Monthly Archives: October 2016

Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey

Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey is a free-to-play browser fantasy RPG based on the hit anime series and is developed by GameSamba. Little is currently known about the game, but it is known that it will feature a completely new side-story in the Faiy Tail world where players will be able to create their own wizard and fight alongside the wizards of the Fairy Tail guild in an attempt to uncover their past. Only the strongest wizards with the best friends will be able to take on the challenges that await them in Fairy Tail: Hero’s Journey.

Features:

Wizard Creation: Create your own custom wizard with their own magic affinities and spells that will be unlocked as you progress further.

Iconic Characters: Create your own team of iconic wizards from the Fairy Tail anime, mixing and matching different wizard types and spells for an effective team.

Guild Creation: Create your own guild with other players in the game to take on quests from your a guild Quest Board.

Eternal Crusade

Eternal Crusade is a free-to-play mobile fantasy MMORPG being developed by Ujoy for iOS and Android. In Eternal Crusade there are 3 major races living throughout a world ruled by rings: the Elves, Dwarves, and Humans. These forlorn rings have the capability of creating huge power, but should be used with caution. The Dwarven King has already fallen to their grasp, becoming greedy and power hungry. He has even gone so far as to start a war with the other two races in an effort to rule the entire world and not just his own kingdom. Will you be able to collect the 27 magic rings and save the world?

Features:

Ring Collection: As you adventure the world you’ll be able to collect different magical rings, each with their own unique powers to grant to the wearer like stealth, transformation, and stat boosts.

Market: Participate in an independently priced market where players set the prices for what they want to sell.

Open PvP: Take on other players at your own whim, but make sure you don’t bite off more than you can chew! You don’t want to end up fighting a pack of friends.

Dungeons: Fight your way through different kinds of dungeons, which are the only places in the game you’ll be able to acquire equipment.

Warshift

Warshift is a buy-to-play Sci-fi RTS developed by Cyril Megem for PC and is available for purchase on Steam. It is 2062 and the colonial planet Enigma was invaded by an alien race called the Atroids. After many human casualties new cyber weapons were developed to take on the foreign race in hopes of keeping the remaining humans out of combat. It is now your job to command the forces of the Colonial Republic to keep everyone safe and push back the alien race by any means necessary, including your own involvement on the front lines of battle!

Features:

Resource Management: Carefully divvy up your resources to construct different kinds of units to use in battles and different buildings within your bases.

Combat Avatars: Send your commander down in a combat avatar so they can fight the good fight from an over-the-shoulder perspective alongside the units you’ve sent into battle.

Unique Artistry: The entire game was made by a single developer, ensuring a very unique experience both in terms of combat an visuals!

NYCC 2016 – Cosplay Showcase

Now it’s time for the best part of going to NYCC: The cosplayers! When it comes to showing off how much people love their favorite comic books, movies, TV shows or video games, the cosplayers of New York never seem to disappoint. This year had a whole bunch of showcases ranging from Marvel and DC comics, popular video games such as Overwatch, and a few others that many would never expect.

And there was so much more, but I couldn’t possibly capture every single cosplayer there, much to my dismay. But hey, that’s what happens when you try to tackle a huge convention by yourself or with a single friend by your side. Overall, this NYCC was a whole lot of fun because the cosplayers this year really stepped their games up. And speaking of games: despite the lack of interesting gaming related panels this year (Was really bumped out that there wasn’t going to be another Warframe panel this year, as well.), the huge focus on VR gaming boothing really helped to make the experience so much better (and they really gave me something neat to talk about.) So with that all said and done, I close out this year’s NYCC with a neat cosplay video showcase which will be available soon, so don’t miss it!

Super Dungeon Tactics Demo – Thoughts

Missyeru 2
When I was at Pax West this year, I had a chance to stop in at the Super Dungeon Booth and get a photo with Missyeru, who was cosplaying for them. I did not have the time to spend there I wanted, because the board game looks legitimately interesting. Today though I tried the demo for the PC game, Super Dungeon Tactics! I feel like it probably translates better onto a console/PC because you can do so much more than you could with a board and pieces. So I played through a few stages, and kept telling the audience “I’ll play one more stage and then I’ll be done”. That however, was five or six stages later. I found myself very quickly hooked by the charming characters, and the intense challenge. I’m not the best strategy gamer, but I love them anyway. We got to experience a little less than half of the cast, but I stand by the Knight being the best. So far, anyway.

Super Dungeon Tactics Demo

So what do I think/what did I do? You enter a stage with set of objectives, and sometimes it takes several maps/stages to complete these. Or maybe you’ll just have to survive. You pick a crew of characters, the size of the team varying with the length/difficulty as far as I’m aware. Each character has a set of stats that will be influenced by what they equip [in the full version]. But for now, they had a pair of weapons to select and each has its range, damage and et cetera. They also have special abilities that you can activate, if you roll well! That’s the big part of it, the dice. You roll a set of dice, and they can give you more blocking power, health back, damage, or let you activate passives/abilities. Then characters take movements based on initiative, and what I think is interesting and also vexing, enemies also get dice rolls it seems! Most of these maps had a structure that spit out more enemies to deal with, which is especially hard on stages that say “Defeat all enemies” and it’s always going to be at the ass-end of the bloody stage. So you have to balance where you move/what you do so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Super Dungeon Tactics Mobile Game Banner

For the most part, I fell in love with this game. I genuinely feel that using the middle button on the mouse to move the screen around is slow and impossibly frustrating. I have a feeling this game will play better for me with a controller, but I just like the potential movement with it. As long as I can re-bind that in the full game it won’t be a complaint at all. Some of the dark/cave areas can have very hard to see spots for enemies, where turning the camera is more of a detriment than a boon, but again, it’s a strategy game for a reason. It’s not major, it won’t slow down gameplay but it’s occasionally hard to see enemies in those corners. I do however like that enemies can hide in the darkness where you have not traveled yet/gotten close to. All in all, having only spent a few hours with Super Dungeon Tactics I can say with complete honesty that I need more of it. I can’t wait for the full release, and you should check it out here!

Nomura talks about FFVII Remake

FF7 Remake

I think 2017 will be the year of Final Fantasy! Recently Tetsuya Nomura spoke to Dengeki Playstation concerning several of their titles: Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8, World of Final Fantasy, but most importantly, Final Fantasy VII and its impending remake. Final Fantasy VII’s 20th anniversary is coming in 2017, and Nomura pointed out that he wanted to do something special, some kind of event for the upcoming game, but there are so many other projects to work on first. That’s not a negative, or a criticism but he’s not discounting anything. But there’s some wishy-washiness as far as I’m concerned. Apparently there’s an outcry for the ATB [Active Time Battle] System that I personally love. But there’s also a call for a more action-oriented game. But the word is that “The battle system in Final Fantasy VII Remake is also vastly different, so I think we need to communicate very clearly just how exactly battles will work. We’re currently in the middle of elevating various aspects up to finished quality.” He’s right though. We need to know how this is going to work, preferably before it’s in our hands. Nobody wants to take it home, and have it not control how they’re hoping.  I’m willing to bet it’s going to be a mix of action and ATB, which I could totally be okay with. This is going to be a special release without a doubt. But before the release of Final Fantasy VII, it has to be perfect. And the other major titles need to get out there.

What do you guys think? Excited for FFVII? What kind of combat do you want?

Duelyst Review: Not Your Granddad’s Card Game

By Jason Parker (Ragachak)

 

Duelyst Review

Are you tired of everyone comparing every card game that comes out on PC to Hearthstone? That “blah blah blah, this is so Hearthstone”, et cetera. I was worried that this would be the case when I accepted Duelyst, knowing very little about it. But Duelyst is part card game, part “Dungeon Dice Monsters” or perhaps Chess. You have a deck of cards, a series of factions, and a board. The goal, as in all CCGs, is to defeat the opponent. It’s not about “play these cards, win the game with this combo” like it might be with Infinity Wars, MTG, Hearthstone, or any other card game I’ve ever played. It’s not pay-to-win, it’s genuinely fun, and even without having all of the best cards in the game I was able to compete [and win!] on the ladder.

Duelyst Review

Duelyst is a game of strategy that stands above and beyond any other card game that I’ve played in recent memory. It has memorable characters, cool art and sound, and tactics. Simply having the right cards isn’t good enough. It’s how you play them, where you move them on the board, and how your opponent reacts to them. Sure, I can flood the board with shadows in my Abyssian deck [and do!], and sure, my opponent can board wipe them. But what happens when I do it again the very next turn? What do they respond with? This isn’t just a card game. It’s a brain game. It’s a mental exercise. When I asked my friends who I play Magic with, their response was “I’ve been playing this for a month or so, where the Hell have you been?” Which I had to respond with, “Clearly, the wrong place.”

Duelyst Review 13

With over 300 cards in the game, you might think it would be frustrating and expensive to acquire them. Such is not the case! You receive gold every two wins, there’s a first win of the day bonus, and quest/challenges that also give gold. Not to mention, that in September it received its first expansion, Denizens of Shim’zar which added 94 cards to the collection. 100 gold means one pack of cards. I easily can get a pack or two a day with no effort, provided I’m winning. I win far more than I lose I feel. You can also disenchant cards you don’t want/use for Spirit to craft new cards, a’la most other card games. However, it’s awful, like in every card game that’s ever existed. You have to sacrifice your current collection to craft new cards. And the exchange ratio never seems fair.

Duelyst Review

In addition, winning matches with a faction levels them up, which gives powerful cards, and even new Generals! Each faction appears to have two generals, a starting General, and an alternate option at level 11. At 49/50 you get Prismatic versions of those Generals. And if you’re asking “How do they make money then!?” it’s through cosmetics and going faster. There are alternate skins for the Generals, and buying more packs of the cards is definitely faster. But you certainly do not need any of that to be competitive as far as I’ve seen. Skill makes the real difference.

 

Let’s spend a little time explaining what each faction does, which will help you determine what you want to play! Each one plays different, and it’s not really explained in-game quite so much. The tutorial shows you kind of what the Lyonar does, but that’s about it.

 

Duelyst Review

Lyonar:  Lyonar entails high health and lots of Provoke, which means enemies must attack them first. Lots of heal spells keep these sturdy units around to provide the beating your foe richly deserves.

Interesting Cards: Divine Bond [+Attack based on Health], Lightchaser [When any minion/General is healed, get +1/+1], Sunriser [When any minion/General is healed, deal 2 damage to all nearby enemies], Sunstone Templar [When this unit attacks/counterattacks, dispel that unit].

Songhai: Quick, agile, strong [but low-health] units define Songhai. Lots of combos, synergy and ludicrous burst damage. This is probably the most combo-intensive faction, but they suffer greatly if you wreck their combo before they can initiate, which tends to be possible when factoring in their low health and few defensive options.

Interesting Cards: Tusk Boar [Rush, Return to your hand at the beginning of your turn], Celestial Minion [Whenever it deals damage to a creature, destroy it], Chakri Avatar [Whenever you cast a spell, it gains +1/+1], Inner Focus [Reactivate a friendly creature with 3 or less attack], Artifact Defiler [Destroy all artifacts on a general].

Vetruvian: Low physical attributes, but insanely powerful spell effects. A host of small creatures and lots of card draw!  You control the field of battle, where your opponent goes or does not go, or you lose! Dispelling is also your bane, making those powerful magical beings just a pile of chumps to be slapped around. You can create Dervish tokens, but if you don’t buff them with Dunecaster, they just go away. Your foe can also outposition you, ruining well-laid plans.

Interesting Cards: Dunecaster [Opening Gambit: Give a creature +2/+2; if it was a Dervish, it doesn’t fade out], Wind Slicer [Lower cost of all structure minions in your hand by 1], Mirage Master [Becomes a copy of an enemy minion], Aurora’s Tears [This turn, your General gains +2 Attack for each equipped artifact], Scion’s Second Wish [Give friendly minion +2/+2; it can’t be damaged by enemy Generals]

Duelyst Review

Abyssian: Evil hordes of vile shadow creatures, removing big threats by annihilating them outright, big late game damage, and the Deathwatch specialty is incredibly powerful with a good army. You’ll want to play the Deathwatch minions before the attack phase, and enemy deaths count towards Deathwatch. As long as something dies… Dispel, and boardwipe can mean the end of Abyssian though. They tend to rely heavily on Deathwatch.

Interesting Cards: Darkspine Elemental [Double damage dealt by friendly Shadow Creep], Nightsorrow Assassin [Opening Gambit: Destroy nearby enemy with Attack 2 or less], Reaper of the Nine Moons [Deathwatch: Summon a random minion from the opponents deck], Deathfire Crescendo [Give a creature Deathwatch: Gain +2/+2], Wraithling Swarm [Summon 3 Wraithlings near you], Wraithling Fury [Give a Wraithling +4/+4]

Magmar: Big, mean, powerful hulking behemoths! That’s the name of the game with Magmar. It takes a while to get moving, but when you do, you throw absolutely insane damage around the field. While it’s amazing to behold, the spell cost can be very very high. Some of your spells can also damage your own creatures and general, so be very careful.

Interesting Cards: Spirit Harvester [At the end of your turn, deal 1 damage to ALL minions], Unstable Leviathan [At the start of your turn, do 4 damage to a random minion or General], Diretide Frenzy [Give a creature +1 Attack and Frenzy], Plasma Storm [Destroy ALL minions with 3 or less Attack], Metamorphosis [All enemy minions become 1/1 Magma with no powers til the end of their turn]

Duelyst Review

Vanar: Vanar probably have the best creature removal in the game. While you have very little in the way of card draw, what you have is solid. Using Infiltrate/Avalanche zones on the field, you can make some intense overwhelming moments of victory. But those Area of Effect spells can be avoided and waste your mana/time. While they have cool Walls, they mostly have no attack, and are weak to AOE counterplay.

Interesting Cards: Glacial Elemental [Whenever you summon a Vespyr Minion, deal 2 damage to a random enemy minion], Voice of the Wind [Whenever you summon a minion from your hand, summon a 2/2 Vespyr Winter Maerid nearby], Bonechill Barrier [Summon 3 joined 0/2 Vespyr Walls; minions that attack them are stunned]

 

Duelyst Review

Now that you know a bit about the factions, let’s look at the gameplay! Player 1 is on the left, Player 2 is on the right. It’s a 5×9 tiles board, and there are a few weird orbs on the map towards the middle. These are Mana Orbs; grab them to gain a bonus to your overall Mana Pool, which normally generates at one mana per turn. Much like in other card games, you can replace 2 of your cards out of the 5 you begin with before the game gets going [You can only have 3 of each card in your deck as an aside]. You play creatures and cast spells only during your turn. If you attack a creature, it will attack back and the same goes for generals. Unlike other games, this only seems to have one way to win and that’s to pummel your opponent’s general into submission. Creatures for the most part can only move two spaces, as can your General, and you can only summon creatures near you, unless they have an ability that states otherwise.

Duelyst Review

So what do you do? Move close to the Mana gems as fast as possible and play a cheap creature or a creature with Rush that can move onto them.  You have artifact cards that can only be equipped to the General which can have a variety of interesting effects on the game as a whole. The end-game is to kill the other General before they can kill you, and it’s not just a matter of spamming creatures to swing blades at each other until one falls. That would be boring. It’s a digital, collectible game of chess. Each general has their own innate ability that recharges every few turns, and they all synergize with their deck, as well they should. One of the definite downsides for most decks is that if you lose your board presence it can be incredibly hard to come back. Luckily I play Abyssian, and I almost always have a creature answer while I wait out a better move on the board.  There are crazy powers though, like being able to attack a whole row/column, ranged combat, provoke [guard], creatures that return after death and so much more. There’s literally a way to play this for everyone. But you can’t dual-class/cross-faction. However there are neutral cards which are probably far more powerful than they need to be. The Neutral cards are very flexible and incredibly powerful.

Duelyst Review

There are a small handful of gameplay modes, but it’s just enough to keep me interested. The lack of a Casual Mode doesn’t bother me, because all I want to do is compete and be as good as I possibly can be. You can either play against the AI, play against people on the Ladder to climb as high as you can, or work on solo challenges to learn the game mechanics of Duelyst to understand just how to get better. There is also the Gauntlet, a typical Draft Mode where you pick a Faction [out of three random ones] and draft a deck together. Much like other games, 150 gold is the cost to get in. The gauntlet ends at 12 wins or 3 losses, and the higher you go, the better the rewards are. Though, the randomness does not appeal to me; I’ll stick to the Ladder if that’s all the same to you.

Duelyst Review

It’s not a downside, but it’s a lot slower than say, Hearthstone or Magic: the Gathering.  The turns are strategic, and quite a few things happen during them. It’s not like say Hearthstone where you can make an explosive game-changing move in one turn that just obliterates the other persons’ will to live. But there are some other things that make this card game special, different. There’s the Replace function, which lets you replace a card with your hand, once a turn with the top card on your deck. This is an amazing feature because it can either save you in your darkest hour or be a humongous disappointment. The gameplay is really quite simple. Creatures that come into play can’t act unless they have an ability that says so, and every attack in melee range has a counter attack. Ranged units can also counterattack blast characters I do believe. I also like that the Ladder Seasons are pretty short, and it’s yet another way to get rewards. This is not a game where if you don’t spend a ton of money you aren’t going to do well. Not to mention they are constantly putting out new cards and working on expansions. It’s still new, but it’s growing and showing that you don’t have to be Hearthstone to be successful.

 

Duelyst Review

Let’s Thrown Down a Facedown! Great [4/5]:

Sure, this game doesn’t have trap spells, counterspells, or things of that nature. But that in no way makes this a bad card game. From the outset, you might think “Hurr, let’s capitalize on Hearthstone” but that is in no way the case. Normally I say you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but this game did it, and did it in a wonderful way. The graphics are simple, 8/16 bit style art, with cool little explosions and spell effects. That isn’t a detriment even by a little. You don’t need a billion-dollar art budget or copy what’s popular to make a stellar card game! The 2D board feature is the best thing about it. I can sit down, play a few matches and go back to what I was doing. Or, more likely, I sit down, start playing, and suddenly it’s Monday morning and I have ten hours’ worth of backlog to make up for because all I did over the weekend was watch it rain and play a card game.

The long and the short of Duelyst is it’s refreshing and new while using just enough of familiar game mechanics to keep people focused on it. It’s easy to learn, and you will only be as good as your chess game is. If you can’t outthink or predict what your enemy is going to do, you’re going to have a bad time.

 

Pros:

+ Duality: It’s a board game with a card game! It’s unique, refreshing and a lot of fun!

+ Cards: The cards don’t feel like they are all just ripoffs of other games. There’s overlap, but each faction feels special.

+ Decks: You don’t have to buy decks. You unlock them all quite easily.

Cons:

  • Damn Neutral cards are ridiculous/Can replace your main faction cards.
  • Lack of “Casual” Mode might turn off some players.
  • The card crafting system is awful, much like in every game ever.