Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 3

Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 3

Progress has been made, Digivolutions have been had and plots have been developed!  Let’s get going!

Our quest for information continues as we are told to head to the Palette Amazon.  When we arrive, we see Gideon speaking to a bunch of our fellow Light Fangs, announcing that we don’t want to fight any Night Crow members should we run into them.  The two shit heads who run off at the start of the game make jokes and promptly get told to shove it.  Gideon seems to have his head on straight though and knows something isn’t right about all this...don’t like his idea of keeping all the information amongst ourselves before consulting with Glare but whatever.

After everyone else leaves, Gideon talks to use that he thinks something is up with Ophanimon and Glare and that we should be careful.  Duly noted!  Anyway, Palette Amazon is...really boring honestly, not challenging and doesn’t really have a selection of digimon that I am particularly fond of.

When we arrive at the end, we are greeted by a Spinomon that has been apparently kicking our seniors asses.  He’s also revealed that he is accomplices with Waruseadramon so he’s already A-Ok in my book.  Doesn’t stop my team from kicking his ass though : p

Anyway, a little while later, we get called back into our office by Litton, who’s second in command along with Anubismon (who has a nifty design). He reveals to use that the chief and Ophanimon have gone missing and has designated us to go to Thriller Ruins and investigate.  

This...is where I pulled a little bit of a dumb.  I brought along my...C team, assuming that would be good enough since I had been cruising through the game since Loop Swamp. Anyway, we arrive in the back of the area to see some symbol pop up before 4 Tsukiamon ambush us.  We handle them easy enough but then Gaiomon pop’s up, asking if we are the tamer that has been interfering with his plan.  Of course it wasn’t us! *shifty eyes*

Except then Waruseadramon shows up and totally calls us out...fair enough.  Spinomon shows up and it appears like we are going to be triple teamed before Sayo shows up and...mocks us?  Yet Gaiomon get’s pissed and sends the minion after her?  Okay...guessing a translation error here but we’ll roll with it.

Anyway, Gaiomon is reasonably tough and because I brought a weak team, I lost the first time (Despite a strong effort from my PIximon) so we come back with the A team and demolish him.  Unfortunatley, this all proves to be for naught as we can no substantial information from this.

Eventually, our group get’s tired of waiting around and we call a group meeting at my place to try to get to the bottom of this.  Eventually, we decide to invite Sayo over to see if she’s heard anything in Darkmoon City.  She shows up almost immediatley and reveals that everyone is acting weird and she pretty much hasn’t been back to town because of it.

She gives us the password to Access Glacier and we head off to scout it out.  apparently, it leads to Macro Sea through some Mario esque pipes and then back again.  We eventually running into Sayo confronting a Grimmmon, who we fought early in the game in Limit Valley.  In the background, we can see several of our guilds members, including Glare and Ophanimon who have fallen under the effects of the brainwashing.

Sayo attempts to stand up to him but is put under the same spell.  We rush in to save the day...only to fall into the same trap.  But what’s this?  It doesn’t effect us for some reason!  Grimmmon is exasperated but decides to flee and let someone else do the dirty work, resulting in us having to fight a brainwashed Ophanimon.

She is actually surprisingly tough, dishing out decent damage and taking very little from our own offense.  Still, we eventually prevail and she, Sayo and Glare snap out of it and the others are taken to be treated.

When we return to base, Glare thanks of for being one of the few that can actually get shit done.  He then entrusts us to take care of Sayo while her city isn’t safe and that is where we leave off!

You know the drill, Current mons under the read more

Current Squad

Divermon: L1 Jijimon: L1 Flymon: L29 Impmon: L22 Kotemon: L11 Lopmon: L24

Island Digimon

Cyberdramon: L42 Quilnmon: L42 Dorugreymon: L41 Guardramon: L 25 Flaremon: L41 Tortomon: L38 Extyrannomon: L22 Garudamon: L12 Triceramon: L9 Grizzmon: L36 Datamon: L10

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!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!? Gladius FINALE

You read correctly folks, this overlooked gem has been conquered!

Finally on the world map again, we make our way into Roanor, where we are once again greeted by Ludo.  Valens and he exchange some words before we throw down for the last time.  What proceeds is a pretty easy battle where our main four outnumber Ludo and his two lackeys.  Despite Valens getting triple teamed to start and quickly defeated, we down the former friend with ease.

Following this, we finally meet Muutis face to face.  He brags about how he will control the dragon and doesn’t care about what happened last time before facing us in battle.  Despite him having us outnumbered, his team falls quickly, treating us to a cutscene of him struggling to his feet while Nephellia (WITCH LADY) approaches from behind.

BAM, STABBED IN THE BACK!  Muutis cries out before going limp and Nephellia thanks us for playing our parts before a warp tunnel opens up below him and the Dark God emer-JESUS WHAT IS THAT?

Okay, it may be worth looking up the dragon from Gladius because it looks insane.  It’s basically a three layered beast with a bunch of soldiers sticking out of the bottom, four faces in the middle with some weird six armed lady above them and then the Dragon on top of that.

So yeah, needless to say it is quite the sight : p

The first stage of the battle we have to use Ursula and Valens along with three members of our choosing.  Obviously I roll with Zod, Eiji and Langston.  This however...does not go well.  There are eight soldiers to beat and the dragon is breathing an area of effect fire attack that will hit anyone who isn’t right underneath it.  The soldiers can also counter attack and hit both spots infront of them with a knockback effect.

The first time, everyone died except Ursula, who has regen when she get’s to critical and the soldiers couldn’t do enough to finish her.  However, the thought of losing Zod and Langston did not sit well for me so I decided to restart with a much better plan.

Instead of lumping everyone together, I spread everyone out (and subbed Urlan for Langston) so that the fire wouldn’t hit a large member of party members.  Each of the four melee units would pick a side and focus on two soldiers at a time while Eiji would hang back for as long as she could avoid the fire and provide support.

This was going better, Valens still got knocked out quickly but Urlan was able to handle his wall with Eiji’s help and Ursula was doing fine.  Zod was hanging in but struggling.

GUESS WHO FINALLY REMEMBERED HE CAN HEAL HIMSELF?!?!?!?

So yeah, using Hibernate I was able to keep Zod alive and get him to finish off his wall before he and Ursula teamed up to finish off the wall Valens failed miserably at handling.

Once the soldiers fall, we are treated to a cutscene of the dragon beginning to sink into the ground, putting the four faces into the firing range.  After a brief chance to change equipment and purchase abilities, we are ready for round 2!

Round 2 was much easier, the face’s themselves don’t attack but summon hell cats to go after you.  They must have gotten the memo that Zod was the danger beast as they triple teamed him right away.  The faces have poor defense though so they were quickly demolished with no one going down this time.

After another cutscene, the Dragon is all that’s left.  The team assembles and we charge into what is...a laughably easy final battle.  The dragon has no defenses and seems to be unable to stand any hits (Eiji’s long shot doing 250 to him).  His attack animation was pretty neat though, where he basically ate Urlan and took about 200 HP from him.  After 2 rounds, Eiji strikes the final blow, sealing our victory!

As the dragon fades back into hell or whatever, Nephellia...does a twirl before disappearing...alright.  Ursula begins to float into the sky as Valens cries out for her, revealing that for peace to be established, a sacrifice must be made.  So she floats into heaven or something while also putting the other Valkyrie spirits at rest.

This then cuts to Ludo and Nephellia plotting their next move and making out...not the most rewarding note to go out on but whatever.

So yeah...that was Gladius!  It was a fun game and I’m glad I was able to pick it up!  I may play Valens story at some point but I think I’m done with this game for now.  Got to finish up Digimon Dawn and then we’ll see what I play next from there!

Following up on the Purchased Games

Alright, so I've head some time to sample all three of the games I purchased yesterday so figured I'd post my thoughts here as a bit of a follow up.

Dragon Rage: Welp...it doesn't speak well for this game that it game out 8 months after Zone of the Enders and is pretty much inferior to it in every way (Controls, music, graphics, etc).  I think the moment that best defines this game is in the tutorial when the voice tells you what to do but gives you no hints as to what button to press to actually do it.  On the bright side, the dragon handles terribly but at least actually looks like a dragon...and you get to brutally tear sheep to pieces for sustenance soooo, that's something : p

Zone of the Enders: The most impressive one so far.  Very smooth controls and looks great for a game that came out pretty early in the PS2's lifespan.  Plot isn't overly clear yet and I'm seeing some Evangelion similarities (PILOT THE DAMN ROBOT SHINJI/LEO) but it's certainly a lot of fun to play so I'll be keeping at it.

Gladius: Not entirely sure what to make of it yet since I'm still in the tutorial phase of the game.  Playing the Ursula path first (Was going to anyway before I noticed the difficulties marked it as the easier one) and I'll be curious to see how the plot develops.  From the opening cutscene, basically some witches showed up to a barbarian king and were like "You're going to have a daughter and she'll bring about a catastrophe or something" except then a son was born so he through them out.  However, apparently his wife wasn't done giving birth or something and then Ursula was born and the king was like "oh shit" so they went into hiding.  So yeah...that's a thing.

So yeah, there you go everyone.  While Valkyria Chronicles will still be my focus, I'll probably be dabbling in all of these games to some extent so I'll be sure to post updates when I do.  Ta ta for now!

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!

The Valkyria Chronicles...Chronicle! Part 3

Hello again everybody and welcome back.  Today's installment may be a bit longer, seeing as Chapter 10 of this game has 2 different missions, and neither of them are particularly short like chapter 8's was.

So our squad has gotten it's next assignment, liberate Fouzen and take out their massive battle train!  Wasn't aware battle trains are a thing but hell I'm not going to complain about that.  Before we can actually do that though, we need to sneak into some mine/concentration camp where our contact is waiting for us.  This leads us into a mission where we need to sneak by a bunch of lights and enemies in poor visibility to reach our destination.

This mission...took 2 attempts for me to get done and gave me several mini heart attacks throughout and my language may have gotten a bit...colorful at times while I was playing.  First thing I should mention, there is a little transportation cart you can have one of your units take that will put them right behind a bunch of enemy snipers so you can hopefully pick them off one by one.  Unfortunately, this was also a source of great frustration.

On my first go through, I sent one of my scouts (Fresia) along that path, not realizing it was a one way trip and I wouldn't be able to send back up.  She did alright for a while but along the halfway point she got shot down so I had to frantically rush my other scouts to her position in order to save her.  That mission ended when a tank and two lancers about out of the void at the end of a bridge near the end of the level and killed my main character.

The second go around I thought I was smart. "Fresia can't take hits, so let's send someone more sturdy along that path!" So I ended up sending a shock trooper, Lynn.  Unfortunately, her movement points ran out right as she got to the back path, which meant she was a sitting duck and got shot down on the very first turn.

As I mentioned before, you have 3 turns to get to a fallen team member before they are gone for good.  This pretty much meant sending the rest of my team forward in a mad dash into danger to save her, dodging enemies and mortars in the process. Granted, most the time I just had my tank sit in the middle of the mortar range and shake the hits off, so that was fun.  Eventually, Alicia was barely able to reach her on the last turn possible so all was well.

The rest of the mission was fairly easy, the tank can just kind of breeze through the rest of the mission until the magically appearing tank and lancers at the end, which I was prepared for this time and handled appropriately (I may or may not have allowed the phrase "fuck your shit, jackass" to work its way into my vocabulary at this point : p).

SO YAY, MISSION COMPLETE!

Anyway, we then meet Zaka, our contact and he reveals he has a bomb that he will plant on the bridge that the battle train is on and then we detonate it and then it dies.  At this point, we have some character development take place and while I won't go into specifics, the characters really are starting to grow on me.  They're kind of the normal quirky you would expect from a JRPG, they are presented more like actual people instead of more "HAHA LOOK HOW DIFFERENT AND QUIRKY OUR CHARACTERS ARE" kind of way.  The developments in the characters have been good so far too so I'm interested in seeing if that continues.

Anyway, mission 2 of this chapter is a longgggg one.  Have to make our way up one side of the map to shoot out a bridge to stop reinforcements from piling up, which allows Zaka to plant the bomb and then we have to make our way all the way across the other side of the map and shoot the detonator to blow up the bridge so the battle train plummets to a watery demise. Blurble blurble.

OH, and did I mention that said battle train is firing mortars and other assorted cannons at us the entire time while it meanders lazily back and forth across the bridge?  Well it's doing that.

Surprisingly, I actually found this mission pretty easy.  I did fail it the first time (Left my tanks battery open and it got one shot by another tank) but really it's not that bad.  It's a slog but the battle train really isn't that fierce unless you blatantly try to run from it when it's in range, then it seems like it's cannons just have an endless amount of bullets that they will fire after you and will chase you into hell itself.  

I mean yeah, five or six of my squad mates got shot down at some point but I was able to get to all of them so...no issues : p

When all is said and done, the battle train meets a glorious demise at the bottom of the river!  Can't celebrate too long since unfortunate plot things happen afterward but yeah...that's chapter 10!  Oh and Zaka joins.

So yeah, you know the drill by now maybe, possibly.  Party after the read more.

NEXT TIME:  BEACH PARTTTTTTYYYYYY

Tanks (NOW A CATEGORY) Welkin Zaka

Scouts (GOTTA GO FAST) Level 9 Alicia Ted (Replaces Hermes) Nancy Susie Fresia

Stormtroopers (BAM BAM) Level 9 Rosie Lynn (Replaces Alex) Salinas Dorothy Jane Nina

Lancers (FUCK TANKS) Level 9 Largo Yoko Elysse Nils (Replaces Walter)

Engineers (FIX TANKS) Level 10 Karl Nadine

Snipers (EAGLE EYES) Level 9 Cezary Marina Catherine

Deceased

Wavy (Chapter 8)