So the decision was made: power level a bit on route 4, then hit up nugget bridge and milk the trainers to the north before coming back for misty. Mankey needs to level the most, and the spearows here are mostly L10, and rarely even use peck. A single hit is only 30% or so of her health, so I'm feeling pretty safe. Oh hey, fury swipes? I recall this move being pretty good, figure I'll give it a try before heading back for healing (Mankey's got about half health).
Did you not see this coming? I didn't. 'Cuz I'm a fool. L12 spearow this time, goes straight for peck, gets a crit. Mankey II goes down- hard. Didn't even hit with the swipes either. Mankeys appear to be terrible luck for me... but I must soldier on.
Nugget bridge is pathetic. Butterfree literally wrecked everyone. Tried to give rattata a little bit of XP, but butterfree was just too good. Confusion gets super effectiveness against poisons, which is about half of the pokemon on that bridge, and the lone high level mankey. Sleep powder combos to take down the rest easily enough. I think she almost gained 3 levels on those 7 trainers (I'm counting the camper on the left too).
Now, more importantly; new route! Again I have the option to wait and swim for some water types later, but I'll defer them to cities and my awesome wartortle. How's the grass? Well, 24% chance of a caterpie/metapod, but otherwise good options. Weedle/kakuna is not actually that bad- I'm a fan of beedrill. Pidgey would fill my flying gap nicely. Bellsprout would finally give me someone good against water, which I desperately need since who knows if I'll ever catch an electric type. And abra, well, kadabra is one of the strongest psychics. So, knowing my luck recently, this'll be a caterpie.
Pidgey! Booyah. Set up wartortle, get a couple bubbles in, but I'm not confident a third bubble won't kill it. Bring back butterfree, and I poison the poor bird. Let that work its health down for a couple turns, then use sleep powder. If it works, this will put the pidgey to sleep, which boosts the odds of capture more than poison and prevent it from dying after I catch it. Of course, sleep powder only works 75% of the time, but it'd have to fail twice (1/16th chance) for the pidgey to die of poison.
Again, can you see where this is headed? I had slept him at the opening of the battle already, so I knew he didn't have vital spirit or anything, but why would that stop me? Two failed attempts, and pidgey is no more. Didn't even get the chance to catch this one... le *sigh*.
Roommate-boy (aka RIP) thinks that since a pokemon can only have one status ailment at a time, one that is already poisoned would be immune to sleep powder. I had always thought that sleep powder would cure the poison and put them to sleep. I can't confirm or deny which it is, so I guess it's crowd sourcing time! Anyone know more?
Friday, May 25, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Do Your Research: A Cautionary Tale
Mount moon, and the next member of my party is... a geodude! Hallelujah! Some sleep powder and even leveled mankey low kicking, and she is mine. Of course, I've got two level 8s now, which I really ought to level more... somewhere without poison pointed nidorans and poison stinging weedles. *sigh*
Mount moon was... kinda dull. Healing often, got a bunch of items, some nice leveling up. Took the helix fossil, in case I feel like grabbing omanyte later. Route 4 was a choice for new pokemon though: wait for now, and come back to grab a water type (very good shot at a krabby, which I've never used before) or go into the grass now, and risk a 35% shot at a spearow? I could really use a flyer, and I figure I can catch a water type inside most cities (nothing else to do there but fish) so I'll try for the grass.
Nope. Rattata. Guess I've got a back up now, and although the extra mankey came in use awfully quickly, I'm really hoping to keep my current rattata. I like him.
... dammit. Emotionally bonded already. This is definitely going to end poorly...
Oh, in other news, roommate-boy (aka premature ejection) beelined it for misty. I guess he forgot that gym leaders are often 10 levels above the surrounding pokemon, and the stuff in mount moon was only a few levels behind him already. Oh, and remember how he took charmander? At this point, without bulbasaur, you really don't have anything with type effectiveness, so you gotta be doubly careful to overlevel. So anyway, he went in with L23 charmeleon, L16 butterfree, and L16 magikarp (tackle FTW). So butterfree knocks out the L21 staryu. Good start, but they have a fairly strong move called "water pulse."
Aaaaand there's the L21 starmie. Charmeleon tries to get a mega punch in, and does maybe 20% damage at most. Of course, starmies are known for speed, and the only reason that first hit got in at all is that he had 2 HP left. Butterfree takes a hit and hits back, but goes down after the second. And just like that, he's got no one left at a high enough level to take a hit, and starmie is well over half health. A few brutal rounds later, and the whole party is KO'd.
Game over man. Game over.
Mount moon was... kinda dull. Healing often, got a bunch of items, some nice leveling up. Took the helix fossil, in case I feel like grabbing omanyte later. Route 4 was a choice for new pokemon though: wait for now, and come back to grab a water type (very good shot at a krabby, which I've never used before) or go into the grass now, and risk a 35% shot at a spearow? I could really use a flyer, and I figure I can catch a water type inside most cities (nothing else to do there but fish) so I'll try for the grass.
Nope. Rattata. Guess I've got a back up now, and although the extra mankey came in use awfully quickly, I'm really hoping to keep my current rattata. I like him.
... dammit. Emotionally bonded already. This is definitely going to end poorly...
Oh, in other news, roommate-boy (aka premature ejection) beelined it for misty. I guess he forgot that gym leaders are often 10 levels above the surrounding pokemon, and the stuff in mount moon was only a few levels behind him already. Oh, and remember how he took charmander? At this point, without bulbasaur, you really don't have anything with type effectiveness, so you gotta be doubly careful to overlevel. So anyway, he went in with L23 charmeleon, L16 butterfree, and L16 magikarp (tackle FTW). So butterfree knocks out the L21 staryu. Good start, but they have a fairly strong move called "water pulse."
Aaaaand there's the L21 starmie. Charmeleon tries to get a mega punch in, and does maybe 20% damage at most. Of course, starmies are known for speed, and the only reason that first hit got in at all is that he had 2 HP left. Butterfree takes a hit and hits back, but goes down after the second. And just like that, he's got no one left at a high enough level to take a hit, and starmie is well over half health. A few brutal rounds later, and the whole party is KO'd.
Game over man. Game over.
Paranoid Pokemon Pose Preventable Problems
Ok, a quick state of the union. Level 13 squirtle and rattata are my main boys, ready to bring the house down on Brock (once I get there). Butterfree's sittin' pretty at level 12. Looking to level her a bit more for sleep powder, for sealing the deal on catching what I can. Mankey's bringing up the rear at level 7, but she's got some real potential. Time to hit up viridian, with antidotes spilling out my bag.
Pretty easy on the whole it turns out. Butterfree's wrecking of poison types is more than enough, so I cleared the entire forest in one go. Pewter city, and an easy badge, await.
Stupid mankey is too low leveled to even handle the gym trainer. I don't really want to risk poison costs to train in veridian, so squirtle will just get me through this. Yep, one hits both of brock's guys. Time for trainers, and the massive xp they represent. Also, a new pokemon on route 3...
I'm kinda hoping for a pidgey. I could use a flyer, but odds are I won't get a spearow (and I use those normally anyway). Another rattata would be a bit disappointing, and jigglypuff is kinda underpowered. Drum roll please... oh. huh. Another mankey. Well... that's sorta meh. This ones higher level than my first, so I won't use it unless disaster falls. I guess I just have to hope I don't end up with a zubat from mount moon now.
So there's a lass on this road with a jigglypuff. I lead with rattata, but after a quick nip, he falls in love with her!! Not a good sign. Fortunately, he was more than happy to finish her off and beat her into unconsciousness. Ok, maybe not fortunately, given that my rattata probably has some serious emotional issues.
NOOOOOOoooooo!!! Foolish power leveling of mankey went horrible awry. I figured he could take an under leveled spearow. I forgot about critical hits. My very first loss... not feeling it too too terribly though. I did already have another mankey, although she started at a higher level, but that's fine. A good lesson learned, at not too high a cost. Still... critical hits suck. I have a bad feeling that they'll come back to haunt me again someday.
Some safer power leveling of the new mankey, then mount moon. Apparently I've got a 69% chance of getting a zubat on floor 1, so I might as well resign myself to that now.
Pretty easy on the whole it turns out. Butterfree's wrecking of poison types is more than enough, so I cleared the entire forest in one go. Pewter city, and an easy badge, await.
Stupid mankey is too low leveled to even handle the gym trainer. I don't really want to risk poison costs to train in veridian, so squirtle will just get me through this. Yep, one hits both of brock's guys. Time for trainers, and the massive xp they represent. Also, a new pokemon on route 3...
I'm kinda hoping for a pidgey. I could use a flyer, but odds are I won't get a spearow (and I use those normally anyway). Another rattata would be a bit disappointing, and jigglypuff is kinda underpowered. Drum roll please... oh. huh. Another mankey. Well... that's sorta meh. This ones higher level than my first, so I won't use it unless disaster falls. I guess I just have to hope I don't end up with a zubat from mount moon now.
So there's a lass on this road with a jigglypuff. I lead with rattata, but after a quick nip, he falls in love with her!! Not a good sign. Fortunately, he was more than happy to finish her off and beat her into unconsciousness. Ok, maybe not fortunately, given that my rattata probably has some serious emotional issues.
NOOOOOOoooooo!!! Foolish power leveling of mankey went horrible awry. I figured he could take an under leveled spearow. I forgot about critical hits. My very first loss... not feeling it too too terribly though. I did already have another mankey, although she started at a higher level, but that's fine. A good lesson learned, at not too high a cost. Still... critical hits suck. I have a bad feeling that they'll come back to haunt me again someday.
Some safer power leveling of the new mankey, then mount moon. Apparently I've got a 69% chance of getting a zubat on floor 1, so I might as well resign myself to that now.
Justified Paranoia
A slow start, even with turbo mode for power grinding. Since I don't have pokeballs the first time I encounter a wild pokemon on route 1, there's no hope of catching one here ever. Ouch. Fortunately, route 2 gives me a level 2 rattata! Just what I want, and low enough to really benefit from training. Let the power leveling begin!
Ok, time for a brief trip into Viridian forest. Hoping for a pikachu, but get a metapod instead. Level 4, which is respectably low for this region, but would have preferred a caterpie for tackle. This one is gonna take a long time to evolve... although apparently butterfree comes out at level 10, so maybe not *that* long.
Nope. Forever. Splitting xp with rattata and squirtle actually lets her beat rattata to 10. Yay butterfree! Now to get rattata up enough to hyper fang, and I can go take on BOWSA near victory road.
Disaster strikes! Roommate-boy (aka fuzzy sunrise) loses his rattata! Sloppy power leveling and a distinct lack of my paranoia, and the poor soul is lost forever. Now I'm even more careful. If I don't have a backup pokemon at more than half health, it's back to the pokemon center for me. Spent half my purse on antidotes to. Viridian might get dicey.
Ok, new pokemon on route 22 before facing BOWSA. Oh man, a mankey? I don't think I've ever caught one of these here, but it's only level 2. Great for the long term, but I'm more than a little concerned that squirtle will just drop her straight up. Bubble's low attack power is finally going to come in handy... winning. Almost a kill but not quite, perfect set up for the first pokeball. A freaking mankey?! I'm so excited.
Ok, focus. Time to face da BOWSA. Thanks to roommate-boy (aka break and enter), I happen to know all he's got is a bulbasaur and pidgey, around level 9. Rattata's got hyper fang, at level 13. Pidgey goes down to a one hit KO, and I realize that butterfree's confusion is super effective against poisons. I though bulbasaur might only add poison after evolving, but nope! Not quite a KO, he puts a weak tackle up, and just like that, the "mighty" BOWSA is down for the count. Time to go train up mankey, and fantasize about how easy Brock will be.
Ok, time for a brief trip into Viridian forest. Hoping for a pikachu, but get a metapod instead. Level 4, which is respectably low for this region, but would have preferred a caterpie for tackle. This one is gonna take a long time to evolve... although apparently butterfree comes out at level 10, so maybe not *that* long.
Nope. Forever. Splitting xp with rattata and squirtle actually lets her beat rattata to 10. Yay butterfree! Now to get rattata up enough to hyper fang, and I can go take on BOWSA near victory road.
Disaster strikes! Roommate-boy (aka fuzzy sunrise) loses his rattata! Sloppy power leveling and a distinct lack of my paranoia, and the poor soul is lost forever. Now I'm even more careful. If I don't have a backup pokemon at more than half health, it's back to the pokemon center for me. Spent half my purse on antidotes to. Viridian might get dicey.
Ok, new pokemon on route 22 before facing BOWSA. Oh man, a mankey? I don't think I've ever caught one of these here, but it's only level 2. Great for the long term, but I'm more than a little concerned that squirtle will just drop her straight up. Bubble's low attack power is finally going to come in handy... winning. Almost a kill but not quite, perfect set up for the first pokeball. A freaking mankey?! I'm so excited.
Ok, focus. Time to face da BOWSA. Thanks to roommate-boy (aka break and enter), I happen to know all he's got is a bulbasaur and pidgey, around level 9. Rattata's got hyper fang, at level 13. Pidgey goes down to a one hit KO, and I realize that butterfree's confusion is super effective against poisons. I though bulbasaur might only add poison after evolving, but nope! Not quite a KO, he puts a weak tackle up, and just like that, the "mighty" BOWSA is down for the count. Time to go train up mankey, and fantasize about how easy Brock will be.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Nuzlocke for Life (or Death)
So there's this thing that crazy folks (like me) are apparently want to do. It's called a "Nuzlocke Challenge", and I've been talked into it j_verts. If you're too lazy to google it, here's what I'm talking about. The rules are fairly simple: Play through a pokemon game. Catch only the first pokemon in any given area (no second chances if it faints or flees). Any time a pokemon faints for any reason, it is now "dead", and you must release it immediately.
Yep. Gonna be that kind of a summer. My roommate started his own such run yesterday on Fire Red, so I'll be doing Leaf Green, assuming I have the ROM (I do!). Let's get it on.
Oh Oak. You slay me. First choice: boy or girl? I figure this only affects pronouns (do they even ever use any?) and appearance, so really it comes down to who looks more badass. Naturally they don't show you in game, so the first trip to bulbapedia is in order. The boy looks kinda depressed, and clearly doesn't give a rat's (rattata's) ass about anything. Meh. The girl is rocking a messenger bag instead of a backpack, and those silly loose socks. That said, at least she's smiling. I fully expect to have a dead soul by the end of this, but let's try to start out on a happy note, shall we?
Forgot that disabling sound speeds the emulator way WAY up. Really freaking annoying to play on constant turbo. Unfortunately, macs don't have the convenient sound output mixer that windows does, and the mac version of vba doesn't have a mute option... huh? Why not?? UGH. Already wasted 15 minutes trying to deal with this. Decided to mess around with values at random, and something that I changed right back seems to have done it. Hopefully, this will be the worst of the technical issues.
Naming time! Gotta go with "KOOPA" for myself, but what to name the rival... I was thinking about "BOWSER", but although he always loses in the end, I gotta have respect for how hard he makes some of the challenges along the way. Not gonna give this sucker any cred I don't have to, so let's go with the poser punk version "BOWSA". Perfect.
Time to actually play. Time I predict until I cave and start using turbo mode walking around? 5 minutes. Actual time I last? ~45 seconds. *sigh*.
Definitely taking Squirtle. Charmander used to be my main man, but Squirtle is, sadly, way better. Plus my roommate is starting with Charmander, so a little variation might be nice. Opening battle? Easy win. Was briefly kinda worried about a false start, but Squirtle's great. I hate grass types. Onward!
Yep. Gonna be that kind of a summer. My roommate started his own such run yesterday on Fire Red, so I'll be doing Leaf Green, assuming I have the ROM (I do!). Let's get it on.
Oh Oak. You slay me. First choice: boy or girl? I figure this only affects pronouns (do they even ever use any?) and appearance, so really it comes down to who looks more badass. Naturally they don't show you in game, so the first trip to bulbapedia is in order. The boy looks kinda depressed, and clearly doesn't give a rat's (rattata's) ass about anything. Meh. The girl is rocking a messenger bag instead of a backpack, and those silly loose socks. That said, at least she's smiling. I fully expect to have a dead soul by the end of this, but let's try to start out on a happy note, shall we?
Forgot that disabling sound speeds the emulator way WAY up. Really freaking annoying to play on constant turbo. Unfortunately, macs don't have the convenient sound output mixer that windows does, and the mac version of vba doesn't have a mute option... huh? Why not?? UGH. Already wasted 15 minutes trying to deal with this. Decided to mess around with values at random, and something that I changed right back seems to have done it. Hopefully, this will be the worst of the technical issues.
Naming time! Gotta go with "KOOPA" for myself, but what to name the rival... I was thinking about "BOWSER", but although he always loses in the end, I gotta have respect for how hard he makes some of the challenges along the way. Not gonna give this sucker any cred I don't have to, so let's go with the poser punk version "BOWSA". Perfect.
Time to actually play. Time I predict until I cave and start using turbo mode walking around? 5 minutes. Actual time I last? ~45 seconds. *sigh*.
Definitely taking Squirtle. Charmander used to be my main man, but Squirtle is, sadly, way better. Plus my roommate is starting with Charmander, so a little variation might be nice. Opening battle? Easy win. Was briefly kinda worried about a false start, but Squirtle's great. I hate grass types. Onward!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Majestic, If Nothing Else.
A friend of mine helped me get my hands on a gameboy color emulator and a dozen or so roms last year. This was possibly the single worst blow to what remained of my work ethic, until now. Now, steam is making a valiant effort to claim that title. Just a couple days ago, I decided to download the demo for Magicka. I'd heard about the game from another friend, and really wanted to try it out. I could go on about how I feel about Magicka, but the point is, steam threw some random gaming news at me automatically when I logged in, and I did just what they wanted. I looked at it. And I saw something. Majesty 2 was apparently 80% off for the next 2 days.
Now, I remember the original Majesty with great fondness. My brothers and I played it for many an hour on our family's old imac desktop back in the day. The campaign missions ranged nicely in difficulty, and had surprising replay value (especially months later). The custom maps had great variety (since you could mix and match starting buildings, baddie lair theme, wandering monsters, etc). By placing arbitrary restrictions on ourselves, like using only warriors and mages, or no 2nd tier priests, we extended the enjoyment even further. Basically, original Majesty was a defining part of my formative gaming years (god I feel old now) and I absolutely loved it.
Enter Majesty 2. My expectations were high, given just how long it'd been since Majesty 1 was released, and although Majesty 2 isn't on the cutting edge, it looked like a fairly recent release. The trailers looked pretty, although some potential scale problems had me worried (more on that in a bit). So I buy and download it, and the kingmaker's expansion, because hey, they're only $6. I've been playing them for a couple days now, and I've gotten through about 7 campaign levels, plus the first in kingmaker's. So here are my thoughts:
*sigh*. Overall, I'm not sure it's actually any better than the original at all. Sure it's enjoyable, but when I'm playing I get an urge to just play the first one again. Let's go with a pro/con list, shall we?
Pros:
-Buildings look much nicer now. Full 3D is undeniably pretty, and the destruction animations are extremely smooth. Watching an opposing palace fall to pieces is extremely satisfying.
-Fully 3D. I do enjoy spinning my view and zooming to admire my heroes, who now get skin upgrades at levels 5 and 10.
-Height in terrain. There are actually mountains now, not just flat land. The rivers are nicer too (don't think we even had them before, at least not really).
-Level 2 trading posts defend themselves. 'Bout frakking time, guardhouses get expensive fast.
-Magical Bazaar. Cool 2nd tier marketplace, nice for later game improvements. I never really used the training grounds that much before anyway, so this is a nice change.
-Graveyards let you resurrect heroes without any temples. I'm only ok with this because the cost scales proportionally to level. It does take a little too much sting out of losing a really good hero, which used to be a big deal.
-Special attacks for classes other than mage. Definitely nice, and I like that they scale with damage. Sorta ok with upgrading by guild, instead of the previous library system. Haven't decided which I prefer yet, but I don't hate either for sure.
Cons:
-3D. Ok yeah it's cool, but I don't actually use it in game. It throws off my internal map of what's where, and isn't actually helpful.
-Game pace. Somehow, it feels faster. Can't quite put my finger on it, but I don't feel like I actually have time to admire my pretty heroes and buildings and terrain. Sad face.
-Mountain ranges absolutely kill the camera. It's annoying.
-Scale. If you zoom in enough to actually differentiate your warriors and rouges, or your rangers from theirs, you can barely fit your palace in the screen. If you zoom out enough to see a useful amount of your kingdom, everyone looks like ants. I miss being able to scroll over a battle and get a sense of how many combatants there were on each side without having to think at all.
-User interface. Seriously, what the fuck? It feels cluttered, I get giant menus all over everything, and there's no minimap hero tracker. It's the scale issue, but in reverse: everything is too big, and space isn't conserved at all. Before, we could see plenty of the kingdom, we got selection info, building command card, minimap, hero tracker, and tabs on the info for stats. Now, we've lost the hero tracker, and info tabs like stats or graveyard resurrection take up almost half your useful space in the main view. AND, the right third is lost to the hero/party list, unless you get rid of it, but then it stops making up for losing the hero tracker, so it's a lose-lose.
-Selecting heroes. So I'm trying to heal a high level warrior to save his life. Firstly, I can't heal him directly from the main view, but whatever because he's too small to click on reliably anyway, and I don't want to heal his attackers by accident. He's in a party, so I select that (he's the leader) and try to heal his portrait. No dice. I get to his normal selection page, but lose my healing icon, and also he's still about to die. Now I can heal him by clicking his face, but of course the fireballs have long since caught up to his out of shape ass, and he's dead. Ugh.
-Temples restricted to specific build sites. I'm sorta ok with this, in that the now 3rd tier priests are much more powerful, but it ends up just restricting the heroes you can use. You've got maybe a single temple in most levels, which is 2 powerful heroes, and otherwise you're stuck with 5 classes and 2 races. Original majesty had 4 basic classes, 3 races, 2 or 3 priests (out of 7, thanks to conflicting temples) and possibly an extra special fighter class. So we've gone from an average of around 9 classes, to 6, plus sorta a 7th. And of the 9 you had in original, there were a bunch of different combinations. Now, you've got to choose between elves and dwarves, and which temple you'll use (unless it's just chosen for you, which is often the case).
-Custom maps. No setup versatility, they're just campaign missions without a voiceover or the hall of lords. The replay value that's been lost breaks my scales. Yay, we have survival levels now, but I was never a huge fan of those anyway. And then there's what, maybe 6 other missions? 8? C'mon, you even stepped down from 30 campaign missions to 14. You spent so much time on the game, you couldn't make another dozen decent custom maps? I don't need enemy rangers, a giant ogre, and a plot wizard in each, just let me sandbox some and I'll amuse myself.
Ok, enough ranting on that. So overall, while there are some nice improvements to some things, there were a lot of fundamentals that they got right the first time and then broke. Most of all, selecting heroes and being able to see them. I can't care much about them individually anymore, because I can't tell who or where they are. It's too much city planning and strategy, and not enough living vicariously through your mighty soldiers. I'll keep playing Majesty 2, and we'll see if I warm up to it some more, but I might just go back to the original soon unless there's some significant turnaround. Also, who would've thought mages could feel like they die even faster and dumber than before? Wow.
Now, I remember the original Majesty with great fondness. My brothers and I played it for many an hour on our family's old imac desktop back in the day. The campaign missions ranged nicely in difficulty, and had surprising replay value (especially months later). The custom maps had great variety (since you could mix and match starting buildings, baddie lair theme, wandering monsters, etc). By placing arbitrary restrictions on ourselves, like using only warriors and mages, or no 2nd tier priests, we extended the enjoyment even further. Basically, original Majesty was a defining part of my formative gaming years (god I feel old now) and I absolutely loved it.
Enter Majesty 2. My expectations were high, given just how long it'd been since Majesty 1 was released, and although Majesty 2 isn't on the cutting edge, it looked like a fairly recent release. The trailers looked pretty, although some potential scale problems had me worried (more on that in a bit). So I buy and download it, and the kingmaker's expansion, because hey, they're only $6. I've been playing them for a couple days now, and I've gotten through about 7 campaign levels, plus the first in kingmaker's. So here are my thoughts:
*sigh*. Overall, I'm not sure it's actually any better than the original at all. Sure it's enjoyable, but when I'm playing I get an urge to just play the first one again. Let's go with a pro/con list, shall we?
Pros:
-Buildings look much nicer now. Full 3D is undeniably pretty, and the destruction animations are extremely smooth. Watching an opposing palace fall to pieces is extremely satisfying.
-Fully 3D. I do enjoy spinning my view and zooming to admire my heroes, who now get skin upgrades at levels 5 and 10.
-Height in terrain. There are actually mountains now, not just flat land. The rivers are nicer too (don't think we even had them before, at least not really).
-Level 2 trading posts defend themselves. 'Bout frakking time, guardhouses get expensive fast.
-Magical Bazaar. Cool 2nd tier marketplace, nice for later game improvements. I never really used the training grounds that much before anyway, so this is a nice change.
-Graveyards let you resurrect heroes without any temples. I'm only ok with this because the cost scales proportionally to level. It does take a little too much sting out of losing a really good hero, which used to be a big deal.
-Special attacks for classes other than mage. Definitely nice, and I like that they scale with damage. Sorta ok with upgrading by guild, instead of the previous library system. Haven't decided which I prefer yet, but I don't hate either for sure.
Cons:
-3D. Ok yeah it's cool, but I don't actually use it in game. It throws off my internal map of what's where, and isn't actually helpful.
-Game pace. Somehow, it feels faster. Can't quite put my finger on it, but I don't feel like I actually have time to admire my pretty heroes and buildings and terrain. Sad face.
-Mountain ranges absolutely kill the camera. It's annoying.
-Scale. If you zoom in enough to actually differentiate your warriors and rouges, or your rangers from theirs, you can barely fit your palace in the screen. If you zoom out enough to see a useful amount of your kingdom, everyone looks like ants. I miss being able to scroll over a battle and get a sense of how many combatants there were on each side without having to think at all.
-User interface. Seriously, what the fuck? It feels cluttered, I get giant menus all over everything, and there's no minimap hero tracker. It's the scale issue, but in reverse: everything is too big, and space isn't conserved at all. Before, we could see plenty of the kingdom, we got selection info, building command card, minimap, hero tracker, and tabs on the info for stats. Now, we've lost the hero tracker, and info tabs like stats or graveyard resurrection take up almost half your useful space in the main view. AND, the right third is lost to the hero/party list, unless you get rid of it, but then it stops making up for losing the hero tracker, so it's a lose-lose.
-Selecting heroes. So I'm trying to heal a high level warrior to save his life. Firstly, I can't heal him directly from the main view, but whatever because he's too small to click on reliably anyway, and I don't want to heal his attackers by accident. He's in a party, so I select that (he's the leader) and try to heal his portrait. No dice. I get to his normal selection page, but lose my healing icon, and also he's still about to die. Now I can heal him by clicking his face, but of course the fireballs have long since caught up to his out of shape ass, and he's dead. Ugh.
-Temples restricted to specific build sites. I'm sorta ok with this, in that the now 3rd tier priests are much more powerful, but it ends up just restricting the heroes you can use. You've got maybe a single temple in most levels, which is 2 powerful heroes, and otherwise you're stuck with 5 classes and 2 races. Original majesty had 4 basic classes, 3 races, 2 or 3 priests (out of 7, thanks to conflicting temples) and possibly an extra special fighter class. So we've gone from an average of around 9 classes, to 6, plus sorta a 7th. And of the 9 you had in original, there were a bunch of different combinations. Now, you've got to choose between elves and dwarves, and which temple you'll use (unless it's just chosen for you, which is often the case).
-Custom maps. No setup versatility, they're just campaign missions without a voiceover or the hall of lords. The replay value that's been lost breaks my scales. Yay, we have survival levels now, but I was never a huge fan of those anyway. And then there's what, maybe 6 other missions? 8? C'mon, you even stepped down from 30 campaign missions to 14. You spent so much time on the game, you couldn't make another dozen decent custom maps? I don't need enemy rangers, a giant ogre, and a plot wizard in each, just let me sandbox some and I'll amuse myself.
Ok, enough ranting on that. So overall, while there are some nice improvements to some things, there were a lot of fundamentals that they got right the first time and then broke. Most of all, selecting heroes and being able to see them. I can't care much about them individually anymore, because I can't tell who or where they are. It's too much city planning and strategy, and not enough living vicariously through your mighty soldiers. I'll keep playing Majesty 2, and we'll see if I warm up to it some more, but I might just go back to the original soon unless there's some significant turnaround. Also, who would've thought mages could feel like they die even faster and dumber than before? Wow.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Get It Right the Second Time
I now happily reside next door to a SNES. My life has improved greatly from its presence. This said, I now have a small beef with nintendo:
Original Mario Kart sucks. It's really just terrible. The controls feel clunky and ineffective, battle mode is absolutely abysmal, and it's generally just painful to play. Now, granted, I am being a little quick to judge, given I've only played it once, but the experience was quite powerful. I will give the game credit in that it has all of the fundamentals that were so well executed in 'Kart 64, so as a lousy version 1 that evolved into something beautiful, the game is great.
As a game, it is just straight up bad.
Super Mario Bros, on the other hand, should be a religious experience for me. More on that as details become available, but this week is looking unfriendly, so don't expect anything until the weekend at the earliest.
Original Mario Kart sucks. It's really just terrible. The controls feel clunky and ineffective, battle mode is absolutely abysmal, and it's generally just painful to play. Now, granted, I am being a little quick to judge, given I've only played it once, but the experience was quite powerful. I will give the game credit in that it has all of the fundamentals that were so well executed in 'Kart 64, so as a lousy version 1 that evolved into something beautiful, the game is great.
As a game, it is just straight up bad.
Super Mario Bros, on the other hand, should be a religious experience for me. More on that as details become available, but this week is looking unfriendly, so don't expect anything until the weekend at the earliest.
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