This is a summation of my levels and experiences as I went through Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest. The restriction was: No non-essential fights. AKA, I would blaze a path to the boss and be done. If there was a chest containing anything, I could not open it unless I could get to it without killing any extra monsters - So, I'd be foregoing a lot of equipment and spells, as well as levels. The lack of resists and Life hit me more than anything else, I feel.
Bone temple: Boss fought at level 4. Managed to get both unique chests from the Bone Temple, so I haz a shield and a Quake. Fuckyeah Quake.
Getting to the Ice Pyramid was fairly uneventful, I entered at level 8. I have a horrible realization, though, as I get here. That... The Magic Mirror may or may not be necessary. If it's not necessary to fight the boss, then I have to do this place blind. So, I decide to do it once, with, to map out a path. If I do need the Magic Mirror to fight the boss, tho, I'm doing this section by the standard rules, so I can just continue from here.
It is in the Ice Pyramid that I first end up skipping chest items that are not able to get gotten to without killing things that are not plot relevant. Say goodbye, Noble Armor!
Boss of Ice Pyramid: Gotten to at level 11 on with Magic Mirror run.
And as I discover, the Magic Mirror is totally not needed. Welp. YOu live, you learn. Those 2 fights, totally unneeded. Still did the boss fight at 11. Still damned easy.
Mine: Charm Claw skipped. ... That's kind of ouch, actually. And my first even moderately hard boss fight, against the Genie! Took a few tries, then I didn't get double sleep'd or sleep/confuse'd. I get the feeling Hero should be immune to at least one of those, by now... Oh well.
Volcano: Crap, crap, crap. This has a item to see monsters thing, too. Bleeeeh. Ah well. ... Except that it wasn't that bad at all to go through. Had to reload a few times, but no running through the entire thing twice. Oh: Missed out on White, too, here. Ick.
Lava Dome: If I recall rightly, this is going to suuuuck.
The dungeon itself... Not too bad, thanks to maps on GFAQs. The boss? I estimate roughly 30-35 attempts over 50 minutes. Eeeeesh. The boss had a group hitting attack, Flame Breath, that did more damage to the Hero than he had max HP (680 damage to 640 max HP, level 16). Yeaaaah... That sucked. But, I made it. The funniest thing is that this boss got easier if you managed to hurt him enough - He started using more attacks, all of which were much easier to deal with than the Flame Breath, which pad out his RNG. And now, things should sail smoothly until Pazuzu.
Giant Tree: Easy. Beat it at level 19, then loved that the game clears the enemies out so I could get METEOR! The worst of the Wizard spells, but still a good damager.
Mount Gale: Also easy. Level 20 beaten. The boss took a couple tries, as he has an ID attack, which, if he hits secondary... Eeeeew. He did that first round, once, but it wasn't that big a deal.
Pazuzu's Tower: A bit confusing of a dungeon, but not bad. Level 22 beat. I have to skip gorram Excalibur, though, which... D:
Mac's Ship: The game is nice, and gives me the best armor in the game, throwing me some more resists without there being any monsters near it.
Focus Tower/Doom Castle: Aaah... Best music in the game, right here. :D Yay. Everything up to the final boss was fairly easy. I went through seeds like candy, as Phoebe is really my only damage dealing, her being able to cast White. Meteor on Hero was bad, either, tho. I ended up being level 24 going into the final boss.
... So, yeah, I cure glitched the boss. I feel like it's the only way to win, given that it shaves about 10 rounds of not letting the game's RNG fuck me. No Life on Hero, no petrify resistance on Hero, Phoebe being easy to kill, and the Hero not being able to DPS would make for one hell of a bad fight.
The best part is? The minimum level possible to beat the game, if you get the min. EXP possible per fight is 24. So, without restarting every fight to see if it's the least EXP possible, I still came out at min. level.
And now, the big ol' * to this run: You can, once you can get Exit, use that to never get EXP. I find that to be boring, though. It also allows you to get equipment, tho. Which, okay, isn't as huge a deal, as I think you'd cap at like level 12. But, I think that'd have been massively boring, and this is still a damned good achievement.
Things missed:
1st accessory
2nd armor
3rd shield
2nd and 3rd helm
Life (GAAAAAAAAAAAAH)
2nd Claw
3rd Axe
Excalibur
All the Wizard magic but Thunder (Weakest one! :D)
Aero
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Muramasa: the Demon Blade
First, I have to say that I'm very, very burned out on Muramasa. It's a great game, but putting in the last 15-20 hours of it over the span of about two days? Probably not the best idea if you want to like the game in the future, sometimes. Of course, that's probably because the end is the most boring part. But, I digress.
The game is, as I said, great, though it's not without flaws. The thing they manage best, though, is pulling off atmosphere. For those unfamiliar with Vanillaware, they specialize in gorgeous looking 2D games. If you've not seen screenshots of the game, nothing I can do will do it justice, so go check some out. This art, though, works amazingly well for this game. They also focus on the background, making the backgrounds change among areas and reflect the area you traveled through, are about to travel through, etc. It's amazing when you look at the background and see... Japan, as you're climbing a mountain, and you're near the top. Or when you approach a city, and you notice... the background is increasingly more *on fire*. Further, the voiced dialogue of the game was left entirely in the original Japanese. Sure, it may have been a budget thing on the localization team's fault, but I think it adds to the game.
Another great thing, is that the bosses of this game are the main attraction. Every boss is larger than life and will likely punish you the first time you fight it - But then you'll swap your equips around, notice some patterns, and do better. Each boss is a huge encounter, though, with flashy attacks and a feeling of "I'm fighting HIM/HER/THAT?!" at the beginning. I loved it. It also helps that you fight 6 gods over the span of the game. Those are interesting, to say the least. The bosses make up for the lack of variety elsewhere with their changing attacks, varying patterns, and the complex way they fight.
And now, a double edged sword (do ho). The swords: There are 108 of them to equip in the game. Each one has a different attack strength, different stat requirements to wield it, a potential passive ability, and a special attack. The special attack is really what differentiates them, as the properties of each special attack differ widely. The best ones, though, invariably hit a number of times while giving you a long span of invincibility frames. But, see, you won't end up using more than maybe 2/3 of these, as they tend to unlock in large clusters. You have to forge the swords. Early game, this causes you to get a new plot sword, which lets you forge new swords, and probably only be able to forge one more, so you phase new swords in slowly, using them all. Towards midgame, however, you get a plot sword, then immediately can forge 3-4 new swords, giving you a bunch of swords, and all but those with the best ability fall by the wayside. And, due to how the special attacks work, some swords end up being totally useless. There were times when I got a new set of swords and only used one, because their special attacks sucked. It would have been nice for the special attacks to have been balanced better and for the swords to have felt a bit more different. Ideally, less swords (though 108 swords is a neat touch, given that it's not 99 or 100, and it's a number sacred to Buddhism) that felt more different and dropped slower.
The controls were mostly great, with a touch of bad. The best thing was that there was one attack button. Tap it to attack, hold it and hit a direction to attack in that direction. Tapping up in the ground gives you a slashing uppercut that launches, down in the air stabs down to the ground very quickly, and left and right gives you a dash in that direction that attacks anything you pass over. It's a very fluid and mobile system. However, the one thing I dislike about it is that the damn dodge button isn't a button but hitting down-left or down-right. This is fairly hard to trigger on command on the ... not amazing Wii d-pad. On the classic controller, though, you can at least switch to using the analog stick to dodge, which works a bit better. I... really wish dodge would have been a button, though.
The endings for the game are another nice touch - There's 3 for each character. The game has two narratives, which interweave to make the whole story in the end. When you finish one of them for the first time, you get a sword. You finish the other character's, and you get another sword, and then both characters can use all the swords that the other has access to. This lets you forge more swords that require you to have swords from both characters. Then, if you beat the game as either character again while wielding the swords you get for beating the game, you get a different ending (and a different final boss, for that matter). Then, finally, if you beat the game *again* while wielding the last sword on the forge tree, you get the last ending for the characters. I really liked this idea, as it lets you watch any of the endings again when you want to, and is just a neat idea overall. The only flaw with this is that the requirements to wield the final sword require you to be at level 85+ with both characters. This necessitates grinding at the very end of the game, just to wield the sword to get the final ending. So, the only grindy part of the game is the very, very end, which is a ... bad idea. The third ending for each character is kind of worth it, and the levels go by pretty fast.
But now, the flaws.
First up, is the game's weird, weird difficulty curve. The enemies level up with you, at least on Shura (the harder difficulty), so the levels seem... not entirely useful, though it does seem like you do gain some ground as you level and face the same enemy, but you never just destroy them and become immune to their attacks. This just sort of... feels weird, in an RPG. It makes the enemy lairs, where the game recommend you be level X or above ... sort of odd to be level recommended, as leveling up only minorly helps.
Next, is that there is very, very little enemy diversity. I could probably name every non-boss enemy in the game. In fact... Monk, ninja (and, admittedly, they have variety within themselves, as they have different weapons), samurai/ronin, small oni (of which there are 3 types, which slightly differ in attack), the 4 big oni (who slightly differ from each other), toads, tengu, ghosts, ice spirits, ghost samurai, ghost gunmen. Then there are 4 other encounters you can have - Weird blob thing, flock of small things you'll kill in one attack and pose no threat, and 2 animals, which are there to give you cooking ingredients when they die. This is a total of 11 enemy types. In an action RPG. I didn't get too bored of them, but it would have been nice if it wasn't just a stream of palette swapped ninja as every third encounter.
Overall, it's a great game. A must play for those who like action RPGs. I've heard complaints about the game being too short, but to finish both characters was about 15-20 hours for me, then to get all the endings was about 25. Which is longer than most games nowadays, so, hey!
The game is, as I said, great, though it's not without flaws. The thing they manage best, though, is pulling off atmosphere. For those unfamiliar with Vanillaware, they specialize in gorgeous looking 2D games. If you've not seen screenshots of the game, nothing I can do will do it justice, so go check some out. This art, though, works amazingly well for this game. They also focus on the background, making the backgrounds change among areas and reflect the area you traveled through, are about to travel through, etc. It's amazing when you look at the background and see... Japan, as you're climbing a mountain, and you're near the top. Or when you approach a city, and you notice... the background is increasingly more *on fire*. Further, the voiced dialogue of the game was left entirely in the original Japanese. Sure, it may have been a budget thing on the localization team's fault, but I think it adds to the game.
Another great thing, is that the bosses of this game are the main attraction. Every boss is larger than life and will likely punish you the first time you fight it - But then you'll swap your equips around, notice some patterns, and do better. Each boss is a huge encounter, though, with flashy attacks and a feeling of "I'm fighting HIM/HER/THAT?!" at the beginning. I loved it. It also helps that you fight 6 gods over the span of the game. Those are interesting, to say the least. The bosses make up for the lack of variety elsewhere with their changing attacks, varying patterns, and the complex way they fight.
And now, a double edged sword (do ho). The swords: There are 108 of them to equip in the game. Each one has a different attack strength, different stat requirements to wield it, a potential passive ability, and a special attack. The special attack is really what differentiates them, as the properties of each special attack differ widely. The best ones, though, invariably hit a number of times while giving you a long span of invincibility frames. But, see, you won't end up using more than maybe 2/3 of these, as they tend to unlock in large clusters. You have to forge the swords. Early game, this causes you to get a new plot sword, which lets you forge new swords, and probably only be able to forge one more, so you phase new swords in slowly, using them all. Towards midgame, however, you get a plot sword, then immediately can forge 3-4 new swords, giving you a bunch of swords, and all but those with the best ability fall by the wayside. And, due to how the special attacks work, some swords end up being totally useless. There were times when I got a new set of swords and only used one, because their special attacks sucked. It would have been nice for the special attacks to have been balanced better and for the swords to have felt a bit more different. Ideally, less swords (though 108 swords is a neat touch, given that it's not 99 or 100, and it's a number sacred to Buddhism) that felt more different and dropped slower.
The controls were mostly great, with a touch of bad. The best thing was that there was one attack button. Tap it to attack, hold it and hit a direction to attack in that direction. Tapping up in the ground gives you a slashing uppercut that launches, down in the air stabs down to the ground very quickly, and left and right gives you a dash in that direction that attacks anything you pass over. It's a very fluid and mobile system. However, the one thing I dislike about it is that the damn dodge button isn't a button but hitting down-left or down-right. This is fairly hard to trigger on command on the ... not amazing Wii d-pad. On the classic controller, though, you can at least switch to using the analog stick to dodge, which works a bit better. I... really wish dodge would have been a button, though.
The endings for the game are another nice touch - There's 3 for each character. The game has two narratives, which interweave to make the whole story in the end. When you finish one of them for the first time, you get a sword. You finish the other character's, and you get another sword, and then both characters can use all the swords that the other has access to. This lets you forge more swords that require you to have swords from both characters. Then, if you beat the game as either character again while wielding the swords you get for beating the game, you get a different ending (and a different final boss, for that matter). Then, finally, if you beat the game *again* while wielding the last sword on the forge tree, you get the last ending for the characters. I really liked this idea, as it lets you watch any of the endings again when you want to, and is just a neat idea overall. The only flaw with this is that the requirements to wield the final sword require you to be at level 85+ with both characters. This necessitates grinding at the very end of the game, just to wield the sword to get the final ending. So, the only grindy part of the game is the very, very end, which is a ... bad idea. The third ending for each character is kind of worth it, and the levels go by pretty fast.
But now, the flaws.
First up, is the game's weird, weird difficulty curve. The enemies level up with you, at least on Shura (the harder difficulty), so the levels seem... not entirely useful, though it does seem like you do gain some ground as you level and face the same enemy, but you never just destroy them and become immune to their attacks. This just sort of... feels weird, in an RPG. It makes the enemy lairs, where the game recommend you be level X or above ... sort of odd to be level recommended, as leveling up only minorly helps.
Next, is that there is very, very little enemy diversity. I could probably name every non-boss enemy in the game. In fact... Monk, ninja (and, admittedly, they have variety within themselves, as they have different weapons), samurai/ronin, small oni (of which there are 3 types, which slightly differ in attack), the 4 big oni (who slightly differ from each other), toads, tengu, ghosts, ice spirits, ghost samurai, ghost gunmen. Then there are 4 other encounters you can have - Weird blob thing, flock of small things you'll kill in one attack and pose no threat, and 2 animals, which are there to give you cooking ingredients when they die. This is a total of 11 enemy types. In an action RPG. I didn't get too bored of them, but it would have been nice if it wasn't just a stream of palette swapped ninja as every third encounter.
Overall, it's a great game. A must play for those who like action RPGs. I've heard complaints about the game being too short, but to finish both characters was about 15-20 hours for me, then to get all the endings was about 25. Which is longer than most games nowadays, so, hey!
Saturday, November 07, 2009
FF4: The After Years
So, this is a bit of a hard review for me to even try to claim objectivity on. I mean, as I said previously, I'm a *huge* FF4 fanboy. I mean, I heard all sorts of bad reviews for this, citing the reuse of music, spites, areas, etc. To me, however? This did not bother me at all. It was nostalgia icing on a nostalgia cake. With big nostalgic writing on top in fondant. The good kind.
So, of course, there were some bad parts, which I'll cover first. The encounter rate, surprise attack, and back attack rate are noticeably increased, to my discontent. This made certain sections frustrating as hell. The difficulty is a bit ... bipolar. Sometimes the game is hard as balls, other times easy. Also, some Tales have too simple or just bad party setups - Edward's Tale is 'Press A to Win' for the entire thing. You just spam attack and you win. Bleh.
However, other chapters give you really interesting setups and make you think about abilities and equipments differently. I learned a lot about the original game by playing TAY, as I've been forced to do things I elsewise wouldn't. There's a wealth of equipment options, towards the end, which is nice. Gearing your group out correctly really affects endgame difficulty, as does party layout. I think I ended up with, pretty much, the strongest party - Though, one could argue for one change. I used Man in Black (Stupidly good fighter/Black Mage combo) + Rosa, Rydia, Edge, Kain. Kain is a destroyer of worlds, Rydia's summons are gold, Edge is stupid good if you speed spec him, and MiB ... is both a tank and a great caster. Now. Porom *might* be better than Rosa, as she can get the ability to doublecast. Now, however, if you want to ... you have a choice of 25 people in the final chapter. Now, some of them are totally worthless (HAAAAARLEEEEEEEEEY!), but there's a *lot* of variety you can bring in.
Speaking of the chapters (Tags: Plot important means you'll understand the plot of the whole better if you play, import character means you get 1+ extra characters in your final party for importing data):
[The good, though, very outweighs the bad, heh]
But, really, I found the repetition of areas and music and bosses (... you fight every boss from the original, again. However, some have ... a few twists) to be great. I love the feeling of nostalgia and of knowing /every damn secret/ in FF4, and this gives me a fresh set of plot to do it to. And the plot of the game isn't that bad, actually. It jumps 17 years forward and you get to see the world after it's recovered from the events of the first game (up until shit goes to hell again, of course). Of course, you go through the damn waterway between Kaipo/Damcyan and the waterway into Baron like 3 times each, which is a bit ... much, but... Ah well. There's 5 new dungeons in the game, too, which add a little bit of spice to things - And the final dungeon is fairly stupid long. 42 floors and 30 bosses. It was longer any of the chapters themselves, heh. But, I really liked it. It was an overall solid game.
(Heh. I barely covered any of the new features. The moon cycles are neatish, but only really matter for bosses. The bands are cool, but I barely used em/thought about em. My final party didn't have any great band combos. They have awesome
graphics for em, though.)
{Oh! In terms of the time I took to beat it. Some people claimed this game was really short. I took about 35-40 hours to beat the game. So, for $37, that's not bad. And I did literally none of the optional stuff. To be fair, it all requires a bunch o' grinding, but, still.}
So, of course, there were some bad parts, which I'll cover first. The encounter rate, surprise attack, and back attack rate are noticeably increased, to my discontent. This made certain sections frustrating as hell. The difficulty is a bit ... bipolar. Sometimes the game is hard as balls, other times easy. Also, some Tales have too simple or just bad party setups - Edward's Tale is 'Press A to Win' for the entire thing. You just spam attack and you win. Bleh.
However, other chapters give you really interesting setups and make you think about abilities and equipments differently. I learned a lot about the original game by playing TAY, as I've been forced to do things I elsewise wouldn't. There's a wealth of equipment options, towards the end, which is nice. Gearing your group out correctly really affects endgame difficulty, as does party layout. I think I ended up with, pretty much, the strongest party - Though, one could argue for one change. I used Man in Black (Stupidly good fighter/Black Mage combo) + Rosa, Rydia, Edge, Kain. Kain is a destroyer of worlds, Rydia's summons are gold, Edge is stupid good if you speed spec him, and MiB ... is both a tank and a great caster. Now. Porom *might* be better than Rosa, as she can get the ability to doublecast. Now, however, if you want to ... you have a choice of 25 people in the final chapter. Now, some of them are totally worthless (HAAAAARLEEEEEEEEEY!), but there's a *lot* of variety you can bring in.
Speaking of the chapters (Tags: Plot important means you'll understand the plot of the whole better if you play, import character means you get 1+ extra characters in your final party for importing data):
- Ceodore/Kain - Eh, some of the most irritating moments, and the hardest chapter. Hooded Man + Ceodore is a bleh party. Plot important, though.
- Rydia - ... Actually? Probably my second favorite. Black Mages are fun, and Calca and Brina are cool. Plot important + Import characters
- Edge - OH GOD, SO MANY NINJAS. You Wild Arms them in the beginning, where you have solo sections for them all, which are kinda boring. Once they get together in the end, though, neat. Plot important + Import characters
- Porom - You get to see a bunch of stuff in the past! It's cool. Background important, not really plot important.
- Palom - Bleeeh. Kinda boringish. It's Palom and a White Mage that wants to learn black magic! ... eeeh. Import character, though.
- Edward - GUH. Import character.
- Yang - Boringish, but not that bad. It's all meleers. Meh. Import character.
- Lunarians - This was *damned* fun. A Black Mage and a Black Mage/Fighter. You rely on Osmose, smarts, and good spells. It's also fairly tough. Plot Important.
- The Crystals/Final Chapter: Here's the, obviously, important one. You have a great party layout before you can choose party, the character interaction is at it's very best, and it really shows how good the game is.
[The good, though, very outweighs the bad, heh]
But, really, I found the repetition of areas and music and bosses (... you fight every boss from the original, again. However, some have ... a few twists) to be great. I love the feeling of nostalgia and of knowing /every damn secret/ in FF4, and this gives me a fresh set of plot to do it to. And the plot of the game isn't that bad, actually. It jumps 17 years forward and you get to see the world after it's recovered from the events of the first game (up until shit goes to hell again, of course). Of course, you go through the damn waterway between Kaipo/Damcyan and the waterway into Baron like 3 times each, which is a bit ... much, but... Ah well. There's 5 new dungeons in the game, too, which add a little bit of spice to things - And the final dungeon is fairly stupid long. 42 floors and 30 bosses. It was longer any of the chapters themselves, heh. But, I really liked it. It was an overall solid game.
(Heh. I barely covered any of the new features. The moon cycles are neatish, but only really matter for bosses. The bands are cool, but I barely used em/thought about em. My final party didn't have any great band combos. They have awesome
graphics for em, though.)
{Oh! In terms of the time I took to beat it. Some people claimed this game was really short. I took about 35-40 hours to beat the game. So, for $37, that's not bad. And I did literally none of the optional stuff. To be fair, it all requires a bunch o' grinding, but, still.}
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
200 games: A history.
So, I've beaten 200 games, according to my Backloggery. That's not a huge milestone compared to some people who have broken 1000. However, it's still a pretty big number for me. About half of those are RPGs or RTSes or TBSes that require much more time than your average game, so that still represents a huge time sink. Wait - A time sink? Really? Nah.
So, how did I get started in gaming? Well, one of my earlier memories is, while the rest of my family was eating dinner, crawling into my older-by-16-years brother's room and playing Super Mario World. Another great one is watching him play FF2, and seeing him beat Milon, who, at 5, I had trouble with. My older brother was always into video games. He, actually, got my grandmother into the Dragon Warrior games on NES. My grandmother and I played the everloving crap out of Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 over the years. We found 1 and 2 as well, but didn't play them nearly as much.
I actually learned how to read from RPGs. Back in the day, I'd ask my grandmother to read all the dialogue to me. At some point, she said to me, "I've read what that person says to you so many times you could probably tell me what he says.". And I could. So, we went from there. I learned how to do math from RPGs as well. Figuring out how much money needed to buy equipment for the party. (Cue Piccolo from DBZ Abridged: "Neeeeeeeerd")
As well, my dad and I used to play games together. We played through FF1 (... How we got through that game back then, I'll never know) and played against each other in Super Mario Kart (At first, I'd beat him handily. Then, it became I could only really beat him on a single track - Koopa Beach 1. He was using a superior kart, though, DK, to my Yoshi. But, damnit, Yoshi is awesome, so I had to use him.) and F-Zero (This was no contest. He'd beat me every time). He'd also play 2 golf games he had gotten, PGA Tour Golf (Where he could get -50 in a tournament consistently) and HAL'S Hole In One Golf, and The Hunt for the Red October. Ah, wait, no. That's not true. He and I did play through Lufia 1 together. Though, when we bought Lufia 2, he didn't have as much interest in it.
Heh. Speaking of Lufia 2 - Tangent. That's the game that led me to GameFAQs. Ohhh, GameFAQs. I've been going to that site for probably about a decade now. Maybe more. I remember, one day, noticing, "Oh, huh. There's a poll on the site now." Thanks to that site, I've found a lot of friends. The message boards, the FAQ writers, a great community. It's changed so, so much, though. I remember when each update way CJayC himself writing something. It was better, back then. But, ah well.
Magazines, too. Whew. I got Game Informer, back in the daaaaay, way back when. And then OPM for the demo discs. Maaan. So many games I tried out due to those demo discs and then bought. Good memories of those olden days. It's thanks to those that I picked up a few games - Grandia, Suikoden. My interest in rhythm games starting before DDR in Gitaroo Man on a demo disc. Etc.
Ah! So, where was I. Well, I have to thank my brother most, I think. He gave me a lot of the games I played on the NES and SNES as a kid. I have a semi nice collection of rare old games that I value more than their resell value has ever been. FF1, some of my Dragon Warriors, my SNES RPGs, etc. Great, great stuff. Inspired me towards the games I've played ever since. I ended up siding with Sony due to him, really. Thanks to FF7 going to PSX, my brother got a PSX, and so, I ended up getting one. I went where the RPGs went. Aaah, memories of console arguments, about which would win... (I was right, at least!). Before that, I had both an SNES and a Genesis, so I liked both.
My brother in law mostly got me into PC gaming. That and Shareware. Though, I didn't have much shareware, just some Epic games stuff. I actually bought one of them - Castle of the Winds. My first Roguelike. :3 Ah, Roguelikes.... But, one day, I played Warcraft 2 on my brother in law's PC. I got slaughtered, as I picked a scenario and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up getting WC2 as a gift from him shortly afterwards, though, and there started my love of RTSes. But, back when we only had a 486, he gave me a CD with an NES emulator and some games. The 486 could only handle some of the NES games. Later when we got a better machine, he gave use a disc with MAME (Yep. MAME was around in the Win95 days) and ROMs. My dad and I used to play those all the time: Tapper, Popeye, Dig-Dug, Burger Time. He also would burn me PC games and eventually got my PSX modded. I ... sorta knew this was illegal back when he did this, but it never really triggered in my head. I've always been around piracy, heh.
My love of TBSes was a bit different. I ended upbuying asking my mom to buy me Civ2 back in elementary school. As good of a gamer as I was back then*, it was beyond me. I tried to read the manual and play, but that didn't work out too well. I kept trying every so often, though, and managed to win a game a couple years later.
*Okay, so, it took me like 3 times starting FFT to beat it. I didn't realize people died permanently when they crystalized/turned into a chest. And then the second time I thought 4 Knights + Chemist was a good team. I got it like right after it came out, so I was like 9, damnit. Was my first SRPG, too.
So... That's roughly where I am today. Something like that. My tastes have only grown since I started. I skipped over some important events, probably, but... Well, I can't cover them all and have this be of any reasonable length.
So, how did I get started in gaming? Well, one of my earlier memories is, while the rest of my family was eating dinner, crawling into my older-by-16-years brother's room and playing Super Mario World. Another great one is watching him play FF2, and seeing him beat Milon, who, at 5, I had trouble with. My older brother was always into video games. He, actually, got my grandmother into the Dragon Warrior games on NES. My grandmother and I played the everloving crap out of Dragon Warrior 3 and 4 over the years. We found 1 and 2 as well, but didn't play them nearly as much.
I actually learned how to read from RPGs. Back in the day, I'd ask my grandmother to read all the dialogue to me. At some point, she said to me, "I've read what that person says to you so many times you could probably tell me what he says.". And I could. So, we went from there. I learned how to do math from RPGs as well. Figuring out how much money needed to buy equipment for the party. (Cue Piccolo from DBZ Abridged: "Neeeeeeeerd")
As well, my dad and I used to play games together. We played through FF1 (... How we got through that game back then, I'll never know) and played against each other in Super Mario Kart (At first, I'd beat him handily. Then, it became I could only really beat him on a single track - Koopa Beach 1. He was using a superior kart, though, DK, to my Yoshi. But, damnit, Yoshi is awesome, so I had to use him.) and F-Zero (This was no contest. He'd beat me every time). He'd also play 2 golf games he had gotten, PGA Tour Golf (Where he could get -50 in a tournament consistently) and HAL'S Hole In One Golf, and The Hunt for the Red October. Ah, wait, no. That's not true. He and I did play through Lufia 1 together. Though, when we bought Lufia 2, he didn't have as much interest in it.
Heh. Speaking of Lufia 2 - Tangent. That's the game that led me to GameFAQs. Ohhh, GameFAQs. I've been going to that site for probably about a decade now. Maybe more. I remember, one day, noticing, "Oh, huh. There's a poll on the site now." Thanks to that site, I've found a lot of friends. The message boards, the FAQ writers, a great community. It's changed so, so much, though. I remember when each update way CJayC himself writing something. It was better, back then. But, ah well.
Magazines, too. Whew. I got Game Informer, back in the daaaaay, way back when. And then OPM for the demo discs. Maaan. So many games I tried out due to those demo discs and then bought. Good memories of those olden days. It's thanks to those that I picked up a few games - Grandia, Suikoden. My interest in rhythm games starting before DDR in Gitaroo Man on a demo disc. Etc.
Ah! So, where was I. Well, I have to thank my brother most, I think. He gave me a lot of the games I played on the NES and SNES as a kid. I have a semi nice collection of rare old games that I value more than their resell value has ever been. FF1, some of my Dragon Warriors, my SNES RPGs, etc. Great, great stuff. Inspired me towards the games I've played ever since. I ended up siding with Sony due to him, really. Thanks to FF7 going to PSX, my brother got a PSX, and so, I ended up getting one. I went where the RPGs went. Aaah, memories of console arguments, about which would win... (I was right, at least!). Before that, I had both an SNES and a Genesis, so I liked both.
My brother in law mostly got me into PC gaming. That and Shareware. Though, I didn't have much shareware, just some Epic games stuff. I actually bought one of them - Castle of the Winds. My first Roguelike. :3 Ah, Roguelikes.... But, one day, I played Warcraft 2 on my brother in law's PC. I got slaughtered, as I picked a scenario and had no clue what I was doing. I ended up getting WC2 as a gift from him shortly afterwards, though, and there started my love of RTSes. But, back when we only had a 486, he gave me a CD with an NES emulator and some games. The 486 could only handle some of the NES games. Later when we got a better machine, he gave use a disc with MAME (Yep. MAME was around in the Win95 days) and ROMs. My dad and I used to play those all the time: Tapper, Popeye, Dig-Dug, Burger Time. He also would burn me PC games and eventually got my PSX modded. I ... sorta knew this was illegal back when he did this, but it never really triggered in my head. I've always been around piracy, heh.
My love of TBSes was a bit different. I ended up
*Okay, so, it took me like 3 times starting FFT to beat it. I didn't realize people died permanently when they crystalized/turned into a chest. And then the second time I thought 4 Knights + Chemist was a good team. I got it like right after it came out, so I was like 9, damnit. Was my first SRPG, too.
So... That's roughly where I am today. Something like that. My tastes have only grown since I started. I skipped over some important events, probably, but... Well, I can't cover them all and have this be of any reasonable length.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
I'm not sure how much I can say about this game. It was generally pretty fun. Which, actually, surprised me. 3D Castlevania? After how horrible I had heard the ones on N64 were and given my tendency to liking 2D games better (Even in this day and age), I didn't hold out too much hope. However, like my discovery that 3D Zelda and 3D Mario weren't horrible (and were even pretty good), I find that Castlevania is capable of good 3D games as well.
Let's do a rundown.
Plot: ... It's Castlevania. Set out to fight Dracula, encounter a few twists, probably work right into someone's plan, kill Dracula. ... yknow. I said this exact same thing in the last Castlevania review I did. Ha. Though, one of the characters, Saint Germaine, is pretty cool.
Music: Done by Michiru Yamane. Not *quite* as good as the SotN soundtrack, but a decent soundtrack. There were a few times when I noticed the music in a good way.
Graphics: Not great but not horrible. The people (of which there aren't really that many) have a bit of an odd look about them, but that's more of an art direction thing than a graphics thing, really. The monsters tend to look nice, though. The style is very Castlevaniaish. The areas tend toward dark and gothic, but don't fall into the only 3 Black, Grey, and Brown that some games do.
Gameplay: Ah, and the reason Castlevania has survived >20 years. As you don't play a Belmont in this game, your weapon repetoire is more than just a whip, and the game does multiple weapons really well. Like in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (and, as a more played example, Dynasty Warriors), you have a normal attack and a Strong attack. The Strong attack in this game tends to be combo finishing moves, but not always. This is one of the few games I've played where the weapons all feel really different and seem like they all have their own unique niche to fill in. There are: Swords, Huge Swords, Fencing Swords, Axes, Huge Axes, Spears, Knuckles, and Special. Special is weird and tends toward useless for 95% of the game. Now, the rest: Axes and Swords are pretty similar. Fastish, decent crowd control, decent against one thing. Huge Axes and Huge Swords are slow (Against fast enemies, you feel slugish as they dance around you - It's neat), deal a huge amount of damage, and can clear the area around you out with certain combos. Huge Swords also have a combo that works decent at single enemy focus. Fencing Swords are damned fast and are good at both single and crowd control, but they're weak. Knuckles are the fastest, weakest, and are bad at crowd control. But, oh, against a single enemy, you can stunlock the bastard until it dies. Spears are easily the best crowd control weapon, and, in that aspect, they're a bit slow - They have large sweeping attacks that put you a bit overextended. However, certain combos speed it up and can focus on single enemy attacks. They're pretty dynamic, it's cool. Now, each of those 8 categories has its own set of combos. Combos work like this: The normal attack button combos a set length combo. Hit the strong attack/final attack button at any point and you'll do a finishing move that changes depending on where in the normal attack combo you activate it. Each weapon has a wide range of different moves. They all feel unique and useful - Which is something that most games with a wide range of weapons really sort of fail at doing.
Other game aspects include: Being a Blacksmith. You make all the weapons and armor that you use in the game. You get material for this via enemy drops, chests, and stealing from enemies. The careful explorer and dedicated thief will be rewarded with high quality items. Though you can get by without just on enemy drops. I feel somewhere in between. I rarely stole, but did occasionally when it was easy. I managed to get a pretty good set of equipment throughout the game.
Being a Pokemon trainer. Er... You get familiars as you advance through the game. There are multiple types that cover healing, support, and combat roles. While I really disliked this idea at first, as it didn't seem necessary early game, the battles got tougher and the familiars got cooler and I accepted it. Turns out, I enjoyed the mechanic by end game. You evolve them by getting a drop depending on what weapon you use (Which actually isn't a pain in this game!) and they learn skills based on what evolution path they have. Some evolution paths give you abilities needed to get to secretish rooms/areas. I'd sorta recommend looking up evolution paths and such to make sure you get useful evolutions. Some of them are sort of bad - No skills to get to different areas *or* useful skills for combat. You can likely get by without on sheer luck, though. I managed it.
The difficulty, too, was pretty much just about right. There were a few hard bosses (and one that annoyed me, as you only have to do about 1/8th of his lifebar to end the fight), but none that were absurd. The monsters that filled the games environs, as well, were varied and fun to smash the crap out of.
Also, oh hay, look at that. I've beaten 200 games, according to my Backloggery.
Let's do a rundown.
Plot: ... It's Castlevania. Set out to fight Dracula, encounter a few twists, probably work right into someone's plan, kill Dracula. ... yknow. I said this exact same thing in the last Castlevania review I did. Ha. Though, one of the characters, Saint Germaine, is pretty cool.
Music: Done by Michiru Yamane. Not *quite* as good as the SotN soundtrack, but a decent soundtrack. There were a few times when I noticed the music in a good way.
Graphics: Not great but not horrible. The people (of which there aren't really that many) have a bit of an odd look about them, but that's more of an art direction thing than a graphics thing, really. The monsters tend to look nice, though. The style is very Castlevaniaish. The areas tend toward dark and gothic, but don't fall into the only 3 Black, Grey, and Brown that some games do.
Gameplay: Ah, and the reason Castlevania has survived >20 years. As you don't play a Belmont in this game, your weapon repetoire is more than just a whip, and the game does multiple weapons really well. Like in Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (and, as a more played example, Dynasty Warriors), you have a normal attack and a Strong attack. The Strong attack in this game tends to be combo finishing moves, but not always. This is one of the few games I've played where the weapons all feel really different and seem like they all have their own unique niche to fill in. There are: Swords, Huge Swords, Fencing Swords, Axes, Huge Axes, Spears, Knuckles, and Special. Special is weird and tends toward useless for 95% of the game. Now, the rest: Axes and Swords are pretty similar. Fastish, decent crowd control, decent against one thing. Huge Axes and Huge Swords are slow (Against fast enemies, you feel slugish as they dance around you - It's neat), deal a huge amount of damage, and can clear the area around you out with certain combos. Huge Swords also have a combo that works decent at single enemy focus. Fencing Swords are damned fast and are good at both single and crowd control, but they're weak. Knuckles are the fastest, weakest, and are bad at crowd control. But, oh, against a single enemy, you can stunlock the bastard until it dies. Spears are easily the best crowd control weapon, and, in that aspect, they're a bit slow - They have large sweeping attacks that put you a bit overextended. However, certain combos speed it up and can focus on single enemy attacks. They're pretty dynamic, it's cool. Now, each of those 8 categories has its own set of combos. Combos work like this: The normal attack button combos a set length combo. Hit the strong attack/final attack button at any point and you'll do a finishing move that changes depending on where in the normal attack combo you activate it. Each weapon has a wide range of different moves. They all feel unique and useful - Which is something that most games with a wide range of weapons really sort of fail at doing.
Other game aspects include: Being a Blacksmith. You make all the weapons and armor that you use in the game. You get material for this via enemy drops, chests, and stealing from enemies. The careful explorer and dedicated thief will be rewarded with high quality items. Though you can get by without just on enemy drops. I feel somewhere in between. I rarely stole, but did occasionally when it was easy. I managed to get a pretty good set of equipment throughout the game.
Being a Pokemon trainer. Er... You get familiars as you advance through the game. There are multiple types that cover healing, support, and combat roles. While I really disliked this idea at first, as it didn't seem necessary early game, the battles got tougher and the familiars got cooler and I accepted it. Turns out, I enjoyed the mechanic by end game. You evolve them by getting a drop depending on what weapon you use (Which actually isn't a pain in this game!) and they learn skills based on what evolution path they have. Some evolution paths give you abilities needed to get to secretish rooms/areas. I'd sorta recommend looking up evolution paths and such to make sure you get useful evolutions. Some of them are sort of bad - No skills to get to different areas *or* useful skills for combat. You can likely get by without on sheer luck, though. I managed it.
The difficulty, too, was pretty much just about right. There were a few hard bosses (and one that annoyed me, as you only have to do about 1/8th of his lifebar to end the fight), but none that were absurd. The monsters that filled the games environs, as well, were varied and fun to smash the crap out of.
Also, oh hay, look at that. I've beaten 200 games, according to my Backloggery.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Wild Arms 4
As a big fan of the Wild Arms series, I've finally gotten around to Wild Arms 4. I ... don't really know what to say about the game, though. It ... was a good game. I never got tired of it and wanted to stop, but then there was never really a drive to play it. The story wasn't amazing (though, it did have a few really trope breaking moments and a few awesome scenes.. Though, it also has a lot of trope enforcing moments, so I suppose it balances out), I read it, but didn't horribly care. The music was good, but not too special. The tracks that Naruke did stand out, but the rest ... Meh.
Being a Wild Arms game, there are a few things that return to the series, as expected. The horrible forcing of a term to the acronym ARM; the Force Gauge, a gauge that builds up in combat that increases as you take or deal damage (though, the one in this game is party shared); puzzles in the dungeon (though, tools are unfortunately gone). Guardians are gone, sadly.
The combat was fun, though. The normal battle system brings in a bit of SRPG and is set on 7 hexes, a center one, and 6 around it. Your characters start randomly disbursed (for random fights) around them. You can melee attack adjacent hexes and magic and other unique abilities do any square, surrounding squares, or a line of squares. Status effects and buffs affect squares instead of individual units, and you see the exact combat order, as well. It makes for a bit more strategic combat. The system doesn't drag on, either. Random battles go by in about a minute or two, so no longer than in any other system. Unfortunately, one of the characters, Raquel, is absurdly broken, and takes just about all the difficulty out of the game. She's absurdly powerful and has a Force ability that lets her act an additional time per use.
The method of character customization is new in this game, too. Each character has a set of abilities that get learned over the course of the game, in their Crest Graph. However, they have to have a certain number of points allocated to them to be learned. Each level, every skill has a permanent point allocated to them, and you gain another point that can be moved around into any of the skills. However, if you don't use all the movable points, you have more HP and MP. These points are, actually, the only benefit you get from leveling up. You gain stats by mastering a set of abilities in the Crest Graph, 'Class Level Up'. The system only really allows for freedom toward midlevel range, though. There's not that many abilities, though, so there's not that many choices. You tend to just be able to choose what ability you get early.
There's a good amount of post game stuff to do, as well. Optional bosses and absurd synthesize strings and such. It's not a long game, though. I beat it in about 25-30 hours of actual play. Was a very, very linear game, though. I don't think I encountered a side quest in the entire game. There's also no exploration. It is literally just "Go here. Kay, now go here. Kay, now go here." on the world map.
It's a decent game. Fun, but nothing amazing. Fans of the series would like it. Everyone else, pick it up if you see it for cheap.
Being a Wild Arms game, there are a few things that return to the series, as expected. The horrible forcing of a term to the acronym ARM; the Force Gauge, a gauge that builds up in combat that increases as you take or deal damage (though, the one in this game is party shared); puzzles in the dungeon (though, tools are unfortunately gone). Guardians are gone, sadly.
The combat was fun, though. The normal battle system brings in a bit of SRPG and is set on 7 hexes, a center one, and 6 around it. Your characters start randomly disbursed (for random fights) around them. You can melee attack adjacent hexes and magic and other unique abilities do any square, surrounding squares, or a line of squares. Status effects and buffs affect squares instead of individual units, and you see the exact combat order, as well. It makes for a bit more strategic combat. The system doesn't drag on, either. Random battles go by in about a minute or two, so no longer than in any other system. Unfortunately, one of the characters, Raquel, is absurdly broken, and takes just about all the difficulty out of the game. She's absurdly powerful and has a Force ability that lets her act an additional time per use.
The method of character customization is new in this game, too. Each character has a set of abilities that get learned over the course of the game, in their Crest Graph. However, they have to have a certain number of points allocated to them to be learned. Each level, every skill has a permanent point allocated to them, and you gain another point that can be moved around into any of the skills. However, if you don't use all the movable points, you have more HP and MP. These points are, actually, the only benefit you get from leveling up. You gain stats by mastering a set of abilities in the Crest Graph, 'Class Level Up'. The system only really allows for freedom toward midlevel range, though. There's not that many abilities, though, so there's not that many choices. You tend to just be able to choose what ability you get early.
There's a good amount of post game stuff to do, as well. Optional bosses and absurd synthesize strings and such. It's not a long game, though. I beat it in about 25-30 hours of actual play. Was a very, very linear game, though. I don't think I encountered a side quest in the entire game. There's also no exploration. It is literally just "Go here. Kay, now go here. Kay, now go here." on the world map.
It's a decent game. Fun, but nothing amazing. Fans of the series would like it. Everyone else, pick it up if you see it for cheap.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Resident Evil 5
This is probably the best co-op experience I've ever had in a game. No, really. A good co-op experience in a game is hard to find. So often, it just seems like you happen to be in the same area at the same time, doing independent things. RE5 has you and the person you play it with actually mattering, very much, to what the other is doing. My friend and I dialogued about strategy and planning, were yelling at the other for help, thanking the other for a save (Scripted or we just shot a guy about to hit the other) or a close shave, responding to nice shots or throws, asking for a heal, asking for ammo... etc.
Part of this is due to how Resident Evil is structured, though. You're not, as characters, great at dodging. Your partner shooting a guy behind you is really something that saves you, as you aren't going to dodge that. Your inventory is limited, so you can't both have all the guns (So, there becomes dialogue about who gets what). Ammo is scarce, so you have to work with your partner to make sure you both have ammo. Healing, as well, is done in a great way in this game. Any healing item used near your partner heals both of you for the same amount. Finally, though one of you dying results in you both losing, the game is littered with checkpoints, so you rarely lose much effort when you game over. Thus making it hard to get mad at your partner regardless of what happens.
Of course, this requires having a partner that isn't an ass. You have to compromise, share resources, etc. If you can get that, then you're golden.
The other important but non-gameplay aspect of RE5: Atmosphere/How scary it is. So, 4 and 5 are much less horror, more action. But, see, the only type of 'fear' that works on me in games is the fear of a big enemy about to kill the fuck out of me. And this game manages to achieve that pretty well. The game gives every boss the feeling of difficulty, all the big pitched battles feel rough, etc. It's nice, actually.
Really, the rest isn't terribly important. It's the least story intensive Resident Evil, the graphics are amazing, the music works pretty well, etc.
I do, however, have 2 more gameplay related things to talk about. QTEs and the final boss. And, actually, how they relate.
See, I don't like most QTEs. I like the QTEs in this game. They're not terribly common, add to the game instead of just fluffing out gameplay, and aren't abused. The ones in combat are all attack or dodge related. If you stun an enemy, hit X to QTE if you're in melee range and you do a special attack. Alternatively, any of a number of enemies will have you able to dodge attacks by various QTEs These are the faster, less telegraphed attacks. The cutscene QTEs are kind of annoying, but I can forgive them for not being overused ... and that it's kinda cool to see your characters die in the various cutscene ways. >_>
So, the final boss fight was horribly badly designed. At least in co-op. In Single Player, it's fairly straightforward, as you're only playing one side of the events. In Co-Op, though, you have to figure out, in the beginning, to run from the final boss, as shooting him then does no damage and you get no indication of this. And then, once you run, you sort of have to figure out exactly how the QTEs work and how to trigger the rest of the boss fight, again, with no real indication of how to do it. After about 6 tries of just getting through what felt more like shooting in the dark at how to get the arcane magic of this fight to go, we just checked GameFAQs and got along to the real part of the boss fight. It was pretty disappointing, all told.
Still, an overall great game for Co-op. Single player? I'm not so sure if I'd have loved it as much, to be honest. I might go through in single... Or I might just co-op it again with another friend. Maybe on hard, if the person can import a normal difficulty character. And I know I'll have a damned blast.
Part of this is due to how Resident Evil is structured, though. You're not, as characters, great at dodging. Your partner shooting a guy behind you is really something that saves you, as you aren't going to dodge that. Your inventory is limited, so you can't both have all the guns (So, there becomes dialogue about who gets what). Ammo is scarce, so you have to work with your partner to make sure you both have ammo. Healing, as well, is done in a great way in this game. Any healing item used near your partner heals both of you for the same amount. Finally, though one of you dying results in you both losing, the game is littered with checkpoints, so you rarely lose much effort when you game over. Thus making it hard to get mad at your partner regardless of what happens.
Of course, this requires having a partner that isn't an ass. You have to compromise, share resources, etc. If you can get that, then you're golden.
The other important but non-gameplay aspect of RE5: Atmosphere/How scary it is. So, 4 and 5 are much less horror, more action. But, see, the only type of 'fear' that works on me in games is the fear of a big enemy about to kill the fuck out of me. And this game manages to achieve that pretty well. The game gives every boss the feeling of difficulty, all the big pitched battles feel rough, etc. It's nice, actually.
Really, the rest isn't terribly important. It's the least story intensive Resident Evil, the graphics are amazing, the music works pretty well, etc.
I do, however, have 2 more gameplay related things to talk about. QTEs and the final boss. And, actually, how they relate.
See, I don't like most QTEs. I like the QTEs in this game. They're not terribly common, add to the game instead of just fluffing out gameplay, and aren't abused. The ones in combat are all attack or dodge related. If you stun an enemy, hit X to QTE if you're in melee range and you do a special attack. Alternatively, any of a number of enemies will have you able to dodge attacks by various QTEs These are the faster, less telegraphed attacks. The cutscene QTEs are kind of annoying, but I can forgive them for not being overused ... and that it's kinda cool to see your characters die in the various cutscene ways. >_>
So, the final boss fight was horribly badly designed. At least in co-op. In Single Player, it's fairly straightforward, as you're only playing one side of the events. In Co-Op, though, you have to figure out, in the beginning, to run from the final boss, as shooting him then does no damage and you get no indication of this. And then, once you run, you sort of have to figure out exactly how the QTEs work and how to trigger the rest of the boss fight, again, with no real indication of how to do it. After about 6 tries of just getting through what felt more like shooting in the dark at how to get the arcane magic of this fight to go, we just checked GameFAQs and got along to the real part of the boss fight. It was pretty disappointing, all told.
Still, an overall great game for Co-op. Single player? I'm not so sure if I'd have loved it as much, to be honest. I might go through in single... Or I might just co-op it again with another friend. Maybe on hard, if the person can import a normal difficulty character. And I know I'll have a damned blast.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Plants vs. Zombies
The best $10 game I have ever played. And I've played Peggle. *And* Puzzle Quest. Yes, it's really that good. I've already gotten a good 10-15 hours out of it, and I've still got a lot of Puzzles and Minigames and Survivals to do. So, it's a *long* 10 dollar game. It's also amazingly fun.
Plants vs Zombies is a Tower Defense/Defend Your Castle type game, but with an interesting twist. Your goal is to defend your house from zombies. You do that by planting your lawn with plants. Each plant costs a certain amount of sun to grow. Sun drops from the sky and also is produced by sunflowers. You have to manage resource building with zombie killing. It's much easier (Well, the main mode, anyway) than flash based defense games, but it's not a pushover. A few of the levels gave me a good run. I never died, though. The main adventure has 50 levels, with the Minigames, Puzzles, and Survivals being another 50.
The game has, actually, a surprising amount of depth. There are dozens of plant types to plant, 5 different stage types, and then also dozens of zombies to counter. And then each of the puzzles and minigames is something different but along the same line as the main game. In one game, you play as the zombies, trying to beat a plant setup; in another you play Bejeweled, only with plants. And zombies coming to eat the plants.
Oh, and the game is surprisingly funny. Each plant and zombie has an entry in an almanac in the game. Most of them are worth a chuckle, and some of the zombies are just hilarious to see.
There's no story and the music is just sort of in the background (Though, it does have an *awesome* credits song). The graphics are great. Gameplay carries the game, though. As it should.
Very, very worth 10 bucks. Worth even the $20 it goes for on PopCap, but just get it on Steam for $10.
Plants vs Zombies is a Tower Defense/Defend Your Castle type game, but with an interesting twist. Your goal is to defend your house from zombies. You do that by planting your lawn with plants. Each plant costs a certain amount of sun to grow. Sun drops from the sky and also is produced by sunflowers. You have to manage resource building with zombie killing. It's much easier (Well, the main mode, anyway) than flash based defense games, but it's not a pushover. A few of the levels gave me a good run. I never died, though. The main adventure has 50 levels, with the Minigames, Puzzles, and Survivals being another 50.
The game has, actually, a surprising amount of depth. There are dozens of plant types to plant, 5 different stage types, and then also dozens of zombies to counter. And then each of the puzzles and minigames is something different but along the same line as the main game. In one game, you play as the zombies, trying to beat a plant setup; in another you play Bejeweled, only with plants. And zombies coming to eat the plants.
Oh, and the game is surprisingly funny. Each plant and zombie has an entry in an almanac in the game. Most of them are worth a chuckle, and some of the zombies are just hilarious to see.
There's no story and the music is just sort of in the background (Though, it does have an *awesome* credits song). The graphics are great. Gameplay carries the game, though. As it should.
Very, very worth 10 bucks. Worth even the $20 it goes for on PopCap, but just get it on Steam for $10.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Ace Combat 6: Fires of LIberation
So, I had an interesting experience with this game. I started it on Hard, my first time doing that for an Ace Combat game. It's also been my first time playing in the crap planes for awhile, as all my recent Ace Combat has been on New Game +. So, getting used to planes that can't turn worth crap was interesting. I didn't breeze through the game, but I also didn't have that hard of a time, even on hard. Well, okay, that's not true. Before I got entirely used to the new engine (Which was halfway through the game. >_>) I was having a bit of a tough time.
The Flight Engine engine is a bit tighter, and the graphics in air are beautiful. The biggest addition to the game is the High G turns, though. Hold brake and accelerate at the same time while turning and you turn on a dime. It's sorta crazy. However, it kills your speed and you stall out pretty quickly on planes with low stability. So, it's something to use in dogfights and dodging missiles. I found it out during the first Superweapon mission, which made it sorta much easier.
Other changes/additions:
, but using those make it less AWESOME! Meeeh.
The story is ... Well, okay. I didn't pay attention to the story after the first few missions. But, see, that's because I got bored. The story, in this game, is about the people affected by the war. It's not about you (AC:Zero), it's not about your squadron (5), it's not about the rival squadron (4), it's about ... civilians. I found it to be boring, so after about mission 3 I just spammed start through the cutscenes. It got preachy. Bugger that. Though, the radio dialogue was pretty cool, but that's a given. No one as standout as Chopper, but... Eh. No one's been as cool as Chopper.
A final, amused note: The final mission has 2 trench run situations. Did the first one in one attempted, the second in 2. I'm getting better at them, apparently. Wait, one more thing. The plane you get for beating the game is sorta absolutely insane. CFA-44, Nosferatu. It turns on a dime even without High G turns, but it can't High G turn for very long due to low stability. The Nosferatu's also got a missile, the ADMM, that targets 12 targets. 12. 12. Each of those 12 parts tracks better than a QAAM, too. It has a Railgun and an electronic warfare thing for making missiles miss, but the ADMM is the clear weapon of choice here. I actually sorta prefer the F-22A over it, aside from Bullsiht missiles, though. Go figure.
Overall? Not as good as 5 or Zero. A bit better than 4. Really, it was the story and shortness of it. The game is only 15 missions. The missions are longer, overall, than previous games, tho. Still, my game completed save clocks in at about 4 hours. Maybe, maaaaybe double that if you include time spent on all failed attempts. That sounds a bit high, though.
The Flight Engine engine is a bit tighter, and the graphics in air are beautiful. The biggest addition to the game is the High G turns, though. Hold brake and accelerate at the same time while turning and you turn on a dime. It's sorta crazy. However, it kills your speed and you stall out pretty quickly on planes with low stability. So, it's something to use in dogfights and dodging missiles. I found it out during the first Superweapon mission, which made it sorta much easier.
Other changes/additions:
- Flak cannons are SCARY. Holy crap. Instead of just a bit of a shake when you're hit and some damage, it's explosions all around you in air, and when you're hit, you shake for awhile after. It throws off your mobility a bit, too. It's great.
- ESM. It's an area of effect where your RADAR works a bit better/Enemy RADAR is worse and your missiles do more damage. Your enemy has it, too. It's done by planes or groundbased RADAR stations, which you can destroy. The effect isn't huge, but it was noticeable on hard.
- Allied Support options. So, you only have a wingman, who you can control in the form of cover or attack. Cover means he'll cover you, attack means he'll attack a target. Now, that's normal. However, you can also do Allied Attack/Allied Cover. This controls *all* allied planes in the area.If you want a certain something destroyed? Allied Attack and whatever is in front of you *dies*. Allied Cover and all the planes attacking you and annoying you and causing you to be in constant Missile Alert? Good bye. Your allies are actually not that bad in this game. It's kinda crazy. You only have a certain amount you can do this, based on how much you've destroyed.
- Missile/Plane changes: You get a buttload more. You start with around 100 normal missiles on the weakest plane, going to 250 on F-22A. Specials get the same treatment. The F22-A has 72 XMA6 or 40 QAAMs. Speaking of QAAMs, they got nerfed. They're normal missile range with a bit better handling. The enemy aces dodge them pretty regularly. Still, pretty effective, but not UBERHOMINGDEATH like they used to be. Also, much limited amount of planes. You only get about 18 total in the game, 2 of them only unlocking after you beat the game. And you can't change planes for the first 3 or 4 missions. So, yeah, sorta lame.
- Certain missions are structured differently. Huge missions are now broken up into objectives, where you have to complete X objectives out of Y total objectives. You can choose to only highlight targets for one objective, choose what type of combat you want (air or ground), etc. They're always something like 'Assist
in doing X'. It's pretty cool. Though, it stretches you kinda thin, as you can fail objectives and none of them will succeed without you. So, yeah, standard Ace Combat where your entire military relies on you being awesome. Long missions also tend to have checkpoints at objective changes, too, which is nice. So, long mission, then, all of the sudden, OH GOD ENEMY ACES ... That's a checkpoint. It's so nice.
The story is ... Well, okay. I didn't pay attention to the story after the first few missions. But, see, that's because I got bored. The story, in this game, is about the people affected by the war. It's not about you (AC:Zero), it's not about your squadron (5), it's not about the rival squadron (4), it's about ... civilians. I found it to be boring, so after about mission 3 I just spammed start through the cutscenes. It got preachy. Bugger that. Though, the radio dialogue was pretty cool, but that's a given. No one as standout as Chopper, but... Eh. No one's been as cool as Chopper.
A final, amused note: The final mission has 2 trench run situations. Did the first one in one attempted, the second in 2. I'm getting better at them, apparently. Wait, one more thing. The plane you get for beating the game is sorta absolutely insane. CFA-44, Nosferatu.
Overall? Not as good as 5 or Zero. A bit better than 4. Really, it was the story and shortness of it. The game is only 15 missions. The missions are longer, overall, than previous games, tho. Still, my game completed save clocks in at about 4 hours. Maybe, maaaaybe double that if you include time spent on all failed attempts. That sounds a bit high, though.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Silent Bomber
Another game that could have been really amazing. I'll just laundry list the FFFF aspects:
- Horrible, horrible targeting system. Yes, targeting system, lock on to the person I'm escorting, with no way to stop this from happening. Thank you. That's great. It would be nice if it was an actual lockon system, where you could scroll targets or ... something.
- The final boss fight is an actual fake difficulty moment. It's got the most disorienting background I've ever seen. The floor becomes transparent except for wireframe lines. There's animated stuff going on under the floor/background. Most of the fight is wireframe. Gah. What?
- CAMERA. Yeah, I love enemies shooting me offscreen such that I can only see it right before it's about to hit me. This happened far too often in this game.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Rondo of Swords
This game is hard to review. See, I love SPRGs. As we've been through before, I'll play a bad SRPG for ages because it's an SRPG. They're addicting, to me.
I love some of the aspects of the game. It has a wide cast of characters to choose from (unfortunately only 6 can go into combat with you) and you customize your characters via giving them skills, which is something I love. The game has also managed to innovate - And have mechanics that no other game has (At least, as far as I'm aware, and I've played a damn lot of SRPGs). The prime example of this is that there is no attack option in this game. There is only movement. That sounds weird, I know, but moving through an enemy square is how you attack. Thus, you can attack movement-1 enemies in a turn. This makes defensive walls impossible, kinda. There's another new concept that the game has which makes them possible. See, each character has a 'momentum gauge', which indicates how big of a target they are. This isn't anything new, as all SRPGs have this behind the scenes. However, in this game, it's manipulatable. There are rings that increase or decrease your base MC, killing enemies increases it, there are skills to increase or decrease it... So, you can very easily manipulate who the AI will attack. Combine this with another element the game has, Zone of Control (ZoC), where you can not be moved through. This is a very rare skill, but a character with high defense, manipulated MC, and ZoC can stop an entire attacking force from hitting your weak and squishy casters.
So, this is why I decided to play through the game, despite its very obvious flaws. The game... had bad QA, or something like that. There's a number of glitches that I encountered - Stupid things, like characters managing to end their turn on top of each other, breaking both of them. You also cannot rearrange the starting location of your characters in combat. ... Mostly. If you mess around with who you use and the order of selecting them, you can kind of influence it. Which is really, really stupid.
The way the game utterly fucks up errands... Oof. This is going to be so long it deserves a paragraph. Errands are things your characters can do instead of going into combat. You can train them (Give them small stat boosts), send them on trials (PROMOTION!), send them on Quests, or send them shopping. Shopping is done in a ... really dumb way, unfortunately. You send a person out with money, they come back with item types you specified. There is no way of knowing what they'll come back with. Yeaaaah. Now, quests. There are 3 major types of quests. Card quests, Smith Quests, everything else. Everything else gives you rewards (Promotion items and gold earning items are the noted ones). Each character can only go on a certain number of Card Quests and Smith Quests combined. This is never mentioned. Card Quests, once you've gone on a certain number, bestow each character with a certain bonus. This is never mentioned *nor* does it tell you when you get the bonus. Furthermore, the game gives no indication of characters having said bonus or the amount of Card/Smith quests they've done. If the game is trying to obfuscate its mechanics, it succeeded masterfully.
Some other minor things are just ... annoying. Assigning quests is a pain, as you can't see who is going on what quest once you do and you can't cancel one quest, you have to cancel every quest people are going on. Actions can be very easily messed up - If an enemy counter attacks, you get bounced. There's been a number of times I've had to restart due to that. It's part of the system, I suppose, more than a real flaw.
Fix these problems and you would have a game that really shined. As is? It's... decent. Would I recommend other people to play it? Only if you really like SRPGs and can handle difficulty. It's not an easy game, by a long shot, but it's also easier than Fire Emblem. Characters don't perma-death, after all. If a character dies in combat, they're just Hurt, which means they have halved stats next fight and can't do errands. So... Judge for yourself if you'd like it.
I love some of the aspects of the game. It has a wide cast of characters to choose from (unfortunately only 6 can go into combat with you) and you customize your characters via giving them skills, which is something I love. The game has also managed to innovate - And have mechanics that no other game has (At least, as far as I'm aware, and I've played a damn lot of SRPGs). The prime example of this is that there is no attack option in this game. There is only movement. That sounds weird, I know, but moving through an enemy square is how you attack. Thus, you can attack movement-1 enemies in a turn. This makes defensive walls impossible, kinda. There's another new concept that the game has which makes them possible. See, each character has a 'momentum gauge', which indicates how big of a target they are. This isn't anything new, as all SRPGs have this behind the scenes. However, in this game, it's manipulatable. There are rings that increase or decrease your base MC, killing enemies increases it, there are skills to increase or decrease it... So, you can very easily manipulate who the AI will attack. Combine this with another element the game has, Zone of Control (ZoC), where you can not be moved through. This is a very rare skill, but a character with high defense, manipulated MC, and ZoC can stop an entire attacking force from hitting your weak and squishy casters.
So, this is why I decided to play through the game, despite its very obvious flaws. The game... had bad QA, or something like that. There's a number of glitches that I encountered - Stupid things, like characters managing to end their turn on top of each other, breaking both of them. You also cannot rearrange the starting location of your characters in combat. ... Mostly. If you mess around with who you use and the order of selecting them, you can kind of influence it. Which is really, really stupid.
The way the game utterly fucks up errands... Oof. This is going to be so long it deserves a paragraph. Errands are things your characters can do instead of going into combat. You can train them (Give them small stat boosts), send them on trials (PROMOTION!), send them on Quests, or send them shopping. Shopping is done in a ... really dumb way, unfortunately. You send a person out with money, they come back with item types you specified. There is no way of knowing what they'll come back with. Yeaaaah. Now, quests. There are 3 major types of quests. Card quests, Smith Quests, everything else. Everything else gives you rewards (Promotion items and gold earning items are the noted ones). Each character can only go on a certain number of Card Quests and Smith Quests combined. This is never mentioned. Card Quests, once you've gone on a certain number, bestow each character with a certain bonus. This is never mentioned *nor* does it tell you when you get the bonus. Furthermore, the game gives no indication of characters having said bonus or the amount of Card/Smith quests they've done. If the game is trying to obfuscate its mechanics, it succeeded masterfully.
Some other minor things are just ... annoying. Assigning quests is a pain, as you can't see who is going on what quest once you do and you can't cancel one quest, you have to cancel every quest people are going on. Actions can be very easily messed up - If an enemy counter attacks, you get bounced. There's been a number of times I've had to restart due to that. It's part of the system, I suppose, more than a real flaw.
Fix these problems and you would have a game that really shined. As is? It's... decent. Would I recommend other people to play it? Only if you really like SRPGs and can handle difficulty. It's not an easy game, by a long shot, but it's also easier than Fire Emblem. Characters don't perma-death, after all. If a character dies in combat, they're just Hurt, which means they have halved stats next fight and can't do errands. So... Judge for yourself if you'd like it.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
So, I think I'm done with the game for a little while, so I can write my thoughts about it down. This isn't going to be a long entry, I don't think. Shows what I know.
So... Portrait of Ruin. Gameplaywise, it's Castlevania. If you've played one in the last decade, you've got the main idea. Explore maps, kill things, level up, get new equipment. The major addition is that you have two main characters. In both the main mode and Richter mode, you have both a melee person (Jonathon/Richter) and a caster (Charlotte/Maria). In Normal mode, Charlotte's spells replace subweapons. They have a casting time, so after hitting the subweapon activation, a charge bar appears. You can charge up to spell going off or a stronger version going off and cancel out of at any time.
You can swap between both characters, summon one to just attack, or have both out so the AI controls one. This almost gives you two very different ways to play. ... Almost.
The game seems designed for you to play as Jonathon. And, stupidly, actively penalizes you for not. See, any enemy that you hurt with a subweapon gives points to the subweapon that level it up. This means that Charlotte tends to be forced into the spot of being secondary character, which is a pity, as she was much more fun to play through the game as. (I ended up grinding up a few of the better subweapons near the end of the game, after buying 2 rings that double the rate you get skill points, via a glitch. A very acceptable use of a glitch, in this case, methinks).
So, the game is incredibly short. I beat the game, my first time through, in roughly 6 hours. I then beat the optional portrait (read: area) and got 1000% map completion and did all the quests (There's a person that gives you quests. You achieve some goal (Usually grinding to kill enemies for their drops) and you get a reward) in another 4 hours. This ... is pretty bad.
The shortness is due to the weirdness of design of the castle, that I didn't particularly like. You explore the castle to find Portraits, which you have to go in to and defeat a boss. You find 4 of these as you explore the castle... Then all of the sudden, you end up having access to 4. The castle is very small and lacking in variety. The portraits aren't bad, though. I'd prefer a single larger castle, methinks. There are an amusingly high number of shortcuts you can unlock, though, that you will never use. There are teleporters in the castle everywhere and you never revisit half the places you go to (... yeah, which kinda sucks), so I wonder why they're there.
However, the game does have a saving grace: A multitude of hard modes and optional modes!
The Hard modes come in 3 major varieties: Max level of 50, 25, and 1. Yes. You can choose to put the game on Hard mode (Where you deal less damage and ... enemeis deal weird damage. I want to say the damage that enemies do is something like just add 100 to it, as beginning of the game enemies did about 100-110 damage and end game enemies did like 140-150, with the same equipment) and not be able to level up. Of course, you do NG+ in Hard Mode, so you start with the best equipment in the game, and, inportantly, all the HP Max Up and MP Max Up items you find. Doing these modes gets you a stat boost that applies to any NG+ you do from that game on. The bonuses are Luck, Int, and Str, respectively. Hard Max Level 1 is ... hard, but doable. With heavy abuse of glitches and armor only useful in that mode(Every hit deals 10% max HP), at any rate. So, the big glitch of the game is that you can get quest rewards infinitely. This includes Max HP/MP Up (Limited to 32 of them, total) and things you can sell for money. There's a ring you get that boosts your attack by 1 per 100,000 gold you have. It's 20 minutes of boredom to get 900k gold to get +90 attack power. For reference, the best sword in the game gives you about +40 attack power and being level 50 gives you about 80 attack power. The game is pretty glitchy, but in this case, it takes away the fact that Metroidvanias have the shittiest money situation ever. So, awesome!
Richter Mode, you play as Richter and Maria. They can sequence break galore, but the mode seems a bit ... odd. See, you don't have equipment or items (Hell, you can't even go to the menu screen. Which is utterly stupid, as there are things like maps of all areas, the bestiary, the button config, in the menu.), which means you scale entirely on level and HP/MP Ups and you cannot heal. That I went through the normal game at what seemed to be way under level did not bode well for this mode. I beat Normal mode at 38. I got to Drac in Richter mode at 32. My horribly underleveled ass got schooled by Dracula repeatedly. I tried to the optional area, got about halfway through, got to level 36. Still can barely touch Drac. Geh. GFAQs, by the by, seems to recommend 45-50 for Drac. ... Whaaaa? So, I never beat Richter mode, as even learning Drac's patterns only goes so far. I'm not ninja enough to avoid every one of the attacks.
Still my second and third run through of the game did give me another good 10-15 hours out of the game, putting us at about 20-25 hours, which is much more respectable. It also does an amusing shift on the difficulty focus. Both Hard Mode and Richter mode tend to be a fight from save point to save point, hoping you don't die to the random enemies, but the bosses (Which are the much harder part in Normal) are a breeze, as you tend to have something in your repertoire that can easily defeat them.
Heh... I've entirely talked about gameplay. What of story, what of graphics, what of sound? THIS IS A CASTLEVANIA, FOLKS. Which means the story is throwaway (Drac is reviving! Wait, twist! Bad ending unless you do something specific! Wait, another twist! Kill Dracula! End.), the graphics are spritebased 2D (And, hey, pretty good), and the music was good (Which is a bad outing for the series).
Overall, a decent outing for the series. Not the best Metroidvania. I don't think I can call it the worst, though.
So... Portrait of Ruin. Gameplaywise, it's Castlevania. If you've played one in the last decade, you've got the main idea. Explore maps, kill things, level up, get new equipment. The major addition is that you have two main characters. In both the main mode and Richter mode, you have both a melee person (Jonathon/Richter) and a caster (Charlotte/Maria). In Normal mode, Charlotte's spells replace subweapons. They have a casting time, so after hitting the subweapon activation, a charge bar appears. You can charge up to spell going off or a stronger version going off and cancel out of at any time.
You can swap between both characters, summon one to just attack, or have both out so the AI controls one. This almost gives you two very different ways to play. ... Almost.
The game seems designed for you to play as Jonathon. And, stupidly, actively penalizes you for not. See, any enemy that you hurt with a subweapon gives points to the subweapon that level it up. This means that Charlotte tends to be forced into the spot of being secondary character, which is a pity, as she was much more fun to play through the game as. (I ended up grinding up a few of the better subweapons near the end of the game, after buying 2 rings that double the rate you get skill points, via a glitch. A very acceptable use of a glitch, in this case, methinks).
So, the game is incredibly short. I beat the game, my first time through, in roughly 6 hours. I then beat the optional portrait (read: area) and got 1000% map completion and did all the quests (There's a person that gives you quests. You achieve some goal (Usually grinding to kill enemies for their drops) and you get a reward) in another 4 hours. This ... is pretty bad.
The shortness is due to the weirdness of design of the castle, that I didn't particularly like. You explore the castle to find Portraits, which you have to go in to and defeat a boss. You find 4 of these as you explore the castle... Then all of the sudden, you end up having access to 4. The castle is very small and lacking in variety. The portraits aren't bad, though. I'd prefer a single larger castle, methinks. There are an amusingly high number of shortcuts you can unlock, though, that you will never use. There are teleporters in the castle everywhere and you never revisit half the places you go to (... yeah, which kinda sucks), so I wonder why they're there.
However, the game does have a saving grace: A multitude of hard modes and optional modes!
The Hard modes come in 3 major varieties: Max level of 50, 25, and 1. Yes. You can choose to put the game on Hard mode (Where you deal less damage and ... enemeis deal weird damage. I want to say the damage that enemies do is something like just add 100 to it, as beginning of the game enemies did about 100-110 damage and end game enemies did like 140-150, with the same equipment) and not be able to level up. Of course, you do NG+ in Hard Mode, so you start with the best equipment in the game, and, inportantly, all the HP Max Up and MP Max Up items you find. Doing these modes gets you a stat boost that applies to any NG+ you do from that game on. The bonuses are Luck, Int, and Str, respectively. Hard Max Level 1 is ... hard, but doable. With heavy abuse of glitches and armor only useful in that mode(Every hit deals 10% max HP), at any rate. So, the big glitch of the game is that you can get quest rewards infinitely. This includes Max HP/MP Up (Limited to 32 of them, total) and things you can sell for money. There's a ring you get that boosts your attack by 1 per 100,000 gold you have. It's 20 minutes of boredom to get 900k gold to get +90 attack power. For reference, the best sword in the game gives you about +40 attack power and being level 50 gives you about 80 attack power. The game is pretty glitchy, but in this case, it takes away the fact that Metroidvanias have the shittiest money situation ever. So, awesome!
Richter Mode, you play as Richter and Maria. They can sequence break galore, but the mode seems a bit ... odd. See, you don't have equipment or items (Hell, you can't even go to the menu screen. Which is utterly stupid, as there are things like maps of all areas, the bestiary, the button config, in the menu.), which means you scale entirely on level and HP/MP Ups and you cannot heal. That I went through the normal game at what seemed to be way under level did not bode well for this mode. I beat Normal mode at 38. I got to Drac in Richter mode at 32. My horribly underleveled ass got schooled by Dracula repeatedly. I tried to the optional area, got about halfway through, got to level 36. Still can barely touch Drac. Geh. GFAQs, by the by, seems to recommend 45-50 for Drac. ... Whaaaa? So, I never beat Richter mode, as even learning Drac's patterns only goes so far. I'm not ninja enough to avoid every one of the attacks.
Still my second and third run through of the game did give me another good 10-15 hours out of the game, putting us at about 20-25 hours, which is much more respectable. It also does an amusing shift on the difficulty focus. Both Hard Mode and Richter mode tend to be a fight from save point to save point, hoping you don't die to the random enemies, but the bosses (Which are the much harder part in Normal) are a breeze, as you tend to have something in your repertoire that can easily defeat them.
Heh... I've entirely talked about gameplay. What of story, what of graphics, what of sound? THIS IS A CASTLEVANIA, FOLKS. Which means the story is throwaway (Drac is reviving! Wait, twist! Bad ending unless you do something specific! Wait, another twist! Kill Dracula! End.), the graphics are spritebased 2D (And, hey, pretty good), and the music was good (Which is a bad outing for the series).
Overall, a decent outing for the series. Not the best Metroidvania. I don't think I can call it the worst, though.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
So, I just beat Dawn of War 2's campaign. I got the game on Friday, and I've been putting in a few hours each day since. It... was both good and bad. It could have used a lot of improvement, but I have to say I had a lot of fun. The biggest disappointments, really, were the unfulfilled promises.
So, the good:
So, the campaign for the game was advertised as a non-linear one, where all your choices matter, where what missions you do and what choices you make in missions will affect the outcome of the game. You're protecting a set of planets from invasion by Orks, Eldar, and eventually Tyranids., playing as the Space Marines, protecting the citizens of the Imperium of Man.
The campaign, once it got started (As it had a terribly slow start), was sorta awesome. It was a lot more fun once I got my squads leveled up and the story went in to swing. Slaughtering nyds/orks/eldars by the dozens was pretty cool. The character development was kinda neat, too, actually. The squad commanders would talk about the various events and reveal their character in their interactions. Wasn't something I expected. The game *does* look amazing, I do have to give it that. And the cover system is pretty cool, even if your units do do some retarded things by trying to find cover. Like a melee squad sitting in cover, plinking away at enemy units ... with pistols. Though, the first time you see a vehicle just Koolaid Man 'OH YEAH!' through a wall, you won't help but go "... That was awesome".
The Bad: What happened to the grand RTS they promised? Where the campaign would be full of choices that actually mattered? Oh, right, that was all marketing talk. This actually equates to: Having optional missions (That don't make a lick of difference except for points (Which are entirely arbitrary) and leveling up.) and secondary objectives in missions. Yeah. Good job with the spin, there, guys.
You know how the beta only had 6 maps? ... Yeah, that's all the *game* shipped with. Really, guys? Come on. One of those 1v1 maps sucked and I've played so many times on the other one to get used to the game that I'm bored as hell of it. Eeeesh.
The wargear obtaining process, also, felt sorta... bad. Being that it is entirely random, you can get the shaft and never have good weapons for a squad. eg, I never used the Dreadnought character because I never found weapon upgrades for him. Ever.
The Different: I'm still not sure if DoW2 is better than DoW1. It's just different. Sure, it looks prettier, but it really feels like an entirely different game. The smaller number of squads, the smaller number of units per race, the no base building, the removal of morale, no reinforcing squads in the field ... It feels very, very different. Honestly, I think I would have liked a New and Improved DoW1 a bit more. Ah well.
Overall, I think it wowed me a lot less than DoW1 because it doesn't feel different enough from all the RTSes I've played before, so my feelings for the game aren't WHOA! like they were for DoW1 It's a solid game though, and will only get better as the promised DLC campaigns and maps (free!) are released.
So, the good:
So, the campaign for the game was advertised as a non-linear one, where all your choices matter, where what missions you do and what choices you make in missions will affect the outcome of the game. You're protecting a set of planets from invasion by Orks, Eldar, and eventually Tyranids., playing as the Space Marines, protecting the citizens of the Imperium of Man.
The campaign, once it got started (As it had a terribly slow start), was sorta awesome. It was a lot more fun once I got my squads leveled up and the story went in to swing. Slaughtering nyds/orks/eldars by the dozens was pretty cool. The character development was kinda neat, too, actually. The squad commanders would talk about the various events and reveal their character in their interactions. Wasn't something I expected. The game *does* look amazing, I do have to give it that. And the cover system is pretty cool, even if your units do do some retarded things by trying to find cover. Like a melee squad sitting in cover, plinking away at enemy units ... with pistols. Though, the first time you see a vehicle just Koolaid Man 'OH YEAH!' through a wall, you won't help but go "... That was awesome".
The Bad: What happened to the grand RTS they promised? Where the campaign would be full of choices that actually mattered? Oh, right, that was all marketing talk. This actually equates to: Having optional missions (That don't make a lick of difference except for points (Which are entirely arbitrary) and leveling up.) and secondary objectives in missions. Yeah. Good job with the spin, there, guys.
You know how the beta only had 6 maps? ... Yeah, that's all the *game* shipped with. Really, guys? Come on. One of those 1v1 maps sucked and I've played so many times on the other one to get used to the game that I'm bored as hell of it. Eeeesh.
The wargear obtaining process, also, felt sorta... bad. Being that it is entirely random, you can get the shaft and never have good weapons for a squad. eg, I never used the Dreadnought character because I never found weapon upgrades for him. Ever.
The Different: I'm still not sure if DoW2 is better than DoW1. It's just different. Sure, it looks prettier, but it really feels like an entirely different game. The smaller number of squads, the smaller number of units per race, the no base building, the removal of morale, no reinforcing squads in the field ... It feels very, very different. Honestly, I think I would have liked a New and Improved DoW1 a bit more. Ah well.
Overall, I think it wowed me a lot less than DoW1 because it doesn't feel different enough from all the RTSes I've played before, so my feelings for the game aren't WHOA! like they were for DoW1 It's a solid game though, and will only get better as the promised DLC campaigns and maps (free!) are released.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Final Fantasy 4: DS
This is going to be a review of FF4 and a comparison of the versions.
So. FF4 is my favorite Final Fantasy. I have memories of playing it when I was scared to go into the basement alone. So, a good 15 years ago. I've played every version of it with the exception of WSC and PSX. However, as far as I know, those versions do not have significant changes. To enumerate these versions:
FF2 Easytype (What was released here on SNES)
FF4 Hardtype (The SNES game as released in Japan, but with a translation patch by J2E)
FF4 Advance (Released on GBA. Has all the features/difficulty of Hardtype. Adds in 2 new dungeons and the ability to switch party members)
FF4 DS
FF4 DS! First, the game is graphically beautiful. Okay, admittedly, for a portable game. I was impressed at the summon cutscenes and the quality of the pre-rendered scenes. There's noticeable jaggies and such, but it's pretty clean for a DS game. Cecil looks a bit ... bishounenish to me, but considering he was originally drawn by Amano (A man whose artstyle I've never liked) ... Well, I suppose it had to happen some time.
The music sounds very close to the original. For those that haven't played the original, that's a great compliment. FF4 had a, quite literally, epic soundtrack. It does a great job of conveying scenes, and when something big is happening, you know. The sound effects are a bit off, which disappointed me in a cursory way. And, I like the VAing the game has. The voices fit ... Though, the pronunciations make me ... cringe a bit. Not that they're bad, just different from how I said the things in my head. "Ceh-cul"? Really? "See-cil" is much better sounding to me. But, this is nitpicking.
The story has been spruced up from the original. There's a few scenes that have been added in, mostly to link the game to FF4: The After, a Japanese Cell Phone game that takes place a number of years after the original. They give a bit more backstory and don't feel forced, though. Another nice addition is that when you go to the menu, it has a thought bubble for the current lead character. This gives each character's perspective on the events that have been happening. It's small, but a cool detail none the less. The plot itself, well, is hard for me to describe without nostalgia clouding my accuracy. I think it has a great plot, if a bit simple. There's no heavy-handed doses of philosophy (If that's a good or bad thing is up to you), but there is a decent amount of depth. It's one of the few FFs that's ... actually fantasy. The only technology are a couple appearances of airships and tanks, and those are more the token bit of technology in a magic land. The game is about magic and monsters and such. The events are big and a bit yellow, but that's not really a bad thing in my mind.
The gameplay. Aah, back in the day when there was no standard party size and a party of 3 characters as is the standard now would seem down right anemic. FF4 had a party size of 5, and I really liked that. Your party also heavily switches around, from a pool of 12 people, though this is entirely determined by plot events, not you. Each party member has their own unique set of abilities and set of growths for magic. I like customization, but the FF series has sort of done it heavy-handedly, so I rather prefer the FF games with no customization. Either you have no/little control over how your characters grow, as they have a set list of spells, or each character can become any other. So, in a way, I prefer how FF4 has done things.
Now, FF4DS has made the most changes to Gameplay. Added are augments. They're items you can find that allow you to give new abilities to characters. Also, if you give augments to certain characters, you can get other augments based on their abilities. This does give you a fair amount of customization. Each person can equip 4 abilities, from Attack, default skills, and Augments you put on them. This includes even passive augments. Item has to be included, but you can swap out any other built in ability.
The game has been made much more difficult. Even FF4Hardtype only had a few moments of difficulty to me, but FF4DS has had a number of boss fights that have forced me to fight them multiple times. Admittedly, twice has tended to be enough. Once you learn a boss's trick, they tend to be effectively neutered. And if you keep status effects in mind - as they actually work on bosses, even crippling ones like silence or hold - you can get through hard fights with ease. I've died a few times to random battles, but those have felt more like "... Wow, really? Dealing [large damage] to my entire party before I could react? Yeah, that's fair" than anything more my fault. So, that's a definite fault. Hell, I even seem overleveled, due to very rarely running and being a terrible completionist. Overall, though, the extra difficulty is welcomed. Keeps you on your toes.
Another added thing was a bonus for viewing 100% of a map in a dungeon. This has caused me to do a bit of excessive running around, hence the overleveling >_>. actually useful, bit it's still neat. The story is the same as it was on the SNES and the script isn't as good Still, it's a solid version of the game.
FF4 DS is the other solid contender. Personally, I prefer the 2D graphics of the original, and the script is better than FF4 Advance's script, due to being a bit of a rewrite. The augments are neat, and the new plot bits are neat. The difficulty is a bit of a mixed bag. There is, actually, a bit of epilogue type content, in New Game Plus and 2 extra bosses, but this isn't really that much.
So... It's really a hard pick. My personal bias is toward FF4 Hardtype, but FF4 DS has been a great runthrough of the game.
Well, regardless of which version you play, you should play the game. Get to it.
So. FF4 is my favorite Final Fantasy. I have memories of playing it when I was scared to go into the basement alone. So, a good 15 years ago. I've played every version of it with the exception of WSC and PSX. However, as far as I know, those versions do not have significant changes. To enumerate these versions:
FF2 Easytype (What was released here on SNES)
FF4 Hardtype (The SNES game as released in Japan, but with a translation patch by J2E)
FF4 Advance (Released on GBA. Has all the features/difficulty of Hardtype. Adds in 2 new dungeons and the ability to switch party members)
FF4 DS
FF4 DS! First, the game is graphically beautiful. Okay, admittedly, for a portable game. I was impressed at the summon cutscenes and the quality of the pre-rendered scenes. There's noticeable jaggies and such, but it's pretty clean for a DS game. Cecil looks a bit ... bishounenish to me, but considering he was originally drawn by Amano (A man whose artstyle I've never liked) ... Well, I suppose it had to happen some time.
The music sounds very close to the original. For those that haven't played the original, that's a great compliment. FF4 had a, quite literally, epic soundtrack. It does a great job of conveying scenes, and when something big is happening, you know. The sound effects are a bit off, which disappointed me in a cursory way. And, I like the VAing the game has. The voices fit ... Though, the pronunciations make me ... cringe a bit. Not that they're bad, just different from how I said the things in my head. "Ceh-cul"? Really? "See-cil" is much better sounding to me. But, this is nitpicking.
The story has been spruced up from the original. There's a few scenes that have been added in, mostly to link the game to FF4: The After, a Japanese Cell Phone game that takes place a number of years after the original. They give a bit more backstory and don't feel forced, though. Another nice addition is that when you go to the menu, it has a thought bubble for the current lead character. This gives each character's perspective on the events that have been happening. It's small, but a cool detail none the less. The plot itself, well, is hard for me to describe without nostalgia clouding my accuracy. I think it has a great plot, if a bit simple. There's no heavy-handed doses of philosophy (If that's a good or bad thing is up to you), but there is a decent amount of depth. It's one of the few FFs that's ... actually fantasy. The only technology are a couple appearances of airships and tanks, and those are more the token bit of technology in a magic land. The game is about magic and monsters and such. The events are big and a bit yellow, but that's not really a bad thing in my mind.
The gameplay. Aah, back in the day when there was no standard party size and a party of 3 characters as is the standard now would seem down right anemic. FF4 had a party size of 5, and I really liked that. Your party also heavily switches around, from a pool of 12 people, though this is entirely determined by plot events, not you. Each party member has their own unique set of abilities and set of growths for magic. I like customization, but the FF series has sort of done it heavy-handedly, so I rather prefer the FF games with no customization. Either you have no/little control over how your characters grow, as they have a set list of spells, or each character can become any other. So, in a way, I prefer how FF4 has done things.
Now, FF4DS has made the most changes to Gameplay. Added are augments. They're items you can find that allow you to give new abilities to characters. Also, if you give augments to certain characters, you can get other augments based on their abilities. This does give you a fair amount of customization. Each person can equip 4 abilities, from Attack, default skills, and Augments you put on them. This includes even passive augments. Item has to be included, but you can swap out any other built in ability.
The game has been made much more difficult. Even FF4Hardtype only had a few moments of difficulty to me, but FF4DS has had a number of boss fights that have forced me to fight them multiple times. Admittedly, twice has tended to be enough. Once you learn a boss's trick, they tend to be effectively neutered. And if you keep status effects in mind - as they actually work on bosses, even crippling ones like silence or hold - you can get through hard fights with ease. I've died a few times to random battles, but those have felt more like "... Wow, really? Dealing [large damage] to my entire party before I could react? Yeah, that's fair" than anything more my fault. So, that's a definite fault. Hell, I even seem overleveled, due to very rarely running and being a terrible completionist. Overall, though, the extra difficulty is welcomed. Keeps you on your toes.
Another added thing was a bonus for viewing 100% of a map in a dungeon. This has caused me to do a bit of excessive running around, hence the overleveling >_>. actually useful, bit it's still neat. The story is the same as it was on the SNES and the script isn't as good Still, it's a solid version of the game.
FF4 DS is the other solid contender. Personally, I prefer the 2D graphics of the original, and the script is better than FF4 Advance's script, due to being a bit of a rewrite. The augments are neat, and the new plot bits are neat. The difficulty is a bit of a mixed bag. There is, actually, a bit of epilogue type content, in New Game Plus and 2 extra bosses, but this isn't really that much.
So... It's really a hard pick. My personal bias is toward FF4 Hardtype, but FF4 DS has been a great runthrough of the game.
Well, regardless of which version you play, you should play the game. Get to it.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Paper Mario
Overall, sorta meh.
That entirely sums up my feelings about the game. The combat was incredibly repetitive, the out of combat was pretty boring (It impressed me ... well, once comes to mind. The dungeon in the ice world with the mirror bits was cool), and the game was over all way too easy. The roommate whose VC I'm playing this on would blame me for it being easy, as he says I powergamed - But, really, I just made smart choices. I didn't ever grind, I just fought the enemies I ended up running into. Hell, I tried to get away from most fights. I ended up at level 23 at the end of the game, out of 27. The badge system for power ups was pretty cool, I have to admit. However, the amount of customization is kinda... lamely small. You pretty much have to use most of your BP just to increase defense and attack power, which are really just sorta lame uses for the BP. The story, what of it there was, was bad. Meh.
SMRPG was pretty much better in every aspect. Of course, Square had a hand in making SMRPG, and that was when Square was pumping out great RPGs. So... There you go. Of course, Intelligent Systems was the devs for this game, and they make Fire Emblem. So, what the hell, guys? What the hell.
That entirely sums up my feelings about the game. The combat was incredibly repetitive, the out of combat was pretty boring (It impressed me ... well, once comes to mind. The dungeon in the ice world with the mirror bits was cool), and the game was over all way too easy. The roommate whose VC I'm playing this on would blame me for it being easy, as he says I powergamed - But, really, I just made smart choices. I didn't ever grind, I just fought the enemies I ended up running into. Hell, I tried to get away from most fights. I ended up at level 23 at the end of the game, out of 27. The badge system for power ups was pretty cool, I have to admit. However, the amount of customization is kinda... lamely small. You pretty much have to use most of your BP just to increase defense and attack power, which are really just sorta lame uses for the BP. The story, what of it there was, was bad. Meh.
SMRPG was pretty much better in every aspect. Of course, Square had a hand in making SMRPG, and that was when Square was pumping out great RPGs. So... There you go. Of course, Intelligent Systems was the devs for this game, and they make Fire Emblem. So, what the hell, guys? What the hell.
Friday, January 02, 2009
Persona 3: FES, part 1.
So. I got this game 2 weeks ago, to the day. Since then, I've played for 70 hours. Yeah. That's averaging 5 hours a day, ignoring that there's been a handful of days that I haven't played it. And the number of hours I've lost due to wipes. Oh, the hours I've lost due to wipes... But, I wanted to put down some of my impressions of it.
First, I think I have to say that this is the best RPG that I've played in years. No, really. That I could play 70 hours over that time period says a lot. I've not been able to do that for awhile. The blend of customization, difficulty, and good writing has pulled me into this game like I haven't been for awhile.
For those that have no clue about how Persona 3 works (like me, before playing it!), the game is played day by day. Each day you have activities that you do after school - hanging out with people, attending clubs, etc. (I have to say, when I first started playing, I felt a tad overwhelmed with how many different things I could do. Too many things to do, so few days! Sorta felt like real life.) At night you can either do more activities or go to Tartarus. Tartarus is the dungeon that you adventure in. In the day stuff, you go to school, make friends, date, etc. This is done via a system called Social Links. The more you hang out with people, the higher a Social Link rank you have with the person. The scenes are well done and I found them to be very interesting. I tend to want to watch these more than explore the dungeon, most of the time. The higher Social Link you have, the better the Personas you fuse will be. Personas being the spirits(?) that help you in combat.
So, combat in this game actually involves strategy and real threat. I've Game Over'd more times to random combats than bosses. Difficulty in an RPG? I don't think I've encountered that in a non-SRPG in years. It's amazing. The good majority of those deaths have been because I screwed up and not cheese. Of course, there's a bit of cheese, but that happens. With better prep and not letting the enemy get advantage on me, I'd have not game over'd nearly as many times. In combat, if you hit an enemy with their weakness (Or a critical hit) it knocks them over and you get another action. This applies to you and the enemy. I've had the enemy get advantage on me, take advantage of my weaknesses, and take me out. It's painful, but... That's how it goes. Also, this is one of the games that I find Instant Death and Status Effects not insanely BS. Mostly because they have the same odds to work on you as to work on enemies ... and in the case of status effects, BOSSES. Yeah. I've seen bosses get charmed. THat's an amazing sight that would warm any cynical RPGer's heart. Instant Death is a legit way to get rid of enemy groups, too.
The Main Character in the game can swap Personas from a group you can take with you. This means he can take any role, as all of your stats, skils, and weaknesses/resistances come from your Persona. Need a healer? Switch Persona (in combat, even) to a persona with healing spells. Bam, healer. Need to be resistant to an element, need to cast a certain spell? Hope you have the right persona with you. You ... did prepare your Personas beforehand, right? You can fuse Personas to get new, stronger ones. They take some of the traits of their parents, so you get a great amount of customization, between what Persona you take with you and what their traits are. Now, all your party members have a set Persona, so they're static in how their skills etc. work.
Audio/Visualwise, the game is top notch. I like the songs that play - They don't annoy me after hearing them for hours on end, though the other people in the house have been bothered... <_< (Heh. I've caught my sister and niece humming along with the battle theme). I like the visual style - It looks nice and it's clean.
Of course, I do have some complaints about the game. It's not perfect. I have had a few cheese deaths - Enemy critical hits the Main Character, knocks him down, hits him again and ... All of the sudden I go from full HP to none. Oops. And that's Game Over. The second the MC dies, you're done. Even if you have a persona that can cast a resurrection spell in your party. Which doesn't make much sense to me. Speaking of in your party, it's entirely AI controlled. Uggggh. Do I really need to say more? And, with the way the game handles party members and being in your party, there's no easy way to handle equipping your party members. You have to talk to them and handle equipment individually, not via a nice organized way. Bleh.
And the Social Links... The system results in a lot of good things, with you being able to choose who you talk to, when you do so, how your relationships with people grow, and so on. However, in dialogue, it seems like the entire point is sucking up to the person you're talking with. =/ That, and then once you max out their social link with a person, you can safely never talk to them again with no negative effects. Mechanicswise, sure, this makes sense. It just feels sorta lame and I laugh at how it kinda clunks. This has resulted in me and my niece laughing a number of times at the mechanics as we watched it play out. I was dating a girl and then working on dating another chick. The MC is the master of Hit it and Quit it. =P
The difficulty, while something I laud, also tends to have brick wall moments. Those are annoying, but not really a deal breaker. They require you to go back, level up and fuse Personas to find a certain skill, etc. The game does have grinding, but it's not really excessive.
This wraps up this bit. I'll do a second post after I've put another 70 hours into the game, heh.
First, I think I have to say that this is the best RPG that I've played in years. No, really. That I could play 70 hours over that time period says a lot. I've not been able to do that for awhile. The blend of customization, difficulty, and good writing has pulled me into this game like I haven't been for awhile.
For those that have no clue about how Persona 3 works (like me, before playing it!), the game is played day by day. Each day you have activities that you do after school - hanging out with people, attending clubs, etc. (I have to say, when I first started playing, I felt a tad overwhelmed with how many different things I could do. Too many things to do, so few days! Sorta felt like real life.) At night you can either do more activities or go to Tartarus. Tartarus is the dungeon that you adventure in. In the day stuff, you go to school, make friends, date, etc. This is done via a system called Social Links. The more you hang out with people, the higher a Social Link rank you have with the person. The scenes are well done and I found them to be very interesting. I tend to want to watch these more than explore the dungeon, most of the time. The higher Social Link you have, the better the Personas you fuse will be. Personas being the spirits(?) that help you in combat.
So, combat in this game actually involves strategy and real threat. I've Game Over'd more times to random combats than bosses. Difficulty in an RPG? I don't think I've encountered that in a non-SRPG in years. It's amazing. The good majority of those deaths have been because I screwed up and not cheese. Of course, there's a bit of cheese, but that happens. With better prep and not letting the enemy get advantage on me, I'd have not game over'd nearly as many times. In combat, if you hit an enemy with their weakness (Or a critical hit) it knocks them over and you get another action. This applies to you and the enemy. I've had the enemy get advantage on me, take advantage of my weaknesses, and take me out. It's painful, but... That's how it goes. Also, this is one of the games that I find Instant Death and Status Effects not insanely BS. Mostly because they have the same odds to work on you as to work on enemies ... and in the case of status effects, BOSSES. Yeah. I've seen bosses get charmed. THat's an amazing sight that would warm any cynical RPGer's heart. Instant Death is a legit way to get rid of enemy groups, too.
The Main Character in the game can swap Personas from a group you can take with you. This means he can take any role, as all of your stats, skils, and weaknesses/resistances come from your Persona. Need a healer? Switch Persona (in combat, even) to a persona with healing spells. Bam, healer. Need to be resistant to an element, need to cast a certain spell? Hope you have the right persona with you. You ... did prepare your Personas beforehand, right? You can fuse Personas to get new, stronger ones. They take some of the traits of their parents, so you get a great amount of customization, between what Persona you take with you and what their traits are. Now, all your party members have a set Persona, so they're static in how their skills etc. work.
Audio/Visualwise, the game is top notch. I like the songs that play - They don't annoy me after hearing them for hours on end, though the other people in the house have been bothered... <_< (Heh. I've caught my sister and niece humming along with the battle theme). I like the visual style - It looks nice and it's clean.
Of course, I do have some complaints about the game. It's not perfect. I have had a few cheese deaths - Enemy critical hits the Main Character, knocks him down, hits him again and ... All of the sudden I go from full HP to none. Oops. And that's Game Over. The second the MC dies, you're done. Even if you have a persona that can cast a resurrection spell in your party. Which doesn't make much sense to me. Speaking of in your party, it's entirely AI controlled. Uggggh. Do I really need to say more? And, with the way the game handles party members and being in your party, there's no easy way to handle equipping your party members. You have to talk to them and handle equipment individually, not via a nice organized way. Bleh.
And the Social Links... The system results in a lot of good things, with you being able to choose who you talk to, when you do so, how your relationships with people grow, and so on. However, in dialogue, it seems like the entire point is sucking up to the person you're talking with. =/ That, and then once you max out their social link with a person, you can safely never talk to them again with no negative effects. Mechanicswise, sure, this makes sense. It just feels sorta lame and I laugh at how it kinda clunks. This has resulted in me and my niece laughing a number of times at the mechanics as we watched it play out. I was dating a girl and then working on dating another chick. The MC is the master of Hit it and Quit it. =P
The difficulty, while something I laud, also tends to have brick wall moments. Those are annoying, but not really a deal breaker. They require you to go back, level up and fuse Personas to find a certain skill, etc. The game does have grinding, but it's not really excessive.
This wraps up this bit. I'll do a second post after I've put another 70 hours into the game, heh.
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