Your ship sank, your crew is missing, and you’ve washed up on a mysterious island, completely alone. So many questions flood your mind. Where am I? Where’s the rest of the crew, did they make it? This couldn’t be the mysterious Isle of Seiren, could it? Am I stranded? The existential anxiety fades as you begin to look around in awe. This place is beautiful.
Continue reading “Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana – Vacation Isle”After 20 minutes of this demo I was ready to delete it from my Switch forever. You start off in a busy gameplay sequence at level 35, with dozens of arts, crafts, attacks and formations that make no sense. A battle starts and there are 8 menu buttons for each character. There’s all sorts of bars, EP, CP, HP, TP, NPD, ESRB. Nobody has an actual name, they are just labelled “Pink Haired Girl” or “Blue Haired Guy” etc. for every colour you can think of, it feels like a parody. Is the game meant to be like this? Some kind of war is going on and more characters join you, then more characters appear until you have lost count of everyone and you can’t tell who is on what side. Nothing makes any sense but the music is cool.
Continue reading “Trials of Trails of Cold Steel 3 – Switch Demo”
Surprise! A meaty demo for a hotly anticipated JRPG just stealth-dropped during the mini Nintendo Direct while you were playing Animal Crossing. The Bravely Default 2 demo is free, and appears in the New Release section of the eShop as its own thing, since there’s no page for the main game yet. The demo is a 2.3GB download, and claims to have a different story to the main game with harder battles, in order to encourage everyone to experiment with the job system and get used to being Brave and Default.
It all starts with an oof. When the first humans walked the Earth and saw each other they said oof. When they rolled out of bed for the first time they said oof. Then again the second time. When cowboys got trod on by their horse they said oof. Or was that hoof? We’ll never know. Like those great moments in history, it’s also how the Ys series started.
ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK! … Review?! That’s right baddies, we’re gonna sit down and talk about this game. My job class as a Freelancer has granted me the ability to have a chat about the merits and worth of videogames. It has only got me killed a couple of times, so I’m doing well.
Continue reading “Bravely Default – Brave Brave Brave Brave”
What a videogame. After completing the 100 hour story of Dragon Quest VII I felt a huge sense of pride and satisfaction. Without spoiling what happened, the ending was epic, interesting, and a highly suitable way to end such a game. It was an outstanding journey I will never forget, and one of the greatest RPGs of all time. The story has a very large scope yet every town and little moment feels special. It’s so rewarding to solve people’s problems, with some of the best writing I’ve ever enjoyed in a videogame.
However, even after hours and hours of dialogue and traveling, one thing was still stirring in my mind. After beating the end boss and completing the story I was still only level 44. Out of a potential 99 levels this felt a bit low and I still felt like I had unfinished business. I knew there was still more to explore with the Monster Meadows mechanic, tablets, and more fragments to collect. I enjoyed the game so much, I immediately went back into it to see what else I could do. I won’t bother with a spoiler warning here, because you should know what you’re getting into if you read further. It’s EVERYTHING! It’s the post-game!
I’m so sorry. Upon returning to the past, I realised I had done a terrible thing. I’d left a little girl on her own in a field full of monsters. She just stood there waiting. It was a miracle she was alive with no battle skills. I expected things to just resume from the moment I left her, but my understanding of time had proved to be naive. Time does not care where you are, and continues to push forward in all places it inhabits. So where wert I? I owed Fidelia an explanation.
Aahhh, that was a great nap. Where was I? After a long journey on my Nintendo DS I have reached the end of Dragon Quest VI. With VII arriving on 3DS, I hadn’t played a DQ game in a while and wanted to see if I still liked the series. The answer is an Oomph! powered Yes, with Dragon Quest VI on DS proving to be a fantastic game. I haven’t beaten the game yet, but I’m currently preparing my team for the end boss fight. Roaming the land, finding the last pieces of equipment, it’s a great time for reflection.
Pietriots 