I was playing Soul Hackers last night and got a HARD FREEZE, as in my 2DS locked up completely and I had to manually power it off. It happened right after I put a battle into AUTO/REPEAT mode. Cost me about 35 minutes of progress. After doing some reading it turns out this game is prone to freezing. I also found a glitch while talking to a Knocker (low level demon) in a battle where the dialogue began to exceed its bounding box. This is not the usual level of quality assurance I'm used to with an Atlus release. Maybe a result of this title being a port of a Playstation game which was in turn a port of a Saturn game.
Game's still crazy fun though so I'll put up with the quirks.
Well, I figure I will start talking about my progress in Risen here.
As of right now, my character is level 4. I think I should have spent a few more points on upgrading my Strength at the getgo, but I didn't find a trainer for it for a while. I ended up getting my Dexterity up a bit first, along with a level of alchemy and a level of lockpicking. Neither of those have come in use yet, though as I have a bow and crossbow, the Dex boost was nice. Once I finally found someone who could train me in Strength, I bumped myself up to 20 and then snagged the second level of Sword. This has helped immensely to improve my damage output. I wish I had done it earlier.
I have been doing quests for the Don's men in the swamp, but at this point I only have a few left that require more capable combat ability than I currently possess. I have also cleared out most of the monsters around the swamp, and I read somewhere that monsters do not respawn, so once I put something down, it's down for good. That works for me, as I can go and "liberate" the countryside from all manner of critters, sweeping across the land like an iniquitous plague. Plus it will help me level, which in turn will help me get more Strength, which in turn will make me more powerful and let me wield better weapons...you get the idea.
At this point in the swamp, I have to fight a couple of guys in the arena, finish getting pieces of a jeweled sword, and recover a body from a cave full of nasty moths that fight en masse. I need more power.
I also headed out of the swamp for a bit last night to do quests around a small farm for a bunch of mages. Now they're willing to show me the secret back way into Harbor Town. Good for me.
It's been nearly a week, and I've been intensely busy with personal things going on in my life, but I have still been putting time into Risen.
I'm level 10 now and have successfully ingratiated myself into the bandit camp in the swamp to meet with Don Esteban. The best sword trainer in the game is in the same temple, so I've been doing my best to avoid quests that might change which group I associate with in the hopes I can max out my sword skill. But at this point there are no more quests in the swamp to do, so I have been killing beasts.
Hunting and killing the various creatures that roam the island of Risen is actually quite rewarding due to permadeath. Whole swaths of countryside that had previously been harried by wolves, sea vultures, boars, and other beasts now lie clean and empty. Massive patches of the island's landscape are now completely monster free. Paths exist that were previously unpassable, and a person can nearly wander from one side to the other of the island without so much as a snarl.
Unfortunately this has created another problem: I'm running out of monsters I can easily beat and starting to get to the fringe of what I can do. As tough as I've gotten, I'm still limited by weak weapons and armor, and I've started coming across monsters that swat me like a gnat or come in such large groups that I cannot easily take them. Slowly I have been working my way up through the totem pole, and I have made serious progress against creatures that used to crush me easily. But while now I can best Talon Moths, Black Wolves, and have even taken down a couple War Crickets and Skeleton Warriors, I'm starting to brush up against things like the monstrous Scorpions, Thunder Lizards, and Ogres. And also the Ghouls which haunt the depths and use magic which I cannot defend against.
And then there are the hordes of Gnomes. I hate fighting Gnomes because they are fast and they are one of the few creatures I have encountered that have a ranged attack, and they all seem to come in groups now. But they also drop money and weapons, so I need to whittle away at their numbers more.
I do have a few places left to explore and clean out before I throw in the towel and head to Harbor Town. I know of a flock of Sea Vultures near the Inquisition's temple that I can slaughter, and there is an eastern swamp that I have only made a few cursory expeditions into. But I can feel the wall that I'm starting to run up against. I hope I have enough hidden away to master the sword before I hit it.
Yeah the title screen theme in III is absolutely stellar. Dunno what happened to the rest of the game's soundtrack. That battle theme is especially grating.
I also found a glitch while talking to a Knocker (low level demon) in a battle where the dialogue began to exceed its bounding box. This is not the usual level of quality assurance I'm used to with an Atlus release. Maybe a result of this title being a port of a Playstation game which was in turn a port of a Saturn game.
