Paul’s Preeminent PlayStation Plus Purge – Dragon Fin Soup

Y’all know I love a good, strange-as-heck videogame title, and Dragon Fin Soup is a wonderful example of such a beauty. One, it contains the word dragon, so I’m already intrigued, but it also sounds more like a fancy, medieval recipe than a tactical RPG mixed with roguelike elements and procedurally generated worlds. It tells you nothing about the game, but entices you to check it out nonetheless, which is exactly what I did…many years ago. According to my save file, I played 21 minutes and 51 seconds total. Well, let’s revisit the abnormal critter once more now in 2019 before I get to the uninstalling part.

Dragon Fin Soup stars Red Robin, a charming, yet raging alcoholic bounty hunter who would rather get into a bar fight than deliver baked goods. Players must take up Robin’s blades and set out across Asura, a lushly colorful fantasy world that sits on the back of an enormous space turtle–um, was Terry Pratchett okay with this?–on a journey to discover the secrets of her bloody past. That’s the setup, and it’s pretty interesting; at least our protagonist isn’t an amnesiac for no reason whatsoever. I’m just not sure how much like a twisted version of Red Riding Hood she is supposed to be…

Okay, now I remember what my initial problem with Dragon Fin Soup was. For some reason, the entire game doesn’t fit on my small, desk TV monitor, with important UI being cut off in the four corners or hard to read entirely. Alas, there is no option within the game to correct this, and I don’t have this problem with any other game on my PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 2…so I’m not sure how to correct it. Grrr. It makes figuring out what is going on a bit difficult, especially returning to the game after so many years away from it. Not impossible, but just more work than I want to put into this thing.

Dragon Fin Soup reminds me a bit of Dungeons of Dredmor, which…was a game I didn’t understand at all during my first few attempts at it. Nowadays, I’m much more familiar with the roguelike genre, but that doesn’t mean I love every game that takes permadeath super seriously or identifying items essential for breathing. For every Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac, there are countless other iterations that take inspiration from the punishing genre and run with it, for better or for worse. I think it is all about feel, and something feels off in Dragon Fin Soup; perhaps it is too much information at once or none at all. Speaking of that…

There’s no tutorial, though there is a dream sequence at the start that immediately throws you into combat. After that, you are left to your own devices, which for me, returning to this after years of being away, did nothing good for me. Dragon Fin Soup is a turn-based strategy game. Each move the player makes gives enemy units a chance to respond. Thankfully, it’s not as slow and laborious as it sounds. In fact, once you get a hang of the game’s rhythm and controls, combat can be fast-paced and frenetic. You’ll need to use a mix of magic, bombs, gunplay, and melee combat to take down your adversaries. I unfortunately didn’t get to see enough to keep me engaged and wanting to explore more or learn about Red Robin’s past.

Maybe in another life, Dragon Fin Soup. You still have a wonderfully odd title, and for that alone I give you all the kudos.

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Oh look, another reoccurring feature for Grinding Down. At least this one has both a purpose and an end goal–to rid myself of my digital collection of PlayStation Plus “freebies” as I look to discontinue the service soon. I got my PlayStation 3 back in January 2013 and have since been downloading just about every game offered up to me monthly thanks to the service’s subscription, but let’s be honest. Many of these games aren’t great, and the PlayStation 3 is long past its time in the limelight for stronger choices. So I’m gonna play ’em, uninstall ’em. Join me on this grand endeavor.

Paul’s Preeminent PlayStation Plus Purge – Steredenn

Man, it sure does seem like a bulk of the games given out to PlayStation Plus subscribers, at least on the PlayStation 3, are shoot-em-ups…or, if you are hip with gaming lingo, shmups. That word just makes me think of shrimp, but whatever. Some that I’ve already gone through and eliminated from my overstuffed console include Sky Force Anniversary, Titan Attacks!, and Ultratron. Looking ahead, there’s even more to come, namely R-Type Dimensions, Hyper Void, Retro/Grade, Super Stardust HD, and Galaga Legions DX. Ugh, oh boy. Seriously can’t wait. That was sarcasm, by the way, as this is a genre that I just can’t get too excited over, despite there being some pretty good games in it, such as today’s topic du jour…Steredenn.

Well, Steredenn by Pixelnest Studio is a roguelike-shmup video game for nearly every console and gaming system; that was easier to write than to list every single one of ’em, trust me. It’s a frenetic and chaotic space shooter, carved out of big, beautiful pixels, with larger-than-life boss battles. The game plays horizontally, with your ship on the left and most of the enemies appearing on the right side of the screen…though not always. You’ll engage in fights against dreadful space pirates in a never-ending combat for your survival, mostly by firing weapons at them until they explode into pixelated bits, and this includes floating meteorites coming your way too. There are four modes to try out–normal, daily run, arena, and superplay–13 bosses to take on, special events, 30 environments, 25 upgrades for your spaceship, 35 weapons, and hundreds of enemies waves to deplete.

I played through the normal mode for a bit and had a pretty good time. I felt way more in control of my spaceship than I did in In Space We Brawl and Sky Force Anniversary, easily navigating between strings of bullets and incoming enemy ships. I like the inclusion of different weapons, though the massive drill attachment to the front of your ship seems a bit over-powered, if you ask me. It does become more bullet hell-esque as you progress further, with each boss ship getting bigger and nastier, though that’s life for space pirates, I guess.

The Daily Run is exactly what you think of it, so long as you are thinking about Spelunky‘s Daily Runs. Basically, everyone gets a go at the same scenario and tries to do their best, seeing where they end up on the leaderboard. My Daily Run featured the Shockwave weapon, which is an up-close sort-of-explosion, and I did terribly, unable to beat the first boss, getting a score of zero, but still managing to place fourth on the leaderboard. I don’t think a lot of people are playing this game on this console.

I tried to find out if steredenn is actually a word, and, as far as I can tell, no, it is not. Unless you follow the Breton-English Dictionary, in which case it is either a “a noteworthy or popular person, often a performer or athlete” or “a luminous celestial body that is made from gases (particularly hydrogen and helium) and forms the shape of a sphere.” Sure, one of those will work in this instance. All I know is that it is no longer installed on my PlayStation 3.

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Oh look, another reoccurring feature for Grinding Down. At least this one has both a purpose and an end goal–to rid myself of my digital collection of PlayStation Plus “freebies” as I look to discontinue the service soon. I got my PlayStation 3 back in January 2013 and have since been downloading just about every game offered up to me monthly thanks to the service’s subscription, but let’s be honest. Many of these games aren’t great, and the PlayStation 3 is long past its time in the limelight for stronger choices. So I’m gonna play ’em, uninstall ’em. Join me on this grand endeavor.

Descend deeper and deeper with Runestone Keeper

I am enjoying Runestone Keeper greatly despite it being the sort of roguelike that demands you suffer inordinately for its opening hours before you can even begin to fathom making progress. You know, like Rogue Legacy and The Binding of Isaac. Do the time before you enjoy the sublime. Not like Spelunky though. In Spelunky, you can beat the game on your very first run, so long as you know what you are doing; sure, a wee bit of luck is needed to get some specific items, like the jetpack, but it is totally doable. For other harsh roguelikes with some permanence to them in terms of upgrades and accrual, you must first grind runs one after another to begin closing the distance. I think, so far, I’ve gotten to level 9 with Guy, the only playable character available until you get further or are more successful on higher difficulties.

What is Runestone Keeper you ask silently from the other side of the screen? Well, it is a piece of interactive entertainment that came out in early 2015 from Blackfire Games. What else? It was recently part of the Humble Jumbo Bundle 7, which is where I got my Steam copy. Yeah, cool, but more specifically…what is it? Technically, Runestone Keeper is an über challenging roguelike-to-roguelite dungeon crawler that blends classic roleplaying elements and turn-based combat strategy. Kind of a weird, blood magic-driven fusion of Minesweeper and Dungeons of Dredmor.

That last description probably didn’t help all that much. Allow me to try harder. Basically, dungeon floors are randomly generated and set out as a grid that can be explored in any order from wherever you start, uncovering one tile at a time by clicking on it. Each revealed tile has an effect, even if that effect is basically nothing happens. Most discoveries include finding hearts that heal your HP, gold coins, treasure chests, traps, single-use items, weapons like readied crossbows, merchants, valuable runestones, and various pitfalls. Each tile you reveal also fills up your soul meter, which dictates your usage of certain items, as well as using in-level shrines and such. Your basic goal is to reveal enough tiles to find the staircase to the room below and head deeper into the darkness.

The real trouble with that endeavor is you’ll also reveal enemies in each dungeon level. You can avoid most fights if you want, but monsters block adjacent squares from being revealed, which are essential to finding the way to the next floor. Also, early on, you will want to fight some monsters for XP and dropped loot (which contains random prefixes and suffixes for different stats), though RNG rears its ugly head from time to time, causing you to miss your ax swings even though you are standing directly next to the angry goblin. Your attacks are obviously based on your gear, and you can quickly swap between two sets; I like having something for up close, as well as ranged enemies. Monsters hit your shield first, which absorbs a certain amount of damage before stealing away HP. The cast of enemies is quite varied, and many of them have their own unique abilities, like silencing or poisoning. Early on, your best friend as Guy, is the spell he has to lower an enemy’s attack power for a few turns though it is beyond frustrating to whiff on every sword swing during this phase.

Runestone Keeper‘s gameplay is extremely layered, even if it at times it feels unfair and driven solely by luck spirits. There’s tattoos to equip, an enchantment system, worshiping and un-worshiping deities that provide buffs and debuffs, elite arena rooms, special one-time events dictated by text choices, and more. Lots of spinning plates, and I’m sure I’m missing some elements. My focus for Guy continues to be upgrading his strength and stamina and plowing through enemies as quickly as possible while also hoarding a ton of gold coins and selling unwanted to gear; unfortunately, in the later dungeon levels, he struggles to deal with ranged enemies, as well not exploding when unearthing a ticking time bomb. It’s a problem. We’re working on it.

Similar to how I approached Rogue Legacy, Runestone Keeper is perfect for doing a couple runs, being unsuccessful, but returning to the main menu hub with enough gold coins to upgrade a permanent bonus, such as gaining more XP from killed monsters or earning more gold with each pick-up, and that leaves me feeling satisfied, feeling like I am actually inching towards a better run. I’m still hoping I’ll find that “perfect storm” run where I get some killer equipment/items early on that will help me reach level 10 of the dungeon and maybe even beyond that. If not, this is surprisingly one game I don’t mind bashing my head against the wall, desperately trying to survive or crawl to the next floor in hopes of…well, hope. Not everything has to be about being the ultimate powerhouse.

Perishing is progress for Temple of Yog’s tributes

Let’s get the nitty-gritty out of the way: I’m buddies with Lee Bretschneider, the artist from ChudChud Industries and main pixel-morpher on the company’s first release Temple of Yog, which dropped on the Nintendo Wii U’s eShop last week, alongside something called Mimecrass. Real quick aside, spellcheck suggests the following instead of nitty-gritty, which I find amusing–bitty-gritty, nutty-gritty, natty-gritty, titty-gritty, and ditty-gritty. Also, I paid for Temple of Yog with my own hard-earned digital dollars, so don’t go thinking I’m on the take here. The last and only free game I got for review purposes was Monster Tale…a game that had you looking between two screens in the middle of all the action. Hmm, coincidence.

Temple of Yog‘s lore is thick with murky ancient history and told through a somewhat difficult font to read. Here’s what I’ve grokked so far: after Ao the Original, the leader of a small band of villagers, sacrificed himself for the greater good, things have been pretty good for said band of villagers. They found refuge outside a large temple’s base, finding great returns in terms of ripe fruit and fresh fish. The settlement prospered in the Zenith Portal’s protective glow. However, in appreciation for the temple’s generosity, the villagers provide a sacrificial offering via someone‘s life. Depending on how great of a warrior this someone is will affect how the village continues to grow.

Basically: get as far as you can and collect as many Boon points before you die so that you can upgrade your different classes to be stronger, better, more prepared for the next run. Think Rogue Legacy, but without the castle or hereditary traits. Or replace the castle with guilds. It’s a twin-stick shooter, so you move your character with the left stick and fire magic projectiles with the right. Everything you kill and do earns you Boon points, including moving on to the next area, which means players that can’t help but clear out every enemy in both the Light and Shadow realms will benefit the most. Right, there’s two realms, which you can switch between at will: one is on your TV screen, and the other below on the Wii U GamePad. However, you can only linger in the Shadow world for so long until your meter drains.

Before heading through the Zenith Portal to begin racking up Boon points, you’ll have to pick one of four classes: Holy Augur, Cult of the Magi, Livid Blade, or Rogue’s Nest. Each has their own stats and special abilities, and I’ve tried every one now, but found that I’m only interested in the Holy Augur guild. Why? Its special power is healing, a necessity when making headway through a jungle full of dangerous creatures. They also have fantastic reach. I’ve spent a lot of Boon points enhancing this guild the most. As you explore, you can find special items–like boots that make you move faster–as well as crystals that will give you side objectives for a chance to earn extra Boon. I wish there was more of the latter, or that the crystals showed up more frequently, as it gives me something to work towards, other than just eventually buying the farm.

Look, I’m not great at Temple of Yog. This has been my best run yet, getting as far as fighting the first giant wolf (warg?), but Fromage the Beloved hit the ground fast with one bite from its snout. Turns out, you should attack wolves from behind. Since the floors are randomly generated, some areas are tougher than others. I’ve encountered empty Light worlds, a Light world with one static plant monster, and then another filled with six to seven spiders, all bent on spitting in my face. This randomization greatly affects, at least for me, how far I’ll make it in a run. It also helps feed the “one more run” mentality.

Not every element here is a worthy sacrifice. This might be a problem only specific to me, but I had to “pause” the game a few times during runs, either to get a phone call or clean up surprise kitty cat vomit, and my natural inclination is to hit the “+” button. Nope. That doesn’t pause; it automatically sacrifices your character, and yes, I did this a few times before learning from my mistake. Still, when you are in a world where everything wants to murder you, a pause button would be welcome. I’ve also spawned inside a spider or right next to a spider when moving on to a new level, which is not ideal. Lastly, I play with the Wii U GamePad in my lap, which makes looking down at it and away from the TV screen a dangerous and unnerving task. Others might be better at it, but I’m still hesitant to do it often.

So, this first slice of Temple of Yog falls under the label of “The First Epoch,” with three further updates forthcoming next year. Early investors, like me, will get those for free, but others will have to suffer with the game’s base price increasing with each new add-on. Regardless, I’m going to keep playing, because death is progress, even for meager Boon points, and, theoretically, I’ll only get better as the guilds grow stronger and can take on and dish out more damage. Let’s check back later when I can take down a clutter of spiders like a pro.

Also: Temple of Yog‘s soundtrack is killer, probably something like 805,967 in Boon points. Sacrifice gladly accepted.

Fatal Labyrinth is still difficult, but finally makes sense

When I first played Fatal Labyrinth, back in early 2011 as part of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection on the Xbox 360, I didn’t understand it. I only continued poking at it to get a single Achievement, which tasked the player with making it to the fifth floor of the randomly generated labyrinth. In fact, this was the last Achievement I popped, after getting that super tricky for Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. I remember having great difficulty with this, eventually just avoiding all monsters and searching desperately every nook and cranny for the next set of stairs to take me upwards and away. You’ll have to forgive me, but I wasn’t familiar with roguelikes back then, confused by things like question marks on items and dark rooms full of uncertainty.

Since then, I’ve played a lot more roguelikes, some of which are very close in style and mechanics as Fatal Labyrinth. Here, let me name a few that come to mind: The Binding of Isaac, Coin Crypt, Dragon Crystal, and Hack, Slash, Loot. The games have taught me much over the past few years, like not to be scared of potions that don’t immediately reveal what they do. Yep. If you want to know what the brown potion does in Fatal Labyrinth, you have to drink it blindly; once you know its power, there’ll be no further confusion about it during your run. That said, last time I drank the brown potion, it simply said “you’re feeling much better”…so I have no clue what that actually means.

According to a gaming wiki I frequently hang out around, Fatal Labyrinth is about leading Trykaar into the castle of Dragonia in order to retrieve the Holy Goblet, which was stolen from the village. I’ll take that plot at face value because I didn’t read anything about that when I started out, but maybe if you linger long enough on the title screen you get some exposition. The castle consists of thirty levels, most of which are procedurally generated. Seeing as I’ve only ever gotten to the fifth level, I have no idea what that means. Perhaps there are boss battles that are the same each time you hit them. I don’t know.

Upon returning to Fatal Labyrinth, which, by all means was not something I planned, but rather something that simply unfolded before me when I popped in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection to see if my save progress from Phantasy Star II was still there, I found myself surviving. Slicing up enemies and throwing duplicate weapons away like a skilled ninja. Killing monsters and leveling up, as well as grabbing food and navigating menus. All of that is in stark contrast from my first go with it, and again, I have the years of noodling around with other roguelikes to thank. Except for Dungeons of Dredmor, which I’ll never be good at.

As with just about every other RPG out there, the main concern in Fatal Labyrinth is crafting your initially weak and worried hero into a walking tank, brimming with weapons, spells, potions, and other powerful trinkets. You start with just a small knife and plenty of pocket space; I found the hand axe to be killer against most foes save for those ice crystal things and got a few pieces of armor on my way to the fifth level before losing too much HP after getting surrounded. Dealing with groups of enemies one on one is also important, much like dealing with zombies in Dead Island–focus on a single threat, eliminate it, then move on to the next one.

Here’s something that is not weird, but then weird. In order to continue exploring the titular labyrinth, you need to be well-nourished. However, you only have enough food at the start of your journey for around ten minutes of exploration. You can see your food depleting in the UI, marked as a F. Thankfully, like chickens in the walls of Castlevania, there’s spare meat lying around on different dungeon floors. Here’s where things take a turn–if you eat too much, you die. So it’s a constant balance of having enough, but not too much, not too little. Toss in enemies and new gear and mysterious potions, and there’s a lot to juggle all at once, which is where most of the difficulty comes from.

Lastly, I found myself stuck in a seemingly empty room after I cleared it out of enemies and items. There were no doors or staircases, not even one to go back down a level. I thought that maybe I had glitched in Fatal Labyrinth, but after a little Googling, discovered that I was supposed to read the manual, which told me that sometimes there are hidden passageways in walls, and the only way to find them is spam the button while facing every wall unit. See how pivotal manuals are, though I guess one could argue that, at this point, the Internet is basically one big manual.

I do believe that I can conquer all thirty levels of Fatal Labyrinth, and I mean to keep trying until that belief changes stance. Here’s hoping you see a haiku for this game sooner than later.

Money will create success as you venture through Coin Crypt

I don’t know about you, but in this day and age, it sure seems like coins–otherwise known as disc-shaped metal or alloy that can be used to purchase goods–matter less and less with each rotation of the Earth. Not even paper bills are highly visible anymore. It’s all about the plastic or, if you have a cooler phone than myself, you can just show people your screen at Starbucks to order that triple, venti, half sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato via your gift card credit line and never have to do more than flick your wrist. Still, coins are an age-old staple of videogames, and, more to the point, your direct means of attacking enemies in Coin Crypt.

This aptly named Coin Crypt arrived in my Steam library back in August 2015 via the Humble Jumbo Bundle 4, which also contained–deep breath–the following:

• Space Engineers
• The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II
• Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
• The Stanley Parable
• Outland – Special Edition
• Mercenary Kings
• Endless Space – Emperor Edition
• Screencheat
• Freedom Planet

Whew. Naturally, of all those, I’ve only tried one other at this point, namely The Stanley Parable. I do occasionally glance at Mercenary Kings and Outland and think hmmm maybe, though I’ve yet to flex my finger muscle and press play on either. Perhaps sometime in 2016. Perhaps. Or maybe if I can figure out my recording stuff I can feature them on an upcoming streaming event thingy. Yeah, the less I commit to, the better for now.

Anyways, Coin Crypt is fairly neat. It’s a rogue-like adventure game that borrows its combat system from collectible card games where you use different spells to deal damage and cast other effects on an opponent. A bit of Magic: The Gathering, a pinch of Hearthstone. Actually, I haven’t played Hearthstone, so that’s really a wild guess. There’s also randomly generated worlds and permadeath if you want to get to the heart of the matter. At the start, you select a bouncy, rectangular cube-like adventurer and go off into the world, navigating them via a top-down perspective. You must collect coins, fight enemies, and advance further. Coins are life, as they are how you attack your opponent, purchase additional character classes after you buy the farm, and unlock gated parts of the level, so managing them is vital. You also need to ensure you have a good balance of offensive and defensive coins, so you’re not stuck on your turn with nothing but three shield coins to use.

I really dig Coin Crypt‘s stylized graphics. The tall, rectangle adventurers hop about like pod people or Mii avatars, but contain enough detail to have personality from one to another. The thick outlines around everything give off a cel-shaded look, which I can always get behind, and the bright colors help keep everything bright and bubbly, even when the challenge turns it up a notch and you begin scraping by in fights. At this point, I’ve only seen the forest and the world after it, which is themed around a graveyard; I suspect there are a few more areas to discover as well, and I’m working towards unlocking the monkey class, as we all should be working towards always, no matter the scenario.

Similar to Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac, I pop into Coin Crypt rather infrequently, but when I do, I give it all my attention. I’ve gotten a few levels deep, but always meet my maker because I run out of strong attack coins or am simply not fast enough to take down my opponent. The combat is not exactly turn-based, as if you sit still too long you’ll get smacked in the face. There’s a lot to pay attention to, to plan ahead for. That said, it takes some time to read what all the coins do and figure out which to pick or whether I should reshuffle them into my bag and try again with a new set of three.

With many roguelike titles, one can only get better through persistence. I’ll keep at Coin Crypt for sure, though I wonder and worry if I’ll ever reach its conclusion. If there’s a conclusion to be reached. Money can’t buy that.

Ascend the tower of guns with the power of guns

I do not believe I’m passionate enough about Tower of Guns just yet to confirm whether or not I already have a copy on Steam thanks to some bundle or giveaway, but it matters not for PlayStation Plus subscribers get it for free this month. On both PS3 and PS4, I believe. Incidentally, I keep mistyping it as Tower of Funs more times than I’d like to admit. In between prepping for East Coast Comic Con this weekend, I’ve run the tower a handful of times, improving with each go.

What is Tower of Guns, you ask? And you don’t mean metaphorically? Well, it is a single-player first-person shooter with rogue-like elements developed by Terrible Posture Games. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Let me see if I can come up with something better. It’s a bit like Borderlands meets The Binding of Isaac, with each enemy-filled room randomly generated and a par time set for the entire level. You can perform specific tasks while you play to unlock new perks or guns, as well as collect experience point orbs to level up your currently equipped weapon. Oh, and it’s also quite a lot of fun, more than I expected when dipping my hairy toe in.

Strangely, there’s a story, but one could completely ignore it or even turn it off in the options, which I’ve not actually done yet. It’s pretty easy to not pay attention to. It’s also immensely difficult to pay attention to at other times. Basically, as you move from room to room, some dialogue boxes will appear on the screen, but nothing anyone says seems to be important, and some of it comes across as randomized. The fourth wall will break, with you occasionally addressed as gamer, which I was not a fan of, as that word continues to sour in my mind thanks to the atrocities of GamerGate supporters. Your goal is to get as far as you can, ideally to the end, the tippy top, in a single run. You will first have to survive a number of standard enemy-filled rooms and then battle a boss before moving on to the next tier of the tower.

Tower of Guns is both a fast and short game, with the strategy for just about every enemy you encounter being shooting while strafing. A few bosses will require some extra planning, especially the finaler boss, who I could not take down on my first try. The difficulty, which can be raised or lowered via pick-ups and perks, really stems more from the level design. Some rooms are shockingly dull–imagine just four walls, maybe a staircase, and little to no decorations–while other rooms have teleporting pads and high platforms to maneuver around, plus a bunch of flying tanks and turrets shooting at you non-stop. You never know what you’re going to get once you shoot a door to open it Metroid-style.

Now, I’ve run into two walls so far. Not literally, though there are plenty of walls in this game. First, the game froze on a loading screen, though I think it might’ve been more my cat Timmy’s fault, since he knocked the controller out of my hand as Tower of Guns was loading the next area, forcing it to lock up. This was extremely unfortunate as I was on my ninth run and doing really well in terms of health and progress and taking down bosses–and all that was nonexistent when I loaded the game back up. Secondly, for a bullet hell-themed game, some of the rooms where the bullets are plentiful and hellish cause the frame rate to drop immensely, stuttering away at an unplayable clip. You’d think with the less-than-taxing art style and new hardware that this sort of issue wouldn’t ever pop up, but it does.

I’m definitely going to keep at Tower of Guns until I unlock the majority of the guns and perks, but unlike other rogue-likes, such as Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac, this one doesn’t feel like it’s going to last forever. Eventually the repetition will outweigh the randomness, and the tower will crumble, but not before I’ve wrung every bit of fun from it. Until then, may you always start each run with the ability to triple jump.

Dragon Crystal is floor after floor of mazes and monsters

If Dragon Crystal teaches me one thing, and one thing only, it is this: don’t touch mysteriously glowing crystals inside equally mysterious antique shops. If you do, you just might end up getting teleported elsewhere like the nameless hero of this Game Gear title, forced to drag a large egg behind him and fight his way through mazes of monsters in hope of getting back home…to his bicycle. Yeah, it came out in the early 1990s; how’d you guess?

Well, that’s literally all the plot you get (and need), so here’s how Dragon Crystal actually plays. It’s a roguelike, with Bicycle Hero-Man beginning in the middle of a maze level covered mostly by fog. The first few levels are a mix of trees, cacti, sunflowers, and Easter Island style statues, though I couldn’t tell you what shows up later in the game. Maybe dragons, maybe crystals. You progress by finding a warp tile somewhere in the maze, stepping on it to advance to the next floor. While you search for this warp tile, you’ll come across a number of items to add to your inventory, as well as enemies to battle.

Battles are turn-based and remind me very much of Hack, Slash, Loot, given how many times Bicycle Hero-Man missed with the swing of his dagger. Anyways, you face the target monster and press in its direction to attack. Sometimes you’ll do damage, sometimes you’ll miss, and the same goes for the monsters fighting you. Text at the bottom of the screen fills in the details. But nothing happens until you hit a button, so you can stand completely still and really think about your next move or dump into your inventory and see what potions you can use. It’s not very deep combat, but it works well enough, and several enemies can cause status effects, such as poison or dizziness. You don’t gain experience points in the traditional sense, but your HP increases with each new floor you find, and equipping new gear raises your power and defense stats.

Dragon Crystal is all about the bass items. Just like how Bicycle Hero-Man had to touch the mysterious crystal in the antique shop, you too will have to use most items to learn what they can do. This is my least favorite part of roguelikes, something that always made my heart skip a beat when using unknown pills in The Binding of Isaac. However, once you use an item and know what it is and can do, all future instances of that item will be acquired with everything spelled out. Thank goodness for that. Each item is color-coded, though the color doesn’t necessarily correlate to the effect, so be prepared to toss green books, purple rods, yellow pots, and cyan rings at enemies to see what the 401 is. Careful though as I discovered a cursed ring through this process and was unable to remove it once I put it on. Oh, and certain pieces of armor will affect how your character looks, so this immediately gets two thumbs up from me. All that said, I’m still not sure what money is good for given that I haven’t found a shop or merchant out in the wild.

So, that egg that is just immediately trailing behind you at the start of the game…well, by the time I had died, it had hatched into a small, tiny dragon. I’d like to imagine that it grows even larger over time and eventually helps you fight other monsters. That’s the dream, really. I read that there about 30 floors in total to get through.

Well, here’s as far as Bicycle Hero-Man got on my first run:

Dragon Crystal‘s a fun little maze-crawler, with good replayability to it. I expect to return to the color-coded items and foggy forest trees real soon. You hear that, Siro Me? I’M COMING FOR YOU.

2014 Game Completed Comics, #20 – Spelunky

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Every videogame that I complete in 2014 will now get its very own wee comic here on Grinding Down. It’s about time I fused my art with my unprofessional games journalism. I can’t guarantee that these comics will be funny or even attempt to be funny. Or look the same from one to another. Some might even aim for thoughtfulness. Comics are a versatile form, so expect the unexpected.

Hacking and slashing greatly outweigh looting in Hack, Slash, Loot

Don’t let the Skyrim picture above confuse you too much because I’m actually going to talk about a little unassuming game called Hack, Slash, Loot, which I got as part of a recent bundle from Indie Royal. Alas, that game doesn’t do well in terms of screenshots and me throwing stupid text over it, and so I typed in “loot” into Google and found the above. Such is the way the cogs turn behind Grinding Down.

But yeah. Hacking, slashing, and looting. The game promises all three actions, but really only delivers on two, and those two are technically interchangeable, which results in one out of three. I’m not a school teacher, but I know a few, and I can imagine the type of letter grade a score like that would translate into. Despite that and a few other major faults, there are parts that I really do like about David Williamson’s independently developed roguelike that skimps on graphics and strives for missed dice rolls. There’s just something really charming beneath its brutally difficult skin.

Hack, Slash, Loot begins with choices. You have to pick a class, and they range from a Human Saracen to a Woodland Elf Archer. I went with a wizard most of the time. Once you’ve decided who you are, you need to figure out what to do, and there are six different quests to pick from: Journey to the Kimon, Mask of the Boy King, They Dwell Beneath, Dark Hearts and Evil Minds, Battle for Stormrise, and Tower of the Magus. These differ in terms of conflict and goals, but you will ultimately end up in a dungeon, killing monsters and searching for stronger weapons and gear. And each dungeon is randomly generated, making every quest, every adventure, new and unpredictable. In fact, one dungeon spawned my character in a room with two monsters right next to me, which helped to earn me this Steam Achievement:

Wooden Spoon: Die in less than 20 turns

Sweet, delicious failure!

But randomness is good, and it’s one of the reasons that I can go back to Diablo II, Torchlight, Dark Cloud 2, and the grottos in Dragon Quest IX today, in 2012, and still have a fresh experience. The graphics are retro and not distracting, with sprites taking center stage, which makes exploring the grid-based map easy. There isn’t much on the map, just a few candles and coffins, but it all looks good and recognizable. Again, I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff, but gameplay will always trump graphics for me, as it has to be fun to play, otherwise I’m just wasting my days.

That said, there is little loot to look for and the difficulty of Hack, Slash, Loot is more than enough to put someone off–it’s pure frustration. Healing your character does not happen in a conventional way; there are no spells or potions to regain health; instead, you have to loot tombs for scrolls which, may or may not, heal your little hero. This makes taking on more than one enemy at once a very dangerous situations, and I swear my character misses more times than he hits. Same can be said with enemies. It is a lot of missed dice rolls, which does not make for exciting combat; it just then feels luck-based since stats are not as visible as they need to be.

I never really got far in Hack, Slash, Loot, but I had a good time clicking around and trying out different weapons. Ranged weapons like staffs and bows were better for staying alive longer, but it was only time before I ran out of health. It was something to do while hanging out in bed, dog-sitting and watching Frasier. I just might go back again and hope that the next random dungeon is better suited…