Tuesday 26 May 2015

Valhalla Knights 3: Skill Master List!

    A couple of weeks ago, Valhalla Knights 3 was on discount on PlayStation Store, for the great price of €4,99 (A joke). Even if I knew this is not the best game ever, I decided to buy it, as the price was luring enough. And now I'm here, playing it here and there on my PSVita.

    As a niche game, it is not easy to find english help for this title, apart from something on http://www.gamefaqs.com/ boards. There is much more material in japanese, where the game met more interest.

    This is why I decided to create a post here and there about this game, with interesting info I'm struggling to find on the internet.

    By the way, I'm liking this title alot, to be honest, as a relaxed game to carry around; moreover it's great on PlaystationTV, too. Pity for the loading times, that are quite annoying.

    So, first post is a list of all Skill Master available for this game; Skill Master are "secret" skills that unlocks for a character when you learn all the skills of a specific profession.

Prisoner
SBP Needed: 4590.
Name: Prisoner 25601.
Effect: Make it possible to equip every weapon (except firearms).

Fighter
SBP Needed: 3760.
Name: Challenger.
Effect:  Increase HP+500 and P. DEF+100.

Mage
SBP Needed: 3150.
Name: Great Magician.
Effect: Increase SP+500 and M. ATK+100.

Priest
SBP Needed: 2500.
Name: Holy Servant.
Effect:  Increase SP+500 and M. DEF+100.

Thief
SBP Needed: 2230.
Name: Thief King.
Effect:  Increase HP+1000 and SP+500.

Akatoki
SBP Needed: 4135.
Name: Unleashed.
Effect:  Increase HP+500 and STRK+100.

Archer
SBP Needed: 3265.
Name: Sharpshooter.
Effect:  Increase HP+500 and SHOT+100.

Soldier
SBP Needed: 3185.
Name: Mercenary.
Effect:  Increase P. DEF+150.

Samurai
SBP Needed: 3850
Name: Swordsman.
Effect:  Increase HP+1500.

Ninja
SBP Needed: 1645.
Name: Shinobi.
Effect:  Increase SP+1500.

Shaman
SBP Needed: 3450.
Name: Archmage.
Effect:  Increase M. ATK+150.

Merchant
SBP Needed: 3920.
Name: Great Fortune.
Effect: Receives 15% discount on all items at the item shops.

Amazon
SBP Needed: 1410.
Name: Warrior Queen.
Effect:  Increase SHOT+150.

Automaton
SBP Needed: ???.
Name: Ultimate Gizmo.
Effect:  Increase all stats.

Bunny Girl
SP Needed: 1950.
Name: Paramour.
Effect: Uses love to get bonuses.

    I hope the SBP Needed voice is correct. All these info are based on what I found over the Net AND from personal experience.

    I'm going to build a collection of game maps, and place them in another post like this!

    Good game everyone!

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood - Platinum n° 52

    Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, prequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order is my platinum n° 52.

    Votes:
    - Game: 8/10
    - Fun: 8/10
    - Platinum: 4/10

    This game is a well rounded single-player FPS with a good price, nice graphics, ok-but-not-striking story, great and various gameplay and fun B.J. Blazkowicz moments, especially if you're a Wolfenstein's serie fan since it's first episode in far 1992 ;) .

    The game is fun even at highest difficulty, as it's not so unforgiving if you're an FPS veteran; Moreover, if you adopt a stealth approach, you can skip alot of fights. Sure there are some quite hard fights, but nothing insurmountable.


    Platinum is fast to gain and quite easy. As mentioned the game itself is not that hard, and most trophies just come naturally or just need a bit of farming. Challenges are the true hard part, but after some tries you should be able to get the grip on them. As a general advice, remember that enemies can't clim ladders (not stairs: ladders): exploiting this AI limit can easy up your life alot, trust me ;).

    It took me around 14 hours to plat this game, without using any kind of guide and playing it at maximum difficulty on first run.

    If you don't apply last patches, there even is a glitch that allows you to play all the game on "Can I play Daddy" difficulty and just replay last chapter in "I Am the Death Incarnate" to gain ALL difficulty based trophies (Hero, Super Hero, Uber Hero).

    The game is quite easy to platinum without using guides and such, but if you need any help, here is a good forum where you can find it: http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/wolfenstein-the-old-blood/.

    I started The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt two days ago; I already checked the trophies list, and I don't think I'll go for the platinum for this title, but I'll play it deeply for sure, as it seems huge, fun, addictive and very well polished, even if the action side of the title (read: combat), is ok but not great at all. Still, game's direction is wonderful.

    P.S.: The digital version of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood has been released on 5/5/2015, which is the 23rd birthday date of Wolfenstein 3D.




Saturday 23 May 2015

PS4 and PlaystationTV marry Power Line Adapters

    This week I decided to buy PlaystationTV, mostly because I was tempted by the possibility to play PSVita titles on the big screen. As soon as the small but powerful console was delivered, I attached it to my 42" plasma, realising that the TV was way too big for the PSVita games, as the graphics really appeared awkward and heavily pixeled.

    Not that great problem, to be honest, as graphics is not the most important part of most the titles I play on the PSVita, but still it was a bit unsatisfying.

    So, in a rush of impulse, I decided to change the initial purpose of the PlaystationTV i buyed, transforming it in a secondary gaming location, basically installed on the bedroom, but easily movable to every place of the house I like.

    Now, the main problem was the router and the Wi-Fi range: my main "gaming" room is located in the basemend (really fresh during the hottest months of the year), with all my books, comics, action figures etc. etc., and with the router too, which is located very near to PS4, PC etc. The signal of my little guy has proved to be pretty strong, even if basement's walls are thick and heavy, but not enough to provide a stable and powerful enough connection for the remote play.

    I considered various solutions for this problem, such as moving the router or buying Range Extenders, but the first did not work very well, and I was not very sure about the latter (i'm pretty new to all this stuff).

     I turned to a local computer shop for an help, and the guy suggested me to try out Power Line Adapter, an ingenious invention that throw your internet signal on the electric wires, allowing it to reach places quite far from the router, as long as the target electric socket is under the same switch of the one where the router's Power Line is attached to. This kind of technology is pretty old, in truth, but today's devices are much more reliable and powerful than the old ones. This is perhaps the best way to extend internet coverage in your house, even if it is not free from issues; the one I was more afraid of was that it's suggested to attach the Power Line adapter directly to an electric socket (i.e.: not to a power strip), in order to avoid interferences from other devices on the same socket: doing this was pretty impossible for me as sockets in the house are all single.

    But the issue proved to be inexistent: after installing the Power Line adapters (an incredibly simple process), I turned up the PlaystationTV, eager to see the results, and they were amazing: remote play work very well with both streaming options set to "High", even if the PS4 is still under Wi-Fi connection. Sure, the game is not as smooth as if it is played on the original console (the gameplay feels somehow "gummy", if you get what I mean), but it still works excellently. I'm trying the remote play with Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, and it's very playable, even if you lack a bit of precision and finesse in controls; with a different genre of game, the results can perhaps be better, as FPSs in general require a greater degree of precisione compared to other kinds.

    To complete my new gaming location, I buyed a relatively economic Telefunken TV: 24" and HD Ready are enough to take advantage of PlaystationTV. I meant to spend even fewer euros on it, but this one was the less expensive I founded at the local store.

    So, in the end, here is what this "whim" costed:
    - PlaystationTV (discounted): €59,99;
    - Controller Dualshock 4 (discounted): €59,99;
    - Telefunken Tv Led 24"' Te24275B31T10E: €168,00;
    - AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter Starter Kit (TL-PA4010KIT): €65,00
    Total: €352,98

    Not an inexpensive solution, but hey, still less than buying another PS4 + another TV!

    Next step will be to try bringing all this outside, in the garden. The sun's reflexes will probably make it impossible to see the TV screen well enough to play, but I want to give it a try, as playing outside, during spring/summer, would be fantastic.

    Oh, ok, I'm an extreme Gamer, I know! As always: good game everyone.

Friday 8 May 2015

Dark Souls 2: SotFS Platinum!

    Ahhh, so, after around 150 hours, I finally earned Dak Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin Platinum!

    I haven't rushed this Platinum, as I explored the game very deeply before completing the trophy list, reaching level 709 and gathering around 98% of all the equipment and spells available (I actually miss 11 "objects", between spells, weapons, armor, rings and shields).

    It's my plat n° 48. Not that many, but I'm proud of all of them ^_^ .

    This one has been a long, but not so difficult, Platinum. The game itself is hard and unforgiving, but once you get the grip of how it works and how you should approach exploration and combat, everything goes much smoother. And you can always farm a bit to make your character more powerful but, most important thing in my opinion, more versatile: being an huber melee fighter with some backup healing spells, the ultra-useful Repair or some ranged magical attack can prove to be quite helpful.

    Still it can be difficult to earn this Plat without a guide,  as some of the trophyes are tricky to obtain, if you don't know exactly what to do. For this reason, I strongly suggest to have a look at this guide: Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin Trophy Guide and Roadmap, at least to know what you'll be facing.

    And now, let's start Final Fantasy Type-0, at least until I don't receive my physical copy of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood *__*!!