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!

More Fallout 4

Hello!

So I made a small change to my blog name - I'm terrible at coming up with names so I took the nearest object I could find (a Billy Talent cd) and picked a song name that could describe this blog in some way. Nothing to do with video games, but it's a start. I'm feeling a bit feverish so I'll leave the task for another day, but I really need to do something about the layout of this blog. I'm having trouble coming up with proper words (fever) but I really felt like writing about something so here goes.

 Look at that hair! I'm currently just wandering around the Commonwealth since I've already gone through the Institution and Railroad endings. It's actually getting a lot easier even though there are some places that I still can't get close to without getting killed in an instant. I think I'm a level 50 at the moment.

 At this point I was nowhere close to 50. More like 30 and I got my ass kicked. Deathclaws are terrifying, but recently I found a soft side to these scary bastards.

 I want to think that she looks quite grateful for what I did. I had a quest where I found a bunch of broken Deathclaw eggs but one remained intact. So I had a choice between selling the egg forward or returning it to its original place. I thought that Deathclaws could finally be my buddies if I returned the egg, but that wasn't the case of course. Even so I could momentarily feel good about myself, even though I had to kill one Deathclaw on my way to the nest. Made one mommy Deathclaw happy at least!

I love taking screenshots of explosions. The top one is me destroying the Brotherhood of Steel and the bottom one is the Institute blowing up. It makes me giggle a bit that I've destroyed the Brotherhood twice already and both times it felt so good. I dunno what makes me hate the Brotherhood so much but one reason could be their narrow-mindedness towards everything that's a bit different. Of course I visited the Boston Airport with Nick the synth and Hancock the ghoul every chance I got, just to piss them off. Oh and that one idiot at the Police Station, who gives you extra Brotherhood quests... totally hated him, didn't appreciate my awesomeness.

At first I wasn't too interested in renovating my house but now I've got some great ideas. Basically I carry home everything that looks nice, vases and other trash that is. I think that I didn't build the first floor properly since building the second floor was a pain in the ass. I couldn't even make a proper roof so that's why it turned out to be a patio of some sorts. I like the second floor because it has my liquor collection! And it's still expanding...

Final picture of blowing up a level 9 Brotherhood scout. Teehee, remember not to sneak up on my turf!

I'll try to play something else so I don't always have to write about Fallout. But it's so much fun so I can't help it!