SolSeraph (Switch)

 

Sword and shield of gold!

The Mighty Stand Alone!

A spiritual successor to ActRaiser, which I finished the remake of not that long ago and boy, do I appreciate ActRaiser so much more after playing this. I wasn't glad at the end, it was frustrating. So basically the game tells the story of Helios, the son of man and god that is one of the last old gods that came with Father Sky and Mother Earth that drove away chaos and created mankind, but after they left the new gods appeared and scattered humanity across the continents leaving Helios to protect mankind.

In ActRaiser fashion you do this by going through an action scene where Helios in an angel form defeat monsters and in the end fight a boss. After that you enter the world stage where you help the humans through building farms, houses and defence towers to fight off the waves of enemies that the new gods sends to you. You open their lairs and there is new action scenes and in the final lair you defeat the area boss. Rinse and repeat for stages, that eerily follows the same progress like ActRaiser. You have the plains, followed by a desert, followed an island, then a mountain range and finally a snow area.

I don't know if this game cross mingled with the remake since I feel that certain aspects, like the tower defence and characters speaking made it over to the remake. Of course there is some problems that they missed that made ActRaiser better. First off, the story. A god that slept for unknown time after a stalemate with the devil that then wakes up and has to protect its people are a more intriguing start. What is Helios excuse in this game for not interfering earlier? Another thing that the world was more connected in ActRaiser, you had to progress a bit in each zone to get for example music from the desert to use in BloodPool to calm the citizens and you connected the starting area with DeadPool through creating roads and so on. And also, even if its fun to have more control over buildings and such, it's a dissonance in the story since you hardly impact the people with miracles, you just build and the reason you build is that you have to create the defence, and your limit is actually how much wood there is in any given stage. So quickly I learned that you cut down the wood as fast as possible, then build defence towers (and I mostly just got the basic arrow towers since it did its job). No SimCity or Civilization here. Which causes another problem in storytelling. In the original ActRaiser, the larger the population, the more worshipper and the greater power you had. Here? Upgrade through the action scenes. Why do I care about the people again?

But all that is small nitpicks that don't affect the overall enjoyment of the game, no, the thing that makes me mad is the combat in the action scenes. I hate the enemies. You have arrows flying everywhere from traps and enemies out of reach that you have to avoid. Don't get me started on the final stages where you have exploding enemies that blows up in your face or the kamikaze bats that been there since the first action scene (gives me Dragon Quest II flashbacks). Bosses are a bit boring since it's basically swipe at them with your sword and block with your shield with one exception, the damn Queen of Ice, a giant owl which you have to fight over a pit of spikes with moving plattforms. And you have to fight her twice, thank god there was a save before and I could chose to fight her first in the damn boss rush mode. Her lair was the most annoying of them all since there was no save so after every defeat you had to go through that stage of endurance again and again, was so close to quiting the game then. But I didn't and finished the whole game.

*SCREAMS IN TERROR*

Never gonna play this game again. Graphics is alright, but the music is lacking in comparison to ActRaiser, which is kinda funny since the main theme was composed by the original composer of Actraisers music. The game is to frustrating, but it was cheap since it was on sale and I think I pretty much used some gold points for it. Could have saved it for a better game, but they can't all be winners.

E.V.O.: In Search of Eden (SNES)

Here's your invitation
Dirty rags and body bags
Evilution

Another SNES classic and another 16-bit Gem recommended game. This game comes from Enix with music from the same creator that made all the Dragon Quest music until he died, Koichi Sugiyama. So that at least is good. Honestly, not that impressed by the game after playing through it, but the music was good.

So it starts with the sun tasking Gaia to... I don't really know. She tasks you, the player, to help her with the evolution of the species of the earth. So you start of as an eel at the beginning of life on earth in the sea, and from there you gotta eat other animals in order to get EVO-point in order to evolve different parts of your body. I assume if I had an instruction manual I might have gotten a better idea out of this system, but I didn't get one. 

But evolution is tied up by bosses at each section that you have to defeat to get through. I got to the shark boss and got trounced. It's not easy. I might think that me not understanding the evolution system is the thing that made me loose the fight. I got the most expensive upgrades and I don't know if I should have gone for high damage and speed instead of the slower but more robust fish. But guess what? I got this for my Retron-5 and you know what that means? Yes, cheats. Infinity HP. Still, the boss takes forever to get through and that's when I understood that I won't enjoy this if I play it as intended.

The game doesn't have that much to offer actually since it's basically eat for EVO-points, upgrade your character to an appropriate creature and defeat the enemies and in reality, the only enemies you have to defeat is the bosses, you can skip every enemy in the normal stages, but you need the EVO-points since every evolution change needs it, meaning it's a real grind to get enough points to upgrade. Doesn't help that you loose half of your points if you are defeated. So to avoid the grind what do you do? Infinite EVO-points! Evolve how ever you want trying to get optimal creatures... doesn't help me since the stats still seems to be very low compared to what you have to accomplish in later part of the game.

So after crawling out of the sea you begin walking with amphibians and dinosaurs until the asteroid hits. Defeat some mammoths in the ice age and suddenly you have a flying fortress with sky people that evolved with the help of some crystals they got. The insects in prior age also mentioned having been given crystals so Gaia believes someone is tampering with Earths evolution... like we are doing I assume? You enter the final age right before mankind and fights several crystal bearing enemies, like the Rogan in the sea that are killing of the whales and the lizard people... beside the conspiracy theories, I get flashbacks to Ys VIII and the different extinction events they showed.

Right before Eden, the final area where the lizard people live you gotta defeat Cro-Maine which I believe is a pun on Cro-Magnon, the name for the early human race. Glad my biology and history knowledge from school still recall these facts. You fight through the lizard people and face of against the big boss, a one-cell abomination called Bolbox that have taken every crystal and evolved to the thing it is.

Kill it with fire!

After a very long fight (I had evolved into a human at this point, and that had somehow locked me into continue being a human for the rest of the game) trying to fight of Bolbox and the harder minions he spit out I stand triumphant looking out over Eden as Sol, the sun, grants me intelligence and the start of human civilisation. And then we see the ones handling out crystals to try to speed up the evolution of Earth.... martians. Damn aliens. Overall, it's an interesting game, but the grind and difficulty over a, in reality, very shallow game makes it to much to stomach for my taste. 

Return to Monkey Island (Switch)

 

A pirate I was meant to be!

Trim the sails and roam the seas!

After finishing of these huge games, losing our family cat that was with us for over 15 years and spent the last two weeks (as of writing) working with the stressful environment at work with several sick in Covid, people quiting left and right and so on (and getting a positive Covid result on my own, thanks for that) I needed something more fun to lighten the mood. What better than a return trip to the Caribbean with the mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood? Made by most of the creators behind Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2? Sign me up!

It starts right where they left of, back in Monkey Island 2 where little Guybrush and Chuckie steps out of behind the scenes of the pirate theme park as they look for their parents... turns out it's just Guybrush Jr and Chuckie reenacting the end for Monkey Island 2 as Guybrush is the father and is about to the tell the story of how he really found the secret of Monkey Island. Apparently LeChuck has gathered a crew at Melee Island and is about to set sail for the treasure and Guybrush arrives to stop him. Several things have happened since the last time... I guess since Ossie Mandrill was about to turn the whole Caribbean into a theme park and drove off the pirates at the first place, since the pirate leaders of Secret have been deposed by Captain Madison and her co-captains and they ain't that impressed with the old pirate life. So Guybrush is on his own.

He has to infiltrate LeChuck's ship so that he can beat him to Monkey Island and while there complete a magic ritual to decrypt the map to the secret... that turns us back to Melee Island and the International House of Mojo where it have been hidden away in this safe which needs 5 keys you need to search the Caribbean for. Leaving a trail of destruction in your wake to new and old friends that Elaine have to clear up after you. And it's nice with her just being nice, no animosity that usually goes into romancing in game series to keep that element being a part of the story. You meet Herman Toothrot in a cave and fight him for one key, you ensure that Stan goes from a month in prison to ten years so that you can break him out and use it to scam pirates to accept limes against scurvy to get a flag that is a piece of a map to a sunken ship where one of the keys are found. A bit of a roundabout way to get the key, but it's an adventure game.

LeChuck grabs the secret before Guybrush so it's of to Monkey Island and the catacombs below the Giant Monkey Head and a series of interesting puzzles which leads to a door with two rotating wheels of pirates... is that a reference to the original games code wheel as copy protection? At least the game is solvable inside the game, haven't forgotten Thimbleweed Park. LeChuck is already inside fighting one of Madisons co-captains so you hurry and... you turn up in the alleyway in Melee Island and it looks that everything is back to being a theme park. You find the chest with the secret, grabs a key in the display and unlocks it, getting a t-shirt for you trouble. Didn't know what else to expect really. Back in the present Guybrush jr. says the same as I was thinking, Guybrush is bad with endings. And yet it was satisfactory enough. Looking it up it was actually one of several endings, but most are just a small after-credit scene change.

It was a fun time, made me laugh out loud several times so it was my brand of humour. They had a hint system built in that I used before getting frustrated on some of the puzzles, but I got through most without using it. A replay bonus is getting every trivia card and answering right on all of them. Many is about the games story, but some are 4th-wall breaking about the creation of the games. Many returning voices so that was fun, missing Ottis, Stan (which I believe have changed voice most of all) and LeChuck, since Earl Boen is retired (update: and now even dead, real sadness). Which is sad since Earl Boen could really sound sinister, and I miss that bit of punch with the new voice actor. He have been in Monkey Island before as the shopkeeper from the first game and maybe it's that that is the problem. And there was one side-character I actually thought sounded more like LeChuck so that could have affected me as well. Apparently people had a problem with the art-style before release, but I love it. It looks like the high detailed pictures they used in the first two games and applied on the whole game. I got what everything represented and it looked like I remember it, although, that is 7 years ago since last time. A bit miffed by the ending, but can overlook it. Took one day to play through, maybe another if you gonna complete it.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Master Mode (Switch)

 

Winner Takes It All!

Loser Takes The Fall!

Played the Master Mode of Breath of the Wild in parts anticipation for Tears of the Kingdom (the trailer was released during my play and then it was 8 months of wait for that and finished as of writing, look forward to that post in 2024-02-07) and since I wanted to refresh the magic I felt playing it from the beginning. And to do that without reseting my old save is playing on Master Mode (which I started once before when it was new, but didn't get off the plateau). Really dislike the one save they have, should have been at least 2 or three like the old games. 

Master Mode then, it's harder alright. First thing I noticed, your starting weapon is useless against the first enemy so avoiding combat was the way to go. Then you have the damn flying platforms everywhere with more enemies you have to avoid. And to top it all off, there is a damn Lynel at the plateau. And all monsters is one grade over there usual one and they regenerate health unless you deal damage to them (to a point at least as far I understood it). It's harder, but I got the hang of it. It forced me to use other tactics so I actually got a use of Urbosa's Fury in order to deal with a lot of enemies and even harder ones. I stamped over Moldugas, and when I got the Master Sword the Lynels and Hinoxes didn't stand a chance when I got stasis working for me. Really, stasis become the best power since it allowed me to reset the monsters attack pattern and save myself some headaches. I thought I had cracked the code on how to get through the Trail of the Sword, but alas, the divine beast power's don't work there which I say boo to. Those are part of you as well.

Then it was just playing the game. I actually got pretty good at it and got around 50 korok seeds more than in my original run (could be due getting the korok mask pretty early since it actually existed at the start of the playthrough this time). Tried getting the DLC costumes early since they are a great help in the early stage of the game until you find the great fairy's and can get the upgrades for the armours. But due to me not remembering where I found them I got them pretty late in the game so I still had better armour. But I was able to upgrade the sheika stealth armour to the max. I found THE Hylian Shield and cooked a lot more different foods and did most of the Champions Ballad DLC, I got as far as the bosses and had to give up since I couldn't get around it. Mostly my weapons broke before I was able to kill it due to the regeneration. So, long before playing over 100 hours, I got to Calamity Ganon and beat him up. Had to use the champions powers a bit more (Daruk for reflecting back his attacks and penetrating the golden armour and Urbosa to insta stun him and get some good damage). The Champion Ballad's upgrades would have been nice for some faster turnaround, but it wasn't impossible. Sad I didn't get the motorbike.

Still a great game, can't wait for the sequel (that have already come out when this get published and I believe already finished, but it will probably be a couple of months before that post gets up). I got so hooked I also looked on some interesting discussions on the Zonai tribe that apparently made most of the ancient monuments. Got so out of hand I got both the special edition of the Behind the scenes book as well as the strategy guide. Which I got the very day I finished it. Worth the money? Probably not, but now I got the bragging rights. It's really interesting reading about how the thought process on the designs and what they began with in some cases. The strategy guide at least have things that are really great, like the korok list, a guide on every cooked meal and helps and tips for the trail of the sword and the Champions Ballad... still won't fix it in Master Mode I feel, but got thru the beginner trail on Normal Mode upgrading the Master Sword one level. It's really detailed on some events, for example there's the shrine where you stasis the orange orbs and hit it across the room to fit a hole. They give you detailed instructions on how many hits you need with which weapons. And it works (although, I fixed it on my own first, but the second time I couldn't bother with it).