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Jun 27th, 2011 at 21:53:53 - Growlanser Generations (PS2) |
Might as well go on and write something about Growlanser since I'm in GameLog mode. Growlanser Generations is actually two games, Growlanser 2 & 3, in a 2-disc set. I never heard of Growlanser until like a year or two ago when I was poking around probably IGN.com. I think I was reading the review of Growlanser 5 for PS2, which got crappy reviews, but it pointed me to Generations, which sounded really cool, old school strategy RPGs. Found the game on eBay for cheap, bought and just popped it in the PS2 a week or two ago.
I really like the game, Growlanser 2 that is. It's very reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, with some differences. Similarities first though. The map is exactly the same kind of thing. You move from node to node and encounter story events and random battles at the nodes. The nodes are towns, ruins, border checkpoints, you know, places of interest. You can stop at each place. Cities for example, you can check out the armor shop, ring shop, sell stuff, etc. Other places are just sign posts or have the option to talk to party members. There is A LOT of talking to party members, and it's really awesome, because this game is heavy on interesting story and character background. The story apparently follows a year after Growlanser 1, which I read some background of to fill me in, because some of the characters and plot from that game is in this one, so it helps me understand what's going on. Just to say, it's a complicated political story with warring kingdoms, but basically, you're a knight leading your team of somewhat stereotypical anime cliches to unravel a sinister plot. I can't explain the whole thing here. The characters are generally likeable and interesting, with one exception, one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen in a game, Hans, who I hope dies.
The battle system is pretty cool, and it's got some challenge to it! I've spent a lot of time dying. It's not grid-based at all like most SRPGs. So far you deploy your whole party every time, and I get the feeling that you never have to sit characters. Each character has a timer, right, so when it hits 0, the character takes action. They move, attack, or charge magic, basically. The moving happens over time though, which is neat. And the commands are carried out repeatedly until you tell the character to do something else. So if I say 'move here' the character just keeps moving until s/he gets there. While s/he is moving, other characters' wait timers are running out and they're taking actions. It feels very fluid and not turn-based, but it still is turn-based. Kind of confusing to talk about, but it works. Magic is a whole different beast in this game. When you select to cast a spell, you first select the spell and its level. Higher levels take longer times to charge. While you're charging a spell, the character is vulnerable to heavier attacks, so it's risky actually to use them. Once the timer runs out, then you select the targets, and it casts. Character stats are standard. One strange thing is the huge difference between ranged and melee characters. Melee characters have to move to their targets, obviously, but like bow & arrow characters can pretty much attack across the entire screen. Same thing for casters. It makes them really preferable. The melee characters I run up to engage enemy melee characters and as meat shields while the ranged obliterate the enemy ranged, and then enemy melee. Ranged characters feel overpowered on both my side and the enemy side. Often in a random battle or a story battle, there will be some stupid caster/archer hiding behind a rock that I don't see and all of a sudden I'll see like "Fireball Level 8" and I'm like uuuuh. Bam bam bam! Dead. Killing enemy magic users especially is a priority. But it's hard because like all enemy bosses so far are healers, and they stand in the back and heal whoever I'm attacking until they run out of mana. It makes story battles somewhat of an endurance test, making me play really conservatively, saving my mana on healing characters because I know I'll need it all. In sum, two thumbs up for the battle system. It's tough, fun, and strategic.
Leveling up characters is fun too. Like most strategy RPGs, you get a boatload of experience for attacking or killing higher level characters, then normal and down to just a few xp for lower level characters. When a character levels up you allocate skill points right there, 2 at level 10 and below, 3 so far after level 10, maybe 4 after 20, dunno yet. But there are three categories of skills, and you have a decent amount of choice for guiding character growth, especially the main character, who by answering questions at the beginning, you outfit for one of a handful of basic archetypes (attack magic, defensive magic, melee, meat shield, dexterous). Anyway, of the 3 guiding attributes (strength, dexterity, intellect), the main character seems to always get 5, 5, 5, and the others get some combination of 4, 5, and 6 most of the time. Back to the categories, there are skills, magic, and techniques. Skills are passive abilities like higher crit chance, take less damage when charging spells, etc. I realized they are super useful and have been putting most characters' points into filling up useful skills. Magic is obviously commonsense for characters who come with spells or who have high intellect and mana. I made my main character to be an attack magic user, yet he's not the best at it. I get the feeling you are 'supposed' to make him a melee character, as the first characters you acquire are a defensive magic using archer, a short-ranged fast character, and an attack mage. Only later do you get a couple melee characters. I think because of that the beginning of the game may have been harder than some of the rest will be. So I was putting his points into the magic category, learning fire and ice and such, but have switched to putting them in skills for now. Techniques are like special attacks of various sorts that you have to select in battle, like thievery (steals an item on attack) or some kind of whirlwind attack that hits everyone around you. Skills, magic and techniques have levels, and once you put the initial points in, they automatically increase in levels based on your character level. It's cool. So once I learn 'fire,' I learn it once and it levels up as I do. Some things take more or less points to learn, depending on the character (i.e., magic-affinity characters use say 2 points to learn 'fire' whereas a technique character may take 4 points). Also, depending on the affinity of the character for whichever type of talent, more or less are available. So that annoying character Hans is a speedy technique character. He only has a few options listed under magic at the moment, whereas the mage character and my main character have a ton, and they're not all the same either. I have all these magic traps that she doesn't. She has some Holy spell that I don't. It's nice and makes the characters feel different, and also nice because characters aren't rooted to one role. Just because, for example, the magic character has badass spells, doesn't mean she can't hit hard with her staff. Just because my character focuses on melee and attack magic, doesn't mean I can't learn Heal and use it if I need to.
And one more thing that is cool is the ring system. You equip two things: armor and rings. Rings have attributes and slot levels. Attributes mean equipping it increases stats, based on the name of the ring. So like Lucky Lord Ardo would increase stats based on whatever the 'lucky', 'lord,' and 'ardo' names do. It's cool. Then each ring has three slots for gems, and the slot levels (and gems) range from levels 0-9. So my ring might be a 1-1-1, meaning I can equip 3 level 1 gems. Or it might be 4-2-0, meaning i can equip a level 4 gem, a level 2 gem and nothing in the last slot. Gems buff your character in a lot of different ways. They might increase attack or magic power, grant a skill, automatically revive you if you die once per battle, increase attack range, etc. etc. Tons of different effects. So these gems and rings are very customizable and further add to the level of control you have over tweaking your characters.
I think that's about it. Very fun game so far!
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Jun 27th, 2011 at 20:43:30 - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (PC) |
I just went back and read my few Cataclysm entries. I haven't logged into the game since soon after the last one, about 2.5 months ago. It's a weird feeling when I stop to think about it. P stopped playing about the same time and canceled his account a month ago. I haven't canceled mine because of said weird feeling, some mixture of obligation and desire to eventually log on and talk to a few people. I've talked to P about us quitting, and we've got a lot more talking to do about it. The other day he asked if I miss the game, and I said 'no, just the people.' Obviously the people don't exist for me outside the game, so I miss them in the game itself. Every now and then I think to myself 'I should log on and see what they're all up to, catch up, and chat about why P and I aren't online anymore.' It almost feels like I'm trying to get closure, to back out and wrap up my old relationship with the game. P doesn't feel the same way. He misses PvP and that's all. Raiding? Neither of us miss it. I enjoyed raiding. It was fun and challenging, but it took up a lot of time. I broke up with my long-time girlfriend back in February and have felt this great sense of freedom ever since. Not raiding has given me a similar feeling, a lifting of burdens and responsibilities, and the time and space to do other things. I've never in my life compared a video game to a girlfriend, but in a lot of ways WoW is like one, inasmuch as it's a social thing where people hold expectations of me.
Z, however, has not canceled her account and wants to keep playing. We played last 2+ months ago, leveling our hunters. The possibility of having fun with that and the whole nagging feeling to log on and talk to some people are why I haven't canceled my account. Given that I'm paying $15/mo and not playing, it's getting harder to justify keeping it open, so we either need to start playing some and/or I need to go keep those relationships alive, or else I'm being dumb.
So what's after WoW? What did I think would happen after I stopped being into it? I started playing the game Spring 2006, about 5 years ago. It's interesting to look back and trace my time with it so far. I really integrated it into my life. I mean, I went back to grad school because of it, if that says anything. It's totally accurate to say I wouldn't be where I am today if not for WoW, for a video game. Or more accurately, for the relationships I formed around it. I think that's really cool. Of course that's how things are for most people. X got you here or there, Y drove you to do this or that, but a lot of people look at you funny if X or Y is a game. I remember the above-mentioned ex-girlfriend told me one day, "You know, if we keep dating, you're going to stop playing WoW." I said, "Yeah, okay. You know I'll just play something else right?" P's wife said similar things. He canceled his subscription for a month or two like 7 or 8 months ago, right after Cataclysm, and then started messing with EVE, and his wife was like "What?! So you stop playing WoW and now you're playing something else?!" And he said what I told my ex, "Well yeah, I'm always going to play games."
Will we ever play anything else like we played WoW together for all those years? In my course playing it, I made a handful of friends online, played with P for at least 4 of those 5 years, played with RL friends who got me into it, played with that ex-girlfriend for probably 2 years, played with my brother for a year, have showed it to countless people, and gotten countless people to try it, some of whom liked it and kept playing, and have met countless other people in RL who play or have played. I mean, what other game is going to be like that? I've dabbled in a handful of MMOs in the last couple years, Everquest 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, etc. etc., just playing trials and F2P and reading about them. Nothing has been the same. P has been curious in EVE for at least a year and has jumped ship (ha) over there. We bought each other the game in Steam gift form for $5 a piece, which he wants to activate in the fall. He's also trying to get Z aboard, but like I said, she's not done with WoW yet. I always read on forums WoW and other MMO players asking what's the next big thing, speculating on what will come along and "kill" WoW, discussing what games to try, which MMOs are good and bad. It seems there is a lot about MMOs that people like, obviously, and that people want to hold onto across games.
In the past 6 months, I've predominantly played games other than WoW, which has not been the case for the last 5 years. Actually the last constantly heavy period ended sometime last summer. I took a long break before Cataclysm in November 2010, barely played it until late January 2011, had my last heavy period for a couple months, and haven't touched it since April. It's bizarre that the longest involvement I've had with any game in that time has been like a month for some of the longer games. I mean, just look at all these GameLogs I've made. There's been more since I started doing this than in the previous 4 years combined, of that I am positive. Like I remember, what, my first semester here, I think I played ONE game the whole semester besides WoW. One of the Shadow Hearts games. Then I remember I played Persona 3, which took me like 3 or 4 months, all winter. This month alone I've beaten 3. Last month 5. April 3. Etc. My list of games to play has actually shrunk. Amazing. And a couple weeks ago I even went browsing through the back catalogues of Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 games, and added everything from those systems to play. I even decided to buy one of those, probably an Xbox 360 first, when I move in a month. So, yeah, I in fact mostly replaced WoW time with other games, which is cool. I feel like I'm broadening my gaming horizons.
I didn't expect to sit here so long and reflect on WoW's impact on my life, but there it is. This is the kind of stuff P and I need to talk about. This is also the kind of stuff I want to talk with other people about regarding their interactions with games. I find it utterly fascinating listening to people reflect on games and gaming in their lives. Weeeee.
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Jun 14th, 2011 at 15:08:44 - Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) |
Burned through Super Mario Galaxy in just a few days. I had no intention of doing this, but since this is easily, easily one of the best games I've ever played, I didn't want to put it down. Why is SMG so awesome?
For starters, it is so awesome because I didn't expect it to be so awesome. I didn't have low expectations, but can I say I thought it would be 'just another Mario game?' As in, of course it'll be fun, collect all the stars, have some nice platforming, forget about it after I'm done. Maybe because I haven't played a Mario game all the way through since Super Mario 3, haha. Oh wait, and Paper Mario, on what was it, Gamecube? And of course MarioKart and Mario Party, but those don't count. Anyway, SMG blew my expectations out of the water. I had no idea a Mario game could do the things this one did, and it uses the Wii hardware oh so well.
It's so HAPPY. The colors are bright, the characters are all cute and whimsical, and it's all about collecting stars in order to power this house so that it can fly to the center of the galaxy so Mario can save Peach from Bowser. In the process, you and your Toads, Lumas, Mother, and Luigi discover a bunch of other galaxies that are SO CREATIVE. I cannot convey how amazing the level designs are.
In SMG, Mario can, with different costumes, shoot fireballs, become a bee and fly, become a ghost and go invisible, walk on water and ice skate. He also has a cool spinning attack/jump higher move, his signature ground pound, and a few various types of jump, including wall jumping a la Prince of Persia. With all these moves, Mario can get to every nook and cranny of the levels, where there is sure to be coins, star bits, 1-ups, secret stars, etc. Stuff is hidden everywhere. You will never find it all. And every time you die, it's all back again. The major pick-ups in the game are coins, which restore life and are your 'score,' a totally pointless thing except for showing off and competing with friends, and star bits, which you feed Hungry Lumas.
You pick up star bits with the Wiimote. There's a Luma (your cursor) that you fling around the screen to pick them up. It works so well and I feel really coordinated after playing the game. I didn't know which hand to use for which controller at first and it felt awkward, but I settled on right hand Wiimote, left hand joystick, and got the hang of it with some practice. So I'd be running with my left hand in one direction, and moving the Wiimote all around the screen in other directions picking up star bits. And always shaking the Wiimote to spin. It's cool how players have to learn to coordinate their hands. Mouse and keyboard this is not.
Enemies are fun and varied. Boss battles are also extremely fun, easy to figure out, and varied. I was worried that the game would be too easy, but it's not! You can make it easy by only doing what you have to, or there is the option that you put on yourself to try to collect that hard-to-reach coin or figure out the puzzle in this secret area to get a star, or whatever.
In addition to the main story, which you can complete once you've collected 60 stars (at this point, I still had almost 2 whole universes left to play through!), there are numerous other challenges to extend play. There are 120 stars total (I think), and I aim to collect all I can because the game is just that good that I want to keep playing it. Different types of comets will enter the atmospheres of galaxies, and these types change the galaxies in certain ways. One type is a Cosmic Comet where you have to race a clone Mario through a level and beat him to the star. Another is a Fast-Foe Comet where all the enemies and moving terrain is sped up. Another makes you beat a speed run. Another (which makes the bosses super intense) is called a Daredevil Comet and you have to fight the last boss of the galaxy with 1 HP. Can't take any damage! And after beating the game, there is a purple comet where you have to collect 100 purple coins to get a star. I've only done two of them so far. The first was real easy and the second was nice and challenging, took probably 20 minutes to get it. These comets all add a ton of challenging replay value to these great levels. Totally glad to play through all these variations of the same levels (regular version, comet version, looking specifically for a hidden star, etc.) There's also something called the Trial Galaxies that I need one more hidden star to unlock, but that sounds intriguing too.
To switch topics to the story and characters again, why does Bowser kidnap Peach? He doesn't need her for anything. He's not interested in her romantically. He just always has to kidnap Peach, be Mario's arch-nemesis. But why does Mario even care? He's not a prince. Where is the prince anyway? If Peach is a princess, who is the prince? She and Mario aren't romantically involved either. And how does Bowser go about creating universes and controlling dark matter? Does he have a Ph.D in applied astro-physics? Bowser used to just hide Peach away in castles. Now he's playing god. What'll he do next time? And is this game a commentary on evolution? It definitely espouses evolutionary galaxy formation. Does Mama represent a creator? Were the writers influenced by Carl Sagan's books? So many questions, so little answers!
And that's Super Mario Galaxy. Incredible game really. Will continue getting the rest of the stars and enjoy doing it.
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Jun 13th, 2011 at 06:36:46 - Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (PS2) |
Same as Max Payne, I feel I should write a blurb since I spent an hour with this as well. I've no doubt this game will be awesome with a second player, so I shall set about finding a willing partner. Single-player though, it's obviously got potential, but the teammate AI is useless, and they NEED to be useful. At one point I had Skywalker and Obi Wan. I had to reassemble a bridge (hold a button on sparkly lego parts in the environment and characters can build) while fending off attacks from some creatures, forget the name, on Tatooine. Well, I can only do one thing myself, either shoot creatures to defend the builder, or do the building. Unfortunately my teammate wouldn't build, and sucked at shooting enemies. If I shoot enemies, nothing gets built, and if I try to build, I get shot and interrupted because my AI teammate sucks. So it took me 10 minutes to build this stupid bridge. With another person it would have been so much smoother. "Hey, I'll build, you shoot."
There's a lot to destroy, which is fun. If it looks like you can shoot it, shoot it, and it explodes into shiny lego bits! You collect them for something, probably building a ship or characters or upgrading later on. Playing through the original Star Wars films (or just the first part of IV so far) is pretty cool, especially Lego-ized. The little lego characters are so cute. Darth Vader is still menacing though.
So, I think I should have a Star Wars movie extravaganza and invite a bunch of people over for an original trilogy marathon, then play the game with someone later. Good excuse to watch movies. Could be fun.
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