Well, I found a brick wall, and that wall is named Kolgrim.
Things were cooking along nicely in Dragon Age: Origins. There were some ups and downs, though even the bad stuff turned out to be positives in the long run. I can't stress enough that this game is the first in a very long time to knock me right on my ass and question the power of the Dork Side. This resulted in me bringing some old, half-forgotten habits and concepts back out to play.
We're talking about things like saving after each mob, sneaking and inching into every room hoping the bad people don't show up and eat my dudes. I'm normally a paranoid gamer when it comes to saves, but this time I might not be paranoid enough.
On the bright side, I've managed to get something of a grasp of this game's tactics, though there is a bit of a snag here and there keeping me from getting my ducks in a row. Unfortunately, I've found a nasty boss (or maybe even sub-boss) encounter that invalidates practically any formation planning and even seems to erase buffs while dumping the party in the middle of a group of heavy hitters with ice mage support. Getting randomly frozen is no fun.
But other than that, I'm having a blast so far. I picked the Dwarf Noble origin, and had a good laugh at the default name. I'm a warrior named Duran in a game with multiple possible starting stories. That's a reference I thought would never see the light of day. I've managed to tear my way through things, and thanks to some proper dungeon crawling I wound up with the Warden Commander armor set fairly quickly, plus a lucky break handing me Starfang very early. So at least the gear side of things is getting squared away. I'm going to break off from the main questline again (damn you, Kolgrim) and get some sidequests and more DLC stuff out of the way.
Read. Prepare. Grind. The Harvest Never Rests!
Friday, April 7, 2017
Saturday, April 1, 2017
The Age of the Dragon
Holy crap.
I finally buckled down and decided to unleash the Harvest on Dragon Age: Origins, and I've found something pretty special. First off, it is by and large the hardest RPG I've handled in a very long time, presenting a level of danger and challenge rivaling even some of the old-school nastiness I've encountered way back when. It is no exaggeration that this game has already handed me more TPKs--in two days--than any other RPG I've played since I returned to the controller, and possibly any RPG I've played ever. Things might get a bit less one-sided later on, but so far it has been a tale of desperate victories (or getting ganked) with lots of casualties and frantic potion-chugging.
It's also pretty awesome so far, with all sorts of things to do and stuff to plunder. I can't say I've played a game with multiple currency values (copper, silver, and gold) and actually requiring containers for crafting potions and poisons. And your decisions have weight, beyond even relationship values, allowing your choices to make a discernible difference on outcomes. They're not just cosmetic or cutscene differences either; what you do and who you decide to aid (or not) can put you down some very different roads, and while they all lead to the same final battle, the aftermath can and will be quite different. The obvious 'good' choice may well not be the best choice, with the game's emphasis on themes of determination, pragmatism, and plain ruthlessness.
There's just this whole air of actually stepping up and becoming a badass, and showing you the circumstances and consequences without being preachy or satire. There's a stark bluntness about the whole affair, but it doesn't detract from the positive sides of heroism, idealism, and standing against evil. It's good to know that even in grimdark games, there can still be heroes.
Oh, and you get a dog. Granted, it's a big tough mastiff that can fight bears and abominations and demons and stuff, but for you and (most of) your companions, he's just a big puppy and acts like it. It's hilarious.
I finally buckled down and decided to unleash the Harvest on Dragon Age: Origins, and I've found something pretty special. First off, it is by and large the hardest RPG I've handled in a very long time, presenting a level of danger and challenge rivaling even some of the old-school nastiness I've encountered way back when. It is no exaggeration that this game has already handed me more TPKs--in two days--than any other RPG I've played since I returned to the controller, and possibly any RPG I've played ever. Things might get a bit less one-sided later on, but so far it has been a tale of desperate victories (or getting ganked) with lots of casualties and frantic potion-chugging.
It's also pretty awesome so far, with all sorts of things to do and stuff to plunder. I can't say I've played a game with multiple currency values (copper, silver, and gold) and actually requiring containers for crafting potions and poisons. And your decisions have weight, beyond even relationship values, allowing your choices to make a discernible difference on outcomes. They're not just cosmetic or cutscene differences either; what you do and who you decide to aid (or not) can put you down some very different roads, and while they all lead to the same final battle, the aftermath can and will be quite different. The obvious 'good' choice may well not be the best choice, with the game's emphasis on themes of determination, pragmatism, and plain ruthlessness.
There's just this whole air of actually stepping up and becoming a badass, and showing you the circumstances and consequences without being preachy or satire. There's a stark bluntness about the whole affair, but it doesn't detract from the positive sides of heroism, idealism, and standing against evil. It's good to know that even in grimdark games, there can still be heroes.
Oh, and you get a dog. Granted, it's a big tough mastiff that can fight bears and abominations and demons and stuff, but for you and (most of) your companions, he's just a big puppy and acts like it. It's hilarious.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Marooned On A Dead Planet
Buried alive, buried alive...
So Tales of Graces f is going along splendidly, actually. The Tales version of New Game Plus can be a real boon, since you can enable some things to give you a leg up right out of the gate, especially the Herb Bonus (you keep the bonus stats gained by using special herbs) and keeping the titles from your previous playthrough (enabling special attacks very early compared to a first time run , plus TONS of bonus stats). It isn't quite the brokenness of the Chrono Series NG+, but it works out rather well, since there's still plenty of challenge ahead.
I've finally worked out the battle system well enough to know what I'm doing. It only took something like 50-60 hours of game-time. But the pure undiluted badass that this game can deliver is something to behold. Have you seen the crazy, glowy attacks of doom that most RPGs deliver one after another? Well, Tales has a tradition of having them fire off simultaneously, creating a symphony of flashy monster-mulching, and Graces f is still one of the best to behold.
Oh, and it introduces you to the theoretical wonders of Indiscriminate Planetary Smackdown Machines. I have no idea what they are, but I want one. The Harvest never rests!
So Tales of Graces f is going along splendidly, actually. The Tales version of New Game Plus can be a real boon, since you can enable some things to give you a leg up right out of the gate, especially the Herb Bonus (you keep the bonus stats gained by using special herbs) and keeping the titles from your previous playthrough (enabling special attacks very early compared to a first time run , plus TONS of bonus stats). It isn't quite the brokenness of the Chrono Series NG+, but it works out rather well, since there's still plenty of challenge ahead.
I've finally worked out the battle system well enough to know what I'm doing. It only took something like 50-60 hours of game-time. But the pure undiluted badass that this game can deliver is something to behold. Have you seen the crazy, glowy attacks of doom that most RPGs deliver one after another? Well, Tales has a tradition of having them fire off simultaneously, creating a symphony of flashy monster-mulching, and Graces f is still one of the best to behold.
Oh, and it introduces you to the theoretical wonders of Indiscriminate Planetary Smackdown Machines. I have no idea what they are, but I want one. The Harvest never rests!
Saturday, March 4, 2017
A Personal Loot Replicator
Well, things seem to be looking up so far in my impromptu Tales rampage. I managed to tear my way through the last few bits of Legendia without a whole lot of bother. I still find it hilariously awesome that you can craft a special move with the express purpose of throwing around a goddess of entropy and despair.
Overall, the experience worked out rather well, though there were some hiccups along the way, and inheriting the little 'skit' cutscenes turned out to be something of a mistake, making the characters' development seem a little more dry and contrived somehow. It's a bit odd to feel like this, since I can't say I've seen anything quite like the skits outside of this series (except maybe the personal events in Star Ocean) but now that I know they're there, the absence is noticeable. But all in all, good times were had by all and I put the game away on a very high note.
After working my way through the nerdiest fear of commitment ever, and waffling on the idea of a Rune Factory game (until I realized there were some dating sim mechanics, NO), I went ahead and popped in Tales of Graces f for the Playstation 3. Holy crap, New Game Plus is awesomeness here. Thanks to inheriting titles, the Eleth Mixer (still the coolest item crafting helper this side of Atelier), and my herb bonuses (!) I wound up with a crew of badass li'l munchkins totally wrecking the monster's faces right out of the gate.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg, since I went ahead and picked the enhancements for the Mixer and to inherit all the recipes I gained. With the help of some luck, I started cranking out crafting goodies pretty quickly, I can only see things getting even better in the future. For the uninitiated, the Eleth Mixer is pretty much a magical version of Star Trek's replicator, with consumes eleth (this game's word for mana) to produce just about any non-equipment item that has been in your inventory (like the replicator, it needs a pattern to work with) at random while you're wandering around outside of battle. It can produce curatives and other consumables, but it's true strength lies in cooking meals in mid-battle (each meal has a specific effect and trigger) and producing crafting materials to use in the game's 'dualize' system. It's fairly complex but also fairly straightforward.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that New Game plus for Tales of Graces f can start you off with what you need to commence a crafting rampage rarely seen outside of open-world RPGs, and I enjoy it so. The Harvest Has Triumphed, and Unleashed Once More.
Overall, the experience worked out rather well, though there were some hiccups along the way, and inheriting the little 'skit' cutscenes turned out to be something of a mistake, making the characters' development seem a little more dry and contrived somehow. It's a bit odd to feel like this, since I can't say I've seen anything quite like the skits outside of this series (except maybe the personal events in Star Ocean) but now that I know they're there, the absence is noticeable. But all in all, good times were had by all and I put the game away on a very high note.
After working my way through the nerdiest fear of commitment ever, and waffling on the idea of a Rune Factory game (until I realized there were some dating sim mechanics, NO), I went ahead and popped in Tales of Graces f for the Playstation 3. Holy crap, New Game Plus is awesomeness here. Thanks to inheriting titles, the Eleth Mixer (still the coolest item crafting helper this side of Atelier), and my herb bonuses (!) I wound up with a crew of badass li'l munchkins totally wrecking the monster's faces right out of the gate.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg, since I went ahead and picked the enhancements for the Mixer and to inherit all the recipes I gained. With the help of some luck, I started cranking out crafting goodies pretty quickly, I can only see things getting even better in the future. For the uninitiated, the Eleth Mixer is pretty much a magical version of Star Trek's replicator, with consumes eleth (this game's word for mana) to produce just about any non-equipment item that has been in your inventory (like the replicator, it needs a pattern to work with) at random while you're wandering around outside of battle. It can produce curatives and other consumables, but it's true strength lies in cooking meals in mid-battle (each meal has a specific effect and trigger) and producing crafting materials to use in the game's 'dualize' system. It's fairly complex but also fairly straightforward.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that New Game plus for Tales of Graces f can start you off with what you need to commence a crafting rampage rarely seen outside of open-world RPGs, and I enjoy it so. The Harvest Has Triumphed, and Unleashed Once More.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Piledrive the Ocean!
As could be expected, matters are well in hand for Tales of Legendia. I've handled the 'main' quest and now moved on to the 'character' questlines. The final series of boss battles proved to be just plain mean this go-around, to the point that I believe that my party wound up underleveled somehow. This wasn't that much of a problem, but thanks to the GRADE scoring system, I managed to get punished pretty good for daring to use healing items in combat, on top of being punished for succumbing to Final Boss Death Moves of Cheese. But I got to throw and body slam the embodiment of the damn ocean, so it's all good.
The character quests...well, they're far from bad, but they feel like they've been tacked on more than anything else. I've heard the reasoning. They didn't have the budget to get everything polished just right. They didn't think this was going to be primary plot material for a while. They had deadlines. Yadda yadda. But what is comes down to that the character quests are by and large a series of sidequests, with attendant sidequest characteristics. They're primarily unvoiced (outside of nice little animated cutscenes at the end of each). They take you the all the same dungeons and locations you've already harvested your way through for often flimsy reasons. While the final payoff is worth it, I can understand why a lot of player frustration comes from here.
It takes a wonderful, quirky and thoughtful PS2 RPG and reduces it to a dungeon crawl from two or even three consoles generations prior with PS2 production values. I happen to like old-school dungeon crawling, and I'm still getting my fun out of it, but I admit that it cheapens the experience somewhat. At least I get all sorts of sweet shinies to play with and eventually get to beat the snot of out a goddess of despair. The Harvest Never Rests!
The character quests...well, they're far from bad, but they feel like they've been tacked on more than anything else. I've heard the reasoning. They didn't have the budget to get everything polished just right. They didn't think this was going to be primary plot material for a while. They had deadlines. Yadda yadda. But what is comes down to that the character quests are by and large a series of sidequests, with attendant sidequest characteristics. They're primarily unvoiced (outside of nice little animated cutscenes at the end of each). They take you the all the same dungeons and locations you've already harvested your way through for often flimsy reasons. While the final payoff is worth it, I can understand why a lot of player frustration comes from here.
It takes a wonderful, quirky and thoughtful PS2 RPG and reduces it to a dungeon crawl from two or even three consoles generations prior with PS2 production values. I happen to like old-school dungeon crawling, and I'm still getting my fun out of it, but I admit that it cheapens the experience somewhat. At least I get all sorts of sweet shinies to play with and eventually get to beat the snot of out a goddess of despair. The Harvest Never Rests!
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
That Bed Is Clearly Evil, Power Slam It!
Just a quick post this time. After some minor shenanigans deciding on which game to unleash the Harvest upon, I went ahead and trotted out my copy of Tales of Legendia.
This game is a bit special to me since it helped kickstart my resurrected passion for RPGs and started the longest and most consistent string of video game victories, plus it introduced me to the wonders of the Tales series; a bit ironic since this supposedly one of the black sheep installments among fans.
Legendia is still proving to a blast to play. The graphics and sound are absolutely gorgeous, using bright, almost toy-like pre-renders and some of the most serene and outright delicate scores I've ever encountered. That's no to say there's no tunes to get your blood flowing; this game is home to In Pursuit/Pursuing Shirley, one of the funkiest pieces I've ever encountered (and the track seller, by the way), or locations that are awe-inspiring and crazy-awesome.
The combat is also still pretty fun, especially with a main character that actually tears around beat the snot out of the local freaks with martial arts. The throw mechanics are especially amusing, leading to situations where you unleash the judo on things like dragons, whales, freaky battleship tortoise things, and giant maneating canopy beds. That's not even going into the boss line-up, which includes the personification of a water-worlds entire freakin' ocean and a death goddess. Yeah, welcome to Tales. The Harvest Never Rests!
This game is a bit special to me since it helped kickstart my resurrected passion for RPGs and started the longest and most consistent string of video game victories, plus it introduced me to the wonders of the Tales series; a bit ironic since this supposedly one of the black sheep installments among fans.
Legendia is still proving to a blast to play. The graphics and sound are absolutely gorgeous, using bright, almost toy-like pre-renders and some of the most serene and outright delicate scores I've ever encountered. That's no to say there's no tunes to get your blood flowing; this game is home to In Pursuit/Pursuing Shirley, one of the funkiest pieces I've ever encountered (and the track seller, by the way), or locations that are awe-inspiring and crazy-awesome.
The combat is also still pretty fun, especially with a main character that actually tears around beat the snot out of the local freaks with martial arts. The throw mechanics are especially amusing, leading to situations where you unleash the judo on things like dragons, whales, freaky battleship tortoise things, and giant maneating canopy beds. That's not even going into the boss line-up, which includes the personification of a water-worlds entire freakin' ocean and a death goddess. Yeah, welcome to Tales. The Harvest Never Rests!
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Another Day, Another Dragon
Well, it finally happened; Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is finally beaten. It took a far bit of effort this go-around, but at least it didn't have that nasty event flag bug happen all over again. I did encounter a few others, from the harmless (characters tend to load in standing and healthy, then kneel or flop over and start writhing like actors finding a mark), to the infuriating (a fair few broken sidequests -- more than the previous playthrough) to the unexpectedly badass (clipping and ragdoll physics left me buried in a pile of Jottun I just smashed).
Overall, there isn't a whole to be said for Amalur that didn't get said on the last campaign. The final areas are actually fairly fun and great to look at. There were lots of cool crystalline formations and freaky blue plants to gawk at. It was distinct, and actually across as pretty alien. It was marred a bit by having dungeons that came across as palette swaps except for part of the very final one. I'll give it a pass for that anyway, since the game's dungeons actually have a good bit of visual variety anyway.
The final boss fight was...okay. Somebody at the developer's office must have played Dragon's Dogma, since the (SPOILER WARNINGS) final boss shows up, squashed the main villain like a bitch, and then goes on about how it brought you back and fate and yadda yadda. The cinematics and last bit of storyline are pretty fun, but the battle itself was somewhat underwhelming especially since you're fighting a bigass demon dragon that slurp the fate out of you.
In the end, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning rates as a pretty damn fun game, and well worth the attention of the RPG enthusiast. It's not perfect, and it's a damn shame that sequels of any kind are extremely unlikely (yay corporate shenanigans), but it's plenty of fun, has it's own distinct world and underlying mythos, and its pretty badass (dual wielding bat'leths, Tron Frisbees of Doom, getting to be Scorpion and Sub-Zero at the same time, oh and ripping fate out of baddies and smiting them with it 300-style).
We shall see what come next, but for now the Harvest Has Triumphed!
Overall, there isn't a whole to be said for Amalur that didn't get said on the last campaign. The final areas are actually fairly fun and great to look at. There were lots of cool crystalline formations and freaky blue plants to gawk at. It was distinct, and actually across as pretty alien. It was marred a bit by having dungeons that came across as palette swaps except for part of the very final one. I'll give it a pass for that anyway, since the game's dungeons actually have a good bit of visual variety anyway.
The final boss fight was...okay. Somebody at the developer's office must have played Dragon's Dogma, since the (SPOILER WARNINGS) final boss shows up, squashed the main villain like a bitch, and then goes on about how it brought you back and fate and yadda yadda. The cinematics and last bit of storyline are pretty fun, but the battle itself was somewhat underwhelming especially since you're fighting a bigass demon dragon that slurp the fate out of you.
In the end, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning rates as a pretty damn fun game, and well worth the attention of the RPG enthusiast. It's not perfect, and it's a damn shame that sequels of any kind are extremely unlikely (yay corporate shenanigans), but it's plenty of fun, has it's own distinct world and underlying mythos, and its pretty badass (dual wielding bat'leths, Tron Frisbees of Doom, getting to be Scorpion and Sub-Zero at the same time, oh and ripping fate out of baddies and smiting them with it 300-style).
We shall see what come next, but for now the Harvest Has Triumphed!
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