Other than that this week was a bit light on the gaming. The Steam summer sale is now underway, but sadly my laptop isn't good enough to play a lot of the games I'd like to get. Despite that fact I was finally able to pick up Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes. The unique puzzle gameplay always looked interesting to me. I had been waiting for it to go on sale on PSN, but it never ended up happening. So now I have the PC version and I think it's pretty rad.
I'm thinking about starting Final Fantasy VI, but I'm thinking I should finish VIII first. I don't know what I'm doing with my gaming time anymore. It's getting out of hand. I have to start finishing the games I buy.
Anyways, it's game time!
Final Fantasy VIII
Last week I finished off my Final Fantasy VIII talk with how I didn't really like the story or the characters. Now that I'm about 40 hours into the game my feelings have changed. The story is now fairly good, while I still don't like any of the characters. They were all unappealing to me before, but now I at least understand why they act the way they do and that's a pretty huge thing. The character development has actually allowed me to understand the characters.
The only character who's really "changed" at all is Squall. He started off as a total asshole and now he's uncomfortably emotional. I am now truly able to understand why people say he's the most emo Final Fantasy character. I have not personally experienced all of the characters in every game, but I think it's safe to say Squall takes the cake.
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| EMO! |
I still find the battle system and mechanics as interesting as I did before, but now I have a much deeper understanding of them. With that being said, the system is really easy to break. You can farm 100 of a spell very easily, which will make most stats go up a whole bunch. It gets even more crazy if you equip the correct spells to each stat. Correctly junctioning spells makes the characters crazy strong, so when you use that in conjunction with the GF summoning it's almost impossible to lose. At 40 hours in I'm nearing the end of the 3rd disc and I'm unbelivably strong. I've been taking out most bosses in a few turns, which seems a little too easy.
On the other end of the spectrum I can see how this game could be very hard. The junction system isn't exactly the most easy thing to understand, so if you're not doing what you're supposed to things could go south fast. Luckily I checked out a bunch of stuff on the internet before getting too deep, or I could have been in that same boat.
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| What does ST-A/D mean? I couldn't tell you. |
Now that I've had some more time to think about it I really like Final Fantasy VIII. Despite that fact, I don't think I'm going to be finishing it for a while. I have a problem when it comes to Final Fantasy games that often carries over to other games (*cough* XENOBLADE *cough*). What happens is I'll get to the end, or very close to the end and just stop playing the game. I have no idea why. I can already feel myself nearing that point with VIII. I'm trying as hard as I can to push myself forward, but now I really want to play VI.
Clash of Heroes
Clash of Heroes is not really like any other Might and Magic game. Instead of being a first person game, a strategy RPG it's a puzzle game. I don't exactly know why Ubisoft decided to produce it, but they did and it's actually pretty cool. It was originally on the DS, but it was later ported to PC and consoles with some DLC. I managed to purchase the PC version and it's DLC for just under $5.
So what's the deal with this puzzle game you ask? Well, it's all about battling. So far I've played through some of the campaign, which sets you up with a Hero who controls a select group of forces that they bring into battle. When a battle starts both sides spawn units on an 8x6 grid. There are three types of units, basic, elite, and champion. At first you only start off with basic units who will be one of three colors. The way you make them attack is by matching 3 like units of the same color (Just like Bejeweled!). Depending on the unit they'll have to charge for a few turns and then run straight to the other side of the screen for a set amount of damage.
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| Battles in Clash of Heroes generally look like this. |
Elite units act a bit differently. Once again they'll be one of three colors, however in order to activate them you'll have to put two basic units of the same color behind them. They do more damage and take up more space than basic units, but you can only have up to ten of them in your party. Once they die, they die permanently, so it's a good idea to use caution when it comes to elites. It's possible to buy at monuments on the map, but they can be a bit pricey.
Champion units are basically the same as Elites, but it takes four basic units of the same color to make them attack. This isn't exactly the easiest thing to pull off, so they do crazy amounts of damage. I personally don't like to use Champion units, because as I said they take forever to charge. I usually end up getting worked before they charge up. Each hero has a certain amount of HP, which is lowered when units reach the back of the field.
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| This is what the game looks like outside of battle. |
The part that makes this more like a puzzle game than a turn based battle system is that you have so many moves per turn. You can either move a unit from one place to another, or get rid of a unit. Calling for more units will also use a move. You can just go crazy and moves things around, but you can end up getting a lot more done. If you delete units in order to create matches then you'll get a move back so you can do a bit more.
What I don't like is that the battles are a bit random. Depending on how your units come into the battle you'll either be in a good situation or a bad one. There's never a set way the battle is going to go. I lost more than a few battles due to poor unit placement, which is kind of annoying. It would have been cool if each battle was set up in a certain away, because then each individual battle could have been a puzzle. This is why i like the puzzle challenged you can find around the map. They give you certain units and you have to figure out how to win in a single turn.
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| If you create multiple groups of the same color they form links. |
Hearing me describe this puzzle game probably isn't the best way to figure out the intricacies of the game, but I did the best I could. I like what it's done so far and I'm interested to see where it's going.
PFFFFFT
I feel like I haven't played a brand new game in forever, which isn't true because I played Theatrhythm last week. Sadly this coming week isn't going to have any new games in store for me. The next release I'm looking forward to is Kingdom Hearts 3DS on the 31st. I would have been pumped about The Last Story, but they decided to delay it again. It's been out in Europe for a while, so I have no idea what's up with that.
I guess this is my way of saying that next week is going to be pretty lame. I'm going to be gone for a few days so I don't know if I'll get much gaming in.
See you next time!
-Manny
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