• Tag Archives Action RPG
  • Book of DEMONS & Some Other Games

    Book of Demons is a hack & slash game with some minor roguelike elements modeled on the first Diablo. One greatly simplified into a mobile game format where you walk along rails while clicking on anything in your ‘light radius’ to interact with it, and equipment/skills are represented by upgradable cards that you can assign to unlockable action bar slots.

    Despite its simplicity and lack of depth (leveling up gives a choice between +1 Health or +1 Mana), it ends up a pretty fun diversion in the vein of Candy Crush for when you have a few minutes to kill. Not sure what sort of longevity it’ll have though since the levels are so far are all pretty similar (up to the Cook quest boss) with the abilities of various enemies occasionally crossing over into ‘bullshit’ territory.

    As for the titular “other games”:

    • Sword Legacy: omen – I installed this ages ago, played the first battle or two, and then put it aside out of general disinterest. I can safely say now that I have no intention of ever touching it again.
    • MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD – Got through the opening, messed around in the training area for a while… and then promptly uninstalled when I discovered all the hunts have time limits.
    • The: QUEST – A game styled after classic first-person RPGs (think Might & Magic X: Legacy), it felt to me both empty and overpopulated. Leave town and there’s a whole bunch of nothing in every direction, yet there’s also an inexplicably large number of scantily-clad archers waiting to kill you. There’s just a pervading sense of unease about the whole affair.
    • DEEP SKY DERELICTS – After spending a minute or two wandering around the first ship finding a whole lot of nothing, I ran into a battle. There I discovered that every action you take in combat reduces your Energy level (run out of Energy and you die; moving also costs energy). I have no interest whatsoever in dealing with such severe resource management bullshit.
    • Celestian Tales: OLD NORTH – The characterizations are all pretty painful and the visuals are notably lackluster.

  • Children of MORTA

    A roguelike with actual (albeit heavily sentimental) plot/character development along with gameplay quite similar to Diablo‘s, Children of Morta expects you to run through the same semi-randomized levels multiple times with different characters hacking and slashing through hoards of enemies.

    In addition to standard unlockable upgrades such as increased drop rates, stat boosts, and additional playable characters, the game also features specialized universal buffs that automatically unlock as a character spends skill points. I presume this is to make it less of an annoyance that you can’t just play one character exclusively (your maximum health takes a major hit if you use the same character 3+ times in a row). This results in something of a middle ground where you have to grind to progress, but the variety in the characters’ playstyles makes it less onerous than it would otherwise be.

    As mentioned the gameplay is like Diablo’s, just somewhat compressed (and lacking an equipment system). One key difference that greatly affects the difficulty is that health potions here are both far less effective and completely random; sometimes you get 3-4 from a single enemy group, sometimes you’ll go an entire floor without seeing any. Being lucky enough to find a charm/blessing that grants regeneration or increased healing is often the difference between success and failure… although it’s not like there’s any penalty for failure, so while annoying I guess it’s not really all that big an issue.

    At the moment I’ve only just completed the first zone with one character at level 9, two at 8, and one at 6 (I haven’t used the recently unlocked fire mage yet). My strategy so far has been to run through the first level until a character hits level 4, the second until they hit 6, and then the third until they hit 8. It’s been working pretty well progression-wise and I haven’t had to run through the same level with the same character more than twice (though not all have successfully beat each boss).

    Hopefully that trend will continue in the later zones.


  • Pathfinder: Kingmaker – Beneath the Stolen Lands

    Since that first run through the stand-alone version of BtSL, I’ve played through the campaign once to get the Ironman achievement and then focused entirely on unlocking the Honest Looting, Memorable Moment, and Apocalypse achievements. None of which turned out to be very straightforward.

    The ‘Apocalypse Can Wait’ one is simple enough on paper… you just have to pray the random enemy/item generation works in your favor (I’m about to start the 20th run now and just have to kill the Captor/Captive one more time). ‘A Memorable Moment’ is a bit more complicated. I’m not sure of the exact requirements (like ‘Tricks of Time’ it apparently has an unmentioned perquisite), but it popped for me after dying to the Fallen Priestess when she was the last boss “blocking the path”.

    ‘Honest Looting’ caused some trouble at first since there’s apparently little to no useful information around regarding its requirements. As it turns out, it requires killing an exorbitant number of bosses/mini-bosses. At the start of this 20th run I’ve killed 77. You can check your own progress by extracting the player.json file from your save, opening it with a text editor, and searching for “vendor”.

    While playing on Normal difficulty my best was 60 floors (this was before I understood how the vendor inventories expanded), worst was 10 floors (damn elementals), and over the course of this odyssey I’ve experimented with quite a number of different character builds. Some notes:

    – Kineticist’s Kinetic Blade works with Vital Strike to bypass the Gather Power charge time (but doesn’t do extra damage)
    – Kinetic Blade doesn’t work with Attacks of Opportunity or Cleaving Finish (but does with Cleave)
    – Magus Spell Combat works with Flurry of Blows and Kinetic Blade
    – Sword Saint works with polymorph if you specialize in a relevant natural weapon
    – Sword Saint works with any Motherless Tiefling or Dragon Disciple build if you pick Bite as your weapon
    – Sensei’s Wisdom attack bonus works when armored
    – Sneak Attack ranged users are insanely good here thanks to the confined quarters (Grenadiers as well)
    – You can dual-wield throwing weapons with Two-Weapon Fighting for tons of attacks
    – There’s no need for a healer due to the abundance of potions
    – Browse the vendor stock before deciding on what team to use for a run
    – Try to avoid buff-intensive builds; yes you can rest frequently, but re-buffing every floor is time-consuming
    – Past the 30th floor golems (Greater Autumn & Golden) and Wild Hunt (Monarchs) become prohibitively annoying
    – Before the 30th floor never underestimate elmentals
    – Kill any Geokineticists you come across quickly
    – Stinking Cloud is a godsend against the Fallen Priestess and Wicked Chanter
    – Secret areas can spawn in a floor’s first room
    – It’s often possible to use Stealth to get through a floor with a solo character


  • Pathfinder: Kingmaker – DLC

    The Wildcards is the most obviously useful of the three purchasable DLC for Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It adds a new race, class, and two new companions to the main campaign (though only one can be used at a time until the endgame). The Kineticist is a lot like D&D’s Warlock (except instead of having a neutral energy blast they focus on a specific element or elemental combination), and just like that class they start out weak only to become ludicrously powerful at higher levels.

    The race and class additions are worthwhile of course, but the companions on the other hand don’t seem particularly well-integrated. It’s also worth noting that the associated companion quests are much more heavily scripted than anything in the base game… which can be either novel or annoying depending on your point of view.

    The next DLC at first glance looks like it’s a stand-alone side story (which resulted in my ignoring it until recently). While that’s mostly true, it turns out that your choices there can both change a few things and add a small area to explore in the main campaign. The new campaign is quite a bit different from the main one both in that it’s linear (world map travel is automated) and there’s no time limit (so you can rest as much as you want). It starts you off at level 5 and you’ll reach level 9 somewhere in the final area after about 7 or so hours of playtime; there are three small areas and three large areas not including Varnhold itself.

    I played through it once with Neoseeker’s suggested party and didn’t have any trouble (although I’m not sold on the Freebooter). There doesn’t seem to be much reason to play through it more than once or twice due to the linearity, though there actually are a surprisingly large number of choices to be made which can affect how things end.

    The third and currently final DLC is both a stand alone and fully integrated with the main campaign. The campaign version is static, bizarrely laid out, doesn’t have much worthwhile loot, has a ludicrous final boss fight, and overall in general isn’t worth bothering with. The stand-alone version meanwhile is almost a separate game: You create a new character and explore an effectively endless number of randomized levels (which is similar in structure to Diablo, down to there being Shrines to activate). There’s no story to speak of here, just killing and looting and unlocking new equipment/bonuses for future playthroughs. So it’s the perfect place to play around with all sorts of different builds if you like the game’s combat system but couldn’t stand the kingdom building or time limit aspects.

    I’m on floor 11 at the moment with a Scaled Fist-Eldritch Scion-Paladin, Thug-Aldori Defender-Swordlord-Duelist, Barbarian-Cleric of Gorum, Archaeologist-Vivisectionist-Arcane Trickster, Monk-Tactical Leader (this was supposed to be a Blight Druid… but I messed up the alignment), and a Psychokineticist. The progression so far is a hell of a lot better than the main campaign’s version of the dungeon and I love the randomized loot. So I may end up playing this mode more than the main campaign (of which 2 more playthroughs are planned to grab some more achievements; I started putting together Kingdom Building and Exploration guides to assist in this).

    So, surprisingly enough, all three DLC can end up being worth buying depending on which parts of the game you enjoy.


  • Yet More Grim Dawn

    Having noticed the 5th Challenge Dungeon had been added I decided to start playing again, bringing two new builds (though the Mage Hunter was long planned) up through Elite.

    After that came some re-speccing: Only minor changes were made to the Sentinel and Purifier (who both then completed Ultimate), but the Oppressor and Apostate went through a major revision. In the first case I came to the conclusion that a Defiler would make better use of dual Gargabol pistols (though I have yet to find one), while in the second the damage types/variety seemed extremely unfocused.

    Changes were also made to my Sorcerer, Commando, Tactician, Witchblade, Spellbreaker, Elementalist, & Templar concepts, while new concepts for a Trickster, Paladin, and Conjurer were drawn up. All of these builds, by-the-by, are available packaged together on the Guides page (or right here) with leveling guidelines written up for the ones I’ve actually used. There’s also a recently created list of all the various skills/items that can reduce resistances on the Guide page for those interested (and the Area Outline that’s been there forever has been updated). Those are all mainly for personal use though, since having to repeatedly search GrimTools‘ database is a pain, so don’t expect much/any polish.

    The question now is “What to do next?”. On the one hand I want to try out the Spellbreaker and Elementalist builds, on the other hand I still vaguely want to replay Greedfall, and on the third hand I think it might be a good idea to get the clutch of existing builds stuck at the end of Normal all up through Elite to free up some Stash space; max-level Legendaries/Epics are divided among seven characters, while the Stash holds Potions/Mandates/Universal sets, excess Component/Relics, two pages for mid-level Epics/Legendaries that universally increase class skills, and then the last two pages are devoted to double-rare rares and acting as a transfer space for newly found max-level Legendaries/Epics.

    Inventory Tetris is no joke.


  • THE SURGE 2

    Ended up grabbing this game during the initial GOG sale on a whim, having neither played the prequel nor been aware of the developer connection with Lords of the Fallen.

    Gameplay and character progression is very similar to LotF, as can be expected from a Soulsborne game, but the environment is quite different in both appearance (sci-fi to its fantasy) and layout (far closer to the hub experience of Dark Souls). The weight and attribute systems meanwhile have been simplified into a single ‘core power’ rating which increases automatically as you level and a basic Health/Stamina/Energy split which can be customized and respecced as necessary.

    There’s nothing much to note about the combat beyond a frequently hostile camera (make sure to raise the FoV to at least 60) and the addition of a ‘directional block’ system, which despite having just beat the game I still don’t understand properly. At first I thought you just had to pull off the block just before the incoming attack hit you (which is how it works in most games), but then while fighting Celeste blocking only seemed to work against her charging attack if done the moment the indicator appeared on the screen… which was at the very beginning of the charge. I never managed to parry it in the 10 or so times I faced her (no trouble parrying her counterattack though). Probably best to just stick to dodging in most cases.

    The most interesting aspect of the game though is one it apparently shares with its predecessor, which came as welcome relief after the frustration of Labyrinth of Lost Souls‘ anemic drop rate. I’m of course talking about the loot system. Want a new weapon, piece of armor, or upgrade component? Target the relevant part of an enemy and cut it off; guaranteed drop. Incredibly refreshing. Less refreshing is the change that occurs after the Metal Armor boss fight. There are just too many enemies clustered together far too often and they all seem to do far more damage than they should. Killing a PC in one solid combo even when they’re 1-2 tech levels lower in equipment quality seems very wrong, particularly when it requires 3 combos to take them out.

    Ultimately, it’s an initially fun game that unfortunately wears out its welcome partway through.


  • Bound by flamE

    Anyone going from Mars: War Logs to Technomancer may find themselves surprised by the massive jump in quality. As it turns out, there was an unrelated game released between them which bridged that technological gap.

    Compared to War Logs it has more fluid combat, larger and more varied environments, and slightly better dialog and voice acting (Technomancer improves on all those aspects further). Gameplay length is about the same and backtracking is certainly still an issue when completing sidequests. The final boss fight is oddly far more difficult than anything that came before and I was only able to clear it by abusing the ‘Speed Demon’ ability… I’m not sure how a Warrior is supposed to manage, but a Pyromancer could probably just spam firebolts.

    Rather than reminding me of Gothic or Deus Ex though, it instead brings to mind (a greatly simplified) Witcher 2 mixed with a bit of Lords of the Fallen.

    Basically, just as its release date fits between War Logs and Technomancer, so does its playability. Maybe pick it up if it’s on sale for $5 or less and you want a quick diversion.


  • LORDS of the FALLEN

    This game is something of a merger between Dark Souls (which I stopped playing at the first mini-boss) and Darksiders (which I stopped playing after the first boss); the weight system and enemy nastiness of Dark Souls with the visuals of Darksiders.

    On the negative side of things: Most of the the areas are cramped, the camera is locked far too close to the PC, and there are some stability issues (over the course of the first playthrough I’ve crashed 3 times on start-up, twice during gameplay, and there’s a nasty freeze when picking up the Gauntlet). Positives would be…. Hmm.

    Basically, if you felt Darksiders was too hack & slashy and/or Souls was too unforgiving with its checkpoints, then this game might just hit the sweet spot between them. And as for the Labyrinth DLC, which comes packaged with the GotY edition… it’s in no way worth buying if you already have an earlier version of the game.

    Some tips:
    – Don’t put any points into Luck on the 1st playthrough.
    – Don’t use any Attribute/Spell Shards on the 1st playthrough.
    – Open all chests on the 1st playthrough.
    – Use all your Shards and respec 25 points into Luck on the 2nd playthrough.
    — Don’t open any chests in NG+ until you have the 25 Luck.

    Doing the above will result in any chests formerly holding specific pieces of equipment to instead contain a bunch of Shards (almost always including an Attribute Shard).


  • Tangledeep & Slay the Spire

    Tangledeep is a roguelike in the vein of ToME, just notably less complex… more mobile-gamey. If you haven’t played that yet then this may be worth checking out so long as you make sure to activate Mana/Stamina regeneration (the respawn rate heavily punishes the default no-regen setting). If you already like that though then there won’t be much for you here.

    Another roguelike, Slay the Spire is closer in structure to FTL. The combat is quite different however and resembles a card game, albeit a somewhat 1-sided one since the enemies don’t play cards. The gimmick here is that every replay (a run through the Spire lasts about an hour and a half if you make it to the endboss) requires rebuilding your deck based on what reward options happen to pop-up, with each playable character having different cards to choose from. It’s certainly fun if you can handle the massive amount of deckbulding-related randomness (make sure to prioritize card removal events since you can’t do that manually) and I ended up eventually beating the Spire’s Heart with all three characters:

    Continue reading  Post ID 8675


  • Grim Dawn – Elite, Ultimate, & Hardcore

    Playing through the game in Elite difficulty is pretty much identical to Normal: Enemies have higher max levels (ranging from the high 60’s in Act 1 to low 90’s in Forgotten Gods), enemy HP is given a boost (generally only noticeable where bosses are concerned), the PC’s upper resistances (elemental, poison/acid, & piercing) take a 25% hit, and the item drop rate is notably improved (with some bosses dropping completely new items). Aside from the addition of two new smiths and a couple Devotion Shrines the maps and quests are completely identical (you do get the option of changing which factions you’re aligned with, but that choice is retroactive for the Kymon/Order, Outcast, and Barrowholm factions; return to Normal and your alliances will now match the Elite choices).

    Meaning there’s little point in playing through Normal once you have access to Elite… which is where Forgotton Gods comes back into the picture. One of the less obvious additions it makes to the game are a set of ‘Difficulty Merits’ which you can purchase from the new non-faction vendor (when playing on Elite/Ultimate) and then transfer to other characters. Not only do they automatically unlock the higher difficulty levels for that character along with all inventory bags, but they also grant the bonus skill/attribute points you’d normally get from certain quests on lower difficulties and, far more importantly, activate all fast-transit portals on lower difficulties as well. So once you get a single character through Act 1 Ultimate, all future characters can get a massive head start to cut out all the busywork in Normal:

    Make a new character, clear the Burial Cave to get access to your Stash, use the Ultimate Merit and pick up a +XP potion (sold by the Malmouth faction vendor at max reputation), jump into Ultimate difficulty and use the potion, talk to the gatekeeper and spirit guide for a massive amount of experience (wear the Explorer’s Hood for an additional boost), leave Ultimate and enter Elite, talk to the gatekeeper and spirit guide here for a less massive but still large amount of experience. You’ll now be level 18+ with several bonus skill/attribute points and full access to nearly all areas in Normal and Elite. From that point you can do a speed run of Normal, just focusing on the shrines and main quests to hopefully hit level 50 (the point Legendaries start dropping) before jumping into Elite and playing normally.

    But what about Ultimate? I saw a lot of talk about how Ultimate was ‘the real game’, ‘totally different from Elite’ and so on, building it up to the point I was hesitant to try it. Turns out that was all bullshit. The difference between Ultimate and Elite is almost exactly the same as the difference between Elite and Normal, it’s just that your lower resistances (bleed, vitality, aether, chaos) take a 25% hit now as well and a set of unmarked bonus quests get added. As long as your resistances are near maxed and your total DPS (not weapon DPS, the total from all damage sources) is 40k+ you won’t have much/any trouble with Ultimate. As an example look at this character.

    That is certainly not endgame equipment and the damage output is pathetic and yet… I’ve been steamrolling Ultimate so far straight through Darius. The other character I’ve played in Ultimate with was the much earlier mentioned Purifier (slightly modified with FG additions), which breezed through Act 1 Ultimate annihilating everything in its path.

    But wait you say, why are you even bothering with that comparatively lackluster Warder? Because that’s a Hardcore character. While the Purifier may deal out insane amounts of damage, it’s less adept at taking insane amounts of damage. Since a single death means the end for a HC character, my attempt to grab the various related achievements by necessity was made with a heavily defense-focused build. And death can come at any time, even for a character that seems to have God Mode enabled while playing it.

    The Warder you see isn’t my first attempt at an HC run. It’s the second, with the first being a Shieldbreaker which died in Act 6 Elite. How, oh how did I manage to get such a theoretically unkillable build killed? Player error of course. In Mourndale I ran across Grava’Thul at level 88 and was promptly hit by his dispel attack. This being completely unexpected (I did not know there were two different Cthonic Nemesis enemies and had killed the first with no issues earlier) I was thrown into a state of shock and promptly fumbled around with the hotkey bars trying to reactivate the buffs (misclicking and deactivating the ones just reactivated) and was ultimately killed while trying to use a health potion which had not been bound to the secondary hotkey bar. Ironically, my first D3 hardcore character died in a similar manner.

    So yeah, that was totally my fault and not the build’s. The important lessons learned there were A) Keep essential modal buffs on the primary hotkey bar, B) Make sure the health potion is bound to the same key on the secondary hotkey bar, and C) Be extremely careful when engaging Nemesis monsters.

    As a bit of a post-script, an incidental lesson was learned while playing the Warder: Armor Piercing does not reduce enemy armor effectiveness as I had long assumed, instead it converts physical damage into piercing damage. Which depending on build may actually result in less damage being dealt.