A videogames rundown in honor of Barristan the Bold

Right now, I don’t have any particular thoughts on a particular game, so I figured I could use a post to sum up what’s going on with the games I’m playing currently. As usual, I am juggling several, which does not bode well for efficiency and completing many of ’em, but it does allow me to see a wee bit of each thing. Let me break this out into a little list:

• BioShock Infinite – I am really close to the end on this even though I only just posted my impressions about it recently. Its pacing is such that you keep playing, unaware of how much time has passed. A part of me wanted to just soldier through it last night, but it was getting late, and I suspect there’s an hour or two left to unfold. Regardless, I’ll finish it up tonight and then probably lock myself in a small room, crying over what brain-twisting revelations are revealed. Or spoiling myself via the Internet on all the stuff I missed.
• Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon – Just managed to beat the first mansion’s boss, a particularly crafty ghost-controlled spider, which has now opened up the multiplayer aspect, as well as the next mansion. Have not moved on to either of those yet, but I will soon. Seems you can also hop back into the mansion levels to track down hidden Boos. Where you at, Boos?
• Fire Emblem: Awakening – No one has died since my last post about losing Miriel. Granted, I haven’t played since then, but I’ll take my accomplishments with this brutal SRPG where I can.
• Phantasmaburbia – Haven’t touched it since my last post, but I do plan to get back to it, especially since I know I just need to do some light grinding to get the two boys strong enough to take down the progress-blocking boss.
• Kingdom Rush – I play this during my lunchbreak as I slowly sip down vegetable juice as part of my 10-day juicing fast. I got stuck on the first snowly level and had to drop the difficulty to easy to make it through with a pitiful two-star rating.
• Patchwork – Cannot figure out how to appease the fire spirit (wants something to eat), and since this game is so small and indie and unknown, any online guide or clues are nowhere to be found. Curses, as I really like its art style and music a lot.
• Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch – Stuck fighting Moltaan, the Lord of Lava, at the top of Old Smokey. Probably gotta grind more, especially since I evolved a few familiars, which drops them back down to level 1. Basically, my party is now a tad unbalanced. Oops.
• El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron – Umm, I don’t know. Stopped at Chapter Two. Ha.

Since my last musings on PlayStation Plus, I’ve gone and downloaded several more games I won’t ever have the time to eat up, like The Cave and Demon’s Souls. Unless I clear a few of the above off my plate. Which may or may not happen soon. But hey, with me, you never know, as something entirely new (or old) will grab my attention. Looking ahead, I can’t really see anything that looks enticing, but that’s the magic of the videogames industry; there are always a few well-kept secrets.

Borderlands 2 level cap will increase, but at a price

Well, it’s finally happening. The level cap in Borderlands 2 is set to increase from 50 to 61 on April 2, 2013. Woo, yay, and exploding buckets of confetti! Well, no, maybe not all of that. This has process has taken longer than many Vault Hunters first imagined and hoped for, as this change required re-balancing, re-tuning, and re-testing the entire game, according to Gearbox Software. Granted, I don’t remember how long after the original Borderlands came out that we got a level cap increase, but I do remember this much: it was free.

That’s right. You’ll be able to gain more levels past 50, but you will have to chalk up $4.99, unless you have already purchased the Season Pass, which I have not based on the lackluster second and third DLC packs. Phooey on that, and phooey on me. Granted, you get more than just the level cap increase with this purchase, as powerful new “Ancient” E-Tech relics and rare Pearlscent-grade weapons will now be found within the Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode (more on that in a sec). Pearlscent-colored weapons are originally from Borderlands though I never found one back then.

At this point into Borderlands 2, I don’t really play as much as I did during its initial months out, especially when I had some friends online also playing, like Lee Bretschneider and Thomas Rothlisberger. My specifically specced Siren has been capped at 50 for awhile now, and I’ve been lucky enough to find and trade for some amazing legendary guns like the Rapid Infinity through friends and farming. Even got a (now nerfed) Bee shield all on my own. Anyways, I’ve felt pretty over her at this point since there’s no more room to grow, and I have been tinkering with an Assassin character (somewhere around LV 25), but it’s not how I like to play. So I’d love a chance to get back and see my Siren enhance her abilities and get even crazier weapons and take down bandits in the upper 50s.

Now, alongside this paid level cap DLC, Gearbox is patching Borderlands 2 with some free additions. Here’s the list they’ve come up with:

• Adds new items to the Black Market:
  • One additional ammo upgrade for each ammo type, at 50 Eridium each.
  • Two more backpack storage space upgrades, at 50 and 100 Eridium respectively.
  • Two more bank storage space upgrades, at 50 and 100 Eridium, respectively.
• Increases the maximum amount of Eridium players can hold from 99 to 500.
• Adds a new playthrough balanced for top-tier play: Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode.
• Various bug fixes.

Hmm. So, Gearbox is giving us a free third playthrough, but for most Vault Hunters, by that point you’re probably capped or near the cap. And so this is their way of nearly forcing you to buy the paid level increase; otherwise, there’s no point to UVHM. I do like that I’ll be able to expand my bank and backpack a bit more though increased Eridium doesn’t matter to me as I never go after those raid bosses. I beat Terramorphous the Invincible once, and that was good enough.

I don’t know. I’m rather conflicted over this. Five bucks to continue strengthening and playing with a character I love? Sure, it’s not a high cost whatsoever. It just feels rather undermining. Ugh. We’ll see. Chances are high I’ll get this, though maybe not just yet, as the fourth DLC won’t hit until the end of June, and a lot of my continuing on with Borderlands 2 depends on what that is and how it changes things for good.

Miriel died as fast as lagging fowls before the northern blast

Before moving on to the next story-based mission, I played the second Paralogue last night in Fire Emblem: Awakening, which is called The Secret Seller. In this one, a bunch of enemy soldiers are trying to destroy a village at the top of the map, but are opposed by an ally character named Anna. You basically need to get a single unit to visit the village and warn them off the incoming attack, as well as protect Anna and then rout the enemy. The difficulty in this map comes from a small bridge connecting the mass of land your units are on and the land with Anna and the village–it makes moving fast a slower process. Thankfully, Anna can hold her own for a few turns.

Now, since I’ve lost so many units so far, I was forced to use Miriel for the very first time, and that meant she was low level and underprepared. For awhile, I had her paired up with the newly acquired Nyna, but then I separated them, hoping Miriel could finish an enemy for some good XP. Alas, no. A man with an axe chopped her to pieces, and down she went. I should note that she technically “retired” so I guess I’ll still see her pop up in cutscenes now and again.

On the flipside, looks like I was able to get in good with Anna, a sword-swinging beast of a woman. Hopefully she’ll do more than just give me a discount at the store down the line, as I’d like to basically replace one redhead for another.

After all this, I took an emotional break and played some more Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon before passing out for the night, and I’m happy to report that no one has died yet in that game.

Three more have fallen in Fire Emblem: Awakening

Well, this is all going downhill rather fast.

Played some more Fire Emblem: Awakening last night while Tara watched Back to the Future Part II. As Marty McFly ran around trying to fix his future kids, I did my best on the battlefield, but my best was not the best, as three more comrades have fallen. Two of them were brand-spanking new, and one was a rather quiet dude that I didn’t get to know in his short time with the Shepherds. Snartleblast, for sure.

Right, so…farewell Lon’qu, Ricken, and Maribelle. You three were too good for this realm anyways.

Here’s what happened with Lon’qu, which I take full blame for his death; on the Chapter 5 “The Exalt and the King” map, I tried sneaking him around the enemy’s side and was not paying attention to just how far and fast the opposing units could move. In short, he was slashed down rather swiftly, much to my dismay. As for the spritely Ricken and tinny-voiced Maribelle–her voice actor also plays Yuzu in Devil Summoner Overclocked, who I find very tiresome, what with her constant disbelief that the government could have anything to do with demons invading Tokyo–these two are dropped onto the northeast part of the map by themselves, about midway between my units and the enemy. From what it looked like, you have one or two moves at most to save them from downright slaughter, and I just wasn’t quick enough getting over to them.

Clearly, at this point in the game, having now lost six units (seven if you count not recruiting Donnel), any sane-minded gamer would have shut Awakening off and reloaded to fix this, but I finished the map without losing anybody else and recorded my progress. Stubbornness is driving me forward, as I want to know just how far I can go, and I’m also curious to see who will still be with me come the point of no more. Though a certain nervousness did slip over me, as I don’t want to stop playing any time soon, and so I recruited a new character to my team via the Bonus Teams menu in the Bonus Box. Specifically, Nyna, who I guess comes from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Anyways, she’s a Sage, so I gave her some magic like Elwind and Fire, but haven’t got to see her in action. Recruiting her, a single unit, was costly (around 3,500 gold), and so it’s not something I can do to simply replenish my team once enough people are dead and gone. Might have to look into finding a new archer though…

Let’s end this post with a quote from Plato, in honor of today’s fallen three: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Yup, that’s true.

Owl Creek has been invaded by ghosts in Phantasmaburbia

Well, I’m back for round 2 of digging into Box in a Bundle‘s latest package, which I covered previously in a post about the non-game Dinner Date. This time, I’m most definitely playing a game, and I know that because after two hours I’ve switched between three different playable characters, gained levels, equipped special items, killed ghosts and skeletal rodents and unshapely shades, and died during a particularly tough boss fight. If that doesn’t summarize me playing a game, well…no, that’s it exactly. I mean, I literally did mostly the same thing over the weekend in Ni no Kuni, calling it quits when Moltaan, the Lord of Lava, wiped Oliver and friends off Old Smokey.

So, with that, I’m here to talk about Phantasmaburbia, a long-name game that appears capable of going the distance. To summarize, the year is 201X (twenty-X-teen), and the small modern neighborhood of Owl Creek has suddenly been overrun with ghosts. No one knows exactly why or how just yet. Four local kids, assisted by spirits of their ancestors, will group together on a suburban adventure to save the place they call home.

I’ve only gotten far enough in the game–roughly two hours and change–to have three kids in my party. I named the first boy Todd, the goth girl Rayne, and the gun-wielding, blonde-haired kid Drogo. Screenshots from the developer’s website show that the fourth character is another girl, so feel free to leave name suggestions; otherwise, she will be called something dumb, like Jam.

Anyways, it’s an RPG, with all the things you’d associate with the genre present. Its strongest element is its battle system, which is seemingly based around the active time battle model, with no room for pausing or breathing. Best plan your attacks before you even select them or the enemy, which consists of things like Catdavers and Roadents, might slip in an extra swipe. It makes for lively fights, but alas, many are over too soon, and the battle music takes a few seconds to really kick in and sound amazing. There are some other special elements to battles that involve you clicking dangerous tentacles away or loading bursts of light into a spectral gun, all timing-based.

The graphics are perfunctory, if not elementary. This is not a slam against Phantasmaburbia, as its story and gameplay more than carry the title forward, and graphics never are everything. Am I right, Minecraft? Anyways, there’s quite a bit of dialogue here, and the best is between each kid and their respective spiritual assistant ancestor. Everyone speaks in an Animal Crossing-like fashion, just making noise, but don’t take that as a reason to rush through the dialogue. The ghosts are particularly well-written, showing off their unique personalities.

It seems like most of Phantasmaburbia is spent either outside or underground in weird space/time dimension dungeons. These are where the puzzles are, as each ghost can interact here in a different way. For instance, one ghost can highlight invisible panels to walk on, and another can take over animals to move them onto special tiles. I suspect that once all four kids meet up and are one team, a lot of dungeon levels will involve switching between different ghosts to get everybody from point A to point B.

Oh, and one really small touch that I liked are the garage door motion sensor lights. You go near them, they go on. You walk away, they go off. It’s especially great when you’re nearby and see a wild animal trigger them. I don’t know. It’s the small stuff that can make a world feel big, and despite its rather generic look at times, Phantasmaburbia seems like a fully realized place, one I look forward to exploring more. Though that means I have to figure how to properly use Todd and Drogo to beat the current boss I’m stuck on. But for this sleek and somewhat goofy RPG, trying again is a must.

Two more dead, or should I say “retired,” in Fire Emblem: Awakening

Well, last night saw me complete the Paralogue (which is a strange new “word”) and Chapter 4 in Fire Emblem: Awakening, and from those events came more losses. Keeping up with my promise to embrace permanent death and soldier on, I am sad to announce that both Virion and Sumia are dead. Well, maybe not dead-dead, as the roster in the barracks says they “retired” whereas Vaike’s profile definitely says where and when he died. Evidently, this means that these two characters are important to some plot beats and will still be involved in cutscenes, but are no longer useable as units. Either way, gone.

For Sumia, she moved too close to an enemy archer, which took her down in one hit. Think I learned my lesson there.

For Virion…well, I don’t remember exactly what it was that killed him. Might have been a critical hit from an enemy wielding a throwing hand axe. Either way, he’s done, and so my number of archer units drops from one to zero. Boo.

Oh, and I totally did not get Donnel to level up during the Paralogue, which means he went back to the farm instead of joining the Shepherds and fighting alongside Chrom and company.

So, you know, off to a stellar start. What happens if I run out of useable units? Will the game give me more as I progress, or do I need to purchase new teams from the wireless features section? I guess time will tell. I joked with Tara last night that if I get to a point where I can’t complete the next chapter because I lost too many people prior, I’ll just stop playing the game, accepting that’s how the story concluded in my mind. Or maybe I’ll just start over on Casual mode and try again in a more leisurely fashion, but for now, it’s onwards and upwards, to death and glory, but mostly to death.

Vaike, the first of many permanent deaths in Fire Emblem: Awakening

Shortly before heading off to MegaCon, I found a retail copy of Fire Emblem: Awakening. That may sound like a rather simple statement, but this 3DS game quickly became rare after dropping in early February in sort of the same fashion as Radiant Historia, with only so many copies shipped to individual retailers. The three GameStops I visited did not have any in stock, nor did the local Target or Best Buy. At last, I found it behind protective glass walls at Walmart. So, y’know, always.

Regardless, I’m glad I got a copy before they all poofed and disappeared, though sadly that’s probably the main reason I purchased Awakening. Not because I have a love for all things SRPG or even any deep experience with the franchise, but because it’s a game that will soon be hard to find, and I’d rather get it now then not and moan and groan later over how difficult it is to obtain, just like I did for Suikoden III and Katamari Damacy for many years. Yes, I’ve become quite a neurotic collector over the past few years, and I’d rather have than have not.

As evident from my bipolar time with Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked, I’m not very good at strategy-based RPGs. I don’t really understand why that is, as I’d like to think myself pretty decent at action RPGs and just fine with regular RPGs, knowing how to level and equip better armor and grind for XP before the next boss fight. But as soon as I’m tossed onto a grid-like battlefield with a number of units to control, I fall apart. Maybe there’s too much info to absorb and understand, and from what I’ve seen so far of Awakening, there is a lot of data to grok.

Where to begin? Well, I guess with the plot: Chrom, the prince of the Halidom of Ylisse, and his companions, must join together during a turbulent era. The neighboring nation of Plegia has been acting suspiciously as of late, and in response Chrom commands a band of soldiers–called the Shepherds–to keep his country at peace. He encounters an unholy force called the Risen plaguing the lands and a masked swordsman claiming to be Marth, the Hero-King of legend. You end up controlling a character with amnesia who joins the Shepherds by chance. It’s kind of both typical medieval fantasy fare and non-typicalness, with hints of time travel. I’ve only gotten up to the start of Chapter 4, so that’s all I know currently.

And yes, I’m playing Awakening on Normal difficulty…in Classic mode. That means dealing with the permanent death aspect the franchise is known for. When a character’s health is depleted, that’s it–they are dead. No amount of Phoenix Down feathers could possibly bring them back. So you best be prepared for each and every battle, for every minute change to the enemy’s tactics, for every possible scenario and decision. Matt Mason over at Obtain Potion has some strong thoughts on defending casual mode, and I agree that people playing Awakening on Classic, but reloading a save after losing a beloved squad member are doing it wrong. If you care that much, switch to Casual and go about your adventuring, knowing every one is safe and sound in their big boy/girl beds after each battle.

For me, I’m embracing perma-death fully and plan to make it a point to share each and every loss I suffer here on Grinding Down, no matter how grand or small. I’m not trying to play the game as best as possible, following a guide and keeping all the best characters alive and paired perfectly. This is war, and war never changes. There will be deaths, and many more to come, knowing my skills. First up, however, is Vaike, an axe-wielding soldier with fun hair, which is a shame, as he seemed like quite a funny guy. But as quickly as he was introduced in Chapter 3, he was chopped to bits by enemy soldiers. My fault for not paying attention to weapon types.

I played a little more into Chapter 4 last night, losing Sully and Lissa, but also then having my own character die, which brings up the GAME OVER screen. So I kind of get a mulligan on that one, and hope that I can mix up my strategy better to keep everyone, including myself, up and moving. But if I can’t, well…them’s the breaks.

If you have any Awakening tips, please, please share them here. I still don’t understand a lot of it, and only just opened up all the Wireless functionality, which seems to offer side quest maps, new items, other teams to use, and so on. Also noticed that you can forge new items in shops. Oh boy.

Peeling away the good and bad of Paper Mario: Sticker Star

Man, I’m really torn on Paper Mario: Sticker Star. After twenty-two hours of saved game time (and maybe an hour or two of lost progress after succumbing to tricky, obtuse boss fights), I still can’t decide if I really liked it or really disliked it. Certainly, I’m lingering somewhere in the middle, and that’s extremely frustrating, as the charm is absolutely there, but other aspects fall short, and I truly can’t recall another game that I had to look up so many solutions for via an online walkthrough.

In total, there are five-and-a-half worlds (forest world, desert world, ice world, you know the drill) to journey through, but none are particularly exciting. Strangely, there is one level within each world that is balls-out charming and stands apart from the others in terms of uniqueness and design, such as the haunted mansion (4-3, The Enigmansion) or the trivia game show level. I really enjoyed these and wished that the thought that went into them was spread out more across all the levels, as some come across feeling highly linear and, more or less, sticker-wasters.

Despite no EXP to gain, I really enjoyed the combat in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, though without timed button presses for bonus damage/defense it’d be fairly boring. I got really good at timing my jumps for Boot stickers, sort of okay with Hammers, and awesome at Fire/Ice Flowers. Those were the mainstays of my attacks, with the occasional Thing sticker when in a…ahem sticky situation. The Thing stickers are quite absurd upon initial pick up, and the only way to learn how they work is to use them in battle. However, re-purchasing some from the secret store could be expensive, and so I’d say I only ever used maybe 30% to 40% of the ones I discovered, such as the Electric Guitar, Soda Can, and Bowling Ball. Oh, and I used the Pillow by accident in the final boss fight, thinking it would put Bowser to sleep only to learn it puts Mario to sleep so that he can heal some HP each turn. In short, go me!

Lastly, the game is forever gorgeous to look at. Its diorama appearance makes turning on the 3D option actually viable, and every level is brimming with color. The larger-than-life bosses are great, and you truly never know what to expect when you use a Thing sticker, such as instant replays on the Bowling Ball.

Okay, no on to the bad–sadly. That whole “paperize” the world and peel parts away gimmick? Totally not used enough in the second half of the game, and when it is, it’s defiantly very straightforward. You literally just peel a part of the wall off, watch it flip itself upside-down in your book, paperize again, and stick it back on the wall. Consider yourself a real genius. I was hoping there would be more secrets to unearth via peeling, but there were only a few early on in the game.

Probably the most infuriating aspect of Paper Mario: Sticker Star are the boss fights, which require specific stickers or a combination of specific stickers to defeat. Now, you might think you have the right one, but you are generally wrong, and so you have to dig deep into your 1990s point-and-click adventure game logic to figure out what sticker is the right one for the job. This basically requires a lot of trial and error, which ultimately lead to me looking up answers via an online walkthrough. Not the most fun way to defeat the final boss of a videogame. Here’s a hint: Stapler, Scissors, Shaved Ice, and Tail; then as many shiny hammers you can use.

And speaking of the ending…well, I’m not exactly sure why I expected something grand or even fulfilling.. After you piece back the Wiggler’s body segments, there’s very few story beats in the ice and jungle worlds, which meant I completely forgot the what and why of Mario’s mission until the end credits scenes began playing. The story is basically this: Bowser ruins the Sticker Fest, you go collect the Royal Stickers, you defeat Bowser, and you start up the Sticker Fest again. That’s it. You get a wee joke from Kersti, and everyone laughs. Even Bowser. The end. Your progress gets saved at the end, but you’re dropped back into your pre-boss fight save slot; you can, however, visit a special Toad in Decalburg to watch the credits again, if you care to.

I guess the only reason I’d go back into Paper Mario: Sticker Star is for the museum, and maybe to complete those “Achievement”-like flags, which require some serious grinding and coin spending. Not ideal. Though filling out the museum is fun, but I have no idea if you get anything for doing it. Considering I’ve already now beat the game, I should just go give the museum all my special stickers and see what comes of it. And maybe I’ll hop back into Super Paper Mario, just for kicks…

But yeah, Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Love it, hate it–a combination of both.

Stuck fast in the puzzle mire that is Paper Mario: Sticker Star

What is wrong with me? I’ve traded out one extremely challenging game for the time being–Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked–for another. Namely Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Though those two games differ quite dramatically in what makes them challenging: one demands a clearly strategic mindframe that needs precise execution to equal success, and the other asks you to know things you probably couldn’t ever know unless you looked them up in an online walkthrough. Like I did last night. To find the third Wiggler segment, so that I could keep playing. Whatever.

Originally, I purchased Sticker Star the same time I got Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, with Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion following shortly thereafter. That was both a great and troubling time for my Nintendo 3DS, as it meant I had to pick something to play and stick with it lest I fall down the rabbit hole of dabbling in everything, but getting nowhere. At this point, I’ve now completed Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (yay!) and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion (boo!), but that didn’t mean I jumped back into our paper-thin Mario’s latest adventure. No, instead, I journeyed through Pokemon White 2 and then made the, as readers know, futileness attempt to get further in Devil Summoner Overclocked. But since that last game has broken my spirit a bit, I’m now back to peeling stickers off walls and filling out the museum like an addict.

Despite my save slot showing that I have logged around eight or so hours, I am not very far in Sticker Star. I’ve opened up the forest world on the left and the desert world to the right, but only have one collected jeweled crown in my book. As well as one piece of “scrap” and three pages of random items, like a lighter, boom box, and giant fan. I’m unsure of how to progress further in the desert-themed levels, especially how to get to the alternate exit in one specific level, and so instead of just spinning my wheels there I popped over to the forest world to see what still needed to be done. Seems like that adorable Wiggler is still missing two segments to his body, and one of them is located in the Bafflewood level, which riffs heavily on Zelda‘s recurring Lost Woods; it’s a giant maze, one that is endless unless you know the right path to take, which you can highlight by place stickers next to specific path exits. I already beat this level, having marked the true path, but no matter how many times I went through it or tried a different way to move here or there, I could not locate the Wiggler’s body segment. For the previous two segments, you could always spy them hiding in the open. Boo, wah.

And so I was forced to look up an online walkthrough, which told me that to locate the Wiggler’s third body segment you have to first go right, then left, then right, and then right once more. Not sure how I was ever in the world to know that, unless a Toad said something I missed. If I did miss some key dialogue, then sure, my fault. I came back to a videogame I haven’t played in a few months and acted a fool. I also had the sound lowered as Tara was watching her new Netflix obsession Monarch of the Glen, which means I might have bypassed some audio clues. However, if not, that kind of puzzle solution is just obtuse. There are no clues, no nudges in that direction; the entire time you explore the Bafflewood, any exit that is not the true exit drops you back to the beginning, and so you are taught early on to follow a single path. This puzzle breaks that mentality, but doesn’t tell you. Just assumes you’ll do it eventually.

Anyways, after all that Wiggler-rebuilding (the fourth and final segment was easy enough to find and rescue), I was able to get up to the third world’s boss, which is a large, poison-filled squid with something like 300 HP, only to have Mario’s butt kicked swiftly and efficiently. The squid’s poison attack not only weakens Mario, but also obstructs the screen, kind of like it did in Mario Kart DS, to the point that it’s hard to tell how much HP Mario has left and whether or not using a Mushroom is needed this turn. Not sure what I did wrong attack-wise, but I suspect I need stronger, shinier stickers to really make the damage count early on. Will try again, and then I guess it’s back to the desert world unless a fourth world of levels opens up after taking down the squid boss. Until then…

An angelic army enslaves the world thanks to Overclocked’s early bad ending

Well, after battling both demons and angels for a little over forty-five minutes, after losing every single team save for P-san’s, after constant spamming of gun-run-heal tactics, I finally did it. Victory was mine, earned with sweat, devotion, new strategies, the use of the Drain skill, and various sacrifices. I beat that mission in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked that has repeatedly kicked my ass these last few days, constructing a roadblock of sorts. With the angels and demons defeated, P-san and his friends Atsuro, Yuzu, and Midori escaped the lockdown, bringing Honda and his frantic buddies along with us for good measure. Y’all welcome.

However, immediately upon exiting, a strange lighting storm appears over the lockdown. The angels, who P-san was beginning to side with, declared that the lockdown was a failure and decided to kill everyone inside it with lightning. Pew pew pew. For those outside the lockdown–namely, P-san and friends and remaining family members–the angels have declared humanity to be in default of their responsibilities as children of God, and an angelic army appears to enslave the world. Anyone who is not immediately subservient is killed outright, and the remainder are stripped of their free will. This is all told via text on the screen, which is then promptly followed by the words “Mission Failed,” sending you back to the main menu to load from a previous save.

It’s heart-wrenching, and not necessarily from a storyline perspective, but the suddenness of a GAME OVER screen after all that story and choice and time spent battling monsters and trying to survive to live another half hour really does leave something to be desired. I mean, this whole time, we’re trying to escape the lockdown, and now you get the chance to, and if you do it YOU LOSE. The logic behind is severely flawed. Evidently, you are supposed to the fight demons and angels and then attack the humans to break their COMPs while also protecting them from the previously mentioned angels and demons who can, in one hit, take them out, and any civilian dying is a mission fail status. So the easiest option of kill everything and run for it results in death, despair, and dropping you back to the start screen.

Evidently, there are six endings in Devil Summoner Overclocked, and of them, one is literally called “the Early Bad Ending,” which is obtained by breaking through the barricades of the Lockdown on Day 6 and escaping after defeating both the angels and demons in your way. I had no idea about this as I played; I was just playing, making the choices that seemed right and logical, like escaping the demon-filled lockdown at first chance. For that, I felt like I should have been rewarded, but instead I was punished.

When the “Mission Failed” text came up, I literally started at it for over a minute, mouth agape and heart-rate increasing. I just couldn’t believe it. This game loves to waste your time and test your patience, and despite how patient I actually am, I’m over it. I took Devil Summoner Overclocked out of my 3DS and tossed it back into my cartridge bag; now, if I was truly over it, I would have put the cartridge back in its case and then on the shelf to sit untouched for the remainder of days. But there’s a sick part of me. It’s hungry and demanding and greedy and covered in dirt. There’s a sickness within me, and this side still wants to see how things are supposed to go down (or one of five possibilities) before deeming the experience over. I mean, after thirty-seven hours am I just suppose to accept an early bad ending as the final say in this story? Especially now that I know what I’m supposed to do to “beat” the mission correctly.

I’ll try again, I will. Devil Summoner Overclocked and I just need some space, the kind you build after everything breaks down. I’ll end this fail-driven blog post by quoting Nick Hornby’s fail-driven High Fidelity, which I think does a good job of summing up this Day 6 battle set on the fringe of the lockdown that literally tore me apart: “What went wrong? Nothing and everything.”