Is this the most Appendix N Album cover you have seen since DRAGON FORCE Valley of the Damned?
Here is their bandcamp, it’s good stuff!
Castle Rat – Into the Realm
Divine Right Kickstarter!
What on earth!? This is a game I never, ever expected to get remade (yet someone did TITAN right?).
Divine Right is a fantasy game where you play as a kingdom and try to get neutral kingdoms to join your empire and then…. go and attack other players. The art and map was done by none other than Dave Trampier. We had this map on our wall as kids for about 10 years at least, and as recently as a few years ago we ran a campaign set in this ‘world’ (around the Port Lork area).
I have both the original version (or rather, pieces of it) and the 25th Anniversary edition which had cool stuff, but the WORST printed counters I’ve ever seen (even worse than Princes of The Renaissance which was just printed on cardstock!
Anyway here’s the new cover (looks awesome) and link below. It has a GIANT Neoprene map option.
Unicorn Overlord – first GOTY candidate for 2024? Yeah.
Vanillaware are naughty, naughty sumkas to be sure, with their cute but sexy Odin’s Sphere leading into their side scrolling answer to Diablo, Dragon’s Crown, with the largest breasts on record for a playable character. You’d think a studio so obsessed with giant barbarian woman’s thighs wouldn’t be able to crank out such good games time and time again, but they certainly have in the past and have done it again!
Before I gush all over Unicorn Overlord, I would be remiss if I did not mention that I did not like Vanillaware’s last game, 13 Sentinels, and wished I had never bought it. The story was Soul Nomad and The World Eaters level confusing with the difference being that the story parts completely got in the way of the combat. The early game the sequences where you run around as various characters in frustrating side-scrolling puzzles were so long and arduous as to negate the fun of the tactical mech combat once you eventually got to it, and even then, it was far to short in the mech, and way to long out of it. Even my kids that tend to like those sorts of games on the Switch just won’t bother with 13 Sentinels. Luckily, that is the past as we now have a game from Vanillaware that does the exact opposite: has a story and it gets the fuck out of the way for the joy of the tactical combat!
Unicorn Overlord, for those that may have never heard about it yet, is a modern Ogre Battle, which means it is an RPG with tons of different characters that are organized into battle units. Each of these units ends up having different capabilities in tactical as well as strategic contexts. Characters level up and have light item management (nothing like Dragon’s Crown/ Diablo though) and also grow affinity with their different combat groups over time. Choosing the right battle group for the right job at the right time is critical to success and building out those ‘right’ battle groups is half the fun of the game, the other half is the slaughter parts.
There are so many games around to put time into, why play this over other games? First, it’s absolutely gorgeous. For a tactical battle game, the art, character design and animation is over the top. Player’s have an option to skip battle animations but I almost NEVER do, just to see my plucky characters in all their animated glory.
Second, the core gameplay loop is done extremely well. You unlock new characters during the story and can combine them with existing units, form new ones and then try them out vs enemies or in practice. The strategic aspects of positioning, blocking, the action point economy and special leader/member powers on the strategic map is all just superbly done. As a fan of Ogre Battle/Soul Nomad and the World Eaters style games, I’m going to hazard to say that this is probably already my favorite in the genre.
Lastly: Tits. Everyone loves them. Every man, woman and child on earth. Vanillaware knows this.
Negatives, and there are a few, consist of a bit of chaos and confusion during the real-time strategic portion of the game, where, especially on the Switch, it can be hard to see what unit is next to another unit. I did get into a forever loop situation where two units, both out of action points, were constantly going to fight each other and neither could harm on another. One unit was up against the side of the map so the loser could not be pushed back. Lastly, while this is minor, the main character and his best friend are the most GENERIC anime fantasy characters imaginable, which is odd since Vanillaware typically has such cool designs for the main characters in other games.
While I haven’t finished the game yet (it’s long), I already highly recommend the game to everyone that likes this style at all.
Tactical view of a battle
Some basic tips
- Do not line characters up in a row where possible, they will get hit by attacks that effect everything in the row, and your soft-bosom’d witches will get dropped in one shot, and we can’t have that!
- Use the 20th level horse guy to help level up your weak dudes. He pounds ass early game– use him.
- Restoration deliveries to harbors allow access to islands that have neat stuff on them.
- Do not rest if you can help it on the strategic map. Units can defend with 1 Action Point FOREVER, so you can just sit there and get attacked all you want. If your unit is in a resting state when attacked it’s fucked.
- Do not set the difficulty to Normal. Go to Tactical at least.
This is only out on consoles (Switch/PS5) and not the PC. Looking for something like this on the PC? Check out Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga.
Blog Update, INTL Women’s Day bonus
The host of this blog since inception (2009) ‘retired’ so I had to quickly move the whole shooting match as well as a few other sites I had hosted there to another location. I made the decision to just keep going, as ridiculous as this blog is, why not.
The new host is good, but it messed up the formatting of the 2015 theme, so I’m going to have to refactor the whole thing. What’s more some of the images didn’t make it over the crossing, so over time I may go back and clean up very very old posts. That said, hopefully some of the articles over the years are useful to folks. For me this is all a stupid diary of gaming bliss and complaints about movies and how lame star wars is and will ever be. It’s all sort of a giant waste of time looking both back and forward, and in some ways, I think that’s awesome.
Thanks for wasting your time reading the last two paragraphs, you will be rewarded by enjoying international women’s day for all the wrong reasons again.
Armello the Board Game Kickstarter March 12
Armello has been a staple of online ‘board gaming’ for a long time now with it’s multiple paths to victory, tricks and traps and all sorts of various builds, the game is a strategic smorgasbord that can be completed in just over an hour most sessions. The actual board game version has taken WAY longer than I thought it would since it doesn’t seem like that difficult of a translation, and here it is! It also has a name that makes me hungry for chocolate items.
While I personally want to avoid backing more than a kickstarter or two a year, this looks like it could be most excellent. For people with bigger collections, think about what game this could replace?
2023: a Retrospective in consumable media
Ah 2023, a great year for gaming at least, even if looking at the news on any given day was a complete shitstorm. As expected, I’m fixing to go through my favorite games for this year both board, card and video variety as well as movies and favorite book (not from 2023). We were starved for choice in everything this year. If there’s an interest, here is my 2022 version and beyond
Board Games
The game we played the most this year, per play at least, was A Study In Emerald 2nd edition, which is just proving again and again to be one of the best multiplayer deckbuilders there is. I love Ascension, but Study In Emerald, if you can handle just a WEE bit more complexity, is just off the hook with replay value and backstabby fun in and hour and a half. There are still cards I’ve never seen before in play after 30+ plays and I still laugh when Cthulhu blows the shit out of London yet again. The game will be rehashed by CMON next year and we’ll see if that stands up to 1E and 2E of Study in Emerald. That said, the best game FROM 2023 is….
My favorite so far (I don’t get to play much, so something may have slipped by) is Stationfall. This is just a complete hoot to play and absolute madness. It has a high learning curve, so make sure that someone in your group really knows the rules. I’d love to get more plays of this, but it’s on the long side for game nights. Absolutely crazy game and goes against EVERY standard bullshit clone of Viticulture that is fills nearly every kallax game shelves right now.
Books
I did not read much this year, finishing only like 3-4 books. My favorite this year was my re-read of Treasure Island with the N.C. Wyeth illustrations. A profound romp through a fairly realistic story of pirate treasure. I kids book for sure, but I needed something light before I started in on the classic ‘The 30 Years War’ by C.V. Wedgewood.
Movies
I barely watched any films this year for lots of reasons, but two stand out, Godzilla Minus One and The Dungeons and Dragons movie. I didn’t see Sisu or a lot of other great films (well, probably great) including not seeing the French language adaption of 3 Musketeers, so I gotta give it to the D&D movie, which I’ve seen twice now and it holds up well, knows exactly what it is and has tons of Easter eggs for fans. I really never saw this coming, that D&D would be such a great cheesy trash film instead of just unwatchable trash. Make more please, a lot more.
This movie is definitely more 13th Age than 5th edition and folks should take note of that. Crazy set-piece battles > hide bound, balanced encounters with 100% predictable magic systems and bog standard combat effects. 5E and it’s ilk isn’t what you want in your games if you liked this film.
Video Games
This is a double game of the year, and it’s because both of these games are so incredibly different that I feel justified in deeming both the game of the year. First is, of course, Street Fighter 6. I’ve already expounded on the game, and I just can’t wait to play it more after I play it for awhile. It’s easy to pick up for beginners and while I play primarily locally, it has a solid online version as well. Absolutely top drawer– and again like the D&D movie, I never thought I would say this!
The second is a sleeper– Jagged Alliance 3. While I haven’t played Balder’s Gate 3 yet, I never really got into the RPG games all that much other than Temple of Elemental Evil, so I’m holding off. I know BG3 will be awesome, but having put about 20 hours into JA3 so far with MANY more on the horizon, JA3 is the GOTY for sure. It is EVERYTHING I have hoped for in a JA follow up title since 1999. These guys did everything exactly how they were supposed to and if you were a fan of the older games, you will be blown away– not at first, but within a few hours when you see how well everything is designed. I’m going to do a full review when I’ve finished the game so that’s all I’m going to say for now. Incredible.
Hottest Chick on the planet 2023
It’s the same as last year, was the same the year before that, will be the same next year: Rebecca Bagnol.
yep
.
Malenia, Malekith and me
Finalment! I have beaten the Elden Ring, which took me months too long and many, many tries against Malenia, the Fire Giant and some other boss I can’t remember any more.
It goes without saying that the game is a masterpiece. The attention to detail, the unbelievable scope, the number of bosses, the incredible amount of build options and weapon combos, the multiplayer (both partying up and PVP) and especially the rather interesting purgatorial storyline. It is a really good time to be alive and able to wield a mouse and keyboard or controller, I will say that much. Is it my favorite From Software game? No. I think even after all the fun Elden Ring is, Bloodborne is still my number 1, but I need to go back to it and play again and see if it stands up to ER.. and then finish Sekiro or Armored Core… did I mention it was a good time to be able to play video games? Will I play through ER again? Certainly, with stupid builds that can only make it with tons of help from other people.
One of the issues for me is that the game is… too long. I feel like the battle with Morgott should have been the natural end of the game, and the first DLC should have been up to the Fire Giant, Malekith, Malenia and the Elden Beast. These are generally good bosses, but for the base game? I had my fill of ER when I beat Morgott in May of 2022 for awhile and set it down except multiplayer with a second or third toon to jagg around with. It took me a long time to get back to the game and when I did, I think it wasn’t with the same fervor as the first 2/3rds.
That said, the final battle with Malenia, the probably 100+ tries against her were really epic, attempting different tactical paths, failing, trying new ones, failing, going back and beating up bosses I missed to get certain items, then going back and failing and finally running into the fight with no spells and just the GUTS Sword (and a mimic tear…) and getting a bit lucky with dodging the Waterfowl during her second form and then blammo– the hardest From boss in the can!
Unlike Bethesda games, From doesn’t necessarily care if you miss a bunch of stuff, so they hide their big dungeons quite well in ER, and the first instance of this in Stormveil Castle was pretty eye opening for me– the majority of the castle and dungeon beneath was not only totally optional, but fairly difficult to find to boot. This theme continues throughout the game, which is both good and bad. Good because the sense of exploration and discovery is certainly there all the time, especially after stumbling across the giant hole left by Radahn getting his arse kicked. Bad because– you miss stuff. If I didn’t have Nathan around mid-game for multiplayer, I would have missed tons of dungeons, just walked right past them. Later I was a bit more careful and was looking for particular items for my GUTS sword build. I think a bit more GO THIS WAY for some of the dungeons would have helped so I wasn’t looking online for hints all the time.
Favorite Bosses list:
Radahn – worth buying the game for just this
Redwolf Radagon – yeah, easy fight but really fun boss.
Godrick – just a jerk that needed to be put down for good!
Godskin Duo – Made me think of some other skinny and fat guy…
Malenia – can’t deny it, this was a good fight.
Well that’s it on ER for now. This is a lifestyle game for many people and for good reason, it is absolutely excellent. I can’t wait for the DLC and it’s hard to imagine what they could even do that they haven’t done before.
Jack Reda on Dune 2nd edition
Excellent, long discussion on a potential Dune 2nd edition.
Pax Illuminatem Kickstarter
Is that the right spelling? I don’t even know. This looks quite interesting, though the ‘goals’ in the game to fulfill plots are sort of odd because it’s about patterns of card spacing in a grid, but I’m hopeful that this simple mechanic will bear fruit Sticking PAX on stuff and calling it a day is not something I hope for this line of games that has been so influential on what I love to play these days instead of just another viticulture slapped on some random theme game.
Pax Illuminatem also boasts being one of the few blatantly Masonic games, with the exact goal of Freemasonry itself: spreading the teachings of the Enlightenment which looking at Western history, is probably the most important thing from a non-scientific side we did and can do going forward.
Here are some videos:
5 minute intro:
Full “Learn how to Play”
And finally here is the kickstarter link: Pax Illuminaten by Ion Game Design — Kickstarter
It is bundled with a witch game which I haven’t had time to research much on yet.
The Acquire we’ve been waiting for!
I like Sid Sackson’s Acquire a lot, it’s a fun tile-laying game that incorporates stock and rail type mechanics into a simple, effective design with a ton of potential for chaos, backstabbing and excellent combos. It’s easier to get to the table than Tigris and Euphrates since it’s hotels and stoNKS which people seem to gravitate towards a bit more than the more esoteric entities/factions in Tigris. Acquire should be in every gamer’s collection….
….And yet it’s been 24 years since we had a good version of the game! The last version that was comparable in components to the original 3M 1960’s release was by Hasbro in 1999 with their excellent ‘tech company’ version with beautiful molded plastic towers and all plastic tiles/tray to play on. Naturally, that version went out of print and started to command massive prices, especially since every single version after it flew so far off the mark component-wise, none of them were even worth looking at. For a long time, if you want a playable version of Acquire, you bought the 1964/8 or 1971 version at 30-40$. Why? Acquire is a tile laying game that absolutely requires a molded plastic tray, readable tiles and tray numbers, as well as some sort of plastic hotels. Many companies ran through versions of Acquire trying to cheap it out and just do cardboard with tiles. The game just does not work without the molded plastic tray to hold the hotels/buildings: with one small bump of the table, YOUR GAME IS FUCKED. Sure, you can put it all back together again, but the critical heuristic part of Acquire is not having to do that, which the original version from 1968 had no problem fulfilling.
Now we have the RENEGADE Games version and I am very pleased with the quality of the components in addition to having an excellent tile tray that really locks in the tiles. The buildings are cool looking, cards are all very clear and well designed and if you do happen to have the holy grail Hasbro version, is in a much smaller, more portable box than the 1999 big box game.
If you’ve never played Acquire, it is Sid Sackson’s masterpiece of design and I highly recommend the Renegade games version now before it to goes out of print!