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

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)

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!? Gladius Part 4

Hello again peoples!  Progress has been made, allies have been gained and many asses have been kicked and mauled!  Let’s get to the recap.

There is a much more difficult spread of missions in the Imperia region, including some tournaments (due to my...somewhat undiverse team...) that forced me to temporarily recruit members to complete certain tasks.  It was honestly a pretty nice balance between challenging but not to the point where you wanted to bash the console in with a hammer.  I did however, recruit some new members to the team, which I will get into at the bottom of this.  The most notable though (to me) is Langston, who is a Minotaur and my first heavy class and is quickly becoming one of my new favorites.

Once we clear out the Imperia region, there is surprisingly little fanfare and plot as we head into the Windward Steppes.  We do see Ursula having the same dream again, though this time it is extended and we see more destruction and beasts before it just kind of slowly pan’s up into the sky and relaxing music plays?  So...not entirely sure what that’s about but alright.

Oh, and then there is a brief scene where a narrator talks about Mutis raising an army for the dark god.  Full disclosure, I kind of wasn’t paying attention to the scene until I heard the name Mutis so I could totally be missing some things here.  I’m not entirely sure we’ve met Mutis but if we have, he’s the assclown who taunted us in Imperia and if not, he was an old war buddy Usus met that was still kind of an assclown.

Anyway, once we get to the next region, it is revealed you can’t compete in the games here unless you have an archer...so that’s arbitrary as hell, but it’s apparently an economic thing somehow...so whatever.

As our group makes it’s way through the camp nearby, we are introduced to a cocky archer lady by the name of Eiji who overhears us lamenting our lack of archer.  She pulls off some fancy arrow tricks with three apples and wins her way onto the team.  She’s kind of portrayed as a trickster so not sure how permenant her addition to the team is, but she’s useful enough for the moment and she helps us earn our symbol to compete in the region and gives intel about the other arenas.

Oh, and Ursula and Valen’s relationship is getting shoved down our throats some more.  Also Urlan still distrusts everyone because he can.

Anyway, that’s all for the major updates. Character section below will only discuss those who are either new or have some important updates that I feel like touching on.  Thanks for reading!

Current squad is all between levels 10-11 at the moment, so let’s get into some specifics.

Zod (11) Zod will also have a place here as long as he continues to be my favorite : p. While admitiedly, he is beginning to lose a bit of his offensive luster, he can still take hits like nobodies business.  Also has Hibernate now, which allows him to recover HP...assuming i ever remember he can do that.

Goff (10)) The Mongrel is very much a glass cannon.  Very quick and has some nasty combo’s to mess people up but falls very quickly in battle.

Langston (11) MINOTAUR!  Slow, bulky, can’t take hits quite as well as I would have imagined.  That being said, hits EXTREMELY hard and has a four hit combo which will one shot damn near anything.  Has proven to be a very nice trump card for missions I fail the first time without his assistance.

Eiji (10) Our new archer friend took me a little bit to figure out how to properly use but I feel like i’m getting the hang of her.  While he melee attacks are (understandably) weak, she can move and attack from a range and has some more powerful longer range attacks.  Also has some status moves but I haven’t really messed around with those yet.

Ekaterina (10) A plains cat who is kind of like a mix of Zod and Bestia (wolf).  Is very fast like Bestia but hits a bit harder.  Unfortunately, seems to be less durable then her and has a smaller pool of moves, for the moment.

Also just recruited a level 11 Ogre (whose name I forget) and haven’t used them yet.  A heavy class so expecting them to be fairly similar to Langston but I’ll let you know when I actually get to use them.

Going Digital!  Digimon World Dawn Part 1

Hey, guess who’s got a new game?  DID YOU GUESS ME?!?!  BECAUSE IT’S TOTALLY ME!

Ahem, so yeah, my copy of Digimon World Dawn for the DS showed up yesterday and I got to start playing it today.  I have a pretty long history with the Digimon games, playing all five of the playstation games and beating all but Digimon World 2.  It’s very much a love hate relationship, as in I love them and then they try to tear apart my heart and soul with murderous, monotonous gameplay over and over again.

Anyway...we start our quest by selecting the Japanese pack, which consisted of Coronamon, Reppamon and Karatenmon.  Apparently we are part of the light fang organization and all are running late for some kind of important battle.  We’re in a hole, down 2 matches to none and need me to win three in a row...pressures on!

Except not really because everyone on our team is incompetent as hell and we wreck our three opponents in a row.  This puts us in the final as we face off against another member of...Night Crow, I think it was? That battle is actually kind of difficult but nonetheless our team prevails!  Partying and drinks all around!

However, this is short lived as some freaky dark energy egg that can’t stop cackling breaks in and dedigivoles pretty much everyone and crashes several parts of the city.  Even our team is effected even though we are home, which forces Reppamon and Karatenmon to dedigivolve to Kudamon and Biyomon.

Anyway, our guild leader is completely at the mercy of the nightmare egg when we show up.  It seemed like this would be a hopeless boss fight but it was actually very easy...quite the plot/gameplay segregation there.  Anyway, rebuilding time and three members of Light Fang are not satisfied with this, so they run off into login mountain and completely ignore orders...I’m sure that won’t bite them in the ass.

Inevitably, we have to save their asses from a pissed/brainwashed Aquilamon (one of my favorites so I would have been perfectly okay with him murdering them, but alas) which was a relatively tough fight but not too bad. Our team mates are punished with doing the rest of the work themselves...serves those losers right.

Anyway, we are introduced to to the concepts of quests after this and our helpful Digimon at our home, Gatomon, apparently really loves tea...so yeah, that’s a thing.  Rest of the time was basically just spent recruiting more Digimon and starting out my farm so I can raise my team to be the best it can be!  There are a lot of mechanics in this game, so hopefully I can keep up with it all.

Anyway, enjoying the game so far and eager to see how it develops!  Also, I’ll be playing this along with Gladius and not replacing that game (in fact i’m about to play that some more after I post this) so...no worries for anyone who was enjoying that playthrough.  

Anyway, current Digimon will be posted after a read more...see ya everyone!

Current squad

Biyomon: L17 Terriermon: L7 Kudamon: L18 Hawkmon: L17 Lopmon: L1 Coronamon: L24

Farm Digimon

Monodramon: L16 Kokuwamon: L12 Palmon: L7 Demidevimon: L6

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

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!