You shall not pass!

After familiarizing myself with the new Base menu option I set out to the next chapter, or rather the chapter came to me...

The black armor army some how tracked down the old fort the party was staying in, and sent an endless army after us. Fortunately the fort has only 3 entry points and the objective was to only survive 8 rounds (not kill all attackers), but it still took 4 tries to manage it without out losing any of my party. My main strategy was basically place one of my strongest party members at each entry point so that only 1 enemy could attack at a time (and maybe ranged too), the trick was balancing who stood the best chance at which door.

During my last attempt I noticed that one of the attacking army was a unique female mage (not one of the generic models) with a name, and any one with a name is either a boss or a potential party member. So since she was not attacking any one I managed to clear a hole in the army enough to get the main character to talk to her, and sure enough she joined my side (turns out she was kidnapped by the army).

At the end of the fight some beast-people show up and chase away the last of the army, and they sort of joined my party (I can give them rough directions but not command them directly).

The last thing I did was go on to the next mission and where the group stumbles across another army base, and it looks like I'll be getting 3 more party members tomorrow...

Chain of command

Finished a couple more chapters of PoR and things are changing quickly.

After a tough battle that took 4 tries the father of the main character dies in a cut-scene fight against a Darth Vader looking knight, and now the main character is running the mercenary group. So now between battles there is a Home Base menu that seems to both makes things easier and more complicated.

There's now a merchant who I can buy and sell weapons from, the ability to talk to the party members out of battle, somethign about awarding exp (haven't looked into it), and the option to save outside of battles. There's most likely even more options that I'll find as I look into the menu more.

Story wise, despite the father's death the group got the princess the the country of the beast people (who appear to morph from humans to animal), but on hearing that the main character was put in charge the heavy and the archer of the group left the party. So tomorrow I'll be learning about the new base menu and maybe looking for new recruits.

Oh boy oh boy oh Boyd

Got up to chapter 6 in PoR, and the plot initially seems to be that neighboring kingdom (who of course have all black armor) suddenly attacked the capital for no reason and is trying to take over the country (which seems to be the initial plot in a lot of the series). While investigating the invasion the band of mercenaries find and rescue the princess, which leads the big bad army to their door step. So now the group have to make there way to a country of beast men without getting killed.

And speaking of getting killed, so far the only one in the group to die (and causing me to restart the round) is Boyd the low level axe-fighter... twice! I then gave him some throwing axes (taken from pirates) to keep him from danger till he levels up, and to be fair he was dying the the hardest battle so far.

The tricky thing is that this game is rather unforgiving if you mess up. There are potential party members that you may never get if you don't have the right person talk to them before a match ends, all weapons degrade every time you use them and the only new weapons you get are the ones that occasionally drop from enemies, and of course the whole permanent death of any party member.

The odd thing about the death mechanic is that relevantly major character members can die in a battle and aside for a brief bit of death dialogue the game takes no time out really to acknowledge the magnitude of it. So with the death of Boyd the long time friend of all in the group, and brother to tow of them, is killed off with no one getting a reaction as the fight goes on.

Well tomorrow I try to sneak past a army blockade and try to keep Boyd from dying more.

Grids of Radiance

Just started Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and rigth off the bat it's like the Fire Emblem games I played on the GBA (which I never finished but were fun) with 3D graphics.

I only got past the fist mission and so far plot wise it seems to centered on Ike (from Brawl), who is being trained by his father to be a mercenary along with his brother. Judging from the pre-rendered cut-scene Ike's mom is either dead or lost as part of the plot.

An odd thing that occurred to me when watching the cut-scenes was that if this was on 360 or PS3 the whole thing could have been in real time and the in-game characters could look that good and cel-shaded. Nintendo says that HD isn't important to them, but they sure like using that quality of imagery.

So tomorrow it's on to mission 2 where I'll probably get more character development and hopefully avoid permanent death of any units.

Well that's seventeen down...

The last puzzle are of the game was rated full stars for difficulty, mostly due to it being huge with about 25 steps and even the first step can kill you if you don't know the solution for it.

After many attempts and a lot of trail and error I finally beat the skeleton pirate, freed my crew, and took off in the pirate's ship.

Then the final boss battle happened...

It was sort of a like the squid battle, but much more puzzle based and not skill based. It's a long battle with several parts, and I even had to look up how to do one of the last parts in an FAQ. Not due to how hard it was but more just it wasn't clear and I didn't want to do the whole thing over again with trail and error. At last I beat the pirate and his giant Egyptian alligator space ship, and I was a fun end to a mostly fun game!

Tomorrow it's on to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance.

The great white squid

Well turns out that the game wanted to throw another curve ball and threw a frustrating boss battle out of nowhere against a giant squid.

The frustrating part comes from the fact that almost the whole level is like that frustrating nonsense with hitting the fireballs. First you have to shoot the squid as it jumps, then bomb it, then shoot 3 tentacles from a ways away, then bomb it again, then shoot 3 more tentacles, and if any of those shots miss you lose most of your points. So for one level the the fun cool puzzle game becomes a frustrating awkward shooter.

There is also more steps after that and all the while the ship is taking damage, too much and it's game over.

So after finally beating it with the lowest score yet in the game I catch up with the skeleton pirate and his freaky Esher like treasure island in the center of the earth. The level is so big and complicated that I'll leave it for tomorrow.

Change of perspective.

Well I broke down and looked up how to solve that labratory level, and it's a good thign since I don't think I would have ever figured out the trick behind it.

Turns out you just need to move the camera down to the snake and it will then come to you...

At first I thought this was ridiculous since nowhere else does anything behave like this when you move the camera, but then I guess it's another lesson of how even the camera can have more than once use. After that the level was a piece of cake.

The final level was were I got the last piece of the golden pirate skeleton, and cure the curse on it. Turns out that cursed undead pirates are not to be trusted...

So tomorrow I have to hunt him down and get my treasure back!

Also today I got Pokemon SoulSilver, SMT: Devil Survivor, and SMT: Strange Journey, but since they are DS games they don't count towards this list. Oddly enough it wasn't until I was on my way home that I realized all 3 games have sort of the same monster collecting element to them (which SMT had way before pokemon).

Weird science!

Didn't get to finish the haunted house area due to two factors.

First there was an extra level where I had to get the map back from some pirates. It took a few tries but it had a neat weird metal gear sold feel sneaking around the bad guys.

Then one of the levels of the haunted house area has this weird laboratory where I could not for the life of me figure out how to solve it. Basically all I have available is a bat/umbrella and a centipede/saw that I can combine into a potion that makes me shrink, but I need to get to the snake so I can become invisible. Whenever I shrink down the snake eats me, and I can't figure out any way through the level.

I'll give it a few more shots tomorrow before I break down and look up some hints on line...

Tennis any one?

Finished the fire area, and it didn't play fair...

I figured out what the difficulty rankings mean, it's not just how hard the level is but how much you can mess up before having to restart the level, and one level had almost zero margin of error. To make things worse the level has a section where you have to hot a fire ball with a tennis racket at the exact right time and exact right force... twice! Also, there is no explanation of how the racket works (had to look up that it's force and timing), the wii-mote can't do exact motions well (so it's still 50% odd when you know how to do it), and every time you hit it wrong you lose 25% of the puzzle points.

Now up until this point the puzzle points have been awarded based on figuring out a puzzle in the fewest tries or steps, but now it's based on your skill level at waving the wii-mote and luck! Compounded with this is that if you want to get full points for the level you have to restart and redo the all the previous steps every time you miss on the first try, and the 2nd tennis part is almost the last step in the level.

Also if you mess up any other part in the level you have to restart and do the tennis part all over again! And this isn't even the final level...

Finally after many restarts I finished the level with getting the first tennis section on my 2nd swing and unbelievably got the second tennis section on my very first try!

Tomorrow it looks like I'll be doing a haunted house area.

Chill out!

Finished the second area of Zack and Wiki today, which was shorter than the first and had an ice theme.

The puzzles were a little harder, probably to make up for the fewer levels, and each one is sort of a lesson in what is possible to solve a puzzle. In one area I was totally stumped on how to finish it, until I figured out that I could turn a particular bad guy into a stepping stone.

One odd thing about the game is how you can turn animals into tools, like a boar into a hammer or a mole into a drill, but one puzzle required the reverse and I had to change a grabber arm back into a snake to scare a frog that i turned into a bomb.

It's a strange but fun game...

On to area 3 tomorrow (looks like a fire level from the map).

Free-falling!

Well I completed the first area of Zack & Wiki today, and it's a surprisingly smart and fun game!

none of the puzzles were stupid or contrived, and only times I got stuck was when I didn't give the game enough credit (like having the big monkey afraid of fire).

One example of how complex the puzzles are is on the last stage I had to do the following in order:
-Get the saw
-Anger the boss monkey twice so he drops a pot on the wind stone
-Saw the wooden bars
-Get one of the wooden bars
-Light the wood on fire to make a torch
-Chase the monkey away with the torch
-Place the torch near the puzzle
-Solve the puzzle to flood the next area
-Swim to the next area and get an umbrella
-Climb to the top of the hill and look at the rope
-Flip the umbrella over to hook the handle on the rope
-Open the chest which causes the monkey to smash the bridge your on
-Grab the umbrella in mid air
-Flip the umbrella the right way around
-Hit the 2 button on the remote to open the umbrella and land safely.

That puzzle wasn't even the hardest, it was only a 6 of 10 difficulty and that's not even the only way to solve it. For example, I found that I could put the pot on the wind stone myself by sneaking past the monkey.

Should be interesting to see what area 2 holds tomorrow.

Well that's sixteen down...

Finished KotOR 2 today and in total it took me as long as Fallout 3, but not from being as large a game but due to all the days I only played for a little bit due to being tired, sick, or just lost on the plot.

The meeting with the Jedi turned out to be a trap (gasp) as they decided that my character was just too charismatic to live with the force and I had to have it removed before I gather an army or something. The the only blind jedi/sith came in and killed them all, right before being taken away by the jedi that took my first light-saber (never did get it back).

So to retrieve her I had to go back to that planet and fight jedi that took my first light-saber (who had gone gaga) and then the Sith fleet showed up out of nowhere.

So then I battle the force absorbing sith lord, not too hard, and then fly off to the battle ground where I had lost my powers originally. Once there I went through hundreds of sith troopers (easy), fought the busted up sith lord (tricky), and then had a final battle with the blind sith/Jedi (because she said I had to).

The last battle was rather tricky since I first had to fight her, then I had to fight 3 floating lightsabers, only way I survived was burning through nearly all my health packs and shields. The game ends with me flying off to the ends of the galaxy to find my character from the first game, who apparently went off to find the sith.

All in all the game was pretty good, and had a complex story (a little too much at times), but it didn't have the polish and smoothness of the first game, it seemd more thrown together.

Tomorrow it's on to Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, for the Wii.

Where's Ackbar when you need him?

Well I finally found the plot again, turns out the sick guy from yesterday had it, but first I had to tell some one else that I would kill the sick guy before I could cure him and advance the plot.

This game has broken event triggers...

So some how curing the guy got the attention of the local crime boss and he set up a meeting.

Which of course was a trap.

While I was on my way to the meeting My pilot decided to spend some time at the local bar.

Which of course was a trap.

Two bounty hunters jumped him but ht fought them off easily enough (as planed). At the same time my character was approached by a different bounty hunter who warned me about all the trouble and asked me to follow her.

Which of course was a trap.

So I get knocked out and the bounty hunter takes my disguise and goes off to spring the trap intended for me. So now I have to not only find the crime boss but rescue the bounty hunter. After several long fights I chase the crime boss to his underground lair...

Which of course was a trap.

My character gets lost in the maze under the boss' lair and the game play switch to the bounty hunter who now has to fight her way to my Jedi. After many explosions the bounty hunter frees my Jedi and escapes and my character faces off with the crime boss.

Which of course was a trap.

Turns out another crime boss was pulling the strings and kills the crime boss I was after and captures me. Now my crew has to find the cloaked ship I'm on and rescue me, and they mange this with the help of my astromech droid and a lot more explosions.

In the end it turns out the crime boss behind every thing (who is most likely an AI) is unhappy that the republic is about to fall apart due to the actions of the last game since instability is bad for business. He was planning to kidnap me so the Sith would have a better chance of taking over and forcing stability, but after my escape he decides that the Jedi resorting stability would be just as good and so he joins my party through a proxy droid (which may be his actual body). Also the bounty hunter joins my party too, nearly all the side quests get resolved, and I finally meet up with the Jedi I was looking for the whole time.

Now I just have to go back to Dantooine tomorrow and find out what all the jedi I found plan to do now.

Which of course may be a trap.

Power of persuasion

Didn't play much today, oddly enough my last save was some how corrupted, but I had a save from a few minuets earlier so nothing was lost.

I walked up to a sick man and suggested that he should kill himself before he spreads his sickness, and so he does. just like that, some one says "you might want to drop dead" and he goes "ok" and just will himself to death.

So that gets me a dark side point, so I quit for the day and will re-load my save tomorrow.

I find your lack of plot disturbing...

More exploring of this moon and I found half a dozen new side quests but no clear leads on the actual plot.

It seems the bounty hunters that are tailing me are having more interesting stories than I am currently...

Have you seen the plot anywhere?

Well I explored around the moon a bit, but aside from many unrelated sub-quests I can't seem to find the main plot thread.

Maybe tomorrow...

What could go wrong?

Landed on Nar Shaddaa, a whole moon filled with assassins, bounty hunters, and killers.

We should be fine...

Metal Gear Jedi.

The battle on Onderon was actually quite interesting, and took place with two groups simultaneously.

The first group (with mostly characters I don't normally use) started their quest with having to sneak past a mine field and a visual sensor which took MANY tries to get right. After getting past that I figured to keep up the stealth route and see how far I could sneak, turns out one can sneak past an entire army of sith troopers and battle droids if on is so trained. So after running around more invisible than Solid Snake I wound up only having to fight the end battle of the mission, and the less stealthy party members who stayed behind teleaported to me when things got crazy.

On the flip side the second group (with my main characters) had to fight like crazy against waves of sith, rogue militarily, robots, and wild beasts, but they were trained for that kind of thing. In the end both groups saved the day and the bad guys were defeated, except for one guy that the blind old jedu sent off to the first planet we visited for some reason...

Tomorow it's more action (hopefully).

Pazaak on the brain

Well I wet to the planet where the sith had their training base in the first game, and the place was a mess. I went into the abandoned training grounds to find the missing Jedi only to find her dead, then I get chased out of there by the busted up sith lord who apparently I can't kill yet.

Just when I thought this was another waste of time I came across a cave with an odd set of trails for my character. While it didn't give me much in the way of items or experience, it did give a lot of back story of my character.

but the most interesting plot related things happened when i went back to my ship. While training with the blind Jedi she finally revealed (in a pre-rendered cut scene no less) that she was once the Sith master who trained the busted up sith and the force absorbing sith, until they betrayed her and kicked her butt.

Then while working on tapping into people's thoughts I discovered that the pilot just kept playing out pazaak games in his head. It turns out that since there is 4 force users on board he has been blocking out any one getting into his thoughts by reciting numbers and games over and over. so while I thought that him only wanting to play pazaak whenever I talked to him was a result of a flat character (or I hadn't spent enough time with him in my party), he's been actually walling himself off mentally. now I'm just wondering why.

Tomorow it's back to Onderon to meet wit the jedi there again.

Will the mystery sith please sign in....

Well I managed to free the guy who was suspected of murder (after loading that cantina about 15 times) and he got me a meeting with one of the missing jedi.

Unfortunately the local military showed up and the jedi split before I could get his help, so I had to fight my way off the planet and now i'm waiting for word when it's safe again.

After talking with the old blind jedi again (she is finally starting to answer questions), I got a interesting bit of plot to come up. It seems there are 3 sith to worry about, the force absorbing one, the broken gray one, and a "deceiver" (who I suspect is my character in an odd Tyler Durden way).

So tomorrow its off to another planet to maybe have better luck.

Suicide by Jedi

Before I get to KotOR2, I bought a new game today but this isn't one of those impulse buys like on boxing day. I had decided that since I'm already 15 games down on my list, clearing them about 3-4 a month, It would be safe to get 1 new game a month while still maintaining my forwards progress.

So today I found a 2nd hand Super Paper Mario for 30$, which is the first time I have ever seen it below 40$, so I scooped it up. I restructured my list to make a place for it (though it would rank higher) along with updating the rankings of the remaining games (Zack and Wiki are now after KotOR2).

Other games I'll probably get in the coming months (as soon as i find them cheap enough):
Mass Effect 2
Mario Galaxy
No More Heroes 2
Little King's Story

As for KotOR2, today I wandered around a space port listing to how everyone wants an free visa to leave (finally gave it to a republic spy) while I wasn't being ambushed by stupid bounty hunters who think they can take on a Jedi (freezing 7 in place at once really evens the odds). Eventually I found out that the only one who could help me is being charged with murder so I have to play Ace Attorney again and get him off the trumped up charge.

also there is a big fuss going around about the leader of the local army wanting to kick out the local queen (most likely so he can get back to local wars) and I'll most likely have to stop him. I'll find out more tomorrow.

This hasn't been our day for warm welcomes

Well we flew off to Onderon, and was promptly shot at by the local military, having to make a crash landing on a forest moon called Dxun. And it turns out that not is this moon the location of the first stage of the mandolerean war, but my character once fought there and there is still a mandalorean camp active.

Fortunately the mandoleran leader (who I think may be the mandalorean mercenary from the first game) doesn't hold grudge and agreed to help me find the messing jedi if I prove myself to them. So far I have a radar dish to repair, a lost scout to recover, some invaders to take care of, and most likely a few duels before I get on their good side.

Tomorrow I should know what more I'll have to do next.

You mean YOU'RE a jedi!?

Well the preparations I made for the battle seemd to pay off since it was rather easy. After an unnecessarily pre-rendered battle the game switches a hall where my character is facing off against a large amount of bad-guys from all side, and the game was nice enough to remove m part members for no reason. Fortunately I noticed this before the battle started and quickly equipped them again.

After trouncing the invading forces I'm told by the Jedi that I'm to gather all the other missing Jedi and bring them all to Dantooine, so now I not only have a plot but a quest too, this is shaping up to be an actual game (after 8 hours).

On the way back to my ship a local repair man complains to me how the fighting made his job harder, well boo hoo. Then I used my droid to fix a local protocol droid (didn't know till recently that when using a part member in a conversation you have their skills) and the droid recognizes my character from when the were a Jedi. Upon hearing this the mechanic freaks out that I'm a jedi and goes to warn everyone, despite that everyone knows that the jedi just saved them in that big battle he was complaining about.

This game seems to have a lot of problems with continuity and sub-quests that can be broken when done out of order.

Well on to another planet tomorrow.

There you are!

Been sick so I didn't pla much today, but after looking though the plot logs I found a message I missed that the Jedi was being held in the caves I already been to.

So after saving his thankless back side it turns out that the local mercenaries have planed to attack the main outpost, and I have to go around and help the locals not get killed. So far I activated the turrets system and switched them to not shoot friendlies, repaired the 3 remaining defense droids, and healed all the guards hurt by said turrets. Hope that's enough since That's all I could find.

Tomorrow I'll find out.

As Kreia said "Well I'm stumped"

I can't figure out what I'm suppose to do on dantooine now.

I blew up the computer room on the jedi archive but it did nothing, then I delivered a suspicious message to the mercenaries from the local law enforcement, and now there is no one left that i know of to talk to.

Tomorrow I'll try another planet.

We blow'd up real good!

One interesting thing now that I have my light saber is how NPCs react to it. The minor NPCs, the ones that don't open a dialogue view when talked to, shake in fear at the sight of it then refuse to ever talk to me again. I don't really blame them since a former Jedi nearly nuked their planet, so now I have to make sure I have it unequipped whenever I'm running around.

So today I ran back from my ship to the jedi council to see if I missed any clue where the jedi is hiding. Since the last time I was there I found some recently lightsabered mercenaries I knew he was still on planet. so the only thing I found that I could still interact with was the central computer, and I just had the option to overload it, which I did. Unlike the first game, when you overload something now it gives you a choice oh how much time you want to escape, so I set it to 20 seconds and ran to the next room.

The next room was also filled with computers...

As I made a mad dash to the hall my main character was killed instantly in the explosions, so I switched to the character closest to the door and made it to the hall. Unfortunatly the explosion was so large that it reach past the doorway and killed him too.

So after spectacularly killing off my entire party I was taken back to my last save, which was back on the ship where I started. Since I was very tired I called it a day, having achieved nothing but a stupid death.

Tomorrow I'll set the overload to 30 seconds and not stop running...

Have light-sabers, will travel... Again...

Well 8 hours into the game and I now have a lightsaber, and it's a spiffy silver one with lots of upgrades. Now I'm just wondering if it will be as hard to find some for the other force sensitive members of my party, or will lightsabers be popping up everywhere now.

While investigating the Jedi temple I didn't find the jedi I was looking for but I did find another party member. He started out as a just an average soldier, but after a few minuets of talking he reviled to be a former padawan and quickly became a force user again.

One odd thing I came across was a mercenary with an unusually detailed face. all other characters in the game, including the ones in the party, have the same basic low polygon heads and rough image maps faces, the same as in the first game. This one mercenary on dantooene though had what looked like a smooth high polygon head and high resolution face, like the ones in Jade Empire.

So tomorrow i'll look around more to see if I can find any trace of the jedi master.

6 legs, 5 hands, 2 eyes, 0 lightsabers

An odd group, an old blind sith missing a hand, an eyeless force sensitive sith slave attuned to the light side, and me the ex-jedi who echos through the force.

After collecting up the side quests on dantooine I bought some lightsaber parts and brought them back to my ship to see if I could assemble them, waiting for me was the servant of the sith from a previous cutscene. After several attempts I managed to take her down and after sparing her life she joined my team, unfortunately her lightsaber was broken in the fight so I'm still without one (didn't have enough parts either).

What I do get is a lot of information of what may be the plot. Aside from the general sith who want to kill all jedi there is a being that is basically a waking life vacuum, a unicron of the force. So the objective of stopping this thing from absorbing all the life force of the galaxy seems pretty noteworthy, up until now the plot was "don't get killed".

On my first outing with my 2 blind force using sidekicks we went to a cave and killed a bunch off insectoid creatures (nearly dying ourselves several times) and found the ideal crystal for a lightsaber if I ever get to build one.

Tomorow it's off to explore the old jedi temple.

if at first you don't succeed...

..you won't succeed the next 20 times either.

spent most of the time trying to take out the 5 guards at once and getting my but kicked. since the game is basically turn based for every 1 attack i make I get hit 5 times, and they cheat! the rules are that if I step off the mat the match is over, so I figure I just have to force push some of them off to even the odds, but the just run back onto the mat!

so I gave up on whatever might be had there and went to dantooine, where i met an Ithorian who offered some rare armor if i won some hands of pazaak. so after saving and loading several times I still haven't beat him enough for the armor.

So a couple hours of game play for about 10 minuets in game time...

Tomorrow I'll get back to the plot...

And yet another arena...

After going around the planet surface and killing any one that wanted me dead I found a transport to get me to where my ship is hidden, which of course crashed.

Launchpad McQuack had more successful landings than my pilot...

At the north poll we face off against 3 more HK-50's (good thing I've been building up my take down droid force powers) and turn them to scrap quickly enough.

Then inside the structure holding out ship I find the jedi who kicked me out of the order and still has my lightsaber.

Here's where things get tricky, at this point i'm free to leave the planet, but there is hinted at much more going on.

When I talk to one of the guards there is a conversation tree that can lead to channeling them to a sparring match, and each time I win the matches get more complex and more opponents (basically an arena). unfortunately for me I have been putting all my experience points into hacking/security/persuasion (so there is no box, computer, or mind that can keep me out) which left me being a pretty sorry fighter. So since i'm more useless with a weapon than my bare hands I am just punching and kicking, fortunately so are they.

Now there is also the lowest ranking guard who may have access to some jedi relics, so I am hopping that if i win all the match I will either fight her and get access to the relics, or even fight the jedi and get my lighsaber back (not much good it would do me though). Maybe I will get both, or nothing.

It just seems odd that all of this could be completely missed if I had just went straight to my ship and left. Well tomorrow is a 5 on 1 fight and I'll see what happens.