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  • FINAL FANTASY XIV: ONLINE – First Impressions

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Long have I ignored FFXIV despite hearing nothing but good things about it. Partly because it’s an MMO game, and partly because it’s unusually expensive; generally you’ll have to either pay for the game/expansions and not have a re-occurring cost, or be able to download the game for free but have to pay a re-occurring cost. This requires both buying the game and paying a monthly fee on top of that.

    Recently however I found out that the Free Trial gives you access to both the default game and first expansion for free (albeit with certain restrictions). So I figured now would be as good a time as any to see whether all those claims of high quality and being able to play it solo it were true.

    After ~10 hours I’m at level 24 in Thaumaturge and 17 in Miner and enjoying myself quite a bit. The server-specific doubled experience for low-level characters plays a large role in that though, as without it the game seems like it would be quite grindy (hence all the random FATE quests popping up all over, which I’ve mostly ignored). I have yet to be forced to find a party and it does in fact look like you can solo the majority of main quests.

    Said main questline has been mildly interesting so far, but the Thaumaturge questline took a hard turn into idiocy during the level 15 & 20 quests. There is also of course a large focus on fetch/deliver and generic monster extermination quests in the early game. If you’re the type who complained about having to “collect bear asses” in DA: Inquisition for example then you probably won’t have much fun here either.

    Visually it’s quite impressive and I’m shocked at how much variety they fit into an action as simple as mining. Like, Miner is a full-blown class with tons of abilities. Combat is a bit more complex than I expected as well, with there even being a focus on avoiding powerful incoming attacks. I haven’t tried any of the crafting classes yet, so I’m not sure how they compare, but even just switching back and forth between blasting things with Fire and chipping away at mineral deposits seems like it will keep me occupied for some time.

    We’ll see how things go at level 50.

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  • WARHAMMER: CHAOSBANE

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    I had been waffling on this game for some time now when I saw it was once again on sale for $20. Which seemed like an acceptable price for the base game plus all the DLC.

    Ended up… decent, I guess? Rather than Diablo, it reminds me more of Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms in structure, gameplay, and visual style. It does a few interesting things, such as having all skills unlock as you level (you can only equip a limited number), not having a level cap (legendary levels go into increasing a unique set of triggerable passive abilities), and not having any merchants (you donate equipment in exchange for progress toward unlocking extra skills).

    And while repetitious enemies and backtracking are still a problem, fortunately many of the early complaints about the game appear to have been addressed over time. The only issues I’ve had with it so far (just completed the base game with the archer; Health Regen/Poison build) beyond the repetition issue were not being able to re-enter areas if I accidentally left them, and one time it looked like my character had been deleted. Turned out the game just created a new profile and copying over the data from the old profile (in the “Warhammer Chaosbane/Data/Save” directory) to the new one restored them.

    Some things to be aware of:
    – There’s little reason to wear +Loot Quality gear. Save a set for opening chests though.
    – The 3rd level of a skill is not always better than the 2nd level.
    – On the inventory and skill screens, take note that some functions (appearance changes, DLC skills, Legendary skills) appear via small tabs on the very bottom.
    – Raise the difficulty as soon as possible (the difficulty system here is like Diablo III‘s). I started on Normal and raised it one level each chapter.

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  • CodeVein – Endgame

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    So I just beat the game… at level 1, with everything cleared/collected (aside from the four bad end classes) and all equipment upgraded to +9 or higher.

    Hardest fights were Gilded Hunter (his power-up has a limited duration and can be guarded through), those twin Yetis in the Deeps (Fire Weapon & Ice Guard), the Spire Fire/Ice boss fight (used this build), and the final bosses (used this build, swapping Blood Guard for Hasten after Skull King fell).

    I’ve never really seen the appeal of low-level challenges, and honestly there were more than a few frustrating moments… yet after beating the game and leveling up to 90 for NG+ everything suddenly dies so satisfyingly fast. The contrast made it almost worth the effort. Ironically though, it seems I didn’t have to go through all that trouble in the first place since the level caps are much more generous than I thought. Wish I found that page earlier.

    Some other complaints would be:
    – Unlimited Queen’s Steel unlocks far too late.
    – The vestige scene walking speed is far too slow.
    – The Good/True ending doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    A mixed experience overall for sure, but an ultimate net positive I think.

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  • HELLPOINT & CodeVein

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Hellpoint is essentially Dark Souls on a space station. Aside from the atmosphere, the main defining features are the additions of secret doors (if you see an otherwise smooth wall with two vertical indentations appearing to make a doorframe; chances are it’s a secret door) and the ability to jump. Many games including a jump feature don’t really do anything with it, this game however has quite a few platformer sections leading to loot/secrets along with a specific jump attack.

    The only notable flaws, beside the intense similarity to DS, is the kinda illogical leveling system (cost should be based on attribute level rather than total level) and somewhat janky menu system; clicking occasionally won’t work (you’ll have to use the Enter key) and dismantling/upgrading requires far too many confirmations.

    Also taking cues from Dark Souls is Code Vein, a heavily Anime action RPG which combines Souls‘ general structure and gameplay style with a job/class system. Assuming you don’t hate Anime character design it’s pretty damn good… so long as you don’t fall into the trap of actually leveling your character. See, turns out each area has a hidden level cap, and going over it results in extremely slow to nonexistent progress toward unlocking class abilities for universal use. You also don’t get much from leveling up besides more health. It’s far more effective to spend your currency on weapon/armor upgrades and ability unlocks.

    All that said, there’s an extra hurdle to enjoying the game: Actually getting it to launch. Numbers 6 & 8 on that list are ultimately what got it working for me (24bit 192000 Hz for the sound setting). Sometimes though it will simply refuse to launch no matter what, in which case you can try setting your system clock to UTC +9 (Osaka; and no, I have no clue why this works). Once you do manage to get to the title screen (if you do), be very careful with the settings… as changing some of those may cause it to stop launching again (in which case you’ll probably have to delete everything in the “AppData\Local\CodeVein\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor” folder).

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  • Dungeon Siege II & IRON DANGER: Shard of time

    Posted on by Offkorn 1 Comment

    In a fit of nostalgia I decided to revisit Dungeon Siege II… only to discover I’d never played it before. What I thought were memories of II were in fact of the first game in the franchise.

    While notably better than that first game in the gameplay department, it suffers rather badly from some of the worst character interactions ever conceived. And though better than DS I the gameplay is still not particularly engaging. Rather than Diablo, it instead brings to mind a proto Titan Quest. There’s just a certain emptiness/soullessness about the enemies and loot situation which, when combined with the limited ability system, makes progressing past a certain point far more trouble than its worth.

    Sharing the malus of atrocious writing, Iron Danger takes a notably different path where gameplay is concerned. It’s a ‘real time with mandatory pause’ tactical RPG featuring a time manipulation mechanic you’d expect to see in a puzzle game. Rather than simply take turns acting, characters move about in segmented (paused) real time which you can advance or rewind at will even if your characters die. So every combat encounter essentially becomes an equation to solve by finding the right actions to take during the right segments to most efficiently eliminate the opposition. It’s pretty cool.

    The problem is of course the aforementioned writing; it’s infuriatingly bad. If this were an action RPG where the storyline didn’t matter it would be an acceptable price to pay for the innovative combat system… but that’s not the case. The game’s very clearly story/character driven, and that story and those characters are insufferable.

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  • BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM & ARKHAM CITY

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    I heard lots of good things about these two games over the years, alongside seemingly never-ending comments about this or that game using “Arkham-style combat”.

    So perhaps my expectations going in were too high: Neither game is particularly impressive and the much vaunted combat is just your standard beat ’em up fair. Streets of Rage was released over a decade earlier for fuck’s sake.

    I will however grant that they both earn top marks for visual quality and implementing that age-old combat system flawlessly… but that’s not really enough to counteract the somewhat clunky non-combat movement and the complete and utter absence of any loot/pick-ups. Batman basically has everything he needs right at the beginning and doesn’t use conventional weapons so you’re just moving from point to point through static environments beating/creeping up on generic mooks.

    If you’re a beat ’em up fan this obviously won’t be an issue, but personally I need more than button-mashing for button-mashing’s sake to keep me invested in a game.

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  • the Outer Worlds: PERIL on GORGON

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    The Outer Worlds‘ first major DLC offering, Peril on Gorgon, adds quite a bit of content to the game. Practically equivalent to the amount you find on Monarch.

    There is however a catch: Only the environments and quests/flavor text is new. The weapons and enemies you’ll find over the course of the DLC are (essentially) the same as those in the base game. Meaning it’s more of the same.

    That in and of itself isn’t necessarily a problem if you greatly enjoy the core experience (here shifted a bit more toward Bioshock thanks to the introduction of audiologs), but it ends up dampened by some technical issues. Parts of the DLC feel unfinished… as though a final QC pass or playtesting session was skipped. Relatively minor things like the club added to Terra 2 not having the loot flagged as theft, enemies on Gorgon respawning quite often, and some of the main quest dialog not being responsive to sequence breaks all stand out.

    And while exploring Gorgon itself something just felt missing/off…. As though I were walking through a setpiece, or like the companions were unnaturally silent or something. I can’t quite pinpoint it.

    Anyway, is the DLC worth the money? Absolutely. So long as, again, you don’t mind getting a whole lot more of what the base game already provides.

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  • the Outer Worlds

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    A combination of New Vegas and Bioshock with a No Man’s Sky aesthetic, this game takes place in a hellish corporation-first reality quite similar to our own.

    While shorter than it looks based on the navigation map (you’ll spend the vast majority of your time on Terra 2 and Monarch), there’s plenty of stuff to do (despite missing the entire Roseway section I still managed to hit max level at the start of the last area) and quests to complete. Quests which are good at giving choices (you can play as a savior, a money-hungry mercenary, a corporate bootlicker, or any combination thereof), with even combat-centric ones often being accomplishable through stealth.

    There’s not much reason to skip the combat though. It’s pretty fluid with a more active iteration of the VATS system, only really stumbling when it comes to dodging… which is not implemented well at all. The companions are also pretty good at killing things while not suiciding themselves.

    The loot situation is a definite low point however, bogged-down as it is with innumerable junk items/consumables and tied to an equipment degradation system. See, you have repair your equipment (fairly often) with parts acquired from breaking down equipment. This leads to finding a massive number of generic guns laying around which clog up your inventory until you take the time to manually break them down; they should’ve just increased the durability rather than flooding areas with dreck. The ‘unique’ items aren’t very exciting either.

    All-in-all a perfectly fine RPG worth checking out if you’re a fan of Bioshock-like messaging or/and happen to see it on sale for $20 or so.

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  • Fae Tactics -THE GIRL WHO DESTROYED THE WORLD-

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    A mobile iteration of Final Fantasy Tactics‘ gameplay with a bright, cheery visual theme (as well as protagonist) along with some fairly dark storytelling, Fae Tactics ends up a pretty decent tactical RPG.

    The gimmick here is that you only have 3-4 actions available at any given time; attack, assist, or wait with the possibility of casting one spell per round (depending on cooldowns). Some things can modify those base actions (Ultra attacks/assists unlock at level 10, which will replace the default action with a more powerful version), but essentially what you have at level 1 is what you’ll have at level 20. Character customization comes in the form of summon, accessory, and weapon choices (leveling simply lets you choose one of three stat groups to increase). While there are a wide range of accessories and summons acquired through combat drops, each main character only has a maximum of three weapons (unlocked through quests) and accessories usually just amount to a specific stat increase.

    So the game pretty much comes down to summons… which is a bit of an issue since you can only summon 1-2 decently powerful units per battle.

    The limited summons combined with only being able to field 3 party members at once means you’ll often be heavily outnumbered. With the universal action system on top of that battles end up fairly challenging and almost puzzle like; you have to figure out the best ratio of allied-to-enemy element types in order to maximize outgoing damage and minimize incoming damage (elemental affinity has a sort of rock-paper-scissors dynamic).

    Currently I’m conflicted: I don’t like the visuals/protagonist or overwhelming simplicity, but the storytelling is pretty good (albeit heavy on loading screens). I like the non-linearity of the quest selection, but find the implementation overly haphazard/disjointed. I want to keep playing to see where the storyline goes, but I also don’t want to have to re-arrange my party every single battle to take advantage of element synergy.

    I guess the safest thing to say is that it’s an acquired taste.

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  • Mordheim: City of the Damned

    Posted on by Offkorn Comment

    Whereas Warhammer proper has you building armies to face off against one another, Mordheim narrows the focus down to skirmishes between two groups of 10 individuals or less.

    Visually, it’s pretty dire. Mechanically… it’s not much better.

    The concept of building/managing a warband is solid and the roguelike elements (Veteran achievements give bonuses across all warbands) are decent enough. The integration between the combat and exploration aspects however is sorely lacking; you basically have to focus on killing the enemy (since numerical superiority is essential) which means you won’t have time to loot anything notable from the battlefield. It’s almost like you’re being punished for success. The winning warband getting to loot everything in their direct line of sight or receiving an extra turn or two after a win to loot would’ve worked far better.

    The other, more significant, issue is that the combat isn’t any fun. Since all offensive actions draw from the same resource pool most of the time you end up standing in place trading basic attacks until someone misses once too often (which is often just once due to the similarity between enemy and ally health/damage totals). It’s incredibly dull and the spellcasting system being actively antagonistic certainly doesn’t help.

    In a sense the game is reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon in that you probably have to be a masochist to get any significant amount of enjoyment out of it.

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