Month: January 2013

Path of Exile [2] – Not So First Impressions

January 31, 2013 by Nikola·1 Comment

The Positive

Over the last few days, I’ve invested several hours into Path of Exile. Biljeznica, my Witch, got close to level 20 and finished Act I as well as several quests in Act II. For now, the game is still quite fun and I’m greatly enjoying it. I got a few more respec points, so I completely shifted focus from minions towards fire spells. Once I get more, I intend to also drop focus from mana regeneration, since I’m really not lacking mana at all, thanks to my Clarity aura.

This “sword” basically doubled my DPS. It dropped from one of the unique bosses.

The Fireball seems to be getting less useful, with Firestorm doing more damage even against single enemies. As for the Fire Run, thanks to a +Dexterity amulet, I’m still using and leveling it, but it’s becoming more and more obvious it’s really meant to be Dexterity skill.

I also found a couple of gems belonging to a new type – the support gem. Instead of giving you a new skill, support gems add special bonuses to the skills they are connected to via a socket. For instance, there’s a support gem that increases the life of minions summoned by the summon gem it’s connected to. It’s a bit limiting and I actually think I’d prefer if they didn’t have to be connected to another gem via socket connections, but it’s still an interesting feature to mess around with.

The Negative

The more I play, the more obvious it becomes that the complexity and the amount of choices are all just an illusion. There’s a couple of paths I can pick from on the skill grid, but once I pick one, that’s it – 90% of the skill grid becomes off-limits.

The story is told in the style of Diablo 2, but it doesn’t really capture me.

The same goes for active skills and equipment. The game is old school both in a good and a bad way. Right now, I’m still looking forward to the next level, but I can see myself not seeing the point of it as soon as I realize my improvised build is not good enough, which will probably happen eventually, since I’m not a theorycrafter and I haven’t done any research in advance.

Diablo 3 and it’s “change builds as you please” approach isn’t the perfect solution, but neither is this. I’m not even sure that there is a perfect solution at this point, but the way it is now, I probably won’t play for a lot longer.

Pokemon Yellow [6] – The End

January 30, 2013 by Nikola·3 Comments

In my final two sessions of Pokemon Yellow, I beat the Elite Four and my rival and then spent a couple of hours wrapping things up.

Training was very creative. I figured it was faster to get less experience directly than constantly switching in battle.

I made some “creative” choices with training. I got bored constantly switching Pokemon in and out at the Victory road, so instead, I did a couple of suicide runs against the Elite Four. Lorelai was easy to beat with Pikachu and Charizard easily destroyed Bruno’s team. I even managed to beat Agatha relatively consistently. It was only Lance that gave me trouble, really. At one point, Squirtle got strong enough to beat Bruno’s rock types, so I started training him a lot faster to.

Surprisingly, Squirtle took the victory.

Kingler and the rest of my team gave me trouble, though. I actually started wandering around the world, looking for trainer rematches to get some money and train the weaker Pokemon in my team. I had to grind for a long time to finally beat Lance with most of my team intact, but once I did, Gary was easy in comparison. He did almost kill me, but that was only because I ran out of PP on Pikachu and almost ran out of PP on Charizard. In the end, Squirtle took the victory with critical health and none of my other Pokemon remaining conscious.

The state of my team before the victory.

The game was technically beat, and the session was over, but I wasn’t done yet. Today, I loaded up the game again and went straight for the Unknown dungeon, to catch Mewtwo. The place was a maze with tough enemies, but Pikachu and Charizard made it easy for me to get to the bottom of it and reach Mewtwo. I decided not to beat my head against a wall and just used the Master Ball on it, so the fight was won instantly and Mewtwo was mine.

Remember when Mewtwo used to be “the strongest Pokemon ever”?

Next up, thanks to some reminders on reddit, I went to route 4 and caught a Mankey. Technically, Ash encountered a Mankey in the early episodes, but only caught it after it evolved into Primeape, but I don’t think that’s an option in Yellow, at least not that early, so instead, I did what I did with Pidgey and just rush-trained it to level 28 instead.

I kind off forgot about Primeape. Thanks, reddit!

After that, all I had to do was to catch 29 more Tauros. This took me a good hour of playing, even with generous use of the fast-forward feature, but eventually, even that was over. I wish I could prove it , but sadly, the Box interface of the first generation games is horrible and there’s no way for me to show how many I had. I’ll transfer them from game to game until I’m able to display them in the GBA games.

No, I don’t want to give a nickname, for the 19th time!

Also, it was pointed out to me that I didn’t catch a Muk. I actually did, I just didn’t write about it. I caught one at the Electrical Plant but haven’t used it at all. If i remember correctly, Ash’s Muk evolves at one point, but I don’t think it’s in the first season, so there’s plenty of time for that.

In any case, I believe I did everything I could and needed to do in the first game. I also did something extra – I got a Lapras. Ash saves one at the beginning of the Orange league season, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to catch one then, so instead, I got it now, for free, as a reward at some point in the story.

Pokemon Yellow [5] – The League

January 29, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I ended my previous session of Pokemon Yellow at Cinnabar Island, just about ready to tackle the gym. There’s one minor detail I forgot, though. The gym was locked and I had to get the key from the Pokemon Mansion.

I really dislike Pokemon Mansion. Its’s a huge place and I made the mistake of learning mostly Low PP moves, meaning I was running out of PP before I could get to the end of it. Because of this, I had to leave the place and re-enter several times before I finally got the key on the bottom floor.

One of my least favorite places in the game – the Pokemon Mansion

The gym itself was extremely easy, thought Squirtle definitely wasn’t the MVP in the fight (Most Valuable Pokemon – it fits!). That title belongs to Charizard, mostly for being high leveled and highly evolved, unlike Squirtle. While we’re on the topic, I’ll say it again, Ash is a dirty cheater. There’s no way he’s able to beat all of those high level opponents with unevolved Pokemon. The only two Pokemon in my team able to carry their own right now are Pikachu and Charizard and Pikachu is decent simply because his level is about 10-20 above any enemy we encounter.

Sadly, Cinnabar Island’s Gym uses the same theme.

In any case, I beat the gym and then promptly used Fly to get to Veridian City, to beat Giovanni’s gym to. Squirtle was actually way more useful in that one, though I had to rewind twice to prevent him from evolving.

Squirtle was starting to get usefl in Giovanni’s gym.

Once all of that was out of the way, I went to the Victory Road, towards the Indigo League. The place was relatively easy to clear but again, I was getting low on PP towards the end of it. Other than beating a lot of trainers and getting to the exit on the other side, I also managed to catch the third legendary bird while in there – Moltress. As usual, it went straight into Bill’s PC, since it’ll just be a collectible.

The third legendary bird Pokemon was mine!

Finally, I got to the League, healed my Pokemon at the Pokemon Center and saved my game. I wasn’t ready to tackle the League yet. First, I had to prepare my Krabby. If I remember correctly, Ash’s Krabby evolved in a league battle, so mine needed to do the same. However, there’s no chance whatsoever to beat a league Pokemon with a level 27 Krabby, so I decided to do it a bit differently.

All I need to do now is to beat the Indigo League.

I leveled Krabby to 27 at the Victory Road and kept training until he got very close to the next level. Once I got to that point, I also decided to level my Pidgeotto until it evolved into Pidgeot. I know Ash’s Pidgeotto evolved only after the League battles, but I figured I won’t be playing a lot after I win, so I might as well do it now.

I evolved Pidgeotto before the league battles, since the game wont last for long after I win.

Once the leveling was out of the way, I made my first attempt at the League. Lorelai’s ice and water Pokemon were easy to beat with Pikachu and Charizard took care of Bruno’s Ground and Fighting types. Agatha’s ghost team gave me some trouble, but Charizard took care of most of those as well. Lance was where I got stuck. Only Ice and Dragon itself have an advantage against Dragon types and I had neither. Suffice to say, I got my but handed to me.

Technically, Ash didn’t become Indigo Champion, so Krabby evolving in a failed attempt is canon!

On the positive side, Krabby evolved into Kingler (it counts, I don’t care!), but on the negative, I now had to do a lot of grinding. Even worse, I used most of my restorative items on my first attempt and I was all out of PP restoring items in general. Since you can’t buy those in the game, this meant I had to level most of my team at least for a while, so all of them can take a couple of hits and do some damage before fainting.

This is my team before my first attempt.

For now, though, it was time to end my session. Soon enough, Pokemon Yellow will be the first game of my Pokemon challenge to be beaten, one way or another.

Path of Exile [1] – Jumping on the Bandwagon

January 28, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

The acclaimed Diablo-killer, Path of Exile, finally got into open beta a few days ago, so I decided to succumb to the hype and install it. Almost everyone praises the game and the annoying part of the fans also keeps comparing it to Diablo 3 and saying how much better than Diablo 3 it is, so guess what? I’m going to do the same, kind off.

Is it a Diablo killer? That’s really a question not very bright people usually ask so I’m going to skip answering it, because my audience isn’t dumb. Is it a good game? Well, the first couple of hours are good, which says a lot.

I started out with the Witch. She seems fun.

I like the skill system, and I like the passive system. I also like the weirdly skewed isometric camera perspective and graphics which use modern effects but somehow, in a way I can’t exactly explain, they feel old school, more akin to the late 90’s ARPGs like Diablo 2.

There’s no money in the game, which I also kind of like, but I’m not sure how it will work later in the game. For now, you basically trade items for materials, which you can then trade for different items, skill gems or different materials.

Skill Gems?

Yup, skill gems. The classes are exclusively defined by the passive skills they have available, of which you can learn one per level by activating them on a huge skill grid, similar to the sphere grid of Final Fantasy X. As for the active skills, you use them by equipping skill gems which drop randomly from monsters. You place these skill gems into slots on your equipment, but you can easily remove them and put them into another item, so you aren’t limiting your gear in any way.

The voice acting is actually pretty good, especially if you consider it’s a relatively low-budget game.

The more you use a skill, the more experience it gains and the faster it gains levels. An increase in the level of the skill means more damage, more life for summons or some other increase in power which fits the skill. I might be lying here, but I don’t think the skills get bound to your character, so it’s possible you can trade these highly leveled skill gems between your characters as well as with other players. Overall, it seems like a very fun system with a lot of things to explore. For now, it’s extremely fun, but as I said, I have no way of knowing how much fun it will be later.

As for the passive skill grid, there’s no option to respec directly, but you do get a couple of respec points from quests throughout the game, which allow you to reallocate a few skill points you’ve previously spent. You can also earn these respec points from Orbs of Regret, but I’m not sure how you get those. They probably become available later in the game or something. In any case, this to feels like it’ll be a lot of fun to experiment with.

Path of Exile is a Great Game

There! I’ve said it. Heck, I’ll even compare it. At this point, I’d rather play Path of Exile than Diablo 3. That might be because I played Diablo 3 for a long time, or it might be that it actually is a better game overall. I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do know is that I’m having fun with Path of Exile right now.

But What About the Game

I actually didn’t say anything about what I did. I picked the witch as my starting character. I went for extra mana and mana regeneration with the passives first, then switched to summoning bonuses, and recently decided to drop those via the two respec points I got from an early quest and switch to damage and cast speed. As for my spells, I’m mostly fire focused. I use Fireball as my left mouse button attack, Fire Trap on my right mouse and Firestorm as my first extra skill. On my middle mouse button, I use Summon Zombie, purely to have some meat between myself and the enemies.

The caves are nice and dark, though it’s a bit hard to target the enemies.

I’m having a lot of fun, but it’s getting sort of obvious you can’t just invest points at random, since respecing isn’t as easy as with Diablo 3. It means I get to experiment less, but it also means I need to think more every time I gain a level. Fun, but different fun!

Pokemon Yellow [4] – Late Game Stuff

January 27, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

In this session, I didn’t clear a lot of gyms, but I did manage to catch two legendary Pokemon.

After beating Sabrina, I went south to Fuchsia City and got the Super Rod along the way. Fuchsia City is the city containing the Safari Zone in the first generation games. Now, if you remember correctly Ash caught a total of 30 Tauros at the Safari Zone, but I only caught one for now. I might get more later, but Ash never used more than one in the anime as far as I remember, so I don’t see the point in catching more now. I’ll probably end up doing it in later games, when I meet them in the wild.

The Fuchsia Gym was relatively easy.

After getting some guy’s fake teeth and the HM03 – Surf at the Zone, I got out and went to clear the gym. The gym had a ninja theme and mostly contained bug and poison Pokemon. The gym gave me some trouble, but not too much. The guy who lost his teeth also gave me HM04 – Strength for my trouble.

Before leaving for the next gym, I went back north, but this time via the cycling road, to get some experience and probably the most important item in the game – HM02 Fly. To those who aren’t familiar with the game, Fly allows you to go ti any city in the game instantly, as long as it was already visited in the past. Of course, to use it, you need to have a Pokemon who’s able to learn the move. Pidgeotto was extremely useful from now on.

Zapdos can be found at the Electrical Plant

With all of that out of the way, I went northeast, to the Electrical Plant, which is an optional dungeon reachable from Route 9 via Surf. The place mostly contained electrical Pokemon, the most important one being Zapdos, the legendary electrical bird of the first generation. Ash never caught one, but I decided to do it anyway. Thanks to Pikachu and some luck, I managed to do it with my fourth Ultra Ball. I won’t be using it, though.

I finally caught Krabby at the Seafoam Islands.

After the Electrical Plant, I went south of Fuchsia city to another optional dungeon – Seafoam Islands. This is where I finally caught my Krabby which I should’ve gotten way earlier in the game if the anime has anything to say about it. The other Pokemon I caught here was Articuno, the legendary ice bird of the first generation. Again, Ash never caught one, but I wanted to have it in my collection. It took around ten Ultra Balls, but I got it, mostly thanks to the fact that Pikachu got it down to almost zero health with one hit.

Articuno was another legendary I caught.

With all of this done, it was time to get to the next gym, at Cinnabar Island.

Pokemon Yellow [3] – I didn’t catch a Snorlax

January 26, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

In this session, I got through a really big chunk of Pokemon Yellow, clearing out three gyms and getting most of the mid-game stuff.

After going back to Pewter City to get the Old Amber, I passed through Lavender town on my way to Celadon City. There, I’ve spent a huge amount of money at the department store and an even larger amount of time at the game corner, with nothing to show for it. Seriously, I got lost in the gambling, spending far too much time to earn coins, before realizing I can’t get anything I’m actually interested in.

Even with the fast-forward feature, the Game Corner is a boring place.

Eventually, I got through the secret passage and cleared the Team Rocket area, fighting Jesse and James again. I also fought Gary somewhere along the way and cleared the local gym while I was there.

He does love to fight the player at inconvenient times.

I finally got back to Lavender Town, where I could finally get to the top of the tower and save Mr. Fuji, thanks to the Sylph Scope I got in the Team Rocket base. That’s where I got the Pokemon Flute, so I was finally able to wake up Snorlax (or Relaxo in German). Sadly, I forgot that Ash actually caught one, so I skipped on that part. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get one later.

Snorlax was called Relaxo in the German dub.

Finally, I went to Saffron City where I could now clear the Team Rocket HQ and finally beat Giovanni. I’m actually almost sure this is where I fought Gary. I know it was some time during this session and a douche like that would almost certainly attack me close to the boss room,when I’m at my weakest.

In any case, I beat Gary and I beat Giovanni. The Sylph Company president gave me my Master Ball and I was able to move on to clearing Erika’s Gym. That was pretty much the last thing I did in this session.

As usual, Pikachu was my life saver.

Oh, and Charmeleon evolved to Charizard. He still obeys me, though.

Pokemon Yellow [2] – Completing the Starter Set

January 24, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I’d say it was time for some more Pokemon Yellow today, but in truth, I actually completed several sessions over the last few days, so I’m just writing about it when I get the chance (and the willpower).

In this one, I got from Cerulean city all the way to and through the Diglett’s Cave. The first thing I did after beating Misty was to go north and get a Charmander from some random guy there. In the anime, Ash finds an abandoned Charmander (or Glumanda, as I remember it) and takes it in, but in the game, the trainer just gives it away instead of abandoning it.

Charmander isn’t outright abandoned in the game, but it might as well be.

I went to see Bill and got his ticket to the S.S. Anne, where I fought a bunch of trainers and mostly majorly leveled up my Pikachu. I didn’t completely neglect my other Pokemon, though, so my Charmander soon evolved to. As for Bulbasaur, I keep forgetting to cancel his evolution, but luckily, I have the rewind feature of the emulator for that. I swear I’m not using it for anything else, though.

I didn’t get it in an actual trade, so I won’t be getting the whole “it’s not listening” issue.

I actually had to clear most of the S.S. Anne, before I finally got the HM01 – Cut from the captain. Well, technically, I only had to beat the captain, but it’s free XP and money so I cleared it anyway. Thanks to Cut, I could finally enter the gym and beat it, which was relatively simple, mostly thanks to Bulbasaur and Picachu, who I’ve thought some normal and fighting moves. That is, at least I think they’re normal and fighting moves. I can’t really be sure without googleing.

Time for some money and XP.

After clearing the gym, I also got Squirtle from a local officer Jenny (Schiggy from the German dub). In the anime, Ash befriends a leader of a local Squirtle gang instead. Now I have another Pokemon whose evolution I keep cancelling.

A water type, just in time for a cave full of ground types. How did they know!?

Finally, I got to the Diglett’s Cave and went through it, mostly with the help of my new Squirtle. Next up, I’ll go back to Pewter city to get the old amber from the back of the museum. Again, it’s not something Ash did, but I want it for my collection anyway.

Pokemon Yellow [1] – The First Part of the Challenge

January 23, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I’ve added a new challenge to my list which again involved playing through a series of games. I know I still have the Zelda challenge to beat, but I think this one might be a bit more interesting.

The Story of Ash – A Pokemon Challenge

I want to play through the generations in order, so I picked Yellow as my first game, since it follows the anime most faithfully of the three. At first I thought I might have an issue with the graphics, since the old GameBoy really hasn’t aged well on that department, but I quickly got used to it. What I can’t get used to is that the sound on the emulator get’s truly horrible now and then. Lucky for me, I’m mostly playing through the game on fast-forward, so I don’t get the chance to notice it to often.

I decided to name myself Nikola, because I’m an idiot and I forgot I’m playing as Ash

Pokemon Yellow starts a bit differently than usual. The professor isn’t at the lab. Instead, he stops me from going into the tall grass and catches a Pikachu there. Once my rival, Gary, takes the Pokemon Oak meant to give me, I get Pikachu instead and he gets to walk around behind me through the entire game.

Catching a Pidgey and leveling it was faster than waiting for a Pidgeotto. This one was Taubsy in the German dub of the anime.

I went through the usual notions of going to the next town, going back to deliver something and then finally moving on from town to town, learning the game. Since Ash sucks as a trainer, I didn’t even try to catch anything until Viridian forest, where I caught a Caterpie and a Pidgey. I know I was supposed to get a Pidgeotto, but I didn’t feel like waiting around until I encounter one, so I did the next best thing – I grind-leveled Pidgey until it evolved. I also evolved Caterpie into Metapod, but decided to wait for a bit before I leveled him into a Butterfree.

Brock might be a bit dumb, but Ash is pure stupidity.

After a lot of walking (on fast-forward) I finally got to the Pewter Gym, where I decided Ash was a cheater. There was no way he beat Brock with a Pikachu with so little grinding. I actually had to level Pikachu all the way to 17 at which point I still won due to pure luck of a critical hit. I have no idea how that kid got any badges, but it sure wasn’t skill or strategy. Still, he did it with a Pikachu, so I had to do it to.

I don’t know about Red and Blue, but in Yellow, you actually keep encountering the terrible duo.

I got the badge and I moved on through Mt. Moon, where I got the Dome fossil. I intend to use it and put the Pokemon in the PC as soon as I get it, simply so I can transfer these rare Pokemon between games later. It’s not following the story, but since I’m playing through all the games, I might as well create a collection. I also fought Team Rocket along the way.

I remember this one as Bisasam from the German anime dub. I don’t really like grass types.

Next up, I got to Cerulean city, where I beat Misty easily, mostly because I couldn’t remember which Pokemon Ash used against her. Based on his track record, he probably decided Pikachu wasn’t the best choice. It was for me, though, so I had no trouble whatsoever. I also got Bulbasaur from a person in the city. Ash catches it in a hidden village in the anime, but there’s no hidden village in the game. Sadly, since there’s no Everstone in Pokemon Yellow, I have to keep remembering to cancel his evolution at each level up.

At this point, I was playing for well over an hour, or about 15 hours if you could believe the game save. Gotta love that fast-forward feature. This was the end of the session.

Populous: The Beginning [13] – Completed!

January 22, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

That’s right. After all these years, I’ve finally managed to complete this amazing classic god game. Populous: The Beginning has always been one of my favorites, but it has also been a thorn in my side, since I never even finished half of it as a kid. Thanks to the magic of Good Old Games, I could finally do it and it was worth every single one of the many hours I’ve spent doing it.

Journey’s End

Journey’s End was technically the last level I needed to complete before my shaman could finally realize her plan and become a god. It was definitely not an easy one.

I started out on a small piece of land on a peninsula surrounded by the three enemy tribes. While I only had a few huts, all of them already had pretty much fully built settlements. Even worse, those that didn’t have a nice route towards me were just a Land Bridge away, which the Matak nicely demonstrated just a minute or two into the level.

I started immediately charging my own Land Bridge so I could create some extra room for my buildings. At first, I used my shaman and her spells to repel the early attacks, but I rushed to get a fire warriors training hut as well as a balloon hut as soon as I could. This was a huge gamble since I was low on room already, but it paid of. Once I had a few airborne fire warriors, I could repel the enemy attacks more easily and now actually had time to charge up the crucial spells I needed, such as Swamp.

The starting location was NOT a good place to be in.

Pretty soon, the Chumara started attacking with balloons of their own, but lucky for me, I already had a small force of fire warriors and, since they used a mixed force of attackers, I could easily take care of their shaman and then pick off the ground forces without any difficulty.

This got me a huge fleet of stolen balloons, so I trained up even more fire warriors and decided to go after the Matak, since they seemed the weakest and their lands seemed to have plenty of trees which I lacked. This turned out to be the correct strategy, so the Matak were destroyed pretty soon.

Now I could finally build up my village properly on the Matak terrain, so that was exactly what I did, using my shaman in the meantime to do some harassment. Once I had an even bigger flying army I could use, I started focusing on the Dakini and the Chumara in order. They managed to repel a couple of attacks and even started a few counter attacks, but eventually, I worn both of the tribes down and managed to defeat them. The Chumara were definitely the hardest, since they had access to balloons of their own and also loved creating fire warriors.

Time to get my godhood…

In any case, the level and technically the game, were both won. I wasn’t done yet, though.

The Beginning

I got myself a bonus level to play with. The beginning is a level where every tribe, including my own, has a fully built up village. The catch was, I was in the middle of all of them. The fun part of it was that my shaman was now a god. What this meant was that I could cast any of my spells on any point of the map, as long as I had the mana for it. Fun times!

To be completely honest, I wasn’t ready for this kind of power. My first two tries failed miserably, because I though I could just focus on my spells and ignore my village. I guess I wouldn’t be a very good god, because I missed the part where I needed villagers to get mana for my spells.

Eventually, I figured this out, so I started focusing on building up my population and defending until I could increase my mana income enough to go on the offensive. I focused on sinking the routes towards my village, being careful to keep the trees growing on those routes on my side of the sea. Once I got rid of one tribe’s route of attack, I could more easily defend against the other two. Once all of them were gone, I was finally able to go on the offensive.

And what a glorious offensive it was!

No sinking this time. I cast a charge of swamp on the three places where the enemy shamans loved to hang out and then used the huge amount of mana I was getting to obliterate everything. Volcano, Angel of Death, Firestorm, Tornado, Earthquake… Everything was used and no one was spared.

The Dakini went down first, followed by the Matak, keeping the Chumara for last. They were a bit stubborn, hiding the last few of their villagers on various parts of the map, but eventually, I exterminated every single last one of them. The universe was mine.

Populous: The Beginning [12] – Solo [22] and Inferno [23]

January 20, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I’ve slacked off for almost a week now, but I finally made myself do a write-up about the next two Populous: The Beginning levels I’ve managed to complete.

Solo

Solo was one of my favorite levels. All I had at my disposal here was my shaman and I needed to use her to destroy all three of the enemy tribes. Luckily, I had some spells ready right at the start, and I could also pray at various obelisks to recharge my spells or gain other important bonuses.

I started out right next to the Dakini, so I used a Tornado, some Lightning and then mostly Blast to completely destroy the small village they had. Once they were out of the way, I could focus on the Matak and the Chumara.

I used a boat left behind by the Dakini to get to the Chumara island and then created a path to one of their balloons with the Land Bridge. Once I was in the baloon, I was ready to do my thing. Some Erodes, Earthquakes, a Volcano and a Tornado were enough to get rid of the Chumara, but I also cast an Angel of Death for good measure.

Thanks to my balloon, I didn’t even need this last obelisk.

Luckily, the Matak were relatively near, so my dragon just moved on to kill them once the Chumara were gone. I joined him, but only after I prayed at one of the obelisks for some extra mana. Pretty soon, the Matak were destroyed to and I didn’t even have to pray at the last obelisk to destroy them.

An awesome level, but it didn’t take long to beat. Funny thing, though. I had a few Chumara warriors hypnotized when I destroyed them, which made the warriors completely fall under my command. If I had a brave among them, I could’ve probably built up my base just like in any other level. As it was, I just used them to get an extra charge or two of Blast.

Inferno

Inferno was a level with an extremely dark and creepy atmosphere. The planet had oceans of blood and you could actually hear screams when the camera was above the ocean.

I started out on a massive continent shared between the Dakini, the Matak and myself, with the Chumara on a smaller continent of their own. The Dakini and the Matak mostly ignored me and instead fought themselves, though I did have to fend off a couple of air assaults from the Dakini. The most annoying part were definitely the Chumara, though, with their constant wave of spies being sent to destroy my buildings.

I manage do defend well enough for my village to grow and eventually created a huge wall of balloons and towers to defend against my two neighbors. A bunch of well placed airborne fire warriors also started clearing Chumara spies before they could reach my shore.

I actually used a small force of fire warriors to clear the level a bit faster. They work, as long as the enemy shaman doesn’t get to close.

Once my shaman was airborne and I had enough mana, I started sinking the Dakini first, so their shaman’s reincarnation site was soon separated from the rest of their village. I placed a couple of fire warriors above the site, so the shaman was reduced to a mana battery.

Then I cast some destruction spells on the Matak, before I moved on to completely clear the Chumara. This took a while, but wasn’t very hard. After about half an hour, I returned to the Matak and destroyed them next, saving the Dakini and their mana battery for last.

Again, I have to say this, Populous is an awesome game!

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