What kind of shit name is Sakura Wars? What does it even mean? Whatever it means, it still sounds horrible. This is the newest game for the PS2, and it had pretty good reviews. Like if it scores higher than Okami then it must be very good right? Well, Persona 3 was the "best game of PS2." So why do I trust those reviewers again? Its the fifth of the series so it can't be that bad right? Well back in high school I had a friend tell me that she really likes to watch Sakura Wars anime. I was going what the hell is that shit. Now I know. And now I know how terrible it must have been.
Lets get this out. This game is for Japanese anime-loving boys who have a fetish for American chicks. Can you blame them? Yes. And we can also judge them too. Lets start off by what this game is. Well its not anything you know, and I would call it a girl molesting simulator. You must be thinking what the fuck right? Well, yeah that's what came out of my mouth every other line in this game. This game you're some military guy from Japan who got transferred to New York's division. You ride giant robots to fight each other. Its a game for anime-loving Japanese boys so go figure it has giant robots with chicks piloting them. There you meet a bunch of chicks and you have to go around spending time and molesting them. Here's a list of the main characters.
Shinjiro Taiga aka Lt. Taiga, Shin, Shiny, Child Molester, Pedophile, Rapist. This is you. You're this pussy guy who goes around being all mopey because your uncle sent you over to New York and they were all expecting him to come and not his stupid pussy nephew. You think of yourself as a Samurai and you must "show your samurai spirit" to all the Americans. You use the excuse of not knowing how to act in America to molest girls.
Gemini Sunrise. This is some red haired farm chick from Texas. She has a Japanese fetish so lucky for you! She loves anything Japanese and wishes to be a samurai so she rides a horse across town and attacks bank robbers with samurai swords. Yeah... She also happens to be in the same "Star Division" as you.
Mr Sunnyside. He's the Commander of the Star division. He likes to speak in poor English (playing the version with Japanese voices.) He also has a Japanese fetish.
Ratchet Altair. She's the Captain of the Star division. She's a blond haired chick where you start stroking her hair and staring at her breasts for no reason. She also sucks horribly and gets her face punched in and you save her and become the vice captain. Go you I guess.
Subaru. "She's" the hermaphrodite of the group. "She" talks in third person all the time and is the only other Japanese. Lucky for you "she" doesn't give a crap about you. You're always wondering if "she" is a guy or not. I haven't gotten to molesting "her" yet so I don't know how "she" will react. Luckily, I won't be getting that far.
Sagiitta Weinberg. Shes the black chick from harlem. She's a super bitch and does nothing but bitch at your face. And after the show you walk in on her changing and she goes into ultra bitch mode. Like twice the bitchiness. When you go to harlem to find her you get your ass chased out by punks. Great going Vice Captain!
Rikariitta Aries. Whats with all the double I's and double T's. Anyways she's 11 years old and you go around hitting on her. She gets major pissed off at you and other shit. She's a "bounty hunter from mexico." Yeah she runs around with two pistols shooting shit. I don't know I haven't gotten that far yet but I sure hope to god you don't see her naked or start molesting her. But then again, this is Japan (uhh Japanized New York) so you'll probably have to at some point.
Diana Caprice. I don't know I found this online apparently shes the last chick you get. She's a "a local birdwatcher and nurse who had given up all hope to live." Well fuck. Leave the worst for last.
5 year old bunny girl. She's the main bad guy. She's a girl that has bunny ears on her head who holds a scythe and can fly and walk through walls. She sends giant robots that try to destroy the statue of liberty and other shit.
So how do you play this game? You're a rapist walking around talking to people and occasionally you get an option to do stuff. Like for example you arrived at New York, walked into the Office of the Star Division (not very cleverly disguised as a theater. Like seriously the whole thing lifts up and giant robots come flying out of it at night. I'm pretty sure people have already noticed what the fuck is happening there but no apparently not. Its just an excuse for you to watch girls dress up in costumes and perform and walk in on them changing.) Anyways as I was saying, you walked into the office and you meet Ratchet and three options appear you can either say for example. 1. Lt. Taiga reporting for duty 2. uh... hello? 3. I didn't expect someone so beautiful. What would you choose. Obviously not 2. And obviously not 1 because you need to hit on chicks for them to like you and when they do you apparently get super powers to do combination moves. Seems like every game is doing this nowadays. Sakura Wars, Persona.... Well just these two I guess.
When these options appear you have about 5-20 seconds depending to pick something. Sometimes you need to save someone and you get 5 seconds to push them aside or longer if you have to hit on them. Your face changes and different people like how you act differently. Sometimes its just one option and you can move the bar up or down to speak louder. For example your in the library and you see the 11 year old for shits and giggles I pulled the bar to the top and yelled on top of my lungs at the chick and she ran off embarrassed and majorly pissed off. If you don't hit anything within the time frame you automatically forfeit a chance to talk and you piss people off. Then you get to parts where you can take pictures of chicks and areas by hitting the triangle button. And occasionally (I don't know how often) you get parts where its just a chick and you have a magnifying glass that you can move around the screen. You can move to any part of their body and hit the X button and you think something or do something. For example you see Ratchet and you move your magnifying glass across their eyes and hit x he comments on her eyes and so on. I have no idea how to cancel this stupid shit or do anything so I move across her hair and he comments on her blond hair and how awesome it is and then strokes it and she got pissed off. "People in America don't like people stroking their hair? Everyone likes it when I do it in Japan." Wow fuck off you molester.
The game just keeps going on and on and you can barely save because the dude is too busy running around being a pussy or molesting chicks. Until finally you get to the giant robot battles. But no, you have to sit through like 20 minutes of gearing up and the chicks showing off their robots with moves and shit. They have the dumbest weapons and say the dumbest shit. Like Subaru uses fans for her robot and you use samurai swords. Sagiitta uses whips and since she is a lawyer she keeps going "you are guilty!" LIKE SHUT UP AND STOP POSING AROUND I WANNA BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEIR ROBOTS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES. Then giant robots come from the sky and you must "transform into airplanes" to shoot them down. Great, transforming robots. Anyways you turn into planes and shoot missles and they explode and yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay chapter over. Then you turn off the PS2, take out the disc and then snap it in half and toss it out the window.
This is the most terrible shit I ever played. My stomache haven't hurt so much from puking at every other sentence because all the shit they say are retarded. "Oh in America we do so and so." "I swear on my Samurai Spirit I will beat the enemy." "Your hair is so silky." "I would like to stick my penis into your vagina." "Can I touch your breasts?" Yeah I made up most of these but I wouldn't be surprised if they do appear in the game.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Gii-mmicks.
This is another article I had unfinished for a long time. Originally intended for publishing in early January, 2010.
About a month ago, I had the opportunity to try out the latest Wii gimmick, the Wii Motion Plus and its associated bundled tech-demo game, Wii Sports Resort on my friend's home console.
Now, before I start off, I have to mention that I've always been pretty negative about the Wii, and I'm sure glad as hell I never purchased one. It was and still clearly is, a casual gamer console that catered to the family audience, and its weak library of games relied far too heavily on the gimmicky aspect of their control scheme to ascend their games to the forefronts of publishing.
Regardless, the addition of a new motion sensor has generally improved on the accuracy on the Wii-mote, but feels like a feature that a consumer would have justifiably expected as a standard with the release of the Wii. After all, isn't this the console that designed from the bottom up with the accuracy of Wii-mote gyroscopic movement, spatial location and fine angular changes in mind? Pushing out a product now that says "Oh hey, we didn't make it right the first time, here's a tack on upgrade" really seems to cheapen the design ideals of which the console is wholly based on.
Additionally, despite the improvement, it still doesn't feel like it does enough. You can still feel that the Wii has certain specific situations and movements that aren't being detected as well as other types. For example, thrusting or pulling motions seem to be poorly registered, often incorrectly recognizing a pulling movement when you thrust forward and vice versa.
More and more, the Wii feels like a console selling off a gimmick aspect, not all that much different from how Apple products sell nowadays. While new, unorthodox control schemes are interesting and add dynamic to gaming, I think the least frustrating designs have been those that ease in the incorporation of new control functionality without abandoning old ones. Essentially, the best designs that face the least amount of resistance are those that 'upgrade' the most practical controller design of the previous generation. The SNES controller was a sleeker, more powerful version of the NES one, and one of the best controllers at the time, leaving a legacy for even modern controllers to follow. The PS1 controller too was upgraded with analog sticks and pressure-sensitive button functionality, becoming the PS2 controller. Yet the directional pad was not abandoned, and at the choice of the user, continued to be the primary method of control for many games.
One of the issues inherent with Nintendo is that they have always been trying to innovate in the most bizarre methods. From Power Gloves, to Virtual Boys, to Pistols and Bazookas, Nintendo's Wii really doesn't seem to be the odd one out of the box, relatively speaking. However, because of this characteristic, I find that it's difficult to have balanced games designed for long term mastery or competitive play when it is based off such strange, unpredictable control schemes. We still have competitive iterations Mario or Street Fighter, which use traditional control schemes, but have you ever seen competitive Duck Hunt? Or Power Ball? Or Wii Tennis? The fact that it is impossible to make these games competitive stems from it's unreliable control schemes, and as such, no one cares to be competitive at them, as the element of luck or device-specific accuracy varies too greatly. This makes gimmick consoles unlikely to accomplish anything but create a 10 minute mass of flailing limbs.
Seeing other consoles or developers who backed traditional long-term games abandon their principles to jump on the gimmick market is a devastating shame. It is fine to have a few esoteric companies develop bizarre creations, but without the core companies sticking with the practical methods, gaming as a whole deteriorates as the long-term competitive games that we hold dear will dissipate, as more is instead invested to the 10 minute drivel that gimmick-developers churn out. Gimmicks are like poison, recreationally fine in small dosages but too much will kill off what makes true dedicated gaming great and memorable.
About a month ago, I had the opportunity to try out the latest Wii gimmick, the Wii Motion Plus and its associated bundled tech-demo game, Wii Sports Resort on my friend's home console.
Now, before I start off, I have to mention that I've always been pretty negative about the Wii, and I'm sure glad as hell I never purchased one. It was and still clearly is, a casual gamer console that catered to the family audience, and its weak library of games relied far too heavily on the gimmicky aspect of their control scheme to ascend their games to the forefronts of publishing.
Regardless, the addition of a new motion sensor has generally improved on the accuracy on the Wii-mote, but feels like a feature that a consumer would have justifiably expected as a standard with the release of the Wii. After all, isn't this the console that designed from the bottom up with the accuracy of Wii-mote gyroscopic movement, spatial location and fine angular changes in mind? Pushing out a product now that says "Oh hey, we didn't make it right the first time, here's a tack on upgrade" really seems to cheapen the design ideals of which the console is wholly based on.
Additionally, despite the improvement, it still doesn't feel like it does enough. You can still feel that the Wii has certain specific situations and movements that aren't being detected as well as other types. For example, thrusting or pulling motions seem to be poorly registered, often incorrectly recognizing a pulling movement when you thrust forward and vice versa.
More and more, the Wii feels like a console selling off a gimmick aspect, not all that much different from how Apple products sell nowadays. While new, unorthodox control schemes are interesting and add dynamic to gaming, I think the least frustrating designs have been those that ease in the incorporation of new control functionality without abandoning old ones. Essentially, the best designs that face the least amount of resistance are those that 'upgrade' the most practical controller design of the previous generation. The SNES controller was a sleeker, more powerful version of the NES one, and one of the best controllers at the time, leaving a legacy for even modern controllers to follow. The PS1 controller too was upgraded with analog sticks and pressure-sensitive button functionality, becoming the PS2 controller. Yet the directional pad was not abandoned, and at the choice of the user, continued to be the primary method of control for many games.
One of the issues inherent with Nintendo is that they have always been trying to innovate in the most bizarre methods. From Power Gloves, to Virtual Boys, to Pistols and Bazookas, Nintendo's Wii really doesn't seem to be the odd one out of the box, relatively speaking. However, because of this characteristic, I find that it's difficult to have balanced games designed for long term mastery or competitive play when it is based off such strange, unpredictable control schemes. We still have competitive iterations Mario or Street Fighter, which use traditional control schemes, but have you ever seen competitive Duck Hunt? Or Power Ball? Or Wii Tennis? The fact that it is impossible to make these games competitive stems from it's unreliable control schemes, and as such, no one cares to be competitive at them, as the element of luck or device-specific accuracy varies too greatly. This makes gimmick consoles unlikely to accomplish anything but create a 10 minute mass of flailing limbs.
Seeing other consoles or developers who backed traditional long-term games abandon their principles to jump on the gimmick market is a devastating shame. It is fine to have a few esoteric companies develop bizarre creations, but without the core companies sticking with the practical methods, gaming as a whole deteriorates as the long-term competitive games that we hold dear will dissipate, as more is instead invested to the 10 minute drivel that gimmick-developers churn out. Gimmicks are like poison, recreationally fine in small dosages but too much will kill off what makes true dedicated gaming great and memorable.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Dumb it down for me please.
God I hate Casual Gamers.
Currently America is suffering from the 'Super Size Me' epidemic. But at least they're conscious of that one. The epidemics that are truly devastating are those they're not even aware about, like the 'Dumb It Down For Me' epidemic. I refer you to exhibit A, in particular, the associated news post, a summation of symptoms in the afflicted:
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/285
For your ease, the focal, frustrating statement has been quoted for posterity:
You can button-mash in Street Fighter, or you can go W+1 pyro in TF2. While the efficiency of these options is arguable, they work, to an extent. Not on Starcraft.
Here, we have a casual gamer, frustrated by the challenge of particular games he could possibly incorporate into his sphere of enjoyment, demand that an 'easy mode' be implemented, one that would enable him, with minimal practice or strategy be able to evenly compete with a veteran. His name is Jo, and he writes an unintelligent webcomic to herd his flock of imbeciles. Did I mention that he likes to play the Pyro in TF2? Strange coincidence that he plays the same class that everyone writes as being a skilless, useless and inept class created for the purpose of facilitating the handicapped.
Jo's folly is in asking for an I win button as a casual player with inadequate skill or experience. A method that enables him to compete, despite being obviously undeserving of that ability. Akin to believing that one deserves to be able to pass an exam without studying, or brilliant without learning. It is this spoiled attitude of self-entitlement that has been corrupting gaming into a casual cesspool of talentless rejects. Games should be ACCESSIBLE and teach you the basics and guide you, but trying to have a shortcut at mastery is undeserved and lowly.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Grim Grimoire - Fuck Dragons
I like to point out this is probably one of my favorite games, but really fuck dragons.
Its from the same creators as Odin Sphere, Vanilla Ware. So you can expect the same shitty English voices and beautiful graphics. Luckily this game also lets you change voices. It doesn't make it any better but at least you don't have to understand the squeaking of the characters. Anyways the story is about a girl called Lillet Blan (everyone is named after wines) who goes to a magic tower school to learn magic. Its fairly lighthearted and the characters grow on you as you try and solve the mystery.
As you first enter the school you get acquainted to some characters. You start learning magic and the headmaster Gammel Dore, teaches you Glamour, magic of natural order. Fairies and life. You get thrown into combat and stuff. Get to that later as that's where the main gripes of this game comes from. You eventually move on and start getting to know the Necromancy professor. While talking to her, the two of you notice the Sorcery professor, a devil, sneaking around the room. After learning a bit of Necromancy from her later that night you realize the soul container of the archmage of the tower was stolen from the Necromancy professor's room and she was killed. The archmage was released and killed everyone in the tower. But before you were killed, when the bell rang on the 5th day you were sent back in time to the first day. Oh shit.
Oh shit indeed. Now you run off to Gammel Dore and he listens to your story, but the Sorcery professor dismisses all the accusations and he tests you to see if he believes your story. When you were transported back in time, you managed to keep everything you learned and held onto all the grimoires you accquired. After passing his test, he lets a remark slip about "how the archmage's apprentice the Alchemy professor feels about him being locked up in a soul container." So now you have a new suspect. You go talk to him and learn about the archmage who tells you about the archmage making a deal with the devil Grimlet and had to be sealed. While Gammel Dore and the Necromancy professor try to seal the archmage, they failed and was killed. The devil grimlet appeared and took the archmage's soul and killed everyone in the tower. The Sorcery professor saves you and keeps you alive long enough until the bell of the 5th night and once again you get transported back.
Now you have to keep figuring out what happened, who is the real enemy, why time keeps going back, etc. There are a lot of twists and turns and the story is very enjoyable. The conversations usually involve huge pictures of the characters talking amongst each other on the screen. The character designs are amazing. Here's a short list of the characters you'll meet.
Lillet Blan - That's you! You're the main character and you are out to solve the mystery of the tower. You are named after the french wine, Lillet Blanc.
Margarita Surprise - Shes your first friend, and one that eventually betrays you in one of the many time loops. She was rescued by Chartreuse and brought to the tower. She's named after the cocktail, Margarita.
Bartido Ballentyne - An Alchemy student learning after Chartreuse. He's not very important to the story but Lillet sorta has a crush on him at first but loses it pretty quickly. He is named after the whisky, Ballentine's.
Hiram Menthe - He is a Necromancy student and friends with Bartido. He's not very important to the story but he's a goody-two-shoes that keeps running off to tell the professors when you do something secretive in one of the time loops and you have to keep kicking his butt over and over.
He is named after the french wine, Hiram Walker.
Amoretta Virgine - She's one of those dead sounding chicks in every game. She's supposedly the "niece" of Advocat, and when you first meet her, shes being molested by him and you save her. She goes "Thank you, I really hate it when he does that." THE FUCK? Anyways its only mentioned once that shes his niece but shes not. She's actually a homunculus with the soul of an angel created by Chartreuse. Her existing tempts every devil in the tower. In the game you develop a lesbian relationship with her. She's named after Amaretto.
Gammel Dore - Headmaster and Galmour professor. He was the one who sealed the archmage Calvaros and the devil Grimlet inside the tower. He dies in almost every time loop and is a pretty shitty magician despite all his achievements in the past. Aging sucks I guess. He's named after Gammel Dansk.
Opalneria Rain - Necromancy professor. She is the keeper of Calvaros' soul container. She has a one sided love for Chartreuse. She is named after Opal Nera.
Advocat - Sorcery professor. He is a devil summoned by Gammel Dore. Even though he acts like a good guy, he doesn't actively help people which he claims because he is a devil. He is named after Advocaat.
Chartreuse Grande - Alchemy Professor. Nothing much about him. He is named after Chartreuse.
Calvaros - The archmage sealed in the tower. Named after Calvados.
Whew glad to get all that out. So yes most characters are pretty important as you find out about stuff. Sometimes you think you're doing alright in your time loop then all of a sudden someone dies and something gets mixed up. So you try again. But each time you go back you learn a little more and get a few grimoires. But because you managed to keep the grimoires other characters who needed it to do things in the previous time loops couldn't and thus changes your future time loops forever. Its fun and interesting to play.
And now we get to the biggest flaw in the game. Combat. The game has a lot of potential, but pretty much failed hardcore. Its an RTS game, you mine mana crystals to summon runes and familiars from your grimoires. As you learn more grimoires you learn more familiars and more power ups. Each school of magic counters one school and is weak to another. So its like rock paper scissors, except for dragons which is like a gun.
Glamour is natural order and life. Its probably the weakest of the four schools of magic. Your workers are elves which can heal. Fairies costs a lot of mana compared to how easily they die. They are ranged and flying but they travel so slow that you can't really run and shoot and they end up dying all the time. Unicorns are fairly good tanks but their mana cost is so high that you're better off getting something like demons which is nearly the same price but twice as powerful. The super unit is the Morning Star. Its fairy cheap and it a flying unit. Its an astral which means most units can't hit them and when they do they do reduced damage. This is strongest astral unit in the game with a huge aoe splash attack. But everytime they attack they need to create stars. Each star costs 10 mana so the price for this unit quickly becomes expensive. They're like reavers in SC. The advantage of Glamour is all their units can hit astrals and they don't do any reduced damage to them. Glamour is strong against Necromancy because it is life.
Necromancy are all spirits and undead. Almost every unit are astrals. Its as weak as Glamour but has the advantage of being astral and having a few strong units. They have the cheapest workers and they are able to fly so mining crystals for them is easier. Their starting unit are the phantoms. They are sword wielding spirits that have a decent attack and defense. These can mow down masses of enemies if they can't hit astrals. But if they can these drop like flies. They're kinda like dark templars of SC. Their mid tier is skull mages. They can only hit astrals and they hit like a truck. But they can only hit astrals so they're useless the this game. The super unit is Charon, a unit transporter that flies very fast. Necromancy sucks. Necromancy is good against Sorcery because they don't have flesh and temptations for the devils to pick on.
Sorcery is devils and demons. This is the best school of magic. Imps are your workers. They are able to fight and they're cheap to make. They are like ghouls of WC3. The first tier of units are demons. These are probably the strongest non super unit in the game. They have high defense high attack high movement speed. They can fight claw to claw against most super units in the game and they're not that expensive to make at all. The next tier up is Grimalkins. They are cat familiars that casts sleep and mana burn. They don't have any attacks but sleep can take out most super units in one click. When slept they cannot act for about 30 seconds and can still take damage until they die. Mana burn would almost instantly kill any caster in a single click. A very powerful unit. Then the super unit. Dragons. These don't cost a lot about the price of two and a half demons, but can take on about 6-7 demons at a time. They have a huge aoe breath attack that does damage all around them. Anything caught in the aoe would die almost instantly. They have the highest hp, defense, attack. Sorcery is good against Alchemy for reasons I cannot remember.
Alchemy are homunculus and unnatural order. Alchemy is fairly weak but they are very annoying. Their workers are blobs that can cast a stacking slow. The first tier are homunculus which has two skills. Flare which allows all physical attacks to hit astrals in the area for the duration. The second skill is psychic storm. This is like Psionic wave from SC, except there are no friendly fire and more than one storm stacks. There was a dragon coming at me and I was alchemy with no units. So I tried my luck and sent about 5 homunculus and spammed psychic storm on the dragon. It was dead in literally 3 seconds. Luckily the NPC doesn't abuse this. Golem is the next tier up. Its slow it has a long range that out ranges towers. It sucks. Chimera is their super unit. Its almost exactly like the dragon. Same price but lower damage defense and health. It also loses health every second when its summoned until it dies. It sucks compared to the dragon. Alchemy is good against Glamour because it is unnatural order.
It looks good and has high potential but the problem is, that you can make dragons as your first unit, send them in and wipe out the enemy. A dragon is unkillable. And sending 2-3 means you beat the level. Why would you want to make anything else but dragons? As long as you have a few homunculus casting flare they can take on astrals no problem. Sometimes for the hell of it I don't use any super units and I have to spend 3x as long to beat a level. Each level is exactly the same. I know I complained about Odin Sphere being repetitive, but this literally is the same every battle. There is only one map in the game. You will fight on that map for many many times. Each time you fight you will start off with 1 mana crystal mine and 1 rune. The enemy has runes scattered all over the map and the don't need to mine mana to summon units. Units appear in 3 ways. First way is over time they will come and attack you. Second way is when you attack one of their runes a wave of enemies will appear if you don't kill that wave they will attack your base. The last way is when you are attacking their rune, they will attack your base. So, if you attack right when they are attacking and your attack fails you will get 3 waves of enemies and lose the game.
But that won't happen because dragons don't die. Here's the strategy for almost every game. As soon as the game starts you'll usually have couple hundred if not thousand mana to start off. A dragon spawn rune costs 200 to make 100 to upgrade and a dragon costs 500. As soon as the game starts summon a rune summon a dragon and send it out to attack. As your dragon is heading off use the mana you mined to summon a second dragon. By the time your dragon is tearing up their base your second one will spawn and wipe out the wave that attacks your base. Then you send that one out and summon another. By the time you have your third dragon you should have taken out most of their runes. Just keep repeating that and the game is over. Just watch out for Grimalkins sleeping your dragon. They usually can't kill it within 30 seconds but just in case your dragon might die.
Its a good game, but the combat portion of it is completely horrible. It has a lot of potential to be good, but instead it just uses the same boring battle every time as a filler between events. If the combat can be tied into the events like Odin Sphere then it would be a good game. Look at SC. All the combat has something to do with the events. Why can't this game do it as well? Its not like its too much work. Look how small and short the game is. You can probably finish this in a few days, and most people can finish within a week. My play through took about 8 hours total.Overall, story is good, combat sucks. If you can overlook the shitty combat the game itself is very fun. Too short though but the characters really grow on you.
Its from the same creators as Odin Sphere, Vanilla Ware. So you can expect the same shitty English voices and beautiful graphics. Luckily this game also lets you change voices. It doesn't make it any better but at least you don't have to understand the squeaking of the characters. Anyways the story is about a girl called Lillet Blan (everyone is named after wines) who goes to a magic tower school to learn magic. Its fairly lighthearted and the characters grow on you as you try and solve the mystery.
As you first enter the school you get acquainted to some characters. You start learning magic and the headmaster Gammel Dore, teaches you Glamour, magic of natural order. Fairies and life. You get thrown into combat and stuff. Get to that later as that's where the main gripes of this game comes from. You eventually move on and start getting to know the Necromancy professor. While talking to her, the two of you notice the Sorcery professor, a devil, sneaking around the room. After learning a bit of Necromancy from her later that night you realize the soul container of the archmage of the tower was stolen from the Necromancy professor's room and she was killed. The archmage was released and killed everyone in the tower. But before you were killed, when the bell rang on the 5th day you were sent back in time to the first day. Oh shit.
Oh shit indeed. Now you run off to Gammel Dore and he listens to your story, but the Sorcery professor dismisses all the accusations and he tests you to see if he believes your story. When you were transported back in time, you managed to keep everything you learned and held onto all the grimoires you accquired. After passing his test, he lets a remark slip about "how the archmage's apprentice the Alchemy professor feels about him being locked up in a soul container." So now you have a new suspect. You go talk to him and learn about the archmage who tells you about the archmage making a deal with the devil Grimlet and had to be sealed. While Gammel Dore and the Necromancy professor try to seal the archmage, they failed and was killed. The devil grimlet appeared and took the archmage's soul and killed everyone in the tower. The Sorcery professor saves you and keeps you alive long enough until the bell of the 5th night and once again you get transported back.
Now you have to keep figuring out what happened, who is the real enemy, why time keeps going back, etc. There are a lot of twists and turns and the story is very enjoyable. The conversations usually involve huge pictures of the characters talking amongst each other on the screen. The character designs are amazing. Here's a short list of the characters you'll meet.
Lillet Blan - That's you! You're the main character and you are out to solve the mystery of the tower. You are named after the french wine, Lillet Blanc.
Margarita Surprise - Shes your first friend, and one that eventually betrays you in one of the many time loops. She was rescued by Chartreuse and brought to the tower. She's named after the cocktail, Margarita.
Bartido Ballentyne - An Alchemy student learning after Chartreuse. He's not very important to the story but Lillet sorta has a crush on him at first but loses it pretty quickly. He is named after the whisky, Ballentine's.
Hiram Menthe - He is a Necromancy student and friends with Bartido. He's not very important to the story but he's a goody-two-shoes that keeps running off to tell the professors when you do something secretive in one of the time loops and you have to keep kicking his butt over and over.
He is named after the french wine, Hiram Walker.
Amoretta Virgine - She's one of those dead sounding chicks in every game. She's supposedly the "niece" of Advocat, and when you first meet her, shes being molested by him and you save her. She goes "Thank you, I really hate it when he does that." THE FUCK? Anyways its only mentioned once that shes his niece but shes not. She's actually a homunculus with the soul of an angel created by Chartreuse. Her existing tempts every devil in the tower. In the game you develop a lesbian relationship with her. She's named after Amaretto.
Gammel Dore - Headmaster and Galmour professor. He was the one who sealed the archmage Calvaros and the devil Grimlet inside the tower. He dies in almost every time loop and is a pretty shitty magician despite all his achievements in the past. Aging sucks I guess. He's named after Gammel Dansk.
Opalneria Rain - Necromancy professor. She is the keeper of Calvaros' soul container. She has a one sided love for Chartreuse. She is named after Opal Nera.
Advocat - Sorcery professor. He is a devil summoned by Gammel Dore. Even though he acts like a good guy, he doesn't actively help people which he claims because he is a devil. He is named after Advocaat.
Chartreuse Grande - Alchemy Professor. Nothing much about him. He is named after Chartreuse.
Calvaros - The archmage sealed in the tower. Named after Calvados.
Whew glad to get all that out. So yes most characters are pretty important as you find out about stuff. Sometimes you think you're doing alright in your time loop then all of a sudden someone dies and something gets mixed up. So you try again. But each time you go back you learn a little more and get a few grimoires. But because you managed to keep the grimoires other characters who needed it to do things in the previous time loops couldn't and thus changes your future time loops forever. Its fun and interesting to play.
And now we get to the biggest flaw in the game. Combat. The game has a lot of potential, but pretty much failed hardcore. Its an RTS game, you mine mana crystals to summon runes and familiars from your grimoires. As you learn more grimoires you learn more familiars and more power ups. Each school of magic counters one school and is weak to another. So its like rock paper scissors, except for dragons which is like a gun.
Glamour is natural order and life. Its probably the weakest of the four schools of magic. Your workers are elves which can heal. Fairies costs a lot of mana compared to how easily they die. They are ranged and flying but they travel so slow that you can't really run and shoot and they end up dying all the time. Unicorns are fairly good tanks but their mana cost is so high that you're better off getting something like demons which is nearly the same price but twice as powerful. The super unit is the Morning Star. Its fairy cheap and it a flying unit. Its an astral which means most units can't hit them and when they do they do reduced damage. This is strongest astral unit in the game with a huge aoe splash attack. But everytime they attack they need to create stars. Each star costs 10 mana so the price for this unit quickly becomes expensive. They're like reavers in SC. The advantage of Glamour is all their units can hit astrals and they don't do any reduced damage to them. Glamour is strong against Necromancy because it is life.
Necromancy are all spirits and undead. Almost every unit are astrals. Its as weak as Glamour but has the advantage of being astral and having a few strong units. They have the cheapest workers and they are able to fly so mining crystals for them is easier. Their starting unit are the phantoms. They are sword wielding spirits that have a decent attack and defense. These can mow down masses of enemies if they can't hit astrals. But if they can these drop like flies. They're kinda like dark templars of SC. Their mid tier is skull mages. They can only hit astrals and they hit like a truck. But they can only hit astrals so they're useless the this game. The super unit is Charon, a unit transporter that flies very fast. Necromancy sucks. Necromancy is good against Sorcery because they don't have flesh and temptations for the devils to pick on.
Sorcery is devils and demons. This is the best school of magic. Imps are your workers. They are able to fight and they're cheap to make. They are like ghouls of WC3. The first tier of units are demons. These are probably the strongest non super unit in the game. They have high defense high attack high movement speed. They can fight claw to claw against most super units in the game and they're not that expensive to make at all. The next tier up is Grimalkins. They are cat familiars that casts sleep and mana burn. They don't have any attacks but sleep can take out most super units in one click. When slept they cannot act for about 30 seconds and can still take damage until they die. Mana burn would almost instantly kill any caster in a single click. A very powerful unit. Then the super unit. Dragons. These don't cost a lot about the price of two and a half demons, but can take on about 6-7 demons at a time. They have a huge aoe breath attack that does damage all around them. Anything caught in the aoe would die almost instantly. They have the highest hp, defense, attack. Sorcery is good against Alchemy for reasons I cannot remember.
Alchemy are homunculus and unnatural order. Alchemy is fairly weak but they are very annoying. Their workers are blobs that can cast a stacking slow. The first tier are homunculus which has two skills. Flare which allows all physical attacks to hit astrals in the area for the duration. The second skill is psychic storm. This is like Psionic wave from SC, except there are no friendly fire and more than one storm stacks. There was a dragon coming at me and I was alchemy with no units. So I tried my luck and sent about 5 homunculus and spammed psychic storm on the dragon. It was dead in literally 3 seconds. Luckily the NPC doesn't abuse this. Golem is the next tier up. Its slow it has a long range that out ranges towers. It sucks. Chimera is their super unit. Its almost exactly like the dragon. Same price but lower damage defense and health. It also loses health every second when its summoned until it dies. It sucks compared to the dragon. Alchemy is good against Glamour because it is unnatural order.
It looks good and has high potential but the problem is, that you can make dragons as your first unit, send them in and wipe out the enemy. A dragon is unkillable. And sending 2-3 means you beat the level. Why would you want to make anything else but dragons? As long as you have a few homunculus casting flare they can take on astrals no problem. Sometimes for the hell of it I don't use any super units and I have to spend 3x as long to beat a level. Each level is exactly the same. I know I complained about Odin Sphere being repetitive, but this literally is the same every battle. There is only one map in the game. You will fight on that map for many many times. Each time you fight you will start off with 1 mana crystal mine and 1 rune. The enemy has runes scattered all over the map and the don't need to mine mana to summon units. Units appear in 3 ways. First way is over time they will come and attack you. Second way is when you attack one of their runes a wave of enemies will appear if you don't kill that wave they will attack your base. The last way is when you are attacking their rune, they will attack your base. So, if you attack right when they are attacking and your attack fails you will get 3 waves of enemies and lose the game.
But that won't happen because dragons don't die. Here's the strategy for almost every game. As soon as the game starts you'll usually have couple hundred if not thousand mana to start off. A dragon spawn rune costs 200 to make 100 to upgrade and a dragon costs 500. As soon as the game starts summon a rune summon a dragon and send it out to attack. As your dragon is heading off use the mana you mined to summon a second dragon. By the time your dragon is tearing up their base your second one will spawn and wipe out the wave that attacks your base. Then you send that one out and summon another. By the time you have your third dragon you should have taken out most of their runes. Just keep repeating that and the game is over. Just watch out for Grimalkins sleeping your dragon. They usually can't kill it within 30 seconds but just in case your dragon might die.
Its a good game, but the combat portion of it is completely horrible. It has a lot of potential to be good, but instead it just uses the same boring battle every time as a filler between events. If the combat can be tied into the events like Odin Sphere then it would be a good game. Look at SC. All the combat has something to do with the events. Why can't this game do it as well? Its not like its too much work. Look how small and short the game is. You can probably finish this in a few days, and most people can finish within a week. My play through took about 8 hours total.Overall, story is good, combat sucks. If you can overlook the shitty combat the game itself is very fun. Too short though but the characters really grow on you.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Dragon Age Origins Awakening - As half-assed as the new Joining ritual
Dragon Age Origins itself isn't that bad of a game. Lots of flaws but overall its decently fun to play. Not one of my favorites but its fun enough for me to finish the game without much bitching. Now Awakening is the expansion to this game. I know its an expansion and I know its not that expensive, but that doesn't justify its shittyness. Lets start from the beginning with Dragon Age Origins. Origins when it was first announced changed from a grim RPG into a over the top bloody "dark" RPG. They tried to cater to the God of War players but failed. If they stuck to like a Witcher style RPG then it might be a bit better. Overall, it just another over the top cliche RPG with swords and magic. Nothing more, nothing less.
So the story is pretty much darkspawns are attacking and a blight appears. Blight are when an archdemon appears and lead all the darkspawn. Without an archdemon they are all mindless. They sorta have an hive mind. The game starts depending on your origins you can start as human, elf, dwarf. Noble, commoner, mage, etc. Each one has a different story and affects the game ranging from npc interactions, endings, storyline changes. As soon as you do that, shit hits the fan and you get recruited by the gray wardens after something happens, for example mages you are about to get tossed into mage jail and "rescued" by the gray wardens. Elf commoner you kill the lord for raping your wife and your cousin and friends and is "rescued" by the gray wardens. Shit like that.
So you go around blight appears and the king gets backstabbed by his father's best friend and most trusted person who was also the queen's father. And the king and almost all the gray wardens die. Now you survive and is pissed off for what that asshole did so the whole story is you going around recruiting an army and then going off to a landsmeet with him and chopping off his head and imprisoning the queen for treason. Ok you could technically let them live and let the queen rule or marry the queen etc etc. Or kill them and become king/queen yourself. Anyways game ends with you killing the archdemon and everyone calls you the Hero of Fereldan. Then the game ends.
Awakening starts pretty much months after where Origins left off. You're now the warden commander of the gray wardens and you have the land where one of the traitors had and when you start walking to the keep you realize the darkspawn had killed everyone. Those assholes. Also I want to point out that people who purchased DLC and has DLC items will be unable to use them in Awakening. When I ported my character over to Awakening, the game started with me walking naked beside some armored chick. I was going "where is my shit?" Turns out you lose everything that you picked up during any DLC content. Surprise! Continuing on in your underwear you go around killing all the darkspawn and finding out one of them can talk. So once again all the gray wardens are dead and its up to you, the Warden Commander, the Hero of Fereldan, to save Fereldan once again, but this time only in a small area around Amarthine.
Its like the world isn't small enough they have to make it even smaller. The expansion itself is pretty small. Three missions, one defend the keep or defend the city mission and the final mission. You get an extra class specialization point in the expansion and two new class specializations for each main class (mage, rogue, warrior). Also around eight new talents for every class. These are mostly useless because combat got turned extremely easy. You get new items that are completely overpowered. For my mage, I killed a boss and got a amulet that increases arcane damage by 100% and a glove to increase my arcane damage by 30% and a staff that adds 20 spell power. What does that mean? It means all I have to do is cast a single spell and a whole mob of darkspawn dies instantly. The only downside is with friendly fire I keep killing my own tanks or bringing them to near death. But that doesn't really matter because they automatically resurrect after every battle, and battle ends in three seconds at most.
One thing that annoys me is that you get stupid quests that makes "godly items" but to make these items you need materials from Origins. Which means, unless you transferred one of those items you can't make your stupid shield or staff or whatever the shit you want. But the biggest thing is the Joining ritual. In Origins, the Joining ritual is all hush-hush and secretive. No one knows exactly how its done except for the older gray wardens and some mages. You basically take darkspawn blood and use magical shit and mages to make some kind of drink where you drink it. If you survive you get tainted but keep your mind and you become a gray warden. If you don't survive you fall on the floor and die. In Awakening, you get a bunch of people and when they join the gray wardens you just whip out a cup out of nowhere and they drink it and everything is fine. No risk at all. That's not all though, most of the characters you get you get a tiny little minor story about them which takes about five minutes and is like ten lines of text on what their background is and what they are planning to do. After that they just sit around in the keep, content, waiting for you to use them.
So you go around kill more darkspawn and then the game is over as soon as the game started. There are almost nothing linking the two games together. The game feels like they didn't even put any effort into it. They simplified everything and changed elements around so it "fits" the expansion. If the expansion felt more like an expansion then it would be more tolerable. What it feels like is more of a side story than a continuation of the main game.
So the story is pretty much darkspawns are attacking and a blight appears. Blight are when an archdemon appears and lead all the darkspawn. Without an archdemon they are all mindless. They sorta have an hive mind. The game starts depending on your origins you can start as human, elf, dwarf. Noble, commoner, mage, etc. Each one has a different story and affects the game ranging from npc interactions, endings, storyline changes. As soon as you do that, shit hits the fan and you get recruited by the gray wardens after something happens, for example mages you are about to get tossed into mage jail and "rescued" by the gray wardens. Elf commoner you kill the lord for raping your wife and your cousin and friends and is "rescued" by the gray wardens. Shit like that.
So you go around blight appears and the king gets backstabbed by his father's best friend and most trusted person who was also the queen's father. And the king and almost all the gray wardens die. Now you survive and is pissed off for what that asshole did so the whole story is you going around recruiting an army and then going off to a landsmeet with him and chopping off his head and imprisoning the queen for treason. Ok you could technically let them live and let the queen rule or marry the queen etc etc. Or kill them and become king/queen yourself. Anyways game ends with you killing the archdemon and everyone calls you the Hero of Fereldan. Then the game ends.
Awakening starts pretty much months after where Origins left off. You're now the warden commander of the gray wardens and you have the land where one of the traitors had and when you start walking to the keep you realize the darkspawn had killed everyone. Those assholes. Also I want to point out that people who purchased DLC and has DLC items will be unable to use them in Awakening. When I ported my character over to Awakening, the game started with me walking naked beside some armored chick. I was going "where is my shit?" Turns out you lose everything that you picked up during any DLC content. Surprise! Continuing on in your underwear you go around killing all the darkspawn and finding out one of them can talk. So once again all the gray wardens are dead and its up to you, the Warden Commander, the Hero of Fereldan, to save Fereldan once again, but this time only in a small area around Amarthine.
Its like the world isn't small enough they have to make it even smaller. The expansion itself is pretty small. Three missions, one defend the keep or defend the city mission and the final mission. You get an extra class specialization point in the expansion and two new class specializations for each main class (mage, rogue, warrior). Also around eight new talents for every class. These are mostly useless because combat got turned extremely easy. You get new items that are completely overpowered. For my mage, I killed a boss and got a amulet that increases arcane damage by 100% and a glove to increase my arcane damage by 30% and a staff that adds 20 spell power. What does that mean? It means all I have to do is cast a single spell and a whole mob of darkspawn dies instantly. The only downside is with friendly fire I keep killing my own tanks or bringing them to near death. But that doesn't really matter because they automatically resurrect after every battle, and battle ends in three seconds at most.
One thing that annoys me is that you get stupid quests that makes "godly items" but to make these items you need materials from Origins. Which means, unless you transferred one of those items you can't make your stupid shield or staff or whatever the shit you want. But the biggest thing is the Joining ritual. In Origins, the Joining ritual is all hush-hush and secretive. No one knows exactly how its done except for the older gray wardens and some mages. You basically take darkspawn blood and use magical shit and mages to make some kind of drink where you drink it. If you survive you get tainted but keep your mind and you become a gray warden. If you don't survive you fall on the floor and die. In Awakening, you get a bunch of people and when they join the gray wardens you just whip out a cup out of nowhere and they drink it and everything is fine. No risk at all. That's not all though, most of the characters you get you get a tiny little minor story about them which takes about five minutes and is like ten lines of text on what their background is and what they are planning to do. After that they just sit around in the keep, content, waiting for you to use them.
So you go around kill more darkspawn and then the game is over as soon as the game started. There are almost nothing linking the two games together. The game feels like they didn't even put any effort into it. They simplified everything and changed elements around so it "fits" the expansion. If the expansion felt more like an expansion then it would be more tolerable. What it feels like is more of a side story than a continuation of the main game.
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