Actually, many many many things are Sacred, or rather, Sacred is just like a million other games out there. A good portion of those do everything here better, as well.
It's almost a shame to get into a game and be kind of digging what its doing, only for that experience to be hampered by something like a cumbersome camera or the fact that the game is just plain old and many other things since have covered this ground with much more panache.
All these things and more are a drag on Sacred 2: Fallen Angel in 2018. It's my fault of course; I should have played this when it was new, probably nearing on a decade ago. However, all I can think playing it now is how much nicer it would be to be playing Path of Exile or Diablo III or Skyrim or Dark Souls 2 or...
I will say the UI isn't terrible, and the skill and character development systems seemed well thought out and allowing for a lot of crunchy customization.
Well, that's another off the backlog. I'm coming to realize it's better not to buy games if I'm not going to immediately sit down and play them.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Friday, April 27, 2018
Middle-campaign
I wanted to briefly mention that I did reinstall and pick up Shadow of Mordor once more. I have been kind of rewatching the Lord of the Rings trilogy lately, and wanted to play some in that world. Maybe I will eventually find what others have in that game.
In Final Fantasy Tactics, I have made it up to the beginning of Chapter III: The Valiant. I'm currently grinding out random battles to get my force to the jobs I want them to be going forward. I'm also roaming the land doing errands out of the various towns. I don't recall if anything important comes out of these, but they're fun to do all the same. I have Ramza as dragoon now. I'm not sure where he will end up. Maybe as a samurai, or perhaps even as a Mime. I have yet to unlock either samurai or ninja, or summoner or mediator on the magic track.
The campaigns continue.
In Final Fantasy Tactics, I have made it up to the beginning of Chapter III: The Valiant. I'm currently grinding out random battles to get my force to the jobs I want them to be going forward. I'm also roaming the land doing errands out of the various towns. I don't recall if anything important comes out of these, but they're fun to do all the same. I have Ramza as dragoon now. I'm not sure where he will end up. Maybe as a samurai, or perhaps even as a Mime. I have yet to unlock either samurai or ninja, or summoner or mediator on the magic track.
The campaigns continue.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Rocketbirds: What the Hell is This?
I wanted to knock something off the backlog, so I decided on Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, which was a kind of uneven experience.
It's hard to really see what the developers were going for with this game due to how the themes of the plot, the art design, characters, and music all come together so disjointedly. It's not a great action-platformer to begin with, but the mixture of mid-aughts emo rock with cartoonish bird humanoid creatures and themes of total war versus an evil regime only serve to confuse. Were these supposed to be jokes?
On it's face, it's a bland 2D action game. There's shooting, and a little bit of navigation puzzling, but nothing even so complicated as in the original Metroid. A mechanic introduced a few levels in lets you mind-control enemies which is OK for setting up some slightly more interesting puzzles. One level I thought was kind of cool was set up as a jetpack dogfight in the sky outside the penguin regime's zeppelin. It played kind of like a twin-stick shooter but that you could only shoot in the direction you were flying in.
I got about halfway through the game, I am led to believe by the chapter count, but I don't think I'll ever be back to it. It's just not my kind of thing.
It's hard to really see what the developers were going for with this game due to how the themes of the plot, the art design, characters, and music all come together so disjointedly. It's not a great action-platformer to begin with, but the mixture of mid-aughts emo rock with cartoonish bird humanoid creatures and themes of total war versus an evil regime only serve to confuse. Were these supposed to be jokes?
On it's face, it's a bland 2D action game. There's shooting, and a little bit of navigation puzzling, but nothing even so complicated as in the original Metroid. A mechanic introduced a few levels in lets you mind-control enemies which is OK for setting up some slightly more interesting puzzles. One level I thought was kind of cool was set up as a jetpack dogfight in the sky outside the penguin regime's zeppelin. It played kind of like a twin-stick shooter but that you could only shoot in the direction you were flying in.
I got about halfway through the game, I am led to believe by the chapter count, but I don't think I'll ever be back to it. It's just not my kind of thing.
Monday, April 16, 2018
The Lion War for Ivalice
I've played almost nothing but Final Fantasy Tactics in the last week. In that time, I have progressed through Chapter I: The Meagre to the early part of Chapter II: The Manipulator and the Subservient.
Chapter II begins with a bang, the first movement, back to the merchant city Dorter from Orbonne Monastery, results in the band of Ovelia's protectors (led by Agrias at this point) being ambushed by mercenaries and having to fend them off. An unknown malefactor from the princess's kidnappers has hired a crew to waylay Ramza et al to put them off the trail. Just who is behind Ovelia's kidnapping is unkown at this point. The band will move from here toward a meeting with Cardinal Delecroix of the Church of Glabados, though, in hopes he can somehow protect the kidnapped Ovelia.
For this playthrough, I decided to eschew the use of overpowered characters like Agrias and Mustadio and T.G. Cid where possible, to instead rely on training up generics through the job system. I'm not certain how to proceed at the moment, though. Do I keep knights and archers in those jobs, or level characters through those jobs on to more advanced ones? I am leaning toward the former, where in the past I think I mostly did the latter. I may only need a single party member as a given class, too, since the battle party size is only a max of 5 in this game.
At the moment, I have Ramza as knight, along with two generics in that class as well. I also have three squires in training along with two or three chemists, two archers, and combination black/white mage. I'm running the mage and a chemist in battles now, along with a mix of knights, squires, and archers as leveling dictates. Squire and chemist not only compliment each other perfectly, but are also the cornerstone of every good fighter- or mage-derived class available in the game. I think it's probably wise to go ahead and have every party member master one or the other (using the other as their sub-job) before taking another class as their main. To that end I should probably get my current chemists up to white and black mage status and then allow my current black mage to go back and master chemist. Chemists are always good to have around, especially later in the game when they get access to guns. Same goes for squires; they have a really good set of abilities and thus can always be useful.
So then, my new plan of development will be to always be rotating through the party of battle at least one squire and chemist, while also pulling from the other classes whatever is needed, be it knight, archer, dragoon, monk, or any various mage type. I'm looking forward to applying this new strategy already.
I'd like to progress through the story and into the 100-floor dungeon this time through the game, as well. We'll see how that goes.
Chapter II begins with a bang, the first movement, back to the merchant city Dorter from Orbonne Monastery, results in the band of Ovelia's protectors (led by Agrias at this point) being ambushed by mercenaries and having to fend them off. An unknown malefactor from the princess's kidnappers has hired a crew to waylay Ramza et al to put them off the trail. Just who is behind Ovelia's kidnapping is unkown at this point. The band will move from here toward a meeting with Cardinal Delecroix of the Church of Glabados, though, in hopes he can somehow protect the kidnapped Ovelia.
For this playthrough, I decided to eschew the use of overpowered characters like Agrias and Mustadio and T.G. Cid where possible, to instead rely on training up generics through the job system. I'm not certain how to proceed at the moment, though. Do I keep knights and archers in those jobs, or level characters through those jobs on to more advanced ones? I am leaning toward the former, where in the past I think I mostly did the latter. I may only need a single party member as a given class, too, since the battle party size is only a max of 5 in this game.
At the moment, I have Ramza as knight, along with two generics in that class as well. I also have three squires in training along with two or three chemists, two archers, and combination black/white mage. I'm running the mage and a chemist in battles now, along with a mix of knights, squires, and archers as leveling dictates. Squire and chemist not only compliment each other perfectly, but are also the cornerstone of every good fighter- or mage-derived class available in the game. I think it's probably wise to go ahead and have every party member master one or the other (using the other as their sub-job) before taking another class as their main. To that end I should probably get my current chemists up to white and black mage status and then allow my current black mage to go back and master chemist. Chemists are always good to have around, especially later in the game when they get access to guns. Same goes for squires; they have a really good set of abilities and thus can always be useful.
So then, my new plan of development will be to always be rotating through the party of battle at least one squire and chemist, while also pulling from the other classes whatever is needed, be it knight, archer, dragoon, monk, or any various mage type. I'm looking forward to applying this new strategy already.
I'd like to progress through the story and into the 100-floor dungeon this time through the game, as well. We'll see how that goes.
Monday, April 9, 2018
The War for Valeria
I finally managed to wrap up my campaign of Tactics Ogre last night. That is to say I finished the lawful route of the main story. There is still a huge amount of game there to explore in the form of sidequests, a hundred floor dungeon, alternate chaotic and neutral paths through the story, and a postgame coda section of further missions.
I'm not sure what I want to do next in the game, but I definitely want to play more of it. I wonder though if I should take a break from it and come back at a later date. I suppose I can play a little more now and kind of gradually segue away from it to something else. Or maybe I'll just dive into my optimized version of FFT.
Tactics Ogre is great, though. It's a real masterpiece and by itself justification for owning a PSP, Vita, and/or Playstation Vita TV microconsole. The story didn't impact me as much at 37 as FFT did at 17, but it is no less well realized, and is certainly better localized than FFT originally was. I also finally came to appreciate the larger (up to 12) force sizes, appreciating the fact that I could double or triple up on classes I liked to really get the job done.
And that surprise ending! Now I see where the Delita/Ovelia epilogue scene from FFT was delineated from.
I'm not sure what I want to do next in the game, but I definitely want to play more of it. I wonder though if I should take a break from it and come back at a later date. I suppose I can play a little more now and kind of gradually segue away from it to something else. Or maybe I'll just dive into my optimized version of FFT.
Tactics Ogre is great, though. It's a real masterpiece and by itself justification for owning a PSP, Vita, and/or Playstation Vita TV microconsole. The story didn't impact me as much at 37 as FFT did at 17, but it is no less well realized, and is certainly better localized than FFT originally was. I also finally came to appreciate the larger (up to 12) force sizes, appreciating the fact that I could double or triple up on classes I liked to really get the job done.
And that surprise ending! Now I see where the Delita/Ovelia epilogue scene from FFT was delineated from.
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
The Burden of Loyalty
Book 48 of The Horus Heresy is another anthology. They stories are all loosely collected by the theme the title encapsulates - that it's not easy being on the loyalist side in this war, for a number of reasons. They are mostly tales of sacrifice of one type or another in the name of Primarch, Emperor, and Imperium.
The Thirteenth Wolf features a group of Space Wolves who follow some wily Thousand Sons into warp portals as they are escaping the massacre at Prospero. I believe these are the ones who emerge much later on, changed, just before Guilliman returns in the 40K period.
Into Exile, Cybernetica, and The Binary Succession all deal with the split in the Martian Mechanicum during the war, and the eventual establishment of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the power structure of the Imperium.
Ordo Sinister features a powerful Psi-Titan that has been called upon to help out in the war in the webway, where the Emperor himself has busied himself and the Adeptus Custodes after Magnus the Red breached the portal connecting it to the chamber containing the Golden Throne.
The Heart of the Pharos sets up the novel Pharos with the mystery of what's in the mountain of the same name on the agri-world Sotha.
Wolf King is the story of the Space Wolves being waylaid by the Alpha Legion after their actions against the Thousand Sons at Prospero. They have to fight for their existence in the Alaxxes nebula, and Russ has to learn a lesson about who he is and who he pretends to be.
Perpetual catches us up with the location of Oll Persson and crew after their flight from Calth, and on their way to Terra. They are still in transit, here, pursued by Alpha Legion operatives, seemingly.
The Thirteenth Wolf features a group of Space Wolves who follow some wily Thousand Sons into warp portals as they are escaping the massacre at Prospero. I believe these are the ones who emerge much later on, changed, just before Guilliman returns in the 40K period.
Into Exile, Cybernetica, and The Binary Succession all deal with the split in the Martian Mechanicum during the war, and the eventual establishment of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the power structure of the Imperium.
Ordo Sinister features a powerful Psi-Titan that has been called upon to help out in the war in the webway, where the Emperor himself has busied himself and the Adeptus Custodes after Magnus the Red breached the portal connecting it to the chamber containing the Golden Throne.
The Heart of the Pharos sets up the novel Pharos with the mystery of what's in the mountain of the same name on the agri-world Sotha.
Wolf King is the story of the Space Wolves being waylaid by the Alpha Legion after their actions against the Thousand Sons at Prospero. They have to fight for their existence in the Alaxxes nebula, and Russ has to learn a lesson about who he is and who he pretends to be.
Perpetual catches us up with the location of Oll Persson and crew after their flight from Calth, and on their way to Terra. They are still in transit, here, pursued by Alpha Legion operatives, seemingly.
Monday, April 2, 2018
The End for These
Every now and then I revisit a game that put me off previously, or that I'm kind of on the fence on, and decide that it really just is not for me. I had around of these over the weekend:
Hearthstone - I thought to go back and give it another shot after a long time away, but it does definitely still turn me away with the nature of how random and haphazardly balanced many of the game mechanics and card abilities feel. I also really don't want to put in the time it would take to learn all the cards and combos I would need to get good, or to go about acquiring all of the cards to use, either. I am looking for something like a deck building card game to fit into my life, but this is not it.
Destiny 2 - I thought I might like to spend some more time in this game after recent updates, but just tooling around it a little the other night was enough to make me certain I had no interest in continuing to try to enjoy Bungie's latest, beyond completing the base campaign. At least not now. I might have been hasty to uninstall, but really I do think it's for the best. This game is nothing but a treadmill in the end.
Fortnite Battle Royale - I've had a fun enough time playing about 30 rounds of it, but I don't feel any drive to play to win, and I don't really care for the moment-to-moment gameplay now that I've seen most of the map. I get why people like the game, if not quite why it's hit such a critical mass lately. I just don't personally want to play it anymore. I'm really hoping for this mode to be dropped into another game I like and for it to be paired with some kind of interesting strategic progression or something I could sink my teeth into.
On a separate note, I my have a new beginning for an old favorite, Final Fantasy Tactics. I found a fan patch that would take the PSX version of the game, which is technically superior to the PSP port, and inject into it the new and far superior translation from said PSP port. Through the magic of emulation, this best-of-both-worlds amalgamation is playable on my PC. I would no doubt already be deep into the game once more, but for the fact that I am trying to finish off Tactics Ogre at the moment, as well. I do look forward to eventually playing through the game again in this theoretically optimal incarnation.
Hearthstone - I thought to go back and give it another shot after a long time away, but it does definitely still turn me away with the nature of how random and haphazardly balanced many of the game mechanics and card abilities feel. I also really don't want to put in the time it would take to learn all the cards and combos I would need to get good, or to go about acquiring all of the cards to use, either. I am looking for something like a deck building card game to fit into my life, but this is not it.
Destiny 2 - I thought I might like to spend some more time in this game after recent updates, but just tooling around it a little the other night was enough to make me certain I had no interest in continuing to try to enjoy Bungie's latest, beyond completing the base campaign. At least not now. I might have been hasty to uninstall, but really I do think it's for the best. This game is nothing but a treadmill in the end.
Fortnite Battle Royale - I've had a fun enough time playing about 30 rounds of it, but I don't feel any drive to play to win, and I don't really care for the moment-to-moment gameplay now that I've seen most of the map. I get why people like the game, if not quite why it's hit such a critical mass lately. I just don't personally want to play it anymore. I'm really hoping for this mode to be dropped into another game I like and for it to be paired with some kind of interesting strategic progression or something I could sink my teeth into.
On a separate note, I my have a new beginning for an old favorite, Final Fantasy Tactics. I found a fan patch that would take the PSX version of the game, which is technically superior to the PSP port, and inject into it the new and far superior translation from said PSP port. Through the magic of emulation, this best-of-both-worlds amalgamation is playable on my PC. I would no doubt already be deep into the game once more, but for the fact that I am trying to finish off Tactics Ogre at the moment, as well. I do look forward to eventually playing through the game again in this theoretically optimal incarnation.
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