I haven’t posted since early November. 😦 Sorry for the laziness! Nothing much has happened since then that I can remember. Well, at least nothing worth mentioning.
I won’t be doing a year-in-review since I can’t recall much. 😛 However, here are some random reflections that come to mind:
- I gave away my Terra Battle account last month since I lost interest in the game. Had some folks on the forum message me in shock that I would just let go like that, especially with the SS characters I had. ^^ Well, what can I do? All I was doing was logging in to claim daily bonuses everyday. 😛 Actually, I DID participate in the Leviathan event once. Sadly, I didn’t get the unit. 😦 Anyway, I figure someone else that had the drive to play it could benefit from the account. :3
. - My brother brought over his Moonbox for my mom. The device is way too dependent on the stability and availability of streaming sites. Still, when there’s stuff to watch, it’s pretty good. I watched a movie or 2 on it myself. 😀
. - He also brought over Diablo III: Reaper of Souls — Ultimate Evil Edition for the PS3. I went through it with a female wizard. Man, the dialogue can get annoying in the game. Are all playable characters as arrogant as the wizard? I don’t plan on going through it again with other classes or levelling until Paragons or whatever kick in.
. - Speaking about annoying dialogue, I’ve been on a hardcore ranting rampage on Twitter about Drakengard 3. I don’t mind the gameplay all that much but I think some of my anger comes from the fact that I expected more from the game and also the fact that I thought that I wouldn’t get bounced around and die as much as I do. (I’m on Branch C right now.) I suspect that levelling up weapons would cut down on the latter but I really don’t want to grind for money so I suppose I’m stuck with relying on continues instead. :E
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One of the complaints that I regurgitate a bit is the dialogue. It’s written in a way that provokes characters to respond with something relating to their personality quirks. For example, there always seems to be a need to mention dangers or something dangerous to Decadus and, naturally, he’ll get off on it. Dito goes off on smelly shit and savoring death and the pain of others for a bit toward the beginning of the game too. Basically, it seems to beat the player over his or her head with their twisted characteristics over and over. Every now and then though, they seem to have a normal conversation. Unfortunately, they don’t happen as much as I would like them to.
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The other one is the technical issues. I’ve played a few PS3 games before playing Drakengard 3 such as BioShock Infinite, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and, as mentioned above, Diablo III. I don’t remember any of these having slowdowns in frame rates and if they did, they weren’t to the point that this one has. There was a brief point where it was most likely running at 10 frames per second! I have to admit that I don’t know anything about programming or what went on behind the scenes at Access Games and Square Enix but they really couldn’t prevent the game from having the longer-than-usual load times and drops in frame rates? I would figure that some research went into the game engine and whatever governs how smoothly a game runs and that they would have noticed early on that the game’s not running at peak performance. But maybe there were other factors that affected the final product. I kept blaming staff and programming incompetence on Twitter though and also made the joke that since the somewhat ugly aesthetics of the game were lampooning something or other (according to the write up at the Wikipedia about the game), maybe all the technical hiccups were also some sort of satire, such as trying to let us experience the old days where computer games took a good minute or so before loading up.
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Aside from those problems, a good thing about Drakengard 3 is that the platforming parts are lenient and fairly easy. But that’s not to say that a crappy action gaming person like me didn’t miss a jump or two. 😛 The hack-and-slash gameplay is decent as well and the way the game is divided into individual stages reminds me of Chaos Legion. ^^ At some point, the game even has you going through the same maps again as well. However, unlike Capcom, Access Games flipped them so that you’re starting from the end area and such. This was something I wish Chaos Legion had since it DOES feel kind of different when traversing through the areas again in reverse. ^^;;;
. - I’ve been way too obsessed with CocoPPa Play. ^^; (A bunch of my recent Instagram images are from the game.) It’s a freemium game where you dress up an avatar in cute clothes, wigs, and facial expressions. You can even change the background and its decorations. It’s not a surprise, however, that 99% of the facial experssions and hairstyles are paid items only. 9_9 Of course, being the doofus that I am, I’ve already thrown quite a bit of money at the developer. Even MORE sad is that the game has no method of back up meaning that if the device needed to be reset or the app is accidentally deleted, everything is lost.
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It’s actually puzzling that GCREST and their publisher United Fun, Inc. don’t offer the option. You’d figure with all those virtual items they charge for in this title and their other apps, they’re making some sort of profit that could be used to invest in a cloud-based back up solution. 😛 I mean, we can’t even link to Facebook or Google. I’m not sure linking CocoPPa Play to the CocoPPa icon and wallpaper app would be the same thing because their help section doesn’t mention anything like that.
. - Com2uS continues to disappoint in Tiny Farm! They need someone that can either write event instructions well, or translate them properly into English, or both. Last event had a special information image that consisted of an abstract diagram and a few words that didn’t make all that much sense when paired with it. The events also rely heavily on the expensive Safari mini game — which plays like Minesweeper — to get event-based animals. The first attempt is free but subsequent tries require gold or Bells (the premium currency) which conveniently increase in amount after each go. 9_9
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Oh, and the success rate of getting event animals must be 20% or lower because all those stupid event-only eggs that the player hatches result in animals they already own or regular ones. I wish they had some sort of system that could reduce the chances of duplicates appearing based on what the player already owns but I suppose that’d be too complex and too kind on their part. 😛 Com2uS is a business after all. Their main goal is milking money from their consumers and if players got what they want easily then they’ll probably be bankrupt by now or something!
Wow. This post went on pretty long. XD I guess I’ll end it here for today. ;3
koukoupuffs 