No, they have nothing to do with each other, I just wanted to have an excuse to post pics of Luke.
Isnt he cute? He's a Border collie, Australian Shepherd mix. He's also a hyper little meatball. One if his eyes is totally awesome, its half brown, half blue.This weekend he woke me up by leaping onto the bed and landing right on me...35 lbs of fuzzy slobbery dog plopped down on my chest and stomach...OWWW.
Our puppy has been sneezing a lot and his eyes are red, so we took him to the vet who told us he has allergies...
Oh the irony...He's a dog with Hay fever who comes from 2 breeds of outdoor dogs...And while he suffers with his allergies, I suffer my allergies to him AND the great outdoors.We can be drowsy on Allergy pills together :p
So now that I've shown off our squishy fluffy doggie I shall move on to something relevant to at least part of this blog's name. (the GAMES part)
So 3 years ago, I bought a game called Lost Odyssey, you might have heard of it. Its an RP for the 360 by Mistwalker.Without spoilers its basically the main character's (kaim) search for his memories. He's immortal and has amnesia..wow those are some original ideas there huh? lol
Throughout the game your party will meet and fight along with other immortals and humans.
Kaim has the personality of a bag of doorknobs, but his dreams, which are told in text form with music and sound effects for ambiance are incredibly detailed, and beautifully written. They are also wrist-slittingly depressing and WILL make you cry.
One of the characters you meet early on is Jansen, a human, a mage, a spy and a smart ass. He's also the best thing to happen to that game. Whether you find him annoying or you love him, he add some much needed levity to the story.
So I set out on my journey with Surly Kaim, assclown Jansen and another incredibly annoying and stupid immortal pirate chick named Seth.
We were doing well, I was having fun admiring the scenery, laughing at Jansen's comments, fighting random battles...no worries.
Then, I came upon this one battle...this battle with a giant blue worm thing and little blue bugs. Bugs and a worm, how hard can that be?
Last time my husband said "this seems straighforward enough, how hard can it be" while playinga game, we got our asses handed to us.
It was true then and it was true for Lost Odyssey.
That stupid worm sat there doing nothing, while his little bugs attacked. I tried wailing on him...but he didnt die, what he did was suck up the little bugs' magic every turn until his meter was full and then he hit me with a paralyzing beam that destroyed my party.
So then, I tried again and went for the little bugs. Finally killed them all, but not only had the worm gotten enough magic out of them before they died to attack, he summoned more of them mid battle.
As you can probably guess, my party ate dirt.
Third times a charm....
This time, I did the one thing you NEVER want to do in an RPG...have each party member attack a different enemy. Unless you are fighting pushovers that die in one hit, its stupid to divide your party's attacks because while they will weaken multiple enemies, they dont take any of them out, and even weak the enemy can hit you back and kick your ass.
But I was desperate. I chose 2 bugs and the third person went for the worm. I went down even faster this time.
I kept trying, mixing up those approaches and getting my ass handed to me, til about the 12th try....
The bugs were dead, my party was barely hanging on and FINALLY the Bogimoray (that's the worm's name) fell down dead. I was about to start jumping on my bed like a 5 yr old, cheering my victory when another worm popped out of nowhere with his squad of bugs and the fight was on again.
With my party out of magic, and almost out of health it took about 30 seconds to destroy us. Dejected I turned off the Xbox, put the game in its case and went off on a rant to whoever would listen about that damn blue worm that fucked me over.
When I calmed down I went and read the walkthrough on Gamefaqs and it seems that with my last encounter I had the right idea but I took it too far.
You want to kill some ofthe bugs, til you are down to 2 or 3. then beatdown the worm, as he summons more bugs, you keep this strategy up. Eventually, He'll bite it.
I thought about going back and giving it a try, but I was too disgusted with my constant deaths at the hands of Shai-Hulud's distant blue cousin that I didnt bother trying again.
Time passed, I moved on to other games but, Jansen had stuck with me. (actually I developed a bit of a crush on the pixelated comedian. and plastered him as wallpaper for my psp, my pc and laptop).
I thought about trying again but I had other games and other things to do...so finally i broke down and totally cheated. I went to Youtube and watched the "jansen-centric" cutscenes.
I laughed, I cried and I wished I could get past that damn worm and get to those places myself.
Usually I hate spoilers, turns me off a game, but not Lost Odyssey. Seeing the ending made me want to experience it for myself.
As you know, lately I've been ALL about the Gears. I've played online with friends (Hi guys! *wave* and strangers (yes, Gears 3 got me over my fear of online. its just too fun to not play with others). I've played alone, and with my husband and kids. We've done splitscreen co-op, we've done system link. Its ALL gears ALL the time. And while I will be playing Gears for a while to go (bought the season pass.. MATAKI!!!!!) I need some non-Gears time, cause I'm really starting to develop an unnatural crush on Baird.
Out of all the games I own and could have picked, I pulled out Lost Odyssey last night. Everyone in my house seemed a bit lost and confused over my choice.
A few minutes after firing it up, Both blue worms and their minions were dead and my whole party was alive and well and I thought to myself...why the hell couldnt I do this before?
One theory, After all the games i've played between my first try at Lost Odyssey and now, I've rethought out my strategies in turn-based combat. I made sure to utilize each characters special abilities, and appropriate roles in order to greatly increase my odds of winning.
Another theory, I came into the game calm and not frustrated and dejected from multiple losses.
The non-bullshit truth..I got lucky. First try, followed the recommended approach and got lucky. So now, I FINALLY get to move on and enjoy the rest of the game.
Its been 3 years and the game looks just as beautiful as it did then. The graphics are lovely and the colors refreshing. It can stand by newer games without shame, actually its prettier than MANY games i've played in recent memory. The gameplay is pretty straight up traditional turn-based and it works well.
Its gonna take me a while to get through it since its 4 disks long but, considering I've seen how it ends...its totally worth the time.
Besides how can you resist a game that did a promo video to the music of Jefferson Airplane? White Rabbit is AWESOME!
1 comment:
now i understand why you got that game. White freaking Rabbit is one of the all time great songs in history.
and it sounds like that was quite an experience.
and Lukes mom was an al-bhed lol
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