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Quite a lot has happened since the last time I wrote about my play through, but honestly, I’m getting kind of tired of just retelling the story of the game in these articles. I’ve done this with all three of the Final Fantasy games as well as the Witcher, but I’d like to write more about the mechanics and other gameplay elements instead. This is why I’ll try to only shortly focus on the story in Grandia from now on.

 

The Story from New Parm to the village of Luc

So since last time, Justin got on the ship to the new continent. On the ship, he found out Sue followed him and snuck on board, so they were forced to work as sailors for the duration of the trip. Soon, they met Feena, a third playable character, who was already an adventurer. The three of them went on board of a ghost ship and defeated the boss there before finally reaching New Parm.

Grandia - Squid Boss

The boss of the ghost ship was actually a giant squid.

In New Parm, Justin got extremely disappointed with the local Adventurer’s Guild, which turned out to be just a glorified tourist agency. The president of the guild also kidnapped Feena and tried to force her into marrying him, so there was that to. Sue and Justin rescued Feena and the three of them went to explore the nearby ruins where they talked to Liete again.

Grandia - World Map

Before Dom Ruins, you need to get through Rangle Mountains. You can find two mana eggs here, so between area’s go back to New Parm.

Returning from the ruins, they found a wounded kid with ah horns and a tail. The Garyle military, including Mullen, Leen and the three teenage girl generals were after the kid, so they imprisoned everyone. Thanks to some help from Leen, the group and the kid, named Ren, managed to escape and went to Ren’s home at Luc Village.

Grandia - Meeting Ren

Geez, Sue! Is it all about the looks for you?

The Garyle army followed and tried to steal a sacred statue, which turned out to be a huge spirit stone. It broke, but the army took half of it. Also, Leen turned out to be Feena’s sister! Right now, I’m heading for the End of the World, a huge wall which no one managed to climb yet. I guess I’ll be the first to do it.

Grandia - Leen and Feena

The game actually was hinting Leen is Feena’s sister. I noticed it this time, on my second play through.

The Game

Initially, I tried to train my skills intelligently, so I could get new, useful moves as soon as possible. Eventually, I realized there isn’t much point to this, because the game modifies the various formulas for experience gain so you can’t get to far ahead in any one skill or spell, and it’s extremely easy to catch up with skills you neglected for a while.

Grandia - Dom Ruins Save Point

Further down the path from here, there’s a line of stone head traps where you can boost your water magic easily.

This didn’t stop me from overtraining completely, though. At Don ruins, there is an area with traps that do damage to everyone in the party right next to a save point. Basically, I was able to use my healing spells in the field until I ran out of mana and then just go back to the save point to recover. I did this until everyone’s water magic was at level 5 or higher. By that point, the process became so slow I just didn’t feel like grinding anymore. Still, this gave me access to Slumber, All Heal and provided some very welcome stat boosts. The extra mana points will especially be useful.

Mana Eggs

Speaking of magic, I haven’t really said anything about how it works. Justin and Sue don’t start with any magic before they meet Feena, who starts with a the fire skill available. From then on, I can find items called mana eggs in various places of the world, as long as I explore everything thoroughly. Each mana egg can then be used at a shop to teach one skill to a character. There’s a limited amount of eggs, so I’m not sure if there’s enough for everyone to learn all four magic skills, so I decided to use the eggs on the characters who will stick with me until the end of the game first.

Grandia - Liete

Liete moves the story forward in the early game.

I guess I forgot about that. Grandia is a game with a relatively large number of characters, but you never really assemble your party in any way. Instead, old characters leave and new join at various points in the story. As I said, I’m not sure if I can get enough eggs to teach all the skills to all of them, so for now, I’ll be teaching the two who will be staying with me until the end – Justin and Feena.  Right now, Justin has already learned all four and Feena only lacks the Earth skill. I think I managed to get all the eggs I could to this point. I got:

  • One from the ghost ship boss
  • One in the sewers beneath New Parm
  • One on Merril Road
  • Two in Rangle Mountains (one in each sub-area)
  • One in Dom Ruins

I’m a bit worried I missed an egg in the Misty Forest, but I tried to explore everything, so I’m hoping I didn’t. In any case, that means I got a total of six eggs up to and including the village of Luc. Since the party can hold four characters, and I know Feena started with the Fire skill already available, this means I need at most fifteen total. I’m also 90% sure one of the final characters starts with plenty of skills learned, so the total number is probably even smaller.

When I played the game as a kid, I’ve definitely missed a bunch of eggs so I was also missing a lot of skills at the end, so I’ll do what I can to stop this from happening again.

The Skills and Spells

I like how the various moves you can do in battle don’t follow the usual mold as much as most other games do.  There’s no “Fire 1/2/3” in this one. There are stronger and weaker fire spells, but they differ in name, look, mechanics, basically everything other than the element. There are also combination such as fire + wind (thunder), water + wind (ice), etc.

Each character gets several weapon skills and four possible magical skills. Using any of the moves related to the skill provides some experience in that skill. Once 100 experience is collected, the character gains a skill level. To unlock moves you need a amount of levels in a certain combination of skills.

Grandia - Tremor

Tremor is the earliest earth spell that allows you to do damage while improving your skill.

In addition to this, each skill gain provides different stat bonuses, so you can actually specialize your characters to a degree. For instance, if I focus on axes and earth magic with Justin, he’ll do a lot more damage with the extra strength he gains. On the other hand, fire and sword skills will increase his wit. It’s quite a fun system, but for now, I’ve been using the “gotta catch ’em all” approach of using all the skills equally so I could get more moves sooner.

The Difficulty

Honestly, the game is really easy now. Part of it is probably due to abusing the trap mechanic at Dom ruins and part due to exploring everything, which made me get a lot of experience and money, which I then used to buy fresh equipment at every shop. Part of it also because I’m really still at the start of the game. The overall story isn’t really known yet and for now, the goals the game provides are very immediate – “go to the next area to learn more”.

Grandia - The Locker Room

The greatest moment of the three commanders.

Mostly, it’s because I have a better grasp of the mechanics now than what I had as a kid. Back then,  I was running away from monsters, getting ambushed, wasting mana eggs and focusing on the wrong skills. Now, I understand how to slow down enemies, cancel their attacks, move away from potential damage and just use all the skills at my disposal far more effectively. Thanks to this, several bosses I fought up to this point didn’t get a chance to hurt me even once.

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As usual, here’s a write-up on two more levels I managed to complete in Populous: The Beginning. I’m actually a few levels ahead from my blog, but I haven’t completed the game yet. I  hope I’ll get there soon, though.

Bloodlust

Bloodlust is by far the hardest level I had to play through. Even now that I’m 4-5 levels ahead, I still consider it the hardest yet. From this point on, the enemy tribes started attacking with large armies instead of small raid groups. Even worse, I was basically surrounded. I actually had to restart the level several times before I finally managed to beat it.

After a few tries, thanks to a few well placed Swamps, I managed to build up a defensive force of fire warriors, so I could build in piece from then on. After that, I tried to do the usual by building up my village, strengthening the defenses and harassing with my shaman and her spells. It wasn’t working out as well as it used to, though, since I was getting attacked from all sides. Because of this, it basically turned into a war of attrition.

Populous - Bloodlust Level

No amount of fire warriors was able to stop the attacks from all sides.

Eventually, I weakened the enemy villages enough to cut the amount of attacks, so I was able to sink most of the Matak into the sea. With them out of the way, I focused on the other two villages in order, and the level was beaten.

My reward? The Bloodlust spell. I honestly haven’t used it once. I’m sure it’s good enough, but since I don’t fight any battles, I didn’t need it.

Middle Ground

Compared to Bloodlust, Middle Ground was a cakewalk. It was also a very, very awesome level. Each tribe started on one peninsula of a large island, with the four peninsulas joining in the middle, around a stone head.

Most of the time, the three tribes were fighting against each other, so I could build in peace and manage most of my defenses with the swamp spell. Eventually, I even managed to create a small plateau where I built a few towers and places some balloons.

I knew what the stone head in the middle contained – Armageddon. Armageddon is a very special spell. It creates a huge crater and teleports every living thing (other than the wildmen) into it to fight to the death. Whichever tribe survives, wins the level.

Populous - Armageddon

Armageddon is the best thing in this awesome game.

I didn’t want to risk it, though, so before I used the spell, I decided to weaken the other tribes a bit. I cast a few Earthquakes and Erodes, which was enough to severely reduce the enemy populations. I cast the spell in the middle of the island and a couple of minutes later, victory was mine.

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Populous - Prison Building

I played through levels 14 and 15 a few days ago, but I didn’t get a chance to write about it, so here goes.

Attacked From All Sides

Level 14, Attacked From All Sides, had the theme of me being in an extremely bad position, with the three other tribes basically surrounding me. I started out on a small piece of low ground attached to a large plateau occupied by the Matak.

Populous - Level 14, World Map

That’s a nice plateau you have there…

Suffice to say, I would not have lasted long without taking some early risks. I trained up a few preachers after quickly building a temple. As soon as I had a couple ready, I took the entire population of my village and attacked the Matak. They didn’t have a chance to train anything dangerous yet, so I killed their shaman and destroyed the village. In a few minutes, I went from a horrible position to probably my favorite position – being an a high plateau with no one nearby.

I wasn’t left alone for long, though. As soon as I started building up my village, the air raids from the other two tribes started. I built up a few towers on key locations and then started creating a flying fire warrior army and distributing balloons throughout my village. Soon enough, nothing could touch me. I kept expanding the plateau with spells and building more huts and defenses until I got tired of it.

I tried with a few actual assaults with my army, but it turns out I suck at  micromanagement in this game, so I resorted to my old methods. My defense was solid, so I put my shaman in a balloon and started obliterating everything with spells. As usual, it took me over an hour, but I won the level without much difficulty.

Incarcerated

Level 15, Incarcerated, is considered the most difficult level in Populous by a lot of the fans. Honestly, I don’t share this opinion, probably because of my playing style. I have no issues with figuring out the intended way of beating the level and I play patiently on the regular levels, but on the other hand, I’m bad at micromanagement in large battles.

In this case, I lost on my first attempt because I came up about 30 seconds to short, but on my second try, I beat it easily.

Populous - Prison Building

The prison is a special building. I haven’t seen the later levels yet, but I think you only get to see it here.

Basically, my shaman was imprisoned by the enemy tribe, so had to use what little of my people I had to free her and get my revenge. I trained a nice mix of preachers, warriors and fire warriors, built a total of three boats and started ferrying my army to the three guard towers protecting the beach where the prison was.

I actually increased the size of my army while destroying the towers thanks to my preachers and then I started landing on the beach, waiting for everyone to regroup on a single location. Once most of the army was there, I destroyed the few remaining enemy forces there and freed my shaman.

This canceled the timer, so I could freely pray at a nearby obelisk and get a shot of Volcano. All that was left was to climb on top of a nearby hill and cast Volcano in the middle of the enemy village. Level complete!

Now comes the hard part. The next four levels I can pick freely from, but all of them are much harder than anything I managed to beat up to now.

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After I got distracted by Crash Bandicoot (in a really good way), it was finally time to start up Grandia. This is one of my favorite PlayStation RPGs, after the Final Fantasy series. Actually, I’d probably put it above Final Fantasy VIII in many areas.

Grandia - Title Screen

Every time I see this screen, I can hear the music in my head.

Grandia was originally released on the Sega Saturn, I believe, which I never owned or even saw in real life. It got re-released on the PlayStation two years later, and one year later, I bought it. Since I bought all of my PlayStation games in Germany, this one was in German to. However, the voice acting remained English throughout most of the game, with the exception of the animated sequences.

Voice acting?

Yup, this game had voice acting. It was one of the rare PlayStation JRPGs that had it. It wasn’t very good voice acting, but I didn’t know better back then so I loved every word of it. These days, I still love it, but mostly for nostalgia’s sake.

The Beginning

The game starts in Parm, a town on the shore of the old continent. The main protagonist Justin and his little friend Sue are playing with some kids. Well, they’re dueling, actually. The kid, called Gantz, issued a challenge to Justin – to find four legendary treasures. If Justin fails to do this before dusk, Sue will have to  marry Gantz, which she doesn’t like at all.

Grandia - Justin Getting Hit

If he lived in the modern times of the real world, Justin would probably be a nerd.

I basically had to scour through the city to try to find the four items, but there was no real time limit.  Sue got the apron (Legendary Armor) and then the two of them got the iron pot and the pot lid (Warrior’s Helm and the Shield of Light). After a while, I also got the wooden sword (Spirit Sword).

Obviously, these are kids we’re talking about here, which is something I love about the game – it does not take itself seriously even for a moment. Another thing I love is the coffee joke. Apparently, in the world of Grandia, coffee is what alcohol is in the real world, and more. Kids hate the stuff and “only adults can appreciate the taste of it”. If you drink too much of it, you get drunk or something. There are people who constantly drink to much, people who drink in secret, etc. Coffee is bad, basically.

Marma Road

After the events in Parm, Justin went to visit the local museum, where the curator gave him back his spirit stone. The spirit stone is something Justin’s dad left him, so he gave it to the curator so he could test it. He didn’t discover anything other than that the stone is harder than diamond.

After a short talk, the curator gave Justin and Sue a pass to a local archaeological dig at the Sult Ruins. To get there, I had to walk the Marna road.  Before that, though,  it was time for dinner with mom.

Meal Time

This is another great thing about the game. At the end of each day, or when the party is supposed to take a break, determined by the story, everyone gathers around the table or the camp fire and talks about the day. It really adds charm to the game.

Grandia - Meal Time

Whenever it’s time to take a break, everyone sits to have a meal together.

Anyway, I got to Marna road and explored the area entirely. I didn’t find much, other than some gold and herbs, but I gained a few levels, which means I finally did some battling. The great things just keep coming, so here’s another one.

No Random Battles

Yup. There are no random battles in Grandia. Monsters do randomly appear on the map, but you see them at all times, so you decide when to attack and when to avoid them. Of course, if you keep avoiding them, you’ll probably end up ambushed, but it’s still your choice. If you’re good, you can even ambush them.

Grandia - Rah Rah Cheer

The Rah-Rah Cheer has voice acting to, same as almost every other move. Also, the Rah-Rah Cheer is awesome.

There’s also movement and placement in battle, which sort of reminds me of Chrono Trigger from the SNES era. Depending on your placement and the placement of enemies, it absolutely matters which actions you pick. You can hit multiple enemies at once, avoid getting hit yourself, or even counter or cancel an enemies attack.

Marna Road Explored

Eventually, I explored the entire area and gained a level or two. Mostly I’ve been fighting bugs, spiders and some sort of centipede enemy. While doing this, I refreshed my memory about the various moves and mechanics available. I got to the Sult Ruins and saved my game.

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As I promised, today, after about 15 years, I can finally say I’ve accomplished all the goals in Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. It took me  a few days of persistence and it probably did some damage to my nerves, but I did it.

The most difficult level? I’m surprised to say it was Un-Bearable. It contained the last clear gem I got and I found what I needed to do by pure accident. I kept missing about 20 boxes at the end of the level and I was sure I didn’t miss any forking paths or anything of the sort. On one of my many attempts, it just so happened that, on the point where the big bear falls through the wooden planks,very few of the planks got broken. At that point, I was sure I had to now jump over the gap and go back to find some hidden passage.

Crash Bandicoot 2: 100% Save

That save slot looks so nice I’d like to frame it and put it on my wall.

I failed to jump over, but I managed to fall in. THAT was the secret passage. You actually have to jump into the hole. About ten lives later, I managed to get through it to, and even found the two sneakily hidden extra life crates at the only checkpoint in the area. Finally, I got the last gem.

My reward? An extra ending scene where Coco, Crash and Nitrus Brio use a cannon powered by all the gems to destroy the Cortex Vortex. Well, I got that, a nice “100 %” on my save slot image, and the satisfaction of completely clearing one of my most fondly remembered games.

Crash Bandicoot 2 : 100% Ending

I’ve 100% cleared Crash Bandicoot 2 and all I got was this scene.

What now? I’ll move on to another one. I also might write up a short guide on all the gems,or at least on how to get those I personally found the most difficult to find or get.

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As expected, Chapter V of the Witcher felt far more linear and shorter than the earlier chapters. It was followed by a relatively quick epilogue and that was it.

I started out at the Dike, having to fight my way to the Old Town, where I met king Foltest and was taken to his palace. Once there, I was told I needed to free his daughter from the curse again and find some way of ending the conflict between the Scoia’tael and the Order of the Flaming Rose, which turned Vizima into a war zone.

While I was there, I managed to miss the last gambling quest. The gambler was the king, but when he offered me a match, I declined, hoping I could save my game first. Sadly, after the conversation, he wouldn’t talk to me any more. I guess I deserved it for trying to “cheat”.

I went back to the Old Town, where I cleared the area and met Shani and Kalkstein again. After that, I had to go out to the swamp graveyard. This was the large area of the chapter, with several smaller locations to explore and outlying areas to visit. I spent about an hour there, solving various quests, including the one which involved saving the princess again.

That one was a bit confusing. I got locked in the crypt with her, so I had to either kill her or somehow free her from her curse. I didn’t want to kill her, so I opted for the other choice, but I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. I though I need to somehow hide from her so I could leave combat and then meditate at one of the two campfires there, but this didn’t work. Eventually, I let her chase me around her sarcophagus for a bit and then the game finally revealed what I needed to do.

The Witcher - Strigga

Why couldn’t I have just blown the candles out with Aard?

After leading her around long enough, one of the candles on her sarcophagus went out. After four more candles, it was finally over. I have to say, I did not like this mechanic. It wasn’t very obvious and it felt very clunky. Still, I did what I needed to do, so the mayor let me and the princess out of the crypt.

The second major quest I did in the swamp revolved around me gathering all the pieces I needed to craft the legendary witcher’s armor I found out about in the previous chapter. I had to bring all the pieces to the blacksmith at the Old Town, which got me what I’m guessing is the best armor in the game. It reduced all damage I received by a fifth and had three potion slots.

The Witcher - Raven's Armor

Raven’s Armor doesn’t just look awesome, it IS awesome!

Eventually, I cleared everything I could and went to the old manor, where the king sent me. This is where I found out the Salamandra laboratory was, with Azar Javed hiding inside. I met Yaevinn there, so he followed me in. After along trek through the catacombs bellow, I finally reached Javed and was able to fight him. He fell really fast, so it was a bit of a letdown. The monsters he threw at me before I could reach him didn’t fall nearly as fast, though, so there was definitely plenty of challenge.

Once all of that was over, I found out the leader of the Order of the Flaming Rose was behind everything. I got back to the city, which ended Chapter V and started the Epilogue. I fought through the streets, met some old friends along the way and finally got to the Order’s castle, where Jacques de Aldesberg was waiting.  Before I could fight him, the teleported both of us to some icy area in the future.

Apparently, some sort of major cataclysm, called the White Frost was coming, so Jacques’ intentions were to create a new breed of human which could survive it. Of course, his intended results weren’t exactly what most people would agree with, so he definitely didn’t turn out to be a good guy, just a misguided crazy guy.

The Witcher - Frost Area

The icy area actually looks cool. I wish there was an actual chapter there.

What followed was the game and Jacques prolonging the inevitable. Instead of me just having the final showdown, I had to fight random battles on the long way to Jacques for about half an hour. It wasn’t hard or challenging, it was just tedious, so it kind off took away from the ending and the game. Eventually I got to him, beat him, and the game was won.

Oh, and it’s possible Jacques might be Alvin all grown up. The same amulet I gave Alvin was on Jacques body, except it looked aged, and Triss already said it’s possible Alvin could actually teleport through time. The game didn’t confirm it, but it’s a definite possibility.

In any case, the game is won.

Also, the final movie looks awesome. I wish there was more of that. In fact, I wish there was a full-length movie.

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I finally got back to the Witcher, after a two-week break. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bored with the game or anything, I just didn’t get the chance to play it. Today, I finally decided to wrap up Chapter IV.

The Heat of the Day and the Witcher

I started out with the quest to free the two wraiths from their curse. In case you don’t remember, a jealous girl killed her sister, after which the sister’s boyfriend killed the girl. The event turned both into wraiths.  I spoke to Abigail who told me to gather the pieces of a broken magical mirror one of the girls, Alina, owned. Apparently, the mirror is the reason she transformed into a wraith upon her death.

The Witcher - Dandelion and the Wraiths

The wraith quest was weird, but I guess I enjoyed it?

In order to get the pieces, I had to do a pretty dull quest which involved visiting five locations in “The Fields” area, killing the noonwraith there and getting the piece. Once I was done, I asked the blacksmith to fix the mirror, which involved a waiting period.

The Witcher’s Ripples

While waiting, I went to deal with the Lady of the Lake and her quest to negotiate peace between the villagers and the fish people. Both sides offered three gifts for the Lady, so I had to pick the right one from each side. Eventually, I figured out it was the alabaster figurine and the gold bracelet. The Lady gave me a Ruby I placed on the Altar of Dagon, which summoned the creature so I could kill it. It was an easy fight, so that quest was now done to.

The mirror was now fixed, so I brought it to Alina, but it didn’t work. I went to ask the hermit for advice, but he just sent me back to Abigail. The witch suggested I tried a poem, so I asked Dandelion to compose one. This finally worked and that quest was also done.

I reported what happened to Julian, who tanked me and sent me to the Fisher King who was apparently asking for me. As I expected, the Fisher King just sent me back to the Lady of the Lake. She finally gave me a reward for everything I did. Geralt was knighted and got an awesome silver sword to play with.

The Witcher - Aeorindight

This might be the best silver sword I’ll get in the game.l

On my way back, I was confronted by Berengar, who admited betraying the witchers and basically doing lots and lots of bad stuff. I figured this was the one choice I had that wasn’t morally ambiguous so I decided to kill him. It turned out I was wrong. I found a letter on his body, which indicated he was actually extremely conflicted about what he was doing. I also found about 800 oren and some alchemical recipes, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Once I got back to the shore, I  met a military leader of the Order of the Eternal Flame who informed me the order was there to capture the elven refugees. The elves’ backup arrived, though, so they are now cornered in the village, with the villagers, including Alvin as their hostages.

This was finally a situation where I had to pick sides, so I opted for the side that wasn’t overly religious or fanatical – the elves. I get that this is still another ambiguous choice and I get that there’s a downside for picking both sides, but I just really don’t like fanaticism, so the elves felt more suitable. In any case, there was a big battle, during which Alvin teleported to some unknown place. Afterwards, I got back to the Fisher King’s hut and got a ride back to Vizima, with Dandelion as company.

The Witcher - Back to Vizima

I think I might miss the openness of the village.

During all of this, I got to level 31. As expected, once I got to 30, the amount of talents I received changed. I’m now getting one bronze, two silver and one gold talent point. I decided to prioritize building up my primary attributes, after which I’ll start building up weapon skills. As usual, signs will be the last think I’ll invest in. Sadly, since I’m now entering the last chapter, I don’t think Geralt will get much stronger than he is right now. On the plus side, he’s really, really strong, so I’m not worried about the difficulty.

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Continuing my tradition of two levels per submission, I’ve completed levels twelve and thirteen of Populous: The Beginning. There were no gimmicks to it this time. I just had to conquer everything.

An Easy Target

Level twelve, named “An Easy Target” was all about fighting all three of the tribes at the same time. It took me two attempts to beat this level.

On my first try, I though I might trick a game by defeating a tribe early. The yellow Chumara was just a Land Bridge away from me, so I converted all the wildlings I could, trained some warriors and crossed over before they could build anything up properly. I ended up nearly destroying them, but it turned out they were supposed to be the buffer between me and the other two tribes, so It didn’t really work out, once the Dakini and the Matak started sending boat raids over.

On my second attempt, I used the classical approach. I built up my village and prepared my defenses. One the mana from braves started pouring in, I ended up creating a strong perimeter around my island with Land Bridge and eventually turned it into a plateau. I then created a single, narrow passage to the top, which I covered with a bunch of towers.

In the meantime, the Dakini and the Matak destroyed the Chumare, after which they increased the amount of raids directed at me, but also started to attack each other. I decided to increase the hostilities between them by sneaking my shaman in and connecting their respective peninsulas with Land Bridge. This ended up being pure genius, because from that point on, they pretty much ignored me, sending only small squads of warriors which I could easily convert to my side.

Populous, Connecting the two tribes

Once I improved the connection between the two tribes, I pretty much got ignored by the both of them.

Eventually, I reached maximum population and just used my shaman and a group of fire warriors to whittle down the two tribes, piece by piece. This took me a long time, but it was also very fun to play god for a bit, so I enjoyed it, a lot.

This level granted me a useless building, the Spy Training Hut, and two very useful spells – Tornado and Erode.

Aerial Bombardment

Level thirteen, named “Aerial Bombardment” was finally the moment I got the Balloon Hut, which allows me to build, you guessed it, balloons. These are extremely useful for my shaman to navigate  around, and will, combined with fire warriors, probably make up the core of my forces on future levels.

As usual, I started building up my defenses while converting wildlings to my side. Again, I used Land Bridge to create a high plateau and eventually created a huge area for my village. I made it a point to train fire warriors early, since all the raids I had to face were air raids, which can easily be deflected by well placed ranged attackers.

Populous, Volcano

I can’t wait to learn Volcano permanently. It’s an awesome spell.

I used the balloons the enemy tribes delivered to me via their failed raids to bring my shaman to the two vaults of knowledge and soon learned both the Balloon Hut plans as well as the Earthquake spell without really having to fight anyone.

At this point, nothing could really hurt me, so I ended up doing the same thing I did on the last level. I built up my village to a huge size and just used my shaman and his spells to destroy the enemy. This time, it was even easier, since I had balloons at my disposal.

The level was done in about an hour.

By the way, I was playing the last several levels on my laptop, at home, which allowed me to play in Direct3D, meaning I could finally play in a higher resolution. There’s an issue, though. A lot of the screenshots look glitched because of Direct3D, so I can never be sure I got the right screen.

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Well, it’s the last day of the year and I managed to squeeze in one more game before it’s over. Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back is completed.

I’m not done with the game, though. Even though I beat the last boss and gathered all the crystals, I still have loads of gems to collect. Luckily, the game gives a convenient “percentage completed” statistic, which now tells me I’m at 73% overall. I was in the higher sixties when I beat the last boss, so I did make some progress towards 100% completion, but it will still take a while. As a kid, I never managed to reach 100%, partially because I was a kid and partially because I didn’t have Internet access so I couldn’t “cheat” my way through by reading guides. I’ll try not to cheat my way through this time as well, but I make no promises. If it gets too dull, or I get stuck, I’ll find a guide.

73% completion, Save Slot Image

As I said, I’m at 73%

I love the look and feel of the game. It aged really, really well and the graphics don’t look outdated at all, thanks to a great, timeless style. Most of the levels, I’ve enjoyed, but some of the last few got a bit annoying. The levels which contained bees got a bit tedious towards the end, but by the two most annoying levels were definitely the two where you used a jetpack to fly through a space station – “Rock It” and “Pack Attack“. These two were simply too different compared to the rest of the game. It was disorienting and annoying to play through them. I do get why they exist, though. The last boss uses the same control scheme, so the game had to get me used to it. I’d prefer if Cortex just didn’t use this mechanic, though.

In any case, Neo Cortex was defeated and everything was well and dandy, but as I said, I still have a whole bunch of gems to collect, which I’m guessing will allow me to destroy the Cortex Vortex and beat the third mad scientist, whose name I forgot. As of now, I got close to half of the grey gems, I think; as well as one of the several colored gems. I also managed to find two of the five secret levels.

Crash Bandicoot 2, Ending

And what about the Cortex Vortex? It’s still up there.

I’ll make use of the plethora of spare moments on train rides I have to complete the collection. The PSP is a great gadget for stuff like that, and Crash Bandicoot is an excellent series for short sessions. Well, the first three games of the series are.

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I didn’t get a lot of chances to play over the last few days, but I managed to squeeze in two more levels of Populous: The Beginning.

From the Depths

Level 10, named “From the Depths”, I actually managed to fail, several times, mostly due to carelessness and lack of attention. The level starts out with your village being sunk by a barrage of spells from the enemy shaman. You’re supposed to react in time to gather your shaman and some soldiers and escape via a boat. On my first try, I was distracted when the level loaded, so I died outright. Since there’s no way to resurrect your shaman, that was an automatic failure.

On my second try, I managed to get a bunch of soldiers to a boat, and even managed to build another boat in time, so I had a sizable force. Once I escaped, I could then pray at a nearby totem pole, which raises a whole new village from the depths, with a bunch of prebuilt buildings and even some savages to convert. This time, I was safe, so I started building up and opted to go for the “take your time and build up huge numbers tactic”. Obviously, I didn’t notice there was a time limit for the level, after which the island sinks back to the bottom of the sea, so this was my second failure.

On my third try, I was mostly aware of everything, managed to squeeze in three boats in total and had a relatively huge force ready for some payback. I filled a bunch of boats with warriors, fire warriors and preachers, including my shaman, and attacked the enemy village. A couple of enemy fire warriors hit my shaman and threw him into the ocean. Again, since there was no resurrection on this level, it was another automatic failure, simply because I forgot to use spells.

On my last try, I finally used the swarm spell to disable the fire warriors and managed to pray at the enemy village totem pole, which sunk most of their village into the sea. I killed of the stragglers and that was it.

Treacherous Souls

Level 11, named “Treacherous Souls” was more of a classical level. I had two tribes to fight, and each of them had a new spell I could learn. One of them was Hypnotize, which is where the name for the level comes from. I used the patient approach for this level, which is my preferred tactic in Populous: The Beginning. I connected the hills around my village with Land Bridge and eventually created a huge, well defended mesa which the AI would only attack from one or two directions. I covered these choke points with towers, which basically put me into a completely safe position.

Populous, Guard Tower Defense Line

Very little can break through this defense line.

Once I decided I was ready, I trained a sizable force of preachers, warriors and fire warriors, ordered them to guard my shaman and slowly started creating Land Bridge access to the enemy villages. Thanks to my fire warriors and the high ground, I could easily destroy any army the enemy tribes could throw at me. I attacked the weaker tribe first, which got me the Swamp spell. I then used my new spell to destroy the remaining tribe and that was it. It took me a long time, but the level was easily beaten.

One thing is for sure, though. I’m definitely appreciating the ability to save in multiple slots, at any time and almost instantly. The fact that the PlayStation version of Populous: The Beginning had only one slot, and it took five to ten minutes to save basically meant you had to do the whole level in one go, and nearly perfectly. With fast and instant saves, It’s easier to take risks and you feel less discouraged if you lose.