"Here's How You Can Play That Game Better."

I've heard this for a while and it crops up every now and then: "If you don't build your character a certain way, you won't have a chance at beating the game" or "To get the most out of Game X, make sure to do this when creating a character."  I can't really be more specific than that as I always avoid reading these articles as I do not agree with them.  I would like to think/believe that a game can be enjoyed and beaten without the need to follow an unofficial ruleset.

I of course say all this after my failed attempt at Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light and I gave advice as to how to not fail as bad as I had done.

Does this make me a hypocrite?  Sure, why not!?

I bring this up now because I am playing (or at least started back in January) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and someone I was talking to (either in the real world or at work) asked if I was careful in how I created my character, because apparently if you do not do it correctly, you can ruin your chances of being able to finish the game.

I first heard about this "phenomenon" from a former housemate who told me about how to build a mage that wouldn't suck in Diablo II.  This roommate, whom we will call The Sauce, suggested that I build an Ice Mage and put my all of skill points into Ice Magic.  He followed this advice up with recounting how he had known people who had ruined their characters by accidentally putting skill points in the "wrong" skill tree and had to discard high level characters.  This idea that you could ruin a character on accident and have to start over from the beginning frightened me.  I should also point out that this was only 3 years ago.  I'm sure the same could be said for Torchlight I or II and I'm positive that there are at least a couple (hundred?) people would tell me that I have not created my Mage in Torchlight II correctly as I have my skill points spread out between a number Ice spells, a Fire spell and some passive buffing abilities.

I also read a similar article/post over on this internet thing regarding Breath of Death VII.  I was looking for hints about how to defeat a particular boss and two separate posts I read stated that if you put leveling attributes for particular characters in "the wrong" areas, that you would have a very hard time with the game.  And I am currently having a very hard time against a particular boss four hours in.

I do not like this.  Not one bit.  How is the normal gamer supposed to find this out on their own?  I think that's my feelings towards beating video games in general, that there should not be one specific way to beat a game.  To kill Boss A, you shouldn't need to perform specific attacks and defenses in a specific order otherwise you're not playing the game correctly.

I think this is one of the reasons why I could never beat Advance Wars: World of Ruin.  I just became stuck with a certain series of battles and had to resort to Gamefaqs to make my way through them.  It is frustrating to me that a written document could tell me how to beat a multi-faceted enemy, that there is a preordained order that the computer performs its actions so that a victory can be achieved over and over again.  Eventually I gave up because I had reached a stalemate about 20 minutes into a battle and didn't want to go through reading an article and having my hand held through the remainder of the battle.  Additionally, if I had to have my hand held through the last number of battles, I would most likely need to be directed through the rest of the game as it would only prove to be more-and-more difficult.

So that's my two bits about games where people feel that you need to create characters in a certain/specific way in order for the game to be enjoyed (i.e.: beaten).  I'll play the game however the damn hell I please.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
You Can't Change Fate, But Don't Feel So Bad


P.S.  In a similar, but not related train of thought, this idea about following an obscure plan in order to get something from a game happened to me in Final Fantasy XII when I first heard about the Zodiac Spear.  The article I read said that you could not have opened any of the treasure chests in a couple of specific areas  and that the Zodiac Spear could be in one of two chests in a particular dungeon.  I say "could" because even if you did open one of the chests you weren't supposed to open, it could still be there, but there would be something like a 90% chance that it wouldn't.  Now how in the hell is the regular player supposed to figure this out if there was nothing in the game that hinted about this?  

Life, Torchlight and Multiple Endings: Special Wednesday Edition

Today's broadcast is brought to you because of aforementioned apartment/condo/housing issues which are still in the process of being completed.

I just "finished" Torchlight about 30 minutes (as of this typing) ago and it got me thinking.  The game took me 25 hours to complete the main story line and now I'm just running random side missions in order to increase my character's level.  This seems to be a lot like the way I have lived my life.  

Bare with me.  

Take my Tank Grontog

Everyone, meet Grontog and his pet cat, Mjolnir.

who took 25 hours to "save" the town of Torchlight and is now embarking on level enrichment, I took 23 years to "complete" my primary educational career before I embarked on, whatever it is that I'm doing.

I could just leave him be and continue onto Torchlight II, or I could level Grontog up to level 100 (he's currently at 41), or I could go through the game with either of my other two characters:

Valkaria and her wolf Fenris:

Not her starting outfit and weapons.

Irwin Blaze and his wolf Ferrous:

I plan on having him focus on fire magic for obvious reasons.

I am somewhat tempted to go through the game again, but I think I have just decided (as in while typing this sentence) that I will go through Torchlight II first before revisiting this game again with a different character, although I have already played Valkaria for about an hour.  Either way, there are a lot of other games that I want/need/have to play so a second run through and/or level enrichment may just have to wait.

That being said, I like when games have either a New Game + option or in the case of open worlds, continue playing after the main storyline is completed, but doing practically the same thing as before.  Now, even though I like this in games, I often don't take advantage of this.  I just don't have the time, especially with RPGs, to spend another 40 hours reliving the experiences that I just finished.  Now, there are some exceptions such as when games offer divergent storylines and you want to see other aspects of the story that were not experienced the first time through.

I think I'll go and play some of Reus, because that was a fun 50 minutes that seemed a lot less intimidating than the 15 minutes I spent looking at Civ. V.

Also, I don't think I can finish Doom II: Hell on Earth.  FPS/motion-sickness is just getting too much for me and I get annoyed at only being able to play for 15 minutes before needing to turn the game off.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

And I Looked Back on My Busy Day

Humble Indie Bundle part VI (III in the US?)

First off, appologies for not posting anything on Monday the 17th.  Conklederp, Dr. Potts and some other friends were away during the weekend, I needed time to recover and I didn't have anything set up to post on Monday after we got back.  I will be covering that all in my next post on Monday.  

But this post is about:

That's right, there's another Humble Indie Bundle out there.  This one was released about two and-a-half days ago and the sale ends in 11 days, or on October 2nd, 2012 at 4pm PST.  When I first looked at the page (post receiving the email that announced it's birth), there were over 120,000 purchases.  Currently there are 193,590 purchases of six games and five soundtracks.  The set up for this bundle is pretty much identical to the previous bundle and my post today will be very similar except that the games that I still don't know much of anything about, will be different than the previous games that I didn't really know anything about.  So there's that.  Except that I have heard of Torchlight, but I don't know anything about the game except that it exists.  Does this lack of information make me a bad gamer?  Nope!  It just makes me an uninformed one, but I'll be less of one by the end of this post.

So onto the games!

You know what, I just recommend going to the Bundle website and checking out the compilation trailer that they've set up for people like me to watch who don't know anything about any of the games.  And really, that's one of the things that I love about the HIB's (is that a thing?), that I've never heard of many of the games, and probably wouldn't've (that is a thing, J.K. Rowling does it) heard of these games if they weren't part of the HIB (it's now a thing).

But, before I leave, I feel like I need to have the obligatory "make you feel guilty for only wanting to pay $1 for five games and five soundtracks."

Rochard w/ Soundtrack:    $14.99

Shatter w/ Soundtrack:      $11.49

S.P.A.Z.:                                $09.99

Torchlight:                           $14.99

Vessel:                                   $14.99

Dustforce w/ Soundtrack:  $12.99

And you can't even buy the S.P.A.Z. or Torchlight soundtracks on their own, so let's call those ones "rare" and maybe put them at $8-10 a piece (which is a steal for video game soundtracks, which I've spent upwards of $30 in the past for a 3 CD set).

Total Cost:  ~$95.44

Anyway, the point being, don't be a douche (used or otherwise) and pay more than $1 for these games, if you're into that sort of thing anyway.  And if you want Dustforce with it's soundtrack, you'll have to fork out a whopping $5.80.  And keep in mind that you can decide how much of your purchase price goes to the people at Humblebundle, the game developers and the Child's Play Charity.  That's all on you.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Bells Are Getting Louder

P.S.  And if past experiences hold true for this HIB as well, there might be an extra game tagged on sometime after the first week.  And even if you already bought the Bundle, you'll still get the extra download code.  So the only other reason to wait is because payday is on Monday and you want to feel less guilty about buying five more video games.