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Jun 26th, 2015 at 09:42:57 - The Witcher 2 (PC) |
I still think this game is weird as hell, but I'm enjoying it more than I was initially. All my previous complaints are still true, but I've gotten used to them. I can more or less navigate using the minimap now. I've learned to account for Geralt's stuttering before drawing a sword or casting (just don't try and do those things next to an enemy and you probably won't get hit). I've wrapped my head about the complicated menus. There's still a lot involved in combat, but I've learned more about what works best in what situations, and through practice, combat is less frustrating. And so on.
Perhaps the biggest thing though is that I've gotten used to the flow of the game. It feels nontraditional in that you don't simply go collect a bunch of quests and run around doing one at a time. It's more dynamic than that. There are quests all over the place, and you are constantly fulfilling criteria of one or another, moving them into next phases. It is actually very difficult to pursue one quest at a time to completion. Unfortunately, partly because of this and partly because some main quests (which are unmarked as such, by the way) will render side quests impossible to complete. This is very irritating. Last night, I had done probably every part of a quest to find and kill a succubus, solving a murder mystery, when I decided to stop in and talk to a character I was supposed to talk to on the way. Well, that triggered an event in the game world that led to someone involved in the side quest to leave. How was I supposed to know that? Now I can't complete it and I was invested in solving the succubus mystery!
I did figure out the troll quest. I didn't need to bring him vodka. I needed to stop him from drinking so he'd sober up and rebuild the bridge. But this was only achieved through fighting with him and bringing him down to 1/2 life, which I also had to do on a boss I was stuck on, and have had to do once or twice more. Now I know this is an acceptable guess for what to do in tough battles--just survive a while. I spared another troll later and got an achievement (Friend to the Trolls - Spare all the trolls in the game [There are only 3 trolls.]).
I've level 16 or 18 or something and have branched all the way down the swordsmanship skill tree. Unfortunately I wasted a couple points in the potions tree, but whatever. At the end of the skill trees, you unlock abilities to use "adrenaline", yet another thing to keep track of in battle. The one at the end of the swordsmanship tree is an AoE attack that decimates a group of enemies. I've used it once but missed the group. You build adrenaline through sword attacks. I'll probably fill out some of the more useful nodes in the tree, and then go over to the sign tree and improve the signs that I use. I seem to be leaning toward accumulating a lot of health and damage reduction, which probably stems from my dying so frequently early on.
So, this game feels short, but it's not. There is a prologue, two chapters, and an epilogue. I'm probably most of the way through chapter 2. But it feels like it's flown by. This is possibly because there have only been two towns to explore. Like, a lot is packed in to a small area. And it probably feels short (I think I'm at 25 hours or something) because I'm coming off Fallout 3 (38 hours), Disgaea 2 (52 hours), and New Vegas (72 hours). I guess this one might hit 35. Anyway, the story is phenomenal and I'm digging the game as a whole despite being lukewarm to a lot of things.
Another thing that's weird about it is that this is the best-looking game I've ever played (thanks new laptop), and after a long time of playing nothing this pretty, I am consistently distracted by vistas and character models and details. Is it too real? Can I handle newer games? Aaah!
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Jun 20th, 2015 at 00:22:17 - The Witcher 2 (PC) |
Interesting game, and I have mixed feelings at the moment. I remember loving the first Witcher game. This one has fantastic writing and atmosphere so far, but the actual gameplay is not resonating yet. I think it will just take more getting used to.
For example, combat has been revamped and is more complex. This is great, but overwhelming when all thrown at you from the start. Geralt can use two weapons, bombs, traps, throwing knives, potions, oils, 5 signs...what else? You can dodge, parry, riposte, chain kills, use a light or heavy attack...I'm dying a lot because I get into sticky fights and simply have not figured out what works well in certain situations against certain types of enemies. There are books you can buy/find that will tell you the strengths and weaknesses of certain enemies, and this has been useful to let me know that I can't do anything except protect myself from poison against the kraken, that nekkers don't have any invulnerabilities, that trolls are susceptible to poison but immune to bleeding, and so on.
Nekkers and drowners attack in large numbers, and I've learned that tossing bombs at groups works pretty well. The spider-type creatures attack in ones or twos and have a nasty charge attack. Best to try and separate them. Wraiths have also come in pairs. Use spectre oil and fire. The mind control sign is useful against small numbers of enemies where the mind controlled one can distract one or two others so I can attack them from behind. I've not managed to kill a spider queen, and I can't figure out what I'm doing to piss off a bridge troll. I think I need to bring him vodka, but for whatever inexplicable reason, the innkeeper and barmaid don't have any for me to buy (or any drinks). What kind of bar is that?
I spent a good hour trying to complete quests without first acquiring a silver witcher's sword. I had a quest to get one, but I didn't know that a silver witcher's sword was REQUIRED to effectively kill monsters. No wonder I was dying so much, but the game didn't tell me, "Hey, you have to get a witcher's sword first." It was just like, "Eh, you'll figure it out." Which again is sort of great. I like to figure things out on my own. But there is too much to figure out on your own in the beginning of this game without it becoming frustrating! I would like essential quests to be marked as such because I don't know what I NEED to be doing versus all the optional stuff. Like, was killing the kraken optional? Or did I have to do it? I'm really not sure, but I killed it.
Probably the worst thing about the game is the map and minimap. These are truly terrible. The minimap is useless. It has no zoom. Enemies occasionally appear as red dots, but usually they don't appear at all. Sometimes there are red dots, but no enemy. Sometimes it gets buggy and the walls disappear. Sometimes I notice blue or green dots on the minimap. I figured out that these are...well, either quest givers, or your companions, or people to talk to...I haven't sorted it out yet because, as with the red dots, the blue and green dots will disappear, not show up, move around, some NPCs you can talk to sometimes don't have a dot while others do...there is like no rhyme or reason to it.
No problem, I thought to myself at first, I'll just use the big map. Wrong. The big map doesn't auto-locate you and doesn't remember where you were after you spent the time to find yourself and zoom in, so every single time you open it, you have to find yourself, drag the map so that you're centered, and zoom in so you can see terrain detail. It's almost more trouble than it's worth. Also, the map is supposed to show merchants. It's on the key. The weird thing is that sometimes it shows some of the merchants. And sometimes it will show the merchants' names on a tooltip, but most of the time it won't. And sometimes it will show a name, and the next time you look, it might have no name, or that merchant's marker might not even be there (but the merchant is there if you walk to him).
But at least the quest locator works! So far (fingers crossed), it has accurately shown me essential quest locations.
Another thing I am not on board with is the delay between inputting commands for casting a sign, drawing a weapon, climbing, and a couple other actions, and those actions actually happening. I have died so many times because I push like 5 to cast a spell and Geralt just sits there for a second before doing it, and gets mobbed in that time. I don't know what the purpose of this delay is, but I have to get used to it. Finally, the menus are cluttered, hard to navigate, and don't provide well organized information.
Despite all of this, somehow I am still intrigued! The combat is fun. I want to experiment with all the traps and bombs and potions and things. I have finally leveled up out of the "witcher training" skill tree. I feel that I am just now, after 10 or so hours, getting the hang of the game, understanding how it flows, figuring out its quirks.
I just hope that the game isn't over by the time I really sort it all out.
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Jun 16th, 2015 at 20:26:35 - Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories (PS2) |
Woohoo! I had to grind about 10 levels, but I beat it in the end. Luckily, I just found a good grinding spot in the first level of the Cave of Ordeals. You can move two +50%XP geopanels, so I was doing that and stacking the level 60 enemies, so killing level 120 enemies for double XP. Each kill was getting me 3-4 levels. I didn't attempt the second level of the Cave, but I'm pretty sure I could have handled it. I actually steamrolled the level I was stuck on yesterday before I grinded today. I think I was exasperated with the level gap yesterday and gave up after one try.
The final boss was tough. It's a giant level 90 with 20,000 HP and elemental resistance. He loses his elemental resistance once you get him to 10,000 HP. The map is basically four squares of a larger square connected by bridges. You have to spread your characters out and attack him from all sides, keeping healers, mages, and anyone weak far, far back. He uses massive AoE spells every turn and will easily get most of your characters if they are within like 5x7 of each other. Scary. Actually, when I beat him, it was really close! He managed to kill both my healers, so I had to be very careful and lure him to attacking characters who could withstand an AoE barrage or two. It took me two more turns after my healers were dead, and I managed well because he didn't kill anyone else! Though, one more turn and half my army would have dropped dead. Two more turns and I probably would have wiped.
The end of Disgaea 2 was fantastic, very sweet. There is a neat twist that makes sense if you remember the beginning of the game (or if you start a new game + and watch the intro again). Then it is revealed that Axel, the Dark Hero, staged the entire plot of Disgaea 2 for promotional material...Not sure if that's true or not. I think he made it up!
I do think the end happened too quickly though. There is just one relatively quick final boss battle and that's it. There's no wrapping up Fubuki's storyline, no scene about the village turning back to humans. I figured at least there would be a scene with Adell going back home and seeing his parents, but there is nothing! Just cut scene after the boss battle and some dialogue between Adell and Rozalin, then roll credits. Something like at the end of New Vegas would have been nice, saying what happened to all the main characters.
Anyway, I started a new game + to see what that was like, and you keep all your levels, equipment, everything pretty much...You can also unlock the "ultimate fighter", who has 110% to all stats (whoa). And you can petition the Senate to see the "real" ending, which I did. It's that one character from Disgaea 1, Mid-boss (forget his actual name), and he taunts you, you call him Mid-boss, he gets mad, you beat him, then he shows you the ending, which is just the credits with his face behind them and a different Japanese song playing. Silly.
Great game. I've got Disgaea 4 on my wishlist. I'll get that...at some point, when I need a strategy RPG fix.
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Jun 15th, 2015 at 23:19:55 - Gauntlet (PC) |
I wish I'd posted about Gauntlet months ago when I first played it so I could read exactly what I thought about it then. I bought it during the last (winter 2014) Steam sale for me and P to play co-op together. We played some, but my old computer couldn't run it very well and I thought the game sucked. P has been playing it a lot though. He's probably beat it with every character and he has lots of rare achievements. My new computer runs it perfectly, of course, and it turns out the game doesn't suck after all.
I chose the warrior, Thor, and once I got used to the controls and the flow of the game, more or less steamrolled my way to the final boss on normal. The final boss is kicking my ass though. The warrior is definitely not strong against ranged attacks, which you have to deal with aplenty on the final boss. I did read that his charge and leap attack make him invincible for a moment, so I need to try and charge into/leap attack when these gargoyles are shooting fireballs at me. That' the part where the battle tends to fall apart. I lose control, can't kill the gargoyles with everything else going on, get overwhelmed, and die. I also need to "clear the trash" before going after the mirror images.
To contextualize what I'm saying, the final boss flies around summoning various types of enemies. He starts with easier ones and works up to harder ones. Every so often, his sword gets away from him, and he splits into like 10 mirror images. You have to whack them all to find the real one. Once you damage him a bit, he gets the sword back and starts summoning again. But since he's been summoning, then there are a bunch of other enemies along with the mirror images. What I figured out is that he won't get his sword back until you do some % of damage to him, so you can slowly go about clearing the room first. I just haven't perfected it enough to win.
I did join some random co-op games tonight thinking I might sneak in a game that was at the end, but it never happened. I played in a few games for about half an hour, always as the Valkyrie because no one likes her for some reason. Anyway, I will try again later to kill the final boss. If I can't quite get it, I'll wait for P and he can help me out.
I doubt I'll play this much, not solo at least, after I down the final boss. It's a fun little game, but there's not a lot of depth to it. You don't get any new stats, there is no equipment to loot save about 10 "relics" you can purchase and upgrade. You can have two on at any given time. It's very much like the old Gauntlet, straight up hack and slash, no pesky stats to get in the way. But that doesn't hold my attention terribly long! There are four characters you can play, but I don't really see the point of going through with more than one since they begin and end the exact same, save their three or four different abilities and whatever relics you accumulated money for. I like playing different characters in these types of games, like Diablo, because you can build them differently and specialize them in various ways. These are like buying pre-packaged sandwiches. It comes with whatever's on it; you don't add anything else.
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