Mass Effect Retrospective 13: Andromeda Review

 Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop!

I know I'm late here, but I've finally gotten around to reviewing Mass Effect Andromeda. So at this point, I'm considered a "second wave adopter", since Legendary Edition brought renewed interest in the franchise, I thought I'd throw my thoughts into the bucket.

Now, I've only managed to get through the game twice; my first time through as an Adept, and my second as a Sentinel. First time through was the "I'm learning the systems, crafting and combat" playthrough, and the second is the "I know the game better and am discovering things I didn't catch the first time" playthrough. 

Mass Effect Andromeda takes place 634 years after the events of Mass Effect 2, in a galaxy far, far away (I know, but I had to do it!). You play as Scott or Sara Ryder,(whichever gender you choose to play as during character creation), fraternal twins of Alec Ryder, the human Pathfinder. Alec was one of the crew to travel through the Charon Relay, and one of the first N7s, though based on the events of the first Mass Effect novel, he wouldn't have been an N7 yet, since Anderson was a member of the first class through the program. As Scott or Sara, you are part of the Pathfinder team, a group who follow the Pathfinder in his efforts to find a habitable , or "golden" world, in the Heleus cluster of Andromeda, for the human race.

Unfortunately, Habitat-7, the golden world meant for the human ark, had been destroyed, and Alec was forced to give up his own life and save his offspring, transferring the Pathfinder authority to them. And this is when the story really begins.

Now, unlike the original Mass Effect trilogy, Sara and Scott both exist in the timeline. The one you didn't pick still exists in the story, albeit at a lesser extent; the opposite gender sibling being in a coma for the first half and inactive during the second half. However, you do play as the other sibling during a short mission late game, and as a plot device during the final encounter.

Now, at this stage, much like my Dark Souls Remastered review, I know I'm late here. All the anger over the story, animations, "Deadname Abrams" and what not have died down considerably. In fact, we're at a "was Andromeda really that bad?" point in history, where any video you find on YouTube is pretty much praising it. People are more forgiving of it than they were in 2017.

What's my view on it? I have fun playing it. The combat is very fun, though I had to get used to it. Getting your build just right is important, since you only get three abilities in battle per favorite profile. You have a LOT more mobility than Shepard ever did, though I understand completely why Shepard and Ryder are different. Shepard is a soldier, dedicated to a certain skillset, trained to fight and kill, with an imposed honor code to not allow them to become a monster, though a Renegade character can turn into one anyway. Ryder, however, is an explorer first and a fighter second. Their job is, to quote Star Trek, "seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before." Ryder picks up abilities that are necessary to survive and explore, not just kill their enemies.

And that's something I remind myself of when I create characters. Ryder is NOT Shepard, and should not be treated as such. And to remind myself of this fact, I utilize certain facets of the character creation and color schemes to create a "theme". Shepard's color scheme is black and red, with the N7 logo proudly displayed whenever possible. Ryder, however, is white and blue. I use the tattoos for Ryder, and a beard for Scott due to a lack of military regs on facial hair, to differentiate that they are civilians, not soldiers, and have a different mindset.

I also like the story, though I can definitely tell they were planning for more. The role as Pathfinder, some plot threads and the setup for the quarian ark, the story of Ellen Ryder...all of these are screaming "we were planning on DLC and a sequel, but due to the failure near launch, we're not doing that", leaving me screaming about the untapped potential.

For the things I don't enjoy, a couple of these things are my computer's issues, and the biggest one is a part of the game design. I have auditory glitches during conversations on the Tempest in some locations, (I'm looking at you, bridge!), and if I don't delete the autosaves after an hour or so, the game will crash due to a lack of memory, though again, these two are issues with my computer, one of which will be solved once I get an external hard drive.

No, what I really don't like is the exploration. I HATE open world games, and Andromeda is that in spades. That said, when I remind myself that the Andromeda Initiative is all about exploration and finding a new home for not only humanity, but all the Milky Way species, it becomes easier to stomach. That said, I spend the first...I'd say 20 minutes of my time on a planet driving to unlock the fast travel points so I can actually enjoy the missions.

I also don't like crafting, but I've found some easy ways to get what I want. First off, I pick up Financial Infrastructure 1 and 2 from the AVP terminal so I have a steady stream of money. Second, I get  Mining Operations, Hunting Parties, Special Forces and Lab Technicians in that order. And finally, instead of selling weapons and armor, I deconstruct anything I don't want in order to get their materials. That gives me what I need to build my gear, though Remnant and Heleus gear is still time consuming, since you don't get a steady stream of research points.

As for companions, they're not as good as the Shepard Trilogy companions, but we don't have three games to fall in love with these characters. Anyone playing Mass Effect 1 in 2007 might have found certain characters wooden or one note. I mean, fan favorite Urdnot Wrex was grumpy and confrontational in his debut game, and Liara was extremely wide eyed and naive in 1, far more socially awkward than I could ever be. But we grew to love them over time because we had the time to do so.

 All in all, I enjoy Andromeda. I'll be doing a full combat engine analysis, as well as one for the characters like I did for the Shepard trilogy. Look forward to that, and stay beautiful freaks!

How I make Stardew Valley fun

 

 Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop!

I know it's been a while since I posted here, but that's not intentional. Work and life and all that. But I have a subject to talk about today. I've seen a ton of videos on Youtube on how to make the best of Stardew Valley. Things like how to guides for the Community Center in Year 1, how to make out friendship with all the villagers, how to make money, etc. And while this is a guide, it's not one of those types.

No, this is a type of guide for players like myself, who don't really like farming sims or minecraft like games. Resource gathering, fishing, crafting, etc...none of these interest me, but I really want to see more than the first two weeks of the game, because it is SO good after you get some skills and crafting recipes under your belt. 

Now, full disclosure, I have several mods that help me cheat. I'll list them here and explain why I use them, if they require explanation.

1. CJB Cheats menu. I'm not a fan or the fishing minigame, how slow you move, having to worry about hay for the animals, and a few others things. I use this mod to get around the stuff I don't like.

2. CJB Item Spawner. I don't like resource gathering, which is the biggest reason I couldn't play for more than an hour when I tried out Minecraft. So I spawn in items for stuff I need. However, one restriction I place on myself is that I NEED to get at least one of an item, or more if it's plentiful, before I start spawning them in. 

3. CJB Show Item Sell Prices. This was critical during my Joja run on my Riverland farm, since I needed to know the cash crops in order to unlock the community upgrades fastest.

4. Gift Taste Helper. This saves time on going back and forth between the game and the wiki.

5. NPC Map Locations. Trying to find someone on their birthday can be a pain, so this is why I use this.

6. Babies take after spouse. 

7. Part of the Community. I saw this on Youtube, and I liked the idea that you could get approval from people if you talk to their friends and relatives. Makes Pelican Town more "real".

8. Content Patcher. Several mods require this, like the "babies take after spouse" one, as well as a couple after this.

9. Slime Hutch Winery. Gives me a reason to actually build the Slime Hutch. This mod requires Content Patcher.

10. Spawn Monsters. I really don't like hunting for specific monsters for the sake of the completion, so I just spawn them in on the floors that they'd show up on in order to fight them.

11. Ellie's Ideal Greenhouse. This adds specific places for fruit trees, as well as a few dozen more spots to grow crops.

I also used to use the Seasonal Villager Outfits, but that mod went out of date and when I tried to download it again, the creator took it down to rework it as a SMAPI mod. I tried another mod like it, but I didn't like how it changed the shape of the head, so I'm just waiting on the paradigmnomad rework.

Now, I've also got some tips and tricks I've found that make the game fun for me.

1. Never try to finish the Community Center in Year 1. I know this goes against what a LOT of Youtubers do, but there's an advantage of waiting; Kent. Kent does not show up until Spring 1 in Year 2. So waiting to complete the Bulletin Board bundle gives you a boost to his approval. Between this and how much he loves going to the movies, you should have what you need to cap his friendship before the end of Year 2.

2. Get rabbits for your Coop, and keep them. Rabbits are a great resource. Between the rabbit's foot being a favorite gift of the majority of the villagers (save for Penny.), this is a great resource for your far. 

3. Avoid the sheep. Yes, they give wool 1 day faster (2 days if you're a Shepherd), but that's all they give. Rabbits give both wool and rabbit's feet, so they are a much better resource.

4. If you hate the mines, go with the mushroom cave. I hate spelunking more than I have to, which is why I have both the item spawner and cheat menu, but since I have my "no spawning items until I've collected them naturally at least once" rule, two mushrooms are completely out of reach unless I get lucky. And since fruits can be grown naturally, I need the mushroom cave for the red and purple mushrooms.

5. If you want to try the Riverland map, take the Joja Path, then go for perfection AFTER unlocking Ginger Island. There's very little land on the Riverland map for you to both farm and build, so space is at a premium for crops. If you want animals, fishing ponds, places for the obelisks, sheds, a mill, a silo and a place for the clock, you're eating valuable farming space you could use to grow Community Center crops. But if you focus on cash crops, you've got a LOT more space for them, and that will mean you're getting access to both the Greenhouse and Ginger Island faster. 

6. Have fun. Whether you mod or not, whether you take my advice or not, if you're not having fun, you won't want to play.

I'll post something again when the mood strikes me. This blog is very much a hobby for me, so just keep that in mind and stay beautiful freaks!

Dark Souls Remastered: Why the Deprived is the best class for new players

 Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop!

Once again, I know I'm late to the party, but I've been really into Dark Souls Remastered, and since there are people like me who are still picking up the game even now, I'm going to give my two cents on this. 

The Deprived is the best class for new players, in spite of what experienced players say. And there are a ton of good reasons for why this is true.  In fact, some of those reasons are why other players say this class is a "challenge for experienced players".

You cannot rely on armor.  Armor in Dark Souls Remastered is different than armor in the two games that come after. Yes, you gain defenses to physical, elemental and magical damage, but you're still going to take a lot of damage from anybody. The biggest thing about armor is poise, a stat that makes it less likely you're going to get staggered from enemy attacks. But on a first character, during the first 2-8 hours of the game (depending on how much you're dying), you don't want to rely on poise. You want to know how to block and roll, and the deprived offers opportunities to learn how to do both, since you have to do both.

Shields are important, but not all shields are created equal. The Deprived starts with the plank shield, a small shield. It has pretty good resistances to physical, ranged, elemental and magic damage, but it doesn't have 100% physical damage resistance, meaning you're going to take chip damage from oncoming melee hits from enemies. And even though you get a better shield in the Undead Burg early, you learn all you need to know about shields in a relatively safe environment, where you have abundant bonfires and estus available.

Weapons have wind up. The club is a good starting weapon; it has the third highest damage output for a starter weapon, with only the mace and battle ax doing more. And while it is relatively quick in attack, the club has start up lag that you need to account for. There are weapons faster than the club and there are weapons that are slower than the club, but the club give you what you need to make the decision of what kind of weapons you want in the future.

Keep on rolling. The Deprived is a class where you have to roll to survive, at least until you bet a better shield and some armor. Luckily, since its equip load is so low, the Deprived has the fastest roll in the game. This will get you through the Undead Asylum and part way through the Undead Burg until get your hands on the Hollow armor pieces. And if you return to the Undead Merchant (male) in the early areas of the Burg, you can buy some chain mail armor, both of which drop you down to a mid roll, which is the roll the game is built around. And if you're getting a fat roll, you need to either buff your endurance or take off heavy bits of armor, because a fat roll can get you killed.

Stats are for upgrades. And the biggest thing I like about the Deprived is that you are lacking in nothing. With 11s in all your stats at the start, you have access to 1 attunement slot and the intelligence and faith to use basic sorceries and miracles. You also have some good stats to start out with for strength, dexterity or quality builds, and a good amount of stamina and health to build upon. And resistances, the one stat nobody builds on, starts at a good level too. 

So yeah, the game starts out tougher for the Deprived, but before long, that difficult start doesn't matter for anything. My Deprived character, Rain, is about to head into Blight Town after finishing off the Depths, and I've built her into a low level quality/sorcery build. She's using a claymore, a long bow, and some weapon buffing sorceries as I build up her intelligence for higher tier stuff.

Rain the Deprived

Now, obviously I'm not an expert. But thanks to both walkthroughs and the lessons I've learned from playing Rain, I've gotten farther as the Deprived class than I've gotten with any other.

But for now, stay beautiful freaks, and don't you dare go Hollow!

Dark Souls Remastered: Why I like it despite not liking the hardest modes in games

 

Welcome back, my beautiful freaks, to Sean's Workshop!

Okay, so I know I'm late to the party. To quote CircletoonsHD, "I'm so late that it seems like I never got an invite to the party, showing up to Dark Souls' house a decade later with a party platter." But, as explained previously, I didn't have the hardware nor funds to play it.

But now that I've played it, I get the appeal. And unlike early adopters, I have access to a decade of information in the form of wikis and youtube walkthroughs and build ideas so I won't get lost and so I understand what to do and where to go.

Which is why I'm doing this entry and one major mission statement; Dark Souls Remastered is great and fair. Let me explain.

Dark Souls isn't hard. The rules of Dark Souls are different than most games. There's no such things as "invincibility frames", so things like rolling aren't used to avoid damage at the last second that games like Wind Waker and Devil May Cry allow. The combat is slow paced and everybody follows the same rules. Everyone has the same rules regarding wind up and attack, from the player character to the common enemies to all the bosses, everybody has the rules. You can parry, and you can be parried. You can backstab, and enemies can backstab. 

Dark Souls is built around its difficulty. There's no damage sponges in Dark Souls. Yes, bosses have greater health than you, as to higher "level" enemies. But everybody plays by the same rules regarding attacks and dodging. Even the most difficult bosses require you to fight the same way; blocking, dodging and striking, and then getting out of the way when they get ready to attack.

Dark Souls tells you how to play through the gameplay. Yes, there are a few tutorials in the early game that teach you the controls, as you'd expect from a modern game, but all the battles, all the boss fights, how to navigate the world, all taught through gameplay. For example, the Undead Asylum teach you how to fight human sized enemies and how to handle boss fights with the Asylum Demon. The Undead Burg teaches how to handle the ambushes and how to use items in battle, and the gargoyles teach you to handle fighting two bosses at once. Blight Town teaches you how to handle poison and toxic damage, and you're rounded out with a skill check with Ornstein and Smough. And if you can beat Ornstein and Smough, you're capable to handling the rest of the game. 

Dark Souls is robust in how it handles classes/builds. Now, yes, you have classes that determine how you start the game. The Warrior is a different experience than the Sorceror or Pyromancer in the beginning, but as you level up, you can build anything you want. Want a giant weapon wielding magic user? Go ahead. A katana wielding cleric? Done. The possibilities are endless.

That said, I ended up creating and abandoning several characters before I settled on the one for my first playthrough; a bandit with the master key that I intend to make a Giant Dad(yes, I'm going for the meme. Sue me, it looks fun!)

You can experience as much or as little of the story as possible. Dark Souls has a massive amount of lore, but very little of it is necessary to see. You get a goal at the beginning, to ring the bells of awakening and then go link the fire, but beyond that, all the story is in the item descriptions. You don't need to talk to anyone. But if you do? Well, there are entire youtube channels dedicated to the lore. My favorites are Vaatividya, The Ashen Hollow and the Silver Mont. 

And finally, a personal note; 

Dark Souls is a good allegory for living with depression.

This videos what actually made me interested in Dark Souls in the first place. Without rehashing the entire video, Dark Souls shows you how the whole world is against you and is dead set on destroying you. And speaking from experience with living with Bipolar Depression, I know how that feels like. Every failure feels like a quiet death, setting you back to where you started. 

And yet, you keep getting back up. You keep trying again, and again and again. You push forward, heading to the next bonfire, which is a small victory in and of itself, all so you can spend your souls and move forward stronger. You only go hollow if you give up. You build upon those who came before you, learn from their mistakes as well as yours, and gain strength from them lifting you up.

But we see those who succumb due to losing their purpose, their reason for going on. The Crestfallen Warrior, once you ring both bells of awakening, lost his purpose in mocking any undead who come through Firelink Shrine. Siegmeyer of Catarina loses his purpose when you save his life again and again, and goes hollow in Ash Lake, to be slain by his daughter. Vince and Nico of Thorolund go hollow when their ward, Reah, is trapped. Reah herself goes hollow when she teaches you all her miracles. Laurentius of the Great Swamp goes hollow if you show him Izalith Pyromancies and he can't find Quelana. 

All of these people show that, if you lose hope, lose your purpose, you lose yourself and die a little death. But if you don't lose hope in yourself, if you don't give up, you can succeed where others have failed. 

And that's what battling depression is; you keep fighting, or you lose a bit of yourself to darkness. And if you give up entirely, you "go hollow", not enjoying anything you did before, and even possibly contemplating taking your life. 

I've been hollow; I've had days in the past when I didn't know why I got up in the morning, when I just floated through my day, just going through the motions. But I did just that; I kept getting up. Kept moving through the day, looking for a purpose. Many of these blog entries were written when I was hollow, trying to find something, anything to make me feel whole again.

I still don't have a purpose today. But thanks to people carrying me when I was down and the efforts of my doctors, I'm no longer hollow. I've regained my humanity, as is the mechanic in Dark Souls. And like the mechanic where, the more humanity you have, the easier it is to find items, I see more opportunities ahead of me. I live knowing that sometimes, the quest for meaning is the quest to keep a man going.

So yeah, I love Dark Souls. It kicks my ass every time I boot it up, but does so in a way that is not cheap, and that every time I take damage, it's my fault. Just as a difficult game should be.

But for now, goodbye and stay beautiful freaks!

Stardew Valley: A Game I'd Never Thought I'd Love

 

Stardew Valley is a game where you play as a person who is beaten down by city life at the Joja mega corporation, taking up your grandfather's farm in Stardew Valley, a region on the southern part of the Ferngill Republic, bordered by the Gem Sea, north of the Gotoro Empire. You gather resources for your farm, plant crops, raise animals, get to know the townspeople and potentially marry one of the eligible bachelors/bachelorettes, and enter the mines to fight monsters. 

But even though Strardew Valley is sunshine and rainbows for your character doesn't mean it is that way for the town. The most obvious is Kent, the veteran who returns to Pelican Town in Year 2, was a Prisoner of War with the Gotoro Empire and suffers severe PTSD. His wife Jodi? She got married young and is unhappy that she's got nothing but her children to show for it, despite deeply loving her family. Shane and Jas lost Jas' parents in a car accident and were forced to move in with Marnie, and Shane has fallen so deep into depression that he's suicidal. He, as well as Pam, are alcoholics who destroy themselves at the local Saloon thanks to how much they hate themselves. Even Marnie isn't in the best place, having a physical relationship with Mayor Lewis, but she wants more, and Lewis not only doesn't, but actively tries to hide their relationship. (This bothers people so much that there are mods force them to confront this!)

I could go on and on about the hidden pain for all the townsfolk, like how Pierre and the Wizard both suspecting that Abigail isn't Pierre's daughter, or Leah and Elliot's desires to get away from past lives and reinvent themselves in Stardew Valley, or the pain and loss of new NPC Leo, but that's part of what makes Stardew Valley fun; getting to know these people and bonding with them. They're people, living their lives the best they can until you come along, carrying all the baggage that real people would have.

As for how I look at Stardew Valley, on paper, it's a game I shouldn't like; I'm not into doing completionist runs of games, and I'm certainly not into resource gathering games. I mean, back when Minecraft had an in-browser demo on their official website, I played that for an hour because I got bored with the resource gathering before giving up on it. And that fishing mini game is why I have cheats. In fact, the only part of Stardew Valley that I should enjoy is the dungeon crawling and combat, which, while still enjoyable, is my second least favorite part of the game!

So, why do I love Stardew Valley, despite the entire game being something that, on paper, would be a game I'd hate? Because of the charm. Stardew Valley is more than the sum of its parts, something I saw WAY back when Allochii of the Gaijin Gamers streamed a few episodes of the game for their channel! It was so sweet and charming, and that wasn't even counting the fact that Allochii was the one playing the game, as her voice made it all so much more so.

Now, I won't lie; I mod the game and use cheats. The fishing mini game is why I use cheats; much Sans fight in Undertale, I just can't get a hand on it. And on all but my completionist farm, I use the CJB Cheats menu and CJB Item Spawner to get what I need for the community center bundles/projects for the town, but I have rules for that, too. For example, I can't spawn in something in until I've collected at least one of, I have to craft at least one of something to be allowed to spawn it in, and when new content comes to the game, I have to complete it naturally without cheating before I can spawn that stuff in. 

Which brings me to the 1.5 update. This one is the reason I now have a completionist farm. There is a tangible reward for it, where we finally get access to the cliff that has been jumbled in the code since release, as well as the new statue and an extra scene with your spouse.

Yes, Leah, we have.

I really enjoy Stardew Valley, FAR more than I ever thought I would when I first heard about it. I never realized a game like this would be in my wheelhouse, but here it is. And I wouldn't change it for the world.

So come on down to Stardew Valley, get to know the people, and stay beautiful freaks!

Mobile Game Reviews: We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs

In an age where smart phones are in nearly everyone's hands (and almost definitely in the hands of people under a certain age range), mobile games are big business; Konami, Capcom, Sega and Nintendo all have a mobile game division in their companies, and they were some of the biggest game developers in the 80s and 90s.

However, if you've been playing video games as long as I have (since 1989), mobile games have a bad reputation, and for good reason.  You see, mobile games have one major obstacle to sucking in people like myself; control. Touch screens lack the precision control that a keyboard, mouse or controller have, so certain types of games are difficult on mobile devices unless they offer Bluetooth controller support.

And that's where this new series comes in; I download a game, play it for at least a week, and let you know if they're worth your time.  I'll be judging on a few criteria; control, graphical fidelity, sound, and frequency of ads, if any, and fun factor. And then, I'll round it up to whether it's worth your time and money. And with that, welcome to Mobile Game Reviews.

Today's game is something that was a guilty pleasure for me; We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs. Developed by SundayToz Inc, this is a match 3 game starring the cast of the Cartoon Network series, We Bare Bears. You play as Grizzly, Panda and Ice Bear, as well as their friends, as they clean up and rebuild the areas you see on the show through match 3 puzzles.  Every time you solve a puzzle, you get a star, which you spend on items to clean up the map.

Control: We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs is a match three game.  For the puzzle sections, you slide gem, illustrated by vegetables, fruits, pretzels, pizza, tacos and other food items, in order to get match of three more tiles. For the rebuilding sections, the controls are simple tap and go.

Graphical Fidelity: We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs looks like the show.  Every single thing in this game looks like it came from the show, so all the characters and locations look like they should look for this series.

Sound: We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs has sound clips for vocalization of the characters, sound effects from the show, and distinct music for both maps and the match three sections.  All of it feels like it came from the show.

Ads and in app purchases: There are no ad in We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs, however, there are a LOT of in app purchases. So many that, if you're going to let your kids play this, you should lock down your ability to purchase things on the google play and apple stores, because kids can spend a LOT on things from the shop.

Fun Factor: We Bare Bears Match3 Repair is a very functional Match 3 game, which means it's fun if you enjoy that kind of thing.  Each level is progressively more difficult, and you've got 5 tries to solve a puzzle before you have to either recharge or spend real money on more tries.  What's also fun is seeing how the Bears change the map as you spend the stars you get for completing puzzles.

Final Analysis: We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs is a great Match 3 game that's unfortunately held back by the abundance of in app purchases. Your kids will love the game due to it being based on one of their favorite Cartoon Network shows, and since kids have little to no impulse controls, you NEED to keep that app store locked down. Other than that, I enjoyed my time with We Bare Bears Match3 Repairs wholeheartedly.

Mobile Game Reviews: Dragon Lapis

In an age where smart phones are in nearly everyone's hands (and almost definitely in the hands of people under a certain age range), mobile games are big business; Konami, Capcom, Sega and Nintendo all have a mobile game division in their companies, and they were some of the biggest game developers in the 80s and 90s.

However, if you've been playing video games as long as I have (since 1989), mobile games have a bad reputation, and for good reason.  You see, mobile games have one major obstacle to sucking in people like myself; control. Touch screens lack the precision control that a keyboard, mouse or controller have, so certain types of games are difficult on mobile devices unless they offer Bluetooth controller support.

And that's where this new series comes in; I download a game, play it for at least a week, and let you know if they're worth your time.  I'll be judging on a few criteria; control, graphical fidelity, sound, and frequency of ads, if any, and fun factor. And then, I'll round it up to whether it's worth your time and money. And with that, welcome to Mobile Game Reviews.

Before I start, let me let the cat out of the bag; yes, I changed the URL and the name of this blog.  I'm finally moving away from that Rurouni Kenshin inspired name I carried for WAY too long.

With that out of the way, today's game is a full port of a 3DS game, Dragon Lapis. This game is a full JRPG by Kemco, and it was the first game that showed me that mobile device games could be more than just puzzles and endless runners.

Control: Sadly, we must start with worst part of the game, control. The tapping of menus is fine, but trying to move around the overworld is hardly accurate, no matter which control scheme you use. More than once, I've tapped in one place and it thought I tapped in another to move.  But thankfully, a JRPG doesn't need extremely accurate movement controls, so I'll give this game a pass on that.

Graphical Fidelity: Dragon Lapis is a game that would have looked at home right on the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis.  It's a retro inspired game that captures the aesthetic perfectly.

Sound: Dragon Lapis sounds like it would have been at home on the Super Nintendo with the chip tune inspired music and sound design. Nothing sounds out of place.

Story: Dragon Lapis is a JRPG where you take control of Lucas and his party of adventurers as they go through the lands and try to gather the Dragon Lapicis to awaken the power in Lucas' blood and stop the evil Silver Dragon with the aid of Iria, the Gold Dragon in human form, Melvin the Rogue and Elodie the mage.  And even after you complete that story, there's an...expansion I guess, that you start up immediately after to stop a demon from taking over the world.  There's a lot going on in Dragon Lapis, and you'd better be ready for it.

Ads: The ad policy in Dragon Lapis is really bad. When you start the game the first time, you don't really see that many ads, but once you get to a certain point after you recruit all four party members, you get a cutscene where they tell you that "the information deity wants to inform you of products and services you might like", which is an in universe explanation of not only more frequent post battle video ads, but also banner ads at the top and bottom of your screen. You can buy an "upgrade" to opt out of this, but I still think this is an extremely greedy way to get money.

Fun factor: Dragon Lapis is a full fledged JRPG, which means it has all the tropes; random battles, upgrading weapons, leveling up your character from said random battles.  But this game has a different ways to handle leveling up. You see, it utilizes job classes, so you can play any job with any character, and when you do so, you get specific weapon and armor proficiency. However, to level these jobs up, you use growth plates to upgrade your abilities and gain new ones. It is definitely a unique way to handle advancement.

Final analysis. Dragon Lapis is a game with a lot of problems, but there's a lot of good there too. But despite all the problems I saw, I had fun with this game from beginning to end.  If you're a fan of retro JRPGs, you don't want to miss out on Dragon Lapis.

Mobile Game Reviews: Vampire's Fall:Origins

In an age where smart phones are in nearly everyone's hands (and almost definitely in the hands of people under a certain age range), mobile games are big business; Konami, Capcom, Sega and Nintendo all have a mobile game division in their companies, and they were some of the biggest game developers in the 80s and 90s.

However, if you've been playing video games as long as I have (since 1989), mobile games have a bad reputation, and for good reason.  You see, mobile games have one major obstacle to sucking in people like myself; control. Touch screens lack the precision control that a keyboard, mouse or controller have, so certain types of games are difficult on mobile devices unless they offer Bluetooth controller support.

And that's where this new series comes in; I download a game, play it for at least a week, and let you know if they're worth your time.  I'll be judging on a few criteria; control, graphical fidelity, sound, and frequency of ads, if any, and fun factor. And then, I'll round it up to whether it's worth your time and money. And with that, welcome to Mobile Game Reviews.

Today's game is something I found via an ad; Vampire's Fall:Origins. Published by Early Morning Studio, Vampire's Fall: Origins is a sequel to their previous game, Vampire's Fall. It's a full fledged turn based RPG with a full compliment of weapons, armors and abilities, as well as a full dark fantasy story.

Control: Vampire's Fall: Origins is pretty basic in its control needs; you tap the menus, tap the dialogue windows, and you use a virtual control stick to move around the map. For the most part, the tap  focused aspects of the game work properly, big thumbs/fingers issues not withstanding, but it's the virtual control stick that requires a little bit to getting used to. At first, I wasn't sure what I was doing, since it doesn't stay in one spot if you're not careful, but once I was used to the idea of pressing and holding in a direction, it became second nature. And honestly, it's this game that makes me think that virtual d-pads can be a good, accurate control method.

Graphical Fidelity: Vampire's Fall: Origins looks great. All the sprites are modern, all the actions are fluid, all the combat is graceful looking, and the overworld and all the things in it look like what they're supposed to. And since they're different, all the combat sprites look great too. All the weapons and armor make your character look different while wearing, something not illustrated by the overworld sprites. 

Sound:Vampire's Fall: Origins takes full advantage of what a mobile device is capable of. The music is a epic as it can be for such a small speaker, enemies and your player character all have cries of pain when they're damaged, and they're all distinct for the type of character that's getting hit; a distinct male grunt, a distinct female grunt, distinct sounds from spirits, wolves, boars, and all the other types of enemies are all distinct and memorable.

Story: Since Vampire's Fall: Origins is an RPG, I'd not be doing my duty if I didn't mention the story. Without spoiling the story, you start out as a human defending a town, learning the ropes of combat and interacting with NPCs and doing quests, only for the big bad of the story to defeat you and curse you to be a vampire. From there, your quest is to track him down across the world in your quest to destroy him. Once you find him, you have access to two possible endings, and from there, a full expansion full of quests with map as large as the main game. There is a lot going on here, and lot of twists and turns to get through.

Ads: Vampire's Fall: Origins is very good about its ad policy.  Not a single mandatory ad in sight. You can get bonuses at the end of some battles for xp gain, gold or on rare occasions, loot boxes of gear, and like the better free mobile games, you can buy an upgrade that lets you get rid of ads, and also grants permanent upgrades to your account, including a special badge in the game's chat and a vampire's lair which grants extra storage slots.  You can also buy shards for cosmetic upgrades, helmets that ad to your stats and wings that add special abilities. All of these purchases are optional and none of those items are required to beat the game.

Fun Factor: I've enjoyed every minute of Vampire's Fall: Origins, even the mandatory grinding.  Battles are fun, the story is serious when it has to be and silly when it can be, and the opportunity to pit your character against other players is not to be missed out on.

Final Analysis: Vampire's Fall: Origins is a fun ride if you're into RPGs. The grinding can get annoying, but not insurmountable. It's a wonderful experience from character creation to the final boss of the expansion. If you're an RPG fan who likes dark fantasy, you don't want to miss out on Vampire's Fall: Origins.

Mobile Game Reviews: Super Spider Hero City Adventure

In an age where smart phones are in nearly everyone's hands (and almost definitely in the hands of people under a certain age range), mobile games are big business; Konami, Capcom, Sega and Nintendo all have a mobile game division in their companies, and they were some of the biggest game developers in the 80s and 90s.

However, if you've been playing video games as long as I have (since 1989), mobile games have a bad reputation, and for good reason.  You see, mobile games have one major obstacle to sucking in people like myself; control. Touch screens lack the precision control that a keyboard, mouse or controller have, so certain types of games are difficult on mobile devices unless they offer Bluetooth controller support.

And that's where this new series comes in; I download a game, play it for at least a week, and let you know if they're worth your time.  I'll be judging on a few criteria; control, graphical fidelity, sound, and frequency of ads, if any, and fun factor. And then, I'll round it up to whether it's worth your time and money. And with that, welcome to Mobile Game Reviews.

Today's game is something I found via an ad; Super Spider Hero City Adventure. Published by Onesoft Global PTE, Super Spider Hero had you play as Not-Spider-Man as you use a web to swing across Not-New York, dodging light posts and robots as you try to stop Not-Mysterio.  And I say things the way I did because, even though the assets fall under Fair Use, the names of the characters do not.

Control: Super Spider Hero's controls are simple and tight. You tap to leap off the starting stage, hold to shoot and swing on the web, and let go to release the web.  And the controls are so tight that you can actually build some pretty good momentum in your swings; any mistake is your fault.

Graphical Fidelity: Super Spider Hero is a modern game with chibi, or character's who are small bodied but with big heads, design.  Everything is crisp and clear, and all the text is large and easy to read.  All the colors are bright, but not so much to hurt the eyes.  And as you go on, you can unlock different skins, including Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider, as she's called now. I'm trying my best to get the Ghost Spider skin, but I've got a long way to go.

Sound:Super Spider Hero is simple in terms of sound design.  A sound for the web shot, a sound for impacts, a small explosion sound if you're hit by an exploding enemy, and a little jingle at the end when you win.

Ads: As Bricks Breaker Quest, ads are unavoidable, and are of the "pop ad" type after a few failures. However, I noticed something new recently; if you fail pretty close to the end, you're given ten seconds to tap for a viewable ad to continue on your mission.

Fun Factor: Super Spider Hero is an easy to play, difficult to master game.  The web swinging has significant momentum, and you can actually skip some of the dots you can shoot your web at if you're going fast and high enough.  The only frustrating thing is that enemy placement is random; they're always in the same place horizontally on the map, but sometimes, they can be placed in unfair places vertically, making dodging them difficult. However, it's random every time, so it's not that frustrating.

Final Analysis: Super Spider Hero City Adventure is a great game to play when you've got a few minutes to kill. Stages are quick, respawns are quicker, and the only thing that slows down the action are semi-frequent ads. Download it and you won't regret it.