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The title says it all. Thanks to many a /vg/ grand strategy thread, I was extremely interested in this game. Since I’ve won it on reddit during the sale, I finally got the chance to try it out last night. After playing it for a couple of hours, I can say two things.

  1. I have no idea how to play it right.
  2. I loved every moment of not having any idea how to play it right.

Seriously, the complexity of the game makes it an extremely engaging and interesting experience. Since games where I can play as Croatia are rarer than shiny pokemon, I decided to try my luck as the Trpimirović dynasty. I manage to survive for a decade or two, but then the Holy Roman Empire asked me to join the war against Hungary. Most of the neighbouring regions of Hungary have gone independent, though, so I couldn’t go to war with them. I thought there was no danger, so I foolishly tried to conquer the Serbian regions. Since again, I had no idea what I was doing and I’ve converted my realm to a heretic variation of Catholicism, I decided to call for a holy war.

The outcome was horrible. Serbia and just about everyone else around me were just regular catholic, so pretty much the whole of Europe went to war with me. Suffice to say, I did not last long.

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I got a friend who’s living and working in Germany at the moment, so we sometimes play together on Sundays. He plays a monk, while I’m a demon hunter. We got through the signal fire and catapult quests today, but that’s about it. Since the last major patch (1.3), Diablo has been quite laggy for me, which really kills the desire to play. Still, the friend is pretty damn bored on his free days, since he doesn’t speak the language well, so I have no issues with the two of us wasting some time together.

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I’ve encountered Epona in the sunken prison again. She summoned two bat demons this time, but they turned on her, so I only had to fight one of them, while she was dealing with the other. I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but I’m playing the game at Hard difficulty this time, so the boss didn’t fall as fast as I had hoped. After a few tries, though, I did manage to kill it. After some more exploring, I’ve found my lightning skill, which drops a mine at my position. I soon also found my first topaz, allowing me to charge the skill. The charged version drops a mine that does more damage and has a larger blast radius.

With the help of the mine, I killed the centipede boss, but it was a really tough fight. I actually had to train to level 18 in order to get through it, but it was still very difficult and I barely made it after several tries. The next area, Guilty Fire, was easy to deal with due to the extra levels. Similarly to Yunica, I’ve first rescued one of the sorceresses, who seems to have a crush on Hugo. Then I met lady Feena and she was taken by the enemy. This time, though, it was the clawed man that I had to fight and lose to. There was a revelation before the fight to, but this one was much bigger than “I killed your father”, though it was still kind of expected. The clawed man is a traitor of Ys and Hugo’s brother, Toal.

Ys: Origin - Hugo vs Toal

Sibling rivalry.

After Hugo lost the fight, Toal wanted to kill him, but the rest of the rescue team got there in time to save him. Everyone teleported back to the ground level and that’s where I ended my session.

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With the help of the Greybeards, I started gathering shouts all over Skyrim. Some were easily acquired from dragon lairs, while others were hidden deeper in various dungeons, caves and ruins. After a while, I started getting upgrades instead of new words, so I decided to ask the help of the almighty Google.

Skyirim - Throat of the World

Once more into the breach!

I quickly found a list of all the shouts and their locations, but I’ve also learned one other thing, which I should have known already. Four of the twenty shouts that exist in the game can only be learned throughout the main quest line. Now, I had learned twelve shouts in total by now, so I continued to learn the remaining four I still could. Once that was done, though, I had to tackle the main story on my second character. What follows is a list of all the shouts and their locations. I’ll put the words I learned and/or consider faster to get to in bold.

  • Animal Allegiance – Ancient’s Ascent, Angarvunde, Ysgramor’s Tomb
  • Aura Whisper – Northwind Summit, Valthume, Volunruud
  • Become Ethereal – Ironbind Barrow, Lost Valley Redoubt, Ustengrav
  • Call Dragon – taught during The Fallen
  • Call of Valor – taught during Dragonslayer
  • Clear Skies – taught during The Throat of the world
  • Disarm – Eldersblood Peak. Silverdrift Lair, Snow Veil Sanctum
  • Dismay – Dead Crone Rock, Lost Tongue Overlook, Shalidor’s Maze
  • Dragonrend – taught during Alduin’s Bane
  • Elemental Fury – Dragontooth Crater, Shriekwind Bastion, Statue to Meridia
  • Fire Breath – Dustman’s Cairn, Sunderstone Gorge, during The Throat of the World
  • Frost Breath – Bonestrewn Crest, Folgunthur, Skyborn Altar
  • Ice Form – Frostmere Crypt, Mount Anthor, Saarthal
  • Kyne’s Peace – Ragnvald, Rannveig’s Fast, Shroud Hearth Barrow
  • Marked for Death – Autumnwatch Tower, Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, Forsaken Cave
  • Slow Time – Hag’s End, Korvanjund, Labyrinthian
  • Storm Call – Forelhost, High Gate Ruins, Skuldafn Temple
  • Throw Voice – Shearpoint, all words together
  • Unrelenting Force – Bleak Falls Barrow, during The Way of the Voice, during Jurgen Windcaller
  • Whirlwind Sprint – Dead Men’s Respite, during The Way of the Voice, Volksygge

Additionally, it seems Dawnguard adds a few more shouts, so what follows is a list of those, in case it’s required for the future. Since I have yet to play the expansion, I can’t really say which ones are faster to get.

  • Drain Vitality – Dimhollow Crypt, Forgotten Vale, Arcwind Point
  • Soul Tear – taught by Durnehviir on each summon from Soul Cairn
  • Summon Durnehviir – learned after Beyond Death

Luckily, the main quest line is relatively short, and I was already familiar with it, so it wasn’t to hard to get through. During all this, I discovered a small detail I liked. You see, on my last character, a mage, I’ve dealt with the civil war before dealing with the dragons. On this run, the war was still on when I asked to trap a dragon in Whiterun, so the jarl demanded a peace treaty to be arranged until I resolve the dragon threat. I actually had to invite Ulric and Tulius to High Hrothgar and mediate the negotiations. I guess I’ll be discovering new things about Skyrim for a long time.

In any case, after a few more quests, I’ve learned the remaining four shouts and also reached level 54 along the way, meaning I got the final two achievements. Or so I thought…

Skyrim - Steam Achievement List

FML…

Apparently, in a recent update, they decided to add the Dawnguard achievements to Steam, meaning I will not see 100% next to Skyrim for a while longer. Since I won’t be getting Dawnguard any time soon, it might be quite a while indeed. However, I’ve finished the base game and cleared all of its achievements, so I’m considering this one 100% complete from now on.

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With Oblivion Walker out of the way, it was time to tackle the final few achievements. Since Steam handles achievements separately from regular save games, I decided to take the easy way out with the Wanted and Master Criminal achievements. I saved my game to a separate slot and punched a guard. I was thrown in jail, and easily picked the lock, since my character is a rogue with well trained lockpicking.

I reloaded my game and started tackling the master criminal achievements. The problem was, I was so stealthy I had to actively make sure to be seen when killing someone in each of the holds. In case you aren’t sure, I give you the list of holds and their capitals. Don’t forget, if you kill the witnesses, your bounty is gone, so you need to kill a guard or civilian and then run away.

Skyrim Master Criminal Achievement – List of Regions

  • Eastmarch with the capital in Windhelm
  • Falkreath with the capital of the same name
  • Haafingar with the capital in Solitude
  • Hjaalmarch with the capital in Morthal
  • The Pale with the capital in Dawnstar
  • The Reach with the capital in Markath
  • The Rift with the capital in Riften
  • Whiterun with the capital of the same name
  • Winterhold with the capital of the same name

As I said, all that’s needed is to kill one person there and then run away. This is what I did, though I was interrupted by a dragon attack at one point, because I foolishly decided to go start the dragon “invasion” earlier. It took me a short while, and the achievement was mine. When it popped up, I reloaded my game from the earlier slot. It was simpler than going to each hold and pay the fines.

With both of these gone now, the two achievements left were Master and Thu’um Master. As I said before, I expected to achieve Master automatically, and this was getting closer, what with being 49 and close to 50 already. Thu’um Master, on the other hand, is going to take some time.

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I was very much wrong about how Oblivion Walker works. There’s a total of 15 daedric quests, which all reward daedric artefacts for completion. However, a few of those give alternative ways of completion, which grant something else instead. This actually means the achievement is missable on a character basis. If you mess up on one character, the only thing left to do is to restart with a different character and try there. Technically, there is a way to exploit a bug in one of the quests, so you can make up for just one artefact, but other than that, you need to be very careful if you want to get this achievement.

Luckily, I didn’t get a chance to mess up yet and I did my research before continuing from last time, so I was ready. I have to say, I don’t like very much how this is working, though, because most of the quests involve you doing some very, very evil things in order to get the rewards. What’s worse, no one actually reacts to you doing any of it, and the game just moves on as usual. I would’ve preferred this to be handled differently, but I had to work with what I had.

In the end, I got all 15 artefacts and didn’t have to exploit the quest bug with Hircine’s quest to get both the Savior’s Hide and the Ring of Hircine. However, although I got all of them, I did not get the achievement. For a short time, I was afraid I wasted all this time for absolutely nothing, but luckily, I’ve found a steam thread which helped me get past the issue by using the console.

Skyrim - All of the Daedric Artifacts

I have them all!

Skyrim – How to Fix Hircine’s Quest

It seems Hircine’s quest has a tendency to not complete properly, so a console command was needed to advance it up to a certain point. I had no issues with using it, since I had the artefact in question, so I did, and the achievement was mine.In case anyone else encounters this problem, the command to advance Hircine to the right position is.

  • setstage DA05 100 if you got Savior’s Hide
  • setstage DA05 105 if you got Ring of Hircine

If you have an issue with another quest, you can use sqs to check what stage your quest is on, and then setstage to set it to the correct stage. What follows is a list of all the daedric quest ids as well as the stages they need to be on along with you owning all the artefacts, in order to get the achievement.

  • DA01 100 (For Azura’s Star) 110 (for Black Star)
  • DA02 50 (also maybe 100)
  • DA03 200
  • DA04 100
  • DA05 100 (for Savior’s Hide) 105 (for Ring of Hircine)
  • DA06 200
  • DA07 100
  • DA08 60 (also maybe 80)
  • DA09 500
  • DA10 200
  • DA11 100
  • there is no DA12, TQ09 is Nocturne and doesn’t count with the skeleton key
  • DA13 100
  • DA14 200
  • DA15 200
  • DA16 200

Link

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I’ve completed Skyrim ages ago, but I still had incomplete achievements, so I return to the game every now and then to try and complete a few. For this purpose, I even started a new character, this time a rogue. I decided not to start the first dragon encounter until it’s absolutely necessary, which means I won’t be bothered by dragon attacks until I get to the Thu’um Master achievement.

Skyrim - Azura's Shrine

Azura’s Shrine

As of right now, I’m only missing 5 in total:

  • Wanted: I need to escape from jail. Easy, but I’m saving it for later.
  • Master Criminal: A bounty of 1000 gold in all the holds. Not too hard, though might take long. I’ll do this one last, probably.
  • Oblivion Walker: I need to collect 15 daedric artefacts. Since there are 15 shrines in total, this pretty much means I need to get each one. I already got the Dawnbreaker and I got Azura’s Star tonight. I’ll be focusing on this achievement, for the most part.I also have the mace of Molag Bal, but that one wasn’t shrine related, so I’m not sure if it counts.
  • Thu’um Master: Learn 20 shouts. This one, I’ll do among the last, since I just don’t want to be bothered by dragon attacks.
  • Master: Reach level 50. I’m 43 now, closing in on 44. I’m hoping I’ll get this one while I’m dealing with all the other achievements.

In any case, Oblivion Walker is my focus right now. I’m not sure which shrine I’ll do next. It will probably be whatever shrine I know the location of.

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Apparently, Hugo wakes up at the other Roda tree, at the opposite side of the tower. Compared to Yunica, he seems much more confident in his abilities, to the point of arrogance. He also plays much differently. His main attack is ranged, shooting parallel missiles in the direction he’s facing. Once I use boost, he shoots 2 additional missiles, for 5 in total.

Ys: Origin - Hugo's View of the Tower

Hugo starts out at the second Roda tree.

I expected the story to be different, but it turns out it’s more or less Yunica and Hugo switching places, or at least that’s what it looks like right now. Of course, we have a different character now, so the events play out differently, but it’s not two parallel stories as I thought it would be.

I played up to the water area, the name of which I managed to forget again, and got to level 10. My first skill is again wind based, but this time, it’s a shield which blocks one or several attacks, depending on being charged or not. It also does a small amount of damage to enemies extremely close to Hugo and slows down Hugo’s falling speed. I expected a sorcerer to be more skill focused, but the way it looks like now, he uses skills more rarely than Yunica. We’ll see what the lightning skill will do.

Ys: Origin - The Darklings

The strangers are apparently called “The Darklings”

Instead of the first boss being the bat demon, I’ve fought Epona. She seemed really tough at first, because I kept trying to dodge everything and wait for my chance to attack, but eventually, I realized it’s better to use my shield constantly and just shoot her at point-blank range. She had very little health, so I killed her before she killed me.

The second boss was the same beast demon Yunica fought. The fight took longer, since Hugo does less damage, but I think it was easier overall. The shield helped me nullify the most dangerous attacks and made it much easier to climb on the bosses head when he was stunned.

Anyway, I saved my game at the start of the water area and ended my session.

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As expected, the rod opened the mirror portal, and I entered the Halls of Reflection. The place was basically a teleporter maze, but not too complex in design, so I managed to get all the loot and find the exit soon enough. At the exit, Zava was waiting for me with a trap. Luckily, Roy got there in time to free me and I managed to beat her eventually. There was a huge price, though.

Ys: Origin - Yunica Death Scene

Nooooo!

Defeating her revealed the stairs to the top level, the Devil’s Throne. It was not a very difficult place, but the enemies definitely took longer to kill. Eventually, though, I managed to clear it and get the final piece of my gear, a pair of boots with a chance to negate any attack. Once this area was cleared, I had access to the tower summit, where Dalles was waiting.

Ys: Origin - Boss Battle Against Ax Man

It’s payback time!

Before that, though, there was one more fight to win – Yunica’s father’s murderer was there. He was beaten on the first attempt. It was a close call, but thanks to one last boost attack, he well with me critically low on health. I ascended the stairs and approached the summit to face Dalles.

Thanks to all of Yunica’s friends, I managed to get past his defences and engage in combat. It was a hard fight and I lost several times, before I decided to try and get a few more levels. I returned to the Devil’s Throne and gained a single level, bringing me to 50. This was enough to finally beat the boss and finish the game, at least with Yunica. The ending sequence was bittersweet, revealing there was one more, huge price to pay, but I was done.

Ys: Origin - Yunica Ending Scene

The End

Time to try my luck with Hugo Fact now. I hear he’s a bit more difficult to play with.

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I spoke to the priest first, but he didn’t know what to do. I then went to see the goddess and she told me it might be possible to remove petrification, but an extremely powerful item, the Dream Idol, is needed. Luckily, Dino might have it with him, since he was tasked with protecting it at the shrine. I went and asked him about it, and he had no issues with giving it to me. The problem was I still needed a strong source of magic to power it.

Ys: Origin - Trapped Goddess

The flow of the story makes me think the game was cut short during development. It’s either that, or just poor writing.

The copy was enough to power the Idol and I managed to remove the petrification from the knights. They all thanked me and one of them gave me the medallion I needed to move on. I teleported to the boss immediately and started the fight. It was a huge mantis insect this time, and he wasn’t too hard to beat. The catch was, it summoned a bunch of minions once it was at low health, so I had to kill as many of those as possible, or they would heal it.Since I had nothing, I continued to explore the rest of Blighted Blood, using the key I found to open a door stopping me from doing so before. I managed to get all the way to the next boss, but I couldn’t open the door, since I was missing the required medallion. I backtracked a bit and soon found an area I didn’t see before. I stumbled into Hugo there, having an argument with one of the opposing party’s members, the man with the claw weapons. After he left, Hugo gave me the Black Pearl, or actually, a weaker copy of it that the enemy was using.

Ys: Origin Insect Boss

This boss wasn’t too hard, but mostly because I was a bit overleveled.

The next area was called Demonic Core, and it had a high-tech purple theme going with it. It was pretty straightforward to explore, with not much backtracking needed. Halfway to the end of it, I encountered a huge mirror. It looked like a portal of some kind, but it was blocked by magic, so I couldn’t do anything about it.

Moments after I purified the second goddess statue of the floor, something happened with the tower. It looked like it started sprouting, for lack of a better word. Huge tendrils grew out of it and enveloped the entire Solomon Shrine. Before I could even think about it, Epona ambushed me again, saying something about how Dalles started the ritual and how the era of Darklings is about to arrive. I beat her a second time, again with ease, and found a magical rod in her possession. I’m hoping the artefact will unlock the mirror and help me continue on.

That was enough for this session, though.