Tag: rpgs

E.D. in Albion

Posted on by Nimgimli

My wife wants sex.

I know this to be true because it says so right there on her status sheet. “Wants sex.” The words mock me every time I check up on her, because since the night of our wedding, I’ve been unable to perform.

I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. The mood is right: the woman couldn’t love me more. I’ve bought us a fancy new double bed so there’s plenty of comfy space to romp around in. I even bought a book on seduction that taught me a smooth “Come hither” move that is supposed to lure women into bed. I tried it on the wife and she giggled and happily followed me to the bedroom but then, again, everything fizzled and she started pointing out the window and saying “Let’s go over there.” ‘There’ being, in her case, the docks, which she loves. Maybe she’s into doing it in public??

In the meanwhile, every time I go into Bowerstone women are throwing themselves at me. It gets a tad annoying, to be frank. What kind of adventurer do they think I am!!? I’ll admit some of them are better dressed than my wife, and their plunging necklines can be somewhat enticing, but I’m a married man, for pity’s sake!!

In other news, I committed my first crime, albeit via misunderstanding. I went into a Tailor’s home, thinking it was his shop. At first they were very welcoming, but then this gaggle of flirty women walked in behind me. That put the tailor and his wife on edge, understandably. A little girl in the crowd asked for a lollipop. I didn’t have one, but I did have some chocolate, so I gave her some. The Tailor got very angry at that, since the girl was his daughter. What did he think I was trying to do? I got angry in return and growled my fiercest growl at him, which flustered everyone.

At that point I wanted to leave but the doorway was blocked, so I went upstairs hoping the crowd would disperse so I could get the heck out of there. That was the last straw for the tailor’s wife, and she called the sheriff. *sigh*

Well it turns out it was a pretty minor infraction, and I paid my dues via community service. This involved ridding a basement of a gaggle of Hobbes which has infested it. It was actually a good workout, and I even found a bit of treasure down there. I’m tempted to commit a few more crimes just so I can get more community service.

It helps me to work out the frustrations I have involving my wife’s needs.

My Etrian Odyssey Continues

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ve decided that Etrian Odyssey II (for the Nintendo DS) is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s looks like it’ll be a long, long game and I’m not going to try to power through it.

I have to confess I was getting a bit bored for a while, feeling like I was doing the same thing over and over again, but then I happened to backtrack down a side passage of the dungeon and found a quest item I needed. Completing this quest opened up three more.

One of the three required a class I didn’t have in my Guild, so I created a new character and had to get him to level 3. I also needed to send out my “Collecting Party” to generate some cash, so I sent the noob out with the collectors to get some combat experience. We farmed a node until we were out of “farming points” for the day, then headed down (ok actually its up… you start on the ground and work up in this adventure, but I still think of it as down) to level 2 of the dungeon, but without my Troubadour I had no way to Sleep the Bosses that roam around down there, so we didn’t get very far before we had to run for the stairs.

It has been said before, but one of the neat things about the game is that the story is so ‘lite’ that we end up making up our own story. With up to 30 characters in a guild, you’re either going to give them descriptive and dull names (Fighter1, Fighter2, Gather1, Gather2, etc) or you’re going to come up with good names, but then have to attach some imaginative trait to them to help you remember what their role is. And suddenly these characters start to tell stories to you.

Eh, maybe its just the writer in me, but that’s what is happening in my game. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull the wings off some VenomFlies in level 2…

Lost Odyssey for the XBox 360

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m still thrashing around, jumping from game to game. I’ve been on a real old-school RPG kick lately but was getting the itch for something pretty and sparkly, so I ran out and picked up Lost Odyssey based on some friends praising it

Initial thoughts follow. I figure the game is old enough that anyone planning on playing it already has, so this is more for people familiar with the game. I’d love to compare notes.

Bad news first. Its locked up 3 times in 4 hours of game play. I don’t for a second think this is the fault of the game, since GTA IV locked up on me too (causing me to exchange it for the PS3 version). Nope, I think XBox 360 #2 is slowly breaking. But this means I tend to get really stressed out playing if its been more than 10 minutes since I last saved. I wish to heck I could get this on the nice, quiet, reliable PS3.

My first reaction to the game was “Wow, this is JUST LIKE Final Fantasy” which I guess we all knew, but the first town you visit is so reminiscent of the first town in FF XII that it was rather astonishing to me.
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Etrian Odyssey II, creeping forward

Posted on by Nimgimli

A quick update on my progress through Etrian Odyssey II for the Nintendo DS.

As advertised, the game can be a challenge. I’ve had more than a few total party wipes, which means Game Over. Actually one aspect where I think they missed out on some fun is forcing a reload after your party dies. Since a Guild can house 30 members, wouldn’t it be cool if you had the option to form up another ‘rescue’ party to set out from town? Oh well, maybe in EO III.

But the game is compelling. Thanks to the fans at GameFaqs I’ve learned at least one reason to have extra characters: there are resource nodes in the dungeons, but it takes a particular Skill to gather resources from them. Rather than devoting skill points to these Skills with your “main” adventurers, the suggestion is to create a set of “gatherer” adventures, and send them in to collect resources (which can then be sold for coin). You can gather once per node per gather skill point, so ideally you’d have a party of 5 gatherers with maxed out gather skills. But such a party probably would never make it to the resource to be gathered. So there’s a nice balancing act in building a party with a good number of gatherers and sufficient ‘fighters’ to keep them alive.

Good fun still. Looking forward to the weekend and the chance to put some serious hours into the game.

First Look: Etrian Odyssey II

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’ve been in an old-school gaming kind of mood recently, so when Angela gave me a shiny new DS Lite for my birthday, I went game hunting, and came up with Etrian Odyssey II. It’s got lots of old school RPG goodness in it, at least on paper. I’ve only done the first starter mission.

The first thing you do is create a “guild” for yourself. Guilds can have up to 30 (!) characters in them, and a party consists of 5 of those characters. Characters can be one of 12 classes (to start, it appears you can unlock more later) and you create them all. No pre-made characters or emo NPCs to join your group. When you pick characters for a party you arrange them into front and back rank. This feeling familiar yet?
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