Since it's been a while since I've given a gaming update...

And it helps me remember what I'm playing!

By Rob Hamilton · August 28, 2015

While I do play a bit of Etrian Odyssey Untold: Millennium Girl, Eschalon Book One and Shin Megami Tensai IV from time to time, until I've finished the year and my likely-to-be-just-a couple-letters-shy run at the Alpha Marathon, I don't really make quick progress. I'm at Floor 10 in EO:U, killing goblins and wasp-things in Eschalon and working to advance things a bit in SMT IV by killing a demon located near the town I'm at (which I can't remember the name of off the top of my head -- I previously had killed Dullahan in another area near it, though.

As for the stuff I'm working on more regularly:

THE DIVERSION:

In Final Fantasy Record Keeper, I'm doing L33-34 classic dungeons where I'm going between FF8 and 13 stuff. FUN FACT: This game's on-rails system of fight-fight-fight-fight-boss with nothing else means it's almost exactly like a 16-bit version of FF XIII! I'm also working more on Elite dungeons, since I got through a couple annoying ones (anything where an enemy enters a defensive posture and counters if you attack then such as Guard Scorpion from 7 or Mist Dragon from 4 is a real pain because those counterattacks tend to be the difference between getting a champion ranking or not). And, of course, collecting more characters when they become available via challenge events. It's a fun time-killer.

THE KEMCO KHALLENGE:

Since I found out that I can use my tablet to play about 42 cheapie RPGs that Kemco has published over the past few years, I decided it'd be a great use of my talents to play and review them all. Or as many as I can before I realize my life is now a sham and lose all heart and ambition. And so, I'm playing Alphadia. It's a pretty vanilla game with a modicum of decent story-telling (marred a bit by overly long-winded dialogue). It'd be a perfectly acceptable game if not for how easy it is. I mean, I've just breezed through everything so far, barely needing to even cast healing spells. The closest thing to a challenge is navigating through the maze-like towers.

THE ALPHA MARATHON LETTERS:

A = Aphelion 1, an XBox indie sci-fi RPG. Unless it winds up being Alphadia, since I could potentially finish that one first. This is a sound game, but just isn't overly resonating with me. Not many different areas to explore (I've spent roughly an eternity in the galaxy's largest office building) and I get the idea the creators wanted to make this epic game with a lot of stuff to do, but crammed it all into a 5-10 hour quest, so interesting ideas really never get fleshed out.

B = Bravely Default. I'm about halfway or so through the third chapter. Got through the ruins where Qada gassed everyone and now am doing the Diva job sidequest, where I have to visit every land I'd been in to find people to tell me how to stop Praline's song.

C = Chrono Trigger. Poor Crono, he's dead. Poor Dalton, he's a few minutes of game time from being sucked into a dimensional rift. And then it's time to bring Crono back and do everyone's side quests.

H = Holy Umbrella. I really need to suck it up and finish this meh-ish Super Famicom platformer with light RPG elements.

O = Odin Sphere. It was highly regarded, but just hasn't clicked with me yet. Maybe because I really haven't focused much on it because I mainly using my PS2 was busting through Front Mission 3 until recently. But I haven't another game for this letter, so I'll continue seeing what I can get out of it. Other than frustration. The Valkyrie's fourth chapter is pretty tough with the 2-berserker mini-boss fights and all.

V = Venetica. This game amuses me. I'm getting ready to do the Claw ship/dungeon in Venice. To get into the ship, you have to help a thief break in, but he gets attacked by a pair of assassins. It was night when I did this, as the thief only comes there at night. At night, random Marauders can attack you on the streets. I was fighting the assassins, when one of those Marauders hit me. I ran and turned around and those bastards were just streaming into the area. Like 4-5 of them just wandered into the battle. That was wacky.

X = Xenoblade Chronicles. I'm doing sidequests around Alcamoth before going to Prison Island. The game is acting like it's all urgent and stuff that I go there, but man, so many sidequests. So many indigenous species to kill for money and trinkets. So little self-control.

Comments 9

honestgamer Staff Aug 28, 2015

I've been buying the Kemco RPGs, too, when I could find them cheaply, though I only have around 8 of them. They're cheap, but $5 a pop does add up over time (and that's on sale). I'd love to see you review some of them!

overdrive Blogger Aug 28, 2015

Alphadia could be next week or the one after, depending on how much more there is to go. I just did a hilariously boring side-quest where I had to go to six shrines to get the elementals on my side. Each shrine was a very small "dungeon" with no encounters other than a boss fight. In other words 30-45 minutes of flying from one place to another to walk for a while and then fight a boss.

Now, it's time to storm the castle of the evil emperor to try to talk sense into him, which likely will lead to fights and possibly the climax, as there isn't really much more of the overworld that I haven't seen yet. I guess I could go after the special post-game boss after that, but I don't know if I'll be that motivated, since you have to run around to get a bunch of items from all over the world to access it. And then, the hope that Symphony of Eternity has a bit more bite to it.

joseph_valencia Aug 28, 2015

Legend has it that Dalton orchestrated the downfall of Guardia in Chrono Cross. Son of a bitch!

JoeTheDestroyer Staff Aug 28, 2015

I'm tempted to play Kemco's mobile RPGs, but my backlog is big enough.

JoeTheDestroyer Staff Aug 29, 2015

I've just put them all on my GooglePlay wishlist. Grr...

overdrive Blogger Sep 1, 2015

In more Kemco Khallenge news, they've just released their 43rd RPG for Android devices with Asdivine Dios. Fortunately, that one is the next in the Asdivine series, following Asdivine Hearts, which seems to be considered one of the best games they've belched up onto the market.

Joseph: Dalton might go down in history as the most effective villain in gaming history who is essentially viewed as a inept smug snake lackey (at the very least, I've been on Team Dalton for a couple decades!). In the original Chrono Trigger, he got the best of the party twice in cutscenes (once in the castle to set up you getting kicked out the the sky kingdom and once after the Ocean Palace when he set himself up as king), a main reason he lost was because the Golem Boss was inexplicably afraid of heights...and then things got retcon'd so that when he got sucked into a dimensional warp, he wound up in a position where he orchestrated that downfall of Guardia. Pretty good results for a guy who probably struggles to even be a Top-5 baddie plot-wise in Chrono Trigger (Lavos, Magus, Azala, Queen Zeal all supersede him, leaving him to fight it out with Ozzie and Mother Brain for #5 -- Mother Brain being there due to how it was the big bad of the entire future timeline due to being the leader of all the evil robots).

sashanan Sep 3, 2015

I've given up on Final Fantasy Record Keeper reaching a playable speed on my Android phone, and outright uninstalled it when it woke me up with a buzz at 4 am to tell me Eiko was now available as a limited character. I tried for a bit to find a settings menu where I could tell it to announce such things silently, but - probably because it was, as aforementioned, 4 am - failed. So I went the uninstall route. Didn't get back to sleep either.

overdrive Blogger Sep 3, 2015

I go through days where I play it (I don't generally have the same troubles that you had and that Rhody also mentioning having on an earlier post about the game -- worst for me is that it sometimes crashes and I have to reload it...or it goes slow for a couple minutes as far as loading a realm or dungeon in said realm) and days where I don't.

It's a fun diversion. I'm around Difficulty 33-34 in classic dungeons and L26 in elite ones, but right now, more or less focusing on Challenge events to get more characters so I have more guys from the various games, so I have more guys with stat bonuses in each of the regular dungeons to make it easier to get Master.

My main gripe right now is with whichever FF XIII dungeon I'm doing in classic mode. Your special grade criteria for the boss (which you fight twice in this dungeon) is to inflict blind on it. No spells do this -- you have to use Dark Attack or another physical attack which inflicts dark damage and can also inflict blind. So far, it hasn't done so once. I use it four times per battle and the status never is inflicted. What the hell?!?

sashanan Sep 4, 2015

An objective depending on random chance? Brr. Where did I have this recently, that the FAQ said a difficult boss was best defeated while you had him blinded or stunned or whatever and the suggested move to do it with just wouldn't make it stick? I know I had this problem with some RPG or another, but sometimes they blur together a bit. Was frustrating, though in the end I ended up winning without it, having finally killed it in the trying. No such luck for you on this one clearly...

Oh, I remember, it was SMT Strange Journey, and the boss was - ever fun - one that completely heals himself repeatedly unless you manage to charm him. Which I didn't, but I eventually used oodles of money (which took grinding) and a code found online to craft overpowered demons that could just one shot him instead.