ATIYATHESEEKER'S PROFILE

Wasteland 2
Handling a sidequest adventure before I ship the Rangers off to Cali. No seriously. The problems I had with Rail Nomads were exacerbated by the Canyon of Titan, all because I took vengeance on raiders who would've gotten off murdering a traveling couple scot-free. And then, when I got to Damonta at long last? More stupid problems. I couldn't leave Damonta to restock medical supplies, because then the place would be even more a wreck than it was when Team Echo strode up. So, in the only file where I actually won the boss encounter? Scotchmo is dead. Lucky for me, his death isn't canon as of WL3.

Rant time, folks.

On the one hand, I've really gotten the knack of Wasteland 2 and its quirks. I'm also finding that I'm not punished for playing "sub-optimal". On the other hand, the game is still frustrating for its design choices. Wasteland 2 warns you in one of its loading screens: sometimes there isn't a happy ending to be found. Which is a lie, because many are. You just need to look 'em up online, or have an obscene IQ to figure it out in the moment. At their easiest, it takes loading an older save or replaying for the clues to click.

We live in an age where secrets in game amount to finding undiscovered stuff in older games. This is because we live in an age of GameFAQs, IGN walkthroughs, wikis devoted to just about anything pop-culture, and data-mining where we can reverse-engineer everything that makes a game tick. So finding the answers post-mortem is fine. The problem is that I think Wasteland 2 just has some bad freakin' design in some spots. In some ways, I can respect how much it kept things old-school -- permadeath being optional by reloading saves is a good compromise, let alone how the interface plays like a Black Isle Fallout title.

But other parts can burn. On top of issues outlined? Maps are way too huge, and make you backtrack too much. Ammo is redundant after a while, though it is in most games. Gods help you if robots zap a party member wearing conductive armor. The game is fun, but I don't remember things being so rough around the edges in Wasteland 3. So how the hell do I get sucked into hours-long sessions of play?!

But speaking of...

Wasteland 3 (Replay)
...both of the DLC adventures for this game are out, with more bugfixes than the ones I saw in my last file. Because WL2 was a pain in the butt, I started up a new save on a whim. Still the normal difficulty, but playing with my party from WL2. Started up a new session with Raziya and Jengo (both using melee weapons), and got to the point where I could create new rangers. Next paycheck, am grabbing both DLCs and am not looking back.

But this time, I intend to get the golden ending. I was pissed that I had to side with the Patriarch to have some semblance of order in Colorado. But looking up how to get the achievement on Steam for "November Reigns", it seems I've isolated how to do this. The choices I made in my first run through disqualified me, as I wasn't in the good graces of two specific factions. I also lacked a maxed-out social skill to get one of those factions to turn on ol' daddy Saul. Turns out that keeping the Gippers on a leash was one way I could fulfill part of the golden ending, too!

No promises on beating it this way by the end of the year. I'd prefer to complete Fallout by New Years, though. Stay tuned.

Been neurotic as hell about uploads, but I wanted to make 102% this stupid experimental game works fresh out the box. Hoping it will this time.

Hey again! I gave the game a spin, and it was pretty cool. I like the main character (especially his walk animation ;3) and the gimmicks used for the puzzles. Does feel like a piece of a bigger picture overall, and that's a good thing. I myself like creating episodic games, so it's cool to see someone doing similar.

My only real hangup is that I brute-forced the final puzzle without realizing it was the final one, heh. Still, am looking forward to more of Mr Dude and from you.

Got the file submitted as a ZIP, and hopefully it won't require RTP. If that doesn't work, use the EXE...? ^^;

EDIT: Okay, uploaded the EXE instead. Am nervous that the ZIP won't work properly.

Marrend: Hitting the librarian from underneath gives you an HP Up, IIRC?

Wasteland 2: Director's Cut
Been playing a lot of this lately! Rather than recreate my post-apoc OCs, I instead went for my fantasy OCs...
- Raziya is a blunt weapons character and the medic
- Jengo is the tank with blades and shotguns
- Maia is the skill monkey (skill fox?) with energy weapons
- Nazreen is the team leader with assault rifles and SMGs
- Current companions are Vulture's Cry (a Native American sniper), Scotchmo (a shotgun hobo) and Chisel (a washed-up fugitive with a crowbar)

At this point, I'm gearing up to head to Damonta. Had recently taken care of Darwin Village; the enemies there moved so slow across battle maps (;-;). Went to save Highpool after the intro area, because going for Ag Center seems be "hard mode".

The Rail Nomads territory is too friggin' big, and that's easily a downside to WL2 for a lot areas, especially to backtrack. And you have to backtrack a lot in Rail Nomads. I was originally gonna play with an "actions have consequences" run -- I won't load a save if companions die, and I stick by bad decisions. But there were two big things you can mess up in Rail Nomads without any context of what to do right. One of them is even in real time. As interesting as the area is, screw Rail Nomads overall.

Holy crap, I nearly got Raziya and Jengo killed in my first fight against robots, due to them getting nearly mulched and/or melted with lasers. Energy damage versus conductive armor (so almost all heavy armor) is no joke. Despite a wiki saying the Laser Carbine was a bad energy weapon, Maia's been doing well with one. Then again, I don't really play games to mix-max and break its difficulty over my knee.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (HardType)
Tis the season. I play this game yearly in October. Because of this, I accepted a challenge from OzzyTheOne that I imposed on myself first, where I'd play a "hard mode" hack. This is that hack. All enemy HP and damage is increased, and certain OP weapons are outright removed. However, I'm certain there's still that one BS late-game combo, implemented as-is. The mod does state that some spells are tweaked as well, so. We'll see.

My death count is currently at 10, and I'd just gotten through the Long Library. I'm mostly used to tanking damage thanks to HP; Slogra and Gaibon killed me like four or five times. I'd considered a survival mode hack on the same site, but it only boosted bosses... and made it so HP and MP didn't recover at save points. Only bosses being tougher felt underwhelming, and a lack of full recovery felt too overwhelming.