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Ico: sit on top of the world

Posted on 18/08/2014 Written by Xexyz

I had left the game at the start of a trolley system, which I negotiated first thing to leave me high up on a ledge with Yorda - sofas are left in the oddest places. I used a crane to move us both down to the top of another tower, then explored a room with a few high walkways and handy window ledges which I was able to use to clamber up and knock down the chandelier ... after half an hour of trying to work out what to do, that is. A handy cutscene showed me the remaining support for the bridge, and when I rand down to it I happened to pass by some bombs.

It takes me a long time to progress in this game, not just because there are extended periods between play sessions but also because there is very little signposted. The combination of the two means that I forget that I can call Yorda to jump over large gaps, for example, and then spend ages trying to work out how to move the crate over to the start of the ledge. I spent ages fighting the shadows on the ramp before accidentally getting Yorda to the bottom and her killing them all using the shining door. The same thing happened outside - I'm sure that previously I've had to kill all the shadows before progressing.

Anyway, I made my way to the main gate, only to see it shutting in front of me and Yorda's mum telling me to leave her daughter alone. She seemed a bit evil.

I'm going to try to play thing more often than once every two months. It's a fantastic game and I really want to complete it ...

Mega Man (Wii U): COMPLETED

Posted on 17/08/2014 Written by deKay

When I downloaded Mega Man X the other week, I didn’t really anticipate playing any of the older Mega Man games. I sort of intended to play X, and, if I liked it, to pick up X2 and play that.

Capcom clearly anticipated this and in their recent sale (all the NES Mega Man games on the Wii U Virtual Console are half price) failed to drop the price of X2. This forced me to pick up the original Mega Man, and, just in case I liked it, Mega Man 2 as well. I nearly got all six, but that would have been silly.

I’m now probably going to get the rest of the six before they put the price back up.

As previously mentioned, the NES Mega Man games mostly passed me by, and it was only Mega Man 9 and 10 that I actually put any time into (and completed). Until now.

First impressions were as I expected. It’s the same as Mega Man X only without the ability to dash, no charged shots, no passwords, six rather than eight bosses, very little story exposition, and (obviously) poorer graphics. It’s the same damn game, in other words. Which is fine, actually. If it ain’t broke clearly worked for the series.

In advance of playing, given the difficulties I had in X, I looked up the “correct” order for doing the bosses. This meant every (main robot) boss was easy, aside from the guy I was supposed to use Gutsman’s power for (Cutman, I think), and at that point Gutsman’s power appeared to do nothing at all. It was only later in the game I found he could pick up and throw blocks, so I had to beat Cutman “normally”. Thankfully he was easy.

Also like X, the final stage was split into a few sections, with a SuckySuck(TM) bit near the end (Boss Rush, if you didn’t know) before a two part final boss.

The game was pretty short, taking maybe 90 minutes in total, but very difficult. In particular, some of the horrid appearing-and-disappearing block platforming sections (also in Mega Man 9) and a moving platform on a rail which “flips down” to drop you off, were especially swear-worthy. Those jumping robots on a single leg which appeared before most of the boss fights were a pain too.

Now onto Mega Man 2, I suppose!

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy: completed!

Posted on 15/08/2014 Written by Xexyz

How remiss of me; I don't seem to have posted about this as yet ...

This has been lodged in my 3DS for a couple of months now, and I've been working my way through it bit by bit. In a way I'm glad this is the last of the traditional Layton games, since towards the end I was getting rather bored, finding the shoehorning of puzzles to random conversations a little too tenuous, and dreading having to backtrack over everything just to collect the puzzles. In fact, I went to explore the world a bit before going to the final location, and then as I set off there I was told that more puzzles had arrived and I had to do it all over again. Annoying.

Another case of doing things all over again arose a few times from the battery running out on my 3DS. I wasn't saving the game that often, instead just closing the lid on the 3DS at the end of my commute and opening it the next time I got on a train. Battery death meant I had to repeat a large part of the jungle section, and also a number of the mini games.

So, anyway. The story was fantastical, as always, which sits at odds from the pretend real-world setting. Once the game opened up options of where to go, and I left London, I was concerned that it may be just a little too big - though that wasn't an issue in the end, with most of the other places having a limited number of scenes. Flying around in an airship certainly makes a change from trudging through endless screens of red dots.

Towards the end of the story, however, I found myself getting much more engaged. Uncovering the phoenix was possibly the turning point, but discovering the true identities of Hershal and Descole cemented this as a clever tale. The enemy from the last few games became someone I cared about.

And after this twist, I was gripped until I finished the story.

It still dragged on, though. I wanted to solve the puzzles that would get me to the end, but at the same time I had a compulsion to go and examine everything in the world to see if there was anything hidden. I got to the point of no return a few times and each time I was unsure whether to proceed.

Once I did, there was a fair bit of the story to complete, including a classic game where i had to take the last coin. Always go second.

None of the final puzzles caused me problems, and after I completed the game I had five puzzles missing from the index, which I looked up on a guide to see where they were located. Completion Stage 1.

The mini games in this were a bit hit and miss. The dressing up one was largely pointless until you finished the game, since you needed to collect items of clothing throughout. The squirrel one was OK but a bit dull. The blooming gardens one was tricky and unrewarding - I felt like I was getting to the end either by luck or brute force.

Still those were done to reach Completion Stage 2. They opened up the challenges - fifteen harder puzzles. I finished those, leading to Completion Stage 3. And now all I have left are the daily puzzles, which are still being released bit by bit. I've done about 150 of those, I think - again, I'd have done more if my battery hadn't died more than once.

Things I’ve been playing recently

Posted on 13/08/2014 Written by deKay

It’s another ~~lazy~~ post saving roundup! Yay.

Abyss (Wii U)

There was a sale on recently where Abyss was a stupidly low price of just 44p, but you needed to own UnEpic in order to get it for that price. So I bought UnEpic, and got Abyss. I had no idea what Abyss was, but it was 44p. Plus the £8 or whatever UnEpic was. Erm.

Turns out, it’s a gravity physics cave navigating arcade game. Sort of like the old Spectrum game Thrust, but without having to drag collected cargo around – you just pick it up. It’s pretty good too, but I’ve not played it a great deal yet. The level select screen suggests it has 12 levels but I’m half way through that already, so I hope something else is unlocked afterwards otherwise it’s going to be very short. But then, it was only 44p.

StreetPass Games (3DS)

Although I’ve completed Garden now, I’m still playing it and have grown almost half of the 80 known breeds in the game.

I’m still working through StreetPass Battle, which is very, very slow going. My army is up to almost 300,000 people, but each full set of 10 streetpasses still only gets me about 12,000 at the most, and usually it’s far less than that. I’ve beaten 9 other nations, and the next one was about 350,000 people in its army, so I’m a way off attempting that yet.

In Mansion, I’ve stopped trying to progress as quickly as possible, and am instead attempting to completely fill every floor. I’m on 16 at the moment (of 20, I think?) and apart from the already laid rooms of different colours, I’ve almost filled the floor entirely blue. I’m getting a lot of nice treasure as a result. Only thing is, my weapon kills even bosses in one or two hits and I’m virtually indestructible, so even other weapon types are pointless and substantially less powerful than my Windbag of Woe +2.

Zen Pinball 2 (Wii U)

Just a few games of the Wolverine table, which I’ve barely played before for some reason. I always seem to gravitate towards World War Hulk and Iron Man. I’m second on my friends leaderboard now, although I’m pretty sure the scores must have been reset at some point as the leaderboards seem a bit empty.

Hitman Absolution (PC)

Oh my is this terrible. It doesn’t help that it’s completely uncontrollable with a keyboard and mouse, not least because it seems to need every single key on the keyboard when just a single “use” or “action” button for most actions would suffice.

Add that to the fact that Agent 47 keeps vanishing – literally becoming invisible to me, but crucially not anyone else. See the screenshot for my Guard vs Hollow Man fight.

It’s no Assassin’s Creed, that’s for sure.

Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate (3DS)

tumblr_n9mq0pevj31svmpf2o1_400 I started this right after finishing the Wii U Batman Arkham Origins game, mainly because it was a continuation of the story. It looks fantastic, and plays pretty good too even though it’s all in Shadow Complex style 2D rather than 3D like the other games. This does limit your takedown options a bit, but that’s not really a problem.

What I am finding an issue is the controls. For reasons I don’t understand some things that ZR was used for on the Wii U has been mapped to L on the 3DS, which is proving tricky to get used to. Bataranging works differently too, and the map is a from-above floorplan, but the action is from the side with fixed points where it rotates 90 degrees to move into and out of corridors and doors – which makes navigation via the map almost impossible. I’m not far in yet (my SD card died and I couldn’t use my 3DS for a week while I got a new one), so I don’t know if the expected Metroidvania-type backtracking and exploration will be hindered by this or not.