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Dec 4th, 2019 at 13:39:32 - Faeria (PC) |
This was a surprise! I have had two card F2P card games in my backlog since I quit Hearthstone. I booted up Faeria last week, then one day when the servers were down, I tried the other, Duelyst. I made it through Duelyst's tutorials and screwed around a bit, but it didn't captivate me like Faeria did. But after an all-night binge last night, I think it is best for me to set this aside, after gushing about it first.
Faeria combines elements of Hearthstone, Magic, and Catan, Hearthstone being the most familiar to me. You build 30-card decks with mixtures of creatures, structures (immobile and give passive bonuses), and events (aka spells). You mulligan like normal and gain faeria (mana) each turn like normal that you spend to play cards.
The hybridization comes in because Faeria has a, as the promo goes, "living board." You don't just play cards on your side of the table. Rather, each player has a "god" and builds lands emanating from the god. Each turn you can build two regular lands or one elemental land (and if you don't want to do that, you can opt to draw a card or gain a faeria). You can only build lands adjacent to lands you already have or adjacent to your creatures. The default board is all water, and while some (blue, "aquatic") creatures can actually swim through it, everything else needs some kind of land.
So, the strategy is not only in building your deck, but in building the board each game. Stronger cards will require, say, 4 fire lands before you can play them, and some cards require multiple kinds of land. In addition to the land, there are "faeria pools" that generate one faeria each turn. If you place a creature next to one, you get that bonus faeria. So you also want to maintain control of as many of those as you can because you will be able to play more and stronger cards. It's a balancing act because you can't just go straight for the faeria pools. They are on the corners of the board, and if you build outward, your enemy may start building straight down the middle and rush your god. But I found that generally having control of more faeria pools led to victory because you simply out-spend your opponent.
I've established that the mechanics are complex and a whole lot of fun. So what is there to do? There are a ton of "mission packs," typically with 8 or 9 scenarios and little bosses at the end. These serve as tutorials, challenges, and practice against AI, while allowing you to unlock rewards like cards packs, lore book entries, and the in-game currencies. Some are "puzzles" with the goal of defeating the enemy in one turn with a specific board state. As you complete missions and level up your account, you gain access to more stuff, including a single-player or co-op campaign, online casual and ranked modes, and Pandora, which is a draft mode.
My favorite thing in Hearthstone was Arena, so I went straight to draft mode as soon as I could. In Faeria, you have to wager card packs or currency for entry, which I suppose is like paying 100 gold in Hearthstone. You either lose it spectacularly or do well enough to make it back plus rewards.
I FULLY expected to get crushed in Pandora. I'm still learning the game, I've never seen most of the cards, total noob playing against experienced players, right? Well...I had a near perfect run and went 6-1 (and somehow got the achievement for going 6-0!), earning the top prize of 5 card packs and a lot of currency. While this was awesome, and I stayed up until 5am doing it, there is no way in hell that someone who has played a competitive collectible card game for just a few hours should be able to stomp everyone in draft mode. Like, that could say a lot about the player base or design. Is everyone else a noob too? Is there no one playing (queue times averaged probably 3 minutes)? Did I just get lucky and draft awesome cards (I don't think so)? Is the game SO well-balanced that skill doesn't affect outcomes as much as in other games (probably not)? What a weird positive-negative feeling.
Since I basically achieved the pinnacle of CCGs for me, winning a draft mode, I decided to retire at the top of my game. I still have about half the mission packs to complete and after that there are randomized "wild" packs so you have something to do forever. There is still the campaign mode, which I dabbled in and didn't find especially interesting. And there are puzzle modes, infinite card backs and things to buy, daily quests, and etc., etc. In short, if I wanted to commit to another CCG, I would spend more time here. But as much as I enjoyed Faeria, I don't want to get sucked in. I hope the game stays afloat because it's worth attention!
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Nov 30th, 2019 at 17:31:45 - Bayonetta 2 (WiiU) |
Quick and...surprisingly easy. The first Bayonetta kicked my ass. I remember spending hours on the final boss. In Bayonetta 2, I can count the number of deaths during the entire game on one hand. Let's assume I've become very good at action games.
The story is interesting once it picks up. The only character with enough time and space to be really great this time around is Bayonetta herself. The "little one" felt relatively flat in her presence, though not unlikable. In this game, you get to go to Inferno (hell), which looks stunning. Given that, the game is not as jaw-dropping in any way as the first one, which is disappointing. Graphically, perhaps it isn't as impressive because it's on the Wii U. Technically, it feels like the first game except easier and more button mash-y. Character designs are still awesome though, especially the Paradiso enemies, but bosses are not as giant, imposing, or multi-stage. They look cool but aren't as epic to fight.
In most action games you need to consider your combos, use them situationally. In Bayonetta 2 it hardly matters. I spent most of the game going XXXXX. RT. XXXXX. RT. XXXXX. And I still got a ton of platinum and gold medals. It's fluid as hell and feels great, and the complexity exists if you want/need to delve into it. You will dodge (RT) a lot. This activates slo-mo (Witch Time) and lets you unload on enemies. Witch Time is super easy to activate. Enemy tells are obvious to read and there is enough time to get out of the way.
That's really it. Solid action game. Not essential like the first though. On to the next game!
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Nov 20th, 2019 at 19:32:00 - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) |
Summing up additional thoughts on the eve of defeating the Black Hand. My first entry was raving about the Nemesis system, so I’ll continue from there.
The Nemesis system becomes even more fun (and harrowing) as you gain more control over it. It’s like a giant toybox and you’re playing with action figures. The game lets you get a feel for the system in the first chunk of hours by killing captains and seeing how challenges work and how uruks move through the ranks. Then, you’re introduced to warchiefs. You have to kill all the warchiefs to move to the game’s second area. Warchiefs require special actions to be lured out into the open, so for example, you may have to “brutalize” his favorite uruk. Warchiefs in the second area, now these bad boys have elite captains for guards. When you lure one of them out, you’re in for a battle. But, you can kill their bodyguards by hunting them down beforehand so that the warchief comes out alone, or with just regular uruks.
The fun part really comes when you gain the “dominate” ability and are able to manipulate Sauron’s army. You can essentially mind control uruks and make them fight for you. They don’t just start hacking their brethren though; you have to activate them. This means you can strategize by queueing up dominated uruk around a captain, then give the signal and they all turn on him. It’s incredibly satisfying. So in that second area, your goal is not to kill all five warchiefs, but to dominate them. I suppose when you fight the Black Hand, then his bodyguards, the warchiefs, will betray him and make your fight easier. When you dominate captains, you can promote them, make them bodyguard of a warchief, or direct them to attempt to murder another captain. Long story short, if you want to, you can dominate Sauron’s entire army, orchestrate duels and things to level up your favorites, and really manipulate the Nemesis system. The potential for control is quite impressive.
This is all useful because some of the captains and warchiefs (and I’m sure the Black Hand) are difficult battles. Last night, I came across a warchief that was resistant to all of my attacks. How do kill him? I tried a couple times and I could get him to flee (he’s scared of me and of betrayal, so if you have a dominated captain betray him and you show up too, he bails). But even once he was fleeing, I couldn’t do enough damage to him before he escaped. My solution was to dominate about 20 uruks where he patrolled and turn them loose. He simply became overwhelmed as we all hacked at him. It is incredibly satisfying to creatively use the tools the game gives you to overcome obstacles.
All of the above is the best part of the game. Other things I enjoyed (story, characters, general mission structures, abilities, etc.). Abilities, for example, are drip-fed throughout the campaign. You’re always unlocking something new through completing story missions, and you will have enough power and currency to get most all of the abilities you want without any extra effort. Other things, though, were disappointing. Luckily the disappointing things are easy enough to ignore, though I wish I’d known out of the gate.
There are two kinds of collectibles in Mordor. I expected something to happen once I collected all of one of them because each piece uncovers more of a picture, that looks like some magical run on a wall (a doorway somewhere??). Alas, nothing happens, just a cryptic poem. Do not waste your time finding collectibles unless you want an achievement. The same goes for the weapon lore quests. I assumed that completing these (10 missions for each of your 3 weapons) would lead to a new ability or a stronger weapon or something, but no, nothing! It’s just some more narrative, while interesting, is not the kind of reward I wanted. Weapon runes are also quite useless. When you kill a captain, he drops a rune you can slot into a weapon. You start the game with some really awesome ones, and I used these the entire game. The ones I found, I hardly ever used. The game hints at more epic runes of the type you start the game with, but I rarely saw one (edit: My epic starting runes were probably from a DLC pack that I didn’t know I had. Why would these be automatically applied?!). Finally, I was disappointed in the second area. It’s the same as the first but with a new coat of pain (ooh, pretty Mordor by the sea instead of industrial Mordor). There are some harder creatures roaming around and some different terrain, but nothing functionally unique. Perhaps the main point is to give Sauron two sub-armies, but that seems to serve you getting the dominate skill and putting it to use only, as you deal with the armies in exactly the same way aside from now being able to dominate uruk.
And now that I’ve completed the game…
The last two “boss fights” are a joke. What a letdown! They weren’t even fights! QTEs get outta my face! So much for all the army buildup and investing in my skills for a final showdown. Sigh. This could have been epic.
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Nov 15th, 2019 at 07:05:04 - Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PC) |
The famed Nemesis system. Wow. First impressions: Sauron’s army has a bunch of captains. They have varying “power” levels. If you kill one, you get that much power, a resource that unlocks new tiers on the ability tree. It wasn’t too long before a captain killed me (I got in a scrap with two at once, actually). The one that killed me increased in power and became, formally, my nemesis! The next time I fought him, he was even harder, but I was stronger too and made short work of him. The second one that survived our encounter gained a lesser amount of power. This may add a sort of risk/reward for creating nemeses that get stronger so that you can then kill them for more power. I suppose this could easily spiral out of control if they become too powerful.
When you kill a captain, another uruk can take his place in the hierarchy. I think this happens over time; one spot was vacant for a couple hours then filled. You can also learn captains’ strengths and weaknesses by gathering intel, either from finding it or from interrogating captains and other uruk with special markers. Strengths are obviously good to know; I came across one captain whom I couldn’t parry. Weaknesses are even better though because, not only can you exploit them, but if you kill the captain with a specific weapon weakness (often weak to ground executions with the blade or combat executions with the sword), they’ll go down in one hit and they’ll drop a nice rune for that weapon.
At this point, I’m curious how randomized the captains are. Do they have names that give them specific strengths and weaknesses (like “the coward” might give them the easily terrorized trait) or is each uruk a pre-determined character? I have similar questions about the runes, which you can slot into your weapons to receive benefits (additional critical strike chance, resistance to poison, etc.).
My first impression of Shadow of Mordor is extremely positive. The Nemesis system is already blowing my mind with possibilities and gives the game a “hunting” feel. Interactions between uruks, human slaves, and local wildlife (which I have already killed, been killed by, has killed a captain for me, and has ravaged uruks and humans alike) make Mordor vibrant and deadly. The minimap is busy with icons, though most are herbs and other things that I’ve already learned to filter for the most part. There are a few collectables and quests per area, which so far have all been interesting. There’s a wonderful lore book. Gollum is here. Really excited to play more.
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