Boris was actually the second character I got attached to between the four children (first being Kayla and current being Morris.) He's a very strange Blumaroo with how he's portrayed, and while his design is straight-forward and simple, it could've been thought out a little better... Nothing less, I do like him.
However, I should tell you a bit about him.
For starters, Boris the Blumaroo is a BLUE Blumaroo who roleplays and plays NeoQuest with his friends. His name rhymes with Morris', which I presume was intentional. He takes the role of Count von Roo and is often called "Count Boris." Whether or not he wants to be a real vampire is unknown.
If you already knew this, great. If not, now you kinda know Boris, and you'll get to learn more about him if you continue reading...
The colour coding in Champions of Meridell sucks ass but you can tell it's Morris talking because his mouth is animated.
Boris just HAPPENS to appear in the same sequence as the others do at the beginning, albeit he's not doing much besides looking at the board. He's also not smiling either. Maybe he's a little jealous Morris is going to win this session.
However, it's not until the bullies' shadows tower over the characters that Boris faces directly forward, which is. Um. There's no real nice way for me to put it, honestly.
Unfortunately for us, this exactly sprite appears TWICE throughout the entirity of Champions of Meridell, both appearances in Chapter 1. The sheer lack of future appearances makes this makes this sprite feel a lot more cryptid than it should be.
For those who want a PNG of this, here.
However, we then jump all the way to CHAPTER 4, because Boris doesn't appear until then!
Boris has no walk animation and exclusively jumps to move, sometimes he just slides around. The choice to make him bounce on his tail feels a little cheap and it definitely goes to show to be an awkward addition in scenes like this.
For whatever reason, this isn't just a choice in Champions of Meridell, this is something seen in his Meriball sprites too. How the hell does he do that!?
Boris' first dialogue appears, in which he complains that exploring the ruins of an abandoned area is "boring."
Excuse the quality of any future images, I had to screenshot the frames directly in Jpexs, which makes them look awful.
And as Lisha leaves with her boyfrie-- SORRY, Morris, Kayla and Boris spontaneously begin to roleplay, with Kayla taking the role of Kauvara, and Boris taking the role of Count von Roo. Whether or not he plays an anti-hero or a villain is another detail that's unexplained.
And after Lisha abuses her totally-not-boyfriend-he-just-follows-her-around-a-lot by shooting a laser at him that just HAPPENED to not kill them, but rather take them back through time, Boris is obviously there but has no animation at all. His ear just sticks up very awkwardly.
Once the Draik guards find them, all of the children stammer. Boris blurts out, "We mean no harm!" in this scene. He also lacks any mouth animations and just bounces frantically in a manner that rejects the laws of physics.
But despite his words earlier, he proves to be heroic on some level. In this scene, he refers to himself as "von Roo," not Boris, not Count von Roo, not Count Boris-- von Roo.
And as our mighty "von Roo" heroically headbutts the enemy Darigan, he's practically a still PNG. Seriously, this guy has like no unique sprites.
Now, because this isn't a review of Champions of Meridell in its entirety, we'll skip to the last segment in which Boris appears-- The Finale.
The quality of the GIF differs heavily due to how I originally made these.
This scene is literally so awful. Lisha isn't even fighting, Boris and Morris have pieces of wood (albeit Morris has the COOLER wood,) and Kayla seems like the only one legitimately putting effort. Morris' eyes also weirdly flash on screen, and I confirmed those were his eyes in Jpexs.
As I mentioned in my Morris review, I feel as though Boris and Morris' weapon choices would've made more sense if they were fighting off any Darigans that were trying to stop them.
Unfortunately there's no other dialogue to go through over, as nobody refers to Boris, nor does Boris speak.
which is a lot better than Champions of Meridell (in my humble opinion.) It features a lot less animation but it's made up with the comic visuals.
Within the introduction, there's already something vastly different about Boris' design...
That's right. He has hair now. Or it's a wig? Either way, the blue shine (it's not blue HERE but future appearances make it blue) implies either Boris was SUPPOSED to look like this in Champions of Meridell, or whoever the artist was four years later portrayed the scribbles as hair with shine. Either way, it's a very interesting take, and future portrayals of Boris are consistent with this.
Alongside this, he and Boris are now squires! Except they actually get promoted to knights a bit later into the story...
People from across Meridell's kingdom came to assist in the second war, and Morris and Boris were quickly promoted to knights despite their lack of training.
Skarl was clearly desperate for assistance regarding Meridell's kingdom, albeit it's a bit fucked up he has no issue with literal children getting hurt. Jeran is the only one who seems to care, but...
Despite Jeran telling them they couldn't come with to the Darigan citadel, the boys had some Mysterious Fluid on hand as a plan B. This somehow teleports them to the Darigan Citadel, and I could only imagine how furious Jeran was to find out they did this.
Boris and Morris leap at Kass and cause him to drop his weapon, but unfortunately Morris nearly falling off the edge of the Citadel makes this plan essentially useless.
The time it'd take for Jeran to save Morris is just enough time for Kass to pick up his sword.
Boris doesn't do anything to continue distracting Kass as far as we know.
Then, as Jeran gets a backshot from Lord Kass, this segment appears with these goofy looking images.
But that's the end of Boris' story appearances.
I want to talk about a bit about how Boris is depicted in art...
Earlier I mentioned there was a very strange thing regarding his design, and if anyone saw that Boris molar review I did, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about... But for those who don't let me explain.
Ignoring the fact they're on a blue background for a joke I'll have a difficult time explaining, I want to talk about this guy's sharp teeth, his FANGS. You can see his tooth protrudes at the end of his smile. The second photo depicts it under his nose(?) This post will mainly focus on the first image though.
As you can see, graphic design is my passion.
if we go off the very-totally-trustworthy-skeleton shown in the transparent paintbrush, you can see the teeth are just. A little confusing because of the lower jaw but we're focusing on the upper row anyways, which seems mostly intact for our analysis.
It only appears there's 5 teeth on one half of the upper jaw, so for the sake of this, we'll exclude the existence of any second premolars, second molars, and wisdom teeth.
While this is a rough chart, I labeled each tooth by order. While Boris' teeth are depicted as larger than the teeth seen here, the closest placement for his fang would actually be the molar, which is aaaaall the way back there!
this can be critiqued a bit but a more accurate depiction of a vampire would have the fangs either be the central incisors, lateral incisors, or the canines themselves. I'm a sucker for sharp canines so I tried to fix the placement near there.
But here's the fun part...
Count von Roo does not have this issue, albeit he is a real vampire in canon.
This should not change the fact Boris' fangs are his molars, as even fake vampire teeth don't make the molars sharper and longer (or, as far as I'm aware they don't.)
This isn't exclusively an older art issue either, more modern depictions of Boris show this trait.
Additionally, I feel it's important to talk about how he's depicted in the Five of Swords card from the official Neopets Tarot Deck (which I do own, thanks for asking!)
Excuse the horrendous quality of my camera.
As the official description for the card reads, "Boris hucks a rock at the retreating foes, his heart still pounding with adrenaline and rage." The girls and Morris aren't continuing to fight the retreating bullies, it's only Boris doing so.
Of course, everyone was probably filled with adrenaline at some point during the encounter with the bullies, but Boris being described as still being filled with rage very much implies the bullies really did something to tick him off. For all we know, he could get like this EVERY TIME the bullies pick on his friends, or something in him snapped seeing Lisha injured. After all, in Champions of Meridell, she was (mostly) a fighter, and she's a lot stronger than she looks.
All that's made clear is he's the only one hurling rocks at the fleeing bullies.
Before I give my wholehearted opinon on Boris, I want to explain a bit about how I perceive his personality...
With Boris being a Blumaroo, which are based on kangaroos, it wouldn't be a surprise for him to be brawny. I personally see him as a guy who follows his heart and gut feeling rather than being logical about scenarios. He was also the only one to openly state how traveling to the ruins of Meridell was "boring," he has no issue sharing his opinions, and a bit of honesty is always good to have!
However, he may have moments where he's too honest and does more damage than not. He can also be very stubborn and doesn't take "no" as an answer. If it means drinking a random potion with unknown effects to get his way, he will.
But in general, he cares a lot about his friends, even if he doesn't always want to play by their rules.
His character is a bit confusing just by how VAGUE he is. He has very few items relating to him (those only being a stamp and a trading card) and is definitely given the least attention compared to the other three characters. The character he roleplays as is the exact same species as him, as opposed to Morris and Kayla who roleplay as different species.
He definitely wasn't too well thought out in his debut, but I suppose Blumaroos are a bit hard to animate. They could've at least given him Kayla treatment.
Additionally, while Count Boris is treated like his official name, the reason I don't call him by this is because there is no evidence he's an actual count or a vampire. The title just feels unnecessary.
I think he has potential but he's definitely not as unique as his other three friends. Doesn't stop me from loving him, but I can definitely see why people wouldn't favour him as much.
