiments blow up to smithereens.

I’m sure today will be no different.

Later!

Koffi