Freebird coward and games we (dis)like

Hmm… it’s 9:20, I don’t really want to blog more now. Actually, instead of writing long articles about tiny things, I’ll write tiny articles about tiny things:

Freebird Coward

Games We Hate into Games We Love

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Freebird Coward

The other day Duy said “Nobody fights fiercer than someone who hasn’t saved”, in reference to when we fought Legretta. Hehe, it’s funny cuz it’s true. If we haven’t saved in a while, we can’t be as risky – so we’ll use life potions a bit earlier than usual and take less chances.

The same is true for Freebird – Freebird is 9 minutes long, with the first 4.5 minutes being really easy and the rest being pretty hard. So, after playing for 4.5 minutes, it feels like you haven’t “saved” for 4.5 minutes – so if you die, you have to start back at the save point, which is the beginning of the song. So we learned the other day to do freebird co-op expert/expert, we should play a bit… cowardly. So we tend to use star power a bit earlier than usual, for example, instead of waiting for us to be flashing red, maybe we use it at low yellow or first sign of red.

I think that’s how we were able to beat freebird… play cowardly.. haha.

Games We Hate into Games We Love

Hate is a pretty strong word, so I’m just using it for emphasis. Lately, there have been at least two puzzle games that turned into RPGs, which makes the game a whole lot more fun. These two are Bookworm Adventures and Puzzle Quest. It’s easier to emphasize puzzle quest, so I’ll talk about that.

The “parent” game of Puzzle Quest, I think, is Bejeweled, or many other similar games like that. In this game, you have a grid (8x8 or 10x10 or whatever) of blocks, different coloured diamonds or whatever. All you do is click on a block, and then click on an adjacent block, and the two blocks will switch places. If you connect 3 or more blocks in a row or column, they disappear, you get points, and more blocks fall down from above, possibly causing chain reactions or whatever. If you do not connect 3 or more blocks, you lose points. Uhh, I don’t think the game ever ends, unless there are no more moves, and then they give you a new board.

So that’s all you’re doing – you’re switching blocks around, to eliminate blocks, and to get points. What’s the point to a chain reaction? More points. What’s the point to eliminate more than 3 blocks at once? More points. Anyway, I think this type of game is quite boring and unsatisfactory.

But then comes Puzzle Quest – an RPG where you fight bad guys using puzzles. The gameplay is essentially the same, but the goal is different. This time, you take turns with the bad guy on clearing the board, and different blocks on the board mean different things. For example, if you clear 3 skulls at a time, the enemy takes damage; more skulls, more damage. If you get a chain reaction, you can take extra turns. If you clear 3 yellows, you add to your yellow mana bar; 3 reds, red mana bar, and etc. 3 purples raises your experience, 3 gold coins give you more gold, etc, etc…

Just like regular RPGs, you can start with different classes, which gives you access to different spells; and when you gain enough experience points, you gain levels and you can put your skill points in bettering different magics or other attributes.

So as you build your mana up, you can use up your turn to cast different spells, some that heal, some that damage, some that clear some of the board, etc… so… umm… it’s fun. In Bejeweled, you do the puzzle to get points. In this, you do it so that you can defeat the bad guy, to survive, to cast special magic effects.

So, deep in my heart, I know I’m playing the same game, but it’s much more fun now, even though I know I shouldn’t like it so much. The same is true for Bookworm Adventures - you spell bigger words to deal more damage, and you acquire special items to make different words have different effects. Like, there's an item that, if you spell words dealing with "Metal", you get to deal more damage, or if you can use X, Y, and Z's you also deal more damage. It's so much funner like that.