Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI - PC

Yet another year passes and another Romance of the Three Kingdoms is released, this time for the PC. I finally got a copy of this last week and I started playing with a fury. I must have been deprived of it since the big skip from RTK6. 

The game is about 1.2 gigabites and runs quite smooth on my old computer. As I turn it on and select my character I realize the interface has changed a lot. I owned RTK10 for awhile but didn't like it much. I don't like playing officers in another person's army. This one goes back to the idea of being a warlord in the warring states of China. I picked Sun Jian, my usual pick for my first go around. Of the three big warlords, I usually pick him because he has so much room to expand and you basically can just take empty cities in the south and south east. 

Now during the city months there is much to do. They have Action Points for every action and Technique Points that are rewarded to you once you complete a deed. For every 1000 TP you can upgrade your weapons on the tech-tree. Development of farms and markets are similar to development of land plots in Civilization 4. I totally like the new idea. It's different, but you can actually see the farms next to your cities. Additionally, you can destroy enemy farms and barracks before ever attacking the main city itself. Another thing you do besides raise troops, build infrastructure, and employ new officers is that you have to perserve "order" in the city. This needs to be done by inspecting the town, a new feature. Cities with low order will lose moral and troops will leave monthly.

The battles are not on a different screen but happening on the world map. I hesitate, but it's one of the most enjoyable battle systems so far. All the old tricks are put into play: attacks, tactics, and strategy. Some tactics from Dynasty Warriors: Tactics (PS2) are used here as you can do  class-specific attacks like Rake and Onslaught. You can confuse armies with your advisors and also do co-ordinated attacks by adjacent armies with the "surround" command. 

The Emperial ranking system is still in play. This limits your use of huge armies. It also makes use for characters with lower stats like Yuan Shu and Liu Biao - if it weren't for their ranks, I would have sent them to my rear towns long ago. I haven't dealt much with the system as of yet, but the "auto-set" feature is quite handy. I'll trust it for now.

Lastly, and most hilarious of the game is the intellect duals that have been added on. Characters sometimes enter "debates" where they battle each other with facts and ponderings which seems like life or death verbal volleys. I think it's just so funny! Here's a screenshot:

I have much more work to do in this game, but for now it's eaten about 10 hours of my time.

Dragon Quest VIII - PS2

Last Played: October 2008.

For the first Playstation 2 Dragonquest game, it will be remembered as the most traditional RPG in the console. It's odd to pack the playable trailer of Final Fantasy 12 on this game because they share very little in common. I think this is one of those games that will linger in your mind for days to come after finishing it, but finishing it, well that's not an easy task.

The odd thing about my playing of Dragonquest VIII is the three month hiatus that I took inbetween the 40th hour of game time. Life gets in the way of video-games.

It's odd how many hours I spent on leveling up here. Compared to the previous Dragonquests, this one wasn't that bad at all. Fly to the plateau north west of Empryea. Walk around at night, and you'll find metal babbles. Have all your guys on "follow orders" for tactics. Have the hero do metal slash, Yangis to attack regularly (hoping for a critical hit), Angelo do metal slash, and Jessica to cast the Accelerate spell. Keep up this pattern until it's your third turn, by then your speed is so high, even Jessica should be attack (for the chance of a critical hit). Somehow with this strategy I was able to gain six levels for each of my guys. I totally over leveled for Rhapthorne, and I found that it was the easiest Dragon Quest boss I ever fought.

The two shots shows my winning team in the monster arena. The rival team uses a metal babble, so you better get lucky with those critical hits. In the end you get a nice piece of clothing. But anyway, I just like taking screen-shots.

All in all, I really liked this game. From the British accents to the cell-shaded graphics, the game really brought you back to the Dragon Quest franchise. I found myself not wanting it to end, but it had to finish somehow. I know that there is a New Game Plus for a second quest, but I don't think I will have enough time for it. The ending contains one of the funniest surprises in recent RPG gaming; the true guise of King Trode. I laughed, and I gave myself a pat on the back.

Spoiler Picture of King Trode below!

Completion: Beat the game's first run. Obtained S-Rank for the Monster Arena.
Hours Spent: 86 Hrs. 18 mins.

1UP's Review

Civilization I, II, & III (PC)

Sid Meier's Civilization definitely made an impact on my studies when I was in high school. It was two folded: on the one hand it got me interested in history, on the other hand it distracted me from my studies big time. Yes, the game of battling other historical figures. The thing was, I was never good at battling.

The first one started it all. It had the turn-based building, the cities, and a tech-tree that lasts up into today's games. I spent a lot reading about the Wonders and really was aspired to read about history and travel through the world. Then there was another part of me that just wanted to work for Sid Meiers.

The second CIV featured the space colonization, hence the Antares subtitle. I really didn't play this much, but I got the gist of it. It kind of sucked that my computer wasn't powerful enough to play this. I do remember trade routes, and how annoying they were.

My attention for CIV3 came a lot later, long after it was published. I was in Japan and I had my powerbook G4 with me. There weren't many games available to Mac, and one in particular was CIV3. Now studying abroad is a fun and exciting thing, but if you ask anybody that's done it, there's a lot of down-time. During those hours of self-discovery, I played CIV. And yes, I'd get aggravated at it. The computer doesn't necessarily cheat, but they do plot together. Not only that, but they didn't have the fog of war, so they knew where your cities were. Not cool. I was able to beat the fourth difficulty against eight players once, but only through space race. For conquest, it'd be unimaginable.

Completion: completed all three, but not at highest difficulty.
Civilization = 40 Hours
Civilization 2 = 10 Hours
Civilization 3 = 60 Hours
Hours = 110 Hours

Dragon Quest 1, 2, and 3

Dragon Quest is the first RPG game I've ever played, and most likely, it was the first for many. It was released in 1986, yes, that was during Ronald Reagon's second term. We barely had 14.4k modems back then. And most likely the game was less than 1 megabite. We, as Americans, got the English versiona as Dragon Warrior in 1989 for the NES.

The game featured one knight out to save a princess. It was pretty much the entire plot. It introduced ideas like regaining your HP at the inn, saving at the cathedrals, and getting clues from villagers. Monsters like the Wyvern, Golem, Slime, and Dragons got their start in this first game. Remember walking through tunnels and you actually had to use the ITEM torch? Remember walking through the marsh and picking up a clue in the middle? The good old days.

In Dragon Quest 2 we explored the possibility of the party. While Final Fantasy already had the hero party of four members, DQ2 introduced a team of three. The cool thing about Dragon Quest games are that they continue after another. The descendant of Erdrick (or Eldrick) makes his name in the world. You actually can find your father towards the end of the game. Pretty fun stuff. It came out in 1990, so I can't remember much about it.

Dragon Quest 3 still had an attachment to the first two games as it was set as a prequel to them. It introduced a system of recruiting teammates with different classes. There were skill points in addition to experience points. This game really brought replay value into the series as you can pick different classes of heroes to finish the game. I remember the goof-offs became sages, odd way of doing things, but I guess they wanted you to suffer carrying a goof-off in your team until you can get him to the shrine for a class change.

All in all, these games really set the tone for NES rpg's, especially since Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were not ported over to the US.












[image from Entropypump.com]

I recommend this the Dragon Quest Shrine for more info on this series of games.

Completion: Completed all three
Dragon Quest 1 (x 4) = 80 hours
Dragon Quest 2 (x1) = 50 hours
Dragon Quest 3 (x 2) = 100 hours
Hours: 230 hours

Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3

How can we forget about Mario? He's only the most recognized video-game character in the world. So yes, I've had my share of Mario. Heck, I had to because when you bought a Nintendo in 1989, it CAME WITH MARIO. Remember that? When video-game console systems came with stuff? Yes, it came with Super Mario Brothers, Duckhunt, the zapper, and two controllers. Fun.

While I spent a lot of time on Super Mario Bros., I really didn't master it. I didn't "grock" it like the guys on youtube. No, I cannot beat the game in 20 minutes or however fast. I just learned basic plat-form gaming. It was a great time, and I have to admit, you miss those simple side-scroll games here and now.

Super Mario Brothers 2 enabled you to use the Princess, Toad, and Luigi. Yes, we all loved Luigi, but the Princess can float. Each of them had special abilities, so it became a sort of "Lost Vikings" kind of game. Not the greatest game, but I remember a lot of fun getting the star: 23 seconds of invincibility? Not bad.

Super Mario Brothers 3 was the one that everyone loved. I remember when it was the rave when we saw it in the movie "the Wizard" with Fred Savage. God that was a silly movie, but of course we all wanted to be that wiz kid. My favorite aspect of SMB3 was the suits. Yes, you gotta love the suits! I mean, back then all you had were the overalls and then the white over-alls if you had the fire-flower. But in SMB3 you had the Frog Suit, Racoon Suit, Hammer Bro's Suit, etc. Awesome fun. These three games will live on as the great ones, but will I ever play them again? Most likely not.

Completion: Completed
Hours: aprox. 60hrs.

01 - Heroes of Might and Magic V

Well, there you have it, the fifth installment of the HOMM series. I have to say that... I loved this game! I have tried the third and fourth games of this series, but I never got into it. This time, I played two maps and got hooked.

Not really much to say about the game play, everybody knows by now that HOMM is a strategy-rpg game where you control armies lead by heroes. There are two types of play, the town building and resource acquiring aspect and the tactical battle aspect when a fight occurs. There are six types of troops this time (althought this being HOMM5): Humans, Elves, Dark Elves, Wizards, Demons, and Undead.

The story is of Agreal, the expeled demon on the quest of saving the human queen, Isabel. Through the worlds and leaders, we find great leaders and dark plots that have been set in motion by the demon lord. I just completed it and the four "good guys" linger in my mind: Findan, Godrick, Zehir, and Raelag (Agrael). I will definitely try the add-on and perhaps try "hard" difficulty soon.











Completion: Normal Difficulty
Hours spent: 60Hrs

Another blog site... maybe I'll get it together

So this is my 3rd Blogger website, and I think this one will definitely stick. I hope so. I really hope so. This one is going to track time spent on one of my oldest hobbies, video-games. I guess it's stupid to track time spent on video-games, but it does put my life in perspective. Have you ever done something all your life, without knowing how long you've been doing it? I was in Japan and during introductions amongst new friends you always talking about hobbies. One guy said tennis, for 13 years. Another girl said piano, for 8 years. A German guy actually said he enjoyed soccer, but only watching. When it was my turn, it was odd, because I'm the type of guy that floats from one hobby to another. I ended up saying Video-games. The one thing that I've been "doing" since I was nine-years-old. Yeah, that's right, it was 1989 and I was playing the Nintendo. My 19 year old journey has lead me to the Nintendo Wii. All those hours spent on it, if I had to count... well I can't. That's why there's this site.