• Tag Archives Action RPG
  • Grim Dawn – Forgotten Gods

    Forgotten Gods is the second Grim Dawn expansion, being mostly notable for adding a number of new Devotion options along with a new class option. The Oathkeeper has a very Paladin-like feel to it and specializes in shields, fire (or alternately acid) damage, and adding retaliation damage to attack skills.

    So far I’ve played through Vanilla+Malmouth with 4 Oathkeeper blends (and through FG with 1):

    A Sentinel was the first, handily replacing my earlier concept of a retaliation build. Aegis of Menhir and Righteous Fervor are great and the Guardians are fantastic. Meanwhile, Ascension and Presence of Virtue (for this build anyway) offer a wonderful mix of offensive and defensive support. It’s practically a pure Oathkeeper, though the healing and added retaliation from Blood of Dreeg is not to be underestimated. At the moment (post-Malmouth, pre-FG) they look like this; note that I have to reset the Devotions because Dryad wasn’t as useful as I thought it would be.

    With storage space getting a bit tight at this point (1 extra tab isn’t really enough for an expansions’ worth of content) it seemed a good time to finally get rid of all the poison-focused gear I’d been collecting for some time now. So I decided to make a Venomblade Dervish (in contrast to the above, this is practically a pure Nightblade). While they certainly kill things quickly enough, they’re remarkably squishy and I think I’ll have to alter the Devotion setup to include Behemoth and maybe Chariot for some more health restoration; the Ancient Grove boss killed it more or less instantly with that multi-eruption thing it does.

    Becoming somewhat focused on the Corruption of Gargabol pistol while scrolling through the item database the next character ended up being a gunslinger Oppressor. I had forgotten how effective dual pistols were at efficiently killing things and anything that survives the barrage gets a Bone Harvest to the face. The build was a lot of fun before the recent patch that changed the Terrify effect to Confusion, and will probably be even better now.

    Which brings us to the fourth character, a Cyclone Archon, the only one I’ve so far taken through the FG storyline content. Vire’s Might and Eye of Reckoning are both pretty great and synergize well; rush into the middle of a hoard, pop Ascension if it’s a hero/boss, and just start spinning around. It’s such an effective tactic at melting enemies that I’ve often forgotten I even have Wind Spirit. Briarthorn on the other hand is more of a mixed bag. Against most stuff it serves as a perfectly fine damage boost, but against things with AOE death effects (Malmouth’s aetherials for instance) it just dies constantly and the points may be better off in Presence of Virtue.

    And what’s that storyline content like? Well, the first half is much like Act 2 visually with an assortment of mostly Beast-faction enemies; dinosaurs, grobles, basilisks, beetles, scorpion-men, gryphons (fat harpies). There are also a few undead (basically just larger zombies) and some ‘Eldrich Spirits’ (repurposed wendigo spirits), which serve as the new enemy faction. The second half in contrast is much more unique visually (lava-flavored interior ruins aside), being mostly populated by Eldrich-faction creatures (poison-flavored Bysmiel mongrels, reskinned ryloks, stuff that looks like the animats from Pillars of Eternity) including re-designed Kymon enemies who prefer fire magic and crossbows to their earlier rifle/lightning setup.

    Though it forces you to side with one of the three new factions, doing so does not make the others hostile (all the choice does is change which series of quests you get offered). So there’s no reason not to side with a different faction in each difficulty level (for bounties stick to the Sister Crimson and Brother Segarius ones). You can do the Shattered Realm content immediately or wait until after everything else is finished, and I suggest the latter to make things as smooth as possible. Even then however it’s not really worth going past the 5th Shard with any builds that can’t quickly dish out a ton of damage (the Archon build above at level 72 cleared the 1st-25th Shards without notable issue… although the levels with floor hazards were a pain).

    So is the expansion worth buying? Depends on how much you like the Oathkeeper, want/need the new Devotion options, and if you’re interested in the new class of movement abilities (which, granted, fill a much needed mobility hole). If you just want more storyline areas to explore though it’ll probably end up quite disappointing (particularly when compared to Malmouth).


  • ShadowS: AWAKENING

    I can see now why people would be angry with Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms (the sequel to Kult: Heretic Kingdoms), considering how the remade/extended version itself isn’t exactly a stellar gaming experience.

    Awakening is an incredibly gimmicky Torchlight-like kind of game. Not only does it wholly revolve around a gimmick (swapping between the real/shadow versions of each map), but most of the boss fights involve some sort of annoying scripted behavior, there’s a few inexplicable backtrack-heavy sections, a couple potential party members spontaneously become unavailable depending on your choices, and its chock-full of busywork puzzles and forced party-swapping.

    On the technical front things could also use a bit of work since both movement (left-click to move) and attacking (also left-click to attack) lack precision. It seems stable enough though and I didn’t run into any crashes or slowdown on my first playthrough. So that’s nice. Also nice is that a cheap Respec option’s available and healing’s easy to come by.

    As far as the optional DLC go, I haven’t bothered with the Armor (if you’re playing on Normal you definitely won’t need it), but did pick up the Golem party member:

    While I would’ve rather had another mage option (since 3/4 of the current ones are missable), it’s a pretty solid addition to the early-game party makeup. Being the same type of fighter as Carissa (who’s amazing) though it’ll lose most of its usefulness once she finally joins unless you want to try comboing it with the lizard shaman. So while it would have made more sense as a 2-handed weapon user… it works well enough as a placeholder.


  • Tales of Maj’Eyal

    I briefly tried the browser-based version of this game some time ago but it seemed overly complicated and I’m not fond of permadeath in the first place (losing 10+ hours of progress to a missclick is beyond annoying). However, after buying the GOG version on whim one day I played again and this time around it become quite engrossing.

    There’s a bunch of things to unlock/collect and with the ‘Adventurer’ option enabled you don’t have to worry about a single mistake erasing everything. That said… I would actually suggest playing on ‘Roguelike’ once you’ve unlocked everything you want to; the second half of the main campaign is nowhere near as good as the first half and it’s more fun to start a new character than slog through that mire. Getting started is really the hardest part, and this area guide does wonders to make things more accessible. You can also find immensely helpful class guides on that forum as well.

    As far as the DLC go:

    Ashes of Urhrok is the cheapest and also adds the least to the game. The new race and classes are really the only reason to pick it up.
    Forbidden Cults on the other hand adds quite a bit to the game. In addition to the races and classes (one of which is a pain to unlock) it adds a large number of fully integrated new areas and even a new ability line to the Wyrmic class.
    Embers of Rage adds a sequel campaign (that’s about 30-40% the size of the main campaign) which is decent enough if you don’t mind the accelerated leveling speed and hamfisted gold/merchant situation. Its endboss is a giant difficulty spike though. What’s far more interesting is the crafting system it introduces, which is a lot of fun to play around with.

    So I’d say definitely pick up Forbidden Cults, but only grab the other two if/when you want to try something new.


  • Shadow Warrior 2 & The Bureau: XCOM Declassified

    While Shadow Warrior 2 may at first glance look like an FPS, in reality it’s an action RPG with quite a few character progression options. Unfortunately (and similar to Cosmic Star Heroine) it also has an overwhelmingly unconventional sense of humor made worse by some notably lackluster voice acting. The actual gameplay though is pretty good once you accept that you’re expected to get hit and take damage (there’s no dodge/block ability apart from a specific Katana move).

    The Bureau: XCOM Declassified on the other hand is a more conventional FPS, albeit a squad-based one with cover shooter gameplay similar to Mass Effect 2. Squad tactics are very important here if you’re playing on the higher difficulties; a style of play facilitated by a ‘bullet time’-like mechanic that lets you give orders in relative peace. There are some notable negatives however: Saving is restricted to checkpoint autosaves, the character interactions are pretty terrible, and the PhysX graphic options are broken by default (while they can be fixed easily enough, doing so results in extreme slowdown at certain points).


  • Ys: Oath in Felghana, VI, & Origin

    People like to claim the Ys series is skill intensive, and to a degree it is. To a much larger degree however it’s luck-based; whether you win or lose a boss battle (assuming you’re not overleveled from grinding) often depends upon which moves they decide to use… which is partly random.

    Oath in Felghana is a remake of Ys III which has no notable connection to the first two games. It doesn’t do anything unexpected and only really stands out for having extremely quick combat, an awful storyline, and an inability to use items in boss battles. I finished Normal difficulty at level 51 with level 3 equipment in ~7.5 hours (not having bothered to upgrade any of the earlier equipment) and the most difficult fights were the two Dularn encounters (random homing swords are tough to dodge) and the 2nd Chester one (very few openings).

    The sixth main game in the series, Ark of Napishtim, changes things up a bit. The boost and magic functions have been merged, healing items have been added (which can be used in boss battles), combat is a bit slower due to the lesser combo ability, bosses are far easier (even the hidden optional boss is only difficult due to its high stats), and it’s not quite as linear. I finished it in ~8.5 hours, skipping that one optional super-boss, at level 50 with the red sword at 11 and the other two at 10 with practically no grinding required. The storyline is a bit better, but this time around does make some pretty notable references to previous games: The first Ys and Ys V (which currently does not have an official English translation).

    Remember that terrible final dungeon in the first Ys? Well Origin certainly does and wants you to run through it again not once, but three times with three different characters. Joy. The environs in this iteration are more varied though, which is nice, and mechanically it’s identical to Oath in Felghana with boss difficulty that lands somewhere between that game and Ark of Napishtim: They have the attack variety of Felghana‘s with the predictability of Napishtim‘s.

    The first character is Yunica, an extremely talkative Adol clone with very similar magic ability. I finished her story at level 50 with maxed equipment after ~6.5 hours. The second available character (Hugo) plays much differently, being a ranged fighter his attacks evoke Gradius‘ gameplay (and so combat is insanely quick). Finished his story after ~6 hours at level 50 with only the final equipment upgraded (SP went into raising magic & boost recovery). Toal is kind of a combination between the two gameplay-wise (insanely quick but next-to-no range) and his version of the story was completed after ~5 hours also at level 50 with only the final armor upgraded (you should max out Boost recovery). The general plotline is pretty bad, each of the individual stories features something incredibly dumb, and if you were to only play through the game once I’d suggest going with Yunica (her version is almost entirely stand-alone while Hugo and Toal’s are linked, Toal’s being the True End which leads into Ys I & II).


  • LEGEND OF GRIMROCK II

    Unlike the first game (which got kind of annoying with everything being underground), I actually managed to complete this one at character level 14.

    While I’m not a big fan of puzzles, most of the ones here are thankfully logic-based and can be solved with enough trial & error. There are only a couple that require the use of specific items or codes based off obscure messages (and for those I suggest consulting a walkthrough). The biggest puzzle is really what sort of party composition to make and to determine that I strongly suggest reading through this character creation guide. Classes play much differently than you would think and you absolutely must have someone with a maxed out Alchemy skill.

    As for combat, some of the encounters can be a bit tricky but none of the enemies ever come across as unfair or require obscure and/or unintuitive tactics. Really the worst I can say about the combat aspects are that when/where you acquire injuries seems to be completely random. Another complaint would be the hunger system, as I unilaterally hate all hunger/thirst systems, but that’s easy enough to disable using a Save Game Editor (simply set the “food_rate” CHAR STAT to 0).

    So all in all it ends up an enjoyable experience with only a handful of occasional annoyances.


  • XANADU NEXT

    I’ve occasionally seen this game compared to Diablo, but I don’t see the resemblance. It’s far closer to a combination of Ys‘ combat style and Zelda‘s grass-slashing and key item collecting.

    It’s certainly on the more difficult side of things as far as RPGs go and you’ll probably die quite often until you get the hang of ‘dodging’ enemy attacks. The limited number of active skills you can have is another issue and leveling up is a bit of a trap; you get 6 attribute points to distribute however you want each level, but if you don’t spend them 2 Str/1 Int/1 Ref/1 Con/1 Will there will be a ton of weapons and equipment you’ll be unable to wield by the end of the game. Having to often swap between key items (limited to 4 active at a time as well) is also annoying.

    Length-wise it’s pretty short (my playthrough clocked in at a little over 9 hours), though it doesn’t feel short… the final dungeon in particular goes on for ages (and requires something like 40 keys)… and will definitely take longer if you avoid using any sort of walkthrough and/or have a bad sense of direction.

    Overall I suppose it’s decent enough, although in the end it might be better to get invested in the Ys series instead if you haven’t already.


  • Tokyo Xanadu eX+ & Overfall

    Despite being terrible at action games, I decided to try Tokyo Xanadu eX+ based on its connection to the Legend of Heroes games… and ended up getting pretty far into it (currently in the middle of Chapter 7).

    It’s half RPG and half action game. The action game aspects are a bit over-complicated (three super moves with three separate resources, two buttons to swap party members) but are easy enough to grasp that even someone with terrible reflexes can get S-rank stage-clear scores (on normal difficulty). The RPG aspects on the other hand are straight-forward but suffer from character behavior and storyline events that fluctuate between stereotypical and awful. That you have to continuously re-canvas the maps in order to collect the various character info pages and find hidden quests also quickly becomes tiresome, and the way it blatantly taunts you with content which can only be completed in a second playthrough is just plain annoying. I do like the way the upgrade system relies on loot rather than money though.

    Overfall was recently bought on a whim and unfortunately ended up nothing like what I was expecting. Rather than being RPGish it’s more a strategy game (with the goal being to unlock new starting weapons/abilities/traits rather than winning). Worse is that only the battles are turn-based and each playthrough apparently has a time limit of, according to the tutorial/guide on Steam anyway, ~14 minutes. The time limit alone would be a deal-killer even without the focus on unlocking things solely to unlock more things.


  • Grim Dawn

    I’ve now been playing this game for the last month or so, and have gotten nine characters through the default game content (and one of those through the expansion content). The simplest way to describe it is: Titan Quest with a Diablo aesthetic.

    It’s a bit easier than Titan Quest though (you won’t have to worry about certain enemies being completely immune to your damage type) and seems to have a smaller pool of items. There’s some added complexity however in the form of the Devotion system, which allows you to enhance your base class combination in a ton of different ways and can inspire builds all on its own, and a few small roleplaying aspects in regards to the quests. So it’s a bit of a toss up which game is ‘better’, but I’m leaning toward this one because damage-immune enemies are a pain.

    The characters I’ve used so far are almost evenly split between builds I found on the official forums and ones I was inspired to make based on certain endgame items or Devotions. I’ll list them similar to how I did the Titan Quest ones earlier, in order of Act 4 completion (or close to it; the ordering of the middle few might be off):

    The first one to complete the normal game was not the first character I created, as the order was switched around for faction reputation-related reasons. I basically made them because I wanted a Retaliation build similar to the Templar I used in TQ without the annoyance of having to wait for enemies to kill themselves. So I focused on Piercing, Bleeding, and Physical damage centered around the Counterstrike and Circle of Slaughter abilities with Retaliation damage as a secondary. In retrospect this was not ideal and, despite the fact that they managed to complete the expansion content without issue (the old belt/amulet/gloves were just switched out), I’m going to respec it before heading into Elite as a more Bladedancer-ish build. I may end up re-purposing the retaliation aspects into a more fitting class combo.

    Next was the second character I created, an Apostate. It came about from both being impressed by how powerful the Skeletons were and simply wanting to do something with this particular combo. While it’s a straight-forward pet build and the pets are fabulous at killing stuff already, I realized while playing some other characters that it would be better off trading most of the gun-based skills for the resistance reduction and defense of Spectral Wrath (since the Skeletons do Vitality damage), so now the desired end result looks like this.

    The first created (which in turn inspired the one above) was one which had a very detailed and well written-up post on the forums; a Cabalist build centered around Ravenous Earth. While that was quite effective, I liked the look of the melee-variation better and so built my iteration in that direction. To give you an idea of how good this build is, it actually looked like it had a shot at killing Mogdrogen’s Avatar in Act 4 at under level 60 (I got him to ~60% health before I messed up and died).

    The Deceiver build I used was inspired by the Abomination Devotion. That’s it. I saw that constellation’s abilities and wanted something that would be effective with it and so theory-crafted this end result. I also thought up a second, Flamethrower-centric build for the class combo… but I don’t think I’m ever going to actually play it.

    Another forum build I liked happened to be a Cadence-centered Deathknight, though I thought it might ultimately work better with Beronath’s Shard. I finished Act 4 with it before I found the Shard’s blueprint though, so my version is currently more in-line with the original (note that the weapon is from the Blademaster’s Act 6 run and I was using a nearly as effective Soulsplitter in Act 3). What stands out most about this build, besides the insane Cadence-damage output, is that Spectral Wrath alone passively massacres most of the enemies that attack you.

    The Spellbinder came about simply because I found a ton of gear that enhanced both Aether and Vitality damage. Although ultimately I want this character to make use of Drain Essence, without the Uroboruuk gear it just doesn’t do enough damage. Replicating Missile and Devastation are enough to wreck enemies though, so that’s fine for now. If it doesn’t work out I’ve got an alternate Devotion setup and an idea for a Diviner version as well (though that would probably be a bit too similar to the Apostate).

    Near the end came a Reaper, which was one of the forums’ ones I modified. While far more effective against undead than a similar character I used in TQ, those enemies do tend to survive longer than others against the massive amounts of cold damage this Bone harvest-focused build can dish out.

    The penultimate character was also a build I found on the forums, for a Crucible-decimating Purifier. I have not actually tried Crucible yet, but I figured I should have a character that can handle it. Regardless, they currently look like this and do indeed lay waste to large swathes of enemies.

    Last was a Druid. At first this was meant to be a dual-wielder, and I in fact did play through nearly all the game up to this point dual-wielding (using the relevant Relics), but ultimately the reliance on Critical Hits along with how otherwise unhelpful the necessary Relics were to the build’s theme made me do a slight re-calibration into a more conventional caster setup. You may notice I have both Savagery and Shard of Beronath. This is intentional. Originally I just had the Shard, but then thought… why not alternate the two and have both? So I did and stuff just melts.

    And that’s all the ones I’ve played so far (though I do have vague ideas for a Witch Hunter, Commando, Trickster, Magehunter, and Elementalist, along with a Tactician designed for a Hardcore playthough). You may have noticed that most of them make use of the classes provided by the Ashes of Malmouth expansion and so I obviously suggest picking that up along with the base game. While the classes alone are great, the two additional Acts it adds are sizable and add quite a bit of content.

    I’ll close this with some tips (I kind of want to write up a mini-walkthrough of some sort):

    • Aura damage (e.g. Night’s Chill or Spectral Wrath) will trigger equipment ‘On Attack’ effects.
    • Shift-clicking in the Stash screen drastically speeds things up.
    • Keep all your components and monster parts in the Shared Stash for ease-of-use across characters.
    • Not every destructible item highlights; furniture for instance.
      • Bookshelves in particular are worth destroying if you want to collect all the Lore.
    • Most choices have only minor differences.
      • The Act 1 Cultist Saboteur quest, Act 3 faction choice, and Act 4 Aetherial Witch quest being notable exceptions.
    • Siding with Kymion in Act 3 is the only way to fully explore every map.
    • While you can visit East Marsh and the lower levels of the Steps of Torment in Act 2, it’s most efficient to save them for Act 4.
      • Same for Port Valbury in Act 3.
    • There’s no reason not to play with Veteran Mode enabled (unless you’re playing some kind of Duelist gimmick build).
    • Expect to reach level 60 by the end of the default game content (Normal+Veteran), and level 70 by the end of the expansion.
      • Devotion Point totals for the above are 28 and 33.
    • Different Acts have different enemy concentrations.
      • The Act 2 areas are the only place to find Cronley enemies and also have the highest concentration of Undead.
      • Act 3 has a ton of Beasts along with a great Aetherial farming area in Port Valbury.
      • Act 5 is also full of Beasts.
      • Act 4 (and to a lesser extent 6) is the best place for Chthonics.
      • Act 6 is the only place to find Aetherial Vanguard.
  • Elminage: Gothic

    There are two kinds of difficulty, fake difficulty (primarily arising from having the adversaries cheat) and real difficulty. This game unfortunately includes both varieties in a particularly tedious and hassle-filled combination.

    On the one hand it features enemies that can do all the same things your characters can (including instant-death attacks) in great numbers (encounters range up to groups of 18). This is real difficulty. On the other… it also gives enemies abilities your characters can’t possess (even if you Summon Contract them; such as formation switching), gives them infinite spell casting, resets your attributes to the racial (not class) minimums if you multi-class, has equipped items reduce your free carry space, completely disallows resting outside of town, and restricts having a basic map to a specific spell/item (L1 Mage/Magic Map). That’s all fake, artificial difficulty.

    The two real deal killers are the map system, since the environmental graphics are incredibly bare-bones and floors are filled with miles of identical walls and doors which inexplicably auto-close behind you (more fake difficulty), and lack of a dungeon-based resting system which makes primary spellcasters dead weight most of the time… unless you had the fore-knowledge to make them Dragonewts for the Breath attack. It also doesn’t help that leveling is unexciting; apart from gaining new spells (which you’ll rarely use in normal encounters) the only other useful level-up abilities come from ‘mastering’ a class at level 26+.

    If all that wasn’t enough though, there’s also the technical issues. Sometimes left-clicking won’t work as a selection command (such as when transferring items between characters) and you have to use the relevant keyboard command instead (Enter by default), using the ‘repeat last round commands’ function does not repeat the character ordering if you set it, the identify/disarm traps menu is a clunky mess, and the town menus are an unintuitive labyrinth.

    So no, I don’t think I’ll be playing any more of such a highly random and deliberately antagonistic game. Some resources if you decide to attempt it:

    Useful Information and Walkthrough
    Cheat Engine Table (GoG Version)
    Age Stat Growth and Spirit Pact Information (GoG Version)