Puzzle Strike, Familgia, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
A little of column A and column B today, with some two-player tabletopping. I won a couple of games of Puzzle Strike, mainly by aggressively pursuing combines and strikes. There are some chips that do some awesome stuff, like Mix-Master, which breaks up your opponent’s gems and gives you a combine, and Iron Defense, which guarantees you have a strike when you need it. Again the phantom of not being able to counter being hit arose, which I’m not sure I like. There’s just not enough time in the game.
Gave Familgia another spin, and the game holds water in its simplicity, if its aesthetic is pretty terrible. My opponent was going out of his way to grief me, picking up the exact guys I wanted by nefarious means, so I was blocked a lot, but I used the pitchhitters and a couple of well-placed punches to snag the level 4 boss of two of the gangs, which helped me win in the end.
Then I played some video games. I hadn’t played Castlevania: Harmony of Despair since I’d purchased a larger TV, so I turned it on to see if it was actually fun now that it was visible. It was…okay. I easily made it to the boss of the first level with only a few jumping troubles, only to have him completely swamp me. I just don’t understand why that jerk has so many hit points, considering everything else I fight goes down in a couple of hits. It just feels unbalanced, and there’s a lot to the game that’s undecipherable.
Then I lost a lot of time in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Not that I want it back, but it just sucked me right in. I tried out a couple of missions of the new DLC, and it’s good, if a bit wonky in some of the story elements. For example, Mona Lisa finally makes her appearance, and it’s just as obnoxious as you’d imagine. Then I have to storm this villa, which is staffed by the laziest, deafest guards in the worlds. There are at least half a dozen times when Ezio should have been spotted but wasn’t. At one point you walk into a room only to watch a guard leaving the room and apparently not bothering to check again. There is a guard lounging on a fountain that you vault off of! And this after the guards were specifically told to double security by some crazy lady. What’s worse? Once you get inside, you chat up the enemy and convince her to give you a painting in exchange for sex (actual plot point) and she calls the guards into the room and tells them to leave the painting outside uncovered by the side of the road. They do not even blink and acknowledge that Ezio is standing right there. Then, two minutes later, you decide that you don’t really want to put your thing in that diseased mess and tie the lady up and bail, which gets all the guards’ attention, including the exact same guards who were told to move the painting. Fission mailed, right? No, because apparently the painting is already outside waiting for you. It took them literally seconds to move the painting, and it never occurs to Lady Death to not back out of her end of the bargain. So hey, free painting.
I also went through an entire set of missions for a sequence somehow, in which La Volpe spends the entire time being a bit of a dick. You want to save some actor from being killed so you can soak him for a key to the palace, but the Fox is far too concerned that Machiavelli may be a traitor, and refuses to help you because you’re willing to trust him. A whole bunch happens, mostly involving riding horses past guys holding boxes, and you eventually crash a passion play to stop an assassination attempt. Then, as luck would happen, you see the real traitor standing on the side of the road, just chilling, and you hunt him down and kill him. With the knowledge of the real traitor in your hand, you have 80 seconds to stop La Volpe from killing Machiavelli, something that he had mentioned he was going to do. I just didn’t think that he would be doing that RIGHT NOW, a good couple of hours after saying he would. This came out of pretty much nowhere. But everything is good, Ezio becomes the official leader of the Assassins, and now it’s time to do that thing we completely failed to do earlier in the game.
Showing posts with label Castlevania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Castlevania. Show all posts
What I Played Today: August 5
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair
This is an odd game. It’s been a long time since I’ve booted up a game only to think to myself “What the hell is going on here?” I get going, see the main menu screen with little explanation, and decided to dive right in, they’ll surely tell me what’s going on. Instead I’m presented with an image of a huge castle and an arrow pointing to a boss, and then the game kinda zooms in but not quite onto my character, who, on my television, is about half-an-inch high. I very slowly move to the right, then quit the level, because I was completely lost.
I read up a bit, and learned how to play, including finding out that I could zoom in, and I was off and running, still a little confused. I could finally see my character, but I couldn’t figure out why he moved some clunkily, with his slow-moving axe that took out every enemy in two to three hits and his clumsy jumps. The game still had a bunch of interesting puzzles and obstacles, so I made it about halfway through the level before I died. Second try was exactly the same, with a slight sidetrack to another part of the level which deadended unless I had a partner.
It’s...interesting, but I don’t know how much I like it, mainly because it’s tough to tell what’s going on. The fact that enemies don’t respawn is nice, and that the level must be completed in thirty minutes makes each stage seem like its own complete idea, and the fact that the boss unleashes a death ray that slices through the dungeon every 30 seconds makes it feel like an actual threat. You have to slowly build up strength, however, by getting equipment and items that carryover whether you win or lose, but that also means that you’re not expected to win the first time you play a level.
I don’t know, I’ll have to play more.
This is an odd game. It’s been a long time since I’ve booted up a game only to think to myself “What the hell is going on here?” I get going, see the main menu screen with little explanation, and decided to dive right in, they’ll surely tell me what’s going on. Instead I’m presented with an image of a huge castle and an arrow pointing to a boss, and then the game kinda zooms in but not quite onto my character, who, on my television, is about half-an-inch high. I very slowly move to the right, then quit the level, because I was completely lost.
I read up a bit, and learned how to play, including finding out that I could zoom in, and I was off and running, still a little confused. I could finally see my character, but I couldn’t figure out why he moved some clunkily, with his slow-moving axe that took out every enemy in two to three hits and his clumsy jumps. The game still had a bunch of interesting puzzles and obstacles, so I made it about halfway through the level before I died. Second try was exactly the same, with a slight sidetrack to another part of the level which deadended unless I had a partner.
It’s...interesting, but I don’t know how much I like it, mainly because it’s tough to tell what’s going on. The fact that enemies don’t respawn is nice, and that the level must be completed in thirty minutes makes each stage seem like its own complete idea, and the fact that the boss unleashes a death ray that slices through the dungeon every 30 seconds makes it feel like an actual threat. You have to slowly build up strength, however, by getting equipment and items that carryover whether you win or lose, but that also means that you’re not expected to win the first time you play a level.
I don’t know, I’ll have to play more.
What I Played Today: April 27
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
I beat Castlevania tonight. Well, actually, I got the traditional ending, the one that you get when you don’t obsessively try everything in the game and get every item in the first castle. You kick the ass of some guy, and then Alucard spends some time being mopey, and then the credits roll. Knowing from cultural osmosis that there’s a second half to the game, I boot up GameFAQs, try to figure out what I was missing (some important stuff, in fact), and unlocked access to the inverted castle...which is the same castle, only upside down. It’s also twice as hard as the original castle, which offers some interesting challenges and some really cheap shots, such as skeletons with wave motion guns that take out a third of your health in one go.
It’s an interesting trick, and also a real easy one for the developers. “Hey, this game should really be twice as long as it is, but we don’t have time and money for designing more background. Wait, I’ve got it!” I am getting a bit weary of the whole Metroidvania format, having to run back and forth from area to area, rechecking each passageway whenever I get a new ability...but I guess this is an early example of the format, before it was improved on. (Like Shadow Complex)
I beat Castlevania tonight. Well, actually, I got the traditional ending, the one that you get when you don’t obsessively try everything in the game and get every item in the first castle. You kick the ass of some guy, and then Alucard spends some time being mopey, and then the credits roll. Knowing from cultural osmosis that there’s a second half to the game, I boot up GameFAQs, try to figure out what I was missing (some important stuff, in fact), and unlocked access to the inverted castle...which is the same castle, only upside down. It’s also twice as hard as the original castle, which offers some interesting challenges and some really cheap shots, such as skeletons with wave motion guns that take out a third of your health in one go.
It’s an interesting trick, and also a real easy one for the developers. “Hey, this game should really be twice as long as it is, but we don’t have time and money for designing more background. Wait, I’ve got it!” I am getting a bit weary of the whole Metroidvania format, having to run back and forth from area to area, rechecking each passageway whenever I get a new ability...but I guess this is an early example of the format, before it was improved on. (Like Shadow Complex)
What I Played Today: April 22
Castlevania: Sympathy of the Night, Bloons Tower Defense 4
More asskicking in Castlevania, this time taking out a jerk named Orlok, who was sipping some brandy until I showed up and handed his ass to him. I also collected a bit of stuff, including some pointless boots. It’s nice playing a game that you don’t feel that you need a cheatsheet to; the map gives enough information to know when you missed a passage way (although it doesn’t tell you how to open it, of course), so if you’re stuck, just go back to that area and poke around. Maybe one of the new powers will help, who knows? I think I’m digging on Metroidvanias, I should really play some that were made in this decade. (I know Shadow Complex counts, but I’ve beat that one, so there we are.)
I’ve also got back on Kongregate to see a tower defense that I played a while back finally has achievements attached, Bloons Tower Defense 4. I must make clear that normal tower defense games bore the pants off me, they’ve got to have a gimmick to be worth the time. This games gimmick is that every hit is a one hit kill, so no bullshit about hit points and all that, but that each balloon may have a small balloon inside it, so you have to kill all of them. Some enemies can only be hurt certain ways, so you have to diversify your defenses, that kinda thing. It’s competent, even if it hangs on to a bullshit premise that stopped making sense when the first game came out 3 years ago. I mean, monkeys, really?
More asskicking in Castlevania, this time taking out a jerk named Orlok, who was sipping some brandy until I showed up and handed his ass to him. I also collected a bit of stuff, including some pointless boots. It’s nice playing a game that you don’t feel that you need a cheatsheet to; the map gives enough information to know when you missed a passage way (although it doesn’t tell you how to open it, of course), so if you’re stuck, just go back to that area and poke around. Maybe one of the new powers will help, who knows? I think I’m digging on Metroidvanias, I should really play some that were made in this decade. (I know Shadow Complex counts, but I’ve beat that one, so there we are.)
I’ve also got back on Kongregate to see a tower defense that I played a while back finally has achievements attached, Bloons Tower Defense 4. I must make clear that normal tower defense games bore the pants off me, they’ve got to have a gimmick to be worth the time. This games gimmick is that every hit is a one hit kill, so no bullshit about hit points and all that, but that each balloon may have a small balloon inside it, so you have to kill all of them. Some enemies can only be hurt certain ways, so you have to diversify your defenses, that kinda thing. It’s competent, even if it hangs on to a bullshit premise that stopped making sense when the first game came out 3 years ago. I mean, monkeys, really?
What I Played Today: April 19
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
I’ve finally gotten back to Castlevania over the past couple of days, after weeks of futilely trying to figure where exactly I’m supposed to be going. Somehow tonight I figured out a lot tonight...diving down into the lower levels of the castle, finding a secret passageway that I completely missed before, finding the next two forms that actually helped me get somewhere, including the elusive bat form, and managed to get to an important boss that I was totally not prepared for! And all of it without consulting any guide, like they did in the old days!
The game does throw a lot of stuff at me that I’m not understand. Familiars and one-use only items that make no sense to me. I don’t even know how to summon a familiar, or why I would. All I know is that I’ve got to give the entire castle one more score before I go up and face the man at the top again. Still, good to make some progress on that thing, after so long just dicking around.
I’ve finally gotten back to Castlevania over the past couple of days, after weeks of futilely trying to figure where exactly I’m supposed to be going. Somehow tonight I figured out a lot tonight...diving down into the lower levels of the castle, finding a secret passageway that I completely missed before, finding the next two forms that actually helped me get somewhere, including the elusive bat form, and managed to get to an important boss that I was totally not prepared for! And all of it without consulting any guide, like they did in the old days!
The game does throw a lot of stuff at me that I’m not understand. Familiars and one-use only items that make no sense to me. I don’t even know how to summon a familiar, or why I would. All I know is that I’ve got to give the entire castle one more score before I go up and face the man at the top again. Still, good to make some progress on that thing, after so long just dicking around.
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