I beat Mass Effect 2 at the beginning of December, and I still haven't been able to find any way to talk about the game in a meaningful way. Mechanically, I don't have a great latching on point to write about, so I can't focus my thoughts around that. This post is going to wander a lot, because like Shep's body at the start of the game, my mind is all over the place.
First, the tone of this game is much darker than the first one. There's almost a heroic quality to the quest you're undertaking to stop Seren in Mass Effect 1. Here, there is some heroism in stopping these galactic threats, but the way each step progresses feels dirt and grimey. Seldom does it feel like you're getting a clean victory. Every inch is fought for, and the casualties are unavoidable. I get it, this is a monstrous, inhuman threat we're fighting. There should be a struggle. But man... even things that should be good end on a bittersweet note.
The tone almost feels oppressive at times. Like I'd rather be playing literally anything else. You work for an organization that did awful shit in Mass Effect 1, and heinous shit in Mass Effect 3, but they wisely keep you out of that loop in the second one. You're off doing the heroic shit, basically being public relations for them. No see, this cruel research is to help Shepard and by extension, humanity and the galaxy". I fell for it. I fell for them being a means to an end. I thought Shepard's reputation would have had them clean up their act a bit, but nah. Illusive Man's a prick, but he's the only one giving you resources. It all just feels gross in hindsight.
I don't think I like how Mass Effect 2 made me feel. I don't think it's a game I'll replay. And that's fine. I don't replay a lot of games I've beaten. But there's just something about it that was frustrating the whole time and I can't put my finger on it. Don't get me wrong, I liked the game. It's just something is bothering me and I don't know what. Your allies range from good to great, your enemy is clear, your mysterious benefactor is incredibly seedy, but like...
OK, what the fuck. The start of Mass Effect 3 has you just re-enrolled with Alliance Military after the Normandy was turned over and retrofitted with upgraded Alliance tech. Why the fuck was that not an option at any point prior? I must've missed something. Being in league with Cerberus is often enough for a conviction, and my former crew scattered to the wind following the arrest. I guess Shepard felt he owed Cerberus for his life, and only they could stop the collectors, I think. Maybe they're just willing to do what needed to be done, and it couldn't be done above board.
Again, I like the game, but it's probably the most confusing of the three. That said, I'm only some percent through Mass Effect 3, so I don't know how that will end. I don't know if I'll ever get a full grasp of how I feel about this game. It's complicated and dark and demoralizing, but I saw it through. That counts for something.
Friday, December 27, 2019
Mess Effect 3
Been working my way through this Trilogy and now I find myself part way through Mass Effect 3. I keep turning these games over in my head as I play them, trying to get a vibe of how I feel about them. With Mass Effect 3, one work keeps sticking out to me though: messy.
Mass Effect 3 feels messy. This isn't meant as a pejorative either. I like the messiness of it so far. It feels overwhelming, intense, and part of me has at the back of my mind "Is this the mission that's going to trigger the endgame? Am I ready enough? Is the project complete?". I feel this way because war doesn't operate on a schedule. Especially not one with an enemy capable of completely wiping races and planets out entirely.
As you play Mass Effect 3, you're constantly acquiring War Assets. These can be specialized forces, scientists to work on your secret project, resources, and anything else that can help the galactic war effort. When I see "Urgent" pop up in my Journal after a scene that brings up what that mission is about, my first thought is "Oh, taking care of that will give me a big boost to the war effort, more so than some random mercenary band might".
This doesn't deter me from doing side missions, mind you, I just feel the pull to do the thing that feels higher priority. After all, what if I have a set mission count, and the last thing I do is deliver some heating unit to a residential, instead of resolving a conflict between two races? This really lets me evaluate where my priorities lie. I've gone out of my way to help the crew of my ship get a part they need, for some upgrades to the ship which may or may not have some effect later, instead of getting a vaccine for another race's illness. After all, these are people I see regularly, why wouldn't I help them? And if it helps keep our ship around during a major attack, all the better. Those people should be fine for a little while longer while I go shopping.
Here's the thing: generally, they are fine. I don't think I've had a mission disappear from my Journal (though, I'll need to try to remember to look for one next time I play), nor have I gotten any disparaging remarks for not helping random citizens on Citadel. This is where I start to feel a little conflicted. I know we have "some" time before the invasion. I know we have "some" time to prepare. And I know this is a Video Game, with content that is meant to be played. However, I am not sure how much Bioware wanted to play with that idea and force players to prioritize their efforts and give them a hard deadline. I'll find out, I suppose. But if I see a mission marked "The final battle" then I guess I'll know.
I like this messiness, if I'm being honest. Each of the non-Citadel fetch quests feel like important, because you can see, in your mind, how this can help. Every "Oh, go raid this place" feels important because they're holding resources. "Evacuate these people" feels important because you can find more people to assist the war effort, either as soldiers or people working on your projects. "Take out this beacon", hell yeah, I'm slowing down their advance. It feels like you really are trying to fight this war on all fronts, while dealing with another dangerous adversary, who ostensibly wants the same thing you want, but you just cannot work with them, due to ideological differences. I could pursue stopping them, but I don't know how much that will advance my war efforts, which comes back to this vague sense of "some" time. This uncertainty actually lets me feel some pressure. I might be a little deflated if I can just do everything and clean up the quest log before triggering some big fight.
I'm interested to see where this game goes. I am secretly hoping that it's not afraid to say "nuh uh, you used the time you had" instead of being a regular video game-ass video game, but the journey's been interesting enough I won't mind if that's the case. In any case, give me games like this and Disco Elysium, which feel at times like structured chaos, where you aren't sure when something is just going to come crashing down around you.
Huh, guess I know why I might like Roguelites now.
Mass Effect 3 feels messy. This isn't meant as a pejorative either. I like the messiness of it so far. It feels overwhelming, intense, and part of me has at the back of my mind "Is this the mission that's going to trigger the endgame? Am I ready enough? Is the project complete?". I feel this way because war doesn't operate on a schedule. Especially not one with an enemy capable of completely wiping races and planets out entirely.
As you play Mass Effect 3, you're constantly acquiring War Assets. These can be specialized forces, scientists to work on your secret project, resources, and anything else that can help the galactic war effort. When I see "Urgent" pop up in my Journal after a scene that brings up what that mission is about, my first thought is "Oh, taking care of that will give me a big boost to the war effort, more so than some random mercenary band might".
This doesn't deter me from doing side missions, mind you, I just feel the pull to do the thing that feels higher priority. After all, what if I have a set mission count, and the last thing I do is deliver some heating unit to a residential, instead of resolving a conflict between two races? This really lets me evaluate where my priorities lie. I've gone out of my way to help the crew of my ship get a part they need, for some upgrades to the ship which may or may not have some effect later, instead of getting a vaccine for another race's illness. After all, these are people I see regularly, why wouldn't I help them? And if it helps keep our ship around during a major attack, all the better. Those people should be fine for a little while longer while I go shopping.
Here's the thing: generally, they are fine. I don't think I've had a mission disappear from my Journal (though, I'll need to try to remember to look for one next time I play), nor have I gotten any disparaging remarks for not helping random citizens on Citadel. This is where I start to feel a little conflicted. I know we have "some" time before the invasion. I know we have "some" time to prepare. And I know this is a Video Game, with content that is meant to be played. However, I am not sure how much Bioware wanted to play with that idea and force players to prioritize their efforts and give them a hard deadline. I'll find out, I suppose. But if I see a mission marked "The final battle" then I guess I'll know.
I like this messiness, if I'm being honest. Each of the non-Citadel fetch quests feel like important, because you can see, in your mind, how this can help. Every "Oh, go raid this place" feels important because they're holding resources. "Evacuate these people" feels important because you can find more people to assist the war effort, either as soldiers or people working on your projects. "Take out this beacon", hell yeah, I'm slowing down their advance. It feels like you really are trying to fight this war on all fronts, while dealing with another dangerous adversary, who ostensibly wants the same thing you want, but you just cannot work with them, due to ideological differences. I could pursue stopping them, but I don't know how much that will advance my war efforts, which comes back to this vague sense of "some" time. This uncertainty actually lets me feel some pressure. I might be a little deflated if I can just do everything and clean up the quest log before triggering some big fight.
I'm interested to see where this game goes. I am secretly hoping that it's not afraid to say "nuh uh, you used the time you had" instead of being a regular video game-ass video game, but the journey's been interesting enough I won't mind if that's the case. In any case, give me games like this and Disco Elysium, which feel at times like structured chaos, where you aren't sure when something is just going to come crashing down around you.
Huh, guess I know why I might like Roguelites now.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
It's Just Disco, Baby
When Disco Elysium launched, I had no clue what the game was. Hell, I didn't even know it HAD launched. It just sort of appeared in Twitter feed, and over Waypoint Radio. The first week, I paid it no mind. After all, I don't really play games on my computer anymore, and it probably won't run on here anyways. After the second week though, and after seeing bits on Twitter, and people gush about it over Discord, the game went from background noise to idle curiosity to a siren's song.
Disco Elysium is an isometric detective RPG developed by ZA/UM. Your goal is to solve a murder that has happened in a poverty-stricken burg. You interact with everything in a point-and-click adventure game style. Unlike traditional RPGs though, there is no combat in this game, near as I can tell. Everything is determined by various skill checks that are prompted as you interact with the world. These skill checks allow you to also flesh out what type of person you are. As you play and make decisions, you you thoughts. You have slots to ponder over things in the background while you conduct your investigation and explore. Once a thought is finalized though, it locks the slot and provides some sort of benefit as long as you have it. These thoughts not only provide you stat bonuses, but can also provide you different dialog options, interactions with NPCs, and internal dialogs.
The dialog is the real star of the show in Disco Elysium. When you're looking at an object, your abilities will start to speak to you. For example, occasionally, you might get some background chatter from your Electrochemistry stat, egging you on to go take drugs, smoke, or drink, or it can provide helpful information and point out an NPC is on something. Encyclopedia, on a successful check, can provide you with interesting, if usually dry, information about the world and people.
Skill checks happen constantly in the background. You could be talking to someone, and the next entry in the box will say something like [Empathy - Trivial - Success] And then it will provide you information about their emotional state. Sometimes if you get a passive check and fail, you'll be prompted to say something stupid, sometimes with no option to back out gracefully. There are also two types of Active checks: Red and White - Red Checks are single attempt only. If you succeed the check, great, if not, the option is locked away and everything moves on with that in mind. White Checks can be retried after speaking to an NPC who knows about the situation or thing you looked at, or if you level up the stat associated with the check. For example, there is a kid early on you can meet with a Legendary Empathy check. With my stats having a pair of points in Empathy, and neutral empathy from gear/thoughts, I had roughly a 40% chance of hitting the check. I failed it, and haven't been able to retry, because I haven't spent a level up point on that stat.
When you level up, you can either level up one of the 20 skills in the game, open a new Thought slot, or forget a thought you've fully internalized. If you haven't fully internalized a thought, you can swap it out freely and pick it up later, to try to get the bonus.
I know I tend to go over the basics of the mechanics in games when I write about them, but it helps me both think about the game, and hopefully it can also express some of the interest and excitement I find in a game. Anyways, moving on to what I think about it. I like the game a lot so far! The game profiled me as a Sorry Cop, which, fair. I ended up apologizing and trying to own up for the shitty behavior my character exhibited before I took control. I try to not abuse my power as a police officer, as the people in the area are already untrusting of authorities, which has actually led me to get pushed around by several characters.
What's fascinating about this game is that each decision feels meaningful in a small way, both mechanically and narratively. Since level up s are spaced pretty far apart, deciding what to do with that level up point is a big deal. Do I want to increase this thing so I can have a slightly better chance on this part of the investigation, or do I want to know more about this other person? Maybe I want this Thought slot that may give me a big bonus once internalized, or do I hate that my brain is trying to whip me into physical shape like a drill sergeant? Decisions you make in conversation feel natural and impactful most of the time. You can get on people's bad sides through your words and deeds, or you can ingratiate yourself to them. With the constant checks going on, my stats feel important, and the conversations have an ebb and flow to them where you can be in a good rhythm, then suddenly a bad check sends you to a dead end.
I kinda want to compare this to Mass Effect right now. In Mass Effect, I never felt like any one conversation mattered. Sure, important conversations, like with Wrex on Virmire, feel like they occur at natural points, but they also have a sense of gravity with them. You know something important is about to happen, so you best be on your game. In Disco Elysium, I don't think I'm encountering world altering decisions, after all, I'm just one man, but the fact I went to the Union head to get help getting the body down out of the tree will have some ramifications. The fact I missed a check on the field autopsy will probably come back to bite me at some point. I could have probably kept my partner from having to sell his shit if I took bribes and asked more people for money. It's a lot of small decisions in the moment-to-moment that add up to crafting a personalized trip through the narrative. It's really interesting and for me, engaging as all hell.
Also, we need a special shout out for Kim Kitsuragi. He was assigned to work on the case alongside you, and has his shit together way more than you do. He's such a cool dude, a quite sort, good at his job, kinda straight laced, but you can rope him into your shenanigans too. He's one of the most interesting companion characters I've seen in an RPG. He also pops off at a racist, which was fun too. Hell yeah, I got your back buddy.
I highly recommend Disco Elysium. It's a classic RPG crossed with a Visual Novel, in a way, and a Point and Click Adventure game. It's well written, interesting, and full of mystery. I look forward to finishing it. It's a grimy dirty tale, but still have enough levity to make me smile. If you have been looking for an RPG without needing the combat, give this a shot.
Disco Elysium is an isometric detective RPG developed by ZA/UM. Your goal is to solve a murder that has happened in a poverty-stricken burg. You interact with everything in a point-and-click adventure game style. Unlike traditional RPGs though, there is no combat in this game, near as I can tell. Everything is determined by various skill checks that are prompted as you interact with the world. These skill checks allow you to also flesh out what type of person you are. As you play and make decisions, you you thoughts. You have slots to ponder over things in the background while you conduct your investigation and explore. Once a thought is finalized though, it locks the slot and provides some sort of benefit as long as you have it. These thoughts not only provide you stat bonuses, but can also provide you different dialog options, interactions with NPCs, and internal dialogs.
The dialog is the real star of the show in Disco Elysium. When you're looking at an object, your abilities will start to speak to you. For example, occasionally, you might get some background chatter from your Electrochemistry stat, egging you on to go take drugs, smoke, or drink, or it can provide helpful information and point out an NPC is on something. Encyclopedia, on a successful check, can provide you with interesting, if usually dry, information about the world and people.
Skill checks happen constantly in the background. You could be talking to someone, and the next entry in the box will say something like [Empathy - Trivial - Success] And then it will provide you information about their emotional state. Sometimes if you get a passive check and fail, you'll be prompted to say something stupid, sometimes with no option to back out gracefully. There are also two types of Active checks: Red and White - Red Checks are single attempt only. If you succeed the check, great, if not, the option is locked away and everything moves on with that in mind. White Checks can be retried after speaking to an NPC who knows about the situation or thing you looked at, or if you level up the stat associated with the check. For example, there is a kid early on you can meet with a Legendary Empathy check. With my stats having a pair of points in Empathy, and neutral empathy from gear/thoughts, I had roughly a 40% chance of hitting the check. I failed it, and haven't been able to retry, because I haven't spent a level up point on that stat.
When you level up, you can either level up one of the 20 skills in the game, open a new Thought slot, or forget a thought you've fully internalized. If you haven't fully internalized a thought, you can swap it out freely and pick it up later, to try to get the bonus.
I know I tend to go over the basics of the mechanics in games when I write about them, but it helps me both think about the game, and hopefully it can also express some of the interest and excitement I find in a game. Anyways, moving on to what I think about it. I like the game a lot so far! The game profiled me as a Sorry Cop, which, fair. I ended up apologizing and trying to own up for the shitty behavior my character exhibited before I took control. I try to not abuse my power as a police officer, as the people in the area are already untrusting of authorities, which has actually led me to get pushed around by several characters.
What's fascinating about this game is that each decision feels meaningful in a small way, both mechanically and narratively. Since level up s are spaced pretty far apart, deciding what to do with that level up point is a big deal. Do I want to increase this thing so I can have a slightly better chance on this part of the investigation, or do I want to know more about this other person? Maybe I want this Thought slot that may give me a big bonus once internalized, or do I hate that my brain is trying to whip me into physical shape like a drill sergeant? Decisions you make in conversation feel natural and impactful most of the time. You can get on people's bad sides through your words and deeds, or you can ingratiate yourself to them. With the constant checks going on, my stats feel important, and the conversations have an ebb and flow to them where you can be in a good rhythm, then suddenly a bad check sends you to a dead end.
I kinda want to compare this to Mass Effect right now. In Mass Effect, I never felt like any one conversation mattered. Sure, important conversations, like with Wrex on Virmire, feel like they occur at natural points, but they also have a sense of gravity with them. You know something important is about to happen, so you best be on your game. In Disco Elysium, I don't think I'm encountering world altering decisions, after all, I'm just one man, but the fact I went to the Union head to get help getting the body down out of the tree will have some ramifications. The fact I missed a check on the field autopsy will probably come back to bite me at some point. I could have probably kept my partner from having to sell his shit if I took bribes and asked more people for money. It's a lot of small decisions in the moment-to-moment that add up to crafting a personalized trip through the narrative. It's really interesting and for me, engaging as all hell.
Also, we need a special shout out for Kim Kitsuragi. He was assigned to work on the case alongside you, and has his shit together way more than you do. He's such a cool dude, a quite sort, good at his job, kinda straight laced, but you can rope him into your shenanigans too. He's one of the most interesting companion characters I've seen in an RPG. He also pops off at a racist, which was fun too. Hell yeah, I got your back buddy.
I highly recommend Disco Elysium. It's a classic RPG crossed with a Visual Novel, in a way, and a Point and Click Adventure game. It's well written, interesting, and full of mystery. I look forward to finishing it. It's a grimy dirty tale, but still have enough levity to make me smile. If you have been looking for an RPG without needing the combat, give this a shot.
Monday, September 30, 2019
Dark Souls Revisited - 2 - The Power that Be
Progress update: Beat Taurus Demon, circled back through and got the ladder for the Undead Burg bonfire.
I don't think I'm having fun with Dark Souls this playthrough. My build is a Priest who has been varying between one and two handing whatever weapon I pick up. I think I know what part of the problem is too. I want to talk this out, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind by the end.
The first issue is that I am higher levelled than I was in my initial playthrough. This will feed into a later issue, I can definitely tell that I am stronger than I was the first time through. I will agree that knowing more about this game makes it easier, but that doesn't make the game itself easy. Knowing where precisely to put your stat gains might be the single most powerful bit of information you can have though. Dumping most of my points into Strength and Vitality let me breeze through fodder enemies. I still feel nothing but tension facing them, as I know how bad things can get in the game, and I know that I'm a bad hitstun away from dying, but this tension is different than before. Now, I'm playing a game of rocket tag, where first strike usually wins. This is certainly a wild departure from what my first playthrough was.
This leads to the second thing: Playing one/two hand melee just doesn't have the range of options or approaches that I like. Basically, I have Heal as an extra estus flask, then I either circle strafe or charge in and cleave an enemy. This isn't fun gameplay for me. This is weird too, because in most RPGs, including tabletop ones, I love to mix it up in melee. I just end up having more to do outside of combat I suppose that supplements it.
I've taken a few breaks of a few days each, trying to figure out what I'm thinking about this. At first, I thought to compare this to Dungeons and Dragons spellcasters, which often are the Right choice for any situation. I had this whole thing planned out to talk at a tangent about the Quadratic Wizard/Linear Fighter dichotomy, but, the more I thought, the less accurate that felt. Melee is starting to feel like a very linear FOOS strategy. I wrote more about those here, but in short, a FOOS strategy is your Go-To that stays your strategy of choice until it stops working. I feel like I've found that strategy early with melee, in that I just take the biggest number and biggest stat bonus, equip it, and either run in two handed or play a little cautious with shield. This style of play isn't as engaging, to the point where I "wasted" a few points in Dexterity so I could use a bow. I need these mixups and options in this game, because the enemies are so varied and the feeling of mitigating some tension by having a good tool for the job is exciting.
I want to compare this strong FOOS strategy to my Sorcerer, who I did have a Go-To strategy with, but it wasn't the only one I could employ, and I was able to mix things up regularly. On my Sorcerer, I would frequently use Aural Decoy to distract some melee enemies. Depending on the type of enemy, I would then either try to approach with Melee, or attack from afar with Soul Arrow and it's ilk. This led to constant trade offs though. I only had a finite number of Aural Decoys and ranged damaged spells. Do I spend more than one Decoy on this enemy, if the first doesn't stick? How many arrows do I shoot before switching to my sword? Can I get a Heavy Soul Arrow off before they get in my face, or should I just hit them with a Greater Soul Arrow?
These types of thoughts made the moment to moment gameplay so much more engaging, and made the game so much better for me. I know I'm not going to capture that same magic in subsequent playthrough of a game, that's just not how things work. Experience and system mastery can help curb those things. And it's not like I'm disinterested in finishing the DLC, it's just that I can definitely tell that I'm not having as much fun right now. We'll see how long it is until I get a new weapon and try to spread out my stats into some weird gimmick. There is a benefit to having a strong FOOS in this case. It allows me to experiment on the fringes, while still being able to fall back on an extremely powerful option. The trick is actually taking time to experiment, instead of just falling into the "I'm going to just be the best I can be" trap. Only time will tell if I keep the experimentation up.
I don't think I'm having fun with Dark Souls this playthrough. My build is a Priest who has been varying between one and two handing whatever weapon I pick up. I think I know what part of the problem is too. I want to talk this out, who knows, maybe I'll change my mind by the end.
The first issue is that I am higher levelled than I was in my initial playthrough. This will feed into a later issue, I can definitely tell that I am stronger than I was the first time through. I will agree that knowing more about this game makes it easier, but that doesn't make the game itself easy. Knowing where precisely to put your stat gains might be the single most powerful bit of information you can have though. Dumping most of my points into Strength and Vitality let me breeze through fodder enemies. I still feel nothing but tension facing them, as I know how bad things can get in the game, and I know that I'm a bad hitstun away from dying, but this tension is different than before. Now, I'm playing a game of rocket tag, where first strike usually wins. This is certainly a wild departure from what my first playthrough was.
This leads to the second thing: Playing one/two hand melee just doesn't have the range of options or approaches that I like. Basically, I have Heal as an extra estus flask, then I either circle strafe or charge in and cleave an enemy. This isn't fun gameplay for me. This is weird too, because in most RPGs, including tabletop ones, I love to mix it up in melee. I just end up having more to do outside of combat I suppose that supplements it.
I've taken a few breaks of a few days each, trying to figure out what I'm thinking about this. At first, I thought to compare this to Dungeons and Dragons spellcasters, which often are the Right choice for any situation. I had this whole thing planned out to talk at a tangent about the Quadratic Wizard/Linear Fighter dichotomy, but, the more I thought, the less accurate that felt. Melee is starting to feel like a very linear FOOS strategy. I wrote more about those here, but in short, a FOOS strategy is your Go-To that stays your strategy of choice until it stops working. I feel like I've found that strategy early with melee, in that I just take the biggest number and biggest stat bonus, equip it, and either run in two handed or play a little cautious with shield. This style of play isn't as engaging, to the point where I "wasted" a few points in Dexterity so I could use a bow. I need these mixups and options in this game, because the enemies are so varied and the feeling of mitigating some tension by having a good tool for the job is exciting.
I want to compare this strong FOOS strategy to my Sorcerer, who I did have a Go-To strategy with, but it wasn't the only one I could employ, and I was able to mix things up regularly. On my Sorcerer, I would frequently use Aural Decoy to distract some melee enemies. Depending on the type of enemy, I would then either try to approach with Melee, or attack from afar with Soul Arrow and it's ilk. This led to constant trade offs though. I only had a finite number of Aural Decoys and ranged damaged spells. Do I spend more than one Decoy on this enemy, if the first doesn't stick? How many arrows do I shoot before switching to my sword? Can I get a Heavy Soul Arrow off before they get in my face, or should I just hit them with a Greater Soul Arrow?
These types of thoughts made the moment to moment gameplay so much more engaging, and made the game so much better for me. I know I'm not going to capture that same magic in subsequent playthrough of a game, that's just not how things work. Experience and system mastery can help curb those things. And it's not like I'm disinterested in finishing the DLC, it's just that I can definitely tell that I'm not having as much fun right now. We'll see how long it is until I get a new weapon and try to spread out my stats into some weird gimmick. There is a benefit to having a strong FOOS in this case. It allows me to experiment on the fringes, while still being able to fall back on an extremely powerful option. The trick is actually taking time to experiment, instead of just falling into the "I'm going to just be the best I can be" trap. Only time will tell if I keep the experimentation up.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Wandering the Stars
Lately, I find myself enjoying games focused on exploration more and more. The games I own or focus on playing are built around this idea where you're going to see what comes next. My favorite parts of Dark Souls, for example, were seeing the different areas and how they were all different. I especially admired the architecture in Anor Londo. When I play MineCraft or Terraria, I like to see what the world has generated for me. In the game that sparks this post, No Man's Sky, it's finding out what each new star system has in store for me.
When No Man's Sky launched, a lot of people were disappointed in it. It wasn't as feature complete as the hype had led it to be believed. Between the hype and the developers overpromising, the game was not received well. Had I been able to play it at the time, though, I would have played at Launch, as the core concept of the game still appealed to me. What can I say? I'm susceptible to procedural generation.
When No Man's Sky launched, a lot of people were disappointed in it. It wasn't as feature complete as the hype had led it to be believed. Between the hype and the developers overpromising, the game was not received well. Had I been able to play it at the time, though, I would have played at Launch, as the core concept of the game still appealed to me. What can I say? I'm susceptible to procedural generation.
I just wanted to show off a cool planet I found, even though it's hostile.
In No Man's Sky and the above games, what really helps the exploration is the anchoring of your home. A bonfire, a built base, a space station, they all act like a beacon back to safety and lets you think about what you've seen in safety. Whether it is the hud marker in No Man's Sky or the Compass in Minecraft, knowing where your home is just gives you a sense of safety. Knowing that, no matter how harrowing things get, you can get back. No matter what twists and turns you take during exploration, finding home makes the exploration that much more impactful to me.
You could compare No Man's Sky closer to Dark Souls in this aspect. Unlike Minecraft or Terraria, when you hop star Systems, it becomes harder to access the home you had started to build. You can think of your built base with your machinery and farm like a highly Kindled Bonfire. When you move to a new sector, there will be a space station, where you can buy and sell materials and talk to NPCs, but this would be comparable to a basic Bonfire. Once you start building your base up on a new planet, it will be like setting up a new Bonfire as your base.
I really enjoy just flying out and finding a new planet, seeing the new creatures, plants and animals. It's so relaxing, even when you get into a space fight that damages your ship. Combat isn't anything to write home about in the game, and it's not what I'm here. I'm here to land on a planet, look up at the skyline, and see another planet in the distance. Here is a screenshot I ended up taking where I was just enjoying the scenery.
I wish I had better words to explain how the exploration makes em feel. It's a sense of fulfillment that I get from seeing new areas that fills me with more endorphins than beating any boss does. I have not played a game that I can remember that makes me go "Oh, wow, I wonder what's over there" and "oh no, I need to get out of here RIGHT NOW" more than this game has. The little descriptors of new animals you find are evocative and makes you fill in what the creature is like from what you see and that little blurb. "Hs secondary skull", what does that mean? Why would it need that? "Has redundant organs" "Caustic Skin", and "Diet: Removed Hearts" are all evocative bits of lore and information that makes the creatures seem that much more alien. It's such a wonderful thing to discover. The words "Organic Rock" have caused me to flee the area in my ship, because just the thought of what it could be fills me with a feeling of "I should not be near that".
This game isn't for everyone. It isn't a detailed space sim, nor does it have a lot of interfactional interests that you need to deal with. You aren't establishing or running your own empire or anything like that. I like this solitary experience. I like flying and exploring planets. I like the light trading aspects the game has, where different sectors and planets can value different items different. There's just a lot of little things that I really enjoy in this game, and it's all tied back into the core loop of "go and explore a new place, and return to your central base". If flying the ship and seeing the planets was not as interesting, then it all falls apart. Each new sector has something to offer, and I cannot wait to see it.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Dark Souls Revisited - 1 - A New Challenge
I am a goddamn liar. I am a liar who cannot be trusted.
Due to some stress in life, between work issues and an ongoing chronic illness making work harder for the past 2 months, I had reached a level of self-loathing where I decided I should go back to Dark Souls and hit up the DLC that I missed. I had skipped the DLC in my first playthrough, as I was just getting frustrated with the zones and wanted to get to the end.
Instead of running a New Game Plus with my Sorcerer, I went for a new game with a new character. I'm rolling a Cleric this time, and took the Master Key as my starting item. I had heard this would allow me to skip Blighttown, and that, my friends, is the best news I could ever hear.
Part of this is to track how different the game is the second time through, and what I remember. Obviously, some fold of my brain is remembering some general map information, and general tactics, but each fight still makes me nervous. I'm not remembering precise enemy placement, but I remember vague things so far, like "oh hey, there's a Black Knight ahead guarding a chest. Wonder how hard this will be"
I've got about an hour and twenty minutes into the new playthrough. Currently, I'm around level 5 or 6, and made a torpedo beeline from the Asylum, to Firelink, and then to the Undead Burg. I had a push almost take me to the Taurus Demon fog door, but, well... See for yourself.
I'm not actively remembering these things, but the repeated runs and deaths of the last playthrough may have lodged these things into my brain, to a point where I can subconsciously call on it. We'll see how it goes, once I get away from the Burg though. I wouldn't be surprised if I started to mix things up from different areas. It'll also be interesting to see what the DLC areas are going to be, and what my strategies will be at that time.
It'd kind of a bummer not playing my Sorcerer, but I had decided a long time ago that if I wanted to play it again, I'd run a Cleric. Here we are, and we shall see how this goes.
Due to some stress in life, between work issues and an ongoing chronic illness making work harder for the past 2 months, I had reached a level of self-loathing where I decided I should go back to Dark Souls and hit up the DLC that I missed. I had skipped the DLC in my first playthrough, as I was just getting frustrated with the zones and wanted to get to the end.
Instead of running a New Game Plus with my Sorcerer, I went for a new game with a new character. I'm rolling a Cleric this time, and took the Master Key as my starting item. I had heard this would allow me to skip Blighttown, and that, my friends, is the best news I could ever hear.
Part of this is to track how different the game is the second time through, and what I remember. Obviously, some fold of my brain is remembering some general map information, and general tactics, but each fight still makes me nervous. I'm not remembering precise enemy placement, but I remember vague things so far, like "oh hey, there's a Black Knight ahead guarding a chest. Wonder how hard this will be"
I've got about an hour and twenty minutes into the new playthrough. Currently, I'm around level 5 or 6, and made a torpedo beeline from the Asylum, to Firelink, and then to the Undead Burg. I had a push almost take me to the Taurus Demon fog door, but, well... See for yourself.
I'm not actively remembering these things, but the repeated runs and deaths of the last playthrough may have lodged these things into my brain, to a point where I can subconsciously call on it. We'll see how it goes, once I get away from the Burg though. I wouldn't be surprised if I started to mix things up from different areas. It'll also be interesting to see what the DLC areas are going to be, and what my strategies will be at that time.
It'd kind of a bummer not playing my Sorcerer, but I had decided a long time ago that if I wanted to play it again, I'd run a Cleric. Here we are, and we shall see how this goes.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Bonfire Lit (Dark Souls 15)
It has been completed. After a few hours, Gwyn has been defeated, and the fire is lit. I've taken a few weeks months to write this so I could think about the game a bit more. OK... that's only partially true, procrastination is a hell of a drug, and I think I like Dark Souls. I'll firm that up later, probably.
Dark Souls is a game that I had reservations to start with. It's firmly entrenched in a culture that turned "Git Gud" from a meme into a mantra, and where the difficulty is a driving factor. The attitude I've seen around the internet since the game's launch had put me off the game, and difficulty isn't my strong suit. There was also this weird trend of people putting this game on some weird "real gamer" pantheon, which is another thing I balk at.
I put these aside though and tried to give the game a change. This game is relevant to the gaming landscape and I couldn't remain ignorant of it forever. I needed to experience it for myself. I had to put aside my preconceptions, shut out the noise and give it a shot.
While the difficulty is a main draw to the game, it's not what I'm going to take away from it. I really enjoy it's level design and it reminds me not quite of Super Metroid or Casltevania: Symphony of the Night, but of the original Resident Evil. All four games have clever use of space, and have you traversing familiar sections to get to new areas. Dark Souls and Resident Evil accomplish this through acquiring keys and secret passageways, while Metroid and Symphony of the Night use new abilities and powers as the keys to unlock new areas. It's one thing, though, to do this sort of design in a limited space, like a Mansion or Castle, it's another to weave these areas together across a large area like Dark Souls does. I talked about this a bit more waaaay back in Dark Souls Post 4 (side note, holy hell that was a longer, rambling post with about three different themes), and it holds through to the end.
Based on what I've seen, I feel like going with a Sorceress was a good call for me. While I had some key strategies that worked well, there were plenty of areas where I had to completely change my tactic in order to advance. Based on pure conjecture, I don't know if I would have had to adapt as much had I played a heavy knight type character. Sure, fighting some enemies would have been harder, but the strategy seems like it would be similar to what you wold have been doing. For example, there were a few of the big demons that drop the Titanite shards, like the one in the water pit in Sens, and the one by the Blacksmith neer Darkroot, that I was able to ace using Magic, since I had positioning and range on my side. Those were easy for me due to my choice. Some sections with normal enemies, like the snakes at the front of Sen's, and the 4 Kings boss, gave me a ton of trouble due to playing a mage though, so I had to drastically alter some strategies.
Dark Souls isn't a perfect game. The combat is kinda fiddly at times, and the difficulty can be a bit much for my normal tastes, but it has a certain charm about it. It's the same dark sorcery that Benedict Cumberbatch has cast on society. Dark Souls has top tier map design, and it is at its best when it keeps you on your back foot. Having to find these optimal routes that worked for me, and having the freedom to change the strategies I was employing on the fly made for a much more rewarding experience. I know I can confidently suggest dark souls to it, and point out some things glowingly about it.
Before I go, I want to shout out one more guy. He helped and encouraged me through the back half of the game when I started to get frustrated. Take a bow, Aural Decoy.
Dark Souls is a game that I had reservations to start with. It's firmly entrenched in a culture that turned "Git Gud" from a meme into a mantra, and where the difficulty is a driving factor. The attitude I've seen around the internet since the game's launch had put me off the game, and difficulty isn't my strong suit. There was also this weird trend of people putting this game on some weird "real gamer" pantheon, which is another thing I balk at.
I put these aside though and tried to give the game a change. This game is relevant to the gaming landscape and I couldn't remain ignorant of it forever. I needed to experience it for myself. I had to put aside my preconceptions, shut out the noise and give it a shot.
While the difficulty is a main draw to the game, it's not what I'm going to take away from it. I really enjoy it's level design and it reminds me not quite of Super Metroid or Casltevania: Symphony of the Night, but of the original Resident Evil. All four games have clever use of space, and have you traversing familiar sections to get to new areas. Dark Souls and Resident Evil accomplish this through acquiring keys and secret passageways, while Metroid and Symphony of the Night use new abilities and powers as the keys to unlock new areas. It's one thing, though, to do this sort of design in a limited space, like a Mansion or Castle, it's another to weave these areas together across a large area like Dark Souls does. I talked about this a bit more waaaay back in Dark Souls Post 4 (side note, holy hell that was a longer, rambling post with about three different themes), and it holds through to the end.
Based on what I've seen, I feel like going with a Sorceress was a good call for me. While I had some key strategies that worked well, there were plenty of areas where I had to completely change my tactic in order to advance. Based on pure conjecture, I don't know if I would have had to adapt as much had I played a heavy knight type character. Sure, fighting some enemies would have been harder, but the strategy seems like it would be similar to what you wold have been doing. For example, there were a few of the big demons that drop the Titanite shards, like the one in the water pit in Sens, and the one by the Blacksmith neer Darkroot, that I was able to ace using Magic, since I had positioning and range on my side. Those were easy for me due to my choice. Some sections with normal enemies, like the snakes at the front of Sen's, and the 4 Kings boss, gave me a ton of trouble due to playing a mage though, so I had to drastically alter some strategies.
Dark Souls isn't a perfect game. The combat is kinda fiddly at times, and the difficulty can be a bit much for my normal tastes, but it has a certain charm about it. It's the same dark sorcery that Benedict Cumberbatch has cast on society. Dark Souls has top tier map design, and it is at its best when it keeps you on your back foot. Having to find these optimal routes that worked for me, and having the freedom to change the strategies I was employing on the fly made for a much more rewarding experience. I know I can confidently suggest dark souls to it, and point out some things glowingly about it.
Before I go, I want to shout out one more guy. He helped and encouraged me through the back half of the game when I started to get frustrated. Take a bow, Aural Decoy.
Monday, July 1, 2019
Fictional Sports Teams - Smashing Fantasy 11
Here's a dumb series that came to me in the shower today. I want to create fictional teams for real sports using game series characters. For this matchup, I will be constructing soccer teams using characters from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the playable Characters from the Final Fantasy series of games. Each team will be constructed of 11 players, and 5 bench players.
For those unfamiliar with soccer, I'll give a quick rundown on the positions and some abbreviations.
Goalkeeper (GK) - Stays in the net, keeps the ball out using any part of their body. Fairly striaghtforward.
Center-Back (CB) The two defenders directly in front of the keeper. They try to keep the oppositions offense in check.
Full Backs, or Right/Left Back (RB/LB) - These go on the outer edges of the Center Backs, providing defense against the wide attacking players of the offense. Can also range forward to provide assistance on Offence.
Central Midfield (CM, CDM, CAM) - Central Midfielders come in three flavors: Attacking, Defensive and standard. CAM are your Central Attacking Midfielders, they play closer to your strikers and provide some extra pressure on the defense. Your Defending Midfielders help shore up your defense and help you control the ball more. Your standard Central Midfielders are a mix of the two and play close to the center line. They can move up or down as needed as each possession plays out.
Right/Left Midfielder (RM/LM) Some teams have a midfielder out wide to help spread out the defense, and bring the ball up the sides. These midfielders can also become Wingers if they push forward enough.
Right/Left Wing (RW/LW) - These guys play on the outside, providing support for the offense. They can whip crosses into the box for the striker and other winger, or they can try to cut inside to find gaps in the defense.
Striker (ST) - Your primary point man and typically the spear of your offense. THey line up centrally, between the wingers and try to put the ball in the net.
Different formation suse different combinations of these players. For example, a 4-4-2 lineup uses 4 players on the defensive line, LB CB CB RB, 4 in the midfield, LM, CM, CM, RM, and two Strikers out front. The RM and LM provide support by ranging forward into the open space.
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's look at team Super Smash Bros
GK - Zero Suit Samus
LB - Rosalina
CB - Ganondorf
CB - Ike
RB - Simon
CDM - Fox
LM - Marth
CAM - Luigi
CAM - Wii Fit Trainer
RM - Shiek
ST - Shulk
Bench
ST - Sonic
CB - King K Rool
CM - Ryu
CM - Link
CB - Snake
Let's go over these decisions.
Zero Suit Samus is pretty tall in game, and has great agility. Excellent skills for keeping out shots coming from all angles.
Ganondorf and Ike are big bruisers in the backline. They're not quick, so I don't expect to have them come forward much, but they can probably batter the opposition. Ganondorf would have a tendency to pick up Yellow cards for being too aggressive, which is why we have some extra bodies on the bench. Snake and K Rool will make great late-game set piece finishers. Simon is a converted CB. His offensive game and speed aren't great, so he won't be pushing the ball up the pitch, but his slide tackles will save some breaks for his team. Rosalina provides some quickness and additional set piece support from the left fullback position.
In the Midfield, we have Fox as our anchoring presence. Low to the ground, bulky with some surprising speed, he should be able to muscle weaker attacking players off the ball. In front of him, Luigi and Wii Fit Trainer build the attack, with Luigi playing a bit further up. Luigi can sneak in for some surprise headed goals from crosses, while Wii Fit Trainer acts like the fulcrum for the offense through the midfield. Marth and Shiek provide some speed on the outside. Shiek is also shifty enough that they can slip by defenders unexpectedly and push the ball up the middle. The Rosalina/Marth counter attack up the left side can be dangerous as well, as Marth can quickly turn defense into offense. On the bench, Link is the utility player that can fill in anywhere on the middle of the field. Versatile to play defense or offense. Ryu on the other hand can be an emergency fill in in the back line, but would rather play in the central midfield.
Our attach is headed off by Shulk. Surprising vertical for someone his size, and he always has another gear when he needs it. He's got the speed to chase down over-the-top passes, and can finish with little chips over a rushing keeper. Sonic used to be the lead striker, but was benched due to repeated offsides penalties costing his team possession. He could not use his blazing speed in an effective manner, and was moved to the bench.
Overall, team Smash wants to play a counter heavy style of play. They are essentially playing 5 stout defenders, and they then want to build their break up the left hand side with Marth. Luigi and Shulk are dangerous in the box, and threats to head balls home, while Shulk can slip past and makes a dangerous cut back scorer.
Let's see how they stack up to...
GK - Kain
LB - Faris
CB - Snow
CB - Gladiolus
RB - Cloud
CM - Tifa
CM - Zell
CAM - Wakka
LW - Locke
ST - Tidus
RW - Zidane
Bench
CM - Bartz
FW - Yuffie
CB - Steiner
ST - Fran
CM - Lightning
Kain is another athletic keeper, with powerful jumping ability that lets him reach across the net. Questionable decision making at times, but when he's locked in, he's a top net-minder.
Ahead of him, Snow and Gladiolus stand guard. Gladiolus and Snow are picture perfect CBs, with a great combination of height, speed, and power. While they don't have the raw power of their counterparts, they make up for it with extra speed, making them dangers to leak forward and assist the attack. Faris provides some attitude for the defense, and with some straightforward, no-nonsense defending. She can set the tone for that back line and keep opposing wingers from having a good day. Cloud keeps up the trend with Gladiolus and Snow by having plus-athleticism for his position, which can put his team in position to have an extra attacker. Steiner is the lone defensive sub. He's a more plodding defender, but strong on the ball. Quick strikers can give him rouble if he can't mark them properly.
In the midfield, we have Tifa and Zell roaming. They play closer to CDM positions, but they also range forward, to clog up the space. Keeping with the trend, these two are highly athletic midfielders, but Zell can sometimes suffer from a lack of concentration. If he gets riled up, hes prone to make mistakes that his physical gifts can't cover for. Off the bench, Team Final Fantasy went for straight versatility with Bartz and Lightning. Both can play CDM, CM, CAM, and even on the wings in a pinch. They are the perfect subs if the team needs a major mid-match adjustments, such as changing formations.
The attack is focused around the connection between Wakka and Tidus. While this isn't fair to take actual sports stars and put them on this team... wait, it totally is fair. Wakka has the skills to take the long shots form outside the bog and slide them home, while Tidus's ridiculous vertical leap and shotmaking skills has helped carry the team in the past. Serving them up is Locke and Zidane. Both are sneaky good passers from out wide and are great at knifing their way past defenders for the small bit of space needed for a shot or pass. Yuffie has the ability to play either winger positions, but her slight frame makes it easy to push her off the ball. She does share a trait with the two starters though, as all three of them are experts at stealing the ball back. Defense is an often overlooked part of the Forward attacker's game, but these three know that stealing possession that deep in enemy territory is invaluable. Fran somes in as a reserve striker and can deal with taller defenders. She's less of a pure scorer than Tidus, but she's a good passer from the striker position, and is comfortable setting up her teammates, or putting a shot on goal.
This team may not have some of the focus of the Smash team, but they are athletic across the board. Their raw physical gifts can cover some mistakes, and when they're all on their game, they are one of the most dangerous teams out there.
So what's the final score for this match? I'm going to go with Team Final Fantasy, in a close one: 2-1.
For those unfamiliar with soccer, I'll give a quick rundown on the positions and some abbreviations.
Goalkeeper (GK) - Stays in the net, keeps the ball out using any part of their body. Fairly striaghtforward.
Center-Back (CB) The two defenders directly in front of the keeper. They try to keep the oppositions offense in check.
Full Backs, or Right/Left Back (RB/LB) - These go on the outer edges of the Center Backs, providing defense against the wide attacking players of the offense. Can also range forward to provide assistance on Offence.
Central Midfield (CM, CDM, CAM) - Central Midfielders come in three flavors: Attacking, Defensive and standard. CAM are your Central Attacking Midfielders, they play closer to your strikers and provide some extra pressure on the defense. Your Defending Midfielders help shore up your defense and help you control the ball more. Your standard Central Midfielders are a mix of the two and play close to the center line. They can move up or down as needed as each possession plays out.
Right/Left Midfielder (RM/LM) Some teams have a midfielder out wide to help spread out the defense, and bring the ball up the sides. These midfielders can also become Wingers if they push forward enough.
Right/Left Wing (RW/LW) - These guys play on the outside, providing support for the offense. They can whip crosses into the box for the striker and other winger, or they can try to cut inside to find gaps in the defense.
Striker (ST) - Your primary point man and typically the spear of your offense. THey line up centrally, between the wingers and try to put the ball in the net.
Different formation suse different combinations of these players. For example, a 4-4-2 lineup uses 4 players on the defensive line, LB CB CB RB, 4 in the midfield, LM, CM, CM, RM, and two Strikers out front. The RM and LM provide support by ranging forward into the open space.
Now that we've got that out of the way, let's look at team Super Smash Bros
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Formation: 4-1-4-1 - 4 defenders, 1 CDM, then a line of LM-CAM-CAM-RM, and a single strikerGK - Zero Suit Samus
LB - Rosalina
CB - Ganondorf
CB - Ike
RB - Simon
CDM - Fox
LM - Marth
CAM - Luigi
CAM - Wii Fit Trainer
RM - Shiek
ST - Shulk
Bench
ST - Sonic
CB - King K Rool
CM - Ryu
CM - Link
CB - Snake
Let's go over these decisions.
Zero Suit Samus is pretty tall in game, and has great agility. Excellent skills for keeping out shots coming from all angles.
Ganondorf and Ike are big bruisers in the backline. They're not quick, so I don't expect to have them come forward much, but they can probably batter the opposition. Ganondorf would have a tendency to pick up Yellow cards for being too aggressive, which is why we have some extra bodies on the bench. Snake and K Rool will make great late-game set piece finishers. Simon is a converted CB. His offensive game and speed aren't great, so he won't be pushing the ball up the pitch, but his slide tackles will save some breaks for his team. Rosalina provides some quickness and additional set piece support from the left fullback position.
In the Midfield, we have Fox as our anchoring presence. Low to the ground, bulky with some surprising speed, he should be able to muscle weaker attacking players off the ball. In front of him, Luigi and Wii Fit Trainer build the attack, with Luigi playing a bit further up. Luigi can sneak in for some surprise headed goals from crosses, while Wii Fit Trainer acts like the fulcrum for the offense through the midfield. Marth and Shiek provide some speed on the outside. Shiek is also shifty enough that they can slip by defenders unexpectedly and push the ball up the middle. The Rosalina/Marth counter attack up the left side can be dangerous as well, as Marth can quickly turn defense into offense. On the bench, Link is the utility player that can fill in anywhere on the middle of the field. Versatile to play defense or offense. Ryu on the other hand can be an emergency fill in in the back line, but would rather play in the central midfield.
Our attach is headed off by Shulk. Surprising vertical for someone his size, and he always has another gear when he needs it. He's got the speed to chase down over-the-top passes, and can finish with little chips over a rushing keeper. Sonic used to be the lead striker, but was benched due to repeated offsides penalties costing his team possession. He could not use his blazing speed in an effective manner, and was moved to the bench.
Overall, team Smash wants to play a counter heavy style of play. They are essentially playing 5 stout defenders, and they then want to build their break up the left hand side with Marth. Luigi and Shulk are dangerous in the box, and threats to head balls home, while Shulk can slip past and makes a dangerous cut back scorer.
Let's see how they stack up to...
Team Final Fantasy
Formation: 4-3-3GK - Kain
LB - Faris
CB - Snow
CB - Gladiolus
RB - Cloud
CM - Tifa
CM - Zell
CAM - Wakka
LW - Locke
ST - Tidus
RW - Zidane
Bench
CM - Bartz
FW - Yuffie
CB - Steiner
ST - Fran
CM - Lightning
Kain is another athletic keeper, with powerful jumping ability that lets him reach across the net. Questionable decision making at times, but when he's locked in, he's a top net-minder.
Ahead of him, Snow and Gladiolus stand guard. Gladiolus and Snow are picture perfect CBs, with a great combination of height, speed, and power. While they don't have the raw power of their counterparts, they make up for it with extra speed, making them dangers to leak forward and assist the attack. Faris provides some attitude for the defense, and with some straightforward, no-nonsense defending. She can set the tone for that back line and keep opposing wingers from having a good day. Cloud keeps up the trend with Gladiolus and Snow by having plus-athleticism for his position, which can put his team in position to have an extra attacker. Steiner is the lone defensive sub. He's a more plodding defender, but strong on the ball. Quick strikers can give him rouble if he can't mark them properly.
In the midfield, we have Tifa and Zell roaming. They play closer to CDM positions, but they also range forward, to clog up the space. Keeping with the trend, these two are highly athletic midfielders, but Zell can sometimes suffer from a lack of concentration. If he gets riled up, hes prone to make mistakes that his physical gifts can't cover for. Off the bench, Team Final Fantasy went for straight versatility with Bartz and Lightning. Both can play CDM, CM, CAM, and even on the wings in a pinch. They are the perfect subs if the team needs a major mid-match adjustments, such as changing formations.
The attack is focused around the connection between Wakka and Tidus. While this isn't fair to take actual sports stars and put them on this team... wait, it totally is fair. Wakka has the skills to take the long shots form outside the bog and slide them home, while Tidus's ridiculous vertical leap and shotmaking skills has helped carry the team in the past. Serving them up is Locke and Zidane. Both are sneaky good passers from out wide and are great at knifing their way past defenders for the small bit of space needed for a shot or pass. Yuffie has the ability to play either winger positions, but her slight frame makes it easy to push her off the ball. She does share a trait with the two starters though, as all three of them are experts at stealing the ball back. Defense is an often overlooked part of the Forward attacker's game, but these three know that stealing possession that deep in enemy territory is invaluable. Fran somes in as a reserve striker and can deal with taller defenders. She's less of a pure scorer than Tidus, but she's a good passer from the striker position, and is comfortable setting up her teammates, or putting a shot on goal.
This team may not have some of the focus of the Smash team, but they are athletic across the board. Their raw physical gifts can cover some mistakes, and when they're all on their game, they are one of the most dangerous teams out there.
So what's the final score for this match? I'm going to go with Team Final Fantasy, in a close one: 2-1.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Jama's Arbitrary Numbered Lists - Final Fantasy Series Mechanics
This is me being on my bullshit. I'm going to go over the Final Fantasy games that I've played and touch on their core or unique mechanic and give them a score on a scale of 1-10. Here we go.
Final Fantasy
Job Select - This is like your traditional D&D like selection. Create your party from 4 blank slate characters from Fighter, Thief, Monk (Or Black Belt), Black Mage, White Mage, and Red Mage. Stuff like this has been around in tabletop games and other video games inspired by them. 2/10
Job Upgrade - Hell yeah, dude. Get yourself a powerboost by completing a quest to change to a stronger class: Warrior, Ninja, Master, Black Wizard, White Wizard, Red Wizard respectively. But they're still just the same classes. 3/10
Final Fantasy II
Level Stats by Using - This one is weird. It makes sense, I guess, but it also makes the game kinda finicky, in my experience. To get stronger with physical attacks, hit things with physical attacks. To get faster, evade, to get stronger with spells, use the spell over and over. While it's a neat idea in theory, I don't care for the execution. 3/10
Final Fantasy III
Job system - This is the first crack at a more fully fleshed out job system, where you can level up and change jobs and such. I did not play the original, so I can't say much about it, but in the remake, changing jobs had a penalty. For a number of fights after the change, you were weakened, so you did less damage, took more damage, etc. This felt weirdly punishing to people who wanted to experiment, but I guess 10 fights isn't all that bad? Though, being weakened in this state was no fun. 5/10
Final Fantasy IV
Unique Character Abilities - Yeah, it's a thing. Thee's a class change part way through, but for the most part, each party member has their strengths and weaknesses. They step away from the generic heroes in this one. 4/10
Final Fantasy V
Job System - Heeeeere we go. This may be the best implimentation of the job system. As you level up, you earn AP, which you use to unlock abilities for your currently equipped job. You can switch jobs with no penalties. Typically, each job will have their own core ability (for example, Black Magic, for Black mages), and then a blank spot, for you to take an ability from another class. This can be the other class' active commands, like say, the Bushido abilities from Samurai, or it can be a passive that you've unlocked from another class, like "Equip Sword", which would let you use swords on your current class, even if they normally couldn't. It's a fun system with a fair amount of flexibility. 10/10
Final Fantasy VI
Esper Equip - Each character can equip one item called Magicite. These items are used to both summon creatures, learn abilities, and affect your stat growth. For example, the Ifrit Magicite lets you summon Ifrit in battle for a big fire based attack, but also you can learn Fire, Fira, and Drain from him, and you receive a +1 bonus to Strength every time you level up with him equipped. So not only is switching magicite important for learning new spells, it also helps you round out your attributes. 7/10
Final Fantasy VII
Materia - The Materia system is an evolution of the Esper/Magicite system from Final Fantasy VI. There are Magic, Summon, Support, Command, and Independent. Materia starts at level 1 and levels up as you have it equipped. As material levels up, it gets stronger by enhancing its capabilities. For example, a level 1, a Fire materia will just cast Fire 1. As it levels up, you'll learn to cast Fire 2 and Fire 3, more powerful fire spells. And when it becomes Mastered, at level 4, you'll get a brand new level 1 Fire Materia, sprouted off of it. This really gets interesting with the Support Materia, and your equipment slots. Each character equips a weapon and a defensive item. These items can have materia slots. Some slots are unliked, and look like O O O on the Materia menu, but some slots are linked, like this: O O=O. When a lot is linked, it means that you can try to use a Support Materia to modify it. A popular combination is the Magic "Cure" with the 'All" support Materia, which gives you the option to cast a spell on all allies, or all enemies, once per "All" level. I enjoy messing with Materia very much and it felt like a fun way to integrate weapons and your other abilities. You may choose to use a slightly weaker weapon because it lets you link your magic better. 9/10
Final Fantasy VIII
Draw - Instead of knowing spells innately, you get your spells from enemies, by drawing from them in battle, or you only to cast them back on them or save them for later. You can also learn spells by drawing from Draw Points on the world map, or by desynthesizing items using your summons' abilities. Drawing is definitely the worst way to get magic. Desynth for your spells. 2/10
Junction System - LET'S BREAK SOME SHIT! Holy god this is the best shit ever. The junction system lets you junction your strawn or distilled magic into your stats. In this game it is almost NEVER a good idea to cast a spell, in my experience. If you junction say, Curaga to your HP stat, to raise your max HP, then you start casting those Curaga, your max HP will drop, since they pull from the same pool. This system allows you to junction various magics to your Strength, Defense, Magic attack and defense, accuracy, speed, HP, your elemental resistances, your status immunities, your elemental Attack stat and your status attack stat, as long as your equipped summons have the corresponding junction skill known. Some magic is better at boosting HP, so your Cure spells will give you more health, but less attack than your Fire spell in that those same slots. You can break this game very early in disk 1. You can get Sleep spell early in the game from within your starting area. Stock 100 of those and put them on Squall. Get Siren a bit into the game and learn HP Junction, and Life Magic Refine. This will let you turn items into healing magic. When you get to Timber, but 10 tents. Refine each Tent into 10 Curaga, and slap the 100 Curaga on your HP. You now have over 4000 HP as a low level character, while enemies are doing like, 80 damage. Let your HP sit around 400, where you'll be safe, and you can start triggering your powerful Limit Breaks. Learn Status Attack Junction, slap 100 sleeps on it on Squall, with his perfect innate accuracy, and you can start putting enemies to sleep with basic attacks. It's dumb and glorious and great. 10/10
Final Fantasy IX
Gear Abilities - A popular post-battle reward in Final Fantasy games is AP, or Ability Points. These are used to learn your abilities or level up your Materia. In IX, AP earned goes to every piece of equipped gear on each party member and works on unlocking the skills on that piece of Gear. Circlet's for example have the abilities Jelly and Clear Headed. You learn abilities one at a time, and after they are learned, they can be equipped to that character. You have a set number of points to equip abilities, but you can switch these at will between battles. If you're finding you need a specific status resistance for the area you are in, you can take off the "Deal extra damage to Humans" ability and throw on one that resists Poison. It's a neat ability that shows up in the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games. Sometimes, certain characters can only learn one of the abilities on the piece, so you'll need to bounce it around. I like the system, but it can force you to grind more than you may want. 7/10
Final Fantasy X
Active Time Battle - Normally, in a final fantasy game, you either wait for a gauge to fill before a character can act, and it fills based on your speed (Final Fantasy 6-9 [Nice]), or you enter all the commands at once and then they play out in speed order, causing you to try to predict some enemy moves (Final Fantasy 1-5). Final Fantasy X is a weird one because you can see the turn order on the side. Each action you take has a speed cost associated with it that adjusts your spot in the priority. Someone fast like Titus using an item can get to act again faster than someone slow, like Auron doing the same thing. By letting you see how each action affects the turn order, you can try to minimize damage, take calculated risks, and know when you need to defend. Additionally, in this system, you can swap out party members mid-battle. On any given turn you can pull someone out and replace them with one of your reserves, and they use their speed to drop into the rest of the order, after taking the current turn. This adds a nice strategic level to battles, especially boss battles, where you try to manage the flow of battle in your favor. 8/10
Sphere Grid - As characters level up, you can spend these levels to move along a grid. There are pretty defined areas of the grid where you can see "Oh this is Lulu's area, look at all the Magic Damage and Black Magic spheres", but there are places where you can branch and leave your path to go into someone else's. My go to move is to have Titus finish his path, then jump over to Auron's area for more straight damage, for example. Anyways, you can spend these levels to move 1 space along a path that character hasn't travelled, or you can go back up to 3 spaces. This can be helpful for getting back onto the main path after you did a small detour. There are also blank spaces that you can put special Spheres into that turn into powerful stat boosts. It's mostly a standard level up system, but it's posed in a much more interactive way. 7/10.
Final Fantasy XI
Job Change - It's an MMO and any MMO that lets you change class after starting at no cost is an automatic 10/10
Support Job - This was fun. This let you combine your levelled classes together to make a hybrid kit. A level 15 quest let you unlock the ability to equip any of your other unlocked classes as your Support Job. When a job was your Support Job, you gained the benefits of it up to half your currently equipped job's level. For example, if you had a level 10 Monk and a level 20 Warrior, you would be a Warrior 20/Monk 10, or a Monk 10/Warrior 5. The Support Job doesn't get to use the class specific 2 hour ability, which are some of the strongest abilities of each job, but it would get each active and passive ability it would normally get at the level. Continuing the example, the level 10 Monk as a Support Job would have all of it's level 10 and lower abilities, but could use them at the with the Level 20 Warrior stats. This did lead to some obvious 'best combos', like Ninja/Warrior (when I played, it may have changed), was the primary tanking class, but all in all, it let you do some cool things. 8/10
Final Fantasy XII
Gambit System - Program your allies with a huge string of if/then statements. Rudimentary AI programming in the palm of your hands. I liked this a lot, despite what some people say. It can automate the game some, which for some takes away, but I don't mind messing with it. 7/10
License Board - Buy license to wear hat. Characters can not equip gear unless they have the license for that specific piece of gear. For example, Swords 1 may cover 3 low level swords, but without it, you can use that Bronze Shortsword you found. Its's a progression system. 6/10
Chains - OK, fine, I'm running out of steam here. Kill the same enemy repeatedly to increase the item rewards. Get rarer and rarer items the longer your chain goes. If your chain gets high enough, you'll start recovering HP after each kill. 6/10
Final Fantasy XIII
Crystarium - A lighter version of the Sphere Grid. Each person has a crystal they can advance up for each of their 3 Paradigms/Jobs. Leveling these up is vital for the combat system. 6/10
Paradigm Shift - From the menu, you can define a number of Paradigms, a set of classes for you and your party. During battle, while you only control your lead character, the rest of the party fulfills their roles automatically. When the need arises, you can then shift from one Paradigm set to another, allowing you to change everyone's abilities and capabilities. For example, you may have a set that has a healer, an elemental damage dealer, and a debuffer, to help keep you alive and stall the enemy, and when you find an opening, you can quickly shift into your power attacking formation and start laying on the damage to the enemy. This creates a really fun ebb and flow to the battle, where your pre-fight planning is just as important as your in-battle execution. 8/10
Final Fantasy XIV
Job Change - Like Final Fantasy XI, you can change your class, but now it's even easier. In XI, you would have to go to your Moghouse, these little private quarters that you can access from any major settlement, to change your job. In Final Fantasy XIV, you change jobs by just changing the primary weapon you have equipped. You could, for example, take your Paladin out to a dangerous level, clear some enemies, then equip your pickaxe, and suddenly switch to all of your mining item set and start looking for nodes to mine. It's fast and easy and helps you switch at a moment's notice. I frequently switch what I'm doing, from gathering, to crafting, to leveling my high and low level classes, so it's fun to be able to just switch things around. 9/10
I'm sure I missed some, but I felt that these were the core mechanics I wanted to cover. As we all know, my ratings are perfectly correct and infallible
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Commander's Codex: Entry 2
[Codex Begin]
It appears that the Citadel provided Codex software decided to redact information it deemed as sensitive. I'll have to try to figure out a way around this in the future.
For now, I've reached the Citadel, the heart of the Council. This was my first time stepping on the Citadel. Captain Anderson introduced me to the System's Alliance's representative, Ambassador Udina. While I am unaware of the stresses of his job, nor the tedium of Council Bureaucracy, he gives me pause. I worry that his emotions will negatively impact our upcoming meeting with the council about the events on [REDACTED]. I hope the evidence we have will be enough. We'll know in a half an hour.
There is so much activity on the Citadel, and I sometimes find myself taking a pause to deal with the sensory overload. From natural beauty of the fountains and gardens, to the neon nightlife of Flux, there always seems to be something to fit the mood you're in.
The alien species present are so vast and wondrous. There is much to learn from these different species. While on Citadel, I plan on learning as much as I can, and work towards being the best representative of Humanity as I can.
Humans are not as alone as we had thought for centuries. We need to be citizens that the other races can be proud to call neighbor and friend.
[Codex End]
[Codex Begin]
What a farce. The Council refuses to move on [REDACTED]. Not without more proof. We have begun looking for more evidence of the connection between [REDACTED]. Citadel Security officer Garrus has offered to assist us with this issue. For now, we will scour Citadel for any other information we can find. We have a few leads to follow. Our first step will be to reach out to a local infobroker to connect with the Shadow Broker.
[Codex End]
{Login . . . John Shepard}
{Biometric Signature: MATCH}
{Rank: Commander}
{Approval Status . . . APPROVED}
{Citadel Security Information Protection Protocol . . . UNINSTALLED}
{Spectre Credential . . . AUTHORIZED}
WELCOME TO SPECTRE
[Codex Begin]
It has been an eventful few days on the Citadel. Let's start from the beginning. After working with Garrus to locate the info broker, we found that Saren had betrayed a figure called the Shadow Broker. He was using a local club owner named Fist to eliminate a Quarian who had some evidence connecting Saren to the Geth. We enlisted the help of the Shadow Broker's Krogan Bounty Hunter, Wrex, to take care of Fist.
The Quarian, Tali, was the missing piece we needed. She was carrying a recording that connected Saren to the attack on Eden Prime, the Beacon, and another one of their allies, an Asari named Matriarch Benezia.
The Council had decided that this was enough, and stripped Saren of his Spectre status. The continued stubbornness of Udina and Anderson finally paid off, as the Council decided to authorize me to go after Saren, after assigning me to Spectre.
There was no grand ceremony. No pomp or circumstances. A brief explanation of my duties, and I was given elevated credentials. Now, me and my squad are able to go after Saren, for the good of the Human colonies, and in the name of justice.
We left the Citadel on a bittersweet note, as Captain Anderson had passed on command of the Normandy to me. The Normandy is a great ship, and I'll need it for hunting down Saren, but it'll feel weird not having the captain around. Tali, Garrus, and Wrex have joined the crew. They each proved themselves capable during my time on Citadel, and I look forward to working with them.
For now, I have a decision to make. I have leads pointing to the colonies on Feros and Noveria, as well as locating the researcher Liara T'Soni. We've got a long trip ahead of us. I should rest.
[Codex End]
It appears that the Citadel provided Codex software decided to redact information it deemed as sensitive. I'll have to try to figure out a way around this in the future.
For now, I've reached the Citadel, the heart of the Council. This was my first time stepping on the Citadel. Captain Anderson introduced me to the System's Alliance's representative, Ambassador Udina. While I am unaware of the stresses of his job, nor the tedium of Council Bureaucracy, he gives me pause. I worry that his emotions will negatively impact our upcoming meeting with the council about the events on [REDACTED]. I hope the evidence we have will be enough. We'll know in a half an hour.
There is so much activity on the Citadel, and I sometimes find myself taking a pause to deal with the sensory overload. From natural beauty of the fountains and gardens, to the neon nightlife of Flux, there always seems to be something to fit the mood you're in.
The alien species present are so vast and wondrous. There is much to learn from these different species. While on Citadel, I plan on learning as much as I can, and work towards being the best representative of Humanity as I can.
Humans are not as alone as we had thought for centuries. We need to be citizens that the other races can be proud to call neighbor and friend.
[Codex End]
[Codex Begin]
What a farce. The Council refuses to move on [REDACTED]. Not without more proof. We have begun looking for more evidence of the connection between [REDACTED]. Citadel Security officer Garrus has offered to assist us with this issue. For now, we will scour Citadel for any other information we can find. We have a few leads to follow. Our first step will be to reach out to a local infobroker to connect with the Shadow Broker.
[Codex End]
{Login . . . John Shepard}
{Biometric Signature: MATCH}
{Rank: Commander}
{Approval Status . . . APPROVED}
{Citadel Security Information Protection Protocol . . . UNINSTALLED}
{Spectre Credential . . . AUTHORIZED}
WELCOME TO SPECTRE
[Codex Begin]
It has been an eventful few days on the Citadel. Let's start from the beginning. After working with Garrus to locate the info broker, we found that Saren had betrayed a figure called the Shadow Broker. He was using a local club owner named Fist to eliminate a Quarian who had some evidence connecting Saren to the Geth. We enlisted the help of the Shadow Broker's Krogan Bounty Hunter, Wrex, to take care of Fist.
The Quarian, Tali, was the missing piece we needed. She was carrying a recording that connected Saren to the attack on Eden Prime, the Beacon, and another one of their allies, an Asari named Matriarch Benezia.
The Council had decided that this was enough, and stripped Saren of his Spectre status. The continued stubbornness of Udina and Anderson finally paid off, as the Council decided to authorize me to go after Saren, after assigning me to Spectre.
There was no grand ceremony. No pomp or circumstances. A brief explanation of my duties, and I was given elevated credentials. Now, me and my squad are able to go after Saren, for the good of the Human colonies, and in the name of justice.
We left the Citadel on a bittersweet note, as Captain Anderson had passed on command of the Normandy to me. The Normandy is a great ship, and I'll need it for hunting down Saren, but it'll feel weird not having the captain around. Tali, Garrus, and Wrex have joined the crew. They each proved themselves capable during my time on Citadel, and I look forward to working with them.
For now, I have a decision to make. I have leads pointing to the colonies on Feros and Noveria, as well as locating the researcher Liara T'Soni. We've got a long trip ahead of us. I should rest.
[Codex End]
Thursday, May 9, 2019
Commander's Codex: Entry 1
[Codex Begin]
This is Commander John Shepard, of the Normandy. During training, we were advised to keep these personal Codex entries, as a record for the the ship, and the Council, in the event of death. Doctor Chakwas recommends using a personal Codex as a way to cope and manage the stresses of the job. Don't know if I believe that, but we'll see how it goes.
The Normandy is a good ship. Good people. Reckless people, which is something we're going to need to fix, but good people. I need to keep my eye on Joker and Jenkins. They've got a little TOO much fire in them, and I fear that it'll make them reckless, and cause them to make a mistake. You can't want to be a hero. Playing a hero is how you get killed. You need to want to survive. Mission. Survival. Then valor.
Our mission is to go to [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. This mission is of the utmost importance, as it could mark a monumental step forward for humanity. This mission is also serving as a sort of Performance Review by the Council, who have sent the [REDACTED] to oversee the mission from the field. [REDACTED] seems capable, and any help we can get recovering this relic for the Council is appreciated.
[Codex End]
[Codex Begin]
Jenkins is dead. [REDACTED] are invading. [REDACTED] dead. Survivor Chief Ashley Williams recruited. Taking cargo tram to a landing platform to try to recover the [REDACTED], pursuing [REDACTED] killer. [REDACTED]
[Codex End]
[Codex Begin]
I'm back on the Normandy... I don't know what happened, but I'm alive. Chief Williams has been reassigned to our crew. She proved herself a capable soldier and should be an asset to the team. And... Jenkins. [REDACTED]. I couldn't take time to properly grieve their deaths in the field. There's no telling what the official record will say for them, but the least I can do is remember them here.
Jenkins - You were the victim of the circumstance. We were taken by surprise by those synthetic bastards. Please take some solace in the fact that you didn't see what they did to the other humans of [REDACTED]. That you didn't see them turned into those monstrosities.
[REDACTED] - Thank you for the work you had done on behalf of the Council, and for assisting us on this mission. I am sorry we weren't able to capture [REDACTED].
My head still hurts from these weird visions... or wee they dreams? Full of death and destruction. What can it all mean?
[Codex End]
[Codex monitored and redacted per Council regulations 24.15.162a. All confidential information has been redacted by the Codex Core Systems automatically.]
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Long Live the Kings (Dark Souls 14)
The Lordvessel is fully lit. Off collecting side stuff I missed.
Last time I said I was lost, trying to find the last Lord Soul to finish the main quest I was on. At the prompting of my Dark Souls guides, I made a list of things that I could remember to go explore. The list at that time was as follows.
Last time I said I was lost, trying to find the last Lord Soul to finish the main quest I was on. At the prompting of my Dark Souls guides, I made a list of things that I could remember to go explore. The list at that time was as follows.
- Explore the path in Darkroot Forest, near the forest guardians that would no longer attack me
- Explore the Valley of Drakes
- The gate in New Londo Ruins, by the Curse Clearing Guy
- The boss room where I originally fought Seath
- The large jail cell in the Archives
The first didn't lead me anywhere interesting, and the 2nd led me to a giant locked door. The third turned out to be where I needed to go. I talked to the curse guy, because I forgot which way I need to go to get to the locked door, and turns out, he had the key for it. I opened the gate, and drained the water, and was able to progress.
At this time, I'm sitting around Soul Level 78 on my Sorcerer build, still making use of Aural Decoy to gain advantage on random enemy encounters (Sup, Darkwraiths? Why can't I have your cool shields?). Then, I reached the boss. There was only like, 10 attempts at the boss, and around number 8, I got the final strategy cemented in my head. I also kindled a bonfire in the Undead Parish allowed me to enter the fight with 15 Estus. The Enchanted Falchion getting a bonus from my 45 intelligence was a huge boon, as I turned this fight into a DPS race, to kill a king before the next one showed up. By two-handing the weapon, and staying close to the bosses' bodies, I was able to avoid the massive damage from the blades of the weapons, and got them burned down. This is not how I had been playing the game, and it was a stark contrast to how I had dealt with previous bosses. As someone who made their entire playstyle around more controlled zoning and engagement of the enemy. Even with Ornstein and Smaugh, I was able to use the pillars to properly get some distance between the enemies.
I'm going to need some help, as I don't plan on playing this game again, so I can't test it, but are there any other bosses that required such a drastic change in tactics? I had tried to do this fight with just magic, but I had several Kings out at once, which then made it impossible to get a spell off. Is there a boss that forces a two handed tank switch to another tactic, or was this just a fight that can punish casting? I've heard that the Gargoyles are difficult for melee characters, but I don't know if it forces melee people to change their tactics.
Between some of the attempts, I decided to go clear out the remaining items in the Archives on my list, and found that they were both reasonably worthwhile. So hooray, exploration. After the Kings, I went back to the prison island and picked up some things there. I now have a lead on another area back in Anor Londo as well. Basically, I'm in content mop up mode.
I'm almost done with Dark Souls, which is nice. It'll be nice to close this book and put it on the shelf. Not out of hate or anything like that, but for one of understanding. I will have gotten out of it exactly what I was looking for, and I'm glad for that.
Next time, it'll either be a sidequest mop up post, a DLC thing, or I'll just wait until I finish.
I'm going to need some help, as I don't plan on playing this game again, so I can't test it, but are there any other bosses that required such a drastic change in tactics? I had tried to do this fight with just magic, but I had several Kings out at once, which then made it impossible to get a spell off. Is there a boss that forces a two handed tank switch to another tactic, or was this just a fight that can punish casting? I've heard that the Gargoyles are difficult for melee characters, but I don't know if it forces melee people to change their tactics.
Between some of the attempts, I decided to go clear out the remaining items in the Archives on my list, and found that they were both reasonably worthwhile. So hooray, exploration. After the Kings, I went back to the prison island and picked up some things there. I now have a lead on another area back in Anor Londo as well. Basically, I'm in content mop up mode.
I'm almost done with Dark Souls, which is nice. It'll be nice to close this book and put it on the shelf. Not out of hate or anything like that, but for one of understanding. I will have gotten out of it exactly what I was looking for, and I'm glad for that.
Next time, it'll either be a sidequest mop up post, a DLC thing, or I'll just wait until I finish.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Status Report (Dark Souls 13)
I have 3 of the Lord Souls now. The last few streams were incredibly productive.
Last post, I talked about how the Divine Falchion was dropping the skeletons and keeping them dead. During my extended time in the Catacombs though, I found that this may not have been the case. Immediately after I found that the Lightning Spear and the Enchanted Falchion were just as capable of keeping enemies down, I was kind of angry. I felt like an idiot for hyping this up, using a weaker weapon to keep an enemy down, and here they are, still staying down with my stronger weapon. I started to second guess I saw when I first entered the catacombs with my Lightning Spear, and maybe, instead of skeletons getting back up, it was just... different skeletons.
I couldn't pin down what was going on and that frustrated me. And it frustrated me because I thought I had discovered this neat mechanic, and it turns out that it wasn't true.
Then I got to Nito, and my theory was proved right and now I don't know what to think. I went through that fight at first with the Enchanted Falchion, got overwhelmed, and then came back on a dumb stupid idiotic theory, and it turned out to work.
I don't know what the hell happened, but I'll take it.
In addition to Nito, I took down the Bed Of Chaos in an incredibly aggravating boss fight, and Seath, which I was able to take down in a few attempts, including one where did a series of dumb things. These things included: Attempting to circle strafe snipe the highly magic resistant boss, avoiding melee in the safe spots, and slammed 3 straight estus like a sorority girl doing shots during pledge week.
So now I have 3 o the 4 needed items for the Lord Vessel, and I"m kinda lost. I need to go exploring, which is where the game is strongest for me. I can go explore deeper into the forest area, and see what I can find and check the one little groove I found in the middle of the area behind the glowing door, I can go deal with the Hydra, and see if that opens up a new area, or I can just wander some, in the hopes of finding things.
This game has me spooked though. Every new area seems to introduce something that makes me react with a firm "Nope!". This can be a grotesque enemy design, like the clams out in Crystal Cave or the weird pyro mages by Nito, or it can be an enemy placement that frustrates me, like the giant skeletons in the Tomb of the Giants. The bone pillar enemies on the narrow pathways can fuck right off though. Gross-ass bone centipede looking shitheads. Blegh.
So we've made a bunch of progress since last post, which is nice. Feels like I"m in the home stretch, which is also nice. I'm almost free.
Last post, I talked about how the Divine Falchion was dropping the skeletons and keeping them dead. During my extended time in the Catacombs though, I found that this may not have been the case. Immediately after I found that the Lightning Spear and the Enchanted Falchion were just as capable of keeping enemies down, I was kind of angry. I felt like an idiot for hyping this up, using a weaker weapon to keep an enemy down, and here they are, still staying down with my stronger weapon. I started to second guess I saw when I first entered the catacombs with my Lightning Spear, and maybe, instead of skeletons getting back up, it was just... different skeletons.
I couldn't pin down what was going on and that frustrated me. And it frustrated me because I thought I had discovered this neat mechanic, and it turns out that it wasn't true.
Then I got to Nito, and my theory was proved right and now I don't know what to think. I went through that fight at first with the Enchanted Falchion, got overwhelmed, and then came back on a dumb stupid idiotic theory, and it turned out to work.
I don't know what the hell happened, but I'll take it.
In addition to Nito, I took down the Bed Of Chaos in an incredibly aggravating boss fight, and Seath, which I was able to take down in a few attempts, including one where did a series of dumb things. These things included: Attempting to circle strafe snipe the highly magic resistant boss, avoiding melee in the safe spots, and slammed 3 straight estus like a sorority girl doing shots during pledge week.
So now I have 3 o the 4 needed items for the Lord Vessel, and I"m kinda lost. I need to go exploring, which is where the game is strongest for me. I can go explore deeper into the forest area, and see what I can find and check the one little groove I found in the middle of the area behind the glowing door, I can go deal with the Hydra, and see if that opens up a new area, or I can just wander some, in the hopes of finding things.
This game has me spooked though. Every new area seems to introduce something that makes me react with a firm "Nope!". This can be a grotesque enemy design, like the clams out in Crystal Cave or the weird pyro mages by Nito, or it can be an enemy placement that frustrates me, like the giant skeletons in the Tomb of the Giants. The bone pillar enemies on the narrow pathways can fuck right off though. Gross-ass bone centipede looking shitheads. Blegh.
So we've made a bunch of progress since last post, which is nice. Feels like I"m in the home stretch, which is also nice. I'm almost free.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Experimentation (Dark Souls 12)
Progress report: Backslid so hard in the Crystal Cave that I decided to explore.
This last stream was an interesting one, as I didn't make a lot of progress, but I felt like I made a lot of discoveries. In the Crystal Cave, there is a section with some hard to see platforms. To help you, the game has a corpse near the cave carry something called a prism stone. It states that it can be used to see how far down a drop is, as it'll make a noise and show a color sparkle on the ground where it hits. Primarily, you would use it to find these hard to see paths, letting you know where to walk. Useful, right?
The thing is, they give you 20 of them, and you don't throw them far, so you need to kinda constantly use them. Additionally, as far as I could tell, there's no way to get more at this time. This reminds me of the first time I ended up in the New Londo Ruins, and got the Transient Curse item. There, they give you 3 of those items, but they become hard to get when you're low on them.
Back to the cave. I ran out of those dumb things after about... oh... 4 deaths or so? So I started to worry, since I didn't have the path memorized, nor did I know if there were more beyond the one I found. Turns out, there was! And I found a way to navigate it without dying a metric fuckton. How? Aural Decoy.
The spell launches forward at an angle, and affixes to surfaces, releasing a little blue ping, normally used to distract enemies. In this case, I angled it lower to the ground and it stuck to where the hidden floor was, and I was able to use it as a path detector to work forward. Once i found the right path, I ran afoul of some horrifying clam enemies, and bailed from the zone, cause I started backsliding.
I then left back to Firelink Shrine, to try to buy a new copy of Great Soul Arrow to test something, but the Horrifying Long Neck was asleep, and the Sorcery shop didn't have what I wanted. So that was a wash. Or it almost was. After talking to someone, I explored the Graveyard some more, and stumbled upon the Catacombs. This area is weird. When the skeletons are killed here, they appear to regenerate a few seconds later. I was starting to get overwhelmed early, because an enemy I killed and walked past had surrounded me on a narrow walkway, but then I had an idea. A dumb, stupid longshot idea, along the lines of other dumb longshot ideas I had, where most of them did not pay off.
I switched to my Divine Falchion. Lo and Behold, the enemies stayed dead. What a dumb fucking stroke of luck that I did that earlier in the game.
And you know what this is going to do? This is going to encourage me to try a dozen more stupid, half-baked ideas thinking "oh, this will make x or y happen" and nothing will happen. This is a curse. This will force me to give the game a ton more credit, or attempt to puzzle through issues that don't actually exist. I have cursed myself to overthinking and stupidly testing dumb combinations. Good job, me. Thanks game. I have given myself 20 more hours of overthinking.
I'm going to keep going through the Catacombs for now. I have a few ideas of places to explore after this though. I can try to go back through New Londo, and find that tower that was by the priest there. I can go back to the woods and use the crest I bought from the Blacksmith, or I can go back to the Crystal Cave and finally clear that out. Don't know how i"ll feel after the Catacombs, but we'll see where I end up.
This last stream was an interesting one, as I didn't make a lot of progress, but I felt like I made a lot of discoveries. In the Crystal Cave, there is a section with some hard to see platforms. To help you, the game has a corpse near the cave carry something called a prism stone. It states that it can be used to see how far down a drop is, as it'll make a noise and show a color sparkle on the ground where it hits. Primarily, you would use it to find these hard to see paths, letting you know where to walk. Useful, right?
The thing is, they give you 20 of them, and you don't throw them far, so you need to kinda constantly use them. Additionally, as far as I could tell, there's no way to get more at this time. This reminds me of the first time I ended up in the New Londo Ruins, and got the Transient Curse item. There, they give you 3 of those items, but they become hard to get when you're low on them.
Back to the cave. I ran out of those dumb things after about... oh... 4 deaths or so? So I started to worry, since I didn't have the path memorized, nor did I know if there were more beyond the one I found. Turns out, there was! And I found a way to navigate it without dying a metric fuckton. How? Aural Decoy.
The spell launches forward at an angle, and affixes to surfaces, releasing a little blue ping, normally used to distract enemies. In this case, I angled it lower to the ground and it stuck to where the hidden floor was, and I was able to use it as a path detector to work forward. Once i found the right path, I ran afoul of some horrifying clam enemies, and bailed from the zone, cause I started backsliding.
I then left back to Firelink Shrine, to try to buy a new copy of Great Soul Arrow to test something, but the Horrifying Long Neck was asleep, and the Sorcery shop didn't have what I wanted. So that was a wash. Or it almost was. After talking to someone, I explored the Graveyard some more, and stumbled upon the Catacombs. This area is weird. When the skeletons are killed here, they appear to regenerate a few seconds later. I was starting to get overwhelmed early, because an enemy I killed and walked past had surrounded me on a narrow walkway, but then I had an idea. A dumb, stupid longshot idea, along the lines of other dumb longshot ideas I had, where most of them did not pay off.
I switched to my Divine Falchion. Lo and Behold, the enemies stayed dead. What a dumb fucking stroke of luck that I did that earlier in the game.
And you know what this is going to do? This is going to encourage me to try a dozen more stupid, half-baked ideas thinking "oh, this will make x or y happen" and nothing will happen. This is a curse. This will force me to give the game a ton more credit, or attempt to puzzle through issues that don't actually exist. I have cursed myself to overthinking and stupidly testing dumb combinations. Good job, me. Thanks game. I have given myself 20 more hours of overthinking.
I'm going to keep going through the Catacombs for now. I have a few ideas of places to explore after this though. I can try to go back through New Londo, and find that tower that was by the priest there. I can go back to the woods and use the crest I bought from the Blacksmith, or I can go back to the Crystal Cave and finally clear that out. Don't know how i"ll feel after the Catacombs, but we'll see where I end up.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
The Mysts of Anor Londo (Dark Souls 11)
After my run in with the Law Firm, I had tried to explore more, now that I was free to move around the world easier. I attempted to fight the Hydra (Died repeatedly), tried to explore Darkroot more (door still locked), and attempted to fight Ceaseless Discharge again (lolnope), and surprise, nothing came from them.
So where did I end up? Why the Archives of course! The magical Archives where things resist sorceries! Truthfully, I don't know how much of the difficulty I'm having is due to my build and strategies. Whenever I see some bits of game play, I'm frequently seeing a lot of two-handed melee builds, and I'm not sure if that's the "intended" way of playing or not.
Anyways, the Archives are still kicking my ass. I shouldn't be surprised. I even mentioned it in the previous Dark Souls post. I started to let myself believe that "I beat Ornstein & Smough, I should be able to take this on" but no. No, that's not quite the case.
I won't say I'm stone walled, but I am starting to feel that I put myself into some hard spots by neglecting points in Vitality. Some of the arrows that hit me take off 3/4 of my HP, the spellcaster dudes hit me for more damage with their tridents than their spells, and I can get overrun easy. But it's not a total block yet. I found the... Balcony bonfire, I guess I'd call it after being locked down in the library prison area for some time.
I guess this area is easier? I haven't found any huge walls like Anor Londo, like the 3 hours I spent with the walkway archers, or the 6 hours I spent in a protracted Legal battle. So there is some merit to the "Anor Londo is the biggest roadblock" rhetoric.
I keep thinking to myself "Alright, I'm a fairly high level, I should be able to just snipe these enemies and get through without a hitch" and no, that's not the case. I thought that there may be some switch when this game becomes "easy", but nah. That's not how Dark Souls do.
So how am I feeling about Dark Souls? Well, I'm enjoying playing the game again. The tension and anxiety that I was feeling when going through Anor Londo is gone. I have some paths to explore and it'll be interesting to see what opens up when I clear the Crystal Kingdom out. I'm really enjoying the Sorcerer game play. As long as I know where the enemies are, or if I have an idea of where they are, I am able to engage with a lot of enemies on my own terms and find ways to gain an upper hand in battle before even dealing any damage. Aural Decoy is such an incredibly useful ability for managing enemy engagement that I am flabbergasted whenever I hear that it's a weird spell choice.
It also took me near 60 hours to learn that roll-attacks are a thing. I sure am smart.
I'm pretty sure I like Dark Souls. I don't think I'll play it again, because I don't typically replay games, but the dance-like cadence of the combat can really suck you in and entrance you. Soul Arrow, step step, Aural Decoy, Heavy Soul Arrow, step, Aural Decoy, weapon swap, stab stab, weapon swap, Soul Arrow.
I'll try to check in after I clear the Archives.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Ornstein & Smough - A Team You Can Trust (Dark Souls 10)
Have you been the victim of an unprovoked attack from a Silver Knight? Have you fallen due to poor construction and lack of city-mandated guard rails? Fallen down an unsecured elevator shaft? Call Ornstein & Smough today for a free consultation. We have countless decades experience making sure our clients get what's coming to them. Most of our opponents don't reach court of the Princess of Sunlight for litigation! Call Ornstein & Smough to have your legal issues Executed.
If you can't tell, I beat the dumb law firm and made the next major plot advancement. I still haven't figured out what the Covenants do (I'll get there eventually), but I switched from the Covenant of the White to the Princess' Guard, mostly because the dude I signed on with before was an asshole. I also gained the fast travel option, so woo.
OH! I also finally got to use that item that let me invade the Fire Keeper Murderer's world.
I... forgot the dude's name. He dead now though. I did the justice.
I also got eaten by the big eel dude at Firelink, and placed the Lordvessel in the big bowl.
Now, I might have some options paralysis. Here are the places I can go, that I remember.
Supposedly this fight was one of the harder points in the game, but I'll believe that when I see it. The game has been nothing if not a string of "Hardest parts of the game", so I'm going to believe in the pattern that I've seen, instead of what I've heard. I'm hoping the next part isn't as difficult. The sooner I can forget about these jokers, the better.
If you can't tell, I beat the dumb law firm and made the next major plot advancement. I still haven't figured out what the Covenants do (I'll get there eventually), but I switched from the Covenant of the White to the Princess' Guard, mostly because the dude I signed on with before was an asshole. I also gained the fast travel option, so woo.
OH! I also finally got to use that item that let me invade the Fire Keeper Murderer's world.
I... forgot the dude's name. He dead now though. I did the justice.
I also got eaten by the big eel dude at Firelink, and placed the Lordvessel in the big bowl.
Now, I might have some options paralysis. Here are the places I can go, that I remember.
- I can go deal with the Hydra in Darkroot.
- I can go figure out what's going on with the large painting in Anor Londo.
- I can go past Anor Londo, past the Gold Gate that opened.
- I can go deal with Ceaseless Discharge.
- I can try to find the gold gate that appeared to open near Ceaseless Discharge.
Haven't decided where I want to go yet, but I'll figure something out.
I want to talk about the fight with the Law Firm. What a frustrating piece of ass it was. Thinking about the fight now just causes the spine area between my shoulder blades to tense up. I would LOATHE to play this game again, just because I do not want to deal with them again. I feel relieved that I don't have to see their stupid faces again, but I'm also angry that I had to deal with them in the first place. I am more pissed off than anything with that fight. I'm making myself mad and anxious just writing this. Goddamn it. It took several hours of kiting attempts, awkward lock ons, a few camera angles getting wedged in the corner, a few dozen lucky as hell last minute dodges, and a bunch of getting snuck up on by a dude the size of a house, but I finally got past them.
Fuck Ornstein and his weirdly homing jump attack. Fuck Smough when he does the Dedede butt smash from outside your range of vision. Fuck Ornstein and his slippery constant dodging and avoid spells at point blank range. Fuck Phase 2 Smough and his double choo choo train attack where the second one hits me as soon as I stand up. Fuck their 1-2 attack combos, where one knocks me down, and the other hits me the split-second I am able to be damaged again.
BONUS ROUND! Fuck the Giant Knight that can hit you once you're in the boss room.
I will burn Anor Londo to the ground, and leave nothing but ash, fascinating architecture be damned.
Supposedly this fight was one of the harder points in the game, but I'll believe that when I see it. The game has been nothing if not a string of "Hardest parts of the game", so I'm going to believe in the pattern that I've seen, instead of what I've heard. I'm hoping the next part isn't as difficult. The sooner I can forget about these jokers, the better.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Jama's Arbitrary Numbered Lists - Pokemon Generations
UPDATE: Forgot Red/Blue. Added and corrected rankings. Also expanded Gold/Silver section.
Lists are fun. Thinking and comparing things is fun. Let's go.
These lists will reflect the games I have played. They'll be listed by release set.
12. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (DS)
The introduction of Cynthia was neat, and the digging minigame was fun, but man, this one felt boring as hell. Adding the Physical/Special split for moves i probably the best thing it did though. Prior to these games, moves used either Attack or Special Attack depending on their type. For example, all Ghost type moves used your Attack state in generations 1-3, while all Fire attacks used your Special Attack (RIP Flareon, with your higher Attack than Special). This split made the stat used move-dependant.
11. Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon (3DS)
This has played out identical to Sun and Moon for the most part, barring the introduction of space cops, but after a few islands I'm not seeing enough to differentiate it from the previous entry in the series. Maybe it changes towards the end. We'll see.
10. Pokemon Go (Mobile)
Might be cheating to add this to the list, but don't care. Pokemon Go is ok, but I don't like doing the raid shit and battles that the game needs me to do to progress.
9. Sun/Moon (3DS)
This is probably the easiest game in the series. I'm not hating on that fact. Pokemon games are designed for children, and I've been playing these things for over 20 years. I know what's up. I like the aesthetics of the tropical islands, and the removal of HMs was an interesting choice. ust having a Pokemon that you can call on to push boulders, or to surf on, or to fly you wherever is nice, and doesn't require the use of a team slot. Team Skull is outstanding and useless, as a gang of misfit kids would be. Them being a decoy antagonist team is outstanding.
8. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (GBA)
We're getting to the point where I'm starting to split hairs, since I like a lot of the Pokemon games. I wish there was more to the Contests than there was, and I didn't quite care for Team Aqua and Team Magma as much as villians. Kyogre Groudon and Rayquaza are neat though.
7. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (3DS)
This was a toss up between this, and the next on on the list. While it's more of the same, it also adds a really cool epilogue chapter focused on Rayquaza,and found a way to add more of the previous legendaries through Wormholes. Plus, you get to fly around on a Latios or Latias, and that's cool. Seeing a rendered Hoein below you as you fly is super cool.
6. Fire Red/Leaf Green (GBA)
This one wins out over ORAS just because of Gen 1 nostalgia. Sorry. It was close.
5. Red/Blue/Yellow (GBA)
These games are a charming mess. This is the Pokemon game that I've spent the most time with. Part of the endearment to it comes from when I speedran the game, a few years ago. Well, learned half of the speedrun. The game feels like a little engine that could, at times, barely chugging along as some dumb glitch is waiting to pop up. From Badge Boosting, to Crits ignoring all stat changes (including your Attack up buffs), to Ditto's transform locking you out of Struggle, Trainer Fly, and of course, MissingNo, these glitches paint a messy picture of this game. Normally, I rail on glitches, and games getting love despite of them, so this may seem hypocritical, given my thoughts on everything Bethesda develops, but a few things set this apart for me. It was a new franchise, it was on old handheld technology, and this was back in the mid 1990s. Fixing a game wasn't as easy.
It's hard to ignore the nostalgia of the game and what it represents to this entire franchise. It's hard to separate the fondness I have for Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle from my childhood and nostalgia, but I think this is right for the game. I have immense fondness for it's jankiness and what it's done, but other games did it better.
4. Silver/Gold/Crystal (GBC/3DS)
Let the Hate Flow Through You. Don't get me wrong, I love these games. They're some of my favorite. I just think the remaining 3 are better. The introduction of the roaming legendaries was neat. The addition of Dark and Steel were also great, to check some of the issues with the first game. Totodile is my boy. Top 4 is pretty good! It had a lot of neat things, like introducing the day/night cycle, rematching trainers, and fixing a lot of the issues that plagued generation 1.
For the record, if you want to play Gen 2 again, but want to play it a bit differently, I recommend looking up "Pokemon Crystal Clear". It's an open world hack for Pokemon Crystal that gives you like, 25 starter options, you can start in either Kanto or Johto, and the game has a scaling difficulty, so you can do the gyms in any order you'd like. The downside is that it takes away the plot, but if your goal is the whole "To be a master" type thing, this may work well for you.
3. HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)
So is top 3! Walking Pokemon! They're so cute. Walkin' around with you as you travel. Also, using the Physical/Special split that was introduced in DPP, it makes a good game better.
2. Black/White (DS)
The difference between 1 and 2 are close.
Black/White have villians I actually enjoyed fighting, because they were pretty shitheads. Their entire process was running rallies convincing people that they were enslaving Pokemon, and that they should be released... So THEY would be the only ones with Pokemon. It's so silly, I love it.
These games also did something I absolutely adored. Before you beat the Elite 4, you can ONLY see new Pokemon in the wild. You may get some people from other countries carrying like, a Pikachu, but you will not be able to capture one in the wild. You only see Unova native Pokemon until you beat the Elite 4. After that, other species start to fill the world. Sure, it's gamey, but it's Pokemon. The game also uses seasons that change on a monthly basis. The terrain of the world changes through the year slightly, so you may be able to access a certain optional location in Winter in the mountain that you couldn't access in other season. To help with this theme, they introduced a Pokemon whose appearance is determined based on the season you find it in.
Also, unlimited use TMs is a godsend, and carried over to every game after.
1. X/Y (3DS)
I wish the quality of life changes in this game were kept across later generations. The ease in which you could access Super Training, a way to raise your Pokemon's EV stats through a Minigame, rather than hunting out 200 Mankey to raise your Attack EVs or whatever, was fun. It made getting a Pokemon with the stats you wanted easier. Having three different, yet easily accessible, movement speeds was nice, between walking, rollerblades, and the traditional bike. The addition of Fairy type added some new wrinkles to the metagame, and brought Dragon types down a peg. Previously, Dragons were only weak to Dragon Type and Ice Type moves. Now they're weak to Fairy types, and Fairy types are immune to Dragon moves. THis also affected Poison and Steel types, as Fairy types are weak to those types of moves.
The France-inspired Kalos was pretty to walk around, had some interesting architecture, and was an overall treat to explore. Some of the new Pokemon are absolutely some of my favorites, with the Honedge line, the cursed goddamned sword, being tops. Mega Evolutions added another interesting gameplay mechanic and made some older Pokemon really interesting. Shout out to Mega Kangaskhan, and Johnny Six-Spoons (Mega Alakazam).
Team Flare, the villain organization of the game, is the campiest, most ridiculous, over the top villains in the series. They were flaming red-orange suits with bright orange like... half-pompadour. It's great.
More lists will happen when the mood strikes. I'll probably do a Final Fantasy one at some point and I don't know what else. Maybe Doom if I get around to Doom 2016 at some point.
Lists are fun. Thinking and comparing things is fun. Let's go.
These lists will reflect the games I have played. They'll be listed by release set.
12. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum (DS)
The introduction of Cynthia was neat, and the digging minigame was fun, but man, this one felt boring as hell. Adding the Physical/Special split for moves i probably the best thing it did though. Prior to these games, moves used either Attack or Special Attack depending on their type. For example, all Ghost type moves used your Attack state in generations 1-3, while all Fire attacks used your Special Attack (RIP Flareon, with your higher Attack than Special). This split made the stat used move-dependant.
11. Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon (3DS)
This has played out identical to Sun and Moon for the most part, barring the introduction of space cops, but after a few islands I'm not seeing enough to differentiate it from the previous entry in the series. Maybe it changes towards the end. We'll see.
10. Pokemon Go (Mobile)
Might be cheating to add this to the list, but don't care. Pokemon Go is ok, but I don't like doing the raid shit and battles that the game needs me to do to progress.
9. Sun/Moon (3DS)
This is probably the easiest game in the series. I'm not hating on that fact. Pokemon games are designed for children, and I've been playing these things for over 20 years. I know what's up. I like the aesthetics of the tropical islands, and the removal of HMs was an interesting choice. ust having a Pokemon that you can call on to push boulders, or to surf on, or to fly you wherever is nice, and doesn't require the use of a team slot. Team Skull is outstanding and useless, as a gang of misfit kids would be. Them being a decoy antagonist team is outstanding.
8. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (GBA)
We're getting to the point where I'm starting to split hairs, since I like a lot of the Pokemon games. I wish there was more to the Contests than there was, and I didn't quite care for Team Aqua and Team Magma as much as villians. Kyogre Groudon and Rayquaza are neat though.
7. Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (3DS)
This was a toss up between this, and the next on on the list. While it's more of the same, it also adds a really cool epilogue chapter focused on Rayquaza,and found a way to add more of the previous legendaries through Wormholes. Plus, you get to fly around on a Latios or Latias, and that's cool. Seeing a rendered Hoein below you as you fly is super cool.
6. Fire Red/Leaf Green (GBA)
This one wins out over ORAS just because of Gen 1 nostalgia. Sorry. It was close.
5. Red/Blue/Yellow (GBA)
These games are a charming mess. This is the Pokemon game that I've spent the most time with. Part of the endearment to it comes from when I speedran the game, a few years ago. Well, learned half of the speedrun. The game feels like a little engine that could, at times, barely chugging along as some dumb glitch is waiting to pop up. From Badge Boosting, to Crits ignoring all stat changes (including your Attack up buffs), to Ditto's transform locking you out of Struggle, Trainer Fly, and of course, MissingNo, these glitches paint a messy picture of this game. Normally, I rail on glitches, and games getting love despite of them, so this may seem hypocritical, given my thoughts on everything Bethesda develops, but a few things set this apart for me. It was a new franchise, it was on old handheld technology, and this was back in the mid 1990s. Fixing a game wasn't as easy.
It's hard to ignore the nostalgia of the game and what it represents to this entire franchise. It's hard to separate the fondness I have for Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle from my childhood and nostalgia, but I think this is right for the game. I have immense fondness for it's jankiness and what it's done, but other games did it better.
4. Silver/Gold/Crystal (GBC/3DS)
Let the Hate Flow Through You. Don't get me wrong, I love these games. They're some of my favorite. I just think the remaining 3 are better. The introduction of the roaming legendaries was neat. The addition of Dark and Steel were also great, to check some of the issues with the first game. Totodile is my boy. Top 4 is pretty good! It had a lot of neat things, like introducing the day/night cycle, rematching trainers, and fixing a lot of the issues that plagued generation 1.
For the record, if you want to play Gen 2 again, but want to play it a bit differently, I recommend looking up "Pokemon Crystal Clear". It's an open world hack for Pokemon Crystal that gives you like, 25 starter options, you can start in either Kanto or Johto, and the game has a scaling difficulty, so you can do the gyms in any order you'd like. The downside is that it takes away the plot, but if your goal is the whole "To be a master" type thing, this may work well for you.
3. HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)
So is top 3! Walking Pokemon! They're so cute. Walkin' around with you as you travel. Also, using the Physical/Special split that was introduced in DPP, it makes a good game better.
2. Black/White (DS)
The difference between 1 and 2 are close.
Black/White have villians I actually enjoyed fighting, because they were pretty shitheads. Their entire process was running rallies convincing people that they were enslaving Pokemon, and that they should be released... So THEY would be the only ones with Pokemon. It's so silly, I love it.
These games also did something I absolutely adored. Before you beat the Elite 4, you can ONLY see new Pokemon in the wild. You may get some people from other countries carrying like, a Pikachu, but you will not be able to capture one in the wild. You only see Unova native Pokemon until you beat the Elite 4. After that, other species start to fill the world. Sure, it's gamey, but it's Pokemon. The game also uses seasons that change on a monthly basis. The terrain of the world changes through the year slightly, so you may be able to access a certain optional location in Winter in the mountain that you couldn't access in other season. To help with this theme, they introduced a Pokemon whose appearance is determined based on the season you find it in.
Also, unlimited use TMs is a godsend, and carried over to every game after.
1. X/Y (3DS)
I wish the quality of life changes in this game were kept across later generations. The ease in which you could access Super Training, a way to raise your Pokemon's EV stats through a Minigame, rather than hunting out 200 Mankey to raise your Attack EVs or whatever, was fun. It made getting a Pokemon with the stats you wanted easier. Having three different, yet easily accessible, movement speeds was nice, between walking, rollerblades, and the traditional bike. The addition of Fairy type added some new wrinkles to the metagame, and brought Dragon types down a peg. Previously, Dragons were only weak to Dragon Type and Ice Type moves. Now they're weak to Fairy types, and Fairy types are immune to Dragon moves. THis also affected Poison and Steel types, as Fairy types are weak to those types of moves.
The France-inspired Kalos was pretty to walk around, had some interesting architecture, and was an overall treat to explore. Some of the new Pokemon are absolutely some of my favorites, with the Honedge line, the cursed goddamned sword, being tops. Mega Evolutions added another interesting gameplay mechanic and made some older Pokemon really interesting. Shout out to Mega Kangaskhan, and Johnny Six-Spoons (Mega Alakazam).
Team Flare, the villain organization of the game, is the campiest, most ridiculous, over the top villains in the series. They were flaming red-orange suits with bright orange like... half-pompadour. It's great.
More lists will happen when the mood strikes. I'll probably do a Final Fantasy one at some point and I don't know what else. Maybe Doom if I get around to Doom 2016 at some point.
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Anor Londo (Dark Souls 9)
We have cleared the narrow ledge with the archers firing huge arrows, and unlocked the gate by the blacksmith.
What a dumb stupid trek this area has been. It's not JUST that I'm bad at all games, but it's so the fact that the part I just cleared had some of the most frustrating enemy placement I can recall. The two archers on the ledge were such a huge roadblock for me. I ended up spending hours just trying to get past them. They weren't the only cause for frustration, mind you. The big iron guardians and the electric spear demons had their moments, but navigating that ledge made me feel helpless.
But that's in the past now. It can't hurt me anymore.
I think.
Now, I am navigating through huge... castles, I guess. For some reason I'm not getting a castle-y vibe from them but whatever. Common language prevails. I guess it's a castle.
Anyways. I wanted to talk about Anor Londo's aesthetic. While I am not a fan of the perpetual sunset color scheme, I do adore the building aesthetic and architecture here. The vaulted ceilings, large windows, and the tiling of the floor speak very well to me. I am reminded of Kamurocho in Yakuza 0. Not only do both Anor Londo have a strong sense of what they are, but also when. Kamurocho feels like a bustling, crowded Japanese city, and Anor Londo feels like a castle town, full of estates and buildings on the horizon. The wide sweeping walkways between buildings by the first bonfire make it feel like it could have been a busy throughway between the high ceiling chapels.
Anor Londo actually feels very Dungeons and Dragons to me. This area feels like it could be part of an abandoned castle town that a party of adventurers explore, dealing with the living armor guardians, and the demons that moved in. Hell, even the monstrous blacksmith in this area feels like a nice enough dude who is just doing his job. You could make a hell of a mid-level adventure out of this place.
Thematically, this place is the strongest for me so far. The Lower Burg tells an interesting story as well, as an undesirable place to be, acting as the literal foundation for the city above, but I really enjoy the design of Anor Londo... Apart from the unfair enemy placement on the walkway.
With that section behind me, what's next? Well, I can get back into the castle easy now, and decide if I want to deal with the iron knights everywhere. I could backtrack through the building and go through the fireplace stairway I found and see where that goes (which I think is the play here). Or I can try to go down to the main floor of the castle, and try to deal with the shiny friends there. Decisions abound.
I do want to talk about sense of place in some games, and just highlight some ones that I really love. Kamurocho and Sotenbori feel so excellent to be in. Kamurocho feels like a bustling city during the real estate boom of the 80s (obviously). The neon lights everywhere, the chatter, the cramped feeling of the alleyways... It makes you feel like you know this place after spending a few hours there. The environment serves the theme.
Final Fantasy XV qualifies as well. Not so much because it's a place I love exploring, but it feels like a for real road trip game. You're cruising the roads of varying quality, dumb chatter going on between friends, and you're driving past towns and cities along the way. You stop at a local diner to get their take on a popular food, or find local treat that you can't find anywhere else. Setting matches themes perfectly.
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild conveys a sense of emptiness with pockets of civilization, following the calamity that befell Hyrule. It feels lonely to wander sometimes, but it also feels peaceful. On a sunny day, watching some deer or rabbits run around fills my heart with mirth.
I want to like the feeling of Anthem. Anthem, on the surface does a lot of things right. It has the small hub area that they want you to explore and learn the name of each person in town. The big open areas try to tell some sort of story, with the wreckage. It doesn't do it for me. It doesn't tie together in a way that resonates with me.
A strong sense of place can really convey emotions and feelings to the player. It's great to be able to say "What lies beyond" or "what happened here" or "What else is here" are such interesting questions and feelings to have when playing a game. It's not a matter of just checking boxes about what to include, after all, I can find scurrying wildlife in Anthem, but it also has to connect with the player.
It's really hard to put this into words, as it is so closely tied to feelings and emotions. You could point me to several games that look like they have these details and unified themes, but if I'm not connecting to an area, then it's theme or aesthetic aren't as appealing.
I'll just wrap this here: Anor Londo is cool to look at and explore.
What a dumb stupid trek this area has been. It's not JUST that I'm bad at all games, but it's so the fact that the part I just cleared had some of the most frustrating enemy placement I can recall. The two archers on the ledge were such a huge roadblock for me. I ended up spending hours just trying to get past them. They weren't the only cause for frustration, mind you. The big iron guardians and the electric spear demons had their moments, but navigating that ledge made me feel helpless.
But that's in the past now. It can't hurt me anymore.
I think.
Now, I am navigating through huge... castles, I guess. For some reason I'm not getting a castle-y vibe from them but whatever. Common language prevails. I guess it's a castle.
Anyways. I wanted to talk about Anor Londo's aesthetic. While I am not a fan of the perpetual sunset color scheme, I do adore the building aesthetic and architecture here. The vaulted ceilings, large windows, and the tiling of the floor speak very well to me. I am reminded of Kamurocho in Yakuza 0. Not only do both Anor Londo have a strong sense of what they are, but also when. Kamurocho feels like a bustling, crowded Japanese city, and Anor Londo feels like a castle town, full of estates and buildings on the horizon. The wide sweeping walkways between buildings by the first bonfire make it feel like it could have been a busy throughway between the high ceiling chapels.
Anor Londo actually feels very Dungeons and Dragons to me. This area feels like it could be part of an abandoned castle town that a party of adventurers explore, dealing with the living armor guardians, and the demons that moved in. Hell, even the monstrous blacksmith in this area feels like a nice enough dude who is just doing his job. You could make a hell of a mid-level adventure out of this place.
Thematically, this place is the strongest for me so far. The Lower Burg tells an interesting story as well, as an undesirable place to be, acting as the literal foundation for the city above, but I really enjoy the design of Anor Londo... Apart from the unfair enemy placement on the walkway.
With that section behind me, what's next? Well, I can get back into the castle easy now, and decide if I want to deal with the iron knights everywhere. I could backtrack through the building and go through the fireplace stairway I found and see where that goes (which I think is the play here). Or I can try to go down to the main floor of the castle, and try to deal with the shiny friends there. Decisions abound.
I do want to talk about sense of place in some games, and just highlight some ones that I really love. Kamurocho and Sotenbori feel so excellent to be in. Kamurocho feels like a bustling city during the real estate boom of the 80s (obviously). The neon lights everywhere, the chatter, the cramped feeling of the alleyways... It makes you feel like you know this place after spending a few hours there. The environment serves the theme.
Final Fantasy XV qualifies as well. Not so much because it's a place I love exploring, but it feels like a for real road trip game. You're cruising the roads of varying quality, dumb chatter going on between friends, and you're driving past towns and cities along the way. You stop at a local diner to get their take on a popular food, or find local treat that you can't find anywhere else. Setting matches themes perfectly.
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild conveys a sense of emptiness with pockets of civilization, following the calamity that befell Hyrule. It feels lonely to wander sometimes, but it also feels peaceful. On a sunny day, watching some deer or rabbits run around fills my heart with mirth.
I want to like the feeling of Anthem. Anthem, on the surface does a lot of things right. It has the small hub area that they want you to explore and learn the name of each person in town. The big open areas try to tell some sort of story, with the wreckage. It doesn't do it for me. It doesn't tie together in a way that resonates with me.
A strong sense of place can really convey emotions and feelings to the player. It's great to be able to say "What lies beyond" or "what happened here" or "What else is here" are such interesting questions and feelings to have when playing a game. It's not a matter of just checking boxes about what to include, after all, I can find scurrying wildlife in Anthem, but it also has to connect with the player.
It's really hard to put this into words, as it is so closely tied to feelings and emotions. You could point me to several games that look like they have these details and unified themes, but if I'm not connecting to an area, then it's theme or aesthetic aren't as appealing.
I'll just wrap this here: Anor Londo is cool to look at and explore.
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