Turn-Based Strategy with a Heart

For some odd reason I felt a hankering to pick up Valkyria Chronicles again.  Maybe it's because the fourth installment of the game is coming out in September; maybe it's because I think I have carpal tunnel and games with a lot of clicking keep making my wrist sore; or maybe I was just in the mood for some anime-style, turn-based, story-filled goodness--who knows?  The point is that I've been re-experiencing it, mostly having fun, and only sometimes yelling at whatever dumb choice I just made (RIP Alex...I didn't mean to get you killed).  I realized that I never really wrote up a formal review after the first time I completed the game, so here it is.

If you haven't heard of Valkyria Chronicles it's most likely due to the fact that it was originally a console port.  Not just a console port, but a console port that ended up being primarily released for handheld devices like the PSP.  A few years ago the first game in the series (there are three, but so far only one has been ported to PC) made the crossover to the magical land of the PC and I decided to pick it up.  I thought the story and characters looked interesting and that the blending of those aspects with turn-based strategy seemed novel.  I did feel a little weird about the whole anime-style of the characters--I'm not into anime and have always thought it was kind of strange, but found it mostly bearable.

The game takes place in a fictional country called Gallia that gets caught in a struggle between two superpowers.  A war breaks out and the citizens of Gallia find their tiny, neutral country invaded by the much larger and more powerful Imperial Empire.  Gallia happens to have major stockpiles of a resource known as "ragnite" that is used as fuel and the Empire needs it to help power its war machines.  The story begins in the peaceful town of Bruhl as the citizens work to fight a losing battle against the power of the Empire.  Players are introduced to the two main characters--Welkin Gunther and Alicia Melchiott--as they struggle to defend their town.  As the war spreads, Welkin and Alicia get pulled into the militia draft and find themselves part of the unit known as Squad 7.  Squad 7 winds up fighting in many of the major battles of the Second Europan War in an effort to keep Gallia from losing its independence.

Squad 7--Move Out!

Pros:
--Character-based story.  In many turn-based strategy games your units tend to feel like pawns that you move around on a board.  They typically don't have a backstory or anything that makes them feel unique--they are just some random class that can do some random thing.  Valkyria Chronicles gives each squad member their own unique story and abilities.  The main characters in the story get more screen time, but even the minor characters at least have some sort of backstory.

--Unique abilities that tie-in with each character.  Periodically these special abilities will trigger and give that character some kind of minor combat bonus.  One of the weirder bonuses belongs to Largo, who will occasionally get a boost from his love of vegetables.  Other characters might get boosts that improve their evasion rate or damage.  These special bonuses add to the uniqueness of each character.

--Many, many options for who you want to fill your squad.  There is a very long roster from which you can pick up to 20 different characters to be part of your team.  Throughout the game new characters are added and you can alter your roster at any time (between combat missions).

--Combat missions have quite a bit of variety.  There are many different environment types and missions can vary from being more offensively oriented to being more defensive.  Each mission has its own challenges and part of the fun is figuring out how to overcome them.

--You can swap team members out during combat.  It does cost command points, but allows you to utilize the units that you need at the time when you need them.

--Command point system is somewhat flexible.  You can choose to issue orders, which are like buffs that can boost one member or the entire squad, or you can use all your points to have your units move and attack.  Learning how to utilize both is the key.

--Choice in how to spend experience points and the money earned on missions.  You can spend XP learning new orders or head to the training field to level up each individual class.  The money you earn can go toward unlocking special story-based chapters (which usually involve a combat mission that grants more XP and money) or toward R&D to develop new weapons and equipment for your tanks.  It's up to you how you spend both.

--Killing enemy aces offers bonus XP and unique weapons.  Part of the fun of each mission is finding and killing these special enemies.

--Positive, uplifting story.  At first the members of Squad 7 find themselves bickering and questioning each other, but as the story stretches on, they eventually find each other becoming like family.  They are able to overcome serious differences while fighting in a terrible war.

Cons:
--Combat mechanics are wonky and can be frustrating.  Each turn is made up of a certain number of "command points" which allows you to move a specific unit.  A unit can move and perform one attack on each turn.  The weird part comes when you attack a unit--basically you attack, then the enemy gets a chance to counterattack--the sucky part is that they will continue attacking even after they've finished their counterattack...your unit won't.  It behooves you to end each turn as quickly as you can after the enemy unit has finished their counterattack--if you don't, your unit will sit and get shot at.  There's also a bit of a delay when attacking that allows the enemy some extra hits.

--Moving units can feel cripplingly slow.  There are some maps that are very large and it takes forever to get everything into position.  Some units have very low action points and take forever to move.

--Tanks are difficult to drive.  Somehow they are partially impacted by the camera angle so steering them requires trying to position the camera and pick a direction on the keyboard.  Don't be surprised if your tank is all of a sudden turning in circles or doing something completely opposite of what you're trying to do.

--Characters are unique but do feel a little stereotypical.  Take Leon, the tank mechanic, he is described as a "free spirit" and says "bro" a lot.  The main characters for the Empire also feel a bit like goofy, villains.

--Story is positive (which I like), but can feel cheesy.  Maybe it's some part of anime that as a non-fan that I just don't understand--but when there's blushing and weird, eyes-closed laughter....I get sort of cringey.

--Combat ranking system is never really explained and can be confusing.  Basically, the goal is to complete each map as quickly as possible.  Higher scores result in more XP and money.  I am a failure at combat rankings and am lucky if I get higher than a C.  I guess I am too slow and methodical to try for the mad rush.  I kind of don't see the fun in rushing through each map, but I suppose it is a big challenge.

-The PC version is plagued by a weird bug that can cause some sound effects not to work.  Anytime you take out an enemy sniper, the normal sounds of gunfire will be replaced by nothing or a quiet popping noise.  It's not something that's causing a crash or making the game unplayable, it's just something that's annoying (apparently it has something to do with Windows 10 and can possibly be fixed by changing your audio adapter settings to default.  I didn't test this, but some people were reporting success)

I enjoy Valkyria Chronicles for its story and characters--even if they are stereotypes.  The combat aspect of the game can be frustrating and is definitely the weak point.  There are better TBS games out there if that is strictly what you're looking for.  VC offers an opportunity for players to be invested in their characters rather than viewing them simply as movable pieces.

The Sky Ain't for Everyone

The last few weeks I have been trying to puzzle out how I actually feel about No Man's Sky.  I've spent 93 hours playing, so that says something, but I'm just not sure the amount of time that I've played automatically qualifies it as a recommendation.  I do think that it's enough that I've gotten a good feel for the game and what to expect if I was to continue playing...which, at the moment, I'm not.  After 93 hours, I've decided that I've had enough of the Sky.

Pros:

--The universe feels massive and the promise of having countless galaxies with almost infinite worlds to explore is absolutely amazing.  I don't know that I've played another game that has managed to capture the same feeling of the size and scope of an entire universe.

It's hard to tell from this shot, but this guy is huge.

--The procedurally generated fauna makes for some bonkers space creatures.  The part of discovery that I enjoyed the most was trying to find the many different species that populated different planets.  One planet I found was populated by these giant, bird-like creatures that stomped around.  Another one seemed to be entirely populated by different species of slime creatures.

One of the more bizarre critters I found.

 --Freedom to choose how you want to play.  There are several storylines that you can pursue and they are completely optional.  I did a few missions on one of the stories, but just couldn't get into it.  I opted to spend much of my time exploring.  There are plenty of ways that you could spend your time in-game--there are a ton of unlockable base building blueprints and someone who is into building massive, complex bases could probably spend hundreds of hours creating an amazing base.  There's an economic part of the game that could also be attractive to someone who wants to figure out the best way to earn money.  One area that I found enjoyable was looking for new ships or upgraded ships.  It's exciting to finally locate a class S ship.

--Runs reasonably well, even with an older PC.  I turned most of the settings down to low and found that everything still looked nice.  I know that there have been complaints of performance issues for people who are trying to keep things on the higher end of the spectrum.

--Multiplayer.  This was recently added, but now it is possible to explore the universe with friends.  It still has some kinks that need to be ironed out, but it's something that people have been clamoring for since the botched release.

--Finding a truly unique planet is awesome and is the entire essence of the game.  In my 93 hours I found two that were standouts.

This weird planet was made up of floating rock pillars.

--Nice built-in tools for taking screenshots.  There are a ton of options--different filters, the ability to move the lighting to different angles, and a movable camera that can be relocated to almost anywhere.

The blue grass planet took me by surprise.

--Customizable character.  This is also a relatively new feature, but you can choose exactly how you want your traveller to look.  You can choose to be the default "anomaly," or you can make a character from one of the four different species found in the game.  You can further customize the colors and appearances of your gear.

--Ships have a cool, space-y look and you can choose one that best fits your playstyle (if you can afford it or want to put in the time and effort to repair it).  There are several different classes and once you've acquired a freighter you can store up to 6.

--Exocraft are fun to drive and make exploring much quicker.  It's fun to plop down a geobay and then just drive around finding cargo drops or knowledge stones.

--Naming your discoveries offers a chance to put your own mark on things.  Or not.  I tended to only name the interesting planets and fauna and let the game name the flora and rocks.

Cons:

--The same massive universe that I mentioned as pro can sometimes be very repetitive.  There are basically four different types of planets--ice, toxic, desert (which is spiced up into a few different labels in-game--scorched, arid, radioactive, etc.), and paradise.  The minerals and rare items (like albumen pearls or gamma root) are found on the same planet type.  In my game, I found that the flora and minerals on the planets were almost identical--every tropical planet had palm-like trees, every desert planet had several cacti varieties--so, while there's an entire fun premise that everything is unique...well, it just doesn't feel that way after you've landed on your tenth ice planet and you're seeing the same rocks and trees.

--Side missions are boring and repetitive.  Fortunately, many of them involve doing tasks that you're probably doing anyway.  You don't necessarily have to do them, but they are one of the few ways to raise reputation with the specific species or guilds.  To unlock some merchants you must raise your reputation to a certain level.

--Main storyline is uninteresting.  I tried to get into it, but there was a lot of flying to one place, finding a thing, flying to a different place for one minute to find a holo-tower, and then rinse and repeat.  If you're hoping that there is some sort of engrossing story behind the entire universe...I don't know if it's really there.

--Ship buying/selling.  The only way to buy or sell a new ship is to park yourself in a location like a trading post, freighter, or space station and negotiate a trade.  You cannot sell a ship outright and must trade ships.  It's a bit of a pain and would be much easier if there was a ship merchant or console.  I wanted to use my best ship at all times, but I also wanted to try to upgrade some of my other ship classes.  Negotiating a ship price can be very hit or miss--some sellers are reasonable and others want a fortune.  I feel like this is needlessly complex.

--Exocraft aren't summonable like your ship.  You have to build an exocraft bay on each planet where you want to utilize vehicles.  For me, this really limited their usage.  It would be much, much more fun if you could summon them anywhere on a planet.  I also was irritated at the fact that you have to exit the exocraft in order to scan--why can the craft have the equivalent of a signal booster, but not a scanner?  It doesn't make a lot of sense.

--Bugs.  For awhile there was some weird stuff going on...especially with freighters.  My frigates would return from a mission damaged and then the components that were damaged wouldn't be marked.  Or they would simply fix themselves (which I didn't mind).  Another confusing bug happened when the marker for my base computer kept getting moved to my freighter.  Most of these bugs were fixable with a save and a restart, but I still don't think they've been fully resolved.

--Can feel grindy at times.  All aspects of your equipment need to be refueled/reloaded.  This means that you are constantly gathering to recharge your stuff.  I tried to plan my gathering during my exploring and it helped, but I still had moments where I was tired of running out of ferrite dust and having to gather a bunch more.

For me, the part that stopped me playing was simply a sense of repetition.  I realized that for those two awesome, unique planets that I found that I would be slogging through many that were basically the same.  I would be doing the exact same things on every planet--scanning for unique features, travelling to them, gathering items, scanning flora/fauna/minerals, etc.  Several of the reviews that I read used the term "a mile wide and an inch deep."  I definitely felt that, but I do think that with some of the additions to the game (things like base building) that there has been some depth added.

I can't completely condemn No Man's Sky, I have had a lot of fun discovering strange fauna, beautiful planets, and managing to buy the Qwib-Qwib 2.0.  I think some gamers will really love the exploration and discovery component of the game--in reality, I think that's a pretty niche group.  I think the game does deserve some of the scorn that it received for the botched release, but that Hello Games seems to be working to make it into the game that they originally pitched to people.

In the end, I can't say I fully recommend NMS and would urge any potential buyers to think about what they need in a game to stay entertained.  If you're turned off by repetition...it's probably best to skip.  If you're content in games that are open and exploration oriented...it might be for you.

I might return to NMS at some point in the future.  There is still so much to discover.  I am just not sure that I have the patience.

It's a Regular No Man's Sky Conundrum

As the title suggests, I'm still spending much of my gaming time trying to puzzle out the complex feelings that I have for No Man's Sky.  There are times where I'm generally having fun, there are times when I'm irritated, and there are times where I've genuinely questioned why I'm still playing.  Somehow, through this strange brew of emotions, I've kept going.  I've managed to find something exciting or motivating and that's what has kept me in the game.

The Fun
For me, the best part of No Man's Sky is exploring--I'm talking completely setting aside any of the main storylines and just flying to different systems and seeing what's out there.  Each new planet offers up an opportunity to discover new (and absolutely bizarre) creatures.  The creatures have definitely been the highlight as I have found some other aspects of planetary exploration to fall under the "irritating" category.

My strategy for exploration is to set down on a planet, scan everything within the general scanning radius, and then to set down the signal booster.  Encrypted navigation data is all over the place (most commonly in containers that require an AtlasPass V1 but also scattered around space stations) and I've accumulated a ton of it.  I like to run through the entire cycle of options that require navigation data and then head for those specific spots.  Depending on my current need for resources, I will usually try to drop by some resource nodes for some mining.  Occasionally, during my running around, I will stumble upon something that didn't get picked up by the signal booster--a drop pod or a crashed ship.  Finding those hidden gems is exciting and adds to the magic of exploration.

On the planet of Portlandia resides the massive Fredosaurus Rex.

I've finally grown tired of allowing the game to name everything and have come up with my own plan for naming--I'm going to name each planet, it's fauna, and zones after my favorite shows, games, and movies.  The first planet where I employed this strategy was the third "paradise" planet that I've found.  The warning message popped up to say that the planet has extreme weather in the form of boiling humidity, but so far I haven't experienced any adverse conditions.  The planet is largely covered with water and it rains all the time, so I decided to name it after the rainy city and setting for the sketch comedy "Portlandia."  I've begun naming the creatures after the different characters from the show and it still makes me chuckle when I scan them and see a Candace flying overhead.

A cheesy pose with my ship, the Qwib-Qwib.

Oddly, I've also enjoyed the task of repairing crashed ships.  I repaired a class B hauler called the Osairita Calculator XVIII and learned a few tricks along the way.  On one of my expeditions I discovered a better ship--a class A explorer!  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to upgrade to a better quality ship, so even though I had just sunk a bunch of time into fixing a ship, I found myself fixing another ship.  With my new bag of tricks, fixing up my new explorer was a relative breeze.  I decided I should name it in honor of one of the most unfortunately named ships of the Mass Effect series--behold, the Qwib-Qwib.  The Qwib-Qwib is highly maneuverable and has the cargo space needed for accumulating goodies to sell.  My next goal is to find one of the coveted class S ships.

In the process of trying to spruce up my base and complete the many base improvement missions, I finally reached the point where you can build an exocraft geobay.  Running around on foot was getting old, so having a vehicle is a massive improvement.  The Roamer exocraft is fun to drive around and greatly speeds up exploration.  It's nice to drive around and find new locations and resources.  There are also aspects of the exocraft that fall into the "irritating" category.

The Irritating
I started off with the positive, but there are also several parts of the game that bug the heck out of me.  One of the big irritators has been the fact that I've begun noticing that the variety within the planets that I'm exploring seems...well, somewhat disappointing.  I can bank on the fact that if I land on a toxic planet the flora will look almost the same as the flora on every single toxic planet--there will be some type of weird mushroom plant, a tentacle-y wavy plant, a green slimeball kind of plant....  In a way this makes some sense (evolutionarily, the plants would probably develop similarly in the same climate) but it detracts from the whole concept of uniqueness which is the hallmark of the game.  I'm hoping that with some more exploration (I will admit that I really haven't been to a large number of planets) that I will see more variety.

Reaching the point of finally having a vehicle for exploration was very exciting.  I stupidly assumed that your exocraft could be summoned to any location--much like your ship.  It turns out that you have to build an exocraft geobay on any planet where you want to use the darn thing!  The materials to build the geobay are mostly commonplace with the exception of paraffinium.  This means that I've had to resort to lugging around a bunch of paraffinium so I can drop a geobay.

There's another part of the geobay that I've been really questioning--why can't I build one geobay that can summon all three of the different types of exocraft?  It seems really stupid that I have to build three different geobays to be able to utilize the different vehicles (although I could see it maybe being very exploity if you could use all three vehicles and just fill up their inventories...).  I've settled on upgrading and utilizing the Roamer exocraft and probably won't use the other two at all.

Completing missions for the various alien factions can also be irritating.  The nice part of some of the missions is that they are things that you're already going to be doing like scanning flora or minerals.  The bad part of these missions is that there is very little variety within them--scan, kill sentinels, raid planetary depots, kill critters, feed critters, take a picture...it gets old quickly.  Raising your standing with aliens is vital to your ability to trade with them, so you can't really avoid completing these dull tasks.

Something else that I discovered through reading a couple of articles (which pop up on the Steam news page--PC Gamer Article, Kotaku Article) is that the multiplayer option is not without its kinks.  Twice I had random players join my game.  I didn't give it much thought and they seemed to leave the game fairly quickly.  I had a few brief panicked moments about how exactly those players could interact with my game world.  Could they raid my storage (not like I have anything overly valuable)?  Could they destroy my ships?  Destroy my base?  What exactly could they do?

My base is finally starting to look less sad.
  I wouldn't want it destroyed by someone vindictive.

It turns out that other players can do some of those things.  No, they can't raid your storage or destroy your ships.  However, they can destroy your base.  They can simply fly to your base location and delete all your buildings.  The really stupid part of the whole thing is that they gain absolutely nothing from it--they don't get materials or units, they simply get the pleasure of being an asshat.  Another really stupid thing that players can do is to rename and upload any discoveries that you haven't already claimed.

With this knowledge of absolute trolldom, I decided to turn off network play.  I don't want all the hours I spent gathering and building to be destroyed by someone with the goal of griefing.  I think the vast majority of players out there are probably respectful and I've read some cute stories of people working together and having a great time with a total stranger.

The fact that other players have the option to perform these kind of actions definitely falls within the irritating category.  I think it would be fairly simple to make bases off-limits to interaction.

I've also been kind of sad that the last patch nerfed my favorite chromatic metal refining recipe (1 copper +1 pure ferrite= 3 chromatic metal).  Now, you only get 1:1 :(

Questioning Why
In the end, it can all seem like one giant grind.  There's a constant need for materials to fuel mining or terrain manipulation.  Fixing up a ship requires a massive amount of materials.  Adding to your base requires more materials...  I've had several points where I've felt frustrated.

The Qwib-Qwib 2.0 in its shiny glory.

I'm really hoping that with some more exploration that I will find a larger variety of planets.  For me, the jury is still out on whether or not I feel favorably about NMS.

UPDATE 8/11/2018:  The Qwib-Qwib was short lived.  Behold the Qwib-Qwib 2.0, an S-class ship that I found docked at a small trading outpost.

UPDATE #2 8/13/18:
I finally found a planet that broke out of the typical pattern that I kept seeing.  The waving blue grass, constant rainfall, and strange floating islands were a very welcome change from having every paradise planet feel like a carbon copy of the last one.

Finally, a planet with some variety!

A Sky Full of....Confusing Navigation Symbols and some Stars.

Thus far, my adventures in the ginormous galaxy of No Man's Sky has only seen me visit three different systems.  I know, I know...I should probably be making more headway into different places, but it's just so dang hard to leave a planet unexplored.  Not only have I gotten distracted by exploring, but I've finally managed to unlock base building missions and have been trying to beef up my pathetic base (which used to be a one room shack with a teleporter, but now I have a small base complex with an overseer and science specialist--it's starting to look like an actual base!).  One of the more daunting parts of NMS is deciding exactly what path you want to pursue.  I've decided to simply meander down a bunch of different paths which means that I've made a tiny bit of progress on a few of random things.

I don't have a picture of my new ship, so enjoy this random critter.

The first random thing that I ended up getting completely zeroed in on was trying to upgrade my ship.  There is basically no explanation in the game about how to get a better ship so I had to Google a few pointers.  I kept stumbling across these bits of navigation data and had no idea that I could utilize them with my signal booster.  Navigation data can be used to locate specific points of interest on the surface of any planet--you get a few options for how you want to use the data, you can search for ruins (where you can dig up keys and unlock a large, ancient chest which usually has a piece of valuable loot inside), search for nearby buildings, or search for distress signals.  I was experimenting
 and chose to search for a distress signal having absolutely no idea what it might lead to.  As far as I can tell, distress signals will lead to either a crashed freighter (where you can search for abandoned cargo pods and unearth some loot) or a crashed ship.  Once you've located a crashed ship, you have the option of repairing the ship and recovering it.

Here are a few pointers if you've been wondering about how to repair and/or acquire a new ship:

1.) If you find a damaged ship on the surface of a planet, you can repair it.  The first thing that you should focus on while repairing is getting the ship flight worthy--repair the systems that are needed to fly (thrusters and the pulse engine).  Once the ship can take off, it will automatically fly to your freighter after you change back to your original ship (or save and reload).  Your freighter can store up to six ships.  After that, it's just a matter of cobbling together the massive amount of materials that are needed to fully repair your new ship.

The ship I found is a class called a hauler--as the name implies, it has a decent amount of cargo space to transport items.  I've been seriously struggling with the inventory limitations of my small fighter and hope that having a more spacious ship will allow me to find more items during my explorations.  The downside of finding a ship with a larger cargo hold is that it is requiring an unholy crapton of materials to repair all the damaged bits.

2.) Buying a new ship is as easy as going to a spaceport (or your own freighter) and clicking on a ship that has landed and then selecting the option to "make an offer on the ship."  Once you've chosen to make an offer, you can see the specs of the ship and enter into negotiation.  You can choose to either trade your current ship (which will figure into the total value of the trade) or you can buy the new ship outright.  The advantage of buying a new ship is that there are no repairs to be made.  Remember to swap all your cargo--if you don't, you can't get it back after you've traded.

It would have been great if these two facts had been explained in any way.  They aren't, so I had to either figure it out on my own or Google it.

Much of my recent NMS time has been spent trying to cobble together enough materials to fully repair the Osarita Calculator XVIII (my semi-repaired hauler).  I've mostly been running around, mining oodles of copper nodes to try to craft the bajillion units of chromatic metal that I need to fix everything.  While I've been running around, I've discovered that the navigation system in the game is slightly obnoxious.  Symbols pop-up when you scan--you can tag them, but they don't go away after you've mined a deposit or activated a knowledge stone.  Sometimes you can tag a symbol and keep it on screen...other times you can't (it's pointless to try to tag a settlement...it won't tag it..stop trying).  Navigation symbols for other planets will appear even if you're on a different planet, which adds to the mish-mash of stuff on screen.

Another part of navigation that bugs me is the whole concept of discovering new regions.  There are markers for specific "regions" scattered around the surface of the planets.  You can activate the marker to save and "discover" a region.  Discovering a region grants a bonus of units and the data can be uploaded for nanite clusters.  After you've discovered a region, there's no identifying marker or map information added, which sucks.  It would be nice if there was some sort of marker that would allow you to return to an area or at least make it easier to identify--maybe even a descriptor of some of the resources that you can find in the area.

I can't wait to finally repair my new ship and to be able to have adequate cargo space for all my discoveries.  The inventory management aspect of the game has been a bit frustrating so far.

UPDATE 8/8/2018:  It turns out that using navigation data to find distress signals can also lead you to a distress beacon with basically nothing near it.  There might be some damaged machinery to fis (and I would recommend that you fix it--I've found some good mod upgrades).  It won't necessarily lead you to a crashed ship--but there's a chance.

Another handy tidbit that I was kicking myself for not figuring out sooner is that once you've built a medium or large refiner in your base there are specific "recipes" which can make refining metal much quicker.  I was stupidly refining copper straight into chromatic metal which is a 2:1 ratio.  A much better formula involves combining copper with pure ferrite (which is abundant on every planet but does require an advanced mining beam) which yields a 1:3 ratio!  Way, way less copper hunting!