Alwa's Awakening (Switch)

Another magic man... I mean woman!

Got my hands on Alwa's Awakening, another of those 2D 8-bit games that harken backs to the olden days. A puzzle platformer with Metroidvania elements thrown in. The game tells the tale of the land of Alwa where peace ruled until Vicar appeared together with the Protectors that have stolen the four gems of the people and devastated the lands for hundreds of the year. The people call for a hero in desperation and summons forth Zoe, the player character.

Zoe's mission is to use her magic and platforming ability to find the bosses, find the upgrades to her magic and defeat the bosses. It is a bit on the hard side, not impossible and they give you the choice to turn on a return to the same room instead of back to the save spot. I only turned it on at the final dungeon since I have a limit on how much I can take from pixel perfect platforming together with timed one-shot uses of magic in sequence. And I've already came rather close to going for 100 deaths, although, best way to ravel back was sometimes to die so it is probably a speed-running tactic. Even though the game mocks me by displaying the ever increasing number at the game over screen.

After defeating the protectors it's time to face Vicar, who turns into a dragon... and is the easiest boss of them all proven by that I didn't die at him. After that you are taken to a room that looks like the save spot... and a light like the ones from the warps appear, Zoe goes from 8-bit to 16-bit and the game seems to restart and then credits... I'm a bit lost, luckily I got the sequel already.

Overall a fun game, I liked the music, the graphics are nice and I did enjoy the challenge. Found all the things and got 100 % map so I feel accomplished and it only took me one weekend, and that weekend included being forced to hang-out with my sisters on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

A DnD Tale: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - Fire in the Street

 

Smoke on the Water!

Fire In the Sky!

Another episode in this thrilling fantasy adventure. Now with another player, my third sister that plays the half-elf bard Freya that has been recruited by Hope and Immeral as entertainment after she decided to move into Waterdeep in order to avoid the long arms of the law after seducing some foreign prince. So they teamed up. So in the morning before the grand opening they sit and discuss what to do. Parker Bronzebeard got the duty to cook the dinner since they don't have enough money for a real chef. Immeral will be the waiter, Hope serving drinks behind the bar and Freya will do the singing and playing. Then all hell breaks loose as the windows rattle, smoke bellows from the street and bodies is thrown around outside. As they look out they see that the street have erupted in chaos after some kind of explosion. Bodies laying dead in the streets and people running around. They go out and look into the chaos. They talk with some eyewitnesses and finds out that a kid found a necklace dropped from the roof, some kind of construct was walking on the roof of their tavern and one person grabbed something from the dead gnome and limped away. They get the necklace and after the bard loot the dead gnome for jewels worth 500 gold they await the city watch that have put the place in lockdown and started getting questioned by the inspectors. 

The inspectors starts to question them and probing their minds with detect thoughts. And it's rather fun since they don't suspect them, but the gnome that was the target for the fireball thrown by the nimblewright on the roof was actually heading toward their tavern and to speak with them, but since they didn't know that and therefore had no knowledge of that person they are withdrawn from the investigation. And our heroes goes back to the tavern and continues to discuss tomorrows grand opening after getting the go from the city watch... our heroes ladies and gentleman. They eventually begins talking about the attack, and they realise that they still have the necklace of fireball that is the weapon used, and they have living puppet that could fit the description of the nimblewright and might have been on the roof. So suddenly they are paranoid about the city watch, reading the laws of the city and seeing prison as a possible future for them. They go back to their opening and head for the furniture shop the bleeding person was heading toward to get a stage set up and find out if the person was seen. Which he wasn't. But they get a lead on the nimblewright that there is a parade in fall where such things walk and they belong to the temple of Gond. 

On their way there they get attacked by a mechanical sparrow that crashes beside them. They get to the temple and introduced to the priestess that takes them to Nim, their nimblewight that invents different mechanical wonders. After getting in by persuading it to open the door (the rouge failed the lock-pick test) and revealing it built a nimblewright by itself, but that it disappeared a month ago. The temple puts out a reward for our heroes to destroy it and Nim gives them a detector to localise it. They begin by walking across the top of the city and rather quickly localise the Gralhund Villa where the nimblewright hides... I mean, the book suggest that they could use a griffon to choose different districts and by the docks they might stumble upon Jarlaxle, but that is like thinking outside the box since you can go district by distric and the first district to look at is the North District since that is where it was spotted? Still, they begin distributing flyers for the grand opening and the bard use that as an excuse to enter the home of the Gralhunds and invite them. They like the exclusiveness of the barovian setting and wine and happily appears together with the Castellanters, one of the main villains of the books. And at night the bard is visited by a white cat enticing her to go help the Emerald Enclave.

The grand opening appears and they roll decent enough to make a great impression, but suddenly the officers investigating the fireball shows up taking a seat. Meanwhile the rouge falls down the ladder to the now open wine cellar as their own living puppet have escaped. And is trying to get out. They get really paranoid about this and catch him before anyone notices. In actuality the City Watch is just there to relax and remembered that it was a grand opening. The Gralhunds also invites them over the next week to deliver wine and help them with the midsummer celebration they tries to create. And our heroes recalls the festival of the blazing sun. It's great how this turns out. They have set up a schedule of 4 days open and one day of and then it rotates to get the most out of keeping the tavern open. So the next free day they head for the Emerald Enclave and learns from their demigod that there is some scarecrows running around the fields. And here the session ends.

It worked rather well, although they would break in to the Gralhunds villa instead of their current route. I intend to have the Gralhunds under attack during the delivery to get the action going. We shall see when the next session will be, and with one of the player in another county we shall see how often we can get this going.

Hero-U: Rouge to Redemption (Switch)

 

Is this gonna be a Harry Potter rip-off?

So why not continue with a game which is set in the same world as Quest for Glory? Made by the same developers? And Josh Mandel, the voice of King Graham, being one of the writers? Enter Hero-U. You play the newbie thief Shawn O'Conner who doesn't want anything else then become a thief. And after getting caught at his first break in is sent over to Hero-U, the university for heroes and is enrolled in the disbarred Bards class (aka the rouge class) to learn something. So you get to learn about the different classmates and personal at the university and unravel the mysterious encounter at the school. There's your teachers, rouge teacher herr Gerhard von Urwald, magic instructor Silvia, Paladin instructor Moira and the alchemist Emmet Braun... alright, I get a Back to the Future shout out when I see it. The salesrat Gregor that got the best deals, the receptionist Sophia, the chef and Twerk, the antagonist for most of the game and head administrator... and the librarian that just sits in the library. The students are Katie the pirates daughter, Sosi the aristocrat that is the second antagonist of the game, Thomas, smart guy, Esme, the rover girl and black market kid Joel. 

So you attend classes to learn about being a rouge, then you use the skills to uncover the secrets of the castle, earn money and get better so that you will pass the exams and avoid getting kicked out. Help in the kitchen to get money and get tales of the dead, and help Gregor killing drats and insects to get money to afford all the things you need. Study at the library, the training grounds and recreation room to hone your skills. Read all about different heroes in plaques all over the castle and uncover the history of the Illuminar castle and the evil that hides beneath it... which I didn't do I think, but I got to be the rouge of the year. And the puns, I see Josh Mandel been busy writing them.

Basically works like any Quest for glory game, training makes perfect and you got tool use, defence, attack, magic, smart... moxie (?), fitness, agility, climbing, charm, throwing, games and luck. Equip items to help in certain parts. Which caused a bit of problems when I found them a bit late. There was this ring in the wine cellar with the drats I found at the end of the game that enhances your intelligence (smart) which I already maxed out. And then it was the time I missed the entrance to the Sea of Caves missing out on several events and treasures. My fault since I forgot the key hole I found with my sense magic in the dark corridor. Same thing with the torture dungeon to find the drat queen when I didn't get that you could switch the lever around... mostly because the game told me I couldn't, until after I used it once first. So I blame the game for that.

Other than that I actually solved the puzzles myself and followed the flow of the game, proudest moment when I got into the secret corridor by solving the puzzle in rooms of heroes. With that in mind the game feels like encouraging several play throughs... which I might do since I didn't get how the traps worked until roughly the last 10 days of the game. Magic was optional since you have the possibility to choose between magic, healing, alchemy and nothing and I guess magic only if you choose it as a trait in the beginning of the game. Magic gives you several runes to use to trap ghost and deal damage to them making the catacombs easier. 

I really enjoyed the game. Had a bit of problem with the character art since they look weird, especially the main hero. He looks rather ugly, especially when he grins. Also, the school schedule was rather tight meaning very small window for exploring and training, notably since you tried to avoid the tired status..., but apparently tired is so minor that you can actually just ignore that and power through or get a nap for an hour. One thing I do find irritating though was that there needed to be some way too fast travel. Mostly since I don't want to remember every single maze and run away from the enemies to get through... which of course with my later knowledge of traps and such maybe wouldn't have been a problem. Still irritating to get to the minotaur to play chess every single time. At least Quest for Infamy gave you the skip travel option.

What I missed is the real final enemy that is the darkness sleeping beneath the castle that was sealed by the Illuminar knights and that every tapestry and relief told you about. The ghosts told you about it, but it never turned up in my playthrough... well, as of writing summer is closing in, maybe time for summer school. Still. It only took me a weekend to go through a playthrough. I think it was talk about several instalments in the series, one for every class (fighter, magic user and Paladin), but the school setting I could do without. There is something special with wandering around without getting punished by missing scenes and such. 

Quest for Infamy (Switch)

 

Seems someone been looking at Frazetta paintings

So back in 2016 I was on a Quest for Glory binge playing through 1-4, Heroines Quest and the demo for Quest for Infamy. I couldn't get the original since it was only on PC and since I only got a Mac that was kinda hard getting around. And lo and behold, 6 years later we got Quest for Infamy on the Switch so that I finally can play the game. So, first a correction, I thought I did the rouge mission in the demo, but apparently it was the brigand, which is basically the fighter class. And instead of that class I went with the magic user aka Sorcerer (gotta bring Magus legacy back somehow). 

So the difference from the demo part of the game is that I got to choose a mentor and chose the sorcerer Prospero. So he gives you missions to find the different ingredients for the spells so that you can use them and a specific mission to find and kill a necromancer hiding in a dwarven cave. And I assume Sorcerer is sort of a easy mode since fights is mostly avoided by the Fear Spell that drives all living creatures away, and in the end you have healing magic and a Plauge spell that takes away most problems, especially after finding the protection of speed that hastens your spell casting. Mostly since you don't have mana that limits your uses of magic it's just fire away. Unfortunately they have limited the use of certain spells by having fighting magic and environment magic, so no fire spell to burn things other than enemies and no healing outside of combat (which by the walkthrough I looked trough hinted at a point actually worked). 

So, during your travels across the valley you learn that there is a cult named Morai harassing people that worship some lovecraftian god. And there is a noble family that destroyed themselves years ago as the patriarch brought with him the Eye of Jaagar that turned him insane that he stole from the Centai, some druid like people of the north. The sheriff of Volksville is a bastard that locks up people for the most trumped up crimes and one of the Morai is Kayleena that works for the Centai and need Roehms help in finding the eye so that the Morai don't get it. So fist gather the pieces of a seal and a key in order to enter the tomb of the Killgrove family and get the Eye. Act 1 ends when the Sheriff arrives and arrests you in the tomb.

Act 2 is doing some missions for the sheriff until he sends you too the Moroi fortress where you get arrested and it turns out that the sheriff set you up since the sheriff, cult leader and the Mayor of Tyr is attempting to take over the valley. So you beat the cult leader in a duel, act 3 starts and you head back to Volksville and talk the deputy to help you and release all the prisoners that the sheriff captured which included a Paladin, a barbarian and a cleric. Then Prospero gets you in to Tyr where the battle rages on. You rescue the town guards and the council and fights of the sheriff at the top of the lighthouse. Roehm is turned into a baron and heads toward the Kings Castle in the north. Game ends and the final scene is someone talking on a tower with appears to be another of the three eyes the Centai was guarding. 

First act was the best, sadly there is a lot of bugs that screwed me over a bit. I did a couple of things out of order that screwed up the story a bit (for example getting the Moiroi in Tyr before being told to go there by Kayleena which seems to trigger a conversation with Prospero about the conversation you didn't have. And then Kayleena talk never happened and she stood motionless outside the Pub until I found my way to the appointed location she appeared in. Which was the biggest problem I had, since I was told to meet where the trees had eyes, and I never found it. I had to look it up and was a bit hidden at the mansion portion of the forrest since you had to click a specific spot on the screen to get there. Otherwise I hadn't that much trouble. Problem finding the key for the unlock spell. 

Overall a fine game. Heroine Quest and Quest for Glory had more varied RPG statistics (spells leveled and there was more statistics like life and mana that gave a reason for more grinding). Humour is alright, but it's crude some times and, I just liked Quest for Glory and Heroins quest heroes better since a hero is a hero. Also the clashing styles of clothing of people like modern banker and red necks doesn't get the medieval style of the other characters. Voice acting is fine and music works well. You can play it several times as different characters and it wasn't impossible. But I still would play the epic saga of Quest for Glory before this again. Although it was talk of a sequel and prequel and I would be down for that.