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!

Seduce Me 2: The Demon War

Hi all!

So this game I've been playing (or reading) is a bit different from the games I've introduced here earlier. I must say that I'm a huge fan of visual novels, especially the otome-genre. To those of you who aren't familiar with it, visual novels are interactive, story-driven games, where you get to make choices that will eventually affect the outcome of the entire game. Most visual novels are so called harem games, where the main character (in most cases male) is surrounded by pretty girls and gets to pursue one of them. To be honest I'm not too excited about playing a male character in the hopes of getting to date/screw an anime girl, but this is where otome comes in. Otome is basically reverse-harem, mostly a genre enjoyed by us girls. The game I'm about to introduce you to was just released on Steam and it's sequel to an otome game I really enjoyed reading last year.

The story goes as follows. In the first game, the main character Mika inherits the grand mansion of his recently deceased grand father. On her first visit to the mansion, she faces the view of five young men scrambled on the floor, obviously hurt. Out of the pureness of your heart you let the men stay with you at the mansion and eventually it is revealed that they are royal incubi of the Demon World, running away from their duties. This and that happens, and you get to date one of the brothers in the end (PG-16 style!)... (plus various other people, like your best friend Suzu and a succubus lady called Diana!)

James - The oldest of the brothers, heir to the Demon throne, a bit serious by nature

Sam - A total brute, hot-headed and has a dirty mouth

 Eric - A bit of a flirt, keeps calling you princess (uggh)

Matthew - Baby face, a total turn-off imo

Damien - Can read minds, a bit shy, but my absolute favourite in the first game!

Diana -  Passionate by nature, will do anything to achieve her goals (drag the brothers back to the Demon World)

So in the second game you pick a route and it continues from where the first game ended (won't reveal any specifics, I don't want to spoil the story). You are about to get married to one of the incubi brothers, when all of a sudden you are dragged into the Demon World.

 There you are greeted by Diana and her "friends" and it is revealed that if you want to leave the place, the Demon Lord has to go down. Your fiance, plus his brothers and their wives follow you and together you prepare for the ultimate Demon War.

I must say that I've enjoyed the sequel immensely. I still haven't gone through Erik's or Diana's routes but the rest have all been very unique and entertaining. I've read the forums at Steam and many people are struggling to get "happy endings". That's all I've gotten so far, so actually I'm struggling to get the bad endings.

I can't help but think of a 14-year-old when I was playing Matthew's route. The story was interesting but since the sequel is PG-18 instead of 16, I felt so awkward in the sex scenes. Of course, it is clearly stated in the intro that you can always say NO and it doesn't affect the outcome of the game, but obviously I was curious since you do get CG art from some of the scenes. So if you want to collect all the art, you must have sex.

Obviously the sex scenes aren't anything graphic since otherwise the game wouldn't be allowed on Steam. Nevertheless the scenes are still written quite intimately. Well written soft-porn or so to speak. 

The first game was free which really shocked me. Full-scripted voice acting, plus beautifully drawn CG art. I was willing to pay for the game, so it was no surprise that the sequel had a small price. For a measly 10 euros I've been having an absolute blast. I've played for 11 hours and I still have two routes left, plus finishing the bad endings for each route. The game also has a bonus story that is only revealed if you know the correct password. You get a letter from each ending and I'm such a dimwit that I've forgotten to mark them down... I've read on the forums that people are still struggling to find the correct password but when they do, I'm just going to cheat a little bit. Anyways, I feel proud playing this game since it clearly shows that the Japanese aren't the only ones who can create a proper VN!

 There are a few bugs I've found so far. Sometimes the voice acting differs from the script that is shown on screen, but that hasn't bothered me that much. Also, while playing Matthew's route, I got a happy ending with Diana dying. In the aftermath, Diana was still alive and kicking despite dying earlier... Oh well, not a big deal. When the game is text-based there are bound to be some typos, but those don't bother me at all. Try playing a Japanese VN with translator software... then you will understand.

 Example: I played Sweet Pool years ago with a translator, didn't understand much but enjoyed it nevertheless. Later on my friend laughed at me and told me about the actual story. Go google it, it's too disturbing to write here.

Overall I'm really glad Seduce Me got a sequel. I didn't hear about it until later but the game collected over $23,000 on Kick Starter. The creator, Michaela Laws included a letter in the game that indicates she has "a million stories to tell". I hope that's true and she keeps on making these amazing stories!

Alrighty, I think I'm going to read Eric's route next. I hope it's good!

Echo of Soul vol. 2

More EOS!

By now I've gotten more accustomed to the game, Echo of Soul. I'm now a level 38 archer (last time lvl 17 ;-) ) and I'm starting to enjoy the game more and more. Here are some of my thoughts about the game so far.

 Some of the prettiest places in the game so far.

I've been leveling up pretty fast and one of the reasons is PvP battles. First I wasn't too sure if I'd even like PvP but after playing a few battles I'm absolutely hooked. I don't have any screenshots of my own but an explanation should be enough. The battle ground where the 30 players fight against one another in teams is selected in random. I don't know if there are other versions but so far I've played in two different battle grounds, where the maps are a bit different. In the first area the map is circular with 5 pillars surrounding it. Your goal is to activate these pillars and of course, kill as many enemies as possible. The other battle area is more oval-like, with five different paths crossing it. Every path has a crystal where you can collect resources. Again, try to collect as many resources for your team as possible. While in the first area the pillars are there the whole time, but the crystals in the second area disappear once someone has obtained them. Whichever team wins will get better prices but so far I've been plenty happy while losing as well - I get a ton of experience points compared to random quests in the main game. (Around 10,000 exp from a quest, ~60,000 from a PvP battle)

 I've also found a guild! Or actually I think they found me and invited me to join, so I did. Once I joined, the guild was probably pretty new and they had a peaceful status. The next day I logged in they were already hostile! I did some reading and it seems that guilds can fight each other, so that's where the hostility comes from. Only today I understood what it meant in practice. I came to an area and I wanted to purify souls with an other player. (You collect so called chaos souls from monsters and purify them into different buffs. Purifying them with friends is more effective (takes only one soul per buff) than by yourself (takes two). So I went next to this other player, about to request purification with them, when my character attacked them! I was so shocked that I could barely do anything next so obviously I was killed by this other person. What I realized is that the character was probably from a rival/hostile guild and I automatically attacked them when attacking. I've played for over 30 hours now but I felt like an absolute noob when I didn't know about the fact that other players in RED are also your enemies. Stupid me.

 I had to take this screenshot because I was cracking up so badly while fighting this miniboss! (Juha is also my father's name)

 I still haven't used any real world money in the game but every once in a while I'm tempted. But what I do like about the game is that you get these magic eggs from here and there, and you may use them to get certain credit items. So far I've used them all to purchase magic lamps. Magic lamps give you a variety of items which are supposedly of higher value. Also, every lamp (I think?) gives you this little silver coin. When I received the first one I noticed that the coin had a description talking about summoning a ghost tiger. I thought instantly: "HELL YEAH!!! Lucky me!". It wasn't that simple since summoning this godly mount requires 2,500 coins of the same type. And I know no other way of getting them than purchasing magic lamps. One lamp costs 86 magic eggs, in other words you need *takes out calculator* 215,000 eggs in order to get this fuc**** tiger. The most I've had is around 300 at a time. If magic lamps are the only way to get this tiger, I'm out!

 This is my character visiting the first town after some time and look, I have a party member! One of my friends was kind enough to try the game so that I'd have someone to play with. Unfortunately it wasn't to his liking so I'll be going solo for now. I wish the community was more open and my apologies if it is and I just haven't noticed it but, there isn't much integrity within the players I think. I don't know about the guilds, but the one I'm playing in isn't putting much effort in playing together. I do have one experience which required me to play together with someone and hey, it made me feel all fuzzy inside. This level 14 character wanted to go against this level 15 co-op quest bear and my level 19 character was just randomly passing by. This person kindly asked me to help and I did. Once the bear was dead they thanked me and we parted ways but it made me soooo happy! This is what the game should be like. I still have co-op quests I haven't done because there haven't been anyone helping me (even though I've asked!). Players unite, now!

 I'm really looking forward to leveling up to 40. In the screenshot you can see my pet Anto who kindly collects all my loot. To be honest I couldn't live without him anymore. He will unfortunately expire in 3 days (I've used an hourglass to lengthen his lifespan). So I think, if I'm correct, I'll receive a new pet on level 40!  It's too bad that otherwise you need to use store credits to buy new pets but I hope that you'll get them by random every once in a while. I'm a bit sad to go separate ways with Anto, though. He is such a sweet heart.

  There are also different events in the game every now and then. I took this screenshot today before logging out. There was a fashion competition in the main town. Even though I didn't participate I kept getting these event gifts like they were raining on me! So, that bunch right there is gathered around a mailbox, opening their gifts (I think). It's fun because when I was playing Dragon Nest every main town was filled with people like that! I'm afraid the game is dying out slowly since all the servers are uncrowded all the time and that is actually the most people I've seen in one place during this week.

Today will be my 7th day of logging in and it'll also be my 7th day playing this game. 38 levels, 32 hours and 7 days. I think I'll receive a new mount tomorrow! A horse, which is must faster than my current llama (even though I received a new riding permit on level 35, which makes my llama faster.)

All in all I'm really enjoying this game! I keep looking forward to meeting new people, leveling up and discovering new things about the game. It's not the best MMORPG, but the best I'm currently playing. I was looking forward to the Tree of Savior which will probably be out on the 10th, but I think I'm too busy playing EOS that I'll skip it. Thanks for reading and if you're at all interested in trying out the game, I'm here to help the best I can. I'd love to get new friends to play with!

Echo of Soul

Hello!

I can't say I'm a huge fan of MMORPGS but I have played quite a few of them. My first experience of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (what a word monster!) was back in middle school when I stumbled upon the world of Maple Story. What most MMORPGS I've played hold in common is that they're either cute or visually beautiful. I think the next game falls under both categories.

 I only have a single screenshot of my own to show here. Mainly because I was stumbling with the keyboard and accidentally took one... 

Anyways Echo of Soul is a relatively new game published by Aeria Games. It was out in 2013 but on Steam it has only been up for about a year.

 I didn't know much about the play mechanics of EOS before I started playing. The main reason I picked this game was 1) It looked nice and 2) it was available on Steam. The reason why I prefer downloading online games through Steam is that I'm not required to create separate credentials for every single game that I play. There are of course exceptions, such as Dragon Nest.

EOS looks fantastic in my opinion. I had lots of fun creating my character - the character creation isn't as developed as in Skyforge for instance, but it was still so diverse that I had a hard time picking my char's hair, face and tattoos. If you're a fan of pixelated beauty like I am, you would soon notice having small crushes on your fellow players' characters. They are just that good looking.

 The game has six different classes to choose from. The class I picked, archer (like usual...) is quite balanced and easy to play with. That is, if you choose to become a huntress, instead of a bard. The bard gameplay is apparently much harder than playing a huntress. I chose huntress since I will probably be playing most of my playtime solo, while bards are ideal for party-playing. The other classes are warrior, rogue, guardian, sorceress and finally warlock, which is the most difficult class to play. My level 17 archer looks pretty bad ass I think, despite her mismatched armor. Speaking of which, that top does NOT look like it could provide +8 defense. The equivalent would be me, running in a forest with my bow only wearing undies. But yeah, that's how it works in a fantasy world.

 The distances to travel are quite long in EOS so I was extremely happy that you receive a free mount after finishing the first two main quests. In other words you receive an insanely adorable llama that grants you +33% movement. How awesome is that? I've seen pictures of other available mounts in the game that are quite incredible as well - giant dogs, dragons, tigers etc. What you also receive in the beginning of the game is a little companion to pick up your loot. Mine is a small anteater called 'Anto'. It's only valid for 7 days but I believe you'll get other pets further in the game.

What I hate about all MMORPG's is microtransactions. In other words you pay real money in exchange for ingame credits. I was happy to go back in to one of the first towns, once I hit level 10, to notice I had a new quest available - and my level reached the requirements, hooray! But, this 'Monica' bastard who gave me the quest wants me to get her a magic lamp repair kit that is only available in the credit store. What? How is that fair? You give me a free game and one of the quests tells me to use real money anyways. I admit having used $5 in an online game called 'Gems of War' recently, but I will not pay to get a freaking repair kit for some Monica. Go get it yourself or turn yourself into one!

 Once you level up enough your class can pick a further class to specialize in. On top of that there are professions and hobbies to choose from. You can specialize in jewelcrafting, alchemy and resource collecting. I picked the latter one but it bugs me that I keep getting resources, but have no means of using them. The resources are used by jewel crafters and alchemists, but us resource collectors have nothing else but to sell them? Kinda sad. There are also two hobbies - soul experting and cooking. A soul expert sounded somewhat lame so I decided to go for cooking. It's pretty fun actually! The only problem is that so far I haven't picked a single resource from an enemy that could be used in cooking. So to increase my cooking level, I have to buy the ingredients from a chef. There seems to be a bit of polishing around to do before the game is perfect, but I don't let the minor details bother me.

I play solo since none of my Steam friends are playing the game. I did ask for play buddies in the discussion section so let's see how that turns out... Anyways, what saddens me is that there are quite a few party-only quests, meaning that if it's a level 10 quest, I can probably do it solo when I'm level 20. And by that time the experience points and loot I get from that quest are close to nothing. So if you start playing EOS, consider having friends to play it with!

I don't know if it was the wisest thing to do but I quit the 'Newbie'-guild immediately when I started playing. Through the guild I may have found friends to play with but, oh well... The difference between EOS and other MMORPGs I've played is that you may enter a guild only through invitation, which sucks. I've seen some German shout outs about guilds but how the heck am I going to find the perfect guild unless they advertise themselves? For instance in Dragon Nest I found a guild for Finnish people just by looking it up, and I got right in. In EOS it's a bit more difficult than that.

Anyways, I have forgotten to eat since I've only been gaming. The plan for Friday night: Eat, and then play. Thanks for reading and I'll return to you with a new game soon in the future!

Final Fantasy X (HD Remaster)

How's it going?

It was recently my birthday and I got some awesome gaming gifts this year! My boyfriend bought me FFV from Steam and I got FFX/X-2 HD Remaster for PS3 from my brother. They're both amazing games (even though there are some flaws in the Steam-version of FFV) but now I'll be mainly focusing on FFX, because that's what I've been spending most of my free time on.

I was around 8-years-old when the 10th installment in the Final Fantasy-series came out. Playing it for the first time was a similar experience to playing FFVII; the cutscenes where amazing and all the little me could think was, "Can something so pretty actually be a game?". Plus, my English skills were so limited back in the day that playing really took a lot of effort; It was slow and full of going round in circles. Just two days ago I beat the monster that ended my first Final Fantasy X experience. Yes, I've never actually beat the whole game. But now I'm going for all those achievements! ...Not. (I wasn't able to master the Jecht Shot, and what the heck's up with the whole thing anyway?)

 The story goes as follows. The main character Tidus is a pro Blitzball player living in the luxurious city of Zanarkand, until one day a huge sea monster called Sin attacks. Tidus is swept inside Sin and once he wakes up and gets back on track, he then realizes that Zanakand is no more and that he has been thrown 1000 years forward in time. You probably guessed that next he will meet up with some new friends and together they'll find a way to beat Sin? You're absolutely right. But more I won't tell, go play the game yourself!

 The graphics in the HD Remaster are blowing my mind. Of course I didn't notice any difference to the original version at first since the game looked so awesome in my childhood. We briefly tested the original game with my brother on his PS2 and yeah, now I see the difference. The cutscenes are especially beautiful but I'm not sure if anything has been done to them? 

The gameplay is the same as far as I can tell. I had totally forgotten how addictive the sphere grid-system is. By collecting levels and spheres, your characters can be made stronger through the sphere grid, where a single point illustrates a rise in HP/MP, strength, evasion and so on. Your characters can also obtain new skills in the grid. It's a bit similar to what the FFXII tried, but I definitely like the FFX sphere grid more. Nothing wrong with FFXII though, I wish I could play that amazing game again.

 What I don't like about FFX? Blitzball. I admit it's super fun but not if you keep losing game after another. You can recruit new players (the original Besaid Aurochs suck) but so far I haven't found any recruitable characters. I'll probably play the game until it's time to face Sin and then collect the best players and THEN kick those Luca bastards' asses. That goes for collecting the Celestial Weapons and Dark Aeons too.

 I made this quite brief since I'm itching to go play again! I'm currently in the Mount Gagazet on my way to the ruins of Zanarkand. Kimahri just beat his two old buddies and he is again recognized a strong Ronso. Yay, go Kimahri!