Rune Factory Tides of Destiny (Progress Report 3) – Done and dusted

rune-factory-tides-of-destinyI finished it. …Okay I guess I’m not really done because I haven’t gotten Sonja back in her body yet, but I’ve killed the last boss and that’s enough for me. Anyway, 66 hours. Level 42. I used the Rune Blade and some three random monsters to distract the boss while I snuck in my hits. I would have gone with the Legendary Blade, but I accidentally used up my sapphires and couldn’t be bothered to go grind for more. Moving the golem is such a chore in this game that I preferred to take my chances with the boss rather than trek to the water shrine yet again. Tides of Destiny is going to be the first Rune Factory game I’ve abandoned before getting married, but I have no regrets and no intention of playing any further.

Story

Rune Factory games aren’t particularly known for their good stories (RF3 was pretty bad as well) but this was the most disappointing experience so far. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Rune Factory Tides of Destiny (Progress Report 2)

tides of destiny wind shrineJust a quick update to say I beat the Oblitergator in the Water Shrine! He wasn’t so tough. In fact, he wasn’t tough at all. I must have been sleepy when I fought him the first time, or maybe the two level ups I got while farming teardrops made all the difference. Either way he’s dead and I’m currently tearing my way through the Wind Shrine. Everything got much easier once I forged the Icifier and James gave me a platinum ring (sweeeet!) for getting his friendship up to level 6. My next objectives are:

– Get Lily’s affection up to level 10. I need to find out what ridiculous hoops the game will need me to jump through before I can make her mine. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Rune Factory Tides of Destiny (Progress Report 1)

reply_card [Converted]It’s a bit late for a progress report, seeing as I am 38 hours into Rune Factory Tides of Destiny, level 24, finished 2 and a half dungeons, well on my way to making Lily/Violet/Maerwen/all three my waifu. Still, better late than never. Here’s what I think about the game so far.

Dungeons: PITA. It’s annoying having to jump through all those hoops. The levers and gates in the Fire Shrine were particularly irritating, because every time you flipped a switch a gate would open, but the map would orient itself all weird so you couldn’t be sure exactly which gate opened where. I’m just glad I can warp directly to the floors I’ve finished so I don’t have to do everything from scratch every time.

The enemies in the dungeon are fairly challenging, which is good, but there are just too many of them and they take waaaay too long to kill. You won’t have time to do anything if you go about killing them. Not to mention they have atrociously low drop rates, almost as bad as the original Rune Factory, so killing them isn’t even rewarding. I even had a dream a night or two ago where I killed a bunch of slimes and they actually, shockingly dropped a whole bunch of teardrops, what a happy dream. That’s what Tides of Destiny has reduced me to. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Castlevania Aria of Sorrow – Starting to enjoy it

castlevania-somaExcept the stupid Clock Tower with all the spikes and stuff. That level needs to burn in the fires of hell from whence it came. I’m really glad I stuck with Aria of Sorrow and didn’t quit even when the weakest bats were ripping Soma to shreds. Haha, who’s the boss now?! …Well, Death, evidently, since he’s tearing me to pieces now. But I’ll get him too, don’t you worry.

Anyway, this is just a quick update, since it looks like I’ll actually be finishing this game sooner rather than later. It’s also a quick thank you to all those who encouraged me to play and keep playing it. Castlevania is actually kind of fun! Except the spikes. Even the bosses are fun in a despairing kind of way. I’ve come this far without cheating or getting anyone to help me, and I’m going to try and try again until I can finish it on my own.

What’s the most fun about it? The backtracking! When I first struggled through my first two bosses and finished the earlier stages I thought “I’m never going back there again, not for a million dollars!” But it’s great when you’ve leveled up a bit and got some new skills and equips to go swaggering back to your old haunts all like “How d’you like me now?” Enemies that used to take a good chunk out of your life are now hitting for 1 damage. Mwahaha, you’re 100 years too early to defeat me!!! etc etc. Though of course the real purpose of backtracking is to visit places you couldn’t get to before. Which is nice and all, but not nearly as fun as bullying the enemies that used to bully you.

I’m at roughly 50% map completion and it’s taken me weeks to get here, so it’ll probably take another month to finish the game or ‘die’ trying. I’ll report my final thoughts whatever they are when I finally finish it or quit playing (haha, not likely).

Summon Night 4 – A paean to the joys of slave ownership (spoilers)

summon night 4_frontAs promised here are a few words about how much I enjoyed playing Summon Night 4 and how much it scratched my strategy RPG itch so that I won’t be playing another one for a while. Unless I feel like it.

Unfortunately with the benefit of hindsight, I’m starting to realize I didn’t enjoy SN4 all that much. I mean, it was nice and all, but the further I get from it, the more I start to wonder what I saw in it. Apart from the fact that it’s an SRPG and that it’s Summon Night, of course.

It was a good game, no question about that. Apart from the story, which I will elaborate on below. I don’t remember much of the story in the first two games and SN3’s story was quite abysmal so maybe SN4 is just following in that proud tradition. They even have the customary “fight 15 battles against the same enemies who later join your party” thing going on as usual but I’d already grown to expect as much so I wasn’t the least surprised.

Summon Night 4 is significantly easier than its predecessors and would be a good introduction to the series if there weren’t so, so many references to earlier games in it. For a series fan like me it wasn’t that much of a problem, but in another series I would be quite annoyed. Do please go on, this is most interesting →