Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
Not much to say about Dragon’s Dogma II to be honest, as it’s effectively identical to the first game as far as gameplay goes. You no longer have to micromanage your level-ups, which is nice, but the camera seems like it’s far closer than it used to be.
Pretty minor differences all told, so if you greatly enjoyed that (or never played it) then you may as well give this one a chance.
The tenth Ys game fortunately takes a few steps backward from the dull cityscape of IX to more resemble the wilds of Lacrimosa.
Storyline-wise it takes place between the first two games and Celceta, and at least up to the fourth chapter doesn’t have much to complain about. Normal exploration is also fine while shipboard exploration reminds me a bit of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
No the problem is mainly the combat; basically the game wants you to use a bunch of abilities with one character, switch to the other and do the same, then repeat. The end result being a hectic button-mashing mess most of the time with only boss battles changing things up, since there you’re going to want to alternate perfect blocks with heavy-hitting dual skills instead. It’s not bad exactly but… I don’t know. It just seems to lack weight.
Another game similar to Slay the Spire, Zoeti‘s key differences are that it features a storyline structured like a visual novel and uses a standard card deck in battles. The former is a bit of a problem due to both the questionable dialog and that you have to skip through it on subsequent runs while the latter is more interesting, tying abilities to poker hands instead of individual cards.
Having skipped Trails Into Reverie after getting burned-out completing four Cold Steel games, I went into Trails Through Daybreak hoping for something a bit different. That was not to be; the only notable difference between this game and the last CS one is that you can now fight and defeat trash mobs on the field map using basic attacks. It’s certainly not bad, but releasing essentially the same game every year or two just gets old.
Cardaclysm is a puzzle-like card game in which the first turn or two are the most important. A single hit to your avatar will cause a loss, so basically you want to kill everything first turn, or play just enough cards so that your retaliation will allow a clear on the second. It’s kind of interesting but also incredibly simple.
Monster Train is essentially Slay the Spire with tower-defense elements. The games are extremely similar and if you liked that then this will be right up your ally. The Last Divinity DLC is worth picking up as well since it both adds more to the base game alongside a totally new (and optional) final boss fight which plays markedly differently.
Songs of Conquest is, simply speaking, a Heroes of Might and Magic clone. If that’s what you’re looking for it should scratch the itch, but I was hoping for something leaning a bit more toward RPG instead of turn-based strategy.
Which brings me to King’s Bounty II, which is both quite a bit like previous installments in the franchise and notably different in that it leans harder on the RPG aspect. Character building is the same except that higher level skills are now gated by alignment choices, army recruitment is the same except now each unit has a maximum number regardless of Leadership score, exploration is the same although now it’s done in a ground-level over-the-shoulder view while featuring far fewer enemy encounters, and finally questing has been greatly expanded (albeit still with the same bizarrely disjointed English dialog).
For the most part I had a lot of fun going through it as a Paladin, but there are some notable oddities like Celestial Warrior recruitment being hidden (the recruiter pops up after a specific quest in an old out of the way part of the Mage Tower) and the legendary armor rewards apparently being randomized (so make sure to save before completing the Julian and Rosaline quest and various Cult of Unity subquests). For army composition I went with:
Spirits of Light -> Disciples -> Bear Riders -> Celestial Warriors
Swordsman -> Cavalrymen
Crossbowman -> Royal Mages
Raiders -> Mercenaries -> Red Dragon
Free Archers -> Dark Adepts
Wasn’t really fond of the Cavalrymen to be honest since they died weirdly often, but you can’t really complain about the Morale boost they give. Had a naked 5,590 Leadership at Paladin level 30 with I assume all totems collected (also 90 Knowledge, 15 Magic Power, and 5 Warfare), meaning at least one rank in the Glory skill is necessary (assuming no relevant equipment) to recruit the maximum number of Celestial Warriors and/or a Red Dragon. Chimera oddly require 2,500 per unit and so need an insane 7,500 to max them out which I’m not sure is actually possible to achieve even if it were worth it.
Recruitment Unlock Quests
Finally we come to skills. At level 30, and having done all quests, you’ll have 128 Skill points and 43/41 Alignment points. So you’ll have enough to both max out one tree and unlock the second tier of the opposing tree, assuming you do the latter first to avoid getting locked out of those choices. I’d suggest getting at least 8 Order points on any character in order to grab Glory and at least the first rank of Training (you can always respec after hitting max level). After that it’s a choice between maxing out either Power or Finesse; the third and fourth tiers of Order/Anarchy are garbage in comparison. I’d also strongly suggest avoiding all the money-increasing skills since you’ll have no shortage of that as long as you explore a decent amount and make use of the post-battle heal function.
Now it’s time to play through as a Mage to see how effective trying to win primarily through spellcasting is. For Paladin I ended up going Fire/Life for the Inspire, Burning Touch, and Inner Flame spells, and so for Mage I plan to go Death/Ice to focus on debuffs and Air for Chain Lightning, Portal, and Summon Chimera.
The A Dance of Masks DLC for WotR adds two things to the main campaign.
The first is a somewhat sizable questline which triggers partway through Chapter V, which happens to include a mostly optional set of arena battles against an assortment of fairly random opponents. Apart from some awkward voice acting, as if the actors hadn’t had time to re-familiarize themselves with the roles (only Regil and to a lesser extent Woljif didn’t stand out), there’s nothing much on the technical side to complain about. Mechanically it’s pretty easy and tosses a bunch of overpowered items at you on top of that. That said, the arena fights on the other hand are a completely mixed bag. While most don’t pose much of an issue, there are some that are just plain ridiculous (like the wild hunt, or that shadow monk if you don’t have Mass Heal). I certainly do appreciate the free Greater Restoration after every match though and the rewards are useful enough.
The other addition is a new quest available to the Devil mythic path if the queen survives the events at Iz. Not really sure what the point of that was honestly as it feels kind of like it’s sectioned off into its own thing and doesn’t really flow well.
I played the above shortly after quickly running through the Gold Dragon endgame and finishing up my Aeon playthrough (made some mistakes there like going Crossblooded when the Abyss STR bonus gets overridden by DoM’s +4 attribute potion and forgetting Transformation) to finally get that Sadistic Game Design achievement.
Aeon’s unique ending is pretty good and the whole altering the past theme is integrated fairly well. Gold Dragon on the other hand is mostly just annoying, with its quests sending you out into the middle of nowhere, but it also has a somewhat unique ending which at least fits the theme. Devil, as it turns out, is even more annoying than Gold Dragon since you have to wait months to work through the event chain that grants Mythic Level 9… and it doesn’t even have a unique way to resolve the final battle.
Final thing to note is that I also cleared the full-power version of Sithhud added by importing a Lord of Nothing save. It is not something I ever wish to do again. The first two phases are fine, no problem. The third though… in the third you have to kill him nine times while he gets slightly stronger after each death and constantly jumps around the arena. I actually almost ran out of Empowered+Bolstered Hellfire Rays on Ember while taking him down.
The Last Sarkorians DLC turned out to be fully integrated into the main campaign. It adds a new class (which is sort of a mix between Druid and Fighter, sacrificing spellcasting for a focus on Wildshape) and a new romanceable companion with a full set of sidequests taking place in a new multi-part location.
The companion is decent enough if you spec him toward Charge damage, though he’ll need quite a bit of buffing support. The sidequests meanwhile don’t feel out of place but are a bit unbalanced in some places. Like, why does that Bloodrager have DL37 Cleric/Wizard buffs on him? As long as you’re geared to handle swarms though (and the companion comes specifically with an anti-swarm necklace, with more available in the new area) for the most part the added content doesn’t feel unfair or forced. And more importantly, clearing it won’t unbalance the main campaign’s progression.
Something that cannot be said for the integrated version of The Treasure of the Midnight Isles DLC. That one is not balanced at all.
It immediately starts you out against level 18 enemies as basic encounters (in Chapter III) yet, bizarrely, also starts out with level 5 floor bosses. Over the course of all three quests, things never really level out with the difficulty continuously jumping around all over the place. Sometimes a boss will be a one-round joke, other times it’ll inexplicably be able to cast spells with multiple metamagic effects beyond its level or have 70+ AC or 30+ Saves. It’s just a massive slog in general and doesn’t really offer any rewards worth the effort besides a boatload of (effectively useless) gold and enough XP to get you to level 20 shortly after arriving in Chapter V.
Can’t speak for the stand-alone version yet, but if it’s anything like Kingmaker‘s Beneath the Stolen Lands DLC then it ~may~ be worth picking up if you enjoy playing around with different party compositions.
As an addendum, I also just ran through the content added by the free Love Beyond Death DLC. It’s… okay? While there’s nothing annoying about it, there doesn’t seem to be much point in actually wandering down there unless you happen to have a character specialized in Earth Breakers (since it includes the only +5 unique one).
The entire reason I had initially picked up Enderal earlier was because I was in the mood to play some sort of magical melee class of some kind. Yet I ended up, as I usually do in those kind of first-person open world games, playing a stealth sniper/assassin.
Still wanting to play a monk-sorcerer kind of thing after abandoning that playthrough I decided to re-install Wrath of the Righteous rather than try to look for something new. Both because I never did finish my Aeon run and never tried any of the DLC… and also since I’m still annoyed at missing the Sadistic Game Design achievement due to ONE ENEMY (Ashberry Hamlet’s ghost).
But first, because completionism is a disease, I had to run through the two stand-alone campaign DLCs so that I could import them for the rewards.
The first, Through the Ashes, is a low-level adventure (level 1-5) that doesn’t give any XP for killing stuff. Which is a big hint that you’re supposed to avoid combat wherever possible (your first companion being decent enough at stealth is another), and use environmental factors to help eliminate what you can’t avoid. It’s okay. There isn’t really anything annoying about it, but nor is there anything about it that calls for a replay.
The second, The Lord of Nothing (which brings you from 5-11), takes a more mixed stance. It’s much closer in style to the main campaign in both good and bad ways. Direct combat is encouraged a bit more here (although there are a couple ‘avoid fighting’ areas), but said combat is not always the most balanced (I still completed it on Core with a ridiculously sub-par Demon Dancer build though). You get access to a wide variety of items and equipment… but will only have enough money to buy a few of them.
Overall I’d say it’s worth running through them once with a Paladin or Dexterity-focused Tank build of some kind, but the replayability value is pretty low.
Chained Echoes is an RPG-Maker styled kind of game with fun gameplay and exploration aspects alongside an absolutely terrible storyline. If I wasn’t so fond of both collecting things (the reward board is a nice touch) and the combat system which restores all resources at the end of each fight (highly encouraging ability usage) I likely never would’ve made it past the point your party members first join up. Just cleared the Flower Fields and Monastery area now and the plot has reached a new low… but collecting treasure chests and enemy drops remains engaging.
As for Gloomhaven, which is the digital adaptation of a board game, I didn’t get very far at all. It reminded me of Darkest Dungeon, except with questionable balancing and even worse resource management aspects. And I hate resource management.
With all eight of my characters now through the Dawntrail main quest, I guess it’s time to post about it.
As far as the storyline goes the first half of the game is mostly good. There’s is a bit of a hiccup in the third area when one of the other throne claimants does a complete personality reversal out of nowhere, but otherwise it’s pretty damn solid. Only one quest to say something dumb in chat and only a couple that require forced emote usage. The second half though… the second half is just a near-constant stream of cringe-inducing nonsense. They even add a child as a major secondary character toward the end (replete with a ‘follow the idiot child through a ruined cityscape’ quest).
Sidequests are on the whole mostly better than Endwalker I think, with not all that many being purposely wasteful with your time. The role quests meanwhile are also pretty solid and even better can be rushed through pretty easily on secondary characters since now only the last quest in a line features a single-player duty.
As for the new classes, Pictomancer has a pretty unique playstyle and just unloads tons of damage to both single targets and groups. Once you get accustomed to when to re-cast the painting spells it ends up pretty fun. Viper meanwhile is basically just a cross between Reaper and Monk, more the latter than the former after they got rid of its damage debuff. If you want a faster Reaper or a less fiddly Monk, this is your class.
As for class changes:
