So after you gathered all 13 Time Capsules. You run back all the way to the Bakunawa Map and fight Merga once more. The fight is the same just a different ending. Pangu executes a protocol that plays back a message for Merga.
Merga’s will breaks and she cries for her love to come back. Although just before everyone can finally have a much needed chat. Syntax interrupts. Stating it’s booting up Code Black Version 2. (Why is there a version 2? Version 1 was bad enough). It takes over the ship and declares it’s gonna blow up the moon.
Carol rightfully complains that we already saved the moon why can’t it stay saved. Neera says there’s just one more fight. Before the girls run off we look at a depressed Merga who tells us to go on ahead.
Seriously why is there a version 2?
So now new final stage. Everything’s rather silent much like Freedom Planet 1. Only difference is it’s longer and you can instantly die. What I mistake for stage ambience was actually a sort of stage timer. Syntax is watching you travel to the end and the entire stage is full of door unlocking puzzles. The longer Syntax has you in it’s sights. It yells at you to “GET OUT”. I honestly thought it was part of the stage and that the more you’re spotted the harder things get at some point.
I seriously thought this was just automatic I didn't notice the gauge on the left.
No instead if you spots you (roughly 3 times) Syntax goes bat shit and instantly kills you. No joke. That bit gave me nightmares for about 2 days. Imagine some robot constantly telling you to GET OUT then suddenly impaling you to oblivion.
This is gonna give me nightmares for a few days.
You just die. No get back up option. You literally just lost all your lives. Thankfully the game is nice enough to give you checkpoints for free on this stage.
Once you finally get to the end. You fight Syntax who seems to have made some upgrades. It’s no longer the trolling computer program trying to kill you. It just wants you dead. Moving faster than Merga was and even smart enough to delay some of it’s attacks forces me to step up my game. Then it does another trolling bit. Syntax recovers its life back to full.
Syntax moves very fast making it hard for me to pick a perfect time to attack.
WE'VE BEEN DOING THAT!! HOW MUCH HARDER DO I HAVE TO HIT IT?!
Milla notes that in order to defeat it we just need to hit it as hard as we can. EXCEPT WE’VE BEEN DOING THAT!!!!
Surprise Merga Strike
Oh, alright that works.
Wish Aaa and Askal were here right now. Corazone can't cause well she's injured.
The fight continues and instead of having to worry about an instant kill attack. Syntax summons Brevon. Seriously? That’s just gonna make me beat you down even harder you know. The gang jumps in occasionally throwing in there own attacks. Except Merga which would’ve been cool.
Really you summon Brevon? That just makes me fight harder.
After defeating Syntax the ship is about to crash. Carol runs off to get her sister. (I would’ve love to have seen). Lilac pleads with Merga to escape with them. Merga’s too busy feeling sorry for herself which leads to Lilac getting smacked from behind by Syntax. We end up with an epic NOOOOOOO!!!! moment as Merga leaps to save Lilac.
Typical feel sorry for yourself after getting whooped.
Gives me Sonic Advance 2 Vibes
The ending then plays out as normal. Nothing new added there. Booo...
Can we have a play as Captain Kalaw, Askal, Spade and/or General Gong mode please?
End credits roll. We get an extra scene. Cordelia recording messages and getting to work on something. Which we assume is Pangu and the ancient ruins stage.
Though I do wish it didn’t turn Spade and Serpentine into comic relief.
So as the title says it's been forever. There are a couple of post that are still in "Draft" but they'll probably stay that way. I'm honestly afraid to post those. I'm afraid to post most things these days. It's not like my opinions won't be met with criticism and such. But more that even I don't know if I 100% agree with myself. It's a horrible feeling.
As it stands right now I'm just doing the bare minimum to keep afloat. Or really it's to keep my mind off the idea that the world is crumbling around me. If I'm not doing that I'm sleeping. I don't think I can handle the world outside my room. I feel trapped to be honest. And I'm too scared to leave despite the way out being right there in front of me.
I've once again started projects but I feel like I can't do anymore. I question myself what's the point of the whole thing when I know the end result is gonna be a major fail. At that point I end up telling myself to stop wasting time and keep doing what works despite how much I hate it. Youtube seems to think that way.
Youtube Stuff
I don't have much to talk about here. I'm between games trying to keep up with recording. It's not the energy it's more of a willpower issue. I just have days where I don't want to do anything. Then I find out I have nothing ready for the day and rush to record something. I wish I could say I had an issue with comments but it's more that I have an issue with no comments except on old stuff. I guess I don't mind. It's better than no comments, bots, or whatever.
I want to do a sort of visual novel, game review sort of thing. But I'm finding it's not exactly working out as planned. Picking a game to review is rough and just getting anywhere with it just has me being a defeatist and immediately want to quit on it. I had some encouragement from other people but I just don't see myself doing it. I want to but I immediately feel like it's gonna fail and not worth the time sink. That's not counting the home interruptions I get.
Games Currently Working on At the Time of this Post:
Persona 4 Golden
Chocobo GP
Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy
Megaman ZX
Under Night In-Birth
Ring Fit Adventure
Night in the Woods
Other Things I'm doing
Random Voice Overs
So I started doing line reads for various games cause I'm interested in Voice Acting. I'm not sure if I'll go through with it but I'm more interested in this than other things. I've been doing line reads for Live-A-Hero and various visual novels. Still unsure as to how to get into voice acting career. Just seems to cost a lot of money from what I've looked up. I don't even know who to ask about this stuff.
Streams
Assuming I can get over my anxiety and defeatist attitude I can probably stream again one day... I don't have a lot of help in this as streaming has changed since I've done it long ago. And asking anyone for assistance just gets me no where other than Googling it. My problems don't really fall in the google category. Just things not working or don't work. Then people telling me I need fulfill crazy requirements in order to stream in the first place. So I just end up saying screw it.
That's about it. I wanna talk about other stuff but I don't feel comfortable talking about it.
Armello is a strategy board game with card and dice mechanics implemented into. There's multiple ways to win but you have to strategic about it. While there is a story. There isn't much to it. You generally get a prologue on how to play the game and that's pretty much your story. The rest is on you.
-Planned for Offline Play
Story
The story is certainly engaging enough for me to get sucked into it. But anything outside of the prologue well there is none??? The kingdom of Armello was once ruled by a noble king who united all of the clans together. But of course that harmony is disturbed by an evil darkness called "The Rot" that slowly decays one's mind and drives them to become power hungry dictators. So the King suddenly starts making moves that breaks the alliance of all the clans of Armello. And now there's a 4-Way battle for who will rule the kingdom.
That's pretty much it. There is more backstory in the form of E-Books but I haven't bought those yet. Not sure if I should.
Gameplay
The gameplay is surprisingly deep. It's pretty much in a sense a simplified D&D session. From what I hear D&D sessions get far more complex than this game. It's you versus 3 other clans. And there's multiple ways to win the game.
Politically - You earn the King's favor to the point that he gives you the throne.
Kill the King -You manage to slay the King therefore making yourself the new king
Corrupt the Kingdom - By making yourself more infected with "The Rot" you eventually overpower the king making yourself the new Lord of Calamity.
Purify the Land - Collect Spirit Stones and purify the kingdom
So you have a lot of ways of going about it. Earning prestige, gaining allies, etc. You move around the board and make decisions to save towns, set traps for the others, gain experience. It's where the card aspect comes into play. By gaining cards you can get equipment, spells, traps, and allies. Each have there own check. Like equipment sometimes requires that you have enough gold to even equip it in the first place. Spells obviously have a Magic check. Traps depend on various stats like your prestige. Allies I find are generally free.
While moving around the board each area you come across might have a Peril. A challenge to take. Some you can avoid and take the easy way out but you get less rewards. But others you have to fight and pray you come out on top. To help with this. You can actually burn your cards, use them in an alternate way to make the challenge a bit easier for you. Then it comes down to a dice roll. If you roll enough to clear the challenge then all's well. But if you don't you fail and take damage.
For battles. You roll to determine how many attacks and blocks you'll get. The more dice you have the better your chances. Getting die is dependent on your character and cards you have. If a character dies. They're sent back to there starting point and lose prestige. But if you lose to a Rot Infected character. That character also becomes infected. Quite a lot to consider.
During my play I did end up making some bold moves and praying the AI wouldn't catch on to my plans. Another part I ended up making desperate moves just to win. So I could see games getting crazy and easily a game where you try to hold a player underwater. In my opinion getting prestige and winning the King's Favor each turn seems to be the best plan. Each day while you still hold the King's favor you can affect everyone on the board. Like making every other player pay there taxes (how evil).
I only scratched the surface of how deep the gameplay goes.
My Only Disappointment
Probably my main disappointment in gameplay is that after the prologue that's pretty much it. I was expecting there to be a single player campaign with each clan/hero. But nothing. After the prologue you're immediately thrown into the game. No story after that. I guess you make your own story.
Well if you to take my point of view from this prologue. I could see myself as someone trying to unite the 4 current clans. There's plenty more thanks to DLC but I'll focus on these 4.
The Wolf Clan is the hero. Thane has decided since the King is corrupt, breaking alliances, and oppressing the people. He needs to go. You could probably convince him that there's another way through gathering the Spirit Stones.
Mercurio of the Rat Clan. They're just siding with ones with power. They know what's going on and through trickery would look to usurp the throne. Although that can't possibly go well considering they're willing to infect themselves with The Rot.
Amber and the Rabbit clan once had the King's favor. But due to sudden changes she has to focus on reestablishing her clan politically. She would be key to reuniting everyone or at least taking down the King.
Sana of the bear clan. They knew this day would come and have prepped for The Rot. Getting the Spirit Stones together to cleanse The Rot would be key. If you side with her you could save the world.
Now obviously the problem would be getting everyone to listen and make alliances. Even if you made an alliance it would be shaky considering that they would never agree as to how to save the world.
Music
The music fits the mood. I mean it's not a war. So I don't expect some crazy battle music. But it definitely sets the mood. So I have no complaints about it. I imagine during main games you probably won't focus on the music.
Graphics
I'm honestly impressed by the graphics. For one this runs pretty well on my Desktop and my desktop is pretty much out of date by a few years. I enjoyed the Prologue movies.
Overall
I'd be more impressed if there was a single player campaign. I wish there was a single player campaign. I mean this series even has a book series that acts as the game's prequel to it all. My main problem with this is that like many games there's a huge focus on playing online rather than offline. I don't mind this but it is hard to get friends together to play games like this. Still a great game and I wish I got around to playing it sooner. I had this on my steam for years but never had the time to actually play it.
Dead or Alive 3 was pretty much my first and technically only Dead or Alive game. I didn't know anything about the tropes or what people apparently loved this game series for. Or maybe I should say I ignored it. Years after this I would say around the time I was in my 20s. I realized it.
Generally I liked this series as it's another 3D fighter that looks good. There's honestly not too many 3D fighters out there. There still isn't. It's mainly 2.5D now for the sake of time, effort, and price. I didn't really recognize the sex appeal of the game. Least not until Extreme Beach Volleyball came out and made a killing off it's girls. I generally just played along with my friends talking about the endings for certain characters. Like Helena and Christie's endings.
It has one of the best Fighting Game Intros I've seen.
Unforntunately I had to change the song to something less copyright. The original song "Nine Lives" from Aerosmith was used here. Good choice. Even though I haven't looked up the lyrics to it. The beat works for it which is generally what's important. Most songs for videogame intros have little to do with the theme of the game in the first place. It's just a really good beat. Anyway since I didn't want Aerosmith's legal team on my ass for having there song in game, I changed it.
Lust Sin from Blazblue. It fits, least from the beat and I'm not using the LA Vocal version.
Graphics
Well this was made by Tecmo and Team Ninja. And honestly considering the previous Dead or Alive games looked great on PS2 and Dreamcast. This obviously leveled up.
Now if we're gonna refer to the stage backgrounds you can obviously tell especially on higher end TVs that the backdrop is just a still image. I'm also not sure but I think there's some raytracing in certain stages. If you don't know what Raytracing is (I didn't know until Spider-man Miles Morales was released). It's basically the reflection of light on objects. You don't see it a lot in games cause that's a lot of work. And if you do it wasn't done too often.
I guess should stop dodging this. The character models. I have to say these are excellent character models. You might be thinking that I'm referring to the females. No. I mean in terms of this game. The character models interacting with each other and various objects is better than even some of the modern games. I played King of Fighters 14 and OMG King of Dinosaurs happens to clip through everything. Not just this tail but his head too. I know some things can't be helped like Tekken and Soulcalibur with create-a-character and customizations. But sometimes it feels incredibly jarring to see things clip through textures or interact weird cause it wasn't meant to. Now Dead or Alive isn't perfect in this regard either. If you look hard enough you can find some character models clipping through textures or weird interactions. But at least DoA manages to care about this stuff far more than other games.
If you want me to talk about the boob jiggle. Whatever. Yeah it's there. I'm not the right person to judge but to be honest I barely notice it. To me it's one of those things where it has to be blatantly obvious or someone annoyingly yells it out. This game doesn't have "The Age Slider" that apparently DoA2 had. The Age Slider was a setting in the options menu asking a player there age. The higher the age the more you saw the female's boobs jiggle. So obviously ppl would set the age to maximum to get the most jiggle they could ask for.
The character endings while they make as much sense as any other fighting game of old. The FMVs definitely got there money's worth. I honestly enjoy see Leon dance or Lee Fang beating the crap out of a bunch of thugs. If we're gonna talk lewd again. Well this game definitely is playing with a thin line. Least when it comes to some endings. Christie's ending is her walking out the shower then chilling with her puma before another mission comes up. During this ending clothes are rather minimal. I guess it was enough to not make the ESRB rate it M. Another example would be Helena's ending with her in beach wear going for a swim. The camera definitely pushes your eyes in certain directions. Those endings are playing with fire. But then you got Hitomi's ending where you'd expect something also lewd but no. Hitomi's just kicking her father's butt.
The character interactions in story mode are something of note as well. Some are obviously cheesy. While others definitely show some emotion. Jann Lee definitely has the cheesy stuff. Ayane shows the most emotion.
The costumes also make me question if this is okay to show on Youtube. Most of the costumes are okay and honestly I like there looks. Then there's others where I'm worried if Youtube will show up and mark the video inappropriate for most audiences. But considering this is 2021 and Street Fighter V gets away with things far more risque than what DOA could produce. Maybe I'm fine in this regard???
Gameplay
Finally can get off graphics. Gameplay is a double edged sword. There's things I like about it. Then there's things I hate about it. And there's things that absolutely frustrate me.
Pressure Based Inputs ???? 🤨
So the controls are pretty simple and there's 2 styles of controls. Xbox being technically the first to try this for there fighting game. You can use normal style controls which has a lot more inputs but that's if you choose not use an analog stick. The input can be a bit more complicated with Analog input off. But at least you get what you want. Then there's "analog input on". This is a crap shoot as it uses pressure based inputs.
So certain moves were done either by lightly tapping the punch, kick, and guard buttons. Or with a hard press. This is a crap shoot at best and definitely not for people who like to smash buttons on there controllers or get frustrated easily. These pressure based inputs can mess you up quite a bit. Giving you moves you didn't want at the worst possible time. So you wanted a punch combo that's just 4 punches. Well too back you're getting the move mapped to a hard press punch instead cause you pressed punch too hard. If that wasn't bad enough there's some combo strings that require you to go from light to hard back to light press in the same string. Not fun. It is fun knowing that certain moves are easier however. Like Hayabusa's Izuna drop in pretty much 1 button 3 times as opposed to a massive amount of D-Pad input. None this helps on certain fights though like the final boss. More on that guy later.
Controls
Aside from the pressure based buttons. The controls are pretty smooth and responsive. Most games I find myself having to mash out motions just to get special moves. This one not so much. I find myself preferring analog input cause it's a 3D Fighting game. So I want to use the analog stick to move around in 3D. I wish I could keep the Analog input but remove the pressure based buttons.
True-Combos Don't Exist?????
This is a bit loose. But doing combos seems to be a matter of what moves you actually input. You could just punch all day and get a combo but the guy getting punched can counter it. See if you use a move repeatedly you have a chance of recovering and countering there obvious combo attempt. The only times combos seem to be true is if you knocked your opponent airborne or landed a strong counter it. Otherwise you're not truly doing combos.
Game Modes
There's quite a number of game modes which in terms of a fighting game this is a bit more than the average fare these days. Story Mode, Vs, Training, Time Attack, Survival, Team battle, CPU Exhibition. While each mode is generally short. You get a lot of mileage out of them. And it's still more than average of today. Today you'd be lucky to have more than Arcade, Vs, training, and online.
*Sidenote: Fantasy Strike, a fighting game I've played a few years ago. You have to pay to get replay mode unlocked. Geez."
I enjoy the CPU Exhibition as you can watch the CPUs duke it out and control when the game goes bullet time and how the camera moves on the action.
Difficulty
Aside from the controls giving me issues at times with the pressure based sensitivity. The AI in this game is pretty demonic. Honestly it feels like it doesn't matter what setting the AI is on. They seems to kick your ass if and when they feel like it. I think the difficulty setting is just a placebo. Usually when I play story mode there's always one or 2 fights where the AI just becomes a wall that I have to surmount. Reading my buttons to just making me taste the dirt on the ground. I'm stuck there for quite a bit. Other times I'm stomping the AI left and right with simple commands.
The Final Boss
This guy named OMEGA (or as the story puts him as Genra) is truly a cheap boss. When you encounter him he feels like your fighting Virtua Fighter's Dural where it's just an optional fight. But no you gotta beat this guy to get the ending.
First the camera angle changes which will disorient most players. The camera goes for a 3rd Person view behind the player. This makes it look like you should now be pressing up on the Analog Stick or D-Pad to move forward instead of Left or Right.
Then the 2nd thing you'll note is that this boss has projectiles. Something none of the other characters have. And Omega like to spam them. He has:
A Shockwave that can be blocked or jumped
A Fire Wave that has to be ducked and can't be blocked
A multi-firing projectile that has to be sidestepped and can't be blocked.
Omega likes to shift between these projectiles. Sometimes to the point that he makes Marvel 3 Morrigan players and Injustice 2 Deadshot players to be completely innocent with there projectile usage.
The worst features is fighting this guy up close. He's incredibly difficult to read. Having decent High-Low mixups is one thing. Another thing is being unable to tell if he's blocking or not. Mainly due to the camera angle but you can't really see if this guy is blocking until it's too late. And usually if you're attacks are blocked expect to get thrown and then deal with more projectile spam.
Another is that when you knock this guy down. He creates a shockwave that damages you and knocks you down. You have to be blocking for this. And the icing on the cake is that during this fight your health is slowly draining. Yeah this boss is unfair and is the last wall standing between you and your story mode ending. I've had sessions where I'm stuck on this boss for an entire hour cause everything I try gets stuffed by projectiles or something else. This guy honestly ruins Dead or Alive 3 for me. And I question whether or not do I prefer this boss or the thing in Dead or Alive 4 that I fought? Both give me nightmarish thoughts and both would be on my list of hardest/cheapest fighting game bosses to exist.
Music/Sound
First off I don't know Japanese or whatever language they're speaking. I don't know cause my mom walked in on a session before and said that they're speaking Korean. I would personally prefer if they spoke there native language just for more added charm. But honestly I don't care too much.
Now the music. The music is a treat. Even if they picked songs from Aerosmith and The Beatles for certain tracks. The OST is a must listen. Tecmo and Team Ninja have always done great with there soundtracks. It's generally forgotten at this point.
Overall
Not the best revisit. I didn't like dealing with the final boss and I questioned myself on how I put up with the awkward pressure based controls. Still a good 3D fighter though and I don't see too many of those around. I think the latest 3D Fighter is Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown??? which is another expansion on the same Virtua Fighter 5 from way back in 2006 sheesh. Anyhow, I'm glad to have covered this again. Even if Youtube reception seems to only pay attention to the female character videos.
Genres: Role-playing video game, Platform game, Indie game, Adventure
Publishers: PQube, LookAtMyGame, Arc System Works, Look At My Game
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
So the game's name "Aggelos" has the meaning of "angel, messenger, the messenger of God". Huh...never thought of that least till I reached the ending.
Aggelos is a RPG, Platformer, Adventure game. You play as a hero (who's name escapes me cause I don't think they even mention his name.) But like most adventure games you're the destined hero to save the kingdom. Your task is to gather the 4 elements and put a stop to Valion who intends on taking over the kingdom of Lumen. There's honestly not much story past this. So your job is pretty straight forward. Enter the dungeons, beat the bosses, get the mcguffin, repeat. Simple and like very old school Adventure games back in the day. It's trying to use the formula's of such games like Zelda and Wonder Boy.
Gameplay
The gameplay is easy to pick up and play and you'll either get hung up on the difficulty or some random thing you have to do. Most puzzles are essentially figuring out how to get from point A to point B then actually doing so. Some of this can be a matter of patience, to the point that you begin to question if what you're doing is really worth the effort. Like certain dungeons requiring me to do precise platforming to reach a switch if I fail to do so then I have to restart the process from the beginning. Other puzzles either require some exploration or had me doing some action(s) I wouldn't normally do anywhere else.
The difficulty is a bit of an annoying point for me. While most of the dungeons and it's enemies are relatively easy. There's either one or two enemies that are essentially damage sponges that I came across. Or its the boss fights. While most can be conquered through the simple task of leveling or coming back later with stronger equipment. I felt it really annoying that enemies just eat up a lot of damage before finally dying. The boss fights were essentially damage races as to who's gonna die first. At first the bosses are easy, then they shift to a phase that leaves you little room to attack and/or dodge. I found myself just saying forget dodging and attempt to tank the damage while wildly swinging my sword in hopes the boss dies before I do.
Another annoying bit I feel is that a lot of the sidequest aren't really sidequest. Whether it's an optional power up, extra life, or equipment. This all felt required to progress. Many of the sidequest aren't exactly obvious either. I either stumbled across them or used a guide. Maybe I could do without the extra life and I can make that up by playing better. But at the same time everything felt required. Like the Sword and Armor of Aggelos as well as the temple to power up the equipment. I shudder to think how much trouble the final bosses would be without it.
Graphics
The graphics are easy on the eyes. Enemies are well designed and either there size or shape gives the proper menacing feeling. I didn't have to strain my eyes to see something or attempt to figure out what an object is. Everything moves smoothly as well. There wasn't any lag or random issues with frame rate while playing. Which is a plus cause there's a lot of games out there that are dependent on frame rate to function properly.
Bugs and Glaring Problems
I looked up reviews after finishing. 1 comment that many people say I don't agree with. The other is completely true.
The issue people have with controller support. I didn't have that at all. With either control pad I used for this game. The first being an Xbox 360 Wired Controller. The 2nd controller I used later on for comfort being a HORI Fighting Commander for PS4. This game fully supported both of those without the need of a 3rd Party Program. And I started this game days before it's official release. (Only reason I finished it now was cause I had other games to play)
The 2nd issue I read commonly across reviews was the game taking quite a bit of time to load. Particulary when you open the menu. I actually was worried sometimes when I paused to open the menu as the window would say the game isn't responding. Uh oh. But then it would load. But the time between that was noticeable when compared to the rest of the game.
The only other bug I came across which I can't really reproduce is that I somehow despawned a boss. When I opened the menu to heal myself. Loading back to the fight the boss was gone. Music still played. So I got worried and was about to get angry. I opened the menu and closed it again and it was back. Weird.
Overall
Well if you want old Platformer Adventure game that isn't staggering your budget Aggelos is the place to go. I'm not big on the ending. But this game also encourages some replay value by having higher difficulty modes, a death counter, and a ranking. So this game rates you like it's a Resident Evil game. Basing it on how many times you died and how long you took.
I like this game but not enough to give a 2nd playthrough unless there was some sort of secret extra ending. This took me a little less than 10 hours to beat and I got 99% completion I guess the last percent is maxing out my level cause according to the guides I did everything.
You got 15 bucks then go ahead. It's worth the time.
