Resident Evil 5 (co-op)

This game again

So some year ago I finished of Resident Evil 5 and commented on the co-op, now, I played the whole game in co-op-mode together with my younger sister. And it was fun. Especially since we had access to unlimited ammo and all that for shotgun, machine guns and pistols (and unlocked it for a rifle on the way) meaning we just threw out all ammo and blasted at our hearts content. I put us on the normal difficulty and it was easier as two players since it was full control of the characters and not caring about the safety of the other in the same way as one person play. The game still has some bullshit gameplay I've come to realise during a second play-through. First the damn truck in the beginning that kills you more than once as you try to shoot the driver. Hate it. Second the run sequences avoiding the Ouroboros and the rolling stone. Quick-time event insta-death.

And now to the most annoying thing about the local co-op. The split screen is horrendous before you adjust to it. The screen is split in two, but since the widescreen would mess up they shrink each screen and place it diagonally of each others. Now, since we played it at my parents place we used their TV. And it isn't small, but goddammit, it was still hard for us to see. And no way to adjust after your own liking. 

So all in all, it has diminished somewhat, but playing with a partner makes it enjoyable on a completely different level. Maybe we should try hard mode with the acquired gatling gun. And I would gladly play it on Switch  together with Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, 3, Code:Veronica and 4. Maybe 6 if they give me local co-op.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

The sequel... that is the third game in the series?

144 hours. It took me 144 to finish the main story. I could have done it some 10 hours earlier, but the game threw me for a loop when I was at level 77 and the last boss at 70. So since he killed me at full health with one attack I grinded to level 86... and got my ass handed to me again. So I looked it up and it is of course a puzzle boss where you have to use the special chain attack. Which I got the hang of around hour 100, thank god for that, otherwise this fight would have been horrible. But other than that, it was good.

So story is that you play as Rex, a kid salvager that gets hired by this group of drivers to get a ship in the cloud sea. A driver is someone controlling a blade which enhances attacks and is personified weapon pretty much. While on the ship you find a sealed blade which turns out to be the aegis, a legendary blade that came from the top of the world tree that the great hero Addam used 500 years ago to defeat Malos the evil blade bent on world destruction. The battle destroyed two of the great titans which is what the people of the worlds live on. Rex opens the seal and is killed by Jin, one of his employers and apparently they are Torna, a terrorist organisation that hunts for blades, named after one of the fallen titans. As he died Rex appears at a place called Elysium together with a red-haired girl named Pyra, the same girl that was the aegis. She will bring him back to life if he promises to take her to Elysium in the real world, since this seems to be a dream state from her memories. He comes to life, save Pyra from Torna and escapes on his "grandfather" titan together with the gormotti girl Nia and her blade Dromarch who couldn't stand Tornas bloodshed and defected. They end up on Gormott which is occupied by the Mor Ardainian empire that looks for land due to their titan slowly dying, which causes frictions with the kingdom of Uraya. Meanwhile Indol, a Vatican like organisation, tries to balance them. In Gormott they are hunted by the imperial soldiers and the Grand Inquisitor Morag, older sister to the boy emperor, who later joins them together with the nopon inventor Tora that created the artificial blade Poppi. The last member is Zeke, prince of Tantal, an isoloationist nation. Their goal is to reach Elysium through the World Tree.

Look at the view!

Now, the gameplay is pretty much the same as the other Xenoblades, but with the blades system. Blades have different weapons that you can switch around mostly like you want. Most blades are the same different rotaation of character models, but there are unique once you can get, either by random chance or through story/side-quest. Good and bad, I like when it happens and in theory can make every playthrough uniqe depending on which blades you get since you mostly will use the special once if you can since it's more important to level them up. And that's the problem since certain quest you need the right amount of skills that only the special blades have, and it gets annoying when you need to grind for them to get them. Especially when the bonding scene takes forever (until they apparently patch it away in a week, which is to late for me). Good music when you get them as well. Most music is rather good, and I got the soundtrack with the special edition.

Love the package, but it's huge!

Now, the story is basically get to the finish line. At a point near the end I actually didn't know who the bad guy was. Not that there were candidates, but I understood all their decisions. Torna is led by Jin and Malos, Jin being a flesh eater (cannibal blade) who ate his driver as the last act as she was dying to not be returned to the core crystal and loose the memory of her as Torna was being destroyed by Indol led by Amalthus. Malos is the aegis Amalthus stole from the architect that is the god of this universe and share Amalthus lust to destroy the world, but the reason Amalthus believes that is because his mother was killed as she protected him from slavers (?). So Malos isn't really responsible for his actions since he is influenced by Amalthus. I feel sorry for them. You get to see the other Torna members as outcast since they are flesh eaters and shuned by society and even though they instigate conflicts and destruction, I can't fault them. The world is shitty. And don't get me started on the political subtext. Indol houses a refugee camp from the conflicts around Alrest (mostly between Mor Ardain and Uraya that is getting closer to war), but at the same time Indol is the ones supplying core crystals to the nations and registers every owner perpetuating the cycle of conflict. And therefore easies their conscious with providing the camp, but complaining that it defiles the square they set up. Was someone saying the refugee crisis of 2015 and onward? It's f***ing brilliant! It's clearly the western world taking in the refugees and still selling weapons to the waring nations of the world and it furthers conflict between those living near the refugees camp in the western world. Now, it's a bit more complicated in the real world, but a short summery it works brilliantly.

This tipped me of he wasn't the nicest pope

In the end you fall below the cloud sea and sees the destroyed landscape of a modern city and climbs the world tree which is really a space elevator to a satellite in space which explains the aegis ability to conjure laser blast from up high. And here was probably the most interesting twist I ever encountered. And it's because it's the same twist as from the first game. Not the kind, but the same exact twist. We get a flashback to the war that destroyed the world below the cloud sea up in the satellite that tries to be the last line of defence, but two scientist argues over some artefact. It's Klaus and Galeia, the people that became the two titans in the first game. The twist is that this is a post-apocalyptic earth, but Xenoblade 1 took place in a splintered timeline which is connected through a black hole that eats half of the Architects body, the architect being Klaus, the bad guy from the first game that feels the end of his evil side as Shulk and the others at this very moment have arrived to kill him, killing both, and he accept this due to the remorse of causing all this. My mind is blown. It doesn't make a lick of sense for someone that haven't played the first game, but for me and other that played it's huge. And he isn't even a boss, the final boss is Malos in a giant mech that is about to destroy all of Alrest. You blew him up and then of course the satellite is falling apart. Rex and the others escape with an escape pod, but Pyra tricked them to it since she had to stay behind to destroy the world tree so it doesn't crush all of Alrest. But of course she returns at the end like some magical Disney movie. And I'm alright with that.

I don't know why, but I actually prefer X over this. And I felt more invested in the story for a longer time in the original. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game and when the shit hits the fan at the end it's really good, but it felt like it took to long to turn from a run of the mill good vs evil story. The Torna bits should have come long before I feel. Well, better wait for the DLC story content.

A DnD Tale: Keep on Shadowfell - The Return

Finally, after a 2 year hiatus

So after 2 years we're back in action. First a recap, the Dragonborn Paladin Sphinx, half-elven bard Kiera, the rouge tiefling Despair and the warlock high-elf Namiel all ended up in Fallcrest where Despair stole some artefacts that was stolen yet again by some Tiamat cult that have taken it to Winterhaven. Kiera is also asked to find Douven Stahl, an adventurer that found the artefacts during his travels and have gone missing. Sphinx follows the advice of the local Bahamut temple to find a statue they lost and to seek the seer in Winterhaven.  They fought of an invasion of goblins in the Harken Woods together with a local elvish army by disguising Sphinx as the fallen Paladin Wren that disrupts trade to the northwest. And before heading for Winterhaven they looked after Marcie of the Peanut-gang in the catacombs under Fallcrest picking up some magic items to make it an easier experience and they reached level 3. And that is where we left of... then 5th edition happened.

As that felt like a pilot episode, we retooled the characters for 5th edition and starting over from level 1, but they kept the sweet loot. Hopefully negating some of the problems of being newcomers and I believe not really appropriate challenges for level 1 5e. So it starts of on the caravan with 5 wagons on the way north. The gang gets to know 3 people. Murgeddin, the dwarf sergeant that is set up as the guard captain with 5 soldiers from Fallcrest, Selarund Halfmoon, the halfling merchant and Parle Cranewing, informal caravan leader and adventurer that are looking for some kind of keep around Winterhaven. But when they are around less than a day away the leading wagon falls into a hole in the ground and breaks the wheel and stopping the whole caravan since there is no way around it. The gang is sent onward to get help from Winterhaven, but some halfway between they get ambushed by kobolds. The battle goes descent I will say, Sphinx and Tyrell (my personal half-elven bard character) only gets knocked unconscious once. Helps that the kobolds suffer from light sensitivity and have disadvantage or no advantage here or there in using there pack tactics. Not so good for Argent (my other personal drow ranger  character) that suffers the same fate. But he at least got advantage using a bow and both my characters are level 3 to both show better as well as need to babysit the weaker characters. And it works. 

After the battle they enter Winterhaven and tell the guards about what happened so they send out a small militia force to help get the caravan to the village. Meanwhile our heroes enter the inn, arrange some rooms and starts to search for information. It's market day so they find some different shops and people, but they have been pointed by the guards to the elf selling flower who they finds next to the blind beggar elf (which they instantly recognises as the seer, fantasy branding 101). They ask around about the keep and such and are pointed north. Speaking with the seer they ask for the whereabout of Douven Stahl and learns that he is somewhere on a hill of bones where an ancient dragon lies and that they should be aware of a traitor. Asking about the Black Lady (which I substituted the campaigns "real" villain and changed it from a Orcus cult to a Tiamat cult) the seer have an interesting vision:

"I see a black hole, a hole formed by a snake... no, several snakes. They circle each other, five of them, there heads outside the hole. The snakes surround me. The hole... it fills with blood. All that is left is a black gap. It's an eye. It stares at me. The pupil pulls me in... a white light. A white horse with burning hoofs... no, a horned horse, a unicorn with wild starring eyes and flaming mane."

After that she lets out a scream and time seems to stop around them as they are enveloped by darkness. Her voice changes to the sound of thousand voices and they get a warning from an unknown entity about the lords of chaos that are at works and to seek the light and undo the mistakes of the past. They have been chosen as the champions of light and then the voice fades away and everything seems to go back to the ordinary state. They give some coins to the beggar and heads back to the inn to get more information. They find 3 guests at the inn that the innkeeper points toward. The magician Valthrun that Sphinx and Argent talk to (or Sphinx does, Argent isn't much for words) and ask about Douven Stahl that frequently talked to Valthrun about a dragon burial site. He doesn't have much information to give other than local heresies, but when they ask about the keep to the north he tells them what little he knows and writes them a map, but that they have peeked his curiosity and tells them that he will look into it himself. As they bring up the Tiamat cult he just laughs them off. 

Meanwhile Kiera and Despair talks to the other man, Eilian the Old who entered like Norm in Cheers and bribes him with a mug of bear that also points them to the dragon burial site and even write a map for them as well. They sit a bit longer and listens to his drunk ramblings while Tyrell and Namiel  got a pitcher of wine to try to get some information from an elven lady in a third corner. She didn't want to see them so Namiels player rolls a natural 20 on her intimidation rolls, slams the pitcher on the table spilling out the wine and says that, yes, we do want to sit down. Tyrell just grabs his hair in horror. Ninaran the elven hunter tries to dodge most of their questions, but as they begins asking about the Tiamat cult she begins to open up by telling them her suspicion of the town since none wants to talk about the cult and she mentions that she seen horrific displays out in the woods and she even followed to their hideout in the waterfall so she writes them a map as well. 

With all that information they get together and share information and compile the maps all to one large map. Meanwhile guests are streaming in, most from the newly arrived caravan. They find their friends again, but Parle has hurt his leg when he stumbled upon the slain kobolds after the groups fight and buys himself a flask of fine wine and goes to bed. Sphinx talks with the other two about the journey and such and later finds Lord Paidrig, the lord of the village, that hearing about their resourcefulness offers them a job to rid the village of the kobold infestation. Sphinx tells him he must first talk with his fellow travellers but they will tell him in the morning and then he heads to bed. Kiera pays for the rooms by entertaining the crowd while Namiel and Despair on their ends try to hear anything interesting before going to bed.

The next day they discuss the offer from the lord, accept it, goes and tell him and are on they way out when Despair spots some golden candle sticks and tries to pickpocket it, but gets caught by the lord and lady of the house. With a warning he lets her go, but any complaint could land her in the stocks outside. Getting the hint they go shopping. Sphinx sells of his old flail since he got a magic one instead and gets to know the dwarf smithy Thaig Coalstriker. They then head for the shop to pick up some healing potions, being 50 gold each and only four in stock they start haggling. Kiera pulls a fast one on Barwin the shopkeeper and gets all for 25 gold (I need to get back on them for this). After that they leave town and heads for the waterfall and the kobold lair. But walking on the road they once again gets attacked by a kobold patrol, but now we end on a cliffhanger.

They seemed to have a good time. One sister thinks the battles takes to long before they got to do things, but since there is 6 PC and somewhere between 1-15 enemies it can at times take a bit longer. Luckily I put up every encounter in an excel spreadsheet and pre-rolled all my characters initiative and given them the speed, AC and hit points as well as book and page for easy referencing this goes much faster than the last time. Question is when next time is, but we will see about that.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Finally, we put it to the test

The sequel to the smash hit Revelations pushing forward Claire Redfield and Barry Burton on a Russian mining island to fight of the B.O.W:s that taken it over. Back in the day it was an episodic adventure I gather, but thankfully they released it as a whole package (waiting for a Lords of Shadow-collection Konami so I can play that game as well). It work pretty much like the first game, but they enhanced a co-op play-style since you always have a second companion with you. Problem is that they play rather differently. Both Barry and Claire are the damage dealers so the secondary characters Moira Burton and Natalia are used for more puzzle solving. Or as much puzzle solving there is with opening chests. 

Story is that Claire and Moira is working for Terra Save, a clean-up/civilian organisation compared to the BSAA:s military function (in political science we would talk about something like soft and hard power in relations with nation and it's pretty much the same here). At a work party the whole office gets kidnapped and Claire and Moira tries to escape their prison. They find out they are on an island and sends out a distress message. The perspective switch to Barry who arrives on the island and find Natalia, a girl that lost her parents in the Terragrigia attack as he search for his daughter and Claire. At the end of the first chapter we find out that the distress message was sent 6 months ago so basically we play through each area twice, once with each group. Claire finds other survivors from Terra Save and we learn that this virus is T-Phobos, a virus activating by the hormone that produces as we experience fear so they are put in constant stress to force the virus to activate. They all have bracelets that works as communicators (and I assume GPS trackers) for the Overseer that watches all this an with a colour indicator representing in what stage their fear is. Green good, yellow anxiety and red you transform. Now obviously everyones is yellow except the boss of Terra Save... he's a bad guy. And Natalia's is red which would mean she should transform. You get this by reading a note so it's a pretty easy guess. Apparently the boss of TerraSave was a believer in Morgan Lansdale in that the world need to saved by a military force that gets free reign as long as the threats of Bioterrorism exist. 

Now, who is the Overseer? She is Albert Weskers sister that for some reason is gonna use the virus to find an individual with such a strong psyche she transfer her own mind to the vessel and therefore ascend to godhood. Of course it's Natalia, that is what the red indicates and that she doesn't transform.  In the final chapter it's revealed that Claire escaped the island, but Moira was left behind so that is the reason Barry found out. Nice twist. Of course she survives and you can play that part in a separate chapter where one of the few living characters take care of her and teach her to use weapons and survive in the wilderness (you know he dies since you find his dead body as Barry). She apparently once fired one of Barry's guns on her other sister (the sister survived, but in what state I can't tell since she's never on screen) and vowed to never pick up a gun. Until she has to. That also seems to push her colour into red without her turning, accepting her fear of guns I think. The end boss is Alex Wesker, but it's weird since she is a monster and she committed suicide when she believed the transfer of mind to be complete and awaits the awakening. So like in Tad Williams Otherland-series she needs to get rid of the old body, but it apparently failed and that is the reason she hunts Natalia, but the ending is a bit ambiguous over if Natalia is herself or a reborn Alex Wesker.

Overall a good game, but it feels like the maps and chapters are to long compared to the first game. I like Claire and Barry and there is nothing wrong with the others, but I don't like all the points of no returns when I might remember a thing to check, but can't get back or I wandered in the wrong way cutting of my way back. And damn invisible enemies and just weird collectibles they don't explain how to get. And as always want more inventory space and ammunition. But it was fun.

Resident Evil: Revelations (Switch)

They are back!

Of course I had to get the port of Resident Evil: Revelations 1 and 2 for the Switch. A pity it wasn't released physically in Europe and pretty much not in the rest of the world either as I gather the US got the first game on cartridge and then the second, much larger game downloadable only. Now, if I had 2 TB of space on the micro-sd card no problem, but I only got like 120 GB and if 33 GB goes to just two games it will eat up everything else as well. And it's only the first year.

I played it way back on the Wii U (and later also on the 3DS which was it'd first release, but I never finished it). I liked it then and I like it now. I enjoy the story, I like all characters and pretty much all the good guys survive until the end. It's rather optimistic actually. Although I still wonder if they switched the name Parker Luciani around and that he really should be Luciani Parker. Or does anyone have the first name Parker?

Now, how differs this from the older games? First, as you start up you can play a shooting game where you shoot zombies to score points that converts to BP which is the currency for Raid Mode. And that is pretty much the only difference I can see. I assume the graphics are slightly better, but I can't tell. Apparently they also added gyro-aiming in a throw back to the wii Resident Evil 4 game. I played it without, but I can see that easing some problems I can have with shooting in that it takes to long to align the sights with the stick. Also, instead of like me in the old game having to buy special weapons as DLC it is included directly. Thanks Capcom. I've earned it after buying the game 3 times over at this point.

And now I'm waiting for the Mega Man-collection buying the Mega Man games for the 4th time (Wii, Wii U, 3DS and then Switch). At least I didn't buy the collection for the 3DS so I would have bought it twice for the same system and pushing it up to 5 times. And then the Bayonetta-series... Does it feel like I'm buying the exact same games I bought for the Wii U on the Switch instead?

A DnD Tale: Curse of Stradh - Wintersplinters Coming To Town!

And he's bringing his naughty list

So the team take an hour to heal up and investigate the tree that bleeds blood. Hope reminisce about a vampire named Gulthias that was staked and from the stake sprouted a tree. The tree also reminds them of the staff the druids had in the winery. Imiral picks out the axe in the tree and even more blood flows out of the tree. Toby picks it up as the only one used to axes overall. Specially good as it is a magical axe. Now, I'm used to magical axe giving +1 so I might have put to much power since it's only magical and gives extra damage to trees so I might have to rectify it. So they basically feel the tree need to be cut down so Toby stays ready and starts to put the axe in position when they suddenly hear thunder strikes from the east, from Castle Ravenloft. It starts out as a black speck from where thunder strikes, but as it gets closer they notice a black horse with red mane which rides across the sky with a rider with pale skin, black hair and red armour. They quickly hide behind the tree.

The rider rides toward the stone circle and across the storm they here the sounds of a chant and the rider throws bolts of lightning within the circle and twelve figures raises from the ground, 6 berserkers and 6 druids. The druids stand in a circle in front of the statue and starts chanting while the  berserkers circle the druids watching the entrances to the circle. The group springs to action and charge at them. And the first stage of the battle goes ok. Katrina throws a fireball at 3 of the berserkers at first that make her grow a beard. Imiral and Hope uses their long range weapon while Toby and Cygnus forms a wall for the storming berserkers. The first berserker that reaches Cygnus heaves the axe and critical him, but with the help of Imiral and Hope the berserker is slain. Katrina uses Crown of Madness on another Berserker and gains command of him and set him upon his former friends. At the same time she gets even more health back... that was already full. Thanks.

Cygnus on the other hand has to heal himself with lay on hands since that one strike from the berserker bloodied him. During the battle the druids chant higher and higher. As the group push forward Katrina throws another fireball and with it the wild magic surges makes lightning flow from her body hitting one berserker and two druids... killing them all. They round up the rest of the berserkers and druids except one... that obviously is able to complete the ritual as the ground shakes and the statue beams of green light emitting from the chest. Another spell from Katrina turns her invisible and she runs toward the statue to pick up the gem. She climbs it and as the druid laughs like a maniac the roots around the statue begins go upward forming Wintersplinter (Katrina was able to stay on the outside). Imiral and Hope slays the druid while the other focus on the huge tree. Toby and Cygnus slashes with their weapons while Katrina throws of scorching rays on the tree. Which causes her wild magic surge to cast certain spells as an bonus action. Nice! Doesn't help that much when Wintersplinter uses two branches to hit her and Cygnus while the roots grab Toby and Hope. Cygnus tries to free Toby, but misses... twice. Hope on the other hand breaks free from her own and Imiral hits the tree while Katrina is able to throw of 5 scorching rays... that is 10d6 of damage (of course the draw back is that she now ages 6 years so she is 41 years old at the moment). Then Toby on his strength alone breaks free and with his last action swings his axe killing the tree and revealing the gem inside it as the green light shines out from it. Imiral picks it up and the session ends.

A DnD Tale: Curse of Stradh - Running Up That Hill

Let's see if we can make a deal with god!

So they left for Yester Hill, the whereabouts of the druids the Martikovs believe have stolen one of the emeralds that powered their vineyard. They walk for an hour with only finding a blood stained tea-cup that belonged to a child tea set. As they walk up the hill they see lightning strike the sides of a rock mound on the top. In it is a statue that resembles the statue they found beneath the haunted house. Hope the tiefling rouge tries to pursued the high elf monk Imiral to touch it, been he knows to avoid touching things that could be filled with evil. He also is to fast for Toby picking him up and throwing him at the statue.

Behind the ring the trail leads to a small glade of trees with a dead tree in the middle. They see 6 needle blights walking around the tree so they sneak up and attacks them. Killing 5 of them, but Katrina attacks one of them with a burning hand spells that grazes the tree catching it on fire. From the tree three vine blights emerges and the trees around them unleashes 12 twig blights. The battle rages for a minute or two. No one fainted or something like that and the most interesting parts are as usual the sorceress wild magic. And here it delivers first a swarm of butterflies that fly around Katrina with flowers growing around her. Of course it's Barovia so the butterflies are the ones from Silence of the Lambs with the skulls and whatnot while the flowers where dead and crumbling, thorny and whatever. And then the wild magic summoned 6 Flumphs. Some kind of jellyfish creatures from the Underdark.

Welcome to Barovia!

They pretty much run away from the players until 1 minute have been going around so they were sent back to the Underdark. Pretty much everything that happened this session.