#And the whole every character has a unique moveset is all fun until you play on chaos difficulty and most of em suck

[ray-elgatodormido]

Me: *internally and sometimes externally bitches about most “attractive” DW men being same face yaoi base looking twinks and the stupid ass big machine weaponry*

Also me: *has a pretty boy Wei Twink Oc and gives muscle mommy Oc a weird Glaive+Chain Whip fusion that functions as the former for light attacks and as the latter for the heavy ones*

Yeah… tho to be fair Xiao Sheng is a transmasc icon who went to some kooky wizard for magic HTR and just boom no more boobs. Even funnier if said kooky wizard was Zhang Jiao. And I can just say Lady Yan’s weapon has some angry ghost living inside it idk.

[sullina]

As someone who has a switch... there are a handful of games that make ot worth it. Totk, the og BOTW, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (altho base rise is on console too), and Splatoon 3. Some ppl probly like Smash Bros and Animal Crossing and Mario Kart too but those are the main ones I was interested in. Oh and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and Legends Arceus

I already have botw on the wiiu (don't judge me), that monster hunter sounds interesting, and i did like the smash game for the wii, mainly the story mode.

I got the first splatoon a few years ago and didn't reay like it at all, mario kart isn't really fun unless you play with friends (which i don't have a lot of irl), I'm really a fan of animal crossing and with the pokemon games in recent years, i feel like they're just getting worse and worse :/

I like the older zelda games, because of the puzzles throughout the worlds and because of the unique items you got in each temple that would unlock new secrets and places, and of course the big temples. Botw had pretty much none of these things, and no, 900 korok seeds don't count, because they don't do anything once you maxed out your bag space.

One of the first zelda games i played was twilight princess, which i loved. That reminds me, one of the things that botw also lacked was a companion character, which for me is a pretty big part of the game actually. And there's usually always some kind of central mechanic that the games are more or less built around. In twilight princess, it was the fact that you could turn into a wolf at will (though admittedly a bit later in the game i think), in skyward sword it was the flying and (admittedly very limited) interaction between the surface and sky.

But the central mechanic in botw was just... climbing. Which gets old really fast. Like, sure, you have an open world game, but getting around isn't really fun since you can only climb, walk/ride and glide. And the gliding is kinda fun, but eventually it just gets old, same with climbing. I would've preferred it if instead of giving us 100 outfits, there were items instead to enhance the basic abilities, because items can be taken on and off at will with a single button press without having to go into the menu for every single thing.

I also wasn't a fan of the shrines tbh. I felt the puzzles were too obvious and short most of the time and the reward was always the same, and trading the orbs in for heart or stamina containers was a bit annoying.

Also, this one's just a personl pet peeve, but i don't really like how links typical/default outfit color was changed from green to blue. Don't get me wrong, he looks good in blue, but like... nothing was wrong with green, you know?

One thing i also REALLY didn't like was the fact that you got all your runes at the start of the game and then that was it, there were no new mechanics throughout the entirety of the game. Which may appeal to some people, but for me that just made the whole game feel really same-y, like there were no new things. And I'm including the weapons, because sure there's tons of different weapons, but only three movesets, and the weapons were way too fragile, though i know I'm not alone in this point.

I could keep talking, but it's 3am, so I'll sum up what i wanted to say, which is that while botw wasn't a bad game, it wasn't really much of a zelda game and i didn't like it all that much, not enough to shell out more than 300€ for the sequel that seems to have all the same problems from what I've seen so far. But maybe I'll change my opinion, idk. If you want more of my ramblings on botw, you'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[chaosrealm-mk-imagines]

Some of my favorite MK characters and why I love them

Just a random thing that I wanted to share, kinda personal but you may like reading it dunno

Kung Lao

When I played Shaolin Monks at childhood I immediately loved Lao, I alredy knew him from MK2 and enjoyed how creative his weapon of choice was. When I was kid all Mortal Kombat games were not translated to portuguese, I didn’t understood a word of english so only later I could know who Lao truly is by his character lore. Let me say a thing; I hate this whole “Chosen one” trope, Kung Lao feels much more real and human then Liu Kang or any other original protagonist, as he fears failure and wants to be the best at what he does, but fate is keeping him from that as he is unable to be the hero he dreams to be. I think Kung Lao is a really deep character with many flaws and thats what I love so much about him, I can relate with how arrogant he is as a way of keeping people away and not showing any weakness. Kung Lao wants to be loved and praised, being the chosen one doesn’t really mean anything to him, but what comes from it is what he truly envies.

Ermac

I always liked the colour red, the original ninjas were never my kind of stuff so I wasn’t into Sub-Zero or Scorpion until MK3 were we had Rain, Reptile and Ermac! Those three were really different to me and I loved them so much! Only later when I learnt english and read about characters lores that I developed a special love for Ermac. They are a tragic character, a mass of souls fighting for control over a corpse as a way of not being forgotten. Ermac is unique and has amazing powers as well, Midway gave Ermac an amazing character development at the 3D era, they went from a mindless being to a collective conscience that had to work together to remain existing. The mere existence of Ermac is tragic by itself, but it doesn’t mean it must be miserable or “lonely”. When I think of Ermac it’s like thinking of society and how it’s everyone at the same time it’s no one. Does that makes any sense at all?

Nightwolf

My great-great-grandmother was from a native tribe of South America (Brazil to be specific), I never meet her but heard a lot about how she was. When I saw Nightwolf at MK3 I loved his design, here in Brazil we have a lot of knowledge and culture towards the native people of the land, so playing him was really cool as I felt a cultural aspect towards Nightwolf. As times passes by and I read more about characters, he feels truly admirable. Grey is honour personified, he is selfless and never thinks of himself above others, his humble personality and fun playstyle are specially what made me fall in love for him. I also remember that at school art class when I was a kid a teacher asked the class to draw their heroes, I did a sketch of Nightwolf then! It was hard to explain who he was but still it was a good day.

Sindel

Sindel was my first favorite character ever! When I got MK3 the first thing I did was look at the characters as a way of finding my favorite, and that was her! I loved her design, hair, nails and mostly everything, her flying ability, her moveset and her idle ingame it was all fantastic to me, I’m still a Sindel main since MK3, played her in every game she was in and have zero regrets. I started loving her even more because of her lore (old one of course), I have great admiration for strong women, specially mothers. Knowing everything she had to deal with and how tragic her life was made me grown fond of the character. I think Sindel needs more love inside NRS as they seem to have forgotten who she was. Plus she was my first goth icon and I always wanted to have THAT hair!

[atlas-the-worldbuilder]

Final thoughts on Pokemon Sword/Shield

So in case you weren’t aware (which is most of you, I’m sure), a few months ago I started a Pokemon Shield blind Nuzlocke Run.  And recently, I completed the main portion of the Nuzlocke by defeating the Champion.  Having played through the game, though, I thought I’d give my final thoughts on it as a Pokemon fan, a gamer, and as a storyteller.

The Story & Characters

In all honesty, I rather enjoyed the main story of this game.  The Pokemon League has always been presented like a professional sport (at least in the anime/cartoon), so it’s fun to see the games taking that perspective and rolling with it.  It felt like an actual tournament/championship, to compete for the title in an officially organized manner, rather than just running a gauntlet of preset combatants.

In addition, I liked how they incorporated both the gym leaders and our rivals into the league story as not only combatants, but also as individuals with their own lives and aspirations.  Marnie and Team Yell are adorable, Hop is... mostly tolerable, thus far, but by far my favorite rival character has been Bede, the Psychic/Fairy trainer.  His haughty and prideful demeanor make him a delight to defeat, and his arc is a wonderful story to see unfold.  I’m really curious to see what he gets up to in the after-story! The Gym Leaders are also fun to meet and battle; the Pokemon games as a whole have been gradually attempting to give more and more character to each of the Gym Leaders you meet, beyond just trials to overcome on your journey to victory.  And while I always have a soft spot for the Hoenn & Sinnoh gyms, I like that they opted to have the Gym Leaders return in place of having more Elite Four members to fight  I only wish I could get more opportunities to get to know them better, cuz there’s some standout leaders from this batch which I truly enjoy!

My biggest complaint with Sword/Shield’s story, though, has been the “Heroic Quest” plotline which has become increasingly common these days.  I like the character of Sonia the researcher, and Oleana is satisfying to watch lose, my biggest complaint has been the pacing of the plot; the first 2/3rd’s of the story are us teaming with Sonia to gradually get the backstory revealed to us, and then in the last half hour, right as the Tournament’s getting underway, all the villains suddenly crawl from beneath the floorboards and run amok while you have to chase them down!  There didn’t feel like there was a proper buildup explaining why the villain wanted to summon the legendary Pokémon, especially one which we heard next to nothing about! This brings about an interesting idea, however... what if instead, they had completely forgone any Legendary-Summoning stories until after the league?  Honestly, I was way more invested challenging the gyms and fighting the champion than I was stopping the literal POKEMON APOCALYPSE from happening... so what if for future games, they saved those for after you became champion?  As a sort of test of your skills, to prove your worth to bear the mantle you have taken!  Maybe it wouldn’t have meshed well, maybe they needed to show of the game mascot more, I dunno...  it’s just my thoughts.

The GamePlay

THEY FINALLY LET US TURN OF THE GODS-FORSAKENED TUTORIALS!!!  PRAISE THE ALL-FATHER!!!

Ahem... In all honesty, I think I’d grown a bit too used to the 2nd screen of the DS-series games, but after a couple days of getting used to the mono-screen style again, I am pleased to say I found it very easy to settle back into.  Though there are still some features I wish would make a return (the HM moves as opposed to public transportation, poison’s effect while walking, wild double battles, etc.), there are alot of fun mechanics introduced and remedies to older problems that have been introduced!

I think one feature which hasn’t had much said about it is the introduction of the Poke-Jobs system; this system allows you to send your Pokémon out on timed “away missions” to gain both experience and items.  In the old days, if you wanted to passively level your pokemon, the only real option you had without introducing a second player was the Daycare center, and they could only raise two pokemon at once... and you had to pay for it.  With Poke-Jobs, though, I can send anywhere from 5-10 teammates out for whatever amount of time I want them to be out for, and then come back later to see them lively and with goodies to show for their work! At first, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of this system; I, like many players out there I’m sure, prefer to guide my pokemon’s training personally, honing their movesets and guiding their levelling and points the way I want from them.  But as I progressed further in my Nuzlocke, and as my daily life became busier and busier, I found myself sending my backup teammates out on jobs to keep them on par with my main team.  Given that the Move Deleter/Tutor and Name Rater are now services that have been rolled into the Pokemon Center, yet another good thing this series has done, I found it much easier to keep my reserve Pokemon prepared in case I needed a substitution. Some Nuzlocke “Purists” may call that taking the easy way out, but... frankly, I don’t have the willpower to do that much grinding.  I’m here to play a game and have fun doing it, dammit.

The Wild Area is another thing I’ve wanted to see from Pokemon for a long time - taking more steps to make the regions seem like an open world, with vast sprawling environments full of pokemon and secrets to uncover.  I’ll admit, though, the execution is... not entirely perfect.  While open expanses are fun to explore, the Wild Area did seem a bit... flat to traverse.  And while the weather mechanics translating into battle are fun to deal with, the same sets of wild pokemon appearing did start to wear me down.  I think what the Wild Area really needed, in the long run, was a system similar to how Black/White/Black2/White2 did - having seasonal progression ingame, where different pokemon would show up during different seasons, making the different places unique and novel all over again throughout the year. And for the record, many of my gripes with the Wild Area were addressed in the Isle of Armor’s expansion island.  VASTLY superior, and much more fun to navigate and traverse.

...I’ll openly admit this: I was not a fan of Mega Evolution when it was first introduced in X/Y.  I felt it was fine enough to see Pokemon battling without power boosts or “digi-volving” or whatever you wanna call it.  When Sun/Moon Introduced Z-Moves, it felt like a step in the right direction, but at the same time, I ended up not using it very often.  If I had to have a power boost to my pokemon, I would want it something that couldn’t be used as a crutch when the going gets tough - something that has a limited usability, and offers benefits specific to the time it’s being used. I say this because I initially approached Dynamax the same way: as just another power boost to level the playing field and shake up the battle meta which I don’t keep track of.  However, after barely surviving all 8 gym leaders without using a single dynamax pokemon, I decided to give it a chance: after having completed the Isle of Armor’s subplot and gaining access to the Max Soup, I fed it to my Toxtricity Spike, and started running dynamax raids.  As I started using it more and more, I started gaining a certain appreciation for it that I hadn’t before; this was something written in to being a unique cultural effect!  This literally is imagining Pokemon as Kaiju!  And for the most part, it works! While I still feel mega-lvl-power-boosts in pokemon are a huge waste, at the very least I can say Dynamax didn’t leave me with too bad a taste in my mouth.  I do hope, however, that Dynamax stays a Sword/Shield exclusive power; given it’s cultural importance in Galar, and how Mega-Evolution was in the previous generation, I think having power boosts specific to regions works better than having the same stuff used across the board for every meta onwards,

What Do I hope for the Future?

I can’t say for sure if they’ll release a sequel game for Sword/Shield, but if they do... I would want them to make these minor changes:

Hold off the Heroic plot for after the League plot; devote the main first half of the game to just the gyms and league story like was done here, and then save meeting uber-god-tier Pokémon for after you’ve claimed the title of Champion.

Having said that, fix the pacing of how the Eternatus/Darkest Day subplot feels as it’s being played out.  Offer us more insight into Rose and Oleana’s mindsets as they go about their business, and give us more coherent exposition from our field trips with Prof. Sonia. 

Fix how the Wild Area looks - give it more variations for each sub-region and offer more varieties of habitats, like in the Isle of Armor.  Or, alternatively, try to implement a seasonal mechanic to make the same areas change over the year, opening new paths and new avenues to explore!

Let Bede defeat Oleana.  Give my boy some closure.

Allow us to see and interact with the Gym Leaders outside of the gyms more.  I had, like, barely 2 lines of dialogue with Nessa, and even less for Milo.  Not asking for a whole lot, just a bit more to tie us into who they are as people.  Piers is best big brother.  <3

That’s all I had written for now.  If y’all want a biography of my champion team for my Shield Nuzlocke, let me know, and I’ll scrap a post together! <3

[mamthew]

My full review of Persona 5: Scramble. Some mostly minor spoilers scattered throughout, though I try to flag them in advance.

When Persona 5: Scramble was announced, my expectations were fairly low. As it was yet another Warriors spinoff of a better-known series, I expected Hyrule Warriors but with Persona characters. I thought we’d get the P5 crew, maybe even a few from P3 or P4, maybe a villain or two, mindlessly tearing through thousands of enemies in essentially interchangeable levels, justified by a threadbare, 6-hour story. The demo, then, blew me away. It was just…the beginning of a sequel to Persona 5, maintaining the locations, presentation, and characters of the original game, but with a beat ‘em up battle system. I began thinking of Scramble as a direct sequel to literally my favorite game of all time, including everything a sequel might entail. 

Having played through almost all of Persona 5: Strikers (I have started but not bothered seriously attempting New Game+ in Merciless difficulty), the game we ended up getting was halfway between those, I think. They managed to recreate the presentation of P5 impeccably, with gorgeous menus, beautiful battle effects, entertaining scene transitions, etc. However, the half of the game that isn’t dungeon-crawling is deceptively scant. The story centers around a road trip across Japan, but each city isn’t nearly as realized as P5’s Tokyo, with only about 3 rooms apiece, and some of the later ones not even getting a hub at all. The hubs really only exist to have shops, with none of the time management, minigames, or relationship building in a mainline Persona game. Still, it’s the only Persona spinoff I’ve played that has a real-life component at all, so I found it refreshing to get to wander Sendai, Okinawa, Osaka, and other towns in a game I’d initially not expected to have any towns at all.

The dungeons are where this game shines, though. They’re actual Persona 5-style dungeons, made occasionally even more dynamic with the addition of platforming and sidescrolling sections reminiscent of Nier Automata. The battle system uses the bones of the system in every warriors game, but slowly builds on it with more and more complexity until it’s not only a unique system, but is honestly one of the more engaging action battle systems I’ve played in a minute, in which you’re constantly trying to time dodges just right for extra hits, which can then open the option to either get in an extra hit with your character, which heals some SP, or switch to another character for an extra hit with them, which increases the rate at which the special gauge increases. As Joker, you have an array of Personas you can switch between on the fly, shifting your moveset, your stats, and your strategy as you go. Each of the other characters has their own gimmick that makes them unique and fun to play and sets them apart from Joker, who otherwise would have access to all their elemental attacks and stat spreads. Strategically placed objects around dungeons can be used to pull off special moves in battles, as well, letting you jump up to chandeliers and drop them on enemies or dive off of walls and tackle enemies. The battle system takes a little too long to actually become complex, but once it actually reaches that point it’s really rewarding. The bosses, too, are fun, with designs deserving of the Persona name and strategies that make full use of the environments. You can even replay them at different difficulty levels as the game goes on. I’ve never played a Koei Tecmo game with this much polish, and the battle system makes me hope the Warriors team goes to try an actual Platinum-style character action game. I think they’d knock it out of the park.

I’m a little split on the story of this game. The bones of the story are good. The characters are all written perfectly, and seeing them interact again was enough that I actually teared up a bit when I first booted up the game. I enjoy the new characters, and they work well with the party. The pacing is solid and it has a good emotional core. The villains are decent for the most part, and the ending is pretty satisfying. Several of the villains directly correlate to specific party members, too, which gives us further insight into those party members, and lets us watch as they see themselves in someone else and recognize where that other person broke off from their path. The game is in part about trauma and the ways it drives individuals to lash out at a world they’ve always believed to be cold and unforgiving, which could be a powerful message if done well. In this game, though, it’s not done very well at all. The ultimate message – if this game could be said to have one – is that individuals without support networks are driven by trauma to make bad decisions. That’s not…necessarily untrue, but it’s not…necessarily true, either. This message is probably at its worst when the game gets into inadvertently ableist territory with a character near the end, who -spoilers until the end of the paragraph- tries to essentially enslave mankind because her dissociation due to trauma convinces her that she has no emotions and therefore the species as a whole should have no emotions either. It’s…frankly a really gross bookend on a game that, until that point, had managed to avoid most of the issues with male gaze and homophobia that the original game had.

Every message in this game, though, is too individual-focused to function as a real message or social commentary. It even undercuts the sharp themes in the original by showing people in similar positions of power as the original villains just…choosing not to fall to corruption and consequently avoiding all of the problems that would arise from their power discrepancy. For a spoilery example until the end of the paragraph, the villain in Persona 5 who’s a CEO is a villain because his need to make profit drives him to exploit his workers, paying them less and working them more. The villain in Strikers who’s a CEO is a villain because his father was abusive and that led him to think people must be controlled. One is a real-world problem applicable to any CEO. The other is a story that exists only in the fictional realm.

This wouldn’t be such a glaring issue if Persona games – and especially Persona 5 – weren’t known for their social commentary. That’s not limited to the main games, either. Persona 4 Dancing was a rhythm game with a story about parasocial relationships and the pressures they place on public figures. Strikers ostensibly touches on parasocial relationships, but doesn’t…really have anything to say about them.

The game does try to make a statement sometimes, but everything it tries to say is disjointed, at odds with the previous game, or inapplicable to real life. The villains’ deeds don’t really have much similarity to each other, either, unlike in 5, and it’s stated outright that several of them would not hold any power at all without the supernatural world, which both prevents their stories from saying anything about the real world, and flies in the face of the purpose of Persona as a series. The supernatural worlds in Persona games are the collective unconscious, which means that the worlds are used to give the characters and the player visual representations of abstract concepts. The Palaces in Persona 5 are not the sources of the villains’ power; that comes from regular old societal hierarchies. The characters in Persona 4 were experiencing their inner turmoil before they were sucked into the TV world, and the midnight channel only made manifest what was already there and unseen. Conversely, the first two villains in Strikers are only in the public eye because they use supernatural means to make people like them. That the supernatural means involve smart phones doesn’t say anything about technology, because that’s not how technology actually works. In a follow-up to a game that was as furious at the world and desperate for change as Persona 5 was, it’s a glaring departure for the characters to just…befriend “the good cop,” or -spoilers again- push the mayor who’s based on Margaret Fucking Thatcher to run again but do things the “right way” this time.

That being said, I’m not actually that upset with this game. I have a lot to say about its missteps because I have a lot to say about Persona 5, but the gameplay is legitimately fun, and I do really love seeing the characters again. I’m more bemused than upset with the game’s fumbling of…the thing that made me fall in love with Persona 5 to begin with. Part of that is because the game is still so solid and fun, and the characters are written so well that I can overlook the issues. Even deeper, though, is that the last few years has radicalized so many people that the statements made in Persona 5 are simply…more visible in the mainstream than they were when it released. Late show hosts rage about the exploitation of waged workers. Video game streamers remark on the cruel arbitrariness of the current system. Shows about cops are being pushed to justify their existence to an increasingly disillusioned public. I think if Persona 5 released today, it wouldn’t have the same impact it did in 2017. To my mind, the game no longer carries the responsibility it once did. So this game is fun and doesn’t really matter, and that’s actually okay.

But if Persona 6 isn’t a return to form, I’ll take it back.

[tainbocuailnge]

ive played all the story chapters and a bunch of side missions and tried out a handful of characters so now it’s time for The Official Lance Tainbocuailnge Review Of Fate/Extella Link if you’re like me and were kinda on the fence about buying it after extella massively let you down

tldr; gameplay is actually fun and varied with loads of different objectives and the same servant can be played in different ways so it doesn’t get boring. main story is a bit disjointed and most servants only have a quick cameo but it gets charlemagne’s plot beats down well enough and the silly everyone-knows-everyone banter is delightful. everything looks better, the world actually feels populated, and there’s a lot of care put into special interactions. link will not disappoint you like extella did

the gameplay has much more variation than just press button use moon drive repeat. you’ve got a mix of regular attacks that lead into various combos and active skills with cooldowns. each servant has like 7 of them, generally some combination of damage skills buffs and debuffs, and you can set 4 at once so there’s a degree of customisability to how you play each servant even within the fighting style they’re inherently geared towards. servants with similar regular movesets (like cu and scathach) still have decidedly different active skills so they don’t feel interchangeable. certain moves from servants that were already in extella are generally reused either at the end of some combo or as an active skill which for me goes a long way in still making it feel like the same game, just better

attacking builds moon drive meter, and fighting enemies while moon drive is active earns you np meter. this means you can use your np as often as you can charge it instead of the pathetic One time it was in extella and you can just blow up a whole sector without remorse. you can also end moon drive early with a weaker version of your noble phantasm. some active skills are labelled as class skills and if you use those in a combo against a servant you get the button mash attack that extella had. altogether it really gives the sense of an all-out servant battle

allied servants are much much much more proactive. they’ll actively go out and conquer sectors for you and will try to join you wherever you’re fighting the boss servant. if your allies are nearby more of your active skills will get the class skill property and they’ll join you in the button mash attack. before the battle you also set two support troops, who will randomly join in on your combos or defend you when you’re in a pinch. hakuno is also out on the field, so combat is much more a team effort than before

stage objectives are varied too, there’s field effects, map jamming, hunting down messengers before they can call for reinforcements, escorting allies to specific locations, waves of shadow servants, lancelot disguising himself, robin or lishu going invisible, iskandar or darius with endless armies, drake or gilles bombarding from afar, all often used in various combinations too. on top of that the extra stages will provide random additional challenges so even replaying the same stage will be different every time. 

there are four difficulties (that I’ve unlocked) but I haven’t tried any of the higher ones yet so I don’t know what they change to make it more difficult other than enemy level. there are like. i think at least 50 maybe even 100 extra stages to play after you’ve cleared the ~30 main story battles that continue until servant level 200 or something so there’s a lot to do even after you’ve gone through the story. servants unlock by clearing story battles and I didn’t realize this until very late and was very pissed off that the game wouldn’t let me use cu but that’s on me. the money is power system is still in place so you don’t have to manually train any new servant you want to try out you can just powerlevel them. install skills are also still in place and you do need to level servant bond if you want to use any decent number of those

there’s a pvp mode too but I haven’t tried it yet so no comment on that beyond i bet skilled lancelot players are The most annoying motherfuckers to fight against

graphics are a huge step up from extella. reused areas got a complete visual makeover while retaining the same feel. everyone’s models got spruced up and now they don’t look plastic anymore. there is an unreal amount of care put into sculpting karna’s asscrack. the ost actually slaps beyond the main theme this time as well as featuring some ol reliable CCC tracks. everything looks much more polished

the story is somewhat disjointed because of both the large cast and the splitting routes. the story splits up at various points to create an excuse to make different battles but it means a lot of things happen at approximately the same time in slightly different ways and it can be confusing to keep up with what happens in which order. for that reason I suggest looking closely at what path leads to which ending and playing all the quests of each converging branch before moving to the next day. the story seems to go out of its way to be ambiguous in when what happens exactly and how it’s even supposed to follow the events of extella so I think it’s best to look for the themes and the fun lore details over the linear coherence

overall the atmosphere is pretty silly and servants constantly banter back and forth even during tense situations, but it lands the occasional serious moment well enough imo. charlemagne and karl are the only ones who have any significant story focus but since they’re the only newcomers it’s not like the other guys particularly need the screentime. charlemagne himself is a pretty silly and lighthearted guy so he goes along well with the general feeling and it actually works in favour of his heavier plot beats because of the contrast. I grew attached to him incredibly quickly, not in the last place because he gets hyped about every single person he meets and it’s hard not to get excited too

the servants who weren’t already in extella generally get to show up more in the main story than the already familiar faces but most of them don’t have much more than a cameo. having a lot of people just randomly roam around with no idea what’s going on goes a really long way in making the moon cell feel populated beyond the people directly involved in the story so I actually like it a lot. they came up with like 3 different convenient plot devices to give you servants to fight without worrying about what that means for the alliances and it gives room for a lot of cool character moments

a good chunk of the extra stages come with their own mini stories told through the combat dialogue which adds to the liveliness of the setting. my favourite so far is the one where liz and nero try to hold a concert and hakuno frantically tries to explain to charlemagne in the middle of combat why it’s absolutely vital to keep them from doing that

everyone seems to know everyone so a lot of story dialogue is banter in varying degrees of playful versus vicious between both likely and unlikely combinations of servants and there’s a lot and i mean a LOT of care put into specific interactions. if two servants even remotely have an opinion on each other there’s special dialogue for it, and I even picked up unique dialogue for when archer acts as support troop for cu which no doubt means it exists for other combinations too (altho that’s not subtitled so i dont know what they’re saying there i could just tell it was the usual bickering because of the tone lol). some servants have unique win quotes from hakuno, she calls gilgamesh by his nickname ‘gorgeous’ for example. servants will sit around your home base and have a default line to say but sometimes they have lines that refer to each other instead. compared to how barren extella was, link is overflowing with the sense that these people have lives outside the current conflict and se.ra.ph is a thriving and vibrant world for them to live in

there’s a scene where karna and arjuna use their noble phantasms against each other in mutual destruction and it fucking RULES

[patchun]

Smash time

Alright, so I’ve been thinking about this a lot and now I’m going to try to compile all this into some posts. I’ll also tag this as long post, and “smashlongpost” in case you get tired of seeing it somehow.

First majorly important thing is this: since the release of Smash Wii U, how many new titles has Nintendo made? That’s right - unless I’m completely missing something, that answer is... 2. If not 2, then still pretty low. Splatoon (which may have come out before Smash Wii? I don’t remember, not important, I’m gonna count it.) and Arms.

So, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that, along with Inklings, we’re going to get Springman/Ribbongirl, either as two different characters or as one character, HOPEFULLY one character. Unfortunately, Rex is also a likely addition here. I can’t really emphasize my dislike of Rex enough, but in case any of you here like him... I’m sorry. I hate him. So much. But I also fear he’s inevitable, like the Arms characters.

Another safe bet is a new Pokemon rep. After a lot of thought, I think the top candidates for this are either Decidueye because of his immense popularity, or Mimikyu. However, considering Mimikyu’s similarities to Pikachu appearance/size-wise, it seems more likely they’d choose Decidueye. Another option on the Pokemon side of things, though, is an unknown Gen 8 Pokemon, since Pokemon Switch is currently in development. Since Greninja was being developed for Smash Wii U before Sun and Moon were released, the same thing could easily happen with this new game, I think.

But, with only two new titles, that only gives us two new characters excluding some switched out ones, right? Kind of, and this is kind of bad news - but at the same time it is great news.

Why is it great news? Because! Because Nintendo doesn’t have many new titles, that means there’s a bigger chance of them looking to 3rd parties! And this is very exciting news. Which brings me to a list of possible candidates, and desired candidates. First of all, there are three newcomers that seem somewhat unlikely, but that I’d love to have. They are:

Marx (Kirby) - This is so unlikely. But man, I love Marx, and his announcement for Star Allies really refueled a fire in my heart. Being playable in Star Allies will be enough for me, but oh boy, if he was playable in Smash that would be something.

Sans///or Frisk - People are joking about this, and also treating it as if it’s a bad thing. Listen. Undertale wasn’t immediately acknowledged by the big gaming companies, I don’t think, because they’re busy making games, not following what’s hip on the Indie market. But Undertale made a HUGE impact, and also, Japan loved it. Since it was announced as coming to the Switch in the same trailer as Smash, I wouldn’t even say that Sans or Frisk coming to Smash would be unlikely, and unlike those treating Undertale as a bad thing for some reason, I think that could be really cool. I’m not going to say it’s extremely likely, but is it possible, and probably more likely than Marx? Yes.

Reimu - Of course, my most desired would have to be none other than Reimu. The chances of this are so slim, probably more slim than even Sans, but the impact on Touhou as a whole that Reimu in Smash would have would be unspeakable. Let me make my case. First of all, the basis of all of this hope is that Touhou is on the Switch now. Copyright things may have already been dealt with in order for a fangame to make it to the Switch, meaning ZUN may not need to worry about that, though I don’t know exactly how the copyright stuff works. So, with that in mind, consider this: Nintendo likes money. Nintendo, with Smash, wants to appeal to as many target audiences as possible. And, according to what I’ve heard, Touhou in Japan has been pretty big lately, particularly for young girls (you know, because ZUN actually treats girls as people unlike almost every other thing Japan makes!!!!). So... Reimu in Smash would be perfect to appeal to that audience. In the west, Reimu in Smash would have such a huge effect. You know how you probably didn’t know who Ness or Lucas were until you saw them in Smash, got curious, google them, then played Earthbound and now you love them? Think about how much exposure this could give Touhou and ZUN. This could create an entire wave of Touhou fans in the west, and I really hope ZUN can see this. Unfortunately, I don’t see this as likely. The best case scenario is that someone on the Smash staff has a daughter who really likes Touhou, and so basically what ends up happening is that Nintendo WANTS Touhou. Since I can’t see ZUN taking any initiative to put Reimu in Smash himself, the way I see it having to happen is for Nintendo to be the one who initiates. That way, I can at least see ZUN possibly agreeing. I know the chances are slim, but I really, really hope this happens - and I can’t stop fanboying over the idea of a 3d rendered Reimu in ZUN style.

Waluigi - Waluigi is interesting because, like a Touhou character, it seems that the fanbase basically... made him. I don’t know exactly what his moveset would be or how it could be made unique, but I know so many people who love Waluigi who would be happy to see him playable, including myself.

That ends the list of characters I really want. Otherwise, I’ve thought of some characters that have a pretty good chance of getting in, in no particular order.

Crash Bandicoot (convenient timing for a Switch release, a gaming icon similar to Pacman and Sonic)

Jibanyan from Youkai Watch

A Rabbid (Mario and Rabbids Kingdom Battle, I didn’t like this at first, but that game was actually pretty fun! I wouldn’t be opposed to playing as Rabbid Luigi)

Yooka-Laylee (I’d personally rather not a character slot be taken up by this, better to put Banjo-Kazooie or Hat Kid)

Bomberman

Shovel Knight

Shantae

Phoenix Wright (maybe... doubtful but maybe, I’d like this)

Sora - THERE’S NO WAY SORA IS GETTING IN. I like Sora, but the Disney copyright barrier is too strong. It’s like, Cloud getting in was a miracle enough - but imagine Nintendo not only having to go through the Square Enix barrier but also the Disney one.

Bandana Waddle Dee - I wouldn’t mind this! I’d like it... but I’d prefer Marx.

Then we have other Nintendo characters, like K. Rool, Ridley, Wolf, etc. But... honestly, I’d prefer 3rd party characters to these. That’s just personal preferences.

Finally though, depressing reality kicked in when I realized that, sure, I *hope* that Nintendo will be looking at and considering relevant and modern characters... but, there’s also a chance that Nintendo is just going to bring us another Mr. Game and Watch, or a ROB, or a Little Mac. An old property that they bring back. Some people may like this, and I wouldn’t really be opposed to it so long as a few relevant and not-previously-in-Smash get to shine too.

In the end, I just really hope Nintendo is given the opportunity to consider Reimu. She’d be such a great addition.

Please respond with your opinions, I’d really like to interact with you guys.

[nuzblog]

DECEMBER 7th, 2017

I knew this was going to happen. Here I am, on December NINETEENTH, a whole 12 days after the previous play session, only just now sitting down to catalogue my journey so that, just maybe, I'll be able to play some more of this game later. I knew this would happen because it's Gen 2, and... well. I have some feelings on Gen 2, and on Johto. I intend to at least finish the game before I go too in depth here, but suffice to say, I think that Johto is lacking hard in biodiversity, its level curve is preposterously unbalanced, it doesn't have enough interesting unique landmarks to actually ever grab my attention, and I overall consider it a low point in the series.

To add to that, this run, despite how far I've come, has kind of sucked. I'm sort of stuck using Exeggcute but it is really honestly turning out to not nearly be worth the amount of trouble it's causing. For example, over the course of this post, I will hatch THREE MORE EXEGGCUTE because the damn things keep dying on me. Oh, and Furries, my sole hope for Dark type coverage for the upcoming Ghost-type gym (and, later down the road, for Will of the Elite 4 and Sabrina of Kanto), died pretty early into my play on the Morning of December 7th. If I had started with, say, Totodile, I wouldn't have this problem, and also I wouldn't have to deal with this absolutely godawful shit rat. I mean. Quilava, a Pokemon that a lot of people understandably like quite a bit. (But really it's just. So bad.)

Anyway, I backtracked back to New Bark to grab berries and then forwardtracked to where I was, and on the way, Furries died and also my egg hatched. I named the exeggcute Light Show, and while I was trying to grind it to a useful level, naturally, it died. GROAN.

I hatched another, and named it Bustin, eventually. This hatching process takes forEVER.

On Route 39, I look for a Pokemon I can catch, and... this is what I'm talking about with the biodiversity. There's 251 Pokemon in this game, and what do I find on this route? Literally only Raticates and Meowths. I CAN find Magnemite here, supposedly, but I sure as hell didn't actually get one. No, what I found in here was... oh, god damn it, and also Bustin died!! Fuck!!! And then I found a Miltank and critted it to death!!! God damn it!!!!

Anyway, whatever. I head South towards Olivine, and then my rival pops up out of nowhere and I nearly have a heart attack because, oh jesus if he fights me I'm literally dead. Fortunately, he doesn't, just shows up to blab at me. Whoopdedoo.

Anyway then I stopped playing for like a week or something.

DECEMBER 12th, 2017

But I'm gonna keep it in the same post. One long post is easier than two not long posts. And I wanted to take a break from Mario for Pokemon. Oh, yeah, did I mention Mario? I've got Mario Odyssey and it rules and is basically better than this game in every conceivable way!

I fought through Morty's gym trainers. I want to have an actually usable Exeggcute with Confusion for Morty himself, since despite Gen 2 adding literally exactly one Ghost type, this gym is still entirely Gastly's evolutionary line, which means they're all weak to Psychic.

I run back for more berries, I run back and forth, I heal in New Bark... hey, that's another thing I can complain about. I think this Pokemon Center rule kinda sucks? Like... you know how in some video games, mistakes are punished not by like, a game over or just a notch closer to death, but with a slow obnoxious trek out of your way to get back to progress? Like... in a lot of the 2D Sonic games, there are levels where you're up high doing a platforming but if you fall, you don't drop into a pit or anything, but you do fall into some water and you have to climb up in the slow and unpleasant water to get out?

Well, at this point in the game, backtracking to New Bark anytime I want to heal but don't want to like, spend all my money or use all my chances elsewhere, is basically like that, but executed poorly. It doesn't actually punish me for mistakes, because if I make an actual mistake then a Pokemon will die. Instead, I get to choose between this awful slog back to New Bark, spending a limited resource, and putting my Pokemon in danger. None of these are pleasant or make the game more fun, but they also don't turn out to make the game more challenging.

And once I beat Chuck I'll be able to Fly, making this essentially entirely obsolete as a gameplay concept, since the slog will no longer be a slog. This makes it an even worse rule, and quite frankly, I'm just about done with it. I'll still hold myself to it for the remainder of this playthrough, whether it goes all the way to the Elite Four or not, but once I have retired the character of Sheen, I will also be retiring the limited Pokemon Center heals rule. I'm not sure what I will replace it with, but mark my words, the rules WILL change. Cause right now, they're just not fun.

ANYWAY. Back to gameplay. I hatch my next eggs and I name them Busta, and hope that I don't need to name another, cause I'm already running pretty low on egg names.

I grind... I fall asleep...

DECEMBER 13th, 2017

I grind... Busta learns Confusion! Friggin' finally! Of course, that also means it's basically at its endgame moveset until Kanto, when I get access to Psychic and Giga Drain. Hey speakng of the "Drain" moves, what is WITH them having such garbage PP? Like, they're not nearly strong enough to warrant the PP cost. Giga Drain should have 10, Mega should have 20 and Absorb should have 30. At least. That's honestly what makes me backtrack to New Bark the most, is needing PP for Mega Drain.

While grinding, I did battle my way through the Lighthouse, talking to Jasmine to activate the Cianwood quest. I could just go there now, I guess, but first I'm gonna heal in Ecruteak and head in to battle Morty. My full team can join me here, so IndieCindy, TIME, Wiggles and Busta are all here.

Busta OHKOs his Gastly, and is cursed by Haunter while beating him, and doesn't even get hit by it before switching out to IndieCindy, who I needed to fight Gengar anyway because it has Shadow Ball. Smokescreen doesn't deter it from trying so very hard to combo Hypnosis into Dream Eater. Cindy falls asleep and I switch back to Busta, and again - Morty has SHADOW BALL here, but no, it keeps trying to Hypnotize me through the smokescreen. Busta beats Gengar and then 2-hit KO's Haunter, and I'm golden! Hooray! That's 4 Gym Leaders down, and only 12 more to go! "Hooray."

So, let's talk about Surf, because this is another thing that would be fine if, say, Rainwater hadn't been tragically lost to me, or if I had started with Totodile. Right now, the only Water type in my box is Amnesia, and I... just plain don't want to use a Slowpoke here. I could just use it as a Surf slave I suppose, but I WANT something that can actually be of use to me. There's a few things available, and some I want more than others, so let's look around with the Good Rod, huh?

In Cherrygrove, I catch a Krabby. I name it Copper.

Now, what I want to have happen here, optimally, is that I will catch either a Chinchou or a Shellder in Olivine. In order to optimize my chances of that, I need to catch a Magikarp and a Tentacool. First, I teach Copper Surf and surf on Route 40, and am set upon, naturally, by a Tentacool... which I mess up and murderize! WHOOPS!

I head down to Route 41, not realizing that I actually do have the same fishing chances here as I do in Olivine, and a Tentacruel shows up, and I catch it. Because, of course, there is literally no life in the oceans other than Jellyfish, apparently. I name the Tentacruel Deep Ocean, and head back to Ecruteak to catch a Magikarp. It's low level, so I try to use something it will resist and at low power... and yet, a single Ember still murders it. Shit!

I head to Olivine, fingers crossed, and... god damn it. Magikarp. My plan was an absolute failure in every way and I don't get shit for good water types. I name this thing Boat and, out of stubbornness, and since it's already level 20, I grind one level onto it without even healing it from its damage and sleep, and then ride it as a Gyarados all the way to Cianwood without waking it up. It really is just a boat. Ugh.

I get a free Shuckle. Hooray. I like Shuckle a lot, but I'm not sure I want ANOTHER Rock type. Also it doesn't fit the name scheme.

I grab the medicine I need, and... ugh. I need to fight Chuck, huh? And then Jasmine? Siiigh. I'll do that next time.

My apologies for how acerbic this all is. I just... am not a fan of Gen 2. 

[gamerszone2019-blog]

Decay of Logos Review

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/decay-of-logos-review/

Decay of Logos Review

There’s an old Wile E. Coyote cartoon where he gets in a racecar to chase after the Road Runner, and as he’s speeding along the car begins to fall apart piece by piece until he’s left holding nothing but a busted steering wheel. That’s what it feels like to play Decay of Logos, an open-world action-adventure RPG that strongly invokes The Legend of Zelda but is missing the crucial pieces that make the genre so beloved.

Drawing inspiration from Dark Souls as well, Decay of Logos places emphasis on challenge and exploration, though it rarely sticks the landing. Across its roughly 10-hour campaign you’ll travel through haunted battlefields, crumbling castles, and mysterious woods – all while fighting the same handful of generic enemy types over and over again in one of the most infuriatingly repetitive and buggy games I’ve seen in a long time. Whether it’s the choppy framerate, equipment that disappears from your inventory, the world not loading in time for you to step foot on it, or the whole thing crashing entirely, you’re only ever a short time away from something that will hinder or completely shatter your enjoyment of a game that otherwise has a lot of potential.

You play a bland, white-haired silent protagonist named Ada, who looks like an off-brand version of The Legend of Zelda’s Link. Accompanied by your equally silent companion, a white elk of unknown origin, you’ll set out on a cliché and low-stakes quest for revenge after your village is burned to the ground. Despite the generic plot, the worldbuilding in Decay of Logos is expertly done, making heavy use of environmental storytelling that gives you a taste of a dystopian fantasy setting and asks you to fill in the gaps. The colorful, Breath of the Wild-esque art style shows off some pretty stellar areas that beg to be explored, though doing so almost invariably ends in touring samey dungeons, filled with repetitive monsters and puzzles that you quickly become all too familiar with.

The Breath of the Wild-esque art style shows off some pretty stellar areas that beg to be explored, though doing so almost invariably ends in touring samey dungeons filled with repetitive monsters.

“

At the best of times, Decay of Logos simply runs poorly: The framerate bounces up and down wildly and makes gameplay choppy during combat encounters that require precise timing, and some nasty screen tearing can make the world look like a piece of abstract art. But where Decay of Logos really suffers is in the frustrating, intermittent critical glitches and bugs that completely halt progress. Traveling across long stretches of the open world without resting usually results in the framerate going from bad to nearly unplayable. Oftentimes areas of the world took too long to load in under my feet, resulting in me falling through the map and dying due to no fault of my own. Sometimes dying or resting to restore my health had the side effect of causing all my potions or one of my weapons to disappear without explanation.

These kinds of glitches were so commonplace during my playthrough that I had to come up with workarounds, like not pausing for more than a minute or two to avoid an inevitable crash that always seemed to follow. In another particularly maddening instance, I began to recognize that an extreme drop in framerate was a warning sign that the floor was moments away from disappearing – in moments like this I would race to a save point to avoid losing progress, often only to fall through the floor and die mere seconds from salvation.

And unfortunately, even when everything technically works, many of Decay of Logos’ design troubles rear their heads. The RPG systems that govern the world and its characters are vague and aggravating. For example, your character’s level, which greatly impacts how powerful you are and your ability to compete with enemies in certain parts of the world, can be found in the menu, but there’s no information on how much XP you have, how to get more, or how much you need to the next level up. This is particularly annoying because most enemies in the world arbitrarily become much stronger once you accomplish certain milestones, like killing a major boss, which leads to some really frustrating encounters.

Even when everything technically works, many of Decay of Logos’ design troubles rear their heads.

“

At one point I powered through an army of the undead and killed one of the major bosses without so much as a scratch on me, only to be killed by those same low-level minions on my way back to base, because the act of slaying the boss had leveled up every enemy in the world. This means that every time you beat a chapter, you go from powerful badass to near-useless dreg and have to grind until you level up a few times and become strong again, relative to the rest of the characters in the world. It’s a routine that’s far more irritating than it is fun, and made me feel cheated out of my hard-won progress at precisely the moments where I should have felt most accomplished.

Combat in Decay of Logos is also deeply flawed in that it pits you against the same handful of enemy types for hours on end. Each area has just one or two unique types of enemies that appear in large numbers, and in most cases they can’t be realistically dealt with in groups greater than two or three at a time. So victory becomes a matter of drawing the attention of a few enemies at once, killing them, and repeating. And because the leveling system often artificially makes enemies much stronger than you, combat can drag on for long stretches of time as you whittle down the health meter of an enemy that you might have been able to kill in a few seconds just a short time ago. The dynamic here is even worse when it comes to the world’s optional bosses, all of which are carbon copies of one another, and have predictable movesets and obnoxiously large health bars that make for tiresome encounters.

Last week, after publishing our original review of Decay of Logos, the publisher informed us that they had mistakenly provided us with an Xbox One copy that was two months out of date. We retracted the review to make sure we fairly represented the developers’ work and began again on PlayStation 4, using a new code provided by the publisher. But after playing through the entire game a second time, the experience was only marginally improved in stability and bugs. We are told further patches are on the way, including one on launch day, but it’s unclear what issues will specifically be addressed.

Of all the design issues I have with Decay of Logos, though, the elk is what enrages me the most. As you play, you’re frequently reminded about the importance of the bond between Ada and her elk companion, especially the need to cooperate in order to overcome obstacles. But that promise is never delivered on, chiefly because the elk is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine and has the AI of a refrigerator magnet. For starters, one of the main uses of the elk is the ability to ride it to get from place to place, but doing so is frustrating and inefficient. Not only can you run faster than the elk, but directing it is treated more as a suggestion than an order, and the beast mostly wanders around aimlessly and gets caught on everything in its path.

But the worst instances involving the elk are when you’re asked to solve a puzzle in tandem with it. Simply put, this dumb thing just doesn’t follow orders. You have the ability to call it by blowing a whistle, but most times it doesn’t show up or gets caught on something on the way to you and has to be manually guided out. In one instance, I spent several minutes trying to find the elk, only to find it undulating bizarrely on the side of a cliff, and I had to jump off said cliff to restore its sanity. In another example, I spent over an hour trying to guide it out of a spiral staircase that it’d gotten itself lodged under. They say if you listen closely, you can still hear my screams of rage to this very day.

Source : IGN

[zsielous]

I do want to read your opinions

Well, sure. If you guys want to read one of my game critiques, just read beneath the cut, as this is gonna be a long post.

Crash Bandicoot: Twinsanity is one of those games that I hate to love, and love to hate. To put it on the most basest terms, To sum my entire feelings of it, it’s mediocre. As in, it’s dreadfully boring in almost every aspect. Even when I was young, and playing through it, I found myself incredibly bored of it’s concept and plot to the degree that I either moved to PC entirely, or shipped to a different series entirely by the point I had gotten as far as I could be bothered to. The level design is archaic and linear, the challenge ranges from mind-numbingly boring to annoying levels of difficult, and a lot of the game’s pacing and story feel stilted and odd.

But let’s break things down piece by piece so I can explain why the game’s bad. First, let’s focus on the main aspect - the gameplay. The controls are well-done - surprisingly so. Everything feels about how it should be, good levels of resistence from boxes, spinning and movement feel good. But the jumping is the first arrow in this games Achille’s heel. The gravity in this game is... Off. By a wide margin. It feels like Crash should, and sometimes can, jump higher, longer, and without as much control as other games. In a lot of the other games, you could control your jumps. Everything feels odd and floaty in the air, and sometimes jumps can be frustrating to make, especially when they require focus. Wrath of Cortex, for example, had a fairly set gravity and controlling yourself whilst in the air was manageable to the degree where you could complete most of the challenges. Twinsanity felt... Floaty.

Let’s talk about moveset. Most of Crash’s moves from previous games are outright abandoned. No powerups, no cool, nifty little tricks. Just spinning and jumping. Sliding works about 2% of the time, and the other 98%, you die, or would do the job quicker spinning or simply jumping on them. While that’s nothing new for the Crash formula, it feels lazy how little you have to do. Enemy placement is usually sporadic enough as it is (until you get to the ant levels, where if you don’t spin, you’ll die quickly) that generally speaking, even spinning is useless. The crates they provide are mere distractions from the incredibly linear story and level design. Sure, you can get the coloured gems, but they’re so few and far between the levels, it’s easier just to get past the story as it is. Speaking of story...

Let’s focus on this game’s greatest flaw. The story. Dear God, the story. They had so much potential with this game’s story. Crash and Cortex teaming up together to fight an otherworldly evil that Cortex himself created. That sounds like the coolest, best idea you could have. Even the intro is promising, where Cortex lures you into a trap where you find all the other bosses from the previous games, all lined up and ready to beat you down. You could’ve done so much in the opening fight - like having a boss rush, or placing bosses throughout the story with their own little zones or stories and conflicts. But no. They’re just there one moment and gone the next. You only fight a total of four Crash bosses that are from Crash games. And one of them, N. Gin, is literally just a waiting game. No cool battle in space, or at sea on his admittedly cool giant naval ship. No, you fight him on a tiny platform and make him explode himself. Then two minutes after a very generic “boulder chase” sequence (really, it was not that great, but a nice little reference), you fight a DUO of N. Brio and N. Tropy. That has so many possibilities! Could you imagine fighting N. Brio as N. Tropy warps you from location to location, past and future? That would be insane! But no. You fight them on a tiny iceberg. Dingodile shows up midway through the game, and his fight is... Pathetic. 

The original bosses - the three of them that there are - range from pathetic, to insanely hard without exploits, to impossible. Mecha Bandicoot is an echo of what the N. Gin fight could’ve been. In fact, I’d wager that it’s harder than N. Gin is. And mind you, this thing is not tricky in the slightest. Madamme Amberly is... Hard. That’s all there is to it. Cortex controls like a much sloppier Crash, and his ranged weapon is pointlessly pathetic. And it has ammo that you need to keep track of. When you fight Amberly, you’re graced with infinite ammunition, but her fight is mash central, and one of the main reasons I couldn’t beat the game as a kid. It was so arbitrarily difficult that it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t until much later until I found out about an explot you could use to glitch her priority targeting that the fight became a cakewalk. We’ll get to the final boss. Let’s talk about the design.

This game is gorgeous. Drop-dead, hands-down one of the most colourful and well-designed PS2 games I’ve played to date. You could tell a lot of heart and soul went into the project just looking at the concept art and the models and animations. Everything looks stellar, almost better than some PS3 or 360 games I’ve played to date. It’s atmospheric in some places, and ingenious in others, from the totemic, tribalistic regions on N. Sanity island, to the futuristic complex of Cortex’s Arctic lair, to the gothic designes of Madamme Amberly’s, to the warped world of the 5th dimension - it’s all designed brilliantly. Shame the levels are dead-straight tracts of land. They had all these great elements and they never got to use them, or just made the game far too linear to explore some more cool themes. The soundtrack is excellent - an acapella group recreating all the sounds of instruments just using their voices? In some places, it’s cheery and goofy (the N. Sanity Beach theme is still stuck in my head), and others it’s grim and depressing (the 5th dimension is still haunting to this day). Again, the final boss is perhaps the greatest theme of all time in my brain, but we’ll get to that. Promise.

Let’s get back to the story. The story is the biggest crutch. It’s begging for Cortex to have a whole stock of cool and unique weapons and gadgets at his disposal to deal with his problems rather than dirty his hands. The new threat even beats out his own master, Uka-Uka AND Aku-Aku together. You’d think Cortex would, oh, I don’t know, fabricate hundreds of machines or robots to defeat them, or they would find a means of turning the other bosses against you. Nope. They appear a grand total of FOUR TIMES. And they only intervene ONCE. Every other time they laud about how powerful they are and what they’re going to do to the planet Earth, then piss off to who knows where to do... Nothing. Their minions make more appearances than they do! Dingodile makes more appearances than they do! They aren’t showing how evil this new evil is. They don’t show them doing the things they claim to be doing. The most they do to convince Cortex is remove his brain from his skull. That’s it. Okay, cool, now do something like steal parts of his brain to make him a good guy, or steal the ideas for his next plan. Nope, they just shunt it back in there after pulling it out. They send minions to do their job because they have no power to do extraordinary things. It’s... Depressing. A huge buildup for the advertising, and the game, and we’re delivered a very generic, bland experience. No unique or memorable bosses (save the final boss), no actual semblance of a plot (outside of stop the bad guys) and no Evil versus Evil. It’s just “oh, they’re here, best stop them”. There is so little about this story or the actual threat the Evil poses that this game falls flat on it’s face. In the original Crash, you could see where the shifts happened - Island 3, which is mechanized pollution and radioactive waste, more mechanical levels), Crash 2 had the whole futuristic theme to it (as did Crash 3)... Things built up to stopping Cortex as he was about to achieve his goals. Twinsanity you walk in before the goals were even started, and you fight the final boss. Let’s talk about this. Because the final boss is important to me on so many levels.

The final boss of Crash Twinsanity... Is legendary. It is, by far, the best example of what this game could’ve been. You fight a giant mechanical scarab-ant-thing, armed with flamethrowers, minions, lazers, guns, explosives... This thing is a gigantic threat. It’s even got shields. You fight this thing in the heart of an insane factory that produces the minions, in a small arena surrounded by a moat of lava with a kickass song playing as all three playable characters doing their own thing to stop the boss. And by God, it is why I love this game so much. There is so much potential brimming from this one boss. You use the platforming skills from Nina to break down it’s shields, you fight as Cortex shooting away it’s main guns, then you beat the mech down WITH MECHA BANDICOOT. My GOD it is so satisfying. This boss is so well-designed, it feels like an actual struggle, like an actual fight for your life. My copy of the game bugged, so when I played as Nina, I had to jump in the dark to try reach the hook-holds of the shield generators, which made the game so much more tense for me, at least. It’s just a crying shame that the rest of the game is piddle-pandering to the crowd that it misses out on what could’ve been so good. If the rest of the game was like this one boss - actual threats, real tension, and use of character skills beyond just the quirk of playing them, then Twinsanity would’ve been the number one Crash game of all time. 

But it isn’t. It’s a mess of a game. A very pretty mess, but it wants to push presentation over gameplay or story. Everything is cookie-cutter and generic. It’s such a disappointment. But the final boss makes this game so, so worth it. All in all, I give the game a 3/10. There just isn’t enough of the game that I think is good, but the final boss pushes this from being a title not worth picking up.

[entergamingxp]

Desperados 3 Review — I’m Your Huckleberry

June 12, 2020 11:00 AM EST

Desperados 3 brings the goods in this reimagining of the classic tactics series.

Desperados 3 is a stealth tactics game featuring a memorable cast of Wild West characters. It’s also an oddly titled prequel to a series that started in 2001. It’s also an example of how effective “less-is-more” storytelling can be, even in a genre that usually puts the narrative on the backburner. Most importantly, Desperados 3 is freaking awesome.

Mimimi Games reinvention of a series that was last seen in 2007 is nothing short of spectacular. The way it mixes diverse, lovable characters, gameplay that feels like a top-notch puzzle game, and one of my favorite mechanics in tactics games is astounding. If you’re looking to get into stealth-based tactics games, Desperados 3 is a game you have to check out.

Let’s first talk about the different characters at your disposal. I think most people have probably played or watched someone play an XCOM at this point. Firaxis Games’ 2012 reboot quickly took the world by storm, and rightfully so. That game is a masterclass in turn-based tactics design. But, one of the biggest joys was making the fully customizable troops into your friends and making up your own story.

Desperados 3 is very much not like XCOM in that regard. This game has named characters with their own skills and personalities. That doesn’t make it better or worse, just different. Personally, I loved getting to know each of the five characters in Desperados. Not only are you slowly mastering their skillset, but you’re also learning what makes them tick.

“Most importantly, Desperados 3 is freaking awesome.”

The main protagonist of the tale is John Cooper. He’s the face of the franchise and wields dual pistols and his trusty knife. Of the five, his skillset is the most “basic,” making him the kind of everyman you can slot into just about any situation.

Joining him on his journey is one Doc McCoy. This hard-boiled doctor also happens to be an expert marksman. His silenced pistol is both the quietest gun and the one with the longest reach. So, if you need to pick off a foe from afar, he’s your man. His medical bag can also be used as a trap that stuns curious guards for a short time.

Next up is Kate O’Hara. This beautiful lady uses both her charm and nearly silent Derringer to murder her foes. She can also disguise herself and then use her feminine wiles to hold a bandit’s attention, while a teammate sneaks by. In my tabletop role-playing group, I usually end up playing a femme fatale, so Kate quickly became my favorite. Her moveset is just so different from the norm, and she really helps in a pinch as the ultimate support character.

Hector was probably my least used character, though I still adore that lovable goof. His two big calls to fame are his bear trap and his shotgun. If you want to methodically thin out a herd of guards without getting spotting, that bear trap will do the job. And, when things get truly hairy, his shotgun makes people die real good.

The final member of your squad is Isabelle. I mentioned above that Kate has a unique skill set, but hers is really nothing compared to Isabelle. She uses voodoo magic to mind control enemies. You can also blow dart two bandits and then anything that happens to one will happen to the other. This allows you to set up some devilishly fun kills.

As you might imagine, the real fun of the gameplay comes from mixing each character’s skills together. So maybe you chain dart two guys with Isabelle, while you’re distracting another with Kate. Then, to keep you safe from a fourth patrolling guard, you kill the darted duo with Doc McCoy. Those kinds of combinations happen all the time in Desperados 3.

And Mimimi Games know this is where the good stuff happens, too. Because of this, they’ve put in a mechanic they call “Showdown” mode to facilitate some inventive and rad gameplay moments. Basically, whenever you want, you can enter a Showdown, and the whole game stops. This lets you queue up actions for every character in your party.

Say you need to get through an area and there are six enemies in your path. There’s no way to pick them off one at a time because all of their vision cones overlap. If you were to sneak in and knife one guy, his partner would see you and all hell would break loose. While you can manage a few big firefights in Desperados 3, stealth is almost always the best option.

These enemies aren’t pushovers, after all. I mean, you’d hardly call the basic fodder Einsteins, but some of the tougher enemies will give you fits. For instance, Kate’s charm doesn’t work on most of the higher level enemies (or any of the women). And the toughest enemy – the “Long Coat” – will take multiple hits to take down by anyone besides Hector. You’ll need to learn how each enemy interacts with your character’s skills if you don’t want everything to go sideways.

When that happens, it’s time for a good old-fashioned Showdown. By using Showdown mode, you can get all five characters to murder a different person at once. If you plan it correctly, everyone dies in climatic bang and you’re free to continue your business.

It’s both extremely useful and incredibly cinematic. It’s a little like the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral scene in Tombstone, except all the bad guys die at once. So, maybe this band of ne’er-do-wells is more effective than those iconic cowboys? Please, no one tell Kurt Russell I said that.

“At one point I murdered three men in slow-mo with a cannon. How can you not love that?”

You might be thinking, “Well, I have five characters to fight with, surely most of these battles are going to become too easy with Showdown mode, right?” And you’d probably be right, but Mimimi Games made such a smart decision by almost never allowing you to fight with a full party.

Each mission forces you into new combinations of characters as members of the team rotate in and out due to lore reasons. In one mission you’re walking the streets of New Orleans with the unlikely trio of Doc McCoy, Kate, and Isabelle. It’s like the Wild West version of Charlie’s Angels and you get to play as Bosley. Or maybe that was just me.

In the next, you might be trying to stop a train with Hector and Kate. You’re constantly kept on your toes up through the final mission. And that finale is an explosion of carnage that ends in one of the more satisfying conclusions I can remember in video games.

At the top, I mentioned that tactics games don’t often seem to place too much emphasis on their story. XCOM, for instance, lets you make your story, which is unquestionably fun, but at the end of the day, the actual narrative is pretty basic.

Before you get too excited, I’ll say that Desperados 3 isn’t breaking new ground in video games or anything. However, it’s very effective in how it tells its tale. Be warned, I’m going to go into some very minor spoilers in the next four paragraphs, so if you want to go in completely blind, just skip down.

Desperados 3’s story is almost like someone took that mostly throwaway sequence at the end of the first Red Dead Redemption where you play as Jack, turned it into a full video game, and then made it good. Listen, I love the first RDR, but Jack Marston is one of my least favorite controllable characters ever. If I ever have to hear his whiny voice yell “Work ya damn nag!” again, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

That said, Jack Marston and John Cooper share somewhat similar redemption quests. Desperados 3 kicks off with John joining his father James (are all video game cowboys required to have a first name that starts with “J”?) on a bounty hunt for a notorious criminal called Frank. Things happen that I won’t get into and James dies. In the present, John is on a mission to track Frank down and kill him for what he did.

Now, on the surface, that’s a fine story. You can spin that yarn and spin it well. Certainly, in the early-goings, I wasn’t thinking this story would hit that hard for me. However, Mimimi does a few things with the narrative that I want to call out. First, they deliver a twist about halfway through that is one of those things I probably should’ve seen coming, but didn’t. And it floored me because it instantly recontextualizes one of the game’s key relationships in a meaningful way.

The other thing is that your first encounter with Frank sets up the idea that anything can happen with one bullet. It might not land for everyone, but the way they wrap that into the final confrontation was phenomenal. It puts this neat little bow on everything and lets the game finish with a satisfying bang. Pun firmly intended.

Usually, at this point in a review, I would tell you some of the problems with the game. Here’s the problem: I can’t really think of many. Sure, the missions are kind of long, but it’s so easy to quickly save and hop out if you need to stop playing.

“And that finale is an explosion of carnage that ends in one of the more satisfying conclusions I can remember in video games.”

I do wonder if the quicksave and quick load functions will feel as snappy on PS4 and Xbox One. But on PC, it feels nearly instantaneous. The game encourages save-scumming, which leads to you finding inventive solutions to its many puzzles. It feels less like save-scumming and that thing your grandma does when she’s solving a puzzle with you on a Sunday. She has her little area that she’s super focused on and will try and retry every puzzle on that table until she finds the one that fits.

You’re not failing, you’re learning!

See, I try to find something bad to say and it just turns into a positive! I haven’t even talked about how great the pre-mission cutscenes are. Nor did I talk about how hilarious some of the environmental kills are. At one point I murdered three men in slow-mo with a cannon. How can you not love that?

“It is, without question, one of the best games I’ve played all year.”

I haven’t mentioned the post-game screen that shows you watch a sped-up replay of the mission. It’s not a feature you need, but rewatching my playthrough at hyperspeed is always a treat. Heck, I also didn’t even tell you about all the extra challenges you unlock once you beat a mission. If you wanted to, you could dive deep into Desperados 3 and play this game for hundreds of hours.

I mean, I’m sitting here at three in the morning finishing up this review so it can get edited before the embargo and all I can think about is hopping back in. Who even needs sleep? I’ll just dream about vision cones and Hector’s luscious head of hair anyways.

I will say, I’m far from the biggest tactics fan out there. I’ve played a fair number of them and ranked Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden as my Game of the Year in 2018. I might’ve lost a few people with that last sentence who think Red Dead Redemption 2 or God of War should hold that crown.

However, it’s important to remember that it’s okay for you to be wrong. It happens to everybody. Maybe you mistake great production values for a great game. Or maybe you love playing objectively bad gameplay because you like well-acted stories. I don’t pretend to know you. I just know your opinion is the wrong one.

Joking aside, I would definitely consider myself a relatively casual tactics fan. So, I would hesitate to say Desperados 3 pushes the genre forward because I honestly don’t know if it does. That said, everything it does, it does incredibly well. Whether you’re looking to hop into stealth tactics for the first time or you’re an old pro, I would wholeheartedly recommend you check out Desperados 3. It is, without question, one of the best games I’ve played all year.

June 12, 2020 11:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/desperados-3-review-im-your-huckleberry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=desperados-3-review-im-your-huckleberry

[terryblount]

Devil May Cry 5 – Review

The darkest of night falls around your soul, and the hunter within loses control. After more than 10 years, the Devil May Cry series performs the rarest of video game industry feats- the elusive de-boot and returns to it un-rebooted universe with Devil May Cry.

For those not in the know, the Devil May Cry series posits the simple question: what if we added another layer to character action where the objective was more than simply “kill all the monsters”? The result is the thesis of the Devil May Cry series- “Can you kill all the monsters while looking cool as hell?”

The result is a series of some of the best character action games in the business. But the games industry has changed much since Devil May Cry 4’s release in 2008. Could the game’s tongue-in-cheek style and fast-paced action still be relevant in today’s videogame landscape? Short answer- a big ol’ Smokin’ Sexy Yes.

The facial work in the game looks amazing- combined with the amazing direction for the cutscenes, it leads to an actually enjoyable experience watching the cutscenes.

Presentation

Given the series ties to Resident Evil it’s no surprise Devil May Cry 5 is running on the new RE engine developed for the new wave of Resident Evil games. The result is a game that looks much grittier than its previous entries. Due to the engine originally being for a first-person horror game though, it gives DMC a variety of useful quirks, one of them being the faces in the game. They’re just stylised enough that they don’t look entirely anime, but steer off the uncanny valley.

Despite the gorgeous visuals of the game though, the game doesn’t suffer for it. The game runs at a solid 60 fps even on a regular PS4, and even has customizable field of view.

One thing older fans may notice is the sheer volume of long cutscenes in this game. While not Kojima-level, the game does a better job of mixing the plot and gameplay, and as a result it feels like every mission starts with a long cutscene explaining how we got from the end of the last mission to this one.

The one concrete net-flaw of this game would be its loading screens. Selecting a mission will give you at minimum two loading screens, bookending the introductory cutscene for the mission. Any attempts to customize your character (which in Nero’s case you will be doing for every mission) add another two, taking you back and from the customization menu. These screens aren’t short, either, and the amount of delay between wanting to start a mission and actually getting to play the game are a blemish on the game’s good streak.

Feats like Jump Canceling are much easier to do now, allowing more people to do complex moves as part of their big combos

Gameplay

If I could describe the combat in DMC 5, it would be as follows: Low barrier of entry, high skill ceiling. The game plays better than it looks, with a fluid and deep combat system that many action games could stand to learn from.

For newcomers, the Devil May Cry games have a “Style ranking”- a gauge that fills up as you do technically impressive and powerful moves. They give diminishing returns in score if you overuse them, though, so you’ll need to get creative with your combos.

Upping the ante from 4, you now get three playable characters, who each play differently: The veteran demon hunter Dante who changes his playstyle with his 4 “styles”, the young Nero, whose core moveset is more holistic but swaps out different tools to enhance that, and newcomer V- a unique keepaway character who controls demons to fight for him.

Unlike DMC 4 and many games with multiple heroes, you never really play one character for too long at once. The story jumps back and forth along a timeline, as you get to learn what the three characters were up to during key events in the game’s story. On one hand, this may seem disorienting as you forget your combos for V as you play a Nero stage.

On the other, however, it prevents a problem in DMC 4: what if you just didn’t like the other character? If I have to play as V after a Dante section, it doesn’t mean it’s the end of Dante, I can keep playing him a few missions later.

Aside from that, there’s the levels themselves- it feels so refreshing to say the words “level design” because the game actually has these- actual levels, with actual design put into them. Enemies present complex problems you need to solve, while also solving the game’s main problem (keeping up your style meter).

There’s an enemy that gains armor after taking too many hits- meaning you can’t flinch it out of its next attack, which means even the most offensive player is going to need to guard or dodge the next hit or hear the disappointed cry of the Style announcer calling you out for your mediocrity. There’s another that spins in a wheel and needs to be shot at to flinch it out before it hurls itself towards you to rob you of your health and style points. All of these are presented in sealed off kill-rooms, meaning you’re going to have to solve these problems before you’re free to progress.

In contrast to DMC 4, the combat feels a lot more streamlined in the sense that the levels aren’t built to waste your time. Gone are the elaborate platforming puzzles and dice games, which is more a sign of the series growth, knowing that its core gameplay loop- that of fighting enemies, has been trusted to carry you for the entirety of the game. There are still the occasional puzzles, but, save for one Nero stage, never are they so bad that you wish you could cut through it to get to the next fight.

The game has plenty of reasons to go back to older missions, not least of all the pursuit of higher style

Content

An astounding amount of content has been put into Devil May Cry 5, yet in such a way that it doesn’t take you from the main focus of the game. Rather than add countless minigames, puzzles et cetera the game gives you plenty of customization for the three playable characters.

Chief of customization is Nero, who uses a series of mechanical arms with all kinds of support abilities from stopping time to piercing the heavens with his drill. They range from “powerful attack” to “powerful tool”, letting you really play Nero the way you want to. You can swap out these loadouts before the mission starts or at select points in a mission, similar to the Goddess of Time statues from previous games.

Dante has his staple of collecting Devil Arms, too, gaining more weapons as he defeats more bosses. Unlike previous games, however, he now has the ability to simply not use certain weapons to downsize on how many he has to swap between to combo. He even has a secret gun- one unobtainable unless you actually seek it out, which leaves you with a good feeling knowing that not everything is simply being handed to you.

This brings me to the next big point- the levels, again. Despite DMC 5 being a linear game, they’ve packed the levels with plenty of secrets and collectibles, but not too many that it feels like busy work. All the usual staples are there- Blue Orb shards for health, Gold orbs for revives and Secret Missions- though those come with a neat twist that makes them easier to spot.

Speaking of Secret Missions, the game does carry over one thing the reboot did right- the ability to replay Secret Missions from a menu. This seems to go well with the game’s central mission- not to distract you from the action with pointless busywork.

The game also has a weird co-op mechanic- the Cameo System. How this works is that certain missions are linked to each other, as a result of the game’s tendency to hop along a timeline. For example, you could have one Nero mission and one V mission several missions apart, but in the context of the story, they’re happening simultaneously and not too far from each other. As a result, if you are playing the Nero part of that story, you can glance over and see V in the distance playing his own mission, and it would be controlled in real time by another player, which the game will inform you.

This all seems like a nice gimmick until you reach a certain point in the game that turns it up to eleven- during one mission in the game, you can choose which of the three heroes to play as. After selecting it, you now get to share three killrooms with other players, playing as the other characters. There are tools in the settings to pair you up with friends though they seem to work at their own discretion, but even the excitement of working together is just a whole other level of excitement, especially after always being blocked by walls and distance.

Verdict

Devil May Cry 5 is a game that values the player’s experience, having been lovingly crafted to ensure that no matter what you’re doing, you’re having fun. It has an astounding amount of replay value with harder difficulties and simply the pursuit of higher style leading you to keep playing the game.

If you don’t care much for story, I could totally recommend the game simply on the merit of “it’s just that bloody good”. For the more story conscious, though, I’d recommend at the very least picking up DMC 4 first as it is very much a continuation of Dante and Nero’s story rather than its own standalone thing. The game does come with a primer on the backstory of the previous games to bring you up to speed, however, and if you’re fine with looking to Wikipedia or spelunking through the game’s datalogs to get more answers, then, by all means, you’re going to have a great time with this game.

This is a game that knows it’s cool, but wants you to know it’s even cooler than that.

And you know what? Jackpot.

Game reviewed on PS4. Copy purchased by reviewer

Devil May Cry 5 – Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[crijoh]

Extra special thanks!I got so much feedback and love for my two previous Hyrule Warriors topics.For the ones who aren't sure what Hyrule Warriors isandFor the ones who want to know if buying a second/third time is worth itAs someone who's always dreamt of, tried to, and failed at being a writer, it means the world to me to see people not only enjoy my little articles, but find them useful. It's thrilling to get comments saying that they plan on buying the game now thanks to me, and even the ones who read my article and decided the game isn't for them. I love you guys. Thank you so much.So what's this topic about?This time, it's just pure gameplay tips and strategies to make you a Hyrule Warriors master. While the core gameplay is very simple, a lot of incredibly useful information is not readily available. Some of this information is going to be for specific versions of the game, but I'll try to keep the information as general as possible.Did you know that you can manually break into a sprint at any time?Everyone probably knows that when you begin running, it usually takes a few seconds before your character will break into a sprint. Some of the bulkier characters can take a long ass time before they reach their full speed and it can make some characters much more tedious than others to play. Luckily, there's a sprint button hidden right on your controller/3DS.If you dodge, and then hold the dodge button while holding a direction, you'll immediately begin a full sprint in that direction. No more waiting for your character to reach full speed. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't figure this out until the 3DS version came out.Giant bosses can be defeated without even using the item they are weak to.I hated the giant bosses in the Wii U version. Sitting, and waiting for them to perform the attack that exposes their weak point is so painfully boring. It really screws up the satisfying quick pace of the game. Luckily, you have an attack that can knock them flat on their ass immediately. Again, I didn't find this out until the 3DS version.After filling up your magic meter (the green vertical bar) you enter what's called Focus Spirit mode. From here, by performing a special attack (the one with the fancy cutscene) you'll perform a devastating attack that will immediately expose the boss's weak point gauge. This saves an incredible amount of time.3DS and Switch players will get an even bigger bonus. If they gather two of their commandable warriors at a boss, both warriors will immediately fill their magic bars to full.Don't neglect capturing outposts.As you probably know, capturing keeps will do two things for you. One, it will periodically spawn troops and raid captains who will go out and harass your enemies. Secondly, they'll often times be required for certain objectives. Raid captains are a pain in the ass, and are usually the main reason that you'll be losing your keeps, and sometimes even lose control of the whole battle in fights that drag on too long.What you might not know, is that raid captains have to stop at every enemy outpost they meet along the way to their target keep. Outpost captains are in the game to stop raid captains. Capturing an outpost takes you less than five seconds, and can stall raid captains for a long time.Don't neglect Gold SkulltullasSure, everyone loves collectables in games, but a lot of folks I've talked to largely ignored the Gold Skulltullas because they didn't really care about filling out the illustrations. They're just for the image gallery... right...? Well...Killing Gold Skulltullas does two things for you;One, you'll unlock new apothecary bonuses for each one you kill. This is hugely important for getting better weapon and material drops. Perhaps the most interesting, is that in order to get "perfect" weapons, you'll NEED these special potions. If nothing else, make sure you kill at least 50 Gold Skulltullas in your travels.The second reason is that the first time you complete any illustration, you'll unlock an adventure mode map called the "Rewards Map". You'll get a new tile for every illustration you complete. This map will have special stages based on the illustration you finished, plus special rewards.So how do you make a Gold Skulltula appear? It's different for each one. Each Legends mode Skulltula is unique, and you'll need to look up a guide for that. As for Adventure mode, they typically appear after 1,000 KOs, or if you complete the first objective and get 1,200 KOs before taking 4 hearts of damage. Be sure to check a guide if you aren't sure.My Fairy mode makes getting A ranks very, very easy.This is only for the 3DS and Switch folks, as My Fairy isn't in the Wii U version.One thing that everyone should understand about the enemies in the game is that there are thousands and thousands of them. More than the game can render at once. If too many gather in one area, they have to "wait their turn" to spawn in. There might be 1,000 monsters in one small area, but you can only see a small portion of them. This is the reason that you can be slaying enemies non-stop and they seem to just keep spawning in.The answer to this is My Fairy. The fairies have a special magic blast that they unlock once they're a high enough level. This attack not only kills all of the monsters in an area around you, but also kills all the monsters that are waiting their turn to spawn in the area. This can easily net you hundreds, or even over a thousand kills in a single attack depending on where you use it. Use your map to find the area with the highest concentration of enemy captains. Usually that is where the majority of the enemy army is waiting to spawn. Swoop in with a full magic meter and pop off your fairy barrier blast, and enjoy your free few hundred kills.This will help you get the 1,200 KO requirement for a lot of A rank missions very easily.I highly suggest checking out a more detailed guide on My Fairy. Some of the special abilities they can give you are straight up unreal, but it takes a lot of effort to create your perfect fairy.Most of the "bad" characters aren't bad at all, and just have deeper mechanics.I notice a lot of people seem to try a character out, find them lacking, and pass them off as just being a "bad" character. Some of the most powerful characters are ones that just tend to have confusing mechanics, such as Zant, Agitha, and King Daphnes.Lets look closer at Zant: People will immediately notice that all of his combos end in him stunning himself. If you stunned yourself as Zant, you pushed his combo too hard. Zant has a sort of "rage" mechanic. When you perform a combo, you can keep hitting the heavy attack button to really lay into enemies. As you do, his rage meter builds up. If it reaches maximum and you continue to push the attack, he will over exert himself and get stunned. The idea is to stop hitting the button the moment it reaches maximum. At that point, you can cool him off by simply performing his heavy attack to unleash a flurry of spinning blades or projectiles. This mechanic isn't explained well in the game, so a lot of people are left wondering how the heck to play as him. He's actually one of the most powerful, and fun characters to play once you get the hang of him.I highly recomend checking out Gamesbrained's character guides on Youtube for every character. Really, watch them all. Did you know that you can have Young Link put on his Keaton mask and roar? Or have Linkle put her hood up? You learn cool shit like that in his videos.Some characters are vastly better than others, but there's really only one or two that are plan "Bad", and Agitha isn't one of them.Not much else to say, but again, I'm going to recommend watching Gamesbrained's character guides.Elements matter. They actually have three different uses.Believe it or not, your weapon element does a lot for you.First of all, you'll get a significant attack bonus for using a weapon of that element in that stage. That's why it's very useful to have "main" characters of each element. Luckily, on the 3DS and Switch versions of the game, you can get weapons that have dual elements. The recommended element is the element that will trigger for any given stage. On top of that, depending on what badges you buy for your skill trees, you can give yourself hefty defense bonuses for stages with certain element types.Don't go in thinking that you can "counter" a fire-element stage with a water element weapon. It doesn't work like that. You'll want to take a fire weapon to a fire stage.Each element also applies a special status effect on enemies:Fire causes airborne enemies to explode when they hit the ground, dealing splash damage.Water wraps a bubble around an enemy's head, slowly causing damage.Lightning causes increasing bonus damage for each hit that an enemy takes before they hit the ground.Light causes bonus damage to groups of enemies that are hit consecutively.Darkness causes bonus damage to single enemies that are hit consecutively.Interestingly enough, a lot of weapons have a moveset that compliments their specific element. For example, Ghirahim is the best one on one duelest in the game, and his darkness effect compliments that very well.It should be noted that not every attack will apply a weapon's element to an enemy. For example, Shiek's harp can apply all sorts of elemental effects, but still only gains the damage bonus from "Lighting recommended" stages.On top of that, every enemy, giant boss, monster captain, and even playable hero has an elemental weakness:Fire: King Dodongo, Gibdo, Moblin, Stalmaster, Icy Big Poe, Agitha, TingleWater: Manhandla, Helmaroc King, Fiery Aeralfos, ReDead Knight, Lizalfos, Big Poe, Stone Blin, Goron Captain, Darunia, VolgaLightning: Argorok, Aeralfos, Darknut, Dinolfos, Shield Moblin, Big Blin, Lana, Ruto, MarinLight: The Imprisoned (large and small), Ganon, Phantom Ganon, Ganondorf, Midna, Zant, Ghirahim, Cia, Wizzro, Twili Midna, Skull Kid, Ravio, YugaDarkness: Gohma, Hylian Captain, Link, Impa, Sheik, Zelda, Fi, Young Link, Linkle, Toon Link, Tetra, King Daphnes, Medli, Toon ZeldaThis can be a tad hard to predict, so it's best to simply use a weapon that grants you the "element recommended" bonus.Unlocking the true Master SwordYou may have noticed that Link's Master Sword has two locked abilities on it. These abilities don't become unlocked until you've unlocked every other weapon in the game. After that, you'll need to grind out a whopping number of monster kills before the abilities reveal themselves, but they are incredibly powerful. They will make the Master Sword in to by far the most powerful weapon in the game, even moreso than "Perfect" weapons. It seriously turns the Master Sword into a "win" button, but it's effectively one of the hardest things to unlock in the game.Getting a "perfect" weapon.A perfect weapon is the best weapon that you can get with any specific character. In the 3DS and Switch versions, this means a dual element, level 4+ weapon, with 8 slots, 5 stars, and 750 base damage.It's actually not terribly complicated to get one. In order to find that weapon, you need to be holding the weapon type you're looking for. For example, if you want a perfect Ocarina for Skull Kid, you need to be attempting this with an Ocarina weapon. You'll need to use the blacksmith to equip the Stars+ and Slots+ skills to the weapon. Then, before each match you need to get the Apothecary mixture "Weapon Rank III". This is going to require that you kill 50 Gold Skulltulas.It remains to be seen what the best maps will be for grinding this out on Switch, but on 3DS, a good one is B-16 in Lorule. Finish the mission, and look over your rewards. If you don't like what you see, simply reset your system before leaving the weapons screen and saving. You'll save your pricey Apothecary mixture.It's a beautiful thing.Also make sure you're appraising those hidden weapon skills. Some of the hidden ones are absolutely insane. Much more exciting than Darkness+.None of the above information is mandatory for you to have an amazing time with this game.I've gone over a few somewhat intricate mechanics of the game. Really, none of them are mandatory for you to have a blast playing the game. You don't need the ultimate My Fairy skills, or the perfect weapons in order to have a fantastic time. Though... really you should learn how to sprint.Got any tips you'd like to throw in? If you teach me something new about the game, I'll include it here with credit!Thank you all so much!Edits:/u/Henryuuk pointed out that Focus Special Attacks force ALL enemies to reveal their weak point, not just giant bosses. Go upvote his comment here. via /r/NintendoSwitch

[robothobo64]

2D Dragon Ball Z Fighters Retrospetcive

Part 5: Ultimate Butouden is the Best and I Gush about it for an Entire Post

Ultimate Butoduen (2011 - Nintendo DS) Perfection. That's really what I have to say about this one honestly. It was developed by Game Republic, the same guys who made the Dragon Ball Origins games on DS. However it sadly was never put out here in the west....which is odd since the game is primarily based of DBZ Kai so why NOT put it out here? Kai was coming out around that time on Nicktoons, by then everyone already knows all about DBZ so it's not a case like the SNES games being put out back when they launched to an audience that never knew about Dragon Ball. It's the first proper sequel to the Butouden games since Final Bout/Shin Butoden in 1995/1997 respectively. Not only that, it honestly blows them out of the water with how amazing this one is.  Light and heavy attacks with a dodge/parry button instead of a standard guard. There's no option to charge energy like the past games, it builds up on it's own, but you can change how fast it charges up, the catch is, your attacks won't be as strong. You can also for-go all your Ki to get super-charged for a brief duration. Each character has a certain number of Ki levels they can go up and down on. Some powerful characters and base forms have around four or five while full transformed versions have around three or so. The fighting itself just feels fast and fluid, going into flight mode doesn't require a button or anything like that. Just double tap up and you fly upward. Also, despite the arenas being more in line with the Final Bout ones where they go on almost infinitely till the scrolling barrier hits by going too far from the character, it still feels like there's more than enough room to fight. Specials are done by either commands or just tapping the screen on the move needed. Ultimate moves when they hit, you have the option to either block, dodge, or counterattack with a Super of your own. Doing so will initiate a small mini-game, either pressing the right buttons in time or timing button presses so the Ki can hit it's target. It changes depending on the attack used. Not to mention a number of moves have rather unique "failure" screens if the Ultimate is successfully countered. Ginyu's involving him getting smacked with the same frog he changes into, Bardock's has the opponent flick the blast away and nearly hit Baby Goku's space pod. There's just a TON of references and nods everywhere that give this game such detail. It also looks and sounds amazing. Just like their previous Dragon Ball Origin games, the models all feel very accurate to the Dragon Ball artstyle and the animations for each one feel fast and fluid. It's a game that FEELS like you're playing the manga/anime similar to what Fighters Z is doing. My only complaint is that the colors seem kinda dulled out a bit? Maybe it's just me. Music-wise, it's completely original music, "Dragon Soul" is given a remix in the title screen, the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and Plains themes are also some of my favorites. The roster is a "Best Of" from Saiyan to Buu Saga. (even tho Kai was only going to go till Cell untill they changed their mind) Bardock, Broly, and Gogeta are also in here, and never have I seen Gogeta given a more fitting moveset in than in here. He has the vanising rapid punch counter attack and triple Knee kick he used from his Soul Punisher, the Big Bang Kamehameha, and the Soul Punisher itself as his Ultimate. Also, King Kai is playable.... Yes and it's every bit as beautiful as you think it is. Story mode is basic retellings, but it also has some fun What Ifs, including my long awaited Gogeta VS Vegetto match. You can also unlock customize options by playing this mode. Basicly working somewhat like Tekken's customize mode where you can add on little accesories and such. It's nowhere NEAR as detailed, but the addition is very nice and still fun to play with. As a whole, Ultimate Butoden is just the best of the best for me with Dragon Ball 2D fighters. The fan-service, the action, everything feels just right. Well worth it since it's obviously not coming to the US anytime soon. And DS games play any region of DS or 3DS games so yeah. It is somewhat pricely (mine went for like around 50 or so bucks) but it is well worth getting.

[postgamecontent]

Quintet Spotlight: Soul Blazer

Original Release Date: January 31, 1992 (JPN)

Original Hardware: Nintendo Super Famicom

It's hard to say what Quintet's expectations had been for ActRaiser, but I can't imagine they were unhappy with the results. The game sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide, and although the bulk of that was in Japan, its overseas sales were surprisingly strong. A sequel would come before long, but by the time the sales numbers were in, Quintet was already well into development on their next game, titled Soul Blazer. This time, they would create an action-RPG, something a little closer to Ys, the series that the founders of Quintet created at their previous jobs with Nihon Falcom. But even though their new game jettisoned the unique genre-mashing structure of their previous game in favor of something a little more pedestrian, it ended up being a very strange game on the whole.  

Soul Blazer is ambiguous enough with its premise that you can treat it as a follow-up to ActRaiser or a story all of its own. You play as a servant of The Master (once again localized from the more direct 'God' in the Japanese version), given mortal form to try to bring the Freil Empire back from the edge of disaster. The evil Deathtoll has harvested the souls of the inhabitants and destroyed their villages, and I guess The Master didn't have the foresight to leave a bunch of warrior statues scattered across the world this time. The servant, Blazer, needs to battle monsters to release the souls from the monster lairs that trap them. Besides having the ability to handle a sword, Blazer has the special ability to communicate with anything that possesses a soul. There are a lot of things with souls in this game's world, and some of them are quite unexpected.

The story goes in some interesting directions, but let's cover the gameplay first, since that's the less interesting part. The world of Soul Blazer is divided into six main areas. Your goal in each is to recover a special stone. Once you have them all, they'll open the way to the final battle with Deathtoll. When you arrive in each area, you'll find it almost completely empty. Some exploration will lead you to a dungeon area crawling with monsters. The creatures will spill out of lairs scattered around the dungeon areas, and as you clear each one out, you'll restore a soul to the connected town, along with any buildings or features associated with them. At some point in each dungeon area, you won't be able to progress any farther. That's your cue to head back to the town and talk to everyone to try to open the way forward. Repeat as needed until you face off against a big boss, beat them up, claim your stone, and head to the next area.

Towns don't just open up paths in the dungeons, though. There are a number of side-quests and other distractions that will earn you vital new gear and items. You'll also find some interesting side-stories that don't have any significance on the main story or gameplay but are merely there for flavor. As you release each soul, you'll immediately see the effect its return has on the town. Watching these locations slowly rebuild themselves from nothing is one of the more satisfying elements in Soul Blazer's gameplay. It makes you want to seek out and clear every single lair as soon as you can. Fairly early on, there are some enemies you aren't able to damage, so you have to leave their lairs behind. Those moments will almost certainly stick in your mind for the rest of the game until you are able to take care of them.

The look of the game probably conjures up images of Nintendo's Legend of Zelda games for many players, but in practice, there's very little actual puzzle-solving to be found in Soul Blazer. You simply run back and forth between dungeons and the town, releasing souls, talking to them to get an item or trigger a flag of some sort, and pressing onward. As such, just as it does in most other action-RPGs, the bulk of the gameplay comes down to combat. Unfortunately for Soul Blazer, that's probably the weakest part of the game. Fight the monsters to seal the lairs and unleash the souls, fight the bosses to get the stones, fight your boredom as you strike down the tenth stupid enemy in a row that just tumbled headlong out of its lair. Blazer is supposed to be a heavenly figure, but I don't think there's room in Paradise for chronic spawn-campers.

It gets terribly repetitive after the first hour or so, and I think there are two reasons for that. First off, you're generally only fighting one type of enemy at a time. The game sometimes throws a second enemy type into the mix, but usually only one of them. Sure, if you let a bunch of enemies come out of the lair at once, things can get a little hairy, but such cases are rare. Usually you're just cutting them down one by one as they belch forth from their foul homes. Like most newborns, they're fairly stupid and almost totally helpless. Once you figure out how far you should stand to wait out their brief period of invincibility after spawning, it's just a matter of swatting at them by pressing the sword button again and again until they're all gone. Find the next lair, and do it again. And again. And again. Each dungeon usually only has a few types of enemies overall, so you'll be doing essentially the same fights quite a few times in each area.

The second issue is that Blazer doesn't really have a lot of moves at his disposal. Combat-heavy RPGs can work, but it's obviously essential for that combat to be fun enough to keep the player's interest for the course of the whole game. You can get away with a simple moveset as long as the enemies test the player well enough, but that's not the case here. The other option is to give the player a lot of enjoyable options to choose from in battle. Unfortunately, Blazer only has a basic sword swipe, a strafing ability where he jabs his sword forward, and some magic spells. Those spells are a little tricky to use effectively against smaller enemies, so you probably won't get a lot of use out of them against most of the basic monsters. Bosses are typically impervious to magic, so you won't be using them there, either. So really, it all comes down to sticking and moving, even against the toughest foes.

As with the Ys games, the boss battles are the best part of the action gameplay in Soul Blazer. They're tough, requiring you to both pay attention to the boss's pattern and execute your moves precisely. In theory, anyway. There are a couple of bosses where you can just jut your sword out and hump the poor creatures to death, relying on your medical herb to extend your life and ensure the bad guy dies before you do. But generally, you have to wake up for these battles. It's a nice change from the rest of the action. None of these fights are on the same level as those found in the Ys games, mind you, but we take what we can get.

The tedium of combat might have you thinking that the juice of Soul Blazer isn't worth the squeeze, and depending on your tastes, it might not be. What makes this whole venture worth taking on is the bizarre writing. Not just in the main plot, but in all of the little side-stories you'll encounter along the way. There are so many things in Soul Blazer that feel like important clues to future events, but end up just being flavor text. For a game of this vintage, that's a rare and beautiful thing. The way the game repopulates the towns one character at a time helps it pull off some fairly interesting events, too. In the first town, you'll meet a farmer whose wife suddenly passed away. He felt deep loneliness until he got his pet goat, whose companionship helps him feel happy each day. You won't get the goat until a trip or two later, but when you talk to it, you discover that the goat is his reincarnated wife. It's weird, but kind of sweet.

That's actually a good description of Soul Blazer: weird, but kind of sweet. You'll frequently encounter situations where you're too late to be of any help. Things are what they are, but they turn out as best as they can, for the most part. Your character's unique viewpoint on the world allows him to see and understand things on a greater level than anyone else, but what you end up discovering is that even if everyone involved in a situation doesn't fully understand the details, things are fine. The game also delights in little bits of cheeky humor here and there. A dog who has a good nose will lead you around to a couple of places before excitedly taking you to a spot that has really caught his attention. It turns out to be a patch that he urinated on earlier and forgot about.

ActRaiser didn't really have a lot to say for itself, in the explicit sense, anyway. You can read things into it, but ultimately the biggest takeaway is that humanity only cares about God when it is in need of divine intervention. Soul Blazer has deeper issues on its mind, and more words with which to talk about them. Its biggest points are hardly virgin territory, but it is rather interesting to see them discussed in a game of this era. A short life well-lived is better than a long one lacking in satisfaction. Be careful how much you depend on tools, lest you become controlled by them. There's a strong feeling of anti-futurism coursing through the veins of Soul Blazer. Not by coincidence, I think, the happiest souls you meet in the game are the animals. The cleverest, most forward-thinking humans also end up causing the biggest problems for everyone. Cautioning the player against the corrupting power of technology and wasting one's precious time on trivial pursuits is a strange message for an ostensibly state-of-the-art video game to convey, but it is refreshing, if nothing else, to see those topics addressed this early on in the medium.

You spend most of the game chasing a fellow by the name of Dr. Leo. A painter and an inventor, he's an obvious expy for Leonardo DaVinci, even before you find out his daughter's name is Lisa. The good doctor is the great inventor of this world, and it's through his technology and his care for his daughter that ruin comes to the Freil Empire. A rather weak-willed king is bent by his greedy wife to press the doctor, by threatening his daughter, into using his machines to open a dialogue with Deathtoll. He somehow convinces the royalty that trading the souls of their subjects for one gold piece each is a good idea, and perhaps it is, until Deathtoll takes them, too. I'm not sure about all of you, but in this situation, I'm not especially inclined to blame Dr. Leo. The game does, however. He is to blame for creating the tools, and he ends up having to pay for his redemption with his life. If that doesn't put a fine enough point on it, the game outright states that as long as there are inventions, all of this disaster could happen again.

The queen dies for her greed, obviously, but the king somehow gets off without a scratch, and the last time you see him imparts a strange moral. He picks some metaphorical lint out of his belly button, waxing about how a person who kills one is a murderer, but a person who kills one hundred is a hero. He talks about how he became a king in this way, but will now pledge all of the money he got from Deathtoll to construct a great town. Presumably, he's still going to be the king of that town, so he not only gets away without punishment, he sort of comes out ahead. The Master truly works in mysterious ways.

Before you have time to meditate on that bizarre outcome too deeply, the game swings back to the topic of mortality. In perhaps the least-earned part of the narrative, Blazer and Lisa have fallen in love with each other. Blazer has to return to heaven, but he promises to return one day. A year later, The Master notices Blazer is unhappy and misses his life as a human. The Master agrees to let Blazer live as a mortal, but he has to give up all of his memories. Blazer agrees to this, and the last scene of the game shows Lisa stumbling upon him and rekindling their relationship. I guess it's a good thing he's still wearing his red jumpsuit and tiara, or else she might not have recognized him. With a hearty bleat from Turbo the Goat, the game comes to a close.

Soul Blazer throws out some conflicting messages and comes off as confused as a result at times. Part of that is probably a translation issue, but even in Japanese, it's hard to get a bead on exactly what the scenario writer is trying to paint as the game's biggest message. What is clear is that those responsible for the game really cared about trying to say something, and that level of care ended up spreading through the whole script. You get the impression that they figured out background details that they were never planning on explicitly explaining to the player, with only the barest hints of these elements left in the game for players to connect the dots with. Is the Mermaid Queen a reincarnation of Lisa's mother? I mean, maybe. It seems that way, but the game won't ever outright say it. There are a lot of little details like that, and I think that's a big part of Soul Blazer's charm.

For lack of a better term, Soul Blazer has heart. And that's the biggest reason why I was able to stick with the game even though I became bored of its mechanics by the end of the second area, not even halfway through the adventure. I kept on going because I wanted to see more of this strange world, its odd inhabitants, and their relationships with each other. Among its many messages, Soul Blazer seems to put some emphasis on the idea that making genuine connections with others is one of the most important aspect of a fulfilling life. Dr. Leo's connections to his family and beloved pets ended up being the most precious aspects of his busy life. The king's lack of connections to his subjects and even his wife led everyone down a dark path. And in the end, Blazer gives up his heaven-granted immortality because of his connection with Lisa. Your power, technology, and inventions mean nothing next to a shared existence with others.

I could read a lot into Soul Blazer if I had a mind to. I could say that the writer was reacting to the contemporary Japanese culture, where relationships were increasingly seen as nothing more than assets or liabilities, a situation that likely contributed to the hikikomori phenomenon that the country currently finds itself dealing with. Given the frequent religious overtones in Quintet's games, I could also posit that the writer felt Japan or even humanity in general had lost touch with its spirituality and was placing far too great a value on technology, toys, and money. All curious lessons for a video game to try to teach, to be sure, but if you want to reach young minds, this was probably the way to do it. I don't know if the writer meant any of those things, though, so I'll just be content with saying that there are valuable ideas to be gleaned from this mediocre localization of a silly action-RPG, if you're inclined to do so. If you're not, the game is quirky and weird enough to fuel at least one playthrough.

Quintet was far from finished with its exploration of these kinds of matters, however, as we'll see when we get into the next games in the Heaven and Earth Trilogy. Before that, we'll be taking a quick stop-over with one of the company's biggest mistakes, ActRaiser 2. The developer completely misread the fanbase, and the results were disastrous. Look for that complete breakdown in the next part of our Quintet Spotlight.

Previous: ActRaiser

Next: ActRaiser 2

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[crijoh]

Extra special thanks!I got so much feedback and love for my two previous Hyrule Warriors topics.For the ones who aren't sure what Hyrule Warriors isandFor the ones who want to know if buying a second/third time is worth itAs someone who's always dreamt of, tried to, and failed at being a writer, it means the world to me to see people not only enjoy my little articles, but find them useful. It's thrilling to get comments saying that they plan on buying the game now thanks to me, and even the ones who read my article and decided the game isn't for them. I love you guys. Thank you so much.So what's this topic about?This time, it's just pure gameplay tips and strategies to make you a Hyrule Warriors master. While the core gameplay is very simple, a lot of incredibly useful information is not readily available. Some of this information is going to be for specific versions of the game, but I'll try to keep the information as general as possible.Did you know that you can manually break into a sprint at any time?Everyone probably knows that when you begin running, it usually takes a few seconds before your character will break into a sprint. Some of the bulkier characters can take a long ass time before they reach their full speed and it can make some characters much more tedious than others to play. Luckily, there's a sprint button hidden right on your controller/3DS.If you dodge, and then hold the dodge button while holding a direction, you'll immediately begin a full sprint in that direction. No more waiting for your character to reach full speed. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't figure this out until the 3DS version came out.Giant bosses can be defeated without even using the item they are weak to.I hated the giant bosses in the Wii U version. Sitting, and waiting for them to perform the attack that exposes their weak point is so painfully boring. It really screws up the satisfying quick pace of the game. Luckily, you have an attack that can knock them flat on their ass immediately. Again, I didn't find this out until the 3DS version.After filling up your magic meter (the green vertical bar) you enter what's called Focus Spirit mode. From here, by performing a special attack (the one with the fancy cutscene) you'll perform a devastating attack that will immediately expose the boss's weak point gauge. This saves an incredible amount of time.3DS and Switch players will get an even bigger bonus. If they gather two of their commandable warriors at a boss, both warriors will immediately fill their magic bars to full.Don't neglect capturing outposts.As you probably know, capturing keeps will do two things for you. One, it will periodically spawn troops and raid captains who will go out and harass your enemies. Secondly, they'll often times be required for certain objectives. Raid captains are a pain in the ass, and are usually the main reason that you'll be losing your keeps, and sometimes even lose control of the whole battle in fights that drag on too long.What you might not know, is that raid captains have to stop at every enemy outpost they meet along the way to their target keep. Outpost captains are in the game to stop raid captains. Capturing an outpost takes you less than five seconds, and can stall raid captains for a long time.Don't neglect Gold SkulltullasSure, everyone loves collectables in games, but a lot of folks I've talked to largely ignored the Gold Skulltullas because they didn't really care about filling out the illustrations. They're just for the image gallery... right...? Well...Killing Gold Skulltullas does two things for you;One, you'll unlock new apothecary bonuses for each one you kill. This is hugely important for getting better weapon and material drops. Perhaps the most interesting, is that in order to get "perfect" weapons, you'll NEED these special potions. If nothing else, make sure you kill at least 50 Gold Skulltullas in your travels.The second reason is that the first time you complete any illustration, you'll unlock an adventure mode map called the "Rewards Map". You'll get a new tile for every illustration you complete. This map will have special stages based on the illustration you finished, plus special rewards.So how do you make a Gold Skulltula appear? It's different for each one. Each Legends mode Skulltula is unique, and you'll need to look up a guide for that. As for Adventure mode, they typically appear after 1,000 KOs, or if you complete the first objective and get 1,200 KOs before taking 4 hearts of damage. Be sure to check a guide if you aren't sure.My Fairy mode makes getting A ranks very, very easy.This is only for the 3DS and Switch folks, as My Fairy isn't in the Wii U version.One thing that everyone should understand about the enemies in the game is that there are thousands and thousands of them. More than the game can render at once. If too many gather in one area, they have to "wait their turn" to spawn in. There might be 1,000 monsters in one small area, but you can only see a small portion of them. This is the reason that you can be slaying enemies non-stop and they seem to just keep spawning in.The answer to this is My Fairy. The fairies have a special magic blast that they unlock once they're a high enough level. This attack not only kills all of the monsters in an area around you, but also kills all the monsters that are waiting their turn to spawn in the area. This can easily net you hundreds, or even over a thousand kills in a single attack depending on where you use it. Use your map to find the area with the highest concentration of enemy captains. Usually that is where the majority of the enemy army is waiting to spawn. Swoop in with a full magic meter and pop off your fairy barrier blast, and enjoy your free few hundred kills.This will help you get the 1,200 KO requirement for a lot of A rank missions very easily.I highly suggest checking out a more detailed guide on My Fairy. Some of the special abilities they can give you are straight up unreal, but it takes a lot of effort to create your perfect fairy.Most of the "bad" characters aren't bad at all, and just have deeper mechanics.I notice a lot of people seem to try a character out, find them lacking, and pass them off as just being a "bad" character. Some of the most powerful characters are ones that just tend to have confusing mechanics, such as Zant, Agitha, and King Daphnes.Lets look closer at Zant: People will immediately notice that all of his combos end in him stunning himself. If you stunned yourself as Zant, you pushed his combo too hard. Zant has a sort of "rage" mechanic. When you perform a combo, you can keep hitting the heavy attack button to really lay into enemies. As you do, his rage meter builds up. If it reaches maximum and you continue to push the attack, he will over exert himself and get stunned. The idea is to stop hitting the button the moment it reaches maximum. At that point, you can cool him off by simply performing his heavy attack to unleash a flurry of spinning blades or projectiles. This mechanic isn't explained well in the game, so a lot of people are left wondering how the heck to play as him. He's actually one of the most powerful, and fun characters to play once you get the hang of him.I highly recomend checking out Gamesbrained's character guides on Youtube for every character. Really, watch them all. Did you know that you can have Young Link put on his Keaton mask and roar? Or have Linkle put her hood up? You learn cool shit like that in his videos.Some characters are vastly better than others, but there's really only one or two that are plan "Bad", and Agitha isn't one of them.Not much else to say, but again, I'm going to recommend watching Gamesbrained's character guides.Elements matter. They actually have three different uses.Believe it or not, your weapon element does a lot for you.First of all, you'll get a significant attack bonus for using a weapon of that element in that stage. That's why it's very useful to have "main" characters of each element. Luckily, on the 3DS and Switch versions of the game, you can get weapons that have dual elements. The recommended element is the element that will trigger for any given stage. On top of that, depending on what badges you buy for your skill trees, you can give yourself hefty defense bonuses for stages with certain element types.Don't go in thinking that you can "counter" a fire-element stage with a water element weapon. It doesn't work like that. You'll want to take a fire weapon to a fire stage.Each element also applies a special status effect on enemies:Fire causes airborne enemies to explode when they hit the ground, dealing splash damage.Water wraps a bubble around an enemy's head, slowly causing damage.Lightning causes increasing bonus damage for each hit that an enemy takes before they hit the ground.Light causes bonus damage to groups of enemies that are hit consecutively.Darkness causes bonus damage to single enemies that are hit consecutively.Interestingly enough, a lot of weapons have a moveset that compliments their specific element. For example, Ghirahim is the best one on one duelest in the game, and his darkness effect compliments that very well.It should be noted that not every attack will apply a weapon's element to an enemy. For example, Shiek's harp can apply all sorts of elemental effects, but still only gains the damage bonus from "Lighting recommended" stages.On top of that, every enemy, giant boss, monster captain, and even playable hero has an elemental weakness:Fire: King Dodongo, Gibdo, Moblin, Stalmaster, Icy Big Poe, Agitha, TingleWater: Manhandla, Helmaroc King, Fiery Aeralfos, ReDead Knight, Lizalfos, Big Poe, Stone Blin, Goron Captain, Darunia, VolgaLightning: Argorok, Aeralfos, Darknut, Dinolfos, Shield Moblin, Big Blin, Lana, Ruto, MarinLight: The Imprisoned (large and small), Ganon, Phantom Ganon, Ganondorf, Midna, Zant, Ghirahim, Cia, Wizzro, Twili Midna, Skull Kid, Ravio, YugaDarkness: Gohma, Hylian Captain, Link, Impa, Sheik, Zelda, Fi, Young Link, Linkle, Toon Link, Tetra, King Daphnes, Medli, Toon ZeldaThis can be a tad hard to predict, so it's best to simply use a weapon that grants you the "element recommended" bonus.Unlocking the true Master SwordYou may have noticed that Link's Master Sword has two locked abilities on it. These abilities don't become unlocked until you've unlocked every other weapon in the game. After that, you'll need to grind out a whopping number of monster kills before the abilities reveal themselves, but they are incredibly powerful. They will make the Master Sword in to by far the most powerful weapon in the game, even moreso than "Perfect" weapons. It seriously turns the Master Sword into a "win" button, but it's effectively one of the hardest things to unlock in the game.Getting a "perfect" weapon.A perfect weapon is the best weapon that you can get with any specific character. In the 3DS and Switch versions, this means a dual element, level 4+ weapon, with 8 slots, 5 stars, and 750 base damage.It's actually not terribly complicated to get one. In order to find that weapon, you need to be holding the weapon type you're looking for. For example, if you want a perfect Ocarina for Skull Kid, you need to be attempting this with an Ocarina weapon. You'll need to use the blacksmith to equip the Stars+ and Slots+ skills to the weapon. Then, before each match you need to get the Apothecary mixture "Weapon Rank III". This is going to require that you kill 50 Gold Skulltulas.It remains to be seen what the best maps will be for grinding this out on Switch, but on 3DS, a good one is B-16 in Lorule. Finish the mission, and look over your rewards. If you don't like what you see, simply reset your system before leaving the weapons screen and saving. You'll save your pricey Apothecary mixture.It's a beautiful thing.Also make sure you're appraising those hidden weapon skills. Some of the hidden ones are absolutely insane. Much more exciting than Darkness+.None of the above information is mandatory for you to have an amazing time with this game.I've gone over a few somewhat intricate mechanics of the game. Really, none of them are mandatory for you to have a blast playing the game. You don't need the ultimate My Fairy skills, or the perfect weapons in order to have a fantastic time. Though... really you should learn how to sprint.Got any tips you'd like to throw in? If you teach me something new about the game, I'll include it here with credit!Thank you all so much!Edits:/u/Henryuuk pointed out that Focus Special Attacks force ALL enemies to reveal their weak point, not just giant bosses. Go upvote his comment here. via /r/NintendoSwitch