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Feb 18th, 2014 at 11:14:23 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2) |
Didn't expect to beat it so fast, but uh, I played the hell out of this in the past week, including an unexpected marathon on Sunday. Sooo yeah. Turns out I got one of the BAD endings. I won't spoil plot points, but I punished the wrong person for the murders and ended the game early. I watched another ~3 hours of dialogue scenes on Youtube to see the real ending. That's some serious extra play time I cut out by my decision! 3 hours of dialogue PLUS an extra dungeon and more random side quests and social links...Probably ended 10 hours early, haha. And there's even ANOTHER ending that you can get after that.
I don't really know how I got the bad ending. I kind of think the bad ones are the default ones. To get the real ending, you had to make these specific dialogue choices, which I obviously did not make. I chose "wrong." Although I made the dialogue decisions on purpose according to what I really thought, I can't help but feel a little...cheated? Like, how was I supposed to know? Maybe it would be better if my ending wasn't called the BAD ending. Why is it bad? It's an ending. Anyway, if you get one of the bad endings, do go on Youtube and watch the real ending. It was pretty awesome and had some scathing social commentary on modern life, consumption, ideas and images, religion, TV and other entertainment media...very pomo.
A couple things I decided I didn't like toward the end that I have to mention are a lot of the side quests. 90% of them are fetch quests. They feel mostly like busy work. You can also go back through all the dungeons a second time to fight special bosses (who aren't very difficult) and get a special weapon for each. This sort of makes it more worth it to do some of the side quests in the dungeons, but all of it felt like busy work, yet I was compelled to do it to some extent. In such a long game, I guess I sort of resent that I spent however much longer doing busy work side quests that are ridiculously simple and force you to rely largely on chance for specific enemy spawns and item drops.
One thing that made revisiting old dungeons way more monotonous was the Arcana Chance stuff. So when going back to old dungeons, they are super easy, so you go through lots of quick battles. You don't want any of the arcana cards that drop because they are way low level, but the game still keeps doing the arcana cards, which last like as long as these short battles. Then when I choose the "no card" card, because I don't want a card, it so often would give me "Another Chance!" or do the "Arcana Chance!" thing, which made me shuffle cards AGAIN. Massive waste of time in those low level dungeons. And even in the high level ones, I quit wanting to take arcana chances. I wish I could have just turned that off.
Anyway, this game was pretty incredible. I loved Persona 3 and 4 is even better. I'm sure I've enunciated most of the reasons in other entries. I just think how different from the norm the Persona games are and it makes me hopeful that developers are being so creative. I mean this game is a mix between a JRPG and a social sim game. Weird, right? It just does such a great job of making you care about characters, of crafting excellent and detailed stories.
So. Persona 5?
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Feb 12th, 2014 at 08:11:37 - Path of Exile (PC) |
Path of Exile, sweet! This is basically what Diablo 2 would look like in 2014. It wouldn't look like Diablo 3. It would look like Path of Exile. PoE is a free-to-play game on Steam supported by "ethical micro-transactions," which means you can pay for cosmetic enhancements only -- nothing that actually affects your character's performance. Therefore no player is coerced or manipulated into purchasing crap like experience boosts or super weapons or faster movement speed or whatever. This makes me very happy on principle. I have also played enough "free-to-play" MMOs that I have some in-depth first-hand experience with these nefarious micro-transactions. I remember dropping like $10 in Lord of the Rings Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic so all my characters could run faster. Not that I don't want to pay to play. I'm happy to buy the game, although I tend to only buy games around $15 or less, but when developers say the game is free-to-play, it seems to me it should be free to play on equal footing with everyone else and there shouldn't be any pay-to-win elements. No one should feel disadvantaged for not coughing up as much money as the next player.
Aaaanyway, why else am I enjoying PoE so much? Choices, choices, choices! They've done some very cool things with the genre. There are no skill trees. Instead, there is a MASSIVE passive skill grid, sort of like what the Final Fantasy games (single-player ones at least) have been doing. Except MASSIVE. I mean like 1500 nodes in the grid to put points into. And every character can move throughout the whole grid. This allows for an insane variety of character builds. INSANE. Seriously. Go look at this thing: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMA
My character is a Witch class. Different classes begin at different locations in the skill grid. So I guess obviously the witch begins with high intelligence and low strength and dexterity, and she's in an area that has all intelligence boosts, boosts to max mana, spell damage, each type of elemental damage, wand damage, mana shield, and other witchy things. But like, if I want to, I can go over and pick up some strength, begin using massive scepter weapons (that I assume are more for a paladin/priest type class) that usually have a bunch of + elemental damage on them, and hybridize my character. I mean, I can go literally wherever I want in that skill tree. I'm purposefully not trying to map out a character beforehand. I'm not scouring the skill tree. I'm just trying to go organically to what I see and what I want. I started off thinking I would be like a fire-heavy witch, but I've since decided that summoning zombies and skeletons is pretty badass so I'm adding skill points to those nodes that increase minion health/life/number. I'm also still getting some fire and AoE skills because it is a lot of fun and mayhem slinging AoE fireballs and exploding corpses while my zombies and skeletons run wild through hordes of enemies.
PoE does more interesting things. There is NO money. Currency is any of the various scrolls and orbs, and fragments of those, that you find. You also get these items from selling equipment in your inventory. There are the typical scrolls of wisdom (identify an item) and town portal, but also items that let you add sockets to items, modify socket colors, upgrade items from normal to rare, forge links between sockets and on and on. The sockets are cool too. There are three colors, and you insert skill gems into them. These don't just add +strength or whatever like normal, but they actually ARE your skills and abilities. So to raise zombies, I have a raise zombie gem slotted into the appropriate color slot in a piece of armor. There are also support gems that modify abilities. You have to put these in a linked slot to the skill you want to modify. So some slots are just there next to each other and other slots are linked together. So I have +45% attack linked to my summon zombies gem and in another piece of armor I have +health linked to my summon skeletons gem. You get gems from drops and from completing quests. The gems level up as you kill enemies while the gem is equipped.
Items have random properties, and the slots are also random. This means that while you might find a totally badass new weapon, it doesn't have but one gem slot. Or it might have more slots, but maybe a red, blue and green one instead of 2 linked blues. All these slots/gems/scrolls, as with the massive skill grid, force you to make difficult choices all the time, and most importantly, force you to think and strategize. You cannot have all the gems you want. There are 7 ability hotkeys, so you can't have more active abilities than that equipped (or, you can have them equipped, but only use 7 at a time). You cannot link all the gems you want. You have to choose among them, be smart in using the available slots to link and level gems you want or need.
My experience so far has been pretty good. The game's atmosphere is dark and dreary, the story is pretty interesting and there is a real element of discovery and exploration. They really make you feel like you're this exile washed up in a desolate place who has to contend with all this madness in order to...to what? Get home? Seek revenge? I dunno exactly. Importantly, the game runs fine on my 5-year-old laptop, so that's been amazing. I guess consequently, it's not that pretty to look at. The art isn't particularly exciting, the environments are actually pretty drab looking and dull. But you know, if it's going to be Diablo 2 reborn, the important thing is that it plays like it, not looks like a modern AAA blockbuster. One thing that totally needs fixing though is the map. It is horrendous to look at. Also, I assume the level layouts are randomly generated. Since I've never played before, I don't know what's up and what's down. I've gotten lost and turned around and not been able to find exits a handful of times, which has been somewhat frustrating. Playing as a witch who summons things so far, I find fighting hordes of enemies is the best and most fun. I have gotten a bit stuck one time on a boss because I was out of corpses to raise into zombies and my skeletons are weak. Without my undead horde, my witch alone is pretty hopeless!
Anyway, there's a ton left to see and do in the game. I'm like 10 hours into the campaign on normal. There are all these other game modes and challenges, and PvP and co-op and like 5 other character classes....if I really like PoE by the end of the story, I will likely be all about trying another character or trying to get some friends to play with me. More later!
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Feb 12th, 2014 at 07:34:43 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2) |
I was reading a book the other day, called, in fact, How to Read a Book, and in it the authors suggest tips for reading various types of books. For fiction, they suggest reading in long chunks of time so that you can get sufficiently absorbed in the book. I wholeheartedly believe this is the best way to play (story-rich) video games as well. You develop such a more coherent sense of what is happening if you play longer gaming sessions than if you play in fits and starts. I mean, for about 3 weeks, I put like 10 hours into Persona 4. I remembered basically what was going on each time, but each time the details were fuzzy. I would forget which personas I had equipped, forget the dates that I could work on social links with particular NPCs, forget the enemies I was fighting and their respective weaknesses (which is VERY important to success!). Playing for an hour here and there over a few weeks just made each hour like a refresher to get back to where I was in my mind. It's sort of like working for me. It takes me a while to get into it, and once I'm into it, I want to stay there for a long time.
Anyway, this weekend, my girlfriend was out of town and I decided to spend my time in Persona 4. I played as much of the game this weekend as I had played for over a month. How do I feel about that? I like the game way more because my experience feels more coherent. For the first time in nearly a month, I haven't forgotten important details. I am able to catch my girlfriend up on the whole story and tell her who characters are and what the side stories are. I am able to remember enemy weaknesses, who has what personas, which social links and personal traits I need to work on. Playing long sessions allows me to PLAY instead of just CATCH UP.
So what's been going on in the game? The team has grown and prevented more murders, going into the TV world, locating people and defeating their shadow selves, forcing them to accept their shadows as a part of themselves. I don't feel the team is that much closer to solving the mystery and catching the killer because each kidnapping throws off old theories. So, the first theory, that it was local women, was debunked. The second theory, that the victims were all related somehow to the first murder, was debunked. The team's third theory that everyone kidnapped first gained some notoriety from appearing on TV, being interviewed or whatever, has been proven false now. Then my personal theory that it was all people who had to do with the local businesses in town doesn't seem to hold water anymore. So what's the connection between the victims? What's the motive? Who could be doing this? Luckily they might be moving toward some answers soon. A detective they have been sort of communicating with has gotten himself kidnapped on purpose. Something interesting will come of this!
What else have I been doing in the game? Leveling up like crazy. I've had some kickass personas with some kickass skills. I'm getting into the strong damage skills now around level 44. I've maxed out 3 social links and successfully completed a significant other one. In Persona 3 I screwed up the dating element because I moved too quickly with too many girls, and they all got jealous and mad at me. This time though, I picked one and just quit talking to the rest for a while. Now that the social link for Yukiko is maxed out and we're dating, I don't think she can move backwards and get pissed off at me for talking to other girls. We'll see. Should be funny if it happens though. I think I have two more social links left to find. I'm missing Tower and Fortune at least. I keep thinking one will be the detective, Adachi, and the other will be the secretary from the beginning of the game, the guy who cheated with the news reporter and got her murdered and kicked off the whole story. I see both of them around town sometimes but they always just give me snippets of dialogue with no follow-up.
One reason I like this series so much are for the little narratives and the character development. I still remember a handful of the social link narratives from Persona 3, and that was like 5 years ago. There are a bunch of interesting ones here too. The one that is intriguing me the most right now is with this old woman who you meet if you take the part-time job at the hospital. She's mourning the death of her husband but feels guilty. Why? I don't know yet. But I want to know what happened. She told me all about their meeting and dating and marriage, and said I look like him, but she blames herself...hmm.
Another standout is the Nanako / Dojima intertwined narrative. Nanako is your cousin and Dojima is your uncle, her father. You currently live with them. Dojima is a detective working on the murder cases. He is really busy with work and really not a great father, doesn't spend hardly any time with or thinking about Nanako. Nanako, consequently, is a lonely little girl. She's sweet and sad and loves for you to hang out with her, really looks up to you, always calling you "big bro." Her half of the story is about being torn up over why her dad spends all his time away from her. Is he her "real" father if he doesn't spend time with her? Does he even like her? Dojima's half of the story is about being torn between work and Nanako. He always chooses work, but has recently, through your insistence and advocating for Nanako, begun to spend more time with Nanako. His wife/Nanako's mom died in a hit-and-run car accident, so their story is also about coming to terms with their new family arrangement after she has died. It's just really believable, emotional and touching, as a lot of these stories are.
Anyway, that's all for now. I'm going to start the detective's TV world area next. More later!
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Feb 7th, 2014 at 11:29:03 - Defense Grid: The Awakening (PC) |
Woohoo, completed all DLC. I was a little bummed that none of it was as difficult as those final levels of the main campaign, like the very last level where I had to create a map of it in Excel to figure out how to beat it. But, the DLC is all quality maps. The least impressive were the basic map packs.
The Portal 2 themed You Monster DLC was my absolute favorite. They got the woman who voices GlaDOS to come, and the story is that you find yourself in this "Human Annihilation Testing Center" or something. GlaDOS runs tests on you to make sure you are fit to save the world in the event of an alien invasion, but of course she is insane and just wants to keep you there testing forever. She subdues Fletcher (the Defense Grid AI) so that she can test you. You have to solve here increasingly ridiculous levels until Fletcher can get back online, override her and yall defeat her. I also enjoyed You Monster the most because it changes up the tower defense formula. Like in Portal, GlaDOS changes the rules that you're used to. One level, you can only place Command towers and she places all the rest. One level, she periodically takes away certain types of towers. Another level, she sends massive waves of enemies across an open floor for you to mow down. Very cool and creative levels!
My other favorite was the Containment DLC, which was I think the only one alongside You Monster to have a new storyline. In it, you follow the aliens through the portal they used to come to Earth and go to their homeworld. A couple of their homeworld levels looked pretty neat. But, you begin with only basic towers, and then with the help of an AI you find there, you repel the aliens off that world. There's a story spoiler in there that I won't ruin, but it's pretty cool. There were a couple instances of really new types of puzzles. Although it wasn't as creative as You Monster, none of the others besides You Monster and Containment did anything new, so I appreciated any new stuff.
The biggest letdown was the community levels, which really weren't that interesting or difficult. I thought they would have pieced together some really cool or hardcore maps made by people, but they were actually really accessible. Anyway, the "it never got as hard as the end of the main campaign" isn't a complaint at all, just an observation. Each level in the entire game has like 3-6 challenge modes, so if you want it to be harder, you can turn it up to 11 by setting limited resources, 100 waves of enemies, reverse levels and more. Tons of replay value.
I'm keeping it installed in case I get a tower defense itch since I have...yeah...hundreds of challenge levels. I'm considering the game beat though and totally pleased with myself about that! Excellent tower defense!
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