Advance Wars

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.

Bus, Trains And Automobiles

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.

A Bard's Tale

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.

Doing The Omoralisk Schlagerfestival '13 (3)

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.

Doing The Omoralisk Schlagerfestival '13 (2)

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 Brosnan James 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.

Nemo Of The Five Fingers

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.

The Tower

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!

Flashbacks (part 2)

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.

Red Rider

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.

Intermission

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.

Fire Emblem: Awakening

 

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.