Might and Magic Book One is light on the story, but from what I can tell, Book Two aims to remedy this, at least to a degree. Even the manual starts with a story about Corak.Continue reading
Might and Magic Book Two [1] – Gates to Another World
The Walking Dead [3] – Final Impression
Episode 5 of the Walking Dead is completed and I can now say with confidence that it’s a bad game. But wait, there’s more…
It’s a Good Story
I’m not saying decent anymore. The Walking Dead definitely tells a good, even great story. There’s plenty of twists, there’s drama, and there’s an emotional involvement for the player. It’s hard to write about it in detail without spoiling anything, so I won’t, but I’ll definitely say that it’s one of the better stories I’ve experienced in the past few years, at least when it comes to newer games.
Your choices apparently determine the final group composition.
The game is worth buying and playing for the story alone. As for other stuff, well…
The Characters
I have to separate the characters from the story here, because evaluating these two elements as one would lower the grade. I’m sorry, but the characters are inconsistent and often make no sense. Throughout the game, I felt like the game was trying to make me feel one emotion for a character, but ended up having a completely different effect.
I’ll say it again, maybe it’s me – maybe I’m the weird one out. I don’t think I am, though.
Oh, and one more thing about the characters. I’ve seen plenty of people argue you don’t need good graphics to show emotion. It’s true, you don’t. You do need excellent voice acting to compensate in that case, though, and this game only has adequate voice acting, nothing more. Because of that, some of the scenes can be a bit unsettling or awkward.
I really hated Kenny before this room. He got a bit better from here.
This might be controversial, but at this point, I’m honestly thinking that a lot of gamers want games to generally be as accepted as other art forms so badly, that they’ll ignore the bad elements as long as the good elements seem worth showing off.
Which brings us to the gameplay.
There’s nothing to Write About
All the while playing through the five episodes of the Walking Dead, I was enjoying the story to a degree, but there was something about the game that was just off-putting, that made it an unsatisfying experience. I couldn’t quite understand what it was, but it kept nagging at me, all the way to the end of the fifth episode.
Now that I’m here, writing about it, I finally understand what it was.
When I was playing Might and Magic Book One, I could write two pages of notes just from playing through a single dungeon. I could do that, and there’s almost no story in Might and Magic Book One.
The Walking Dead is all story, but there is absolutely nothing to write about. Why is that?
I’m not Doing Anything
I never did, actually. Sure, I push a button every now and then, and maybe those button pushing sections are made in a way to make the drama you’re watching a bit better, but most of the time, you’re just watching, and again, those button pushing sections are made to watch a better drama, not play it.
Seeing how close some of the locations are makes the story of the final four episodes a bit more logical.
Some of you will say that this is completely acceptable, that it’s maybe even better that way. Fine, that’s your opinion and I respect it. I couldn’t agree more, though, especially when you want to nominate a game like that as game of the year. It has almost no gameplay to speak of and you want to nominate it for Game of the year? Really? How does that make sense?!
Hell, I’d nominate Offspring Fling as Game of the Year sooner than I would the Walking Dead.
I know I’m not Consistent
If I was playing an old Lucas Arts adventure right now, I’d probably feel about the same. Walking Dead is a much simpler game than any of the older Lucas Arts adventures, but I wouldn’t have much to write about Monkey Island 3 without revealing the story either.
The game certainly offers great screenshot opportunities. I have to give it that.
Still, those were games that felt like you were playing them. You had freedom and options. It was all an illusion and there was still only one way to go forward, but illusions are important in games, or at least they are to me.
At least, I would have been able to write about those illusions. I could put up a screenshot of a non-story related humorous part, or write about a completely over the top and illogical, but fun puzzle.
At least with those games, you felt like you were beating them, which is what I expect games to offer me, first and foremost. With the Walking Dead, the game is just unfolding in front of me – I’m not the one doing anything. It’s more like the game is playing me.
It’s an Empty Gaming Experience
Again, it’s a good story, but the Walking Dead simply does not give me what I want from games – a game. A system of rules I can work with in order to master them, figure them out and beat them. I’m not against a great story. I love a great story in games. I don’t want just a great story. I want all of the above to.
It makes me Feel Detached
The more that I think about the Walking Dead and modern AAA games, the more I think that most of these games are going in the same direction. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an AAA title that gave me what I want in the past few years.
Again, some great screenshots in this game.
I can think of plenty of retro games that did, and I can list a bunch of indie titles that did it, but not AAA games. Am I really that detached from the mainstream industry? Is it really just me that has this problem? I can’t be the only one, right?
I’m not Mad, Though
So the AAA gaming industry doesn’t really interest me anymore. Somehow, it doesn’t upset me. The thing is, I recently realized there are so many great games out there I haven’t played yet, it’s really difficult to be upset when you realize a tiny subset of games isn’t made for you anymore.
I guess I’ll just stick with retro and indie games for now. Trends change, so I might play a high budget game with deep mechanics again. Torment seems like it might be fun. The new Shadowrun already looks fun. We’ll see.
For now, I’m thinking I should move on to Might and Magic Book Two.
The Walking Dead [2] – Episodes 3 and 4
Did it The Walking Dead get any better? No! Yes. Maybe…
The thing is, I’m not really sure if it did get better. I mean, I enjoyed the story in the first two episodes and I’m continuing to enjoy it. I did it in spite of the gameplay in the first two episodes and I’m still doing it in spite of the gameplay. I does seem like I enjoy it a bit more, though.
The Story still isn’t perfect
On the one hand, the characters and the story of the Walking Dead did sort of grow on me. On the other hand, I’m noticing some new annoyances. At times, and this is relatively often, the writing can get lazy. Maybe it’s because of all the branching options and budgetary issues, but suddenly, characters seem to completely shift their personality, just to provide a plot point.
It’s difficult to pick screenshots that don’t spoil too much of the story, so here’s a random photo.
It reminds me of the TV show Glee, where each and every character has a personality that fits their role in the episode and absolutely nothing is consistent.
At first, some random guy is all nice and helpful. Then the story slows down and we need some conflict, so suddenly he’s a cowardly, spineless moron. A few moments later he’s all nice again and then he’s suddenly a traitor.
Clementine learns how to shoot.
It doesn’t just happen with a single character, it happens with most of them, except maybe Clementine and the couple you meet towards the end of episode 3 and even there, the woman can show these symptoms at times.
The Gameplay continues to annoy
I’ve gotten used to the lack of it by now, but it’s still annoying to go through an intense part, only for everyone to suddenly slow down, without any sense of urgency left and “give you a chance to talk to them”. It’s obvious that this is what the Walking Dead is doing. The developers decided you don’t bind with the characters enough through storytelling, so they make you talk to them and force you to bind that way.
There are zombie kids to.
To me, this, again, looks like lazy writing – instead of figuring out how to do it right, the game just gives you a round of talking every half an hour or so. It might not be obligatory – I haven’t checked, but it sure feels that way. I mean, at one point, I start at the front of a train, and on every screen, there’s a character waiting to talk.
Now, this could be OK, if it only didn’t happen so often. As it is, the Walking Dead feels extremely formulaic which, to me, ruins the immersion.
I was actually surprised at one point
OK. Honestly, the game isn’t as bad as I’m making it seem. I’m just focusing on the bad parts. The truth is, I’m enjoying the story about as much as I enjoyed the story of the TV show. After getting used to the bad gameplay, I’m doing a better job at getting it over with quickly, so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. The fact that I enabled the option to better indicated interactive spots on the screen also helps – I figured since I’m not playing it for the sake of playing it, I might as well make the playing part as easy and quick as possible.
And as I said, the story did surprise me a few times. I was starting to get used to the basic formula, so at one moment, I thought to myself “oh great, and now this one dies to”, only to have the game pull a Mass Effect 3 Grunt dies and then he doesn’t move. Of course, the game did it somewhere between a few extremely predictable events, so let’s not give it too much credit.
Bugs are starting to show
So we’re back to talking trash about the Walking Dead. I started to encounter bugs, especially in episode 3. It’s mostly limited to graphical glitches, but sometimes, it also affects gameplay. Objects at the edge of the screen disappear from before they’re completely gone from the camera’s view, or sometimes even if they’re right down smack in the middle of the screen.
Molly is one of the new arrivals to.
The worst, and the funniest, was when one of the characters (I don’t want to spoil too much) was holding their child in their arms – the kid completely disappeared, making the woman basically hold an air baby. It really ruined the scene, which was supposed to be sad.
The Rules serve the Story
This is another example of lazy writing. The characters talk about how they lack ammo, but two minutes later, you get to shoot zombies to infinity, though it could have been written in a way to make the whole ordeal avoidable.
In Episode 2, everyone was hungry, but in episode 3 and 4 the lack of food, which is apparent, is barely even mentioned.
There’s one thing that also concerns the TV show, and probably the graphical novel series. The gist of it is that everyone is infected. It doesn’t matter how you die – if the brain lives, you get back up. The reason why you die due to zombie bites is because they infect you with various germs and stuff, so that random infection kills you.
Well, that’s fine, but I don’t understand two things:
- How is it possible that each and every little bite, no matter how tiny, always kills you, unless you cut off the limb or something?
- If the above is possible, how is it possible that you get to walk around with an open wound, with zombies crawling all over you, but you’re safe, as long as they don’t bite you?
Did anything that would explain these two things ever happen in the novel, TV show or the game? I honestly can’t remember, and it makes no sense to me.
I mean, they’re walking, feeding dead people, so I guess some suspense of disbelief is needed, but if the rule was invented for the sake of realism, then it should be consistent, or at least sort of logical.
Saving moment
As I said, though, it’s not all bad. At one point, the game at least considered the idea of zombies starving to death. I don’t want to describe the moment completely, but there was a zombie that died of hunger and then rose, continuing to not have any food until the game’s characters find it. It wasn’t able to stand straight, so I guess that the corpses do eventually stop moving and there is some sort of metabolism involved in the whole hunger thing.
Some of the Characters are extremely annoying
I won’t say which characters, because again, the story is the only thing the Walking Dead is worth playing for, so I don’t want to spoil it, but several characters exist in the game that I just wished would die at the start. They’re inconsistent, annoying and the game is trying to show them as people important to Lee, which makes no sense to me, because all they ever did was to demand too much from Lee and bee completely unreasonable.
The married (?) couple are the most consistent characters in the game.
There’s one character that’s especially like this, and it should soon become obvious to anyone playing the game.
Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the one whose brain doesn’t work right, so it just seems off to me. Feel free to insult me in the comments if you disagree.
It’s Mass Effect 3, throughout
That’s honestly how it feels. Mass Effect had a great overarching story. I absolutely loved most of it. However, each game had branching parts and they all needed to somehow end. Even from one game to another, it was getting obvious the writers were trapping themselves, creating too many branches and making it too difficult to end it all properly and tie up the loose ends.
Tying up the three games with each other was difficult enough, and it showed between the sequels. Ending it all completely was basically impossible, which is why the ending of Mass Effect 3 was received so badly.
With the Walking Dead, it seems like the writers had this problem constantly, since there are so many branching moments throughout the game. At points, the only viable choice was to simply merge two branches badly, because leaving them separate would create an impossible situation.
From what I see other people saying, this is exactly what’s happening. The game’s story adapts and changes depending on your choices, but there are so many choices that most of them just don’t matter. A character fills a role taken by another character, or the game doesn’t put that character in the spotlight any more, or it simply kills them off soon enough.
Sadly, I think it would have been better if some of these choices simply didn’t exist. At least then, the writing would have probably been better.
It’s the exact same thing I said in my previous posting – the fact that they wanted a game; the gameplay, is working against the story.
It’s a Good Story
I keep repeating this, because I have to. It isn’t A Song of Ice and Fire, but the Walking Dead provides an interesting story, which I want to follow to completion.
I’m looking forward to playing the last episode of the Walking Dead. In one small part, it’s because I just want to finally get it over with, but a much larger part of it is because I want to see how it ends.
Zombies on spikes! It had to happen at some point.
The Walking Dead isn’t a good game, but it’s a good story and a good experience. It could have been better, but as it is, it’s more than likely worth your time. If you can spend the time to watch the TV show, you certainly can spend the time to play this game.
Vagrant Story [4] – Abandoned Mines
I got lost after Snowfly Forest. My assumption was that I needed to use the bronze key to go further, but I couldn’t find any bronze doors. From Snowfly Forest, I got through the City Walls South back into Lea Monde’s Town Centre West, but I couldn’t find anything beyond that. I had to resort to a walkthrough.
Where to go after Snowfly Forest?
The thing is, I didn’t really need the walkthrough. I just needed to look more closely. From the City Walls South, there was another door, leading to the keep. The one leading to Town Centre West was just there so I could visit the workshop if I had to. Just in case someone else gets lost, after Snowfly Forest, you need to go through City Walls South and into the Keep, or optionally, into the Iron Maiden B1.
Iron Maiden B-1
This! This is the furthest I ever got to in Vagrant Story. I thought it was Snowfly Forest, but I guess I did get through it at some point, because I now distinctly remember getting to Iron Maiden. I also remember getting stuck here and completely giving up.
Well, these were my thoughts when I found Iron Maiden B1. However, when I entered it, the second room was completely unfamiliar to me. It was probably just a glitch in the Matrix, I guess.
Some googling told me that Iron Maiden is a bonus, optional dungeon, made to be more challenging than the rest of the game. As a kid, I didn’t know that, so I thought the game was made to be that way. This is probably one of the main reasons I gave up.
The second room of Iron Maiden B1 contained a Wraith and two Gargoyles. This fight is designed to be annoying. The wraith is a ghost-type enemy, so its pattern is to teleport around and cast spells. One of the spells it casts silences Ashley, so his ranged damage gets disabled, unless I use a crossbow, which I don’t. The gargoyles, on the other hand, inflict the Numbness status effect, slowing Ashley’s movement, so it’s even harder to get to the wraith. The gargoyles, other than casting numbness didn’t do much, except that they loved just running away from Ashley, making his slowed movement even more annoying.
Even so, I focused on the wraith first and it went down in two hits, thanks to my Exorcist being a dagger with piercing damage. Killing it gave me a Mandrake Sigil, which apparently unlocks a door in City Centre South, as well as Grimoire Exsorcer, which casts the Exorcism spell, exorcising undead foes. Using Soil Fusion made damage against the gargoyles skyrocket, so they were easy to dispose.
Other than this first room the rest of Iron Maiden B1 was locked for now, so I went back to and through the first few rooms of the Keep, which were empty of enemies, but contained a lot of locked, colored rooms. I ended up at Warrior’s Rest, where I fought Rosencrantz
Boss Fight: Rosencrantz
Rosencrantz was easy. He kept using his break art, Cherry Ronde, which did about 60 damage to Ashley. Once he got low on health, he started using cure bulbs, so he prolonged the fight a bit, because his dodge rate was high. Still, eventually, I dwindled him down.
Rosencrantz was an easy fight, but it probably won’t be the last.
After the fight with Rosencrantz, I was at Town Centre South
Town Centre South
This was another large hub-like area infested with Crimson Blade soldiers. It connected directly to City Walls South, which opened up a shortcut for me. It also connected to Abandoned Mines B2, where I had to go next. The hint? The gate to it required the bronze key.
Abandoned Mines B2
Orcs! Lots of orcs.
Orcs are humanoid enemies, like goblins, so I used my executioner. There were also some slimes, but they died in two hits with the Hunter most of the time. The first boss I fought was an Air Elemental
Boss Fight: Air Elemental
I put two air affinity gems in my rounded shield to reduce the incoming damage. I then used Soil Fusion to boost my weapon, but it’s getting apparent I should switch to an axe or some other edged weapon against phantoms. The air elemental had a large amount of piercing resistance, so I did 15-20 damage per hit with my Exorcist dagger. Since it’s silver, I couldn’t combine it yet, so for now, I’m stuck with it.
I’m pretty sure the elementals get stronger versions later on.
At this point, I also realized you can’t use a weapon fusion and armor fusion spell at the same time. Somehow, I didn’t notice this before, but one obviously overwrites the other. In this case, the choice was easy. I had two air affinity gems, but no earth affinity gems, so I used gems to boost my defense and magic to boost my offense. In the future, it might not be as simple, though I can’t imagine it being much more complex than that. Either I’ll go all offense, all defense or try to keep a balance.
More Abandonded Mines B2
Next up was a challenging area, though in part because I was careless. Ashley starts in a large room with a save point. Exiting this room to the next area starts a two minute timer. Within those two minutes, you need to get through about a dozen rooms, each with enemies, get all the items you want to collect, defeat an Earth Elemental boss and finally get through the room after that to end the timer.
To make it even worse, the first room after the timer is over does contain a save point, but in order to get to it safely, you need to defeat a dragon-type enemies (one of those lizard people) as well as two gargoyles, one of them earth-type and the other water.
Basically, I first ran out of time a couple of times. Then I managed to defeat the boss only to die at the above room. Then I did all this one more time before I finally managed to clear it and save my game. I decided to skip one of the two optional chests within this timed section, because I tried looting it in one of my failed attempts, but it didn’t contain anything useful. The other one, however, had some nice items, so I looted that one.
Boss Fight: Earth Elemental
The earth elemental wasn’t exactly difficult, but my Exorcist wasn’t as effective against it as I wanted, so it took a while. There was no danger, though, so I wasn’t worried about beating it. The thing about the timer is that it does not count down when you’re in a menu or executing an attack – only when you’re moving, so it isn’t really an issue to get through it all in time, unless you get lost and have to backtrack too much.
The earth elemental is in the last room of the timed section.
Boss Fight: Sky Dragon
Right after the room with the second save point, the Sky Dragon was waiting for Ashley. This one was an issue. For some reason, my Dragonslayer spear is not a piercing weapon. It makes absolutely no sense, because it absolutely does look like a piercing weapon. Instead, its type is blunt.
Because of that, even with Soil Fusion or Prostasio (I tried both), I did zero damage with my regular attacks. Luckily, I have learned a Spear Break Art which does piercing damage, so I used that to damage the dragon.
Still, it only did a maximum of 60 points of damage per hit, it damaged Ashley as well, so he had to heal, and it had only a 50-60% hit chance, to it took a while to take out an almost 700 HP dragon. The dragon also does about 120 of damage with his tail strike, which it loved to use, so this meant even more time spent on healing.
The sky dragon has a lot of defense, and a lot of dodge, so he takes a while to beat.
Basically, the battle was long. It wasn’t especially hard, but it was long. I need to create a piercing Dragonslayer as soon as I can.
The Story
It’s getting weirder, but also far more interesting. As expected, Rosencrantz had a lot to hide. That’s probably not a big reveal, but it is a big plot point. The major plot point, however, is that the entire city of Lea Monde is actually the Grand Grimoire.
This sounds like a big reveal, but the game doesn’t make it look that way.
Also, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern know each other, Rosencrantz was expelled from the riskbreakers and Samantha can actually do the whole clairvoyance thing with Ashley in the opposite direction, which is how she was able to realize Ashley was listening in on their conversation.
Finally, Rosencrantz and Ashley did use to work together and both killed the picnicking family, so I guess that part wasn’t a lie told by Sidney. Or is it?
Callo has powers of her own…
Meanwhile, Ashley is fine tuning his clairvoyance abilities and can now communicate with Callo Merlose even more effectively. Callo, on the other hand, turns out to be a Heart-seer, meaning she can extract information out of people’s minds, somehow. It didn’t look like mind reading in the game, so it’s hard to describe.
…she can “read” minds.
Also, the duke Barbossa is something called a Key Holder – he holds the key over Lea Monde, having some control of the city’s powers. If he dies without a successor, then the powers are lost. Sidney is also… something and has an interest in the city, but it isn’t yet revealed what he is or what he wants.
Character Development
I finally found a workshop that can handle hagane equipment. It was at the Keep, in Warrior’s Rest, right before the battle with Rosencrantz.
A footman’s mace dropped, which has much higher base damage than my wizard’s staff, so I decided to disassemble the staff and assemble the mace into my new Paladin undead weapon. Its undead staff is negative right now, but I’m hoping it will turn into a good long-term mace. Once I get to a workshop that can handle silver, I’ll be able to combine it with the wizard’s staff to transfer the points over.
A tower shield also dropped, so I combined it with my circle shield to get a spiked shield. This was a no-brainer straight upgrade. I further combined it with a circle shield to get an even better round shield. This one has two gem slots, so I fitted it with a White Queen (20% change to evade numbness) and a Nightkiller (20% chance to evade a non-magical attack).
I combined my hagane Dragonslayer spear with a bronze scorpion and got a hagane scorpion, which was also a straight upgrade. I also did this with my armor, several times. Basically, I have a higher material class, but lower tier item. I combine it with an item of a higher tier and lower material class to get a higher material class, higher tier item.
My hagane spatha Hunter became a bronze norse sword. The material class is lower, but the item there is much higher, so it does more damage. However, I’m now having trouble upgrading the material class back to hagane. It should work with an iron blade, but it refuses to upgrade. I might have to find an iron norse sword to do it. Sadly, what I didn’t realize at the time was that the norse sword is a two-handed weapon. I’ve saved the game after, so now I’m stuck with it. Hopefully, it won’t take too long for me to turn it back into a one-handed sword.
Completion Progress
I’m about 13—14 hours in and at 45% of map completion. I keep guessing how long it will take, but I’m going to stop doing that now. It’s obvious that map coverage doesn’t really correlate well with battles and story.
Might and Magic Book One [20] – Game Guides
Might and Magic Book One is done and I’m getting ready for Book Two, which I hope to start playing after I’m done with The Walking Dead. In the meantime, I used some of my spare time to compile all of my notes and maps into a guide. I split it into three parts…Continue reading
The Walking Dead [1] – Episodes 1 and 2 Completed
Here’s what happens when you read about a game and how good it is for months, and then finally end up playing it after getting it for cheap on the Humble Weekly Sale. The first two episodes of the Walking Dead did not impress me.Continue reading
Offspring Fling [1] – How to be a Great Mom
After Might and Magic Book One, I wanted something light. Offspring Fling fit the bill nicely. It’s cheerful and colorful, short and not too hard on the noggin, though it is a puzzle game at heart. In fact, it was so fun for me that I managed to beat all 100 levels in one day (or about 4 hours).
How did I do?
Let’s get that out of the way. As I said, I beat all 100 levels. Out of those 100, I got gold or better in 75 levels, and four of those actually got the rainbow flower. As soon as I was done, I also beat a few of the early levels again to earn the gold flower, which got me to 80 gold flowers total.
So, I have 80/100 gold flowers and obtaining all of them seems pretty reachable. I also have 4/100 rainbow flowers and at this point, I’m not at all hopeful about getting all of those. All of that got me 51,5% completion of the game.
Of course, in my blog, this sort of completion counts as 100% Completed, which is a whole separate category to just Completed. For now, Offspring Fling is Completed. Will it ever be 100% Completed? Probably not. I do, however, intend to aim for the gold.
Now for the game.
What is Offspring Fling
Offspring Fling is a platforming puzzle game with the aim to aesthetically emulate old SNES games, all the way to the fake box art the game is marketing with.
A Super Pretendo Game.
The plot is that you’re a mom with a lot of babies and some weird monster things scares off your babies while knocking you out. You wake up and now you have to find your babies.
The plot is told in a cute slideshow at the start and the end of the game.
Most levels are single screen, though some stretch a bit further. Your goal on each level is to find your babies and carry them into the exit. The thing is, they usually aren’t in very convenient spots. You can carry up to four of them at a time, but with each additional offspring, it gets harder to move and jump around, so your goal is to figure out how to fling, drop and move your babies to get all of them to the exit, all the while avoiding natural obstacles and monsters.
This is a typical early level. You need to figure out the fastest order to get the chicks out and get them through the door.
Each level also has a gold time, which gets you the Gold Flower, as well as an even more difficult developer time, which gets you the Rainbow Flower.
A Gold Flower is realistically obtainable, most of the time.
On Steam, the game supports badges and cards and boasts a total of 10 achievements. I only unlocked three of those after completing the game, so if that’s how you want to get to 100% Completion, it won’t be easy.
As I said, Offspring Fling is relatively short, but the point is to repeat the levels in order to master them and finish them as fast as possible. Basically, the game is a puzzle at first, but once you figure out the solution, it’s mostly about executing it perfectly. There are exceptions, though. Some levels require you to find an alternate, not as obvious solution in order to break record time.
Offspring Fling is annoying and not very good.
This was my thought for the first fifteen or so levels. The controls felt stiff, the solutions were too simple and there was almost no danger to the level. Basically, I didn’t find the game very fun, but I decided to stick with it, because I thought it must be extremely short, based on the level list I had.
After a while, I figured out I can pick up multiple babies. In hindsight, the level design did try to show me this, but I wasn’t interested, so I wasn’t paying enough attention. This realization made the game slightly less annoying.
Then I started getting used to the controls…
Hey! I guess Offspring Fling isn’t that bad!
This thought slowly started to set in around level 15, but gained a lot more ground around level 30 or so. I got used to the controls and I realized that, while they aren’t very precise, they do work well with muscle memory.
I started repeating levels at this point, because I realized the Gold Flower wasn’t as unobtainable as I though and I actually do want to collect them.
You can see all your flowers and chicks in your garden.
Basically, I started to get hooked, and it was only getting worse.
At this point, I was about 2 hours in, but my nephew got interested to, so I let him play for a while from level one. He actually managed to get a few gold flowers I skipped on my first run because, well, he apparently has an easier time figuring it out, even though he’s six and I’m 26.
After about an hour, he had enough and I had to satisfy my itch for more. Yup, I was now hooked.
Actually, Offspring Fling is an excellent game.
Thinking about it, it has the looks, the music and the humor, so aesthetically, it’s close to perfect.
The puzzles make you think, but it’s not slow and methodical. You need reflexes as much, if not more than you need your brain. This, for me, is absolutely great, because It wasn’t mentally as demanding as I thought it would be, but it was demanding enough not to feel like a waste of time for me.
There’s actually a boss battle, but it plays mostly like a skill-focused level.
Once muscle memory started to set in, I was doing insanely impressive moves, flinging my offspring left, right and center, using them to push switches, knock out enemies, catching them in mid-air just to throw them again…
The boss battle doesn’t take too long.
Basically, I did everything any good mother would do to save her babies after putting them in harm’s way.
It’s not perfect, though.
As much as I would like to excuse it, I can’t. The controls aren’t responsive enough and it gets frustrating sometimes. Muscle memory simply cannot compensate for it completely, especially when you need precision, such as when you have to jump onto a narrow ledge, or through a narrow crack in the ceiling. You end up moving left and right to hit the correct spot, which wastes your time, which frustrates you because it really wasn’t you who messed up – it was the game.
You get a head count at the end, based on how well you did.
Still, those moments aren’t too common and they can definitely be forgiven. Overall, Offspring Fling is a fun and mostly fair game.
There’s one more thing, though. Some of those developer times are simply too perfect. There have been several levels where I did everything perfectly and I’m still 2 milliseconds short. I can even repeat my perfect result as many times as I want, to the millisecond, but I simply have no idea how to do better.
I’m not completely sure, but there might be some fourth wall breakage going on here.
The game gives you a ghost replay of the developer run when you get close enough, so I know he isn’t doing anything special. He’s just a millisecond or two faster than me. Maybe this is also an issue with the controls. Maybe the game would work better on a gamepad, which I admittedly haven’t tried yet, because I don’t have a decent one available at the moment.
To Recap
Offspring Fling is a great puzzle platformer, not to heavy on the puzzle, but definitely heavy on the technical skills. It also has charm and atmosphere which not many games have. I recommend it and I’ll be playing it until I at least reach the gold, which I don’t think will take too long.
After completing the 100th level, this is where I was.
And one more time, I can’t stress this enough – the game looks amazing. It has that washed out color palette and beautiful animations of some of the very best-looking SNES games, except the animations are ever so slightly more detailed, so it actually improves the retro look.
History repeats itself.
Now, the thing is, everything you read up to now was written on the day I played the game for the first time, so I was heavily under the impression.
A day later, it seem that the process of being annoyed and then gradually loving Offspring Fling repeats itself. I tried getting a Gold Flower on the level Tight Fit and I was extremely, extremely annoyed. After about 20 minutes of repeating this 16 second level, I got gradually better again and managed to get the Flower. After that, I was in the zone and easily got three more Gold Flowers, and now I love Offspring Fling again.
It’s weird how that works, isn’t it?
Might and Magic Book One [19] – Game Completed!
Over the past few days, I’ve been playing Might and Magic Book One intensively, exploring everything that was left to explore, finishing uncompleted quests and getting ready to end the game. That’s exactly what I did! I’ve completed a game that’s as old as I am and I loved every moment. The first thing I did was to explore the left-over areas… Continue reading
Might and Magic Book One [18] – King Alamar and the Fabled Building of Gold
At this point, I’m practically tasting the end game of Might and Magic Book One. Well, I think I’m tasting it. The reality is, I could be anywhere in the game right now and not know how far I got, since these ancient games really take an alien approach to design and storytelling.
King Alamar’s Castle
As I already said in my previous posting, the southwestern part of King Alamar’s Castle contained the prisoner. One thing I didn’t say was that I managed to botch up the quest line. I accidentally sold the item King Alamar gave me at Castle Doom. Basically, this means I had to go back to Sorpigal and redo the whole quest line all over again.
The fake king gives you a fake quest.
Luckily, not having the quest didn’t stop me from exploring the castle. The room on the opposite side, to the northwest, had the same layout as the prisoner room, except there wasn’t anything good at the end of this encounter series. Instead, I got a catapult which ejected me into the wilderness. What’s worse, after so many encounters, the catapult threw me straight into an encounter, where I then accidentally pushed S on my keyboard, which causes my party to surrender. This almost never works, but when it does, you go to a safe spot in the area and lose all of your money. Basically, I had to reload. I got the exploration, but I lost all the experience and loot.
I can’t free him, but he can give me an item from within the forcefield.
Similarly, there’s a chute like the one in Castles Blackridge which also takes you outside, but at least I didn’t lose any experience with that one.
Outside of that and the fake King Alamar, there wasn’t anything else in the castle. As I said, I had to redo the entire quest line to get the golden key, so that’s exactly what I did. By trying to rush through it with Teleport and Etherealize, I discovered a few things. Apparently, through the use of anti-magic fields and similar special tiles, there are some measures put in place so you can’t just straight rush through some parts.
All the traps are there for no reason, apparently, other than the one in the silver message room.
For instance, there are anti-magic fields in castle Doom which force you to do two things:
- You need to enter the castle through the secret entrance to reach the prison area.
- You need to have the Gold Key if you want to get to the imprisoned King Alamar.
So I guess you simply must do the main quest line to advance in the game and there’s no way past that.
The impostor is revealed!
Anyway, confronting the fake king revealed his true identity and I was thrown into the Soul Maze.
The Soul Maze
The goal of the Soul Maze is to find my captors name hidden within the walls. The problem was, using the location spell simply returned ”Unknown” instead of any coordinates. I decided to take the bait and map it anyway. For a while, it was extremely confusing, but then I figured out the level simply wraps around on itself. Leaving it from the top tile in the first column puts you in the bottom tile of the first column, and so on. With that realization, I kept mapping, hoping to find a note of some sort. I didn’t.
Eventually, I mapped it all and then two things became obvious:
- I was mapping it upside down, switching north for south.
- The name was Sheltem.
How did I realize that? Well, when the map was drawn, some of the walls spelled Help directly on the map. Help doesn’t really work as a name, so I abandoned my excel graph paper sheet and redrew it on a piece of actual paper. Rotating it upside down spelled out a pretty obvious hint:
My name is Sheltem.
I used this name and I got the following:
Agent Orango Seventeen Reporting: Imposter XX21A7-3 Voided! Starphase 5281.6 at 120-Varn-161 Pod #41, you are now rank 1 and eligible for transfer. Find inner sanctum for new assignment. The walls begin to fade…
I was back in Sorpigal.
I ended up mapping the Soul Maze upside down, but if you twist your head, you can read the name.
Back in King Alamar’s Castle, the real king was sitting on the throne and he told me I should go to the Inner Sanctum. I’m not sure if this is just an item in my inventory doing it or something else, but if it isn’t, this might be the first persistence in Might and Magic Book One. I left the game and got back in and the true Alamar was still on the throne.
Everything you can get to in E-3 is right here.
Clerics of the South
The clerics of the south are at the lowest level of castle Dragadune. Their finding you worthy means that you get to reuse all of the permanent stat increase locations within the game. I’m not sure how far you can increase your stats this way, but the action of gaining worth definitely is repeatable and I already got a few stats above 30 this way.
It can be a bit confusing, but to make them find you worthy, you don’t need to ring all the gongs, or you might need to ring them several times. The key is to keep hitting gongs until you hear all three of the tones – sharp, mellow and loud. You can’t ring the same gong twice in a row, but you can keep alternating between two gongs until you hear all three sounds.
They found me worthy several times over.
Just for future reference for myself and everyone else, here’s a little something…
Might and Magic Book One, Permanent Stat Increase Locations
- Might – The dungeon below Portsmith, B-3, 0-12
- Intellect – E-2, 3-13
- Wisdom – D-2, 12-12
- Luck – Ruins of Castle Dragadune, E-1, 1-1
- Accuracy – The cave below Dusk, E-1, 15-15
- Speed – The cave below Dusk, E-1, 14-5
- Endurance – A-1, 12-1
I actually completely forgot about endurance, so now it’s lagging behind the rest of my stats a bit.
The Six Prisoners
The Clerics of the South task (not exactly a quest) is awesome and provides an awesome reward. The six prisoners task, on the other hand, does almost nothing. You need to treat the six prisoners in the six castles according to your alignment and then you go to the scale statue in E-1. Based on how well you did, you get more or less experience. The amount is pretty high, but nothing you can’t get otherwise. Honestly, it’s not worth the trouble.
Might and Magic Book One, Character Age, Rejuvenation
First of all, I had very little issues with character age in Might and Magic Book One. None of my characters got even close to dying of old age up to now and the oldest one didn’t even reach 50. That being said, you have options for reversing old age, natural or magical.
Firstly, there’s a crater in the southeast of E-1, which you can only access with Etherealize, since it blocks teleportation. In there, you are forced to fight at least two difficult encounters against dinosaurs before reaching the center.
At the center, there’s a device which reverses everyone’s age by a certain number, though I’m not sure how much. Why am I not sure? Because casting Rejuvenate (Cleric, 6-4) is an order of magnitude faster and easier. Sure, there’s a chance you’ll end up aging your character instead, but then you can just cast it a few more times.
By the time you can reach the center of the crater, you’ll easily have access to Rejuvenate, so there really is no point not to use it.
I’ll repeat, the easiest way to reverse old age in Might and Magic Book One is to cast the clerical spell Rejuvenate.
E-4 and the Fabled Building of Gold
With a total of 5 overworld areas left to visit, I decided to start from the east and flew to E-4. The E-4 wilderness is a pretty OK area to train in. Most of it is empty, but there’s an island in the swamp to the south, with a lot of fixed encounters, most of them being against dragons. Dragons provide a lot of experience in Might and Magic Book One, so now that my level is high enough, they seem like a good way to quickly gain levels. However, there’s a downside – I’m hemorrhaging gems like crazy. I’ll probably have to find a place to collect some in the near future.
E-4 is a pretty good area to train, in my opinion. Of course, you need to be able to kill dragons.
On the same island, there’s the Fabled Building of Gold and there was a dragon town, which I could decide to attack. Doing this meant taking on one of each dragon type, as well as two high-level demons, able to cast Eradicate. Even with all of my protection spells, I wasn’t able to clear this battle. I might be able to with a few extra items, but for now, I’m not even going to try.
This is what you get for attacking the dragon town.
The Fabled Building of Gold
The Fabled Building of Gold is the first dungeon that I’m aware of with non-linear level progression. From the first level, you can get to either level 2, 3 or 4 via one of the three stairways.
Going straight to level 4 takes you to „dungeon under construction“. This level has a lot of walls which aren’t really walls from the opposite direction, or doors which end up being walls from the other direction, etc. The level also contains three rooms with very difficult encounters behind some barrier walls. Two out of these three encounters rewarded me with a black box, but I didn’t get any upgrades, because all of the item drops required evil alignment.
Getting to level 3 directly from level 1 takes you to an isolated area with nothing of importance in there. Level 2 simply contains a lot of rooms with weird encounters against a lot of different, unrelated monsters. It also contains a large maze, which is pretty much completely empty, other than the stairs to the „real“ part of level 3 at one of the dead ends.
Level 3 seems completely pointless. There is literally nothing of note in there.
Level 3 is just a bunch of teleport traps, all leading to the same spot with an encounter. Either I missed something, or there’s nothing of importance in there. You’d expect there to be something, since there’s to ways to get to the level, but I didn’t find anything.
Four levels of the Fabled Building of Gold, but only two seem important.
Overall, I got a huge amount of experience in the Fabled Building of Gold, and I found two checkered rooms, one of them containing the White Queen Idol. Sadly, it turns out I managed to sell or somehow lose the Black Queen Idol, so I’ll have to find it again. Good thing I’m taking notes, so I know where it is. It’s in level 1 of the Wizard’s Lair in the B-1 area.
Character Advancement
Lorelei the Knight
Lorelei gained four levels, 51 hit points in total and is now level 18.
Priscilla the Paladin
Priscilla gained two levels, 24 hit points in total and is now level 15.
She got a Belt of Power from the Soul Maze, so she gave her Undead Amulet to Alana.
Rax the Robber
Rax gained three levels, 27 hit points in total and is now level 17.
She got a Blue Ring Mail. This excellent item dropped from a Black Box in one of the trap rooms of castle Alamar. This time, I did the smart thing and immediately teleported outside and to Sorpigal. It increases AC by 9 and probably adds resistance, I’m guessing to either frost or electricity. The Blue Ring Mail replaced her Ring Mail + 1. This was an amazing upgrade.
She also got a brand new pair of Boots of Speed, giving his old Defense Cloak to Robin.
She got an Elec Shield, which replaced her Large Shield + 2, adding one more point of AC and increasing her electrical resistance.
Alana the Cleric
Alana gained three levels, 28 hit points in total and is now level 17. I’ve seen her destroy mummies with Turn Undead now.
She got an Undead Amulet from Priscilla.
Robin the Archer
Robin gained three levels, 26 hit points in total and is now level 15. She gained access to her fourth level sorcerer spells.
Robin got Rax’s Defense Cloak, which was a nice AC bonus.
Aleen the Sorceress
Aleen gained two levels, 14 hit points in total and is now level 16.
Maps
I believe I can now safely assume E-4 and E-3, including the Soul Maze, are fully and properly mapped, so I finalized the files related to these two areas. As usual, you can find all of my other files in my Google Drive folder, including the word document files you can edit.
Vagrant Story [3] – Snowfly Forest
After some dabbling at the workshop (I really need to figure out a proper plan on equipment development), it was time to move on with Vagrant Story and maybe even get past my furthest point in previous plays.Continue reading