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smashbuddies · 7 years

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Part Nine: Side Quest

Ding-dong!

Daniel groaned, and buried his face into his pillow, just barely awake. Maybe that was just his imagination. So he could just peacefully drift back to sleep and...

Ding-dong! Ding-ding-ding-ding!

“Oh my fucking god!”

It took all his effort, but he dragged himself out of bed, eyelids still heavy. The one day he wanted to sleep in, and some goddamn, piss-brained, piece of shit fuckhead had to abuse his poor doorbell and his ears. Well, he was going to give the fucker a piece of his mind.

He stomped down to the door, fists clenched at his side, and swung it open, ready to yell. But he instantly deflated as soon as he saw who it was.

Snail.

They looked pretty miffed for a second, before staring at him like they didn’t even recognize who he was. After a short moment, they blinked, and intelligently said, “Uhhh, are you another weird clone?”

Daniel promptly slammed the door in their face.

He was such a fucking idiot. At the very least he should’ve gotten dressed, but no, he had to be a fucking hot-head and answer the door in his goddamn pajamas with his messed up hair. There was no way he could live this down. They’d seen him at something other than his best, and that was unacceptable.

Maybe he could pretend it never happened.

So he went back upstairs and made himself look half-presentable. At the very least, put on a nice suit and brushed out his hair. Then he made his way back to the door, and thankfully, Snail was still there.

Unfortunately, his rash decision to change just made the situation even worse.

“What the fuck was that?” they asked, glaring at him with their arms crossed. “I show up early for once and you slam the door on me?”

His face grew hot. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh, so you’re trying to tell me that wasn’t you that answered the door looking like you just woke up?” Their outrage melted away into something much, much worse. They gave him that stupid Grin he hated and said, “You look pretty cute with bedhead.”

“That wasn’t me,” he immediately responded with, even though he knew it was a terrible lie. “It was Daniyal.”

“Really,” they said, as if asking if he was really going to stick with that. “Daniyal?”

Just then, Daniyal popped in from the kitchen. “Did someone say my name?”

Daniel turned and gave him a very pointed look. One that said you better say the right thing. “You answered the door a minute ago, didn’t you?”

Daniyal frowned. “No? Why?”

That son of a bitch.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Daniel suddenly asked, teeth clenched. God, he could throttle that bumfuck bastard. “Like with Andy?”

“Right, yes! I made some soup for them, I really hope they like it.” Daniyal ducked back into kitchen for a split-second before emerging with a sealed container. After squeezing his way out the door, he said, “I’ll be back later!”

As soon as he was gone, Snail gave Daniel a look. “So, you wanna go for a different lie, or do you wanna admit that you wear Mario pajamas to bed?”

“Alright, fine!” he snapped harshly, face as red as could be. “Look, I didn’t think you’d be coming over so early. Sue me.”

“Well, you always get pissed when I show up later than noon,” they said bluntly as they brushed past him. “I thought I’d be a good boyfriend for once and show up nice and early. Didn’t think you'd be taking a page from my book today.”

Daniel huffed and carelessly slammed the door shut. “I had a rough night.”

They gave him a cocky look from over their shoulder and teased, “Couldn’t stop thinking about me?”

“Uh-huh, sure,” he answered. Better to stroke their ego a bit than tell the truth. Then he noticed the backpack slung over their shoulder, and raised an eyebrow at them. “What’s that?”

They carefully set it on the couch and took a seat. “My laptop and tablet. I said I’d show you some of my art sometime, so…”

Right. He'd almost forgotten about that. Hell, that date happened, what? A couple weeks ago? Give or take a day or two? He remembered being excited about seeing their art. And that in turn kick-started the memory of him wanting to show them Sonic and Knuckles.

“Yeah, that sounds nice, actually,” he said with an earnest smile. “I have something to show you too, let me go get it real quick.”

He barely made it up three steps before he heard Snail call out, “You should change back into your pajamas while you’re up there.”

“What?” he bit out, backtracking just so he could glare at them. “Why the hell would I do that?”

They rolled their eyes. “Because you don’t need to be so formal inside your own damn house. Besides, I have to see you slip into something more comfortable eventually. So why not now?”

“You’re not wearing pajamas,” he pointed out, ignoring the ambiguously intentional innuendo. But really, if they had shown up in their sleepwear, he would’ve been pretty miffed, so his argument was weak.

“Well, that’s because I know how to dress like a normal person,” they readily countered, and oddly, their comment kind of hurt. “You don’t have to try and impress me. We’re dating, and we’ve already fucked a whole bunch. Just relax for once.”

Daniel stood there for a moment, on hand gripping the banister tightly. Normal, what would their punk ass know about normal? He’d show them.

A little while later, he came back down the stairs with his beloved Sega Genesis in hand. He heard Snail’s little hitch of breath, but pointedly ignored it in favor of getting everything set up. Plug in wires, make sure everything’s sitting steady and all. And maybe he bent over a bit, just to show off his ass a bit. It still looked nice, and he knew it

Dusting off his hands, he brought the controller with him as he plopped himself down on the couch and pretended like Snail’s bewildered stare didn't exist.

“Do you you wanna play first?”

“You actually own a t-shirt?” they asked, eyes not-so subtly raking him over. “And jeans?”

“Of course I do,” he muttered, playing up his bitterness just a bit with a side-glare. “I can dress normal.”

“You sure can,” they agreed. Then they leaned over and began to press quick, heated kisses to his neck. “You can also rile me up pretty good. Don't think I didn't notice what you were doing.”

A pleasant shiver ran through him, but he shoved the controller against them and said, “I was getting everything ready. So we can have a nice time playing a game together.”

They huffed and swiped the controller from him. “Not my fault you have a nice ass.”

After selecting Sonic, they stared at the TV for a solid few seconds, as if waiting for something to happen. Daniel huffed, and crossed his arms, already getting fed up with the wait.

“Well? Are you gonna play, or what?”

“Huh?” They blinked, and with a little testing, then realized that they sure as hell could move around. “Oh, I was kinda expecting a cutscene or something. You know, how games usually start so you don’t get lost.”

“It’s a Sonic game,” he argued, sitting back and watching them meander through the first zone. “Your only goal is to get rings, collect chaos emeralds, and go.”

“Well, I don't even know where I am!”

“Angel Island.”

“Okay, well, why am I collecting the fucking chaos emeralds again? You'd think Sonic would be able to hold onto the damn things.”

“Does it matter? Just shut up and play the damn game.”

Suddenly, the controller found itself in his hands as Snail huffed out, “You’re the video game expert here, you play it!”

“Fine!”

Not surprisingly, they spent more time griping than actually getting through the level. But that was fine. Daniel thankfully knew it like the back of his hand, and quickly found his way to the first bonus stage. Not his favorite, but he got through it just fine. Especially since the really important part was coming up soon.

Get the blue spheres!

From there, pure instinct took over. Right, right, right, right, get the rings, go straight, jump, left, left, left, left. For a moment he was taken back to when he was just fifteen years old, playing this game for the first time after school.

He just barely registered Snail speaking.

“Holy shit, you’re really in the zone right now, huh?”

“Hm?” Snapping out of his daze a bit, he managed to answer, “Oh, yeah. I’ve played this game a lot. Not usually on it’s own like this, but…”

Snail shifted. “On it’s own? The hell does that mean?”

“There’s a way to combine the cartridge with the one for Sonic 3.” Despite being engrossed in what he was doing, he liked answering their question and educating them. “Some sort of lock-on thing. I think it also works with Sonic 2.”

“What’s the point in doing that?”

Things followed a pattern from there. Snail would ask questions about some aspect of the game, and Daniel would answer while half-zoned out. He couldn’t see their face, obviously, but he could hear as each word from their mouth became more enthusiastic and interested than the last. Time seemed meaningless, and it just kinda slipped away. The only thing even showing its passage was each stage that Daniel cleared.

It was really nice to just relax with Snail like this for once.

Soon, he was at the last stage, flying through space as Super Sonic while Snail cheered him on. Their encouragements fueled him, and his heart stopped every time he crashed into something. C’mon, he was so close, he couldn’t fail now! Not in front of Snail!

Time stopped. He’d done it. The Master Emerald was saved, and he could relax. While the final cinematic played, he let out a deep sigh and set the controller down. The biggest grin slipped onto his face as a wave of joy washed over him. There was almost nothing more satisfying than beating a game.

“That was something,” Snail said, tone unreadable. But there was a smile on their face, so that had to be good, right? “I can’t believe how fast you went through all that.”

He shrugged in an attempt to play humble, but it didn’t work out so well. “I mean, that’s what Sonic’s about right?” After a second, his smile turned a bit more sheepish. “Sorry you didn’t get to play though.”

They waved him off. “I liked watching you, don’t worry about it. Besides, you’re really cute when you’re all into it.”

That certainly made him blush. To distract himself, he offered the controller to them, “There’s still Knuckles’ route if you wanna play.”

“As nice as that sounds, I think I’m kinda, uh, gamed out,” they said right before pulling their laptop from the backpack. “I wanna show you my art now, if you don’t mind.”

Honestly, he’d never thought about how digital artists did their thing. So when Snail showed him all the pieces they’ve done for different clients- or even just for fun- he was kind of blown away. There were all sorts of things, and they were all pleasing to the eye. Really, it was almost hard to believe that Snail could do all this.

“So people just pay you to draw for them?” he asked while they scrolled through their folder. “How does that work?”

“Well, they tell me what they want me to do and I give them a price. It’s not, like, and hourly wage kinda thing,” they answered, a small frown on their face. “It kinda sucks, but you know. Not nearly as much as it did when I first started off.”

He only nodded, not knowing what to say.

After a moment, they huffed. “Want me to draw you something real quick?”

It took him a second to register what they had asked. “Uh, are you sure? You usually get paid for that.”

They snorted and opened up some program on their laptop. “Well, you just spent two hours talking nerd at me, which you usually get paid for. Besides, I just need to warm up a bit. Won't be some big thing.”

His eyes glanced over to that TV, where the credits were just ending. “Alright, well, mind drawing Sonic?”

The look they gave him was almost taunting. “You really are a nerd.”

“Shut up.”

Seeing them draw was definitely a new experience. The tablet was certainly something strange to behold. His brain couldn't quite handle the disconnect between their swooping hand motions and the curves appearing on the screen. Almost as if it was some kind of black magic. Or maybe he was just old.

As if.

It surprised him when part of the way through, they pulled a picture of Sonic up. “What’s that for?”

“Reference,” they answered, eyebrows furrowed together with focus. “Can't pull him outta my ass. Besides, I need to get the right colors.”

“Right, right.”

Like he knew. Hell, the last time he seriously drew anything was when he was eight years old doing Inky for all of his school art projects. Since then it’d just been doodles in the margins of notes, tests, and then scripts.

While they worked, he asked the occasional question. Why are they redrawing over their old lines? How do they get the right colors? Thankfully, they didn't find it annoying and readily answered him just as he did for them earlier.

Eventually, he found himself leaned against them, eyes half-drooped while they colored. For once, he didn't feel all that on edge. Like he could just breath and be without anything coming in and ruining that.

“And… Done!”

He blinked several times. Sure enough, there was a smirking Sonic giving him a thumbs up right before his eyes.

“Cute,” he mumbled, sitting up and stretching to wake himself a bit. “I like it.”

“Good, good,” they said as they set the laptop on the coffee table, their voice having a bit of a sly edge to it. Hooking their arm around his waist, they continued, “You know, I think I've changed my mind. I do need a little payment for that drawing.”

Since he wasn’t a dumbass, he quickly caught onto their little game. But he’d play coy anyway, just for the hell of it.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, glancing over at them with a neutral look. “Name your price.”

They leaned in close, cheeks just a tad pink, and said, “A kiss.”

Wow. To think, this was the same person that would easily pin him down and tell him how hard they were gonna fuck his brains out. Getting flustered over demanding a simple kiss. It was so contradictory, yet so them.

Letting out a deep sigh, as if this was the most demanding task they could ever ask of him, he said, “Well, I guess I could do that for you. Since you did a pretty okay job.”

For a second, they looked offended, but he shut them up before they could get a word out by planting a sweet kiss right on their lips. With a low hum they reciprocated it, pulling him close so the two of them were flush against each other. The warmth and closeness had him wishing that little moment could last forever. Sadly, like every other good thing, it had to come to an end.

“Guess that’ll cover it,” Snail teased, eyes alit with joy. “Next time, though, don’t be a dick before you pay me.”

“Duly noted.”

A long moment passed where they just sat there, almost entwined with each other. Daniel could feel the slow rhythm of their breathing. Despite the sun still being high in the sky, he felt cozy enough to fall asleep right then and there. But an urge to say something hit him. So he did.

“Thanks for coming over,” he half-whispered. His heart pounded the word vulnerable into his chest. And he sure as hell was. “I like just hanging out like this. It’s nice.”

“Please, I come over all the time, you don’t need to thank me,” they said, sounding half-asleep. “Just keep getting me snacks and it’s all good.”

Prick. Still, that wasn’t too big of a demand. If they could keep having moments like this, then he wouldn’t complain.

Three little words filled his mouth with sweetness. Instead of letting them fly free, he swallowed them down. Was it too soon? He didn’t know. But that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

#smash buddies #pt9 #snailbitch #fic

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todonintendos · 7 years

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Top 5 Best and Worst Shrine Quests in Breath of the Wild

A few days ago I listed my favourite and least favourite shrines from Breath of the Wild, however I focused on what was inside of each shrine itself rather than what players must do in order to get to them, and this is where Shrine Quests become important. There are 42 of those in the game, and they’re missions that need to be completed in order to reach or unlock a shrine. For this list, I will be excluding all quests in which the shrine is already accessible before triggering the mission, as I’ve found a lot of those by just randomly exploring, so here it begins!

Also, spoiler alert, just sayin’ you may want to complete all of these quests by yourself before.

#5 (Best) - Shrouded Shrine

To kick off this list I could have picked any of the three mazes, but instead I went for that dark forest north of the Great Hyrule Forest because it’s more original and better designed than any of the three labyrinths. The gimmick is pretty much using whatever you find or is in your inventory to light up your way to the shrine in a completely dark forest. There are many treasures spread around, but nothing too interesting on the chests except a ruby. As you advance, you’ll begin to hear growls that become louder and louder, and when you get to the end the mystery unravels: someone at Nintendo decided it would be cool to put a Hinox right there, but you can just skip it and enter the shrine.

This shrine adds a sense of mystery and, why not, fear to the game, which you won’t see anywhere else in the vast wilderness of Hyrule, which is mainly why I like this quest.

#5 (Worst) - The Ceremonial Song

I know most of you actually don’t find this quest to be that bad, but it straight up confused me to the point I had to give up and come back way later in the game. The quest triggers when you talk to a Zora girl, and she sings a song containing all the clues you need to solve the quest. I was a bit early into the game so when I read “scale of light” I immediately thought of one of the three dragons, but which one? The question answered itself when I tried putting all three scales on the pedestal without success, only to find out later “scale” referred to the weapon, so I began looking for it when that old Zora told me he dropped it off a bridge... but what bridge? I looked under every bridge on the way to Zora’s Domain, didn’t find anything. He was actually talking about the “bridge” he was standing on, which I don’t even consider a bridge in the first place.

But this doesn’t end here, the final step was going to the pedestal and doing what the Mipha statue was doing. I don’t think I have to mention how much time it took me to figure out what she was actually doing and what I had to replicate... and that I had to do it from a certain height. As soon as I saw the shrine pop up... ugh... screw this quest.

#4 (Best) - Recital at Warbler’s Nest

Despite the urge to talk about how terribly cute the small Rito are, I’m gonna have to focus on the quest. It triggers when you talk to one of the five sisters at Warbler’s Nest. She will tell you that her four sisters met up to sing with her, but didn’t come, so you’ve got to look for them. All of the missing Rito are in Rito Village (shoutouts to the one sitting on the cliff that literally took me ages to find) and each of them will give you an ingredient, as the green bird won’t go sing unless you prepare her favourite meal: salmon meunière, which you do by mixing the three ingredients you get from the other sisters.

Once this is done, the five sisters will be finally reunited at Warbler’s Nest and they’ll play their song. Now the player must memorize the order in which they sing, and use a Korok Leaf to enter that pattern using the numbered rocks as a reference to reveal the shrine. This quest mixes two of the main attractions of any Zelda game: exploration and puzzles, and the shrine you get is not a blessing one... but it has a huge staircase.

Now that I’m done talking about the quest... please take a minute to appreciate the cuteness of the five sisters, specially during the cutscene in which they fly back to Rito Village. Also my apologies to the blue one for being an unhatched egg, never forget.

#4 (Worst) - Watch Out for the Flowers

The fact that this is one of the first shrines you’ll encounter after exiting the Plateau doesn’t save it from being among the worst. I’m talking about that infamous quest featuring the mad flower woman, who literally takes away part of your health is you step on her flowers too much. And by stepping, I mean just touching one single flower a little bit. Or you can also wait until you get Revali’s Gale and screw all the process up, but that still makes it too cheap. Get frustrated or skip everything, you decide what to do.

And don’t forget to burn all of the flowers from a certain distance when you leave using bomb arrows. She somehow won’t notice and you’ll feel like you’ve recovered all of the time you may have wasted with this one.

#3 (Best) - The Stolen Heirloom

Unlocking this one takes some time, as you don’t just need to defeat Master Kohga in order to trigger it, but also complete every secondary quest in Kakariko Village. Once you do, you’ll notice something strange at Impa’s house: that big fat orange ball is missing and that girl that gets shipped with Link way to much called Paya will tell you, sobbing, that someone stole it. After falsely incriminating a random woman who just wanted to cry the death of someone he loved (this is your fault Nintendo), if you head to the pedestal that’s next to the Great Fairy Fountain, everything gets suddenly real. Even more if you consider the lore of Kakariko Village.

Basically, the big fat ball was stolen by a big fat Yiga who is suspiciously stronger than the other big fat Yigas. I could talk about the fact that you just have to defeat him in order to unlock the shrine, but it’s the lore what gives the bronze medal to this quest on my list. Dorian, one of the guards in Impa’s House, is a former Yiga member who left the organization to look after his family, so the Yigas killed her wife as a revenge, and as they weren’t done yet they came back to steal the big fat ball which the game likes to call heirloom.

After kicking the Yiga’s butt, the first thing that came to my mind was that boy who was seemingly playing hide and seek with her mother for like, forever. You could think it’s just another NPC cliché, but everything changes when you find out that’s one of Dorian’s children. Then you’ll come across the game’s lore silently cutting onions in a distant corner.

#3 (Worst) - The Lost Pilgrimage

If you’ve played the game, you know what I’m talking about. All Koroks are cute, I must admit, but this one gets on my nerves, Scolting missions in videogames are generally bad, and this one is no exception. This mission is one of the three trials in the Korok Forest, and you have to follow a Korok without letting it notice you and, of course, trying not to lose track of it as he knows the way. And you don’t. The way becomes more and more dangerous as you progress, to the point where he runs back after getting scared without even telling you, and there’s a wolf ready to make things harder. And it’s not a short way.

The first time I did this quest I somehow managed to get to the shrine, but not complete the quest because I didn’t talk to the Korok once I was there. All I can tell you is that I tried again like 100 hours of gameplay later.

#2 (Best) - The Spring of Wisdom

Though you don’t really need to trigger an actual shrine quest in order to unlock the shrine, I just couldn’t miss this one. You’ve probably already seen Dinraal and Farosh flying around Hyrule, but what about Naydra? All the pieces of the puzzle put themselves on its place when you get to the summit of Mount Lanayru: the big blue dragon is possessed by that purple goo thing with eyes. And suddenly, a boss battle appears!

To defeat the evil forces taking over Naydra, you just have to fly next to him and shoot the malicious eyes with any arrows you have. Not too hard, yet not too easy, as Naydra moves and turns pretty fast and you can’t touch its freezing body. Despite the apparent simplicity of the battle, the setting is what makes it unique and different of anything we’ve played so far in any Zelda game. Once Naydra is defeated, you have to take a scale from its body and put it on the fountain to reveal the shrine. Make sure to say hi to Naydra whenever you find it while exploring!

#2 (Worst) - Test of Will

The main attraction of this shrine is three Gorons that don’t even know who you are and aren’t aware of you possessing either Fire Elixir or an entire suit that protects you from extreme heat in your inventory. This quest requires a bit of exploring to find, so you may already have any of the stuff required in your inventory... or you can rely of food, as it somehow prevents you from burning to death.

Now, just stand still for way too long until the Gorons notice you can handle heat better than they do. Don’t worry, they won’t notice you’re technically cheating, but they won’t give you back the five minutes you wasted by simply waiting.

#1 (Best) - Stranded on Eventide

Like if there were any doubts. Stranded on Eventide is the only quest where it just doesn’t matter what weapons or what enemies you’ve killed during your adventure (only hearts and stamina do), so it doesn’t really matter when you do this quest. This quest begins right when you step on Eventide Island for the first time, and the game takes away all of your clothes and weapons so you’ve got to start from zero, using anything you find as a weapon. The aim is to find three orange balls and bring each one to any of the three pedestals.

This is a challenge known for its rather hard difficulty, as it’s not about killing enemies as you’re probably used to do, but about avoiding them. You don’t want to face them though the balls are in the most dangerous locations possible. Heck, there’s even one on a Hinox, and the only alternatives are either climbing to his belly using his hand, or throwing something at his eye when he wakes up. But you can’t deny that the satisfaction of beating this is certainly worth it.

#1 (Worst) - Under a Red Moon

If the main problem with the previous worst quest was waiting, then you’re instantly going to understand why this is the worst quest in the game. You can be lucky and be able to unlock this shrine right away, or be like me and talk to Kass the night after the blood moon happened.

As you might have guessed, all you have to do is stand on the pedestal during a blood moon. And you have to do it naked. Unneeded detail that I bet at least someone missed and got even more frustrated... as unneeded as the quest itself, gotta be honest here.

And that was it! Those were my five most and least favourite shrine quests in Breath of the Wild... hope y’all agree! (probably not, though)

NEXT LIST: TOP 10 HARDEST KOROKS

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thelongestdamnreviews · 6 years

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Front Mission Evolved

I got Dad Titanfall 2 for Father's Day, and the mech combat inspired me to look at something I've owned for years and something else he finished years ago--Front Mission Evolved. It took me about seven and a half hours to get to the end on Normal and I in no way got close to 100% completion. I used an Xbox 360 controller but I did at least try keyboard and mouse a little bit. There's Multiplayer but I didn't touch it at all.

Front Mission as a series is typically a strategy RPG akin to Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. You have a number of pilots on your roster and they all have their own Wanzer, a giant humanoid battle robot they drive and fight with. A big draw is being able to customize not only the weapons the Wanzers use, but also the parts that make up their bodies, sometimes giving them different abilities. This game is not a typical Front Mission, instead it has more in common with Front Mission Gun Hazard (SNES game), where you control one person in a third-person shooter environment with some on-foot sections, though this is all in 3D.

Dylan Ramsey is just a typical Wanzer engineer. During a performance test of a prototype Wanzer, he learns of an attack by an unknown group of Wanzer pilots in the city around where his father works, so he rushes off in the prototype to go save him. From there, things get worse and Dylan ends up in the middle of a war. Good thing he's a natural despite no military training. And there's an ace-in-the-hole system he can use if things get too tough...

I, um, may have tried to color my Wanzer in the ‘blue body, white limbs, red toes’ Gundam style.

I actually had a little bit of trouble with the controls at first. I guess it's been a while since I've done a third-person shooter and I couldn't remember if I had inverted Y-axis or not. I'm used to holding the controller with the index fingers on the triggers and I'd bring them up when necessary, but I needed to change to middle fingers on triggers and indexes on shoulders due to how the game works its weapons. Your Wanzer has four weapon slots, one in each hand and one on each shoulder, and each of those four buttons is tied to those slots. The initial setup of a missile launcher on the left shoulder and a gun on the right trigger is fine, but you might need some coordination to use all four. Of course, the game has a weight limit vs power output system, so you won't have all four filled unless you use weaker yet lighter gear.

There are quite a few different parts and weapons to equip and naturally you unlock more the further through the campaign you get. One thing I found neat was that instead of having a typical RPG "buy part, sell part for reduced value" system, you keep the full value of the things you buy no matter how long you use them. When you buy a new part or weapon, you merely pay the difference (or are refunded it) between the old and new with zero loss. That said, I found myself low on funds especially during the last act of the game. You're given the option to replay any mission you've cleared previously, but I didn't go back and grind out money. Probably should have. You especially want a strong torso part since if that runs out of health, you're dead, but you still want strong arms and legs since those getting destroyed greatly screws your accuracy and movement speed respectively. But then you need strong weapons to deal with enemies, so where do you balance the budget? There are little money pickups in each map as well as mini-achievements for each mission that award cash when completed, but I didn't really try for those.

I had “Weapon Pack 1″ DLC installed already, as it must’ve come packaged from when I bought the game. They’re pretty nice weapons apart from their weight, if only because they cost either nothing or $100 to use, and they’re competitive with much costlier weapons. I honestly made use of these to offset my deficit, but I wouldn’t recommend shelling out real money to get around not having enough game cash.

Another neat thing I found was that if you die, you can go back to the Hangar and refit your Wanzer, and the game will put you back to the last checkpoint instead of having you restart the mission. If you're having trouble with one segment, maybe you just need to swap gear around to get through. I know I made use of this feature quite a bit near the end.

With the below gripe, this is the only time in the game where the changes are actually forced on you instead of the game saying you need X.

One gripe I had regarding the customization is that some missions require the use of specific gear. You need a long-range weapon for this one, you need this type of legs for this other one. It kinda gets in the way if you have a certain playstyle, though in a couple of cases, the requirements seem just arbitrary. I'm pretty sure you can't use quad/hover legs in the last mission because of the prerendered cutscenes and they didn't want to have a continuity error.

There are Battle Skills for each weapon type, and each weapon has a number of slots you can equip to them. Each skill has a percentage chance to activate when you use the weapon, and then it lasts for a set amount of seconds. Effects range from simply more damage to damage over time, to stunning the enemy or weapon-specific effects like homing missiles locking on quicker and shields taking zero damage. Remember to set your Battle Skills every time you change weapons since even changing weapons within the same type resets them!

While you sometimes have allies on the field, you don't really need to worry about them and it didn't seem like there was friendly fire...at least on your part to them. I'm pretty sure I got tagged by a friendly but I don't remember if it did damage or just did the stun animation instead. One of the parts you can equip lets you heal allies in return for all of your energy, but I don't think it was necessary at all, though having an on-demand heal is extremely useful, even taking into account the torso having regenerating health on its own. Maybe it works better in Multiplayer? Enemy Wanzers can have the same gear so you should probably kill the Engineers first.

Squishy meaty foot soldier VS giant metal killing mecha goes about as well as you’d expect. At least they can’t step on you like you can when you’re driving...as far as I know.

I honestly had quite a bit of trouble in terms of difficulty. Brawler Wanzers are extremely dangerous, partly because they abuse the "use melee while skating to inflict extra damage" feature, but also because they only hit your torso. And uh, also because they force you into a hit animation if they connect. Maybe kill the Brawlers before Engineers. A couple of the boss battles were troublesome too, mostly because they have really damaging weapons. Most telling was the penultimate battle where I had to retry at least 20 times. Even with the best torso part, either his missiles completely shredded me (dash under him to avoid) or his sword attack got me (back evade but watch for his fake-outs). And then the second phase with the EMP traps as well as the scattered ones... I really should have done some grinding, I guess. The actual final boss tripped me up a couple of times but it was a matter of avoiding his big attack and then unloading when he was open, and the second phase wasn't bad at all. I wound up actually using all four weapon slots for that one, and while they were weaker weapons, I think the alpha strike method worked out okay.

Four versus one just doesn’t seem fair to them, honestly.

I'm pretty sure I died at least once in every on-foot section. The controls are pretty similar, though you have just two weapons you carry with one in use at all times, you can't jump and instead do a combat roll, and instead of worrying about the health of individual parts, you just have a basic health bar that regenerates when you're not hurt after so many seconds. And you actually need to reload your gun. You have zero pilot upgrades so each section is pretty much the same in terms of how you'd expect to perform, other than enemy density and positioning. There are no timed sections there and your allies are still invulnerable, so you can probably do a better job than I did if you just take your time and stay in cover to heal up.

There are three sections where you're being airlifted to another area and you have to fire at the enemy using the ship's guns attached to your Wanzer. It's basically an auto-scrolling level but your guns and missiles have infinite ammo, just you have to mind their overheating. Those aren't bad, but you don't have a very wide angle of attack so something slipping by and getting under the helicopter can potentially hurt you a bit.

I almost wonder how much of the military’s money I wasted just by holding down all four fire buttons. Maybe that’s why I was broke all game?

The controls otherwise did fine for me, though I had some trouble setting up the keyboard and mouse controls mostly because of how many functions you need to set up, and I tried to make it as close to how I have Warframe's controls set, though that didn't work out too well. I also got so used to needing the Agility backpack to skate using B that I completely missed that you can skate without it by pressing L3. Remember to read the manual and controls!

I don't really have anything to say about the music, other than I didn't really notice it most of the game. The voicework was all right, but I noticed that some cutscenes had drastically lower volume for the voices than the rest of the game, and that kinda threw me off. A couple of the voiced lines during the missions seemed to get cut off immediately by another character but that didn't seem to break the game any the two times it happened.

The quirky miniboss squad would be right at home in a Metal Gear game. The twist: Kojima Productions actually is in the credits...

Each mission has 20 sensors to find and destroy, as well as three emblems to discover, as well as the mini-achievements specific to those missions. 100%ing the game would take some time, especially if you don't have a guide to hunt down the sensors, but the game is otherwise pretty short. No extra endings, no New Game Plus, though you can always play early missions with your late-game gear and steamroll the enemy. You don’t seem to unlock anything for beating the game, either. I think I got about all the enjoyment I could out of this, though.

It's not turn-based or grid-based, but Front Mission Evolved still isn't too bad of a third-person shooter with giant robots and secret government weapons. Someone who's really followed the series might get more out of it despite the gameplay departure, given some of the locations and the factions involved, but even someone new to the series could get into this. It ran well enough on my aging computer, but given it's a game from 2010... There are probably better games on the market, but I had interest in the series and I don't regret this purchase, even if it’s years down the road.

Zombie Wanzers. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a Metal Gear game.

#pc #recommended

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