Axiom Verge - Review

What makes a good metroidvania? Axiom Verge sure makes a very good stab at it and gets almost all the way for me.

Axiom Verge starts off promising. Your character handles well and the surroundings are great. It is clear that the Metroid series must've been a huge influence on AV not just in gameplay, but also in aesthetics. You'll run through similar off-world looking spacey half-creature-esque corridors and rooms with similar feeling and looking enemies. 

It doesn't shy away from being colorful.

The gameplay is pretty text-book metroidvania, the map even looks like something taken straight from the handheld Castlevanias. Not a problem for me, those games - like Circle of the Moon - are some of my absolute favorites and I am always on the lookout for something that can scratch the same itch since Konami doesn't seem interested in my money lately.

There is a huge arsenal of different weapons, some definitely more useful than others but there is some impressive inventiveness that's gone in to them. Your character also gains new skills along the way in true metroidvania fashion and I really have to give credit to these skills not always being what you expect. Running around the map you'll find areas where you think you need something like a high jump or flight ability, but in fact you get completely different and very fun to use skills, like a little drone. A lot of these skills also get built upon, where it does one thing when you first acquire it, it does several more things further into the game. 

The game also does an amazing job at blending the game world with your skills in an original way. When you start the game you see areas that look glitched. At first I wasn't sure if I had a wonky copy or if it was supposed to look like that, but I soon found it was part of the level design. Your character gets a world altering gun that doesn't just change the feature of certain areas of the game, but also how most enemies behave. Using the gun to alter the world around you becomes key to getting around and it's used in a way I would love to see further explored in other games.

Acquiring new skills and discovering new things on the map goes at a fairly well balanced pace for most of the game. For the first 80% of the game I am having a blast getting through areas and trying out new skills on places I've had to leave behind before, just as it should be in this genre. There is a point however when I had discovered what I assume is the majority of the map and I start looking for those few points here and there where I might've missed something. While the map isn't huge, getting from one area to the other side of the map still requires a fair time of just running through places you've passed many times before. It is fortunate that there are few enemies that are really annoying or hold you up, but this time sink still puts a massive wet cloth on the enjoyment of exploration. When you die you get teleported back to the last place you saved, and I some times used that as a sort of "fake" teleportation to quickly get me back to an area if it turned out I had gone down a dead end.

Though the bosses are quite easy they are fun and a nice change of pace as you run around. I definitely wish there were more of them and maybe also more to them. While they generally have several phases, most of it is "hit the sweet spot until it dies". These bosses just look like they hold more potential. On the other hand, they're used as story telling devices and not just put in there for the sake of it.

You'll meet things to talk to, but they don't make much sense.

While the story about you being a scientist who, in an experiment gone wrong, gets sent to an alternate reality/dimension/world to kill some mysterious enemy is a bit confusing and almost trying to be unnecessarily deep, it is still interesting and at least doesn't detract from the fun. The aesthetics with pulsating blobs and dead bodies lying around also add to the atmosphere, as does the music which is absolutely amazing. I never once tired of the tracks playing and the entire OST is definitely going into my "Great VGM" playlist.

The reward feedback loop teeters out significantly towards the end for me. This is a balance that all metroidvanias struggle with - what will entice the player to continue when there is little left to discover and a lot more time has to be invested to find it? This is especially true when I have very limited time to play in the first place, and I don't want to spend my precious evening game time on just running around looking for things. Maybe the early game spoils me too much, giving the endgame a hard time to keep the steam going?

The vast majority of the game is really fun though and well worth checking out if you're on the lookout for a metroidvania that manages to blend a classical style with some fresh ideas.

Tales of Symphonia #3 - Everyone Is An Angel

It's been a while since I last mentioned Tales of Symphonia but yes, I am still playing it. What were you expecting? It's an 80 hour JRPG and I have no time to play, this game is going to take me years to complete!

Actually, I thought I was getting close to the end. Story-wise it sort of gave me that feeling, but then I looked at my time played and saw I hadn't even crossed the 40 hour line. Guess I am only about half-way, though it feels crazy that I could expect more than double what I've already been through.

Then I watched a video of the place I am in because one of the puzzles was doing my head in (how unexpected). And in that video they had over 70 hours of game time, though the characters were the same level roughly as mine. How is that even possible? My first thought was that I must've missed a huge chunk of the game. Like is there a hidden continent of content somewhere that just flew under my radar? But how would you then explain the fact that our levels are the same?

I am thinking, hoping, that this particular let's player has just played it extremely slowly. I can't imagine how slow, because I have definitely not been rushing through content. Or at least not been trying to, since it's my first playthrough I have been playing things as they come and as I solve them, which is not very quickly usually. I also don't shy away from combat encounters as they are quite fun and I hate being under-leveled. 

I also don't want to check any other let's player or a walkthrough to see how far I am actually through the game yet. I want to go through this as un-spoiled as possible and have only been watching guides to get me through specific puzzles in the game. The dungeons have started becoming increasingly harsh in this department with some proper tedious puzzle segments. The kind where you go "heh, that was pretty cool. Now I never want to do that again".

I wasn't wrong about the twists and turns though. In true JRPG fashion the story just gets weirder and more convoluted as you go and at some point you start to wonder if they had even thought everything out from the start or just started to make things up half way. I can almost see the pitch meeting where the creators suggest a game with this and that story and the head boss goes "yeah but it needs 80 hours of content". Creator - "But the story is about 20 hours of content". Boss - "Yeah so make something up." Creator - "ok...".

I love the characters though and I also love how they're all well balanced and fun to use in combat (except Sheena, not too keen on her). You also definitely want Raine, the best healer, to be part of any group fighting a boss. There is love and loss and some deep themes but I sometimes feel like they could've been a much bigger part of the story in their own right rather than almost being glossed over or mentioned in the passing. There is a whole thing with Persea and Regal and you don't get to know enough about that at all. Sheena caused a catastrophe at her village of Mizuho which still haunts her and that isn't fully developed either. Maybe there are so many characters and trying to build depth to them all means none of them get enough. But also maybe this is where the other 40 hours of gameplay I presumably haven't gone through yet will come in and sort it.

In my previous post I made some story predictions, so let's see how right or wrong I was;

"Colette is turning less and less human with each seal that we destroy."
Not so much a prediction as an observation, but it turns out Colette was actually slowly turning in to an angel. Not only that, but into a lifeless body-vessel for the goddess Martel who was actually also a regular human (or half-elf turned angel?) at some point. Yeah I don't know either. But we've saved Colette from that fate, for now. Instead Colette has been struck with some sort of cruxis crystal poisoning, slowly turning into a crystal.

"Genis and Raine seem to be hiding the fact that they aren't real elves, for whatever reason."
Turns out they are actually half-elves. I guess they had to hide it because half-elves are the evil ones at the beginning of the game.

"Sheena, the character who started out by attacking us but has now joined forces with us, seems to be hinting that she is actually from another dimension (?)."
Sheena is in fact from Tethe'alla, the sister planet to Sylvarant where Lloyd and Colette come from. We later find out that Genis and Raine are also from Tethe'alla, and so are Zelos, Regal and Presea.

"Kratos the mercenary says he is only in it for the money, but is he really?"
Heh, no. Kratos is a half-elf angel who ventured with Mithos the summoner 4000 years ago and for reasons unknown or just not understood by me he was part of splitting the world in to their two current forms.

"it seems like both my birth parents were something special. I don't know what but I am sure to find out soon."
Nope, still don't have a clue. I know Lloyds father killed his mother because she was possessed by a Cruxis Crystal, but that's about it.

The story isn't a masterpiece that will stick with me forever, but the characters are very endearing. There is just no way not to love Zelos and his caricature womanizing (to the point where he can get items just from talking to random women in towns, very useful skill!). Kratos who is your on-again-off-again frenemy throughout the game and keeps you guessing as to his motivations. I also keep guessing who is my actual enemy in this game because first it was the Desians but then some of them were off-shoot Renegades and they were sort of on our side but then everyone turned out to be angels but they're also half-elves which is nothing like elves and... yeah, it gets really confusing really fast. There is no way I could write a synopsis that doesn't also take 80 hours to read.

The game is fun in all the right places though and I wouldn't mind spending another 40 hours with it. I can't imagine where they could possible take this story in another 40 hours but that just makes it more fun.

You're right Illidan, I am not prepared

Hold up a minute. Burning Crusade is a thing? I guess we all saw this coming the moment they announced they were going to release Classic. I am sure we all went "ok then, I wonder if that means...?". Of course that is what was going to happen. Classic and TBC were very popular and there is no way they're not also releasing Wrath of the Lich King once they've started down this path.

Problem is, I am so not prepared. They only released Classic 1,5 years-ish ago! I don't even have a level 60 yet!

I was always hype about the possibility of TBC coming back, just like I was mad hype about them re-releasing Classic. And I have loved every second of Classic so far, which is half the reason it has taken me forever to get anywhere (that and unlike last time I played WoW I am making sure to divide my time to other games as well). I love the leveling experience and have multiple alts between 20-50. I am not in a rush to get to end game, at all.

Except now maybe. Because there is no way I will be able to stay away from TBC once it is released. And there is no way I am going to have time for Classic and TBC. And if they will be asking us for a separate fee for both there is also a very tiny chance I will even want to have two subscriptions, I just don't see that happening. 

So here I am, kinda feeling forced to move on to TBC. Which I am not, of course. I could just lounge around in Classic some more if I want to, but I wonder if anyone else will stick around with me? Or will finding groups be even harder? It's not overly difficult at the moment, but there are evenings when I just don't find a group I want and that might happen even more as players move over to TBC. 

Classic is fun because I find great people to do content with. I also enjoy questing on my own, but that is only because I am not really on my own. I can talk to people in guild chat or run across people questing in the same area. Maybe you group up for some harder quests and then you say your goodbyes. This is where Classic WoW has always excelled I find. If I knew I was in fact one of only very few people left on a server, that would definitely take a lot of the fun out of it for me because the only thing that is really left for me to explore and that makes the game still new and fresh is other people. I've already done the content a hundred times (literally). I've done every area, every dungeon, every quest, leveled every class at the very least once.

And yet I just don't feel anywhere near done enjoying Classic yet. I still want to get to end-game, there are still several instances and every raid that I haven't done (this time around). Most raids I didn't even get around to experience current-content the first time around, because I wasn't in a raiding guild and I don't recall PUG raids being anywhere near as common back then as they seem to be now. While I did do MC and ZG a handful of times before TBC was released, I never saw UBRS, BWL or Onyxia until after that. 

But I know most people probably have been in end-content for a year now and maybe they are feeling done with it. I've heard it's difficult to find groups for PvP which might've otherwise bolstered end game. I heard that Blizzard intend to keep dedicated Classic servers running but I wonder how long they will do that if most people leave them. I don't know, maybe it is a good thing that I am sort of being ushered along since I seem to just loiter around and not even get to end game, but I can't help but feeling this will only mean I am going to miss Classic all over again (until they re-re-release it in another 15 years).

Cyberpunk 2077 - 25 hour mark

Spoilers ahead! (Played on PS4)

At mid- December last year me, and a lot of other people, started playing the extremely highly anticipated game Cyberpunk 2077. I wrote down some thoughts on it after a few hours of gameplay; I thought Night City was fun to check out but didn't really feel "alive". I was unsure about the main quest and mostly stuck to doing side business. I hadn't really encountered any bugs or game breaking glitches. I felt combat lacked something that made it really interesting, but hoped more skills for my character and knowledge from my part would change that. I was worried I would find the game repetitive if that didn't happen.

So, some 20 hours down the line, have I changed my mind about anything regarding the game? Mostly no, but there are some things that have been positive surprises.

I am still a bit torn, or should I maybe say worried, about how I feel towards the game. When I am not playing it, I don't really have any feelings drawing me in to play it. It's not like how I felt about The Witcher 3, where I constantly wanted to play more to discover more adventure. So far I feel the main story is fairly meh and almost every character I have met is too. While I still think Night City is gorgeous and I actually really just walking around and taking in the scenery because there are fun little things to see and marvel at everywhere, all the people in it sort of break my immersion. Or maybe it is something about how the bad guys and side quests are all gathered up in little chunks around the map for you to deal with that makes it feel so planned out rather than natural and dynamic. 

An unwelcome sight

Over the 120+ hours I had on the Witcher 3 I never once thought "urgh, this kind of quest again" and the only enemy I got bored of were the dogs. I already feel like I've done only the same quest over and over in Cyberpunk 2077 and that's not even true, it just feels like it. Every enemy in Cyberpunk 2077 feels exactly the same because they are. In The Witcher 3 I fought everything from Drowners to Katakans to Alps to Giant Centipedes and even plants! In Cyberpunk the enemy is always yet another street thug (I guess I've seen a handful of drones as well).

In fact it reminds me so much of how I ended up feeling about Skyrim. After having played it for 65+ hours I realized I felt cheated by the game and all its little icons beckoning me to check what was around the corner. There was always the same thing around the corner! The same dungeon, the same enemies, the same loot. I fell for the urge to explore and continued to harbour the hope of something new and interesting continuously until I was almost angry at the game for having tricked me. 

The main story of Skyrim didn't interest me in the slightest either, and Cyberpunk has at least the upper hand in that regard. While I don't find the main story particularly compelling, I didn't really in The Witcher 3 either - it's adequate enough and has me mildly curious. My main drawing point so far is by far Johnny Silverhand, whom I really didn't believe I was going to like as much as I did. 

At least Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't have a really annoying companion ruining your life. Oh wait.

When Keanu Reeves first showed up on screen and I got to know who Johnny Silverhand is and how he is implemented in the game I was actually not too keen on the idea. But he quickly grew on me and now I miss him every time he's not on screen. It's kind of unfortunate because since he never shows up during any of the generic side quests, that's just another reason for me to avoid them.

I've got to hand it to them though, to me the whole concept of Johnny Silverhand is genius. A long dead terrorist-rebel who's stuck as a data-avatar in your brain? He's too cool for school and while I don't consider myself part of the Keanu Reeves fan-club I will acknowledge that he is probably the only one who could've pulled this off. I usually actually detest when they use actual actors in games, but this is one instance where the casting was absolutely perfect, nothing else would've had the same effect.

Combat has some fun points, but it still hasn't evolved much from me just being able to run in wild and crazy and just hold a shoot-out. I don't actually need to plan ahead or need to use a different tactic. I guess you could blame the fact that I've only ever tackled quests labeled "moderate" or lower, but "moderate" shouldn't be easy right? Maybe I should try some "high" threat quests and get back to you on whether combat required some more thinking or not. Right now I will occasionally essentially Nuzlocke myself to get some thrill out of the fights, because while there are a lot of interesting skills to be had, when you don't feel like you need to use them they lose a lot of their fun.

Game designers should ask themselves, what would Pokémon do?

You get completely drowned in loot like this is Diablo 4. I stopped caring about what I was picking up about 15 hours ago. I still pick up everything because the game tricks you into thinking that some of those things might be really useful. They almost never are, the only time you'll notice any major upgrades or differences are within the first five hours of gaming or if you do some certain quests that reward you with good legendaries. After every fight I've got about 20-30 inventory items to sort through, ranging from sunglasses, y-fronts and yet another assault rifle. I think there must be a better way to handle loot from how I am doing it now though... I will figure it out.

I've put most points into Quickhacking, Breach Control and Crafting, in that order. So I am what you could basically call a mage in this game. And it is quite powerful. I can take out entire squads of enemies by getting them to puke their guts out while being on fire, while I am hiding behind some trash can giggling. It's a fun concept and I know there are a dozen other ways you could handle a fight, but like I said you never feel like it's necessary anyway. I would've liked to be better at sneaking, but have yet to feel like the game is actually well designed towards this game style. Often I find some interesting alternate route after I've murdered everyone in a building already, and that is not for lacking of trying beforehand. 

Combat in some ways epitomizes what I might think is the main issue with Cyberpunk 2077, it is trying to bite off so very much that only some very core concepts work ok and when they try to come together they just don't. The world aesthetics are great, but characters are not. Combat skills are great, but combat is not. For everything cool about it there is still something empty and tedious in every smile I see and every gun shot I fire.

And yet there are a lot of things to like about Cyberpunk 2077. It's not a bad game, and yet it is. I really can't wrap my brain around exactly what my problem with it is, it's like a nice looking pair of trousers that are slightly uncomfortable. I still intend and want to see the story through, so I don't feel like I am done with it yet. But I really doubt this game will manage to get 120+ hours out of me like The Witcher 3 did, with ease. But you never know.

And also I still really can't stand the voice acting for female V.

Welcome, Tank Shaman!

There was no reason to hesitate and I don't know why I ever did, but now it is here - my very own tank shaman.

If you read my previous post on the subject, I debated whether to reroll an entirely new shaman or just respec the one I had. In the end I opted for the latter, because the prospect of having to redo the totem quests really didn't entice me, also it would've taken a lot longer to get into the real action of tanking with a new character anyway.

Things get trickier if your enemy is resistant to nature damage though.

Respecing my resto shaman into enhancement and gearing her, as much as I could, cost me about 15g. It might sound as little, but it's really not. It's worth every penny though. I wasn't lucky enough to find decent, or decently priced, gear at the Auction House for every gear slot immediately though and had to run with some caster gear. I figured it wasn't too bad since the intellect and stamina on those gear pieces would be handy on a tank as well. Fortunately I ran with few spirit items, for some reason.

My first ever dungeon as a tank shaman was a real trial by fire too - Gnomeregan. Definitely not a good starting dungeon for someone who has never tanked before, but I have, just never as a shaman. How hard can it be, I thought?

Not overly, it turns out. Tank shaman is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. Really fun! So to elaborate on that thought, how is it going?

As always you need be smart with your totem placements.

Well firstly I really expected there to be a lot more questions, or should I say hesitations, about being tanked by a shaman. But after having tanked 5-6 dungeons I have not heard one peep of doubt as to whether I can pull it off. I guess it helps that I am in my mid-30s, and dungeons still allow you to get away with most things. It probably also helps that tanks are damn scarce, and "tanking" means less of "being the one who takes all the damage" and more of "being the one who takes charge". In fact I always find it interesting when people will ask for a tank for an hour and then still do all the pulling (dps warriors, I am looking at you).

As a tank there are a couple of scenarios you need to handle in an instance, stuff that requires you to keep aggro on one or more targets, interrupt, get ranged threat and of course take a lot of damage. Warrior tanks are usually the prototype around which the other tank-able classes have been designed, or so I like to think, and a tank warrior in Classic has no ranged or aoe threat (I don't really count Demo Shout). What it does have is good single target aggro and damage reduction skills. Tanking 1-3 mobs is usually still not an issue as a warrior as long as you keep retargeting and dishing out your threat fairly evenly. So how does the tank shaman differ?

Well the tank shaman has excellent ranged threat and decent aoe threat. With Chain Lighting you can do a ranged-aoe threat pull which is so handy in low level instances. Earth Shock not only works as a high threat skill, but also as an interrupt with only 6 sec cd. As a shaman you don't have a taunt, but that is very rarely an issue in low level dungeons (I can't say for higher dungeons yet). It only actually becomes problematic if you lose aggro on a boss and that probably only happens if you're unlucky with some resists and misses. 

I can't say for sure if my shaman takes more damage than a "regular" tank.

The tank shaman also lacks any kind of decent damage reduction skills. Improved Stoneskin totem should only really be considered as making up for the lack in armor, but the warrior has both Last Stand (talent) or Shield Wall (skill), which can make a huge difference when shit hits the fan and you overpull. While I've never heard a healer complain, I do find that I miss these skills on my shaman (paladins have things like Lay on Hands. As far as I know druids also lack tanking cooldowns which for some time was considered one of their greatest weaknesses if I recall correctly). 

Totems are also definitely a lot less convenient than shouts or auras. An aura goes along with you, doesn't have to be recast and can't be targeted and destroyed by enemies. On the other hand a paladin/warrior only has the one buff, whereas the shaman can use four different ones at once. As a shaman you have a huge arsenal of really useful totems i.e buffs to drop in very varying situations, things like Tremor Totem, Earthbind Totem or Stoneclaw Totem (which I often use to aid me in multi-pulls). In the end I think the trade-off is pretty balanced, though Stoneskin Totem usually is the only one I use for every fight for mana preserving reasons. And on that note...

Just as with paladins, tanking shamans have one feature that is both one of the best things and the worst things about it - the mana pool. It is easy to burn through in one fight, requiring you to drink often, but I find that you get a feeling for how many Earth Shocks you need to use on an enemy to have it securely at your side. While you could burn five into its face, it's probably enough with two. And maybe not every group-pull needs to be done with a Chain Lightning, just because it is handy. If there are only two targets, a regular pull will probably work just as well and save you a lot of mana. I almost never use Lightning Shield, because it's too expensive. With some mana management I find I don't have to drink more than between every 4-5 pulls, but that is still a lot of drinking. Whether you prefer to have all your threat skills available up-front or have to work it up like warriors and druids do is probably a matter of taste. I do find though that with a good group I can do one long continuous pull through an instance as a warrior, and that would never be possible as a shaman.

Earth Shock is very handy as a tanking skill.

Throughout the handful of instance I've had time to do so far on my shaman it has been a delight though. I have definitely not struggled more than I have with other tank classes, just with different things. And I think that's a great thing. Shaman tanking and warrior tanking are different enough to be quite their own experience. While the essence of pulling and handling mobs is the same, the way you can go about it differs a lot. Which one is easier? I would definitely have to say shaman. Rage management is not for the faint of hearted, and the fact of having all your threat skills available on pull, with good interruptability and ranged threat just makes a lot of the things I think a newbie tank would struggle with a lot easier. Which is more fun? Right now I am enjoying both equally because they are different enough. I've personally always had a soft heart for warrior tanking though, so I doubt shaman tanking will knock it down, but as a kind of odd alternative it is great.

At level 40 I get Stormstrike and I am really looking forward to see how that is going to change my tanking experience, the same way I feel Shield Slam has improved my tanking experience on my warrior. It will change the way I go about it though, since now I pull with an Earth Shock, but with Stormstrike I will want to get that in first (for the damage bonus), meaning my pulls will presumably become more like on my warrior. Changing gear to mail and getting to some more challenging instances will also be interesting, though I did have a shaman tank me in Sunken Temple the other day without any trouble. I am sure it'll be fine.