Lunar: Silver Star Story (Lunar Remastered Collection) (Switch)

 

I mean, look at the helmet!

A remaster of the first game in the Lunar-series. Originally for the Sega CD (and was released on the Sega Mega Drive Mini II in Japan, but due to disagreement on payment it didn't follow with the western releases), later ported for Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn and then remade for the modern consoles. Fun with some old-school JRPG. Tells the story of Alex that wants to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Dyne the Dragonmaster. Together with Luna sets out on an adventure, first helping their friend Remus get a diamond from the White Dragon that lives in a cave near by and then taking it to the closest town to sell it. The story balloon from there where you meet Jessica, the daughter of the beastman hero Mel and her on and off boyfriend Kyle the bandit. You also meet Nash that takes you to Vane, the town of magicians. There you meet Mia and are set out to look into the fake Dragonmaster... and then it turns out that the magicians leader have been usurped by an imposter that have you arrested. Mia breaks you out and you unveils this conspiracy. Ghaleon, one of the four heroes joins you towards the white dragon to ask for help.

Well, turns out Ghaleon is the real mastermind behind it and captures the white dragon, kidnaps Luna (over the course of the game singers have been kidnapped so one would assume that's why they got Luna since her singing have magical effects). Alex is saved from the cave by Laike, a friend Alex and Luna met while leaving their town of Burg. Setting off with the other friends Alex looks to complete the trails set by the other dragons in order to become the Dragonmaster and stop Ghaleon. Turns out that Luna is the reincarnated goddess Althena who gave up her life to ensure that humans had free will and stood on their own legs and didn't depend on her. Ghaleon was a bit more cynical and believed humans needed a strong leader and if Althena wouldn't do it he was the one to carry the mantle. And Laike is Dyna and the world is probably our moon and the blue star they have as a moon is probably our earth they escaped from in ancient times when humans almost destroyed themselves. 

It's a standard JRPG, I think they modeled it after Final Fantasy IV since Alex turning into the Dragonmaster feels like Cecil becoming a paladin. Nash betrays you like Kain and Ghaleons armor looks  a bit like Gobbels. And their is 5 playable characters at the most! Well, it was fun. One town was the frontier town of Pao where people got sick as the evil songstress sang a song. I think that part is inspired by the Song of Hiawatha or one of the stories based on Hiawatha's life since after watching the feature on Disney's Pocahontas where they described how they tried to adopt it since Walt Disney's days (beside the kid Hiawatha short that spanned a lot of comics) and then ended with Pocahontas... would have preferred the supernatural Hiawatha than Pocahontas to be honest.

It was fun. Music was good and the remastered wide-screen graphics looks good. They have a lot of animated scenes introducing characters and pivotal moments in the story and they due their job, but at times the designs feel a bit generic... and the Dragonmaster armor looks kinda goofy. What is that helmet? It's just a cap! Voice acted and I get it's a new dub to avoid the problems the Sega Mega Drive Mini II had. The ending focused a lot on Alex and Luna's love for each other's and it's sappy, but I'm weak for this romantic moments. As Alex said, the human spirit will prevail. And for future me, remember that when you get into the thieves guild to return and get the locked chests since when I recalled it in this playthrough, two of them was locked out.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (Switch)

 

I can do the duck-walk!

Like most people in the know, I've heard about the unholy triforce, the three Legend of Zelda games that wasn't made by Nintendo, but contracted out to Philips in a deal for when Nintendo looked for a CD-add on for the Super Nintendo that first lead to the creation of the Sony Playstation that would become their biggest rival and then the Philips CD-I, which pretty much went out and died as a game console. I think I saw the AVGN episodes on the CD-I first, then PeanutButterGamer, then Game Grumps (which I still watch from time to time) and then Pro Jared play through it. Why bring all this up? Because Arzette is a game that tries to recapture the feelings from those game. 2D action platformer with animated cutscenes. What I've seen Arzette is actually a much higher quality, both in graphics and gameplay.

Story is that 10 years earlier Arzette and her friend stopped Daiumur the evil demon lord, and trapped him in a book with the jewel of Faramore. Now, the traitourus Duke have gathered the Jewel and released Daimur and plunged the world in darkness. Arzette sets out once again to protect her kingdom and fight Daimur. And then you go around finding beacons to uncover new lands, find bosses that carry the pieces of the Jewel and helping people to boost your stats and such. Took less than 4 hours to finish the whole game (including 100%). Also finished Hero Mode which as I suspected was a bit frustrating, but it at least forced me to do things in right order since you just couldn't tank the damage or luck out on some kills. You pretty much needed the edge to finish certain parts of the games. That of course unlocks even harder modes and I think I will stop here since I play to have fun.

Overall it's kinda fun, both to see the nods to not only the Zelda-games, but also the Hotel Mario game with the bonus room where you close doors and such. It pretty much alludes to that Arzette is supposed to be Zelda, and her bard friend would be Link. Daimur is obviously Ganon, greenskin and all as well as references to his capture in the book like in the CD-I games. You also got the original voice actors for Zelda and Link from the CD-I games and they do a pretty decent job. I enjoyed playing it, never got difficult, but that could also be for me playing with health restores since I just couldn't be bothered. 100% also gives you a short little cutscene at the end with the book flipping the pages while a woman hysterically laughs. I assume a new enemy since Daimur got killed off. The end credits even spelled out that Arzette will return so I've got something to look forward to.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition (Switch)

 

Don't worry about the future
It's all right
Because a better picture we can't find
Just like our dreams
They've got to be free
So, Anyway, Let's move on

Finally it arrived, the remaster of the best Xenoblade Chronicles-game! 150 hours later and I can say I pretty much say I did a whole lot better this time around. I checked my old save and realized I only finished something like 65 % of Mira, but in this version I reached 97-99 % (pretty much only super-bosses and conditional Tyrants that I at the moment just doesn't care about right now... or rather, I can't get a one-shot build on my skells to work). Now, why did it work better? Mostly since I knew FrontierNav and could place the probes a lot faster. I saw myself boasting about 6-7 million credits on the Wii U, I reached almost 90 million this time around. Also, 100 000 Miranium and constantly 350 000 credits on each tick (I might have looked up a more efficient way to place the probes, but I fixed 100 000 credits and 30 000 miranium on my own). I also noticed I didn't fix the missions I thought I had, like Blood Lobster. I'm a bit more thorough this time around overall it seems. 

Changes then? Well, for one the gamepad wasn't here so they put it all on a button to bring up the map. Felt like second nature the first time I tried it so it worked beautifully. They added 4 characters and allowed you to change them from a menu instead of finding them in their habitat. Which allowed me to actually get Lao to the max with affinity. They also put away a lot of the restrictions on who to bring on certain missions and made sure all characters leveled at the same time so no need to grind each and everyone. On one hand, makes the game a lot faster, but I kinda feels it destroys the narrative a bit since they don't actually need to be there (still shows up in the cutscene) and since you don't need to put in the time with the characters I didn't get to know them as much this time around. 

They also added some story chapters after the final of the original game. Another phenomena happens that seems to destroy the planet and as Team Elma tries to figure it out a skell shows up that is the original Ares Prime that the other skells are based on. It was thought destroyed in the intro cutscene from the original game, but apparently it ended up between dimensions together with its pilot Al. Al is the last human since he needed a real body to pilot the Ares that Elma had brought from her planet as it also was destroyed by the ganglions and ghosts, the two warring sides that ended up destroying Earth. The ghosts reappears here led by the Old One, the ganglions god. He is named Void and captures the Ares Prime and steals it's power core. Al and Team Elma prepares the humans and allies to evacuate Mira since Void is destroying the whole planet. They still need the cores for the Ares to make a dimensional jump since that what happened. As Earth was destroyed the whole universe followed, but the White Whale made a dimensional jump by mistake and that is why Mira doesn't exists on a star map. Al figured it out trapped between dimensions and is the shadowy figure that found Lao after the original game, apparently in-between dimensions include the after life. Anyway, they learn that Void created the ganglions... and since then they fight each other? I think the plot starts to loose me.

They finish preparing the escape so all evacuate on the redesigned Ma-Non ship and flies toward Void and his continent to get the power core. Team Elma is scattered so you have to collect them all, get six spears that are used to bind Void's power... you know, it sounds a bit like the final battle against Vecna in season one of Critical Role? Kinda fun then that Matt Mercer is Lao, and Doug is... Dogi. And isn't H.B. Albert Wesker? A pity that the new voice actor for Vandham doesn't really match him. Anyway, do all this and fight Void who seeks death since he was a Samarian that was punished to eternal slumber for... some crime. He dies, the orbs are returned and Al in the Ares Prime take his place on the ship to make the jump. Team Elma buy him time to gather enough energy. Your avatar is furthest away destroying the ghosts while the order to retreat before the jump is told. It's really intense if the avatar is going to make it or not, but it does and we're off, ending up in another dimension.

On one hand I kinda dislike this since it means Mira gets totalled and nothing really mattered. I can't wrap my head around why the Ganglions fought the Ghosts or why Void fought the Ganglions. I expected Lao to return and it feels a bit like a cop out that the post-credit scene of the original just was the after-life and such. On the other hand, if this sets up for a sequel I'm all for it. They ended up on another planet and the most fun of the original game was running around and exploring this unknown world and setting up probes to gather resources. You need another planet and it felt big back in 2015 (or 2017 when I played it), but with the open world games of Zelda and other things you need to go bigger and Mira only had those five continents... well, I know we have 5 continents as well, but still. A lot of water on it as well. If they build on that I can see it working out, but if this is it, I'm not gonna lie, feels a bit underwhelmed for waiting 8 years for a continuation. Especially since my interpretation was that they built up the planet to be something akin to a living organism that caused all this, but no answers there, and we didn't get why the mimeosons survived or who Cross (our avatar) exist. I mean, our avatar can pretty much be another being that happened to take over a mim for all I know.

Final part, it was fun to replay it and see the allusions to the twists and I actually double taked on some conversations when they mentioned the mims and such before the "reveal" and I can se how I didn't caught this before. I also played it as a woman this time around (I actually restarted since I played the first 4 hours as a guy again, but that would have been boring, besides she looked a lot better in the bikini, a damn shame about the boob slider... I mean... let's move on). Knowing some of the deaths and how to avoid them is kinda fun and now we have three save files compared to the original one. And the online, since you have to pay for it now they changed it radically. You get reward tickets every day meaning you can play it offline from start to finish. They added missions that reward you with miranium, battle points, affinity and so on so no need to fear. This is the ultimate version of this game. I still recommend it since it still felt awesome, although can't beat the highs from the first time playthrough.

A DnD Tale: Tomb of Annihilation - The All-Seeing Eyes (Part 10)

 

Grave robbing is always a risky business.

So we continued onward through the third floor. No preparations from my side, I just winged it as we went along since I had forgotten we were supposed to play. Still worked rather well. We continued from the last area and entered a room where there was a shrine with things and frescoes. Immeral, caught by the greed of Nangnang, began pocketing some gold coins and all that. My sisters couldn't bother trying to solve the riddle of the room so they forced Destinova to use the knock spell to open Kubazan's  sarcophagus . That of course triggers the trap that unleashes a prismatic ray on all the players. Destinova got it worse since he dropped 39 HP. Freya snapped up the treasure inside the sarcophagus. Some bracers that (I now realizes we never added the benefits from the actual item... oops!) allowed Kubazan to enter her and become pretty much the same as the other possession, but now more heroic. That and she got 23 in Strenght meaning the bard is now the most buff player of them all. 

Next room was just some tapestries and a boar head that enchanted Freya to put her head inside the boar head. Hope jumped her to keep her away from the boar while Immeral breaks open the head after seeing some treasures inside the mouth. They went back to the staircase and went to the northern corridor where they saw a jackal head were they witnessed a scene where a dwarf enters a room with a sarcophagus and promptly gets eaten by locust like in the Brenden Frasier the Mummy. Not being able to do anything they head to the eastern corridor. Turns out to be a corridor with running water. Freya finds to secret areas, one with an eye she pockets and another crawling space. Immeral meanwhile triggers the trap that floods the area and damages them all. They made Destinova use control water to get past the waterfall and find the other eye on the other side.

They then see the room where the dwarf died. Immeral enters alone, robs him and then walks on the ceiling toward the sarcophagus. Sucks to be him, they were forced to solve the riddle, which was basically realizing that at the door there was a mechanism that told them which floor to stand on to not trigger the trap until they reached the sarcophagus. And then it disarmed the trap. They found a horn belonging to I'jin, the rabbit god. No more evil and selfish. They continued and began looking into the crawlspaces. Freya headed in first and triggered yet another trap and was caught as the whole area rotated. After a while Immeral and Destinova headed in and noticed a body in the middle of the crawlway. Immeral rushed forward and triggered the trap again, releasing Freya.She got out in the water corridor and headed back to Hope. They went and got the gold sarcophagus of I'jin and heated it up to form it into a ball to use as a trigger of the trap so that Immeral also could get out. The body had an eye as well, and they begin to realize that they probably need every eye they can find. 

Next room they find is a room where Hope enters and there is a shadowy figure in front of her. They experiment until they realized that it was a mirror shadow of the first person that entered the room. They also got that the font with the green goo probably hid something, especially when they got it was an illusion. At least they also caused the others to get damaged by seeing the visage of the shadow figure, meaning Destinova now blacked out and was healed back to 17 HP. Great. In the goo they found another eye.

Next area was south of the water corridor where they had floating platforms and I don't know if I read it correctly since with the push from Kubazan Freya just jumped on to the platforms while Immeral ran over the walls and pulled the lever after listening to I'jin which unleashes the winds of madness. Hope begins screaming and crying on the floor while Immeral passes out. It opens the hands of a statue that allows Destinova to get the eyes inside. Freya just stod at the platform... I don't get how she wasn't affected. She jumped over the platforms and turned the lever again. This time Destinova pulls out a rope to tie Immeral up since even in this form he is a liability. Next room... the golem pit. Immediately they begin turning one of the pedestals and summons the golem from the pit. It dies within one round so they can search the pit in quiet. Especially since Immeral can walk down the pit without using the teleportation pedestals. They continue through a corridor and finds a mirror and ten holes for the eyes they have been gathering. And here they spend the longest amount of time arguing what to do. They put in the eyes and notices their reflection getting sicker. This for some reason scares them so they begin thinking there must be a certain order of the eyes so they pull them in and out trying to see if anything changes. It doesn't and in the end Immeral grabs a cloak or something and holds over the mirror so that they won't see it while putting in the eyes.

Finally inside they notice the floating sheet, Kubazan urges Freya to attack it and with the scream "Kubazan have never failed me" she rushes forward with her spear and tries to pierce it, but the sheet flies away revealing the black orb that magnetize the spear to it and gets stuck as it lifts and rotates with Freya holding on for dear life. Hope and Immeral begins picking up some treasures and a voice can be heard in the room and an eye stalk appears and fires a ray at them. And here we ended the session.

Suikoden (PS1) (PS3)

 

Now I get it, the painter painted the cover of the game!

Well, I was waiting for the Suikoden remaster to come for the Switch, but for some reason as of writing it has gone two weeks and it seems to be stuck somewhere. Didn't really bother since I'm waiting for the Xenoblade Chronicles X to come out this following week and that is a 100 hour commitment at least. So I decided to continue the playthrough I started in 2024, but never finished (don't recall why, but it didn't take me 8 hours to finish). Was recommend this by the one driving me to work at the saw mill back in 2013 so I got them for the PS3. Konami's own RPG-series.

So your the son of a high-ranking General in the Empire. The Golden Emperor Barbarossa have been turning evil for some reason and his closest advisor, the sorcerer Windy is whispered to be behind it. One day you meet up with Ted, a friend and after some mission to check the taxes of a northern village Windy intercepts you and kills Ted since he carries the Soul Eater Rune. Before being killed Ted gives the rune to you so now you gotta escape the might of the Empire. You join up with an resistance group lead by Odessa Silverberg and Flik and Victor. After a mission your hideout is found out and Odessa is killed. The rest gives leadership to you so you start the Liberation Army.

So you have to gather the 108 Stars of Destiny in order to stop the Emperor and Windy. It's a fun game and is not only an RPG, but also a base builder and strategy game (although the strategy is kinda minimal). Yes, a strategy game where you take control of the Liberation Army and have to lead them to victory by choosing the right attack or use special things like Ninja's to get information on the plans of the enemy, Merchants to make the enemy army turn to your side and so on. Fun distractions, if it wasn't for the reason that your 108 Stars of Destiny can die in the battle for some reason (seems mostly RNG). 

Really, the most trouble with the game is probably the 108 Stars of Destiny. You gotta collect them all, but of course some of them are missable or hidden behind side-quests and so on. So I used a guide through it all. Maybe when I replay it on Switch I might play it more legit, since it was so slow on the PS1 with reloading and so on. Actually, I spent most of the time gambling with Gaspar to accumulate enough gold to keep the Stars of Destiny you could take with you upgraded in armor and equipment. A pity that the max amount was only 999 999, but it at least forced you to constantly use it since the end-game allows you to hit that amount fairly easy just by battling monsters. 

Cause that cost a lot. Also interesting in that level grinding isn't really a thing in the game. Characters get EXP depending on how tough the monsters are according to their level which allows you to easy level up a character that have lagged behind, but the cost to sharpen the weapons is really step at the end and matters more. But just save/restore the save if you succeed on the gambling and since each time you win you can gamle it all the winnings add up really fast.

In the end I had fun, but as the end credits roll and each of the 108 Stars of Destiny gets a small note like in Skies of Arcadia I just can't feel for all of them since frankly, I've forgotten most of them. Skies of Arcadia only had what, 22 characters in your crew? That's manageable, 108 isn't. Especially since very few of them has any story beside joining. A bit of waste I think. Well, some returned for the sequel which I also have, but I might not finish it since as mentioned, in 4 days Xenoblade Chronicles X is supposed to be released and this took me 26 hours and I would suspect that Suikoden II would take the same amount of time. 

A DnD Tale: Tomb of Annihilation - The Management Don't Approve (Part 9)

Let's speak to the manager!

And the trek through the tomb continues. We start of were we left of, fighting the mummy. Only takes one attack to kill it off from Hope and Freya picks up the mace of terror, and fails her saving throw allowing her to be possessed by Wongo, the Su-Monster. Makes her very rash and violent without care for the others. They only have one room left on the first floor so they head there finding a corridor with a demon face and through the mouth they can see a room with yet another sarcophagus. Now, Freya just jumps in and Destinova follows. Hope pushes Immeral through due to the aversion of the Obo'laku possession. The trap of course works and the mouth champs down on Immeral. It misses so he gets through and Hope follows. Meanwhile Freya have seen a crystal monter with a flameskull inside and gets curious. It begins talking through telepathy and seems to be a lost child who wonders what's happening. She find that boring and is more interested in the sarcophagus which she opens. The others realize that Immeral is gonna be a problem with the hyper cautious attitude so the other gangs up on him and forces him to touch every item in the sarcophagus trying to get him possessed by another god. This one fails and Destinova is pushed to take the staff of the python to get possessed by the jaculi god Moa who always tells the truth.

As they do this the flameskull screams a cry that shatters the crystal case and and aggravates the spiders in the nest so they begin pouring out. They try to take care of them so Destinova nukes the spiders with a fire ball while the others wail on the flameskull. After defeating the first wave they hear even more spiders coming from the burrows around the room. They rush to get out and Freya jumps through first and then Immeral that gets chomped at again. This time it actually traps him. Destinova puts up a wall of force to keep the spiders out and Freya and Destinova tries to pull him out. Freya tries to break the mouth open from the other side with the mace of terror. They get him out and the mouth opens. Immeral shadowsteps across instead of trusting the mouth again. The other crawls through and gets out. 

They head back to the room with the tomb dwarves and tomb guardians to clear the room and find a magical lantern with the spirit of a moon elf named Starfallen that was brought by the Company of Yellow Banners in order find a certain jewel in order to resurrect the elf. They are all dead now and since she can wake up a character that's been downed Freya grabs her and intend to attune. They continue and have now found themselves through secret corridors that doesn't have traps in them. They enter the first room and there sits an old wight named Withers that acts like an amusement park engineer that constructs and keeps the traps working in this place. Freya and Hope begins robing him blind taking every that isn't nailed down... lucky Destinova didn't do the talking since he would probably have spilled the beans. Immeral meanwhile is tied up, gagged and blinded so that he can't try to escape or cause anything. They find some journal belonging to Withers, a spellbook belonging to a Blackflame or something, a manual on clay golem creation and a control jewel for a slaad. They also pull the mask Withers where and the black skull amulet, but they seem to have forgotten about it so I need to remind them next time.

They get to the room with the slaad and Hope uses the control gem to keep the slaad in check. Freya just walks forward and tries to open the sarcophagus, but needs Destinova for help. It's the tomb of Nangnang and they bring forth Immeral and pushes him to touch every item in it. The urn is wasted on Immeral since he just can will away charmed spells, but an egg inside releases the god and after a short tussle Nangnang expels Obu'laku and thank god for that. Nangnang is just cruel and selfish, but everyone prefers that over cowardly scared. They go back to the backrooms and head down to the third floor finding another Tomb Guardian and kills it in one round. They learn that it was standing guard by a lever that it was supposed to pull when people entered a room on the other side of a window starting it to rotate and fills it with gas and so on. They find what I assume is a ventilation thing that they take over to another room where they find a golden skull that Freya just have to touch which curses her with a dead wise-cracking jester that from now on will disrupt them doing anything unless they feed it 10 000 gold of jewels (which they don't know other than it being hungry for jewels). Of course at the moment it has just berated them and pulling bad jokes, but it will be better when it begins disrupting them for real. They searched the room and found a secret door into a corridor and fought two more tomb guardians. After that we quit cause we where tired after something like 4 hours of play.

Doom II (Switch)

 

Where's Doom Guy?

Finally played through Doom II after playing the first game back in... must have been 2020 or 2019. And... it's Doom pretty much. Overall I say this game is harder and not as fun as the original. Music is good, but not as iconic as the original game. Got lost in several stages and the only way I could get through it was using cheats to clip through walls. So yes I cheated. I played it normally until I arrived in a level where you start in a room with several door and you have to survive and figure them out one by one. I did that, but fell backward into a poisoned floor which killed me, so I had to restart but had none of my weapons beside the gun. I got some weapons back, but after being killed two times over I looked up the codes and started playing around.

30 levels and and in the end you defeat the Icon of Sin in order to stop the invasion of earth. A bit more enemies than last time. I got Doom 64 which I might play through since I'm waiting on Xenoblade Chronicles X and I don't want to start long RPG's since I know that will be a 100 hour commitment or I could continue Fantasian, but I still have a negative reaction to that game.