Inside Her (Bedroom) (Switch)

 

I mean, the title pretty much tells you what kind of game it is.

Well... I was on puzzle craving and, what do you know? This was a cheap little title on sale at the time I bought it. I swear I bought it for the puzzle and... well, maybe the NSFW art wasn't a hindrance so to speak... I'm going to hell for this, am I not? And it's right after Christmas this goes up as well? Guess I have a lot of coal in my stockings to look forward to.

So besides the reward of enticing CG pictures of half-naked monster girls the story is that you was invited over by the slime girl to look for a remote that's gone missing in her corridor. So you gotta clean the rooms by guiding your avatar and the monster girl in mirrored puzzles. You gotta clean up stuff like... panties... bras... handcuffs... alright. Is it getting warm here? I'm very glad I live alone... although, that doesn't make it look better. You actually never find the remote, but you gotta do all 6 girls... I mean, clean, you gotta clean all 6 girls rooms, each room taking 10 levels with different hazards. For example the harpy can't fly in smoke so you gotta avoid that, the octopus girl don't like water puddles and the pumpkin girl slides all over the place.

So you do that on the Soft difficulty, then you gotta do the song and dance again on Spicy difficulty, rewarding you with even more revealing CG-art. And it was released on a Nintendo console without censoring? I assume I'm done now after 120 puzzles. I saw some reviewer talking about a seventh girl, but I can't find it or another source backing it up so... wait, that also sounds dirty in context. At least it didn't overstay it's welcome compared to Mario's Super Picross. Took me a couple of hours and some where head scratchers, but the mind isn't faltering yet. Do I feel ashamed for playing this? No, but blinders is down so no one will ever now.

Happy New Year to everyone!

(Update: Well, as I might think someone reading this is thinking, that is not the video I cued up, it was gonna be a Looney Toons clips with the green man that you can find here, damn technical problems)

Radar Mission (3DS)

 

OPEN FIRE! CALL WEAPONS!

Another game bought in wait of the Nintendo eshop purge, this time from the virtual console on the 3DS. This one I actually played as a child since my cousin had it for the original Game Boy. It's basically Battleship, or at least the game mode A. The other game mode is a sub-hunting game where you go back and forth destroying enemy ships. Not much to say actually. Battleship mode is probably the better one and the game was made by Gunpei Yokoi, the father of the game boy and Metroid. Played this one during easter with my niece hanging over me looking at it. It's really nice cutscenes they put in. Mode A has three stages and I think I might have gone to the end stage back in the day... today? Not a chance. I got to the second level and since it's stacked against you it's hard.

I had a small thing for submarines and naval fights as a kid, probably due to watching shows like Thundersub and Hornblower. I also recalled my cousin had the Hunt For Red October Game Boy game, but that is a license game so that's probably out of the question to get... especially now when it's ending... well that was short. Have a great week everybody and happy Christmas and holidays and all that to you all.

Mario's Super Picross (Wii U)

 

I'M MELTING! I'M MELTING!

So, 2023 Nintendo is gonna close the Wii U and 3DS eshops, so now with disposable income and a years knowledge in advance, I had to go through and buy games I was on the fence on to get my hand on the games. Especially since I don't want a repeat of Super Adventure Island 2 where I missed to get it on the Wii virtual console, forcing me to pay 100 $ or € instead of... I don't know, was there 15 €/$ for SNES games on the Wii? Doesn't matter, I will get the most out of my Wii U and 3DS. 

So, basically this is a puzzle game. I think I saw the Game Boy version back in the 90's when looking for Game Boy-games. What I didn't get was that it was completely in Japanese. So I guess it was released on one of those festival releases where we could get some really interesting games, like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy and other games. Well, I don't speak Japanese, but does it stop me? No, the gameplay is pretty much like the puzzle portion of Murder by Numbers and fidgeting around in the choice at the start of Mario levels I get that it gives you hints in payment with lowered time. Should explain that there is two modes, either Mario levels or Wario levels. Mario gives you a 30 minute timer while Wario gives you endless time (as far as I know), which should make Mario harder, but I get that it is easier puzzles than Wario that gets you to guess at times and doesn't tell you if it's right or wrong.

There's cutscenes between certain levels, but I don't know what they said. I found out that there was 300 different puzzles. I think it overstayed i's welcome a bit since I wanted to get out of the game after 250 puzzles or something like that. I guess you at least got a rather long puzzle game, I had to play it over 4 weeks (might have been a bit faster if I hadn't to be social). Still, it was fun to play for a while, especially when I got things like Orion or the big dipper before the picture was finished. Well, guess there will be more of these reviews of odd games I pick up.

Final Fantasy VI (PSOne)

 

Fantasy changed to steam punk.

So finally got around to the last part of the classic Final Fantasy-games. They even released the pixel remaster during the meantime. So that means another round if they get released on Switch. By some seen as the best Final Fantasy and is at least top 3 or so for most people. When I got the classic Final Fantasy games for Christmas in the early 2000's this was the first game I tried since it was seen as the best one by the gaming magazines I read. It begins with Terra Branford, a brainwashed magic user in a world where magic disappeared 1 000 years ago during the war of the magi. She is sent to Narshe, a mining village where reports is about an Esper, a magical creature that the Gesthalian empire is looking for. Terra together with her guards Biggs and Wedge fights their way through the coal mines and soldiers until they reach the Esper that obliterates Biggs and Wedge and releases Terra from the slave crown that was used to control her. Terra awakens in a house belonging to Avis, a supporter of the Returners, a rebel group that fights the empire. The Narshen guards are her so she tries to escape through the mines, but after falling through the floor she passes out again.

Meanwhile Avis have called in Locke Cole, an adventurer that work as a contact with the Returners. He finds Terra and together with some moogles fight of the Narsheans and heads for Figaro Castle where they team up with its king, Edgar Figaro. He helps them escape from one of the generals of the empires, Kefka, an insane magitek knight clown who tries to burn down the castle to find Terra. During an escape past the mountains they meet Sabin, Edgar's brother who left the kingdom and trained as a monk to fight the empire to avenge the death of their father by the hand of the empire. They meet Baron, the leader of the Returners that ask for Terra's help to communicate with the Esper so that it will help them stop the empire that is on the verge on reenacting the war of the magi that nearly destroyed the world. But the Empire strikes by attacking South Figaro, a town they passed through and closing in on the Returners hideout in the mountain. Locke leaves to stop the Empire behinds enemy lines in South Figaro. The other travels with Baron on a raft through a river to get back to Narshe, but during a fight with an octopus Sabin is thrown away. Edgar, Baron and Terra heads back to Narshe and to Avis house. Locke discovers another of the Empires generals, Celes Chere, the second magitek knight that have been imprisoned as a traitor due to objecting to the war. Locke rescues her and both gets on to Narshe. Sabin meanwhile wash up near the Castle of Doma that is under attack by the Empire. Together with Shadow, a mercenary assassin they infiltrate the camp and witness Kefka sending away the other commanding general, Leo and goes on to poison the river and killing off all in the kingdom. One of the survivors are Cyan Garamonde, a knight of the kingdom of Doma, but both his king and wife and son perish. In rage he fights his way through the camp and is helped by Shadow and Sabin as they escape through a forest where they hitch a ride on the phantom train that transports the recently deceased to the other side. After getting away Cyan sees his family as they board and travels to the realm of the dead... it's damn heartbreaking.

ELEINE! OWEIN!

Shadow leaves them as Sabin and Cyan jumps into another river to get to the Veldt where they meet the beast boy Gau that was raised by monsters. He gives them a diving helmet that they uses to travel through the ocean current and then hitch a ride on a ferry back to Narshe. Everyone gathered the Empire under Kefka attacks again so you have to fight off the invading forces until Kefka flees again. Meeting with the Esper Terra has a reaction, turns into an Esper herself and flies away. The others regroup, take Figaro Castle to the Western continent and follows Terra's trail to Zozo, the city of thieves. She lies in a coma, guarded by Ramuh, another Esper. He asks them to rescue Espers from the imperial magitek factory in Vector, the captial of the Empire and afterwards give them three magicites, the remains of Espers that can tech people magic, and then he passes away and turns to magicite himself. The Returners decide to travel to the opera after news that the worlds only airship captain is about to abduct the opera star Maria, that looks like Celes. After some hijinx they get aboard the Blackjack, Setzer Gabbiani's airship. After some trickery he agrees to take them to Vector. They infiltrate the factory and can only get the magicites from the Esper, one being Maduin, Terra's father. During the escape Kefka confronts them again and insinuates that Celes is a spy so she uses her power to get rid of Kefka for a while so that the Returners can take a cart ride from Cid, the engineer behind the magitek. They return and awaken Terra and infiltrates an imperial camp that hides the portal to the Esper world. Kefka finds them yet again, but is stopped by the Espers that comes through the portal and wrecks the capital. Emperor Gesthal declares a cease-fire since the Espers threatens the whole world. Terra and Locke heads for Thamasa with Shadow, Celes and Leo. They meet Strago Magus, a blue mage and descendent from the magi knights that fought int the war of the magi. Together with his granddaughter Relm Arrowny they climb the holy mountain and learns about the statues of the gods that caused the war of the magi by creating the Espers and turning themselves to stone to stop the war. They meet the Espers and take them to general Leo to negotiate the end of the war, but Kefka shows up since the Emperor have betrayed them all. Kefka turns the Espers to magicite, which unleashes even more Espers from the portal that Kefka captures. He kills general Leo and together with the Emperor enters the portal in search of the statues of the gods.

Everyone talks about Aerith, but this came as a shock first time playing.

The emperor and Kefka flies to the sky with the island so the Returners land on the floating continent and fights their way to the statues. But they are too late as Kefka kills the emperor and move the statues out of alignment causing untold havoc on the earth. The Returners jumps on to the Blackjack, but as it tries to avoid the destruction it breaks in two and the cataclysm is a fact. All goes black and one year later Celes wakes up from her coma on an island together with Cid. Here starts a little mini-game where you need to feed fish to Cid as he gets sick and depending on which fish you give him he will either live or die. Usually he dies, but this time I actually got him to live, he gives Celes a raft he have built in the meantime so that she can sail to land in order to find her friends and stop Kefka. Cid dying is actually emotionally better since she then tries to commit suicide by jumping from a cliff, but wash up on the shore again, but a bird fly by with Locke's scarf, giving her hope that the others are alive and then she finds the raft.

Back at the main land she finds Sabin saving a kid from a house that have been struck by the Light of Judgment that Kefka controls from his tower on the ruins of Vector. They travel to a town with kids where Terra resides, protecting the orphaned children. Unable to fight she sends them away. They meet Edgar in another town in disguise as he gets escaped convicts from Figaro Castle to lead him to the castle that have been stuck under the desert. They meet Setzer that tells them about this other airship in a tomb to his old friend Daryl, they get it and the hunt for the others are on. A pigeon leads them to Zozo and Cyan as he impersonates a dead soldier so that his girlfriend wont lose hope. They find Gau training in the Veldt, in a cave there they find Shadow who after being nursed back heads for the colosseum where they have to fight him to join them. Relm is trying to exorcist a painting and Strago joined the Cult of Kefka when he thought Relm was dead. Terra finds her fighting spirit as she protects the children from a demon released by the cataclysm. Locke is found getting the magicite Phoenix in order to give life back to his old girlfriend Rachel that was killed by the Empire, but it's too old, but she absolves his guilt during the small moment she is brought back to life. Mog just hangs around Narshe and then you can also recruit Gogo, the mimic from Final Fantasy V and Umaro, the yeti of Narshe. Getting more magicites, train some spells and levels and then you climb the tower and fight Kefka. The tower collapses and magic disappears. Shadow stays behind in the tower, laying his guilt over leaving his old friend to die behind while Terra leads the others out and looses her Esper form. Credits roll and lives return to the shattered world.

The end!

First time finishing it on the Playstation. Took me 60 hours, levels ranging between 36-46, compared to my GBA-save where I got to level 60. So how did I achieve this? Well, I could probably have cut something like 30-40 hours by not grinding at all. I learned that you don't get stat increases besides HP and MP from levels unless you have specific Espers equipped. Meaning best time to grind is at earliest after the magitek factory, but probably recommended in the world of ruin. How do you get around this? Fights in the Veldt doesn't give any EXP, but money and magic points to level up spells, so I grinded some 10 hours to get every character most of the spells before the floating continent. Maybe wished I grinded at the Cultist Towers instead, 5-10 magic points goes a lot faster. Overall a great experience. Graphics are nice, music is fantastic and the story is really good. Well, up until you got the characters back in the world of ruin. Very little character story is shown since it's pretty much open world and your choice on people you want to gather, although a minimum of 12 is recommended to get 3 full parties so tackle Kefka's Tower. I have it for GBA, Wii Virtual Console and the SNES Mini so I got other version to try if I get the itch to play again.

A Dnd Tale - Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - A Night at the Opera

 

So where is the opera?

Reassumed playing and it starts at court as the deed is changing hands with some money changing hands and they look upon their new house. Parker Bronzebeard starts by getting 1 000 gp to start the renovation of the house, meaning they are out of money to get the guild licenses so they need cash. After looking for Renaer and meeting Volo in the Yawning Portal they are contacted by the Harpers with some tickets to the opera and a quest for looking for Mirt. So it's of to the cloth store in getting some finer clothes since it's apparently is formal dresscode. Immeral get some green robes with silver linings looking like a roman toga. Hope gets some arabic looking pants with a vest and silk light clothing in white and blue. And then the opera starts.

In the intermizzo they meet Mirt who introduces himself as part of the Harpers and ask if they can look for a talking horse in order to identify two members of the Zentharim.  The next day they find the mare and is able to identify the half-orc woman that was involved in the bar fight in the first session as a body guard to a sun elf. They report to Mirt by leaving a message to Durnam at the Yawning Portal. As they leave a sending spell reaches Immeral asking them to go to Blackstaff Tower and meet Vajra Safahr, the Blackstaff. She wants them to go to Mount Waterdeep and meet the hermit Hlam. They begin the climb, Immeral have no problem, but Hope suffers three levels of exhaustion from the climb. They meet Hlam and get a cryptic message of evil that they return to Vajra that thanks them and then let them go.

They return to Trollskull Manor where the workers have begun fixing the house. Parker informs them that the house appears to be haunted and then leaves. During the night Hope hears a knock on the window and a flying snake appears with a message to meet Davil Starsong at the yawning portal. So the next day it's back to the portal. After breakfast Yagra Stonefist appears and bring them to Davil, the person the mare described as a zhantarim operative. He introduces himself and since they know him being a zhentarim explains his position. The recent gang war seems to be due to another faction of the Black Network (another name for the Zhentarim) that have recently appeared and tried to infiltrate the Xanathar Guild that was exposed and caused the latest bloodshed. He need some help since recently three murders on elf and half-elf sailors have been reported in the Dock ward and he offers them a reward for 100 gp to stop the murders. 

So they are on stakeout duty for the next couple of days. Immeral is going from pub to pub pretending to be drunk in order to get the killers attention while Hope follows. Don't goes as well the first days due to the lingering levels of exhaustion, but the third night she is fit for fight and it's there they notice a half-elf sailor going from a pub. They follow and notice a drow gunslinger with his sword drawn hidden in the shadows. Hope jumps him, he fires a shot with a poisoned bullet right at Hope. Immeral follows with some attacks and then Hope unleashes the sun sword causing him to have disadvantage due to sunlight exposure. He cast darkness and runs off with his boots of elvenkind making him silent so that he can disappear without notice. They report back the next day and gets the reward of 100 gp that now allows them to pay all the licenses to get their business in order. And here the game stops for this session.

Apparently my third sister wants to join next time so that will be interesting if I can get her into the story..

Final Fantasy V (PSOne)

 

Original cover

Finally continued the Final Fantasy Playthrough... after jumping from IV to VII, IX, VIII, X, X-2 and XII. Now we are back to V. And the playstation version to boot. Thankfully the PAL version fixed so many of the problems that Americans reported on like save glitches and extreme load times... maybe load times still lingered a bit, but apparently a lot less. Finally, a good reason for being European. The SNES version was originally released in 1992 in Japan and didn't come to the west until the Playstation version in 1999. I got it for Christmas some time after we got the Playstation 2 as it was part of the Anthology version together with Final Fantasy IV. Probably the one I tried last since I got VI as well, and as everyone probably heard, VI might be the best classic Final Fantasy games, but this is a really good game, which took me a long time to get.

The story is that one day a meteorite crashes near castle Tycoon where Bartz and his chocobo Boko happens to wander around. He rescue Reine, princess of Tycoon as she is attacked by a couple of goblins as she tries to follow her father, the King of Tycoon as he traveled to the Wind Temple as he feared something was happening to the Wind Crystal. Around the meteorite they find Galuf, an old man that have lost his memory, but feels an urge to travel to the Wind Temple. They travel to a cave where they discover a pirate hideout where they try to take their ship, but they are caught and the captain Faris decides to help them since Reine has the same pendent as Faris. They get to the Wind Temple and reach the crystal chamber, but the crystal have been destroyed being the cause of the wind dying. Lucky for our heroes Faris ship isn't run by wind, but by the water dragon Hydra. And that the shards of the crystals gave them access to the job system, the defining gameplay of this game. And fun that is.

The art for the Anthology version, which I didn't get until long after, especially since it spoils part of the story.

So you get a couple of jobs like Thief, Knight, Black Mage and White Mage etc. In battle you get ABP (Ability Point) that level up your level and when you get a certain point you level up and get either an ability to use in battle or an ability that enhances the character, like higher stats or passive abilities like first strike, caution and so on. So by combining these you can have a thief with magic, a magician that gives more damage with the bare fists and so on. Traps get avoided and secret paths become visible. And in the end, you can use all the passive abilities on the mastered job in the bare job, the one you start in. Which at the end becomes the best job of all, plus your ability to combine the other abilities how ever you want, but the stats bonuses from all the mastered jobs as well. The enemies don't stand a chance.

So you get your quest, protect the rest of the crystals. Which take approximately 5 hour to get to the water crystal and fire crystals, both which explode and where I pretty much stopped four years ago. Maybe Mysterious Cities of Gold came in the way. So after watching SoemcallmeJohnny's review of Final Fantasy VI I got a huge urge to play that, but first was gonna finish V. So continue to find the earth crystal in the lost city of Ronka where it was hidden since it began to crack as it was used to power the flying city. With the help of Cid and his nephew Mid they get an airship running to board the flying city where the possessed body of King Tycoon is destroying the crystal. Turns out he is possessed by X-Death, a warlock from Galufs world. Galuf travelled to this world by meteorite to protect the crystals since 30 years ago Galuf together with the Warriors of Dawn defeated X-Death and sealed him in this world. The Dawn warriors travelled home except Drogan who decided to stay and protect this world and the crystals and turned out to be Bartz father. And Faris was Reine's sister who disappeared by falling into the water and being picked up by pirates who raised her. They fail to stop him and X-Death is released, another meteorite lands and Krille, Galufs granddaughter arrives and save them from X-Death who returns to Galufs world. Galuf and Krille follows. Afterwards Bartz, Faris and Reine charges the meteorites in order to warp to Galufs world where they get kidnapped by X-Death. Galuf uses a dragon to enter X-Death Castle to rescue them and then escape, but a barrier is set up so they fly toward another part of the world. After some adventures with meeting the other Dawn Warriors, who die one by one trying to stop X-Death they are sent to the Elder Forrest by the sage Gill, a 700-year talking turtle. The forrest is burnt down and it's revealed that the forrest was guarding another set of crystals and X-Death wanted to destroy them since by doing so merges the two worlds and allows him to get his hands on the void that was sealed 1 000 years ago after the wizard Enuo was defeated by the 12 sacred weapons... I feel Tales of Symphonia used this for it's story. And apparently X-Death is a tree that was possessed by evil spirits of executed criminals that gained sentience 500 years ago. 

Maybe they got the idea of Mithos from this guy as well.

X-Death have our heroes on the rope by trapping them with the crystals, but Krille appears once again, but is trapped herself by his magic, which causes Galuf to go berserk, destroying the crystal that trapped him and then fighting of X-Death on his own, but like Tellah in IV he dies in the end after rescuing everyone. X-Death gets away with the remaining crystals, Krille takes Galufs place and gets all his power.

Oh, you f***ed up X-Death!

That was a shocking moment when I came to it for the first time. Galuf's been with you since the beginning, but it is a bit telegraphed when the other Dawn Warriors dropped like flies talking about a new generation taking over. So you charges X-Death's Castle once again and fights him at the top. Defeating him you still lose and the worlds are merged and you are back outside of Tycoon. Faris and Reine are put in as leaders of the Castle since the king's dead. Bartz and Krille escapes, and followed by Faris who don't feel that ruling isn't her thing. You find Gill who takes you to the Ancient Library where they learn how to unseal the sacred weapons together with the most potent magics and summons. So a treasure hunt is on. First stop is a pyramid in the desert. As you got the tablet from inside X-Death have taken over the Void and sends it upon the Library, Tycoon... pretty much every major centre of World 1. As you reach the Elder Tree at the edge of the desert Reine appears again, possessed by a demon from the N-Zone where the Void was hidden. Defeat it and Reine joins again, but the dragon that appear and helped them is mortally wounded and travels to the Phoenix tower. You go to Fork Tower unlocking Flare and Holy, destroying the tower and unlocking the Ronka ruins where Cid and Mid hide. They upgrade your ship to a sub so that you can find the tablet at the bottom of the sea and the tunnel to the waterfall. All 12 weapons unsealed, traveling up Phoenix Tower to get the summon Phoenix and then fighting Bahamut to get that summon and then 10 hours grinding for jobs before tackling the N-Zone. 

Behold the King of Dragons!

Traveling through the zone there is a barrage of high-end monsters and bosses. First it looks like distorted version of the areas that the void was used by X-Death to swallow until you get to a transporter a space like area with crystals and tree roots binding the worlds. Here you get super bosses like Omega and Shunryu (who hides in a treasure chest, that's a cheap shot). Didn't defeat any of them, mostly since I hardly survived one turn against them and I didn't want to grind the jobs to max out the Bare Job and then try to find a winning combination. You reach the end and X-Death attacks you with the Void, but the spirits of the Dawn warriors and the King of Tycoon appears and stops it allowing Bartz and the Warriors of Light to fight X-Death, and then Neo X-death as the Void took over. Defeated him, all characters arrive (since the end differs if any character is unconscious as the final blow is landed). The world is restored to its merged form, the crystals is resurrected and returned to the places where the tablets where... which makes me wonder if 1 000 years ago that where their originally place until they used them to stop Enuo. And the Playstation version have an extra cinematic cg scene after the credits with highlights from the game.

It was a fun game, music great and the story is decent enough for what it is. The job system is amazing and I don't know how I didn't get this as a kid, or where the misinformation that I had to grind battles between each change? Was it bad translation or something? III was at least a couple of years away for me so it can't be confusion off both games? Still, would I play this version again when I got the GBA-version and the Retron 5 to see it on the big screen? Don't know, colours and music is worse, but saving and extra content and portraits makes it interesting at least (and I got the patches that might solve it). Still, PAL version works fine for me, but since SquareEnix is bringing games like Dragon Quest III and Live A Live back in the HD-2D engine it would be nice to see all the classic Final Fantasy get that treatment, combining all the contents fo the GBA and PSOne in a superior package for consoles, especially since the Pixel Remaster is a bit barebones and not released on consoles as of writing. 

A DnD Tale: Waterdeep - Dragon Heist: The Waterdeep Job

 

I'm the jester with no tears
And I'm playing on your fears
I'm a trickster smiling underneath this mask of love and death
The eternal lie I've told
About the pyramids of gold
I've got you hooked at every turn, your money's left to burn

The next adventure kicked off in January of 2022. Been given the message from the monk in the Temple of Elemental Evil, they are surrounded by fog and then... returned to a harbour in Barovia together with Madam Eve. A ship appears with Vistani colours on the sails, captained by a vistani crew. From behind carts carrying goods of wheat, wine, furs and furnitures to load upon the boat and they all board and sail away. Through the magical mist they enter the world of Toril and the continent of Faerûn and sails toward the city of Waterdeep, the City of Splendor and the Crown of the North.

Arriving at the docks Madam Eve sends them to the Yawning Portal to meet someone. There they observe the people in the tavern and a fight breaks out between a half-orc and five people dressed in black. During the scuffle a troll appears from the well with 9 stirges and all people erupts in panic. A short scuffle with the involved fighters it's over and the players are introduced to Volothamp Geddarm, Volo to his friends and in need of some help since his friend Floon Blagmaar has been missing for two days. With ten gold coins each as down payment they go out looking for this missing person. 

Walking through the streets they encounter the fall out of a gang war between two fractions of the underworld. Dead bodies and city watch walking all around. No one caring for the missing person beyond our heroes. They find some curiosity shop where they learn that the owner watched two people being abducted and dragged away by five people. They walk over to the inn that Volo last saw Floon. After bribing the patrons with some gold and ale they inform them that Volo and Floon was here, but after Volo left another person appeared and joined Floon and as they left five other men left the tavern. The five people the patrons recognized from a magazine by the docks. 

They arrive at the magazine and enters it, finding another scene of dead bodies. Looking through the bottom floor they find a noble by the name Renaer Neverember, son of the former open lord of Waterdeep who was the target of the kidnapping, but since he and Floon looked alike they both were taken by the Zentharim, the thieves guild. And here the Zentharim was attacked by the Xanathar Guild who got away with Floon who they mistook for Renaer. They also finds a secret room with stolen goods, but before they can do anything else the house is overrun by city watch guards that have been alerted by passers by some strange activity. The captain takes control of the place and after some questioning of the three lets them go. Renaer joins with the players to look for Floon since he feels guilty for the events that have transpired. They investigate and finds tracks to a manhole into the sewer and delve underground.

And here we come to the problem with sending level 8 characters into a first level dungeon. The first monster is a gazer, a small beholder pretty much. They just hit it once and it's dead. Next enemy is wererat that they don't actually have any problem with since the rouge alone made 37 damage, insta-killing it if they wanted to. Of course, Immeral the monk had a bit of bad luck and got bitten before anyone could do anything, failed the con saving throw and was now affected by a lycanthropy curse. And they found the secret door toward the boss room, skipping the most of the dungeon. They kill the goblin keeping watch and continues in to face the orc torturing Floon together with the mind flayer and an intellectual devourer. Hope the rouge attacks the orc and kills him in one hit. The big boss they encounter is a Mind Flayer. Immeral attacks the mind flayer that just shrugs at the damage and walks away, putting a dominate curse on Renaer that attacks Hope. And the intellectual devourer jumps on Immeral missing the strike, but is able to get off the brain drain and Immeral losses the saving throw and I rolled higher than Immerals Int ability score so Immeral is out cold. 

Which was lucky for me that they still could pose a threat for the players even though they are 7 levels higher than they are supposed to. Hope uses the spell protection from evil and good to wake up Renaer. The mind flayer escapes into a magic portal and Renaer and Hope kills the intellect devourer before it take control of Immerals brain (which I wouldn't even dare try since the luck of the player would mean that would have been the end of Immeral). They leave with Immeral's unconscious body and return to the Yawning Portal. Volo is relieved that everyone's back, but is a bit worried about the state of Immeral. So they send a message to the temple for a cleric to restore the intellect. Meanwhile payment is discussed. He don't have much money (the sales of Volo's Guide to Monster doesn't seem to be that high), but offers a deed to a house in the Northen ward. Taking a look Hope accept and add it to their growing list of real estate that lies in the hand of Hope and Immerals Emporium. Hope returns to the Portal, the cleric Parker Bronzebeard have arrived with a Greater Restoration spell and is able to cure Immeral on both the wererat curse as well as the damage done by the intellect devourer. Renaer pays for their stay during the night since they can't expedite the take over of the deed until noon the next morning. And here the session ends.

That was fast. We got through the first chapter in one sitting, I actually thought it would take two at least. Could be that I bumbled the magazine scene by accidentally skipping the check on opening the door so I had the kenku assassins already be gone. I also messed with certain rolls. For example I made the mind flyer go before Renaer in the last battle and I forced him to lose the dominate monster spell so that the ilithid could get away. Other adjustments was that I forced them to start with 625 gold each since keeping it all would wreck the economy (which it still does, but it will speed up certain aspects, but since they want flour and other things imported from Barovia they need to get some clearance from the right authorities and that might make everything equal). 

I also plan to change a lot in the end. First of, the keys are kinda underwhelming. Just 3 random things that can be found anywhere? And if you play it as written, then you would have 3 "dungeons" unused? Well, first instinct was using three statues that would open the door to the treasure. I got the idea from an old TaleSpin episode I watched as a kid, "Molly Coddled" it was apparently called. There the villain used a statue (or doll) to open a chamber where a ruby version of that doll was. Neat right, my only problem was what the statues would look like, and I thought gods would work, especially one would be Asmodeus.  Then I watched "The Phantom" from 1996 and thought, skulls it is, of gold, silver and jade.

The Skulls of Touganda

So each villain gets one key so that you can do all of it. Plus watching a couple of Jönssonligan-movies made me think about performing the perfect plan, planed into the smallest detail... or rather, the players gotta figure it out while I play the music from the movies. This gonna be fun.

The Shannara Chronicles (Season 1)

 

Well, hard to miss the post-destruction of earth.

As mentioned while playing through Shannara, I liked Terry Brooks Shannara-series (or at least the ones I've read). So, I discovered there was a TV-show made after one of the books, and it's the Elfstones of Shannara, the best book in the series. And it got John-Rhys Davies as king Eventine and the guy that played Deathstroke in Arrow as Allanon. The others wasn't that interestingactually.

So the story follows Elfstones pretty much. The "world tree" Ellcrys in the lands of the elves are dying and it is the only thing that keeps demons trapped from the real world. As the tree gets weaker three demons are released, the leader of the demons and two lunderlings that are sent out to prepare for the invasion of the demons. You got the chameleon that can take any form and infiltrate the elven court and tells on the planes to demons. The other is the grim reaper that first is sent out to kill the chosen of the Ellcrys, but one is missing. Allanon have awaken from his druid sleep and first pick up Will Ohmsford, the last of the Shannaras and then get an elven princess that left the court and was a chosen and send them out to gather a seed and reinvigorate the tree while Allanon leads the defence of the invasion of the demons. Great story.

A bit of difference here. The changeling is sent to take out the chosen in the elven capital and kills Eventine pretty early, especially when they killed it already just an episode or so earlier, and takes his place instead of reveal that the dog spied on them until the end when it killed Eventine. The wanderer's aren't the same either since they in the books was pretty much romanticised gypsies with ideas like stealing children... like blond blue-eyed children with all the black-haired gypsies... yeah probably good they changed them. In the book they pretty much cheated Will out of the elfstones, but one girl decides to steal them back leaving them with painted elfstones that let's get them killed by the grim reaper as it can follow the stones. The grim reaper shows up fairly late and is more a black knight. And the place they need to find is in San Fransisco. The witches, I don't know what they are, but it isn't like the book. Or I never saw it like that as I quite missed all the modern stuff that existed in the book. Here we have subway systems and areas with radiation poisoning, working pistols... wait, would they still work after what, millenia? At least Allanon fought in the war of the four lands 300 years ago and god knows how many hundred years after Bremen (who makes a small cameo in the show) and the other hundred of years after the destruction of the earth.

Also, they added some conflicts within the elves like the sons of Eventine, the youngest being a drunk after letting gnomes infiltrate the palace and killing the oldest brother and the middle brother wanting to becoming king but constantly fights Allanon and don't believe the demons are coming. Also, they ditch the human legion and dwarfs that would be the only ones that would stand by the elves as the demons attacked. I mean, the leader of the humans was the real badass. So instead of conflict between the elves themselves, why not put that on the other races? Which is funny, since there isn't a single dwarf in the show. And I don't know if trolls and gnomes should look like that, I mean trolls is just wearing gas masks and gnomes disfigured humans with aviator googles. They also added a seer that gets possessed by the demons that wasn't in the book. Seems to be an important character in season 2 so that will be interesting to see.

It was fine, but I didn't get the horror feeling of the hunt by the grim reaper or the tear-inducing ending as all is revealed and the princess realises that she has to sacrifice herself to resurrect the Ellcrys and Will's love for her powers the elfstones while Will tries to plead with her that he loves her and all that. It's a sad ending. They also doesn't show the toll on Allanon since it's also telling how magic affects a person, everything had a price. And the wanderer girl isn't even there in the end but still in San Fransisco. Which sets up season two that I'm waiting for arriving in mail any day now. Will I watch it again? Probably not, I prefer reading the books actually and have a bit of craving for it now.

DC's Legends of Tomrrow

 

Defenders of the Earth!

Well, since Supergirl isn't on Netflix Sweden for the moment, better jump in the next series and that would be DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Basically the show where all the side-characters disappeared from the other shows. I mean you got Sara Lance and the Atom from Arrow, Firestorm, Captain Cold and Mike Rory from the Flash. Then the Hawk-people from the Vandal Savage episodes, which basically is the plot for the first season. Captain Rip Hunter from the future puts together the group Legends of Tomorrow on his time-travelling space ship in order to save humanity from Vandal Savage that will enslave all humans if nothing is done. He gets Sara Lance, Roy Palmer, Mike Rory, Jax and Martin Stein, Leonard Snart, Hawkman and Hawkgirl. They try to stop Vandal at different times before he ascends to full power and conquers earth. Which doesn't work since the time bureau that Hunter belongs to tries to ensure the timeline as well. So in the end Snart sacrifices his life by blowing up the time bureau space station in the future. 

This causes time getting unstable and people and creatures are getting misplaced through time. A new time bureau have been created (somehow Rip Hunter ended up there with Sara Lance becoming the captain of the Waverider, the time-ship) and the legends are put out of commission due to creating this mess to begin with. Until Julius Cesar ends up in Aruba where Mike Rory is on vacation so they get together and starts to put back time as it was meant to be. Meanwhile Eobard Thane (the original looking one as well, don't get why the Flash continued to use the Wells version) together with Damien Darkh and an still evil Captain Cold is looking for the Spear of Destiny or the Spear of Longinus, the spear that pierced Jesus Christ during the crucifixion. We also get John Constantine (back from Arrow) trying to help this possessed girl Astra, that later turns out to be the daughter of Damien Darkh. Which set up the next season where Astra as a grown up resurrect Damien Darkh and prepares to release a demon trapped in the time stream that needs to be defeated by collecting the 6 talismans of the Zambesi, an african tribe where the superhero Vixen comes from (which appeared in Arrow as they fought Damien Darkh).

Fourth season brings in John Constantine again as the release and defeat of the time demon brought magical and fantastical beasts and monsters free into the time stream. There's unicorns, fairy god-mothers and more. Another Legend is Steel, which I don't think is gonna be a reference to the Superman hero Steel. He joins the legends and his father is a politician or something with pulls in Washington and made a pact with a devil to gather the fairy creatures. His father intends to use them for a theme park while the devil intends to create an app that people download where the fine print gives him their souls to take over hell. Then there was one season Sara Lance was kidnapped by aliens contracted by a genius from the future that intends to take over the universe by cloning himself and her. And then the Legends get trapped in 1925 America, their Waverider destroyed by another Waverider and being hunted by a robot J. Edgar Hoover after they killed him by accident. By an earlier version of the genius they used to kill his older self that made him build the Waverider and their computer that now went HAL from 2001 on the Legends. 

Overall I think this is the best series so far. It's completely wild, the legends pretty much does more damage to the timeline and has to fix it more often. Legends dies and disappears and new joins. I get invested in the relationship between Sara and Ava. Rory's whole arc up until season 7 is the emotional weight of the series. He loses his best friend in Snart in season 1, he joins the bad guys in season 2 for that reason but defect in the last episode, he gets invested in stopping the homage to slasher movie villain when the slasher kills his school girlfriend... and that reunion pulls him into a father role. And since he is the last original legend when Sara gets kidnapped, he takes it very hard and is the only one that travels through space of the Legends to save her. Then he leaves the series after killing the villain with his alien children after a union with the alien kidnapper that he had to birth.

And I love all of these misfits of society. They try to do their best, and they fall for temptations to alter the timeline to undo wrongs, but the lesson is always that the consequences is to dire. Also, I like that many episodes are based off movies or books. Also fourth wall breaking jokes like the T. P Barnum episode when they just bash Titanic and the guest star is Billy Zane (you know, the Phantom) that was the villain and Martin Stein played by the engineer in James Cameron's Titanic. And since I watched the other shows first it was fun to see what happened to them, like the Atom that I think just disappeared from Arrow. Although, season 6 was kinda weak in the final boss segment since a genius that clones himself is rather non-threatening after demons, devils and already proven enemies. But since he appeared again in season 7 it might be some later pay-off.

The Flash

 

Flash! Aha! Saviour of the Universe!

Of course I had to continue on the second DC-series, the Flash. Only knew Flash from the Justice League cartoon and animated movies like Flashpoint Paradox. So I got some ideas about villains like Grodd and Zoom and characters like Barry Allen, Wally West and Iris. Of course, Flash for me was always Wally West which made watching Young Justice a bit harder to follow... on more than one way with Wally being Kid Flash and what happened in that series.

So basically during a failed experiment made by Harrison Wells, Central City is showered in dark matter and as Barry Allen, a forensic scientist at the local police head quarter, is fumbling around his office as lightning strikes him, he lands on some chemicals and is in a coma for 9 months. We saw that in Green Arrow. He awakes and finds out he has super speed which he trains with an immobilized Harrison Wells and his two assistants. Meanwhile since he can reach such speeds he knows that there must be a way to save his father from prison where he is falsely accused of killing his wife, Nora Allen. 

During the first season he learns that Harrison Wells is in actuality Eobard Thawn, aka Anti-Flash that is a speedster from the future that killed Nora and took Harrisons place in order to create the accident so that the wheels be set in motion to create Flash... so that anti-Flash can exist and travel back in time I guess. Time travel is weird. The second season is about Zoom, a speedster from another universe that want to be the only speedster through out the multiverse. They beat him and as it looks alright they reenact the Flashpoint Paradox. The paradox is that Barry travels back to the point where his mother is murdered and save her, but in doing so changes the time line. Since his mother and father both survives they live a happy life and he doesn't become the Flash, instead Wally West is the Flash. New villains appears and such, but the reality is falling apart as certain enemies becomes too strong as well as more violent. So he has to put it back on its original path, but it doesn't come back the same. The relationship between the heroes have changed due to certain differences, like Cisko's brother that dies in this new reality. 

New arch-enemy appears, Savitar, the god of speed that in reality is a duplicate of Barry. I gotta be honest, the main bad guy gets harder and harder to separate and how often can they bring back the speedster bad guy again? As of writing I've seen up to season 7 and I kinda could keep up until season 5-6.. Arrow lost interest after season 2, with certain problems here and there, mostly the things that make the show look a bit like Arrow. I mean, we have the season the protagonist goes to prison and the season where the protagonist daughter from the future travels back and save her father.

But the show isn't ashamed of being superhero silly. We get a couple of episodes where Central city is under siege from sentient gorillas from an alternate universe led by Grodd. Barry's father is portrayed by the actor that played Barry Allen in the 90's live-action show, and Jay Garrick which was the first incarnation of the Flash in the comics. Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker is playing the Trickster which he did both in the 90's series as well as that episode in Justice League Unlimited. I mean, first episode of season 6 have a bit where they play Queen's Flash theme from Flash Gordon in universe as Barry travels into a black hole to save a person which is AWESOME! Made me want to see Flash Gordon so that may be a problem. Overall it was kinda fun watching it, losing a bit at the later seasons and certain mysteries at least me to pay attention a bit longer. Who did Zoom have imprisoned? Who was anti-flash and then who was Savitar? A bit copy of certain story elements from Arrow, but was a bit shorter or didn't overstay it's welcome with that. Overall more fun.

Game & Watch: The Legend of Zelda

 

Now You're Playing With Power, SUPER POWER!

The celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda gave us another Game & Watch edition, akin to the Super Mario edition. Instead of two games, we got three. The two original Zelda-games, The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: Link's Adventure and the original game boy version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. And a modified version of the Game & Watch-game Vermin. Which I have a score over 200 on as of writing.

I've pretty much played all of the games before on different consoles and versions, latest being Link's Awakening with the remake for the Switch. Playing them again, maybe that the screen isn't the best for long play in these adventure games, a bit easier to play a couple of levels of Mario and then quit. In Zelda you get into a flow and need to be able to see small things on this tiny screen. For example, you are able to see the movement of the crawlers in Zelda II while it's dark before you get the candle, not so much in this version. The only one I can't play on any other console is actually the original Link's Awakening (although, the DX version isn't that much different than the original). I also lack a way to listen on the music through earbuds or something, maybe I don't want to disturb all around me, but the music is so good that you have to hear it while playing.

Also, maybe not for the original Zelda and Link's Awakening, but I need save states to finishing Zelda II without losing my mind with the instant death and gauntlets of enemies at certain parts. That makes the Wii U, 3DS and NES Classic Edition better choices to play through. Plus bigger screens in all of them. One wonders though if there is gonna be some other Game & Watch editions. Like, Metroid version in preparation for Prime 4 (they missed the opportunity to remind people for Dread and I would like a Prime-collection)? Kid Icarus because... well, it was some time ago. Maybe Golden Sun?.. Nah, better wait for a Switch remake collection in anticipation in the (hopefully) coming episode 4?

Also, gotta add, we decided to get a couple of copies to my dad and brother-in-law for Christmas who are big Zelda fans. It only backfired in that I had to play first half of Zelda 1 for my dad so he can go around with most of the equipments. Twice I might add since I played first on my Brother-in-laws version during the Christmas holiday and then again during the Easter holiday on his own version.

Arrow

 

More like Robin Hood.

After watching the Star Trek-series I've thought, what is next? Well, I like DC and since the movies are bit more hit and miss, why not watch the TV-series instead? And why not start with Arrow? Oliver Queen is found after being presumed dead for 5 years after he disappeared together with his father on the family yacht. After returning he begins to dress as the Hood to eliminate people on a list his father left him. Basically the list contains name of the most wealthy people in Starling City that worked in a conspiracy to destroy the city and reshape it to their liking. Together with his body guard John Duggan and Queen Consortium IT-person Felicity Smoaks they form team Arrow to fight them. John becomes Spartan and Felicity is Overwatch and later we get Roy Harper as Assault (which I know was called Speedy in the comics, but they gave that to Oliver's sister Thea), Mr Terrific, Black Canary, Black Siren and what not.

So I get most people from the animated Justice League-series or Atop the Fourth Wall. Interestingly the show goes back and forth between "present" and five years earlier to see what happened on the island, like meeting Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke), Katana and Amanda Waller. They did that for 6 seasons and then shifted to the future and brought in time travel and that for the last seasons. Gotta be honest, got a bit lost at the end on what the hell was going on. Didn't help that here and there they had crossover episodes with the other Arrowverse shows, like the Flash and Supergirl, just like the comic books, and just like them you need to follow all the shows and watch them at the same time. I don't go for that and just let one show run to the end since I don't want to bother with switching shows all the time (especially since Supergirl isn't on Netflix in Sweden at the moment, or I can't at least find it).

The rouge gallery consist of Ra's Al-Ghoul and the monitor... and then a lot of people I don't think I know about, like Damien Dhark and the Dragon. Damien Dhark was at least some one with meta-powers, but Dragon was just some ruthless mobster. I mean, yeah he's scary, but he's clearly not trustworthy since he offs his companions when he want to climb the ladder or they "fail" him. And he's really not that interesting compared to Damien Dhark or a threat  to Arrow. Really, they should have changed order of them. 

But overall a good series. It is really enhanced if you know some lore, like names and such and then you can enjoy a bit of foreshadowing, like that Barry Allen is the Flash, Slade Wilson is Deathstroke and so on. Also fun with both Peter Stomare and Dolph Lundgren as bad guys, russians at that.

Bayonetta 2 (Switch)

 

At least I refreshed myself in wait for Bayonetta 3

Finished it once again. Pretty much the same verdict like last time. I liked that you keep all upgrades from the first game so it was kinda effortless to play them back to back. It was only 16 chapters with was 2 chapters less than Bayonetta 1. And I don't know why, but it felt the gameplay was a bit more grind heavy in fighting bosses, takes more time and you seem to do less damage, or it might be just me being bad at the game. Also, the ending isn't as bombastic as the first game, I mean, riding a bike up on a rocket into space to reach a god to pry its eyes out and then throw Jubilees into the sun is rather more epic than flying (on an airwing in my case) toward a mountain where you fight angels and demons and then Bayonetta and Balder fight the evil Aeiser and combining a big Madam Butterfly to throw him into Jeanne's dog demon. Not as epic all I'm saying. Hopefully the third game up the antes. 

Now with some more games under the belt I also get more references, like the Lumen Sage Panther-form looking like Amaretsu from Okami. It has more replay value as well with Jeanne as a playable character and the grind for 9 999 999 halos to get the Platinum ticket, which can't be that hard if you gotta play all difficulties and try to get platinum (or maybe even Perfect Platinum) trophies on each chapter. I won't do that, I've got a life... or rather I got a lot of other games to play. 

This was the special edition I got after talking with the local game store and they had an extra copy. So of course I got it. It contained some sheets with stickers, a steel book cage, the normal game card for the second game, downloadable code for the first game and a box with what is called verse cards. I think they are the cards that Loki uses in the second game. No real value other than maybe as a prop for a DnD game or so. They are nice though, but I think I can understand what they represent, but I'm not sure. I think mostly depicting events in the game.

Fun to play, wonder how the third game will fit into this especially with the time traveling shenanigans.

*Update* What do you know, when I wrote this no release date was mentioned and now it has been revealed and it's just weeks from release. Sometimes I'm actually very current with the release schedule it seems.

A DnD Tale: Curse of Strahd - Tanze Der Vampire (Finale)

What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets! But enough talk, have at thee!

The final confrontation is upon our heroes. From the top of the largest tower they descend to the catacombs once more, guided by Sergei's Sunsword. They deduce that Strahd has retired to his tomb and they follow him. And as they get closer to the portculis blocking their path, Toby gets transported away and replaced by a wraith they kill instantly. They use a dispel magic to unblock the invisible teleporters pad then they realise they can just use the teleporter brazier to enter Strahd's tomb. Toby's still gone and missing. So they teleports right in to the lion's den and begin the fight of their lives.

It begins bad as Echer attacks and destroy Pidlewick II, here on called Fu (don't ask me why, my sister named him). But then the table turns. Immeral cast wall of flame from a scroll blocking Strahds vampiric brides in their alcoves, burning every turn. Katrina uses Banishment on Escher and sends him to another plane of existence. Cygnus meanwhile uses the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind to trap the vampires, succeeding on two of the brides and Strahd, but with one Legendary Resistance he just shakes it off. Meanwhile he summons with the power of Ravenloft a Shadow from Hope's shadow. Don't last long since Rahadin tries to psychic damage everyone and succeeds in hurting our heroes, but destroying the Shadow. At least he got away with two poison darts against Katrina, which hits, but she is able to keep her concentration and keep Escher banished.

Strahd then summons 5 swarms of bats that will appear 1 turn from now. Meanwhile Toby have finally arrived by lifting the portculis and entering the tomb. As he was transported to another tomb where he had to push open a casket and then break free and run back to where he was. Can't do much this round, but he's here. Immeral starts attacking Rahadin and lays a long row of attacks on him (which we learned afterward was not allowed with the rules, so we shall try to remember that for next time). Sir Godfrey meanwhile who used his first turn to lay magic weapon on his sword now could use two attacks on Rahadin. Katrina tried to use a scorching ray, but missed all three. Hope begins sneak attack Strahd after using the first round to shine light from the sunsword. Cygnus starts using Divine Smite dealing 5d8 on each attack. And here it's pretty much over. Two of the Brides burns to death behind the wall of flame as they are paralyzed. The last one is able to escape, very badly burnt I might add by spider walk over the wall since it only goes 20 feet above ground when the ceiling is 30 feet above ground (I felt really smart when I recalled that tidbit so that they at least could escape, not as smart when I probably should have used the run action so she could have left the burning flame one turn earlier). 

After that, the radiation from the sunsword kills Strahd that turns him into mist and goes in to his coffin. Then Immeral spears Rahadin, Cygnus destroys the last bride and the others systematically destroys the bats and shadows that have been summoned. Getruda lies on the coffin so they pick her up and hand her to Geofrey as the others open it. There lies Strahd, resting. They put a stake through the heart and he finally dies (for now, but the players doesn't know that) and turns to dust, leaving behind a part of a rod. They take that and since it's about midnight stays the night in the sleeping quarters. The next day on the overlook they see the sun finally break through the clouds, bring peace to the valley. The spirits of Sergei and Irena appears and thanks them for their help as they walk away into the sky. A month passes and they set up shop in Ravenloft as headquarters. The corrupt politicians are ousted and the foundations of their emporium are being laid. I guess I will have to speculate their treasures are being used to restoring the castle and pay all the employees. And so, the final step is trying to get customers to the domain or trade routes to get the flour out.

Luckily a vistani wagon appears that want's them to come with them to Madam Eve. As they pass through the gates of Barovia they enter the mist and appears in a large chamber where Madam Eve sits at a table near a corridor. As they begin to talk to her she appears to get younger (well, in her 50's at least) and look closer to her half-brother Stradh. She lets them in to meet her master. Passing through the corridor they enter another chamber, a circled room where for portals with beams in the colours red, blue, yellow and green converging on a golden triangle with an elvish looking old man meditating inside. From his forehead the four beams emerge again flowing into a black hole in front of him. With telepathy he welcomes them to the Temple of Elemental Evil where he guards the Nameless One, and that they have found the first part of the rod of seven parts which is needed to stop the Spider-Demon. The Master have localised the other parts in other planes of existence, opening 6 portals for them to choose from. The planes being the different adventure books I have that would be fun to play. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Out of the Abyss, Tomb of Annihilation, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden and Baldur's Gate: Decent into Avernus. After some debate (and a roll of a die) they end up with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the search for a dragon treasure.

So that ends the Curse of Strahd-campaign, 4 years after it started. And it all began when I watched Dice, Camera, Action and felt that this could be a fun adventure to play with my sisters. And they seemed to enjoy it. I've already figured out how to get them to Waterdeep (besides teleporting them there since they want to continue their emporium idea). Basically Madam Eve decides that since she is the rightful heir to the throne of Barovia have a proposal. Since the Vistani can travel freely across the planes they might help with the transports, for a fee or something like that. So they summon a ship to the harbour in Barovia (I think there was some mention of some harbour to the south that was swallowed by the mist) where they load up on flour and materials and then will sail to Waterdeep across the planes. And maybe they need the help from a certain mercenary organisation that happen to have a dwarven cleric specialised in accounting.

Bayonetta (Switch)

 

Fly me to the Moon!

Finally got around finishing Bayonetta for the second time, but on Switch. Started on normal, but after four chapters had to go down on easy since without the combos and everything it ain't fun playing through the game. Also, at a point I stopped playing, maybe new games appeared that was more fresh or so. But that was... 3 years ago (as of writing)? Boy, times fly by. 

Nothing much to say, pretty much the same game. High-octane action from Platinum with different things to break up the usual action, like riding a missile, driving a motorcycle and so on.  Harder to follow the story though, mostly since I didn't pay attention. So if the story holds up now I don't know. Maybe that the film reel is a bit cheap in trying to convey the cutscenes without having to animate moving people.

Maybe I get a chance to play a bit more before the third game arrives... but maybe after the sequel. I think maybe the chapters are a bit long at times (goes for both games), but maybe that's me wanting to break up the chapters in order to not need perfection all the way through.

Murder By Numbers (Switch)

 

Miss Teri and her flying computer!

If you got tired on Ace Attorney you can always pop in Murders by Numbers. Picked it up at some Christmas sale on the eshop when I went home back in 2020. Finished it in November 2021 so I dropped it between that, mostly due to not finding the story that good actually.  

Story is that Honor, an actress in a murder mystery show is dragged into a real murder that she has to solve with the help of a flying computer named SCOUT. That continues for 4 episodes where they go through the Hollywood elite of San Fransisco, the LBGTQ-community and a shady mercenary group that has ties to the military that backed the SCOUT-project. And Honor's shitty ex-husband who tries to sabotage her life. 

I don't know why the story doesn't meld with me, maybe that it feels so over the top of liberal west-coast elite values that it's a bit virtue show of.  Then again, it's made by a British team so what do I know? But beyond that, the gameplay is rather fun. It's basically a visual novel where you gotta solve sudoku puzzles (well, maybe the correct term is picross) to get clues to continue the story. And I solved all of them. But the picture they show afterwards is rather hard to grasp what I actually was doing so no help there. 

It can be the ex-husband story line that really grind my gears when I think about it. Which is probably good story telling since you are supposed to hate that smug manipulative bastard, but it makes me detest the story, especially since Honor's mother constantly brings him in her life and such. Music's good though, but when it was one of the composer for the Ace Attorney-series, can it be bad? And I even recognised one of the landmarks mentioned, it was the bowler hat place, you know, the one Willie the giant picks up looking for Mickey Mouse in Fun and Fancy Free?

Superman: The Animated Series

 

Da-da-daaa - da - da - da - da

The continuation of Batman the animated series, now with the man of steel... who isn't the superhero Steel that also shows up in this series. Was shown on channel 5 in Sweden I recall, right before we had to go to school so the ending was missed a lot of times. Amazing how they could pull so much depths and emotions into 22 minutes episodes that took 45 minutes for Star Trek episodes to do. A great show, but it clearly isn't as good as Batman. First off, the villains ain't that good. They try to make them in the same mold as the Batman villains with tragic back stories that put them on the road to villainy, but it doesn't work that well here. Bizzaro is probably the only one that you feel sorry for and maybe Metallo. 

Take Livewire, I don't feel she is justified in her evilness, she's just some random radio host that got electrocuted with Superman as a conduit and she got electrical powers. She just straight up abused her powers to dominate others. Same with Parasite, a lowly dock-worker that got entangled with villains due to debts and got showered in toxic waste. And what does he do? He uses his powers to get revenge on the world. It's not that the Batman rouges did that, they did it a lot, but their introduction episodes usually are about them getting revenge for one special thing that tipped them over to madness and then Batman becomes the target for their obsession. Only Toyman follows that formula. 

The good things though is that it feels like Superman pushes a continuous narrative through every episode. As with Steel, in one episode he gets fired from LexCorp for trying to stop the use of this Robocop suit and a couple of episodes later he built his own fighting Metallo that also references his latest appearance in the show (that of being caught below a volcano). Also I like that we time to time check in on Lex Luthor on non-Luthor stories. Take the Lobo story where his office get destroyed, twice due to the Main Man or the Livewire episode where he is seen agreeing with her as a radio host since he also dislike Superman. Also the introductions of other Superheroes, like Dr. Fate, Green Lantern (Kyle Raynar) and the Flash. Makes the world be more organic.

On the other hand, Darkseid is the best archenemy introduction and execution across DCAU. As stated, good, but there are things laking. For one, there wasn't any movie in the package (probably due to not having any canon movies for that series, but they could have thrown in some of the non-canon ones... or Death and Return of Superman) and secondly, only for commentaries on 54 episodes and a couple of documentaries. I would have liked something more substantial.

Star Trek: The Animated Series

They look a bit... 2D?

So, back to the original series, but in animated form. Not much to say really. The episodes are only 22 minutes so it's refreshingly short, and only 22 episodes total at that so it went past rather fast. Then again, I tuned out pretty much most of the time only watching as the reused animation is used over and over again. Nice with the same cast, but I wouldn't recommend it that much. A curiosity at best. But that could also be due to Star Trek-fatigue efter watching every Star Trek show on Netflix.

Star Trek: Discovery

 

Well, we already did time travel so it isn't much boldly go where they haven't gone before

Yet another Star Trek-series, and we are set before the original series, apparently before the war between Federation and Klingon Empire. Follows the First Officer Michael Burnham that is discharged and imprisoned for escalating the encounter between Federation and Klingon Empire and pretty much starting the war. Doesn't help that she knocked out her commanding captain in order to attack them. Apparently her real family was killed in a Klingon skirmish and she had to grew up on Vulcan together with Spock. 

After that incident she is released and taken to the starship Discovery, an experimental ship working on a new engine called the spore drive. It works in a way that it connects to some kind of space spore system and allows the ship to move in a matter of seconds across most of the quadrant. There is actually some real science behind that. I listened to someone speaking about fungus and I gather that they begin to believe that fungus are connected with the whole earth... or some kind like that, I ain't no biologist and it was some years since I heard that.

The captain is Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter, but it turns out that he is actually a mirror world version and in the end dies in the season 1 finale. And in season 2 captain Pike takes over while the Enterprise is being repaired. Pike being the original captain of the Enterprise as seen in the pilot episode of the original series. And then Spock shows up. And they apparently ends up in the future, some kind of 3 000 AD... I pretty much lost interest. The klingons looks awful (could be that hand-wave to explain how the makeup got better after the original series), you can't even tell (besides the ships) that it's a Star Trek show, wrong colours and such I feel. I saw some buzz from people complaining that it was "woke" with stated gay characters, several female crew members (and varying sizes) and people of colours... but I mean it's Star Trek, it's always been "progressive".  

No, the problem is that it isn't bright and optimistic... which probably isn't fair either since DS9 wasn't all optimistic either and I liked that. But that could be more that it began as "normal" and then spiralled to the warlike state to win the war, but that was build up and payoff, Here we go directly in to it. At least the title has some bars of the original theme in it, which makes it one of the better ones instantly. 

Also, I probably watched it in the last minute since after finishing it it was announced that it was moved over to Paramount +... or rather, it was gone from Netflix in wait for Paramount + to be released first quarter 2022. Well, good luck to them, they will probably need it when I looked at the reactions on Twitter... or maybe that is just the Americans, I still got the others shows on Netflix.

Star Trek: Enterprise

 

To boldly go where no man has gone before... again!

Another of the shows that was shown on Swedish Television back in the day. I think they only showed the first two seasons or so... or that could be what they showed on the Swedish Fox channel a couple of years later. Series take place 100 years before the original series and 100 years after mankind built their first warp-engine and first contact with the Vulcans. With their new starship Enterprise captain Jonathan Archer is piloting humanity into the final frontier.

On this journey there is the Vulcan science officer T'Pol, the Denubolan doctor Phlox, chief engineer Trip Tucker, security officer Malcom Reed, communication officer Hoshi Sato and helmsman Travis Mayweather. And Porthos the dog of course. First episode is just taking a Klingon that crash-landed on earth back to the Klingon Home-world... not that exciting really. Most of first season concerns the politics between earth and Vulcan as they try to postpone mankind from traveling space due to not being ready. Then we get the temporal cold war back-drop. Some 800-900 years into the future several races can travel through time so a temporal accord have been set up to ensure that no one dilutes the timeline or take advantage of it. Which is an interesting premise, but feels a bit like cheating when everything is caused by temporal agents. Third season introduces the Xindi, five races that developed from the same planet and have joined together to annihilate earth since they have been told that humans will destroy them. Told by one of the sides of the temporal war. 

So most of season three deals with that after the Xindi destroyed a big part of Florida with an experimental weapon. And after that we end up during the second world war where yet another fraction of the temporal war have hidden themselves and helped the nazis conquer America. All that is solved and nothing affects the timeline as it resets. And then they fill out the rest of season four with filler episodes and the very final episode has cameos from Riker, Troi, Data, Picard and Kirk... I guess it wasn't reviewed that well since it only got 4 season while the three earlier seasons had 7. I don't really complain since 176 episodes are a bit much to binge through after 3 such shows.

Overall I didn't have a problem with it. I found the uniforms decent enough, I like the song even though it isn't an orchestral piece... on the other hand pretty much only the Next Generation was any good. Then again, it was only good for season 1 and 2, less is more and they just add instruments later on. Some interesting plots... but I can't say that any episodes grabbed me like TNG. It feels like a distilled version of all prior series. First season with all the problems feels like the start of DS9 and getting the station to work. After that TNG and original series exploration feeling, and then it goes to emulating the continued story from Voyager with the temporal war that leads to Xindi and then the end of the temporal war (which echoes DS9 again).

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 (Switch)

 

Falling to the Edge of the World!

A couple of years back I got Puyo Puyo Tetris after getting a recommendation from the local game store (that now doesn't exist any more, sadly) and had a bit of fun. And then a sequel was released back in 2020 and I finished it back in 2021... and then released this now in 2022. And I've come to the conclusion... again, that I really suck at puyo puyo.  And there is an adventure mode here as well.

And it's basically the same premise as the last game. Ringu is walking around when they when suddenly Tee appears and then it's trying to figure out what happened, find the responsible and stop him and her. I think I paid attention to the first two levels, then I just skimmed over the dialogue. Pretty much the same characters from the first game and same motivations. 

The multiplayer and such can probably be rather fun with more people and the normal tetris mode is always a fun distraction... but since I can't get the hang of puyo puyo there is a limited replay value... or even to actually finish adventure mode without skipping most levels. I mean, when I hardly get one line of tetris and my opponent send so much crap that I loose instantly. And I though the difficulty auto would adjust to my level, not put it into hypermode.... or am I just that bad?

Blaster Master Zero 3 (Switch)

 

Return of the Blaster Master

The third and final (?) part of this reboot trilogy of the classic Blaster Master-series. I've played the first game on 3DS and Switch and the second game on Switch. Began playing this just after Ys IX, which was kinda interesting since both games starts you just escaped from prison. Then I stopped like I usually do with these games and then finished it finally. 

Story is that you arrived at planet Sophia, but Jason and Eva was taken in by the military since they registered Eva being a mutant. So Jason breaks out thanks to Kane Gardner, the scientist behind Eva so you gotta track Eva down since she disappeared. On this journey you then got Leibniz from the second game to be your co-pilot. In the end it turns out that Eva have been affected by the mutants at the end of 2 which led to her becoming the Mutant Queen and the mutants becoming more aggressive to protect her. As Jason reach her she decides to leave this dimension behind. Now, during the cut-scene you can activate the system that allows you to enter different dimensions and see her through feelings. I only got it since I looked up how to defeat the "final boss", which I didn't have to do since I got it with the changing colours of the boss anyway. But I got the secret behind it and could get to Area ???.

Area ??? is some time after and apparently a rip through dimensions appeared and you have to find Eva and stop her. Basically you travel through areas from the first game (with the same music), fighting bosses from the second game. Which is hard since you hardly have any upgrades or weapons. But I did it! And the twist is that it isn't Jason, but Kane Gardner that was sent by the Sophia forces to investigate and eliminate the threat from the mutants. The final boss is Jason that joined with Eva in this other dimension. Or it's Kane Gardner depending on which one you choses at the end. First time I was Kane and got obliterated. Then I got some upgrades and by mistake got Jason, but I take it since it was easier to blow Kane up. You get to the ending and it turns out Eva and Jason have been birthing twin humans and intended to give them too Leibniz to raise them on earth since they themselves couldn't leave this dimension. The end.

The ending was worth it, but it was hard at times and a bit unfair I feel. Of all the games, I would rank the first game the best. Basically, that's the only game that hold up from beginning to end. Both sequels take me to a point where I get so irritated that I rage quit, and then a couple of months come back and go for the end. The only thing that works better in the sequels is getting the special endings since the first was 100 % get all items, but the others you get to reach certain conditions that don't get my OCD running.