ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!? Gladius Part 5

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!? Gladius Part 5

Hello everyone!  More progress has been made and just one region remains to conquer before the high tournament at Caltha!  Or you know, the world ends, whichever comes first.

Anyway, The Windward Steppes proved to be a difficult region to conquer, partially just due to the enemies being tougher, and partially due to the increasingly strict demands for which classes could be used in certain leagues.  For one battle in a specific league I had to field a team entirely of temporary recruits to complete it.

That being said, starting to get a little more selective of which units I send into battle.  Before it was a pretty even spread, but now I’m definitely starting to favor the units that bring about the most success. If I had to split the team into teirs, it would probably be this

Tier 1: Zod (Bear), Ursula (Main Character), Eiji (Archer) and Langston (MINOTAUR) Tier 2: Urlan (Barbarian), Valens (Other Main Character), Bestia (Wolf) and Ekaterina (Plains Cat) Tier 3: Goff (Mongrel), Sim (Satyr) and Vagka (Ogre)

Not to say that the bottom tier can’t be useful, but they either can’t bring the pain like the others or in most cases, just aren’t as survivable as the rest of the team.

Onto plot progress, as we were headed for the championship tournament of the Windward Steppes, we see a group of dark affinity warriors on the world map.  The dialogue seemed to hint that they would show up in the tournament but they didn’t so that makes this scene pointless for the moment.  Though admittedly, that could just be me being bitter that the game froze on me the first time the scene triggered and I lost 2 hours of progress.

Oh yeah, and before that we ran into some dark witch that tried to tempt Valens and Urlan but Ursula chased her off.  Pretty sure she’s the one that is later shown in a cutscene trying and failing to resurrect the dark god so..all is well in the world clearly.

Speaking of Urlan (kind of), he was even more grating in this last section then usual.  Critical of every type of fighting style that isn’t of the ‘run straight ahead and bash things’ variety.  He also was very critical of Imperia, stating that Nordagh has been fine without interference or advice from imperials for centuries.  Me thinks young Urlan is forgetting that his mentor and his father’s advisor is from Imperia.

Anyway, when we get into the Southern Expanse, we see some guy being attacked by muggers.  Because we don’t listen to Urlan in this group, we run over to help him out.  Once he is safe, he is introduced to be a man by the name of Gwazi.  Urlan realizes his opinion is useless to me and we quickly recruit him.

So yeah...setting up to go rock this region of the game and earn that spot in the high tournament!  Or reserving a ticket for getting murdered by the dark god, we shall see.

Oh and recruited a Cyclops, wheeeeeee!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!? Gladius Part 3!

Hey everyone, made some more progress here, and some actual plot progress as well!  So let’s get into it!

Okay, so I didn’t realize I needed to beat the ice arena too and thought I only needed to beat Mordare to be done with the Nordagh region.  Luckily this was only a matter of taking longer and not being much harder.  Once that was done, it was back to our home tourney to dominate and become the regional champs.

Afterward, we finally get to see Ursula and Urlan’s father!  And he praises them and everything before asking to speak to Urlan in private.  By private, we mean in the exact same place while Usus and Ursula walk about ten feet to the side so...yeah. King Orin basically say’s he’s disappointed that Ursula has an interest in the games and is worried about the witch’s discovering her.  Ultimately, Urlan convinces him to let her travel away from their region and the witches since they are going to hunt her either way.

Ursula magically hear’s none of this so...whatever. Anyway, we head to our next region, Imperia, which is where our Mentor Usus is from so he can guide us and all of that jazz (note, there is no jazz in this games soundtrack).  6 tournaments in this region to beat so got to get to work! We run into some asshole who thinks we can’t fight because we are savages and all that.  Dunno, savagery has been working pretty well for me with the massive axes, and the bear and the wolf but what do I know?

Anyway, Ursula runs into a downtrodden looking young man who doesn’t reveal his name (but is clearly the other main character, Valens) and the two talk for a bit.  Ursula offers her support and a chance for him to join our school (he declines) and they totally awkwardly flirt for a bit.  He runs off while Usus insists we go to some shoreline arena, which has Ursula excited.

After an initial challenge, we go outside to see two dark magic people demanding Ursula comes with them.  Obviously this isn’t going to happen so a fight breaks out on the street.  Valens comes to our aid and assists in the fight before offering our place to stay at his gladiator school.  Usus is excited to do this when he realizes Valens is the son of his old friend.

Of course this takes a sad turn when it’s revealed that Valen’s father is dead, but it does prove to be a catalyst for him joining our team.  And thus team beast mode has their third human onboard...booooooo.

One of the arena’s is one where the opponents are almost exclusively beasts, which I obviously find very enjoyable and some nice teasers for future party members hopefully. I recruited a Mongrel (Goff) here as well and while I’ve only used him once, I expect him to round out the team nicely.  Also one arena hypes up Channelers as some big bad tough opponent but I’m not seeing it, they’ve fallen pretty easily so far and are really slow and more annoying then anything.  Also ran into an arena where lava can hit you soooo, that’s fun : p

So yeah, gonna leave party member summaries and updates under a read more. Til next time people!

Ursula (Level 7) No big updates here.  Has some new equipment that’s helped her pick up the offense and has a second combo now.  Gotten better at timing her combo as well so that’s made her more effective.

Urlan (Level 7) New weapons, more boom, still goes down easily when ganged up on.

Zod (Level 7) The undeniable badass and leader of this team.  Just shrugs off most hits while countering for about triple the damage they do to him.  I don’t expect him to remain this badass throughout the run but for now he’s the creature I can send into any situation and expect him to come out on top.

Bestia (Level 7) Has a counter attack when she dodges now and has a second combo.  Still more about speed then power but is certainly becoming more reliable as time goes on.

SIm (Level 7) For some reason, the Satyr is easily my quickest member.  Has picked up Jug Bonk, which is for some reason the most satisfying move to pull off.  If you time it correctly, Sim hit’s them over the head with his jug, doing heavy damage and stunning them.  Still very fragile but his offensive capabilities have definitely improved

Valens (Level 7) Pretty much Ursula without the shiny magic and some additional sword skills.  Nothing too special but he can buff himself just like her, making him very capable of bringing the pain.

Goff (Level 7) Our new Mongrel friend.  Still haven’t quite figured out everything there is to no about him, but he seems quick, not the weakest on the offensive end and with some buffing capabilities (can increase his defense) so we’ll have to see how he develops.

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 Finale!

After many hours of grinding, work, grinding, heartbreak, grinding, grinding and more grinding, this game has been defeated!

I had surprisingly taken care of more plot then I expected in the previous update so there are really only two plot missions for this update.  One was to go to Proxy Island to meet up with...whoever the leader of Kowloon Co was (the leader of Waruseadramons group).  This leads us into an area that is disappointing in pretty much every single category.  Not fun to navigate, not many interesting digimon and not a good exp spread either...love you too Proxy Island.

After stumbling around for a while, we eventually sneak up on Waruseadramon...singing...about how he’s not such a bad guy...did I mention that I love him?  Anyway, he takes us to his leader and we fight Gaiomon again...who is no match for us obviously at this point.  And honestly...I forget if we had to fight there leader or if he just agrees to help up.  After forking over 100k bits, he agrees to have his company work on a bridge to help us get across to Darkmoon city so we can end this!

Which leads to the intensive hours of grinding in order to get my ideal team for the finale!  However, tiredness of grinding, lack of good Holy exp areas and just general bullshit caused me to shuffle the team around a bit, finally leaving me with this final team.

ImperialdramonBK Eaglemon Gryphonmon Saberleomon Jijimon Dorugoramon

We go talk to our leader and he reveals that All the Night Crow members are crowding at the edge of the bridge looking to come in after us.  Glare tells Waruseadramon to come up with a lock to keep them out while we sneak in.  Spinomon successfully does this while Sayo and Waruseadramon have some very stealth adventures together.  And by very stealthy, I mean not stealthy at all, leading them to entrust us with the task of sneaking in and saving everyone!

I WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN WARUSEADRAMON!

Anyway, once in Darkmoon City we need to defeat three different tamers in order to get a master ID to get into the admin room or whatever.  This is where I may have overgrinded just a tad, as it took just one round of attacks from my team to defeat each of the three tamers.

We head into Night Crow’s lair before being thrust into a fight against a possessed Chaos Gallantmon, who predictably falls easily.  However, now that we’ve injured him, that means Chaosgallantmon can break out from his spell...apparently I don’t freaking know. This leads the little floating core thing that possesed him to float off into the final dungeon.

After being thanked by the leaders of the opposing team and them admitting I’m the only one who can save all their sorry asses, I head into the final dungeon!  Again, pretty easy, a little confusing but certainly not the worst area in the game as far as that’s concerned.

Oh look, it’s Grimmon again...woooooo.  Anyway, he get’s possesed and turns into...some thing and the final boss fight begins!  And this is where I DEFINITELY realized I overgrinded when his hits are doing about 20 damage each...Thanks for overpreparing me, every other Digimon game ever...

Anyway, he falls and then digivolves and tries to put us under some kind of spell.  Of course, this is where THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BAILS US OUT!  Luckily, the last boss is at least a little challenging, being able to wrack up over 100 damage per hit and put our team to sleep so i got at least a little resistance.  Nonetheless, he falls and we are victorious and are treated to credits that lasted longer then both phases of the final boss fight combined!

So yeah, That was Digimon World Dawn!  A pretty fun game, if a bit on the easy side.  Then again, I suppose one of the Digimon games had to be easy eventually : p

Have a couple ideas for what I’m going to play next, neither of which are RPG’s!

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.

Digital Transformers! Storm Finishes Watching Digimon Xros Wars!

Yup, after putting it off for long enough, I have finally completed the sixth season of Digimon!  You know the drill, probably some spoilers in this write up so...you’ve been warned.

So the third part of Xros Wars is...different.  I wouldn’t call it bad necessarily, but it is a step down from the first two parts.  It’s very episodic in nature and doesn’t really develop a plot for a large part of the episodes.  The plot and development was interesting when it happened, but there was too few of them on the whole.

Some of the more stand alone episodes were...iffy at best.  One that immediatly comes to mind is the Betsumon episode, which my beef with can be summed up very simply by this paraphrasing of the plot.

Tagiru: Gumdramon!  Fight for your friend! Gumdramon: He abandoned me and doesn’t even remember me, how about no? Tagiru: NO! *Punches in face repeatedly* FRIENDSHIP!

Speaking of Tagiru, him as a protagonist was...alright.  I actually didn’t mind him as much as I thought I would and Gumdramon was a nice partner for him as well.  I’m sure there were a quite a few people dissapointed in Taiki taking a bit of a back seat in this arc but I actually kind of liked getting to see him in more of a mentor/advisory position.  

Also Shoutmon’s desgin upgrade for this season was awesome.

Something I haven’t talked about throughout these post’s but I really probably should is the music.  I pretty much love all the insert songs that get played for each digixros/digivolution and some of the themes are absolutely great for getting you pumped for the epic moments.

So where would I rank Xros Wars out of all the Digimon seasons?  Pretty favorably actually!  I would probably have to put it in sort of an interchangeable depending on the day tie for second with Savers and 02 (And without the third season, it may be second by itself) with Tamers still my all time favorite.  Really glad I finally got myself to watch the series and I enjoyed the experience!