A Blog with a purpose to discuss important things in life, like politics on multiple levels (mostly swedish), music, movies and video games together with the challenges in my personal life (that is none actually, it's just a smooth ride, or is it?).
Last Sunday me and my family watched the second part of The Hobbit at the cinemas. I liked it, music still great,setting and actors as well. Can't really complain and the changes from the book and other material I have no real problem with (compared to the army of the dead in Return of the King who just rubs me the wrong way over time). Missed certain things like the introduction of the dwarves to Beorn the skin changer, instead we got an action scene, maybe they put it in the extended edition. The elf Tauriel didn't bother me either nor the dwarves who stayed in Lake Town since it helps distinguish them and help flesh out the character of Bard who seemed thrown in the last minute in the book (if my memory don't deceive me that is). The biggest thing that annoyed me though was the ending and
*spoiler*
that it ends so abruptly without killing Smaug show that it was meant for two movies in the beginning and they made three of it. It also makes me a bit worried since it feels like that last movie will be packed with the death of Smaug, the defeat of the Necromancer and the battle of five armies. Not even counting the death of Thorin, Fili and Kili (if they stick to the book that is, the animated version killed of even more main dwarves).
*Spoilers end*
Overall I enjoyed it, but it feels bad that I have to wait another year for the conclusion. Maybe have to watch the Robocop remake in the meantime, sadly the biggest fear I have when I saw the commercial at the theater was that there wasn't a hint about any music and especially not the original main theme. I'm really gonna miss it.
A couple of weeks ago I got my hand on my families old NES 8-bit system and a couple of old games. Didn't work since it hasn't been cleaned... ever and we got it in early 1990's. So I began by cleaning the systems and the games and I got them to work, both those who had worked since day one and even some import games that had problems to work and my dad blamed those games for the future trouble. One of those games was Life Force or Salamander. It's a scrolling shooter where you pilot the Vic Viperand if you have a friend (or a working second controller) the Lord British (or Road British as my manual say). Your planet is threatened by the galactic monster Zelos who plans to devour it so you set out in your ship in a suicide mission to enter the monster and destroy it's heart. So this was also the first time I succeeded and won the game. I flied threw the six stages and won losing probably around 100 lives (using the Konami code for 30 extra lives certainly helped).
What makes this game special compared to all other shooters? Well, two-player mode and the awesome music. Lets begin with stage 1:
Pumping you up for a space adventure, traveling through attacking creatures, teeth and appearing walls (making multiple playthroughs a necessity knowing if you should stay in front or at the back of the screen due to the dangerous environment who appears out of nowhere). That is until you hit a wall with some strange outgrowth. The screen stops scrolling and the wall dissipates and something looking like a brain pops out, The music changes and it is boss battle time:
Most awesome boss music at the moment as you dodge the enemy fire and tentacles or whatever trying to hit the core. Made much easier if you are fully upgraded which just for the first boss is one loop around him and then continuous fire on his eye for 5 seconds. BOOM!!! And then onward. The saddest thing about this game is that it is on the Virtual console... in Japan and the US, not Europe. I feel slightly cheated by that fact. Maybe it will show up on the Wii U VC or the 3DS eshop... maybe even the TG-16 with CD quality soundtrack... although that will lose some of the nostalgic feeling.
This Monday I got the latest Legend of Zelda-game, A Link Between Worlds. Sort of a sequel to the SNES A Link to the Past. I finished it today with a playtime around 20 hours (it was like 18 hours) so it was like double as long as A Link to the Past. Was it fun? Yes, and nostalgic at the same time. If you played the first game you will instantly recognize most of the locations and a couple of the NPC's you run into since they are the spiritual reincarnations serving as the same quest or item givers, like he who was under the bridge and gives you a bottle or the shady looking runner in Kakoriko Village who in this version actually is a thief, but the counterpart from Lorule(the dark world equivalent in this game) having more in common with A Link to the Past shady guy. This recognition is both a blessing and a curse. Since I know the layout I never get lost and I know things someone completely new to the games wouldn't like the certain heart pieces sharing the same spot and how to get to. Then that knowledge can be deceiving as certain things have been mixed around and I guess due to just those reasons.
The story this time is that some villain is transforming the descendants of the sages into painting and it is your job to gather the three pendants in order to gain access to the Master Sword, the bane of Evil. Basically the same story as A Link to the Past. Then you face off with the villain and of course he drags you into Lorule where you have to free the seven sages and they will help you save Princess Zelda. Another difference, and I might add I really good one, is that they introduce the seven sages early so you know them and can recognize them in their painting form, making it a bit more personal when it's your friend and employers son, the witch that helped you and a miner who gave you the strength armlet than seven unknown female sages (as I believe the original had). The only inconsistency I can detect is that Zelda isn't one of the sages even though she was it both in A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. It's not impossible, it makes me wonder though.
Other things to mention is that the game is really easy, I had maybe three or four problems with puzzles and those things was just me rushing a bit too fast and not analysis the situation correctly. For example reaching the red mail chest in the final dungeon stumped me for a while, I knew it was the end of the game, I knew where the chest was, but I couldn't get to it... and I cheated there a bit and looked it up. Had I been observant I should have noted the dark shadows on the walls and realized I needed to extinguish the two flames to see an invisible railing to walk over too. I blame myself for that, but in an earlier example in the Dark Palace I can see the chest on the map, but how to get there, there seems to be no sign on what to do. The solution was placing a bomb on a switch opposite the wall, run back hit the switch that takes you to the wall and then the bomb goes off and the wall turns with you. You can't see that on the screen that they control each others wall and not just the elevator. That was a bit harder. Then we have the 100 challenge, get 100 of the items an NPC need and get rewards. I got to 97 and then stumped on the three last. I knew which areas and the game tells me that they cry if I'm near. These last three? One was in a mini-game area which was fair enough. The other two was in a cave and a hut. I was under the impression they only was out in the open so that threw me off. It didn't feel fair, but then again, did they say they weren't inside of caves and houses?
Lastly, the music. Mostly updated versions of the SNES soundtrack which I like and the intro sequence with the swirling triforce and the fanfare gives me nostalgic goosebumps. Sadly the dark world theme and the boss defeat track doesn't feel as powerful, and in the case of the boss defeat it's too short. They aren't bad, and when the final confrontation is upon us the dark world theme gets an orchestra punch to it. Who would mostly enjoy it? People like me I would guess who can see the call backs to the earlier games. Link is yet again a blacksmith apprentice, the thief girl utters the famous line of "it's a secret for everybody" and so on. In the end probably anyone would enjoy it so have a go at it if you want.
Played the classic RPG Phantasy Star for some time now, released in the amazing year of 1987 it was one of the earliest JRPG's to enter the western world. Funny enough it was one of the latest of the big ones, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. And it shows in the graphic department. Amazing sprites, creatures move and the same for the rolling oceans. That is the good stuff, the bad is more in the story-telling. More or less the end. The beginning is fine and they do tell you what to do in most cases. The only exception being how to get a road-pass so that you can enter the spaceport in order to get a new ally that has a potion that can revive another ally that has been turned into stone. This particular road-pass must be bought in a second-hand shop and the item is referred to as secrets. But does the salesmen want to sell it? No, he wont, he throws you out instead. You must ask him three times which is a bit random. The only way I found out was running out of ideas and do everything again, that's when I noticed he said something else so I visited him again and what do you know, I got the road-pass. The other problem is the end. You defeat the evil dictator and return to the governor that helped you, but instead of praise you fall down a pit and walk trough a dungeon until the end where you meet Dark Falz (or Dark Force if you prefer that). Who is he? I don't know. He doesn't say anything, he just attacks. Afterwards the governor mentions that he was some cosmic horror that threatened to possess him and destroy the solar system. No one else mentions this apparently dark demon. The only hint I could guess pointing toward this is that you were attacked in your dream when you stayed at the governors palace at the beginning of the game.
Aside from that the gameplay mechanics makes the game a bit... boring. You can't decide which enemy to attack which makes it a bit harder when your party leaves one enemy with 1 hp to deal with the others having 100 and still get pummeled by the 1 hp guy. Meaning there is no strategy other than either randomly attack, randomly cast a magic spell or flee (talking to the monster I never succeeded in). Overall an interesting game that at least should be experienced once, if you play it through depends if these games are of your liking and taste. It is a bit dated, but it holds up a bit better than it's rivals of the era... or that might be due to it being more modern than the others.
I was with most of my family in Örebro this weekend to watch a theather show with my sisters boyfriend in one of the rolls. A childrens play with a little viewer participation called "The Ballad of Sigyn the Dragonslayer". The story goes that the audiance is travellers in an inn where we meet two servatns to the throne and a wizard and witch, the last two telling us about the threat of Gnollerna (which I belive isn't based on gnolls) and then let us look on the daily life of the servants through some magic vision. There we see the princess Sigyn, a rebellious princess who wants to fight and a very feminim prince. Of course the conservative king (sisters boyfriend) don't approve this and tries to marry the princess with a knight and uses potions to make the prince more maculine. Of course it doesn't work, but the princess falls in love with the knight although she accidently sent him out to get the head of the dragon who terrorize town. They only find is burnt cape. The king have had enough and sends his son to once and for all rid the town of the dragon. Of course he gets in trouble and it is up to Sigyn with the help of the audience to save him.
Here begins the next session with the audience divided in two and the servants leading them around to different people for aid. The wizard gives all the children magic stones and a spell to fight gnollerna, the witch gives two potions (one to each group), the first a potion to bring people back to life and the other to scare gnollerna away (she also gave my group the gnoll spell since we were there first and finally we met the dwarf smith who gave us a sword and... something else to the other group (maybe a knife), I didn't hear what. During our tour of this part of the city gnollerna attacked twice and we recited the spell to keep them at bay until we could join the other group and then find the prince who was tied up. Using the anti-gnoll potion they ran of and he was released (with the knife maybe). We found the princess and the prince told us that the dragon was controlled by gnollerna. We went to an arena and there the dragon showed up (they did it like a chinese dragon puppet) who the princess killed with the sword. In the dragon the wounded knight was found so the fairy life potion was used. Back too the castle, king apologize everyones happy. The End!
Well, might be time for a sporadic post to commemorate over 10 000 views on the blog. If they are all one of the same person reading I don't know. So what should we discuss today? Well, we can write about the latest meltdown of Swedish politics that went down last week. The last couple of months the four oppositions parties had made a full-scale frontal assault and banded together to stop the raising of the state income tax (I've learned afterwards it was something down annually to counter inflation and all that although it was a bit higher than usual). These four parties were the left party, the social democratic party, the green party and the Sweden democrats. To achieve this, since they haven't planned on putting forward a single budget, was to break out this bit from the governmental budget and get a vote on it. This is seen by many as a break against the compromise that a budget must be voted as a whole as to avoid political chaos when it is a minority government and no one can muster a majority for an alternative. The opposition try to justify it with that it is allowed in order to ensure the finances of the state (which open a real can of worms since what is seen as the best for the state differs greatly and could lead to a social democratic minority government see their budget picked apart, and then we are not even disusing the implications for the red-green parties as they made a deal with the Sweden democrats)
This is the back-ground, the vote was last week and everyone expected the opposition to win since they have a majority. THEY LOST WITH ONE VOTE! The vote was cast and the result was 154 with the government and 153 with the opposition. How was this possible? First of the Sweden democrats had one member in New York for a political meeting and since they aren't involved the weighing principle he couldn't be done with. But the opposition still would have had a two vote majority. The second problem was that the party leader of the left was in the south of Sweden debating the school minister and a communication miss between the left party and the weighing committee failed to take one person away from the government side. They opposition still would have had one vote majority. Thirdly, two politicians from the social democratic party was in the area, but in the wrong building and missed the vote. Not anyone either, the party's stand in for their party leader who isn't voted into parliament and one of the veterans. After 1-2 months of boosting speeches they fail to deliver, becoming the laughing stock and showed some immense incompetence and failure to organize themselves. If the governmental parties are lucky this will throw such big doubt about the oppositions fitness to rule that the center-right parties win for a third time.
We return with the forgotten election as a precursor for the following elections next year, the church election of 2013. First of, I didn't vote since... it's kinda pointless and I don't know anything about what I'm voting for, which parties are in it (of the eight parliament parties there is only three that goes by there own party name, the other is just members of the party in the swedish church) or what they stand for. Doesn't help that I personally think that politicians should not have anything to do in the church to begin with, especially since there only tactic seems to be that people must vote to keep the Sweden Democrats away or when the youth leagues says that Jesus would have been voting for this party or that party (in this case it was SSU, the social democratic youth league). That doesn't really help me to go vote, more likely push me away... you know, rebel against society. But it's over now and the result is in... almost. As of writing there is still two districts left to count, but I wonder what takes them this long since there is just above 690 000 voters in the whole country (out of a voter population of 5,5 million people, also a decrees of over 200 000 from last election) and it was 19 hours ago the election closed, we finished counting the regular election at 1 AM. So people talks about a heightened voter participations, but it's probably more due to a lowered population than the actual 20 000 extra voters. Also the news was all over yesterday about more people in the booths than before and so on... which I call statistical bullshit die to the actual number of voters. My personal guess is that there is less voter booths (or whatever it's called), in the regular election there has to be at least 2000 voters in that booth (I guess to keep the election result secret) and with a loss of 200 000 members that probably means mergers to keep the numbers up in some of them, therefore the belief that there is more voters.
So result is SD doubled, the right-wing parties fall back, unaligned party lists goes forth while the red greens goes slowly upwards. What does that mean? I have no idea. I hardly even care. The only interesting part that this election showed that politicians and political scientist appearing in media doesn't know the routines of the election. How can they not? Should I be surprised when a local politician in Karlstad pressed charges of election fraud on my polling station (HA now I remember) and didn't understood the normal procedure of the election. In this case is the high number unqualified votes that later can be deemed as qualified. Why are there so many? Probably due to people writing the official party names like Folkpartiet, Moderaterna or the Green party, who all three isn't part of the election, but free liberals in the swedish church, burgios alternative (which changed earlier last year which could cause problems for the voters) and green party members of the swedish church. They are not qualified, but in the higher instance people understand what they attempted to vote for and will put that vote there. This was not understood by one of the more prominent professors in political science. How is it not? Has he never worked with the very foundation of the electoral system? This is why there exist conspiracy theorist that believe that we who manage the votes change the outcome by throwing away certain party votes and so on... when not even an educated political scientist bother to know this and all you need to do is sit down when the votes are counted since they are public. That simple! It might be boring waiting to midnight watching people count paper notes, but that is all. It might even strengthen the democratic foundation due to someone even thinking of doing it would have been caught red-handed. I might even say it's more important than go vote since this at least would strengthen the belief in the system compared to everyone feeling unsatisfied due to the election results.
Last update was probably the last for my DnD games for a while, or more likely ever. Nothing due to the group, sadly it's my own fault for not plan ahead when I had the time. At the end of this week I travel home to partake in the yearly crayfish party... and then I will probably remain there. After 7 years, I am forced back home. Not surprising, I stopped growing as a person 2 years ago when I entered the unemployment line, my whole life seemed so put on ice and now the transformation is complete. Broken, devastated. Nothing more than a husk of nostalgia and crushed dreams... damn that's depressing. I need something happy here otherwise its gonna seem like no hope at all. Umm... well... uhh... I'm going to Norway this wednesday! With the municipality, which will be the... last time with them... as well... Uhh, thats not helping.
So what will happen with this blog that have been devoid almost entirely of content and only saved by the weekly DnD summaries. I might start up what it was supposed to do, when it was relaunched in 2009 after a holiday break after my Washington trip in 2008, to discuss politics and the temperature is rising yet again with almost a year to the next general election and only 9 months to the European parliament election (and that's not even counting the church election in a month... I think). Hope we see each other then.
So the war of the cathedral is over thanks to me and the scum destroying the wall cannons, the red redemptions has overrun the rest of the mutant defenses. Avoiding further confrontation (as I only have 1 wound left) we find our way to the Red leader who gives us a small update and let us go to the medic. Were I regain 1 wound... lucky me. Well, better that than nothing like the scum who the medic botched to do anything, especially since he has a trait that makes him lightly wounded regardless of amount of wounds left. We at least can enjoy our stay for a while.
The others on the other hand is still in the heart of the cathedral, when the door closes and a warning is heard:
"Automatic Self-destruct sequence started. 5 minutes to detonation."
Makes you hear this music during this short segment:
The ribbins find a ventilation which they open with a chain-sword and rushes in. The cleric first that gets stuck in a corner and the psycher who has to push her so they can escape. He very sad for that since he got such a good roll on his agility test. As they run away, a silence suddenly breaks out, than a sound wave crushing everything in its way making everything white... than black (then green, then red and lastly blue... that was a joke we made, not that great).
Back in the infirmary we start to feel a trembling, everything shaking and we hit the floor (of course in character cursing the psychics name since that is the logical solution to believe). wall disappears then... silence. The red redemptions started a frantic search and rescue operation for those caught in the blast and we both knew that our friends were in the heart of the explosion. Still in bad condition we set out, me searching with the auspecs to find them. We find a huge pile of rubble with two life-signs in it so we start digging... for 1 hour and 10 minutes due to an extended test we both made at the same time for four successes. Meaning we had to roll 14 times... if you don't take into account we both used fate points as well pushing it to 17-18 rolls.
Meanwhile under the rubble the cleric awakens while the psycher has overstrained himself using so many psychic powers during the cave and raid on the cathedral so he lost conscious. The cleric wakes him up and lights a candle to gain some light. Around them they can hear the sound of digging sounds... not above them, but besides them. Some rodents of some kind. One even rears its ugly head and get a bullet in it from the psychics revolver. To get help the psychic decide to send a flair to alert us... and of course he gets a psychic phenomena, "the earth protest" or what it was called. An earthquake so that can explain why it took over 1 hour to dig in the pile as we fall forward and hit our faces. No damage for us though, it's a bit worse for the ribbins and they take a couple of wounds as their legs gets crushed. Now the air starts to thin out as well and they fall back into unconsciousness. In this moment me and the scum finds a sight of cloth in the rubble and uncovers the psycher who points us toward the cleric who don't breath when we uncovers her. We turn to the psycher who at the moment is our only medical trained personal at the moment and lift the rubble from his kegs and he crawls toward the cleric and does CPR in order to revive her. After that he instructs me to make a spleen for his legs since my intelligence is so much higher than the scum... didn't do him any good though so the scum and I have to pick them up and carry them to the infirmary. They get patched up a little and are rewarded some extra supplies and a truck so we set out to finish the last side-quests.
That includes searching for the friend to the tech-priest that gave me the auspecs. We locate his house, but no one answers the door and it's blocked. The psychic is resting in the truck due to his fatigues so me and the scum push the cleric inside so she can take the rubble away from the door. While clearing away she finds a man dead inside, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. She stops to look under his robes and she sees that one of the legs have been crushed and taken away. She hurries up to get the rubble away and the rest of us can enter. We search the body and the room finding an id-card on the man and a golden case with a chant written on it that the thief pick up. In the blood we discover footsteps going toward the stairs to the second floor. As I obviously recognize this as a sign of the mutant who did the same to me, but instead of a leg it was the arm, Archimedes Noxt. Still severely wounded after a long battle we prepare the best we can as we climb the stairs. While walking we hear rapid metallic sound right at the corner at the end of the stairs. The scum (having the highest defenses, armors and life) walks first at something is thrown toward him and as he fails his rapid reaction he is hit in the face with... paper from a writer hooked into a couple of monitors and auspecs. We find a window that is open and assume Noxt left there a long time ago so I pick up all the papers I can find and bring it with me to the base. On the way back I sit in the back and holds the tome I got from the cathedral and warns the ribbins that it might get out of hand. The psychic gets suspicious and warns me not to read it, telling him straight up that this is the only chance I got I open the book. I don't read it, somehow its content is directly transmitted into my mind. A story of Logar, the first to betray the emperor (I think, I'm not that good with the fluff of this world). Then a huge beast snarls at me in the book, zap, and he is closer, zap, and closer until he bite my throat. I scream in terror and awakens with the book closed. Insanity now risen to 21 and corruption of 5 so while the psychic scolds me I can't do anything else than laugh and talk about the knowledge of the universe I have and how their fears is keeping them away from progress.
At the base the scum returns the grenades since they clearly was to many faulty ones (jokingly we thought we should show this by pulling the pin on the last two we have and throw them with the others, worthy a comedy). I on the other hand returned to the tech-priest and gave him back his auspecs (which he scolded me on due to upsetting the machine spirit for forcing unwanted parts on it), the id-card and the data from his dead friends house. Apparently a environmental nut since had focused on the pollution levels and they have apparently diminished due to the war. How that worked I don't know. I also mentions the case that contains an unknown machine and he want me to bring it to him so I go and get the scum and wouldn't you know, they contain a pair of glasses, how nice. With enhanced dark-sight, + 5 literacy and the case is even psycher resistant (that one was probably due to me asking since it had a chant on it and the glasses would very likely be destroyed by a cry of the banshee anyway). All that fixed we give our report to the commander and gets transported to a shuttle to take us back early to the inquisitors ship. Due to segregation policies the ribbins is in the back and the scum not far away while me, a respectable adept of the empire sits in the front with the tome in front of me. I hear high heels against the floor and a women sits down besides me. Beautiful if it wasn't for a scar across one of her eyes that have gone blind.
"Do you have it?"
"Yes, here it is!"
"We promised you the knowledge of the universe as thanks for getting us this, so what do you want to know?"
"... who am I?"
And that is how we end this session and this part of the campaign. Awesome is it not? So filled with clichés, but goddamned it, it's fantastic.
So before we began this session I just want to inform you that I bought an extra wound (more or less HP) in a Sound Constitution upgrade, totaling my wounds at 13. This is important. We started were we left of, a scream of agony. We geared up and run toward the escape tunnel, which of course have the enemy guarding it. A huge living machine that I can only describe as Devastator from Transformers, with a drill for the left hand and a bulldozer for the right. An epic battle ensues as the scum and cleric both flame the creature and in rage it fills the cave with fumes. I take a shot with my shotgun, rolling a righteous fury and and end up dealing 21 damage to the left arm (without accounting for his defenses and toughness, brining the actual damage down to 13). It goes on for one more round and his chest explodes flinging his breastplate toward us, hitting me and the psycher and then falling on top of the cleric, pinning her to the ground as the oils catches fire and heads toward her. The scum tries to lift it, but fails before she has escaped and then have to slippery hands to do it again. The psychic focus more on healing himself so it's left to me. And for some reason I gain super human strength as I lift the arm up and she crawls away, the scum pick her up and we run away from the ensuing explosion.
Quick healing we run towards the secret passageway into the cathedral (I want to point out that during the battle I used 2 fate points, which I didn't have to spend since I rolled a 9 both times, awesome session so far). We find it, but it's blocked by a wall... and here we stand for a while arguing what to do. So I sacrifice one of my fate points and get the clue, "smash it in". No speak friend and enter I can see. Well it works, while going through the corridor the psycher decide to help me searching for the writing kit of the saint, which we find and I take with me. We arrive at the cathedral and divide the group as there feels to be something important down here, but we are pressed for time as the red redemptionist already started the attack, The psycher and scum heads up to the wall while I and the cleric find the archive. The archive consist of servitors walking around, almost all broken down and a lot of cherubs hanging on the shelfs. I feel a pulling sensation from within the archives and I walk there, more insane than ever. I find a door, opens it and in there is a case with purple mist. Without thinking (to be fair I did, but I'm temporarily insane at the moment so) I open the lid and grabs the book inside with my mostly good right hand... and it begin to freeze as the preserver machine did its job. Screaming in pain the cleric rushed forward and destroyed the machine. Holding my hand until I could feel it again I grabbed the book once again. The sound of screaming cherubs behind the door. I grabbed my shotgun, kicked the door open and blew them away and began to run to the exit. There the cleric ran before me and I grabbed the closest shelf and dragged it before the door and then closed it.
The others headed for the wall and started head-shooting the gunners on the cannons and released a mech on the battle field, hopefully turning the tide to our favor. We teamed up again headed to destroy the rest of the cannons, unfortunately a most gruesome sight befall us, the sight of the tech-priest body, crucified and his head cut of and no where to be seen. The psychic located it and we divided the groups again, the cleric and psycher searching for the head and me and the scum taking out the last cannons. Easier said than done, first cannon easy, but sadly the second one had a psycher that throws fireballs at me and the scum, leaving me with 1 wound (that I want to remind you, I bought right before the session). Lucky for us he rolls a 9 himself and disappears. The small fry flee and we demolish the last cannons, suddenly the psycher reappears again, but the scum hits him with his hammer and throws him over the wall. To be sure we drop a grenade on him... that doesn't explode. We survived at least. The others found the chamber with the head, connected to wires... and talking. Saying the names of who he saw. And another tech-priest, connected to the head as well. Yada yada yada battle, they kill him, disconnect the head end of session. So I got one side-quest left, then we wrap it up. Hopefully without losing my last wound.
Well this took longer than expected, but better late than never, right? Let us begin with the GameCube game, Battalion Wars:
Released in 2005 I missed out on this game since I still lived at home, it wasn't until 2008 I bought it I believe. Didn't play it much since I went of to the US at the time and I also bought Super Mario Galaxy at the time. The problem when you get older is that you don't have time to play them, or if you are unemployed you don't have any money to play them. I also had to import it from Germany which is another problem with games, if you don't get it around release date, there is a big chance it's gone forever. Story is you follow an American look-a-like army as they fight a soviet stand in, but wait ze evilz german attack both and you must join up. Gameplay is a RTS-game with you taking control of any of your troops and lead them against the enemy. I wasn't that good, but with practice maybe, sadly no tv or the game near me. Sold enough to spawn a sequel.
Battalion Wars 2, or BWii (get it? For the Wii?) released in 2008 in Europe. As you can guess I got this one before the original one. You begin repelling an invasion on the Japanese by the British as they search for a super weapon. Afterwards you explore a similar action years before, but with the Americans and soviets. Then you switch perspective as the British fight back the Japanese and that is as far as I got. Some mission were you needed to clean a statue and giving air-support to the cleaning team. I couldn't steer the god damn plane with the Wii control. And now onward to the latest game in the series:
For the DS, Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (or as in the states, Days of Ruin). Another one I didn't finish, I'm just at the end as well if I remember correct. Much darker than any other game in the series. Not much to say that the story of the single campaign is interesting in the human extinction and humanly engineered pandemic. Sadly I missed the original CO:s, none of them appear other than in the multiplayer (I presume, I can't check and it was a couple of years since I played it). Yeah, much shorter list and not much about any of the games due to me not finishing them.
Missed a couple of sessions again, been busy with work and other things during the time so I apologize so let me recap the session I missed and the others up until last friday. The group escaped the thieves den, all except the tech-priest that was taken hostage by... mutants I guess? He was at least taken to the mutant stronghold. The rest of the group fought a demon and escaped in a truck that was blown up forcing them to take cover to keep attacking mutants away while the psycher was out cold. The following sessions when I returned was us getting back to the encampment, which we did after being pushed of the road by suicidal thieves. We restocked our supplies and after some information gathering come to the conclusion our next goal was the red redemptionist stronghold and then onward to the mutant cathedral through a secret tunnel.
We steal some transportation with me driving and it goes as you can expect, we get ambushed by a truck of suicidal thieves who pushes us of road. Both vehicles destroyed we execute the survivors and coincidental we are right outside the red redemptionist HQ. We enter and do some small business, I found the general location of the secret tunnel in a mining cave leading into the cathedral. The cleric gets the redemptionist to support us with an all out attack on the cathedral for some good words with the inquisition while the psycher dispatches another of the worms. Oh and the scum was tortured by me as he had to guard me while in the library since we all know that is the most dangerous place in any setting. While this goes on our tech-priest tries to escape, but fails as he walks into the sleeping quarters of the mutants who pretty much kills him. Yeah, and the sniper who believed no one could die in this game.
We set out the next day and are guided by a librarian through a passageway system for pilgrims that wanted to visit the cathedral. I notice a gathering of people in front of us and sure enough, mutants that have captured imperial guards. After some planning we attack, killing everyone, unfortunately leaving one killed and the other mortally wounded only able to utter that we need to rescue the communication tower that jams all communication between us. Taking this short detour (we have time limit before the attack but it was something like 18 hours). We head of and arrives at the tower, were we decide to scout out the area before entering. I use my auspecs and see life sign in it... and it is now the session turn from awesome to fail. The psycher decide to use his power to scout it out. He rolls a NINE! Even more fun, it is the screaming banshee one destroying all glass and alarming everyone in a radius of a kilometer that we are here. It's worse, my glasses, my auspecs, the psychers binoculars, his first aid kit and all our gas masks are destroyed. Almost all of our equipment... and it gets worse, me and the scum are paralyzed for six turn. Standing up while the doors to the tower opens and the mutants attack. The psycher pushes the scum to the ground while the cleric fails to do the same to me. After the battle the cleric and scum enters the tower and comes upon a tech-priest that takes forth a grenade and threatens to destroy the tower. Meanwhile I finally recovers. The cleric distracts the priest while the scum shouts the arm clean of. I enter with the psycher and start working on the computer since I'm the only one with tech use. "Roll for successes" the DM says, I manage three in three rolls, each roll being one hour spent there. And then roll after roll after roll. I don't know how many hours I spent there, but my final roll is 01. The best roll you can have... being 6 successes in one roll. I knew it would come to that. We now have 4 hours left. Meanwhile the scum and psycher checked the tower more in depth and found another worm which the scum had to face alone in the dark. It ended with him being cover in small tick like creatures biting him as he run out and rolled on the ground crushing them and get covered in blood. We then hurried away... after I was able to get a monitor that I could fix the auspecs with.
Next session the psycher was away so everyone took a deep sigh of relief that we wouldn't be killed by our own teammates. Needing to hurry up we headed for the cathedral, but as the communication was on we got a distress signal from a nearby imperial convoy under attack. A bit of a detour so we headed over there and I was awesome killing two of the mutant attackers with my shotgun from above high and then had to change weapon to my revolver. The scum was almost killed by a auto-burst from the mutants when he jumped at them with his hammer. After the battle we got a truck and headed toward the cathedral. While on our way to the mining entrance the scum who was the driver lost control of the truck and crushed the back of it. We were already there so no problem so we entered the caves. Abandoned for 70 years most we found was skeletons and old machines. Pressed for time we searched for a map or any clue about where the secret passage could be and we ventured deeper into the mine until we found the living quarters for the workers. We decided to raid the supply store finding only a small glow lamp and a room with two dead bodies, one on the floor and the other in the ventilation shaft. We pull it out reveling a destroyed face and a lost arm. The cleric jumps in and see to her horror how the arm is dragged away, she gets out and faints. The scum makes a small trap with shoestrings and a grenade.
Last friday session. Everyone is gathered and we head into the back. A door block our path and the scum and psycher tries to get on the roof above the door while the cleric check some rubble while I scan for life signs, don't find any and just open the door. Of course it isn't locked, but can only open a small part due to being blocked, the ribbins walk in and open for us, meanwhile they hear sounds and sees shadows everywhere. We get in and look around finding a dead body and papers indicating the location of the living quarters. We go one floor up, but while on the stairs we here something metallic rolling and falling toward us. The scum acts instantly and jumps over the ledge to take cover. Out a smoke grenade comes and the psycher kicks it making it fall right in front of the scum. We head up and hear a door close. We comes up the stairs and only one door is closed, preparing to enter the door opens and a grenade comes out. Here I loose my nerve and panics and runs down the stairs. The psychic follows to stop me. The grenade is a dud, but doors open and close randomly, shadows on the walls. The scum in one instance is locked in a room with the cleric in the hall. Meanwhile the psycher catches me and calm me down. While heading back he tries another psychic power to hide himself... and rolls a NINE! Blood rains from the sealing and this is to much for me so I'm paralyzed with fear. The psycher walks up the stairs scaring the cleric as the scum breaks down the door. They regroup and enter the original door finding a dead corpse and some notes. Meanwhile I hear footsteps behind me in the blood, I spin around and see something invisible walking toward me so I fire a shot. The others comes running down. and we leave the place and head for the living quarters. During the walk the cleric seems to see her mother at the top. We enter the second floor and into a door, the scum taking the lead. He sees the person he put in jail and faints as he turns into a demon and attacked him, destroying the glow lamp. Meanwhile the auspecs show no life signs except us (THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!) and some rodent we burnet into crisps with a flamer. We go up with me in the front and find a door we opens with some keycards we found on the dead bodies. Inside is another dead person and a desk, while I go through the desk something grabs the cleric from behind and begin pulling her over the reeling, struggling for help (not shouting for some reason) the scum tries to pull her in and the psycher tries to shed light upon the thing grabbing the cleric, but there is nothing there. The scum pulls hard enough and falls backwards with the cleric on top who gets paralyzed and now can't move. After getting up we find a key on the corpse and a safe that contains maps over the mine. There I finally have a location to head for that coincide with some casualty reports I found earlier about a certain mysterious death. A gigantic explosion is heard and we see the house with supplies explode and a gigantic roar from the tunnel we are headed for. I guess the trap went of.
Haven't updated in a while since I've been working and traveled a lot during the latest weeks so no dnd and no time for nothing else. Let us then talk about 13, Black Sabbath latest album. Personally I like it, has a couple of decent songs, Loner probably being my favorite after a couple of listenings. Maybe not as good as the older albums, maybe even the worst Black Sabbath album since the older albums had several really good tracks on them. Of course, being the worst Black Sabbath album is hardly anything bad. Maybe the impression will change over time, at least it's better than Ozzy's latest solo album which I haven't listen to since I got it. Here he at least have decent song writers around him pushing his limited singing to outstanding heights.
The only thing that bothers me is the title, 13. Is it referencing 2013? Or is it some retconning over which albums counts as "real" Black Sabbath albums? The fact is that this is the 19th studio album. The only way 13 would match up is if you take Ozzy's 8 studio albums together with Dio's 3 and Ian Gillans Born Again (probably since it had Geezer and Ward as well as Iommi). The only piece of evidence I have is a compilation CD that featured songs only from those eras released sometime between 2003-2006 (of course that could just be due to a limited running time of 2 CD:s which makes it hard to get all, but then the question is, why even bother with the Gillan era?). Maybe I' just rambling, but it's fun to see it reach nr 1 in several countries.
Update: I was a bit tired yesterday so let us go deeper today with thoughts on each song. End of the Beginning a song in the same tradition of Black Sabbath and Eternal Idol as a slow and doom sounding song. God is Dead? is what I can guess the reincarnation of the demo Scary Dreams from the early 2000. Loner as I said is my favorite with a faster and heavier beat. Zeitgeist is said to be a spiritual successor to Planet Caravan and I can see it, slower, about the universe and I can hear some special drums in it, not as good or mystifying as it though. After this, the songs goes in to each other and becomes noise in my ears. I probably just get tired and don't find something to distinguish them from each other. It's just a matter of time. Worth nothing is that the final songs ends with the sound of rain, thunder and church bells making it a good book end and completion of the circle so to speak. If it wasn't for all extra songs depending on what version you bought. At the moment there is four of them, and I just miss one of them. Wonder when that one hits youtube.
We didn't have everyone participate in this week game leaving me, the psychic and cleric... on a rescue mission in a gang hideout, that feels really comfortable. We leave the tunnel were we saved the scum and end up outside were the smoke lies heavy and in colors of red. Apparently there is a fire coming from the soldiers we left behind and we can hear screams. We head over there and what do you know, the cleric steps on one of the mines... so we leave her there as we tries to get some help. At the house we see that the fire is originating from there and corpses of mutants and three of the soldiers lies around it. The psychic uses his power to locate the sergeant and find him in some rubbles. The psychic patches him up while I stand guard. I hear a sound above me, luck up and sees a pale slim and tall mutant. I shout a warning and fire my shotgun and misses, the creature attacks the psychic and puts him down to one wound. The psychic grapple the monster and break looses, the monster misses his attack and... so do I leaving the psychic to obliterate the creature with a psychic attack. We get the sergeant to his feet and convince him to help us save the cleric.
Meanwhile on the minefield the cleric is being haunted by the vision of her dead mother trying to do... Something I guess, but she resist the illusion and only gets some mental disorder out of it, nothing big. We return and the sergeant tell us to stay while he walks up to her. And quickly pushes out of the way, taking the blow himself. A bit sudden don't you think? Anyway, we head into the gang hideout and walk up to the passageway were there used to be guards. They apparently left us a present in the form of a grenade on a string. And now co e a part which doesn't make sense. I just wanted to tie a little rope on the string and place it a bit away so we can easily use it as a trap against enemies following us, apparently you needed to be a demolition expert or security guard or whatever for that. It doesn't make any sense, can't I just macguyver it?
We enter a corridor and I hear a gunshot, we look into a room and someone is murdering tech-priest en masse. We call him out, but he ignore us so the psychic uses his psychic attack again... not without causing some problems making us see the warp confusing the killer while I gain another insanity point before the man is killed. We search the room and find a chain belong to our tech-priest when suddenly we hear the sounds of people running outside the door. And here it ends.
Seems I fell out of the rythm I had going. Well, well, lets recap two dnd sessions then. The others starts of infiltrating a gang hideout they found below the house they attacked the ogrins in. To get past a security point the scum fained as a newcomer with the tech-priest as his prisoner, who got beaten up and sent to a sweatshop. The scum didn't fool everyone a bit later five thugs ambused him, but he staved them of and killed them with his hammer.the cleric searched another tunnel and found a storage room for the weapons the gang smuggled and she took of into the ventilations, finding and killing one of the psychic bugs, drenching her in purple blood. The psychic headed back to HQ with information about the weapon operation. The commander gives him six soldiers to take along and tells him to get me as well from sick bay.
My stay in tge sick bay as they installed my bionic arm haden't gone unnoticed. First guest was some woman from the administratum asking for my help in retrievng a book from the warzone, if I succeded I would be granted access to information beyond anyones comprehension. Pity my fellowship is so low otherwise I could have tried smoothtalk her. Next guest was a bit more unpleasant, some mutant attack with a gun which I fought of until a wounded soldiers helped me out.the mutant disappeared into the night. Third guest was the doctors that retrieved my arm... Or so they thought. The psychic finally finds me as the bionic arm is set in place and we head out the next morning.
On our way back we're ambushed and two of our soldiers die, one in the initial attack while the other saddly died due to the psychic failing his roll causing the soldier to fall. The sniper os dispossed of. We arrive, lay out some mines and the psychic and me try to find our friends.the cleric escaped the vent, battled a psychic herself and left the tunnel and stole a mechanized bike. We joined up, entered the tunnel again and saved the scum who was cornered by the gang... (Or more accurate, almost killed him with a grenade). And that was it, two sessions, minimum of words.
A while ago I discussed the Fire Emblem series of games and I thought since I didn't play any DnD this weekend I might write about the sister series, Advance Wars (or inofficially named as Nintendo Wars). So let us begin with the first game I played in the series, Advance Wars released in 2002 in Europe.
First playthrough was a disaster due to poor planning and not grasping when to charge and when to attack. After a while to when I got the hang of it it went very well. As with the first Fire Enblem there was a tactitian introduced to make it easier for newcomers to relate and those first mission as you are guided by Nell of Orange Star as you fight of an invasion by Olaf of the Blue Moon are really good. Then the real campaign starts as you are assigned to lead Orange Stars army to counter the invasion with the newly deployed Andy as your commanding officer. This task take you across the world battling the Blue Moon, Yellow Comet and Green Earth until you find out that the one behind the hostilities is none other than Sturm of the Black Hole. You defeat him and all is well. The graphics are great and colorfull while the music is energetic and pumps you up for battle. One of the best turn-based strategy games and a great first introduction for the series. Then came a follow up in 2003.
Already you can see that the CO:s characters doesn't look that great. The story continues with the Black Hole Army invading all countries and it's up to all lands to unite against this threat. The tactitians role is gone which I must admit makes it a bit none personal. Some new CO:s for every army and one or two new units to play with. Not much to say other than I prefered the design of the first game. This game was followed by a DS game concluding this trilogy.
Advance Wars: Dual Strikes (get it? Dual Strikes? DS?) and the story this time is that the good guys have had enough and form an alliance to attack the Black Hole at their own soil while the enemy is divided by the old CO:s and new ones when Sturm was supposedly killed. This is also the first game where you don't have Andy as your first CO, but some new kid named Jake. Can't say I'm a fan of his. Again, the design of the CO aren't that good, colors feel washed out and I just don't connect with all the new CO:s. Also a new tag system is introduced where you can use two CO:s and their powers or even attack twice in one turn as well as a couple of new units. The series then shifted over to the gamecube with Battalion Wars, but that has to be for another time. Until then.
Some of you might recognize the title as partly inspired by this comedy. By that you can probably guess what happened last Friday. It began with me travelling to the next door muncipality for an interview. I had someone drive me there and I got a tour or the workplace for two hours and when all is finally is done I'm greeted by another car pulling up and starter cables. Our car didn't start. Lucky enough it was still good timing. I came home and prepared for my trip for my mothers 50th birthday. I pack and sleep a bit. Ready to go to the trainstation and... it rains. And my umbrella is packed down and on top of that not completely whole. I should have known something was up. Didn't matter anyway since I would relax in a X3000 or X55. So I stand there waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Electrical problems, no trains comes in or our of the station. Great!
There is even a short news sequence on it and what do you know, I am in the background twice, prominently with my bright jacket and black umbrella. Play spotting Niklas if you want. So I'm stranded. About two hours later around 19:00 two busses comes in... which goes directly to Stockholm no stops... which is clarified as I sit down in the bus so it is out for me. Of course not until I bump my head in the roof... twice. I wait even longer. Around 21:00 I'm one hour late to arrive at my final destination. Now busses comes in to tale us to Karlskoga, where a train is waiting. I walk in... and bump my head in the roof. I'm glad I packed a couple of sandwiches cause arrive to the train an ambulance is waiting as someone fainted in the train. Good god. What a trip. At least the bistro was free (except the alcoholic beverages) so I grabbed a soda, a chocolate ball and a chocolate bar. You know I like chocolate right?
During all this I need to say that the train personal that was stranded with us did an excellent job eventhough many would say otherwise. You could feel it that people was tired when we got close to 21:00 and felt irritated on both sides when some haven't eaten or anything like that. But they did good with talking to the travellers and informing people on what happened and took care of most problem arrising as connection points and such. Of course the trip isn't over. When I sit down I read the magazine in front of me and the first page is an ad with the text:
"The journey is the reward"
I didn't ask for a reward. Also the full-moon glared at me during the final stage. I arrive in Södertälje at 23:55... four hours late. And now a one hour trip in a car to my parents house and straight to bed. Woke up at 7:30 as the sun lights up the whole room since there is curtains or sunblocker of any kind. Both on Saturday and Sunday. At least it was a nice party. And then it was the trip home. I hitched a ride with my sister halfway and rhe only problem was a small green car that even a car with a trailer in tow passed it by. Later I was supposed to take the bus... 10 minutes late and no functioning toiletts. At least the weekend was consistent.
It was a short session this time sincemost of it went to loot the wizards office giving us some extra gold and magic items of our own choosing. I got some boots and a amulet of healing or whatever it was called. The important thing was that it had resistance poison. I got two extra things, but I didn't have time to pick them out since I got a call I had to take care of. Anyway, when we finally got everything together we split the party again. Me and the dragonborn got the prestigious duty to claim our reward with the lord while the others summoned some flying steeds and headed of to the shrine where they found the necromancer. They find him in battle with two knights from Neverwinter and charged at him, throwing fire balls around them and despatching the undead creature the necromancer had risen. The knight thanked them and wondered if they would join them against Lord Neverember, which of course they said no to. They then headed back to the city.
Meanwhile me and the dragonborn went to the lord and were able to tell such stories that we got 120 platina for the job and a letter expressing the condolences to our wizard for hurting his leg in the fierce battle against the traitor wizard. A person the dragonborn spewed acid over and cleaved in two with one strike. I also sold my horse and put the price through the roof expressing the beuty of this magnificent white steed with its glimmering golden mane as the sunlight strikes it. A poet I am! Then we just wandered the streets. The two most evil characters in the party, sadly we didn't do anything since we are pretty much scared by our battle-minder leader who wouldn't hesitate to kill children if it was the right thing to do. And they call us evil. Walking along the streets we heard some news that Waterdeep was on fire while frost giants attackeqd from the north amd an evil witch was up to no good. This attracted the ear of the dragonborn meaning we had a goal. We told the gang when they came back as the sun set so we preper tomorrows journey. And it ended pretty much here. Sadly I can't join next sunday either so we shall see what happens.
So Denmark won, Norway got 4th, France 23e while Finland ended up at 24th. Guess my top four was all over the place. Also, while watching it I realized all my picks was blond women, hm... what should I interprit that as? Then we have Sweden at 14th, almost in the middle and sure enough, it was kinda meh. Armenia didn't do better and ended up as 18th. Still saying that Albania should have taken the spot, eventhough it only got place 15 in the semi-final. Still an awesome song:
And of course the swedish tradition to mention that most of the songs are written by swedes, or performed by swedes or half-swedes or any ancestor at all, or the choreographers are swedish, or anyone in the team speaks swedish and finally the sound technicians are swedish. It's a miracle we don't call it the Swedish Song Contest since we clearly dominates it (that is sarcasm by the way). I don't know if we hit a low bottom with the swedish commentator always mentioning that we owned Estonia until 1721 when we lost it to Russia. Point being, eventhough we lost, we still won somehow cause all that matters is Sweden. And who said we aren't patriotic?
Also interesting of note is that with the exception of Azerbadjans victory two years ago this decade has been pretty good for the germanic countries (aka Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany). You could also argue that Germany doesn't belong and it is the scandinavian countries that are clearly dominating the contest. Could it be correlating to the strength of the nordic model and its stability in an instable economic world? Or is it trying to tell us the end of the model is near (especially if you consider our victory in 1990 and the finance crisis that hit us the year after, that actually was made possible by a political decision in 1985, the same year we hosted that years contest after our victory in 1984)? Well, we just have to wait and see until next year.
So, let us look at tonights show, who will win? I have no idea. Personal favorite? Ah... um... Norway I would guess. I kinda like the sound of it with the electonic background and the stage show is nice with the lights in its simplicity. Feels somewhat like a Pierce BrosnanJames Bond movie theme. Others that are ok is Denmark, France and maybe Finland (even though the music video made the whole song feel like a Katy Perry song). I might even go as far as saying Armenias song is alright. Although that probably has more to do that Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath fame wrote it than anything else (I must say that the singing voice isn't that great and the chorus is kinda let down, but good guitar solo) and sadly I think that due to that it pushed the really good rock song from Albania out of the competition. So already, wrong song won.
Then we have the strange once, the once I don't know how they won the semi-finals. Take Romania, an opera singer. He's clearly a good singer, the falsetto (or is it soprano? I should probably not talk about music I don't know about) in the chorus kinda ruins the song for me as there is no "force" behind it, in lack of better words. Then we have Germany who sounds a lot like last years Swedish winner. And when we talk about Sweden our own song is... meh! I don't know, it's not bad, but is it good? I don't know, it's not my cup of tea. And lastly, the Netherlands... again, not a bad song, but it's so slow, I don't know how it went this far.
So who would win? It seems to be a battle vetween Norway and Denmark which is problematic cause if we take in consideration the voting blocks all five nordic countries participate, meaning who would we vote for? The chanse for a nordic victory might disappear due to that there is no clear favorite oeaving this bloc divided and another strong faction take Up the pieces, like France. Then the question is... who would the former Yugoslavien republics vote for without a single one of them making the final? Really, it's up in the air, but I say Norway due tp preference even though they won just a few years back that might put Denmark in a better position. And no, Greece will not win even though that is a catchy chorus. Just less than four hours until it begins and up to eight before the result is in. Damn I hate myself sometimes.
Once again I spoil the ending of the session in the title. The reference is to a certain song from an animated movie. I you don't get it I would recomend waiting to click the links until after you have read this. Let us start with the group minus me. They headed out in the earzone, the teach-priest looking for test subjects, the scum for a group of thugs, the cleric to find a cult and the psychic to find materia eating bugs. What they find instead is a patrol of mutants who they easily kill on their way to a building with dead imperial guards. Here they encounter two ogrins (don't know the spelling and all I know is that they are more or less ogres IN SPACE!). Another battle commence. First round hardly any damage given at all and in the next total obliteration... for a pipe the scum hit with two 8, three 9 and one 10. Overkill much. It falls down and kills one of "the ogres" and after some other rounds they finally slays it when the tech-priest kills it with his axe. Also, a psychic phenomena occured giving all except the psychic 9 points of corruption. Then the scum and tech-priest failed a saving throw so the scum has a collection mania and the priest an addiction for blood. We are a messed up group. They find more imperial guards dead, another bug which they kill and notes detailing a plan of attack from he cultist which they plan to get favors from the imperial troops.
So then we have Nemo, alone in the archives. You know what that means. Before hell breaks loose I find information about a cult, the Pale Throngs. I then hear footsteps. I pull out my shotgun and points it toward the sound. A large man with heavy steps walks toward me, looking at my arm. Seems I found our target, Archimedes Noxt. Sadly for me he saw me and is blocking the way out. I fire one shell at him hitting his legs as he dodge into the side. The echoing sound due to the close quarters defens me. I run past him and barely escape his hand and rush out of the archives to get help. I find a squasron of soldiers who follows me back... and of course they find nothing except small stains of blood so they leave. I search around and hear a noice on the roof so I walk up, finding a man bent out of shape, before I can find some help he wishper that Noxt is part of the Pale Throng. I find a medic who take him away while I search the archives again.
This time I'm able to locate Noxt and sneak up on him. Sadly he is to fast for me, but I fire away another shell doing decent (but bot perfect) damage. He charge at me and knocks me over, I stand up trying to go for my revolver since the shotgun doesn't work in close combat, he grapples me and starts choking me. Arter several turns I passes out. Noxt procceds to pull my arm of by smashing the bones and tale it away (the left arm, the one NOT damaged by acid). I come to my senses and starts to move to the medic bay. Living on a razors edge as I almost fail my saving throws toward a bloodloss test with rolls as 89 and 87 (90+ means you died more or less). I get the attention of the doctors who fixes me up and by paying 1000 thrones they also.set me up with a bionic arm. Unfortunatly I'm out of commission for three days since my body need healing. Rather good timing since I sadly can't play next week due to family buisness so I have an ingame excuse for my absence.
So I followed the dragonborn into the magicians tower, sneaking past anyone. The battle-minder and wizard has discovered who let the red wizards into the Sword Coast. One of the older wizards, Lugaid. A man mostly known for sleeping on certain meetings. Also. He has some strange visitors. The group gather and talk about the information and leaves the tower for some privacy discussing their plans. I follow, but sadly my luck has run out. The wizard feels the pressence of my magic items and tell me to come forth. Seeing no other option I walk forward and introduces myself as Mendoza, commander of the Thundercats mercenary force. You know, as a magnificent bastard with a smile and brutal honesty. I told them at the start that I knew who they were and my own objective under Lord Neverember to bring them back, but I gave them parts of my own reasons, like dethroning Neverember, but not that it was for my personal gain. Of course they were distrusting, so they gave me a quest, to find out info on this Lugaid. The pixie and dragonborn was set to watch me. The current time is nightfall.
The wizard and battle-minder walks away, but are stopped by a messanger from the lord of the city, Lancaster. The battle-minder is getting more and more infuriated, but follows along. They are let in to meet the lord and guess what? He wants the magician we investigate dead and he will pay us. Our temporary leader (who as of now is the only original member of the group) accepts after a while. Back to me and my audience. Back into the tower we went, met a friend to the dragonborn that gave us some juicy information. Apparently the wizard had some suspicious friends like the Thay, Drows and Neverember himself. We also got a plan to break into his office at lunch while he was in the cantina. Next stop was the post office, but first an interlude with a person spying on us that me and the dragonborn scared to tell us about his employer. One of the supporters of the wizard. I let him go after shaking him up since "I'm with the good guys". At the post office the pixie enters a window and unlocks the door for us. I went to the records and found info on letters he got, especially today, which meant I would know what to look for. The dragonborn tried to steal some valuables, but since they were in a vault he couldn't open it. Back to the inn I left them as I was getting my horse to this inn instead.
We all met up, planned out the next day and went to bed. Plan began with the wizard and battle-minder delaying our target at lunch while the rest of us looted his appartment on evidence. I found letters detailing his selling of land to Thay and Drows for an incomming invasion I pressume. This was the proof we needed. I also found a journal detailing the whereabouts of one of the crownjewels of Neverwinter. The pixie found a sceptre behind a portrait leaving only the crown to be found. The dragonborn took a box he couldn't open. As we went down to get the others the wizard had left the cantina and we walked pass him in the stairs. We gathered everyone, went after him, opened his door and killed him where he stood. Now to loot his place!
Here it is, the long awaited continuation of Flashback Friday and now it was my time to stand in the spotlight. I started out being transfered to a new headmaster due to my old one having to many apprentices already so I traveled tp another planet. There I enter a chatederal, trying to find this new master. I begin noticing someone following me, someone not belonging to the cloth. I try to shake him of, but fails at every turn. Seeing no option I logically deduce the masters atudy at the top of a tower. I was right. And here begins 10 years of archives and book treatment.the only thing that happens is mysterious black books appearing, journals of philosophical discussions. My master tries to keep them away from me, but something draws me toward them. I also begins noticing a trend with my master who appear to get more unstable. Mistakes he tolerated before now ends with a beating, for every spick of dirt a kick and so on. Suddenly one day gunshots are heard in the chatederal coming from the masters room. I rush forward and the room is surrounded by armoured guards. After a short encouter with a maddening master they shot him down and then setting the whole study in flames. As they leave, they recruit me to the inquisition.
The tech-priest awakes, cleansed of all memories as a woman calls him and begin helping an escape a satelite. They are being chased by a Crimson Guard. After both breaking the legs the Crimson guard chaught up to them and charge at the woman breaking her spine (I pressume) and knocks out the tech-priest. Assuming they are dead he leaves. Of course neither are, the tech-priest awakens and crawl toward the woman who with her final breath utters the words "remember, we are both..." And then dies. Now it was supposed to be the assassins flashback, but since rhe player, due to private buisness, has to leave the group for a while we wont see that character or the bard or the halfling thief in D&D. We don't know for how long, but we hope he will come back.
So it's the main game once again. All head for the quartermastwr. I get my hands on 20 more shotgun shells (leaving me now with a total of 50, that should be enough to protect me a while in the most dangerous areas in the whole universe, the archives) and the way to the mobile archive. The psychic get some new dices and follows me and the tech-priest to the archives. The psychic feels an unnatural presence and discover some bugs sucking up all materia distorting the void. So he has become abughunter now. The tech-priest search for information regarding aliens, but fail and head ofbfor his own clergy. The scum didn't find anything and searched information about a special sign he encountered leading him toward the warzones. On his way he stumbles upon the psychic and the tech-priest who both feels themselves pulled toward the warzones for different reasons. The psychic due tothebugs while the priest needs material to please a certain person and get information. Meanwhile the cleric finds a man telling her about the redemptionist pointing her toward the warzone as well and after the talk she goes there and finds the rest and follow them. Me still sitting in the archives investigating our target, when he could possibly have arrived and suspicious mutilation killings durong that time. I suspect that the mobile archive will end up in the warzone for no other goddamned reason thqt put me in harms way. Hope those shorgun shells are enough.
So it's time for the big game. The group now consisting of a half-elven battle minder, an eldarin wizard, a black dragonborn and a pixie performs a ritual for some phantom steeds and sets of. They travel through a forest and are stopped by a battalion of soldiers from the house of Lancaster asking for directions toward Waterdeep (I pressume it's one of the nobles who decided to join our bard since they clearly wanted to avoid Neverwinter). They tell them the way and continues. A bit later they feel necrotic energy from the forest and decide to investigate. They find some kind of shrine for a battle some 50 years ago. The pixie and dragonborn finds a building covered in grass and moss with a hatch on the roof. They enter and finds a throneroom occupied by a skeleton in full-plate armor with three magic arrows in his chest. They call in the rest.
Here we returned to Neverwinter and the court of Neverember. A half-elven bard has been summoned. His objective, to find the Neverwinter Nine and bring them back to Lord Neverember... alive. At his disposal is a white horse and after a debriefing of the mission and the targets (the ranger, bard, battle-minder, wizard and dragonborn) he is of to the sound of music. That is of course my character, Mendoza Anagallis. The others on the tomb begins investigating and finds a fake wall leading to a corridor they decide to follow. They come upon a room, a big hall, with terrace and in the middle a table with an old corpse and surrounded by a necromancer in red and four apprentices. The battle-minder ready the group for a battle when they notice that it's a school class from Thay. As if the battle-minder cared. It was a pretty close shave and needed official paperwork to be accepted as a non-threat... for the time being. And I thought I was gonna play the evil character. They head of again until they reach their pit-stop city before heading north to Icewind Dale. They split up with the dragonborn and pixie going to a fightclub to earn some cash while the wizard and battle-minder visits the library.
Since this takes time the evning creeps closer and with it a white steed and red rider enters town with this background theme. Asking the guards about the group they point me toward the tavern district. As I get closer I heard the chanting of "fight fight fight" coming from one of the houses so I put my horse in the stable and entered. The sight I see is the dragonborn fighting some contestant while the pixie cheer him on. Being a sneaky bastard I roll my stealth and... NATURAL TWENTY, the second roll for this session and it's a natural 20. Awesome. So I hide in the shadows while they celebrate their victory, the pixie passing out and the dragonborn leaves with her in his pocket. I throw a gold coin at the bartender telling him to watch my horse or else... rolling a total of 39 at intimidate. I follow them to the magic tower and here the session ends. Sadly the bard character was sick so a halfling thief was not seen.
Back to our starting ship we head of toward our next target, a hive planet filled with mutants called Transch (sp?). So what eceryone does is restocking on supplies and information. I spent the time in the library finding clues about the head master from the satelite and some hostory on the planet. The psychic spends his trip with explaining how this ship intercepted a vessel that had been taken over by ribbins. The tech-priest tried to get answers about his predicament with alien technology in his head, to no avail. The cleric was tasked by some priest to investigate a certain clergy cult that had taken an apprentice from a friend. The scum (if I recall correctly) spent his time gather supplies.
We arrive and before embsrking we are allowed extra ammo (I got some shotgun rounds) and some armor for those who paid. So I got my hands on a FLAK jacket giving +3 against attacks over the whole body and a FLAK helmet giving me protection of +2. And all of us got some gasmasks. And I just intend to spend the time inthe archives. Although, during the course of the campaign I've learned that it is one of the more dangerous places if you look at killer robots, security forces and even the books themselves. We land and are informed on the latest situations on the warzone on he planet and our target, Archimedes Noxt, the frankenstein monster our assassin found on the other ship. Time to roll out.
So this last week I played the latest Fire Emblem, finishing it after 50-60 hours of gameplay on Normal Classic mode (meaning the easiest setting with "if a character dies it gone forever" mode). So, what did I think? It was a fun game, had that Fire Emblem feeling to it that makes you play all night and whispering "just one more turn" or start over and over each time one unit dies. The core mechanic is the same and works as good as the other games in the series (you can read my thought on the western releases here). Graphically it's probably the best of them. You have beautiful anime cut-scenes, the battle 3d models is probably the best with distinguishable features on the characters and the character portraits looks alive. Musically, it's pleasant and work fine all around. Best is when you battle an epic boss fight and this choir starts chanting and music rises making you feel as it's now or never. Strangely enough it part of the opening scene. Doesn't beat the opening of the first western Fire Emblem though.
Gameplay wise, what's the difference between this one and the others? The easiest one to notice is that we once again have a world map which hasn't been seen since The Sacred Stones. And with it follows skirmishes against the undead as an easier way to gain exp and support between the characters. And the support system is probably the most important feature in this game, not only do you get bonuses between the characters and flesh out the story and characters, you also have an incentive as you gain new characters with it when certain supports lead characters to marry and have children together (which is a mechanic they used in one of the earlier Japanese-only releases). And now the best improvement of all, you can have more than 5 support conversations, the only restriction is 1 S-support per character. Finally. Also, a new feature to speed this process up is the pair-up system in which to character joins up in attack and defence. It seems also that this feature replaced the rescue ability.
Story then, the most important part of games like these. It starts with you (our your self-customed avatar, a more in depth character than your tactician from the first western released game) and a man named Chrom attacking this almost devil-like person on his throne. You kill him of, cut-scene and you get hurt as you show Chrom away from the final attack. As he stands over you saying it's finally over a dark power comes over you and you stab Chrom with magic. As he falls he says that it isn't my fault and that I should escape this place. Blackout and I awake in a field with this girl looking over me (throwback again to the first Fire Emblem released in the west?) and her brother... Chrom. As you can guess this entry contains time-travel. This makes the focused moral of this story, can we change our fates? Or are we predestined that trying to avoid the future it will always steer us back? A lot less social commentary also, except that war is bad, but sometimes the sacrifice is necessary. I think it also discussed why people follow leaders and different types of leaders. Charisma, fear or undying "love"/belief. Also, this game is set in the same world as the first Fire Emblem, be it with different countries and names on the dark dragon. The proof is that they mention Marth, Cain and Abel as well having one of the characters still living, Tiki. Main story a bit short with only 25 chapters, but there is enough side stories if you can unlock them and apparently a lot of downloadable content. So you probably will have your fill. The ending then after battling through a mad neighbor, a megalomaniac emperor and the devotees of a dark god is... interesting. There is two possible endings based on one answer to you as one of the main characters. I took the one I perceived as the most noble and it was emotional, but I'm a bit sad they didn't have a "true good" ending if you did for example get all A-supports with your character. I will not say any more so that I don't spoil it for anyone. Well worth a play and it really pushes the one thing that makes it stand out among this genre, the characters. Don't know if this is better than the first Fire Emblem due to my nostalgia love for that game, but if GBA games doesn't get available on the 3DS then this game doesn't have anything to fear if I want a Fire Emblem dose.
