Category Archives: Platforms

The Tower’s Elevator Must Be Broken

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I developed a few new social links in Persona 3 today, including the swim club at the school, the student council, and an MMORPG player. I also managed to finally advance my Academics stat one rank, which will come in important since you need a decent academics skill for the exams coming up.

I started getting requests from Elizabeth in the Velvet Room, usually to find a certain type of item or use a certain skill, but one of them involved taking her on a ‘date’ to the mall. Some of her requests are timed, and one wants an item from the 16th floor of Tartarus. I was only up to floor 4 by this point, so I blitzed up a whole bunch of floors in a fairly short time, and fortunately the enemies don’t get too tough too quickly.

The only real trouble was on floor 10, where a boss fight was blocking the way. They were an extremely annoying fight because even after figuring out their weakness, I failed the fight four times in a row. After a perfect opening round and all-out-attack, they then proceed to either focus on me and kill me off in a single round, or hit everyone with their elemental weaknesses and I never got another chance at control (I didn’t have a suitable counter-persona that still let me hit their weakness yet), or my first attack missed and I was dead before I got another turn, or they knock out a party member and send me into a constantly-recovering death spiral, or…

It wasn’t until I finally changed tactics and decided to try and keep two of them knocked down instead of going for an all-out attack that I finally succeeded, and even then it took three more tries before it worked, due to misses leading to the above scenarios again. Oh well, I got them in the end and I’m on floor 11 now with three or four more days before the deadline, so I should be in good shape.

And it turns out Japan has their own sleazy shopping network hosts:

Isn’t Having Multiple Ones A Disorder?

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Having finished a fairly short game, of course it’s now time for an extremely long one, and oh hey, there’s my Persona 3 FES case…

It starts out in a school setting, where you’re a new student and you meet a bunch of the other students, all of which have fairly well-fleshed-out personalities (for an RPG, anyway), like Yukuri the nervous worrywart and Junpei the boisterous, overly-friendly goofball. Time proceeds day-by-day in different phases of the day, including going to classes (where you have to pay attention and potentially answer questions), after-school activities, and hanging out in the dorms in the evening. There’s a one year time limit on the game, but there’s a lot to do each day, so it’s going to take a while.

It’s not just a school simulation game though; it’s not long before the other students are spying on me in my sleep and I learn about the Dark Hour, a period between days when regular people turn into coffins and creatures called Shadows prey on some, while others like us are unaffected. I also encounter the Velvet Room, an otherworldly place that becomes important later on. Suddenly, the students are attacked by Shadows, we’re cornered while escaping, and I summon a ‘persona’ and defeat them. That all takes place in cutscenes, but there is a brief and easy sample battle to mop up afterwards.

Back in the Velvet Room I got a tutorial on personas, learned how they’re tied to the strength of ‘social links’ with other people and that I have to develop those. Back in the real world, the students revealed that they’re part of a secret group fighting the Shadows and I agreed to join them. So, really, it’s kind of like a Japanese version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…

After that we went to check out Tartarus, a tower that appears only during the Dark Hour, and explored the first level of it, getting basic combat tutorials along the way. Afterwards, I was finally able to choose my own after-school activities; up to this point, specific activities in the daily phases had been forced on me, but now I’m able to choose whether I want to study, join a club, spend time in the town, build relationships for the social links, etc.

To round out the night I went to Tartarus once again, and went up a couple more floors, gained a couple levels, found two new personas, and learned a bit more about how personas can be fused together to create new ones. Apparently I’m unique in my ability to have multiple personas, whereas everyone else is stuck with one specific one.

Unfortunately they don’t all look like this…

It Was Actually More Like A Soccer Ball

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I was pretty close to the end anyway, so I finished off Prey this morning.

Picking up where I left off, I finally found a rocket-lancher-like weapon, which would come in handy later on. The levels also continued to get weirder, with one big gravity-based cube puzzle, and an area with portals arranged in a maze-like way, where I took aim at an obscured enemy at the end of a long hallway and wound up shooting myself in the head…

I had to ascend an extremely large tower, leading to another long shuttle sequence that involved landing on asteroids (with their own gravity), more enemies, and some timing puzzles. The voice in my head continued to pester me, telling me that it was letting me live so that it could give me a glorious future soon, but first I had to prove myself in a large room with a puzzle involving getting to the right platform by flipping switches in spirit form.

Endgame spoilers:
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She’s Worse Than Princess Peach

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Prey started out today with just a bunch of level-crawling, including another pack of ghost kids. Along the way I discovered that some of the arcade games from the bar got absorbed and occasionally pop up in the levels, and beating them gets you ammo. Before long there was a boss fight, though there wasn’t really much interesting about it; he just fires a lot and has a lot of health, and I just hid behind some pillars while he was firing.

I’ve also been hearing a female voice taunting me in my head after ‘big’ moments like that, presumably a high muckety-muck of the aliens. And after that I was dropped back to the Land of the Ancients, where the grandfather told me to look for help from other spirits that had already infiltrated the ship. Turns out this really just means looking for certain fire spots as landmarks. Big whoop.

Soon after that was a vehicle section where I got to pilot a shuttle in zero-g, using it to fight some other floating aliens, move obstacles around, and maneuver around some big chambers. Upon landing, I met a group of renegade humans who’d escaped and call themselves the Hidden. Their priestess explained how the aliens ‘harvest’ worlds for food and resources and wants me to help them by killing the ‘Keeper’, and of course it’s not like I have much choice.

I then went and finally rescued Jen in a fairly straightforward segment, but a call for help from the Hidden came in, and they were all wiped out upon returning. There was another boss fight soon after, against two of the same type of boss as I originally encountered, but by this point I’d found a machine gun-like weapon with a grenade launcher that made short work of them. And then Jen got kidnapped again by a floating alien. So, I guess I’m still off to rescue her and will have to kill the Keeper anyway…

And the organic style of the alien ship has taken a slightly disturbing turn:

I Don’t Like (Ghost) Kids

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I only did a couple more levels in Prey tonight, but did get to see some new stuff. I soon had to use the spirit walk to proceed, and it turns out there are symbols marking the spots where you’d need it, which takes a bit of the fun of discovery out of it.

I also picked up a new weapon that has different effects depending on what you charge it with at certain stations, like a freezing gas cloud or a spread of red orbs, which I’ve found most useful so far. There were also pads that change the gravity of the level when you shoot them, leading to a couple simple puzzles involving changing the gravity in the right way.

At a couple points I finally got killed and saw the infamous spirit world that lets you recover from the death. This is what really breaks the game, since you’re essentially immortal and dying just leads to a short diversion before you’re right back to where you left off. Later on I ran across fragments of the bar I started out in, now absorbed into the alien ship, and some ghostly kids altered by the aliens somehow. And right at the end, a bunch of them ganged up on me in what was essentially a miniboss battle.

And the graphics remain fairly good, often flowing naturally between gooey, biomechanical organics and cold, steely architecture. At one point there was an elevator ride with a good view of the ship’s “cityscape”:

Half-Cherokee, Half-Alien-Ass-Kicker

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I completed a couple more areas in Bionic Commando: Rearmed, but the difficulty is getting to me a bit; I just don’t have the patience anymore to sit there and redo a whole level a few times, I guess.

Oh well, having just completed a fairly lengthy RPG, I think I’ll go for something a bit…lighter for the next major game. I haven’t played a shooter in a while, and looking at my list of installed games, I think it’s finally time to give Prey a whirl. It received rather average reviews, but it was dirt cheap when I bought it, and it shouldn’t take too long to finish, so it can’t be too much of a waste.

It starts out in a fairly atmospheric bar, with all sorts of interactive bits like a TV, video games, and jukebox, and as the characters are introduced it’s obvious that the story’s going to involve the main guy embracing his native heritage and all that cliche stuff. And then the aliens arrive, abduct everyone, and I start out in the bowels of the alien ship with only a trusty wrench.

The alien ship has an interesting organic feel to it, with all sorts of bizarre creatures and living recharge stations and such. It does make it a bit hard to tell what’s actually usable or not at times, but it’s still a bit impressive. Moving around often involves portals. They’re not quite as advanced as the ones in Portal since they’re fixed in place and basically just teleport you between specific spots, but the effect of seeing through them is neat.

The first couple areas were fairly linear and easy, though there were a few unexpected surprises, like discovering that enemies can use the health ‘packs’ lying around as well. Or the gravity-generating surfaces that can have you walking on walls or upside-down, and occasionally fighting enemies on a completely different gravity plane.

And then I got ‘killed’, went to the “Land of the Ancients”, learned to use the spirit walk ability to get through obstacles, and picked up a bow, before being dumped back into the alien ship. That’s where I decided to leave off for the night, not yet having had a chance to actually use those abilities yet. From what I’ve heard they make the game a bit too easy, but that’s okay, I’m not really looking for a serious challenge out of it right now.

And It’s Convenient For Grabbing Beverages, Too

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Bionic Commando: Rearmed was released today. The original was one of my favourite NES games, so of course I had to pick this one up.

It’s a remake, but extremely close to the spirit of the original, with the same basic abilities, same overhead map, same level layouts, same mid-transit truck battles… There are various differences though, such as being able to switch weapons on the fly rather than picking one at the start of the level, the minibosses are completely different (they were rather lame in the original), some different obstacle types, you can grab barrels and enemies with the arm and toss them, and new enemy types (I think).

It was a rough start though, since it feels more difficult than the NES version, even on Medium. It seems to be easier to get hit while swinging around, enemies are alerted more easily and move around more, take more hits to kill, and their firing patterns are less predictable. I failed the first area and had to redo the whole thing three times before finally beating the first miniboss, but I think I’m more familiar with the controls and have gone through a few more areas now.

Never Trust A Guy Named Jacques

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After getting my spiffy new sword in The Witcher, I headed to the Old Manor area, where I found Azar Javed and chased him into the house. I had to work my way through the catacombs beneath it to get to him, including one tough fight against a giant crab he summoned, but eventually cornered him.

The first two attempts to kill him failed though, since he kept knocking me down, and I’d started out low on health since there’s no pause after a previous fight. Berengar showed up to help out and redeem himself, but he didn’t last long. On the third attempt I finally remembered to drink a Willow potion to protect me from stuns and knockdowns, and then he was much easier to kill. That wasn’t the end of it though, as I discovered that Jacques de Alsenberg, the Grand Master of the Order, had been working with him.

Yaevinn met me outside and we went to the boat landing to head back to Vizima, suddenly ending Chapter 5 unexpectedly and beginning the Epilogue. Unfortunately I hadn’t yet finished the armour quest or the huntsman quests for the silver sword, so I lost the ability to get them. Oh well.

In order to get at the Grand Master I had to fight my way through the city and sewers, with Yaevinn assisting me, and in the sewers I encountered a ‘zuegl’ monster that was a bit tougher than expected. It attacked with tentacles that had to be killed before the main body would emerge and could be attacked, but would then resubmerge and attack with tentacles again, and it took about half a dozen cycles before it finally died.

Finally, upon reaching the Order’s cloister and meeting the Grand Master… *endgame spoilers*:
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I’m Going To Have To Start Charging Her By The Curse

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I had to revert to an earlier save in The Witcher tonight, slightly before the end of Chapter 4, so I could get a devourer tooth before leaving the area. I also needed the opportunity to access my stored items and grab some herbs since this will apparently be the last chance I have.

The start of Chapter 5 was pretty much a constant stream of fights through the burning streets of Old Vizima and into the swamp area, with a slight pause to bonk an elf before I could truly start wandering around freely. In the swamp area I completed a couple more quests, became the fistfight champion, and spent some more skill points on pumping up the Igni spell, after hearing that it’s extremely useful at full strength.

I also found the crypt where the princess/striga sleeps during the day, went in to check it out, and got locked in there by Velerand, forcing me to deal with her. I went for the peaceful solution by waiting her out (taking only a few blows in the process), lifting the curse and curing her once again. I also found the second piece needed for the armour quest in the crypt.

And after returning to Old Vizima, I found the dentist and turned in the teeth I’d picked up along the way, completing his collection and getting the best steel sword in the game as my reward. I’m going to need it too, as there’s still Salamandra to deal with…

Fortunately, Witchers Are Patient

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It’s been half a year since I set it down, but I finally got back to The Witcher today. I was originally tempted to wait for the massive rework patch that’s due sometime soon, but that would also almost certainly require restarting the game (even patch 1.3 isn’t save-compatible, so I’m still stuck on 1.2), and I’m already too close to the end. I’ll probably buy the special edition retail package for the extra physical goodies and just hold on to that, to be played again sometime in the future.

I last left off near the start of Chapter 4, and I continued wandering around and exploring the nearby areas, discovering a village wrapped up in an upcoming wedding. Of course, there was some intrigue going on, and before long, a few deaths kinda derailed those plans… I eventually reconciled the dead sisters, and all was, uh worse in the world. Elves came and took the village hostage, Order knights attacked and I was forced to fight them, and Alvin vanished.

Oh well, at least I got a couple spiffy new swords, defeated a water god, and got to know the Lady of the Lake rather intimately along the way. It took a bit of getting used to the rhythm of combat again, and I kept getting killed by giant centipedes for a while, but I think I’m caught up now. It still crashes far too often though, even after increasing the user memory limit.

Now I’m headed back to Old Vizima for Chapter 5, which is currently burning due to a non-human rebellion. My goal is to finish off Salamandra for good but the king has also returned and wants my help in removing the curse from his daughter (who tried to kill me at the end of Chapter 3, remember) again.