Friday, April 10, 2015

Haunted Empires + some other stuff

These past few days I've been playing a mobile game called Haunted Empire - Ghosts of the Three Kingdoms. This your typical "MMO"RPG mobile set-up, where you can summon units, discard those you don't need to improve the ones you do need, fight in the "arena," and plenty of other junk to keep you occupied. It's not a bad game, but it does do some odd stuff. Such as the combat being completely automated. Most games of these types (Brave Frontier, Summoners War) allow for at least some input while the fighting is going on. That's not to say that you aren't given some control; there are plenty of pre-battle options to tweak, such as your formation.

The game is fun, though perhaps not the best game of this type I've ever played. Summoners War still (for now) holds that title. One neat thing is that you really don't need to spend cash on the game. Sure, if you want to be the whale-of-whales and be the absolute top of the server list, paying will probably benefit you. Especially if you start on the server late. However, the game literally hands you gold whenever it can. For example, it gave me 300 gold just now for logging on today and that reward grows each day I log in. The game also likes to hand out ten gold coins for every other thing you do. I'm currently reviewing the game, so I should have the review out in a week or so and I'll link it then.

Another game I'm playing for review is Running With Rifles. It's a fantastic top-down shooter that I've been having a blast with. It's actually one of the better shooters I've played in general. Unfortunately, this is a game I haven't gotten a chance to play with anyone, so my sessions are usually short. Just a match at a time, usually. I'll be finish this review up today or tomorrow.

In other news, I've been getting a Harvest Moon bug again. With Stardew Valley development coming closer to release, I've been itching for a farming game to play. I broke out my old GameCube to play Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life and I've also stumbled upon an amazing Harvest Moon-like game called World's Dawn, which is completely free and already has a partial release. I've been having fun with World's Dawn the past few days, playing infrequently. I'm only about four hours into the game so far, but it's been great.

And that reminds me. I've downloaded a PSP Emulator to check out some of the homebrew games they offer. And that got me hankering to play a few other PSP games. So I dug that out. The games I want to play are (surprise!) Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley and Persona 3. Hero of Leaf Valley is actually a sort of remake of my least favorite Harvest Moon game, Save The Homeland for the PS2. The remake should be a lot better, as they add in the marriage system and tweak a few of the features to be more in-line with the Harvest Moon style.

I've never played a Persona game, but when I asked it was suggested I start with the third game before checking out the fourth. I don't know quite what to expect, just that it's sort of a life simulation game mixed with the fantasy elements that come from the Persona story. So hopefully it will be fun. In the past, I've thought of trying the game but I never end up going through with it. I'll also probably be checking out Rune Factory 3 within the next few weeks.

A last bit of news: I've started a Sandbox group on Steam. If you'd like to join, head over to here. Over the next few days I'll be updating the group with recommended sandbox games and whatnot. I'll also be writing a couple of other blog posts over the next few days. I'm currently working on an "Age of Wushu: Cash Shop Review" to help give people a more in-depth view of how the cash shop in AoW works, as well as a general descriptions of the stuff you can get with real money. I also want to compile a list of awesome Harvest Moon-inspired games like World's Dawn.