• Category Archives PC
  • GWENT – Rank 16

    I’m continuing to play this game almost religiously.

    After my earlier success with the Bran-Discard deck I hit something of a wall, winning and losing in equal measure. Changing things up I switched over to a Calveit-Spy deck following the random acquisition of the Rainfarn card in a keg:

    • Golem x2, Brigade x3, Medic x3, Engineer x1, Rot Tosser x3, Emissary x2, Ambassador x2
    • Peter Saar, Aukes, Vanhemar, Decoy, de Wett, Fake Ciri
    • Cahir, Rainfarn, Vilgefortz, Tibor

    I had remarkably good success with this and practically flew up the ranks. It has bad matchups against both Elder-Consume and Voorhis-Reveal though (two popular archetypes right now at this position; the third being Dwarf-Boost) and I’m debating whether or not to fit Letho in somehow.

    Aside from that one I have two other ‘main’ decks I switch between in ranked play. A slightly revised version of the previous Bran deck (which I saw at least two other people playing):

    • Queensguard x3, Pirate Captain x3, Pirate x3, Priestess x1, War Longship x2, Shackles x2, Mardroeme x1
    • Champ of Champs, Donar, Operator, Sigrdrifa, Svanrige, Alzur’s Double-Cross
    • Ermion, Villentretenmerth, Ciri: Dash, Decree

    I picked up Villentret for an Elf control deck, but he worked out remarkably well here as well… still might switch him out for Lugos or Coral though. The bronzes haven’t changed much but the silvers were switched around often; I may yet go back to running Johnny instead of Operator and Svanrige is still underwhelming (following the post-update nerf, Morkvarg’s no longer in the running).

    As for the third deck, well I took my own advice from earlier and saved up the necessary scrap to build a more powerful monster deck. Elder-Consume in this case:

    • Celaeno x3, Nekker x3, Ekimmara x2, Vran x2, Behemoth x3, Mardroeme x2
    • Grave Hag, Fiend, Katakan, Crone x3
    • Ge’els, Caretaker, Decree, Succubus

    It’s pretty standard, with the only real departure from the norm being the Mardroemes. I was running Kayran instead of Caretaker for a while, but playing the Kayran more often than not resulted in severe card disadvantage.

    The recent hotfix definitely altered the metagame. With weather no longer being so dominant it’s now possible to actually play decks without being forced to find space for 3+ weather-removal cards, which opens up a number of options. While it was manageable, there is no denying that weather was definitely overpowered before with average bronze weather cards being able to shift the power balance far more than average bronze unit cards.

    It’s still powerful now, you just can’t run all-weather decks anymore. So all in all I’d have to say the change was welcome. The Morkvarg and Olgierd changes are a bit more questionable though. Well, we’ll see how things go.


  • GWENT

    So, since shortly after the public beta started, I’ve fallen down the Gwent rabbit hole. It scratches that card game itch I previously soothed with first MTGO (stopping after it seemed like WotC cared more about making money than satisfying their customers; shortly after the super epic rares popped up I think it was) and then slightly more recently Duel of Champions.

    Having spent no money on this just yet, I’m at level 32 (floating between ranks 11 & 12) with pretty much all the bronze cards, some key silver cards, and a handful of gold cards.

    Starting out in ranked play I went with Henselt-Reavers (I’m missing the golds and witcher trio to make it really good), then moved on to Elder-Consume (missing all the golds) and Voorhis-Reveal (lacking the reveal golds), next to Elf-Control (missing Villentret), and finally ended up having the most luck with Bran-Discard:

    • Queensguard x3, Pirate Captain x3, Pirate x3, Priestess x2, War Longship x2, Mardroeme x2
    • Champ of Champs, Morkvarg, Donar, Operator, Sigrdrifa, Svanrige
    • Ermion, Ciri: Dash, Drought, Decree

    Primarily the deck wins with giant Pirate Captains, supported by giant Ciri, but it also has a bit of a Queensguard-resurrection backup plan (whether you use Operator on them or the Captains depends on the matchup) and I’ve also won a number of games thanks to a 20+ power Champion of Champions.

    The Mardroeme used to be Raiders, but I desperately needed more removal. Svanrige has been a bit underwhelming while Cerys, Coral, Kambi, and Lugos are all possible Drought replacements I’m considering. That said, I don’t really like playing Skellige and so may instead save up Scrap for the cards necessary to make a better Monster (Kayran, Ge’els, Crones, Succubus, Woodland Spirit), Elf (Villentretenmerth), or Nilfgaard (Leo, Letho, Vattier) deck.


  • REZROG – First Impressions

    While the game has several extremely annoying bugs, for the most part it’s a fun (if repetitive) dungeon crawler.

    There’s all the multi-character persistence and loot of a Diablo-like game, with the turn-based and environmental traits of a Dungeons of Dredmor-like game. There are two unique aspects here. The first is that instead of doing one run/character at a time, you have immediate access to 7 characters (one of each class) which share loot and can be used at will. The second is death; if a character dies they get captured and have to be rescued by a different character.

    At the moment I have all 7 at levels 10-12 and have just reached the 11th dungeon. So far there’s decent enemy variety (each odd dungeon number introduces new ones) and skill variety (though I’ve only found 2 non-starter ones at the moment), but having to repeatedly grind the same area (even with the randomized layout) to overcome sudden difficulty spikes is annoying. Particularly since any time you fail to clear a level for any reason (death/capture, bug, menu exit) any items found/used or changes made since entering it are completely reset.

      I mentioned bugs earlier, and here are some of the ones I’ve run into:
      – Doorways becoming impassible after attacking through them.
      – Traps killing an enemy and making that square impassable.
      – Frozen movement when attacking crystals with a ranged skill.
      – The first page of the shared stash wiping itself on game exit.
      – Losing items transferred to a character with a full inventory.
      – The ‘consumables are 25% stronger’ roulette effect doing the opposite.
      – The ‘+1 move’ roulette effect actually doubling movement range.
      – XP skill books behaving oddly.
      – Entering a Boss level drains all of your money.
      Aside from avoiding those issues above there are a few other things to be aware of:
      – Do the first dungeon at least once with each character to get all the starter skills.
      – Run through it a few more times to hit level 3 and stock up on potions
      – Ice Slab is insanely good.
      – Skills can be added/removed to/from any non-captured character.
      – Weapon skills won’t work with 0 Durability weapons.
      – The random ‘destroy all crystals’ objective is extremely difficult.
      – There tends to be difficulty jumps every 2 levels.
      – Exit via the Esc Menu immediately if it looks like you won’t be able to finish a level.

  • Nier: Automata – First Impressions

    This game is quite a bit different from conventional RPGs.

    I’m not at all fond of the top-down shoot-’em-up elements, bullet-hell aspects, combo-heavy melee attacks, or save point system. The washed-out color scheme is a turn-off as well. On the other hand I like open world exploration and collecting things quite a bit. Some other positives would be the easily customizable control scheme, access to the Japanese voice acting, cool visual effects, and… that’s all I can think of right now.

    Maybe I’ll warm up to it in time.


  • Torment: Tides of Numenera – Endgame

    Finally got around to seriously playing the game and just finished it.

    Turned out my earlier annoyance regarding the multiple resource pools was mostly an over-reaction; once you get a point or two of Edge it becomes practically impossible to deplete them. I only ended up resting 3-4 times over the course of the entire game, and could’ve probably got by doing it just once if I had used those full-heal cyphers. That said the game isn’t very large by RPG standards… maybe about the size of Tyranny (perhaps a bit smaller).

    It certainly is Planescape: Torment revisited though. Much like its predecessor, this game rewards high Intelligence values on the PC, heavily promotes exploring every branch of every dialog tree, and allows most confrontations to be solved/avoided without engaging in combat. That last one is particularly good since (also like PS:T) combat is kind of a pain.

    However it’s the gameplay as a whole that’s holding it back rather than just the combat: The character building system is lacking, with many skill/ability choices being either useless or redundant, and you never really feel particularly powerful or godlike even at max level (which is Tier 4). Attack abilities don’t do all that much damage and companions who aren’t in the party not gaining experience certainly doesn’t help either. Equipment ends up being the main source of combat effectiveness, and the variety in that department is notably lacking (while there are tons of cyphers/oddities, there are only a few interesting weapons and a highly limited armor selection). There’s not really anything to collect either aside from merecasters.

    Which all adds up to this being the perfect game for people who love replaying the exact same scenario while making slightly different choices (since those choices do actually tend to affect things here). Anyone looking for a more physically engaging or mechanic-based experience however will most likely be disappointed.


  • Mass Effect: Andromeda

    Short version: An inferior Dragon Age: Inquisition.

    Slightly longer version:

    This is a large game with quite a lot to do. So it’s unfortunate that navigating the galaxy map is such a chore (especially since they got planetside fast-travel right), the minor glitches it has end up remarkably annoying, the respawning mechanic is pretty bad, and that the dialog/script is atrocious.

    Really everything else could be forgiven if it weren’t for the writing. We’re talking internet-published fanfiction level here. It goes well beyond cringe-inducing, which ends up something of a mystery considering it starts off well enough. Did the writing team change partway through development? Did they just give up and/or run out of inspiration a quarter of the way through? Whatever the case the end-result is practically unreadable and late-endgame developments in particular feel like they were pulled out of thin air.

    All that said, if you’re just looking for something to waste some time with the game is good enough. If you’re looking for something engaging or, worse, you’re a serious completionist (the glitches and random spawning combined with the slow system map make getting 100% a real pain), it should be avoided.


  • Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3

    Taking place a little while after the end of the second game, this third installment in the franchise is basically a combination of the first two with an overhauled combat system. Making it easily the best of the bunch (once you install the re-translation project to reduce the terribleness of the localization).

    Character-wise, with the DLC, you get access to the whole cast and don’t have to jump through any hoops or waste any Plan space to unlock characters (although Uni, Ram, & Rom don’t become available until the last chapter). Story-wise there’s only some especially cringy moments in the 6th chapter or so. And as for the re-used assets… well, there’s still a ton of those.

    The most notable improvement here over the previous games though is the revamped combat system:

    Instead of having an EX Bar that the entire party has to use (and which has to be re-filled every time you enter an area), each character’s SP pool doubles as an EX Pool. Meaning now you can pull off multiple 3-bar EX attacks in a row. Even better, the game now tells you when an enemy you’re attacking happens to be weak/strong against an element and even specifies whether an attack you’re about to use is magical or physical.

    Another new addition is an in-game achievement system. By doing things with each character like running, jumping, taking damage, switching in combat, using items in combat, and so forth, that character will get stat boosts and unlock character-specific Plans to further boost their stats or add new abilities (like a 5th combo slot).

    Really, the only flaw with this entry (besides the localization and re-used assets) is that the DLC character Events are bugged to appear a chapter earlier than they should. So if you’re only able to get one of the three games, this would be the one to prioritize.


  • Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth2

    It shouldn’t be surprising, yet it is: This sequel is in almost all ways worse than the first Re;Birth.

    The localization got worse (install the re-translation project modification to make it merely equally as bad), Nepgear is a far less engaging protagonist compared to Neptune, there’s a bunch of ecchi events straight out of an Agarest game, and the new themes are atrocious.

    No, I don’t want to be constantly lectured about how piracy and cheating is bad in this game I bought… especially when said game just so happens to include cheat items in its paid DLC.

    The only things this has going for it are giving the characters a couple extra combat abilities, Boss enemies not having any insane HP regeneration abilities, a Super EXP option which effectively eliminates level grinding (added by the DLC), and the somewhat large variety of possible endings.


  • Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1

    Huh. I sort of regret putting off playing this for so long just because I knew it had a trash-tier localization and suspected it was extremely grindy.

    It certainly has more than its share of issues (the awful localization, it is pretty grindy, the constantly re-used assets, mind-numbing/cringe-inducing plot developments, quite a number of auto-lose battles, a host of painful side-characters, tons of trap items to waste your limited resources on), and yet there’s just so much to collect while bap-bap-bapping away at enemies that I can’t help but enjoy playing it. Some advice:

    Picking up the DLC Pack is well worth it for the two extra characters alone, as they make the early-mid game much less punishing due to being notably more powerful than the two you start with, and you should limit your Plan creations to unlocking and adding enemies to the 16mb dungeons (the ones that cost 100+ are DLC content and can be saved for a second playthrough), removing the damage cap, increasing the jump height, and unlocking two of the CPU Candidate characters (who cost 1024mb each).

    Then on any potential NG+ playthroughs you can unlock the other character, the Colosseum, the DLC dungeons, and the highest level equipment (completely skipping all the weaker stuff, which is just a waste to unlock).

    One final thing that may be worthwhile to be aware of, is that pressing the L1 button will skip attack/transformation animations.


  • Nights of Azure

    A game I tried on a whim that ended up reminding me of a previous game I tried out on a whim.

    This is more of an arcade-like beat-’em-up/hack&slash though. Basically you run around killing hoards of monsters on your way to one objective or another while collecting the equipment or instant power-ups they drop. There isn’t anything to craft here and upgrades occur automatically as you and your summons level up. Combat on the face of things is pretty simple:

    You have a weak attack, a strong attack, a special attack, and a dodge. Combos can be made from weak->strong, weak x2->strong, and weak x3->strong, each ending in a different type of maneuver. Where the complexity comes in is that these combos change depending on which weapon type you have equipped (there are ultimately four) and eventually you gain the ability to switch weapons during combos. There’s also the transformation ability which lets you assume a powerful half-demon form with its own attack set, and of course the summoning system.

    The summoning system is also pretty simple at first glance. You have four servants you can ‘equip’ at a time, each with their own attacks and experience/stat values. You can summon any/all of these during battle and they’ll stay summoned until they either get knocked out or the battle ends. So why not just summon them all immediately? Because each performs a different type of ability when it gets summoned, meaning it’s often a good idea to wait until that ability will help you out. These servants will move/attack on their own, but you can give them general orders (attack any, attack my target, heal yourself) as well as make them use a specific ‘Burst’ special ability when necessary.

    So there’s a lot going on during battle, which is a good thing since the game revolves around combat. The bad part about the combat system is that it’s timed. You get 15 minutes to clear an area after you leave the safe zone; if you don’t you’re automatically teleported out. Boss fights at least aren’t timed, but still… timed anything is bullshit.

    That timer, combined with lack of things to collect, combined with the hack&slash nature of the game all adds up to an experience that just doesn’t grab me or make me want to keep playing.