Lets start with how this game first started off. It started off as a kickstarter for a new Tim Schafer adventure game. Tim Schafer is mostly known for games such Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Psychonauts and many more. People went apeshit when they found out he was making a new game and threw money at him. It was one of the most successful kickstarters at that time and soon after many games followed the same path. However after getting the money the game wasn't a smooth path full of rainbows and sunshines. Halfway through development they ran out of money. You might be going "didn't they get a ton of money?" Its true they did but they severely underestimated how much the backer rewards would end up costing them. However that is not all to blame, the majority of the money was said to be misspent by Tim Schafer. Because of this, the game was split into two acts that enraged the fanbase. People didn't want to wait another two years to finish the game. However Double Fine didn't care, they wanted the game out to start making money to fund the second act.
When the first act came out people were actually surprised at how good the game was but really criticized the length and the difficulty. That was the biggest issue with the game and what would eventually become the biggest downfall of Broken Age. The game lets you play two different characters, Vella, and Shay. They live in two different worlds but their stories overlap. Vella was chosen for the maiden feast in her village that appears every 14 years. During that time, a monster called Mog Chothra appears and eats the maidens in return for not destroying their village. While everyone is happy and congratulating her for being chosen, she couldn't help think that there may be a better way, perhaps such as fighting the Mog Chothra. So during the feast she runs away and rebel against what was expected of her. There she meets the people from the various villages and eventually kills the Mog Chothra.
For Shay, its a little simpler. Shay is a boy trapped on a spaceship run by a supercomputer who calls itself Mom. Here he spends every day doing the exact same thing over and over again. Doing the same fake adventures set up by Mom. However one day he meets a stowaway called Marek who asks him if he's done playing children's games and is up for real adventure. He manages to convince Shay to hijack the ship and rescue citizens on various planets while avoiding the enemy. However during one mission his ship was attacked and shot down. He notices a bright light in a crack in the emptiness of space. As he walks through that crack he ends up walking out of Mog Chothra's mouth. The entire time, he was tricked into thinking he was all alone and the people he was "rescuing" were actually the maidens being kidnapped for evil purposes. Vella realizing the entire Mog Chothra thing was a fake tries to punch Shay, misses and falls into the Mog Chothra while the mouth closes. Shay now trapped on the outside and Vella now trapped on the inside. Then Act 1 ends and everyone went I WANT MORE.
As mentioned before there were a lot of issues people complained about for the first act. Because this game was made on kickstarter, Tim Schafer listened to a lot of feedback and one of the biggest ones was how the game was too easy. So he decided to redo all the puzzles in the second act. Then after listening to feedback, decided to retcon the entire story in act 2 and rewrite everything. This caused the game to delay for more than a year. What eventually did come out from all this was a giant mess of a game. To save money, the reused the same npcs and areas as the first one. Then for no reason they made Shay's parents to be real people instead of a supercomputer which completely made no sense. The puzzles became harder which isn't that bad but some of them are so stupid you want to punch Tim Schafer in the face. For example, one "puzzle" needs you to get rid of the toppings of a cupcake. Why you can't lick it off yourself is beyond me but basically you have to walk around and offer the cupcake to everyone you see until that one person eventually licks it off. Other puzzles have you memorize obscure shapes in a photograph in Vella's story to solve a puzzle in Shay's story. That doesn't even make sense. How the fuck would Shay know what to do here? Whats worse is they do that shit more than once. You need to rewire your workerbots and you learn the answer on Shay and have to have Vella rewire it even though she lives in a village where technology doesn't exist yet magically understands how through a 500 year old book found in a broken down ship in Shay's story that he reads.
While this caused the most anger amongst the fans, the final nail in the coffin was probably the ending. You would think that the two protagonists would meet or something and work together but they never do. They never talk to each other or care the other exists. Vella just wants the Mog Chothras to stop eating girls, and Shay just wants to get "home."Why they are even captured isn't even fully explained. The big bad guy shows up and tells Vella that they modified themselves too much and become weak, so they need to collect girls with good genetic material to save their dying race. While creepy as fuck it wasn't as creepy as it sounds. They just end up being blended in a giant blender and then applied as cream onto the immortal ugly looking race of people. The end story was probably changed a bit since act 1 and act 2. However at the end of the game Shay rebuilds a Mog and Vella hijacks the Mog Shay was on and tries to run away with it and they both crash, while the enemy are shooting cannons at it. Vella sets off a super laser and melts the two ships and they barely get away. There Shay and Vella meets for the first time and stare at each other and the game ends. What happened? Why are they staring at each other while the enemy was obviously still firing their cannons. Do they get captured? Do they fight back? Why did it suddenly end like that.
And there you have it, the broken game known as Broken Age. While the first act was decent, the second act was a complete mess of retcons and obscure puzzles that made no sense. The game itself is fairly short, it shouldn't take longer than a few hours to finish and there really is only like three areas in the entire game. The sky village, the beach, and the spaceship. The entire game takes place in these three areas. Tim Schafer said this was the smallest budget for a game he ever had to work with so that was probably why the game was so small. It doesn't excuse act 2 to reuse the same areas and the same npcs for the puzzles. If act 2 wasn't released so late, this probably wouldn't even be a huge issue. It was during that one year in development that they had to scrap everything based on player feedback. In conclusion, trust yourself, don't listen to the fans. Actually no, that's not right. Listen to your fans but don't fuck it up. If you do they get mad.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Azure Dreams - Dungeon Cralwer meets town builder meets monster raising simulator
I really like dungeon crawler roguelikes for some reason. I was playing the more recent Crypt of the Necrodancer and I was wondering when this all started. The earliest I could remember enjoying something like that was Azure Dreams. The game is a dungeon crawler roguelike with a town building simulator, kind of like Dark Cloud in a way. Basically you spend the entire game trying to climb the 100 floor tower while collecting items. Each time you go in you are reduced to level 1. Everytime you die you lose everything you have. If you managed to find a rare wind crystal you can warp back to town and keep all the loot you find, which is used to upgrade the town. Unless you find a monster egg! This game has a huge variety of monsters which can be hatched and then raised to level and fight with you. Some monsters if you raise them long enough can evolve into new monsters as well. If you want to you can also fuse monsters together making them incredibly powerful. It basically has everything you can wish for.
When you first start the game you get a few cut scenes of your dad teaching you to be nice to girls and stop picking on girls. Then fast forward to a dark and stormy night where you are waiting for your monster hunter father to come home when suddenly the door bursts open and one of your dad's monsters walk in without him. Then everyone realizes he is dead because there's no way it will come back without him. Then fast forward a decade and its your 15th birthday! You're getting woken up by your tomboy childhood friend neighbor who kicks you out of bed, literally. You wake up talk to a priest, get blessed, blah blah blah, after an hour of talking you finally get to head into the tower. There you meet a random talking monster who wants to be your friend and the two of you head off into the dungeon to beat up monsters. Combat is simple. Everything is turn based and you have to walk in either of the 4 directions and even move diagonally. You may attack in front of where you are looking at or use and item. Every time you move or attack, the enemy will move or attack as well. Your monsters are AI controlled and will fight on their own. You may set the pet to fight normally, conserve mana, use spells, or support. Supporting monsters will cast support magic for your weapon every time you swing. It will boost your attack but at the same time drain its mana. Once mana is depleted the monster will be unable to fight and has to be returned into your bag. Mana also depletes over time while fighting/travelling around the tower as well.
Moving around the dungeon you will see the background change often. Usually every 5 levels you will reach a new area where different monsters will show up. Each monster has their own trait as well as skills. For example, a Kraken has electric skin that reflects damage back to the attacker. Its usually the first monster you meet in your mid teen floor and the first monster that will kick your ass so hard you sit there wondering what the heck happened. Something like a Block monster has really low attack but enormous armour. These are inherent traits in the monster that can be passed on in fusions. So for example, you can fuse a Kraken and a Block together to make a monster with both the electric skin and bonus armour. However, you can only keep the traits found on the original monster. Say you make a Kraken and it has both armour and skin if you fuse that to a Dreamin whose inherent trait is sleep immunity, you'll only keep electric skin and sleep immunity. You cannot pass the armour bonus down. You start off only able to bring one monster out at a time and later on you'll find another collar to bring two with you at a time. To find more monsters you need to collect eggs which are rare and a lot of the time not the monster you want.
So you beat up a few monster reach really far into the tower and then suddenly something comes over and punches you so hard you are one step from dying. If you die right here, all the eggs you have collected are gone, all the items and gold you got are gone. If you have a wind crystal, which are fairly common items in the dungeon, you can instantly warp back to town saving your hide and allowing you to keep everything. There is no way out of a dungeon except to use a wind crystal. There are no check points, no exit elevator no nothing. You might think this is an easy way to get out and you run no risk, think again. There are plenty of traps in the dungeon that can kill you as well as monsters using skills from across the screen killing you unexpectedly or a monster simply hitting too hard that you die before you can run away. When you get back to town, sell your items, you can spend the gold on upgrading the town or your own house. You start off in a little shack because your mom is a useless shit and didn't do anything for the last 10 years that your dad died except sell off his monster to get by. You need to support your family by beating monsters and spending that money on your house. Upgrading your house allows you to store more monsters and items as well as make it more visually pleasing. You can also buy items from the general store and customize your house to look more fancy. Besides upgrading the house, you can spend it on public buildings to help the entire town because they are useless shits that can't get anything done without the help of a 15 year old kid.
Public buildings serve one of two purposes. One is a time waster such as bowling and casinos. The other purpose is to meet girls. Yes this game also lets you romance a bunch of girls that ranges from your childhood friend, to some dying sickly 8 year old, to some 20ish dancer from out of town. In the Japanese version you can also romance your rival but homosexuality is frowned upon in the west so it was removed. Marriage was also removed because the people involved are too young, as well as gay marriage being illegal. Romancing girls are pretty easy depending on which girl. For example your childhood friend, Nico, you need to build fountains and other "cultural" buildings and once your rival's sister starts showing interest in you because you reached very high in the tower, she will realize she loves you and that you are actually a really cultured person. The sickly dying girl needs you to build a hospital, then find a rare herb on a high level floor and give it to her and she will magically be cured, but still really weak and gets tired often. The waitress Patty needs you to buy a lot of food and she will realize she loves you because you spend so much in her shop. Once you romance a girl she will randomly show up every morning to wake you up and then give you a goodbye kiss when you leave. If you romance a lot, a random one shows up. However once you upgrade to a big house. ALL OF THEM will show up and wake you up and kiss goodbye. This really really drags on every single day. If you want to leave sooner then keep an ugly house. The mid size house isn't that bad looking but if you want to live like a king then you have to spend 5 minutes with your harem every morning.
Overall there isn't too much to do in this game, and its not really very complex but its highly entertaining and will keep you entertained for hours. Finding good monsters then evolving and fusing them gives a sense of accomplishment and progression. Upgrading your town and romancing girls are a great distraction from the endless dungeon crawling. If you like dungeon crawlers or monster raising games, don't miss this one. Its one of the most overlooked gems on the PS1.
When you first start the game you get a few cut scenes of your dad teaching you to be nice to girls and stop picking on girls. Then fast forward to a dark and stormy night where you are waiting for your monster hunter father to come home when suddenly the door bursts open and one of your dad's monsters walk in without him. Then everyone realizes he is dead because there's no way it will come back without him. Then fast forward a decade and its your 15th birthday! You're getting woken up by your tomboy childhood friend neighbor who kicks you out of bed, literally. You wake up talk to a priest, get blessed, blah blah blah, after an hour of talking you finally get to head into the tower. There you meet a random talking monster who wants to be your friend and the two of you head off into the dungeon to beat up monsters. Combat is simple. Everything is turn based and you have to walk in either of the 4 directions and even move diagonally. You may attack in front of where you are looking at or use and item. Every time you move or attack, the enemy will move or attack as well. Your monsters are AI controlled and will fight on their own. You may set the pet to fight normally, conserve mana, use spells, or support. Supporting monsters will cast support magic for your weapon every time you swing. It will boost your attack but at the same time drain its mana. Once mana is depleted the monster will be unable to fight and has to be returned into your bag. Mana also depletes over time while fighting/travelling around the tower as well.
Moving around the dungeon you will see the background change often. Usually every 5 levels you will reach a new area where different monsters will show up. Each monster has their own trait as well as skills. For example, a Kraken has electric skin that reflects damage back to the attacker. Its usually the first monster you meet in your mid teen floor and the first monster that will kick your ass so hard you sit there wondering what the heck happened. Something like a Block monster has really low attack but enormous armour. These are inherent traits in the monster that can be passed on in fusions. So for example, you can fuse a Kraken and a Block together to make a monster with both the electric skin and bonus armour. However, you can only keep the traits found on the original monster. Say you make a Kraken and it has both armour and skin if you fuse that to a Dreamin whose inherent trait is sleep immunity, you'll only keep electric skin and sleep immunity. You cannot pass the armour bonus down. You start off only able to bring one monster out at a time and later on you'll find another collar to bring two with you at a time. To find more monsters you need to collect eggs which are rare and a lot of the time not the monster you want.
So you beat up a few monster reach really far into the tower and then suddenly something comes over and punches you so hard you are one step from dying. If you die right here, all the eggs you have collected are gone, all the items and gold you got are gone. If you have a wind crystal, which are fairly common items in the dungeon, you can instantly warp back to town saving your hide and allowing you to keep everything. There is no way out of a dungeon except to use a wind crystal. There are no check points, no exit elevator no nothing. You might think this is an easy way to get out and you run no risk, think again. There are plenty of traps in the dungeon that can kill you as well as monsters using skills from across the screen killing you unexpectedly or a monster simply hitting too hard that you die before you can run away. When you get back to town, sell your items, you can spend the gold on upgrading the town or your own house. You start off in a little shack because your mom is a useless shit and didn't do anything for the last 10 years that your dad died except sell off his monster to get by. You need to support your family by beating monsters and spending that money on your house. Upgrading your house allows you to store more monsters and items as well as make it more visually pleasing. You can also buy items from the general store and customize your house to look more fancy. Besides upgrading the house, you can spend it on public buildings to help the entire town because they are useless shits that can't get anything done without the help of a 15 year old kid.
Public buildings serve one of two purposes. One is a time waster such as bowling and casinos. The other purpose is to meet girls. Yes this game also lets you romance a bunch of girls that ranges from your childhood friend, to some dying sickly 8 year old, to some 20ish dancer from out of town. In the Japanese version you can also romance your rival but homosexuality is frowned upon in the west so it was removed. Marriage was also removed because the people involved are too young, as well as gay marriage being illegal. Romancing girls are pretty easy depending on which girl. For example your childhood friend, Nico, you need to build fountains and other "cultural" buildings and once your rival's sister starts showing interest in you because you reached very high in the tower, she will realize she loves you and that you are actually a really cultured person. The sickly dying girl needs you to build a hospital, then find a rare herb on a high level floor and give it to her and she will magically be cured, but still really weak and gets tired often. The waitress Patty needs you to buy a lot of food and she will realize she loves you because you spend so much in her shop. Once you romance a girl she will randomly show up every morning to wake you up and then give you a goodbye kiss when you leave. If you romance a lot, a random one shows up. However once you upgrade to a big house. ALL OF THEM will show up and wake you up and kiss goodbye. This really really drags on every single day. If you want to leave sooner then keep an ugly house. The mid size house isn't that bad looking but if you want to live like a king then you have to spend 5 minutes with your harem every morning.
Overall there isn't too much to do in this game, and its not really very complex but its highly entertaining and will keep you entertained for hours. Finding good monsters then evolving and fusing them gives a sense of accomplishment and progression. Upgrading your town and romancing girls are a great distraction from the endless dungeon crawling. If you like dungeon crawlers or monster raising games, don't miss this one. Its one of the most overlooked gems on the PS1.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Exclusive Titles - Fucking over your competitor is a selling point
No one cares about exclusive titles. Console companies make huge announcements like "we are getting a new exclusive title!" or "so and so has became a Playstation exclusive!" during conventions while the crowds cheer. Why? Why the fuck does this matter? Why are you happy that its exclusive? Because your shitty friends who bought Xbone instead of your "totally superior" Playstation 4 can't play it? So you can rub it in their faces and laugh as they watch on the side lines in envy? We shouldn't give a fuck if its exclusive or not. Its the consoles that are getting anything out of this. By making it an exclusive you are forced to buy their console to play that game. Why are they making an announcement on something becoming exclusive? And fuck the people who say they should exist because they bought a specific console. Just because you bought a Playstation, a Playstation 2, Playstation 3, and a Playstation 4, doesn't mean you never want to play the games on Xbox. Sure you get something like Uncharted but what if you want to play Halo? You're fucked.
Exclusive titles shouldn't exist. Its limiting the games you can play and more people should be annoyed by this instead of just letting it slide as more and more games become exclusive titles. That isn't all though. These companies have started to get exclusive content for specific versions. Only certain consoles get new maps, new updates, etc. Xbox players will quickly appear to mention that Playstation sucks and they deserve it for buying a shitty console. Can we end this console war? Or this whole PC is superior to everything shit. We're all gamers why does it matter one person chose Playstation or Xbox or Wii or PC or handheld or whatever else they are trying to play. Companies are trying really hard to ignite a war amongst gamers so they will keep buying their console. It enforces the idea that they made the right choice in their console and that you won't suddenly jump ship to the new Playstation6 or Xdogs or whatever new console is out. It promotes the whole "Got mine, Fuck you" mentality. While we're busy fucking each other over, these companies are fucking us over by not giving the games and content we want to play.
Then there is the whole PC shit. I play PC, I don't play much consoles. There has been this sudden rise in the whole PC superiority thing going on. PC gamers feel superior to console gamers because apparently they have better graphics and better FPS. You also get modding and other stuff while playing on the PC. Can you imagine Skyrim without mods? Well to be honest, yes because I played the game without mods. I don't care about mods. So this doesn't affect me at all. I have a controller that I use to play a lot of games so mouse/keyboard doesn't feel superior or affect me in any way. Yet there are people who flaunt this to the console gamers creating an even bigger divide.
"Fucking console games ruining our PC games."
Hear that one often? Apparently a lot of gamers believe that AAA games made with lower graphics or a game gets delayed is because of console versions. That they have to downgrade graphics to fit onto consoles and that causes major delays in so people get their panties all up in a bunch. PC gamers also like to remind console gamers how many more PC exclusive titles they have and then whine about how a console exclusive isn't coming to PC because "developers are afraid of pirates when there are console pirates too." This whole console war isn't helping anyone. All it is doing is giving some sick satisfaction in fucking someone else over because they like someone else from you. Because they're different from you, because they're inferior to you. You want to believe you made the right choice by making all other alternatives look like shit. In the end what it all means is, gamers are fucking assholes. All of them. Every one of you assholes. Stop it. Its pathetic.
Exclusive titles shouldn't exist. Its limiting the games you can play and more people should be annoyed by this instead of just letting it slide as more and more games become exclusive titles. That isn't all though. These companies have started to get exclusive content for specific versions. Only certain consoles get new maps, new updates, etc. Xbox players will quickly appear to mention that Playstation sucks and they deserve it for buying a shitty console. Can we end this console war? Or this whole PC is superior to everything shit. We're all gamers why does it matter one person chose Playstation or Xbox or Wii or PC or handheld or whatever else they are trying to play. Companies are trying really hard to ignite a war amongst gamers so they will keep buying their console. It enforces the idea that they made the right choice in their console and that you won't suddenly jump ship to the new Playstation6 or Xdogs or whatever new console is out. It promotes the whole "Got mine, Fuck you" mentality. While we're busy fucking each other over, these companies are fucking us over by not giving the games and content we want to play.
Then there is the whole PC shit. I play PC, I don't play much consoles. There has been this sudden rise in the whole PC superiority thing going on. PC gamers feel superior to console gamers because apparently they have better graphics and better FPS. You also get modding and other stuff while playing on the PC. Can you imagine Skyrim without mods? Well to be honest, yes because I played the game without mods. I don't care about mods. So this doesn't affect me at all. I have a controller that I use to play a lot of games so mouse/keyboard doesn't feel superior or affect me in any way. Yet there are people who flaunt this to the console gamers creating an even bigger divide.
"Fucking console games ruining our PC games."
Hear that one often? Apparently a lot of gamers believe that AAA games made with lower graphics or a game gets delayed is because of console versions. That they have to downgrade graphics to fit onto consoles and that causes major delays in so people get their panties all up in a bunch. PC gamers also like to remind console gamers how many more PC exclusive titles they have and then whine about how a console exclusive isn't coming to PC because "developers are afraid of pirates when there are console pirates too." This whole console war isn't helping anyone. All it is doing is giving some sick satisfaction in fucking someone else over because they like someone else from you. Because they're different from you, because they're inferior to you. You want to believe you made the right choice by making all other alternatives look like shit. In the end what it all means is, gamers are fucking assholes. All of them. Every one of you assholes. Stop it. Its pathetic.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Dragon Age: Inquisition - Human race is master race
After knowing how bad Dragon Age 2 was, why would I ever want to try the third one? I've been asking myself that question every single time I write another one of these. Like Dragon Age 2, it has the same questionable writing, human race bias, shitty romance, and major plot holes. And like Dragon Age 2, it also has almost nothing to do with darkspawn. Isn't the reason for Dragon Age to exist is because of the blight? An army of darkspawn led by the archdemon, a dragon, and the gray wardens that stand against them. Its like imagine if Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros 4 and there was no Mario, or Luigi, or Bowser, or even the mushroom kingdom. Instead you play as a random guy called Wolfe and he goes around doing chores for random people and the game ends like that.
Like the first two Dragon Age games, this one is heavily human biased. The first one is not biased as much. You can play all races and there was a good representation of all races. Romances however, is only humans and elves. David Gaider, lead writer of Bioware states "I don't find dwarves attractive and I generally hate them so I won't write romances for them." Its not word by word but it exactly what he meant. So the only romances you have in all three of the Dragon Age series are humans or elves, with the exception being Iron Bull for DA:I. Most of the romances are locked out unless you are human or elf too, with the exception being Iron Bull. In DA2 you were only able to play as a human too, and the story centered around humans. DA:I, although you could play any race, mostly centered around humans too. I played a Elf and I have to point out that all the mage gear are locked out for me. I found a robe and it says "Human trained only." What the fuck is human trained? You fucking racists. My mage is sitting around with level one gear while the entire party is decked out in level 10 gear. How the fuck do I find gear that fits Elves?
So human bias aside, its nice that you are able to play as any race again. Even the Qunari is available this time around. The story focuses around you randomly showing up and causing the big bad guy's plan to go wrong and blow up the sky. You somehow magically stole his powers and are able to close the rifts that ripped across the world causing demons to travel through from another dimension. Then people started calling you the Herald of Andraste. Next thing you know the inquisition started and you have to go around closing rifts while the mages and templars are fighting each other and everyone else. Sounds very Dragon Age right? One thing I do like is the war room. You basically have three advisers that you can pick for certain missions. Should you send your spymaster to deal with this mission? or send your commander? Different advisers will give different results, and rewards. The missions are updated in real time. So if you look at the clock and its 4pm, the mission says 4 hours. You can fuck around with side quests for four hours or turn off the game and come back at 8pm to continue the mission. Missions also cost power to unlock, which is gained from side quests. Which brings us to another issue.
There are way too many side quests. I don't mind doing side quests if they are interesting. Like Skyrim I could wander around until I find something interesting and suddenly I'm exploring some ruins and find some quest. The majority of the quests I've seen you get from running across dead bodies on the floor or an NPC asks you to hunt ram for meat. The bodies always have a note and it always either leads to a loved one, a random chest, or to the killer. After coming across the hundredth body you start to wonder what the fuck you are doing in this game. This is boring. I don't want to go scavenger hunting for corpses. I want to fucking continue the story. Then head back to the war room and start a mission. I spent 7 hours fucking around with side quests in the first zone and barely finished a quarter of the area. I gave up and used all the power I got saved up and continued the main story. I opened up 3 more zones but I haven't bothered going there. Whats the point its just boring side quests that does shit for the main story. I don't want to fucking hunt bodies. But you have to because the power cost for mission start racking up quickly. What a way to pad game length. Side quests aren't the only thing you can or have to do though. You can claim landmarks or areas by running up and slamming a flag onto the floor like manifest destiny. A settler camp? a village? some castle? FUCK THAT. SLAM THAT FLAG DOWN. Its yours now. By claiming stuff you gain influence. With influence you can level up the inquisition rank and get more bonuses.
If you played the previous Dragon Ages you'll find that the combat in this one is more like DA2 than the first. Its more actiony and you focus more one one character while the AI controls everyone else. Unlike the second one though you can swap to the mode the first one uses. The one that gives you an overhead view and preplan out commands for the team. However all this is unnecessary because the AI is clearly balanced around playing a single person and having your three other teammates ram into the enemy with their faces until they die. Perhaps in the hardest difficulty you may need to plan things out. For this version, combat is mostly about holding down your autoattack button. If you are on PC that is the right mouse button, which is also the camera button. The camera is janky and chances are you'll end up fucking around with how you perfection positioned it by targetting an enemy. That is where you go to the options, plug in your controller, and select gamepad mode. Now things are looking better. You can use the right analog stick to position the camera, the left analog to move and the right back button to attack. This game feels like its intended to be played on a controller. However playing on the controller the jump button and the talk/action button is the same one so you end up hopping around when trying to open doors or get the attention of an NPC. Back to the combat, your mana or stamina pool is very small but it regenerates very quickly. A simple fire spell drains 80% of your mana so the rest of the time you are just holding down the button shooting ice shards from your staff. Every 10 seconds or so you click another button and hold down that autoattack! At least make it a toggle or something. Another thing I need to point out is that healing skills are removed from the game. There is also no natural regeneration. The only way to regenerate health is to drink healing potions. At the start you are able to carry 8 of them and they are automatically refilled everytime you go back to town. This is a giant pain in the ass. Its impossible to completely avoid damage so you're constantly going back to town. Whats worse is if you're like halfway into a dungeon and you're low or out of healing potions. Do you spend 20 minutes to walk back or you carry on and reload when things go wrong.
Exploration is a pain the ass from the issue mentioned above but there are more. I've mentioned how bad the quests are but getting to where you are supposed to get to is a pain in the ass too. The map screen is an ugly piece of shit where you can't tell what is what. Is this a mountain? Do I climb up somewhere? Is this underground? I'm supposed to find someone/something but the quest shows a giant ass circle, am I doing this right? One thing I have to point out, what is the fucking point of a jump button when there is nothing you can jump over. You see a rock in front of you and you decided to just jump over it instead of wasting a second to circle around. You jump get stuck, try again, get stuck, fiddle around and give up and walk around the damn thing. You just wasted a minute of your time. What the fuck is this piddly jump. Your feet barely lifts itself off the ground. You want to try climbing a hill for the quest? Don't bother jumping it doesn't do shit! The only way to climb up a fairly flat hill is to find the only path available up. Basically don't bother jumping just circle around stuff and pretend anything that's not flat ground to be an obstacle. Some quests appear on the mini map as a big purple circle meaning that the objective is somewhere inside there and you have to find it yourself. Its usually not that hard to find but I find it funny how big some of the circles can get. Its three times bigger than the town you were in and all you wanted to find was a NPC. Other quests are so long and tedious you look at it for one second and go "fuck this shit." Collect 8 caches hidden around all over the zone. Can you spread them out more? I find wasting 30 minutes traveling around on a single side quest very enjoyable. You do get a horse near the start of the game by doing a side quest. However the horse is slow as shit and you're constantly getting on and off to fight random enemies on the field or picking up stuff you run by. If it gets hit it magically disappears into nowhere and you have to resummon it again. Wait for it to show up, and then get back on. I find that the horse slows me down more than the tiny bonus speed it gives when you hold down the run button while mounted. Yes you need to hold the analog button down while moving to get it to run. The last issue I have with exploration is that the areas are badly balanced. You never know what is too high level until you die. The entire area of the zone could be level 4 but this single camp in the middle of it is super high leveled that one shots you the second you start combat. You run around kill a few monsters and gear drop for levels 8 and above. What? I'm here too early?
I haven't gotten very far into the story but so far its the same Bioware style writing. Everything is black or white and into the extremes. For example, during the mage path on the main quest, spoilers ahead, you basically get three choices. You free all the mages from the circle (pisses off your companions), you basically make them into your slaves (pisses off your other companions), or you basically leave them to their fate and die (pisses off the rest of your companions.) It uses the same chat wheel circle where the top right button is the nice response, the middle right button is the neutral response and the bottom right button is the rude response. This can also translate to good and evil choices as well. Do you give a man all your money with the top right button, or do you kill him and all his family and feed it to his dog with the bottom right button. One thing though, is when talking to romance-able companions is that a heart button will appear on the top left occasionally. This is like a get out of jail free card when it pops up. You're arguing with Cullen about freeing the mages when you are at the point where there is no way to move on without dropping his reputation for you, you click that fucking button. You can go from murder, death and angry arguing to "you're so handsome blah blah blah" and then you get bonus reputation. These buttons always show up at the oddest times. What kind of person in the middle of talking about enslaving mages suddenly decide to flirt. Its also the most awkward responses too. The only companion romance that seems interesting is Dorian, the gay Tevinter mage. He's a little arrogant but he's the least awkward of everyone. While Cassandra will babble on like shes stupid, Josephine will completely misinterpret, Greywall will tell you that you shouldn't pursue him, I want to puke when I talk to the racist Cullen, Sera is a pain in the ass, Solas hates me because I'm too elfy for him, Iron Bull doesn't give a fuck about what you are, and Vivienne the worst character ever. She completely hates my guts because I helped the mages and hates me because I'm a elf mage and its just been a huge hate war. I like to point out that you cannot kick companions out after recruiting them with the exception of Sera. I don't know what makes her special but from all the comments I've read about her and hundreds of pages of discussions about her. I can see why people really hate her and they gave us the option to kick her out.
This game is a mess. I'm not even trying to pick out the worst parts of the game because this is the entirety of the game. Everything about the game is bad or lacking in some way. I hold this game to high standards because I'm comparing it to the original Dragon Age and to other open world games like Skyrim. The thing is I really liked Dragon Age Origins. I wanted this game to succeed but it let me down more than Mass Effect 3 did. The game never jumps out to wow you its just mediocre. Everything feels generic and some of the decisions made for this game are questionable. Instead of making it an open world and filling it up with the most boring quests that makes grindy MMO quests look amazing, they could focus more on polishing the main story. The open world is just padding anyways.
Like the first two Dragon Age games, this one is heavily human biased. The first one is not biased as much. You can play all races and there was a good representation of all races. Romances however, is only humans and elves. David Gaider, lead writer of Bioware states "I don't find dwarves attractive and I generally hate them so I won't write romances for them." Its not word by word but it exactly what he meant. So the only romances you have in all three of the Dragon Age series are humans or elves, with the exception being Iron Bull for DA:I. Most of the romances are locked out unless you are human or elf too, with the exception being Iron Bull. In DA2 you were only able to play as a human too, and the story centered around humans. DA:I, although you could play any race, mostly centered around humans too. I played a Elf and I have to point out that all the mage gear are locked out for me. I found a robe and it says "Human trained only." What the fuck is human trained? You fucking racists. My mage is sitting around with level one gear while the entire party is decked out in level 10 gear. How the fuck do I find gear that fits Elves?
So human bias aside, its nice that you are able to play as any race again. Even the Qunari is available this time around. The story focuses around you randomly showing up and causing the big bad guy's plan to go wrong and blow up the sky. You somehow magically stole his powers and are able to close the rifts that ripped across the world causing demons to travel through from another dimension. Then people started calling you the Herald of Andraste. Next thing you know the inquisition started and you have to go around closing rifts while the mages and templars are fighting each other and everyone else. Sounds very Dragon Age right? One thing I do like is the war room. You basically have three advisers that you can pick for certain missions. Should you send your spymaster to deal with this mission? or send your commander? Different advisers will give different results, and rewards. The missions are updated in real time. So if you look at the clock and its 4pm, the mission says 4 hours. You can fuck around with side quests for four hours or turn off the game and come back at 8pm to continue the mission. Missions also cost power to unlock, which is gained from side quests. Which brings us to another issue.
There are way too many side quests. I don't mind doing side quests if they are interesting. Like Skyrim I could wander around until I find something interesting and suddenly I'm exploring some ruins and find some quest. The majority of the quests I've seen you get from running across dead bodies on the floor or an NPC asks you to hunt ram for meat. The bodies always have a note and it always either leads to a loved one, a random chest, or to the killer. After coming across the hundredth body you start to wonder what the fuck you are doing in this game. This is boring. I don't want to go scavenger hunting for corpses. I want to fucking continue the story. Then head back to the war room and start a mission. I spent 7 hours fucking around with side quests in the first zone and barely finished a quarter of the area. I gave up and used all the power I got saved up and continued the main story. I opened up 3 more zones but I haven't bothered going there. Whats the point its just boring side quests that does shit for the main story. I don't want to fucking hunt bodies. But you have to because the power cost for mission start racking up quickly. What a way to pad game length. Side quests aren't the only thing you can or have to do though. You can claim landmarks or areas by running up and slamming a flag onto the floor like manifest destiny. A settler camp? a village? some castle? FUCK THAT. SLAM THAT FLAG DOWN. Its yours now. By claiming stuff you gain influence. With influence you can level up the inquisition rank and get more bonuses.
If you played the previous Dragon Ages you'll find that the combat in this one is more like DA2 than the first. Its more actiony and you focus more one one character while the AI controls everyone else. Unlike the second one though you can swap to the mode the first one uses. The one that gives you an overhead view and preplan out commands for the team. However all this is unnecessary because the AI is clearly balanced around playing a single person and having your three other teammates ram into the enemy with their faces until they die. Perhaps in the hardest difficulty you may need to plan things out. For this version, combat is mostly about holding down your autoattack button. If you are on PC that is the right mouse button, which is also the camera button. The camera is janky and chances are you'll end up fucking around with how you perfection positioned it by targetting an enemy. That is where you go to the options, plug in your controller, and select gamepad mode. Now things are looking better. You can use the right analog stick to position the camera, the left analog to move and the right back button to attack. This game feels like its intended to be played on a controller. However playing on the controller the jump button and the talk/action button is the same one so you end up hopping around when trying to open doors or get the attention of an NPC. Back to the combat, your mana or stamina pool is very small but it regenerates very quickly. A simple fire spell drains 80% of your mana so the rest of the time you are just holding down the button shooting ice shards from your staff. Every 10 seconds or so you click another button and hold down that autoattack! At least make it a toggle or something. Another thing I need to point out is that healing skills are removed from the game. There is also no natural regeneration. The only way to regenerate health is to drink healing potions. At the start you are able to carry 8 of them and they are automatically refilled everytime you go back to town. This is a giant pain in the ass. Its impossible to completely avoid damage so you're constantly going back to town. Whats worse is if you're like halfway into a dungeon and you're low or out of healing potions. Do you spend 20 minutes to walk back or you carry on and reload when things go wrong.
Exploration is a pain the ass from the issue mentioned above but there are more. I've mentioned how bad the quests are but getting to where you are supposed to get to is a pain in the ass too. The map screen is an ugly piece of shit where you can't tell what is what. Is this a mountain? Do I climb up somewhere? Is this underground? I'm supposed to find someone/something but the quest shows a giant ass circle, am I doing this right? One thing I have to point out, what is the fucking point of a jump button when there is nothing you can jump over. You see a rock in front of you and you decided to just jump over it instead of wasting a second to circle around. You jump get stuck, try again, get stuck, fiddle around and give up and walk around the damn thing. You just wasted a minute of your time. What the fuck is this piddly jump. Your feet barely lifts itself off the ground. You want to try climbing a hill for the quest? Don't bother jumping it doesn't do shit! The only way to climb up a fairly flat hill is to find the only path available up. Basically don't bother jumping just circle around stuff and pretend anything that's not flat ground to be an obstacle. Some quests appear on the mini map as a big purple circle meaning that the objective is somewhere inside there and you have to find it yourself. Its usually not that hard to find but I find it funny how big some of the circles can get. Its three times bigger than the town you were in and all you wanted to find was a NPC. Other quests are so long and tedious you look at it for one second and go "fuck this shit." Collect 8 caches hidden around all over the zone. Can you spread them out more? I find wasting 30 minutes traveling around on a single side quest very enjoyable. You do get a horse near the start of the game by doing a side quest. However the horse is slow as shit and you're constantly getting on and off to fight random enemies on the field or picking up stuff you run by. If it gets hit it magically disappears into nowhere and you have to resummon it again. Wait for it to show up, and then get back on. I find that the horse slows me down more than the tiny bonus speed it gives when you hold down the run button while mounted. Yes you need to hold the analog button down while moving to get it to run. The last issue I have with exploration is that the areas are badly balanced. You never know what is too high level until you die. The entire area of the zone could be level 4 but this single camp in the middle of it is super high leveled that one shots you the second you start combat. You run around kill a few monsters and gear drop for levels 8 and above. What? I'm here too early?
I haven't gotten very far into the story but so far its the same Bioware style writing. Everything is black or white and into the extremes. For example, during the mage path on the main quest, spoilers ahead, you basically get three choices. You free all the mages from the circle (pisses off your companions), you basically make them into your slaves (pisses off your other companions), or you basically leave them to their fate and die (pisses off the rest of your companions.) It uses the same chat wheel circle where the top right button is the nice response, the middle right button is the neutral response and the bottom right button is the rude response. This can also translate to good and evil choices as well. Do you give a man all your money with the top right button, or do you kill him and all his family and feed it to his dog with the bottom right button. One thing though, is when talking to romance-able companions is that a heart button will appear on the top left occasionally. This is like a get out of jail free card when it pops up. You're arguing with Cullen about freeing the mages when you are at the point where there is no way to move on without dropping his reputation for you, you click that fucking button. You can go from murder, death and angry arguing to "you're so handsome blah blah blah" and then you get bonus reputation. These buttons always show up at the oddest times. What kind of person in the middle of talking about enslaving mages suddenly decide to flirt. Its also the most awkward responses too. The only companion romance that seems interesting is Dorian, the gay Tevinter mage. He's a little arrogant but he's the least awkward of everyone. While Cassandra will babble on like shes stupid, Josephine will completely misinterpret, Greywall will tell you that you shouldn't pursue him, I want to puke when I talk to the racist Cullen, Sera is a pain in the ass, Solas hates me because I'm too elfy for him, Iron Bull doesn't give a fuck about what you are, and Vivienne the worst character ever. She completely hates my guts because I helped the mages and hates me because I'm a elf mage and its just been a huge hate war. I like to point out that you cannot kick companions out after recruiting them with the exception of Sera. I don't know what makes her special but from all the comments I've read about her and hundreds of pages of discussions about her. I can see why people really hate her and they gave us the option to kick her out.
This game is a mess. I'm not even trying to pick out the worst parts of the game because this is the entirety of the game. Everything about the game is bad or lacking in some way. I hold this game to high standards because I'm comparing it to the original Dragon Age and to other open world games like Skyrim. The thing is I really liked Dragon Age Origins. I wanted this game to succeed but it let me down more than Mass Effect 3 did. The game never jumps out to wow you its just mediocre. Everything feels generic and some of the decisions made for this game are questionable. Instead of making it an open world and filling it up with the most boring quests that makes grindy MMO quests look amazing, they could focus more on polishing the main story. The open world is just padding anyways.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Lords of Xulima - You Missed Your Attack
What is Lords of Xulima? I had no clue when I saw this name. There was no review sites talking about it, no one on any major forums knew what it was but apparently there were some random people praising this game. What better game to try than some nameless game that some random people tell you to. First of all I want to mention that this game is very old school. Like Might and Magic X Legacy level of old, and you know how much I hated that game. So what makes this different? For starters, its not fucking boring, and there is an actual story to the game.
When you first start the game you are brought into the character creation screen where you have to make 5 additional party members to your main character, Gaulen the Explorer, a unique class. You can choose their portraits, name them, pick a god and then that is about all you can do. There are 9 classes you can choose from and you can pick the same class if you like. You can have a team of 5 mages no one is going to stop you but you won't get very far. Your party has a formation. There are 8 slots in the party screen, 4 in the front row, and 4 in the back row. You cannot place a member in the back row if there is no one in the front row. Melee attacks cannot be used in the back row unless they are using a polearm. Melee classes are naturally more durable so you are going to put them in the front rows anyways. The usual teams are 3 melee and 3 in the back, or 4 melee and 2 in the back. After you have all this done its time to start playing the game.
When you enter the game you listen to some text on the screen. I want to point out this is probably the worst voice acting I have ever heard. Worse than Persona 3's robot voice acting. I know this is an indie game and they probably don't have the funds for professional voice acting but I can still criticize it. Its so awkward that you can't even follow the story. When you finally finish the back story you start off at a beach where you ship capsized on. Its a top down game and you move by clicking your mouse on the location and your character will walk towards it. The biggest issue about this is that there are two speeds in this game. SLOW AS FUCK or FAST AS SHIT. When I first started I didn't know you had a "run" toggle. I limped around at a snail's pace until I realized you can press the Alt key to toggle run. Running makes you go faster, but drains your food faster so there's no difference between walking or running. Just hit the fucking Alt key and play the game. However, there is a problem. If you're running you usually can't see whats ahead of you in your vision. There is a fog where everything is blacked out except the vision near your party. So you could be running around and suddenly stumble into a pack of high level monsters. You fucked up. Now restart the game.
Before we get into monsters and combat and such lets focus on the world map first. You have a food meter. This is reduced by walking/running around the world map as well as camping. You can camp anytime as long as you are not near hostiles. You may rest for 4 hours which will clear most wounds, 8 hours which will clear fatal wounds, or rest until full. Get used to this screen because you'll be clicking the camp button after every single battle. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. Food can be gathered from bushes or trees on the world or bought at the Food NPC. Food is cheap but you'll be going back to town very often to restock because of camping in the wild. Enemies show up in two ways. In dangerous areas they will randomly attack you. But usually you can see the monster on the world map, if you mouse over them you can see their aggro circle. Walking into that circle will automatically start combat. Different monsters have different sized circles. You can also see what their party consists of and there will be a difficulty description such as Easy, Balanced, Difficult, Titanic. Difficult is doable with a well built party. You may lose a few party members during the fight but you can do it. Titanic is the highest difficulty I've seen so far. Going into these battles will basically wipe your entire party in a single turn. This can get annoying when you are forced to go through areas where its a fucking maze full of Titanic monsters. You have to slowly walk through by avoiding aggro circles. So you have to keep mousing over them to see their area and taking a step or two. If you have run on you'll end up dying a few times. And just to make it worse during the mazes you cannot save so you'll have to go back to the beginning every time. So this is finally a time for walk, but its so fucking slow. So you take multiple tries by overshooting your step or waste your time walking slow as fuck. Either way it both takes way too long so pick your poison.
In combat enemies have a party with the same formation setup as you, 4 slots in the front 4 slots in the back. Melee can only hit targets adjacent to them. With the exception of spears where you can hit one slot further. This means you can poke an enemy from the back row or poke an enemy hiding in their back row when you are in the front row. A melee on the corner slot cannot attack the enemies on the other sides. So you must be thinking, lets get some range and not worry about this formation bullshit. Unfortunately there are no archer type class. The closest you have are bards and thieves. Bards are buffers, they don't hit hard at all, and thieves are built to be front liners with daggers or swords. Bows are pretty shit and no one uses them. The exception is Gaulen who could use bows but he's the sturdiest character in the game so you want him in the front row. Not just as a tank but because he's the weakest character in the game and you might as well use him as a meat shield. So bows are out so I guess its up to magic! The three pure casters in the game are the Mage, the Cleric, and the Divine Summoner. The cleric is a healer so it doesn't have any damage. The Divine Summoner is basically what it sounds a summoner. Once you drop your summons you don't do anything. So I guess its up to the mage. They must be good right? Well to be honest, they are great when you first start. Spells have a 100% accuracy, they can hit any target anywhere, and they hit hard. However once you get to mid game you'll get into a big issue. Your PP drains in just a few spells. You can literally cast 3-5 spells before you run out and is are forced to drink a potion or stand there doing nothing. At least your damage is high for now. When you reach late game your damage starts petering out and your PP costs are so high you run out in 1-2 casts. So this is a game for melee! Melee characters start off with the most pitiful damage in the game and the worst accuracy I've ever seen in any game. You miss your attacks 75% of the time and against fast enemies like wasps expect a 10% hit rate at best. You can see the % when you mouse over a target. However once you get over the hump that is early game you start doing more damage than mages without the limiting factor of PP and you can actually take a hit. Some classes are also really shitty and worthless. Balance is a big issue.
Leveling is very old school. There are 5 attributes and every level you can spend one point in two of them. Strength increases your damage, Constitution increases your health, Agility increases something I don't care about, Speed increases the frequency of your turns, and Energy increases your PP. Basically the only stats that matter are STR, CON, and SPD. You only want enough Agility to wear weapons. Stack the crap out of speed so you can move multiple times before the enemy moves once. Energy sucks because you get 2 PP a level so say you are level 80 and you put one in it every level that is 160 bonus PP. That may look like a big number but you have to remember high level spells cost 200 PP a cast. You also get 5 skill points to drop into a pool of like 40 different skills. Each one takes like 80 levels to max out. The skills include stuff like different weapon masteries that increase accuracy/damage when using that weapon or Learning, which increases the % of exp gained. You might be wondering why you want that. Its because enemies don't respawn. Once you kill them they're gone forever. Even the ones that randomly attack you. Once they die they don't come back. There are many spells to learn as well depending on your class, skills that increases critical chances, non combat skills like Perception that lets you detect higher level traps, Exploration that slows down food consumption when walking, to Mercantile that increases money made from selling. Depending on the class the points required will be different. For example you want Gaulen to learn lock picking you need 3 skill points per level. On a thief, that same skill is only 1 skill point per level. Its overwhelming at first and you have no idea what to do, but its fairly straightforward after thinking about it. Just make Gaulen learn all the non combat garbage and be a meat shield and have the rest of your party learn combat skills.
Overall the game while having a few issues, is quite fun to play. Its not particularly difficult if you have a decent party. I had a Barbarian, a Thief, two Mages, and a Cleric as my party members. I haven't run into any problems so far. The story writing isn't bad. Its quite enjoyable but be prepared for some fairly bad voice acting. Give it a try if you like old school RPGS but don't expect a perfect game.
When you first start the game you are brought into the character creation screen where you have to make 5 additional party members to your main character, Gaulen the Explorer, a unique class. You can choose their portraits, name them, pick a god and then that is about all you can do. There are 9 classes you can choose from and you can pick the same class if you like. You can have a team of 5 mages no one is going to stop you but you won't get very far. Your party has a formation. There are 8 slots in the party screen, 4 in the front row, and 4 in the back row. You cannot place a member in the back row if there is no one in the front row. Melee attacks cannot be used in the back row unless they are using a polearm. Melee classes are naturally more durable so you are going to put them in the front rows anyways. The usual teams are 3 melee and 3 in the back, or 4 melee and 2 in the back. After you have all this done its time to start playing the game.
When you enter the game you listen to some text on the screen. I want to point out this is probably the worst voice acting I have ever heard. Worse than Persona 3's robot voice acting. I know this is an indie game and they probably don't have the funds for professional voice acting but I can still criticize it. Its so awkward that you can't even follow the story. When you finally finish the back story you start off at a beach where you ship capsized on. Its a top down game and you move by clicking your mouse on the location and your character will walk towards it. The biggest issue about this is that there are two speeds in this game. SLOW AS FUCK or FAST AS SHIT. When I first started I didn't know you had a "run" toggle. I limped around at a snail's pace until I realized you can press the Alt key to toggle run. Running makes you go faster, but drains your food faster so there's no difference between walking or running. Just hit the fucking Alt key and play the game. However, there is a problem. If you're running you usually can't see whats ahead of you in your vision. There is a fog where everything is blacked out except the vision near your party. So you could be running around and suddenly stumble into a pack of high level monsters. You fucked up. Now restart the game.
Before we get into monsters and combat and such lets focus on the world map first. You have a food meter. This is reduced by walking/running around the world map as well as camping. You can camp anytime as long as you are not near hostiles. You may rest for 4 hours which will clear most wounds, 8 hours which will clear fatal wounds, or rest until full. Get used to this screen because you'll be clicking the camp button after every single battle. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. Food can be gathered from bushes or trees on the world or bought at the Food NPC. Food is cheap but you'll be going back to town very often to restock because of camping in the wild. Enemies show up in two ways. In dangerous areas they will randomly attack you. But usually you can see the monster on the world map, if you mouse over them you can see their aggro circle. Walking into that circle will automatically start combat. Different monsters have different sized circles. You can also see what their party consists of and there will be a difficulty description such as Easy, Balanced, Difficult, Titanic. Difficult is doable with a well built party. You may lose a few party members during the fight but you can do it. Titanic is the highest difficulty I've seen so far. Going into these battles will basically wipe your entire party in a single turn. This can get annoying when you are forced to go through areas where its a fucking maze full of Titanic monsters. You have to slowly walk through by avoiding aggro circles. So you have to keep mousing over them to see their area and taking a step or two. If you have run on you'll end up dying a few times. And just to make it worse during the mazes you cannot save so you'll have to go back to the beginning every time. So this is finally a time for walk, but its so fucking slow. So you take multiple tries by overshooting your step or waste your time walking slow as fuck. Either way it both takes way too long so pick your poison.
In combat enemies have a party with the same formation setup as you, 4 slots in the front 4 slots in the back. Melee can only hit targets adjacent to them. With the exception of spears where you can hit one slot further. This means you can poke an enemy from the back row or poke an enemy hiding in their back row when you are in the front row. A melee on the corner slot cannot attack the enemies on the other sides. So you must be thinking, lets get some range and not worry about this formation bullshit. Unfortunately there are no archer type class. The closest you have are bards and thieves. Bards are buffers, they don't hit hard at all, and thieves are built to be front liners with daggers or swords. Bows are pretty shit and no one uses them. The exception is Gaulen who could use bows but he's the sturdiest character in the game so you want him in the front row. Not just as a tank but because he's the weakest character in the game and you might as well use him as a meat shield. So bows are out so I guess its up to magic! The three pure casters in the game are the Mage, the Cleric, and the Divine Summoner. The cleric is a healer so it doesn't have any damage. The Divine Summoner is basically what it sounds a summoner. Once you drop your summons you don't do anything. So I guess its up to the mage. They must be good right? Well to be honest, they are great when you first start. Spells have a 100% accuracy, they can hit any target anywhere, and they hit hard. However once you get to mid game you'll get into a big issue. Your PP drains in just a few spells. You can literally cast 3-5 spells before you run out and is are forced to drink a potion or stand there doing nothing. At least your damage is high for now. When you reach late game your damage starts petering out and your PP costs are so high you run out in 1-2 casts. So this is a game for melee! Melee characters start off with the most pitiful damage in the game and the worst accuracy I've ever seen in any game. You miss your attacks 75% of the time and against fast enemies like wasps expect a 10% hit rate at best. You can see the % when you mouse over a target. However once you get over the hump that is early game you start doing more damage than mages without the limiting factor of PP and you can actually take a hit. Some classes are also really shitty and worthless. Balance is a big issue.
Leveling is very old school. There are 5 attributes and every level you can spend one point in two of them. Strength increases your damage, Constitution increases your health, Agility increases something I don't care about, Speed increases the frequency of your turns, and Energy increases your PP. Basically the only stats that matter are STR, CON, and SPD. You only want enough Agility to wear weapons. Stack the crap out of speed so you can move multiple times before the enemy moves once. Energy sucks because you get 2 PP a level so say you are level 80 and you put one in it every level that is 160 bonus PP. That may look like a big number but you have to remember high level spells cost 200 PP a cast. You also get 5 skill points to drop into a pool of like 40 different skills. Each one takes like 80 levels to max out. The skills include stuff like different weapon masteries that increase accuracy/damage when using that weapon or Learning, which increases the % of exp gained. You might be wondering why you want that. Its because enemies don't respawn. Once you kill them they're gone forever. Even the ones that randomly attack you. Once they die they don't come back. There are many spells to learn as well depending on your class, skills that increases critical chances, non combat skills like Perception that lets you detect higher level traps, Exploration that slows down food consumption when walking, to Mercantile that increases money made from selling. Depending on the class the points required will be different. For example you want Gaulen to learn lock picking you need 3 skill points per level. On a thief, that same skill is only 1 skill point per level. Its overwhelming at first and you have no idea what to do, but its fairly straightforward after thinking about it. Just make Gaulen learn all the non combat garbage and be a meat shield and have the rest of your party learn combat skills.
Overall the game while having a few issues, is quite fun to play. Its not particularly difficult if you have a decent party. I had a Barbarian, a Thief, two Mages, and a Cleric as my party members. I haven't run into any problems so far. The story writing isn't bad. Its quite enjoyable but be prepared for some fairly bad voice acting. Give it a try if you like old school RPGS but don't expect a perfect game.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Divinity: Original Sin - No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses
No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses. Did you read that? Let me repeat it again. No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses. One more time? No one has as many friends as the man with many cheeses. Now you're sitting here going what the fuck is going on. Well that was what I said when I first stepped into the market place and this sentence would repeat itself every five seconds. I don't know who the voice actor for the NPC is but I'm sure he's having nightmares now haunted by the monstrosity he has created. This game is a cheese simulator. You go around town listening to NPCs trying to sell their cheese and cheese products.
To be serious, this is probably the best RPG I have played in years. Its very old school but at the same time its been updated with the more recent quality of life changes in video games. Remember when I talked about Might and Magic X? I said it was old school but it was also very outdated. This game you get the same old school feeling but it feels like a game made in this decade. Its an isometric sandbox RPG with tactical turn based combat. It can be played single player, where you control both main characters, or played in Co-op where each player controls one of the main characters. This is probably the coolest thing. You can each get your own henchmen or companion and customize your own character/inventory and then wander around the map. One person can be doing a quest, while another person can be in a dungeon fighting a pack of monsters. There are also decisions where it can affect both characters. For example, you come across a pack of bandits you can kill them or let them live. Each character can pick a decision and if you both disagree. You can try and argue against each other to reach a conclusion. This also affects your personality for example you want to help someone the other guy wants to kill them. You will gain a point in altruism while the other guy gets a point in heartless.
I know what you're going to ask next. What if I don't have any friends. Well don't worry! Larian made AIs for people like you. You can preset a personality for your characters or you can set nothing and just RP both of them yourself. The game also comes with two unique companions and a bunch of no personality henchmen. There will be more companions added later on as only two were shipped with the launch version of the game. So all in all, even if you're not playing co-op it will be enjoyable. But if you can find someone to play with you it will change how the game feels dramatically.
You start the game by customizing your character. There are many skills and talents to add and its pretty hard to run out of options. There is so much to pick it makes your head spin. I saw a talent called Pet Pal which lets you talk to animals. I knew I had to get it. Who wouldn't want to talk to animals!? It does exactly what you think it does. And yes dogs talk exactly how you think they'll talk. You then go into town and try to solve the murder of Councillor Jake. There are a variety of ways depending on how you want to do it and what skills/talents you have. If you have Pet Pal, you can talk to his dog who will tell you to bring items to him for him to smell if it smells like the murderer. Or you can break into houses and steal their stuff and do it that way. Or you can murder everyone in the town because you're an asshole! Its really up to you.
Combat is fairly difficult at first. It doesn't help that you don't know where to go at the start and can accidentally go into an area too difficult for you. You will die often and die a lot. Eventually you start getting more skills and you are able to fight on somewhat even footing. One tip to remember to win you every battle. Disables are better than damage. If you can do a disable versus doing big damage on an enemy that turn, use a disable. Enemies have resistances but almost every enemy can be disabled by a spell. Summons are also great, if not game breaking. There are plenty of quests, a lot of dialogue, and tons of secrets to find. When the game said it has over 100+ hours of gameplay, it wasn't lying.
The game isn't all sunshine and awesomepuffs. For example, the cheese vendor would not shut up. Going into the marketplace is like blowing your ears out from a hundred people shouting at the top of their lungs to get you to buy their cheese. If you're too far from your friend during co-op you won't be able to hear their conversations with NPCs and won't be able to contribute to arguments. If you want to change major maps like teleport to your homestead, you need both people standing near each other to jump dimensions. The world is split into four major maps with lots of sub areas in each one. Only one person can be talking to an NPC at a time. However, talking to NPCs will force them to turn towards you, moving their cone of vision so someone else can swipe something off their desk while you distract with conversation. Inventory is extremely messy and most of the time you have no idea if this item is important or not and it sits there taking up room because if you lose it getting it back will be a bitch.
If you like RPGs this game is for you. If you like tactical turn based combat this game is for you. And if you love the heck out of co-op games. Do not ignore this and go get it right now.
To be serious, this is probably the best RPG I have played in years. Its very old school but at the same time its been updated with the more recent quality of life changes in video games. Remember when I talked about Might and Magic X? I said it was old school but it was also very outdated. This game you get the same old school feeling but it feels like a game made in this decade. Its an isometric sandbox RPG with tactical turn based combat. It can be played single player, where you control both main characters, or played in Co-op where each player controls one of the main characters. This is probably the coolest thing. You can each get your own henchmen or companion and customize your own character/inventory and then wander around the map. One person can be doing a quest, while another person can be in a dungeon fighting a pack of monsters. There are also decisions where it can affect both characters. For example, you come across a pack of bandits you can kill them or let them live. Each character can pick a decision and if you both disagree. You can try and argue against each other to reach a conclusion. This also affects your personality for example you want to help someone the other guy wants to kill them. You will gain a point in altruism while the other guy gets a point in heartless.
I know what you're going to ask next. What if I don't have any friends. Well don't worry! Larian made AIs for people like you. You can preset a personality for your characters or you can set nothing and just RP both of them yourself. The game also comes with two unique companions and a bunch of no personality henchmen. There will be more companions added later on as only two were shipped with the launch version of the game. So all in all, even if you're not playing co-op it will be enjoyable. But if you can find someone to play with you it will change how the game feels dramatically.
You start the game by customizing your character. There are many skills and talents to add and its pretty hard to run out of options. There is so much to pick it makes your head spin. I saw a talent called Pet Pal which lets you talk to animals. I knew I had to get it. Who wouldn't want to talk to animals!? It does exactly what you think it does. And yes dogs talk exactly how you think they'll talk. You then go into town and try to solve the murder of Councillor Jake. There are a variety of ways depending on how you want to do it and what skills/talents you have. If you have Pet Pal, you can talk to his dog who will tell you to bring items to him for him to smell if it smells like the murderer. Or you can break into houses and steal their stuff and do it that way. Or you can murder everyone in the town because you're an asshole! Its really up to you.
Combat is fairly difficult at first. It doesn't help that you don't know where to go at the start and can accidentally go into an area too difficult for you. You will die often and die a lot. Eventually you start getting more skills and you are able to fight on somewhat even footing. One tip to remember to win you every battle. Disables are better than damage. If you can do a disable versus doing big damage on an enemy that turn, use a disable. Enemies have resistances but almost every enemy can be disabled by a spell. Summons are also great, if not game breaking. There are plenty of quests, a lot of dialogue, and tons of secrets to find. When the game said it has over 100+ hours of gameplay, it wasn't lying.
The game isn't all sunshine and awesomepuffs. For example, the cheese vendor would not shut up. Going into the marketplace is like blowing your ears out from a hundred people shouting at the top of their lungs to get you to buy their cheese. If you're too far from your friend during co-op you won't be able to hear their conversations with NPCs and won't be able to contribute to arguments. If you want to change major maps like teleport to your homestead, you need both people standing near each other to jump dimensions. The world is split into four major maps with lots of sub areas in each one. Only one person can be talking to an NPC at a time. However, talking to NPCs will force them to turn towards you, moving their cone of vision so someone else can swipe something off their desk while you distract with conversation. Inventory is extremely messy and most of the time you have no idea if this item is important or not and it sits there taking up room because if you lose it getting it back will be a bitch.
If you like RPGs this game is for you. If you like tactical turn based combat this game is for you. And if you love the heck out of co-op games. Do not ignore this and go get it right now.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Bastion - Fuck the Narrator
I don't know why this game is so popular. It was an indie game that no one had heard of that suddenly gained a ton of popularity. The developers seeing that it was getting a lot of attention started dumping into ads. Next thing you know everyone is talking about this game. All the game is, is a shitty action RPG with neither a lot of action nor RPG. You're some nameless kid walking around smacking the shit out of these ghost things minding their own business with the most boring weapons and combat.
Basically the game involves you wandering around on floating platforms on the sky. Most of the time they will drop down as you get near the edge of a platform. The art style isn't bad but the world seems tiny. I know its supposed to be small because the world exploded and all that's left of civilization are on thee floating platforms. If it takes like two steps to reach the end of a platform, its too small. You also get to fight with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. You don't have many choices so you pick the one that is the least shitty to play with. None of the weapons feel fun to use. The last slot you can use is a skill. It could be a melee skill, a ranged skill, or even a skill that isn't tied to a weapon, like a summon. Combat is just brainless mashing and nothing really feels special about it. From the first minute into the game to the middle of the game, you're still smacking the same stuff with the same hammer in the same platforms in the same world with the same narrator being an asshole.
One thing everyone praised is the narrator's voice. Some claimed he is better than Morgan Freeman and everyone knows that just isn't true. He was so popular they even have a Dota2 announcer pack using his voice. What the hell? I wasn't a fan of the narrator nor his "humor." First of all, why the fuck was he being such a dickhead sending you around fighting then saying something along the lines of "Yeah I'm just using the kid, so what." I haven't finished the game but I don't know what the big deal with the narrator. Everyone shitting in their panties about his voice and saying the reason this game is good is because of him. Maybe its because the rest of the game just isn't fun and they are desperately trying to grab onto something to like.
The combat is repetitive, the story is weak, the narrator is annoying, and the kid who although is somewhat interesting doesn't do shit for the game. The art isn't bad but the level design is pretty shitty from a gameplay perspective. I don't play games for art, I play games for gameplay. Any kind of art is bonus like Child of Light.
Basically the game involves you wandering around on floating platforms on the sky. Most of the time they will drop down as you get near the edge of a platform. The art style isn't bad but the world seems tiny. I know its supposed to be small because the world exploded and all that's left of civilization are on thee floating platforms. If it takes like two steps to reach the end of a platform, its too small. You also get to fight with a melee weapon and a ranged weapon. You don't have many choices so you pick the one that is the least shitty to play with. None of the weapons feel fun to use. The last slot you can use is a skill. It could be a melee skill, a ranged skill, or even a skill that isn't tied to a weapon, like a summon. Combat is just brainless mashing and nothing really feels special about it. From the first minute into the game to the middle of the game, you're still smacking the same stuff with the same hammer in the same platforms in the same world with the same narrator being an asshole.
One thing everyone praised is the narrator's voice. Some claimed he is better than Morgan Freeman and everyone knows that just isn't true. He was so popular they even have a Dota2 announcer pack using his voice. What the hell? I wasn't a fan of the narrator nor his "humor." First of all, why the fuck was he being such a dickhead sending you around fighting then saying something along the lines of "Yeah I'm just using the kid, so what." I haven't finished the game but I don't know what the big deal with the narrator. Everyone shitting in their panties about his voice and saying the reason this game is good is because of him. Maybe its because the rest of the game just isn't fun and they are desperately trying to grab onto something to like.
The combat is repetitive, the story is weak, the narrator is annoying, and the kid who although is somewhat interesting doesn't do shit for the game. The art isn't bad but the level design is pretty shitty from a gameplay perspective. I don't play games for art, I play games for gameplay. Any kind of art is bonus like Child of Light.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Jeanne d'Arc - An Anime Butchering
For some reason this game was getting a lot of praise. People really liked it and considered it a really good Tactical TBS RPG with a decent storyline. Well those people lied because none of it was true. The game is loosely based off of the story of Joan of Arc. And by loosely I mean the only thing in common with the story is their names. For those not familiar with the Joan of Arc, basically you are playing the game as Jeanne who finds a bag off a dead guy in the forest and inside it was a magical bracelet that told her to fight the English and when demons started attacking the town she put it on the bracelet then transforms into a magical shining warrior with magical armor and killed off the demons. It turns out the demons are being controlled by the English and you must save France by killing all the English/Demons. What? That doesn't sound like Joan of Arc? That's too bad I did try to warn you. However I really wanted to give this game a shot because it was made by Level-5, the creators of the Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy series and the more recent Ni No Kuni.
This game has a lot of cutscenes. If that is your thing then you probably wouldn't be bothered with it, but having to sit through long boring cutscenes isn't my idea of fun. If I wanted to watch a movie then I'd watch a fucking movie. The thing is, if the cutscenes were actually interesting then I wouldn't be bothered with it but when its like five minutes of scenery then finally a guy appears who fucking looks like a Disney villain, but everyone is oblivious. Like the first person you see has a pale ghoulish white face, wearing a giant black pointy horned hood, with black robes and long bony fingers with long painted fingernails and talk in the most asshole way. You know this guy is evil. He wants to save the king and then does some evil magical ritual that takes like another 5 minutes to set up. Then all of a fucking sudden from nowhere an old guy pops up and starts attacking evilwizardman with a sword and then gets his ass kicked in less than a second. Then the cutscene is over and you move over to Jeanne in a town wandering around then suddenly evil demons attack. Oh god this shit won't stop. Long story short, the cutscenes are boring, the voice acting is bearable at best, and the story is just ridiculous.
Combat itself is simple, like any Tactical RPG really. Attacking enemy from the sides or behind deals more damage, attacking with an element its weak against will hit harder, etc etc. Only problem I find is that stuff hits really hard and you die often and your characters outside of a few do almost minimal damage. So the strong get stronger and the weak remain useless. Well you only need a few good people to win battles anyways. Every battle has a time limit. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. You have to finish the objective in say 18 turns or you lose. So you're always rushing. Beat the big boss guy, get to the exit on the other side of the bridge, survive for 18 turns, etc etc. This basically forces you to charge stupidly into battle just to get there faster rather than setting up. Fighting bosses basically has you sacrificing your weaker members to stall for time on the other enemies while your strongest ones goes over to beat up the boss before the timer runs out. Ones where you need to reach the other side? Yeah fuck that just run you don't have time to stop and kill. If you do you lose the game anyways so keep running and a few will die but eventually you'll get there.
Outside of combat there is basically nothing to do. You can walk around the world map like Final Fantasy Tactics. Revisit old areas where you fought and it either becomes a town or a field. You can grind exp or buy items. There are no classes and everyone can only use one weapon they started off with. Jeanne can transform into a magical warrior once every battle for a limited amount of time and is stupidly overpowered. The only way to win is to have her transform then run across the map killing half the enemies all by herself then have the rest of the party move in to clean up. Later on you're supposed to meet more magical bracelet wearers but I've only gotten one other guy and he looks evil already. Evil mascara and talks like an asshole, I'm 99% sure he's going to betray me at some point.
Its not the most horrifying game ever. The combat is pretty boring yet very annoying because of the turn limit. This coming from someone who actually was ok with the dumb combat of Rhapsody. But that game has charm this game has nothing. You can't possibly like any of the characters. Everyone is either really mopey, a giant jerk, or just plain useless. I hate Jeanne. And I hate Jeanne d'Arc. The storyline is the weakest part of the game. It makes absolutely zero sense. You randomly show up at a war camp and tells everyone to attack the English and the generals are like fuck off little girl go home. Then some asshole evil mascara dude starts talking in his boring monotone evilguy voice and tells everyone to attack and they do and then you charge in and kill everyone and then you're like they'll listen to me! Then you got an arrow into the chest. The generals don't give a shit about you and your friends are "worried" about you now because you're all hurt and shit. Then the other guy gets some like some evil magical powers and cures you with some black mist and he falls sick because he's evil or something. I need to stop trying to make sense of this game. Basically, don't play it.
This game has a lot of cutscenes. If that is your thing then you probably wouldn't be bothered with it, but having to sit through long boring cutscenes isn't my idea of fun. If I wanted to watch a movie then I'd watch a fucking movie. The thing is, if the cutscenes were actually interesting then I wouldn't be bothered with it but when its like five minutes of scenery then finally a guy appears who fucking looks like a Disney villain, but everyone is oblivious. Like the first person you see has a pale ghoulish white face, wearing a giant black pointy horned hood, with black robes and long bony fingers with long painted fingernails and talk in the most asshole way. You know this guy is evil. He wants to save the king and then does some evil magical ritual that takes like another 5 minutes to set up. Then all of a fucking sudden from nowhere an old guy pops up and starts attacking evilwizardman with a sword and then gets his ass kicked in less than a second. Then the cutscene is over and you move over to Jeanne in a town wandering around then suddenly evil demons attack. Oh god this shit won't stop. Long story short, the cutscenes are boring, the voice acting is bearable at best, and the story is just ridiculous.
Combat itself is simple, like any Tactical RPG really. Attacking enemy from the sides or behind deals more damage, attacking with an element its weak against will hit harder, etc etc. Only problem I find is that stuff hits really hard and you die often and your characters outside of a few do almost minimal damage. So the strong get stronger and the weak remain useless. Well you only need a few good people to win battles anyways. Every battle has a time limit. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. You have to finish the objective in say 18 turns or you lose. So you're always rushing. Beat the big boss guy, get to the exit on the other side of the bridge, survive for 18 turns, etc etc. This basically forces you to charge stupidly into battle just to get there faster rather than setting up. Fighting bosses basically has you sacrificing your weaker members to stall for time on the other enemies while your strongest ones goes over to beat up the boss before the timer runs out. Ones where you need to reach the other side? Yeah fuck that just run you don't have time to stop and kill. If you do you lose the game anyways so keep running and a few will die but eventually you'll get there.
Outside of combat there is basically nothing to do. You can walk around the world map like Final Fantasy Tactics. Revisit old areas where you fought and it either becomes a town or a field. You can grind exp or buy items. There are no classes and everyone can only use one weapon they started off with. Jeanne can transform into a magical warrior once every battle for a limited amount of time and is stupidly overpowered. The only way to win is to have her transform then run across the map killing half the enemies all by herself then have the rest of the party move in to clean up. Later on you're supposed to meet more magical bracelet wearers but I've only gotten one other guy and he looks evil already. Evil mascara and talks like an asshole, I'm 99% sure he's going to betray me at some point.
Its not the most horrifying game ever. The combat is pretty boring yet very annoying because of the turn limit. This coming from someone who actually was ok with the dumb combat of Rhapsody. But that game has charm this game has nothing. You can't possibly like any of the characters. Everyone is either really mopey, a giant jerk, or just plain useless. I hate Jeanne. And I hate Jeanne d'Arc. The storyline is the weakest part of the game. It makes absolutely zero sense. You randomly show up at a war camp and tells everyone to attack the English and the generals are like fuck off little girl go home. Then some asshole evil mascara dude starts talking in his boring monotone evilguy voice and tells everyone to attack and they do and then you charge in and kill everyone and then you're like they'll listen to me! Then you got an arrow into the chest. The generals don't give a shit about you and your friends are "worried" about you now because you're all hurt and shit. Then the other guy gets some like some evil magical powers and cures you with some black mist and he falls sick because he's evil or something. I need to stop trying to make sense of this game. Basically, don't play it.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Child of Light - A Playable Poem
When I first saw a trailer for this game I knew right ahead I would love this game and it would be amazing. Was I right? Hell yes I was right. This may be the best game I've played in awhile. Although that isn't saying much when all I have to play is terrible games lately. But I would put this up there on my most memorable games played. What originally drew me to the game was just the backgrounds and character art. It just oozes this creative style not often seen in games. The only other game on the top of my head that I have felt that way was Okami, which was also a great game. It may have perked my interest with the art style, but it definitely held my interest with its gorgeous music and whimsical rhymes. Yes, the entire game is spoken in rhyme. Yes, its as charming as it sounds.
Outside of that, the game play isn't bad at all. In fact, its one of the harder RPGs I've played in awhile. From what I hear, normal is more casual for everyone to beat and hard mode you'll actually get smacked around often. I started on hard and it is indeed quite difficult. I've died numerous times, and not just on boss battles but regular encounters can get you killed if you don't fight optimally. The combat reminds me a lot like Grandia, or Mana Khemia. Throughout the game you'll get many characters but you're only able to bring two with you at a time. Each character has different skills for the situation. For example, Rubella the first character you meet, has a fast physical attack with heals and is a supportive character. Finn the next person you meet shortly after has magic attacks for pesky monsters with high physical defense. You yourself is a pure offensive character with high physical power and magical burst damage. Along the way you'll meet more people like Norah, your sister with amazing debuffs like slowing the enemy by 50% and paralyzing skills that stops them for 10 seconds.
When I compared this game to Grandia I am mostly talking about the combat turn bar. Combat is turn based but all the characters will show up on a bar showing when they will attack. You move faster on the bar based on your speed until you reach the attack cutoff section where it will be based on the speed of the move you selected. During this attack portion, any damage you take will interrupt your attack sending you back in time on the bar. You can do this to the enemy as well. So combat becomes a juggle with trying to interrupt them, or blocking to avoid getting interrupted. However, some monsters or bosses will have special moves when they are interrupted like stabbing you back for lots of damage or paralyzing your team. This is to punish you for interrupt spamming. It reminds me of Mana Khemia because you are always constantly switching characters. You have all your party members with you at all times but you can only bring two of them into the field. You may switch members when its your turn to act and will not end your turn unless you are using one character to switch the secondary character with a character that is off screen. That will end your turn and the off screen character will show up at the same location on the bar as your secondary character. For long boss fights, expect to switch constantly to put up debuffs, buffs, different abilities, etc.
Outside of the combat, the game plays like a sidescroller. There are secrets to find, quests to do, chests to open, and monsters to fight. There are puzzles to solve, but they're not very difficult to do. Most of them involves using your firefly. In fact, the game can be played in co-op with another player controlling the firefly. The firefly also helps in combat by healing your allies or slowing down enemies. You start the game waking up in the mysterious land of Lemuria and must find your way home. On your way you meet a seer who tells you the story of Lemuria. Where the Queen of the Light was banished by the Queen of the Night. How the land became overrun by creatures of the night. And how a legendary princess will save them by returning the power of the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars. You'll receive your wings early on and it becomes a whole new game where you can fly around. The writers of this game wanted a fairy tale story told as an epic poem. Like the stories mothers would read to their children. I think they managed to do that perfectly.
If RPGs are your thing then don't pass up this game. The combat is really fun once you start meeting more people, the art and the music will remain gorgeous throughout the game, and the people you meet along the way will start to grow on you. You can't help but laugh when the jester says a sentence that didn't end up rhyming and another character will finish it for her.
Fiddlesticks. Left here to...fester
Pardon me Madame, but are you a jester?
Take a glance at this...note. Perhaps you mean "Letter"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45SIsoPg8K4
Outside of that, the game play isn't bad at all. In fact, its one of the harder RPGs I've played in awhile. From what I hear, normal is more casual for everyone to beat and hard mode you'll actually get smacked around often. I started on hard and it is indeed quite difficult. I've died numerous times, and not just on boss battles but regular encounters can get you killed if you don't fight optimally. The combat reminds me a lot like Grandia, or Mana Khemia. Throughout the game you'll get many characters but you're only able to bring two with you at a time. Each character has different skills for the situation. For example, Rubella the first character you meet, has a fast physical attack with heals and is a supportive character. Finn the next person you meet shortly after has magic attacks for pesky monsters with high physical defense. You yourself is a pure offensive character with high physical power and magical burst damage. Along the way you'll meet more people like Norah, your sister with amazing debuffs like slowing the enemy by 50% and paralyzing skills that stops them for 10 seconds.
When I compared this game to Grandia I am mostly talking about the combat turn bar. Combat is turn based but all the characters will show up on a bar showing when they will attack. You move faster on the bar based on your speed until you reach the attack cutoff section where it will be based on the speed of the move you selected. During this attack portion, any damage you take will interrupt your attack sending you back in time on the bar. You can do this to the enemy as well. So combat becomes a juggle with trying to interrupt them, or blocking to avoid getting interrupted. However, some monsters or bosses will have special moves when they are interrupted like stabbing you back for lots of damage or paralyzing your team. This is to punish you for interrupt spamming. It reminds me of Mana Khemia because you are always constantly switching characters. You have all your party members with you at all times but you can only bring two of them into the field. You may switch members when its your turn to act and will not end your turn unless you are using one character to switch the secondary character with a character that is off screen. That will end your turn and the off screen character will show up at the same location on the bar as your secondary character. For long boss fights, expect to switch constantly to put up debuffs, buffs, different abilities, etc.
Outside of the combat, the game plays like a sidescroller. There are secrets to find, quests to do, chests to open, and monsters to fight. There are puzzles to solve, but they're not very difficult to do. Most of them involves using your firefly. In fact, the game can be played in co-op with another player controlling the firefly. The firefly also helps in combat by healing your allies or slowing down enemies. You start the game waking up in the mysterious land of Lemuria and must find your way home. On your way you meet a seer who tells you the story of Lemuria. Where the Queen of the Light was banished by the Queen of the Night. How the land became overrun by creatures of the night. And how a legendary princess will save them by returning the power of the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars. You'll receive your wings early on and it becomes a whole new game where you can fly around. The writers of this game wanted a fairy tale story told as an epic poem. Like the stories mothers would read to their children. I think they managed to do that perfectly.
If RPGs are your thing then don't pass up this game. The combat is really fun once you start meeting more people, the art and the music will remain gorgeous throughout the game, and the people you meet along the way will start to grow on you. You can't help but laugh when the jester says a sentence that didn't end up rhyming and another character will finish it for her.
Fiddlesticks. Left here to...fester
Pardon me Madame, but are you a jester?
Take a glance at this...note. Perhaps you mean "Letter"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45SIsoPg8K4
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Blackwell Series - Detectives, Mediums, and Ghosts
About eight years ago the first Blackwell game was released called The Blackwell Legacy. However a few years before that a smaller version of the game was released as freeware. It gained so much popularity that they made it into a commercial product, and an entire series. The series just ended with the fifth game and was released a week ago. Its written by Dave Gilbert who made games like The Shivah, Gemini Rue, and Primordia. However the Blackwell series is what he's most known for. If you're a fan of detective work, mysteries, and the occult this will be right up your alley.
You start the series as a confused woman called Rosangela Blackwell, or Rosa for short, dumping the ashes of her deceased aunt off of a bridge. Rosa is a socially awkward writer of sorts for a small paper. You get a job from your boss telling you to fill in for one of the reporters who can't come in. You have to investigate and get the story about the suicide of a college girl. Around this same time, you meet the family ghost, Joey Mallone who worked with your aunt before you. Together the two of you must unravel the mystery and save lost spirits wandering the world. You start off reluctant to take up the role as a spirit medium to send lost spirits to the afterlife but eventually you start to feel like this is your true calling and grow as a person. No longer are you that scared and confused person.
Like all adventure games there are puzzles. Unlike the more common ones where you have to combine items and try weird combinations of objects on doors or fountains and other weird crap, this one is all purely information puzzles. You need information on who this lost spirit is, you then need to somehow convince this lost spirit he or she is dead, and lastly you send them off to the afterlife when you're done. You can find information from anything and it will link you to the next clue and so on. For example you could find a photograph and in the photograph will be a word, or date written on it or in the background. You can then go on the browser in game and type it in to find your next clue. Which leads you to a person. You will have all your clues written down in your trusty notebook and can select clues to combine if you think there is a link. Of course the technology also changes as it changed in real life. While playing as your aunt, you don't get a computer and have to look through a phone book, and in the earlier series you had to go home to search on your computer, while in the later series you get a smart phone to get all your clues and browsing done.
In the series, you not only control Rosa but also your trusty ghost guide Joey Mallone. He cannot actually interact with people or objects but he can pass through doors, walls, objects to look at things. Sometimes you have to send him in a room to spy on the conversation of others for clues, other times you have him look inside drawers or locked houses. Other times there would be ghosts that refuses to respond to Rosa and you must send in Joey to talk to them. Rosa cannot physically touch ghosts so you may need Joey to grab a ghost to get their attention. The duo is nice. If the game just involved Rosa everyone would be bored to death. With the inclusion of Joey the game feels much more entertaining.
Even with all the good points, a good game does have its faults. The game play of the entire series is almost exactly the same. It might not be a bad thing but it almost always involve solving a mystery of a random ghost that has almost no involvement to the story at the very start as a tutorial. Then the credits roll in, then you can go around and do whatever you want. After solving a few mysteries you realize its part of a bigger conspiracy and you solve whatever problem you have and move onto the next game of the series until the finale. The thing is, the conspiracy was never solved at all. There are plot holes that were never explained as well. From what I understand Dave Gilbert didn't want the story to be about the conspiracy, he wanted it to be about the Blackwell women and Joey Mallone. Its their story, not the story of the great conspiracy. Other than that, the story is probably the best I've ever read/played in an adventure game.
If you're a fan of adventure games, you have to try this game out. Even if you aren't you should try this out. It uses a retro graphic style that some people might be turned off from but it does get better as the series progresses, slightly better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knpNvbbqCQE
You start the series as a confused woman called Rosangela Blackwell, or Rosa for short, dumping the ashes of her deceased aunt off of a bridge. Rosa is a socially awkward writer of sorts for a small paper. You get a job from your boss telling you to fill in for one of the reporters who can't come in. You have to investigate and get the story about the suicide of a college girl. Around this same time, you meet the family ghost, Joey Mallone who worked with your aunt before you. Together the two of you must unravel the mystery and save lost spirits wandering the world. You start off reluctant to take up the role as a spirit medium to send lost spirits to the afterlife but eventually you start to feel like this is your true calling and grow as a person. No longer are you that scared and confused person.
Like all adventure games there are puzzles. Unlike the more common ones where you have to combine items and try weird combinations of objects on doors or fountains and other weird crap, this one is all purely information puzzles. You need information on who this lost spirit is, you then need to somehow convince this lost spirit he or she is dead, and lastly you send them off to the afterlife when you're done. You can find information from anything and it will link you to the next clue and so on. For example you could find a photograph and in the photograph will be a word, or date written on it or in the background. You can then go on the browser in game and type it in to find your next clue. Which leads you to a person. You will have all your clues written down in your trusty notebook and can select clues to combine if you think there is a link. Of course the technology also changes as it changed in real life. While playing as your aunt, you don't get a computer and have to look through a phone book, and in the earlier series you had to go home to search on your computer, while in the later series you get a smart phone to get all your clues and browsing done.
In the series, you not only control Rosa but also your trusty ghost guide Joey Mallone. He cannot actually interact with people or objects but he can pass through doors, walls, objects to look at things. Sometimes you have to send him in a room to spy on the conversation of others for clues, other times you have him look inside drawers or locked houses. Other times there would be ghosts that refuses to respond to Rosa and you must send in Joey to talk to them. Rosa cannot physically touch ghosts so you may need Joey to grab a ghost to get their attention. The duo is nice. If the game just involved Rosa everyone would be bored to death. With the inclusion of Joey the game feels much more entertaining.
Even with all the good points, a good game does have its faults. The game play of the entire series is almost exactly the same. It might not be a bad thing but it almost always involve solving a mystery of a random ghost that has almost no involvement to the story at the very start as a tutorial. Then the credits roll in, then you can go around and do whatever you want. After solving a few mysteries you realize its part of a bigger conspiracy and you solve whatever problem you have and move onto the next game of the series until the finale. The thing is, the conspiracy was never solved at all. There are plot holes that were never explained as well. From what I understand Dave Gilbert didn't want the story to be about the conspiracy, he wanted it to be about the Blackwell women and Joey Mallone. Its their story, not the story of the great conspiracy. Other than that, the story is probably the best I've ever read/played in an adventure game.
If you're a fan of adventure games, you have to try this game out. Even if you aren't you should try this out. It uses a retro graphic style that some people might be turned off from but it does get better as the series progresses, slightly better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knpNvbbqCQE
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