ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?! Gladius Part 2

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?! Gladius Part 2

Hey everyone, been a few days since I was able to do an update but I feel like I’ve made enough progress that another one of these was in order.

Plot wise, there still hasn’t been a whole lot of development.  It has essentially been, encounter witch, witch says ominous thing, Urlan tells witch to screw off and for Ursula to not listen.  Probably the most interesting development was when we were tasked to go find a Galdr, Sigi, who is apparently responsible for singing or something to keep the dragon that the Mordare arena is hosted inside of dead. You have to trigger a random battle outside of Roanar where she is being attacked by 6 Mongrel Shamans and you know, keep her from dying.

Not gonna lie, lost that battle the first time and the second battle was cutting it close but I managed to succeed. After we return her, she and Ursula have a talk about sensing something in each other and Urlan interjects again,only for Sigi to maintain that she means Ursula no harm and wishes her well.

So yeah, outside of that I kind of stumbled throughout the area of the map I have access to going to each arena and knocking off their challenges one by one. I only have the Mordare tournament to go now to qualify for the regional tournament.  Currently have a 5 member team with four of their levels maxed out at 5 (Level caps for current school rank, will go higher when I beat regional tournament).  Let’s get a little more in depth shall we?

Ursula: Main character who is an interesting mix of a barbarian and a witch with her moves. She’s honestly pretty badass with her moveset right now, with multiple spells that can hit from range and multiple opponents at a time, as well as a move that buffs her stats (mainly making her super dodgy). Her biggest flaw for me so far is that her combo meter goes very fast and I have a hard time timing the button presses for her.  Other then that though, can’t complain.

Urlan: The elder of the siblings is much more straight up brute then his sister, for better and for worse.  A little slow and bulky but can certainly pack a punch.  He doesn’t really have any super useful abilities at the moment aside from him being my first party member to get a three hit combo, which obviously wrecks shop.  Not great but can certainly handle himself at the moment.

Zod: Bearrrrrrrrrrrr. Okay, he started kind of weak at first but could still take hits.  Now he is an absolute murder beast and I love him.  He is capable of shrugging off pretty much any blow that comes at him while dishing it back with interest at this point.  He has a combo attack that can dish out good damage as well as a special move that wrecks that only takes 1 special point (did I mention you get 1 special point replenished each turn?) and has an ability that reduces the amount of damage he takes, making him even more impenetrable.

Oh, and did I mention he has a counter attack?  He has a counter attack.  Zod kicks ass and I love him and he will forever be my murder bear.

Bestla: My wolf buddy who just recently reached the current level cap.  Very swift, but certainly not the most sturdy or effective from an offensive standpoint. Main use so far has been getting to top of the hill in the king of the hill battles or similar situations.  Has been getting some more useful abilities, such as a combo attack, being able to heal herself...

Oh, and ripping throats out, so that’s a plus.

Sim: Saytr who I just recruited fairly recently.  Still trying to figure out his strengths a bit but he’s definitely got some assets that I can use once I figure out how to use him.  Seems very quick and deals decent damage for being a lower level then the rest of the squad. Has some buffs and some range attacks as well but neither of them seem super effective yet.  Kind of a jack of all trades so we’ll see how he develops.

So yeah, that’s the update on gladiator land!  Thanks for reading everyone!

Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 2

Hey everyone!  I’m here with part 2 of my impressions and progress on Digimon World Dawn.  Honestly, probably made too much progress before doing this update but whatever.

So, plot!  Our guild leader, Glare (Little Ominous name for the leader of the Light Fang’s but whatever) orders us to go with two veterans to a new location to figure out what’s going on.  The mountain itself wasn’t too challenging but things got a little hasty at the end.  Once again, a laughing demon egg shows up to ruin our day and first throws a Sassaromon at us (who get’s easily dispatched) before attempting to throw something much larger and several Sand Yanamon at us.  Luckily our back up shows up to handle the hoard while we dismiss the big boss.

So that brings us little info other then laughing eggs like being evil.  Next, we are sent out to Loop Swamp, which was the first real typical sharp difficulty curve that Digimon games like to pull so far, both in enemies and stupid terrain.  This was made somewhat easier by the fact that I slowly scouted out the terrain while grinding my team up to make sure they didn’t repeatedly get their asses handed to him.

At the end of the long winding bull shit loop, we encounter my favorite character of this game so far by a large margin, WaruSeadramon.  Basically, his interaction with you boils down to “Hey, got that virus you ordered to destroy the town.  Wait, you aren’t the client? Fuuuuuuuuuu” We then defeat him in a boss fight and he gives us a shiny in exchange for not telling the Union about his actions.  Secret’s safe with me bud!

Unfortunately, the character I’m playing as was not as much of a fan as I was and promptly rats him out.  This leads to speculation that the Dark Crows may be up to something (the rival gang I suppose) since communication is cut off from them.  This means we get sent to Resistor Jungle I believe to meet up with the Dark Crows and see if we can figure out what is going on.

Predictably, this goes worse then imagined as the Dark Crows we encounter were brain washed (WOOOOOOO). After promptly kicking two of the underlings asses, Sayo (the girl we fought at the beginning) shows up to bail one out and claims we are the villains and the Dark Crows fight for justice.  We bat her back with relative ease and Glare calls in to tell us all to get the hell out of there.

So that’s that as far as plot goes so far.  I will say though, there is kind of an interesting dynamic going on between co Light Fang leaders Glare and Ophanimon.  Pretty much every interaction between them has one of them giving an opinion on the situation and the other just spouting elipses.  I feel like one of them is going to be involved with the reveal as to what’s going on here so I’ll be interesting to see if that’s the case or if I’m totally just reading too much into this (probably the case)

As for game mechanics, starting to see where the grindyness comes in to play here.  Not only do you need to level up your digimon (which isn’t THAT hard...yet) you also have to make sure they get experience of the right type to make sure they can keep moving up the evolutionary level.  Luckily, I’ve figured this out relativley early on and have been devoting a fair amount of time to it and I feel like my party is cruising for the moment.  We’ll see if this continues though.

Anyway, enjoying the game so far and looking forward to playing more.  Team below the read more!

Current Party

Raremon: L11 Firamon: L38 Dinohumon: L34 Lopmon: L19 Guardromon: L1 ToyAgumonB: L11

Island Digimon

Reppamon: L37 Kotemon: L21 Dorumon: L21 Impmon: L19 Candlemon: L19 Garudamon: L11 Piximon: L1 Flymon: L36 Grizzmon: L31 Gwappamon: L7

The Valkyria Chronicles...Chronicle!  Part 1

Hey everyone, for now think I'm gonna use this blog to share my experiences playing games and other stuff, because let's face it, it can be fun to read about someone's first experience with something!  So regardless if you have no idea what I'm playing, have mastered it, or are just looking for something entertaining to read, hopefully you can find something to enjoy here.

So yeah, as you may have been able to guess from the title, I am currently playing Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3.  Valkyria Chronicles is a turn based strategy RPG with perma death features similar to Fire Emblem, though it's a little more forgiving on that note.  Your characters die if you can't get another character to them in three rounds or before an enemy unit approaches them. As a note, I will try to keep spoilers to a relative minimum or at least not go into details much, but I can't promise there won't be ANY so...just be aware of that I guess.

I'm already on Chapter 8 of the game so I'm gonna do kind of a quick TLDR for what's happened so far in the game to kind of catch you up or at least give you a bit of a gist as to what's happening.

YOU LIVE IN GALLIA TINY COUNTRY ATTACKED BY BIG COUNTRY WAR TIME, JOIN MILITIA MAGICALLY BECOME LEADER OF YOUR OWN UNIT FIND ENEMY COMMANDER AND BRAWL WITH HIM GET SEPARATED FROM REST OF YOUR SQUAD

And that's the important stuff : p So anyway, the start of Chapter 8 has you as the main two characters (Welkin and Alicia) trying to sneak past enemy grounds at night to get to safety.  The gimmick here, is that Alicia has a bum ankle and the enemy is firing Mortar shots at you every turn while you try to work your way through.  There are also search lights that if you run into will cause a mortar to be targeted toward your current location.

So this level I actually game overed on several times before finally succeeding.  The mission doesn't seem that hard overall and most of the game overs were stupidity on my part (Leaving Alicia in range of the Mortar without even thinking for one) and since you only have two main characters, either of them dying is a game over.  Biggest hurdle was a section with a scout (Speedsters) and a Shocktrooper (Heavy Hitter) and I tried to face them outright instead of dashing right by to the pathway by them (Didn't see it at first).  The first time I did that I completed the level so...failure by making things overly complicated : p

Following that, a couple of cutscenes happen, including Welkin and Alicia backstory, seeing how the rest of the team you are separated from is doing and a encounter with the opposing army.  After all of that, it's time for the second part of the chapter, which you start on the opposite side of the map from your team and have to make your way back to the tank and operate it while the rest of your team defends it until you get there.

So you want to talk stupidity, that was how I lost this mission about 3 different times.  There are a bunch of mines in the path of Welkin and Alicia as they make their way to the rest of the group and I was apparently blind and ran into pretty much every single one.

The mission becomes pretty simply once you get into the tank and can begin to really mount a counter offensive.  That being said, I unfortunately did lose my first party member before that could happen by the name of Wavy.  Put him up at a little outlook thing and I thought he was safe up there.  He was not and got knocked down from there right next to an enemy sniper, who quickly ran over to him and assured my first casualty of the run.

But yeah, tanks.  Bam bam, your dead.  That was pretty much the rest of the mission.

So yeah, this was a fun little first edition of this.  Hope you enjoyed reading this, I will probably keep doing it as long as I find it enjoyable. I'll put the current party and stats under a read more.

NEXT TIME: MEETING THE PRINCESS! I BET THINGS GO WRONG

Current team and levels

Scouts (GOTTA GO FAST) Level 8 Alicia Hermes Nancy Susie Fresia

Shocktroopers (BAM BAM) Level 7 Rosie Alex Salinas Nina Dorothy Jane

Lancers (FUCK TANKS) Level 7 Largo Walter Yoko Elysse

Engineers (FIX TANKS) Level 8 Karl Nadine

Snipers (EAGLE EYES) Level 8 Cezary Marina Catherine

Digital Transformers!  Storm watches Digimon Xros Wars

Hey everyone, felt like it had been a little bit so I figured I should post something.  Still playing Digimon World Dawn but I’m pretty much just grinding to be prepared for the end game so no major updates to report there.  I have however been watching the one season I hadn’t seen of Digimon, Xros Wars though and thought I would give some thoughts.

I’ll be honest, I expected to find this season pretty meh at best, and it definitely started that way to me.  The action wasn’t really interesting and the writing and motivations seemed...contradicting to me at times (Syoakmon stopping to shoot the bombs cause it missed once so Shoutmon has to throw his body at every single one from then on, Dorulumon not being interested in others after proclaiming to the group to leave his Cutemon alone, etc).  

That being said, it really started to catch my interest after that little Dorulumon arc and it really took a step up in quality to me.  I just finished episode 30 and am pumped to see where the series continues to go from there.  It’s definitely very different in a lot of ways from past seasons and largely get’s rid of some of the familiarly mechanics, but if you can get by that, I think it has some pretty good strengths.

For one, there is a lot more variety in the supporting cast then most seasons I would say and it feels like even the minor members of team Xros Heart get at least a couple of chances to shine.  I would also say that the human characters are deceptively interesting in this season as well.  Taiki is probably my second favorite goggle head (behind Takato) and Kiriha and Nene have both had my interest as well.  Zenjiro and Akari I was less thrilled with for a while but they have both taken some decent steps forward with their character development.

Also this seasons version of Greymon is badass.

So yeah, enjoying the season so far, though still plenty more episodes to go for things to turn sour.  Hoping that won’t be the case though and so far I would recommend it to any Digimon fan who may have missed/skipped this season.  It’s certainly at least worth a test watch in my opinion.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!? Gladius Part 6

I told you I was still playing this, and oh boy do I have some progress to report this time!  Just warning now, this will probably be the longest edition of this yet and will contain spoilers for what I’m assuming is rapidly approaching the end of the game.

So anyway, we continue our journey to kicking the asses of every region in this game.  Luckily, this is made pretty easy in this last area by only having two different tournaments to conquer.  Granted the battles themselves weren’t exactly easy...but we’ve preserved through worse so of course we are victorious!

After beating both of the tournaments, we are interupted by a cutscene of Gwazi mourning the loss of his village.  Ursula offers to go to the alter where the affinity stone is that can cure their drought problem but he refuses of course since he is under our orders.  Of course, Ursula being the kind boss she is orders him to take us there.

Along the way, we are treated to a weird little thing where Eiji tries to tell Ursula what is bothering her.  Unfortunatly, this get’s misinterpreted as Ursula assuming Eiji has feelings for Valens and she obviously doesn’t want to hear any of that.  Eiji then laments that it may be just as well since they would all hate her if they knew the truth

MYSTERIOUS

Anyway, we continue on our way toward the altar while Urlan complains, asking “Why are we doing this again? BECAUSE WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE URLAN STOP BEING AN UNLIKEABLE ASSHOLE.

We arrive at the location to see nothing of the sort that Gwazi mentioned.  Suddenly, three summoners appear and Gwazi is revealed as a traitor.

...Okay Urlan, you were right...for once.

This battle is actually kind of a pain, since it starts with you, Urlan and Ursula against Gwazi and three summoners who will pretty much immediately all summon, leaving you at 3 against 7 which is not favorable and it’s game over if Ursula dies.  Took me 3 attempts but I emerged victorious.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention was during the first league, we ran into Valen’s old friend Ludo appearing working for the dark legionnaires.  He talks some trash to Valens, saying that his school was trash but he must know that since he jumped ship as well...okay, point Ludo but it’s irrelevant since we kick his ass.

After that region has been conquered, we head to Caltha to take on the High Games. Everyone is suitably impressed and pumped and Usus has more life in his voice here then any other part of the game.  With our dream team selected, we take part in the five battle series to be the very best!

Team: Ursula/Zod/Eiji/Langston/Bestla

First battle was arguably the trickiest, with a bunch of imperials and a commander, who constantly buffed their stats.  Luckily, Zod can pretty much take anything thrown at him so we are triumphant.  Round 2 goes by without even breaking a sweat, round 3 was a little tricky due to all the archers ganging up on Zod before he was in counter range and four was easy despite it being an all insect team (HATE THOSE).

The final battle pits us against Ludo’s team once again.  Honestly, he’s not THAT hard.  He doesn’t hit hard, he’s not particularly bulky, his only saving grace is that he is dodgy as hell and if you don’t time your button presses correctly he will dodge pretty much everytime.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!  BOW DOWN TO BEAR GOD ZOD AND HIS FOLLOWERS

And then...the world went crazy

We flee from the arena in Caltha (Which was really pretty by the way) as the sky grows dark.  The giant statue that watches over the proceedings proceeds to come to life and destory the royal box, along with the King and everyone else that was inside.  

As everyone else flees, one man stands to face the rampaging staute...Muutis.  He queels the beast with a single stroke before being named a hero to Imperia and becoming their leader.

EXCEPT IT WAS ALL A RUSE BY HIM AND EVIL WITCH LADY.

As our group contemplates this, Eiji reveals her dark secret for real this time, that she was hired by Muutis to watch his back as he retrieved whatever macguffin he needed to pull that gambit off. It’s then revealed that they are heading straight for Nordagh so we hurry back to defend our country and King/father from the impeding death.

Oh, and Usus warns us that every battle will be to the death so...any recruits that aren’t the four main characters will die if they fall in battle from here on out...fantastic.

Unfortunately, evil witch lady beats us to the punch and we walk in on her zapping the shit out of the king.  She flees when we appear and leaves us to battle her minions, forcing us to use Ursula/Urlan/Valens/Eiji. We dispatch them quickly before another cutscene starts with Ursula and Urlan talking to their soon to be dead father.

Orin reveals the truth that Ursula is actually Urlan’s twin and that she has some magical abilities and should go seek out the Galdr for information.  Urlan is against this but is, like at every other point in the game, talked into it by Ursula.  Usus agrees and decides to hold off the Imperial forces BY HIMSELF.  Good lord he’s a badass.  Anyway, Urlan and Usus leave which leaves Ursula and Valens to share a tender moment.

They also may or may not have kissed...I may have been looking down and looked up just in time to see the scene fading...

Anyway, we journey to the Galdr and after a laughably easy battle, Ursula finally get’s the secret’s of her powers revealed.  Not only is she the darkness...BUT THE LIGHT.  She is the last Valkyrie and has the ability to stop the Dark God, along with Valens, who will take the place of his father as the previous Valkyrie’s guardian.  CONVENIENT.

Anyway, we make our way to the old Valkyrie city that is now ruled by Cyclops to go retrieve a staff that belongs to the Valkyrie.  However, once we arrive, the Cyclops King does not approve and we are thrown into battle again.

EXCEPT THIS TIME WE CAN FINALLY CHOOSE OUR PARTY AGAIN! URSULA/ZOD/LANGSTON/EIJI GO!

What follows, is a very cool sequence of battles where the Cyclops king will summon the affinity god of each of the four elements (Fire/Water/Wind/Earth) and you have to take them down.  The creatures are huge, taking up a whole 3X3 area. 

Luckily, they also go down pretty easily, with the exception of the Wind one who was a tank.  The designs were really cool though and it was probably my favorite moment of the game so far, definitely suitably epic.

Left to his own devices, the Cyclops King charges us himself.  We charge into battle and get about half of his health down before he can attack...taking off over half of Zod’s health in one shot.

SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!

Luckily, he spends the other two turns he get’s trying and failing to use status effect spells, allowing the bear god to escape unharmed.  Once that ends, Ursula picks up the sword and get’s a nifty power up and new wardrobe.  She announces that we need to go to where the Dark God had last risen, being the place where he will be more powerful and the ideal place for our enemies to attempt to summon him.

However, that will have to wait til next time.  But yeah...this picked up and I am excited to finish it!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!? Gladius Part 1

Alright, so the trip to the beach in Valkyria Chronicles is proving to be a bit more hazardous then expected so I’m going to be focusing on Gladius for now until I have more time to focus on Skirmishes and upgrading my tank and stuff.

So Gladius, turn based Gladiator RPG and it’s pretty enjoyable so far.  Battle system is pretty standard turn based stuff with the exception of time button presses to do maximum damage.  Basically, you run a gladiator “School” (Well, your brother does but your the main character so screw him) and you recruit new members and go around to different arenas to earn certificates of worthiness so you can compete in the big time games.

Oh and some witches are stalking you and talking about dark gods, but I’m sure that’s not important.  Feel like I should reiterate, playing as Ursula, barbarian lady with magical powers.

So nothing to exciting in my progress yet, traveling to different arenas and earning certificates in battle. Sometimes the battles are different then standard battles though, like point battles (however much damage you do is how many points you get) and king of the hill (HOLD THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN) for instance.  Also fought a big ass wolf, so that was fun.

But yeah, recruitment!  Every arena has a section for this where you can buy gladiators either temporarily (one battle) or permanently add them to your school.  Apparently, animals are quite intelligent in this universe and are capable of  negotiating fees for gladiators to pay for their services.  Naturally I added Zod the bear to the roster and I love him and I will never let him go and he will be my right hand bear and murder everything.

So yeah, that’s the notable progress at the moment.  Currently at the ice arena place so I think I’ll be hanging around there for a while.  Bye bye everyone!