So...
I started on Disgaea, and holy crap is that a new ride. I've played my share of grid-y, gritty tactical RPGs over the years, and while there was plenty of pixellated badass to be enjoyed, there was also a great deal of darkness. They weren't the darkest overall genre by any means, but sometimes it really just felt like they were trying to borrow Warhammer Fantasy's grimness without the over-the-top qualities that made things great. Nobody remember that Warhammer (and Warhammer 40,000) deliberately took things to absurb amounts of grim to where it was actually funny; kinda like if the Monty Python bunch went through a goth phase. I didn't quite burn out on them, but it did kinda get samey and boring after a while.
But damn, here's a game that I wished I picked up a lot sooner. Disgaea just takes that grimdarkness is grim, and converts it to utter whackiness! There's plenty of dark themes floating about, but what it really comes down too is that you're running an army of slapstick anime demons and other ridiculous freaks as they tear about and pillage the weak and learn about love and smash evil(er) and stuff.
There's all sorts of craziness to be had; so much so that I don't have time to delve into it for now. But one of my favorite new addictions is the Item World. If you're like me and live under a rock, here's the lowdown: Every item in the game has a pocket dimension called an Item World. In gameplay terms, this translates into a series of ten or more randomly generated floors. And we're really talking random, here. You can have small little cakewalk maps with a few mooks, to scary maps with tons of nasty effects that wind up being as close to 3-d Space Hulk as you can get with cutest sprites. Complete ten floors, and you power up the item considerably. There's a good few more details than this, but the thing I really want to cover is that while you're down there, the game's standard approach to loot still applies. While you're upgrading your loot, you can (and often will) come away with even more loot, which will have it's own Item Worlds to explore and pillage.
Seriously, you wind up with an infinite fractal of looting and upgrading going on, and it can suck you in if you're not careful. Forget Candy Crush or Tetris, this is a serious brain-sucking fruitopia of gaming goodness! How the in-game economy functions at all it beyond me...
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Horrible Game Idea Revisited
I submit to the spambots that I have proof that I am actually quite deranged.
I had to put the controller down since I got all in a wad over Vesperia again; damn sidequests. Managed to seme more productive things, but still was way too overstimulated to do much that was coherent.
On the 'good' side of things, it gave me an excuse to trot out a couple of old horrible ideas living in my mind. One favorite is my idea for Backcraft, an incredibly wonko RTS that mosty dealt with middle schoolers tearing about and conquering stuff with Nerf guns and Super Soakers and suchlike.
It actually got quite intricate. I worked out a rock-paper-scissors thing with foam darts, water, and melee (most wiffle bats and plastic lightsabers and such). I forgot which was which, but I think water mostly won since it had intuitive area-of-effect and sustained damage-per-second properties. See? I can't even think about middle-school hijinx without going stupid technical and kinda muchkin-ly. I have fallen to the dork side, save yourself!
There was also stuff like research trees disguised as hitting up parents for stuff like bike helmets and sports equipment. Tossing in factions that boiled down to three basic concepts. "Good kids" that tried (and failed) to be all chivalrous, getting easier access to bikes and scooters, with signature "Fine Cardboardium Armor" that 'vehicles' and buildings could use as something equivalent to regenerating shields. "Bad kids" that basically were what would happen if you'd wind up with a Mad Max/Recess crossover; their perks were things like beating up neutrals for 'lunch money' giving resource boosts, and getting 'wet' weapons to deal extra damage (soaking an old Nerf football usually results in pain). The final bunch were "Big Brothers," that were mostly basement-dwellers that decided the kiddies LARP needed work. I couldn't decide if they were going to be a playable faction, special summons/mercenaries that wrecked enemies for high cash costs, or a "boss" faction that the kids needed to ultimately unite to take down and cast back into the firey chatrooms from whence they came.
Buildings were mostly fixed playground equipment, with some ideas like the HQ being a(n eventually) badass treehouse, and you got things on the research tree by taking and holding locations. You had indoor 'dungeon of doom' scenarios that were waged in schools (increasing in complexity, resources, and lulz potential from preschools to high schools) that would likely devolve into an unholy union of Dungeon Defender and Dwarf Fortress. Big rec areas for the huge brawls, and special scenarios like both sides storming a disc golf course, having to both fight each other and dodge frisbee-chucking nutballs to capture a monument that happened to be a deactivated tank! Stealth combat raids that mostly relied on precision and minimal casualties, since if some sissy starts screaming bloody murder then everybody gets hauled inside and grounded for sneaking out of bed!
One final part of the concept was a combination bonus boss and unlockable unit, "That Nerdy Guy." As you went through the campaign, That Nerdy Guy ran an upgrade shop, and if you brought him, well, lots of nerdy things, you could use him as a one-shot super unit (with a restriction that sort of fluctuated between iterations), and engaging in an appropriately nerdy and tedious fetch-quest, you got an extra side mission where you have to take him down as a superboss, with victory putting him permanently on the roster. He had a deliberately ludicrous backstory that the Big Brothers had hailed him as a great hero, then forgot about him when they were all kids, now all he does is video games, act emo, and contribute to the delinquency of minors.
Can you tell that sometimes I just get really bored?
I had to put the controller down since I got all in a wad over Vesperia again; damn sidequests. Managed to seme more productive things, but still was way too overstimulated to do much that was coherent.
On the 'good' side of things, it gave me an excuse to trot out a couple of old horrible ideas living in my mind. One favorite is my idea for Backcraft, an incredibly wonko RTS that mosty dealt with middle schoolers tearing about and conquering stuff with Nerf guns and Super Soakers and suchlike.
It actually got quite intricate. I worked out a rock-paper-scissors thing with foam darts, water, and melee (most wiffle bats and plastic lightsabers and such). I forgot which was which, but I think water mostly won since it had intuitive area-of-effect and sustained damage-per-second properties. See? I can't even think about middle-school hijinx without going stupid technical and kinda muchkin-ly. I have fallen to the dork side, save yourself!
There was also stuff like research trees disguised as hitting up parents for stuff like bike helmets and sports equipment. Tossing in factions that boiled down to three basic concepts. "Good kids" that tried (and failed) to be all chivalrous, getting easier access to bikes and scooters, with signature "Fine Cardboardium Armor" that 'vehicles' and buildings could use as something equivalent to regenerating shields. "Bad kids" that basically were what would happen if you'd wind up with a Mad Max/Recess crossover; their perks were things like beating up neutrals for 'lunch money' giving resource boosts, and getting 'wet' weapons to deal extra damage (soaking an old Nerf football usually results in pain). The final bunch were "Big Brothers," that were mostly basement-dwellers that decided the kiddies LARP needed work. I couldn't decide if they were going to be a playable faction, special summons/mercenaries that wrecked enemies for high cash costs, or a "boss" faction that the kids needed to ultimately unite to take down and cast back into the firey chatrooms from whence they came.
Buildings were mostly fixed playground equipment, with some ideas like the HQ being a(n eventually) badass treehouse, and you got things on the research tree by taking and holding locations. You had indoor 'dungeon of doom' scenarios that were waged in schools (increasing in complexity, resources, and lulz potential from preschools to high schools) that would likely devolve into an unholy union of Dungeon Defender and Dwarf Fortress. Big rec areas for the huge brawls, and special scenarios like both sides storming a disc golf course, having to both fight each other and dodge frisbee-chucking nutballs to capture a monument that happened to be a deactivated tank! Stealth combat raids that mostly relied on precision and minimal casualties, since if some sissy starts screaming bloody murder then everybody gets hauled inside and grounded for sneaking out of bed!
One final part of the concept was a combination bonus boss and unlockable unit, "That Nerdy Guy." As you went through the campaign, That Nerdy Guy ran an upgrade shop, and if you brought him, well, lots of nerdy things, you could use him as a one-shot super unit (with a restriction that sort of fluctuated between iterations), and engaging in an appropriately nerdy and tedious fetch-quest, you got an extra side mission where you have to take him down as a superboss, with victory putting him permanently on the roster. He had a deliberately ludicrous backstory that the Big Brothers had hailed him as a great hero, then forgot about him when they were all kids, now all he does is video games, act emo, and contribute to the delinquency of minors.
Can you tell that sometimes I just get really bored?
Monday, November 9, 2015
Dwindling Vespers On The Wind
Hail again to the spambots,
It's just about there. One last dungeon, one last final boss. I'm actually a bit torn; I want to go ahead and put this game to bed since I have something like five or six more the queue, but this one has the age-old tradition of having all the really good and/or profitable sidequests only be active at the very end of the game. I know a lot of is just the designers making sure that you get the content you paid for and the prepwork you need for the finale.
It's an old frustration. I have a very bad habit of getting to this final dungeon, sometimes even up to the last boss, and just...not caring anymore and plugging in the next game. Maybe its just a very nerdy fear of commitment. You take that plunge, and either you're ready and quite satisfied at the end of the day, or you're not and you're smacked around real good or find a crappy resolution to things. Right now, I plan to buckle down and get my world-saving on.
For a while now, I've been a bit frustrated with Vesperia's sidequest, simply because they're so obtuse when it comes to trigger, and have some nasty windows of opportunity. Then I thought about it some. This game follows the proud tradition of having a "New Game Plus" mode that actually opens up some options for customizations and the like for your next playthrough. You're not meant to see all of the game on the very first playthrough! Go ahead and whiff a few things; you can get 'em next go-round.
So here's to the next playthrough. Baddies beware; my fresh batch of plucky heroes will have quite a leg up when I come back.
It's just about there. One last dungeon, one last final boss. I'm actually a bit torn; I want to go ahead and put this game to bed since I have something like five or six more the queue, but this one has the age-old tradition of having all the really good and/or profitable sidequests only be active at the very end of the game. I know a lot of is just the designers making sure that you get the content you paid for and the prepwork you need for the finale.
It's an old frustration. I have a very bad habit of getting to this final dungeon, sometimes even up to the last boss, and just...not caring anymore and plugging in the next game. Maybe its just a very nerdy fear of commitment. You take that plunge, and either you're ready and quite satisfied at the end of the day, or you're not and you're smacked around real good or find a crappy resolution to things. Right now, I plan to buckle down and get my world-saving on.
For a while now, I've been a bit frustrated with Vesperia's sidequest, simply because they're so obtuse when it comes to trigger, and have some nasty windows of opportunity. Then I thought about it some. This game follows the proud tradition of having a "New Game Plus" mode that actually opens up some options for customizations and the like for your next playthrough. You're not meant to see all of the game on the very first playthrough! Go ahead and whiff a few things; you can get 'em next go-round.
So here's to the next playthrough. Baddies beware; my fresh batch of plucky heroes will have quite a leg up when I come back.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Finally a Dragon
Hail to the spambots!
The wild ride through fantasy known as Tales of Vesperia is finally coming near its conclusion (for now anyway, all hail New Game+). I've been gathering up and harvesting the not-so-helpless wildlife for all sorts of materials, since the last third or so of the game included all the wandering around and sidequesting behavior. Gotta get them shinies!
I've finally gotten to a dungeon where the boss is a dragon. It kinda stands out, since there have been little to no signs of draconic enemies at all in the entire game thus far, despite coming from a series that tends to have all sorts of dragons tearing around and burninating the countryside. Abyss managed to keep them rare, fairly epic battles, while Legendia had a gazillion palette swaps (fire dragons, ice dragons, undead dragons, holy dragons that were powered by the sea, you name it). It got me to thinking about how this game treated its rarer critters. This dragon (spoilers) is part of a race called the Entelexia, which are quite similar to say, Final Fantasy's Espers, down to leaving a powerful magic crystal upon death, being rather noble-minded, and coming in all sorts of forms. There fairly unique in style and characterization. This games airship is actually just a small merchantman hauled by the rigging by an Entelexia that looks and acts an awful lot like The Legend of Zelda's Wind Fish.
It might be a bit too far off, but I wonder if this game is actually the Tales crew's take on Final Fantasy VI's War of The Magi, with the Tales-style storytelling and nuances tossed in. There's a fair bit of animosity on both sides, humans are grabbing apatheia (Entelexia crystals, much like FF6 magicite) to power all sorts of machines, with some bad apples using them to power weapons and war machines to Take Over The World. There's a a great many differences, but the parallels are very much present. Just a thought, and I know I'm not the first one to think of it.
In any case, let's hope that things actually come to a nice conclusion, because soon afterwards, it's like to conquer the kooky netherworlds of Disgaea!
The wild ride through fantasy known as Tales of Vesperia is finally coming near its conclusion (for now anyway, all hail New Game+). I've been gathering up and harvesting the not-so-helpless wildlife for all sorts of materials, since the last third or so of the game included all the wandering around and sidequesting behavior. Gotta get them shinies!
I've finally gotten to a dungeon where the boss is a dragon. It kinda stands out, since there have been little to no signs of draconic enemies at all in the entire game thus far, despite coming from a series that tends to have all sorts of dragons tearing around and burninating the countryside. Abyss managed to keep them rare, fairly epic battles, while Legendia had a gazillion palette swaps (fire dragons, ice dragons, undead dragons, holy dragons that were powered by the sea, you name it). It got me to thinking about how this game treated its rarer critters. This dragon (spoilers) is part of a race called the Entelexia, which are quite similar to say, Final Fantasy's Espers, down to leaving a powerful magic crystal upon death, being rather noble-minded, and coming in all sorts of forms. There fairly unique in style and characterization. This games airship is actually just a small merchantman hauled by the rigging by an Entelexia that looks and acts an awful lot like The Legend of Zelda's Wind Fish.
It might be a bit too far off, but I wonder if this game is actually the Tales crew's take on Final Fantasy VI's War of The Magi, with the Tales-style storytelling and nuances tossed in. There's a fair bit of animosity on both sides, humans are grabbing apatheia (Entelexia crystals, much like FF6 magicite) to power all sorts of machines, with some bad apples using them to power weapons and war machines to Take Over The World. There's a a great many differences, but the parallels are very much present. Just a thought, and I know I'm not the first one to think of it.
In any case, let's hope that things actually come to a nice conclusion, because soon afterwards, it's like to conquer the kooky netherworlds of Disgaea!
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
We All Know Mooks Go Whirr In The Blender
Hail the spambots yet again!
Been busy unleashing the doom upon the malevolently idiotic in Tales of Vesperia again. I have to say, being able to smack things can be quite conducive to work life.
The looting is still awesome, and actually is quietly getting even better as time goes on. Things are still very farming friendly, which means Yuri is the farmer riding the agri-combine of death, turning the world's conviently renewable supply of monsters into materials for an almost insane amount of goodies. I know I've been fanboying over this a lot, but having such a wide variety of bitz to nab and actually make things to grab more bitz with is a very big draw for me. I'm a fairly craft-centric player when it comes to my games, and when its done right it can be very refreshing.
Vesperia's combat system is very much an enjoyable experience, even a klutz like me can produce some truly amazing feats of mook-mashing and burnination. Everything is actually a joy to look at, including the various mooks and monsters. It's about as close as it gets to tearing about in an anime (excluding Ni No Kuni) as you can get on a console. Everything is actually very characterful without becoming hyper-stylized.
The monsters, as mentioned, are something to look at. While Tales has always had some interesting variations on the monsters, this bunch actually has some nifty things running around. You got killer dodos with hatchet beaks, spider-cactus things, spider-mecha gun platforms, elemental bats, giant armadillo turtle things with racing stripes, mermen that are pretty weresharks that come at you with sharpened anchors and have werenarwhal shamans. The human enemies are kinda nice too, with some interesting behaviors like standing at attention in the middle of battle, and giving the knight's magic-users light-based spells. You're fighting friggin evil paladins, and its badass.
Well, I'm finally into the final third of the game, and should be wrapping up soon. We'll see where all this craziness lead us!
Been busy unleashing the doom upon the malevolently idiotic in Tales of Vesperia again. I have to say, being able to smack things can be quite conducive to work life.
The looting is still awesome, and actually is quietly getting even better as time goes on. Things are still very farming friendly, which means Yuri is the farmer riding the agri-combine of death, turning the world's conviently renewable supply of monsters into materials for an almost insane amount of goodies. I know I've been fanboying over this a lot, but having such a wide variety of bitz to nab and actually make things to grab more bitz with is a very big draw for me. I'm a fairly craft-centric player when it comes to my games, and when its done right it can be very refreshing.
Vesperia's combat system is very much an enjoyable experience, even a klutz like me can produce some truly amazing feats of mook-mashing and burnination. Everything is actually a joy to look at, including the various mooks and monsters. It's about as close as it gets to tearing about in an anime (excluding Ni No Kuni) as you can get on a console. Everything is actually very characterful without becoming hyper-stylized.
The monsters, as mentioned, are something to look at. While Tales has always had some interesting variations on the monsters, this bunch actually has some nifty things running around. You got killer dodos with hatchet beaks, spider-cactus things, spider-mecha gun platforms, elemental bats, giant armadillo turtle things with racing stripes, mermen that are pretty weresharks that come at you with sharpened anchors and have werenarwhal shamans. The human enemies are kinda nice too, with some interesting behaviors like standing at attention in the middle of battle, and giving the knight's magic-users light-based spells. You're fighting friggin evil paladins, and its badass.
Well, I'm finally into the final third of the game, and should be wrapping up soon. We'll see where all this craziness lead us!
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