Wife plays: Dark Souls 2

(This piece is a draft I found lying around from June 2014)

I've been trying to get my wife into Souls -series ever since Demons' Souls. Maybe I've been too pushy at times and that might've put her off or maybe it was the fact that for the past 5 years she was really concentrating on her PhD thesis?

Whatever the case, imagine my surprise when one evening I come back downstairs to find her actually rolling DS2 character. Before I went to put our daughter to bed I jokingly said "well, maybe you could play Dark Souls, dear" after she complained that she didn't know what to do for entertainment that evening.

She has seen me play DS2 (and those that came before it), but mostly only when I've died and she's lifted head or peeked i to the room to see what all that cursing was about. As such, she knows what the game is about. Never the less, she decided to roll deprived: a class that in effect is not a class but more of a blank slate. She did spend good deal of time customizing her character in other aspects though and seemed very pleased. I stepped into living room just after opening cinematics and she hadn't yet gotten a chance to actually play.

"What the heck man! I haven't even been able to play yet and I am 15 minutes in!"

Don't you worry: that'll be the most exposition you will ever get in the game. Rest you have to scrape together yourself. I love that aspect of Souls -series: nothing is handed to you and you piece it together yourself. Another great thing is the atmosphere. But actuaöly both are usually love it or leave it type of deals. We'll see how she likes it.

I tried to protest against using deprived, but she was adamant about it. Fair enough...

After leaving the firekeepers hut, she went through all tutorial fog gates without too much of a problem. Jumping tutorial was her first (and thus far only) death. Pretty damn well for a deprived that has only a dagger! Although she left all 3 cyclops well alone (and thus missed 3k souls and Stone Ring). I have vowed that I would not interfere with her playing unless she asks for help. Let her find out everything herself. That's the beauty of a Souls game.

One thing must be mentioned though: she though well until first bonfire in Forest of Fallen Giants that she needs to hold R3 to lock on. Her camera suddenly wasn't jumping all over the place after I released that tidbit of information.

But so far: very nice! 

Notes about 'Remember Me' (PS3)

(I originally put this draft together in June 2014. I'm publishing it now just because.)

So I just finished Remember Me on PS3. Here are a few notes I took while going through it.

• Getting all the collectibles is a total pain in the ass since game locks you out from going back very frequently.
• Tampering with memories is a great idea in theory and actually in practice (gameplay wise).
• There's only set amount of these instances; you can't go poking around everyone's head which is a real shame.
• Memory alteration can have multiple different results depending on what you do, which is interesting.
• Story was pretty good even though game was tad short and apart from memory alteration sequences, gameplay was nothing to write home about. Not bad in any sense, but nothing great either.
• I am hoping for a sequel with much more open world and ability to dive into anyone's head; imagine breaking into somewhere and a guard catches you, you quickly dive into his memories and erase that particular instance from his memory or replace it with something else.

Retrospect: Lightning Returns - Final Fantasy XIII

I have to say I quite enjoyed Lightning Returns. Even though the paradigm shift -style battle system is still there, it suits 1 main character story much, much better. Story also gave Lightning some character and personality, finally, and collecting different outfits, weapons and trinkets to customise the schemata she is using in battles was interesting and kept rewarding diligent play. I am emphasising diligent play because in Lightning Returns time flows ever forward. You only have a set number of in-game days to complete your objectives and after which you're thrust into the final battle. This keeps tension and pasing up fantastically! There's pressure to complete battles well because that rewards you with more time units to spend on abilities which in turn help you complete quests easier.

Hope is unfortunately there, but he is by some miracle not an insufferable tool like he was in previous two games.

It is previous console generation game, but that also means you can get it cheap nowadays and I highly recommend anyone who is least bit interested in gorgeous, well made and polished JRPGs. It is a JRPG at heart and it shows through NPC interactions and wild, wild, balls-to-the-wall insane story, but is also a Square-Enix game that epitomises their ability to create solid gameplay experiences.