Nowi and Norne are no more as Fire Emblem: Awakening marches on

In actuality, Fire Emblem: Awakening‘s Chapter 23 “Invisible Ties” could have ended with several other deaths, but only Nowi and Norne fell down, never to get back up. That now brings the total to…21 dead characters in this permadeath playthrough. I am unstoppable.

One of those two that kicked the bucket is a main story character, who I recently married to Kellam and saw have a half-mime, half-dragon child with, and the other came from the Bonus Box, which means she is, alas, nonessential. But she was pretty special to me, seeing that I had leveled Norne up to 20, then reclassed her to a Sniper, and had her hit the level cap for a second time. She was wicked killer with all kinds of bows and had excellent range, so seeing her struck swiftly down was not easy to endure. Nowi, as a Manakete, which is the Fire Emblem way of saying dragon, was not very active in battle, having only the ability to breath a fireball now and then via Dragonstones. I used her enough to form a relationship with Kellam and bring forth her future kid, but that was about it. She “retired” at the ripe age of over 1,000 years old.

::pours one out for the bow and the beast::

However, as I’ve come to experience in Fire Emblem: Awakening, everything balances out. So while I lost two members of the Shepherds, I also gained two new ones. Alas, for extremely story-related reasons, I can’t say who I got, and hopefully I can keep them alive long enough to not have to spoil y’all over their reveal. I like them flavor-wise, but neither seem to be anything great in terms of weapons and skills, and seeing how late they are joining my team, I won’t have many more chances to grind them up in levels and relationships. I wonder if I can get a future child from them though…

Anyways, based on what happens in Chapter 23 and how it relates to the opening level of the game, I kind of thought it was the final battle, but it looks like there are a few more to go. Despite all my losses, I think I can do it. The Shepherds will  be victorious. I know, famous last words.

How do you pronounce Serge in Chrono Cross?

Yesterday, I finally got around to kickstarting my goal of finishing these five videogames some time this year, starting off with Chrono Cross. It’s an RPG I’ve played countless times before, but always only up to a specific point; generally, it is around the time you switch, for story-related reasons, from controlling Serge to controlling Lynx. Tara recently replayed, too–well, back in October 2011–but she ended up getting stuck somewhere. I don’t remember where. Maybe she can elaborate in the comments below. I dunno…I just lose interest after awhile, and then something new and shiny takes hold of me, and I never return, which is a shame as it is one of my favorite gaming adventures thanks to its stellar soundtrack and versatile combat system. I blame myself more than the Frozen Flame.

I’ve got just about four hours under my re-playing belt at this point, but I’ll save my musings and love and admiration stuff for a separate post. For now, let’s talk about something that Tara and I can’t agree on: how to pronounce Serge’s name. To me, I say it like “surge of water,” and given what happens to him in the alternate realm…well, that fits. Tara, however, pronounces it like “ser gey,” with a flair to the whole thing. I’m not so sure how I like that. Since this is the PlayStation 1 and voice acting was extremely limited back in the day, we don’t ever hear anyone say his name out loud, especially since the player can also change it to Pauly or Potasio or whatever they feel like calling our blue-haired silent protagonist. And so I turn to you, dear Grinding Down readers, to voice your opinions.

All right, hopefully there’s a poll below for you to click on. I don’t make many of these so I’m not too confident on how to embed ’em. If it’s there, say your peace:

Doritos Crash Course 2, now with free-to-play gimmicks

Over the years, I’ve stepped away from Doritos. It all really started when I got seriously ill the day Obama was first sworn into office–not because, just using that day in history to place you in the moment–and ended up vomiting a lot back in my teeny, tiny studio apartment before passing out for hours in bed while FX continuously played Troy for like six to eight hours. It was a nightmare. And I had eaten some Doritos Cool Ranch chips earlier for lunch that day, and well…they weren’t any better coming up. Ever since then, I’ve fully stayed away from all things Cool Ranch–called Cool American in Sweden, something I learned recently from Giant Bomb–but have, on occasion, enjoyed a Nacho Cheese chip now and then.

But I’m not here to just talk about chips. Doritos does other stuff, too. Like videogames. Well, they support folks making games and use their name to brand it. If you’ll recall with me, back in late 2010, a game called Doritos Crash Course was released for free on the Xbox 360. It was surprising, for sure, an energetic mix of timed platforming and region-related spectacle, but fun all around. As well as free. It’s now been a couple years, and we’re getting the sequel for free too, though it has changed quite dramatically, even if it looks and–for the most part–tastes the same.

Instead of having levels based around specific regions like the United States or Japan, they are now built thematically. The first one is a jungle, maybe Mayan-based. And the second one appears to be snowy. Don’t know what the other two look like. Originally, your goal was simply to get to the end of the course in the best time, avoiding pitfalls along the way; now, as you run left to right, you can collect Stars, tackle secondary objectives, and use alternate paths to get to the end faster and much more successfully. Stars are used to purchase things outside of the level–these can be Avatar accessories, which do come with a stat and flavor text, or additional levels, side paths, and jinxes. And then this is where Doritos Crash Course 2 shows its free-to-play side, with you being able to buy additional Stars with real money. Well, real money that you turn into Microsoft Points. But still: microtransactions.

Just like in Happy Wars, I can easily ignore all the FTP gimmicks until it gets in my way of actually playing the game. So far, that hasn’t happened, though it looks like I’ve have to return to previously completed courses to find hidden stars if I want enough to unlock more levels. No big deal. I just don’t want to have to pay for power-ups or extra Stars in hope of progressing forward. The game suffers from tiny text syndrome, which makes reading some of the level requirements and secondary objectives dang difficult, but when in full screen, the game is pretty and runs smoothly. You can now run up walls, too, which I don’t remember being in the original, and it can be tricky, though Tara found a way to squirrel hop from wall to wall which is pretty effective. Hey, we also played some local multiplayer, too, which zooms out extremely far, but we were still able to run and climb with the best of ’em.

Looking forward to checking out more. Oh, and it is still a ton of fun to slide down a slope, jump to a trampoline, and fly over some deadly obstacle to finish in first place. Mostly because my Avatar whips out an electric guitar and jams.

Had to kill off Cordelia in Fire Emblem: Awakening to make room for future kids

All right, another one down and out–by that I mean “retired” this time, not dead dead–in Fire Emblem: Awakening. No surprise, really: it’s Cordelia, a member of Ylisse’s Pegasus Knight Squad. And that means a single thrown stone can take her out, and since the enemy AI loves to attack the most vulnerable character at any given chance, even if it makes no sense strategy-wise, she fell fast after I accidentally moved her too close to a horseback archer’s range. A shame, really, as things were turning around for the Shepherds. Well, in my eyes, at least; everyone totally understands that, at this point, I’ve now killed 20 of my loyal friends, which irrefutably means I’m a terrible tactician. But we were growing closer, like a family.

Speaking of that, I got myself married. Woo! Well, for a second time. Don’t tell Tara. Her name is Say’ri, an old-fashioned princess if there ever was one, and we’re pretty pleased as punch to become one. From that, we were able to create our future kid Morgan. Kellam and Nowi also hooked up, producing a future dragon baby with the best name ever: Nah. Unfortunately, I flubbed up; long before these two marriages came and happened, with me learning how the future kid paralogues worked, I had Stahl and Panne unite in true love. However, during their kid’s paralogue battle, I accidentally picked the wrong side, and the only other rabbit beast thing left the realm for good, slain by what could have been her new companions and parents. My bad. I didn’t know…though I totally should have known.

So, lost one, but gained two. I also managed to complete both Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 with everyone safe and sound. Alas, at this point, I can’t really make many more kids because most of the story-related characters needed for pairing up with those that still remain and are kidless…are dead. See, I knew there would be drastic consequences to this whole permadeath thing. Poor Frederick must now cut off his genitals and become a eunuch.

2013 Game Review Haiku, #18 – inFAMOUS 2

Cole: ice or fire
Stop the Beast, cure the sick, save
New Marais, shocking

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Collected all those scattered Blast Shards in inFAMOUS 2

I’m nearing the end of inFAMOUS 2–sorry, quick aside, but I previously wrote the game’s name as inFamous 2, and the copyeditor in me will not rest until I owned up to the error and corrected it going forward even if it is a weird way to write something–and I don’t expect to ever play it again despite their being two paths to go down. One is good and saintly with ice powers in tow, and the other is evil and dark, circled by fire. If you know me, you know which way I’m playing; for those that are new, I’m always a good Samaritan first. It’s not that I don’t enjoy playing evil from time to time, but I get the sense that the game doesn’t change a whole lot by doing a few missions morally different.

With the last mission, I assume it’s the last since it is called “The Final Decision,” in sight, I’m trying to wrap up a number of side stuff before I close the book on Cole’s second chapter. My main objectives are finding all the Dead Drops, liberating the second island fully, and collecting all the Blast Shards. Maaaaaybe play a few more user-generated levels. Out of those three dreams, I’ve now found all hidden Blast Shards, and as a collectible, they are both a lot of fun to collect, as well as extremely rewarding in that a set number of them increase the amount of electricity power Cole can use. They remind me a bit of Precursor Orbs from the Jak and Daxter franchise, and nothing of those dumb flags from Assassin’s Creed. There is certainly an art to collectibles, something I’d like to explore down the line.

Basically, any time you ping the New Marais map for sources of electricity, Blast Shards appear for a second or two as a blue dot. Then you gotta find them, and they are relatively easy to see as they are glowing crystals, but most of them are tucked up high on rooftops or ledges, meaning you have to do some climbing. In total, there’s 305 of them, and you’ll come across them every step of the way early on in the game. It’s only after you’ve found about three-fourths of them that you have to begin paying attention and hunting them down, which is not as tiresome as one might think, thanks to Cole’s superhero powers of zipping up buildings and gliding across telephone wires. I found my 305th one out in the water last night, and upon collecting it, Cole accidentally took a dip, dying from the splash. Regardless, I got the Trophy, and I do believe it’s my first Gold one, unless I got one in Vanquish.

Tonight’s goal is to find three (or maybe it’s four?) more flying birds for the rest of the Dead Drops. I think I have run out of side missions though, meaning I can’t free the second island from enemy oppression. Might be wrong, might have to check online to see if there’s anything else I can do. After that, it’s off for Cole to fight the Beast, use the RFI, and watch another classic ol’ Western with his best bud Zeke. Mostly because then I can download Sleeping Dogs (free this month for PlayStation Plus users!) and have some more zany open-world fun, though probably with a lot less zapping and sticky ice grenades. Can’t say that for sure though.

Two more deaths and a confession for Fire Emblem: Awakening

I have a confession to make: I reloaded a previous save in Fire Emblem: Awakening last night after losing too many–in my opinion–key characters during Chapter 19 “The Conquerer,” which felt like a slaughtering in all definitions of the word. And by key, here is who died during that one battle: Kellam, Nowi, and Norne. Two main storyline characters and one downloadable archer from the Bonus Box section, but I was mostly annoyed with losing Kellam, as at this point in the game I’ve reclassed him to be a Great Knight, making him an efficient killing machine. So yeah, I felt a conflicting twist in my chest the entire time, watched the cutscene after the battle, and decided restart my 3DS before I got too far in and accidentally saved away my digital friends.

The irony is that after reloading my previous save, I lost two other characters afterwards while grinding in better preparation for a second stab at Chapter 19. I figured that this was the game’s way of punishing me for going against my promise of permadeath all the way through. I’m not the only one feeling that hurt; see ya, Olivia and Mycen–it’s been real.

Right. I was using Reeking Boxes in some of the later parts of the map–depending where you use the item, the stronger the enemies will be, which of course means more XP to be gained–and this map was inside a castle, which meant tight halls and limited movement. Unfortunately, I moved Olivia too close to Serra, my healer, who was too close to an enemy unit. Once it was the enemy’s turn, they immediately made a bee-line for Olivia, striking her down in two axe swings. A shame she couldn’t sexy dance herself out of that fight. As for Mycen, a magic user toasted his Fire Emblem Gaiden butt, and I had only recently downloaded, fought, and recruited him to the Shepherds a chapter ago.

So now I’m down two more characters, which means I’m not fighting with a full company of characters in Chapter 19. And I need as many peeps as possible to survive that ordeal, considering how many enemy units there are and how often the reinforcements get called in. I was able to get Stahl to propose to Panne, and they got married. I’m not sure how to go about getting them to breed and make kids yet, and I’d love to have their child in the fight. I’m also trying to pair up myself (the Avatar) with Say’ri in hopes of stronger stats and a child. But it looks like if I’m to get past Chapter 19 any time soon, with all my friends save and sound, I will need to dip back into the Bonus Box for some extra characters. Any suggestions on who to recruit would be appreciated, and for all intents and purposes, I won’t be bringing back dead downloaded characters again, even though you totally can.

Onwards, I struggle. I mean…march.

The gods will be watching to see if you can survive 40 days

Well, another Ludum Dare has come to pass, and the latest theme to build upon was “minimalism.” That is up for total interpretation, of course, and one game called Gods Will Be Watching focuses more on the gameplay aspect of it than anything else. By that, I mean you are limited in what you can actually do. First, the setup, which sounds something a bit like Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” but is not it completely. Either way, I dig.

The cyberfuture is now, and your research group–consisting of a dog, soldier, doctor, psychiatrist, engineer, and robot–has been ambushed and stranded on the paralytic landscape of Medusa, home to a devastating virus capable of surfacing one’s own madness. A broken radio is your only way of getting in touch with civilization, but it will take time to repair the thing. Days, actually. The main goal is then to repair the radio in 40 days, or sooner if you can. However, the biggest roadblock is that you can only take so many actions per day, and Sergeant Burden’s group is slowing starving and losing their minds. Hard decisions incoming, for sure.

I’ve played Gods Will Be Watching twice now. My first outing saw me succumb to the elements on the very first day, as I did not realize how vital a burning fire was to the group’s survival, though in retrospect it makes obvious. I was too curious with learning who the group members were that I spent my five actions simply talking to them. Everyone froze and died overnight. Okay, lesson learned. My second attempt saw me lasting eight days in total, losing the engineer on day six, but continuing on without him for two more days until…well, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I did wrong. I had plenty of food, some medicine left, and the fire still going. And that’s probably my biggest worry over this, that a lot seems determined by randomness. That might not actually be the case, but the game doesn’t present you with any indication you are doing things correctly or mucking it all up. You just live, talk, repair, gather food, struggle onwards. Sometimes if you do that in a different order or miss one element…you die. Hmm. Blame those fickle gods that are watching, I guess.

Graphically, it is what you see above: a single screen, with a line of characters around a lake that occasionally change postures, but otherwise remain stationary, depending on if they are still alive or not. If the fire gets too low, they begin to shiver. If the madness starts creeping in, they will show signs. For pixel art, the characters do come across as realized and unique, and strangely people you care about and want to see stick it out for 40 days. It’s more defined than Sword & Sworcery, but less captivating. I really appreciated the purple sky reflecting its color onto the frozen lake.

I did find some problems with the writing, mainly from a basic grammar perspective (several misspellings throughout, such as “wich” instead of “which” or “its” when they meant “it’s”). The dialogue between Sergeant Burden and his group changes based on the day and scenario, and it’s written in a way that leaves you guessing about where you should be spending your limited action points. The soldier mentions he loves his dog, the engineer says he himself should die before the psychiatrist, and so on. You even have the option from the very beginning to go on a slaughter spree and kill certain group members. It makes every action you take seem absolutely vital, and they might very well be. Or not. Again, there’s that behind-the-curtains randomness that can feel unfair at times.

I don’t believe I have the endurance to last 40 days, but you can give it a shot. Let me know if you and the entire group made it off Medusa safely and soundly, and don’t forget to tend to that fire.

inFamous 2 is decent fun, but no shock to the system

So far, inFamous 2 really makes me want to go back to free Nazi-controlled terrain in The Saboteur or stop kicking dirt around and finally pick up Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, y’know, the game I more or less got a PS3 for. Well, that and Ni no Kuni. That’s not to say that inFamous 2 is not worth playing, as it totally is…it’s just that the best elements within itself are the ones I’ve already cherished and loved in other videogames. But before I get to all that, I have a wee announcement.

I got a new TV. Now, now, hold on. I have to assume that, for many of you, the TV I got will be No Big Thang™, but you have to realize that all my teenage-into-adult life I’ve learned to live with or live without, and so I’ve been using a large, clunky television from 2005 that does not have all the fancy features one can get with stuff being made some eight years later. And because of this, many videogames I play on it suffer from tiny text syndrome, and unfortunately, that’s going to continue to happen. See, I didn’t get a replacement TV for the living room; instead, I got a wee 19 inch flatscreen for my art studio, which is set up next to where I draw and use my laptop. So now I can watch Netflix while I forever tone bad comics. However, since Tara and I don’t have cable, I needed to move the PS3 over to my new wee TV for all that hot action, which has a bonus effect in that I’m using it a lot more now. I mean, now it just sits there, looking at me, demanding I turn it on and play. Which is probably a good thing for my PlayStation Plus backlog.

Anyways, this is what my new wee TV looks like:

I’m pleased to say that it does the job more than adequately, both for streaming movies/TV shows and playing games. Well, at least the handful of games I opened on it to see how they fared, which consisted of Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Ni no Kuni, and inFamous 2. At some point, I want to switch the PS3 and Xbox 360’s places, to see what Torchlight and Dragon Age: Origins look like, as they were the games I found to have the smallest text in my collection. No real rush on that though.

Right. So, inFamous 2. Never played the original, but it always looked neat, like a modern dark spin on being a superhero, with legit superhero powers. Lightning bolts a-way! The second game seemed to sum up a little from the previous adventure via some cool comic book cutscenes, but it’s not all really clear to me. Something about a Beast (or maybe it’s The Beast) hunting Cole down…I don’t know. I just like climbing buildings, collecting blast shards, and squirrel-gliding from roof to roof like a kid with no restrictions. And you can totally do that, for as long as you want, which is really nice. Morality-wise, I’m going down the righteous path, though I have–on accident, I swear–murdered a few civilians while trying to stop attacking monsters and such. Because it can get hard and chaotic and somewhat confusing once the lightning and bullets begin to fly. Basically, any time there are four or five enemies at once, Cole goes down fast, and I don’t know if it is my fault or not. I’d like to believe I have a decent handle on firing shock grenades and tossing cars, but maybe I don’t. At least the checkpointing is very forgiving.

But yeah, climbing up those towers reminds me of the clunky, but still satisfying climbing from The Saboteur. The way Cole just kind of magnet-like sticks to poles and ledges gets me all jittery for more Sly Cooper tales of thievery (old and new). I’ll probably burn through inFamous 2 rather fast over the next few nights–as I previously mentioned, now that the PlayStation 3 sits right next to my work desk, I’ll be more inclined to use it–but maybe then after I’ll dip back into some old favorites. We’ll see. Probably not. I guess I just like dreaming about this stuff openly.

Easy come, easy go with two more deaths in Fire Emblem: Awakening

Well, another chapter has been completed in Fire Emblem: Awakening, which resulted in two more deaths. One had no effect on me, and the other nearly had me breaking my permadeath-forwards plan and resetting the game to try again and fix my foolish mistakes…but I didn’t. Instead, I saved my progress, checked the roster list to confirm the death, sadly, and shut the game off for the night. Grr. Like I said in my previous post, I’m now at the point in the game where I’ll be losing key members of the party, people that I’ve spent some considerable time with, leveling them up and picking out their specific weapons and working on relationship boosts.

Let’s get this out of the way. Yeah, yeah, Cherche died, and she died because she is a Wyvern Rider, also known as Dragon Knight, which means “kind of useless.” That might sound a little harsh, but I’ve not found many uses for air-borne warriors yet. Seriously, all it takes is one thrown pebble, and down these winged warriors go. I’m not upset over it, as I barely used her to begin with, and mostly had to spend time moving her away from enemies more than anything else. Well, in Chapter 18 “Sibling Blades”, there’s a lot happening, mostly related to the map deteriorating due to rising lava levels, and I guess I forgot where she was, and the enemy quickly moved in for the kill. My bad, not sad.

Now, just before starting “Sibling Blades”, I did two or three small side battles, for grinding’s sake. On the last one, I got Gregor’s level maxxed out at 20, and then used a Master Seal to reclass him to a Bow Knight. This allows him to use bows while still being killer with the right sword. Also, after these side battles, his relationship status with Panne reached level B, and I was pretty curious to see where those two would go from there. Unfortunately, it will never be, as I moved Gregor too far ahead–and by himself–for his own good. Believe it was one of those wizards with Elfire or something that killed him quickly. I’ll certainly miss his friendly and refreshing personality, as well as that accent and unique speech pattern that made him both hard to understand and completely unacceptable at times.

With that said and no going back, all I can do is push forward, keep my living and breathing people healthy and healed, re-arrange my units properly before a fight begins, and kick some serious Grima butt. Also now need to either level up some non-used folks, like Nowi, or find similar replacements for Gregor and Cherche via the Bonus Box. Stay tuned…