Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

Digimon is probably the most dear cartoon for me from my childhood. It was different, dealt with difficult themes (though six years old me understood none of that), had great soundtrack and monsters and plots were something that I still remember after all these years. There's something special about the original anime series from the late 90's that nothing has quite captured since. Adventure Time came close, but as much I love that cartoon it doesn't have the nostalgia for me that digital monsters have. 

With that said, it's weird that I haven't ever played any Digimon games. Maybe some web ones, but I don't really remember. So when I saw Cyber Sleuth on Nintendo Store, looked at the trailer and realized how crazy it looked, I decided to give it a go. And honestly, it was time for me to complete another JRPG after Xenoblade Chronicles 2. 

I had zero expectations, and thus I got myself a pretty addictive monster collecting simulator with very stupid anime clichés everywhere. And a lot of bare skin. Digimon has sure grown adult too during these years.

Story

Well, as you may expect, the plot is crazy and goes to weird places. There is this general story of Eden syndrome, caused by this digital world where people spend times and later big bad Digimon's attack and try to destroy the world. Or at least that's what I got out of this game - to be honest, I didn't follow the story too intensively. Overall it served game well, but I would be fine with little bit less talking and more exploring. And I would love to see more of the anime style cutscenes as they were beautiful but used very sparing. 

There are lot of side missions too, but most of them don't have too interesting story lines going on. There was this one longer story line about ghost hunting and cult stuff, but I'm not still sure if that was part of the main game. I didn't do the DLC missions that were unlocked late in the game as in that point I just wanted to finish it, but might check those later.

Gameplay

Gameplay is a hybrid between adventure, visual novel, pet raising simulator and (J)RPG, having elements from all of those genres. Missions are pretty usual stuff: go to place x, fight some enemies, fetch a thing... There are some attempts to add some puzzle elements but to honest those were little bit boring. And stupid. There are so many other ways to force player spend time on game than make them run around and collect data. Main focus is clearly on the Digimon battles, and even those after a while become pretty easy, so thank Digi-gods for auto battle! That saved a lot of time - and I could play the game while watching a movie or something, 

Some boss battles required more tactical approach, but mostly it was just finding good balance with supporting and more aggressive Digimon's on your team. I played on normal difficulty, so I can't say if battles are more challenging on hard. Probably.

One thing about gameplay. In the late game dungeons became these massive mazes which I hated. I don't want to spend my time running aimlessly around the same corners. It felt like a forced attempt to lengthen the game, and to be honest, it failed. I admit that I used a guide to run through those mazes as quickly as possible.

Digimons!

I don't know if I would have played through this game if it wasn't for Digimon's. I love those silly things, and even though human characters were funny at the time, collecting Digimon's, raising and evolving them and just reading through their descriptions was something I really enjoyed. I know mostly ones from seasons 1 & 2 of anime, so there was lot of familiar faces but many new ones too, which kept game interesting for a good while. Evolving was the best part for me, and trying to get right stats for different evolutions was an interesting concept. Take away the battles and story, I would love to have a Digimon simulation game similar to Animal Crossing or The Sims. I wouldn't play anything else ever again. Well, not really, but it would take over my life for a while.

In conclusion, Digimon: Cyber Sleuth is pretty okay JRPG with some translation errors in some places. But would I recommend it to someone who has no clue about Digimon's at all or nostalgy for them? Probably not. But for everyone else, seeing your first baby Digimon's evolve is magical moment that you'll remember for some time.

Solution for Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Chapter 10 Copy/Paste Puzzle

Here’s a gaming tip for you! In Digimon: Cyber Sleuth (which I'm playing right now!) if you'll get stuck in this puzzle in Chapter 10 Valhalla server area with four copy/paste things like I did, solution is this pattern:

Green - Blue

Yellow - Green

Why, I don't know. Maybe (probably) I am just stupid and couldn't make out this from the hint boxes.

I'll credit this one to Tethealla from GameFAQs forum. 

Playing a Detective in The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos

The Outer Worlds is one of my favourite games from recent years. It has that very familiar Obsidian dark humor going on and it was set on the space - what more could you wish from an open-world RPG? Well, a murder mystery DLC, of course.

I've always been a fan of murder mysteries in Fallout-styled games. Why, I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with searching for the clues in a clunky game world with mechanics that are not meant to be used for that kind of gameplay, maybe I just happen to like the humor these missions have. Whatever the reason is, Murder on Eridanos delivers that experience.

Plot is very simple: famous actor has been murdered and you have been asked to find the murderer. You go through this whole new playable area with a hotel, a factory that remains a lot of Nuka-Cola factories from Fallout games, and a little town for an example. There's a lot to see and many secrets to be found, and the main plot takes you through the all main areas so you'll get pretty familiar with them. And as good detective story should have, there's plot twists! Which you certainly didn't expect!

Snek.

Most of the missions are searching for clues with your new weapon Discrepancy Amplifier, which is this ''thing'' that analyzes and comments your actions in funny ways. Other missions are mostly shoot the bad guys or animals in the face or search for items. Nothing fancy, but they work and to be honest, I never got bored. That's a good sign, right?

Characters are pretty memorable, especially all the actors you meet though there could have been more interactions with many of them. With most you just speak once or twice and then they start repeating themselves. That's the problem with The Outer Worlds in a big picture, and I'm hoping that the upcoming sequel changes that. My favourite NPC was this little bit crazy medical professional, Dr. Goodnight. They made me giggle a lot with all the weird and fucked up things they kept saying.

And that's my thoughts on The Outer Worlds' second DLC. It was fun, and I can't wait to continue my adventure on Peril on Gorgon! What might that mysterious package be that's waiting on my ship? 

Some Thoughts on Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Image: Steam

Open-world Adventure Time game starring characters from the TV-series? Sign me up!

Well, let's start from the positive things. Most of the time I really liked Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion. It had some great moments, good jokes and familiar faces. Battles are easy yet still have some deepness, and sailing on OOo which is underwater is fun. Unfortunately game also has a lot of problems, like bad framerates while sailing, lots of bugs and some weird design choices. As much I liked Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion, at the times this game was a chore to get through. 

I played Nintendo Switch version which, as stated, had some problems with framerates. Loading times, for example when entering to battle, where long which got a bit irritating when I got to the point where many enemies could be defeated with one or two hits. At one point game got stuck after defeating a boss and I had to restart that particular battle two or three times. Not fun.

Image: Steam

World was enjoyable. You'll go through some familiar places like Candy Kingdom, and running around Adventure Time's world is something that I enjoyed, especially after Jake learned to turn into a bike. Yes. Sailing part was also fun (when the frames were not freezing) though I would love to have more interactions on the sea. Now there's only some junk to collect and pirate ships to defeat.

Story and missions are not anything special, but it was nice to hear familiar voice actors delivering dialogue. Unfortunately sound mixing was weird at times and volume levels didn't make sense - sometimes when character spoke you hear it very silently while everything else is loud. Side missions were... Well, I completed all of them though mostly you just need to find a thing or destroy a thing. Can't see a reason for completing those unless you are a big Adventure Time fan like me. There was also an interrogation minigame which seemed promising but was forgotten pretty soon - it didn't really have anything to add to game.

Image: Steam

Mostly Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion made me want a good, polished open-world Adventure Time game. There's so much potential for something like that and it makes me a little bit angry that this game is so rushed and buggy. It could have been so much more! Would I recommend it? For Adventure Time fans, maybe - if you have patience to deal with all the broken things (thanks to Fallout-series I see bugs almost as a feature at this point!). For anyone else? I don't know. It's a great first turn-based RPG if you never have played one as it teaches all the important mechanics, but I guess there are more polished games that do the same thing better. I guess?

Anyway, that's what I thought about Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion. Not the best game, but I till enjoyed some of it.

Rage(quit)

I remember seeing Rage for the first time in the gaming magazine back when it was released. It looked so cool! Unfortunately I never got to play it back then, and I just kept wondering how great game it had to be. And then I forget the whole thing for a while. 

Until some time ago Rage was on a sale on Steam and I got it. And forget it again until the beginning of 2022. Finally, after almost a decade, I was ready to play this game that made so big impact on me years ago even though I never even tried it. And it was awesome, is what I would love to say. Unfortunately, Rage isn't awesome. Its not even okay. This game is... missed opportunity. Mediocre looter shooter. And so on. 

It's painfully clear that this game is over 10 years old now. Gameplay is kinda clunky, and in-game menus for example are straight from the early 2000s. But at least the story and world are passable?

Nah. Story is pretty straight-forward copy of Half-Life 2's campaign but without all the charm and depth that HL2 has. And characters... Well, they are your typical and stereotypic FPS ones. Lots of muscle mans machoing and women that are clearly written (and modeled) by men. Especially main character of the games The Scorchers DLC, Sarah, is something from 90s media that we didn't need back. 

But yeah, even though characters and story are not Rages strengths, they do their job. Somehow.

Rage is a hybrid of open-world sections and more traditional straight-forward maps, which is both its biggest strength and weakness. Open-world parts are boring, you'll be driving a car from one place to an another in a canyons, so open-world aspect isn't even so open-worldly. There's some fighting, but most of the time I just drove away from enemies to get to the next mission. World is your typical apocalyptic wasteland, so there's not even anything to look at. On-foot sections at least are little bit better mostly because a big arsenal of weapons, which make fighting fun. Unfortunately too many times enemies just became bullet-sponges, which is okay in some games, but when you can headshot most of the enemies and not others, it's... not fair. At least in my opinion. And yeah, most of the places you visit are pretty generic.

I almost stopped playing Rage for these reasons. I was about halfway through and didn't touch the game for about a month, and when I returned it was still as bland as before. And then begun the second act and I found myself in Subway City, which looked shiny and interesting. But after exploring it for a while I realized that it's just more of the same, just in a little bit more interesting casing.

I accidentally became a boundary breaker.

Yeah. This is not a great game. But you wanna know what I really, really liked in Rage? Nail gun with rebar as an ammo. That might just be one of my favourite weapons ever on video games. Its so powerful and fun, though slow, which forces you to aim your shots perfectly and do some sneaky tactics to not die while reloading. Most of the other weapons are pretty good too, but I found myself using nail gun almost all of the time. 

*SPOILER ALERT*

I fought my way through the campaign, just because I wanted to see what kind of mysteries where waiting. Maybe there would even be a big and epic boss fight! But no. Last level of Rage is a sci-fi tower (Citadel, anyone?) with previously mentioned bullet-sponge enemies, and the climax is.... pressing few buttons, short cutscene and fade in black. And then you are thrown back to the wasteland with a little congratulations message and opportunity to finish any (very boring) side missions. 

I have never felt so angry after finishing game. Like, what just happened? Was this all for... that? Did my actions matter? WHAT IS HAPPENING?

And that is why I'm so negative about this game. It forces you through repeative missions with a promise of something interesting happening at the end, but it never delivers. It's a slap on face.

I had to Google if this could be really that. And yes, unfortunately it is. In Reddit players have said it's the worst ending ever in any video game and share many of opinions I shared in this blog. Even Polygon wrote an article about Rages ending. It feels that developers ran out of the time, or spend so much time on the visuals (which still hold up pretty good) that they forget to finish the most important part of the single player game: the campaign.

I really wanted to like this game. Unfortunately it's a shallow Borderlands wannabe without the charm that game has. It tries, but in the end, it really doesn't matter. 

I wonder if Rage 2 is any good?

My Thoughts on Dragon Age: Origins

Back when Gamestop was still a thing they used to offer this ”buy 3 & get the cheapest one for free” sale or something, which of course let me to get many games I still haven’t touched, like Total War: Napoleon, R.U.S.E., and Dragon Age: Origins. First two I understand because I'm not the biggest strategy game fan, but DA? It was such a big thing when I was younger and praised everywhere. so why I never played it?

That I do not know, but this year I finally gave it a try. And maybe it was a good thing that I waited so long, because I can see myself getting bored with it at younger age. On it's worse Dragon Age: Origins is outdated, slow and difficult, but at the same time it has immersive world and characters, and certain charm which is hard to explain. But I'll try.

The Bad

Let's start with the negatives. I realize that this game is already 13 years old (released in 2009) and many of the mechanics are outdated. Graphics look pretty good still, at least on my potato PC. Gameplay itself reminds me of Runescape or something because you can click stuff instead using WASD, which you can use too though so it's up to you which one you like more. I prefer WASD movement and I really hoped that DA would offered some kind of way to look around with mouse without keeping mouse button down all the time, but what can you do? Maybe there's a mod for that. Otherwise control are your typical western RPG stuff, nothing fancy but they work.

I have very complicated feeling about the world and story of DA. Even though my sessions lasted hours without me even realizing that, yet I still found the world underwhelming. DA offers your generic fantasy setting with all the elements we're grown to expect, and at the times it felt too much Lord of the Rings ripoff - I personally prefer something like Tales from Earthsea. There was little bit Witcher but not enough. But when the game is good, you can overlook some generic aspects easily. What irritated me though was the main story. I never felt engaged to this ''Grey Warden, save the world'' stuff, I just wanted to adventure with Leliana and Shale. Game forces you to make big decisions, which is normal for story-driven games but it's kinda weird that young mage, who just left the Mage's Circle would suddenly be the most influencing character in the whole country. In Skyrim this works because that game is silly, but in DA's more serious settings it's just... weird.  Dragon Age's world feels empty - we have these huge fight scenes with thousand of troops, but when you enter the biggest city in the game there's like ten or twenty people. I understand this as a technical limitation, but still. 

I also have problem with male gaze that's going on. it's not so bad as I expected, but still especially Morrigan, a character you meet early in the game, feels mostly just some developers sexual fantasy and not a real person (just look at the outfit they gave to her). This goes with many characters in the game, as they lack some personality - for example another early game character you meet, Alistair, has no understanding for anything that is little bit ''grey'', where as earlier mentioned Morrigan gets angry when you act like a good person. Worldview of DA characters is too black and white for my preferences. To DA's credit, it sexualizes a lot of male characters too (Zevran, I'm looking at you) but it either way all the romance stuff feels forced. Male - female stereotypes live strongly in the world of DA.

I need to play other games in the franchise and maybe Mass Effect games too, because I feel that there's a lot to analyze on how these Bioware games represent sexuality and gender stereotypes. But that's something for the future. I just wanted to bring out how I felt while playing, as I remember gaming magazines and communities praising the romance in DA back in the day. Representation has developed since then, thankfully.

The Good

It might almost sound like I didn't like Dragon Age: Origins at all but that's not the case - I really enjoyed my playthrough. Game has charm but mostly it's very addicting. It's just hard to stop playing as there's always a new quest waiting or some new interactions to... interact? What a sentence. Even though I said some negative things about the interactions and socializing with the characters, in many occasions this interactivity is the best thing about the game. Other characters really take notice on what you're doing, comment on those things and even have deep conversations about yours and their actions during the story, which adds to the overall experience. I especially like the dislike between Morrigan and Alistair, as these two are always on each others nerves. Leliana to has some great interactions with other characters. Others on my party, not so much. It's clear on which few characters developer gave most of their time.

Combat was pretty good, and once you get a hold of it, it's pretty tactical too. I was playing as a mage which gave a whole new level to playing as I couldn't just ran into battle and smash everything into pieces. Instead I enjoyed striking my enemies with spells that made them freeze from horror, fall asleep or just unleash an fire tornado on them. I tried other classes a little bit through the other characters on my party, but only golem one (Shale) felt a little bit interesting compared to what I normally tend to play. Enemies were little bit on the stupider side, but that's fine as so am I.

An another thing I'd like to bring forth is the way DA captures screenshots while gaming and thus saves some of the most important moments on your adventures .It was nice to go through those screenshots and remember things from the beginning of the game as it also adds a little description to each one, telling what has happened. It's a little thing, but for a person like me who still has a physical photo album to remember things I've done this was a nice bonus.

Game is a little bit clunky sometimes, which gave me some good laughs - for example I was on flames on the final scene. It's always fun to play a game that's just enough broken.

And that's my thoughts on Dragon Age: Origins. It's a really good game, but would I play it through again? Probably not. But if you like old school RPGs and being social with computer people this might be just a perfect game for you.

Revisiting Fallout 3

I played through Fallout 3 years ago and it was okay. Not great, but okay. I enjoyed my time with it though, but for some reason in my head I created this attitude towards the game that it was complete poop. Maybe it’s because newer Fallout games have so special place in my heart, maybe I didn’t appreciate this old schoolish FPS/RPG enough. Whatever the reason was, I just felt that I wouldn’t ever return to Capital Wasteland.

Until I did. 

Drugs. Not even once.

Emerging from Vault 101 to face the dangers of Wasteland felt different this time. I decided to skip the main story and just went wandering, which was the best decision I could have made. Exploring and finding new places while escaping dangers was much more interesting than following the main story line which in my taste is pretty bland. And taking a different path led to some interesting adventures, like searching for Nuka-Cola Quantum, making money by selling slaves and hunting Deathclaws for sport for example - my character became a little bit a psycho to be honest, but that was fun. Throwing Tenpenny’s body out of his tower and walking around in his suit without anyone noticing what has happened made me giggle out loud, like so many other silly thing that just happened, thanks to broken game engine and AI that does whatever it wants.

I have still my problems with Fallout 3. It’s showing it’s age at this point, and sprint function is something that it needs, though there is mods for that (which I forgot to download…). Difficulty is varied, as some points are just too easy and the next moment you’re getting your ass kicked by swarm of radscorpions that came out of nowhere. Then again, this keeps exploring interesting as you never know what kind of fight to expect. There are some cool and interesting NPC’s and quests, but too many just start repeating themselves pretty soon, and as the map itself is empty compared to later Fallout games there’s sometimes nothing to do. Don’t get me wrong, I like to get bored in open world games (and that’s a whole different blog post I could write!) but world of Fallout 3 is mostly just boring. It underlines the fact that this is supposed to be a destroyed city though pretty well. Maybe my decision not to fast travel has something to do with this too.

This guy had a lot of problems.

I had few mods installed but nothing too fancy. Mostly quality of life stuff and some cool armors. 

Unfortunately my adventures came to an end thanks to updating my OS to a newer version. After that Fallout just broke and is not launching at all. But that's okay, I got to do mostly everything I wanted and more - and as I had no clear point set where I wanted to stop my playthrough I think this ''forced'' one worked pretty well.  

In general, Fallout 3 felt better second time around. Yes, it’s getting old and outdated and might be a shock to play for younger players but it’s still something that should be experienced, at least to be able to appreciate how far open world games have come. 

Your typical Fallout experience.

Ps. I'm back! Though don't expect too many blog posts in the near future as I'm still wondering what kind of texts I want to write and I just don't have enough  free time right now. I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins, Earthbound and The Legend of Zelda: Oscarina of Time right now, so there might be some blogs about those games coming at some point. Until then, stay safe out there. And play games.