Summer Games Challenge 2016

[Exhuminator]

Also, it has come to my attention that I have officially beaten all 10 of the games on my Summer Challenge list.

[Exhuminator]

The Scheme

I've got about 4.5 hours in this game now. For a platformer, that's pretty long already. Had to bust out the graph paper maps to make tangible progress. I did make a lot of progress last night, thankfully, but having to refer to a paper grid map in a real time game is irksome for me. Let alone marking your location as you go along. I'm hoping I can wrap this sucker up tonight. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy The Scheme! But it takes a level of devotion to progress that can be exhausting.

Quest For Glory

I put 30 minutes into this last night and wasn't feeling it. I totally appreciate what the game is, an adventure/RPG hybrid. But it's antiquated in a way that I'm not digging at the moment. I doubt I'll be finishing this one any time soon. I did finish the EGA version of QFG2 back around 1991 at least.

[alienjesus]

2 more chapters down in Fire Emblem 1.

Chapter 13 was the Wooden Cavalry chapter, which pits you against a whole bunch of armoured ballistae, which are a pain to kill. Luckily, the previous chapter sold thunder swords, a magic based weapon for physical classes, which I was wise enough to equip on literally all of my major sword users. This helped a ton, this map would have been hellish without them.

Chapter 14 was a breeze. I recruited 2 of the peg sisters, and I trained them up a bit on the peg knight reinforcements that appear on this map for a while, along with securing my archer Gordon with another couple of levels too. He's level 15 now, and I'm considering promoting him - I don't use arenas to grind, so I doubt I'll reach level 20/20.

Next chapter is a desert map. I guess my recent recruits Paola & Katua (Peg Knights) and Linda (Mage) are gonna get a lot of exp here, as the desert slows every other unit down. I'm using 4 mages and 3 peg knights in total so far, so I should be all good for this one. I'm only using 2 horseback units too, and they suffer the most on sand.


Some random thoughts about the game mechanics here:

1. Speed has never been more crucial. Because weapon weight is deducted from speed instead of being based on strength (as it is in Shadow Dragon) or Constitution (as it is in FE7), speed is super important. Users of heavier weaponry (read: axes) really struggle to double hit because the axes weigh them down so bad. It also means balanced units aren't so hot - they don't have the strength to overpower, or the speed to allow them to weild heavier weaponry to compensate.

2. Mages are simultaneously more useful than ever, and worse overall. Because basically no enemies have resistance (and neither do most of your guys), magic is a really good way to take out high defence units - you're basically guaranteed to do the maximum damage with a mage. However, as there is no magic stat, the maximum damage is equal to your spell's power, and most spells are pretty weak. Although a mage can consistently do 7 damage with freeze to any enemy, a swordsman can do way more to a low defense foe.

3. Levelling up healers by being attacked is super weird and I'm glad they changed it. You basically need to abuse this mechanic as much as possible early on, because if you don't all the enemies will be able to one shot your healer in later levels and it'll be literaly impossible to level them.

4. Shooters/Ballisticians suck. They move slowly, only get one attack, have a mediocre weapon selection and can only hit 2 squares away, leaving them super vulnerable to everything. They were much more of a threat in Shadow Dragon, where they could shoot up to 10 squares.

5. holy crap, stat boosting items are nuts in this game. Unlike later FE games where they boost a stat by 2, stat boosting items are way more effective here. Boots add + 4 movement, power rings +4 strength, Speedwings +6 speed. They're super powerful. I gave my Fighter (axeman) a speedwing and now he's super fast and doubles everything with his axes. So broken.

6. Weapon level being a stat that goes up with level ups is odd. Most characters get to the maximum necessary weapon level super quickly, so it feels redundant as a stat. I much prefer the system in later games where your weapon level gains exp by using that weapon.

7. Cavaliers kinda suck in this one. Unlike later FE games where they're a boring but supremely effective unit thanks to the ability to wield multiple weapon types, move further due to being on horesback, ferry units across the battlefield, and rescue effectively thanks to their high constitution from being mounted, in this game they're kinda mediocre. Moving further is still super handy, but their average stats are lacking for reasons I mentioned earlier (not enough speed, and not enough defence and attack to make up for it!), rescuing isn't a thing, ferrying units isn't a thing, and the weapon triangle doesn't exist making the ability to weild multiple weapon types pretty negligible. It's a shame the game thinks you need about 20 of these mediocre units

[Exhuminator]

The Scheme

Made it to the final boss last night. Spent an hour trying to kill this thing. I couldn't even tell if I was making progress against it. One of the most infuriating final boss fights I've dealt with in many years. I've got to come up with some kind of new strategy here. It doesn't help that The Scheme is so obscure there's no walkthroughs or strategy guides on the net for it (that I've found anyway).

Aquales

I stayed up too late playing this one last night. I feel like the poop today. I finished the first two stages and have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Not entirely unlike if you mixed Bionic Commando with Assault Suits Valken, and the music is freaking sublime. Here's hoping it stays this good.

Malaya's Treasure

This is an MSX game that is available in English only courtesy of a translation patch. I patched the MSX ROM verbatim to the specifications in the readme.txt file. So then I attempted to use Blue MSX to play it. (Blue MSX is by far the most popular and well regarded MSX emulator.) However when the ROM loaded, it just caused the emulator to continuously reboot the virtual machine. And yet, when I tried the unpatched ROM, the game loaded fine. Oh boy!

What I ended up doing, was booting to the title screen in the unpatched ROM, making a savestate, and then renaming the savestate to match the patched ROM, and then loading the patched ROM, and then loading the renamed savestate. And whaddya know, it worked. Reloading the savestate allowed me to bypass the integrity check that was causing the boot loop. So I can at least play Malaya's Treasure in English now.

Quest for Glory VGA

This one's off the list and not happening this year. Not saying it's a bad game, I'm just not in the mood for it.

Shadow Tower Abyss

Saving the best for last! Barring any unforeseen catastrophes, I will play through this before the month is out. I want that super hipster cred of having beaten all first person From Software console dungeon crawlers.

[pierrot]

The Scheme

Made it to the final boss last night. Spent an hour trying to kill this thing. I couldn't even tell if I was making progress against it. One of the most infuriating final boss fights I've dealt with in many years. I've got to come up with some kind of new strategy here. It doesn't help that The Scheme is so obscure there's no walkthroughs or strategy guides on the net for it (that I've found anyway).

The game is really only known for its soundtrack (what with its composer, and all). This was not easy to find (walkthrough) and seems like it's largely unhelpful, but--

--it says that the player's health slowly drains, perhaps from the space setting of the arena. The boss repels shots fired at it, but its head is a weak point. Just before it's about to die, it starts to move around more swiftly.

[Exhuminator]

it says that the player's health slowly drains, perhaps from the space setting of the arena. The boss repels shots fired at it, but its head is a weak point. Just before it's about to die, it starts to move around more swiftly

Yep, that's what happens! I've gotten the boss to start moving swiftly, but I always run out of life before it does.

I got with Tom from XSEED earlier today, as he's a big fan of these old Japanese PC platformers. He told me what I was missing; a secret power up that halves the damage the player receives from enemies. Yeah that would help. Tom couldn't remember where it was though, but he linked me to this:

http://pc88mad.webcrow.jp/scmmenu.htm

The same walkthrough you found!

I was able to suss out where the power up is hidden using that walkthrough.

Thanks for looking into it for me though. There's a good chance I'll beat the game tonight. I've got a

scheme

[pierrot]

Right on. Good luck. Hopefully you can tell us if the OST truly is a bajillion times better than the game itself.

[Sarge]

I see what you did there.

[Markies]

- Shining Force (Genesis) - I'm close to the point where my game erased and I had to start over.
- Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast) - I have beaten the game!
- Thousand Arms (Playstation 1) - I have beaten the game!
- Metal Saga (Playstation 2) - I have beaten the game!
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - I have beaten the game.
- Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic - I have beaten the game.

Metal Saga is off the list.

I only have one left and that is the game I have been playing the most. I'm close to where I was before and I am so much stronger than before!

I finally beat the Level I was stuck on when my game got erased. My first game, I was Level 17. This game, I am Level 13...Promoted.

I might be pushing it to beat it in August. However, I am almost positive that I will beat it in September. That's still counts as Summer, right?

[Exhuminator]

Ended up beating The Scheme last night, without even bothering to track down that special item. I just fought the last boss again and beat it on my first try. Pretty crazy that I spent an hour fighting it the night before and got nowhere, yet the next day took it out on the first go. Chalk it up to my subconscious constantly replaying through the fight while I slept the night before I guess.

Anyway...

The Scheme
Aquales
Malaya's Treasure
Quest for Glory VGA (redacted)
Shadow Tower Abyss

I'm hopping on Malaya's Treasure for the MSX tonight. Exhuminator's adventures in esoteric Japanese PC gaming continues! And then, oh yes then... it's Shadow Tower Abyss. My crotch wibbles in anticipation.