Guild Wars, and My Life as a King

Shortly after Guild Wars came out, I created a Ranger/Warrior build that ended up becoming pretty popular since it was somewhat unorthodox. It was specifically used in farming loot from high level monsters in a few areas of the game. One type of monster in particular, the Grawl, became the primary candidate of farming with this build.

In Guild Wars now, each year for a character’s birthday, they are awarded a Miniature of a monster or character from the game. When I first heard about this, I quickly searched for a Grawl, and found there was indeed a Miniature version, but not available through birthday presents. It was a special promo obtainable at PAX (as well as a few other places, magazines, etc.). It was also pretty expensive, since they are pretty rare.

My goal since returning to Guild Wars has been to get myself a Miniature Grawl, and over the weekend, my goal was achieved. It seemed only fitting that Re Zon have one of these, since my entire livelihood in the game has been based upon continually slaying those poor Grawl. Fortunately, despite all of the nerfs/skill changes, the build is still plenty doable, and I was able to save up the money/items I needed fairly quickly. Woot!



Guild Wars is still hording nearly all of my game time, but I have been making time for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. I mainly play this after dinner when my wife can watch. I have to say that it definitely has exceeded my expectations – there is a lot more depth than I thought there would be - a story within a story. It’s also a lot prettier than I thought it would actually be, considering it’s a downloaded game.



There’s also (the very evil) Add-Ons you can purchase. So far, I’ve only purchased the additional 3 races (Yuke, Selkie, and Lilty) to add to the initial race (Clavat). It simply isn’t a Crystal Chronicles game without all of the races. Also available for purchase are new buildings, additional dungeons to send your adventurers to, different outfits for Leo, the king, and Chime, his hoochie chancellor.

I have to say that it is almost necessary to use the Nunchuck with this game, as moving Leo around with just Wii Remote is unbearable. I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I tried the Nunchuck and saw how much of a difference it made.

-Zon

PokeBrawl, Game Updates, WiiWare

I have an interesting situation... when playing Super Smash Bros Brawl, I enjoy brawling most with Pokemon characters. This may not be so odd to some, but I haven't been much for Pokemon. I played through and beat Pokemon Yellow on the original Gameboy many years ago, and while it was fun, I didn't pick up on the series again. I think it mostly had to do with the hype of Pokemon more than anything else.

But while playing Brawl, and testing out everyone, the characters I ended up liking were Pikachu, the Pokemon Trainer, and Lucario. During the Subspace Emmisary, my group of 4 always contained Pikachu and Lucario (along with Captain Falcon, and a random fourth) - and I'm certain that Nintendo knew back when the first Smash Bros was being developed, that this merging of franchises would have the potential to interest gamers in games they had not yet dabbled in...

So Pella (my wife), after seeing me brawl with the various Pokemon began asking questions about Pokemon, what the games are like, what they're about, etc. Not having clear answers for her, I've decided to pick up one of the DS titles on eBay. Though when we will have time for it is uncertain, as I recently got her into playing Puzzle Quest - and if you've played Puzzle Quest, you know how consuming it can be. And now that she's got another game that has pulled her in (like Zoo Keeper, Yoshi Touch & Go, and Animal Crossing did), she has began to notice how much better my DS Lite is than her original. So it will be off to purchase a pink DS Lite once the funds are rounded up...

Some game updates - Finished FFTA2 at 51 hours, though I most certainly didn't complete all of the side missions. Also, FFTA2 is coming to North America (finally!) on June 24, and includes some new features from the Japanese version (like stylus control - gasp!).

FFCC Ring of Fates story mode took 14 hours on normal, but after you beat it, you can start playing from the beginning with your current level and equips on Hard Mode (which features a new dungeon to explore, plus plenty of new loot). There's also a Very Hard mode, but I haven't played that far. The multi player (which can be played solo) would definitely be a lot of fun, but the game loses some points for no online coop. I've played Story and Solo Multi for about 25 hours.

I'm very excited about some of the WiiWare titles coming on May 12 - in particular FFCC: My Life as a King, and Dr. Mario. Dr. Mario will be playable online, and also features a demo version which you can send to a friend. Nice touch Nintendo!

FFCC: MLaaK is looking great, and while it is the most expensive of the bunch (1500 points), it is definitely the best looking. Plus it has become apparent in the past few days that Square Enix will be putting DLC out there for it (as part of Nintendo's Pay and Play deal).

March has been a great month for gamers. (and I won't even complain that we still don't have Everybody's Nintendo Channel either - whoops!)

-Zon