Monthly Archives: July 2017

Tales of the Rays

Tales of the Rays is an upcoming 3D mobile fantasy RPG developed by BANDAI NAMCO for Android and is expected to release sometime in the Summer of 2017. In Tales of Rays players travel across diverse landscapes with heroes Ix and Mileena, exploring dungeons full of treasures and battling monstrous foes in an epic quest to revive their world. Both new and old fans of the Tales series will be able to enjoy the great adventure you are about to embark on and experience a fantastic story like none other. Only you can provide heroes Ix and Mileena with the guidance they need to save the world!

Features:

Endless Adventures: A massive World Map with different regions offers numerous adventures to go on with dungeons to conquer. You won’t be at a loss for something to do in this fantastic world.

Original Characters: The original characters of Tales of the Rays have been masterfully designed, voiced, and brought to life in 3D animation to further enhance the story telling experience.

Battles: Battles are fought in the Linear Motion Battles System typical to the Tales games where different attacks and skills can be used to overcome your opponents, including the new Mirrage Artes attacks!

Logres: Japanese RPG

Logres: Japanese RPG is a free-to-play mobile fantasy MMORPG developed by Aiming Inc. for iOS and Android where players can join forces to fight against a dark force bent on destroying the Kingdom. It is a hearkening to old-school Japanese RPGs with everything from its anime-inspired graphics to its turn-based combat. Its straightforward gameplay and addicting weapon upgrade systems will have you playing for hours. Whether you’re looking to blast some monsters with magical spells or dice them up with your favorite sword there is a path for you to embark on!

Features:

Job Tiers: You will begin the game as a standard Fighter, but as you gain experience you’ll be able to complete quests that will specialize your character with different tiers of jobs. Here you can become everything from a Priest to a Samurai!

Job Change: You are not locked into a single job in the game. You can go back to town to swap your job to any of the other ones you have unlocked at any time, freeing you to become whatever you want whenever you want.

Energy Skills: Build up energy as you battle and spend it on special skills that come with the different kinds weapons you can equip.

Party Up: Before going into a quest bring along an AI-controlled character so that you have someone to fight with. Once you’re out in the world you can jump into battle to aid anyone at anytime and replace their AI companion mid-fight.

This Just In: MTG: Hour of Devastation arrives

MTG Editorial 1

I’ve played Magic: the Gathering on and off since “Fallen Empires“.  My time in the game has come and gone when finances have afforded it/I had nobody to play against that challenged me to get better. Though some of my regular opponents have been on the Pro Tour/some of the best in my state. It’s a great feeling though, to constantly be able to get better. I know my card games though, and though I’ve been away a little while, I keep up with every set that comes out. And Hour of Devastation could very well be the set that lures me back to the Standard formatting. Why? What’s so great about Hour of Devastation? There has to be something that calls to me. When I build a deck, I ask myself “What can I do to make people as frustrated as possible? What will cause the salt mines to open for business?” and this set has the answer: My favorite NPC/villain of Magic: the Gathering. God-Pharoah Nicol Bolas. The ancient Planeswalking Dragon is back, he’s playable [in Standard], and his ultimate ability forces all of your opponents to exile every card in play that they control. All of them. He comes in to play with 7 Loyalty Counters, his ultimate costs 12, and he has a +2 and a +1. The +1 makes players Exile cards from their hand. The +2 is even more vexing. An opponent exiles cards off the top of their deck until they come to a non-land card, which you can cast for free. If that doesn’t get you going, I’ve got some more.

MTG Editorial 2

Before I get into my favorite cards of this block, let’s hear a little about the story and the new abilities on the cards:

“We join the Hour of Devastation story during the fateful time when the Second Sun has reached its place in the centre of the monument dedicated to the God-Pharaoh and the Gates to the Afterlife are finally open, ready to welcome the warriors who proved themselves in the Trials. Unfortunately, the truth is very different from what was expected, and beyond the Gates to the Afterlife lie only wastelands and forgotten Amonkhet deities. Five hours will precede the coming of the God-Pharaoh and the Hour of Devastation is imminent.

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Hour of Devastation introduces two new abilities into Magic: The GatheringEternalize allows defeated creatures to return to the battlefield even stronger, while Afflict damages players as they defend themselves from an attack. In addition, new Desert land cards consistent with the realm’s Eqyptian flavour are included, which can provide useful bonuses to players. The abilities introduced in Amonkhet will return, including Exert and Aftermath, as well as Cycling — a favourite of players who enjoy quick and dynamic games.”

So what are my personal favorite cards in this block? Let’s go by color:

  • White: Solemnity [1W2C, Enchantment: Players cannot get counters. Counters cannot be put on lands, artifacts, enchantments, or creatures], Hour of Revelation [3W3C, Instant: Costs 3 Colorless less if there are more than ten non-land permanents on the battlefield. Destroy all nonland permanents.]
  • Blue: Swarm Intelligence [1U6C, Enchantments:  Any spell you cast may be copied, and you may pick new targets.], Fraying Sanity [1U2C, Enchantment Player: Enchanted player must put the top X cards of their deck into their graveyard, where X is the amount of cards put in a graveyard from anywhere this turn.]
  • Black: Bontu’s Last Reckoning [2B1C, Sorcery: Destroy all creatures. Your lands don’t untap on the next untap phase.], Accursed Horde [1B3C, Creature – Zombie: 1B1C: Target Zombie gains “Indestructible” until end of turn. 3/3]
  • Red: Abrade [1R1C, Instant: Choose One: Deal 3 damage to target creature, or Destroy Target Artifact], Neheb the Eternal [2R3C: Legendary Creature – Zombie Minotaur Warrior, Afflict 3 (Whenever this creature is blocked, defending player loses 3 life), at the beginniing of your post-combat main phase, gain 1 red mana in your pool for each point of life your opponents have lost that turn, 4/6]
  • Green: Pride Sovereign [1G2C, Creature – Cat: Gains +1/+1 for each Cat you control. 1W1C, Exert [doesn’t untap on its next untap phase] create two 1/1 Cat Tokens with Lifelink, 2/2], Ramunap Excavator [Creature – Naga Cleric: You may play Land Cards from your graveyard, 2/3]
  • Multi-Colored: Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah: [Discussed above], Samut, the Tested [1G1R2C, God, 4 Loyalty Counters. +1: Up to one creature gains double-strike til end of turn. -2: Deal up to 2 damage divded as you choose between two creatures and/or players . -7: Search your deck for up to two Planeswalkers/Creatures, place them on the Battlefield, shuffle your deck]
  • Artifacts: Mirage Mirror: [3C – 2C: Mirage Mirror becomes a copy of target artifact/creature/enchantment/land until end of turn]

There is a lot of interesting stuff in this expansion, not just for Standard. Just looking at the lineup, Modern and Legacy are going to be shaken up in some pretty crazy ways. A lot of the cards I highlighted above are especially good [for me at least] in those brackets. A new card for DotLand to make lands faster to play? Another ridiculous card for my Sanguine Bond combo [Oketra’s Last Mercy]? Mmm. This makes me happy. There are some amazing pieces to come in this setting, and I’m happy that they’ve adjusted how the blocks work again. I am sincerely looking forward to what’s coming in “Hour of Devastation”. Did I miss a hilarious card that you want to be highlighted? Want some more MTG stuff on OnRPG.com? Let me know below!

Steam Hammer – Early Access Impressions

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot)

 

For all those gamers out there that enjoy playing those open world survival RPG type games like DayZ, Rust and ARK: Survival Evolved, I have a question for you. Has there ever been a time where you find yourself playing those games and said, “You know, this is great and all, but this game really needs more tesla cannons and steam-powered jetpacks.” Well the folks at SF Team have got you covered with a new steampunk themed RPG called “STEAM HAMMER,” now available in early access.

Besides its late 19th century theme, Steam Hammer sets itself apart from similar titles by focusing on PvP and skill development. Everything in the game world has to be built and created by players, and can just as easily be destroyed by other players, creating a balance of forging alliances between players while protecting what is rightfully yours. With the option to change the landscape, develop technology and more, Steam Hammer plans to be a steampunk fanatic’s dream.

While I haven’t been too well versed when it comes to sandbox games of this nature, the steam punk theme had me intrigued enough to give the game a try.

Just like recent sandbox games, players can join or host their own servers with their own rules and settings, allowing for a more customized and personal experience varying from player created world to world. Since I wanted to get more accustomed to the game at my own paced (and because of fears of ganking), I decided to start things off slow on an empty server.

From here, I was able to create my first character, and at the moment, the creation options are a bit on the limited side with a few hair styles and facial options. Only one faction is currently playable and only male characters can be created. Outside of visual options, players can select different attributes to have their characters specialized in different skills for crafting and combat. Being proficient in one category for attributes will make you less proficient in others, so trying to do something like maxing out your strength will make you terrible at intellect – staying true to the nature of people deciding whether to use brains or brawn.

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After making my character, I was dumped right into the world of Steam Hammer… The open… vast… and empty world of Steam Hammer. The current in-game time on the server was late at night, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out where I am and what I’m doing here (just like I do every night in real life). Eventually, I found out that I had a torch available in my inventory which I was able to equip to finally see my surroundings a bit better.

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From there on, I learned more about foraging, crafting and other keys to survival, but I couldn’t help feel a bit bored as the crushing loneliness started to get to me. I know I had planned to start things off slow without haven’t to deal with other players, but there was no NPCs around to make the place feel even remotely alive. Not even some animal NPCs like wolves or something to make things interesting. So with that said, I decided to stop playing by myself after several aimless minutes and looked for a more active server to play on.

Since each server is unique, I had to recreate my character and start over from scratch, which wasn’t too big of a deal, since well, I barely made any progress on my first character to begin with.

The next server I jumped on was set in broad daylight, so no need for me to stumble around and figure out where I was going, and this time around I was in a much more open location than before. I decided to search around for things for my character to take advantage of, and I stumbled onto a field of copper wreckage along with an orange tree, from which I decided that this spot was going to be my homebase. From all the copper and a few twigs in the area I was able to make some basic tools, allowing me to start work on simple structures like signs and fences.

It was at this time when someone spoke to me… in the game’s global chat. While I was kinda miffed by the fact that you can chat with all players from anywhere in the world instead of just whoever is near your character, just being able to communicate with someone really helped me not feel so lonely.

Still, I wanted to lay down some laws just in case any player stepped into my domain…

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And it was true: No one did step into my domain after I spoke those words… No one at all, really… because I actually could not find the other players on the server whatsoever. While I’m not so certain how big the game world actually was on the server, I did know that there was only six active players around at the time, and this was one of the more active servers on the server list.

And that’s kind of my main issue with the game at the moment: There’s barely anyone playing. Building anything bigger than a sign or a fence requires a huge amount of resources to be piled into it, which obviously means that people need to work with others in order to get things built, but with no one around, there’s no way a player like me was going to build anything cool. Since I couldn’t find anyone around me (and didn’t have too much time to seek them out) I was left bored and uninterested to play on any further, which is a shame because just from the gameplay footage alone, I can see where a lot of the fun would lie: building cool steampunky things, fighting against other players using steampunky things and what not. But it became pretty clear that I wasn’t going to see any of that stuff in action anytime soon.

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Overall, my impressions of the game is that it has a lot of neat ideas going for it, but the lack of players is what kills any interest for me. I’m sure once the developers push forward and more players decide to jump in, it will be a much better experience, but for now, I’d say unless you’re really eager to jumpstart a server by yourself or with a few friends, I’d say wait a bit longer before looking into this one. I will be revisiting this game again in a few weeks or so to give an updated impression on the game, for sure.

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