Game Spotlight – Mark of the Ninja

Picture this.

You’re a mercenary type guy.  Your first big job.  Protecting the outer perimeter of your company’s compound on the graveyard shift.  Boring work.  So you’re there, chatting with a buddy about going to a little bar he knows to pick up some chicks after work when suddenly, one of the streetlights goes out.  You spin around, checking the light out, but  nothing seems to be around it.  You turn back to your buddy and…he’s gone.

You yelp in pain as a wooden dart plonks on your helmet.  Growling angrily, you spin around, looking for the source.  It seems to have come from that streetlight you just checked.  So you shine your flashlight up there again and…”HOLYGEEZWHATTHEHELL!”  Your buddy is strung up by a chain, with a large hole hole where his neck used to be.  You scream, firing wildly, and step backwards, until at last your back is safely against a wall…

Sorry, did I say safely?  A pair of hands grab your legs and pull you swiftly into a vent.  You don’t even have time to scream as a blade gets shoved into your head by something with a blood red tattoo all over his face.

Congratulations.  You’ve just been ninja’d by the hero of Mark of the Ninja.

—

I’ll put this plainly.  I freaking LOVE this game.

I happen to really like stealth games, and this is one of the best ones I’ve played in years.

If the name hasn’t already clued you in, you play a ninja.  A real ninja.  Not one of those kids in orange pajamas whose definition of tactics involves charging into everything head first to kick its ass.

(No offense meant to any Naruto fans.)
(But you have to admit that 95% of that show’s cast don’t behave like actual ninjas.)

No, I mean one of those “sneak around in the shadows and do your job without being seen unless you want to be seen” kinds of ninjas.

Pictured above:  AN ACTUAL NINJA.

The story is somewhat simple, but they make it feel rather interesting.  You’re one of the best and brightest students of Clan Hisomu, one of the last (if not THE last) ninja clans operating in the modern age.  The secret to their success?  A strange ink that comes from a rare desert plant.  When put into a tattoo, they grant the bearer powers of perception and speed…But at a terrible price.  Your mission?  To take revenge on a private military company that violently raided your hidden sanctuary.  There’s more to it than that, obviously, leading up to a phenomenal ending…….Right up until the last 30 seconds, in which they do something that I feel was quite a bit annoying.  Aside from that, it was really well done.

What really sells it is the aesthetics.  Everything looks either vibrant, or dark and inky (like it should, given that it takes place almost exclusively at night).  The world and characters look stunning, and the little story cutscenes really suck you in.  In gameplay, it also helps that they have easy to identify visual cues for everything, making the stealth a joy to play.

Ah yes.  The stealth.  This game plays like a dream most of the time.  Everything feels smooth and natural.  Aside from one or two very specific locations, you can seamlessly go from wall climb to ceiling climb to hookshotting to a perch to dropping into a hiding spot to stealth kill an enemy in perfectly flowing sequence.  And the little visual cues that show you how much noise you’re making, or where an enemy is looking are really intuitive and keep you up to speed with your situation with just a glance.

As for the stealthing itself, there are a huge variety of scenarios you’ll be faced with, each with many solutions.  Do you want to go through, killing only when convenient, and ducking into vents and dropping spike traps for unwitting prey?  Go for it.  Do you want to sneak through peacefully, leaving confused guards, and total darkness in your wake?  You can do that.  Do you want to be an evil version of batman, terrorizing guards into shooting each other, hanging their buddies’ corpses up from lampposts, drinking in their screams of terror and then finally dropping onto them once they are alone and terrified to grant them the mercy of eternal slumber?  Yeah, me too. 

You have a ton of tools, ranging from bamboo darts that can take out lights and distract guards, to smoke bombs, spike traps, a grappling hook, and even unlockable ninja styles (read, ninja suits) that change your abilities.  And each environment is a playground full of vents, grappling perches, and various hiding places.  Oh, and plenty of well armed guards and lights that will expose you to the former’s bullets.

While it’s certainly fun to just go through each level willy-nilly, attempting a pure-stealth pacifist run is a huge challenge, even with the ninja suit that’s designed for pure stealth.  But overall, the most fun I’ve had was abusing the terror mechanic.  Certain actions (like making a guard spot a corpse strung up from a grapple point) will cause guards to enter a panic state.  In this state, their motions become erratic and unpredictable, and they’ll shoot at the slightest noise.  While this might seem like a bad thing, it’s actually very beneficial (and fun!).  By carefully luring them around, and provoking them at just the right times, you can make your foes friendly fire each other which is both amusing and very rewarding, points-wise.

As if that weren’t enough, there’s a lot of optional objectives, collectibles, a leaderboard and a new game plus mode that makes the game a lot harder.  As far as stealth games go, that’s pretty good.

As of this weekend (the 21rst to the 24th of March 2013) It’s on sale.  If you like stealth games you really ought to pick this up while you can.  Highly recommended.

Diamond Version Nuzlocke Run – Part 9

I’m sorry it’s been so long.  x_x  I have no excuse.

—
Current Team:
Beat (Grotle)
Ace (Staravia)
Lilli (Shellos)
Malice (Zubat)
Buddy (Budew)
Kazza (Kadabra)
—

Nervous respite

I was tired and wanted to hit the sack ASAP that night.

However, someone else had other plans.

Then the Galactic grunt paused to take in my positively venomous glare, and I saw his eyes wander over to Beat, who was at my side pawing the ground and growling.  The grunt gulped, probably regretting having hailed me.  “N-Nevermind…You look really tough..I won’t take…I mean you can keep your pokemon…”

<Should I take him out, master?> Beat let out a long low growl, and the grunt gulped.  I glared at his rapidly whitening face.  “If I so much as hear a whisper of you stealing some poor kid’s pokemon, I will sic Beat on you.  In fact, he’s asking me right now if he can eat the mean old kidnapper man.  Should I let him?”  Beat stomped his foot and made a biting motion just to make sure he got the message.  The grunt ran for his life, and I could swear I smelt that he’d wet his pants.

Shaking my head, I went to explore the town a bit, thinking this was just a one-off problem.  Turns out, it wasn’t.  The place was crawling with Team Galactic bozos  I heard numerous complaints of stolen pokemon, and half the town seemed content to look the other way!

Eventually I pieced together that Team Galactic had set up some kind of outpost here.  I headed in the general direction that the grunt had fled in, knowing that he’d lead me right to the source of the problem.  I caught sight of a strange building that didn’t fit in with the rest, and I could see a pack of grunts walking around past the glass doors.  I would have marched right in and given the whole lot of them hell right there, had they not installed the best anti-trainer security available.   More of those weird prickly bushes.  I couldn’t get in.  That’s when I noticed the sign.

“…….What.  WHAAAAAT?!  I…Wha-They aren’t even being subtle about it!”  <About what?>  Quipped Beat.  “The sign!  Just…READ THE SIGN!”  <I can’t read human, Master!  What’s it say?>

<…Yup, definitely not subtle.>

I glared at the prickly bushes.  There had to be some way past them…  I didn’t notice the trainer until they were a few feet away.

She was a young woman, about my age.  Apparently she was here to look into pokemon mythology.  There was a statue here of a powerful ancient pokemon in this city that intrigued her.  With lack of anything better to do at the time, I followed.

I glanced at her “So no one is sure what this pokemon is?”  Cynthia shook her head.  Beat shrugged <No idea here either.  Been in the professor’s lab ever since I was an egg, and he never showed me anything like that.>.  Ace popped out of his ball, uncalled for, startling both me and Cynthia <I think I know what it is!  When I was just hatched, my mom told me a story about something called the ‘Mother of Time’.  It looks a lot like the pokemon in the story!>.  I relayed this to Cynthia who cocked an eyebrow at me “You’re telling me your pokemon just spoke to you?  I find that hard to believe.  But noted, all the same”.  She turned to leave, then stopped.  “I notice you were staring at those bushes, earlier.  You know there’s an HM that lets you cut those down, right?”.

My ears perked up at that.  “Where do I get one?”.  “You’ll have to find a league-sponsored trainer to give one to you.  We can’t just have everyone allowed to use moves like that outside of direct combat!  People might get hurt!”.  I nodded.  Anything that could shred one of those bushes would be pretty harmful in the wrong hands.  Cynthia looked thoughful for a moment “You’re taking the league challenge, I presume?”  “Yes, I’ve already got a Coal badge.”  “So you’re not a complete novice, then.  The gym challenge is tough.  Nigh unbeatable if you consider the champion and the elite four.  What makes you think you can succeed?”  “I-….Well, I promised Beat that I’d try.  We have a goal.  One that can only be accomplished by taking the champion’s seat.  We want to change the rules to better protect pokemon in battle.  The way the rules are…it’s too dangerous.  Pokemon are dying, and they shouldn’t be.”  Cynthia suddenly looked rather annoyed “So, you want to change the system, yet you partake in it.  That seems rather irresponsible.”  Beat growled angrily at that.

Cynthia shrugged “Well, there are worse reasons to aim for the top.  What’s your name, then, trainer?”  “Ark”  She tossed me a disk.  “Best of luck to you, Ark.  I hope we cross paths again.”  And then she was gone.

Beat and I made a beeline for the Galactic Building.  Unfortunately the HM refused to boot up, demanding proper authorization.  I’d need to get league permission to use the Cut move out of battle to get past those prickly deathtraps.

Well, fortunately, the next gym was right he-…Oh for Mew’s sake.  A GRASS Gym.  <What’s wrong with-Oh.>  “Yeah.  Ace and Kazza are my only star players in here.  And Kazza is…”  <Weird?>  “I was gonna say psychotic.  And lazy.  This isn’t gonna be a picnic”.

I didn’t trust this place enough to sleep here.  Not with pokemon theft running rampant.  I would have to take on the gym as soon as humanly possible.

I picked up some energy roots at a nearby herb store.  Beat took one sniff and reeled away.  <UGH!  You’re not gonna make me eat that are you?!>  “If it’ll save your life, yeah”.  <I’d better not get hurt then.>

And then, I ran into someone unexpected.

He was impressed at how fast I was progressing, and offered me something to speed things along.  He called it an EXP. SHARE.  All caps.  It was some experimental technology designed to allow pokemon that weren’t in battle to learn directly from those that did fight.  He started going into the theory, going on about temporal brainwave duplication, but quickly realized I was lost.  In any case, this would be quite useful.  We parted ways, with him promising to say hi to Dawn for me.

It was late.  Very late.  I could feel my eyelids drooping.  But I had a job to do.  Holding back a yawn, I stepped through the doors of the second gym…

So I made an RPG in 2 weeks.

First of all, I’m really sorry that I haven’t been updating.  I got hit with a multi-hit combo that killed all my free time.

First, tons of assignments.  Then I got sick.  Then I had a midterm.

Then, a site I go on decided to hold a contest.  Make an RPG using the demo version of RPGMaker VX Ace in two weeks.

I could not resist.

—

So I made a game in 2 weeks.  It was pretty grueling.  Between all the scenes, and the maps, and the balancing (oh gosh…the balancing…That took a week on its own), it took every bit of free time I had.

  But I do not regret it.  It was a fun experience.

Oh and by the way, in case you were wondering, YES, you CAN play it!

Down below is a link to the game’s profile, which talks about the story, the gameplay, and has the download.

http://rpgmaker.net/games/4826/

  Enjoy everyone.

Diamond Version Nuzlocke Run – Part 8

Well, this chapter turned out to be pretty eventful for just one route…

Also, I am TERRIBLY sorry, but I seem to have lost all of my screenshots for this chapter… >_< I tried to work around it a bit, though.

—

The Road to Eterna

There’s something in those flowers that’s just not normal.  I meant to get up early, but the sun was high in the sky by the time I was on the road again.  I checked my pokedex and to my surprise it considered the valley windworks to be its own location, not attached to route 205!  Cool.  I used this opportunity to snag a Buizel.

That done, I began my march up route 205, confident I could take on anything that came my way.  Then I faced another trainer’s ponyta.  That was a difficult battle.  I came to realize that perhaps relying on two grass types and a flying type left me very wide open to certain attacks…

And then Kazza erupted into a fountain of light.

<kekekekekekekekeeeeeeeee>  I kid you not, that was the first thing I heard through Kazaa’s Link.  A crazy, psychotic laugh.  That.  Just.  Wouldn’t.  STOP.

Another trainer approached, and sent out a Budew.  Time to see what Kazza could do.  “Ok Kazza, GET HIM!  Confusion!”  <Kekekekekekekekekekeke>  “…What are you doing?  Why are you sitting around staring at the sky?” <KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKE>.  “…Are you even listening, Kazza?”  <No.>  <I mean- KEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEKEEEEEEEEHEEHEE!!!!>  “Are you serious?!  You won’t even listen to me?!”  That was upsetting.  Finally, Kazza had the potential to be a great member of the team…and instead, he decided to not do a damn thing.  I regretted that trade now…

I reached the edge of Eterna forest…and unfortunately, the shortcut around it was blocked by these thin (but VERY prickly) trees that were growing right there on the path.  I didn’t feel like waiting another week or two for someone to clear those out.  But I sure as hell wasn’t going through Eterna forest without some more antidotes.  I turned back to stock up in Floaroma.

On the way, a wild Shellos attacked.  It didn’t look particularly strong, but I needed every bit of help I could get.  I decided that if I sent Ace or Beat in, they would probably kill the poor thing, so I let Breaker, my Geodude fight it.

That was a mistake.

A truly grave, regrettable, stupid mistake.

The Shellos fired a series of blue pulses at Breaker….I felt as if time itself slowed to a crawl as my brain processed a set of facts at lightning speed.  Shellos was a water type.  It had just used Water Pulse.  Breaker was a Geodude.  A rock/ground type.  Super Effective.

“BREAKER!  DODGE IT!”   He didn’t.  He couldn’t.

He took all four shots head on and fell to the ground with a soft thud and a moan.  I ran up to him, hoping against hope he was alright.  His eyes were blank and water dripped slowly from his mouth.  I wasn’t too familiar with rock type biology…But that looked fatal.  I could not tear my eyes away like I did with that other Geodude back at Oreburgh Gate.  This time, it was completely my fault.

<Yeah, just keep walking away, you ugly slug!>  Beat growled at the Shellos, who had lost interest and was now shuffling away.  I turned to look, and then a fiery mood took me  “Oh no you don’t.  You are coming with us, Shellos.  Beat.  WEAR. IT. DOWN”.  Beat turned and frowned  <You sure?  It just killed- >  “I know what it did.  And that’s why it’s not going to get away with it.>  Beat pounced on the Shellos and began to give it hell.  I threw a pokeball.  It broke out.  I threw another, it deflected it.  My fury grew.  I almost told Beat to slice it to pieces with a well placed razor leaf.  Instead, I had Buddy come out and stun spore it.  “Let’s see you break out of the ball now!”  There was the sound of a pokeball opening and snapping shut.  Then a few twitches.  And finally, a satisfying *click*.

I ran back to the pokemon center, and they took Breaker into a back room.  The regular healing device was nowhere near enough, they said.  About a half hour later, I got the bad news.  As I feared, there was nothing they could do for him.  The water had seeped into his rocky lungs and drowned him from the inside.

They offered to send him to the Lost Tower in Solaceon town straight away.  I asked to see him first.  The nurse told me I didn’t want to see it.  I insisted anyway.

She explained that they had tried to pump out the water from his rocky lungs, but apparently the air/water pressure was too much and…aahh…

She was right.  I didn’t want to see it.

I sat there in the center for a while, unsure of what to do.  I hadn’t had Breaker around for very long, nor was he a good member of the team yet.  I hadn’t even managed to link with him.  And yet…I felt terrible.  I should have known Shellos was a water type… <Master, are you just gonna sit there all day and mope?> “No, Beat.  I’m not.”  I sighed and got up.

Breaker the Geodude has Died.

I allowed them to send Breaker’s corpse over to Lost Tower in Solaceon town via the PC system.  I didn’t quite know what else to do with it.

I went to the PC and withdrew the Shellos that had killed Breaker and sat her down.  “You listen to me.  You took one of my friends from me.  You will make up for that.  I don’t know if you can understand me, but I’ll make this very clear.  You are not getting off easy.  That said, welcome to the team.  Do me proud.”  The Shellos blinked and slowly made a very noticeable nod.

Lilli the Shellos joins the team

I made a quick stop at the pokemart like I had planned and stocked up on antidotes, then made my way back to the forest entrance.

At the entrance, a woman was pacing back and forth, clearly worried.  As I entered, she looked up and approached.  My hand instinctively reached for a pokeball, but then I stopped as I realized she wasn’t here for a fight.  She looked at Beat and nodded.  “Hi Trainer.  Umm…You’re a strong trainer, right?”  I blinked “I guess so.  What’s on your mind?”  The woman looked over her shoulder and then back to me “I need to get to Eterna city in a hurry, but there are tons of trainers in here and I don’t have time to fight them all one on one.  And there are rumors of Team Galactic members in here, and-”  She stopped as she said those words and gave me a piercing look.  I didn’t notice it at the time, though, since I immediately frowned and imagined those incompetent dunces causing more trouble.  Not on my watch.  “If Team G-Force is here, I am going to send them packing.  I hate those guys”.  The woman’s face immediately relaxed.  “That’s…Good.  My name is Cheryl.  And yours?”  “Ark”  “Well, then, Ark, here’s my deal.  You help me get through this place and to Eterna in a hurry, and Chansey and I will keep your Pokemon in top condition.  Deal?”  I nodded and off we went.

She wasn’t kidding about the trainers here. On seeing that Cheryl was traveling with someone, they immediately decided to double team us.  After one particular brutal double battle which left Lilli, Ace and Beat burned out, Beat began to glow.

What began as a soft growl turned into a full on roar, and within moments, he was pawing the ground with his new giant feet, eager to test out his new form.  <I.  AM.  A.  BADASS!>  “Yeah, I can’t argue with that…You look awesome!”

Cheryl gave me an odd look, and I was forced to explain Linking to her.  To my surprise, she believed me without question, and peppered me with questions until we parted ways.

After a few more battles, we made it.  Cheryl’s first aid skills were incredibly useful.  With her help, Lilli was now combat ready, and Malice (My Zubat) was getting there.  And then she was gone, running full tilt towards Eterna.  And about time too.  The sun was setting.  I didn’t want to be in here after dark.  Especially not with those Psychic Trainers going on and on about the “Old Chateau” in the area that they said “housed a powerful presence”.  I didn’t like Ghost pokemon.  I hadn’t met any yet, and I hoped I never had to.

And a short walk later, finally we crossed into Eterna.

Where I began to get a sense of just how big a problem Team Galactic would be for me.

—

Props to ZessT of DeviantArt for allowing me to use their Geodude image, found here.

—–

Diamond Version Nuzlocke Run – Part 7

Man, trying to keep these weekly is hard work!
—

Showdown at the valley windworks

I waited until nightfall.  No way I was crossing that minefield of flowers in daylight.  Once I was sure it was reasonably safe, I started to tiptoe through the tulips pleading to Mew, Arceus, Dialga, AND Palkia not to let me get assaulted by another beedrill.

And I made it.  Finally.  The two grunts (now harassing some poor old guy) were not happy to see me.  Even less so when Ace was done with them.  They took off at top speed, screaming as Ace flapped around their heads cackling.  In fact they were in such a rush that they somehow DROPPED the key to the valley windworks.  …There’s incompetent, and then there are THESE guys.

I gave them a bit of a head start and then carefully crossed back into Floaroma, made a quick stop at the Center and then…

Let’s do this.  I inserted the key, unlocked the door, and kicked it wide open.

Yup.  You are the loser in this.  Next time, don’t give it to a pair of klutzes with really weak pokemon.  You’re just asking for someone to mess you guys up.

I took down a few grunts and sent them packing.  One guy approached, looking pretty confident.

…..And all he had was a Cascoon…”And just how, pray tell, do you intend to stop me with a pokemon that can only sit still and harden?  What kinda ‘professional’ criminal are you?!”

Suddenly, Ace burst into what looked like pure light.

<Whoa!  I’m evolving!>  I’d never seen a pokemon evolve before.  Well, aside from on Pokemon Discovery.  And it’s just never the same as in person, you know?

Ace’s eyes were the last thing to stop glowing.  <Oh WOW, check this body OUUUUT!>  He crowed.  <I am SO gonna wreck the next thing to cross my path!>.  Then he looked meaningfully at the ‘professional’ grunt we had just owned, who had the good sense to take that as his signal to run for the hills.

And so I approached the main research room.  “Alright, Team Galaga, this party is over.  GET OUT.”.  “GALACTIC, boy!  Get it right!”  Said the woman (I think?  I really could not tell…) in charge.  She looked me over disdainfully.  “I’m one of Team Galactic’s three Commanders.  My name is Mars.”  She frowned “You seem to match the description of the one who send my grunts packing in Jubilife.  Here is what I just don’t seem to understand.  We’re trying to create a new world, one that’s much better than this one!  And yet everyone shows so little understanding about what we do-”  I snorted in disbelief “Misunderstand what?  Your grunts are thugs who kidnap people, threaten young kids with assault with a deadly pokemon, and try to steal anything you can get your hands on.  What is there to misunderstand?  You guys are criminals!”

Mars glared at me.  “A few hurt feelings are well worth bringing about our new world.  Tell you what, we’ll have a battle right here.  If you beat me, I’ll take my grunts and leave.  If you lose, you leave.  With my boot up your rear end!”  She said, flinging a Zubat into the ring.  I weighed my options and sent Ace in.  “Zubat!  Slag that thing!  TOXIC!”.  Ace took a faceful of purple goop the second he was free from his Pokeball.  <GAH, Ark…This…This isn’t normal poison!>  I narrowed my eyes.  “Make the KO!  I’ll switch you out the second you get it done!”.  Ace let out a screech and let that Zubat have it.  I kept my word, sending Beat out to face the enemy’s Purugly.  Beat grinned <You’re one fat cat!  Let’s trim some of that off!  RAZOR LEAF!>.  …And the Purugly just shrugged it off.  That wasn’t good…

I pulled an antidote from my bag and took my eyes off the battle for a moment to inject an antidote spray into Ace’s pokeball…And then a scream rocked my Link.

I looked up to see Beat sailing through the air, a vivid and deep looking scratch mark marring his belly, before he hit a wall and collapsed, shivering in pain.  <I…I don’t think I can keep going…Sorry master…>.  The Galactic boss grinned.  “Purugly!  Go for the kill!”.  I flung Ace’s pokeball and fumbled Beat’s ball…It rolled out of reach.  “BEAT!  GET BACK GET BACK!  ACE!  GO!”  Ace came out, took one look at Beat’s condition and screeched furiously at the Purugly.  Even though I didn’t hear any words, his meaning was clear as he flapped aggressively in the fat cat’s face, forcing it to take a few nervous steps back.  “ACE  FLY CLOSE!”  I primed a potion and sprayed him as he passed.  “GO FOR A BEATDOWN!”  They traded blows back and forth and I kept spraying Ace whenever he passed by in need of a patch-up.  The Purugly was fast.  Faster than Ace for sure.  No matter where ace clapped his wings, the fat cat would always catch him first.  And then I saw one of it’s knees twitch.  “Now, Ace!  NAIL IT!”.  Ace swooped low and pushed himself hard, aiming his beak right between his foe’s eyes.  The Purugly raised a claw…And got a faceful of Ace’s high speed quick-attack before he could bring it down.  It moaned and made a very loud thump as it keeled over.

I sighed in relief.  “Good work guys.  Ace, are you ok?”  <Yup>  “Beat?”  <I’ll…Manage…Owww….>.  I recalled him to his ball, despite his protests.  I knew that being in the ball would slow the progress of his injury.  I had to get him to a center in a hurry.

True to their word, team Galactic left, and I was able to reunite the lost little girl from earlier with her papa.  And I found out what the gang was doing here.  They were apparently trying to harness a huge amount of energy for some unknown purpose.  I was getting mighty curious about what they were really trying to accomplish with that…

A few minutes later, back in Floaroma, the local nurse handed Beat back over to me, looking good as new.  “You feeling better?”  <Yeah…That’ll teach me to be overconfident.  Guess I just can’t blast my way though everything just yet,>.  I took this as a warning…I had come dangerously close to losing my closest friend…I re-stocked on potions and splurged on a dozen Super potions.  My guys were getting to the point where normal potions were no longer gonna cut it in emergencies.

We wound up crashing at the home of a friend of the scientist and…

YES!  Time for some footage of me beating Team Galaga!

Huh….Oh well that could still be.-

What?  WHAT?!  I kicked a criminal organization’s butt this morning!  And they thought this was REALLY gonna be a better sto-

Oh sweet Arceus no.

WHERE DID THEY GET THAT FOOTAGE OF JOY SLOBBERING ALL OVER ME?

Zero indeed!  That’s what my reputation is going to be after everyone watches this!

…Yeah, Like anyone will take me seriously now.  …….Well, at least this might give me an advantage against other gym leaders.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

Oh who am I kidding.  I’m going to bed and forget that everyone saw that.

Diamond Version Nuzlocke Run – Part 6

I really hope that color-sibling joke doesn’t fly over everyone’s head…

And before anyone asks, yes, I do in fact have a phobia of wasps.

—-

Enter Team Galactic

Our victory celebrations were brief.  After all, we lost two weeks waiting for that son of a Houndour to come out of that mine.  We had a lot of catching up to do.

The next gym was in Eterna city, so I’d heard.  Beat and I figured it would be best to make a beeline straight for it by taking the shortcut through route 207.  Which turned out to be no good.

Apparently there was some kind of mudslide on the only stairs up the cliff.  I’d need a bike, preferably with studded tires, ten speeds and a blue paint job to make it up that slippery slope.  (Well, the blue paint is optional, I suppose).

The only other way to Eterna would be a detour through that cave north of Jubilife.  Which was blocked last I remembered.  It took me a snide, and slightly condescending remark from Ace to figure out what to do.  <Oh if ONLY you had some move that could break rocks and a gym badge that allowed you to use it…Then you could get through that cave…> “OH RIIIIIIIGHT, forgot about that…”.

Before leaving the route I poked around in the grass for a new pokemon.  And lo and behold…

So I finally had a fighting type on my team.  For about half an hour.  You see, I’d spent the two weeks crashing at one of the apartments, and I had gotten to be friends with one of the tenants, a young girl who called herself Violet (And her brother Burgundy), and I stopped by to say hi.  They were amazed that I took on Roark and won, and I got treated to yet another display of “I’m gonna be a trainer and a hero too someday!  I wanna be the very best, that no one ever was!”.  She really took a liking to the new Machop and well, one thing led to another.

Kazza the Abra joins the team!

Kazza ………Umm…I don’t even think he ever even listened to me whenever I talked to him.  He just sat there and….did nothing all day.  My Link with him was literally returning a blank empty signal…At the time I saw that as a bad thing…But later…Well, that’s for another time.

So, mildly annoyed at the fact that my trip for Oreburgh had been nothing but a mild detour (save for the Gym Badge), I headed up to the Oreburgh gate and-

And off he went again at top speed. I better get a bike fast.  I can’t have him beating me EVERYWHERE.

Now that I had Rock smash, I decided I could spare a few minutes to poke deeper into the Gate.  I soon found a flash TM.  Next to a discarded baseball cap with oddly familiar bite marks in the fabric.  I briefly wondered if Zubats were carnivores.  …And then got dive bombed by one as it screeched what sounded suspiciously like <HUNGEEEERRRRRR>.

……………Anyway, I made it back to Jubilife in record time and after a quick stop at the Center (And a therapist), we decided to make a dash for the next town.

Until I ran right into a commotion at the town entrance.  Professor Rowan and Dawn and….two weirdos in bowl cuts.

“Now now, I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable way to resolve this without viol-”

“Oh that’s not gonna fly”.  Beat pawed the ground <Can I get ‘em Master?>  “We’ll see”.  The two goofballs in space suits sent out a Wumple and a… *eyetwitch* Zubat. “…I’ll let Ace take this one.  He needs the training.  GET EM.”  I growled, pointing Ace’s pokeball at the Wurmple and hitting the button.

Ace shot out of his pokeball the second it popped open, making a beeline for the enemy Wurmple, deftly knocking it flying with a sharp flick of his wings.  The Wurmple’s collision with the ground moments later did not do the poor thing any favors.

The Zubat stood no chance either.  Ace crippled its right wing with a quick attack and the Zubat was in no shape to avoid the stream of bubbles that Dawn’s Piplup fired at it.

Benevolent my bidoof’s front teeth.  These guys have ‘incompetent criminal nincompoops’ written all over them

And then a reporter rushed up, apparently having caught that battle on tape.  Looks like I was gonna make the evening news, lucky me.

The battle wasn’t all that rough, so I pushed on without going back to the Pokemon Center.  The cave and road ahead were a piece of cake, as I had expected.  Aside from a few oddball trainers who got utterly wrecked by my team, the trip was distraction free.  And despite his endless silence, I got the feeling Kazza was paying very close attention to the battles he was watching…I could not WAIT for this guy to evolve and be of use to the team.

Less than an hour after I left Jubilife, I walked into Flowri…umm….Florida?  No….Umm…*checks map*  Floaroma town.

I really didn’t like the look of the town, not one bit…Too many flowers.  It brought back some bad memories… Have you ever been walking through a field of flowers as a kid, only to get stung in the arm by a Beedrill while it screams <DIEDIEDIEAHAHAHAHAHAADIEEEEEEE> into your brain as it dives at you?  It’s not fun.  I swear to Arceus I still have the scars.  Both physical AND mental.

Pictured below:  How I remember it

Team Galaxia or whatever they called themselves was causing trouble on the other end of the flower field, but no force in Sinnoh was gonna make me cross that flowery sea of death.  So I headed out to the next route, wanting to get as far away from that terrible town as I could.

Of course, “Team Galaxia or whatever they called themselves” had two thugs guarding the bridge I needed to cross to get to Eterna, refusing to let anyone pass.  And it’s hard to argue with a guy who has a Skuntank out with her tail raised and pointed directly at you.

So I decided to kill some time and wander around, when I came upon a little girl looking for her papa, who had apparently been trapped by “mean guys in space suits in the valley windworks!”  …Oh for the love of Arceus.  Kidnapping?  REALLY?  Where were the cops and their stable supply of Growlithes when you needed them?

Apparently, nowhere, so it was up to me to clean this mess up.

I marched up to the valley windworks and approached the grunt on duty.  “Sorry, Team Galactic past this point only, bro” he said “We got some really important stuff going on here, and we can’t have everyone just walking in and bothering us”.  I didn’t move.

“Yup”.  “Do you know what we do to people who try to interfere?  …WE BATTLE THEM!”  “That’s it?  That’s all you do?”  “Well…THEN we order our pokemon to beat the stuffing out of the trainer”.  “Yeah, that’s not gonna fly.  Beat.  Get ‘em”

Although the grunt’s Glameow was pretty decently leveled for this area, it stood no chance against the barrage of leaves that Beat unleashed.  The grunt winced as he retreated his Glameow.  “Why did they think I could guard the door with such a pathetic po-”  “Ok grunt, listen up.  You will let me in and-HEY!”.  The grunt turned around, made a mad dash for the door, and locked it behind him as Beat peppered the door with Razor Leaves.  “HAH!  There’s no way you can get in here now!  The only other key to this place is with the other grunts past the flower fields!  There’s no way you can take all of them out!”  The grunt cackled.

And so I had no choice but to go back to the flowery fields of terror.

Umm…Well…On second thought, maybe I’ll take my chances with that Skuntank…
–

*The original beedrill image (before I butchered it in paint) can be found here*

Game spotlight: Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Every once in a while a game will come along that will just be so damn GOOD that it deserves to be played by everyone…and yet something or another happens and it just….doesn’t seem to catch the attention it deserves.

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines is one of those games.

Basically, it got rushed through final production and came out on the same day as half life 2 (It I remember right).  As a result, the original release was about as buggy as a tropical jungle.  Surprise surprise, the game didn’t sell well at all, the studio folded, and this amazing game was almost lost and forgotten about.

Fortunately, dedicated fans have not only patched almost all the bugs, but they also restored a LOT of the cut content, making this one of the BEST games I have ever played.

How so?  Let me break it down for you all.
***

Vampire the masquerade Bloodlines (referred to as just “bloodlines” from this point on) is an action RPG with stealth and lots of social interaction.  Basically, it’s Deus Ex with Vampires.  And none of this “sparkles in the sun” silliness.  I’m talking predatory, monstrous, manipulative and nasty vampires coming in many flavours (from the sexy Toreador to insane Malkavians to ugly as hell Nosferatu).

If you woke up with a face like this, you’d hate your unlife too.

The story is pretty riveting, delving deep into the mess that is vampire politics, with you being a new agent of sorts for the local overseer, Lacroix.  Not that you really want to.  In the very first cutscene, you get Turned, are informed that serving Lacroix is in your best interests if you want to live, and get a VERY rude awakening to the draconian rules of vampire society.  The Masquerade.

Ah yes, the masquerade.  You see, if humans find out about the vampires walking in their midst, right down the streets of modern downtown LA…Well, they are going to go Simon Belmont on you all.  So, you have 5 strikes.  If you Feed on people in public, use obviously supernatural powers in plain sight or get spotted by a civilian when playing the above mentioned Nosferatu, you will get a Masquerade violation.  With each violation, you run greater risk of running into vampire hunters out in the open.  5 violations and, as Smiling Jack (One of the most awesome characters in the game) puts it:  “You wind up staked and baked”, Game over.

So not only do you need to accomplish your missions for your new overseer, but you need to be careful when and where you Feed and use your powers.

Each vampire clan (ie:  Character class) is fairly unique, each with a specific focus, and a clear weakness.  For example, Nosferatu are so ugly that being seen in a civilian area will likely lead to a masquerade violation (throwing social interaction mostly out the window for them), but they make up for it with excellent stealth skills and melee mastery.  Then there are the Tremere, who can never fully level up their physical attributes, but can bend blood and break into the minds of most enemies.

And then there are these guys who seduce the hell out of everything and shoot the survivors

But most of your powers come at a price.  Blood.  To fuel your various powers, you’ll need to feed on mortals, blood packs, or rats if you can stomach that.  If you run low on blood, you can’t use your various abilities, and worse, you run the risk of frezying and losing control, which could easily lead to a Masquerade violation, or running right into an ambush.

Gameplay has a lot of diversity.  You can focus on stealth, wasting armies of mooks without taking a hit.  You can charm your way through a lot of encounters.  You can pick locks, hack computers, mind control or seduce or bribe people to get what you want…You can go close combat or guns or focus more on your higher end abilities like making glowing wolves appear out of nowhere to chow down on your enemies.  The variety is excellent.

Decisions, decisions…What do I want to be awesome at next?

That said, it suffers a bit of Deus Ex Human Revolutions problem of boss fights.  While most of them aren’t anywhere NEAR as frustrating as HR’s bosses since you likely have a skill or two you can use to gain an advantage (and the bosses only really start getting hard around the second half, when you should be more than prepared), it can be frustrating to have a melee character facing off against someone who can teleport out of range after a few whacks, and then starts pestering you with his gun.

The real star of the game is how engaging the world is.  The characters are well written (Smiling Jack, Nines, and the Voerman Sisters really stand out) and the game makes a concerted effort to make you wonder which side in this conflict you’ll ultimately side with, and one in particular is a refreshing choice to be able to make.  Favors will be curried, backs will be stabbed, and your status as a newly Embraced Vampire will be exploited by every corpse with a week of seniority and some dirty work that needs doing.  And you will love it.

So if you’re a fan of action RPGs or stealth games, or really loved the Deus Ex games, you owe it to yourself to sink your fangs into this game.  It really is that good.

Just make sure you grab the latest fan patch HERE.  And it’s still being updated and improved to this day.

Happy hunting everyone.