Pikmin 4 (Switch)

 

Who let the dog out?

Latest Pikmin game and for the Nintendo Switch, last game for the summer 2023 although I got and finished it after my vacation was over, still work is so slow during those weeks so I could get home after 16:00 without problem. And my co-workers doesn't do anything but talk about gardening and this is the closest I will ever get to it.

Basic story is that Captain Olimar from Pikmin 1 is redoing his adventure and this time ends up in a house on the planet where he finds a radio transmitter that allows him to send out a signal to space. The signal is picked up by the intergalactical Rescue Corp that sets out to save him... and promptly crashes themselves. So they send out their latest recruit, you, the player!

And you set off rescuing the rescue corps with the help of the pikmin you find and a dog that will help you fight and traverse the areas. But you aren't alone, other travellers have stranded as well, there is a school class, some tourists and so on. And a strange leafling that runs around with a dog himself... the same dog Olimar had in the beginning... It's Olimar isn't it?

Yes, while trying to escape the planet he unfortunately crashed back to earth and to save him the pikmins did what they could to save him, they brought him to an onion and it spat out the leafling, more or less the bad ending of the first game. Now he's obsessed with efficency and tries to bring the other stranded people into leaflings so now you gotta do that as well. To cure them you need to do nightly raids where you play sort of a tower defence game as crazed beasts attacks some luminknolls that produce a sap you need to cure the leaflings with. For help you have glow pikmins that seems to be ghost-like pikmins that are created from crystals that the luminknolls use to spew out them. Or if you have rescued Dingo the Ranger he can auto-complete the mission for you if you fail (which I used on the final mission since I was feed up by that time). You save Olimar and are about to go home, but before entering the warp hole your dog grows sick and seems to have caught the leafling bug himself and you have to go back to find a cure.

So you look for a veterinary among the other stranded, but she have been kidnapped by Louie that have taken up Olimars leafling habits. Get the veterinarian back (which is a copy of Brittany from the last game, and copies of Alph and Charlie is here as well) and she confirms that you need the cells from an unaffected dog so you look for Louie until you find him hiding in a 20-level cave with a big dog at the bottom you gotta fight. Well, before that I had to do the Sage Leafs trails to get the onions for the white and purple pikmin to have enough to get through every levels (which made me think out solutions while showering, maybe I'm a bit obsessed at the moment). And then fighting the dog was almost a complete failure. Should have gone to the level before and had diversified my army a bit, or just use red, yellow and ice since that seemed to be the most dangerous phases, especially when I got in with purple white and blue. White helped when he ate them which killed him a bit faster, but it was a really bad deal, but I managed.

Cured the dog and went home, the end! Took me 40 hours pretty much and it was fun... it felt like they changed the timer for the days. I think it was 1 hour in the original, but I still felt I made more progress in the old game. You also have a mode where you play as Olimar that got 15 days to find the 30 pieces of his ship which tells how he got here. There is a remaster of 1 and 2 on the Switch and when I get the physical version I might play that. I actually did finish the original on GameCube, and the sequel on Wii, but there is apparently a bit of QoL improvements that might it even more fun. 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Movie)

Crack that whip!

Well, I watched Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in cinema back in the day, would be a waste to miss this one so I went together with my parents and sister while I was on vacation during the summer of 2023. And I enjoyed it. Starts out at the end of second world war as Indiana Jones together with a friend is looking for the Spear of Longinus, also known as the spear of destiny, that is said to have pierced Jesus Christ as he was crucified and the nazi's wanted it to rule the world. First heard about the spear when reading Phantom comics as the Phantom in the 17th-century found the hidden ruins of Lemuria and together with his brother-in-law picks it up, but the spear curses the brother-in-law to become a monster as he want's it's powers to rule the world. Then it appeared in Castlevania and other stuff as a normal occult item, Gabriel Knight 3 also mentioned it for example.

Some occult things at least goes on since they deep-faked Harrison Fords face to look like he did back in the 80's and its uncanny. Still sounds like an old man, but the looks. My sister said at times she got out of it as it wasn't seamless all the time, but I kinda enjoyed it. The spear is taken on a train and Indy's friend gets taken by the nazi's. Indy saves them, finds that the spear is just a fake, but they find one part of the dial of destiny, an item said created by Archimedes that could predict the future. It belonged to a nazi officer and played by Mads Mikkelsen. They stop the train and rescues all the artefacts and treasures in it as the allies comes in. Now we skip to 1969 and Indy is retiring from his professor job when his friends daughter shows up in search for the dial part Indy have hidden away after his friend went mad over studying it. But with it follows CIA goons that are working for Mads Mikkelsen that helped the Americans put man on the moon. 

Turns out Mads Mikkelsen is still a nazi (who would have thought that, he looked so nice?) and is looking for the dial in order to use it to travel through time back to before the war and replace Hitler and make the nazi's rule the world. Indy together with Helena (his friends daughter and his god-daughter) travels across the Mediterranean together with her child friend Teddy in search of map to the second piece that sank on a roman galley which they need the help of a Spanish diver (played by Antonio Banderas). They get it, but at the same time the nazi's catch up with them and kills the crew off their ship. They get away with the map and deduce that the second piece lies in the grave of Archimedes back in Syracuse. Teddy gets kidnapped and escapes on his own while Helena and Indy gets to the treasure with the nazi's right behind. Indy is shot while the other heroes escape. Mads drag Indy to the airfield where they fly away on an airplane while using the dial to pinpoint a wormhole through time. Helena gets on the plane while Teddy gets another plane and follows. 

Now, the portal doesn't take them to Germany circa 1939, instead they end up in Syracuse during the roman siege of the island. Apparently the dial was sent out by Archimedes to get help. The nazi plane is shot down by the romans and Helena and Indy parachutes down. The planes scares the romans away and is hinted about as a tale of dragons seen in a puppet show earlier in the film. Nice touch. They meet Archimedes and Indy is determined to stay since his relationship with Marion is failing after Mutt died while enlisting in the army. Helena knocks him out and drags him back to New York in "modern times". She also ensures that Marion comes by and Sallah (which helped Indy earlier in the film) ending the movie on a happy note and the series as well.

As said, I really liked this movie. The beginning felt like the old movies (shoddy CGI non-withstanding) and it felt like references to other Indiana Jones media. Saw one person on Twitter that shared a picture from Fate of Atlantis that also had a boat sequence looking for Plato's texts. Now, I recall another diving segment from an Indiana Jones comic when Indy looked for treasure and is attacked by an octopus that kills pretty much the whole crew (that deserved it since they where on mutiny to kill Indy and the captain and a mutual friend). Something like the Sea-Devil or whatever. The Spear of Longinus was also a sequel story to the Last Crusade where nazi's are looking for the spear in Ireland where Henry Jones Sr. gets involved. Seeing Sallah and Marion is nice (although we saw Marion last time as well). The only thing missing is a fisticuff battle with the main muscle of the nazi's, but I assume Harrison Ford can't really do those stunts anymore. It's also somewhat more gruesome with deaths (and that's coming for a series where the heads melts of, hearts are ripped out and so on). The death of Indy's coworker was abrupt, same for the diver crew and I would say the drowning of the muscle is somewhat worse than being dragged into an ant-nest. Probably the last Indy movie we will see, waiting for the blu-ray release so I can have the whole collection.

Final Fantasy (Final Fantasy Origins) (PSOne)

 

Deja Vu

I've just been to this place before

Higher on the street and I know it's my time to go

... I feel like I'm stuck in a time-loop!

Well, played through all games and gave the PSOne version another shot... good god it's hard going back. After 6 hours I defeated the Dark Elf Astos, and I was right, the limiting factor isn't levels but enough money to get supplies. Maybe should have taken the easy mode, but still, if the Pixel Remaster took me 10 hours this version took me something like 25 hours to finish and that is without counting the retries when I died. Should have finished it as a kid, but since it was a PS2 we played on it doubled as a DVD-player. 

So, recall how I mentioned that I class changed at level 30 and felt that it was very high compared to my original playthrough? Well, I played it at normal mode and guess what? Here the class change came at level 20. At level 30 I was on my way to the final confrontation with Chaos. I assume then that level 80 was a bit of overkill then in the Pixel Remaster. Thinking that a closer feeling would be playing the Pixel Remaster with 1/2x EXP. It was apparently doable for me, but I learned that easy mode actually works like Pixel Remaster with EXP 1x. Which is sad to learn that it means that as a kid I probably could have finished the game if I had played it on Easy instead of Normal, damn you prideful kid me!

It had it's moments though, I rage quitted first time at the March cave as I tried to get the final rooms after getting the magic key. Then I took two days of and did other things, but it was always in my mind so I continued and skipped it until I was a bit higher level. I tried to do Ice Cave before Mt. Gulug, but I got so beat up just going there I did the volcano first, got beat up there as well so then I went and did the Castle of Trails instead which gave me a healing staff, gauntlet and the ice sword. The healing staff and Gauntlet you actually could use as an item with heal1 and thunder2. Never knew that, that saved a ton of resources regarding healing and magic change how I played the game totally (wish for the auto-battle function of the Pixel Remaster since it was a lot of back and fourth to the item menu). Now the volcano was a breeze and I thought the Ice Caves would be the same. Boy was I wrong. Damn Dark Wizards pelted me with fire3, there was mindflayer looking guys who instakilled me by touching me, I think I did the run 3 times before going out with the levistone. 

Final party kill was in the water temple, but after that only Magus got killed from time to time (had to shorten Imaginos so I got Magus instead). Still, a bit unnerving traveling through the Chaos Temple or the Flying Castle knowing that if you die here it's back to the beginning. I think they would have made it less frustrating instead like (I think) Dragon Quest and sending you back to the latest visited Priest or so (I know Golden Sun did this at least) with half your money. Now, money is always the limiting factor here, but if I have 3 levels and have to redo them and being faced with the bad luck of an instakill in the early areas before being able to get the protection ring. At least give me something since the game is so random. Doesn't matter what speed your characters have, it's total randomness who goes first every turn, or that the damage really is between the highest and lowest possible without any actual explanation why it is at different times. Fun rolling in a physical DnD game, not so much in a video game when I can't get off a heal on the black mage in time before the slow moving snail kills him. That's what you have preemptive attacks and ambush attacks for.

No, Pixel Remaster beats this out of the water, but it was fun experience it. Sadly no cinematic cutscene, just stills from the introduction movie over the credits, meaning I actually already seen everything that was special about this release. Still, the rumble from attacks and cutscenes were also rather intense and they didn't see to replicate it on the Pixel Remaster either, and definitely not on the GBA. I don't think I ever will do Final Fantasy II on the PSOne though, seems too boring with the grinding and such.

The Shannara Chronicles (Season 2)

 

Better late than never.

Well, took me a year, but I finally went through the whole of season 2 of the Shannara Chronicles. Was a bit hard to get through since I pretty much lost interest in it. Really, they divert so much from the books that I don't know what to do with it. And really, it was gonna be hard to do the original trilogy as it is a generational gap between each book. So what do you do? You take bits and pieces from every book and mash it together.

It takes one year after the first season and there is still chaos in the four lands. The elves are on the brink of civil war between the Crimson and the normal elves. I think the crimson are inspired by the military organisation the Federation from the Heritage of Shannara-series. I think at least. The traveller girl is together with Cogline, the ex-druid that had a larger role in that series as well, and gets visions from the tree-girl and sets out to find Will. Will is back in Storlock healing people and meets this girl that seems to be the daughter of Allanaon, which is a story beat from the book First King of Shannara when a woman thought she was the daughter of a druid, in that case Bremen, Allanons mentor. In that case she wasn't since it was thought she was actually conceived by a minon of the Warlock Lord. Allanon meanwhile is hunting the seer from the first season that have been looking for the codex in order to resurrect the Warlock Lord. That feels like the story beat from Wishsong of Shannara. 

And then it's betrayals here and there, blood squirting all over the screen and many dead corpses. They even have a giant white spider *shudder*. We also travel back in time so we can take some scenes from the sword of Shannara with Will's father Shea Ohmsford... I though Shea was his grandfather? And we have royal weddings between the elves and the human kingdom of Leah? What happened with Tyrsis? And here comes Garet Jax, the weapon master from Wishsong of Shannara... and he survives the whole show even though his arc is to die against the most dangerous creature in battle to show his abilities? And Will dies fighting the resurrected Warlock lord but somehow turns up in a field of furies circling over him and then to be continue shows up. There is no third season.

As noted, a hodgepodge of story beats with a lot of violence. Of course the original books didn't shy away from killing people, even main characters, but there is something special about the Warlock Lord ripping the head off the commander of the Crimson that have been torturing and killing people through the whole season. It really couldn't keep my interest. I would have liked seeing a season 3 just to see what they would have done to keep this story going, but I would prefer a redo and closer to the books. It looked a bit cheap at times, not a lot of actors and even though it was 2 000 years since the nuclear war, there seems to be a lot of modern housing and such.