Highlights from the Temple of Trails II

Highlights from the fruits of the past few weeks of grueling effort. =)

Fortona Evil !!! I think its skills are better than the good one but I don't have any intentions to reborn them (or level them).

Fortona Good !!! (Managed to get both. Phew)

The overly paranoid slime... "Me Slime! You humans? Dun bully me!"

Probably the cutest character in the game... I still wonder what the axe is for.

The masochist slimes~ "Bully me!" Thankfully my routes were both the ones where I had to interact with the slime. HAHA! I had a nice chuckle and I like the big slime character arts.

The dumb looking clown Pierrot who wants to come along with you too...
I can bring Fortona along but not you. Sorry. (Unless you become a guardian)

Iphone Apps magazine with Guardian Cross Code and intro to Monster Hunter apps~

So today I was at Kinokuniya and I looked through some of the Japanese magazines.
I noticed there was one that was similar to the Famitsu iphone & Android...

These magazines showcase a ton of mobile games and usually have some promo stuff you can get in game that are limited to a one time use code. The last one I got was the other title that had promos for Guardian Cross except for that particular issue.

 So I checked my iphone and saw that the name matched. Obviously, I bought it.

After I got home, I opened the magazine and cut open the serial codes page (it's sealed up).

Typed in the numbers into there...

And voila! They added it to my stash...

And I received it into my collection.

Hestia, with her ability lock. I might try to get an Ace in the future when she becomes available to hunt for those short periods of time. She looks like she was selling matchsticks in the winter and helped people to light the matches up. =x

From Wiki: In Ancient Greek religion, Hestia is a virgin goddess of the hearth, architecture, and the right ordering of domesticity, the family and the state.

One of the 3 pages on Guardian Cross which shows the recent FFV tie in and the promo card notice...

SAO iphone app.
Everything you probably can think of has an iphone game in Japan that is the same genre with slight differences but ya...

"Monster Hunter Massive Hunting" app...
Promo item doesn't look impressive. Come on. I got that heavy sword so early in the game... =(
I might consider trying the game next time... but I had better redeem the code first over the next few days.
(Codes usually have an expiry date to them)

Monster Hunter Card Master G app.
They should have just tried to port the card game of Monster hunter to the phone.
(They had an actual card game but I don't think it lasted long. It might still be around, just that I don't know.)
I'd probably try the other title over this...

Just FYI, to set up a Japan itunes account, all you have to do is pick up a local address somewhere (say a shop) and use it for registration. Once you have one, you are free to download any free to play apps from the store.
(You just can't make purchases even if you want to unless you buy the itunes store card through internet or something. They need you to pay through the itunes store that you downloaded the game from.)

Vanguarding

I am midway of clearing the game on my second try. I've already gotten a grasp on the game and its intricacies. I probably can share about my findings soon.

Vanguard as a game is very well done in its gameplay, pace, deck building, randomness and its appeal. I am not a fan of how most cards are stuck to their own clans but that plays out one of the game's core mechanics.

For the 3ds game, it is very nicely done. I get to clock games and play against a variety of decks. I guess there is a limit to how good the AI can be since they cannot read into your future moves to try disrupt you. Still, you get very decent gameplay (if you discount their possibly not optimized decks).

I tried one online match but I did not play it well so I ultimately lost as the game dragged out. I want to secure some promo cards to complete the blaster deck before I challenge people again. (The promo blaster blade has no ability? Thankfully their trial decks come with playsets of everything)

Against AI, I have tried some other clans but those need much more polishing (and more cards).

Cards are surprisingly hard to procure. A playset of a common would need me to crack about a full box (of 30) and some high rarity cards may need 2 full boxes to see one.

Now, I'm not rushing to clear the game so I'll try to find out where the promo cards are hiding by playing every side game.

For the iphone app, I think the game might be one that you can eventually get a full team of the highest rarity for (I didn't get anything past R of N, R, R+, SR) since the means to get them are not exclusive to money payers.

The game takes some time to play because of its monopoly die roll system and the fact that you need connection for each roll.
The main parts I dislike are:
-the fact that stamina takes 10mins to charge 1 pt and it takes a few pts to make a roll
-the fact that your battle pts don't let you fight twice without a few more pts of recharge on the field

Gameplay otherwise is fine. If they tweak the above 2 points, it would be a very decent game I guess.

Temple of trials 2 - update 3

At level 40, the guard mistakes you for some helpers and wants you to help clear up the storage but says not to take the treasures.
My choice: Take the pots.



At level 50, the guy tells you not to press the button.
My choice: go for the door.
(I kinda want to know what happens if I press the guy but refrained from doing so)

So I managed to get to level 51 and face the boss who had Fortona Good and got a few stones for it. I was saddened to see Fortona's pic to be the same as Alm Fortona.



I guess you can't get both Fortonas reborn then. :( Maybe you can only get Fortona at try #3 and #4 again...

Temple of trials 2 - update 2

At lvl 30, the witch wants to complete her ritual and needs help. Crack the pots in the order of right -> left -> center.
My choice: crack as requested.

3DS: Vanguard - Ride to Victory

 

I got my 3DS package delivered today...

(Arrived in the country on Sat but FedEx couldn't clear the customs for it, held the package till end of Monday, wanted to send on Tuesday but sent to my home instead of my workplace where I told them to send to on Sat. So I FINALLY got it today.)

 

The 3DS I got was pink because it was the cheapest of the bunch. The next was at least $20 more.
To be honest, I initially thought I could get this at $200-$300 but ended up spending $300+.
I probably won't be buying anything next month.


 

Unpacked the game =)

 

I picked a girl for my character. Hard to tell from the above pic why... 

 

 

Here are the 6 characters to choose from.

 



 

I picked the Royal Paladin Starter so that I can get to my Blaster deck the quickest.

 

They gave me a free booster and I got Alfred!

Here are some codes (the ones in red) to get the promo cards, which you get a playset of.
How generous.

 There are 2 more cards, sleeves and a playmat.

 

 

Packs sure are cheap for Vanguard. I start out with 3350 of the currency and each pack costs 100!

The other games so far have packs at a higher price but maybe the money won from battles were higher. I don't recall that part.

 

I remember needing that for my first iteration of the deck until I figure out whether or not it is the better build. Now, he's a grade 1 to ride off Wingal Brave.  I spent some packs on the Shadow paladin pack and managed to get 1x Blaster Dark in the last pack.

I played a match vs Morikawa and I won, netting me about 7 more packs worth. 

 

I cashed it and I got Wingal Brave!

 

 

A game against Izaki and I got enough funds to buy out the box to get Majesty Lord Blaster in the final pack. (They sure know how to keep people at the edge of their seats)

 

Soooooooooo... It turns out that I can't actually charge the 3DS by plugging the charger into the socket. Upon google searching and reading tons of questions/answers, the voltage difference may be a possible reason as to why I can't charge the 3DS at all.

I think and I hope that getting a local 3DS charger would fix this but that also means I am stuck without being able anything more for today. T.T

(While I was going to ask shops about the 3DS, I learnt that it was region restricted like some game systems which means that I can't buy Japanese games at many places and I can't buy normal games to put into the 3DS. What's with that Nintendo??? That was why I gave up and just ordered everything online. I can only hope that the locally bought charger has nothing against the JP 3DS. I'll ask but it had better not be unusable.)

 

Here's my updated blaster page with the 2 new promo Blaster Blade and Dark on the sides of Majesty Lord Blaster. I just need to get one of the trial deck art for Blaster Blade and I would have 4 different art for it. I heard that Shadow Paladins may have a trial deck in June so I hope Blaster Dark (who has a cape in that art) is not a different Blaster Dark.

Temple of trials 2 - update 1

For those of you who want to know what the context of what is happening on every 10 levels, I shall help explain.
I will be trying the good side until the bad side is confirmed. The previous one had some ambiguous scenarios but it usually meant the more troublesome route. That rule cannot be followed this time.
I will leave the evaluation of what to do to you.

Lvl 10: Doggy hood bandit wants you to join him to get the people.
My choice: kick His ass (you get some stones).
Other choice: smack the people and take their stones.

Lvl 20: 2 girls are using the Hansel and Gretel idea of dropping stuff to form a trail back. They used stats stones for that. Lol.
My choice: pick the exit (get nothing).
Other choice: take the stones and make the girls lost.

And I managed to beat the 10 alm valentine specters (!!). Phew.

Mtg cards in the Mail~

So today, the physical cards I ordered from StarCityGames arrived in the mail.

 

At the bottom are some cards I need for my NaoDelver (still lacking a ton of cards).
I would probably take more than a year of slowly accumulating cards before I get the full deck out (if I bother or have the capacity to spend that much).

On the left are some free squirrel tokens...
(Why squirrels? Spirit or zombie tokens would have been better)
On the right is Japanese Baleful Strix...

Top left are 3 cards for my Highlander deck (irl) which I hope to play a tournament of, in Europe when I finally go there. That would be one of my "things to do" in my life. With my passion for 100 card Singleton, I have been trying to make a fully promo/foiled mono red deck irl. I keep them in my folder so that I can periodically look at them.

Top right are foil promo titans from the second batch of Duels of the Planeswalker.
(First was promo Liliana and Nissa I think.) They were cheap and I like titans.

When they say played, they really mean played. My Wasteland looks like it was picked up from a wasteland or maybe used to scratch something off the floor. (Lol) Well, I'm not gonna resell them so it's fine. They were relatively cheaper than what they normally cost (I think).

I originally wanted to get more but anything more than $200 and I can't use the cheap postage option. Zzz...

Temple of Trials 2

I was getting very inactive in GC to the point where I could not even bother to earn friend points but I logged in today to find the limited time dungeon event up from the update from yesterday.



I believe that there was some information that you can go with the light or dark route to get different guardians. I hope more information comes out soon so that I don't end up missing anything. :(

I can't believe that my random field team actually lost to their treasure chest boss: 10x lvl 60 valentine's specter.



To be fair, my team was quite crappy because I wanted to see the April fool special azi and vampire matron but even so, it has been a long while since I lost to field bosses. I guess they finally found a good setup to mow down players. Self destruct actually prevents revive and possibly last stand so that allowed them to keep on par with my kills while getting some from lvl4 deaths.



I'll try to go with a better set up.
Gonna bash the clown now. Hope his team isn't insane. (Otherwise normal players can go home)

Legacy - Food Chain

I recently saw a relatively cheap deck to make for Legacy: Food Chain combo.
Above is the maindeck I am trying now but I probably have to try it out much longer before I figure out what exactly is good or not in the deck.

The combo is simple: Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin = infinite mana to cast creatures.
Fierce Empath => Griselbrand => Fierce Empath => Emrakul (hardcast!!!)
The in between situations without Mishollow Griffin is not too shabby if you have Food Chain in play and Misthollow Griffins are mildly playable themselves.

It looks nice to make irl.

3DS T.T

So I went to scout for the nintendo 3DS today. It was $270 for the older version and $309 for the larger screen and another place had the large screen + 3 games (maybe a select few too) at $388.
Looks like it's quite over my budget actually. I guess the price for a handheld game hasn't changed much in years. I can't imagine the day my future kid asks for one. (Laugh)

I tried to look at ebay and 2nd hand ones but they were going at $200 at least. Found one at $140 but the seller has yet to reply to my msg. I'm kinda stuck now but I guess I would either try my luck at cash converters or think of 3 titles I want.

Vanguard
Monster Hunter 3G (ohhhh)
????

In any case, it's still early to make a move. Perhaps I could look around a little more before I make a decision. I guess finances is always a problem be it in the past or now... Thinking back, I find it quite amazing how much I used to save to get stuff like original games.

Recent happenings

I thought I was in good shape for the match vs my workshop opponent in round 5 of the CQ league with this opener unless my opponent would lead with a Chalice of the Void for 0.
My opponent played a turn 1 Metalworker which was quite bad for me.
I was distracted by irl stuff and I misplayed the hand which at the start of the turn I already planned the right sequence to do so I ended up being unable to cast Tezzeret on my turn which would make it so that my opponent had to have Staff of Domination (which he plays 4 of) or I would win. Alas, a resolved Metalworker would immediately spell my doom because everything would just plop down  next turn and I wouldn't be able to do much no matter what I drew into, even he had all lands I would not be able to do much with my potential draws unless I topdeck Tinker so I scooped in such a scenario.

Game 2, my opponent had Metalworker and Staff of Domination so I lost that.

Anyway, last week I bought some Vanguard cards at my local card shop when I went there.
Surprisingly, I couldn't get any Magic cards so I got some from Starcity game on the last day of its sale. I couldn't really buy more than what I bought because shipping cost past $200 became exorbitant ($50+??? It was about $10 for orders less than $200) and I figured dual lands could be procured locally instead so I decided just to get the less expensive cards.

I learnt some of the rules of Vanguard then and the rest I found out from opponents online.

I've been catching the anime from its start and I am quite impressed with the game and how it is marketed.

I found a Vanguard version of apprentice here and they have a chatroom on Evolve where you can occasionally pick up cardfights. I designed a Blaster deck but there is still much to figure out with regards to deckbuilding. I got some of the core cards of the deck from a person I talked to and he just so happened to want to liquidate his deck. The cards were much cheaper than I had expected (as compared to ebay). I think the card selling market is rather limited (ie online shops) so I think it is a nice market to get into for card shops.

I noticed that I could get 4 different arts for Blaster Blade so I am considering doing so despite not having even played one game irl. There are many aspects of the game to be proficient at and to understand or strategize and I am quite hooked to that. I am actually considering getting the 3DS (I hope it isn't expensive) and the game (which comes with 3 promos - Blaster Blade, Dark and the Dragonic Overlord) to get to play the game and figure out all the minute stuff I want to understand.

I find that the Nintendo platforms have very good card playing system like for Pokémon cards (my 1st TCG),Yu-Gi-Oh (never was interested in the physical cards for this game) and Duel Masters which I have played on emulators in the past.

I enjoy the "earn money buy packs, play against AI, play tournaments" type of gameplay that these offer (like Shandalar of Mtg and not Duels of the Planeswalkers). Too bad Wotc hasn't figured out how to do this after Shandalar.

Iphone app - Cardfight Vanguard Cray Wars

I was waiting for the iphone app for Vanguard to come and here it is on the Japan ITunes store.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't the game I hoped it to be (like the 3DS game to be released on the 11th) which lets you play the card game. Instead, it is yet another of the iphone card game genre (like Guardian Cross) that uses the same characters but in no way is the card game itself. 

Here's the title screen with the 2 very recognizable characters.

Here is the boss fight which is a turn based system that you don't make decisions for. Normal monster fights just conclude in a flash.

 

Like the other social games, there is a timer aspect to the game and it uses a die roll to move on the map.

 

Here's a dungeon which is just another part of the game.

I was quite disappointed that the game was not the actual card game but I can only play on to find out how good it actually is compared to the other card game genres.
Having played quite a few, I think that the main points to look at would be:

 

-the ease of getting the highest rarity cards, with and without real money
-the levelling system
-the amount of time needed to restore your playability of the game
-the amount of time you need to play each segment of the game

 

I'll comment again soon.

Ranting cos I can't do anything about it

I'm very annoyed that my round 4 opponent in the CQ league happily claimed his win against me by saying that he'll be online at a time, goes on, doesn't see me and not come back in the next few days that can be used to clock a match. It's one of those "read the fine clauses dumbass" situations so I'm at fault. I don't mind losing in games but not to this kind of sneaky behavior.

I conceded and dropped in the 2nd league when my opp and I couldn't get a match done and my interest has waned greatly in this style of tournament play when it becomes so hard to catch people online.

On my side, I was online at 10+pm-2am, 7am-10am, 6pm-12am, 6.50am only to see that the last login didn't change since sat night which would be sat morning on his side.

I guess people are competitive in some way. If people really want to win like that, I'm not going to bother with this.

Mtg - The faces of Jace

 Hmm... I thought I might as well elaborate on what I was talking about in the previous post.
So here are Jace in his 7 (!!!) forms.

Lorwyn Original , Jace vs Chandra Duel Decks, Manga commemoration ver of the DD, Agents of Artifice promo that you need to get from a US participating Store.

Jace the Mind Sculptor which is the best planeswalker thus far with 4 super good abilities and wins on its own.

The new Jaces, of which the new core set Jace is a brutal win condition and the Ravnica version that isn't too shabby.

 

Jace is hands down my favorite planeswalker (being blue and draws cards). They thought they could make bad versions of Jace but they failed. Yay Jace!