Smörgåsgaming

Before I get into the meat of the post, I'll just mention that I picked up Deadlight because it's one of those free Games with Gold. I don't know anything about it.

I spoke a little about Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry last time, and since then I've beaten it. In fact, I've completed it, having rescued hundreds of slaves and achieved all the achievements. I certainly enjoyed the whole thing, though there was one particular mission that I must have spent about an hour and a half on, just to get the 100% sync criteria, because it failed to register the first time. At least it wasn't totally broken like the King Washington DLC. Definitely worth picking up if you enjoy the series, and I thoroughly enjoyed the part on the sinking ship, it was very well orchestrated.

I'll also talk a little more about Nier. I gave up on doing the annoying side-quests and just rushed headlong into the plot, and it is making me enjoy the game more. I still don't understand the point of Kainé's clothing, and I hope there is one, because otherwise it's just a ridiculously lampshaded design choice. Game is fun, plot is interesting, keep it coming.

Been doing a little bit of speedrunning lately. Unfortunately due to events outside of my control I'm not going to be attending Crystals for Life this year. However, I still hope to join in during the bonus stream portion and do the two games I was meant to. To that end, I've been doing some more attempts at Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness. The start is tricky; I need to get a Blaster in my initial dumping-of-money-in-a-pond and the chances of that happening aren't too bad (50%) but the need for a decent farming point in the first dungeon is paramount and the chance of that happening is difficult to measure but from experience minute. I did manage to actually get a run to the end but it was slower than my current PB (45:17) so not much to report really. The five Create scrolls I bought for the last fight didn't work at all... a quick perusal at my disassembly of the game's code did not reveal a reason why: either being a Cleric or having an Intelligence above 90 should guarantee the spell's success. Blah!

Second speedrunning game is Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires! Emily has much enjoyed slapping thousands of Chinamen to death so I suggested we try running through the game quickly and this happened. Now, those are only first attempts and could benefit from a bunch more planning (and not losing battles) but it has still been fun and I look forward to improving them. Unfortunately it's rather annoying to stream/record right now because I don't really want to use composite video; the in-game map is blurry enough on HDMI. Maybe someday, but for now they are 'records' without videos behind them.

Final game to mention is El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. I knew virtually nothing about this game other than "it is weird" when I bought it for cheap. Now I've beaten the damn thing and I still know almost nothing about it, other than it is beautiful and definitely worth whatever I paid. The combat (modelled on Devil May Cry) is fun, though a little difficult to specify exactly what move you want. The visuals are spectacular; I had more than a few moments where I thought I was playing Klonoa again, especially during the sideways platforming sections. It's an excellent game, truly different, yet does not seem to have much exposure. I would very much like to speedrun at least individual levels of the game.