NOTE: If you’re interested in Pokemon, be sure to check out my other postings, linked at the bottom of this page. I promise you wont regret it (much).

Sadly, even though I share the same feelings about piracy on the DS, I don’t own any DS games, I only own a DS Lite so I can’t get anything online and my PSP battery died out eventually, meaning I could either do nothing, or start a game I don’t own.

I succumbed and decided to restart a Pokemon game. You see, Soul Silver was a game I played in the past, but I never reached the end, for some reason. I even still had my original save, showing I have 7 badges already earned, but I decided to start from scratch anyway.

Anyone who played a Pokemon game knows it’s all pretty much routine by now. The Pokemon series is kind of like an EA sports game. You get one almost every year, it usually changes a bit, evolves as it should, but it always follows the same basic premise.

Pokemon Soul Silver Starters

For some reason, I almost always pick fire.

Anyway, I took Cyndaquil as my starter because this is what I usually do. I don’t know why, but fire starters usually appeal the most to me. Mr. Pokemon’s house was more than a town away, so it took me quite a while to get there. I also couldn’t buy any pokeballs yet, so I wasn’t able to catch any other pokemon. I did, however, train Cyndaquil quite a bit and got her to about level 7. I got his package and also met the famous professor Oak while there. He gave me a pokedex and asked me to try and collect or at least observe as many pokemon as I can on my journey.As usual, I started out in my hometown. I got my starter right at the start, which is sort of unusual. Most of the times, you actually have to do something first and then it somehow happens that the local professor gives you a Pokemon. Well, professor Elm doesn’t have time to beat around the bush. You’re friends with her daughter and he needs your help. Back when people didn’t use pokeballs, they had their pokemon walk with them. This meant they couldn’t bring as many pokemon with them, but it also affected the trainer-pokemon relationship, which is what professor Elm is researching. My job is to take one of his pokemon and just walk around with him. Since I’m walking, I also might as well walk to some guy’s house. They call the guy Mr. Pokemon and he has a package for the professor.

I was on my way back to Elm when I was pulled into battle by my future rival, who I decided will be named Gold, since I chose my name to be Silver. This is the usual naming scheme I have for characters in Pokemon games, so I stuck with it this time around to. I easily beat him, since his Totodile wasn’t trained at all and then returned to professor Elm. A police officer was already there. It turns out, my pathetic excuse for a rival actually stole the Totodile.

I gave the package, which contained an egg to professor Elm and then visited my mom before starting my official pokemon journey. Again, as usually, she promised to save up a percentage of the money I win in battles and use it to buy various items I might not be able to get otherwise.

The stores in the next town over finally had some pokeballs available, so I bought some, but not before getting five for free from some random retired trainer who taught me how to catch pokemon. Since this isn’t a  Nuzlocke challenge, I went all out with the pokeballs and pretty soon had a full team of crappy normal and bug types. I wont be using most of them, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to keep the PC boxes stocked up and I definitely was asked to increase my pokedex stats.

It was about time to hit the first gym, though, so I made my way to Violet city. I got there, but they wouldn’t let me challenge the gym leader without climbing to the top of Bellsprout tower first. Before that, though, I traded a Bellsprout for an Onyx, because I haven’t seen one in the wild yet, but saw plenty of Bellsprout on my way to the city. Naturally, Bellsprouts became extremely rare as soon as I made the trade, because I couldn’t find another one to catch later.

The tower was easy to clear and contained mostly trainers with Bellsprouts. I used the opportunity to train my Pidgey and got him to level 11 during the climb. Somewhere along the way, my starter also managed to evolve, so I now had a Quilava. My rival was already at the top, but he used an escape rope before I could get to him. The master at the top of the tower gave me permission to challenge the gym and also gave me a Flash technical machine as a reward for getting to the top.

Pokemon Soul Silver, Falkner

Falkner, the bird trainer. Easy

I went east to get to route 32, which leads south. Just on the bend south, I’ve met a hiker who gave me my first hidden machine – Rock Smash. Azalea town awaits, but there are wild pokemon i need to catch and trainers i need to fight on route 32 first.The gym was full of bird pokemon and relatively easy to clear. I didn’t have anything strong against flying types, but my Quilava was strong enough to easily clear everything even without a type advantage. The first badge was mine and I was given my next goal – Azalea town.

 

How Did You Get Here?

For some reason, this posting is extremely popular among my readers. Maybe it’s something I wrote, maybe it’s a picture I’m linking, but one thing is for sure. It’s probably a bit disappointing this is where my “second attempt at a play through” ended – with the first posting.

Sadly, my NDS broke since I played Pokemon Soul Silver, so I won’t be continuing my play through, at least not any time soon. There’s plenty of content if you’re interested in Pokemon, though.

You can read about one of my two Nuzlocke runs. There’s my Fire Red Nuzlocke challenge, as well as my Emerald Nuzlocke challenge. I’ve greatly enjoyed both of those. There’s also my pride and joy – my challenge to play through a Pokemon game taking place in every region as Ash. I decided to follow each region of the Pokemon world by being Ash as much as I can be. I caught and used only Ash’s Pokemon, I tried to use his “tactics” and I tried to behave like he would. I even made guides on how to transfer Pokemon between the various games and generations. You can read all about it at:

There was an announced power outage throughout most of the day today, so I had to fall by to my trusty PSP and my slightly lest trusty DS Lite for my gaming needs.

The thing is, my whole “no more piracy” thing kind off makes me not want to play most of the pirated games I have on my PSP, simply because I know I could fall back to one of the PSX games I actually own and be “legit” like that, at least in my mind. I’m still technically pirating the game, since I haven’t bought it on the PSN, but owning the old physical copy makes it OK in my book, and I don’t care what anyone has to say about it.

Anyway, I’ve been playing the game a couple of months ago, but didn’t write anything here back then, so I didn’t go all the way from the beginning today. I started out in Midgard, quite early, at the point where Shinra destroys a sector and blames it on the Avalanche. Aeris (NOT Aerith) gets taken by the Turks the rest of the team is stuck not knowing where to go next.

Final Fantasy VII, Shinra Building View

The Shinra building is the central point of the early game.

The Turks have also shown interest in Aeris ever since they tracked her down. She managed to avoid them until today, though. Today, she had Marlene with her, so she was forced to go with the Turks in exchange for Marlene’s safety. Upon hearing this, the gang decides to rescue Aeris, but not before Barret asks Elmyra to take care of Marlene for a while longer.Since Aeris was taking care of Marlene, Cloud, Barret and Tifa decide to visit Aeris’ mother, Elmyra. Things aren’t the way they seem though. Elmyra tells them she’s not really Aeris’ mother. She found her as a little girl next to the dead body of her real mother on a train station and took her as her own. It was obvious from the start that Aeris wasn’t normal. She would hear voices and talk about how the planet whispers to her. She even knew Elmyra’s husband died in Wutai before the official news arrived.

Since there’s no official route to the top plate and the Shinra headquarters, the gang decides to go to the Wall Market and see if they can find an alternative route. Sure enough, the collapse of the sector set a huge power cable loose, creating a possibility to climb to the top plate. A set of batteries was required to make the route completely passable, but the local weapons shop owner provided those.

Final Fantasy VII - Stairs Joke

Poor Barret. Always the comedic relief.

In any case, the gang reached floor 59 and now needed to get access to the rest of the floors. The problem was, the leadership was located on floors 60 to 65, making it extremely difficult to navigate through the security. Barret wanted to barge in through the lobby of the Shinra building directly, but Cloud and Tifa were smarter than that and decided they should take the stairs through the maintenance wing of the building. It’s an extremely tall building, though, so Barret had issues with climbing it to the top, but they eventually managed to get there. This part of the game was extremely memorable to me as a kid, even though, what with playing the game in German back then, I couldn’t understand most of it.

This is a game I have already played through, both in its original version and in the form of this remake. However, it was just launched on steam and I pirated it the first time around, so I decided to make this right this time. The game is well worth the money, what with being a Spiderweb game.

Nethergate Splash Screen

There’s that music in my head again…

Since then, I’ve loved every single one of their games. The only series I never played extensively was Geneforge, but I intend to eventually remedy that as well. Any CRPG fan should get each and every one of these games.If you actually are a returning reader of this blog, you probably know I absolutely love games by Spiderweb Software. It started with me playing the shareware versions of their Exile series, back in the nineties. I loved the world, the mechanics, the open-endedness and the dynamic progression it had. Nethergate pulled me in with the Celtic/Roman combination of mythology and atmosphere as well as the fresh  new graphic system back then.

As I said, I already played through this one, but I got it anyway and I might play through it again,even

…because I finally cleared the Cathedral with her. After many, many failures I had with this character, it was bound to happen. I started a run today, completely refreshed, hoping it would help me play better. It didn’t.

Fortunately, where brains are missing, luck can still exist. First I got some damage upgrades, which made it much easier. Then I got lucky by having a barrel and an exploding enemy spawn in rooms with tinted rocks. This got me a couple of extra spirit hearts, so I could stay alive longer. With my first fifteen cents, I managed to score the Book of Revelations from an early shop.

Since I apparently suck at this game, I wasn’t really accumulating hearths, though. Lucky for me, a friendly Judgement gave me the Blue Candle for just four cents total. I was careless enough to trade it for my Book of Revelations and this made all the difference. With the bandage I got at the start of the game and the speed of clearing rooms with the candle, I managed to get enough hearts and spirit hearts to get to mom. I killed her and she dropped just enough health to get filled back up.

The Binding of Isaac Achievements

I still have plenty of achievements to go through.

The last incident of pure luck was when I picked the correct direction to find the boss room in the Cathedral. The candle made a hard battle much easier, but I still only managed to win with one heart left. It still counts, though, so there’s no reason for me to play with Eve again any time soon. Of course, this is a game that will go to 100% eventually, so I’ll have to beat the chest with her at one point to, but for now, I got ??? to tackle next. There’s Maggie and Samson to, but ??? will be the tough one.One last lucky drop, the Emperor card, which I got a few rooms before mom, was the key to my victory. You see, the Womb had Curse of the Labyrinth, meaning I could basically skip two levels worth of rooms and get straight to the bosses. Death was the first boss and he was relatively easy to deal with. It Lives was even easier, and I actually managed to get out of that battle with more health than what I had when I entered.

Again, the title should tell you everything.

I’m moving to a new place on Monday, because I finally got a job (!), so I find very little time to play. Isaac was the only game I hanged out a bit, and it was only for an hour.

In that hour, I tried to advance with eve, several times, but all of my attempts failed. By far the best one only got me to the catacombs. I’m really, really having bad luck with health, barely getting any health upgrades. Combine that with the relatively low starting health and the low starting damage and suddenly Eve is almost at the bottom of my “Best Binding of Isaac Characters” list.

The Binding of Isaac Horrible Run

Just horrible!

You might also like:As I said, I didn’t get past the Catacombs, so I didn’t even see mom’s foot in this one hour. It’d be great if I could blame it all on luck, but I’m also extremely rusty, taking lots of stupid damage, forgetting which item does what, etc. Since I probably won’t have Internet access for a while, I’ll have plenty of time to get better during the following week. Sadly, no Internet access also means I won’t be submitting new articles as often, but I’ll be sure to write them anyway, so I can submit them once I’m back online.

I didn’t have a lot of time today, but I managed to squeeze in a few attempts at beating the cathedral with eve. The title of this article should tell you everything you need to know. Most of my attempts failed soon, while the most successful one ended my run in the first part of the womb.

Binding of Isaac, Eve

It wasn’t promising to begin with.

You might also like:I managed to get Money = Power early on, as well as a rock and some other decent items, but I also got a lot of useless active items and almost no health upgrades. I died a few rooms into the womb.

After what’s been ages of me playing this game, I decided to return to it, just so I can reach and beat the chest at least once. I wasn’t sure who I beat the Cathedral with and I was to lazy to check, so I went for a shot with Judas.

The first few tries failed in record speeds, but my third or fourth attempt was an extremely lucky one. In the very second room, I got the Hierophant card, giving me two spirit hearts. The first treasure room contained Polyphemus, meaning I could suddenly hit like a truck, especially combined with the Book of Belial I started with.

Then the second boss gave me access to the Devil room, where I bought Mom’s Knife for just one hearth. In case you don’t know, Polyphemus basically reduces your shot rate badly, but it also insanely increases the damage of your shots and gives them a type of piercing effect. Well, Mom’s Knife adds piercing to and increases the damage even further.

Basically, for the next few levels, I could just run into bosses and hit them with one shot. In addition to this, I got the Mitre, which provides an extra chance to get spirit hearts, as well as the Nun’s Habit and eventually, the Book of Revelation. Suffice to say, by the end of this game, I was swimming in spirit hearts and my shots could kill god. I beat the game easily, even with the stupid amounts of damage I was taking due to being rusty.

Sadly, it seems I’ve already beaten it with Judas previously, so this really means I only have the “bad” characters left to beat it with. One of them will have to be next.

Over the last couple of days, I haven’t really progressed in any game. The reasons are twofold.

World of Warcraft

I got 7 free game days to try out the new patch and maybe get hooked again. The gist of it is, I didn’t. I installed the patch, tried out the game, even talked to my old guild, but the magic just isn’t there. I might, just might, get the expansion in a couple of months to level the monk, but other than that, it seems there’s no addiction to speak of.

Minecraft

I started a Tekkit survival server with a friend and we have been playing the game a lot over the last few days. Tekkit is an excellent set of mods with plenty of things to discover. There’s really no point to write about this, though. Minecraft is a great game for let’s play videos, but there’s not much I can do with it when it comes to writing. Maybe someone else could, but I don’t have any ideas. In any case, that’s where most of my free time was spent recently.

It’s done!

This morning, well before noon, I managed to start and complete the score attack mode. Once I got to the point of no return, I’ve completed the first Reflection as well as a bunch of earlier level with all the Idols activated. This was enough to get me above one million points and the last achievement was mine.

Bastion Steam Achievements, 100%

Mission Complete!

As amazing as this game is, it’s time for it to give up the place it’s holding on my hard drive for some other game. Other than a very likely future onset of nostalgia, there really is no reason for me to play it again any time soon. Amazing game, but I got all I could from it.

I started playing as soon as I was done with my last article yesterday and got all the six cores that evening, in less than two hours. Throughout today, I’ve completed the rest in a couple of relatively short sessions. The story is a breeze when you start out with most of your weapons almost fully upgraded.

In addition to completing the story, I managed to complete all the extra “meditation” levels with all ten idols active. Some needed several attempts, but none of them were too hard, mostly in thanks to my Pike/Mortar combo.

Bastion Art - Rucks and the Kid

Rucks might be getting tired of all the talking, but I’m not.

I only have one achievement left now, and that is to get enough points in the Score Attack mode. I started up this mode a few minutes ago, just to see what it was about, and it looks like you get to repeat levels, and earn points by killing enemies. You also don’t get to keep your gear or your levels, just the idols and spirits.I also got the hidden Turret Opera achievement which requires me to have my Portal turret kill 20 enemies before dying. In case anyone is wondering while reading this article a few years from now, you get the portal turret in New Game+ once you find the girl. I got it on the Kid dream level.

I’ll try to tackle that tomorrow, unless I finally start playing Minecraft Tekkit with a friend. We’ve been talking about trying this out for a while now.