World of Final Fantasy

Hello all!

It's been a while but I come with great news. Over the holidays I got myself a PS4, gifted by my lovely fiance (Thank you so much!!) So now I'm excited to be playing brand new games that are available on this platform. I already ordered Final Fantasy XV last night but I couldn't resist getting World of Final Fantasy right after getting my PS4 ready. So let me tell a little about this game.

 You play as siblings Lann and Reynn who have been living in their own little world alone for who knows how long and in the beginning of the game these two get their consciousness back. They are greeted by Enna Kros, a mysterious woman who seems to know a lot about their past but doesn't reveal too much. According to her the siblings used to be great Mirage Keepers but have now lost all their memories. And what is their task? To travel the world of Grymoire to capture the lost Mirages. Grymoire consists of many familiar and some new locations from the Final Fantasy World. For instance you first visit the town of Cornelia from the first Final Fantasy installment. As the story goes on you get to know more about the situation Grymoire is in and as the heroes of the story, your task is to save the world from the Bahamutian Army.

 I have really taken a liking to the simplicity of the battle system. It is based on the ATB (Active Time Battle) system. As you meet new Mirages aka monsters you have an option to capture them as you meet certain requirements in the battle. For instance in the beginning it's enough to lower the Mirage's HP to imprism them but once you advance in the game the requirements get harder (such as inflict sleep on the Mirage). In other words you use a lot of 'Libra' in this game. Once you capture new Mirages you may use them in battle by stacking them on top of Lann and Reynn according to their size. Once you stack Mirages on the siblings they also acquire the Mirages' abilities (which you may develop on the Mirage Board), strengths and weaknesses. So entering a new area with a lot of fire-dealing Mirages forces you to strategize a bit and choose the correct Mirages to those particular battles.

While Lann and Reynn are viewed as 'Jiants' the rest of the world take a chibi form, called a Lilikin form. Lann and Reynn can switch between these two forms but once you meet your beloved Final Fantasy characters in the game such as Refia, Squall and Cloud, they will be in cute Lilikin forms. Switching between the Jiant and Lilikin forms can be used to your advantage since you may assign different Mirages to both forms. Just remember that Lann and Reynn are M sized instead of size L in their Lilikin form, which enables them to ride on great Mirages such as the Bahamut (how awesome is that!?)

The Mirages are also used in different puzzles which personally I have mixed feelings towards. A frequenting puzzle in the game requires you to stack Mirages on top of each other while meeting certain requirements, such as water resistance 100 or above and weight 12 or above. If you're lucky you have the correct Mirages in your party but if you're unlucky like me most of the times, this means you have to find a save point to change your Mirages. This usually also messes up your whole stack and I absolutely hate that.

To develop your Mirages they receive skill points through leveling up. You may use these skill points in the Mirage Board, where you get new abilities and stat boosts. Once you reach the other side of the board and your level for that Mirage is high enough you may even transform it. For instance your first imprismed Mirage in the game is Chocochick which may be transformed into a Chocobo later on.

Some Mirages even have certain abilities which may be used out of battle, such as Smash to get through big piles of rubble or Flutter to float you through air. There's usually a treasure chest behind obstacles like these so you will want to have proper Mirages in your team to get you through them in a new area. Usually you won't have enough space in your team to have all these abilities available at once so try to think in advance... In a fire canyon you will probably be needing the Chill ability...

 On your journey you will meet many familiar faces from the previous Final Fantasy games. Once you have helped them or vice versa some of them will unlock as champions, and you may use these champions in battle. I bought the game from the PSN store and it came with a Sephiroth champion summon! I'm not sure if he's a part of the game otherwise but his summon is so cool that I got the shivers the first time I used him in battle. Of course this entire game has been a roller coaster of emotions to me - Who wouldn't be excited to be reunited with Lighting and Cloud for instance?!

 As a huge FF music fan I am also happy to tell that some of the original tracks from the games have been included in certain scenes. For instance once you visit the Mako Reactor it has its appropriate music.

All I can say is that I'm very happy I bought this game. It has been a joy to be reunited with my favorite FF characters and hey, Lann and Reynn's comedic conversations aren't too bad to follow either. If you are a huge Final Fantasy fan I strongly recommend this game. Otherwise, start off by playing the games from the main series, meeting the old characters won't mean much to someone who isn't already a fan of the series. It's a must-have in a fan's collection and now I'm a bit sad I didn't get the physical version but bought it from the online store... Anyways, a great game!

Kamidori Alchemy Meister

Hello!

It has been a while since I wrote anything. I have been playing a lot of games but I've lacked the motivation to write about them. Anyways the next game I'm going to talk about is a fun one that I first played back when I was in high school. I never got to finish it and I'm still in the very beginning but I hope that this time I'll beat the game!

Kamidori Alchemy Meister is a visual novel/SRPG located in the city of Yuidora where the main character Wilfred lives. The game begins with him taking his first steps towards becoming an alchemist, which is a pretty common trade in Yuidora. He's inherited his parents' workshop, who have unfortunately passed away, so he has a pretty good idea what to do next - open up his parents' old shop. In order to gather resources and improve his skills as an alchemist Wil needs guards to defend him in dungeons (he is a pretty shitty fighter in the beginning). Servalwi, Emelita and Yuela all have their different reasons for joining the party and they are the first guards you acquire in the game.

I personally enjoy this game very much even though I suck at strategy games. So far the game hasn't been that difficult so even a SRPG-noob like I can manage. Going in dungeons has simple rules. The map is crawling with monsters and their goal is to reach your homebase, so keep an eye on it. In order to win you must reach a specific condition, such as eliminate all monsters or reach 100% control over the map. Battles are quite straight forward. For instance Yuela is a melee fighter so you need to get close to a monster before attacking, but a ranger like Servalwi can attack from a few tiles away. Once you enter a battle you take turns with the enemy hitting one another. Pretty simple like I said. The most important thing is to find all the hidden resources and treasures, since you need to be crafting new stuff for your store and characters.

When you're in the city you have a chance to manage your shop. You may remodel it or even expand the rooms, which is also one of the requirements for reaching the next alchemy class and chapter in the game. The most important thing you have to do outside of dungeons is craft. Your sales are very low right in the beginning but it's still important to keep your shelves full. Your shop also needs a salesperson and you can either hire one or assign someone from your team to that task. I prefer keeping Servalwi, Yuela and Emelita in my team so I've given the store clerk job to my other characters. Also, the game is not all action (remember the visual novel part) and every once in a while you may find different events around the city, which may involve new quests, advancing the storyline or just deepening the relationship between your characters.

Speaking of relationships, this game is rated 18 so obviously there is going to be some exposure of the skin and more later on. I am in the beginning of the game like I mentioned so I'm not entirely sure how many romantic choices you have in the game. The first three are a given but if you take a look at the CG gallery there are many others that are possibly romance-able. I've already taken a liking to Servalwi so I think I'm gonna go with her. She's kind and sweet while Yuela is cold and Emelita looks like a 12-year-old... So my choice was pretty obvious from the beginning.

 There's so much to this game but for some reason I can't think of anything else to say. I haven't written in ages so I feel like I'm a bit rusty after such a long break. Anyways I'll be returning with a new game later, hopefully sooner than this time.

 

Final Fantasy V (Steam Version)

Hello all!

For the past week or so I have been in a total Final Fantasy mood; listening to FF soundtracks, playing the games and fantasizing about playing the games. The latest FF game I've played is number five, and that's what I'm going to write about today.

I once started playing Final Fantasy V on my phone but like so many other projects of mine I never finished the game. This time I decided to give the game another try with the latest Steam edition. What you notice immediately is that the character sprites have been updated, for better or worse. If I remember correctly, in the original version Faris, the male pirate captain is wearing a cape up until the point it's revealed that he is actually a she. In the Steam version Faris is not wearing a cape and though it is a little unclear and pixelated, you can still see that the character is obviously female. So there goes the big reveal, right in the beginning. I also think that the character photos next to text boxes don't quite match with how the character sprites look. For instance Faris and Lenna are blonde, but they're character sprites' hair colors are pinkish. Bartz is also a blonde, while his character sprite has brown hair. Where's the logic in that? I may be a bit too picky, but these are details that have seriously bothered me.

 

Let's talk about the story in the game, just a little bit. Personally I think that the story is pretty average and predictable. You have four crystals on the verge of breaking and your main character and his friends become the chosen ones to protect the crystals in question. Each crystal represents one of the elements, wind, fire, water and earth. Once a crystal shatters, the element in question stops working in the entire world. Once all of them shatter, something terrible happens (won't spoil that for you guys, since there is so little to spoil about this story...) Overall, the whole point of the game is to save the world. So our main character, Bartz, hooks up with a princess looking for her dad, an old man with memory loss and a pirate captain with a secret or two. The characters do develop during the story but the reveals about their pasts aren't as drastic as in some other Final Fantasy games. Which is acceptable, as the game was released in 1992 before something as groundbreaking as Chrono Trigger, for instance.

Even though some of the details in the Steam version I don't like, I have thoroughly enjoyed the first 20 hours of playing FFV. Since I'm a huge FFVII and materia-system fan, I never got into the whole jobs-system. That has changed with my experience of FFV. In the beginning you start as a freelancer, but later on every crystal you encounter will give you more jobs. The first one, the Earth crystal, gives you knight, monk, thief, white mage, black mage and blue mage. But don't worry, in the end you are going to have so much to choose from that perfecting your team becomes nearly impossible, unless you know exactly what to do (I don't!). The most interesting part is that by leveling a job you get different abilities. So let's say that you want to use both white and black magic for one character. If you have learnt the appropriate abilities, you simply choose white mage as a job which allows you to use all of its abilities to full potential, plus you choose black magic as an ability. This way you have a character that knows both offensive and defensive magic. Quite handy, until you get the red mage that can use both black and white magic.

Let's talk about my current team, for instance. In my game Bartz is a knight, because its the only class that can use the Blood Sword that drains hit points from an enemy. Unfortunately the sword's accuracy is nonexistant. That's why Bartz is equipped with the Jump ability that comes from the Dragoon class. With Jump, the Blood Sword always hits. There are better combinations for sure, but I have come to love the Jump ability. Galuf is a Black Mage, because I want him to learn the ga-spells (Firaga, thundaga etc.). On top of that he has the Summoner ability which allows him to be of great aid to the entire team. Summoning Golem secures the team from all physical attacks. Golem has become almost a necessity to me in every fight. Lenna is a White Mage, because sooner or later I want someone to learn Curaga. Hastega is also going to be very useful to me eventually, so that's why I change her job to Time Mage every once in a while. Currently Time Magic is her ability. I keep changing the entire team's roles but Faris has been a constant for me. For the past 10 hours he has been a ninja. Dual weild plus throw, what else do you need?

Did I mention the soundtrack? Nobuo Uematsu, you are a God. My favorite theme in the game must be the underwater song, that greatly reminds me of the underwater theme in FFVII. Even though I've only played the game for a little while I've already become very attached to the soundtrack. Pure gold let me tell you.

This was a shorty but I'll write more once I start playing something new, or old. I'm very tempted to start playing FFVIII again, but I just hate the card minigame. I suppose it's a little fun in its way but not when you keep losing all your cards. Give me a FFVIII mod that deletes the card minigame!

Kingdom Hearts

Hello all!

I have to sadly inform you that both my PS3 and PS1 have broken down... but to balance out the situation I decided to purchase a PS2! In addition I got 15 games that included Kingdom Hearts I and II! I remember being 9 or 10 years old when I really wanted the first game in the series but now, over ten years later I finally have it! I'm so excited to own a PS2 because I know that my brother has some amazing games to recommend. I recently borrowed Star Ocean: Second Story from him but haven't had the time to play it again, since I've been too excited with Kingdom Hearts. Let me tell you a little about the game.

 To be honest the beginning of the game is quite confusing. You're not sure if Sora, the main character is dreaming or if he's awake but to me it was pretty weird. He's constantly falling from one place to another, then he's floating under water, back to falling and then floating and so on. The first cutscene's pretty trippy. Anyways, you get to choose between a sword, a magic staff and a shield. Defending is important but I decided to drop the shield and picked a sword and the staff. The sword was a must but I don't want to go on without magic either. You also need to answer a few questions and I suppose they're going to affect your gameplay somehow but I'm not sure yet how. If I remember correctly one of them was about what you're scared of and I picked 'growing old', which is quite accurate... and scary at the same time. 

The game begins in Destiny Islands, Sora and his friends' home world. Sora, Kairi and Riku have a plan to build a raft and explore the outside worlds which are still unknown to them. One night the island is attacked by monsters called the Heartless and during the ruckus Sora gets a hold of the Keyblade, a weapon with great power. Sora gets separated from his friends and lands in a foreign world where he meets Donald Duck and Goofy. To his surprise he's exactly who the two of them have been looking for! Though their goals are different at first they end up joining their forces in order to defeat the evil Heartless and whoever is behind them. The answer to all questions is the mystery Keyblade...

If anything, KH really depicts my childhood which was filled with both Final Fantasy and Disney. It's an old game but I must say that I knew very little of it before I started playing. I knew there was going to be FF and Disney but that's all. Even so, I keep on smiling to myself every time I encounter an old, familiar character. Some of them have their original voice acting, which is so awesome. I couldn't play the game if Donald Duck didn't sound exactly like supposed to. Wakka from FFX has a small role in the beginning of the game and I was pretty upset by the voice acting... but otherwise everything's a huge plus!

The gameplay is quite simple. You pretty much run around hacking away at monsters, casting spells and so on. What makes me most nervous is that despite the fighting being really easy, the fights itself have been quite difficult! I don't know about the rest of the world but I have had huge difficulties with a few fights (Clayton and that darned Chameleon...) I have googled my problems a few times and have found tens of forum posts asking about the same things I have questioned so I suppose I can't be the only one sucking at this game. I'm currently struggling in the Aladdin world where I need to fight against the Sand Tiger. But fortunately I had google on my side once again and now know what to do!

I'm in the beginning of the game but KH has already given me so many mysteries I can't solve. Firstly there are quite a few collectables, 101 to be exact *wink wink*. Secondly you can find pages of a magical book scattered all over the worlds. I don't know how many there are, but by collecting them you supposedly help out Winnie the Pooh, who is currently all alone in the book. Thirdly, you instantly find different colour paint stains all over the first world. I think I currently have the power to interact with blue and red stains, which usually reveal a new passageway or a treasure. It pretty much means that Sora, Donald and Goofy bump their heads against a wall where the paint stain lies. I'm sure that can't be all so Kingdom Hearts is definitely going to be a longer project.

What I don't like about the game is that Donald, being a hugely lovable character is in fact completely useless in battle. While trying to concentrate on a battle I can only hear the desperate quacking of Donald and at some point the ruckus stops, which means he has already passed out. Fortunately in some worlds you encounter characters, such as Tarzan and Aladdin who can replace Donald and join you in battle. Unfortunately this means that you can't interact with the paint stains I talked about earlier because they require both Donald and Goofy in your team. A friend of mine did mention that Donald makes up a good healer at some point of the game but since Sora is the only one with the ability Cure at the moment, Donald is going to keep on dragging me down. His squabbling with Sora is quite hilarious though!

I'm also a bit skeptical about the Gummi Ship system. In order to reach a new world you need to travel through space Star Fox-style with a space ship, shooting down enemies and obstacles. They drop different ship parts and by collecting blueprints you can build new, better Gummi Ships. Aaaaaand... I think it's a complete waste of time. I just got a new part which enables me to visit familiar worlds without going through the space fighting scenes, but I'm not sure how it works yet. But so far, if I wanted to visit Tarzan's world from my home world, I had to go through two sequences of space fighting... and when going back the same thing all over again. I wouldn't mind if the game was actually STAR FOX and the flying plus shooting was the whole idea but hey, I'm playing Kingdom Hearts... I want to kill monsters and level up my characters, not fly in space.

The storyline hasn't been that captivating yet. You just go from world to world, help the characters in that specific place and fight the Heartless monsters. On top of that, *SPOILER WARNING*, wasn't it pretty obvious that Riku's going to turn evil? I'm not 100% sure, but it had been heavily indicated in the game so far. I do not want to battle against him though. You can duel with him in the beginning of the game with wooden swords and I got my ass kicked at least thrice.

I wish I had more to tell but I have only played for 10 hours or so. But I think I got the most important details covered. I'm already looking forward to KH2. I don't have any complaints but I'm excited to see what they've done better compared to the first game. I'm probably going to play something else inbetween but at some point I'll return with Kingdom Hearts 2.

 

Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 3rd Story

Hello!

It's been a while since I wrote anything and the reason is that I haven't been playing anything reasonable. Mainly free visual novels that haven't been worth mentioning really. I did start playing the Witcher 3, finally! It's going to take me some time to come up with enough material though, so just wait.

 So I recently started playing Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side and I have to admit, it's quite addicting! The idea is quite basic: You go to high school for three years while increasing your stats, making friends and possibly even meeting your boyfriend~. I didn't read any guides before starting so I was totally lost in my first walkthrough. I became the most popular student in my 3rd year with my high stats, but I kept changing my target so I didn't get a boyfriend. This time I made some preparations and I know what to do. There are six possible boyfriend candidates and on my first walkthrough I didn't even meet the sixth one, how mysterious... I'll try to woo Ruka this time, even though my favourite's Junpei!

What makes this game extremely difficult at first is dressing up. Every month there's a different trend and by dressing accordingly you may increase your fashion level. In the beginning you don't have much to pick from since you only start with 125 coins. Later on you may choose a part-time job but it'll take a long while to have a proper closet. On top of following the trends you must dress to your target's liking. For instance I've discovered that Ruka likes when you dress up naturally or cutely, but once my style was too vivid and he was absolutely terrified. A bit superficial I think but hey, it's just a game. Different occasions have their own clothing, for instance during the fireworks in summer you dress up in a yukata (if you own one!), in the Christmas Party in a dress and on the beach in a swimming suit. Just keep in mind that you need to be fashionable and to your guy's liking in all occasions... So troublesome.

 Every Sunday you have the opportunity to invite a guy to a date! I even read that it's possible to have a three-way date once you're familiar enough with the guys, but I think it's difficult enough to date one person yet alone two at the same time... Anyways you should keep a lookout on special events and in general what's going on around the town. For instance I still haven't had the chance to see the fireworks with anyone since like I mentioned, I was a bit lost in my first walkthrough.

What I haven't understood yet is the approaching system. I'm playing on a PSP but on a DS you can touch your date through the touch screen, which is incredibly weird!! You may approach them, touch different parts of them and oh God, this is getting super weird. I still don't know how to approach the date but I guess I'll find out sooner of later by just smashing the buttons. Going on dates is one way to increase your relationship, also by calling them with the appropriate name and answering their questions correctly.

 So what I got really excited about once I begun playing is that TMGS 3rd has animated sprites! It's the first time I've seen something like that in a visual novel since most of them only have the characters' mouths moving. In TMGS the whole character moves and I think that's pretty neat. Also, in the beginning you give out your name and if it's found in the voice acting database, the characters actually call you by your real name instead of "hey, you" like in so many other visual novel games. I have a Finnish name so of course they don't call me by my full name, but "Takai San" is pretty close! I actually got a bit flustered the first time they called out my name, ha ha... I keep cracking up though when Junpei calls me "San-san". Equally ridiculous would be Kun-kun or Chan-chan.

There are also a few minigames in TMGS 3rd but my favourite of them all is the guys or they even make it themselves. You also have both options in the game but I think making your own chocolate is more personal. If the guy accepts the chocolate they may return the favor on White Day, one month after Valentine's Day. My chocolates look terrible every time (try drawing a heart with a D-pad!) but so far Junpei and Ruka have enjoyed them. There's other minigames as well, mainly part of the Sports Festival in school, but they're not as fun as the Valentine's minigame.

 I think Ruka is pretty weird. During the Cultural Festival you may bump into him while he's acting as a guide to the guests. You don't know this during the first year and he asks you "Is something bothering you" or something similar. I automatically thought it came out of the bushes. Once you tell him that all's okay, he pretty much tells you to get the fuck out of his way. Nice. At the time I was going on dates with him every second weekend and I thought our relationship was okay, but that event made me pick Junpei instead. In the end I was trying to target Junpei but I still ended up with Ruka (your save file has his image and he hangs around you when you do activities). I guess he was impressed by my popularity and good grades.

There's so many things I haven't explained yet but I think I got the most important ones covered. I'll be back with another game next time, possibly Witcher ;-)

Gems of War

Hiya!

I wasn't sure at first whether I should write about this game or not but since I've really enjoyed it for the past 50+ hours I decided to give this a try. For a simple "match 3"-game Gems of War is really complex when you get deeper into its gameplay.

 In Gems of War your task is to unlock different kingdoms, help the characters in every kingdom's storyline and level up your cards. The actual gameplay is quite simple. You have your main character plus 3-4 cards (4 if you choose not to play with your character) that have their own health, attack power, shield power and magic. Your objective is to beat the enemy cards by matching gems. Every card has its own element/colour and by matching gems of certain colour you add power to your cards. Once a card's element bar is filled, it can unleash its special power onto the opposite team. Some cards are meant to defend but most cards afflict damage or status effects on the enemy cards. Of course, the most straight forward way to victory is matching skull gems, that causes damage worth your first card's attack power onto the first card in line in the enemy deck. Be sure to match all 4+ gems on your turn - you get extra coins, an extra turn and if it's a colour you already have in your deck, extra power to your cards!

 Let's talk about the cards. You acquire cards through opening chests or completing a storyline. At the end of a storyline you get the card of the character involved in the story (for some reason they all want to join you on your quest after finishing the job). For instance in the picture above, the epic purple card Atlanta is a storyline card. Anyways, depending on the level of the chest you get cards of different levels and other neat stuff like souls (used to level up cards) or rune stones (used to unlock card abilities). The best way to acquire keys to open chests is of course to sacrifice yourself to micro transactions. I have to admit I paid 5€ to get myself a cool new outfit, coins and keys. But you get gold keys (the lowest kind) through gameplay and higher level keys by using treasure maps. By using a treasure map you enter a mini-game, where your goal is to match coins, that through re-matching turn into more valuable items, small pouches and chests. After the game ends you get the coins plus all the cool stuff that were inside the chests (originally mere bronze coins). Some of these chests may include keys and the more valuable the chest is, the more valuable the keys.

 Here comes the fun part - you can level up pretty much everything. Your cards, your character class and kingdoms. By leveling up your cards they become more stronger but there is always a limit. Once you hit the level limit for a card you know that you need to ascend the card by combining cards of the same kind. For instance having a rare Banshee and combining it with 5 more you get an ultra-rare Banshee. The stats of the card increase a little and so does the level limit. You can level up your character class as well and the effect is the same as with the cards - your stats increase. You get new classes through playing the main storylines. So far I've been content with the warrior class that you begin with. On top of that you get a new weapon for your character once you play 250 or so games with a certain class. I like the weapon you get from the warrior class, which inflicts ( that's for me at the moment, your weapon grows in power when you increase you magic stat) 10DMG + the attack power of the chosen enemy. I forgot to mention that while the cards have their own special ability, your character has weapons of certain colour which you can change to your liking. Last but not least by leveling up your kingdom you get more coins. You can choose your own home kingdom where the other kingdoms pay tribute which size depends on the level of that particular kingdom. Coins are especially useful when you're in a guild. Guilds have different tasks that can be completed by paying coins. When all the coins have been gathered for a task every guild member receives a neat prize.

Let me talk a bit about my current deck, which I think is pretty decent. So I already talked about my own character and its weapon, that is quite useful. Second in line I have the Berserker that gains power from blue and red gems. It's special power is doing 3-8DMG to your chosen enemy, while the card itself takes 2DMG and attack power increases by 4. Since my Berserker has leveled up and gained more magic power, the special power does around 8-14DMG at the moment. My third card is my favourite, the Sacred Guardian. It does 2+MAGIC DMG (=8 for me at the moment) to the chosen enemy PLUS, the card's shield power increases by the same amount. So if you use your Sacred Guardian a lot in a match, you can have a tremendous amount of shield power at the end of the game. For that reason the Sacred Guardian is usually my last card if I'm in a tough battle. My last card is the one I'm leveling up at the moment since I only got it recently. The Infernal King is my first legendary card! It was also the final boss of one of the story lines I played. Its special power is quite complex, extremely powerful but on the other hand it can also turn to your disadvantage. The Infernal King deals 13 damage to all the enemy cards, split randomly. On top of that it changes all green gems into skulls and, brown gems to red. So the ideal scenario is that you get skull matches inflicting damage on the first enemy, and 4+ match of red gems, allowing you to continue with an extra turn. On your extra turn you match possible skulls, causing even more damage and hopefully there's no cards left when the Infernal King is finished torturing the enemy team. On the other hand, you may not get an extra turn and skull matches, which probably means there are dozens of free skulls on the field and the enemy gets to match them on their turn. Which has happened to me sometimes but it's not too serious in playing the storyline - the battles aren't too difficult on normal difficulty. It's a whole different story in PvP. Those battles can be brutal and nearly impossible to win if you make a mistake like blowing the special move of the Infernal King.

 

And what I hate about this game? GOBLINS. I hate it when I start a PvP battle against someone, think that it's gonna be easy since they're a bit below my own level, and when I enter the match they have a goblin team. The different goblin cards have their own special moves but what they all have in common is they get an extra turn after activating the move. So if you're against a Goblin, a Goblin Shaman, a Boar Rider and a Goblin Rocket and they ALL have their special powers ready, be ready to end up in deep shit. Sometimes I just close my eyes, wait for the enemy goblins finish what they're doing and hope for the best - let my Sacred Guardian be alive. So to all of you playing with a goblin deck - I hate you. 

 

 I have gotten bored of the game couple of times already but I still think that Gems of War is very addictive. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of strategy and RPG, and is looking for a "match-3"-game other than Candy Crush. The PvP system was recently updated and even though it's still not perfect, it is a clear improvement. On top of that it's completely free so you won't lose anything but your time if you stay clear of the micro transactions. So go there, find yourself a nice guild and start matching those gems!

Sproggiwood

Hello!

 This game has been on my Steam wishlist for some time now and last week it was finally on proper sale. I bought it immediately and all I have to say is that I am not disappointed.

So Sproggiwood is a turn-based, rogue-like game. You go from dungeon to dungeon with your cute Cloghead companion and do quests for the Sproggi who has made you his minion. I like the humor in the game and overall the dialogue makes me smile. After finishing the tutorial you may enter your first dungeon or you could decorate your town as well. The decoration option doesn't let you be that creative but it does have its share of features from adding trees and rocks to adding buildings. So far I haven't found out if having your town decorated has an effect on anything, but I hardly think so.

 The game obviously has some Finnish spirit in it and one hint of it is the main setting. The game is supposedly based on Finnish mythology but let me say that so far I haven't had any hints of it... Perhaps I'm poorly educated on the matter but I don't see it. There are other hints of the Finnish subtlety as well which can be seen in item and location names. The first dungeon named Ickykolo, icky hole. The second location, Goaturku, basically combining two real life cities - one from India and *hehehe* my hometown in Finland. I also found an accessory in the dungeons names Tuuri - Luck. If I remember correctly the accessory allows you to reroll an item once each. Didn't try it out but could be useful. Anyways, to my surprise the game company isn't even Finnish but has a Finnish artist in the three-member team.

 Every dungeon has its own objectives which involve clearing the dungeon with different classes and harder difficulties. The first class you have is the farmer. To be honest this class is quite hopeless. By leveling up you get better skills but the only useful one (I think) is only unlocked once you reach level 3 of the Pitchfork skill, which takes around six times of leveling up. It allows you to poke enemies in every direction which is quite useful when you're all surrounded. I haven't been able to see the other skills yet, but hopefully they're a bit better. When you start playing the warrior class, you get a similar skill which allows you to attack in every direction the first time you level up which gives the class a clear advantage over the farmer class. The third class I recently unlocked is the archer and this class is sweet as hell. Your base attack is using the dagger but once you level up which is quite quickly, you get access to the crossbow. Now you can attack enemies without even letting them touch you. The other classes include the thief, vampire and wizard. It'll take some time before I unlock those since I feel like I'm shit at this game. I'm playing on normal but the game is quite challenging nevertheless.

Even though your level and skills restore after every dungeon you may use the store to enhance your gaming experience, for instance by speeding up the leveling process or increasing the hit points of your characters. On top of that all the loot you find in dungeons next appear in the store, so you may buy equipment and consumables for your character to have a better chance at survival. This is especially important considering your farmer since in the beginning of every dungeon the class is quite useless like I mentioned earlier.

 The game is turn-based so an important feature in the dungeons includes skipping turns. Your character stays put while everything else in your vision moves. I play on keyboard and I must say that I get a bit hasty at times and instead of moving or attacking an enemy I accidentally skip a turn, and that may put me in a tough situation at times. That's my problem in this game really - I'm too careless and end up dead because of a stupid mistake. At times I should clearly take the time to make a strategy but noooo, let's kill everything without stopping and checking our own hit points and poof, we're dead. I need to change my play style soon since the dungeons are getting more and more difficult.

If you like rogue-like games I strongly recommend this game. Even if you're new to the genre this might well be the game to get you hooked on rogue-like. On top of that, you simply can't ignore the cuteness that overflows from Sproggiwood!