[Review] Fire Emblem: Awakening

Step One: Survey the battlefield. Where are the bottlenecks? Where can you take a stand with a character of high defense so that enemies are only coming at you one at a time? Are there a lot of flying characters? If so, mages with Wind and archers will be helpful. How are your troops laid out? Do you need to make any last minute adjustments to formation? This can be very important because of not only does each troop have individual strengths and weaknesses, but who is going to be paired with whom? Not only can two troops "pair up" and occupy the same square on the map, lending each other strength or defending one another, but there are also bonuses to characters standing adjacent to one another on the battlefield. Not to mention that as characters are paired up and adjacent, their relationships grow, which could lead to marriage and children, who will be recruitable and whose strengths and weaknesses are dependent on who their parents are. Relationships grow better if a paired couple is hit often, since their relationship grows each time they support one another in battle.

Step Two: Constantly reassess the battlefield, the pairings, and volley healers back and forth across the battlefield; due to a limit on how many party members you can have in battle, you'll almost never be able to have two healers out at any given time. High defense is god, but you have to make sure experience is going to the people it needs to go to, not just a high level character, so if you want to use a character as a wall, make sure they have high defense but low attack (e.g. Kellam).

Step Three: Win the battle! Keep in mind that whoever wins the battle gets a large boost in EXP, but make sure you don't win the battle before you've stopped at every locked chest, sparkling spot where there could be extra EXP or an item, and that the right person wins the battle. You okay now? Breathe.

These are the basic steps of getting through a battle in Fire Emblem: Awakening, which is just as stellar (if not more so) than the original GBA Fire Emblem (also known as Rekka no Ken).

Getting through a battle is the easy part, though, if you're doing it right. You also have to keep in mind character builds, side quests, and forced random battles that you can essentially buy for 500 gold, for grinding purposes. These random encounters will generally drop at least one weapon and will always drop bullion (s), which is worth 1000g, thus providing a way to farm gold if you're dedicated. Any given character can be promoted, reclassed, promoted, or reclassed again. The level cap is 20, but you can reclass any number of times, provided you have access to enough Second Seals. Each class offers two skills, and you can customize every character with a total of five. If your characters have gotten married and spawned a time-travelling offspring, that offspring will have inherited some of their parents skills. The child inherits the last skill on each parents skill list. (You can view this as something similar to breeding Pokémon, but I advise against it, because that becomes creepy.)

Other factors: terrain, class weaknesses, enemy strengths and weaknesses, a village that might need to be saved in the map, a recruitable character you might need to get to before they end up dying trying to fight by themselves, Not to mention that for a while, you're going to be worried about which characters are standing near one another, lest they build too much of a relationship and decide to marry, against your specific machinations.

Whew. Still with me?

Fire Emblem: Awakening has an interesting and compelling storyline, endless resources to manage, and varying levels of difficulty that can allow you to cruise through Casual mode or break your throat screaming at Lunatic. With loads of DLC and Spotpass content, it will be a while before you run out of things to do. The game updates certain things based on what day of the month it is, and if you go to bed without buying everything from the merchant, Anna, you might be disappointed to realize it's gone before you wake up. On the bright side, she respawns over night as well.

Yup, that's definitely a pair of sisters.

Eighteen hours in (fourteen on one save-- I started over), I'm on Chapter 8 and have reclassed two characters, Donnel and Sumia. Both are difficult to level. When you first receive them, both can be killed in one turn if you aren't careful. Sumia is a very frail, very junior Pegasus Knight and Donnel is a Villager. I also find Donnel personally irritating, since he speaks in an overexaggerated hick accent. Sumia I managed to level by having her pick enemies off as need be, her quick speed enabling her to overcome the problems of her frailty to level quickly. At higher levels, she hits twice, dodges most hits, and is basically just stellar. She reached level 20 before anyone else, so I reclassed her to Knight, and am currently grinding the last few levels so that she can become a Dark Flier before Chapter 13 (I do not recommend this-- it was a mistake), when her relationship with Chrom will mean that she gives birth to two incredibly powerful children, Lucina and Cynthia. Dark Flier means that she will pass the skill Galeforce on to her children, provided that she gains that skill before that chapter begins.

Donnel was far, far worse than Sumia. On top of getting one-hit killed, his low attack meant that he wouldn't even gain any experience before getting knocked off. His rating with his weapon-of-choice, a lance is E when any other character starts with D at the very least. Finally, I discovered the key: pairing him up with Kellam, a Knight with incredibly high defense that put +6 on Donnel's stats. That meant that Donnel could withstand pretty much any hit successfully, and he's not as irritating when he's chatting about farming with Kellam, who was also raised as a farmer. Once he hit level 15, I immediately reclassed him to Mercenary, one of my favorite classes, and am looking forward to pairing Armsthrift with Leif's Blade and dear old Donny's extremely high Luck stat. He vowed to his mother to return to the village as a hero, and he's currently on the path to becoming-- literally-- a Hero, from one of the worst starting positions I've ever had to deal with. Donny + Kellam = bros for life!

The 3D graphics are beautiful, and the anime cutscenes paired with 3D effect just work. This is one of the few games that actually implement 3D properly. The music score is all right, but the voice acting can get irritating, since the characters will usually only say one word, so you get an endless stream of "huhs" and "reallys" and what have you, so I've found it best to turn off the volume and watch TV or listen to my iPod.

One of the best tactics-based strategy games I've ever played, hands down, and definitely another must-have for the 3DS.

[Skyrim] Skyrim: Dragonborn

Announcement came out for Skyrim: Dragonborn today.

Some things obviously worthy of note:

1) Dragon mounts.
2) Boat transportation: setting is an island. Solstheim, which makes little sense to people who haven't played Morrowind much in recent memory. It should have both green and snowy areas. Dunmer and Nords should both be prevalent. There are also links to Hircine, so I would guess there might be some werewolf related quests?
3) At 0.25, the architecture has gigantic mushrooms and mushroom-inspired buildings.
4) At 0.28, another bit of amazing architecture. Some people have suggested Morrowind Telvanni influences; others say hints of Red Mountain in the distance.
5) At 1.06, the enemy is mounted on a boar and looks like some sort of goblin. Whatever they are, they appear to be in some kind of stronghold. Edit - These are Riekling Raiders.
6) Obviously again, new enemies and new armor/weapons.
7) At 1.10, there is a cliff-side fortress behind the dragon, so unless that's old, there are going to be mountain fortresses in our new setting. At 0.24. you can see a good deal of the island and some hint of the mushroom architecture in 0.25 on the left of the screen. Solstheim looks pretty big, especially if it supports the mushroom type architecture, which is surrounded by greenery, and the snowy landscape from the other shots.
8) Cool jumping at 0.47. Unsure what that's about, but the architecture of the room the player jumps into is almost Falmer.

Edit - The tentacled monsters are Ash creatures from Morrowind, but I prefer to consider them Lovecraftian.They are even Goths-- Dagoths. Like Shoggoths, but with a Morrowind twist.

The Quest to Find the Perfect MMO

A few months ago, I downloaded Everquest II. Everquest was such a big thing, and it was F2P, so I figured, why not.

The interface defeated me within the first couple of minutes. 'Wow, this is really difficult to navigate all these freaking menus,' thought I as I clicked X numerous times as a consequence of opening my inventory. 'Also, why is it so hard to equip things and compare things? WTF is up with this,' my thoughts continued. After completing a couple of quests, I left the game, right-clicked on Steam, and told it to delete.

I am often defeated by MMOs. They offer many advantages. Their games are usually really interesting looking and I always want to play them, but then when I get them, I realize that it's kind of boring, a little bit of a pain, and I'm not that interested.

I downloaded Forsaken World and then I waited a while. I ended up deleting it without playing. I played a whole lot of Skyrim in the middle (let's say about 30 hours worth and leave it at that). It was also at this point that I first heard of Secret World and nearly had a heart attack trying to figure out whether a preorder needed to happen or whether I needed to wait, given how I dislike MMOs.

Then I got into The Secret World beta. The first thing you do in this game is choose a faction-- Illuminati, Templar, or Dragon. Each faction has its own recruiting video, so to speak. I chose Illuminati after a seriously badass video and proceeded to try to make a character that as looked as much like FemShep as possible. Because I could.

There's a lot about this game that appears to be like a standard MMO. But there's also a lot of this game that ISN'T like a standard MMO. The dialogue is witty, as if Joss Whedon decided to turn his hand to video games. There are lots of Cthulhu references and tentacled zombies. (No, I shit you not.) The landscape-- at least in the beta-- was a little bare. I don't know if that has changed since the game came out, but there it stands. I started off in Brooklyn and where I could go and what I could do was bleak and a little linear. However, since I played the beta, and how much of that stayed and how much went is something I'm not quite sure of. However, within the locations I could go to had people who were awesome. The voice acting in this game is killer. The people just-- shine. Sample dialogue: "We have stocks in hell, and compromising photos of angels." -- the line that made me choose Illuminati. "Roleplaying is the only avenue of control." -- multiple self-referential jokes are made of awesome.

The way to move from one area to the next is Yggdrasil. Yes, the World Tree, with branches that reach to heaven and roots in hell. This is the perfect reference for this game. It also has so many branches that it means, as an MMO, the game can evolve and spawn new branches whenever it wants.

A few cons, which I strongly suspect were worked out after release: character models were limited (only to be expected in beta status). Having several copies of yourself wandering around is freaky. I was also in the stress test for the server, and kept getting kicked off because of that. The first quest after you leave the Illuminati headquarters was also one of the standard "kill a bunch of x" quests, which I hate. However, it was kill a bunch of zombies and attract them by making car alarms go off. So. That was fun. However, the quest progressed weirdly. You were supposed to be figuring out how to attract the zombies, but apparently after you kill a certain number of zombies, the information is mysteriously beamed into your brain, since the quest objective changes to jumping on cars. That was irritating.

All told, though, The Secret World didn't grab my interest enough for me to actually buy it, especially given that it has monthly fees.

20 or 30 more hours of Skyrim passed.

Then we have the Korean F2P MMORPGs, e.g. Maple Story and Trickster Online. These are actually the only MMOs I have ever been able to get into and play continuously. The cute graphics, easy storylines, and Engrish have never disappointed me, largely because I don't expect more. With games like The Secret World, I do expect more. I expect the same level of detail and tight storylines as a single player game, and an MMO is too big-- it just can't deliver that, not that I've found. With the coming of Elder Scrolls Online, I only hope that I won't be disappointed-- I don't know that my heart can stand it.

Furthermore, a note on my quest for the "perfect" MMO. I think my largest problem with MMOs is that I always want an MMORPG to still identifiably be an RPG and it never is. I don't really LIKE the MMO genre, so the stronger the MMO elements are in a game, the more likely I am to dislike it. It has nothing to do whether MMOs are necessarily "good"; it's more that I personally need an MMO where the RPG elements overpower the multiplayer elements, and that is precisely what I'm looking for. So my quest to find the perfect MMO is not a quest to find one that is perfect for anyone other than me. Perfect is a term relative to the subject and can't subsequently be defined or transcribed to the object. My perfect MMO is essentially a single-player game expanded outward; my hopes for Elder Scrolls Online, which I sincerely doubt will be fulfilled, are that it will be as if a single-player character took a step sideways and suddenly became embroiled in a mess where all her fellows had as strong of a personality and ambition as her. I don't know if an MMO like this exists, but I hope that someday it will.

Elder Scrolls Online and Dragon Age III

2013 is looking like it's going to be a veritable bounty of good games. With both Dragon Age III and Elder Scrolls Online coming up, I can tell that I'm going to be busy.

New screenshots were released recently for Elder Scrolls. I'm particularly looking forward to the river of lava.

Meanwhile, over in Dragon Age III land, Bioware released some more information and some heavily Skyrim-inspired concept art.

Well, hey, if it's even vaguely like Skyrim, I know I'll be pleased. There were rumors that Dragon Age III is going to be more open world, and I know that the developers are a little Skyrim obsessed. Which is okay in my book. Mark Darrah, Dragon Age III's Executive Producer, said that there will be a "more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization. At PAX East, we talked about armor and followers… Yeah, that kind of customization."

DAO - 7 Hours In

Dragon Age: Origins. Yes. It's been a year, and we've finally come back to that. All of my objections from "3 Hours In" have pretty much been washed away as if they never existed.

Update: Battle

Since I last played, I have definitely managed to grasp the battle system. It's actually kind of interesting in some ways in many ways. Most WRPGs I've played are a solo journey. The player is the hero and has no comrades. Most JRPGs I've played are a journey with a party. Most strategy games involve a party, regardless of whether they're Western or Japanese.

Essentially, Dragon Age is a party-based WRPG, with a lot of strategy elements mixed in, which makes for a compelling system. Unlike with many other battle systems, I rarely feel disengaged or bored, as if I'm just clicking a button. For example, there was a party of Darkspawn who were guarding a bridge. My goal was to get to the other side of the bridge, but just hacking my way through was a failure-- I kept dying. So, to get through to my goal, I launched wave attacks. First, I went forward until they noticed me there and killed all who dared come close to my party. The leader of their band was still waiting, though, so we retreated and waited for everyone to rest and heal. Then, my character inched forward and shifted into stealth mode, getting out my bow and arrow and kicking some Darkspawn leader ass. The rest of my party rushed to join me and we pretty much rocked. Then, we retreated again, healed, and slaughtered the rest of the Darkspawn scum. There's strategy involved in how one wins the battles, aided along by the ability to switch between weapon sets with the stroke of a button, different skillsets for even characters that are both warriors/rogues/etc., and the ability to use one of my favorite techniques of coating my blade in poison. (Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age, it doesn't matter. Poison kills.)

Update: Story (and Writing)

The Human Noble origin story was predictable and a little boring because of it. Yeah, I said it. After that, it picked up and became more compelling, with a great deal of depth. Again and again, my character was confronted with the fact that she was a woman and a Grey Warden-- no one was entirely sure what to think of that, since so few women are in the Grey Wardens. They almost made too much of a deal of it, since there are plenty of women in the army-- and bonus points, Bioware, for saying that men and women are represented equally and actually representing them equally. (I'm looking at you, Fable III, who have female bandit uniforms but no female bandits.) But the repeated mentions of my sex actually make sense: the Grey Wardens are a bit of a boys' club. Though I need to walk a thin line between spoilers and actual discussion, I have to say that the culmination of the Joining was disturbing. The person who I had been sort of led to admire let me down with his actions, and people I liked had bad things happen to them. And this is pleasing, because it means there isn't only one-dimension to this story.

The Monsters Are Kickass

Look at these screenshots! Just look at 'em! Click on them to make them larger, so that you get the full depth of the experience. These guys are disgusting. They're scary. When they first appear on the screen, they're rushing in like the armies of Mordor. Countless hordes poured across the screen, heading straight toward Ostagar. I could feel the same fear that I saw reflected in the face of every man and woman in the game who saw what they were up against. I actually thought, "Oh shit, we're dead!" despite knowing that the game is a lot longer than seven hours. The only thing missing from these guys are worms and maggots crawling all over them, but maybe that would be asking too much. I hope not. I enjoyed being terrified of the people, the things, I was up against, enjoyed the fact that everyone I knew in-game was terrified of them. Because I could see why, I could feel it, and that was good writing. The only thing that could be better would be if this was twisted on me, if all of a sudden one of them spoke and had reasons. They don't have to be reasons I agree with, but reasons with their own interior logic. Something that I can understand and comprehend, even be sympathetic to, but which I'm going to have to kill them for anyway. And yes, I am waxing poetic over monsters. This is what Dragon Age brings me to.

Last Screenshot, I Swear

This woman. Morrigan. She is so cool and pwns everyone. I hope desperately (and actually rather suspect, since she has her own Codex entry) that she will reappear. Additionally, although I have no screenshot of him, Alistair is full of snark and I love him. Must go game now. I'll see you in Ferelden.

As a note: this is not an official review, as I am too in love with the game at the moment and have not played long enough yet to give it a decent review. Instead, consider it a play-through commentary, and part of a series of posts.

The Steam Summer Camp Sale

STOP THE PRESSES! The Steam Summer Camp Sale is here. Yesterday I netted me a sweet Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Game of the Year Deluxe Edition for only 8.50 -- note, that's base game, two expansion packs, and a whole lot of extra content. Also, Recettear: The Item Shop. The JRPG fan in me could not resist.

Next day's deals begin in, oh, 57 minutes and 20 seconds. Yes, I've been stalking Steam.

On the note of Elder Scrolls IV, I can't believe I can call myself an RPG fan and I haven't played Elder Scrolls, or mentioned that Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be out on 11/11/11. I saw Skyrim and basically had a minor joygasm. This game is IT. This is THE RPG. (I will be preordering it even if I have to sell a kidney to pay for it.) This game is big and beautiful and rocks my socks.

This is the link that The Border House blog has for Skyrim and is the best vid, since there is commentary and awesomeness and... I am incoherent over this game, yes. You will want it to. Just... yes. @_@