Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 1

Going Digital!  Digimon World Dawn Part 1

Hey, guess who’s got a new game?  DID YOU GUESS ME?!?!  BECAUSE IT’S TOTALLY ME!

Ahem, so yeah, my copy of Digimon World Dawn for the DS showed up yesterday and I got to start playing it today.  I have a pretty long history with the Digimon games, playing all five of the playstation games and beating all but Digimon World 2.  It’s very much a love hate relationship, as in I love them and then they try to tear apart my heart and soul with murderous, monotonous gameplay over and over again.

Anyway...we start our quest by selecting the Japanese pack, which consisted of Coronamon, Reppamon and Karatenmon.  Apparently we are part of the light fang organization and all are running late for some kind of important battle.  We’re in a hole, down 2 matches to none and need me to win three in a row...pressures on!

Except not really because everyone on our team is incompetent as hell and we wreck our three opponents in a row.  This puts us in the final as we face off against another member of...Night Crow, I think it was? That battle is actually kind of difficult but nonetheless our team prevails!  Partying and drinks all around!

However, this is short lived as some freaky dark energy egg that can’t stop cackling breaks in and dedigivoles pretty much everyone and crashes several parts of the city.  Even our team is effected even though we are home, which forces Reppamon and Karatenmon to dedigivolve to Kudamon and Biyomon.

Anyway, our guild leader is completely at the mercy of the nightmare egg when we show up.  It seemed like this would be a hopeless boss fight but it was actually very easy...quite the plot/gameplay segregation there.  Anyway, rebuilding time and three members of Light Fang are not satisfied with this, so they run off into login mountain and completely ignore orders...I’m sure that won’t bite them in the ass.

Inevitably, we have to save their asses from a pissed/brainwashed Aquilamon (one of my favorites so I would have been perfectly okay with him murdering them, but alas) which was a relatively tough fight but not too bad. Our team mates are punished with doing the rest of the work themselves...serves those losers right.

Anyway, we are introduced to to the concepts of quests after this and our helpful Digimon at our home, Gatomon, apparently really loves tea...so yeah, that’s a thing.  Rest of the time was basically just spent recruiting more Digimon and starting out my farm so I can raise my team to be the best it can be!  There are a lot of mechanics in this game, so hopefully I can keep up with it all.

Anyway, enjoying the game so far and eager to see how it develops!  Also, I’ll be playing this along with Gladius and not replacing that game (in fact i’m about to play that some more after I post this) so...no worries for anyone who was enjoying that playthrough.  

Anyway, current Digimon will be posted after a read more...see ya everyone!

Current squad

Biyomon: L17 Terriermon: L7 Kudamon: L18 Hawkmon: L17 Lopmon: L1 Coronamon: L24

Farm Digimon

Monodramon: L16 Kokuwamon: L12 Palmon: L7 Demidevimon: L6

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?! Gladius Part 2

Hey everyone, been a few days since I was able to do an update but I feel like I’ve made enough progress that another one of these was in order.

Plot wise, there still hasn’t been a whole lot of development.  It has essentially been, encounter witch, witch says ominous thing, Urlan tells witch to screw off and for Ursula to not listen.  Probably the most interesting development was when we were tasked to go find a Galdr, Sigi, who is apparently responsible for singing or something to keep the dragon that the Mordare arena is hosted inside of dead. You have to trigger a random battle outside of Roanar where she is being attacked by 6 Mongrel Shamans and you know, keep her from dying.

Not gonna lie, lost that battle the first time and the second battle was cutting it close but I managed to succeed. After we return her, she and Ursula have a talk about sensing something in each other and Urlan interjects again,only for Sigi to maintain that she means Ursula no harm and wishes her well.

So yeah, outside of that I kind of stumbled throughout the area of the map I have access to going to each arena and knocking off their challenges one by one. I only have the Mordare tournament to go now to qualify for the regional tournament.  Currently have a 5 member team with four of their levels maxed out at 5 (Level caps for current school rank, will go higher when I beat regional tournament).  Let’s get a little more in depth shall we?

Ursula: Main character who is an interesting mix of a barbarian and a witch with her moves. She’s honestly pretty badass with her moveset right now, with multiple spells that can hit from range and multiple opponents at a time, as well as a move that buffs her stats (mainly making her super dodgy). Her biggest flaw for me so far is that her combo meter goes very fast and I have a hard time timing the button presses for her.  Other then that though, can’t complain.

Urlan: The elder of the siblings is much more straight up brute then his sister, for better and for worse.  A little slow and bulky but can certainly pack a punch.  He doesn’t really have any super useful abilities at the moment aside from him being my first party member to get a three hit combo, which obviously wrecks shop.  Not great but can certainly handle himself at the moment.

Zod: Bearrrrrrrrrrrr. Okay, he started kind of weak at first but could still take hits.  Now he is an absolute murder beast and I love him.  He is capable of shrugging off pretty much any blow that comes at him while dishing it back with interest at this point.  He has a combo attack that can dish out good damage as well as a special move that wrecks that only takes 1 special point (did I mention you get 1 special point replenished each turn?) and has an ability that reduces the amount of damage he takes, making him even more impenetrable.

Oh, and did I mention he has a counter attack?  He has a counter attack.  Zod kicks ass and I love him and he will forever be my murder bear.

Bestla: My wolf buddy who just recently reached the current level cap.  Very swift, but certainly not the most sturdy or effective from an offensive standpoint. Main use so far has been getting to top of the hill in the king of the hill battles or similar situations.  Has been getting some more useful abilities, such as a combo attack, being able to heal herself...

Oh, and ripping throats out, so that’s a plus.

Sim: Saytr who I just recruited fairly recently.  Still trying to figure out his strengths a bit but he’s definitely got some assets that I can use once I figure out how to use him.  Seems very quick and deals decent damage for being a lower level then the rest of the squad. Has some buffs and some range attacks as well but neither of them seem super effective yet.  Kind of a jack of all trades so we’ll see how he develops.

So yeah, that’s the update on gladiator land!  Thanks for reading everyone!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!? Gladius Part 6

I told you I was still playing this, and oh boy do I have some progress to report this time!  Just warning now, this will probably be the longest edition of this yet and will contain spoilers for what I’m assuming is rapidly approaching the end of the game.

So anyway, we continue our journey to kicking the asses of every region in this game.  Luckily, this is made pretty easy in this last area by only having two different tournaments to conquer.  Granted the battles themselves weren’t exactly easy...but we’ve preserved through worse so of course we are victorious!

After beating both of the tournaments, we are interupted by a cutscene of Gwazi mourning the loss of his village.  Ursula offers to go to the alter where the affinity stone is that can cure their drought problem but he refuses of course since he is under our orders.  Of course, Ursula being the kind boss she is orders him to take us there.

Along the way, we are treated to a weird little thing where Eiji tries to tell Ursula what is bothering her.  Unfortunatly, this get’s misinterpreted as Ursula assuming Eiji has feelings for Valens and she obviously doesn’t want to hear any of that.  Eiji then laments that it may be just as well since they would all hate her if they knew the truth

MYSTERIOUS

Anyway, we continue on our way toward the altar while Urlan complains, asking “Why are we doing this again? BECAUSE WE ARE GOOD PEOPLE URLAN STOP BEING AN UNLIKEABLE ASSHOLE.

We arrive at the location to see nothing of the sort that Gwazi mentioned.  Suddenly, three summoners appear and Gwazi is revealed as a traitor.

...Okay Urlan, you were right...for once.

This battle is actually kind of a pain, since it starts with you, Urlan and Ursula against Gwazi and three summoners who will pretty much immediately all summon, leaving you at 3 against 7 which is not favorable and it’s game over if Ursula dies.  Took me 3 attempts but I emerged victorious.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention was during the first league, we ran into Valen’s old friend Ludo appearing working for the dark legionnaires.  He talks some trash to Valens, saying that his school was trash but he must know that since he jumped ship as well...okay, point Ludo but it’s irrelevant since we kick his ass.

After that region has been conquered, we head to Caltha to take on the High Games. Everyone is suitably impressed and pumped and Usus has more life in his voice here then any other part of the game.  With our dream team selected, we take part in the five battle series to be the very best!

Team: Ursula/Zod/Eiji/Langston/Bestla

First battle was arguably the trickiest, with a bunch of imperials and a commander, who constantly buffed their stats.  Luckily, Zod can pretty much take anything thrown at him so we are triumphant.  Round 2 goes by without even breaking a sweat, round 3 was a little tricky due to all the archers ganging up on Zod before he was in counter range and four was easy despite it being an all insect team (HATE THOSE).

The final battle pits us against Ludo’s team once again.  Honestly, he’s not THAT hard.  He doesn’t hit hard, he’s not particularly bulky, his only saving grace is that he is dodgy as hell and if you don’t time your button presses correctly he will dodge pretty much everytime.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!  BOW DOWN TO BEAR GOD ZOD AND HIS FOLLOWERS

And then...the world went crazy

We flee from the arena in Caltha (Which was really pretty by the way) as the sky grows dark.  The giant statue that watches over the proceedings proceeds to come to life and destory the royal box, along with the King and everyone else that was inside.  

As everyone else flees, one man stands to face the rampaging staute...Muutis.  He queels the beast with a single stroke before being named a hero to Imperia and becoming their leader.

EXCEPT IT WAS ALL A RUSE BY HIM AND EVIL WITCH LADY.

As our group contemplates this, Eiji reveals her dark secret for real this time, that she was hired by Muutis to watch his back as he retrieved whatever macguffin he needed to pull that gambit off. It’s then revealed that they are heading straight for Nordagh so we hurry back to defend our country and King/father from the impeding death.

Oh, and Usus warns us that every battle will be to the death so...any recruits that aren’t the four main characters will die if they fall in battle from here on out...fantastic.

Unfortunately, evil witch lady beats us to the punch and we walk in on her zapping the shit out of the king.  She flees when we appear and leaves us to battle her minions, forcing us to use Ursula/Urlan/Valens/Eiji. We dispatch them quickly before another cutscene starts with Ursula and Urlan talking to their soon to be dead father.

Orin reveals the truth that Ursula is actually Urlan’s twin and that she has some magical abilities and should go seek out the Galdr for information.  Urlan is against this but is, like at every other point in the game, talked into it by Ursula.  Usus agrees and decides to hold off the Imperial forces BY HIMSELF.  Good lord he’s a badass.  Anyway, Urlan and Usus leave which leaves Ursula and Valens to share a tender moment.

They also may or may not have kissed...I may have been looking down and looked up just in time to see the scene fading...

Anyway, we journey to the Galdr and after a laughably easy battle, Ursula finally get’s the secret’s of her powers revealed.  Not only is she the darkness...BUT THE LIGHT.  She is the last Valkyrie and has the ability to stop the Dark God, along with Valens, who will take the place of his father as the previous Valkyrie’s guardian.  CONVENIENT.

Anyway, we make our way to the old Valkyrie city that is now ruled by Cyclops to go retrieve a staff that belongs to the Valkyrie.  However, once we arrive, the Cyclops King does not approve and we are thrown into battle again.

EXCEPT THIS TIME WE CAN FINALLY CHOOSE OUR PARTY AGAIN! URSULA/ZOD/LANGSTON/EIJI GO!

What follows, is a very cool sequence of battles where the Cyclops king will summon the affinity god of each of the four elements (Fire/Water/Wind/Earth) and you have to take them down.  The creatures are huge, taking up a whole 3X3 area. 

Luckily, they also go down pretty easily, with the exception of the Wind one who was a tank.  The designs were really cool though and it was probably my favorite moment of the game so far, definitely suitably epic.

Left to his own devices, the Cyclops King charges us himself.  We charge into battle and get about half of his health down before he can attack...taking off over half of Zod’s health in one shot.

SHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!

Luckily, he spends the other two turns he get’s trying and failing to use status effect spells, allowing the bear god to escape unharmed.  Once that ends, Ursula picks up the sword and get’s a nifty power up and new wardrobe.  She announces that we need to go to where the Dark God had last risen, being the place where he will be more powerful and the ideal place for our enemies to attempt to summon him.

However, that will have to wait til next time.  But yeah...this picked up and I am excited to finish it!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!? Gladius FINALE

You read correctly folks, this overlooked gem has been conquered!

Finally on the world map again, we make our way into Roanor, where we are once again greeted by Ludo.  Valens and he exchange some words before we throw down for the last time.  What proceeds is a pretty easy battle where our main four outnumber Ludo and his two lackeys.  Despite Valens getting triple teamed to start and quickly defeated, we down the former friend with ease.

Following this, we finally meet Muutis face to face.  He brags about how he will control the dragon and doesn’t care about what happened last time before facing us in battle.  Despite him having us outnumbered, his team falls quickly, treating us to a cutscene of him struggling to his feet while Nephellia (WITCH LADY) approaches from behind.

BAM, STABBED IN THE BACK!  Muutis cries out before going limp and Nephellia thanks us for playing our parts before a warp tunnel opens up below him and the Dark God emer-JESUS WHAT IS THAT?

Okay, it may be worth looking up the dragon from Gladius because it looks insane.  It’s basically a three layered beast with a bunch of soldiers sticking out of the bottom, four faces in the middle with some weird six armed lady above them and then the Dragon on top of that.

So yeah, needless to say it is quite the sight : p

The first stage of the battle we have to use Ursula and Valens along with three members of our choosing.  Obviously I roll with Zod, Eiji and Langston.  This however...does not go well.  There are eight soldiers to beat and the dragon is breathing an area of effect fire attack that will hit anyone who isn’t right underneath it.  The soldiers can also counter attack and hit both spots infront of them with a knockback effect.

The first time, everyone died except Ursula, who has regen when she get’s to critical and the soldiers couldn’t do enough to finish her.  However, the thought of losing Zod and Langston did not sit well for me so I decided to restart with a much better plan.

Instead of lumping everyone together, I spread everyone out (and subbed Urlan for Langston) so that the fire wouldn’t hit a large member of party members.  Each of the four melee units would pick a side and focus on two soldiers at a time while Eiji would hang back for as long as she could avoid the fire and provide support.

This was going better, Valens still got knocked out quickly but Urlan was able to handle his wall with Eiji’s help and Ursula was doing fine.  Zod was hanging in but struggling.

GUESS WHO FINALLY REMEMBERED HE CAN HEAL HIMSELF?!?!?!?

So yeah, using Hibernate I was able to keep Zod alive and get him to finish off his wall before he and Ursula teamed up to finish off the wall Valens failed miserably at handling.

Once the soldiers fall, we are treated to a cutscene of the dragon beginning to sink into the ground, putting the four faces into the firing range.  After a brief chance to change equipment and purchase abilities, we are ready for round 2!

Round 2 was much easier, the face’s themselves don’t attack but summon hell cats to go after you.  They must have gotten the memo that Zod was the danger beast as they triple teamed him right away.  The faces have poor defense though so they were quickly demolished with no one going down this time.

After another cutscene, the Dragon is all that’s left.  The team assembles and we charge into what is...a laughably easy final battle.  The dragon has no defenses and seems to be unable to stand any hits (Eiji’s long shot doing 250 to him).  His attack animation was pretty neat though, where he basically ate Urlan and took about 200 HP from him.  After 2 rounds, Eiji strikes the final blow, sealing our victory!

As the dragon fades back into hell or whatever, Nephellia...does a twirl before disappearing...alright.  Ursula begins to float into the sky as Valens cries out for her, revealing that for peace to be established, a sacrifice must be made.  So she floats into heaven or something while also putting the other Valkyrie spirits at rest.

This then cuts to Ludo and Nephellia plotting their next move and making out...not the most rewarding note to go out on but whatever.

So yeah...that was Gladius!  It was a fun game and I’m glad I was able to pick it up!  I may play Valens story at some point but I think I’m done with this game for now.  Got to finish up Digimon Dawn and then we’ll see what I play next from there!

The Valkyria Chronicles...Chronicle!  Part 1

Hey everyone, for now think I'm gonna use this blog to share my experiences playing games and other stuff, because let's face it, it can be fun to read about someone's first experience with something!  So regardless if you have no idea what I'm playing, have mastered it, or are just looking for something entertaining to read, hopefully you can find something to enjoy here.

So yeah, as you may have been able to guess from the title, I am currently playing Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3.  Valkyria Chronicles is a turn based strategy RPG with perma death features similar to Fire Emblem, though it's a little more forgiving on that note.  Your characters die if you can't get another character to them in three rounds or before an enemy unit approaches them. As a note, I will try to keep spoilers to a relative minimum or at least not go into details much, but I can't promise there won't be ANY so...just be aware of that I guess.

I'm already on Chapter 8 of the game so I'm gonna do kind of a quick TLDR for what's happened so far in the game to kind of catch you up or at least give you a bit of a gist as to what's happening.

YOU LIVE IN GALLIA TINY COUNTRY ATTACKED BY BIG COUNTRY WAR TIME, JOIN MILITIA MAGICALLY BECOME LEADER OF YOUR OWN UNIT FIND ENEMY COMMANDER AND BRAWL WITH HIM GET SEPARATED FROM REST OF YOUR SQUAD

And that's the important stuff : p So anyway, the start of Chapter 8 has you as the main two characters (Welkin and Alicia) trying to sneak past enemy grounds at night to get to safety.  The gimmick here, is that Alicia has a bum ankle and the enemy is firing Mortar shots at you every turn while you try to work your way through.  There are also search lights that if you run into will cause a mortar to be targeted toward your current location.

So this level I actually game overed on several times before finally succeeding.  The mission doesn't seem that hard overall and most of the game overs were stupidity on my part (Leaving Alicia in range of the Mortar without even thinking for one) and since you only have two main characters, either of them dying is a game over.  Biggest hurdle was a section with a scout (Speedsters) and a Shocktrooper (Heavy Hitter) and I tried to face them outright instead of dashing right by to the pathway by them (Didn't see it at first).  The first time I did that I completed the level so...failure by making things overly complicated : p

Following that, a couple of cutscenes happen, including Welkin and Alicia backstory, seeing how the rest of the team you are separated from is doing and a encounter with the opposing army.  After all of that, it's time for the second part of the chapter, which you start on the opposite side of the map from your team and have to make your way back to the tank and operate it while the rest of your team defends it until you get there.

So you want to talk stupidity, that was how I lost this mission about 3 different times.  There are a bunch of mines in the path of Welkin and Alicia as they make their way to the rest of the group and I was apparently blind and ran into pretty much every single one.

The mission becomes pretty simply once you get into the tank and can begin to really mount a counter offensive.  That being said, I unfortunately did lose my first party member before that could happen by the name of Wavy.  Put him up at a little outlook thing and I thought he was safe up there.  He was not and got knocked down from there right next to an enemy sniper, who quickly ran over to him and assured my first casualty of the run.

But yeah, tanks.  Bam bam, your dead.  That was pretty much the rest of the mission.

So yeah, this was a fun little first edition of this.  Hope you enjoyed reading this, I will probably keep doing it as long as I find it enjoyable. I'll put the current party and stats under a read more.

NEXT TIME: MEETING THE PRINCESS! I BET THINGS GO WRONG

Current team and levels

Scouts (GOTTA GO FAST) Level 8 Alicia Hermes Nancy Susie Fresia

Shocktroopers (BAM BAM) Level 7 Rosie Alex Salinas Nina Dorothy Jane

Lancers (FUCK TANKS) Level 7 Largo Walter Yoko Elysse

Engineers (FIX TANKS) Level 8 Karl Nadine

Snipers (EAGLE EYES) Level 8 Cezary Marina Catherine

Digital Transformers! Storm Watches Digimon Xros Wars Part 2

Okay, so I may be getting somewhat addicted to this show.  Have watched through episode 54 now so...this post may be quite a bit more spoilery then the last so...you have been warned!

Have to say, the whole Death General arc was pretty interesting, even if it did have some pacing issues at times.Starts off well enough with the dragon general to show you how strong they are (forget his name) even if he’s a little bland himself.  Then there was NeoVamdemon who...wasn’t that interesting in himself, but it was also the first time that the series didn’t wimp out and actually have an ally die so that was good enough.

Then there was Zamielmon...fuck that guy and fuck those two episodes, whose only remote purpose was to begin preparations for the next episode, Yuu’s proper introduction.  This, by all means was suitably epic and engaging and had me really excited for the coming episodes!

And then Yuu and Darknightmon proceed to disappear for the next ten episodes or so.  Dissapointing, but the next couple of death general’s weren’t too bad.  I liked Splashmon’s deceptive games and Kiriha and Taiki both suitably outsmarting him.  Olegmon’s mini arc was a little meh but it was nice to see some more development for Balistamon.  

Then Gravimon’s arc happened, which was probably the most interesting of all the death general.  The action was awesome, tearjerkers were involved and the general had an awesome gambit to win that I felt wasn’t overcome in a complete BS manner.

And then we had the showdown between Yuu and the three main characters...which was also completely epic and I think really helped solidified this season as one of my favorites.

I don’t have too much to say about the rest of those episodes, my minds honestly kind of a blur at this point.  I will say it was nice to see everyone get some screentime in the final battle against Bagramon though and I’m looking forward to seeing what the last third of this season brings to the table!