This game sucks. When I first heard of the title I thought it was some kind of porn game but after hearing people talk about how its a persona clone and is actually pretty good I went and looked it up. This thing looks like a giant ripoff of persona from the social links, to the ui, to the combat, to the dungeon crawling, and even the music. Only difference here is instead of making friends with others to strengthen your persona and summon stronger ones, you make friends so you can "classmate" with them and make children.Yes you're probably going what the fuck and I don't blame you. I said the same thing out loud when 5 minutes into the game you meet someone and the priest tells you to start classmating. Yes I hate that term too. Other than this the entire game is basically a bad ripoff of persona.
I started this review with this game sucks and I'll repeat it again. This game sucks. They tried very hard to copy persona but didn't realize what they are actually copying. Each "day" you get 3 hearts where you can talk to the 7 heroines each represented by one of the 7 virtues. Talking to one of them will raise their affection slightly and there are 7 bars. Each bar is locked behind one dungeon each represented by the 7 deadly sins. Here is the issue, there is no time limit like persona where a big bad monster is coming every full moon nor is there someone trapped in the shadow realm waiting to die. There are no days where you cannot enter the dungeon because of a school event or there is no fog. No in fact there are no time at all. So why the fuck can you only talk to 3 people a day and then have to go back to rest in your bed for the next day is beyond me. So the majority of the time is spent navigating the menu going to sleep talking to a girl then going back to sleep. There are random events you get and you answer a question and their affection and mood goes up. Only problem here, unlike persona mood doesn't really matter because your not limited by time. It doesn't even matter what the mood of the heroines are because its almost impossible to fuck it up. So both mood and limited hearts is a completely worthless mechanic added in for almost no reason.
The point of raising affection is because when you have higher affection, you'll get stronger children when you classmate. And by classmating its not exactly sex as its just the male shooting his star power into the woman's star womb and a starchild gets born right away. There's also the sailormoon silhouette thing where they do sex poses and moans but its totally not sex! They are affected by the level of you and the mother with higher level parents giving the child better stats and higher maximum levels. They can also be different classes, some are gender locked, some are hidden classes, some require items. Which brings me to another point. This game is fucked up. I wanted to get a mercenary class and kept classmating but kept getting girls. Mercenary is a male only class so I ended up having to toss away tons of children. Same thing happened when I wanted a diva class and kept getting boys. Even more annoying when you have a full bar of affection, you have to classmate to advance the story but I don't want children right now. I'm still leveling these children and the new ones being born can't be saved for later because their stats will be shit once I finished leveling the ones I am using and the mothers level increases as I grind in the dungeon. So toss them away again. If only they let us advance the heroine bars without forced classmating. There's also this part later in the game where you have to perform classmanting with two other guys and the scientists create some artificial womb for you guys to get children and you have a gay orgy and some children were actually born. They ended up dying within 24 hours and everyone is all sad and like what the fuck. Why is that in the game.
Before we get further with all the children and classmating and all that shit we need to first introduce the people in the game and the story. Basically dusk nests appeared in the world and monsters are being spawned and children from the age of 16-18 are blessed with magical ether energy from the star god so they can fight back. The higher the ether count the higher your rank and two S rank disciples can classmate for a 1% chance of conceiving a child. They gathered everyone with the star god brand and put them in a school for them to fuck and fight all day long.
God's Gift - G.G. for short. You are called god's gift because you are filled with a monstrous amount of ether energy that lets you enter labyrinths without danger. With your super ether it also means you have a 100% conception rate with any S rank girls so you get a harem of them there to make children for you. What the fuck.
Fuuko - The first girl you meet she's the normal girl who is so normal she's kinda boring but not really. After meeting the other heroines you wish for normal. Basically all she does is swim and eat croquettes nothing special.
Narika - Another girl in your class she is the super shy student council vice president or something. Soft spoken, super shy, and blushes every other sentence. Warning though, later on you realize shes a yandere and tries to stab you with a knife. "Why do you talk to Fuuko when you have me? I will gouge out your eyes so you can't see another girl. I will cut off your tongue so you can't speak to another girl. I will cut off your ears so you can't hear another girl. You are mine, all mine." I'm not fucking kidding.
Ellie - The little sister childhood friend you almost forgotten who died when you were kids and got resurrected by the church and became a zombie assassin. I wish I was joking. That's her entire character she is a super happy cheerful little sister but have a darker side to her where she goes around murdering people for the church. I don't know about you but I really can't stand little sister characters. Even less if shes a zombie and an assassin.
Ms. Chloe - Your teacher who is actually only 1 year older than you because shes a genius and skipped grades. Yeah what the fuck right? At least give us someone older but no the game has to keep everyone within 16-18 years because only they can handle ether energy. Anyways blah blah blah she becomes an idol and you become her manager somehow and her singing can cure diseases and mend broken bones blah blah. Boring ass shit.
Serina - Haughty senior who is slightly tsundere. She has a huge complex about her short height and how successful her sister was when she was a disciple at the school. She's pretty likable and not very annoying. Kind of on the tame side after seeing all the other heroines though. Constantly having fights with her sister then later on gets a magic spell that lets her transform into a "tall busty beauty" from a kiss from you so you end up having to kiss her all the time to help her transform and enter a beauty pageant. Its not as bad as it sounds.
Torri - Eccentric super genius who talks in monotone with no emotion. She's odd but not in a bad way. Nothing too special about her shes just normal outside of her eccentricities. She does build planes from scratch and golems and send them flying and shit. Loves birds, tries to be a cicada, stands in the pouring rain all day because of a promise, walks around naked without being embarassed, tries to fight monsters alone because you said you wanted world peace and almost dies, and a bunch more shit. Although you do have the same feeling with her as you have with Ellie. She feels more like a little sister than a heroine. And you know how I feel about little sisters.
Feene - Foreign girl with blond hair blue eyes and talks in really weird formal speech. She's ok but they try to hard to hammer in the fact that she's foreign and shit. Shes all about justice this justice that justice everything blah blah blah.
Clotz - Fuuko's childhood friend. You classmanted with him and he helps you guys out when you're in the dungeon as the radio guy. Similar to the characters in persona who never actually fight but is always giving hints and talking through the radio.
So yeah these are the people who are going to help you fight in the dungeons. What is annoying is you can only bring 1 heroine with you and 9 children. So you will be forced to grind each heroine individually until they are high enough levels to have good children to power up your team. This is fucking annoying and grindy. Luckily if you are playing the steam version it comes with all the DLCs so you get a rare mob called Saggita on the final floor of dungeons. If you pick up the quest to kill them but never turn them in then the mobs remain golden so you can easily scout them out and kill them. These guys give like 3000 exp each and comes in a pack of 3 while normal enemies give like 30 exp each. What the fuck? Basically strategy is skip every pack of mob you see in a dungeon and go down to the bottom floor then hunt for these. Kill them and tp out and come back in to the same floor and repeat until you are leveled up. This is fucking boring. Near the end I pretty much gave up because the dungeons get so fucking large. 15 floors of 30 rooms each is way too much to explore for a game with shitty combat. Well combat isn't bad but its all just spamming your strongest skills since there is no time limit so you can always leave the dungeon and come back at the same floor when you need mana anyways. And its not like mana potions are in low supply. There's even an autocombat button you press and it does all of this for you. They know the game wasn't about the combat. That said bosses are stupidly easy and boring. Unlike persona's giant health sink hour long boss fights, the ones here ends in one turn. All bosses use the same skill, dusk release which is a full party aoe attack that does moderate damage. That's it. From the first boss to the last they only use one attack and you can blow them up in 1 turn if you're decently leveled.
So if combat sucks, if the social links suck, then what about the story it has to be good right? Nope! Not even close. It the most generic and mediocre bullshit save the world story that every shitty mindless developer makes. Monsters suddenly spawn 20 years ago and all the kids start fighting. Why? who gives a fuck. Then there's an evil corporation who wants to harvest the power or some shit and people start turning into monsters and what the fuck. So you use your powers to make children with all the girls and then you and your army of kids go into the dungeon and fight them.There are basically two short cutscenes before a dungeon opens up and you go in there and spend the rest of the time farming. After you beat it, two more short cutscenes, talk to all the heroines to raise another bar of affection, classmate, do two cutscenes with each of them, then do 2 story cutscenes and enter the next dungeon. Repeat until its over.
The classes in the game are interesting but the problem with having a
lot of classes is most of them end up sucking. But they did a good
thing in that when you bring children with you they travel in a pack of
3. 3 groups of 3 will make up your team of children and you with a
heroine makes up the 4th group. Different classes in the groups will
unlock hidden group skills so even if Bulleteer is the strongest gun
class in the game, you're not going to get full potential unless you mix
it up with a say Gambler or Ether Sniper. The stats of the child is
determined by the mother. For example, Feene has a lot of attack and
defense but low speed and technique. Torri has a ton of speed and Serina
has a ton of technique but no attack. If you are making an Archer class
you should pick Serina since Archers use technique for their damage
while a Paladin class should be on Feene since they are tanks. That
means to get the most of all the classes you'll need to level up the
mothers so their stats will be better. What if you want a shitty Archer
could you just go Feene since she's the highest level? Nope! You must
reach certain stat thresholds before you can create a class so since
Feene's children's growth is mostly into defense they will never be able
to make an Archer no matter how much you level her. The mother will
also pass her element down to the child. For example, Torri's children
will all have the wind element, Serina's children will have fire, and
Feene will have dusk. So having all your children be one element may be
good when you're fighting against one you are strong against, but as
soon as you meet water enemies with a team of 9 fire element children
you'll start crying. Some weapons can change the element of your attack,
but your defense will always remain. Casters will always learn spells
based on their element. So Narika's children will always have earth
element spells.
Now comes the more complex stuff. Later
on you are able to perform trimating when you get heroine affection
high enough. Any heroine with 5 bars or more are able to trimate with
each other. Trimating lets you pick two heroines and create a child with
bother their stats and one of their elements. You're probably thinking
you can just mix Feene with Torri for a child with both great defense
and great speed but it doesn't really work that way. Those two are
probably the worst mix because it averages out both mothers and they
grow into some weird shitty average child with no specialization.
Trimating is a trap that people fall into because they think they can
get away with a low level mother and a high level mother to make
children not easily available to one mother. Lets use the Archer example
again. Say your highest level mother is Feene and Serina is at level 1.
When you trimate the max level of the child will be low and the growth
of the archer will have weak technique, lower defense and attack and
even lower speed than normal. Archers want technique for their damage
and since their growth is so low once you leveled up they will be doing
shit damage. Sure you'll be able to hit the threshold for an Archer but
its going to be a giant burden character not able to do shit because you
handicapped yourself. Archers don't care about attack, or defense
really since they're not going to be tanking like paladins are. These
stats are completely wasted. Mixing say Torri with Serina might be
better because Torri is all about speed by sacrificing some attack you
get to move at incredible speeds. What trimating is good for is
unlocking thresholds of special classes early on. For example you might
get an Astromancer or Dungeoneer unlocked but no one is able to pick it
because no one can hit the threshold, trimate and you can make one.
These two classes aren't as specialized in stats so you can make an
average child as one of those classes. Trimating also lets you get
different elements on classes that are usually focused heavily on one
element. For example Serina's Archers will always be fire, but if you
trimate with Serina and Torri you'll now have wind element archers.
Since Serina also has earth element defense you could have wind element
attack, earth element defense archers or fire element attack, non elemental defense. Its surprisingly complex and
probably the best part of the game.
Classes are good, choice is good, but it all ends up being more grind. After basically finishing one dungeon and unlocking the next bar of affection for the heroines, its time to get rid of all your children and get a new batch of powered up children! Your child hit their level cap of 13 and now you make a new batch which are level capped at 28. After clearing the next dungeon they most likely hit their cap again so you make a new batch with a cap of 51. But I unlocked a new class I want to make it but oh no I only leveled Ellie but I want to make a Warlock. If you try to make it with Narika you'll get a child with like a max level of 17 or whatever level Narika was. Now you have to go back to level the mother, then you make the child then level again! So once again its back to grinding level 1 children. This shit is boring. Every once in awhile you will get a genius child, marked by a star on their stat screen and a giant star aura around them in dungeons. Genius children get better stats and have a max level of 99. You might be thinking, I have a genius child I'll just keep him forever! NOPE. If only it was that easy. The stats of your child is based on the level of the mother. A level 4 mother with a genius child will not be as strong as a normal child with a level 40 mother for example. Sure you can grind to 99 but so can a genius child from a higher level mother. The game is also limiting you to 3 genius children at a time so you'll need to get rid of them before new genius children can be born. By getting rid of them I don't mean killing them off because that's just cruel. You send them away to become independent by helping out the city. Each child will contribute exp to raise the level of the city which opens up new shops or upgrade shops with new stock so you'll always want to send them away when they don't need them. Higher level children contribute more exp but since there isn't a time limit in the game you can just make thousands of level 1 children in one sitting and send them all away to max the city level anyways. Once again they didn't think shit through.
Is this game good? No its not. If you want to play a good game try Persona. Persona 3 isn't the greatest but Persona 4 is pretty good. One thing that this game does well is that it gives me a new appreciation for Persona. Thanks Conception 2, at least you have that going for you. It has potential but it doesn't know why exactly they copied such and such from Persona.
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Firewatch - A Midlife Crisis
When I heard of this game being good I sort of just brushed it off going its probably like Gone Home or Dear Esther and didn't really bother with it. While I liked those two games I found this one to be much superior and believable. In Gone Home you learn of life through notes hidden in the house and in Dear Esther its from a unknown narrator. In Firewatch however, you are basically alone, isolated in the woods and the only form of companionship is a friendly voice on the radio, your boss Delilah. You learn of the world, yourself, your fellow coworkers, and Delilah though conversations with her.
What is the game about? There really isn't much you can say without spoiling the game too much so I'll just say its about a game about a man named Henry going through a midlife crisis. When you first start the game you get a little text narration of your life going from how you met your wife Julia, to how you ended up at Firewatch. The narration will constantly give you multiple choices on how you want to react in certain situations. It doesn't change the story at all, but it changes little things and affect your conversations with Delilah. Basically it starts with how you met your wife and then the years you spent with her and her eventually suffering from dementia at the age of 40 and how your life spiraled into drinking and petty arguments with your estranged wife and her family. Eventually you decided to run away from it all and take a summer job in Firewatch as a park ranger away from civilization. You will then spend the next few months there with your boss talking about anything and everything from her failed attempts to marriage and running away here for a decade to random conversations about trees. You start from being annoyed by her constant prodding into your personal life and sarcastic remarks but eventually both you and Henry will get along with her. Shes very realistic in the way friends egg each other on and is quite entertaining since she will be your only human interaction for the entire summer. Then shit starts happening.
The first half of the game is sort of calm and in a way boring. Delilah gives you instructions to pick up a supply drop, someone setting of fireworks in the forest go warn them, check out that smoke pillar in the distance, blah blah blah. Its relaxing walking in the trees with no one around and soaking in the image and sounds of nature then Delilah pops up on the radio to give you a friendly jab to remind yourself that you are not quite alone. At the second half, you start noticing shit happening. Someone breaks into your tower while you're away throwing your shit out the window stealing your stuff. Someone cut the phone lines so you cannot call for help. Getting attacked from behind and finding stuff about a Wapiti station that shouldn't exist. A giant conspiracy happens and the game starts getting interesting but the formula doesn't really change. Delilah sends you somewhere and you go do it. You find clues and you report back to her. You spent the entire game constantly chatting with her and the time you found out how someone has been listening in on your conversation and then Delilah saying the two of you should stop talking for awhile really puts it in perspective how lonely it is out here without her. Its really quite unnerving to hear silence on the radio. The ending is pretty great too. It doesn't try too hard to give you a bad ending or a good ending, but a realistic ending. While some people were disappointed about it, I enjoyed how it ended. This summer was your escape from reality, and eventually you have to face it and return. What you choose to do is up to you.
While I found this game to be interesting, it is quite short. It can be finished in a couple of hours and most people will find that isn't worth the cost for the game especially since there is little to no replayability. If you're a fan of Gone Home or another narrative story game then you will enjoy this and probably worth the cost. Otherwise wait for a steam sale or something before grabbing it. However if you hate walking around doing nothing or listening to random conversations then this game obviously isn't for you. You don't get to do any fighting. There is nothing out here in the forest but you and your radio.
What is the game about? There really isn't much you can say without spoiling the game too much so I'll just say its about a game about a man named Henry going through a midlife crisis. When you first start the game you get a little text narration of your life going from how you met your wife Julia, to how you ended up at Firewatch. The narration will constantly give you multiple choices on how you want to react in certain situations. It doesn't change the story at all, but it changes little things and affect your conversations with Delilah. Basically it starts with how you met your wife and then the years you spent with her and her eventually suffering from dementia at the age of 40 and how your life spiraled into drinking and petty arguments with your estranged wife and her family. Eventually you decided to run away from it all and take a summer job in Firewatch as a park ranger away from civilization. You will then spend the next few months there with your boss talking about anything and everything from her failed attempts to marriage and running away here for a decade to random conversations about trees. You start from being annoyed by her constant prodding into your personal life and sarcastic remarks but eventually both you and Henry will get along with her. Shes very realistic in the way friends egg each other on and is quite entertaining since she will be your only human interaction for the entire summer. Then shit starts happening.
The first half of the game is sort of calm and in a way boring. Delilah gives you instructions to pick up a supply drop, someone setting of fireworks in the forest go warn them, check out that smoke pillar in the distance, blah blah blah. Its relaxing walking in the trees with no one around and soaking in the image and sounds of nature then Delilah pops up on the radio to give you a friendly jab to remind yourself that you are not quite alone. At the second half, you start noticing shit happening. Someone breaks into your tower while you're away throwing your shit out the window stealing your stuff. Someone cut the phone lines so you cannot call for help. Getting attacked from behind and finding stuff about a Wapiti station that shouldn't exist. A giant conspiracy happens and the game starts getting interesting but the formula doesn't really change. Delilah sends you somewhere and you go do it. You find clues and you report back to her. You spent the entire game constantly chatting with her and the time you found out how someone has been listening in on your conversation and then Delilah saying the two of you should stop talking for awhile really puts it in perspective how lonely it is out here without her. Its really quite unnerving to hear silence on the radio. The ending is pretty great too. It doesn't try too hard to give you a bad ending or a good ending, but a realistic ending. While some people were disappointed about it, I enjoyed how it ended. This summer was your escape from reality, and eventually you have to face it and return. What you choose to do is up to you.
While I found this game to be interesting, it is quite short. It can be finished in a couple of hours and most people will find that isn't worth the cost for the game especially since there is little to no replayability. If you're a fan of Gone Home or another narrative story game then you will enjoy this and probably worth the cost. Otherwise wait for a steam sale or something before grabbing it. However if you hate walking around doing nothing or listening to random conversations then this game obviously isn't for you. You don't get to do any fighting. There is nothing out here in the forest but you and your radio.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
Song of the Deep - Adventures of a child prodigy
When I first saw this game, the first thing that came to my mind was, this is Aquaria, Its both set in an underwater world with the ruins of ancient sea dwelling civilizations with great music and visuals. They are also both metroidvanias. However if you're expecting the game to be equal or better than Aquaria then you'll be disappointed. That doesn't mean the game is bad, its just not as complex as the game it was based on. This game was made by the creators of Ratchet & Clank, and Spyro the Dragon. They were inspired by Aquaria to make a game with a heroine that the developer's daughter could relate to and what came out of it was this game.
Lets start with the story. The game begins with you, Merryn, a 12 year old girl whose fisherman father has gone missing one day and you had a vision where he was trapped under the sea. Using your skills, you build a submarine from scratch and then dive under the sea to find ancient civilizations with mechanical cities and constructs that surpasses the ones on land. First of all, they wanted a character little girls can relate to but what the fuck is this. I don't know about you, but when I was 12 years old I wasn't able to build submarines. Nor do I know what Tyne reactors do and how they will shoot a torpedo of pure energy at enemy fish and how if I trade shiny coins with a giant blushing hermit crab he will give me parts where I can install helix rockets to my submarine or electrical grappling hooks. Ok fine maybe the game is a little unrealistic but that doesn't hurt the game in any way. The story has a narrator and she narrates everything that happens, as well as give clues on what to do next and she does it in the style of a children's book along with colourful drawings. However, the story is short and has many plot holes. Like how does Merryn know what the name of the areas are? How does she know who the Merrow or Fomori are? And how does she know a giant sonar tower under the sea was used by the Fomori to hunt Merrows? We are going to just accept the fact the Merryn magically knows everything? Outside of that the story is enjoyable enough but its short and purposely left vague and unanswered with hints of a potential sequel if enough demand.
The game is played as a 2d sidescroller with full exploration of the world with blocked off areas that require upgrades. These usually contain optional upgrades and if you follow the story will end up skipping these. However, I find them to be the best parts of the game because they usually involve puzzles of some kind. To explore the world, you have a grappling hook you can grab onto things with on your submarine. It can also be used as a weapon along with 3 different torpedos and a sonar explosion. Combat compared to Aquaria is more fun but at the same time, more boring because the game only has five different enemies and two bosses. Jellyfish, angler fish, urchins, crabs, nautilus are the five enemies you'll meet. There's also the red reaper squids but we don't get to fight them. Instead they are immortal, move stupidly fast, and one kill you when they get near. You don't even get to dodge they just gravitational pull you towards them, freeze your controls, then you watch them kill you in one hit. The worst part is an area where you have to escape a hoard of them by dodging wood spikes, opening a gate by pulling it with your grappling hook, sea anemones, shoot down two lava walls and a ice wall, navigate through two circles of water currents, and lastly a short burst before you reach the exit. The time they give you is so specific that one mistake, one bump, one error will get you instant killed. Worst part is they spawn magically through the walls so even if you outrun the previous ones, the new ones will spawn infront of you and kill you instantly with no way to dodge because of its gravitational pull and control freezing. Bosses however are super easy and you don't even attack them with your weapons.
In conclusion, the game isn't terrible but its definitely not very good. Its passable at best and frustrating at worst. If you've played Aquaria and likes metroidvanias and enjoy the ocean setting, then go ahead and try it. If you haven't played Aquaria, play it instead. If you don't like metroidvanias why are you even considering this game. I would wait for a sale to get the game otherwise just pick up Aquaria for a superior game for a cheaper price.
Lets start with the story. The game begins with you, Merryn, a 12 year old girl whose fisherman father has gone missing one day and you had a vision where he was trapped under the sea. Using your skills, you build a submarine from scratch and then dive under the sea to find ancient civilizations with mechanical cities and constructs that surpasses the ones on land. First of all, they wanted a character little girls can relate to but what the fuck is this. I don't know about you, but when I was 12 years old I wasn't able to build submarines. Nor do I know what Tyne reactors do and how they will shoot a torpedo of pure energy at enemy fish and how if I trade shiny coins with a giant blushing hermit crab he will give me parts where I can install helix rockets to my submarine or electrical grappling hooks. Ok fine maybe the game is a little unrealistic but that doesn't hurt the game in any way. The story has a narrator and she narrates everything that happens, as well as give clues on what to do next and she does it in the style of a children's book along with colourful drawings. However, the story is short and has many plot holes. Like how does Merryn know what the name of the areas are? How does she know who the Merrow or Fomori are? And how does she know a giant sonar tower under the sea was used by the Fomori to hunt Merrows? We are going to just accept the fact the Merryn magically knows everything? Outside of that the story is enjoyable enough but its short and purposely left vague and unanswered with hints of a potential sequel if enough demand.
The game is played as a 2d sidescroller with full exploration of the world with blocked off areas that require upgrades. These usually contain optional upgrades and if you follow the story will end up skipping these. However, I find them to be the best parts of the game because they usually involve puzzles of some kind. To explore the world, you have a grappling hook you can grab onto things with on your submarine. It can also be used as a weapon along with 3 different torpedos and a sonar explosion. Combat compared to Aquaria is more fun but at the same time, more boring because the game only has five different enemies and two bosses. Jellyfish, angler fish, urchins, crabs, nautilus are the five enemies you'll meet. There's also the red reaper squids but we don't get to fight them. Instead they are immortal, move stupidly fast, and one kill you when they get near. You don't even get to dodge they just gravitational pull you towards them, freeze your controls, then you watch them kill you in one hit. The worst part is an area where you have to escape a hoard of them by dodging wood spikes, opening a gate by pulling it with your grappling hook, sea anemones, shoot down two lava walls and a ice wall, navigate through two circles of water currents, and lastly a short burst before you reach the exit. The time they give you is so specific that one mistake, one bump, one error will get you instant killed. Worst part is they spawn magically through the walls so even if you outrun the previous ones, the new ones will spawn infront of you and kill you instantly with no way to dodge because of its gravitational pull and control freezing. Bosses however are super easy and you don't even attack them with your weapons.
In conclusion, the game isn't terrible but its definitely not very good. Its passable at best and frustrating at worst. If you've played Aquaria and likes metroidvanias and enjoy the ocean setting, then go ahead and try it. If you haven't played Aquaria, play it instead. If you don't like metroidvanias why are you even considering this game. I would wait for a sale to get the game otherwise just pick up Aquaria for a superior game for a cheaper price.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Tree of Savior - Tree of shit
Tree of Savior is the spiritual successor to the very loved game Ragnarok Online. Ragnarok Online was a good game right? Well, lets take a look at it without our rose tinted goggles. Ragnarok Online is a grinding game where you spend hours and days of your life to get a few precious % of your exp bar while trying to kill mobs while being surrounded or KSed by million of bots. Drop rate for items were so low you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than actually getting them unless you bot. Bosses are tuned to one shot you so the strategy of fighting bosses is to use a big hit and then run or teleport away until it dies. They also have a long respawn timer, sometimes as long as half a day and you will be competing with a million other people on it. PvP is a mess where everyone either one shots or spam potions and never dies. Does this game sound fun to you? Looking back, no it doesn't. I do know why I spent years on that game though, it was because we didn't have anything better. Now our standards for games are higher we can forget about that such a shitty game existed.
Now, what about Tree of Savior, is it the same shit? Yes, and no. For starters, it is an incredibly grindy game but there are now quests thrown about where you can avoid a small bit of the tedium of grinding. However, the quests will eventually stop and you'll be forced to spend days killing the same 5 monsters in a spot contested by hundreds of people. The maps in Tree of Savior are small and the number of enemies are even smaller. Party exp is also heavily penalized so grouping up to kill mobs at the same speed you are soloing is a waste so everyone is a greedy asshole purposely stealing mobs whenever they can. You are pulling mobs into a pack to use an AoE? NOPE! Not if Archer Mcfuckface here shoots his arrow skill and pulls them away and kills them. Its not like you are able to spam your skills to kill monsters either. Most skills have a long delay and your basic attack does barely any damage unless you're lucky and picked a swordsman or archer class so you have to AoE to get the most out of them.
For the quests you get, it comes in a few varieties. Most of them are simple, kill 5 mobs finish a quest, collect 5 bear asses finish a quest, talk to asshole finish a quest. Some are the most idiotic ideas for a quest I've ever seen. Go and collect a plant. Well that seems simple enough right? Nope. Every time you pick one up you have a lets say 5% chance of it not failing. Now there are a few that spawn on a long cooldown and you see hundreds of people running around trying to pick up flowers but keep pricking themselves and bleeding all over the fucking place. Why was it designed that way? Then you get to the stupidest quests, the bosses. This game is lazy, it uses the same 10 bosses in the game with the same name over and over again. The level changes, their damage and health went up but nothing else. They all use the same attacks, they all share the same name, and they definitely didn't get more threatening than the time you met it at level 5. All they are is nothing more than a giant punching bag. You can't kill them very fast since their health is so high, but they don't really hit you either so its just a big waste of time.
Outside of those things its good right? There are a lot of classes right? Right there are a lot of classes but it doesn't really mean much when each class only comes with 4 skills. Going up a circle adds two more for circle 2 and another for circle 3. Each class has a rank and as you rank up you open up different classes depending on rank, or you can upgrade a previous class by increasing its circle level, up to a level of 3. However most of the classes, and most of the skills are pure shit. Instead of having a single class with many useful skills, you have many classes with many worthless skills. It looks complex and amazing at first, but once you realize how shitty the majority of the classes are you basically are forced into one path because none of the other classes or skills are worth picking up.
What if you just want to make a guild and play with friends? Nope! Not here! You'll have to level up a templar class, which is a rank 7 class that requires a base level of about 220. This would take months to get to just to make a guild. Whats worse is you need to waste a class change to turn into a templar whose skills consist entirely of guild stuff. A guild can also kidnap people. Inviting someone into a guild and if they join they are unable to leave. Spam invite in an area where people are commonly asking for grind parties will have a few people accidentally accept eventually. When other guilds declare war on you they will get killed and become unable to play. The Korean servers basically broke down because one guild invited a mass of people and got them killed every time they logged in and with no way to leave they spent the rest of the time logged out and on the forums complaining only to have IMC/Nexon reply with "its intended."
Tree of Savior is a free to play game, which means its a game designed to make you spend as much money as possible while giving the player as little gameplay as possible. They even released the game while its still incomplete and in beta. Its officially launched, but its completely full of bugs and unfinished shit all because if its launched they can start charging people money. You can buy costumes, hair dyes, and other shit for like 20 bucks each. You can even buy resurrection tokens so you can instantly revive where you died at. Then they added tokens, which is premium. It gives you a bonus 30% increased exp, along with a lot of extra stuff like bonus movement speed and increased dungeon runs by 1, and loot reroll chances. Also they removed the ability to trade between players without premium subscription. Yes you cannot trade in this game. Why? Because its designed to make you playing as long as possible, spending as much as possible, while giving you as little as possible.
Dungeons have a lockout timer of 24 hours. You can run these dungeons 1-2 times a day. A bonus run for premium subscription users. This makes sure people aren't spending too much time on the game and progressing too quickly. They need the premium to tick down while they make more content. World bosses have a 8 hour cooldown after killing one where it prevents you from getting any more loot. Oh so we can just run a dungeon kill a boss log out and come back tomorrow right? NOPE. It only ticks down when you are online. Yes you have to leave your character AFK for the timer to tick while eating away at your premium or whatever time based stuff you have. The no trading seems like a natural thing to do too. Low drop rate of good loot means they'll be doing dungeons/bosses a lot, and with a long lockout means they'll be running stuff for months, so make it so they can't trade so it makes it take even longer to get something. This makes sure they have plenty of time to make content while they are still milking players of money if they are premium subbed.
What do you expect from a game published by Nexon anyways? Something that isn't designed to drain all your time and money while giving you nothing? The sad part is the game has potential. The art design is beautiful, the music is amazing, the gameplay with a controller is great but everything else about this game is a giant mess. They were desperate in trying to get this game out as soon as possible to collect money. The only reason people even looked at this game was because it was carrying the name of Ragnarok Online. The developers worked on that game and kept calling this a spiritual successor. These type of grindy shit doesn't work in today's market anymore. You may have a group of hardcore Ragnarok Online fans but that isn't going to sustain a game especially when the free to play players all start to leave and leave the game littered with tons of bots from gold farmers. In conclusion, the game sucks, Nexon sucks, IMC sucks, Ragnarok Online sucked, free to play games suck, and the playerbase for these games suck.
Now, what about Tree of Savior, is it the same shit? Yes, and no. For starters, it is an incredibly grindy game but there are now quests thrown about where you can avoid a small bit of the tedium of grinding. However, the quests will eventually stop and you'll be forced to spend days killing the same 5 monsters in a spot contested by hundreds of people. The maps in Tree of Savior are small and the number of enemies are even smaller. Party exp is also heavily penalized so grouping up to kill mobs at the same speed you are soloing is a waste so everyone is a greedy asshole purposely stealing mobs whenever they can. You are pulling mobs into a pack to use an AoE? NOPE! Not if Archer Mcfuckface here shoots his arrow skill and pulls them away and kills them. Its not like you are able to spam your skills to kill monsters either. Most skills have a long delay and your basic attack does barely any damage unless you're lucky and picked a swordsman or archer class so you have to AoE to get the most out of them.
For the quests you get, it comes in a few varieties. Most of them are simple, kill 5 mobs finish a quest, collect 5 bear asses finish a quest, talk to asshole finish a quest. Some are the most idiotic ideas for a quest I've ever seen. Go and collect a plant. Well that seems simple enough right? Nope. Every time you pick one up you have a lets say 5% chance of it not failing. Now there are a few that spawn on a long cooldown and you see hundreds of people running around trying to pick up flowers but keep pricking themselves and bleeding all over the fucking place. Why was it designed that way? Then you get to the stupidest quests, the bosses. This game is lazy, it uses the same 10 bosses in the game with the same name over and over again. The level changes, their damage and health went up but nothing else. They all use the same attacks, they all share the same name, and they definitely didn't get more threatening than the time you met it at level 5. All they are is nothing more than a giant punching bag. You can't kill them very fast since their health is so high, but they don't really hit you either so its just a big waste of time.
Outside of those things its good right? There are a lot of classes right? Right there are a lot of classes but it doesn't really mean much when each class only comes with 4 skills. Going up a circle adds two more for circle 2 and another for circle 3. Each class has a rank and as you rank up you open up different classes depending on rank, or you can upgrade a previous class by increasing its circle level, up to a level of 3. However most of the classes, and most of the skills are pure shit. Instead of having a single class with many useful skills, you have many classes with many worthless skills. It looks complex and amazing at first, but once you realize how shitty the majority of the classes are you basically are forced into one path because none of the other classes or skills are worth picking up.
What if you just want to make a guild and play with friends? Nope! Not here! You'll have to level up a templar class, which is a rank 7 class that requires a base level of about 220. This would take months to get to just to make a guild. Whats worse is you need to waste a class change to turn into a templar whose skills consist entirely of guild stuff. A guild can also kidnap people. Inviting someone into a guild and if they join they are unable to leave. Spam invite in an area where people are commonly asking for grind parties will have a few people accidentally accept eventually. When other guilds declare war on you they will get killed and become unable to play. The Korean servers basically broke down because one guild invited a mass of people and got them killed every time they logged in and with no way to leave they spent the rest of the time logged out and on the forums complaining only to have IMC/Nexon reply with "its intended."
Tree of Savior is a free to play game, which means its a game designed to make you spend as much money as possible while giving the player as little gameplay as possible. They even released the game while its still incomplete and in beta. Its officially launched, but its completely full of bugs and unfinished shit all because if its launched they can start charging people money. You can buy costumes, hair dyes, and other shit for like 20 bucks each. You can even buy resurrection tokens so you can instantly revive where you died at. Then they added tokens, which is premium. It gives you a bonus 30% increased exp, along with a lot of extra stuff like bonus movement speed and increased dungeon runs by 1, and loot reroll chances. Also they removed the ability to trade between players without premium subscription. Yes you cannot trade in this game. Why? Because its designed to make you playing as long as possible, spending as much as possible, while giving you as little as possible.
Dungeons have a lockout timer of 24 hours. You can run these dungeons 1-2 times a day. A bonus run for premium subscription users. This makes sure people aren't spending too much time on the game and progressing too quickly. They need the premium to tick down while they make more content. World bosses have a 8 hour cooldown after killing one where it prevents you from getting any more loot. Oh so we can just run a dungeon kill a boss log out and come back tomorrow right? NOPE. It only ticks down when you are online. Yes you have to leave your character AFK for the timer to tick while eating away at your premium or whatever time based stuff you have. The no trading seems like a natural thing to do too. Low drop rate of good loot means they'll be doing dungeons/bosses a lot, and with a long lockout means they'll be running stuff for months, so make it so they can't trade so it makes it take even longer to get something. This makes sure they have plenty of time to make content while they are still milking players of money if they are premium subbed.
What do you expect from a game published by Nexon anyways? Something that isn't designed to drain all your time and money while giving you nothing? The sad part is the game has potential. The art design is beautiful, the music is amazing, the gameplay with a controller is great but everything else about this game is a giant mess. They were desperate in trying to get this game out as soon as possible to collect money. The only reason people even looked at this game was because it was carrying the name of Ragnarok Online. The developers worked on that game and kept calling this a spiritual successor. These type of grindy shit doesn't work in today's market anymore. You may have a group of hardcore Ragnarok Online fans but that isn't going to sustain a game especially when the free to play players all start to leave and leave the game littered with tons of bots from gold farmers. In conclusion, the game sucks, Nexon sucks, IMC sucks, Ragnarok Online sucked, free to play games suck, and the playerbase for these games suck.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Stardew Valley - You got dungeon crawling in my farming game
If you know what Harvest Moon is, you'll know what Stardew Valley is. This game doesn't even try to pretend its not a clone but rather embraces it. The game was developed by one guy, ConcernedApe for 3 years. The reason he started the game was he felt that Harvest Moon was moving too far from its roots and wanted a game that felt like the old SNES, n64, Playstation version of the game. What this game is, is a farming simulator. Not like the actual farming simulator game but a simplified, romanticized version of farming, along with gifting villagers, dungeon crawling, fishing, and other things. Like all Harvest Moon games, you inherited a farm from your grandfather and must change it from a desolate broken down heap of trash into a thriving farm filled with rows upon rows of crops. How you get there, is up to whatever path you choose.
Of all the different things you can do in the game, lets start with the most obvious, farming. When you first start the game you basically get dropped off on a huge plot of land. And when I say huge I meant huge. This massive and majestic beast of a farmland can fit five of the most recent handheld Harvest Moon games on the plot and still have room leftover. One thing the more recent games of the Harvest Moon series have been doing wrong was moving away from the farming roots. You get to open shops, fight monsters, tame animals, etc. But what happened to the farming? Isn't that the main reason the game was made? To simulate life as a farmer? Anyways back to your plot of land, you get a couple tools to start off, a watering can, a hoe, a scythe, a pickaxe, and an axe. You chop down some annoying trees, pickaxe away some rocks, scythe down some grass, hoe the land, plant the seeds you conveniently received from the mayor as a housewarming gift, and then water the seeds. This will be your daily routine for the rest of the game as you slowly expand the farmable area on your land. The tools can be upgraded to improve the cutting speed, or the area you can water and will help speed things up as you get better.
After repeating the steps above for a few days you'll notice that the crops are ready. The game is divided into 4 seasons, each 28 days long. Some crops take 5 days to grow, some others take 14, and some even take 24 days. Knowing what seeds to buy is an important thing to know. Do you buy seeds that take 14 days to grow because it gives the best return of cost per profit, or do you buy fast growing crops to start getting some income so you don't end up being poor and unable to do anything. Crops will grow in every season except winter unless you have a greenhouse. Each season has their own crops and most will not carry over to the other season. So don't plant a crop that takes 24 days to grow near the end of Spring or it'll wither and die as soon as Summer begins. Unless that crop is a multi season one like corn. Once the crops have grown, you can harvest them and throw them into the shipping bin where the mayor will come every night and pay you a sum of money the next morning for whatever you shipped. But what about winter? Will I starve to death?
The game also allows the raising of livestock. You can build a coop, which can house chickens and ducks who will lay eggs every day or every two days for ducks. They will need to eat hay every day, either from cutting down grass or buying them from the ranch in town. Eventually you will be able to house rabbits in the coop as well letting you collect wool from them. The barn can also be built and house cows, goats, sheep and pigs. Cows and goats can be milked, sheep can be sheared for wool, and pigs can be used to dig for truffles. These too need to be fed everyday, as well as petted. If you don't pet your livestock they will get mad and refuse to lay eggs or produce milk. One thing however, unlike something like Shepherds Crossing, you aren't able to slaughter them and harvest their meat. This is a romanticized version of farming, these animals are your friends and you must give your utmost love and affection. You could however, sell them. The ones which likes you more with more hearts, will sell for more. I don't know why but I guess pets who are raised with love taste better when you ship them off to the butcher. You could focus more on ranching, focusing more on creating artisan products from milk to make cheese or mayonnaise from eggs over farming crops if you want.
Another alternative to farming is fishing. Once you have acquired a fishing rod, you are able to start fishing in any body of water in the game. Starting off fishing may seem like a chore, and not much profit for the effort spent but as you get better, the easier it becomes to fish rarer fish which sells for ludicrous amounts of money. Fish are affected by seasons as well, but unlike crops you don't need to worry about when to plant them or what to do during winter. After you're done the daily chores of watering all your crops and feeding your livestock, you can spend the rest of the time fishing if you need that extra money. Another thing about fishing are crab pots. You can drop them in the ocean with bait and come back the next day to find stuff caught inside. Sometimes is garbage people threw in the ocean, sometimes its lobsters. Some fish will only show up in certain weathers, different time of days, or certain locations. Fishing is like a game within a game, and to catch them all require a lot of patience.
Last but not least, there is mining. You may enter the mines at any time and start digging your way down. There are monsters inside the mine and the game sort of turns into a dungeon crawl. You need to mine rocks and beneath them you may find ores, or ladders. The ladder lets you descend to the next floor and the ores are used to upgrade your tools. If you find gemstones they can be sold for money or gifted to people for big friendship points. Monsters also drop loot which can be sold for money. Mining can be quite profitable as you start digging deeper into the mine. Every 5 levels is an elevator that acts as a shortcut for the next time you go down. However, if you die inside the mine you will get knocked out, sent to the hospital or woken up at the entrance of the mine and the jerk monsters will steal your gold, 5 items you are carrying and also you will suffer a concussion that makes you forget the last 10 levels you dug and have to find the elevators all over again. Do not get knocked out as its a huge setback. But the greater the risk the greater the rewards.
This is not everything in the game either, there is an actual story. You basically left city life working at the Joja offices to become a farmer. However, at the countryside, an aggressive Joja Mart has set up shop and is driving local mom and pop stores out of business. There are two ways to tackle this problem, the common sense route is to fight the problem by showing this town is worth saving by starting with the town center. Inside there, little spirits have made it its home and you can do bundle quests to restore it to how it was before. These bundles are made from all sorts of things ranging from crops, to fish, to ores, to cooked food. Basically it makes you do everything in the game and rewards you with small items and unlocks new areas and things to do in the game. The other way is to become a Joja Mart member and buy the town hall and have it demolished into a storage facility and then buy the rest of the upgrades directly instead of doing bundles. This goes against everything harvest moon but its for people who don't like to collect items and doing little quests and just want to shove money so they can unlock the same things. These unlocks range from accessing the mine carts in town for fast travel, to fixing the bus stop so you can ride to the desert, a second area/town with more villagers, crops, a harder more difficult mine, and even a difficult dungeon to dungeon crawl in.
The game alone without the story and unlocked new areas would be amazing but adding these little extra things push it far above the Harvest Moon series. Its everything Harvest Moon was and is, but done better and expanded upon. Dungeon crawling adds a new element to the farming game and is comparable to something like the Rune Factory spinoffs for Harvest Moon. If you like anything from the Harvest Moon series you'll love this game. If you don't know and never tried, this game will be a good one to get started with as its simple to pick up and filled to the brim with complexity if you wished it to be. You can skip all the combat if you wished and just go the Joja Mart route if you wished. The best thing? This game is a quarter of the price of Harvest Moon at only $15 so its cheap to pick up and try compared to the Harvest Moon series. A quarter of the price and tenfold in content, its no wonder this game is getting so much praise and became one of the top games on steam after only a week of its release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot7uXNQskhs
Of all the different things you can do in the game, lets start with the most obvious, farming. When you first start the game you basically get dropped off on a huge plot of land. And when I say huge I meant huge. This massive and majestic beast of a farmland can fit five of the most recent handheld Harvest Moon games on the plot and still have room leftover. One thing the more recent games of the Harvest Moon series have been doing wrong was moving away from the farming roots. You get to open shops, fight monsters, tame animals, etc. But what happened to the farming? Isn't that the main reason the game was made? To simulate life as a farmer? Anyways back to your plot of land, you get a couple tools to start off, a watering can, a hoe, a scythe, a pickaxe, and an axe. You chop down some annoying trees, pickaxe away some rocks, scythe down some grass, hoe the land, plant the seeds you conveniently received from the mayor as a housewarming gift, and then water the seeds. This will be your daily routine for the rest of the game as you slowly expand the farmable area on your land. The tools can be upgraded to improve the cutting speed, or the area you can water and will help speed things up as you get better.
After repeating the steps above for a few days you'll notice that the crops are ready. The game is divided into 4 seasons, each 28 days long. Some crops take 5 days to grow, some others take 14, and some even take 24 days. Knowing what seeds to buy is an important thing to know. Do you buy seeds that take 14 days to grow because it gives the best return of cost per profit, or do you buy fast growing crops to start getting some income so you don't end up being poor and unable to do anything. Crops will grow in every season except winter unless you have a greenhouse. Each season has their own crops and most will not carry over to the other season. So don't plant a crop that takes 24 days to grow near the end of Spring or it'll wither and die as soon as Summer begins. Unless that crop is a multi season one like corn. Once the crops have grown, you can harvest them and throw them into the shipping bin where the mayor will come every night and pay you a sum of money the next morning for whatever you shipped. But what about winter? Will I starve to death?
The game also allows the raising of livestock. You can build a coop, which can house chickens and ducks who will lay eggs every day or every two days for ducks. They will need to eat hay every day, either from cutting down grass or buying them from the ranch in town. Eventually you will be able to house rabbits in the coop as well letting you collect wool from them. The barn can also be built and house cows, goats, sheep and pigs. Cows and goats can be milked, sheep can be sheared for wool, and pigs can be used to dig for truffles. These too need to be fed everyday, as well as petted. If you don't pet your livestock they will get mad and refuse to lay eggs or produce milk. One thing however, unlike something like Shepherds Crossing, you aren't able to slaughter them and harvest their meat. This is a romanticized version of farming, these animals are your friends and you must give your utmost love and affection. You could however, sell them. The ones which likes you more with more hearts, will sell for more. I don't know why but I guess pets who are raised with love taste better when you ship them off to the butcher. You could focus more on ranching, focusing more on creating artisan products from milk to make cheese or mayonnaise from eggs over farming crops if you want.
Another alternative to farming is fishing. Once you have acquired a fishing rod, you are able to start fishing in any body of water in the game. Starting off fishing may seem like a chore, and not much profit for the effort spent but as you get better, the easier it becomes to fish rarer fish which sells for ludicrous amounts of money. Fish are affected by seasons as well, but unlike crops you don't need to worry about when to plant them or what to do during winter. After you're done the daily chores of watering all your crops and feeding your livestock, you can spend the rest of the time fishing if you need that extra money. Another thing about fishing are crab pots. You can drop them in the ocean with bait and come back the next day to find stuff caught inside. Sometimes is garbage people threw in the ocean, sometimes its lobsters. Some fish will only show up in certain weathers, different time of days, or certain locations. Fishing is like a game within a game, and to catch them all require a lot of patience.
Last but not least, there is mining. You may enter the mines at any time and start digging your way down. There are monsters inside the mine and the game sort of turns into a dungeon crawl. You need to mine rocks and beneath them you may find ores, or ladders. The ladder lets you descend to the next floor and the ores are used to upgrade your tools. If you find gemstones they can be sold for money or gifted to people for big friendship points. Monsters also drop loot which can be sold for money. Mining can be quite profitable as you start digging deeper into the mine. Every 5 levels is an elevator that acts as a shortcut for the next time you go down. However, if you die inside the mine you will get knocked out, sent to the hospital or woken up at the entrance of the mine and the jerk monsters will steal your gold, 5 items you are carrying and also you will suffer a concussion that makes you forget the last 10 levels you dug and have to find the elevators all over again. Do not get knocked out as its a huge setback. But the greater the risk the greater the rewards.
This is not everything in the game either, there is an actual story. You basically left city life working at the Joja offices to become a farmer. However, at the countryside, an aggressive Joja Mart has set up shop and is driving local mom and pop stores out of business. There are two ways to tackle this problem, the common sense route is to fight the problem by showing this town is worth saving by starting with the town center. Inside there, little spirits have made it its home and you can do bundle quests to restore it to how it was before. These bundles are made from all sorts of things ranging from crops, to fish, to ores, to cooked food. Basically it makes you do everything in the game and rewards you with small items and unlocks new areas and things to do in the game. The other way is to become a Joja Mart member and buy the town hall and have it demolished into a storage facility and then buy the rest of the upgrades directly instead of doing bundles. This goes against everything harvest moon but its for people who don't like to collect items and doing little quests and just want to shove money so they can unlock the same things. These unlocks range from accessing the mine carts in town for fast travel, to fixing the bus stop so you can ride to the desert, a second area/town with more villagers, crops, a harder more difficult mine, and even a difficult dungeon to dungeon crawl in.
The game alone without the story and unlocked new areas would be amazing but adding these little extra things push it far above the Harvest Moon series. Its everything Harvest Moon was and is, but done better and expanded upon. Dungeon crawling adds a new element to the farming game and is comparable to something like the Rune Factory spinoffs for Harvest Moon. If you like anything from the Harvest Moon series you'll love this game. If you don't know and never tried, this game will be a good one to get started with as its simple to pick up and filled to the brim with complexity if you wished it to be. You can skip all the combat if you wished and just go the Joja Mart route if you wished. The best thing? This game is a quarter of the price of Harvest Moon at only $15 so its cheap to pick up and try compared to the Harvest Moon series. A quarter of the price and tenfold in content, its no wonder this game is getting so much praise and became one of the top games on steam after only a week of its release.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot7uXNQskhs
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