Twillight's playings

[Capo]

Going solo in the first run is a bad idea

[twillight]

It's actualy not.


I failed to do levelup (ye, me and my worries. That stupid thief kicked the bucket), so checked the wiki for it, and seen on the screen, if you advance solo, you get stronger recruits.
So at least you should try to advance solo as long as possible.


Also, maybe did not mention, but I play on the offered settings, what is EASY. That should work for a while.



My worry is, monsters do now respawn maybe, so the loot, and everything might be limited. What a bugger.

[Capo]

Playing solo at easy and using recruits makes zero sense, doing so you just lose all the quest and dialogues of the companions for nothing

[twillight]

Playing solo at easy and using recruits makes zero sense, doing so you just lose all the quest and dialogues of the companions for nothing


recruits = companions, non?


Also, I play blindly. I have no idea what I miss on.
Either way, I can always go back and pick everyone up if I have to.

[twillight]

It's a top-down bullet-hell shot'em-up.
It lacks story, and stuff, and I'm not sure about some details (how to do individual upgrades instead of general, how the characters remain different with all the buffs), but it's fine, you can spend 5 minutes casualy playing letting out some steam.


So if you don't need story, just some traditional arcade shoot-em-up, I can suggest this.
If you got used to having a story, and things having meaning, then though you should give it a pass.


But for me, I like these games, and this is a decent one, and it came with a discunt even, so I like it. Won't go super deep with it, but it's good to have something to be able to fall back when you just want to do something but have no idea what actualy.

[twillight]

Ok, so the Remaster demands an unsubstantiated hardware, and there are a couple of visual glitches, and the character runs instead of screen-teleports.

My main issue is though, I have zero idea what to do.
I know my main goal is to get some prime client, that's fine.
I also know I'd somehow start fire at the festivel. I have no means though.
I should probably hack the pipe delivery, but can't get through its door, or other way reach the handle, which camera spot was just a lucky pixel-hunt for me.

I dunno why I have a deck of cards, why I have access to infinite baloon-animals (or how to blow an unused baloon), what to do with the sacrifical bread (I suspect it could be used to attract the birds on the boss' level, but no means how or why - also no idea what these mean in the real world, so no clue from there either), probably should find a way to climb to the roof of the working building but no idea how.

The game also has obvious stolen elements from Day of the Tentacle, and Discworld Noir.


I don't see the appeal, and I don't think the game is good. I think Lucastarts payed heavy money, and lent on its existing remaining fame to spread this rumor for better longterm sales.

[Smiling Spectre]

Game is very good as for me.

And initially it had "tractor" controls, where you must go with left/right for turn and forward for movement. I think, you still can enable this in settings.

Just as many games with the same scheme, since Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil, hero usually "spot" the things, turning the head to them, if they are close enough. Very helpful with pixel hunting.

I think, standard double click worked for exits there... But maybe it must be enabled in the settings? (Or I simply forgot, and it's really only running).

Bread is for the roof. But I forgot what other items do, unfortunately. Did you try windows?

[twillight]

Ye, these are practicaly mobile-games. With that out of the way, let's look at them!


The 2nd is by the look a prequel, and got a handful of upgrades from the first, which was so simple, it lacked replay-value because of that. But it was also pretty nice, and handy, without bugs (after a while).


The second looks like a dumbed down version of Darkest Dungeon, who knows what Sanity does in this one, and as I couldn't figure out DD, I stick with DQ.
Unfortunately it has some features which doesn't work as intended, like:
- you can any time quit the dungeon, and re-play it without consequences, hoarding resources. how it SHOULD work is, the resources should not respawn.
- you should be able to re-play after conpletion any dungeons - with incrised difficulty. This doesn't work for the 1st dungeon.
- you should enter the new dungeon (even if it's the same - you know what I mean) with the HP you got out of the last one, unless you pay in the Tavern. Instead, you start fully healed every time.
- you can softlock yourself if you either loose in the first dungeon, or if you loose all your party in Hardcore. A proper Game Over screen would have been welcomed.
- the ingame texts are "not perfect" so to say.



That's pretty much all the problems of the game, aside that, they are pretty good combo if you ask me, especialyfor retro-gamers, for 50% discount (around 5$).
And I live in a poor country, where 30-60$ full price games are unimaginable aside the select few.


On GoG I made a handy guide, finished with DQ1, expanding on DQ2. I always get frustrated if I have to choose my party blindly.

I WANT MANUALS!

[twillight]

I've noticed this game'll just get it's Diablo 2's expansion, meaning the True Ending is Behind Paywall.
At least it won't change the whole game to something unrecognisable for the fans of the original (like for Diablo 2 the "1.07 patch", or the patch for Fallout: Tactics etc. - this doesn't mean theye were bad patches, just that they were game-altering patches).


Now this game would be in need of a demo, so you don't have to pay full price in a crowded market. Because superficialy yes, there's the Evil Necromancer gimmick, but what are its distinguishing factors compared to other party-building, minion-managing games?


--


Well, as far as I can see, this is waaay better than Darkes Dungeon, the most famous in the genre today.


For DD I had a lot of management-problems, like everytrhing cost too much, the resources vary too much, minions can be made unfit to battle further by too many factors, units change place too frequently while they defiitely created taking a certain place (thus gets annihilated too easily), abilities are too stiuational - in general I've found the game too confusing and way too slow for my taste (or anyone sane in particular).


Iratus on the other hand handles this whole thing pretty well if you ask me.
Your team's most determining factor is not confusing place-swapping, buffing bullshit, but primaly wether you wanna do physical damage, or cause insanity (insanity kills people too, although less reliable to a minor degree, but it definitely a working solution).
I'm not sure though if insanity is the way to go, or not. At a random bubble it was implied, physical damage makes you harvest less body-parts, but this might not be true. (Yes, we'd need a manual.)


Aside that, yes, there are buildings to make, abilities to learn, and all the usual stuff.


My only question is though, what happens, if you loose a couple of times, or even once?
YOUR team can only suffer physical harm, so that's a good thing. The problem is obviously healing. You'll obviously carry around a primary, and a temporary team, and while one gets healed, the other continues.
But what happens if you loose a unit, or even a whole party? What if both parties get seriously injured?


DD had the solution to keep your ability and town progress, and just hire a new crew, and start at an earlier phase. Yes, it hurt, but you didn't loose the whole game because of the loss.
Here in Iratus you can't go back grinding. So I have no real idea what happens then.
If you have the answer, please fill me up. I'll ask around on other platforms too.

[twillight]

This is an excelent re-imagining of Diablo 1, and the production company has nothing to do with Blizzard the Greedy.

So, it's a clickfest by nature, though more casual, as the protagonist can only move around on fixed pathes - which Works well with the enemy difficulty.
So if you want a Diablo-clone (at least the first one, though this has good walk/run speed instead of the crawling of the original), I'df say, try it.

But here comes my problem.
In theory, this game is part of a 7 game series, which run under the umbrella-program (meaning you choose your actualy game from the main menu).
The pre-payed, bargain-price option is unfortunately restricted to Steam.
My question is: why? Other services don't deserve the same treatment? Other sites' customers don't deserve the same price, fair, chance, equal treatment? Why should I pay, considering inflation, 500$ for something others pay 140$?
Why is Steam so racist of a site?
Even worse, the description of the offer of the company does NOT say, the offer is Steam-exclusive, but "platforms, Steam is present on", eg. PC. So that's like a legal issue even.

So the thing ends up as a mixed bag :sick: And not for the fault of the game.

[Smiling Spectre]

The pre-payed, bargain-price option is unfortunately restricted to Steam.
...
Why should I pay, considering inflation, 500$ for something others pay 140$?
Why is Steam so racist of a site?
Um, but you can also buy it on Steam, no? There are a games, available on Origin or Ubistore only. There are games, restricted to one console only (they usually even boasts them as "exclusives"). There are games, available on Epic, and Epic only (they even _pay_ for this exclusivity, and don't think that they do something bad). What's wrong with Steam then? Why it is "racist", when others are not?

(Also, I believe, it's hardly _Steam_ decision after all. I think, it's better to direct your anger on the game authors - and maybe they will respond, who knows).

[twillight]

Um, but you can also buy it on Steam, no? There are a games, available on Origin or Ubistore only. There are games, restricted to one console only (they usually even boasts them as "exclusives"). There are games, available on Epic, and Epic only (they even _pay_ for this exclusivity, and don't think that they do something bad). What's wrong with Steam then? Why it is "racist", when others are not?

(Also, I believe, it's hardly _Steam_ decision after all. I think, it's better to direct your anger on the game authors - and maybe they will respond, who knows).

Well, in order:

#1 it is not exclusive. That's the issue. If the thing would be exclusive to Steam, I'd be fine with it. It isn't. Book of Demons and Whatever Else Coming is on 4-5 service provider.
I could even accept SOME price-differences (because of contractual reasons), but not this lot.

#2 the problem with Steam is many. Aside they being "need internet connection to play", their customer-side program is obnoxious, and consumes a ton of resources of your computer. But the main problem is, they seems to pay to ruin other servicers.

One major problem is, they achieved they get everything sooner. Usualy a week, but many times even a month earlier, sometimes HALF A YEAR sooner. AND there's no spoiler restriction there ASIDE like a week when the program first appear on their site. So they recognise spoiler, but don't respect the players (of other sites).

Second, Steam many times get exclusive PARTS of programs. Yes, I mean full DLCs, or their old names: expansions. Yes, even free ones. Why can't every customer get access to these contents? This is again NOT exclusivity, because the core program is available elsewhere. And these things are not cosmetic, to even suggest to provide servicer-unique alternative.

Third, this price-gap I've mentioned. It can NOT be the developer's idea, at least by what they let us know. If someone wants crowdfunding, their goal is, to get it from the widest possible range. Only a fool would restrict themselves to a single servicer, UNLESS the site gives them a hugh amount of money to do so.
That's just common sense.

So, all the little things added up, and now I'm seriously fed up with Steam. Especialy people mindlessly telling me "why not buy it on Steam TOO". Just fuck you, people.

[Smiling Spectre]

Huh. Thank you then.

[twillight]

Well, finaly something I like.

This is a computer card game, similar to the "original" MAgic the Gathering/Tragic the Gardening.
I never had the chance before dwelving into collecctible cardgames, so I welcomed this one.

This also places your units in an environment (a magical train which makes its own trail), and not just cards on a paste, so doubly good.

What it lacks, is building your deck, because every time you start with the starter deck (of a faction, which has two champion, aka. two starter deck), but oh well. During game you collect crads and things randomised. So consider this, and prepare to loose a lot in this "roguelike", but I'm fine, the replayability is way higher for me this way. There's no ultimate deck and ultimate strategy to WIN the game once and for all.

It is also fást-paced, a full go takes 1-3 hours (depending on your care, thinking effort, experience). Compare this to Darkest Dungeon where a single fight takes this long!

It also a ton of unlocks/achievements to inspire you to move out of your comfort zone, and do more stuff.

And it loooks fine.

Could use a bit more story and lore, but I'm even fine with its satanist state, because it is smooth, nice, bug-free, and enjoyable.

[twillight]

Well, there's nothing enhanced on the Enhanced Edition, I assure you.

This time my character is a shapeshiter, and it is a good character for low level. We'll see how it Works higher.

Oh, The Black Pit 1 is suprisingly survicable, too bad it has anything to do with Beamdog.

[twillight]

Quit a library I hoarded, many obviously giveaways, and most if not all the rest came from bundles. I don't think I ever spent more than 20-25$ a game, and by average only 10$.


Let's invoke some numbers.



- In the library I have 4 extras-package.
- I have 58 games I have no intention to ever pull out. In very rare cases again (Deponia, Toonstruck, Alone in the Dark 4, Heretic Kingdoms: Inquisiton, Darkest Dungeon for example), in most cases ever (there are some heavy hitters here too, like The Witcher 1-2 for example).
- there are 19 games that would be nice to switch on just to look if I like them, but they are realy not a priority, despite some titles I payed good money for (eg. parts of the Divinity series, or Tides of Numenera).
- there are 9 games with the tag "interrested, definitely launch some time in the future". These have a wide range from Worms 2 to Underrail to The House in Fata Morgana, or Castlevania 1.
- and there are 7 games I'll definitely, without doubt play with in the future. Either because they look very attractive, or because I want the worth of my money. These are:
a) Pillars of Eternity
b) Batman, the enemy within
c) Delores: a thimbleweed park mini-adventure (I think this was a giveaway)
d) Monster Train (this is just good)
e) Children of Morta (for this I bought Divinity 2, and the other reason for the buy was the charity-purpose DLC, so as I've spent an amount I felt, I'm definitely playing it)
f) Silent Hill 4: The Room (this was the only part of the series I got interrested in, and its pitch was so good I still remember it)
g) Star Trek 25th anniversary edition: it might turn out trash, but c'mon, maybe it's good. Worst case scennario, I'll watch a Let's play.
h) Werewolf: The Apocalyps: Heart of the Forest. I've played Vampire the Masquarade P&P, and I'm into gamebooks. The look is great. I'm definitely interrested, and will look it up. I just have sooo many things to do... It's great to have a job though. I prefer the first world problem of too many games than no money to pay my rent.


And I have an extra category: games that I put aside to pull out any time when I'm into a specific genre.
- Bio Menace is a retro-style quick platformer.
- Flight of the Amazon Queen is an old, but solvable point&click adventure game. Sure, I have
- the Monkey Island series (even 4-5) on my list, but they are more for the laugh than for the őuzzles.
- Stargunner is I think never played, but it is a left-to-right going shooter.
- Anger Force Reloaded is a bottom-to-top shooter.
- DEX is some mushy game by genre, so I never got into it, but it's a nice game, so who knows.
- Postal 1 is a top-down shooter of extreme violence for its 8-bit glory.
- Book of Demons is a Diablo-clone. I wish it were more complete with the other games fused into it... C'mon developers, have mercy on GoG!

- Baldur's gate (1-2-ToB) is an all time standing
- War Wind is very unlikely, but if I'll ever feel the need of a Warcraft 1-2-clone...
- Blasphemous is a Blackthorne clone. I didn't get too far in it, then the expansion came out, and I had all kind of emotional issues related to this... Still, it's not a forgettable game, and Blathorne is definitely a stlye I like time to time.

<div>- Broken Sword 1-2 are classics, so I'll not burry them, no matter how unlikely to pull them out again.<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial;font-style:normal;" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The House in Fata Morgana&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">

[twillight]

This game is barely in developement yet, but the concept of it struck me, it is so perfect of a metaphor for the Earth, enviroment, humanity, and all that.

It is a sim-city-like game (ok, will be), with the usual stuff (explore, research, advance), but the gimmick is, your city is on the back of a giant animal, so you can't just build whatever you want, you must co-exist with your "planet".
Which moves, so you don't have to release disasters manualy, heh, it wonders into them.

It comes primaly on PC, and though it focuses on Steam in its campaign, it doesn't seem Steam-exclusive, so if you find the idea as good as me, check out Kickstarter.

Here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UZz7S75Xbs

[twillight]

This looks superficialy as some casual flashgame.
But it is actualy a very good kill-em-all.
The pacing, the structure of levels, the optional goals (achievements, extra difficulty options) is excellent.


While the majority of such games drown in uniformity of weapons (aside the flashing and colour they are indistinguishable), uniformity of strategy (stand and shoot, slowly back away while shooting, shooot from out of range), or uniformity of waves (more, bigger enemies), this one always has something in its sleeves.


It even has some sandbox-feature, as while the core part of the game is do-it-once (with Game+ mode fortunately), there is at least one optional area for grinding both EXP and $$$, so it falls on you what you find suitable.
Heck, there's even the option to not pick up the equipment. I find that very curious, as unpicked items do not show up at your HQ, the areas are not re-playable, but you neither get achievement for it.
Should ask the developers maybe.

[Capo]

Really doubt they will answer to you about a game 9 years old XD

[twillight]

Really doubt they will answer to you about a game 9 years old XD


Hey, Hope only dies in season 3 out of 6!

[twillight]

Aside that this would have been a flash-game (where you'd not move freely on the world map probably), this is an excellent game, especialy with the discount GoG gave it on (it was enough to consider CQ2 too along it, because after a quick try, the game proved fun).


You don't get the random-generated nonsense called "rogulelike", you get a proper game designed heartfully for your money here.
The dungeon-designs are realy working. Placement of monsters, placement of treasures, traps, hidden loot, dynamics, positions are all considered when the game was made.
The only thing you could argue here is all dungeons are "clear'em all" tasks, but with their design its a realy minor issue.
You also can clear dungeons thrice: once for clearing the monsters, second to grab all chests (hidden ones can be a task of their own, but the system is well-introduced), then maybe third time later a quest will send you in to clear the place again.


The game introduces its features, world and difficulty very intuitively. The white arrow pointing to your next objective looked annyoingly in-yo-face at first, but it works, especialy as you realise, quests lead you to the next area to visit, next quest to pick up by difficulty.


The core main quest can be steamrolled through in 40-45 minutes if you are very good at what you are doing and have gear (Furry Armored), but if you exp/gear up, it takes 8 to 10 hours depending of your choice in difficulty.


Because it has an additional mode "Mew Game" where you can set additional properties: no exp, no gear, only 9 lives, stronger monsters, and keep all gear + equipment.
For these you can unlock an extra gear, the Old Masters Set, and for hardcore players you can get them repeatedly for maximum effect (ilvl 99), and you'll be able to use them if you contine a New(+) game, which is not to be confused with the Mew Game (I should try Mew Game too to check if you get the gear there too if you continue playing like in Fallout).


And all this builds up to introduce you to hardcore gaming, where you never get hit (or only very few times), as for the 3rd part of the Old Masters Set (you play as a cat, who could be the Old Masters?) you realy have to play attention with no gear (or no exp, depending on what you prefer, but no gear is safer, and has open limits) and only 9 lives.
The stronger monsters part is not that influencing, it's even welcomed, monsters on the overworld giving you plentyful exp.
Obviously you get badges to try out all modes.


Oh, and I spell it out for the minmaxers: the protagonist is a half-cat/half-dragon being (it's a cool story bro, discover yourself), so you have no excuse not to play this :shifty:

[twillight]

Monkey Island 5 (GoG): I wish I had this game before, because it actualy looks fun. Ok, not at the quality of the first three games, but way above Escape...
The problem: the game's speed is connected to the CPU-speed, what means on modern computers the game is sickeningly fast. It's not unplayable like the original Fallout 2's realse's world-map traveling, but it caused me unfomfort.


Alien Earth (GoG): You wander around, crafting stuff (weapons and puzzle solution), and has a generaly attractive B-movie wibe.
The problem: you have no real idea what you are doing, the respawn-mechanics are unclear, certain things seem obvious to do but you can't (taking a lit lamp), other things are moon logic (for giving the bunny to the mad man is no clue), there's no keyboard layout/controls menu. Also, if you hit the wrong button, the game will freeze. Allegedly you can save the game at beds, but who knows. The game also will freeze if you ever try to change window, so just don't. Also have no idea how to quit properly. The freeze only went away from me by pressing ctrl+alt+del and signing out.


Cat Quest 2: very similar to Cat Quest 1, but the story is weaker, I don't feel why or how I am part of the story I mean. While for the first game you had a clear motivation, in the second installment people TELL you things are bad, but the game does NOT SHOW it to be that way, and to be honest for this the protagonist duo seem to be murder hobos.
Noticable change in mechanics is, you get 2 character (practicaly double HP for single players), and mana is gained by time, not by meleeing enemies. Unfortunately all clothes seem to fit on both characters, and yet to find out how they differ by abilities. (I'm at an early stage with this.)

[twillight]

It's one of the free games on GoG, and is a point&click adventure-game.


It has a clunky learning curve, ti. nothing is explained what the controls are.
Also, the first room's puzzles are TIMED EVENTS, and that never comes into play later, is unusual in the genre, thus makes you probably quit before leaving the first room.


The puzzles are at best moon-logic, or maybe require specilasized knowledge, like the photo-development puzzle in Shadow of the Comet, which can only be solved if you know how to develop analog photos in a lab.
There are also a lot of red herrings, or unused props.



Then the story. the story on paper is fine, though a bursting animation would have been more adequate. The details which realy fails this one. Story-pieces just left behind and in nonsense.
Never turns out how you got in the facility, what was the conract that put you there, what's your complaint, why was the crew all fucking each other, how they developed that religion-business, who is Cayne, wassis deal, where did "Samantha" come from, why is everyone a perv...

[Capo]

Cayne is the prequel of Stasis, thats why you dont get the story

[twillight]

Cayne is the prequel of Stasis, thats why you dont get the story


Lame excuse.

[twillight]

Book of Demons: This is actualy a very very nice game which I very very liked - until I found out the pre-order option, which says it is for all, but is actualy just for Steam, and as that has a ridiculously low price, I obviouslyrefuse to pay more just for playing on GoG, so I just abandoned the whole thing for unethical business-practice.


Tonight we riot: it is boring. You should get immersion to some anti-capitalist, pro-communist feeling, but the game simply has no content to provide you. It's mindless point&click, and you don't even get proper controls over your team. And it is ridiculously hard to figure out what the levels expect you to do to get those pesky buffs (extra items). And to pick the item you want is a pin too.


Jagged Aliance Rage: it should have lernt from Fallout Tactics and make turn-based actions optional. Or at least do UFO-style, and only force you to turn-based when the enemy can see you.
Otherwise I like the look of it, and the character designs.
Too bad it feeds on memory, and on top of it I tried to plug in a controller, and it not just did not work, but I could not revert back to mouse wither, so fuck this.


Cayne: it's semi-ok point&click adventure/horror game, but beats me what actualy happens in it. And I won't buy some other game just to learn that.


Contra: this game just fucks you in the ass. The enemy spawns inside the screen taking away reation-time. And it tend to respawn. And has a good chunk of randomizer on 'em. And there is not infinite continue. So ye, I see why this was hard, and I say it is not good.


Castlevania 1: this game is boring. And frustrating. The frustrating part is simply the medusa-heads. Just take those out of the game. Oh, than it isn't ven hard anymore? Well, not my business.


Warhammer: Chaosbane: look, I know this isn't supposed to be the greatest thing ever. I just wanned some Diablo-clone not involved Blizzard. I double-chacked, and I have the requirements for it. It lags. Pure and simple, it is insufferable. Sure, if I had some nifty high-end videocard, it'd be good, but this is just next level bullshit.


--------------


I did not regret this, but...


Anvil of Dawn
Well, now I could play it. Turns out, the black female is the character to go. The stats are just great. Either way, the problem is, with the GoG-version I could not backtrack to check the other passage after the branching-part, and the game is simply not that interresting - and after a point is very boring becuase you just cakewalk it.
It's not a bad game if you can tolerate the combat-system, but it doesn't offer much aside that combat system, which is: cast a spell, stand around 10 minutes to regain mana, go to the next enemy.
And magic is still was faster and effective than melee, because in melee you'll hit air too many times, and your damage will just remain in the D10, D12 range, while your spells will do 100 reliably.

[twillight]

So, I've reinstalled the game on my neu computer, and created the same character.
Player: Johny C.
Hitmonchan: HitMeHard
Rival: Jackash


Reached Cerulean City at clvl 25, and done the place without problem.


I also decided to run a solo Jynx, the old blackface... sorry, prupleface character if you are uncomfortable the japanese culture.
The protagonist will be Cheapskate, because won't buy anything if possible. The rival will be Protege.

[twillight]

...but fortunately noticed they don't have win 10 support!
So ye, sure, GoG does sell titles like Sacred, Arcanum and such - BUT what's the use of it if they don't run under win10?


With this effort I could buy Might and Magic 9, which is an unfinishedly released game, but that as bare minimum would work... After you install like a million fan-made patch... Still.


Not that I have much time to play though, as all my free time is consumed reading (the pretty horrible) Wheel of Time books.


----------------


Aside these, I'll mention 4 games on my "to be played" list:


- Bastion: this is a fun hack&slash, somewhat-platforming game, nice graphic, good story, good music. Why I don't play it too much? There is this design-flow that you can not-pick-up items, like and especialy weapons.
Ad if you don't pick them up, you can't go back to try it again.
But there's no achievement or something to leave them behind. So what's the point of this whole situation if not design-flow?


- Dark Quest 2: I'd play the heck out of this, one problem though: you can re-play the tutorial-level. Ad infinitum. When you do, EVERYTHING respawns. Not just the consumables to keep you alive, not just the enemy (so the level has a point), but the extra skillpoints too!
It should actualy work like every time you replay, the monsters get tougher. But if you simply cancel the quest you jump back to the beggining, WITH all the loots (including skillpoints, money, all what you bought on the money at the hub etc.), and then ... just where's the challenge?


-Book of Demons: I love this game to be honest. Problem? THere'll be a bunch of continuation, and extras, and it's dirt-cheap for Steam, AND they said the package is for ALL PLATFORMS. GoG is a platform too, but somehow the only platform actualy is Steam this piece of garbage pplies.
So I boycot the game.


- Monster Train: Despite too many times failing to the random, I'd play this... If I'd manage to find a stable job, get married, have children. Perfect casual satisfaction. But aside that it does not have some world-shaking grand story or anything, so...


Next time: more games from my TBP list!

[Capo]

In Bastion you can pick up weapons :headslap:

[twillight]

In Bastion you can pick up weapons :headslap:


But you don't have to.
And if you do, you no longer can.
That is an issue that should have been adressed, with all the minigames (with rewards) relying on grabbing said weapons.


-----------------


Let's include then some more games from my TBP-list:


- Mary Skelters: it's some dungeon-crawling thingy, that genre combined with japanese games, aka tons of tons of dialogues. Dialogues without iintroduction.
Look, the game is nice, and is probably good to play, but I'd realy need to be teached how to play the foker, and the tons of talk just gets in my way, especialy if I have to do romance-stuff.
I have this up, passed the tutorial, but I'm considering uninstalling it, and reinstalling it maybe never, because I just wanned to open door, kill monster, grab loot.


- The house of fata morgana: with Wheel of Time on my hand, this "interactive novel" is very down on my list.


- Worms 2: Ye, it's a bit complicated to start, whatever. My problem is the same when I've played the CD version: I just stop at one point, not getting enough feedback of achievement. Maybe if I shouldn't start from the menu every single level, or some cutscene, or literaly anything more inclusive, I'd play the heck out of it.


- Children of Morta: Let's fiish this post on an upbeat tone. I love this game, though its difficulty-curve is nonsense. To start the thing is already an achievement itself, as you get characters both too slowly and too fast at the start, then developing them to any half-decent level is a torture.
Then there is your usual shitty feature: bonus exp/gold skills. So that halts your development again.
Then you want your very first character to "max" level (I mean skill-unlocking max requirement level), and that'll take a whiel... But is pretty much inevitable as that gives the absolute best thing in the game for every one of your characters: regeneration. Ye, this makes things a stand-around-simulator from the '90s, but believe me, you'll need that, especialy if you play on Hard (or as I plan on Insane) difficulty.
THEN there is yet another halt, the part the monsters hostage Mary, an NPC. There all normal levels are cut off, and with that all development aside exp is cut off too, as the special rescue-level has no resources. So never ever finish the first level of the second town, or you'll be screwed!


Still, if you get past the restrictive parts, this game is a very godd hack&slash with interresting character-abilities and powerups, and a fun world.
Town 3 could be better - and with the released new mode it actualy is with more enemies added to the few act 3 randos, making that city alive too.


So while there are some desig-flaws, and the start of the game is a slog, it's really starts to be fun if you get past that, worth your efforts.
It'd totaly deserve some good articles about it to hype it up - but you know, journalists don't have time or effort to reach past the pesky part, that's why you don't design the beggining of the game this way.

[twillight]

Now, let's make a last "on my TBP list" post.


Like there is Warhammer: Chaosbane. Look, I don't get Warhammer, especialy not WH40K, and I think their games are shit by screenshots.
I thought this will be a Diablo-clone, checked the requirements, and I surly hit the minimum, according to (some) lists, even the optimum. Well, it lags like Lionheart, so fuck this whole shit. And fuck GoG.


Same thing with Batman: the enemy within (from the Telltale series).


Then there is Postal 2, because you have to experience famous games, which by the way 99% of the time turn out to be shit.


And I should check ut Torment: Numa-numa-ai, or whatever its name was. I never got to instal the bugger. Not sure why, then it got bad reputation, couldn't access the (overpriced) novels...


Then there are those two giant RPGs, Underrail and Pillars of Eternity 1.
Underrail looks bland, and a bit complicated, and fuck you for checking me for nooks, Baldur's Gate 1 style. Just so you know, originaly you had no item-highlight option.
And PoE? I got through some tutorial-section way-beck-when, but it is missing the hook for me. Sure, the game looks ok, but where is the Enclave blasting unarmed vault-dwellers and their children? If I want to play a pig-farmer, I'll pick Dink Smallwood, thank you!
Btw, Dink S. had terrible monetary system if you wanned to use bows. I've beaten the entire game TWICE and still could not afford the best bow, that's how ridiculous its price.


So I'm realy like: gimme blasted pokemon, those were the games, we had FUN. Nowdays? Here is a quest: pay me XXX$ real money, or fok off! So depressing.
They even anounced Windows 11. BUT WHY?!?

[twillight]

Woah, Google really made a "minigam"! Crap, it is a full realease game!
I suggest to immerse in it, do the trophy-tasks before doing the seven main minigame. The tasks create immersion, and even unlock different difficulties of the minigames.
Unfortunately there aren't unlockables for all areas, like the rugby game I found none, but for the table-tennis, and guitar hero ("syncronized swimming" in the game) had easy, normal and hard diffs. Marathon had normal and hard, so 2 diff there. Won't spoil the rest.


The best part of course are the clips of occasions. Too bad after collecting all the trophies there is no option to sail away and restart the game, so yu'll be stuck with 1 team, though I bet all 4 team basically have the same HQ.

[twillight]

Thought about playing BG again, on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty, with "what could be the official narrative" concept, as obviously that difficulty is not for solo.
Looked after what LoB actualy is, went through the hirelings, and decided against it.


Still got the narrative though.


So we know, we start alone, Imoen put on your neck at the start (tip: if you really want to be pure solo, kill Imoen in Candlekeep with 1 hit, immediately run to Gorion and talk yourself out of the castle. Perfect. She worth 20 exp, no rep-consequence).


We also know who ended up with the hero finishing BG1 and starting BG2: Imoen (of course), Jehaira with Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir.


When starting the game (BG1) thus we instantly have Imoen, and in the same area is Xar and Montaron, or something. Definitely a mage and a thief, but the names are too similar (Xan vs Xar and so on). You NEED them, not as for party, but as meatshield. You go to the Friendly Arm Inn as Gorion instructed, to pick up Jaheria (obiously the official love-interrest for BG2) and Khalid. Problem is getting into the inn. Why is it a problem? Assassination-attempt. How is it a problem? You need at least 19 HP on a character to survive a magic missile this bounty hunter casts. The casting is too fast to interrupt, will definitely stay alive long enough to cast it with the mirror images (and fear), and it shoots 3 missiles, each can do 6 DMG apiece. So we can assume a character-death here.


Now we can find certain characters here-and-there, but they were obviously designed as extra companions just for a quest, like the dwarf looking for his caravan, or whoever is at the lighthouse lookng for a tome. So I don't care for those too much.


The next important station is Nashkel, where Jaheira and Khalid is heading. There we meet Edwin and Minsc, both going for Dynaheir. Hire both, rescue Dynaheir, kill Edwin.


There are a couple of other characters we know about, like Montaron's mage died in BG1 and stuff. And we have a list of characters we know stayed alive, so don't be too quickhanded.

But the point is, we actualy filled out quota for characters, so that's it for now. Moving on to BG2.


In BG 2 there is one single character we definitely must accept, and that is Yoshimo.
That leaves one free space in the party still. Well, technicaly two, as we know.


On the sidenote, we know that geneticaly the protagonist is half-god (no-race) half mother-side, this means half-elf never should have been an option.
Also, orignaly the mother of the protagonist when summoned by the solar was definitely human, and even EE extended this only to dwarf, halfling and elf, and not to gnome or orc. Female orcs again still do not exist in either version by skin and portrait.

[twillight]

Why is there no detailed guide for this?
Why can't you whenever spread your skillpoints?
Why can't you make popups disappear by rightclick?


So many questions.


A problem with the game is the lack of character motivation. Take the Big Three on contrary:
- Fallout 1 had the water-crisis.. Fallout 2 had a clear goal: get a GECK, or eventualy your village will die out. Fallout Tactics sent you eliminating some raiders, which led to the discovery of a new menace, and the story opened up like a flower.
- Baldur's Gate 1 had the motivation of immediate threat. Sure, aside that the protagonist lacked its own motivation, but the contacts gave their motivation to you, and you filled with urge grasped to straws at that point, so their motivation became your motivation. BG2 offered a CHOICE of motivations: get revenge on Irenicus, rescue your half-sister Imoen, or simply accept the situation and work with the shadow thieves lacking any other options.
- Planescape put you into such a weird situation you were happy to jump to conclusions and follow the instructions tattooed on your back!


But Pillars of Eternity give a character whose goal is to settle down, and be a farmer, or what. Point is the character wants anything but adventures.
So you start with a caravan, which stops at a very dangerous place, literaly only a couple of hours away from its goal, to look after WATER for you suffering some illness? Where's the logic and motivation in there?
Situation worsens when you throw away the waterflask you just aquired. Genious. Now do we need water or not? How is water such a commodity anyway?
Whatever, situation worsens: you are put to an open-map world. Which railroads you to your next destination, as the open world map is not open. Uhm.
Ye, you spot some cultists, but remember: it's not your buisness. They die immediately anyway. Pfff.
Then you get to your village. It's a shitty place, but whatever. You can not examine the corpse the game points at, but fortunately I decided to sleep here. No idea otherwise how the main story would have continued on.


Oh, here comes another problem: the lack of source of money! I want to spend my money, but that's somehow is not an option, given there is no source of income for tha game. Not that I can see anyway.
I'd need a reliable source of money, lockpicks, grappling hooks...


Even the order of areas related to quests do not make sense. There's a quest to find some midwife/witch/potion maker. And there's a quest to unlock the blacksmith-shop for trade (I assume). And there's the continuation of the main quest (which is another midwife, how lame). Obviously you'd like to get access the shop, but that's on the way towards the main quest!


Also, why none told me I'll need 4 athletics and 4 mechanics ASAP? Ok, 3 mechnaics if I'm ready to spend lockpicks. Too bad I have no idea how to replenish my lockpicks. Or how to sell my stuff!


Aside that, I was happy beating that bear in that cave without any real problem.


Oh, and it would have beenn ice if the destination-areas would have appeared on the map when the quests were given. Especialy as there are unrelated inaccessible locations on the map for some reason anyway.
The lack of lore-section in the manual doesn't help the situation either.

[Capo]

Ahaha you posts are always funny XD

-I think you completely missed the story of the game, are you skipping the dialogues?

-You want to be rich at the start of the game? Is never like that, you will have no money problems going ahead with the game

-You dont need any specific ability to progress into the game

-The map is quite simple: to unlock an area for fast travel you have to actually walk there. Big shock!

[twillight]

Ahaha you posts are always funny XD

-I think you completely missed the story of the game, are you skipping the dialogues?

-You want to be rich at the start of the game? Is never like that, you will have no money problems going ahead with the game

-You dont need any specific ability to progress into the game

-The map is quite simple: to unlock an area for fast travel you have to actually walk there. Big shock!


- No, I've not skipped the dialogue. YOU on the other hand likely did.


- I want services affordable. And I'm not just not rich, I don't see where riches will come from.


- you DO need specific abilities to unlock certain areas of the game. I'm a completionist.


- the map SHOULD be simple, but it does not service the player. Why are there places I've never even heared of? (And as told, i've checked the manual if there's a lore-section or something, and there isn't.) Why are places I know of (sent to) not on the map? And why I have to check all exits from a location to have all locations next to the current one get unlocked (stupid Baldur's Gate mechanic?
And given this looks like an open-world game, why the worldmap doesn't work as in a Fallout? I press a destination, and I don't have to unlock jack shit! Crap, this isn't even Might and Magic, where you had a clearly full map to walk across in any direction. Here the limit of walking is arbitrary. Why the heck can't I go west? Or north? Or west when out of the imploding cave?


+ come to think of it, when will the game start, when will I get out of the Tutorial Area? Bloody Stronghold has its own menu-button from the start, but there's no spoon, I mean stronghold. If the button would not be there it'd be fine, but this...

[twillight]

I had the demo, but there was no way me figuring out on what disc it was, and never seen it resurface anything, and no matter how hard I searched Neon Green/Blue Zombie Adventure Game (https://www.gog.com/game/galador_the_prince_and_the_coward), no luck. It burned in my mind who knows how long, because even the barely-any-length demo, I thought it was funny, and just the puzzles an adventure-game would need.

[twillight]

Well, this is Solitaire.
It is a bit... Unchiselled, if you ask me. It feels... a bit too easy to win, given they gave it stakes, a story for frame and everything. And it is not simply that, it is more of the problem you can get too high combos too easily, while you must get them to get top score, and the same time ther simply isn't enough card on the field, AND I think they are static, so what the shop offers to buy can easily be optimalised what to buy, AND maybe it's just me, but I get waaay too many resources to buy stuff from the shop.


On the other hand, solitaire is a good game, this offers two versions of it (clear the field and defeat enemies), and it has enoughn uances to make you think (power-gathering to buy stuff from the shop, creating combos, unlocking stuff on the fields, activating your cards etc.).


I'd like to see though where defense is equal to offense, but it is not, despite skill-tree existing for it. The "problem" of cours eis the "win the stage for 3 stars" system, which is measured by turns spent, and every turn spend on the defense is one turn not defeating the opponent :sick:
But that's really a minor thing, and this is an improvement on solitaire, so pretty good casual game. And it tends to be discounted to like half price, which definitely worth it.


On the sidenote, a limitation on the Wyr.cards would be required, because you CAN stuck up on them, indefinitely, on any difficulty, and that's... That's instant win whenever you want.
It's not THAT serious though, I spend them regularly to get top-score. Still accumlated like 7 the same time, but average I run like 5 mid-game. Early game it was perfectly balanced to make you consider wether they worth the investment. But at some point I truly got overflown a bit with these, so I've spent.


Oh, be careful on the consumables (meaning Gear-cards). You can easily pick such that cause damage the enemy is immun to. Ye, that factor is actualy very good here, the resists, and the magic/phyiscal damage they can cause. Trains you to pay attention. Like a good solitaire should.



It has its sister-game, Shadowhand, where some pirate-girl does girly-stuff or something. It looks a bit more complex (marginaly, it is still solitaire), but heared the random is pretty though there on the later levels (aka. unfair as F).

[twillight]

Oh, man, what a disappointment.


Well, not that much for the first. This time it was at least obeying the key-commands. My problem was not just the lack of a map, which I knew is coming, but the entire lack of clues how big the areas are.


And we are talking about after reading the manual.


the game also lacks any clue where the heck are you on the map, so though luck makring everything on paper.


I know, I know, I could just look up an extrernal source and learn the maps are 15*15, but what's the fun in that? I wanned to enjoy the genuine, original, pre-internet experience.


So 2 is out of the picture with this too, giving no actual improvement to the gameplay, and 3 is a soft reboot anyway.


I had hopes for 3. It looked fine. Sure, the controls were clunky, but oh, well. Then I've turned around, entered the door, and noticed I have to empty slots for characters. Oook... And those character-types are not in my gorup, and everyone is to hire...
Oh, ye, almost forgot, my first disappointment was that I had no chance for a carater creation. Or the very least party-creation. I mean before starting the friggin' game.
Then I've done the mistake of moving to an open direction. This game turned out WORSE than the first two! It's horribly disorienting, even with the map!
Then some goblin on my screen I thought is a decoration started waving. Obviously marking a hidden room or something. Took a while to figure out how to handle that, but why even put in the feature if you will just tell me it's a "hidden" room?
Anyway, 2 rat jumped on me ANY MASSACRED HALF MY TROOPS. Genious. At least my HEALER was alive. So I thought, time for a healing spell! but the game thought nah, it'll be fine.
Unfortunately for the game, my "robber" was down too, and was required to open the found chest. So I've slept. Opened the chest. Took the stuff in it. No idea what some whistle would have done. Moved a bit around. My robber was down again. Didn't even meet an enemy. No healing option. No place to buy food. Xeen is the exact same game just bigger. F you, Might and Magic. :cry:

[Smiling Spectre]

And we are talking about after reading the manual.


the game also lacks any clue where the heck are you on the map, so though luck makring everything on paper.
It seems, you read manual not so thoroughfully as you thought.

You need Sorcerer's L1 spell. "Location". As description says, "In general, this spell is the key to successfull mapping".

It not stop the game being too boring and unfair (I gave up after second found city that was too high level for me, and several hours of mapping the mountains that gave me basically nothing). Maybe it requires several hundreds of hours invested, but I didn't found the game too interesting for that.

Then I've done the mistake of moving to an open direction. This game turned out WORSE than the first two! It's horribly disorienting, even with the map!
Well, it's not so very disorienting, after you suited to it, actually... but map is highly recommended to any meaningful exploration. And I don't mean auto-map, of course.
Then some goblin on my screen I thought is a decoration started waving. Obviously marking a hidden room or something. Took a while to figure out how to handle that, but why even put in the feature if you will just tell me it's a "hidden" room?
Because it's a feature of your character(s). Not every character is able to find the secret door, and, if I remember right, not always from the first try.
Anyway, 2 rat jumped on me ANY MASSACRED HALF MY TROOPS.
Did you buy weapon/armor before? I don't remember what can be the problem here, but definitely I hadn't such problems when I played (fifteen years ago though).
Genious. At least my HEALER was alive. So I thought, time for a healing spell! but the game thought nah, it'll be fine.
Umm... Why? I believe, "First Aid" is available practically everywhere (and manual says something along this way too).
Xeen is the exact same game just bigger. F you, Might and Magic. :cry:
You gave up to early. :) I finished this game between my first crawlers in early 00s, mostly because of lack of the manuals and good understanding of English that made most of such games impossible for me, unlike M&M3. So, I believe, it must be somewhere around "semi-casual" difficulty. Unlike M&M1 (hardcore) and M&M2 (impossible without manual).

Hmm, actually, it brings up to the fact that I never played M&M2 meaningfully... Maybe worth to give it a chance now! :)

[zirkoni]

You should try using WhereAreWe:

https://www.eskimo.com/~edv/lockscroll/WhereAreWe/


Really makes playing the games much easier and more enjoyable IMO.

[twillight]

@SS

1) unless my sorc has that spell from the getgo (which he doesn't, I think), that won't help.


2) that's kinda obvious, but I refuse to get accustomed to sub-par, highly outdated features. One: no modern player would do so, two: I'm not very motivated on my part.


3) that was obvious, but it is a very clunky way. The good way was MM6-7-8, where the secret door was highlighted by red. There is a reason secret doors are used to be marked by cracks in the wall. You need to hint to the player (so they can find them), but you shall not make it obvious, otherwise it is not secret door.


4) I didn't even met a shop. Either way, unless those armor give HP instead of AC, it wouldn't help. The rats simply 1HKO certain classes.


5) well, with meta-knowledge I probably would know that. But the point was to enter without meta-knowledge, and play it as a game, not as following a set of instructions.
Computer-games too long were allowed to be nothing else but hint-line scams.


I gave up "early", because these games do not worth the effort today.


--------------------


@zirkoni


That's genious. I store the link for some later time. Hugh thank you.


--------------------


Unrelated: currently playing Swords and Souls: Neverseen. It is one of those flashgames which now pretend to not be flashgame, so to acess it I use the Netflix-method, whatever.
Point is, it has a minimal story-or-whatever, enough to fuel a playthrough. This is NOT a game you wish to replay. There isn't much reason anyway, unless you want to ocncentrate on one of the melee weapons exclusively.
The whole thing looks on papre repetitive, and technicaly it is, but if you focus on getting the badges during every level of training, you'll have only a couple of training-sessions before completion. Sure, those will be hours upon hours long sessions, but still limited number of sessions, what is ok.
The gaming-balance and economy-balance is of a flashgame, some achievements (juggler, especialy) are practical impossibility - no surprise, we are talking about an Armorgames product.
But it is a good reflex-training, I give you that.

[twillight]

Oh, man. There was a thing I did not remember from the demo. That either had no sound, or I just forgot the whole thing, or the 1% chance it was english.
Ye, sure, the full game surely has english subtitles, but not audio. Instead, the whole thing is polish. There should be ooption to chnage the audio, but GoG, in its infinite wisdom, did not tell us how to do that.


So I've tried, at least lowered the force of the sound, but it'll be a quarter or more year until I get in the mood again. :lame:

[twillight]

Finaly some good game.
Yes, this is again another edition of TWoFM of the Fighting Fantasy series, BUT this time actual care went into the project.
The map got a massive overhaul, adding new stuff, a lot of timed event, and nifty graphic only computers can add instead of paper.


On the second note, it worth mentioning, this is still a gamebook, meaning you better make your own map (the ones on the net are seriously lacking, and while you can see pretty far away in the game, believe me, you better start ot make notes).
It's not that bad though like some Wizardry, or MM 1-2 without that automapping patch, but as you'll basicaly walk this place over and over and over, in a rogue-like fashion, you want to be as prepared as possible, and you WILL roam the Mountain quite some while, as you are given quite a bunch of characters, around a dozen, and that's just the story mode.


And darn, those characters worth it. They come with their own backstory - and personal quests! So this time prepare to NOT fight Zagor if you don't want to, because you do not arrive with that intention, and that's a relief, a big one!
The characters also not just come with their own agenda and attack abilities, but also personality! It was a nice suprise when the second character, who basicaly have the same skills as the first on the row simply refused to hide at the start because "this is the early, thus easy portion" of the game! And while this creates a distinct persona from your own, it actualy introduces roleplaying in a good way, an aspect FF was created for in the very beginning.
Knowing the map from the first palythrough not being able to break cvharacter created excitement for me, because I had to consider how the character will behave when facing certain situations I knew is coming. Like sure, in that room is a nifty item, or a handful of gold coins - but if I have to fight for it instead of being sneaky, that's a risk. Or I had to consider entering otherwise unappealing rooms because you can actualy make conversations (sometimes) with the residents of Firetop, and you want the information.


I've mentioned roguelike. This time the adventure catched early-AD&D-level feeling, meaning you have only a limited number of HP you have to manage. The characters being pre-made also forces you to strategies, consider to open a door you don't know what's behind it, or pick a fight you know from previous goes it is behind the door or not.
Pre-generated characters also prevent the 12/24/12 character-fatigue, and the varying combat-abilities help preventing the combat become monotous.


This is a great game, especialy in a world where reaction-shooter rule the market. You need to stop, think, strategize, recognise paterns, make probability-calculations.


Oh, and to spice things up, there are the achievements. Even the individual character quest ensured you'll discover the majority of the secrets of the Warlock's residents, but trying to figure out which character's quest allign the best with certain achievements creates an all new level of immersion.


All in all, I love it. Now let's hope I win this round.

[twillight]

Well, this doesn't start well.


One: you arrive without any goal, explanation, or anything nearbuy. Literaly not even anything that moves. Hugh mistake. If you put at least an enemy I must fight/avoid, I'm at the very least moved.
And don't start me that Zelda-comparison, there some hockey wizard shown up, and gave a goal. You had no idea where to execute that, but you did have a goal. The manual also told you your goal, and there was the intro-video that gave you at least vague ideas what oyu are up to.


Two: the lack of manual. Ok, start button-smashing for menu. Great! We do have a manual! Pressing F1... And nothing happens! Fok off, game.
Reading the store-page what'_s the fuss, seems you have to collect the manual. Fok off, game.


Ok, found a stick. MY idea: use it on that door I found. Ok, then not, it's just my basic weapon. Look, game, from the enemies I've found in the vicinity, you're not some Dark Souls. You are Little Big Adventure. You are a barely controllable, semi-boring piece of crap.


Yes. Isometric. Look, that worked for turn-based games, but otherwise it is not for PC-gamers. It needs a controller, a bloody joystick.


Also, game, why don't let me read stuff on the markings? And when I finaly find one, marking "Town", why can't I just walk there? I definitely need healing! Oh, wassis? An altair? HUGH mistake. One: I dunno if I can use it repeatedly. Two: I despise religion. I don't wanna play a religious character.
Then again, maybe not everything is lost... Why do I have a stamina-bar? It's not used for anything. Also, why don't I have a mana-bar? If I can have an unused stamina-bar, why not a mana-bar?


On the unreadable markings, and half the manual being unreadable gibberish, let's mention at the start you game let me wonder into some forest. Why you started I thoought they are spikes, and would hurt, but ok, they are pines. Now, this is obviously some open-world exploration game. Fine. Then why isn't in that explorable area ANYTHING to be discovered? Why the unreadable markings? Why are you actively DISCOURAGE me from exploring?


Ok, moving forward still. There's a branching path. Ok, let's investigate the Giant Golden Door, because obviously it won't let me through. And it did! And I cann ot go back! Damn you game, I want to go back exploring! Ok, only way out is forward... Maybe this will be the promised town? No. This'll be some stupid gimmicky place. Ok, whatever. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. There's my mother, and I have to free her. Total breaking of immersion. I already decided I'm a heartless, personalityless adventurer who is in this just for the money. Questions areise in hundreds. How did I not know it? How did I forget? How did I end up on the shore? Penyless? Whatever, I'm out where I was.
Let's go the other way. Oh, it's a dead end. Now what. Oh, I found a second item! Let's put it on a hotkey. Why can't I put it on a hotkey? Ok, whatever, the only place to go now is that door. Yes, it was a key. But this also means then, I can only have 3 items the same time? In an open-world exploration? No way!
Look, shiney! Hey, that's the town! How do I get down there... The game even teases me with a friggin telescope. Why even is that a feature at all, when there are 4 friggin buttons to look in directions? Who knows.


What I do know is, I'm not interrested in what this game offers. Especialy that it doesn't even offer me an AUTOMAP? Free-roaming open world exploration without an automap? You must be joking. You obviously have a hugh world here, there's no way I'll just mark things on paper like for The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which has a very concised map, which you'll walk over and over and over.
Skip. Or look up a review on what is going on in this, because it is a confusing mess.

[twillight]

People compared this to Diablo 1, it is not.
In many aspect it is Diablo 1.5, but there are no skills to start with the differences.

The good part is: the controls are kinda smooth. Sure, I don't like the adjustable camera feature, and the game is kinda low budget, but it doesn't cause user-fatigue by trying to use it.
And there is a run-button! Sure, your stamina stinks rock bottom, but when you think about it, this is how Diablo 2 should have implemented stamina. Kinda. There's some problem with the stat-distribution you see, but more on that later.

There is an intro-video, what calls a Black Hole a Black Mist, but whatever. If you want to see it, watch it on youtube, or set the game to XP Pack 3.
No, you cnan ot re-watch the movie whenever you feel like, you must quit and re-start the game. But given this is some polish-or-what product, this isn't that much of a surprise, and the thing kinda gets in the way sooner or later. Just you better know, the ending-cinematic has the same requirement too.

Otherwise you go out, and shoot bugs. Very much like Starship Troopers in its concept.
The atmosphere is good with its foggy trees in the first area, then it changes to some forest-with-river in the 2nd, and metal corridors in the 3rd. In theory there are 15 areas, biodomes if you like. Filled with the same enemies (always adding to the variety), but whatever.

The concept was to have 1 resource in the game which functions as currency and ammo the same time, and while this is not just in rumour and reviews, but also in the manual - it is a complete lie. The ammo is some kind of item that gets dropped regularly. I don't see it in any of the shops, and kinda accumlates up, not seeing how it'd run out just by shooting enemies.

Oh, what else to shoot? There are alien eggs, at least the program calls it that, but more like insect nymphs. They function as crates, and can be punched open just by your fist.
Btw, don't stand around too much not wielding any kind of weapon. With a weapon, the character will do some flipping of it when "bored". Without weapon, the character gorunts. Ye, annoying noise is done.

Now in theory there are 4 kinds of charactertypes in the game?
One uses high-tech gizmos - forget it, there are no high-tech gizmo that cause damage. That leaves us with 3 charactertypes.
One uses melee weapon, one ... crafted ranged weapons (bows, slingshots and other stuff), and there are the energy weapons.

Now we've reached the problematic part of the game's design.
Ranged "traditional" weapons simply don't do enough damage. At least not in the range you can easily acess. There are later stuff that shoots razors? Saws? Whatever. I bet it is super-slow.
Why I think those are slow? One: phantastic damage. Two: melee axes. Yes, it turns out the different type of melee weapons have a hidden attribute: speed. Axes are slow. The others seem fine, and given the pathetic range of any ranged weapons, melee actualy doesn't seem that bad. Until you see some higher end melee stuff in the shop, which requires an unfathomable amount of statpoints to use. And you won't jump through levels, AND you can't grind up in previous areas by enemies respawning when oyu quit the game. Here the enemy never respawns.
Then there are the energy weapons. The major advantage of these is, they do not erode. They have no durability-stat. Also, while the manual says their energy-consumption is a stat - it is not, this is another lie/scrapped concept. They are pretty reliable otherwise - the worrying thing is, the higher tier weapons of these kinds don't really have much to offer on their damage by the looks of it. And they demand a kinda hardcore investment in the science/technology (whatever it is called in english) stat.

This investment in the science-stat is also in demand to use the high-tech gizmos, that give secondary ... abilities. There is your basic "teleport to the city and back" stuff. That can be used by anyone. It also only costs half the price of a health-pack to recharge (at least the 1-charge variant).

The Automathic Doc is just another dose of health-pack, but instead taking backpack-space, it is taking high-tech-gizmo-slot. Oh, and the more the charges of a gizmo, the higher the stat-requirement.
There is the "hologram" which works as Diablo's Decoy, or Battle Hologram that is like Valkyrie.
there is invisibility, Diablo's Fear (Flash), Diablo's Teleport (the sorc-ability), a mind-control thingy (like that paladin-thing), an identify-scroll, a freeze-enemy, and a bullet-time effect.


Stat-requirements of gizmos:
teleport: 20
autodoc: 35
flash (makes enemy run away, effect is turned off by the enemy being shot? Pointless then.): 35

hologram: 38 (2 charges!)


More on the energy weapons: this relates to the resistances, which you have 3, and can only be upped through items. You'd desperately need these, but you won't get them. Theíy also heavily influence what items you are wearing, preventing you from getting the ever so slim upgrades - or just bash head on.
On the sidenote, this game just might be one of those games which expects you to just stand around infinitely to get healed - because you won't have to resources otherwise to do so, that's for sure.
So, the problem of resistance sis - the enemy have them too! And the damage type of course. But there is no way to cycle through your weapons, adjusting the circumstances - even if you could figure out what has what resistances/damage type! Which you don't! This sucks hardcore.


EDIT:
- so, MAYBE your currency is your ammo, but if it is, it still works this way:
a) your maximum ammo depends on your Science stat
b) blue pods will refill your ammo (pods are rare though). Red pods recharge your HP by the way.

c) if your ammo reaches 0 IN THE CURRENT CLIP, you can buy a new clip for 100 currency.


I'm also curious of this 15 biosphere thing. I've cound some waypoint-teleporters actualy, and they can bring me to the A, B and C biospheres at the moment. But I've been through many more other areas, that do not have qaypoint-teleporters. And this game seems LOOONG already. Getting to the O-biosphere might take ... a while.


Note on energy weapons: definitely stick to your three kinds of weapons. It SEEMS the types are more efficient in areas, but we'll see that. If you don't hurt a flickering (I bet those are energy shields) enemy noticably, definitely change weapon (I hope you saved regularly). This doesn't always help though, some enemies are simply bulett-sponges, for the moment I'm thinking on those giant thingies towering over you like some Empire Walkers from Return of the Jedi.


EDIT 2: You definitely need to specialize. At the end of Biodome E there is the Queen's Nest, obviously holding the (a?) queen monester. As expected, it is a damage-sponge. So if you are using energy weapons, there is a plasma cannon which requires 119 science skill (at this point you could have 130-140 point in science if you spent ALL your points into it), which packs a punch.
There is some things to note here: plasma weapons for this level are useless aside this moment. The other two type is mandatory. This plasma-cannon, which look like a rotating gatling gun from Predator packs a punch - but feeds on your ammo. Whatever, it worth using here, as it does the most damage per shot, and you want this fight to end today, if possible.
I don't even have much idea how a melee character would work here - would definitely need a hugh damage weapon and very thick armor, because the Queen hits very hard.


EDIT 3: The placing in the backpack is good, but there are other annoyances, like loot falling from the enemy can easily fall "of the bridge".
And you better collect all the stuff, because The Good Stuff costs 15,000 $ or more.
On the sidenote, a questor just gave me an item that has so many charges (12), it requires 210 science. Now that's something I won't use. Especialy that it is energy shield, and that's the stupidest thing ever. One: you have to specialize, so you won't have statpoints to spare. Two: it is practicaly Energy Shield from Diablo (except this is glitchless). Three: it consumes energy like not other, so not even energy weapon specialists will use this item.
The best High Tech Items are: 1) teleport to base 2) auto doc 3) identify item. the remaining two lots are whatever, in theory you could use something like battle hologram, but that eats energy too, but at that point whatever. Btw, you can use hotkeys to switch between these items. Too bad the keyboard layout is all over the place.
On the sidenote, seen a 179 science req. energy weapon. Cool :(
A new feature: there appeared some energy gates. You can pass them harmless, but energy shots definitely not pass it. Fortunately neither does enemy shots, nor the enemies themselves. Melee can't be abused, the monsters don't come THAT close. But I wonder if bow and such projectiles can pass this...
Oh, found a nem implant at the shop. It costs 15K. It swapped two of my stats. Why would anyone want this is beyond me, but it exits.
Another note on a new enemy. I'm at the Blood Swamp. It is a white-armor ranged thingy. Hits VERY hard. And the AI tends to go mad with its shooting. I hate those, because you better try toe-to-toe and hope interrupting its animation will prevent it firing. That method is entirely lotery.
Implants help though, and as implants drop so rare, your only reliable source for anything useful is shop-running. For this it's not enough to leave the base itself, you need to leave the area. This means using the teleport of the base. I invested into a +45 life (costs 7,5K), and a 14% allresist implant (costs 15K+, there are 3 resistances, so triple that number).
Weird thing is, armors very rarely come with any extra ability, especialy low-req stuff, so that's annoying. Isn't a problem - yet.

[twillight]

region / character level (all monsters eliminated)
------------------
Base: 1
Killer Mountain: 5 (name of area translated from hungarian)
NOTE: melee works better until now. Not surprising. But take heed to do have a teleport item before you even start map 2, because otherwise you'll suffer. And yes, weapons, just like in Diablo, go crap just by using them, so you'll need to visit the base regularly.
TIP: when meleeing, try approaching the enemy in an angle, so it miss you.
PRO TIP: if you need a better reward than random (for whatever reason you are sparing on cash), first: the questor will tell you what type of item you will get. Two: DO NOT TOUCH THE QUEST ITEM before saving! Four: pick up the quest item, and TELEPORT TO THE BASE ASAP and finish the quest. Check the quest reward, if you don't like it, reload. WARNING: if you do anything else with your inventory, that can lead to a bug the quest cann ot be solved anymore, and that can be gamebreaking! I could go into specifics, but what's the point.
NOTE: dunno how all the equipment type works, but for armour I've seen some "heavy armour", which can give you 20% all resist, a nice bonus on armor, but costs 130 STR. I've seen light armor, mid-level armor, battle armor, and this heavy armor thingy.
For energy weapons there are a) pistols (lowest ammo consumption, fast trigger animation, maximum 13 dmg (and that's a stretch, more like 10-12) b) guns: trigger animation is like machineguns. Ammo consumption: medium. Sometimes ammo you see going all over hurts other enemies (never alien egg/larva) c) cannons. They are practicaly big shotguns. Ammo concumption: high, but around the Hidden Hospital with ca. 150 in science, you should be able to use these over the other stuff. You WANT to use them to progress faster.
When I've reached the Hidden Hospital (biodome H, aka. #7 - oh, man, this game is looong) a third tier of implants became available (both as quest reward, and just appearing in the shop), the Super implants. I've got a 27% allresist one, and that's massive (30% must be possible at least). Also seen a 50% sole reist implant too, in case anyone cares (I don't really) These are bloody rare though, and cost 30K.
Tunnel of Fear: 7.
Lances are an ok upgrade. The weapon-speed did not noticably change, you loose the shield but gain a massive dmg-boost. I don't sell the shield for now though.
Path of Entropy: 9
Platforms with ranged enemies already became a pain. Always carry with you 3+ stimpacks.

[twillight]

Considered installing Arcanum, but by the reviews it is proceduraly generated fetchquests upon fetchquests, so why bother.


Tried installing Nox, I even got to the character "creation" (you can only adjust cosmetics), but did not let me past that screen. So gave up.


Played Bladur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Also tried the second one, but that is obviously a very weak addition, so skip that.
It's... fine. One of those big-character 3D daiblo-clones. So not too action-heavy, and feels... Polish.
It's an ok game though, but has some very problematic balance issue.


One: the wizard is waaay too powerful. Ye, sure, there are immunities, on very little amount of creatures, who cares. It's Forzen Orb everything, and Fireball the Final Boss. You don't need to use tricks and stuff. Early game it is either magic missle, or that other spell. You'll have way too many skillpoints anyway. And yur skill-order, if you care, depends on what order you buy your first points in spells, so it won't couse real trouble for you.
Even on hard difficulty this character is way too overpowered.


Archer is ... Well, the problem is obvious when you play: you get bow a bit into the story, and especialy on hard difficulty, that'll be problem. Otherwise it's kinda the same as the wizard.


Warrior is what's in real trouble. Sure, has a healthy amount of HP and all, but there are certain enemies which oneshot you anyway, and takes forever to be delt with because os their amount of exp.
In those cases you must run around for hours, trying to abuse the pathfinding routine to hit the enemy from behind. A nightmare. And boring. Its special skills are also kinda lackluster.


The game mode you get Drizzt as character is way too hard in the PC-version, but you can circumwent that problem pausing the game, and switching character from the set-for-the-mode character to one of your save files. That makes the thing ridivulously easy of course.


Once again started playing Baldur's Gate EE 1-2-ToB, this is the second time I reached to Amelyssan with poverty socrerer - this means I don't use any item during my playthrough. Managed to determine what spells are absolutely necessary for such restrictions. Here is the list by level:


symbols: "*": necessary "#" recommended "&" optional


slvl 1
* familiar (Cat is the best stealther, or consider Imp for its Polymoprh Self)
* Magic Missile (you need to do damage after all)
# Protection from Evil (summoned dmeons are very problematic)
& Identify (mostly for RPG reasons to identify and use the Tomes in BG1, identified items also mean more gold)
5th
slvl2
* Mirror Image (your first true defensive spell, and you have slots to afford it, no questions asked)

* Web (it'll help immensly at the Dukes)
# Knock (you absolutely need this to get the Tomes, and especialy in BG2 a lot of quests can not be completed without)
# Resist Fear (also rmeoves fear, if you Planetar fails its check, not to mention easy accomplishment for that Tear of Baal)
# Melf's Acidic Arrow (you better have this to deal with Desert Trolls, but those are only optional in WK lvl 2, and can be abandoned easily at Yaga Shura's Lair)
slvl 3
* Melf's Minute Meteors (it scales well, last until used up, and will be your prime damag source for BG1)
* Skull Trap (in EE it doesn't even have problem with casting range)
*(!) Invisibility 10' radius (against Sarevok in BG1 you'll need a source of invisibility. This is the easiest solution, but if you pick this, you'll also have to pick Spider Spawn (or loose a familiar))
4th
5th
slvl 4
*(!) Polymorph Self (this spell is needed against Sarevok in BG1. You won't have to learn this if your alignment is Lawful Evil, aka. imp is your familiar)
*(!) Spider Spawn (definitely a great spell, but you only need to pick it in BG1 if you picked Invisibility 10' radius. Might be entirely optional in BG2)
* Improved Invisibility (this is a spell-redundancy if you have Invisibility 10' radius, but even then I recommend it, as it combines Shield with Invisibility. Potential source for invisibility in BG1)
* Stone Skin (you want to pick this up in BG2 as soon as possible. You won't be able to afford it in BG1)
5th: my suggestion is either Minor Spell Sequencer (which you might end up not using at all), or Greater Malison if that ifts your style/can effect Amelyssan.
slvl 5
* Sunfire (yes, it's that good damage spell. You'll stop eventualy using it though)
* Protection from electricity (must have against Abazigail)
* Protection from acid (must have against Draconis)
# Animate Dead (you might get without this, but it's a gamechanger agaoinst spellcasters, strongly recommended)
# Cloudkill (it's a convenient spell to have for a while, but you'll stop using it once you get Abi Dhalzim. Without this you might have to give up, or seriously delay time-denedent quests, like Mae'Var's guild, but that's affordable)
? Spell Immunity (someone said, it might be a must against Amelyssan. Will have to test this)
slvl 6
* Death Spell (it's not just way to convenient to pass on, but without this, saving Phaere will be a strong headache)
* Protection from magic weapons (you'll need this aganst The Ravager)
* Improved Haste (the 3rd Pocket Challange demands this)

# True Sight (the Planetar sees the invisible, still, nice to have this running)
& Protection from magic energy (you are too tired to think? Cast this, and turn into the Slayer! It'll kill everything up to Dorn Il Khan, maybe even useful against Sendai! Definitely not against Draconis/Abazigail and after, but until...)
slvl 7
*Mordekainen's Sword (an almost invulnerable summon is must have)
#(!) Spell Sequencer (you'll definitely need this if you don't use Simulacrum to help you out against The Ravager)
# Limited Wish (it's nice for roleplaying, gives extra exp through various means, and provides 2 other spell: Negative Plane Protection and Minor Globe of Invulnerability - neither are absolute must, but nice to have the option)
# khelben's warding whip (I think I only used this once, against Sendai's Final Form until now. I might be mistaken, and not used it at all)
& Stone to Flesh (roleplaying spell for certain quests. If you don't want this, switch it to Project Image (it's barely interresting under EE as far as I can tell))

slvl 8
* Piercing Shield (you'll need this to be able to do anything against Blathazar/The Ravager/Amelyssan)
* Abi Dhalzim's Horrid Whilting

# Simularcum (it's fine if you can handle the micromanagment)
4th (I suggest Spell Trigger)
slvl 9
* Time Stop (against Yaga Sura, Draconis, and more, you'll be glad to have this)
* Chain Contignency (this is a very strong option to have. Absolutely needed in optional areas like WK Compass Level, also against such mandatory opponents as The Ravager)
* Wish (to recharge at Amelyssan)
4th

[hellonwood40]

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[twillight]

This is one of those action-jRPG stuffs, fortunately this is real time combat instead of turn based.


I've played ... let's say the tutorial secont as demo, which probably gives a good idea how everything works.
Though it is annoying how much tutorial there is: there is the game's tutorial, which puts you on max-level or something, and makes it pretty obvious what the plot will be, along pretty much showing melee being that stronger option.
Following that you are turned lvl 1, and are forced to use ranged damage. Annoying as heck, but ok...
Following THAT turns out this is a Matrix, so you have to do the ingmae MMO's tutorial, where you fight the endboss, as you do. I laready hate the pacing.
Following THAT comes Day 1 in the game, which turns out to be a couple-hours long tutorial, where you experience basic questing, town structure, party control (you get a free party-member, that is controlled by an AI, meaning it is just extra firepower), shopping, crafting, exploring...
Yes, too many tutorials.


Speaking about the exploring, I personaly had trouble judging terrain-elevation, so had to hit up a walkthrough how to reach certain chests. Bugger.
And of course what you find is better than what you can buy (it's a comlpicated barter-system, which is pretty much crafting), so again the problem arise, that spending resources on crafting / buying stuff is a waste of time.


Now before you run away, I have to tell you, this is a very solid-looking game. Sure,it has too much playtime that feels like tutorial, and could use better shading to show elevation player-friendly, but the mechanics, the interface, the story is good, and while I could use more action between the tlaking-cards, this is not on the obnoxious level like most "japaneese" games.


As it is at 50% discount on GoG (the DLC of unknown content 33%, but that's sufficiently cheaper anyway), I think it worth your 10 bucks.

[twillight]

Found it, and made it work. You only need to switch compatibility mode (under right click -> properties) to Win98/ME, and it works!

This is a real-time strategy game with WATER LEVELS ONLY, haha. I love it. So bad it's good.
I don't think the lore got finished, as the manual starts with technology, switches on the magic-users, but the game itself says the post-apocalyptic state was caused by meteors. Take your pick I say and move on.
Do NOT alt-tab this, it'll stop working until you shut down the game!

The game has 3 race: unchanged humans, biologicaly evolved mutants, and technologicaly advanced humans (technicaly the are mutants, whose mutation is high IQ).
Don't get too excited, these are the three DIFFICULTY LEVELS.
So start with the Clans, aka. unaltered humans. Not that there's any big difference between the two besides what is the main raw material, and that the mutants have a very slim HP-regeneration on its units (no on the buildings though).

Clan, lvl 1: build 4 mines.
Mission briefing:
"Greatings, your highness! I am chancelor Gnaron, representative of your honourable father in the Council of the Clans. The king has sent me to congratulate for completing your education. He also told me to give you the first official orders. Scouts have reported to the Council on raw materials in the northern areas, a region that up until now has been neutral territory. We need these resources to build a powerful fleet to fight the awful Gens and the cybernetic Cytex. Build four mines in the northern areas to exploit the raw materials there. Be cautious, because you may encounter hostile activities: they might be interrested in the same area. Take care of yourself and good luck for your first mission!
Building (and repairing) is intantenous, and the defense-capability of any building is immense, so caputring one for you or the enemy will be a hassle.
You CAN'T build a HQ in this tutorial-mission.
Oh, ye, tutorial: it will move your surcor and units automaticaly, and wait for you to click for some reason. Than without any warning, in the middle of a fight it'll stop doing it, and you should take over. Hope you got suprised. Fortunately you don't need your fighting units yet.
The controls are: left click is to select something, right click is to move, or bring up a menu.

Clan, mission 2: capture the Gen city
Briefing: Welcome, Prince! I'm glad to see that you have returned successfully from your first mission, but I have bad news. Our enemy has succeeded in intruding into the palace of your honoured father to steal our secret war plans. The spy Cho-Jin has been arrested, but he had already forwarded the plans to the enemy. Thanks to Lagus (he is the Good Wizard in the backstory, sentenced to immortality by the sect of Chaos) we have learned from Cho-Jin which harbour the plans have been sent to, but time is short. Bring back the plans as fast as possible, commander! You are our only hope!
NOTE: so technicaly we are Star Wars' Empire, lol.
The enemy is directly south of you, and the map is very small. Every level starts with a zerg-rush for mining locations, fortunately the enemy is slow yet. It'll still capture/start with the south-western mines, but don't mind those. Your goal is to capture the CITY, and that's it.
Good news is, none can re-build half-destroyed fortifications, so at first just shoot out ONE of its turrets - if it is completly destroxed, there's nothing it can do about it. To capture a city, you must send in a builder-shiőp I guess, just so you know.
Buildings in the cities are (if you build them):
- town hall: this improves the daily materials you get (this day-by-day progress only plays part until you build up your city, and yes, it is annoying), and will be needed to unlock more advanced buildings. Prime directive.
- garden, fountain: they do nothing aside eating your resources, but they are requirement for some buildings to buld.
- forts: yes, you need this
- shipyard: this builds your units. Only on advanced stages you'll be able to create 4 unit simultaneously. There's an icon to make it build continuously.
- workshop: most of the times you won't need this, but you can scrap your units for materials (bad idea), or repair surviving ships for the next assault.
- engineer: here you develop technolgies, meaninig units. What you want with the Clan is flying units, as those can attack EVERYTHING: ships, submarines, air units.
- wizards: you can develop spells. "Mostly Useless".
- market: you can exchange your resources to other resources.
- guild: if there's a trading post on the map, you must build trading ships, build this, put your materials on your trading ships, move them to the trading post, move the trading ships back to your city. The exchange-rate and variety will make this process a must.

About the autosave: it save every ingame day, or something, so do not rely on it!

Clan, misson 3: "get 500 raw material form the Guild"
Briefing: Well done, Commander! With your help we are now in the position to build a powerful fleet, which will drive the Gens once and for all from our territories. But because of the continuing attacks by the Gens, we are suffering from an increasing shortage of supplies and the situation is becoming more and more catastrophic. Fortunately there is a new settlement of the powerful Merchant Guild in the Blue Water region. Your father orders you to strenghten our position in this area, and start trading with this guild. We need 500 units of any of the raw materials to build our war fleet. Good luck, my prince!
Note: to trade with the Merchant Guild, you must build a guild office in your harbour. Further, you have to research design of merchant ships, and build one. To get offers from the Guild, left-click on the Guild-office to go to the trading screen. In the upper part of the screen offers from the Guild will be shown, costs at the top / profit at the bottom that can be cycled through with the right and left cursor keys. Bellow you can select the single piers. A merchant ship waiting at the pier can be loaded by clicking on it, and then confirming. To accept the deal, you only need to sail the ship out of the harbour. By right-clicking with the mouse on the Merchant Guild, you can always find out which kind and how many raw materials have been traded.
This tutorial-level will obviously introduce the Trading Posts (I'd be interrested in the ingame lore what faction this is), but I have no idea if just one of your stacks have to hit the 500 value, or bring in 500 material summed. I suspect you need to trade for one certain type of material from the bottom row of the materials listed, eg. paper or water-flasks, but this is mostly guessing.
Just so you know, there are no automatic segments in this.
The enemy is not very active, so you do not need warships. Still, if you find the time...
The mining locations, if you want any (I had none) are at the corners of the map.
If you sail directly south, you can build a second city. The enemy might send there a builder too, capturing YOUR city if it has no fortifications yet, but if you enter the location when THEY have no fortification yet, you get the city PLUS their construction-ship.
An unmentioned feature in this are the blueprint-eagle-islands. If any unit of yours manages to touch them, you get a free invention, don't even need to lower inventions to have. There's one just a bit to the southwest of your starting city, and one more way south of that. Neither are really needed, but you know.

Clan, mission 4: capture all Gen city! (from now on we'll go to the basics of RTS, I see)
Briefing: Greetings, my Prince! Congratulation on your successful operation on the Blue Water region. But once again I have some with very bad news. Thanks to their disgusting magical powers, the mutant Gens have succeeded in breaking into the King's palace and kidnapped Gunner the first! the King is still alive, but as soon as they transport him into their headquarters, they will have us in their grip. I cannot command you, but I implore you to rescue your father! Good luck, Commander!
Note: Use your abilities and win your first battle after this tutorial!
There is an eagle-island far to the souteast, you'll not get that. There are 3 cities, and they spam units on you, so position troops to the key narrow positions between islands and play for safety until you accumlate some numbers. You'll need 2-3 construction ships to repair stuff and cpature things. Once you have enough units, start destroying stuff. Watch out so your constructor has enough seconds from the day to capture the building.
Start mixing in submarines on the base that's more unit per hex. Oh, and you can stop visiting the merchants, you'll be able to rely on passive resources.
If you manage to capture the nearest city, the enemy will start to run out of units!
Problem is, the mission briefing lies, oyu have to destroy EVERY SINGLE UNIT on the map, not just capture each enemy city, and the map is so big, on the minimap the last surviving "hostile" unit will not be visible. Grrr.

Clan, mission 5 (first mission not marked as tutorial): "Repulse the Gens"
Briefing: Welcome, Commander! It hurts to tell you, the cowardly Gens have killed your honoured father and the king of our clan. May you have the strength to take revenge for his death! But now we must take action. Listen to me, Commander: the cursed Gens have conquered one of our outposts, and they started plundering our outer colonies! We must stop them. I entrusted you with my fleet, my Prince. You have to hurry. If the mutants start destroying the outpost there won't be much to get back.
If you go south, you'll be able to capture 3 mines. I'd check what if you go west first, you might be able to capture the mine there first (then come back and capture the mines you'd capture anyway).
The enemy doesn't make much effort, but does have attacking flyers occasionaly. Force-attack them with your troops to lessen their factor.
TIP: when you capture a city, you might want NOT to build a fort to it, so you can capture the AI's builders. This is cheap, but whatever!
Note: do not stop trading with the merchs until you captrue the other city (there's only one on the southeast), else you'll run low on material (you basicaly only need the first three: gold, tools and wood, the others are just things to exchange for).
Btw, if it was not clear, you only need 1 wizard school, and 1 engineer (though engineer is requirement for the repair-building, so you might end up with more).

Clan, mission 6: War! Kill all hostile Gens! (All Gens will be hostile)
Briefing: The attack was a great success, my commander! It was a real pleasure to see the Gens fleeing cowardly. The war council has asked me to ensure you of their full support. There should be no obstacles chasing the enemy's forces. But we should start quickly annihilating the Gens before the mutants are scattered around and hard to find. The council has sent you another fleet for your command, that should set you in the position to exterminate the backward Gens. Good luck, Commander!
This map is relatively small, and has no trading post. the enemy city is on the northwest. I think your job is to eliminate all units - because I had enemy mines around when the victory board came up.
Btw, start going northwest for a mine, then move towards the southwest corner capturing 3 mines, this'll maximise your income. Do NOtá spend resources fastening research, but use your trading facility inside the city to cover your needs. Build the usual war-baloons.

Clan, mission 7: Trapped! Stay alive for 50 days.
Briefing: It was a trap, commander! The Gens have concentrated a big fleet in this area, and they are eager to kill you, and to destroy your fleet. To top it all, the Cytex have become aware of you, and their forces are closing up quickly. Try to survive as long as possible, as I have sent reinforcements. But I am afraid they won't make it at the right time. I will pray for you.
Because the AI is not very good, technicaly speaking this is a very easy mission: just manouver one of your airship to a corner of the map, and they'll never find you!
On the other hand, let's do it properly: build a city at the starting location, and start capturing mines, as many as possible to delay the enemy. they are all around the equator of the map, so it's a smooth sail. Do NOT try to defend the mines, it is hopless and needless. Position your troops instead at your city, where start developing the town hall, the workshop, and invent the flying corsairs (your attack baloons), because those are the least susceptible to damage. Then just camp there, bringing out your construction ship to fix the towers of the city, and if possible collect the wreckage of the ship sunk.
NOTE: if you didn't notice until now, if you are within the city as the player, the time does not move, so allocating cargo, deciding what to build is not problematic.
NOTE there is a merchan post on the map - you won't be able to use it.
Lastly: technicaly speaking, the enemy will run out of forces around Day 40, lol. Just look at the charts at the end how many ships each party had at the victory (50 days passed). This is the first time too when the Cytex shows up, but they are simply another enemy city, so whatever.

Clan, mission 8: New technologies: find the eagle rocks.
Briefing: Commander! I am glad to see you alive. We all feared that you were lying on the bottom of the sea. It seems the Council underestimated your strategic abilities. But the fights during the last weeks have proven, that we need more advanced technologies to come off a winner in this war. The mighty Lagus has ordered me to give you the coordinates of the region where some eagle rocks might be located. These rocks are hidingplaces of time-honoured magicians. We might find some scrolls and writings in their catacombs helping us to win against our enemies. I wish you good luck, Commander!
Seems this Lagus-fellow is really into Pureblood Humans. Also nice we get an explanation on the eagle-islands.
For this mission you won't be able to build anything, but touch 4? Or maybe just the last Eagle Island - the first 3 will give extra units, the last has the condition "Victory" written on it. Unfortunately, airbaloons can't touvh these things.
The first island is directly north, then go N-NW, then NE, then to the NW corner. but you might as well not give a darn to anything but the last island, because all you get are 2 basic ships from each island, no innovation, and you are definitely not able to fight through the enemy lines. What you should do instead is start sailing, and never stop. Turn off the AI-button even. Keep pushing to the islands. The islands can not be touched by fliers or submarines, but can be touched by any regular ship, you don't need to preserve your construction ship. And no, it's hopeless trying to repair units during battle. One: the AI will always move away your constructoor from enemy fire, but if you turn it off, your troops need to make fire manualy. Also, trying to repair troops under each other is a nightmare, does not work out as it should. Btw, what really messes up this mission are the enemy submarines, which are hard to target at (your normal ships can't hit them), and they have quit an amount of HP, so just fok em.

Clan, mission 9: Secrets: Sail to the shipyard on V-island!
Briefing: You have been usccessful again, Commander! These new technologies should help us fight back our enemies on the battlefield. Good job, but now to something completely different. The great Lagus has informed us, that once there have been a weapon of mass-destruction, called Golem. It changed Earth into what it is now. It had been created by the unscrupulous magican Debagh, and after its one and only activation, it has been taken apart. If we succeed in rebuilding a smaller version of this machine, we had the right weapon to finally defeat our enemies. Lagus knows, that this would save the lives of a lot of men, and thus he transmitted us the coordinates of a shipyard, where part of the Golem's contruction had taken place. Find this shipyard and bring us the blueprints, Commander. But be cautious: as well as Gens and Cytex are operating in the same area.
Note: dunno who this Debagh. I though he's the ancient Chaos-wizard, but that was Woogonnis.
On this map the Gen and the Cytex are against each other, not that it'd matter too much, or would be noticeable during the forst could tendays. The city-to-capture is just a screen east from the very center of the map, and is heavily fortified, so don't get hopes.
You'll be able to capture 3 mines: start going a bit norteast, then go a bit northwest from your city, then go a couple screen east. All the others are lost cause, though there are eg. 4 more mines to the north, but there are simply too many enemies. Also, the eastern mine will be crucial, as a ton of enemy will arrive to it. You'll need to upgrade it soon to 2nd level of fortress to be able to repell the enemy, and it'll likely still require a ton of repairs, so make another constructor just in case.
I see no merchant guild. (Built a scout ship and sent it around using reload to test the waters.)
You'll do a heluva lot of micromanaging with this one, try not to miss any day in your city. The "port" it wants as requirement is done from the worldmap, not from the city.
Did I tell you there's a cycle-button in the shipyard which makes production of ships continuous? Also, there is a straight arrow there, which puts all ship on the water in front of your city instead of filling your harbour.
Well, when you start to have a SMALL army, the AI will start to hit you wave after wave. There'll be a LOT of micramanaging. Sell everything for wood what is not tool or gold!
For inventions, you'll get way bigger blueprints than you previously had, and I mean a lot of it. The goal is to develop the latest airship and submarine, and set production 1 and 1 (not enough material for more).
Oh, what to build: make every building max level! They actualy produce a very tiny sum of material, but on the long term, and even on the medium termit'll profit out, and you are resource-hungry.
tbh, I suspect the Gens get units by spawning from thin air, so while my startegy was to clean the west side of the map from them, they returned, and captured my northern mines. I was either allowing them to do so, or progress with the level. The goal is to capture the Gen City, or whatever, but it is just a victory-object without forifications. Problem is, it is on an island, you can ONLY approach from the north, where a (the?) Gen city resides - they again, I'm at this point convinced the Gen ships are not coming from there, but from thin air. Whatever, capture it for convenience-sake and on principle, then ride in the victory-condition wih your constructor.
Not on units: these 2nd grade units are no longer omni. The ships and subs still only attack ships and subs, the airship stop attacking subs, so only attacks air units and ships. Actualy, there is an "Air Fortress" unit, which exclusively attacks air units! It is a pretty terrible bargain, but I cani magine in rosource-depraved environment where there are lots of enemy flyers, it can be useful. but mostly skip it.

[twillight]

Clan, mission 10: Espionage: destroy all enemy units and conquere all ports (aka. destroy everything)
Briefings: Welcome, Commander! Our enemies have beaten us to it. It seems as if they also knew from Golem by spying, and they spare no effort to keep our engineers and constructors off the work by attacking them as often as possible. But it is vital to finish Golem, because the Gens are outnumbering us, and Cytex technology is far more improved than ours. Beat of the enemies and conquere their ports!
You'll start with a fully built lvl 2 city, with a mine you can see on its west. Also send one of your sailship to the west in line of your city, 'cause there's a free blueprint (eagle island).
From the mine go southeast, and capture a mine south of the eagle island, then come back west, and directly south of your city is another mine. Go southwest from there for another, and right north of it in the neighbouring island is another. Then sail to the northwestern corner, where is one more. That's about the mines.
While doing this, manuvre your troops southest from your ity to be able to control the passage to the merchant post. Build 3-4 merchant ship for this, and prepare to repair them regularly.
If you find the resources, why not develop what the engineers can offer.
If you manage to do all this, you'll rule over like half of the map, and that's a good start if you ask me. Unfortuinately I don't see bigger aircraft to develop, what feel will be a problem, but what do I know, maybe those will appear when the engineers do more research, or just more days pass.
The enemy is not very active, and you get truly zillions from the merchant post, and these new units can even hurt fortifications from out of range.
Also, the briefing LIES, you only need to capture all buildings, even maybe only all cities (there are 2, at the south border and in the SE corner). The statistics at the end shown surviving enemy units.

Clan, mission 11: Revenge: destroy everything
Briefing: Greetings, Commander! Bad news: our enemies have driven us into a corner. They are trying everything to distract us from building Golem. We have suffered hugh losses in countless attacks. We can not take this any longer! The War Council has ordered our best Commander, You, to start destroying enemy's ports, allowing our engineers to finish Golem.
You start with a nicy city, and an adequare army, but no inventions.
You'll immediately see a mine, capture it ASAP. To the same direction (E-NE) is another mine. East of it is another. Be fast, this is a "gold rush" - though you WON'T be able to capture this third mine before the enemy does. Also: be overprotective of your airforce, the enemy has also a supply of it, and when sent atacking, these things are very woulnerable, so make them as a second group, and leave them always behind the front line! Also for you to know, in your harbour you have some ships for the ready, one is a merchant ship just in case, one is a scout ship (they are fast, has some chance reaching a deep-seated eagle island before being shot), and 2 war-baloons too! They are lowest level, but every little bit counts. South of that is an eagle-island with "galleon" in it (a type of normal ship, so mostly pointless). Bring your troops for this capturing, the enemy has forces all over, and might build mines before you do.
The southeastern quadrant of the map looks empty, don't bother.
To north form your city, around halfway of the map is another mine, but the AI starts with it, so it's up to you if you attempt it.
The enemy starts with 2 city in the northwestern quadrant, and one on the east.
There is Merchant Guild at the very center of the map. You'll obviously not be able to use it for quit some time (until you capture the eastern city).
There're also 2 more eagle island, but you'll not be abe to use the one in the nothwestern quadrant (unless you don't bother with the U-241 submarine, capture the east, than smuggle through a ship to it). There's also an island on the northeast, with the best baloon, but to slide a ship there... We'll see.
With your troops constantly pressure to the eastern city of the enemy, capturing first the mines mentioned above, then settle down with your remaining troops, and send out that scout to capture the technologies. Don't forget to research technologies on lowest cost during the campaign aking building your buildings, just in case. But yes, it is very much possible to get the best sub from the eagle island crowning the first phase of this campaign. Then just start building war zeppelins and U-241 until you can capture everything. From the eastern city, trading is easy, though still unnecessary.
Ah, a button-command: P is pausing the game, so you can roll the map where you want it without using up time.

Clan, mission 12, Golem: sail into the middle of the volcano
Briefing: Welcome, my Prince! You have been very successful. The War Council is more than satisfied with your results. So they will entrust you with the next critical mission. Our engineers need a specific object, called Crystal Focus. It can transfer the magic energy of magicians into Golem to make use of their enormous power. But the focus is considered lost. Only, the wise Lagus suspects where it would be. He is thinking of a region full of lava. Lagus' power will protect you from the heat, and he will enable your divers to take in the focus. Sail fast, because our intelligence suspects hostile activities in this sector!
I have 0 idea what exactly you are supposed to do here, or what the loose condition is. You get a group of ships on a small map, half of them are useleff in fight, but as there's nothing to be discovered nor built, let them be meatshield.
What oyu definitely should do is to sail to the middle of the map - and just stand there? I have no idea. If you go in, and then leave the place, you definitely get a failed condition. I thought this is some time-limit, but it's not. I also tried placing my remaining airhips over the four islands in hope it helps - I'm not sure. and yes, definitely just hope you won't loose your air-support, because the enemy definitely has some. For starter, just move a bit, don't get in the offensiv,e let the enemy come to you, because then oyu have the range-advanateg. Can't say more.

Clan, mission 13, New Technologie II: destroy everything
Briefing: It's a pleasure meating you again, Commander! You are returning as successful as usual, my Prince! Our scientists have done a good job, and the new technologies are ready to use. We need you to test these new units on the battlefield...
This one is hard to explain w/o showing the uncovered map. You start with barely anything, the enemy has, or asap will have 4 cities. Your place to build a city is on your west. There are a couple of mines around you can capture too, but these are not the main point of the map and your supposed strategy.
One of the major point is, to your east is the merchant guild, and you are in pretty good position to use it. Given your lack of mines, this'll be a point. South of that is the city the enemy will use to trade, just so you know. If you don't force a confrontation about it, you'll probably be able to trade pretty ok.
The other thing is, there care 3 high-level eagle island. It's pretty hard to tell how to manouvre through the emey lines to get them. Because how the AI expands, I'd first go south from the city-place, and a bit west. The blueprint will be around the quarter of the map from its bottom. Then sail east with your scouting ship, heading a bit south for another blueprint. Then sail NE until you circle around that enemy city and mines, then head north, and lean a bit back to west. The 3rd blueprint is east from the merchant guild.
If you manage to build these advanced troops w/o the resources used to engineer stuff all the way up, you should be good, I assume. Of course capturing the enemy city at the center of the map would be most welcomed.
---
Pushing hard, I've managed to first capture the mine you can see at the start, then build the city, then capture 4 more mines at the start of day 6. The same time the scout-ship discovered the two south eagle island, and I realised how close the northern one is to that mine, so sent the builder to get it. That is the honey-spot, as while the unit U-515 costs a ton of resources, includiong coal - a new resource compared to what we used until now, which was wood -, it worth every ounce of resourced, as it is humongous, and can hit anything (air, water, underwater).
You COULD build your troops from the other two blueprints, which compplement each other, but while you'd have 2 troop doing that, they'd cost more than the single hugh submarine, and covering all your needs is not just convenient, but at the start of a map is essential. But to each their own I assume.
You also have to build engineers building to invent merchant ships, which'll be essential I assume. I mean the AI has 4 cities, and 20 mines (21 if you don't hurry like I did).
WARNING! The mega-submarines seems to be bugged, and either never hitted aircraft, or stopped after a while. You MUST build baloons yourself too! (you don't need many though)

Clan 14, We are hitting back: conquere all sulphur mines and the Gens' harbour, and destroy all Gens! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: Welcome, Commander! Thanks to the new technologies, this has been a big success! Now it is time to hit back. Our spies are reporting of an alliance of Gens and Cytex. We can not accept this; sail with your fleet to the Gen sector, and cut off their reinforcements. Conquer their sulfur mines, so that they can not pay their tributes to the superior Cytex. If possible, try to scatter their fleet and conquer their harbours! Hurry up, or our enemies will send reinforcments that will outnumber your troops. Good luck!
I suspect untis will spawn out of nothing periodicly for tha AI. There is no trading guild, and only a handful of mine to capture on the north, big nothing in the midle third of the map, 1 enemy city in each southern corner. There are 3 eagle islands, 1 sub, 1 ship, 1 baloon, but they won't be easy to capture given their position, and that the enemy is patroling the centre of the map, but then again, if you know where they are, you can try.
When I'm done with this race I'll upload the maps somewhere, and give link.
Anyway, you want to build the sub exclusively, as that hits everything, and has way better stats than the others. The ship also able to hit all, and costs noticabely less in a resource, but it is a ship, and has like half the stats of the sub. The baloon can't hit subs, so it is out (unless the info on the unit-screen is false, but whatever).
What oyu want to build in your city is the market. Do not research anything, just expand the market as soon as you can for the best trade-rate, and start building those subs asap.
In the meanwhile, it seems the Gens and the Cytex actauyl are against each other, so all the better for us.
If you loose your scou-ship, who cares, ok? Let it be lost. I picked up the western blueprint with a constructor ship anyway. Oh, yeah, probably a good idea to make an extra of those just to be safe.
Also, when you start to reach Market lvl 3, the enemy will start to attack your periferial mines instead trying to reach your city, so you'll have to micromanage your troops. A good idea probably to move the small army you start with towards the west, and use your new subs to cover the rest: you'll need 2-3 on the west because of the distance in one group to protect the mines there, then start to accumlate your main force in front of your city.
On the positive side the AI is active in the endgame, so you don't have to worry about hunting down the sole remaining unit on the map.
NOTE: yes, the unit-info lies, and the subs won't attack baloons, so you'll have to build some baloons, but only do that after you have 4-5 subs, which are a considerable force in themselves, and will be able to covered by fortifications of the mines for a long while.

Clan, mission 15, superior enemies: seek and destroy everything
Briefing: Welcome, Commander! The Cytex and the Gens have recovered quickly from your mighty intervention. Our intelligence reports, that our enemies are in possession of superior technologies. Even worse are reports of invasion into all our territories. We are being attacked on all frontlines by many enemies. The most disturbing reports say that both Gens and Cytex seem to be working on a Golem themselves. They must have solved the problem of the missing Crystal Focus. We need your help, Commander! Save our harbours and allies, and come back alive, my Prince!
Well, there are a couple of mines around which I won't explain here, seriously, a drawing is much simpler, but the main thing is, you start with a kinda low production, but almost maxed city (no advanced unit developed, and at least on the first day the engineers don't have anything to research), but more importantly your first thing to do is to send your constructor staight south to found another city! Mines are nice, but cities are awesome!
After buffing your second town (or just some time passing) there will appear some stuff to be engineered, but to be honest, I'm way too busy enlarging the cities and dumping out the ships (sub + baloon) I do not have to research.
PS: as suspected, the newly developed bigger units were not yet in production when the map already got cleaned.
Worth knowing, oyu can onloy research new technology (or spell)in a city that has high enough building for it, despite all research-facility will show all researchable technology. Also, you can only research 1 technology the same time, even if all conditions are met to research two at the same time.

Clan, mission 16, The Golem: eliminate all enemies to be able to fire The Golem! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: Everything seems well again! Our scientists have completed the Golem. Now we need to get (the) powerful Lagus to the Golem, and give him enough time to transfer his power to the death-machine. The War Council and our spies are expecting massive resistance from our enemies, but you will surely defeat the mutant Gens and the machine-like Cytex. Remember: if you succeed in stopping the enemies, and if the Golem is able to eliminate all Gens and Cytex, we will need a new Emperor for the United Clans. Being the son of the late king Gunnar the first, you are of course predestined for this position, my Prince! Defeat our enemies, and become KING! We wish you the very best.
Your starting position is at a very bad place, right halfway where the other two armies will marsh. One is in the northwestern corner, the other in the southeat.
The map is ca. diagonaly mirrorred, so there is another city-place around the center of the map, and there are 1-1 city place in the NE and SW corner.
The initial problem is, the AI starts with some insane skirmish, so I suggest send the (a) constructor to the NE to make a new city. Also, put all your starting combat units inside your harbour in hope of saving them, hoping the enemy will sail not noticing you. The city would worth keeping, as it is the best city-type, and has all buildings built to alkmost max level. Too bad you can't capture enemy buildings when you capture their cities, only the units they strand at the harbour at that time.
Just to mention, there are 2 eagle islands on this map, both providing extra units if you can reach them. It's not impossible... one is near the NE city-place, for the other go south until the border, and then west a little.
First send your 2 constructor (yes, you initialy have 2) to the city-places, and when they reach that, make them grab the extra units from the eagle islands. Do NOT bother fortifying your mines, only even try if you see enemy constructors. Also, right at the start send you scout ship to a bit west, there is a THIRD eagle island with a third small army! Now you can hold your position during the initial phase. Also build an extra constructor, so you can re-inforce your city's fotrifications (you can't replace it just because ONe of the turrets is destroyed. They have to destroy both to do so).
With your quit massive army, I suggest to try to eliminate one of the enemy cities. It's a bit crazy idea, but if you succeed, you practicly won.

[twillight]

Gen, mission 1, The conflict: escort the Blood Shark to the base in 20 days
Briefing: When Debagh gave the blueprints of the Golem to Borghal, the legitimate leader of the Gens, his brother, Gracznogh tried to hinder him. Three months ago Gracznogh let someone steal the blueprints, and made the engineers who were in charge of building the Golem his confidantes. Since then the unity of the Gens has evaporated, because many commanders-in-chief and fleet-captains have switched to the side of the traitor.
Borghal was extremly upset. Despite all his efforts, including the threat of brutal force, he could not win back his old confidantes. The only solution, Borghal says, is to eliminate Gracznogh in order to unite the Gens again. As his closest confidante Vorghal has chosen you to help him to do this. He has given you a small fleet, and sent you to the Sea of Smurgh, that is been occupied by the followers of Gracznogh. Your mission is to cross the enemy's lines, and reach a friendly base in the northeast with the prototype of a Blood Shark. You will get new troops there to continue the fight against Gracznogh. Good luck, you will need it.
You don't need to worry about the time-limit, worry instead about the lack of firepower. So just stick to the border of the map. You need to bring the big, obvious ship to the port, which the enemy won't capture by the way, so don't bother.

Gen, mission 2, teaching a lesson: build a new fortification, and eliminate all the enemies and conquere their city! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: When you arrive at the base, all your troops are together again. With these reinforcements you have to fight against the superiority of the enemy Gens in sector 23. Borghal demands you build a fortification in Sector 23 to start the production of war ships. It is extremly important to put the fast-sailing units of Grecznogh's fleet out of action, so that we can overtake the enemy's harbour. To do so, you first need to destroy the city's defence-walls, and to conquere the harbour with a Watus Constructus. One of Gracznoogh's confidants, Smirghol, the mayor, is in the base. Arrest him! We can put Gracznogh under pressure in order to unite the Gens again for the fight against the United Clans and the Cytex!
I feel a wee bit of broken english slipped through in the briefing. Also, the Gens notoriously name everything "Watus". Remember: their regeneration worth like nothing.
You should do scouting with your dragonflies, as the map is small and giving directions to all the mines... But note this: you are resource-poor, it is essential to get the NE sulphur mine. Actualy, start going west until you hit a mine, than aim the NE corner, and along the way you'll find another mine too. And there is yet one more to the west and just a bit to the south from the NE mine. further west from there is a merchant guild - quit far, but maybe worth trying to utilize it. Still be your first job to build the market, and intensvely buy sulphur, which you use instead of wood now.
Also, the units are quit the same attack and statwise, so you know what you are after (the air-unit that can shoot).
Because of your resource-stravation you should know, you need 10 sulphur in stroe to build a mine, and need 10 more to build fortifications on 'em. So it's quit problematic.
Also because of your lack of raw material, I'd go for the healer building - costs less than making new units, and you'll definitely have to hold out for a while.
Oh, news: you only have 1 autosave, and it does not care what race you are playing, keep that in mind.
Also: archive dot org has a copy that windows don't like that much, but has all the movies. The movies can be seen from the "replay intro" menu, and all of them for the race you play unlock when you win the last map of the campaign of the current race, so definitely make an archive-save. The movies will not stay unlocked, you have to end those maps every time you want to watch the movies. Uncomfortable, but it works.
Note: the dragonflies suck, they don't keep distance. Base your power on submarines instead, with some flier support.

Gen, mission 3, Taking over: eliminate the enemies, conquere their city, and all resources within 70 days!
Briefing: By arresting Smirghol you have completed a coup! The connection between Gracznogh and the northeast territories has been cut. Borghal is satisfied with your work. It's time to eliminate the traitor. Gracznogh's fortress is far west of Sector 27. This area is extremly important to Borghal, as the resources in these waters are needed for the production and develpoment of the enemy's fleet. Eliminate Gracznogh, and secure the waters by conquering all mines, and fortifying them with walls. Hurry - and bring Gracznogh's head with you. This should be sufficient to win back the disloyal Gens to our cause.
It seems the key to this map is a secure access to the merchant guild in the middle, so going for the mines which you can see is begginers' mistake. Telling where the mines are are naturaly too comlicated, will uploed the map somewhere. Well, ok, so let's go west, and a bit south. Then SE until you get 2 mines. Then come back, and capture 3-4 mines around your city. The enemy will still have a heckload of mines, and 70 days is anything, but, but do what you can. With intensive trading it should be ok. I mean this is early 2nd difficulty, how though can it be, right?
Though you start with no research, only sucker, lowest level ships, not even merch ships, plus you are kinda resource-starved at the start, so you can't even build forts to all your mines. So constantly watch over the map - and don't mind flying scout units, only war units and constructors. Building a second constructor will help you capturing more mines, starving the enemy sooner. And given the small size of the map, and your supply-and research-proble in light of the time-restriction, you want to do as little fighting as possible.
This mission teaches to trade for trading sake, then trade your goods at the market if the Guild does not supply you with what you actualy want.
NOTE: the game literaly asks you to capture all mining-sites, EVEN if the AI did not capture it, until that the game will not end. The mine in the exact SE corner is hard to notice.

Gen, mission 4, the lost blueprints: find the lost blueprints in one of the eagle-rocks!
Briefing: Gracznogh is dead, the betrayal is nullified, and the advisers of the traitor are out of action! Now we can concentrate on what is really important: the Golem. One of our captain has found blueprints of a new warship in Gracznogh's fortress. It is an enchanced model of the Watus Atakus that is supposed to become a death-delivering war-unit through its complicated mutations. But you are still missing some important details to build this Watus Imposus, as your engineers call it. The missing blueprints are said to be hidden in one of the rocks, where the eagles nest on the Archepilago of the Kings. Find them, and we will have an effective weapon against the enemies. But watch for the cytex ships: we are not the only ones who know of the existence of these blueprints.
This is a quicky if you want it. I don't think the enemy hase a base, there are no mines, and the eagle islands are all marked as "already visited" despite don't, so your task actualy is to find that exact one. It is in the middle. Of course it is protected by a large group of enemies, but your scout ship is capable enough to slip through and touch it - and that fulfills the mission objective!

Gen, mission 5, the metamorphosis: destroy all enemy unit and city! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: After disvovering the blueprints in the Archepilago of the Kings, your engineers have started constructing the Watus Imposus, and now there is an opportunity to test these units in a battle for the first time. The Cytex have build a base at the border of our territories. This is unacceptable. Borghal has ordered you to drive our enemies from our territory, so that our shamans can continue transforming our land. The changes of the earth's surface will enable us to control the power of the earth. The Cytex are interrupting this work, and must be eliminated, so that we can continue the metamorphosis.
Surprisingly, this is another very quick one. You get a pretty large army (that watus imposus isn't very imposing by the way, it is just another ship), head on NW, to the center of the map, where the enemy city is. thatŰ's the single object on the map aside a moderate amount of enemy ship. Capture it, and just as it happens, you get another bunch of troops, so you are really kinda invincible, even if you just started to explore the map in whatever direction, and attack what comes in sight manualy.

Gen, mission 6, Atlantis: destroy all enemy units and capture their city! (aka. destroy everything - well, mabye not the mines?)
Briefing: That should be a lesson to the Cytex! Reports from our spies say, that the United Clans have discovered important parts of the Golem in the sunken city of Atlantis, and that they already started recovering it. Borghal orders you to conquere the Clan's base, and to drive the enemies out. As soon as the waters around Atlantis are free, engineers can start collecting the parts of the Golem. Remember that this mission has the highest priority, and you must be successful.
The good thing is, for this and the previous mission the connection/overlap with the United Clan missions is pretty clear. Sadly, I fail to see the Gens winning anything, they don't even seem building their own Golem, just trying to go after the fact.
This is an interresting map, though I hate the fact you don't start cwith a city, don't even see a place to build a city. the AI though is programmed in the way to not capture any city if you don't do it for a long while, so cudos for that. The fog of war removed though the map ofers 3 possible scenarios for you: capture the mines you see, and hold the north portion of the map, or try to cut the map by capturing most mines, or go straight just for the cities, which there are 3 city-places, plus the enemy city on the border, in the middle of the south. Capturing the city straight to west is a "good idea", as that is next to the Merchant Guild.
There are also 3 eagle islands, each containing 3 advanced airships, so right at the begginning you want to send a ship S-SW, one to the SW corner, and one W-NW.
Important thing is, you start with TWO constructors, so if you manage to not overspend the budget, you'll steamroll this map. Things will be of course more complicated, because the AI reacts to what you are doing, so no "capture all cities", but you'll still be able to capture most things, thus gain hugh advantage over the enemy if you know the map.
The map has a flaw though: while you have clear air-superiority, and economic dominance, you have nothing to deal with submarines. So it's a lot of standing around developing technology (the 2nd submarine is already fine, can attack fortifications from out of range, change the production as you develop new ones) and producing units.

[twillight]

Gen, mission 7, revenge: Defend your city, and eliminate all UC (United Clan) and Cytex units! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: We have recovered parts of the Golem, and driven out of the Cytex. Borghal is very satisfied with you. Your engineers have begun examining the parts. In the meantime more components of the Golem's have been finished. Reconstruction has already started. We now have time, but we need to see wether the Cytex will be hungry for revenge or not. Some of our scouts say single Cytex ships have been sighted close to our capital, but they should not be a threat. For the last two weeks the construction of the Golem continued - until yesterday! Our scouts sounded the alarm upon realising a hugh fleet of the United Clans is approaching our capital. But our main forces are still in Cytex's territory: Grimbhar is not ready for such a hugh attack. Our posts in Sector 22 and 23 have already been conquered, and the fleet of the Clans is too strong for our fortifications. Borghal commands you to go directly to Grimbhar, and protect this city at all costs. Should Grimbhar fall, everything will be lost. Hold out, until reinforcements arrive from the north. You must succeed!
NOTE: can't not notice we barely get anything of what the Cytex is doing.
This is an interresting mission, but potentialy very frustrating. You start with a fully buolt lvl 2 city, WITH all the research done too! AND you have every mine on the map!
But the enemy has zounds of units, while you only have a single, only somewhat capable army. And you are able to see an enemy city? Woah, why not attack that! At least that was my reastion, you on the other hand might decide to sit tight - there is a promised reinforcement after all (there won't be in reality), and you have resource-superiority. Probably. Unless the AI has more cities. Point is, if you only buy lvl 1 fortifications to only those mines that get enemy in their visual range, and you build 2 contructor asap (one to support your army, one to repair your city's fortifications - it'll likely be destroyed once, but rebuilding it while frustrating might work out better). Given how strong fortifications are, this will be enough to decimate the enemy to a more tolerable level. And if you manage to capture the city, that'll obviously help even more.
the last stage is you build scout ships like crazy to find the last surviving unit.

Gen, mission 8, the Crystal Focus: defend the centre of the volcano for 20 days!
Briefing: Grimbhar has been saved, but only because reinforcements arrived on time. Borghal is very upset about your carelessness. It has been your fault that the people of Grimbhar have been exposed to danger at all. How could you withdraw the troops from Sector 22 and 23 - the United Clans have simply overrun them. This will have consequences for you: Borghal sends you personally to the north to the former pole waters to search for the Crystal Focus. Our engineers report, that the Crystal Focus is a kind of lens that has sunk to the floor of the ocean near to the North Pole when the first Golem exploded. This lense is indispensable for the new Golem. According to the maps the lens must lie somewhere beneath the surface in the centre of a volcano. It will take time for the mutant divers to search the crater. To secure the crater for 20 days, Borghal has set a prototype of the Verderber under your command. This may resist your enemies even if they largely outnumber you. Be successful - or the Borghal will change your future dramaticaly!
This is a small mission on the map with the 4 island I had barely idea what to do with the United Clan. Now you just stand there for 20 days. Do you actualy do something? Yes, you can. When a unit of yours gets eliminated, pull aside you remaining troops, so they don't block each other standing on each other - you have a repair ship! That's what you can do. Pull your troops to a 3*3 grid, and repair what gets damaged (and isn't instantly destroyed).

Gen, mission 9, storming Armorata: eliminate the main port of the UC!
Briefing: Your mutant divers have searched the whole area, but have not found anything. According to your spies, the Crystal Focus is on its way to Armorata. Armotara (no, I did no did a typo with this one, the original text did), an impregnable fortress, is the centre of human power. You are in Borghal's bad books. To prove your loyalty, you should get hold of the lens as soon as possible. If you get the Crystal Focus back, and make Armorata fall, this should convince Borghal to trust you again. The message of Lagus' death should calm him. This might be the only chance to escape death. It's on your shoulders to prove your abilities. A defeat would be the end of you.
You start with a lvl 2 city, you can immediately can upp to lvl 3. You also get a small army, but it's only enough to secure a mine's place until the constructor can get there and build a fortification on it. There are also 2 eagle-island with extra units hiding in them - obviously you want those asap.
The AI is fast to capture any and all mines on the map, and they are not exactly close to your HQ - the AI is in the better position now. There's a Guild around too in the NW corner - very far from you, again the enemy seems in a much better position. You still might want to secure the route there, so my guess is to start going N at the start (with the constructor - send the other troops NE), capture the mine, go NE to get more troops, SE for a second mine. E of this is the second island, NE another mine which'll probably be captured already by the AI, and S-SE another mine for you. And as the AI is usualy too lazy for such things, I'd try to get the mine still on the south side, at the eastern border, ca. 20% from the south border. Then just play the map you feel like. They have only 1 town, so if you can even cut them from the Guild capturing a mine on the east side of the Guild and upping its fortifications as possible, you shouldn't have too much problem, as we all know the AI will just throw its waves after waves at you until you'll outpower it with your troops sticking together.
Note: if you develop lvl 3 engineers (i mean Matsers here), you'll be able to develop even more advanced units, and those ships can attack everything. Sounds fun.
Interresting fact, the healing-factor of the units come in handy, you can send your contructor looking for mines. Not that you actualy need any, this mission is done suprisingly fast.

Gen, mission 10, The pursuit: Conquer the base of the Cytex!
Briefing: You did it: Armorata has been totaly destroyed! The United Clans are scattered, and the admirals of the human fleet have fled in all directions. Lagus, up to now as invincible, killed by your hand laughed out his dying breaths: "You fool, the Cytex managed to reproduce the Crystal Focus! They are close to completing the Golem, and my admirals are on their way to help them secure the area. Borghal will lose!"
Prevent - at all costs - the Cytex inserting the Crystal Focus into their Golem on time. Destroy the base of the Cytex, and bring Borghal their blueprints. Be prepared for a hugh number of Clan ships, but above all, you must WIN!
You start with no town, and only a small platoon. There is a mine right next to your city-place, one in the SW corner, you can probably capture 2 saling directly north, but the majority of the mines of this middle-sized map are all ion the centre, and the AI DO/WILL have them. So sit back, and start inventing.
Oh, before you ask: there is no Guild here. And if it was not obvious: start building a 2nd contrucor asap to send out to the other direction. It's beneficial either way, as with two you can repair each other along army-units.
Actualy, build 4 constructor for each mines (3 miones + your main force), and slowly fortificate your mines to repell the enemy. Do not despair if one of your mines fall though, the AI will rarely have constructor to actualy capture it, so it's still good to bleed it out, out anyway, you only have to focus on its city. You'll win before developing the "last" technology. Maybe worth noting, but I think new tech becomes available by time, so rushiing research at all cost is not a good choice.

Gen, mission 11, the ambush: conquere the city of Cytex!
Briefing: Too late! The Cytex have moved the blueprints to a safe place. It is said that they have withdrawn to Sector 48 to complete their Golem. In the former waters of the United Clans they are preparing their final strike against us. By possessing all blueprints, the Cytex will be able to complete the mighty Golem. THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN! Take all units under your command in this area, and lead them to battle. Destroy their production harbour in the southwest at all costs, or everything will be lost!
NOTE: it might worth noticing, nothing says the UC actualy managed to activate their Golem, or if it would have any part in their victory, accorfding to their settng. And the Gens seem more occupied preventing anyone accessing theGolem than building their own.
The enemy actualy has TWO cities, so I assume conquere both.
There is 1 mine to the east - make a 2nd constructor to capture it while you send your ship to the west, where you'll first find two mines, than an Eagle Island with a hefty invention, and south of the that 2 more mines, if the AI is not faster.
South of your city (at this point with lvl 1 structures) is the Guild. South from its western corner is another Eagle Island, to which you probably should send your scout-ship to find, as it gives a ocuple more advanced units - but if you want to own them, you better hurry, the AI has troops all over the map.
The enemy cities are SW and SE from the Guild.
There is an extra mine NE from your city, so your 2nd constructor will have something to be occupied for a few days.
Btw, those extra units are super strong. I've practicaly not needed anything else but repair-support for them to win in less than 25 ingame days, what is super fast, especialy that that invention takes 7 days to create. So I assume this map was created you not knowing the map in mind? Actualy, given how the everything works, what's the point of these mage-units - if not for the potential multiplayer party. But people would probably just zerg those.

Gen, mission 12, the final battle: Eliminate the Cytex and their Golem
Briefing: Borghal has mercy on you. You have managed to destroy the production buildings of the Cytex. Further, all missing parts of the Golem are now in our possession. The Cytex have done a good job. Our engineers say, that the weapons should be ready in two months, and there will be nothing to keep us from ruling the world. They have gathered all their troops in Sector 51 to build a new production. If you succeed in defeat them one last time, we will have succeeded. We will then have the opportunity to rule the world. Make us immortal!
The map is a long belt, aka. it is thin, you being on one en, them being on the other. I bet it's all kinds of interresting stuff, but I was in the moode, so I decided to kick the table, took my starting troops, and just pushed all the way to the other end, because why not. When I realised this is a valid strategy, I started to develop my city, which fortunately I did found, just to be safe.
An addition to this .. approach: send the scout ship to the north, around halfway of the map. There is a single Eagle Island, which'll provide a hefty group.

[twillight]

Cytex, mission 1, raw material shortage: conquere all mines within 70 days!
Briefing: Our computers have confirmed that the degenerated Gens and the cursed United Clans are trying to recover the old blueprints from Debagh! Your mission, drone, is to ensure that we will have sufficient resources for the coming battles! Scans are showing that already some enemy units have entered the target area, and even more reinforcements are on their way. You will have 70 days to conquere and fortify all mines!
Wow. This IS hard. There are a lot of mines, and while the map is not big, that poses a problem, especialy that the AI captures a lot asap. You have 2 choice initialy: go east or west. To the east are coal mines, what your race needs. To the west are other mines (sulphur, wood, etc.). I started to the east, but who knows. You are also resource-poor, so it might not even be possible to capture all the mines initialy.
There is also the problem the enemy starts with baloons, while you don't. So it's either being annoyed as F and rely on mines to cover that need, or engineer your zeppelins. What will cost a lot both in resources and time. Time, you have precious little of. And before you ask: no, you don't have either the time or resources to produce a second constructor. And even if you had, then you would not have resources to capture and fortify the mines. Ye, that's a hassle too.
There are 15 mines on the map, so it'll be a busy task. Note, that those bloody slow white square units are able to withstand shots from the enemy (if you are lucky, approach with caution etc.), so producing those, escorted by repair ships might be a solution.
Drop all that, and start attacking the enemy mines with your starting troops. I'm dead serious. Put the white squares in front, and hide just behind them the other two, inferior ships for extra attack power, and manouvre your contructor where it's needed, and grind down the resistence. This approach allows you to develop technology without interruption, and I mean zeppelins of course.
I won at day 60. The order of capturing the mines is best approached in an anti-clockwise fashion. A lot of darn canals are obstacle.
It is also fortunate you don't have to capture them city, it's at very bad position for that.
PS: zeppelins are excellent support-units, but are terrible for assault, so build some of those white squares mostly, and if you find the resources to develop some submarines, switch on those in production.

Cytex, mission 2, the first offensive: Eliminate all Gen units! (aka. destroy everything, lol)
Good job, drone! Now that we have secured the production of our battle units, it is time to take the offensive. The degenerated Gens and the United Clans have signed a truce, and will not be on high alert!Your primary aim is to obtain a strategic advantage for us against the Gens. Eliminate the Gens, and don't show any mercy, drone!
Despite this being a small map, we have 2 enemy cities, but one from each race? And turly, you only have to eliminate the Gens, none cares about the other faction here! That's a nice surprise. Also, you likely noticed you get white squares to start with, so that's a relief, you can immediately start conquering. But be cautious and build fortifications, the AI will do a Hail Mary when you capture the Gen city (I had one mine of them left).
And for starting the map: found the city, then capture the mine you see at the start. there is a second to the west of your city, you have a scout ship, shouldn't be any problem finding it.

Cytex, mission 3, survive: survive 50 days!
Briefing: You have successfully driven out the Gens from the target sector, drone! Our technicians report that by conquering the Gen harbour, we have also obtained some important parts of the Golem. Well done! But this information has been placed into the hands of the United Clans, and now they have sent their armada to get these parts back! Sadly our fleet is too far away to help you in time. You are on your own at first. Defend the parts until reinforcements arrive. We expect you to survive 50 days.
To make your life easy, capture the mine you see asap, then head west (and a bit south) - there's another city-place! Don't be afraid the enemy will capture it, it can't keep it, because it needs 2 days to build fortifications for it, and that'd need cover, and it does not have that.
Also, start building an extra constructor, so you can repair your fortifications as needed in both city.
Then the AI will dump on you massive waves. You COULD eventualy win, so close is a Guild, but in 50 days, that won't happen. So you might as well rush engineering, and set your production line to build 2 of the biggest submarine and 1 airship (they suck, but they are better than nothing against anamey baloons). then just camp at your starting city - the other won't be attacked, so if you are a nerd, you can build an extra army there, which can go and start conquering.

Cytex, mission 4, eagle rocks: eliminate all units, and destroy all buildings! (aka. destroy everything)
Briefing: It's good to meet you alive, drone! Our engineers have started building the Golem, and they are proceeding quickly. The computers have calculated the new coordinates for your next mission. The target area is of enermous starategic importance for us, as we will be able to reach and attack voulnerable outposts of the Gens and the cursed United Clans. But there is also one important disadvantage: you can not make use of a safe harbour to plan your actions. But there are also some eagle rocks, where once powerful magicians studied their mysterious arts. First visit those places before attacking our enemies! Perhaps you will find some help to hit our deadly enemies.
I find it weird this race gets a "destroy everything" objective at its Eagle Islands mission. My expectations are subverted. And yes, this mission is a cruel joke, as you have zero idea where the islands are, and there are 3 enemy cities waiting for you. Plus the mines if you care.
I started to send my scouts north and south. There was nothing on the south, but bumped into 2 mines and a city on the north. As the AI was not in a hurry, I captured both mines. Turns out there is a city too in the middle, and in the SE corner. For a cruel joke, one of the eagle islands is NNE from your starting position / SSE from the NWern city. Very easy to miss if you don't know the map. The other one is right N of the SEern city, so you'll deifnitely find that, and though you barely get anything from it, they must be enough to capture that city.
The AI is either very passive, or don't get the usual extra units over you, so it's fun.

Cytex, mission 5, fight against the Gens: eliminate all units and buildings! (aka. destroy everything - unless again the UC exists here too, but you don't have to conquere THEM)
Briefing: Very well, drone! While our fleets are forming again, you must fight the degenerate Gens to give us much-needed time. We are receiving parts of the Golem from all frontiers, and we need all energy to speed up the construction. Drive all Gens out of the target sector, drone, and teach them what dreadful enemies we are.
I feel a bit racism towards the Gens here, but at least this faction seems to be interrested in the Golem, and knows what they are doing. I wonder where are we compared to the other two campaign though.
This is an extra larfe map with no funny business. The enemy has 2 cities, you cna have 1, and if you are quick enough, can have 2 mines: one right south of the city-place, the other NE from your starting position.
Around the middle of the map are 4 mines an a city. On the top are 3 mines and a city. That's it. The middle-city has some extra units (nothing big though), so don't try to be too quick.
The mission is very hard, as the AI is very active, and has much more resources, so save often, and do a lot of micromanagement. Your first problem will be its air superiority, but only after you realise, it has lvl 2 buildings too, so you won't be able to outreach its fortifications. and one thing that your units have a massive HP, but repairing them is a hassle. Also, you aren't exactly rich in resources. So you can't even research what you want, and will have to compromise. You'll need some air-support asap, but only buy 1 zeppelin, and wait until you can afford 2 of those stupid tripple-baloons, because those is positioned somewhere, will have a giant range. That at least will clear the sky, but next the AI will throw at you zounds of HUGH ships, I dunno how they can afford them, but they do.
But if you play your cards right, you'll be able to capture the 2 mines in the centre of the map. That's not as much as I'd hope, but ya know. Also: never start just attacking anything. The AI is setting up ambushes, so first lure those accumlated units out. Always.
At this point I'm not sure which city to go for. Sure, the eastern one is right here, but sorrounded by islands, and another mine. The other is far away, but maybe a bit more accessible.
Went for the eastern one, and needed to build 3+biggest airship, because those are just that much advanced. Then it was just time.

Cytex, mission 06, Lagus: eliminate all units and buildings, and find the(?) Lagus
Briefing: You havebeen successful as expected, drone. Our working drones are reporting, that the magician Lagusis helping the United Clans to build the Golem. It is time to slow our competitors down! You need to fine Lagus in the target sector, and arrest him, drone. Let him live, as long as he can be helpful to us, otherwise eliminate him!
.

[twillight]

It was a while ago when I hit this up, but now I'm done with Safrone City and all that.

Hitmanchan is lvl 61.

I've lost once, because I forgot to save frequently enough, and couldn't bother, especialy when relaised, the statboost items don't work, because leveling, or somthing. Almost funny, this.
Also, I've "cheated" a little bit, as the ghastlys kept confusing me, so when they were slower, I did swap in the farfetched to make the effect go. This is little enough, only a couple of random fights worth exp lost, and never in the next round swapped hitmon back, so I think it's fine.
against the Psy Gym everything stood on Mega Punch hitting the boss' mons.


Doing Fuchsia City and its Safari Zone (if you have the location of the items, you CAN grab all in one go!) Hitmonchan reached lvl 70.



------------------

More stuff:
NOTE: the assistants of the prof count every pokemon you owned, so if you capture something, and trade it for something else, that worth TWO pokemon.

Pokemon count:
1 - you start with a pokemon
2 - on Route 4 you get a Great Ball (capture a fearow)
3 - on the SS.Anne you find a Great Ball (use it in Celadon city to capture a slowpoke - excellent HM-slave)
4 - trade fearow (wild capture) for a farfetched (good HM-slave)
5 - in Celadon City you find an Evee
6 - in the Safron City Fighter Gym you can choose between a Hitmonchan and a Hitmonlee
7 - at Sylph Co you get a Lapras
8 - from the Mt. Moon fossils either an omanyte or a kabuto
9 - in Pewter City form Old Amber a pterodactyl
10 -

you get 5 pokeball if you did not buy any, nor catched any pokemon until you beat your rival on Route 22.
in the safari zone you get 30 balls... So if you just need those extra mons for the HM, it's perfect, I think. Though that costs money if I'm correct.
on Route 4 you can buy a magikarp for 500$

on Seafoam Island you find an Ultraball
on Route 23 you find an Ultra Ball
on Victory Road you find an Ultra Ball
And of course if you have to, you can just buy some pokemon from the casino.
in the Cerulean Cave you find an Ultra Ball


------------------


Make slowpoke learn Dig, because of the whataver-Mansion. I could not come out of it without an escape rope (or dying). Not sure where i had one, I was lucky. Dig out of combat is to get out of dungeons instantly, thus a very good thing to have on your HM-slave.
And as I'm pretty high level (lvl 75 before the Cinnebar Gym, and did not hunt for the legendary birds yet), I'm considering skipping the legendary birds after all. Because, you know.

[twillight]

Some pro-player said it is impossible, so I looked it up, and actualy isn't. I mean if the mon has enough craft to win the game with just tackle, then it should be even more possible, if you solve magikarp to be able to harm ghost types.
there's 2 method to achieve this goal: import a magicarp from Gen 2, OR have a University Magikarp, what is an event-pokemon.

But how do you get these?
Well, transfering pokemon between emulators seems a hard call, at least harder than using the cheatcodes, so I went with the university pokemon version.

I'm using a VisualBoyAdvance Emulator ver.1.8.0-beta 3, whatever that means. I find it great for the black&white .gb Gen 1 games.
First, let's solve to start with the pokemon we want. The Game Shark version of starter cheat is unstable, so use the Game Genie version. Immediately disable the cheat after the character picked up the ball, definitely after the stats are shown, and absolutely before the Rival picks up his one. Vongratulation, you have a stable, bugless your-choice starter.
The hard part comes now, it took me a while to figure it out, and it'll irrevocable ruin your active save (the last oyu used) if you mess it up.
As Game Genie has no move-code, we have to rely on the Game Shark code. Fortunately the move-swap code works with currently unused slots too, so I've set it as move 2 (magikarp starts with only 1 move: splash).
The code ONLY effects YOUR pokemon, and only the starter, so it's fine. It is also stable, so if you don't mind that the cheat is running actively and you can't turn it off, then you have no other task with this. If you on the other hand WANT ot disable the code, read further.

NOTE: you get the move with 0 PP, meaning you'll have to sleep/get healed before you can actualy use it, so you'll fail the tutorial-fight in the lab (with an unaltered magikarp, you'd fail it anyway, though I miss the money, as Pokemon Red somehow missing a core element: you can't capture MEowth in the game, the money-creating pokemon).

So, find a battle. You'll still be able to run from it, or fight it, don't worry. Select "Fight", then push "Select" (this is a gameboy button, not an ingame label!), and swap the move you added to you pokemon with another move.. In this case, swap Dragon Rage with Splash. NOW DISABLE THE CHEAT, and to be on the safe side, use the skill(s). Finish the battle one way or another, and check your pokemon. If all is fine, you have your moves in the new order. Eevn if you glitched it, the PPs will be in order.
On the other hand if you messed it up, your added move will be doubled, and your other move lost. This can be funny, 40 Dragon Rage on your magikarp IS funny, but c'mon.


This is how you capture a 4% (more like 2%, but whatever) mon in the Safari zone: go to the right sector, and find the mon. Save. Throw a ball on it until it runs away. Reload, and throw a rock at it. If it runs away, reload. If not, save, and try the ball, but don't expect to finish. When it runs away again, reload, and throw a 2nd rock at it. If it does not run away, save. Throw balls at it until you capture it.


Btw, as Magikarp doesn't get moves, and isn't particularly strong anyway, you'll have to play backtracking a lot, especialy for 2 instances: one is the Grass type gym boss, and the second is the Rival at the Silph Co. Now these two hurt like heck, so you'll have to come back way overlevelled, or, especialy for the Rival, bring items to heal and stuff.

[twillight]

For GB - that's pokemon gen 1 games - THIS (https://visualboyadvance.org/download/1-8-0-beta-3/) rocks. Sure, it's monochrome and stuff, but that's how these games were released. Absolutely perfect.



For GBA - that's like pokemon gen 2-3 -, most of the emulators either don't even run the programs, or distort the sound on peak level. THIS (https://mgba.io/downloads.html) is what I found the best of the bunch.


For NDS - pokemon gen 5 - use THIS (https://github.com/TASEmulators/desmume/releases/tag/release_0_9_13). Again, if you pick something else, you'll face sound-distortion. If you are lucky. If you are not - agn, won't even start.

[twillight]

Red: I've done all the grinding, so with the 12 rare candy, I can be lvl 100 niversity Magikarp. Went on the shopping sprea, got rid of the Splash PPs, everything ready for the Elite Four + Rival Final. The first 2 Elite Foure will be easy, the most problematic will be the 3rd, for it has all those ghosts, and those can only be hurt by dragon rage - no critical, no X-item boost.

Platinum: I dislike this game, awefuly paced. Doing it with a solo hippo, struck wall 3 times already, at the 2nd I decided to not evolve as long as possible. there are 14 Rare Candies (at least) that help, the 14th being locked behind collecting all the Unown. Fortunately the game is very generous with pokeballs, so my 4 HM-slave, all the trade-pokemons the 28 unown and more are perfectly feasable for free.
So the problem with this is the lack of trainers to battle (Gen 1 had twice-thrice the amount per area), the aweful roadblocks that railroads you, and the ginormous difficulty-spikes. With this pokemon specificaly the grass type gym (lvl 35 - twice the level that is required for like any solo mon in the gen 1 games for the 2nd gym), the water type gym (lvl 61+, I don't know what this gym is: the apprentices are pathetic, don't even have water types, but sea-birds, and thenthe boss has grandiose stat pokemons), and no, not the ice type gym, you get plenty enough exp until there, and you can support yourself with a handful variety of held items. the problem is Cyrus, right before Giratina. That's like a lvl 85+ challenge, and that's way more than is sohuld be, even then heavily luck-based if my suspicion is correct. the only good thing is, thanks to the Rare Candies and the new, clear EV-system, you know you won't get hindered if you eat the candies after grinding to a not-that--high level, what'll still take forever of course. point is, why isn't an elevator at this fight that'd bring you back to the exit to gather more exp if needed? Darn!

Emerald: with the disappointment platinum was, I am curious how this game was. Gen 2 had disgusting graphics, so none cares for that, but I see no Latios/Latias playthrough for this on youtube, so another reason to boggle down with this.

X: I found a working copy of this, so we'll see why this is such a neglected part of the core series.

----------

One compaint of mine, at least definitely for Emerald is, if you want to do EV-training with your starter, you are pretty F-ed up. Well, you can find decently HP, Attack, Speed, even Defense EVs, crap, even Special Defense has a place with 20% chance to appear, but you'll be shredded by a hedgehog if you need SpecialAttack.
I'm like 4 paged in the walkthrough (friggin hidden items! - actualy, I don't even bother with them this time, so why I even use a walkthrough), and there's 2 places to fins SAtk, one with 4% chance (that's more like 1%), the other 10%, and that's just not enough.
Emerald also suffers form the fact, to get your optimal HM-slaves, you need to level them up a bit, to lvl 14 and 16, unlike other games where you just capture the beasts, and all is fine and dandy.

-----------

Some criticism:
- Gen 1: sure, it's kinda buggy, like Fallout 2 without its patch (that patch ruins everything), but you can work around that, like for Fallout 2 without its patch (that patch makes everything worse).
Its faulty mechanics is a list too: the Hidden Item system is entirely garbage, its multilevel puzzles are a chore, there's no telling what is where, you can't catch 'em all, you can't just come up with your own group you like (without insane level of grinding), and the Elite Four is a massive trollblock for most parties.
Still, it has its charm, and the maps are small enough to make backtracking manageable. The game is also mostly open-world within its route-system.
- Gen 2: sure, it's in colour now, but it's darn ugly! It's also still a buggy mess.
Can't tell much about its Pkegear (no fresh memories about it), but the apricorns are truly the origin of the abhorrent berry-system. This "1 thingy per day" is ridiulous.
The god news is, Speed no longer effects critical rate, and there is no one unified Special stat.
The breeding-system is on the other hand furiously bad for me. Maybe it targeted competitive gamers?
- Gen 3 is pretty bad. It pushes you to be constantly overlevelled, and especialy for special attackers, just wastes your time. And it's not just the new eV-system, but for example there is the pokeflutes, non-consumable niceys, which makes you walk a lot in Tall Grass, aka. encountering pokemon, and that'll make you oneshot all of them, and that accumlates to even more levels.
Plus while you get to pretty high levels, the ... no, no story, but the game just does not advancing, and there's kinda nothing to do. Doesn't help either there are no maps with all the items, especialy hidden items on them, so I'm currently skipping those. In the other games there are stuff happening, but here it seems they focused on the Battle tents, and those were a horrible idea. Random battles with random conditions, where moves are executed randomly. Talk about gambling integrated...
There is also no Town Map. Just WHY? (EDIT: ok, there is the map in the pokenav - which I seen no reason to use, and only checked for misclicking)
Also, the pokenav's constant calling, combined the lack of ability to delete the useless trainers is absolutely infuriating feature.
The abilities/natzres/held items/etc. make the game way to complex for a proper design, resulting in the later (gen 5+( generation just being way too easy.
there are double-battles, and even the promise of tripple-battles. Annoying, because there is a promise by design you can still just do solo battles, but that option is soon taken away, and you have to do obligatory double battles. And no tripple battle is possible, depsite the clear intention.
Lastly, the contests: pure uselessness.
There's also the problem you can't run inside buildings (next gen fixed this).
Lacking feature: why don't you get some reward, any reward for getting the best rate on the cycling road?
My main complaint will be, there's rly nothing happening, and the Fly, aka. Fast Travel option is not useful anymore at the point you gain it. Not as useful as it is in any other game up to gen 6, which I've not played yet. This game is VERY linear. And before I forget again: there's nothing that pushes you to catch pokemon. In all the other games I know of, you gain stuff for doing so, but here - nothing.
What annoys me to no end, and for that this will never be a good game, is the limited inventory space.
Bonus: the champion is Wallace. Your "Second Rival" is Wally. There was an obvious rewamp here, and was just executed lazly.
- Gen 4: the puzzles are all too easy, and Giratina's puzzle is way too hard. The power-spikes are pretty harsh. Not enough population.
The good news is, the Hidden Item finding hits the bare minimum.
The poketch is a fine addition - until you accumlate an infinite number of apps, which you can not delete. Ever. there are also massive chunk of multiplayer-only parts everywhere, and that just anoys me to no end.
While this gen fixed running, it destroyed using bikes. They are too sensitive, becoming a nuisance.
- Gen 5: Lackluster story, way too easy, you still can't capture the cool pokemons early. There's neither a game+ mode after completion where you can start the game with whatever you want. Would be a clear improvement.
Again massive amount of multiplayer content - without the customisations that'd improve that experience.
And seasons? Seasonal changes? Season-exclusives? You went too far, GameFreak.
The company also doubled down on double-battles with triple-battles, and the even more complicated rotation-battles.
The good news is, finaly TMs are not one-time-only.
"HM"s no longer requiring badges to use outside of battle doesn't interrest me much, but that was pacing-opportunity, so that's not good in the end.
- Gen 6: why is "Sky Battles" a thing? People did nt use flying type enough, or what? Also, the item-finder is horrible in this one. But otherwise, it's surprisingly good until now, though the pacing seems odd, as gyms are few and far between, and good pokemons are also rare. This volume heavily suffers from the Cutsiemon Syndrome.
- Gen 7: ?
- Gen 8: ?
- Gen 9: terrestralysing changes your pokemon's type - of course for the "small prize" of microtransaction.

[twillight]

If you have Dragon Rage, you'll just burn yourself to Vicotry Road eventualy, with enough leveling up. And yes, Magikapr is a terrible pokemon, will need plenty of levels, and items over that, so don't be lazy, and fight every single trainer along your way, and be patient to not spend that money until the very end, when you absolutely have to.
Well, it'd be fun to run a Bubble Magikarp once just for comparison-sake, a much less famous event-pokemon than University Magikarp, and it was released for Gen2, but it can be transfered backward. Point is, if Magikarp can reach Pokemon Tower just with Tackle and Strougle, there is no reason why adding Bubble to the list of moves would not work.


The main trouble is grass attacks against the poor thing, so if you do not have Tackle, unlike I had, because who payed attention that UniKarp came at lvl 15, without knowing Tackle, thus never learning the move, you'll need defensive items to consume. There's a run with Proper UniKarp on Yellow version, but the tuber was one of the impatient people who spent his money on stuff along the way, instead of spending all at the very end, but the point stands.


It was an interresting thing to do, and as said, barely anything would have changed if I did not have Tackle, so I'm fine in my book.

[twillight]

This gave an overall view on this whole game. I dunno the pacing of its unfnished predexessor-versions, but this one seems to be adjusted to beat Steven exclusively.
As always, I was beating every trainer in the game for exp and cash, with a single pokemon, this time Latios, and it was not a very pleasant experience.
Latios starts with a psychic attack only, and not a good one in that, so you're stuck until lvl 20 to grind up on lvl 2-3 wild pokemons. Kinda good news, that Speed + Special Attack IV-s come at ca. 20% together (SATK is only 4%, in comparison). I still did some HP-training too, just to keep my sanity, and I did not regret it tbh.
Passing that obstacle went back to EV-training, this time on Abras, that's 10% Special Attack training. To not go mad, in the end I again included some HP-training. Again, wasn't the worst idea, maybe.
Now at this point I finaly could do some stuff for a while, until reaching the flute-meister, of course you want those flutes, that'll be like 2,000 steps in the "tall" grass (there is a taller(?) grass, lol, which is actualy tall), so to keep my sanity, I was shotting down pokemons there too.
Anyway, I kept being like 2 times the level compared to anything that cmae across, this includes trainers. It was like the Elite Four that jumped 10 level, but they didn't even come close to my level.
Then Steven jumped 20 more levels, pretty much was the same level as me, and he has 2 very very buff pokemon: the Metagross, and the even worse Cradily. I don't know how they are that massive/spongy, but they are. I had to exchange ALL my moveset to adjust to these, and eat all the Rare Canied I found to beat the buggers. If it was not enough, I was thinking to reload right after the Elite Four, and keep Recover, which is a massive healing with plenty of charges, but fortunately it was not needed. One thing was pretty sure: I wasn't into another grind.
----
If Gen1 is A-tear (it has so many bugs it can't be A-tear, than this one is C-tear, B-tear going to Platinum. That's a B+ game. Black#White is maybe D+, too easy, but otherwise not many problems, but being bland is not a favourable trait.

[twillight]

The optimal (meaning the least amount of pokemon) to have ALL the useful out-of-battle movesets (so this includes HMs, Dig, Teleport, what have you):
- Red: Slowbro + Farfetched (you don't need teleporting much in this one, the maps are adequately small, and Dig brings you close enough to the local hospital)
- Gen 2: ???
- Emerald: Seedot + Marill + anything that can fly + Abra/Ralts (Abra is a hard-to-cath option, but you have to level up Ralts if you go that route). I'm not entirely sure yet wether you need that teleport in this one yet. Extremly rare move in Emerald, it is.
- Platinum: Bidoof + Bibarel + Starly + Abra (teleport is helluva good in this one)
- X: You have a couple of options, the base can be collected pretty soon. Catch a Ralts for Flash and Teleport, and depending on what you want, you likely want it to be male, and evolve it all the way up, so it can learn Cut and Strength in addition, though this is not obligatory.
Also before the first gym you can catch a bidoof, what you'll upp to bibarel, and that can learn all kinds of stuff. It'll definitely be the one learning Surf and Waterfall, but you still need something that flies, and can learn at least 2 more move above that (and is available soon, and not post-game).
This thins down the list to 2 candidate: hawlucha, and aerodactyl. Pick any, and adjust your bibarel (and Ralts) accordingly. In the end you'll carry around 3 HM-slaves.

[twillight]

This feature is introduced/exists in X/Y, and is a super cool idea, but it has some mayor flaws the otherwise quite tlakey game does not tell you, and you need to know:
- when you first turn on the feature HAVE A COMPLETLY USELSSS POKEMON AT YOUR FIRST SLOT. This is because the game'll force you to gain 4 Defense EV twice. Completly ridiculous.
- after that fiasco, you will be able to roll your pokemons within the app on its starter screen, where the punching bag is.
- you can hit the punching bag on the starting screen, but this achieves absolutely nothing. You need to activate a special punching bag.
-there are 2 kinds of special punching bags: one that gives you EV for a certain stat, and those that makes the trianings easier.
-the amount of special punching bags you can have in store, is LIMITED. The game only tells you this when your backpack is already full, and thus you loose the won bag.
- after the first 2 mandatory defense-training you can choose the stat you want to upgrade.

- the game will always tell you the rules of the chosen training, no matter how many times you already done it.
- yes, it was a genious idea to make the aim-circle green on a green background.
- you need to use the roller-skating buttons to move aorund in these minigames.
- you'll need to use another button above the rollerskating buttons for the Protect-function.
- yes, you need to use the mouse during these minigames too.
- yes, the initial settings of the keyboard in Citra makes absolutely zero sense.
- you only get EV-boost and punching bags if you beat one of the trainings.
- there are 3 levels of trainings, and to unlock the higher ... difficulty trainings, you have to beat ALL the various trainings first. This means have a useless pokemon ON A HIGH LEVEL to unlock these #&@,
- It seems you need the level of the pokemon you use influences the difficulty here, and the HP and Defense trainings are absolutely ridiculous.
- fortunately, unlocking the higher trainings is not just for the used pockemon, but for the player, so all pokemon you own, or will own, will be able to use all the trainings.
- Currently not sure when you can unlock the Super Secret Training levels. Either you just have to max yourself out, or again, beat all lvl 3 trainings.

[twillight]

This'll be the final post from me in the topic. Just quick summary of each generation.

Gen 1: pokemon Blue is the better version just for providing access to Meowth, which can generate you more money that's in the game in otherwise fixed amount.
Yes, Gen 1 is a "buggy mess", but it's neither game-breaking, nor immersion-breaking. The pacing is good, the puzzles are challanging but not impossible all htings considered (though you really have to work for the last bird on Victory Road), and is compact enough to not outstay its welcome. The backtrack helps the immersion.

Gen 2: you either have to settle with gutt-wrenching ugly, or for an incomplete version here. I say, avoid this generation.

Gen 3: I have o idea how the original releases work, but in Emerald you are constantly twice the level of the enemy, making the only challanging fight the post-game Steven. That's not good. Also, the game is a railroad, no diversion from the One True Path. Boring as heck, especialy grinding for the flutes.

Gen 4: the time you are allowed to backtrack is, when all the items you constantly saw no longer worth your time and effort. The pacing is also hirrble, switching between oneshotting everything to bumping into difficulty-spike and thus grinding-sessions. the Distortion World is also BS: potentialy softlocking the player in a VERY challanging puzzle, good luck solving it without a guide.

Gen 5: this one is simply boring. Any pokemon remotly interresting is way bexond the starting area, and this was actualy the first game I actualy won (later I went back and finished the Elite Four for the other games too), this time using only a single pokemon (Herdier). The plot is nonsense, N is absolute nonsense, there's no flavour in the game - it's boring. That's kinda worse than being bad. The only good thing is the updated visuals.
EDIT: also do not forget HALF OF THE GAME is locked behind post-game. That amount of story and content is NOT post-game, but proper game, and that's inexcuseable.


Gen 6: I should go into explanation why I think the story is great, the pacing is great, and the game is generaly the best pokemon can offer. It's not flawless though, the game(s) definitely would have benefited from a 3rd release. And is "way too easy", meaning the enemies are not too challanging considering, so either use a weak (low base stat) pokemon, or do not use the Battle Chateau AT ALL. Also: you definitely not need Mega Evolution. Possibly.

Gen 7: Look. there's a large difference by the look of it between the difficulty of the original and the Ultra versions. I don1t know the original release, neither will touch them. But darn, the Ultras are HARD. Some tips if you want to try any of it:
- do EV-training as soon as you got the pokemon you want! Do NOT rely on exp.share, it'll ruin your day, because it not just transfers exp, but also EV, and that can BREAK you pokemon. Imagine giving pyhsical attack EVs to special attackers.
- do NOT feed your pokemon with beans! At least for a long while. You'll want them for the pokePilago, where you can plant the berries you need! (I never used them, but better safe than sorry)
- you have to catch 75-90 pokemon to be able to fully build the PokePilago! So start catching them early! (I don't like the spring-section fully built on the Pilago, and you don't actualy need it for anything, so I don't need the 90 pokemon)
- the RotomDex is annoying as heck, but there are some useful gains from it: Roto Bargain cuts prices in shops (not just pokemarts, but also clothes, the TM-shop etc., though not restaurants or BB-shops) from extraorbitant to simply too expensive. RotoCatch helps you capture that elusive pokemon. If you are a breeder, you might like RotoHatch, though it's way to rare in my case. RotoStealth is a free repell, if you are fed up. Roto HP and PP are equialent of their shop-items, only free, in case you use items. The rest is inarguably useless.
In the Ultra versions you also gain (allegedly) the power to use Z-power twice in battle, and that's something to be considered for now.
- you WANT high, or at least moderate affection-rating on your pokemon, because while they are like 5% chance modifiers, that CAN help you out. Well, this is mostly only if you do a solo playthrough I assume. Or if you keep UltraNekrozma in mind. That thing is infamous for a reason.
- the game has so high-level challanges, it is hard, and poses tactical problems along just grinding levels. Which you'll need to do anyway.
----
Otherwise, naratively, and by pacing these games are trash. It's not fun playing them. The cutscenes are a chore, the endgame is padding, the miniquests are unsatisfying most of the times, and have pretty demanding requirements at times for barely any reward. Some are funny though.

Gen 8: "Optional" and barely existing trainers, bring, glitch-filled, unsatisfying.

Gen 9: There is 2 good thing in this: the story in paper, so worth comprised walkthrough on youtube, where it's only 20-60 minute or such. And this terrestrialization-gimmick could last.
Everything else is trash though. There are no scripted events, absolutely no trainers (imagine playing Baldur's Gate with no scripted events, just random kobolds spawning), it's crashing left-and-right, bugs and glitches everywhere. Defnitely do not play, do not buy.

[twillight]

Finaly a worthy Diablo 2 clone.
Well, the aesthetics are more like World of Warcraft, or whatever, so more modern, I don't mind that, it's a mostly random generated maps, mountain of monsters and loot. Just what I was after. Suck it, Warhammer!

There are only 4 classes, but that's fine. The skill-system is a bit unusual, but you get used to it. Weird, that you can only have 2 active skills, which do NOT get to the numbered skillslots, which are mixed with consumable-slots. Those places can be filled with spells learnt from scrolls. Well, there are good passive skills anyway.

You also get a pet. While they offer nothing special, I'd uggest avoiding the jumping crab thing as it's movement is sub-par, the panda seems more passive than the others, and the dragon-chicken blends in with the enemy. The alpakka is great though. But your pick.
On the note: the pets seem invulnerable, so who knows what those statbuffs and resistances do to them from their equipment - those bonuses definitely not buff you. Maybe they come to play when they are transformed by eating fish.
You should do fishing, not because transforming the animals is so great, but because you might find equipment. Oh, to successfully fish, wait until the glow entirely fades away, leaving only the brown circle.

So, how are the classes?
The Engineer is Diablo's big hammer barbarian. Technicaly it could use other stuff (like cannons), but that option is clearly effective. The big advantage here is the healing bot. It is immortal like the pets, and sticks around until you sap map by teleporting. Just walking on the field will not banish it just because you entered an area with name.

The Berserker is another melee character. It gains healing by stealing health when hitting the enemy, so a bit more problematic. Also, whatever class you use, wear some +lot HP equipment, that'll help.
The mage is Diablo 2's mage. Distant spellcaster and whatnot. I think I saw a skill that might be able to heal or whatever, but definitely not its strong point. Note: its wands ARE ranged weapons themselves, though you probably will use skills with this one. Obstacles in the way, and elevation difference WILL be a problem though.
The Outcast, or whatever uses either two pistols (low range), or shotguns (they are devastating, at least during the early game). Something feels fishy though, as the third tab os skills are about glaives and such throwing weapons, which indicates this got a last minute redesign which was half-finished to avoid copyright claims - seems this was an amazon-clone.

Skill resets exists, but you can only re-do the last 3 points you spent (or would that completely remove that skill?), which gets more costly by progress.

I also have like no idea how to farm exp and gold in the game, as it seems the monsters do not respawn. Maybe they do if you perish?
I'd welcome a manual.

-------------

Beware, when you hit "sell all" on the pet's inventory (wether in the town at the shop, or sending the creature to sell your stuff, teleporting to twon is a rare occasion, and entirely unavailabhle when in a boss-arena), it sells EVERYTHING. Not just the tab you had open, but ALL tabs, meaning your fishes too to start with.

When you at the brink of going to Act 2 (meaning a new hub city), you'll be ca. lvl 23. So you can plan ahead. I'm trying to do a hardcore run on casual diff with a dual pistol outlander. It's not easy.

Btw, collecting sets while fun and possible, Ghastly and such low level stuff will become soon obsolate even if you manage to collect them, so keep that in mind.

Also, seems while the game was planned you only visit each area once, eventualy monsters in dungeons do respawn, probably for some memory-issue. They don't seem to scale in level though, but still. If you are out of ideas, especialy if you are doing hardcore, that's an option.
I was checking for more robot parts. I should also check if the guardians throw at you quest rewards. I'm not entirely sure about that one.

-------------

So, got to Act 3. What I think now?
Well, I have almost no idea about the story, but I wanned whacking monsters, and I do that. With hardcore tagged in, after playing what turned out like half of Act 1 with all 4 characters, Casual is the right difficulty to try that.
1HKO is a threat like in the genre, but the game is not obnoxcious like the Diablo-frnachise with it, so you learn what to do: hoard items with +HP on them, then add elemental resists and "armor" (seems the same as elemental resists, only for physical damage). Also rise your dmg to the roof as you can, but surviving is first for me.

Seems the pet COULD die, but it levelscales and whatnot, so that's not that big of a threat, and I bet it'd just respawn after the same time as goig to the town. There seems to be 2 permanent changes somewhat attractive: the spider and whatever, I guess ok to go for it on higher difficulty or something.

There are a ton of features to empty your stash, try those, eventualy in the town itself you'll get enchanters, socketers, mercs who destroy your item to get out the socketed stuff, or destroy the socketed stuff and preserve the item, or even make higher quality items, and the shops even sell set pieces occasionaly... I should figure out their refres rate maybe.
In act 3 they even sold a spell, and those are funky if you find the right ones, like healing. Healing is cool. Or summonning. Make your pet summon you an army of minions to help you out!
You'll need healing, ton of it, but for Casual the game is generous with potions, fortunately, because from the 2nd half of Act 2 you'll chuck them, the bosses starting to become ridiculously spongy, and hoard-spawner stuff become a thing, so crowd damage would be pretty welcomed... Btw, I don't find big badda cannons, so I'd skip that build no matter what. Twohanded melee seems ok though. No idea on mages stuff.
the game makes things more interresting from 2nd hald of act2 with traps and mechanics built into the floor, and the phase gates are always interresting gimmick to behold (only the first 3 is "defeat things fast").

Skill requirement goes through the roof, meaning you won't be able to pick a new skill level just because you gained a level, resulting in accumlating skill points, darn, whatever. The gear you find though will eventualy lead you to spend your statpoints, so there1s that, unlocking nice high level equipment to use is great (and necessary).

So, yeah, if you don't want innovation and hours upon hours cinematics, just hack&slashing monsters, this is seemingly perfect.


-------------


Note: do not entirely believe the level-requirement of dungeons. Like the nether-realm portals are always easy. There is a dungeon on the other hand filled with robots, and giant mechanical traps built into the floor, which is super hard. bosses which keep summonning infinite hordes are the thoughest, while giant strong but mostly solo bosses are way easier. For one of the dragons though, I think it was Vortex, the hard part is the "first statge", where hordes rush to you, and the dragon is not even targetable, but keeps on bombarding you with fire damage, which hits insane.
Coming to elemental damage, I'm playing on casual, and 3-4K HP is necessary, as well as 50-100 in all elemental resistances. You want poison resist 100 to manage the damage over time (you'll use potions to mitigate it), and 100 electric resists as when that type becomes an issue, it immediately hits hard. You can get away with only 50 cold resists though, and fire too until the late Act 3, where suddeny you'll crave for fire resists, I've put up 200 and still had to look for what I am doing. ON CASUAL DIFFICULTY.
Act 4 is just a single dungeon, very much like Diablo 1: one boss at the halfway point, and the final boss at the very end (this time some Cthulhu-monster). You'll reach this ca. lvl 50-51, not counting the Three Sisters quest, which I'd leave last, because you'll have to fight 3 boss monsters (not champion, but boss!) the same time, and that does not sound funny. I'd risk you might want to grind for levels, or advanace some in Act 4 before trying your luck there, especialy on higher difficulties.

[twillight]

The overlay (buttons, control etc.) is clunky, but that was expected.
What was not expected is that every bloody screen has an unmutable, loud, bonoxious, repeated, never-ending NOISE coming from the environment, wether it is ducks, or the blacksmith hammering, or whatever.


I'm glad i only played a demo, and not bought it.

[twillight]

- Cave Story's Secret Santa: this was some GoG-giveaway. It was actualy fun. Go around, do some puzzles, not too long, not too tireing, has some cheesy story.
- Dark Quest 2: DQ1 was pretty good, and 2 offered the right kind of improvements. The problem is, you can re-do quests, and I mean the tutorial, which'll give you multiple extra skillpoints. You should acculate these by progressing through the game, but this bug gives you infinite loop. Otherwise the whole thing is too simplistic to bother.
- The Darkside Detective + A fumble in the dark: technicaly speaking these are 2 separate games, but I'd suggest get them both for the full experience. The difficulty incirises slowly through the double pack accordingly. It's the begginer's adventure game so to say, so if you constantly get bogged down in adventure game puzzles, but still like the genre in idea, or you are just want to show adventure games to a youngling and still have them succeed eventualy, this is a strong recommendation.
- Keep in Mind (remastered): well, this is one of those garbage-bin trash games, and while this one at least has like no trouble with its controls, it's still one of those "who thought this crap will sell" games. Still worth checking its let1s play on u2b.
- Tonight we riot: incredibly basic, potentialy too hard, not enough apeal

[twillight]

Ak ind of acventure-game, without point&click. You are just roaming around with an action-button.
Don't worry about the items, you'll use them automaticaly, there is no separate button for messing with them.


You can speed up your walking with SHIFT.


After you realise like the first puzzle, and that no, the only key you found until that does NOT unlock the sole locked there you found uuntil that, things will turn easy.
With amateur graphc, short runtime, and a very underwhelming ending, I think back in the days it would have been shareware.


PS: the mirror-labyrinth has no clue for it, despite the cakes-with-candles(?) could have been obvious markers. So it is old-school tedium, but a bit better than Zak McCraken, as you get plenty of visual clues for mapping the place.
To not waste more time than you have to: there's only 1 item in there, don't look for more.

[twillight]

Oh, man.
First: despite its age and old-style clunky interface, this WOULD be an acceptable game to complete.
Two things stands in its way:


One: you start without a hub, no access to Elvira and her spellcrafting. Genious. Also no map. Ridiculous. Yu have no idea where to go at the start, and every junction there is an enemy, and no sign where you'll find the hub you desperately need.


Two: this game works on consumables. I always have to ask since Maniac Mansion: WHY? At least make them respawn!
If you have mana, or whatever, you should be able to refill it whenever the player wants it. Either by standing around (boring), or going back to the hub (tp pls), or the bare minimum of respawning consumables.
Sure, you can have limited consumables if this is a survival-game, but then the player must have a very good idea what they are doing. Here you do not.
And this is not Maniac Mansion, which worked on very limited number of rooms.


You could probably beat it eventualy, but I feel things would just fall back to save-scumming, and I don't rly see the replay value.

[twillight]

Some kinda superisingly generic looking 3D platformer, where you direct the camera with your mouse, what is probably not the worst idea I've seen, but definitely not a common thing I've encountered. If you are fine with that, try it, though I have to also warn you, this somehow wants as much memory as a warhammer-game, aka. a lot. You'll be able to downgrade the graphic from "epic" level after half an hour strougle with the lag, but still.

I thought this'll be something like Little Divil, but as told, the demo at least is suprisingly bland.

[twillight]

Butcher is a 2D-platformer Doom clone. Sounds weird? Whatever. The "Normal" fiddiculty is "hard mode", and for a reason. This game is for hardcore jumping-around enemies and giant chainsaws.
It reminds me of a flashgame, what had much better graphic, and less of this modern arena-shooter feeling, but whatever.
There is an "easy" mode, what substantialy buffs the player, but the whole design of it is totaly disheartening, so if you are not "hardcore" from the start, you don't want to play this through, because the game successfully ridicules you on such level it would just feel shameful.


Sunblaze is ... Well, cutsy-looking 2D plaformer. The problem is, it starts hard, and has more level just in "Chapter 1" than your regular platformer in its entire length. During which nothing happens, so I get the feeling like for Atomix: sure, I see I'm progressing, but this is a marathon, while I just wanna have fun.
And I don't even know where the save function is.
And there are way not enough stroy-chit-chat happenning.
If you are good in these Hollow Knight randomised survival modern stuff, you'll likely like this, as it's not even roguelike randomized level but progressing through a fixed set of settings, but I got bored/tired after what was in a let's play 5 minutes, and that was only halfway of "chapter 1", what is supposed to be the tutorial.
If I had nothing else, or there'd be a pretty good reward waiting, I'd maybe attempt a playthrough, but this way I'm dropping out.

[twillight]

Alder's Blood is some Darkest Dungeon knockoff, some high-mortality roguelike high-stratfluctuation thing I just never got used to.


The Prologue, which is like a demo-chapter is a 1 character fixed story, probabléy mainly teaching the mechanics of a hunt itself, or stealthing, or whatever.
Problem is, the whole thing falls back to try-until-succeed, because despite you trying your best doing what the game/tutorial tells you to do, the game will screw you over and over and over with hidden enemies, unexpected mechanics, so the whole thing is just irritating.


No wonder I stopped claiming GoG's giveaways. You are better off paying for something you maybe will like than picking up these "lucky bags", which 99% turn out not worth your investment.

[twillight]

This says on its page is a rogue-like, but it surprisingly lacks enemies.
What it also lacks, as usual, to tell what equipment is worth carrying around. So if you seriously want to bother, find a guide or something, because eventualy, you'll run out of equipment.


90% of the rooms for me were empty on the first floor (or what), found no new character.
The special moves make the controls a problem, or at least will on the later stages, because I just shotgunned everything not really bothering.


That the first floor's boss was Cthulhu itels was a letdown.


The game has some nasty trick, namely: the spikes in the floor which make you bleeding make walking around the map a hassle.
The boss-room started in a very narrow corridor for me, so it could do some cheap potshot on me.
Lastly, there was a room with enemies, so instant instinct made me shoot. Well, in the damage area was an explosive barrel that killed me. I had an ankh to not loose my game, but that's a rare thing, and either way, it's a rogue-like, so you should know about this.


Mys problem is, it's not very interresting. As it is a rogue-like the lore-pieces are like Binding of Isaac: worth nothing; and the enemies being scarce does not help either.


So I say the game is mid. If you know what items will be needed to collect, and are ready to sink in your time, it's not a bad experience, I just can play something more exciting.

[twillight]

I thought this will be a short, flimsy free, nostalgiabait adventure-game.
How I was mistaken.


For the like half of the game it was fine. I could solve things with a bit of trial and error, though I suspected the game is trolling me in one puzzle, so despite things being logical it was suspicious the dev are just trolling, but I could pass it for 1 such puzzle, ok? I mean finding woof for making fire with magnifying glass in the only place it even hints the possibility, making everything prepared, just not need the firewood there at all in the end - a simple bit of semi-obvious trolling, right?


Then there was that repeated-action puzzle, and that part where you have to dismantle your ingenious crafted device - now that's some Sierra-level crap.


But what I'll never forgive, is the animal-food ingerdient measuring.
The labels on the sacks? Irrelevant. The label at the hamster-wheel? Irrelevant. Recipes in the cooking-books? Irrelevant. As far as I can tell, you just have to pull the numbers out of your arse.


F this game.

[twillight]

This was an oldschool walk around shooter for Amiga, Sega Genesis and such.
So I thought, a simple game from simpler times, what can go wrong.
Well, what COULD go wrong is: the lack of direction where you are supposed to be heading.


You see, the levels have a time-limit by some rising - obviously lethal - waterlevel. So you obviously try to go up.


But you can't just jump on the platforms above you, oh no.
Yiou need to find the spots that let you upward either by placing the platforms very close at level, or by some weird 90 degree angle platforms you just walk like it's nothing surprising.
The bad part is, many times you got like 5 screens in a direction, and the only way to go that way - is down!


So I ssume you should "learn the level", in what is a fast-paced envirnomnent, and that's where I say no.


Kontra, and Castlevania were obvious coin-eaters, but this - this is somehow even worse.

[twillight]

Poland made an adventure-game. Classic Point&Click style.
There is an action-selection bar, but it's not inconvenient, and that you only get 1-2 puzzles the same time, and are limited to 9 items by design (meaning you simply can't get more, so your inventory won't be flooded with useless red herrings) is an advantage.
Otherwise you clearly see they knew some western games, like Discworld, or Broken Sword and such.
Unfortunately they also knew Sierra's game-design, so you have all the hated tropes of adventure games: pixel-hunting, necessary to repeat actions without warning, quicktime events, moon-logic - they even manage to lead you in one quest, then leave you hang around with no clues that you must do this other puzzle to catch up with this so you can solve the dragon task...


But all in all, everything in this game is familiar adventure game design, so I rate it 4 out of 5, with a warning.


PS: it's an annoying feture that your inventory pops up if you bring the cursor to the top of the screen. And yes, that's how you access it.


PPS: I waited 20+ years to play this game, and I like the world, the style, the humor - I just don't like the puzzles.

[twillight]

Or I dunno, but this became absolutely ridiculous.
You start a game - and turns out it is incompatible with your hardware.
What even is this?
And no, you can NOT know this BEFORE trying the software out.
And I'm fed up with this.


Another issue is: where to get controllers for PC? I bought once, brought back to the shop the same day because it was incompatible. Not sure if with the system, or the particular game... I don't even care about it anymore. I refuse trying to play controller-based games, because controllers are inaccessible, and there is this compatibility-issue.
Seriously.
Not to mention, I'm small, and everything is designed for 6 feet / 180 cm males. It's a miracle if I find a controller that fits my hands.
So just no.
and what was that? The production-company said their controllers regularly break during transport to the shops selling them? Like a third of their controllers won't work because of their transportation to the shop? What are these made of? Nintendo Switch controllers?
I had enough of this nonsense.


One of the controller-based games I've just tried out was Steam World Dig 2 or whatever, it started the character going from left to right. For unexplained reasons a chasm opened, and now we are diggin down. Why? there's no explanation. Don't ask questions. Just consume product. And be excited for new product.
I'm fed up with this nonsense.

[twillight]

I'm beating my backlog at a pretty good speed, and while doing it I decided I want to re-play some of the adventure-game titles along, as there are some new games I want to play which are adventure-games too, and I'll try to beat them without a walktrough.

So my first game was Discworld (1995), and it went not so good. I got stuck despite already played the game 2-3 times through 23 times despite my best efforts.
The reasons were pixelhunting, not trying enough random items, or just the game lacking any clues provided what I am supposed to do.

On the plus side this game has a pretty good pacing, cute graphic, good gumour, and does not want to literaly kill you.

--------------

Some of the titles I'll never revisit:
- Zak McKracken: even just the memory of the maze-puzzle makes me not even starting it.
- "classic Sierra Titles": eg. Leisure Suit Larry. I remember trying that one, and it was horrible experience. Branching pathes, one true path, nonsense scoring...
- any text-based adventure: Hitchehiker's Guide to the Galaxy with its Babel Fish Puzzle took my will ever touching anything like that ever again
- Maniac Mansion: sure, the character-based branching of the story is fun on paper, but in practice just annoyance. And especialy in its original for - without saving - has plenty of deathtraps built in, so big no from me.
- Tormentum, Dark Seed, and company: these are nonsense. I'm not interrested anymore. Very style over substance, and horrid gameplay.
- Deponia, Toonstruck, Full Throtle: these games are middle of the road execution with pretty frustrating puzzles. I just can't be bothered to touch them again, even WITH a walkthrough. Without that, they'd be nightmarish

------------

There are a coule titles that get honourable mentions, because they can be played through without too much problem w/o a walkthrough even for the first time:
- Phamtasmagoria 2: this was an FMV-game, and eventualy, with some trial&error, you'll be able to pass it. Great stuff, plenty of spooky thing happenning.
- The Darkside Detecive + A Fumble in the Dark: these are in reality one game, one story. You start with very easy mini-adventures, and you progress pretty far tbh, but without the insanity-inducing adventure-game tropes ever killing your mood (because they don1t show up). Pretty cool experience. If you want someone to have feeling of success while playing adventure game, this is the perfect game for them. Seriously: if you only play 1 adventure game, pick these.
- Pikuniku: more of a platformer combined with adventure game storyline and mechanics, which is seemingly designed for 5-yearsers, but do rpovide challange for grownups even with its minigames mostly. I recently played it through, and fully recommend it, it's lighthearted fun, very refreshing.

--------------

the titles I plan on playing:

prisoner of ice

day of the tentacle

galador

broken sword 1-2

monkey island 1-5(-6?)

dscworld noir

the night of the rabbit

grim fandango

flight of the amazon queen

[twillight]

Pixelhunting during timed events in a game where the graphic does everything to hide the items from you.


And from certain events (finding the man in the box, finding the file of Parker) you expect more (like being able to read the file, report the body to someone).


There are also a couple of "try every item until succeed" puzzles, but given the limited number of items, it's ok.


Oh, and don't rely on the autosave. It is very obvious the game has this function, but it doesn't happen where you'd really want (meaning right before every quicktime event), so do manual saves.


I still like the atmosphere though. The music, the story, the cutscene graphics elevates this. Solid 4/5.

[twillight]

Not the hardest game per se, but shouldn't be your first either, because the puzzles, stuff to do and humour is a bit on the abstract side already.
I mean knifing the toy-clown? And that's not the only such thing to commit.


Then there are the "real knowledge tests". It's not Shadow of the Comet, which demands you knowing in real life how to develop photos with chemicals in a lab - because the game is not telling you that. No idea why they did not include a book about photography in the library there...
Here you need to make vinnegar from wine by time-travel. Not the most obscure knowledge, but neither is everyday street-stuff.


Finaly i had problem with making Fred sign that bloody contract, because all the sudden the player is expected to go through a very specific line of conversation. Not the depth of Galador, but c'mon!

[twillight]

Ugh. Quicktime events, pixel-hunt, quicktime-event-pixelhunt to the brim, missing clues, deliberately trollin the player not giving them the necessary clue to continue, or just utter random guessing (those 4-liners are a nightmare).


There's also a puzzle where you should use the key item/action not on the target you think - rmeinds me of Prisoners of Ice, tzhat one.


There's also a part where repeated same action is needed, Because Why Not.


There are also unnecessarily complicated puzzles, including inventory-puzzles.


So this is a hardcore game, not the shareware thing it looks like to be from its first location.
I still think this is far from the worst, but definitely the gatekeeper to hardcore adventure games.

[twillight]

This game is front-loaded with difficulty. Logic puzzles, and all that. If you are not good solving the rubik's Cube, or that pesky "here is a jumble of symbols, here is the alphabet, go and solve this", you'll be toast.


But that aside, only a couple of puzzles are very challanging. A lot of times it helps you are confined to a certain area, so don't get confused.


I accidently solve the goat-puzzle by clicking the doorway by instinct, than clicking the only other thing on the screen, so dunno what to say about that, but we do get some other unfair puzzles, like the "find the Bible passages" puzzle where the letters do not allign verticaly so you don't look for it, and even when you do the puzzle breakes its own rules, and the double-coloumn all the sudden is not part of the puzzle anymore.
Also, the priest cleans the chalice literaly forever. And despite your character insists you should lok around INSIDE the church, you shouldn't.
But while inside, it took me forever to look through the statue's scroll, and I'm not sure what achueved that in the end.


The good thing is, the interavtive parts (items to pick up, elements to mess with) are all highlighted in an obvious way very much like Day of the Tentacles, and on top of it there's not even word-choice puzzle here, it either works or not.
Tbh, with oh-so-many conversations, this game is a bit boring even.


I'd rate it "easy" after you pass the "tutorial level" Darkside Detective. Easy for an adventure game I mean.
Seems to be rules of adventure games:
- talk with everyone about everything
- try everything on everything
- do it again if you ran out of options. Maybe something changed or an option got activated.
- there will be a puzzle with Unusual Mechanic. In every single adventuregame.
- there'll be also a strange goldberg-machine you have no reason to boggle down with, but is actualy mandatory. I mean what was that with the cat, the ring and the ball? It's so random!

[twillight]

Oh, man. I had to describe this one with one word, it's tedious.
You rly don't get much more than the prvious, but the logiuc-puzzles are mostly missing, and replaced with tedious manual labour.


The game is shorter, but does not feel that much shorter, actualy it still feels longer than the first one.


And yes, you can get stuck on unreasonable puzzles. It's one thing when you stuck in a situation your character has no actual reason to bother with the place - thinking of the priest-hermit, but when it comes to getting into the museum while the goldberg-machine's parts are obvious (give fish to cat, use ball to crash don marker, steal plans, get in), the actual execution is nonsense. I don't think any human would come to that conclusion.
Even worse is when you walk into the jungle on Skull Island. The film-crew is horrendous, but not the worst part. Thought the "maze" will be that one, but nah, it's a straight line (and I even stack the reed into the hole! I'm proud). The problem is, there's no indicator when you achieve something, so the player constantly questions if should try more, or what.
Seriously, you put down the tesodolite, then for no appearant reason go back, fight the boar and put on the marker. Than use the teodolite when there's no indication that a new unique mechanique just got implemented to move the bugger around, then there's no indication a new pathway just got unlocked. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE? This part is just pure bad design if you ask me.

[twillight]

Oh, pal.
Don't start with this one, although most of the conent is solveable with some experience. Even the occasional quicktime events.
I wonder if the troll would eat you though...


Anyway, there are some dialogue-options that'd warant some replayability, but on the other hand there are some points that can yout your adventure short.
Before that though, I will complain for the placement of the sword-trainer. I'd switch his location with Meathook, so the flow of the story does not get an abrupt halt.
Now the first real problem is getting that fish. The solution: repeated action.
Repeated action gets real horrible though with Monkey Island's monkey. 5 bananas for no reason. There's no marker that that's enough. No indication what to do with it now.
I could complain about the cannibals, but with some adventure-game instinct you'll realise you just have to try everything on them to get through with them, so I don't.
But I complain for the monkey.


Herman's cannon's location could also have had a better marker. Definitely in the Remastered version, I just played for the first time. Aside for the voices, it's inferior to the classic interface and graphic.

[twillight]

By time progressing, I grew kinda appreciativ to this game, though I'll probably never like it either.
But tbh the ending makes sense, especialy if you binged the two games, and the puzzles' difficulty is kinda perfect.
With a couple of exceptions.


the spit-contest is very hard to figure out with wind, and the drink being necessary component for the otherwise trivial event.
and the elevator at the end for some reason did not close the first time I tried it? I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for that.
come to think of it, the code to win prize on the fortune wheel is another thing i just brute-forve it via save-scamm every time.


Now the real problems are two:
- the monkey. Why any of that part of the puzzle happens is beyond me. Sure, it makes sense when you have the solution, but otherwise... Nonsense.
- and LeChuck's piece of clothing. Now THAT goes against everything adventure-game. There's just no way a player would not just pick up that coin and move on. That you are pressured with that random quicktime event is horrendous too. That room absolutely needed LeChuck only showing up there if you put the coin into the machine! And react to the bloody coin! I once threw the coin into the coke-maton during the brief pause after he enters the room, and that has no effect! I call BS.


PS: there's also a new adventure-game trope in this one which wasn't in the previous titles listed here: the scummbag protagonist. You deliberately have to do nasty things, to which only the killing the rubber clown in Day of the Tentacles come close if anything. Here you steal a blind man's glasses, and saw off a pegleg of a disabled person. Not even close to the Deponia-series, but still something you have to account for.
Darn, I hate deponia for it's protagonist's attitude to the world!

[twillight]

You know, this is what I would consider adventure game standard should be.
Sure, the interface is pretty straightforward, very similar to Day of the Tentacles Remastered (but this one doesn't offer you the action you shall use), and the puzzles are far from easy, but that's what adventuregame-players wish for, right? Wonky, makes you think lateraly hard puzzles, but not to the point of moon-logic.
So making the guy chew on jawbreaker to make his gold tooth fall out, put it in a gum, inhale helium and thus make it flow through the window is a pretty good puzzle if you ask me. Not obvious for the normal mind, but you can figure out if you've played some adventure-games already I'd say.


And it has good graphic, a clever storyline, connections to the previous installments and so on.
I do wonder what would have been the original idea for MI3, but pretty much guaranteed it'd've been a financial bomb, unlike this one everybody adores.

[twillight]

Oooh. I hate this one. I didn't remember how tedious this was. And hard. I remembered it felt empty, and was about lawyers, and paperwork, but all the combinations of this three factor just makes it insufferable.


And it gets worse by progress!
First there is such nonsense you have to win 3 times in a row AGAINST THE RANDOM to hire the navigator. Ok, brute force it with save-scamming.
Then there is the prohestetic shop, and its code-decyphering... Those always manage to be tedious. I'd just buy a puzzle-magazine if I would want that nonsense!
Than quicktime-events which require ultimate precision in a clunky controllled game take over, and finaly Monkey Kombat (yes, it is some Mortal Kombat reference). And it's not funny. Just pure tediousness. The tediousness start with the boulder-puzzle about the bronze hat. Just nah. Too much.


Btw, have to re-play the first game to figure out WTH was that with the Journey of the Sea Monkey. What dd the game say, who was the other guy with "Herman"? I don't remember everything. Which rmeinds me, Escape... is full of puzzles where the clues get only once, in a conversation, where there is no pause, and the clue is just some throwaway line.
It's nonsense. Too much. Watch a playthrough on youtube if you need to know what happens in this one, it just does not worth your energy. This game is an energy-vampire.

[twillight]

I knew from first hand experience this is not the game it was hyped to, still a disappointment.


For the first half of this thing the lack of a map is a real issue for the player, as they don't have the knowledge of their character, what stinks. The worse thing is, the game is trolling you, teasing with a solution, while executing another. Still, this part is survivable if you make some notes what your goals are.
Then comes the pixelhunting, quicktime events, and straight out BS. And the incosistent lore, like it's a big deal skellyies don't drown because no lungs - but then how are they smoking? This gets a real problem when you get in HL's casino, and the game straight out tells you, Manny won't change clothes, because the previous set stinks. Because you walked through the sewers this makes sense. What does NOT makes sense, that you have to go back to the sewers. And the new cloth somehow won't get stinky. My arse. This is just bad design.
For the puzzles the really bad designs start with opening the door to Meche. There is just no way anyone guessed it out without a walkthrough. And the puzzle-design rly gets worse from there. Puzzles for puzzles sake, Sierra-style. And that method killed Sierra when it because so obvious it hit everyone on the nose in Roberta Williams' Phantasmagoria. It was bad there, it is bad when Lucasarts did it too.


The whole story could have been a great animated movie. But as a game - it's annyoing, frustrating, disappointing, tedious, and overal not fun to play. I'm sorry, but that's how I feel about this mess.


Lastly: where are the people from this thing? Very Escape from Monkey Island syndrome.

[twillight]

Well, this game is definitely "easy" when it comes to adventure games. Not baby-easy, you understand, you have to be pretty patient and stuff, but MOST of it is not a real obstacle.
I said MOST of it.
Oh, and the controls are clunky AF, so move around with keyboard, and click on stuff with mouse, and get used to the still clunky interface.

Part 1
This chapter trolls you quite a bit, posing artificail barriers in your exploration, and I dun care more times than not turned out my original idea was a miss. I should have been able to try it out!

Part 2
Now here are 2 puzzles which are "call our hotline" BSs.
- when on the shore with the two pirates I figured out I have to mark the friggin treasure-chest to be able to find it. With a bit of head-scratching and going around everywhere in case i missed some hotspots, I figured out the right item to do it. The problem was, even though I distracted them, they noticed me.
The solution was to dig into some obscure dialogue-tree which offered 2 other method of distraction beside just the plain distraction. Nof this is just dleiberately making life of the player miserable.
- the other was changing your main mass to a rubber tree. When that cannon-ball hit me it was totaly obvious from MI3, and I saw a rubber tree in this game... So I went to the merchant - and the option never came up. The solutuion was, that instead you should have sailed to the place with broken ship, I think, meet two pirates there, make them dig out the tree, and THEN go back to the shop. But I had no reason to think like this, so I had to go thriugh the thing with repeaired mass, make it broken again, go back to the shop, where finaly THE OPTION CAME UP. This is utter BS, bad design, deliberate sabotage of progress.

Part 3
This is hindered again by 2.5 puzzles:
- to "get to Flotsam Island" is full of red herrings. Like why is that other ship there? Why is the hint we get inside the game is to bargain with the dude at the shore from the ship? The whole intermezzo of course would be a bit easier the very least if a key item (photo of Guybrush) wouldn't be hidden behind a PIXELHUNT in a game where pixelhunting is practicaly impossibe? Well, if I had a week to figure things out, I'd PROBABLY found that pesky little thing which was ON ANOTHER LEVEL comapred to where I was looking for it, because of course it was, and you can't look back the video that has the clue, obviously.
- the conversation between the manatees is Galador level BS. Not that terrible, but pretty much the "guess the 4 line magic spell" puzzle transfered here. It's just tedious. AND you can not save when you are doing conversation, so yeah, bloody tedious.

Part 4
Now this WOULD BE a very satisfying chapter IF Telltale hadn't turned lazy AF, and fixed the gamebreaking bugs. They had the time to release a patch for F sake.
there are 2 major bugs you can't play around:
- the game crashes when you finaly allowed to enter the jungle, and you do so
- at the end of the chapter you SHOULD BE ABLE to talk with De Singe, but you can not.
To solve these GAMEBREAKING bugs go to the game's folder\Pack, and DELETE EVERY SINGLE FILES beside the X_ chapter-files and the WAV file. Dunno when those broken files get there, maybe there's an auto-delition issue or something, but it is definitely bloody annoying!!!
Bugs aside, there is one hardcore level puzzle here with the map. Nothing warns or hints you that, and there are aplenty of red herrings, which makes you think it has to do either with Stan's Voodoo Lady doll, or the calendar in the jungle. Because, you know: everyone is telling you "FUTURE!", and not "unknown". So F your "call our hintline instead" ingame clues, Telltale!


Part 5
If anything, this chapter looks epic. Seriously. This game in whole is for me as Grim Fandango to other people. Il ove the characters, the story, and most of the puzzles. The controls are clunky, and some things are annyoing, but still.
Now the crash-bug also exists here - again just delete everythin that's not x_ chapter-file.
The most annoying part here is getting those Obvious Keys during the final confrontation, which is made of quicktime-events a'la MI3, but here you have to set up a bunch of inventory-puzzles, modifying the sorroundings, finding shortcuts - and include a series of obscrure dialoge-tree puzzles. Now that was a mistake. Totaly breaks the flow, and you are just stading around to get punched, and finaly land on the screen you want something to try next. Annoying. Tedious. An action-filled ending to the waste.
And what was that ending? totaly anti-climactic to an epic saga. Were more episodes planned? I have no idea. Feels like some kind of fanfic. Making the Voodoo Lady causing the Mysterious Storm that crushed LeChuck's ship, making him ghost - obvious. But they've done nothing with it. Was this written by JarJar Abrams? Feels like one of his "Mystery Box"-es.

[twillight]

One: you are not playing the rabbit.
Two: the game does not take place in one night, or any number of nights.
Three: this game is ludicrously slow. There's a whole sentence worth of space between every sentence said, and there are a lot of sentences told.
Four: it has a tutorial that sees you a moron. Takes forever, and after passing some intro-area where you click on stuff to move, converse and stuff, explains that you can click on things. I mean what?
Five: the first puzzle is a stupid force-railroaded nonsense, which requires a very-very high level of understanding of english. That's in obvious direct contrast to the tutorial you just've done. I mean couldn't you allow to mix the ingredients at least in whatever order, like any other adventure-game? And don't even start me with the symbol drawn on that random frog-rock. What was even that?


All in all I'm not against this, but I only suggest picking it up when you have waaay too much time not having anything remotely interresting in reach. I mean classical paintings are neat, but if there is an action-movie in the cinema - the film-theatre will always win.

[twillight]

This is an FMV adventure-game. Not like Dungeon's Lair, which was motion-capture (so now I know what happened to FMV games), but live action stuff.


It is unlike Phantasmagoria 2 way more serious, adult if you like. And the interface is a bit clunky, could have been polished. But it look like ok. But I guess it'll take more time than I have right now, and that it is half-german, without subtitles, doesn't help either.


Also, don't forget to read the manual! it'll save you a bunch of headache, because the interface looks waaay too complex when you turn this on the first time. PLus there is a clue for a unique-mechanic puzzle.

[twillight]

I dunno what this wanned to be. Point&Click adventure, or visual novel.
Either way, it has 3 possible endings, from which one is unlocked by picking up that makeshift-weapon, another possibly by refusing to pick it up - or you have that and the 3rd unlocked either way.


Anyway, it is waaay to short, even for 4 bucks you get what, 20-30 minutes "gameplay" - actualy maybe 10 min gameplay and 10 min unskippable cutscene.
At best worth 1$, but just why bother.


This thing also eats too much memory for its own good. I mean lagging in this? C'mon!


PS: I did not do it before ditching the trial, but it seems possible to use the sharpened sawmill on the other door, so the game MIGHT have SOME hidden variation I do not know of. But beside this puzzle, it's just... It should be free.

[twillight]

This is an interresting one, though I wonder when it'll become at least a bit of a challenge.
So you roam around on a fixed map (no procedural generation), in a combat-system very much like Binding Isaac. The gimmick here is, you can change forms during combat, and customize your forms as needed.

The start is kinda interresting, even makes you think a little bit, on the other hand you soon find out things respawn if you leave the area, and death has barely any consequence aside porting to the nearest save-point and respawning some monsters.

The important thing is, you gain XP for the "original form", and FPs (form points) for the various forms. This means you'll get stuck with the rat for quite a chunk of time (until you meet the hammer, which unlocks the cutomisability of your forms).
This is a shame, because eg. in the first star-door-dungeon you are pretty much forced to fight as the rat (only that having the required elemental type for attacking the local monsters).

One of the weaker points of the game is, it is built to use a controller, though they did everything to make the gameplay keyboard -friendly too. But switching between the forms with hotkeys (1, 2, 3 etc.) would have been even more convenient. Not that you want to switch oh-so-much with customization being an option.

Anyway, try to advance with what you can, and here is a hint: you'll need the robot form for a quest available pretty early, teasing you to no end. The quest is to stand a hit from a dude who hits you 100% of your HP - the robot has a passive that circumwents this issue.
Annoying, I know. Especialy that you can't just look up all the attributes of the forms, data is only shown when advancing your form-levels. Argh!

But it's a pretty fun game otherwise. Have high hopes for NewGame+ mode.


---------


Forms:

Nobody:
size: normal
drawback: it can't have any ability, so don't bother being in this form unless mandatory. It has a base melee attack though until you get another form.

Rat:
size: small
drawback: its leveling is hindered by story-progression at certain times

Egg:
size: small
drawback: can only level up by special encounters (nests)

Guard:
size: normal
advantage: pretty tanky. Harvests mana like no other.
drawback: not really

Horse:
size: normal
advantage: it's a solid transitional form
drawback: awkward controls and attack-pattern. Not very tanky.

Magician:
size: normal
advantage: summons stuff
drawback: the summons are constantly loosing HP just by existing, the rabbit is kinda useless, the tiger is at best 33% to spawn
NOTE: its base attack is MELEE, so don't expect your usual wizardry

Turtle:
size: small
advantage: can swim (just walk into the "water"
disadvantage: no dmg, no HP, terrible moves.

Ranger:
size: normal
advantage: basic attack is ranged (costs no mana)
disadvantage: slow and awkward to use
NOTE: at least one dungeon demands ranged damage exclusively, so keep that in mind

Slug:
size: small
advantage: its basic attack is ranged, and generates mana very quickly So if you can solve swapping between this and the ranger, you have one blasting combo
disadvantage: it requires a passive slot to overcome its slow speed, but otherwise this form is surprisingly good

NOTE: some "form quest" requires BS things, like kill 10+ enemies with 1 attack, or hit one enemy 20 times.
The first can be solved going to the edge of an area, with a group of monsters close, or some monster groups close enough to each other, and hope your manapool will last long enough.
The other type of quest is very annoying a sit obviously limits your progress. Like if you pumped your dmg ASAP at the shop, or thorugh the token-system, or something, I bet you can even softlock the game for you.
NOTE 2: also found an artificial barrier on the Slug-tier, so the Monk, Rogue, Robot and Necromancer as well as the Dragon can not be unlocked until waaay deep in the story. There is SOME story.

Mermaid:
size: normal
advantage: can swim (not as fast as the turtle), ranged attacker.
disadvantage: its attacks are clumsy.

Body Builder:
size: normal
advantage: it can hit a bunch of monster in one go
disadvantage: its attack has a bit of a delay on it, plus it is a projectile with immense width, so it can get stuck in narrow corridors, doing nothing. It also refuses to work if stairs are in the way.
This is not a bad build, and if you get it zombie-making, it's hilariously overpowered.

Ghost:
size: normal
advantage: "floats" (poisonus liquid and lava still effects it, so it's totaly swimming)
disadvantage: this thing is a waste of space. It is supposed to be an aura-attacker, but the aura-size is too small, and you need like 3+ enemies at once attacking you at close proximity to enlarge it, while you don't have any kind of defense, no active attack. This aura also does not generate mana either to make other options accessible. As said: a waste of space. It is worse than the turtle, and that's an achievement.

Zombie:
size: normal
advantage: pretty good in combat
disadvantage: it constantly looses HP
You'll have to use this to unlock some of the Advanced Forms, so use it if your HP is high, mana is ok, and only when encountering some mob. Do NOT walk around in it between fights.

NOTE: basicaly (with 1 area on the NW, and the expansion's area) until you collect the 3 Shards, you are locked into the bottom 2 row of the map. This is still enough to "max out" all your available forms, and I did not even ivsit the dungeons without quest! That's somehow awesome.
I mean I upped pretty much everything to rank B, where the last moves are unlocked. Some forms only have 3 moves (so my zombie form is at C). I suspect that some of the forms which do not relate to the afformentioned Advanced Forms can be pushed to whatever level, B was plenty for me, I mean I even B-ed turtle, which is just the worst.
Oh, and the Egg also reaches rank B here! Crap, maybe there is even more, because there are 2 areas on the bottom two rows where no quest sent me, so I just left them for now.
ANOTHER NOTE: there is that horse-racing minigame for the mage guild. I THINK I had 2 races, won the first with Glaop and the "you have 100 speed minimum" passive. The second race I gave the horse the snail's slime which DOUBLES the speed-bonus compared to Gallo, and used Dodge to dash in when in the finish line. Picking up the raddish to boost the mana (via a passive) was also key. I tell you this, because I still not invested token into ANY skills.

Rogue:
size: normal
advantage: not much
disadvantage: pretty lackluster form with a very complicated basic attack.

Necromancer:
size: big
advantage: you do a mid-range force-lightning for free, and has an ok-strong summon which even lasts long
disadvantage: because of its size it can have trouble at unexpected places, also a bit slow. For some reason it can also loose HP very rapidly.

Robot:
size: big
advantage: kinda solid - on paper
disadvantage: it's missile requires enemies staying in range, so it's like useless if the enemy notices you, or an object is in your way. It also tends not to 1HKO enemies etc. The melee attack is nice, but pretty slow. So this form is not optimal if you ask me.

Dragon:
size: big
advantage: floats (it is immun to lava, but not to fire in general. Not sure about poisonous liquids.)
disadvantage: mainly a ranged attacker, though solid in either way. Worthy to unlock.

NOTE: ,uch lower level enemies get the "fear2 condition - AND DON'T EVEN COUNT AS "baddies" ANYMORE!

Because of challenges, you'll want these abilities upgraded to the max:
- Hardened Shell (egg)
- Incubate (egg)
- Hat Trick (mage)
- Slime Slide (slug)
- Fleet Footed (nobody)
- Magic Life (nobody)
- Boo (ghost, 3 was ennough)
- Horse Power (horse, 3 was enough)

NOTE: the Nobody form only requires rank B to max out his skills, while all other forms demand rank S.

For the final thief-initiation use Ghost Form with Fleet Footed passive (maxed), caltrops (1st wave), gallop (2nd wave), holy light + boo (final wave). one Boo lasts through the whole ordeal, so activate it whenever you like.

The mage guild just wants you to do some dungeon-work, nothing special, though once they'll charge you for 3,000 gold.

The fighters include the ranger form too for whatever reason. Either way: Fireball from dragon form will solve the ranger task, and Dragon Form in general also works wonders during the not-form-related quests (especialy the final one).

Whackamelee (Colosseum Challenge)
form: Rogue
passive: sure footed (4), mermaid resolve (any), magic lifeű
actives: pump up (any), flex (any)
strategy: pump back up when your buff drops to 3. Without Sure Footed the whole thing is a gamble, as spinner-enemies will just headspawn you, and interrupt your flex.

Barrel Breaker:
form: ghost
passive: mana shield, quick cooldown, horse power
actives: boo, holy light
strategy: for this to work you need to be hit by the fire-fans (hence mana shield), and gain mana from the barrels (thus horse power). You also need Boo active, so you cann ot spare quick cooldown, so you do not have space for Fleet Footed. So you must write up the patterns. There will be 5 waves, the number of set of barrels are: 4, 5, 6, 4, 5. For the patterns watch a video, but you can start from these notes: up, down, diagonaly up left to right, diagonaly down right to left. Left, right, up, down, center. Complicated. NW corner, SE corner, SW corner, NE corner. a whole circle starting from NE, and finaly the center. It is fairly easy once you know the setup and the patterns.


Power Defense:
form: necromancer
passive: magic life, quick cooldown, zomnomnom
active: necrotic lightning (necro default), arrow of flurry, water spray, rattler turret
strategy: your main damage-source will be the turrets. Use the other abilities to break wards (immunities on monsters). You ARE able to stack turrets at one point if you want to. Always start the level by pulling the lever and putting down a turret right there, then move to the side so you are in the first U-junction. Level up your skills as needed.

[twillight]

Ward Swap Boss
from: killer bee
bronze:
passives: crit cleric, slug secret, poison tipped
actives: killer sting, pump up, slime slide
strategy: strat with pump up*5 for buff and to break the boss' immunity. Then stick with killer sting. The poison from the passives should take care of dark immunity showing up, if not, that's why I put up slime slide.

silver: dark, light immunity
passives: crit cleric, slug secret, poison tipped
actives: killer sting, slime slide, pump up, water spray
strategy: Start with pump up*5 for more damage. No minion will spawn until you break the first ward. Aftert hat the minions will autohit you, not chance to manouver around. instantly swap in water spray, and start stinging. Because of the autodamage from the minions you'll need to upgrade you Crit Cleric passive for this (or slug's secret, or buy all stat-upgrade from the shop, those MIGHT work too).

gold:
passives: same
actives: pump up, killer sting
strategy: for some reason this challenge does not take away you pre-buffs, so pump up five times right before entering. You mana will be refilled instantly, hehe. Then sting it to death. To make this work you have to pump out dmg ultra fast, so you have to pump up your skills and stats. You definitely don ot have everything maxed out, so do whatever you feel comfortable with. Ranking the bee to S would probably pay out the most - so you can max out Sting, which would make the 0.5 sec delay disappear -, but I just didn't want to do that for now.

Dance, Dance
form: ghost
passives: fleet footed, quick cooldown, horsepower (huh?)
actives: rattler turret, barrier coil, arrow of fury, boo
strategy: I suggest upping the skills as much as you can (meaning rank 3-4), and setting the actives to match the direction of the immunities: light on the left, sword on the right. spook is fixed, but it is another fire-and-forget skill, so this won't pose much problem.
The trick is, to keep all your timed spells active. You do NOT "kill" the things coming at you, don't worry, you hit them and that's only whatt he game wants. Now again: KEEP YOUR SPELLS ACITVE. You have some leaway for Boo, but whenever you have half a second, lay down another barrier and turret! The turret is the most tricky, as you need it all the way down, possibly the middle of the road, so it will work for you. And keep an eye that you always shoot to the right with the arrows!
It's far from impossible if you realise you just have to keep renewing your spells (turret, barrier, boo), and just shoot whatever comes from the right. My record is 2 miss, but with some practice probably could go for 0. Warning though, once I had 5, and somehow the game still failed me mission! Maybe I missed when it turned 6, but if it happens to you, don't freak out.

A trick to level up a form: go into the Imppossible Dungeon. The goal is NOT progress within the dungeon, but to fill out your quest-bars.

NOTE: leveling up Nobody's only skill is actualy worthwile, as it generates an immense amount of mana just by breaking pots. 3-4 pots broken will fill up your entire mana-bar.
NOTE: if you need HP-healing, you should switch into Egg Form, because the skill heals number of HPs, but when you switch forms the HP% is transfered. It's a bit tricky, but in the dragon's tower I used this trick mid-battle against the boss there.

the Impossible Dungeon (gaining Dino Form):
don't be like me ton ot notice the Need To Kill counter on the top of the screen. And this build though at times inconvenient (when you fight single monsters to start with), but helluva resilient against big mobs, which is pretty much what Impossible Dungeon is made of (and you encounter mostly nowhere else).
form: turtle
passives: zomnomnom, strongman, crit cleric
actives: to be honest, you'll mostly just spam the basic attack. Add defensive/offensive buff moves if you feel like, and ward-breakers too (water spray for light damage will probably be the first absolutely necessary on the way to Floor 12). Floor 10-11 has sword immunity, so swap in that arrow-spell or whatever. Lvl 12 minions has that brown thing (hammer?) immunity, so the turtle is in its element. The boss don't have any ward on it. Definitely buff yourself to the brim, and bring Holy Light to the arena to hasten the process. This floor COUNTS.


Killer bee:
size: small
advantage: glass cannon, flies (swims)

disadvantage: glass cannon


Mechanic:
size: normal
advantage: the turret perk is strong
disadvantage: its attack-speed is horrendous, and doesn't even hit big


Dino:
size: normal (big?)
advantage: it's pretty mid, but is a dino, so that's a point. It also has pretty thick skin, so in the early NG+ dungeons it is very good.
disadvantage: I don't understand the volution-mechanic, and it is almost entirely melee-orineted.


------------


NG+
- only dungeons give stars
- if you dod not complete some quest, or at least definitely the Infinite Dungeon Tier 3 (that dungeon never becomes green by the way), those are carried over. No, they won't give you like any reward
- you are probably arriving at max. character-level anyway, which is 75, so all those "infinite quest2 will be just a nuisance now on.
- you can not access the training-area (Nostradamus Museum)
- you can leave the starting town by swimming/flying around it, and it'll automaticaly give you some quest-completion. Don't mind this, doesn't effect anything.
- every dungeon gets extra, set attributes. These are fixed, so don't try to reroll. It's mostly no-mana, no-healing, or form-locked. And ca. every dungeon will have wards on monsters (in some cases they "regenerate" instantly, you have been warned)
- every dungeon you complete (in the boss-room, not in some related quest) worth 10 star
- the thief guild is supposed to steal your stars. They don't. If go there anway to "rob back" your stars, you are instead gaining 5 extra stars.
- do NOT try to stick to a certain form. Every dungeon will have a form that works there the best, giving you a much easier time. And yes, sometimes this form is THE ZOMBIE.
- always check what the dungeon-gimmicks are. If it says "corpses explode" that also means your own familiars, so beware.

[twillight]

This is a very easy adventure game - not counting the frustrating parts, like:
- get more bananas! Nothing indicates how many banana you'll need, or will respawn.
- move that metric ton sarcofagus! Because that's realistic...
- and before I forget: the game STRAIGHT OUT LIES about the vacuum-cleaner. The shopkeeper said "it is for special customers", so I got stuck, BECAUSE IT IS NOT. You just need some money for it, not doing the special customer quest, which requires you having the vacuum cleaner.
These are not many, but when I accidently closed my game, they were tireing enough to not play it again. My next task was the white snake, so like very close to the end, but i just couldn't care enough anymore.

[twillight]

Oh, man. If there ever was a horror-game, this is it.
This thing is disturbing as F, so it's not for kids, or the faint of hearts. You wanna know how it is, look up its trailer.
Anyway, it is using kids' logic and adventure-game reality, so keep that in mind, and don't go for ultra-reality, more like free associations and stuff. Then it's kind of easy.
There are of course "hard parts":
- getting the lemon the game breakes its own logic, because previously in Vegtable Land the time-shift was used as a time-travel thingy, but now it somehow transfers a caustation to the past, and that's just not fair
- there's also something we can just call "unusual mechanic". Now you see the time-shift works that you first are in spring, then in summer, then fall, than winter. Turns out this is not entirely true, so if you click fast enough you SKIP seasons. This was not even hinted anywhere.

[twillight]

This is one of those made by RPG MAker things, but darn, I played my share of those back then, I looked up some more on GoG recently, but this has some updated graphic! That wa sone of the reasons I decided to buy this.

The game is also conversation-heavy, but it avoids he typical manga-game-problem where you are just clicking away the stuff. One of the reason this succeeds here is the witty bantering and humour.

There are 4 very different personalities for your party. Oh, and this is not one of those evil games where you have to cosider who to hire, and get alternative endings based on that choice, yadda, yadda, yadda. Your entire party also gets exp, unlike in the evil games where if one of them is knocked out/dead won't. Also the entire party gains exp for the battle, not based on the damage/kills, so again, this is not one of those evil games.
I have to warn you though: YOU CAN GET SOFTLOCKED, so use more than one save, and before you enter an area MAKE AN ARCHIVE SAVE! There will be though battles where you'll simply need consumables, and you can get Fed if you don't can't reload lacking those. One of it is in the Thief Godess' tmeple being attacked by the Earth God's high-priest, and another is the wizard's hut - for this later you might get away with sneaking around, didn't finish that quest yet.

The game is very open world, and encourages exploration. For instance att he beginning when you first try to leave the starting town (there's plenty to do inside by the way, so there's no pressure), you'll face paying taxes for it every time you do so. If you are asking the city hall wassis, you'll get a higher pay option for unlimited pass - which you probably can't afford for spending your money left-and-right. Then again if you are snooping around, you might find another option. It's all up to you.

One slight problem you might feel is, there are no respawning enemies in the game. With the occasional "month of the mimic" event. Also no respawning loot (again with the afformentioned event). So you might want to be cautious with your spending.
Actualy, the main effort you'll do is making every memeber of your crew slightly useful. The priestess will turn so when she gets her curse (lowers enemy defenses) - this happens during the search for a Thief Badge. Note: interactive hotspots are highlighted with sparkles - with the exception of chests! So always look out for chests. And stairs. And traps.

Speaking about traps: your main stats upp when you gain exp, and though the game says you should do the thief-approach, fighting things is a major part of gaining exp, so fight, fight and fight some more! And avoid using consumables. Remember: even if only 1 member of your party survives, you're 100% winner of that fight! On the sidenote, there's also a quest which demands clvl 4. Now leveling up only boosts your stats slightly, so there's also collecting Godess Gifts for the thief to rise her perception-level, which makes you notice traps.

Deactivating traps rises your lockpick level along unlocking doors. You'll be given a range how difficult a trap is, like 20-30. The trap do have an exact difficulty, but be my guest figuring that out. If you are 10 slvl higher than the lock/trap though, your skill won't advance, so you might feel the need to figure out where is what. Don't. Just like with the time-limits these ranges are very generous, you'll have plenty of opportunity to enhance your skill. Leave the obviously too high things for later though, if your skill is like 5 level below the requirement you risk breaking a lockpick, and if it is too high you'll not have the random roll unlocking them. Yes, in that instance there is a random roll.
You also gain abilities around from quests. So leveling up won't help with those. And there is the question of equipment, which are always expensive, so try going with the loot you find.

After the Tief Badge go for the Priestess' (my fav char) quest you gain there, that'll be useful until you gain 2 perception-item for your thief. The thief is by the way is on the level with the warrior when it comes to fighting - if you are using a dagger. So there's that.Cherrish it, because the warrior is a hugh pain, because she'll get the "afraid" condition if you are fighting a rat, facing a very big monster (HP in the thousands), or get hurt to maybe 25% of her HP (I'm eyeballing it, but it seems around 75% HP left). To cure her condition you might try to give her booze (even right before entering the fight) but that makes her berserk, under which condition she can't use her skills. Still, it can come in handy. Another option is to heal her to 100% using a healing potion (or another healing method if you come across such). This is obviously expensive, and if you rmemeber, there's no respawning in this game, so trust your judgement. Most of the time I just let her stand around doing nothing (although worth mentioning she has a skill which makes her more resilient to damage).

Back a bit to finding traps and using perception in general: whenever you find on of the Gifts you might want to run around checking if new loot is available. Yes, this is "annoying backtracking", but up to lvl 14-16 you'll find stuff enough, and at 18 (yeah, this late I did the priestess quest, huh) you'll find some very nifty items, so it isn't too annoying.
Now the wizard... One of her problems is the need of Living Ink. Now you culd BUY those if you are easy on the money, but as I said I wouldn't. Now those are rare unfortunately. And come from obscure sidequests. The other problem is, her target settlement is bloody far away, and using the roads on the worldmap will make you bump into bandit groups, which are loody though, and I'm not sure how long you can avoid them (maybe random, maybe not). So save a lot, and figure out how to get where. Those bandits come in 3-4 member party, with 2,000+ HP when added together, so that's a problem. They also like to heal (500 HP per character, adding at least a thousand more HP to beat off). And the pocket-dimension is big, and I'm afraid the whole thing might close down when we are done there, cutting off all the nifty exp. Which rmeinds me, when you are at the Fighters Guild, trying to apply membership and get down to the cellar/prison - you are better off doing everything right there and then, because there is a skill to gain, and rodents to fight, and though it'll probably unlock when you gain membership (maybe not), that membership is locked behind the wizard's questline.

And to be honest, the wizard is not even the worst mandatory questline to beat. Because the game won't let you out of chapter 1 before doing those. It literaly cuts you off from a map-location. At one point you'll encounter some ghost - I mean it's worse, it's a Hell Denizen. And it heals like crazy. Yu don't have to win there, before whole party kill NPCs will show up and save you. But it gives you an idea what you'll face.Because you'll face more than one of those during the priestess' quest, so you better pump up your stats, abilities and gear like crazy, because I'm pretty confident goblins are NOTHING compared to that!


Starry Cave Guide:
- you can go in and out of the cave as much as you want BUT ingame time is still spent if you leave the area. I have no idea how this works, how much real time you have to clean up the place etc.
- there are spawn-points. During your first visit you shall find an NPC inside the cave who explains it all. Point is, the spawn-points only re-activate at the start of a week, and not when you leave the cave/the area. No idea if a spawn-point reactivates or not is it rotates back to a type of animal you already looted.
- before exploring beyond the first enemy, right after that fight go to the astrologer and buy his spell. It's the best thing for this dungeon, trust me.
- loot does not respawn with the rotation of the weeks. The maximum Perception Level here is 17 they say (at least one less you can have).

- all monster-type has a boss, that drops 1 unite of Star Alloy which can be brought to the dwarf smith at the warrior guild. There are exceptions though, like:
a) mimics. mimics don't have bosses, and do not spawn, and the week can't be bought from the astrologer. Then such week happens, 3 mimic spawns inside the cave.
b) hen. Dunno how this chicken-event works, but I've read you should run through the spawns and such, and only fight the boss. The reward is a special cloak this time.
c) cow, aka. minotaur: this is where you SHOULD kill everything inside, at least so they say, so there'll be a special chest in the NE corner. Will try to confirm. There is a double-boss for this one at the stone gate (the huhn appear there too), who drop a special staff.
This event can NOT be purchased from the alchemist, randomly appears after you deal with the Hen-week. You must defeat the Mother of All Chicken. Do NOT kill little chickens during that, or she'll have a swarm or something, so they said. Rather big battle, every turn the chicken heals itself like 150 HP. Give courage-potion to the warrioress, the effect will be gone for the whole fight. The potion does NOT work if you drink it before the fight.
After defeating the Mother Chicken you MIGHT get a Week of the Cow, and you only get it ONCE in the entire playthrough, so stack up on potions when you go in or something.

IMPORTANT: for the very first quest about alcohol, after getting the sample GO BACK TO THE BASEMENT OF THE BAR. There should be a new hotspot.
The quest has two (three?) alternative endings depending whose reward you wil take. It's best not to rob the robber, but turn to the owner, and then to the authorities. But it's p to you, really.

There is a 5,000 HP ogre/troll in one map. Pretty inconsequential, it's just for braggging rights to fight it. To win there you want Enfeeblement, [Godess] Curse rotated by the priestess, Fireball (to lower resistance and that first fire-spell, and the warriior get a Potion of Courage. Accumlate your TP until the priestess manages to set up 2 resistence-lowering debuff.


So, this is how Cow Week works:
1) request the Week of the Hen
2) defeat the Mother Chicken
3) wait until Cow Week triggers, and re-enter the star-maze
4) activate all seashell. They'll do nothing beside a visual effect
5) go to the stone portal and enter the Secret Cow Level, where will be many non-hostile cows
6) go to the NE corner where two minotaur (doble boss) are guarding a chest.

[twillight]

Probably. Recently I thought some games were fun playing them through once, but I never ever want to go back to them. So can they be considered favourites? Should they be preserved?
Some got patched to unregonisable state, some just faded out, some I just like the memory of it. Those are not my favouites anymore. What's left then? I had to think this through.
And to be honest, C64 and Atari did not survive this reckoning.

Fortunately I totaly have 95% of all games I ever liked thanks to GoG (I still hope for some to resurface in the future, hope against all hope - like The Blair With Project: Volume 1: Rustin Parr), so the list is at my hand.


1 - Anger Force Reloaded: I know I'll never finish this shooter, but sure, in its genre I can recommend it. Even though for the full story I should beat Hard Dificulty with all four characters, and that's just never gonna happen.


2 - Baldur's Gate 1-2-ToB: mostly for BG2, and the whole thing requires playing it from a walkthrough, but still, this is undeniably a forever-classic.


3 - Cat Quest: it's simple, it can be learnt pretty fast, but it's entertaining, fun, and heartwarming.


4 - Crosscode


5 - Monkey Island series. Except the 4th. Definitely not the 4th.


6 - The Darkside Detective + Fumble in the dark: beginner level, bite-size minizodes made adventure game with strong identity.


7 - Da yof the tentacle: I don't say it doesn't show its age, but that's just like '50s scifi B-movies. Part of the charm.


8 - Fran Bow: not sure in this one, but it has a chance to be so.


9 - Gigapocalypse: pure kaiju fun


10 - Heroines of Sword and Spells: great adventure. Two adventures with the DLC. Chapter 2 in progress, if you want more. I'm definitely looking forward to it.


11 - Lost in Play: designed for 5-7 years, but adults will also enjoy this. Personal guarantee.


12 - Heroes of Might and Magic 6-7: has their ups and downs, but in the genre, I can recommend them from this series.


13 - Nobody Saves the World: yess


14 - Pikuniku


15 - Siege of Avalon worth mentioning, though definitely has its flaws


16 - Werewolf the Apocalypse: Heart of the forest: a visual novel


17 - Pokemon X, Ultra Sun


18 - Tin Man's Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Absolute legend.


19 - Discworld


20 - Discworld Noir


21 - Phantasmagoria 2: a puzzle of flesh

[twillight]

I'll never pass even Chapter 1. Why? Because of the pixelhunting. And the crazy forced order of doing things occasionaly. And that there is no excitement. And the many restrictions. And the Chapter 1 Puzzle That Should Have Been Deleted The First Place.
It's just so annoying it doesn't worth the fuss.

[twillight]

Zelda... I thought I'll revitalise my interrest in this franchise, so I downloaded A Link To The Past.
I couldn't make myself to play it, so opened up a Let's Play to get motivation.
I realised what this franchise is. A skill-based maze-runner. I need more story, sorry.


I also re-played Pokemon gen 1 and 2 with literaly just 1 pokemon. So no HM-slaves. The experience teached me i don't like 2D pokemon. But let me explain.


Gen 1 is horribly buggy. Not that it really would effect me, as I usualy don't bother with non-damaging moves. But these are only really good if you are plaing blind, doing all the backtracking, figuring out the puzzles for yourself. And the party-building (why would anyone play with a party) is just broken. You can barely do anything, because there are no moves for certain types, or certain type of pokemon simply don ot exist.
Like there are 2 grass-type pokemon in the game you actualy can use: bulbasaur (a starter), and vileploom. That's it. And there are 2 psychic pokemon too: the overpovered Alakazam, and the "free" version of it: Hypno. There are no ghost-moves, no bug-moöves, and the list goes on.


Gen 2 has a horrible colour-palette, and there's no meaningful differences between its games, wether the original release, or the remakes. The remakes at least look tolerable. But it is full of real-life-luck scenarios, prime example is the battle with Silver (the rival) in the Burnt Tower. You either overlevel to the point of oneshotting everything, or suffer from not being able to do anything in the fight and die. Oh, and let's mention the ever-present olimited inventory. This one at least seems to let you have all the TMs, unlike Gen1.



Gen 3 still has limited inventory, and still not have all the features in it. The movepools are still horrible, and the game still trolls you with real life luck mandatory encounters. the leading man here is the 3rd, electric-type gym with its resisting-everything, everything paralyzes you crap. Plus confusion and suicide-bombing on top of that. It's just the worst.
On the positive side the Evil Groups are present, so it kinda gets your attention. Still a horrible game.


Gen 4 only worth with Platinum, which is slow, and way too linear for its own good, PLUS it softlocks you easily in the Giratina-Dimension. If you go in, you MUST win, because you are stuck. And if you did not have an archive-save, you are softlocked. "Great" game-design.


Gen 5 is entirely bland and forgettable. nothing helps on it, not even the very hard to access difficulty setting in BW2.


It's just why would you go back? I wish that Gen 4 chibi-style remake had been done on Platinum.


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Not that the later pokemon-games are flawless. Heck, Gen 8-9 are simply a broken buggy mess, and you can do nothing about it. They just don't worth your investment.


Gen 6 is way too easy to pose any challenge, but is a great casual game. So I give it that.


From Gen 7 only the ultra-games worthz anything aside hentai-Lusamin's design. The story does not worth your time, skip all dialogue, you'll catch what's important anyway. The battles are though, and the vvarious pokemons worth soloing it through multiple times.
So that's it.