We start tonight's session with Soul Caliber 3, in the Pure Action Category. My army is done being on the defensive, now its time to invade the lands of the evildoers!
Our goal is to protect both a bridge base, and our main base, and take over their main base for victory.
I choose my main character Kor, the Monk, as well as a Samurai I created, and the game provides me two new warriors for this mission, a female knight, Amelia, and a female warrior, Eustace, with a big ass broad sword. Compensating much? Whatever, she's on my team.
At first I have to defend the bridge against a swarm of opposition. Amelia is pretty kickass with her sword and shield combination, and I am able to hold off the initial swarm. What's nice is, if one of theirs loses a fight, they are done permanently. If you lose a fight, you have a healing period for that character, then they rejoin. If all of your warriors are out simultaneously though, you lose. Game over.
So I always keep one in a safe place, and alternate them so everyone gets some fights in and gains experience points to level up. After withstanding a barrage of about seven enemies, we go on the offensive and take a couple of their minor bases. I decide to assault their main base since I have a clear path to it already, with Amelia and Eustace, and I kill one of the two super strong defenders before the second one takes the ladies out. No problem, I've just beaten half of the citadel's defense.
The other guy goes on the offense, and assaults one of the minor bases that I had taken from him, and I test a minor base to the far left with Kor. Little do I know there's a level 60 character defending that one - Kor is level 8, and I get whooped. Amelia and Eustace regenerate in time to get to the defense of the base that is being attacked, and I beat down the big 27th level dude attacking me.
That means that the main base has no defense left. I take Kor, Amelia, and Eustace and try that Level 60 guy, since when you hurt someone in battle, and you have someone else to step in after, their wounds remain, so you have a significant advantage. But it doesn't matter. He whoops all three of my warriors, and after I heal, I decide to take the main base. I expect somebody to show up to defend it, but that doesn't happen. So I win. Mission Over. Checkmark Acquired.
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And onto Rogue's Galaxy in the Epic Other Category. This is one of the most diverse and complex games I've ever encountered. While endless combat from random encounters is an annoying feature of the game, the rest of the experience is excellent and diverse.
To gain a checkmark this time, I need to construct a new item in the Factory. I decide to try and build the Unconscious Defense item, since I have the materials for it. Placing the right machinery for both components is a challenge, really its a puzzle mini-game, and it takes me about half an hour to get it right.
That is a checkmark. Yep. Just like that. I'll be alternating between missions and Factory in this game. So we're off to the next challenge.
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I put Gabriel Knight into the computer, and load it up. I settle in for this point-and-click adventure, moving my modern day supernatural detective around a small village. My main case is that Prince James' son has been kidnapped, and I was conked on the head by the kidnappers on my train at the start of the game.
It's noon, I move around the hotel meeting other members of the treasure hunting tour. Apparently there's a mysterious famous treasure that could be anything from the lost treasure of the Templars, to the Holy Grail, to the treasure of Jerusalem, and like three other historically connected scenarios. Lots of incredible research has gone into this game, its a pleasure to play as every location I go to, I learn new stuff about history! Huzzah!
The Spanish tour member switches rooms with the two British ladies mysteriously. We'll find out what that's all about later in the game. After wandering into various locations fruitlessly, I enter the church to find the Italian tour member asking the Priest there about inconsistencies between stuff in the Bible and stuff found in the church. Apparently, this church was created by Sonierre, and favors the Mary Magdalene cult. Interesting, but not useful yet.
I ask the Priest a lot of questions about the history of the cult, and about the Templars. He points me in the direction of a specialist in the Templars, Larry Chester. We'll be hitting that dude up later.
I go back to the hotel, and after talking to different tour members, I finally head up to Mosley's room. Mosely is a recurring character in the Gabriel Knight series. He's a portly policeman, who is quite helpful, even though he's a slovenly mess.
The dude is a total bachelor, having thrown clothes all around his hotel room on day one. Nice! He says he's actually here for the treasure tour, but asks that I keep his identity as a cop a secret, since he just wants to blend in. Sure, okay Mosely. You're not up to anything. I believe ya!
I head outside the hotel again, but the clock moves forward to 2 PM. Chapter Over. That's a checkmark.
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Time for a Sword Slasher! I put Dark Cloud into the Playstation 2. This is an odd little changeup game, made all the way back in 2001! I hadn't realized it was quite that old, but it explains a lot where the graphics are concerned.
Anyhoo, I buy some repair powder. You have to constantly repair your weapons as they degrade as you hit monsters. It's an annoying part of the game. Another annoying part of the game is the lack of gold you get in the levels, despite constantly having to purchase repair powder. I guess this is part of the challenge of the game. WhatEVER.
I am going into Level 13, and there are 8 Geospheres to acquire in this level. In this game, a jackass evil wizard let loose a Genie into the world, but instead of the Genie doing what he wanted, instead the Genie destroyed the world! Every item in the world, including each person, is trapped in a geosphere. All that exists is my little village, and for some reason me and the village elder were still around. That's why I'm the hero!
Each level I unlock people and items, and when you fit all of the pieces into a house or store, the whole dealio is reformed and re-appears for you to place somewhere in the village. Neat concept.
I go into Level 13. Lots of huge sized monsters! To avoid having all of my weapons degrade down to nothing, I avoid many of them. To get out of the dungeon, you need a special key that is dropped from a corpse. I get lucky and beat a dragon (!!) and he drops the key. Now I know I can escape. I kill a lot of bats. They don't seem like much and go down quick, but those suckers are poisonous, which is a pain, I tell ya. I real pain! I get all 8 of the geospheres.
I leave the dungeon. I put everything from my newly acquired geospheres into the city that I can, unlocking Windmill #3. Joy.
That's a checkmark! We are closing in on the end of Round 2. Yee-Aaaah!
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Time for Suikoden Tactics, to finish off the Strategy Category. This is a game I've been lukewarm on, which is why I waited so long to get to it this round. However, the events of this session have changed my opinion to very favorable where this game is concerned.
After doing some shopping and basic upgrades in the Pirate Cove Island, I head back to Middleport to retrieve Rachel, a first level warrior girl with a big hammer that I met while doing the first missions in the Quest Board. The Quest Board is interesting because you can send party members off by themselves to complete these side quests. You don't play through them, nor do you see them. Success or Failure seems to depend on the stats of your characters that you send. I didn't know this, and Rachel's pathetic stats were not high enough for her to find someone's cat. You suck Rachel. You're fired.
Okay, she's not fired. We head out of Middleport to a new island, Orin Island. Sounds official. A cut-scene with the big leader dude sets up the fact that my group will try and investigate who stole the rune cannons from our pirate island allies. I get to permanently keep the two kickass pirate chicks who fought with me on the pirate islands, and the Orin leader lends me two more party members.
Woah! I've now got a party of eight! Sweet!
I do some shopping to get these new guys some healing potions and other stuff they'll need for the upcoming fight. And then I discover a game-changing situation. There are ruins in Orin to go in and battle monsters in, and find treasure. Yes! This opens up the opportuity for level grinding, which I feel is going to be necessary from this part of the game in.
Before this, the game was very lateral. Go here, tactically defeat the enemy. Rinse. Repeat. The story is average and not that captivating, and the graphics are basic. So I've been hoping to just get through this game quickly. Not anymore! Now we've got more options that creates versatility, plus the opportunity for character level building. You've got my attention Suikoden Tactics.
The wimp at the ruins door is all like "Are you suuuure you want to go in? If someone dies in there, they don't get to come back later." Really? No shit, Sherlock! That's why they are the ruins.
I go in.
I get the option to use all eight of my characters! Woah, really? I place them all in the corridor. There's 20 evil skeletons and a giant crab waiting for us. And I see a big ol' treasure chest behind the skeletons. I wonder how the skeletons trained their giant crab, and what they name it?
I KILL EET! I EAT EET. I take its shell as a treasure. No kidding on the first and third of those. Okay, I eat it too! I eat it!
I kill the skeletons! No, wait, they are already dead.
I defeat the skeletons! I take the treasure, a rune to add to one of my characters. Nice! The fight takes about 30 minutes. Rachel leveled up to 2, and my wizard and crossbow-wielding chick who have been with me from the beginning both level up to 8. Now we're starting to cook with gas.
After I get to the door, I have the option of leaving to the surface, or descending further! I am tempted to go further, but I have to prepare to go to work (Gah!) and besides, I probably should take this slowly to build up the weaker characters. Are you listening Rachel?
This is a checkmark, Rachel.
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Here's where we are on the ol' scoreboard: Round 2!
MIND TEASERS: COMPLETE
Chess Titans - 2
Gabriel Knight - 2
Mahjong Titans - 2
Sherlock Holmes - 2
Spider Solitaire - 2
World Series of Poker - 2
STRATEGY: COMPLETE
Civilization - 2
Europa Universalis - 2
Gladius - 2
Space Empires - 2
Suikoden Tactics - 2
World of Mixed Martial Arts - 2
SHOOTER: 5 of 6 defeated
Crysis - 2
Fallout 3 - 2
Freedom Fighters - 2
Killzone - 2
Resident Evil 4 - 1
Ring of Red - 2
PURE ACTION: 5 of 6 defeated
Devil May Cry - 2
God of War - 1
Madden Football - 2
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams - 2
Soul Reaver 2 - 2
Soul Caliber - 2
SWORD SLASHERS 5 of 6 defeated
Champions: Return to Arms - 2
Dark Cloud - 2
Drakengard - 2
.Hack Infection - 1 (Level Grinding in progress)
Oblivion: Elder Scrolls - 2
Shadow of Rome - 2
EPIC - FANTASY 5 of 6 defeated
Dragon's Age Origin - 1
Dragon's Quest 8 - 2
Final Fantasy 12 - 2
Suikoden 3 - 2
Suikoden 4 - 2
Suikoden 5 - 2
EPIC - OTHER GENRES 5 of 6 defeated
Kingdom Hearts - 2
Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 2
Mercenaries - 2
Rogue Galaxy - 2
Star Ocean - 2
Xenosaga - 1 (level grinding in progress)
ROCKSTAR MISSION BASED 5 of 6 defeated
Assassin's Creed - 2
GTA: Liberty City Stories - 1 (Pimpin' Ain't Easy!)
Hulk - 2
Manhunt 2 - 2
The Warriors - 2
Urbz - 2
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