Finished Valkyria; back to Brood Wars
I finally finished Valkyria Chronicles on Saturday. I don't remember the last time I grinded out game that quickly, especially nowadays that I'm working and not in school. Plot and story discussion behind the cut with spoilers:
There were a lot of clever twists, none really "OMG WTF" like a KOTOR with you as Revan, but they were all pretty well executed, except for one glaring one that I will address later.
Isara dying came out of the blue. At the time I was playing, I was wondering who was gonna die because things were too happy-go-lucky and then BLAM, Isara goes down. It was pretty jarring because Isara seemed least likely to die with her playing the typical gentle, strong-willed girl. That totally shocked me and made me feel all sad =(
I had a feeling Alicia was Valkyria because she was an orphan and because she opened the door in those ruins. Those ruins obviously have been explored already and there's no reason for Alicia to not know that. It was cool how it was implemented, though, with Faldio having to shoot Alicia. That was pretty nuts.
I didn't like the part when Alicia wanted to turn Valkyria to destroy the big ass tank at the end, and Welkin convinced her not to because it's not real fighting or whatever. That part made no sense. The silver haired, big breasted girl turned Valkyria and she turned out alright except for that whole nuke thing. It seemed to me like a subtle dig at the US for using nuclear weapons to win WW2.
The twist of the Princess being a Darcsen, to me, was not like "oh damn" but more "uh oh, now she's useless, that lance ain't gonna do anything for her."
I really liked the ending, it was simple and they wrapped everything up.
There were two scenes that I thought really didn't belong and made for some disjointed story. One of them being the Alicia / Valkyria scene and the other being the part when the Imperials caught Alicia and Welkin in the cabin and let them go. What? Why? Take 'em prisoner, you nut. There's no reason for fighting honorably in war.
I accurately predicted Randgriz holding the secret weapon and the Valkyria being the cause of the Darcsen incident (interesting ties to the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking, IMO), although I was wrong on the Darcsen having secret powers.
The characters kiiiinda bothered me. Alicia was like "Durrr, I wanna be a baker" and this kind of one-dimensionality is so typical for game and anime by making them stereotypical like that.
Definitely enjoyed the story elements of the game, though, and I'd like to see them expand on the engine. I would NOT like to see a direct prequel / sequel though, I hate how it's the thing in a game to make sequels when the story wraps itself up perfectly.
Gameplay-wise, it was pretty fun. Towards the end it got kinda imbalanced once you got elite scouts. I played it pretty conventional though, and I was surprised to learn of the brokenness of Awaken Potential. And for whatever reason, brokenness can be cool as evidenced by FF6.
I found that a lot of missions were hard at first but after losing the first time the strategy gets dramatically easy. It'd be nice to have a mission preview of where everything is and what you can see in the beginning. It'd also be nice to see where the enemy spawns during the later missions because towards the end I got caught many times with lancers spawning and spearing the back of Welkin's tank.
Still, as far as gameplay design, it was really refreshing. Nothing's really been done like that and I would love to see a balanced multiplayer version come out. Unfortunately, I heard the game bombed in the US (and people are saying it's gonna be a rare title), and DLC probably won't come out here. Dang. And I wanted to play as Big Tits McGee and wreck everyone.
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Starcraft. Ohhh man. I started playing on iCCup which is basically a third party server where people actually play real games. It is tough as hell and I find myself making noob mistakes all over. Even when I know the obvious counter, I fail to really capitalize on it. My game sense is getting a little better but my multitasking is still bad and I really struggle in TvZ because my MnM group management is god awful. Especially when I try to go SK Terran and I have to manage MnM and multiple Sci Vessels. The learning curve is definitely MUCH higher and learning game sense is one of the most arduous tasks out there.
Believe me, I'm used to this screen.
They say if you get a 50% winning record in the first year, then you're talented. *sigh* I have a long way to go...
At least watching pro matches are entertaining. It's amazing to see them manage multiple bases at once while coordinating multi-front attacks.
Also the cool thing about iCCup is that... I've played 21 matches (and I'm sitting at a cool 7-14... =\) and only two of my opponents were American. Pretty nuts if you think about it. I imagine my progress in this game will be MUCH slower than SF2.
There were a lot of clever twists, none really "OMG WTF" like a KOTOR with you as Revan, but they were all pretty well executed, except for one glaring one that I will address later.
Isara dying came out of the blue. At the time I was playing, I was wondering who was gonna die because things were too happy-go-lucky and then BLAM, Isara goes down. It was pretty jarring because Isara seemed least likely to die with her playing the typical gentle, strong-willed girl. That totally shocked me and made me feel all sad =(
I had a feeling Alicia was Valkyria because she was an orphan and because she opened the door in those ruins. Those ruins obviously have been explored already and there's no reason for Alicia to not know that. It was cool how it was implemented, though, with Faldio having to shoot Alicia. That was pretty nuts.
I didn't like the part when Alicia wanted to turn Valkyria to destroy the big ass tank at the end, and Welkin convinced her not to because it's not real fighting or whatever. That part made no sense. The silver haired, big breasted girl turned Valkyria and she turned out alright except for that whole nuke thing. It seemed to me like a subtle dig at the US for using nuclear weapons to win WW2.
The twist of the Princess being a Darcsen, to me, was not like "oh damn" but more "uh oh, now she's useless, that lance ain't gonna do anything for her."
I really liked the ending, it was simple and they wrapped everything up.
There were two scenes that I thought really didn't belong and made for some disjointed story. One of them being the Alicia / Valkyria scene and the other being the part when the Imperials caught Alicia and Welkin in the cabin and let them go. What? Why? Take 'em prisoner, you nut. There's no reason for fighting honorably in war.
I accurately predicted Randgriz holding the secret weapon and the Valkyria being the cause of the Darcsen incident (interesting ties to the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking, IMO), although I was wrong on the Darcsen having secret powers.
The characters kiiiinda bothered me. Alicia was like "Durrr, I wanna be a baker" and this kind of one-dimensionality is so typical for game and anime by making them stereotypical like that.
Definitely enjoyed the story elements of the game, though, and I'd like to see them expand on the engine. I would NOT like to see a direct prequel / sequel though, I hate how it's the thing in a game to make sequels when the story wraps itself up perfectly.
Gameplay-wise, it was pretty fun. Towards the end it got kinda imbalanced once you got elite scouts. I played it pretty conventional though, and I was surprised to learn of the brokenness of Awaken Potential. And for whatever reason, brokenness can be cool as evidenced by FF6.
I found that a lot of missions were hard at first but after losing the first time the strategy gets dramatically easy. It'd be nice to have a mission preview of where everything is and what you can see in the beginning. It'd also be nice to see where the enemy spawns during the later missions because towards the end I got caught many times with lancers spawning and spearing the back of Welkin's tank.
Still, as far as gameplay design, it was really refreshing. Nothing's really been done like that and I would love to see a balanced multiplayer version come out. Unfortunately, I heard the game bombed in the US (and people are saying it's gonna be a rare title), and DLC probably won't come out here. Dang. And I wanted to play as Big Tits McGee and wreck everyone.
------
Starcraft. Ohhh man. I started playing on iCCup which is basically a third party server where people actually play real games. It is tough as hell and I find myself making noob mistakes all over. Even when I know the obvious counter, I fail to really capitalize on it. My game sense is getting a little better but my multitasking is still bad and I really struggle in TvZ because my MnM group management is god awful. Especially when I try to go SK Terran and I have to manage MnM and multiple Sci Vessels. The learning curve is definitely MUCH higher and learning game sense is one of the most arduous tasks out there.
Believe me, I'm used to this screen.
They say if you get a 50% winning record in the first year, then you're talented. *sigh* I have a long way to go...
At least watching pro matches are entertaining. It's amazing to see them manage multiple bases at once while coordinating multi-front attacks.
Also the cool thing about iCCup is that... I've played 21 matches (and I'm sitting at a cool 7-14... =\) and only two of my opponents were American. Pretty nuts if you think about it. I imagine my progress in this game will be MUCH slower than SF2.