Dragon Quest (Switch)

They say he comes for those whose souls are weak
and call his name upon the wind
The night is cold and thick with mystery
Oh I can feel his beating wings

As described before, I've played most of the mainline Dragon Quest-games, all released for the DS (and Playstation 2) and I've had this inclination to play the first 3 games as well (since those are the only ones I've hadn't played before) and lo and behold... they are all released for the Switch. Playing the first one, you can feel that it is a bit archaic. At least it's a bit mitigated in this version. It's based on the mobile port that is based on the SNES remake of the game that originally arrived on the Famicom/NES back in 1986, although not in Europe. So basically we get a better version with a graphical overhaul and a lot more gold and Exp. that hasten the game, I've read at least. And that is probably best since there isn't much in it and just to grind to get anywhere... we don't do that anymore, I still had to grind a bit to finish of the game, but I don't want to think about how much that would have been if I've played the original.

Basically you are a decendent to Erdick, this famous warrior and you now have to find Erdick's treasures in order to gain access to the Dragonlord's castle and save this land from his darkness. You need the armour and sword of Erdick, the harp of Galen the bard, the rain bow and sun stone to make the bridge appear that take you to the island where the castle is. And you also better save the princess of the land while you at it that is guarded by a dragon herself. There's something like 5 town (+1 one destroyed), 2 shrines, 3 dungeons and Tantegral Castle and the Dragonlord's Castle. 

A journey to the centre of the earth

It's really simplistic in its approach. Really, grind for level ups and gold so that you can take more punishment and dish out more damage in order to go further on the maps and dungeons. Some things are more irritating than others, for example the limited amount of space in the inventory that both have to deal with equipment, special items and items like torches, herbs and such. I guess that with higher levels you get magic spells that take away the need for some items, but why would I waste magic points on Glow instead of healing and attack spells? Especially since the torch is actually better than the Glow spell? Those are a bit weird. Then we have the magic keys that open locked doors... and then breaks so you gotta buy more keys and when you leave a town or dungeon where you unlocked a door, the door appears again and you gotta use yet another key. Also, the game crashed once when I put the game speed at the lowest, but lucky enough the game autosaved so I didn't waste the grinding from level 20-23. Then we have the cryptic nature of some things like finding things out in the overworld just by accident while walking over it. I guess the map forces you to walk over there, but it is missable and you need the item as far as I understood it. It was charming at least with the art work of Toriyama and the music while not as diverse as in later games at least works. I've at least played it now, not sure if playing it again would be high up on my priority list.

The Last Door - Complete Edition (Switch)

Recall the dream of luxor

How fluids will arrive

As if by call or schedule

Resume through the morning tide

Where entry is by seaweed gate

And plan the plan of dreams

To lose oneself in reverb

In all that is and all that seems

Been on some kind of Lovecraftian kick since my summer vacation where I listened through Blue Öyster Cults Imaginos cycle and also got a Lovecraft collection. And then Switch got this game and since it was published by Phoenix Online that did the remake of Gabriel Knight and their own King's Quest the Silver Lining I decided to take the plunge and I gotta say, it really sucked me in. Beginning with the suicide by hanging we are introduced to Jeremiah Devitt that have received letters from an old classmate and decide to meet his old friend. Arriving at the old manor no person is there to meet him so he wanders the house, getting keys and some disturbing images and ravens following him. Turns out that after his friends wife died he went mad and hanged himself leaving some clue toward Devitt and his school back in Aberdeen. Calling the police after finding the corpse Devitt visits his psychiatrist, Dr. Wakefield and then travels to the school that was turned into a hospital. People are dying like flies and Devitts old teacher, an old priest, are the head of the hospital. He stumbles upon some kind of ritualistic murder of the patients in a room under a class room. In the catacombs he sees a light from a room and as he enters I see the most ghastly thing ever. A bug that stop me from progressing. It took them over a month to fix it with an update before I could continue. 

After that setback I could continue with watching the priest burning himself to death after retelling of their experiments in school where he part took in an experiment to enter the Last Door that Devitt and his friends tried to do. Now, game is really good. It's not hard since it's just a puzzle game where you walk around and try to get keys to enter doors and such, but the atmosphere is uncanny. The music, the sound and graphics all build this sense of dread as I played through it. And I admit, I had things running on the computer besides me, but that probably was for my benefit since it felt uneasy. And to be fair it used a couple of jump scares and quick cuts to unsettle the player, but I liked it overall.

The real story is that Devitt suffers from amnesia and looks for answers to what happened and therefore tried to connect with his old friend. Which took him to Aberdeen where he is knocked unconscious by a serial killer and transported back to London in a coffin and after being released stumble upon another friend, Alexandre DuPre where he is injected by a serum to enter the veil once again. Then the game shifts perspective to Dr. Wakefield and a Dr. Kaufman. Wakefield tries to find his patient and Kaufman is a friend that have connections to the occult and helps in the search. First they try to find information about DuPre at an asylum. That leads to an officer that puts them on course toward Kaufman's old teacher Dr. Wright who suffers some kind of Alzheimer. Kaufman grows sick and eventually dies and leaves the final clue for Wakefield to an island where they are in the midst of pagan rituals, dressed up in masks and a child have gone missing... am I the only one that got the Wicker Man vibes of that chapter? Turns out that the island used to have a ritual to enter the other side by installing terror on people so that they enter the land of fog. Which Wakefield is submitted too and there he finds Devitt. Looking through the lands he is given a choice to either turn back or try to save Devitt. 

I'm Burnin' for you!

It's hard to tell the story since it's not that hard and as stated earlier, it's the atmosphere you want. Think about a late autumn night, alone and silence with only the sound of the howling wind. This game gives me that chill, but interesting enough I knew I never could die and that doesn't need to be. I highly recommend it for the Halloween holidays... that is, what, like 20 days ago... I blame the bug. If there something I don't like about the game it's that the ending... wasn't that satisfactory. They hinted about this custodian that like a spider guarded the last door and would hunt down anyone it found within the fog. I assume it might have been the creature you saw below the tunnels around the Wright mansion, but it wasn't giving me a final ending winning over it to get to the door. And then of course, what happened after entering the door? What is its purpose and why did they seek it beyond the mere curiosity of the the bored student that had to return? And what about the eye? Why does it exist? Maybe it's just the lovecraftian way.

Dr. Mario (Wii U)

The Doctor is in the house!

Got a bit of urge to play some puzzle game and started up my Wii U again and found Dr. Mario. And the search function at the blog states that I haven't written on it before so, new game finished after 30 minutes!

We got it the first time for the NES back in the 90's and the most fun thing about it is its multiplayer action that me and my sister had going trying to beat it first or at least not die first since we were hardly any experts on it. Playing it on its own... I prefer Tetris actually. I will give it that the music is good and it is satisfying in defeating the viruses as they plop and then the big ones in the magnifying glass wriggles in pain until each of the colours are gone and they just... poff out of existence. Now, I can't recall if there ever was any story beyond that you have to destroy the viruses, but in one of the Nintendo Magazines we had I could read about this comic advertising the game:

Wish I had all of the comics since it's just campy fun.

Life Force (Switch)

We meet again!

Got through my favorite Konami shooter once again, this time the arcade version. Helped a lot by the fact that I could turn up rapid fire for everything. Mostly the same as the NES port, but certain differences. Audio is better, you even have a voice both describing what happens, what you should do against the bosses and what power-ups you picked up. The stage shifts are nice since it just go into the next one by turning the ship. They also have arranged the stages a bit differently since stage 2 is stage 5 and vice versa and no Egyptian mummy head for end boss or a stage themed after that. 

Also, the power-ups doesn't work like on the NES since there you could save up and choose the ones you wanted, instead you get what you get. I assume the port was made to look more like the Gradius-series since it's a spin-off of that. Would I play this or the port? Doesn't matter really. Pretty much the same. Maybe slight benefit for the port with the Konami code giving me enough life to not need to save scum past certain parts.