So.
It is finally finished. I can put Blue Dragon to bed, and move on to another campaign. For all intents and purposes, this should be considered my definitive thoughts on the game.
The core gameplay is very solid, and you can tell it's got a JRPG pedigree and made with that polish only the veterans of the business can deliver. The Shadow Class system works out quite well, giving both a sense of customization and some of that sense of power you can get when you crack a old-schooler wide open. The combat is fun and fluid, with only two real gripes. The first is that a lot of the enemy mobs have attacks that have too much wind-up and reset animation (robo enemies are really bad for this,) which breaks the flow somewhat. It doesn't get too bad, but it can be annoying in some places, especially the final dungeon, where you can set a few minutes waiting for a pack of mooks to get through their motions. A second, somewhat related one is that Corporeal attacks (this game's combination of Limit Breaks and Summons) are a bit longer to go through than they should be, with no option to speed things up. They're very cinematic and flavorful, and their presence as a late-game 'finale' technique fit fairly well; just a bit too long.
The dungeons are fairly straightforward, with few 'gimmick' ideas and puzzles. Somebody realized that Zelda puzzles need to stay in Zelda games. Using predetermined encounters was a nice touch, especially with all the avoidance options the game will give you as time goes on. The game has a major 'press A and search everywhere' theme, with lots of little rewards everywhere. With apparently one major, bizarre exception: the interior of the final dungeon. I'm hoping that I just missed in it my final push to beat the game.
The minigames...hoo boy, the minigames. Most of them are the tradition innocuous button-masher affairs (with achievements for perfect play), and can be a nice change of pace. However, the game's signature minigame, is really jarring. This is the Mechat stage, an old-style rail shooter. It's not bad, but there's some questionable decisions involved. They decided to use a control scheme reminiscent of 8- and 16-bit games, except on an Xbox controller. Y'know, the kind with trigger buttons made for shooters? The end result is that you can suffer and get really frustrated really quickly if you're unprepared. The first of the stages is really bad for this, both because it's the first one and because you have no upgrades for your vehicle, making it very much an example of early game hell. No, I didn't get three game overs in a row and resorted to easy mode here (and creative combinations of profanity,) why d'you ask? The other two stages (one of them optional and repeatable) work better overall, especially with all the little upgrades scattered everywhere. Those are much more palatable.
And finally the story and world-building. The developers deliberately went for a absurd plot, full of wonderful, traditional RPG cliches. It's not everybody's cup of tea, but I found it overall both nostalgic and refreshing. You are running a pack of plucky teenagers, later joined by a mascot character (that thankfully was not useless and gimmicky) and the standard stoic mercenary type (that happens to be a hot bandit chick.) Your village gets wrecked, the bad guy is really just there to be the bad guy, everybody is living in small towns, huddled against the hordes of freaks tearing about in the wild world. There are some funny touches, like the one organized military force (on your side) are knightly types that wield swords and lances, but also wear modern-style helmets with goggles and toss potato-masher grenades. They're both badass and hilarious. We have critters that are literally living mounds of poop (that can also poop items, a veritable fractal of crap) creepy robots, and the usual gallery of RPG freaks. Akira Toriyama is in charge of the visuals, and it very much shows. It all comes together pretty well. My only real gripe is that the big bad evil guy doesn't really do much besides act all evil. He does have a nasty little plot involving our heroes, and is actually pretty damn clever about it; he just doesn't really show much motivation (in-game, at least.)
In the end, Blue Dragon is a nice homage to old-school JRPG goodness, and gets extra points for not pretending to be anything else. These guys know their business, all right. I give this one a hearty recommendation for anybody looking to capture a bit of the old-school on a newer system. Anybody else: if you don't like JRPG stuff already, then I doubt this will change your mind.
Showing posts with label blue dragon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blue dragon. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2016
Forcing The Final Confrontation
So, it has all come down to this.
The sidequests (well, the ones I plan to mess with; I'm not fond of superbosses) are finally over and done with for Blue Dragon. All that remains is the final dungeon and the final boss at the end.
Laugh all you want, but this is pretty much the hobby I have left, so I take it (way too) seriously these days.
An added wrinkly is that this is the point where I usually just choke and put the game away. I've never been able to explain why, to be honest. I've probably babbled on about it in this blog at some point or another; I get to the final portion of a game, have all the sidequests done and get all the ducks in a row; then I just stop. Its an old, very bad habit (started all the way back with Final Fantasy VI) that I've had a tough time breaking. I'm not intimidated by the final challenges of the dungeon itself or the baddos that live there. I'm not worried about finding a sucky and/or mind screwy ending (JRPGs have a long tradition of those). I don't have a definitive answer. Maybe sometimes I don't want the ride to end. That said, there are some fun games that I beat conclusively and then just played them again down the road.
Oh well. This one should be on the kill list, and a final review/rant should be up on here soon. This one has begun to worn out it's welcome, and it's high time it's taken its place on the completed list. Let the Harvest be unleashed!
The sidequests (well, the ones I plan to mess with; I'm not fond of superbosses) are finally over and done with for Blue Dragon. All that remains is the final dungeon and the final boss at the end.
Laugh all you want, but this is pretty much the hobby I have left, so I take it (way too) seriously these days.
An added wrinkly is that this is the point where I usually just choke and put the game away. I've never been able to explain why, to be honest. I've probably babbled on about it in this blog at some point or another; I get to the final portion of a game, have all the sidequests done and get all the ducks in a row; then I just stop. Its an old, very bad habit (started all the way back with Final Fantasy VI) that I've had a tough time breaking. I'm not intimidated by the final challenges of the dungeon itself or the baddos that live there. I'm not worried about finding a sucky and/or mind screwy ending (JRPGs have a long tradition of those). I don't have a definitive answer. Maybe sometimes I don't want the ride to end. That said, there are some fun games that I beat conclusively and then just played them again down the road.
Oh well. This one should be on the kill list, and a final review/rant should be up on here soon. This one has begun to worn out it's welcome, and it's high time it's taken its place on the completed list. Let the Harvest be unleashed!
Monday, March 14, 2016
Sidequestin'
Well, as predicted, I've gotten the Blue Dragon campaign to the point of absurd sidequests and distraction galore. It's a long and glorious RPG tradition; you get whatever the game's equivalent of airship and/or fast travel (in this case the airship, fast travel is useful, but you need the airship to get the extra dungeons), the game tells you its the time of reckoning. Speeches are often made, camaraderie affirmed, sometimes the oh-so-hidden love is confessed. But then the player regains agency, and you wander about through the Scary Dungeon of Neverheardofit, Plunder the Region of Obscurehint, then finally smack around the Fearsome Beast Didyoubuyaguideyet. All of this so you can acquire the MacGuffin of Unlocktherealgoodies and access the Equipment Set of Whythehelldoesntthebadguyusethisheisanidiot.
It can be fun; while we usually wind up with recolored caves and ruins, sometimes we get a game that actually has interesting and flavorful extra dungeons. I am happy to report that so far, Blue Dragon's stuff belongs to the latter catergory. There is some of the obligatory backtracking and unlocking things you couldn't get the first time, but its actually fairly painless and gives good rewards. It can also give an opportunity to find all those search points (and wonderful, wonderful Nothings) you've managed to skip. And at the very least, we don't seem to have That One Sidequest where you waste two weeks of your life racing and juicing up birds over and over again. Even us fans never learned to like that one.
In any case, hopefully I put this one to bed at the end of the week, rampage about in a hack-and-slash palate cleanser like Diablo and move on to a Atelier game or something. We're still on course for the Craft System, Dork Factor Three!
It can be fun; while we usually wind up with recolored caves and ruins, sometimes we get a game that actually has interesting and flavorful extra dungeons. I am happy to report that so far, Blue Dragon's stuff belongs to the latter catergory. There is some of the obligatory backtracking and unlocking things you couldn't get the first time, but its actually fairly painless and gives good rewards. It can also give an opportunity to find all those search points (and wonderful, wonderful Nothings) you've managed to skip. And at the very least, we don't seem to have That One Sidequest where you waste two weeks of your life racing and juicing up birds over and over again. Even us fans never learned to like that one.
In any case, hopefully I put this one to bed at the end of the week, rampage about in a hack-and-slash palate cleanser like Diablo and move on to a Atelier game or something. We're still on course for the Craft System, Dork Factor Three!
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Third Disc's The Charm
Heh.
The Blue Dragon campaign is finally starting to wind down somewhat. I'm on the third and final disc, where the plot has decided to thicken a bit. Some of the usual RPG cliches have been played straight and then tossed on their ear a bit.
I won't go into details until the campaign itself is done, but suffice to say the usual "hero winds up helping the bad guy" happens, with a dash of "the cool character vanishes --nope not a spy" and now we're at the lowest point of morale for the good guys. The big epiphany is forthcoming, willpower will be raised to the max, yadda yadda.
But hell, it's not the story itself so much as how it's put together. This is still a fun little ride. The battle system is well put together; you can break it with traditional RPG munchkining, but it doesn't get too broken until you're ready to strut your stuff against the local forces of ultimate badness (which is the best time to do so in any case). The enemies are actually somewhat refreshing; they've just enough whimsy and have just enough variety of forms and skillsets to keep you on your toes. The "Monster Fight" gimmick is solid, but can be tricky to pull off if you're not using and abusing the field skill mechanics.
It's helped some by keeping away from the numerical escalation of many modern JRPGs. It's very clear that some the brains behind the wonders of Chrono Trigger decided to have something of a spiritual successor with this game. You only have 5 characters tops, the enemies use all sorts of techniques but are meant to be outwitted instead of outgunned, there's an emphasis on special accessories and rewarding the use of basic attacks instead of constant spells/techniques. A good example comes from my previous post. Using passive skills and gear effects, a basic attack can be charged, have an elemental property, generate gold, have a chance to steal an item, and drain health or magic, all at the same time. It's not hard to figure out; it doesn't require a counter-intuitive build or crazy amount of grinding. The game just gives you the tool box and tells you to go nuts, essentially.
The game takes advantage of it's relative small scale (of the combat system), and divvies out plenty of goodies for the magically-inclined as well. We've got stuff like specialized area effect spells, traditional elemental rock-paper-scissors nastiness, multi-target heals and buffs, and extra effects attached to direct damage dealers. This is stuff most games will either not bother with (for fear of trivializing combat), refuse to hand out until it's almost too late to matter or without excessive grinding (ditto), or force you to use and abuse just for survival (hard game is hard). Instead, we are expected to find our preferred flavor of flashy death and go nuts. You have to use some variety--there's plenty of critters that will punish you if stick to just one or two tactics all the time--and you'd better understand how the turn queue works. But other than that, we are good to go on unleashing the Harvest at any time.
The only way this would be any better is if we got Combo Techs.
The Blue Dragon campaign is finally starting to wind down somewhat. I'm on the third and final disc, where the plot has decided to thicken a bit. Some of the usual RPG cliches have been played straight and then tossed on their ear a bit.
I won't go into details until the campaign itself is done, but suffice to say the usual "hero winds up helping the bad guy" happens, with a dash of "the cool character vanishes --nope not a spy" and now we're at the lowest point of morale for the good guys. The big epiphany is forthcoming, willpower will be raised to the max, yadda yadda.
But hell, it's not the story itself so much as how it's put together. This is still a fun little ride. The battle system is well put together; you can break it with traditional RPG munchkining, but it doesn't get too broken until you're ready to strut your stuff against the local forces of ultimate badness (which is the best time to do so in any case). The enemies are actually somewhat refreshing; they've just enough whimsy and have just enough variety of forms and skillsets to keep you on your toes. The "Monster Fight" gimmick is solid, but can be tricky to pull off if you're not using and abusing the field skill mechanics.
It's helped some by keeping away from the numerical escalation of many modern JRPGs. It's very clear that some the brains behind the wonders of Chrono Trigger decided to have something of a spiritual successor with this game. You only have 5 characters tops, the enemies use all sorts of techniques but are meant to be outwitted instead of outgunned, there's an emphasis on special accessories and rewarding the use of basic attacks instead of constant spells/techniques. A good example comes from my previous post. Using passive skills and gear effects, a basic attack can be charged, have an elemental property, generate gold, have a chance to steal an item, and drain health or magic, all at the same time. It's not hard to figure out; it doesn't require a counter-intuitive build or crazy amount of grinding. The game just gives you the tool box and tells you to go nuts, essentially.
The game takes advantage of it's relative small scale (of the combat system), and divvies out plenty of goodies for the magically-inclined as well. We've got stuff like specialized area effect spells, traditional elemental rock-paper-scissors nastiness, multi-target heals and buffs, and extra effects attached to direct damage dealers. This is stuff most games will either not bother with (for fear of trivializing combat), refuse to hand out until it's almost too late to matter or without excessive grinding (ditto), or force you to use and abuse just for survival (hard game is hard). Instead, we are expected to find our preferred flavor of flashy death and go nuts. You have to use some variety--there's plenty of critters that will punish you if stick to just one or two tactics all the time--and you'd better understand how the turn queue works. But other than that, we are good to go on unleashing the Harvest at any time.
The only way this would be any better is if we got Combo Techs.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
The Shadow Harvest Continues
Heh, you spambots haven't gotten me yet!
The Harvest continues in Blue Dragon. Too bad there isn't a dedicated crafting system, but whatyougonnado?
So far things are still going fairly well; you can tell that this game was done people that really turned the JRPG into an art form. The default difficulty is just easy enough to make you confident, then randomly knocks you on your ass when you get cocky. The battle mechanics are polished, with traditional turn-based attacks and spellcasting and whatnot. Remember how JRPGs used to abandon the ol' Attack command a few hours in in favor of flashy special moves, spells, theft, and the like? How, maybe, sometimes, a game would give you a way (or ways) to make that Attack command crazy broken, but you had to wait until around 30-40 hours in (FF6 and the Genji Glove/Offering combo comes readily to mind) so you needed other flashiness? Well, with just a bit of effort, your humble, dirt-basic Attack command can become a charged punch of doom that absorbs the target's HP and steals (al a Final Fantasy's traditional Mug) very quickly, and with even more effort, absorb MP and double-strike (!!!!!1!!!one!) Throw in other craziness like a barrier that auto-kills most mooks, invisible ninja shenanigans, and actual red-on-red combat scenarios, and it's plain to see why they won't give you the Limit Break equivalent until about 2/3 into the game.
It's all about the Skill system. Much like, say, FF5, you have classes to pick from (as stated in the blog before), and after gaining enough SP (shadow points) the current class gains a rank, and at certain milestones, you get a skill, usually something like a new command or a passive, and you can mix-and-match at will. It gets insane with the Generalist class, where you trade the stat boosts and innate skills of other classes for...an extra accessory slot. Sounds terrible, right? Well, (again like FF5), looks are deceiving here. Progress through the ranks, and you wind up with more accessory slots, and more importantly, more skill slots. Once you wind up with, say, Skill+4 (easily gained, even without dedicated grinding), you can jump back into your favored specialty and let the doom roll! Throw in the effects of special accessories, and the forces of badness are in deep doodoo.
And they know it, too. The field symbols for a lot of minions have a 'flee' command, and they use it a lot.
The little shooter minigame is terrible, though. More on that later.
The Harvest continues in Blue Dragon. Too bad there isn't a dedicated crafting system, but whatyougonnado?
So far things are still going fairly well; you can tell that this game was done people that really turned the JRPG into an art form. The default difficulty is just easy enough to make you confident, then randomly knocks you on your ass when you get cocky. The battle mechanics are polished, with traditional turn-based attacks and spellcasting and whatnot. Remember how JRPGs used to abandon the ol' Attack command a few hours in in favor of flashy special moves, spells, theft, and the like? How, maybe, sometimes, a game would give you a way (or ways) to make that Attack command crazy broken, but you had to wait until around 30-40 hours in (FF6 and the Genji Glove/Offering combo comes readily to mind) so you needed other flashiness? Well, with just a bit of effort, your humble, dirt-basic Attack command can become a charged punch of doom that absorbs the target's HP and steals (al a Final Fantasy's traditional Mug) very quickly, and with even more effort, absorb MP and double-strike (!!!!!1!!!one!) Throw in other craziness like a barrier that auto-kills most mooks, invisible ninja shenanigans, and actual red-on-red combat scenarios, and it's plain to see why they won't give you the Limit Break equivalent until about 2/3 into the game.
It's all about the Skill system. Much like, say, FF5, you have classes to pick from (as stated in the blog before), and after gaining enough SP (shadow points) the current class gains a rank, and at certain milestones, you get a skill, usually something like a new command or a passive, and you can mix-and-match at will. It gets insane with the Generalist class, where you trade the stat boosts and innate skills of other classes for...an extra accessory slot. Sounds terrible, right? Well, (again like FF5), looks are deceiving here. Progress through the ranks, and you wind up with more accessory slots, and more importantly, more skill slots. Once you wind up with, say, Skill+4 (easily gained, even without dedicated grinding), you can jump back into your favored specialty and let the doom roll! Throw in the effects of special accessories, and the forces of badness are in deep doodoo.
And they know it, too. The field symbols for a lot of minions have a 'flee' command, and they use it a lot.
The little shooter minigame is terrible, though. More on that later.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
From The Shadows Comes The Harvest
Only in video games...
So. I'm still tearing up the forces of badness in Blue Dragon. It actually is paced fairly slow for a JRPG, mostly because of one thing: The Encouragement of Rampant and Incessant Kleptomania. Some luminous soul on the developer's team decided that they should take the old school 'random crates contain goodies' concept and somewhat (but not really) newer Elder Scrolls concept of "holy crap take all the clutter and junk and make it searchable and salable" and toss them into a blender. After about a hour of being set to frappe, we wound up with "spend an hour per location ALL THE THINGS SUCH LOOT."
We're not just talking a bit of gold and some random potions squirreled away in crates and pot and stuff; we're talking like walking up to a vent in an ancient techno-fortress and being handed magic gems and free stat boosts! We're talking looking at a plate of fruit and grabbing ten pieces of gold and an XP bonus. And on top of all this, is the "nothing" mechanic. A good portion of the searchable objects hold Nothing, which sounds like your usual "ain't found squat." It isn't. The game keeps track of how many Nothings you find, and there is a character that hands out special gear when you hit certain milestones. Oh, and there's a DLC which hands out some extra goodies, one of which is a set of glasses that highlight things that hold Nothing. Some of them are pretty surprising, and this is made more so when you realize that means similar objects hold actual stuff.
What all of this boils down to is that we have a tale of plucky teenagers that smash evil with kickass animal totem shadow puppets, whose downtime is taken up by communing with the kender spirit and walking away with enough junk to weigh down a mechanized platoon. It's hilarious, awesome, and just hair disturbing at the same time. What makes it worse is we have the traditional JRPG "NPCs are blind, kindly idiots unless explicitly indicated otherwise" thing going on, so we have situations like turning a palace upside down and the king offering to let you go smite evil together.
Oh, did I mention we have the usual JRPG in-battle theft mechanic, as well? I'm telling you, it's like Dire Straits put it, "Money for nothing and your chicks for free!" All we need is a crafting system (sadly omitted) and this would be the fine expression of The Harvest in action.
Oh, and thanks to cookie cutter container syndrome, we have a wardrobe full of cute dresses in several of the local (all male, with only one exception, and she has her own rooms) army's quarters. Lookin' good, Miss Cloud!
So. I'm still tearing up the forces of badness in Blue Dragon. It actually is paced fairly slow for a JRPG, mostly because of one thing: The Encouragement of Rampant and Incessant Kleptomania. Some luminous soul on the developer's team decided that they should take the old school 'random crates contain goodies' concept and somewhat (but not really) newer Elder Scrolls concept of "holy crap take all the clutter and junk and make it searchable and salable" and toss them into a blender. After about a hour of being set to frappe, we wound up with "spend an hour per location ALL THE THINGS SUCH LOOT."
We're not just talking a bit of gold and some random potions squirreled away in crates and pot and stuff; we're talking like walking up to a vent in an ancient techno-fortress and being handed magic gems and free stat boosts! We're talking looking at a plate of fruit and grabbing ten pieces of gold and an XP bonus. And on top of all this, is the "nothing" mechanic. A good portion of the searchable objects hold Nothing, which sounds like your usual "ain't found squat." It isn't. The game keeps track of how many Nothings you find, and there is a character that hands out special gear when you hit certain milestones. Oh, and there's a DLC which hands out some extra goodies, one of which is a set of glasses that highlight things that hold Nothing. Some of them are pretty surprising, and this is made more so when you realize that means similar objects hold actual stuff.
What all of this boils down to is that we have a tale of plucky teenagers that smash evil with kickass animal totem shadow puppets, whose downtime is taken up by communing with the kender spirit and walking away with enough junk to weigh down a mechanized platoon. It's hilarious, awesome, and just hair disturbing at the same time. What makes it worse is we have the traditional JRPG "NPCs are blind, kindly idiots unless explicitly indicated otherwise" thing going on, so we have situations like turning a palace upside down and the king offering to let you go smite evil together.
Oh, did I mention we have the usual JRPG in-battle theft mechanic, as well? I'm telling you, it's like Dire Straits put it, "Money for nothing and your chicks for free!" All we need is a crafting system (sadly omitted) and this would be the fine expression of The Harvest in action.
Oh, and thanks to cookie cutter container syndrome, we have a wardrobe full of cute dresses in several of the local (all male, with only one exception, and she has her own rooms) army's quarters. Lookin' good, Miss Cloud!
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Bitz From Teh Bitz Can
Yeesh...
So, what have been an annoying half hour of fiddling with a camera and sorting through shots became an epic struggle against grouchy technology and beating software into submission.
But despite having to deal with a cantankerous camera, which should really be put to pasture (to be fair, it's well past paid for itself for a long time now), and one of the worst startup/boot time for an application I have ever seen, the push to turn all my leftover Warhammer models and parts is now underway.
If anybody cares, I'll provide links.
In cheerier news, the Draconic campaign is actually going fairly well. It's been a while since the Harvest has come for cartoony freaks, and its satisfying to remember that the forces of badness are doomes, no matter the style or reasons for stupidity. The Harvest never rests!
So, what have been an annoying half hour of fiddling with a camera and sorting through shots became an epic struggle against grouchy technology and beating software into submission.
But despite having to deal with a cantankerous camera, which should really be put to pasture (to be fair, it's well past paid for itself for a long time now), and one of the worst startup/boot time for an application I have ever seen, the push to turn all my leftover Warhammer models and parts is now underway.
If anybody cares, I'll provide links.
In cheerier news, the Draconic campaign is actually going fairly well. It's been a while since the Harvest has come for cartoony freaks, and its satisfying to remember that the forces of badness are doomes, no matter the style or reasons for stupidity. The Harvest never rests!
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
Love Live Thermia and stuff.
After careful consideration (and near-lethal exposure to Tokay, the worst island native stereotype next to Gungans), I decided to pursue a new campaign; I've chosen Blue Dragon for this one.
It's already pretty entertaining, with stereotypes for characters (including a villain that does pretty much everything just for the hell of it). The whole "Shadows" thing is pretty cool. They're effectively something close FF VIII's Guardian Forces, with some mechanical difference. Each character only gets one, and they have a 'job' system that allows you to mix and match skills. One interesting thing is that some of more diverse skills come earlier than you'd expect, like stealing and multi-target physicals. Another one is that this game's answer to Final Fantasy's Sorcerer/Magic Knight, the Sword Master is ready and attached to the main protagonist right out of the gate, and is just as awesome as it sounds.
Somebody on the developer's payroll must've played some Gears of War at some point; they've come up with a charging mechanic for magic that's very like the Active Reload from that series. You hold a button to begin charging a meter, with a 'sweet spot' where the goal to release the button for extra oomph (as opposed to tap and tap again for AR). I'm pretty terrible at it thus far, but still, it's a nifty idea.
The mooks thus far are fairly hilarious. You can actually set things up to make them eat each other, with entertaining results. The survivors are rewarded by becoming subject to The Harvest, but that's vidya for you. The Harvest is also helped along by making all sorts of things searchable, granting little extras like gold and items, and Nothing. I'm not quite sure what Nothing is, but supposedly finding lots of Nothing will pay dividends later on.
Oh, and 'stinky' is an actual status effect. Ask not for whom the smell rolls, it rolls for thee!
After careful consideration (and near-lethal exposure to Tokay, the worst island native stereotype next to Gungans), I decided to pursue a new campaign; I've chosen Blue Dragon for this one.
It's already pretty entertaining, with stereotypes for characters (including a villain that does pretty much everything just for the hell of it). The whole "Shadows" thing is pretty cool. They're effectively something close FF VIII's Guardian Forces, with some mechanical difference. Each character only gets one, and they have a 'job' system that allows you to mix and match skills. One interesting thing is that some of more diverse skills come earlier than you'd expect, like stealing and multi-target physicals. Another one is that this game's answer to Final Fantasy's Sorcerer/Magic Knight, the Sword Master is ready and attached to the main protagonist right out of the gate, and is just as awesome as it sounds.
Somebody on the developer's payroll must've played some Gears of War at some point; they've come up with a charging mechanic for magic that's very like the Active Reload from that series. You hold a button to begin charging a meter, with a 'sweet spot' where the goal to release the button for extra oomph (as opposed to tap and tap again for AR). I'm pretty terrible at it thus far, but still, it's a nifty idea.
The mooks thus far are fairly hilarious. You can actually set things up to make them eat each other, with entertaining results. The survivors are rewarded by becoming subject to The Harvest, but that's vidya for you. The Harvest is also helped along by making all sorts of things searchable, granting little extras like gold and items, and Nothing. I'm not quite sure what Nothing is, but supposedly finding lots of Nothing will pay dividends later on.
Oh, and 'stinky' is an actual status effect. Ask not for whom the smell rolls, it rolls for thee!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)