The Whitehawk

Yesterday, I talked about the things that first struct me about this new Playstation 2 RPG. Today, I bring you some second impressions on it, more specifically, how the game looks after the “honeymoon” is over.

I’m not the type of game who will dedicate himself to a single game and never stop playing it until it’s finished, unless it happens to be something which I find amazing, like Shadow of the Colossus.

When I loaded the savegame yesterday, I was given a Star-Wars-like text, explaining what was currently happening with this story while the game was loading. And I think that this small feature is excellent, because I can sometimes stop playing a game for several weeks and then forget where I was or what I had to do when I resume it.

That used to happen even in great games like Zelda: Link’s Awakening, but, thankfully, the latest versions have a subtle way of reminding you of what you have to do. Rogue Galaxy is no different from that.

Another thing which I found nice about Rogue Galaxy, is that it motivates you to use different weapons, even if you already have stronger ones. The synthesis system that the game uses, requires that you use the weapon you want to upgrade for quite a while before you can upgrade it. The time you need to use the weapon isn’t exagerate, but it isn’t too quick either, it feels just right. The way that you synthesize weapons is also very funny, but I won’t spoil you on how it’s done
The storyline also seems to become more interesting as you move from planet to planet. The first two seem to be for you to get accostumed to the game, but from the third one onwards, the story really starts developing, and you start to get a better idea of what your purpose will be, rather than just doing random adventures throughout the galaxy.

And another thing I found out, and found excellent, is that you can change your character’s costumes throughout the story! When you change your “armor”, you completely change the look of your character. The same goes for when you change your main or secondary weapons, and you can see them when you walk around.

Like in Jak and Daxter, the load times are almost non-existant. You don’t have to load a room everytime you enter a new building, and you don’t have to load the same map multiple times. It all seems seamless, and helps to improve the experience.

In short, it’s definitely worth playing, even after the honeymoon, and I can’t wait to finish it.

Yesterday I had the chance to try out one of the games I had been eagerly waiting for, Rogue Galaxy. As a Sci-Fi and One Piece (a funny pirate action Anime) fan, I couldn’t help but to have high expectations for a game that blended the two things. The trailers also helped rise my expectations
Story-wise, the start of Rogue Galaxy didn’t impress me very much. But it seems that Rogue Galaxy imitates a lot of famous Sci-Fi stories. The first planet where you start off is a desert-like planet which is governated by a tyrannical government. A young bounty-hunter lives there and is mistaken by a legendary hunter. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I thought so too.

Graphics-wise, the games is as good as it gets in terms of cell-shading graphics, and I was very impressed with it in that aspect. The second world, more than the first, shows you the real “power” of the engine they used, and in some parts of the game, I felt that the graphics were even superior to those of Zelda: Twilight Princess (although some people might contest that opinion).

In terms of playability, when the battles start, they are a mix between Final Fantasy XII, Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry. But it’s easier than it sounds! Let me explain…

The battles are all done in real-time, you attack in real time, and move around and jump like in Kingdom Hearts. You have a main, and a secondary weapon, being the first a sword, and the second a pistol. There is a limit to how many times you can fire your secondary weapon, and a limit to how many times you can strike with your sword, after which there is a period in which you can’t attack.

Unlike Final Fantasy XII, in which you can only do one attack and then wait for the next turn, this method makes the gameplay more exciting without making it unbalanced, unlike what happens in Kingdom Hearts near the end of the game.

The difficulty of the game is also surprisingly high. If you’re not carefull, even in normal encounters you can bite the dust. Although that might seem a bit frustrating in the beginning, when you start to grasp the gameplay better it becomes much less of a nuissance. And it’s nice to play a roleplaying game in which you are an over-powered hero all of the time.

So far, I’ve only reached the second planet, and I reckon that I’m a third of the way through it, therefore I don’t know that much about the game. But I definitely enjoyed what I saw so far. If you already finished Final Fantasy XII, and want another RPG to hack-and-slash at, then I think that Rogue Galaxy is an ideal choice.

Yesterday, I told you about one of the newest classes in Ragnarok Online, the Gunslingers, however, I didn’t actually tell you much about that class. But thanks to a friend, pointing that fact out, I decided today to write a short guide about the Gunslinger with the things I know, and the references I have. So, let’s get on with it
Skills

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, my reference site for the skills descriptions is offline. But, since I know most of them by heart, at least the ones related to Guns, I’ll give you a brief description of the best skills for each build.

There are 4 main types of weapons you can use as a Gunslinger: Guns, Chain guns, Shotguns and Grenade Launchers. When leveling up a character, you can choose to create a build that takes advantage of those weapons in pairs, in other words, you can create a Guns user that can also user Chain Guns efficiently, or you can choose a Shotgun user that can also user Grenade Launcher.

But please take in consideration, that when you’re level reaches a certain point you can equip any of the said weapons above, however, you won’t be allowed to have many, if any, skills for it.

First thing first, before leveling up any job skills, regardless of which build you’re going to use, there are 3, or 4, skills that are absolutely obligatory to level up before any others.

The first, and most important of those skills is Snake’s Eyes, which increases your Accuracy and Hit Rate. At the beginning of the game, and at the very end, it is very crucial to have great Accuracy, and when you’re fighting against mobs the more range you have the better, obviously.

The second most important skill, to help you increase your accuracy, and your attack speed, is Single Action. At Level 10 this skill gives you HIT (accuracy) +20 and aspd +5%.

The third and fourth most important skills will depend on what type of build you’re going to use. If you’re going to use a Shotgun, you need to choose “Flip the Coin”, which allows you to gain +3 damage for each coin you have (you can have up to 10 coins). But if you’re choosing to use a Guns build, like myself, you can also choose Chain Action, which is exactly the same as the Thief’s Double Attack skill.

If you’re using a Guns / Chain Guns build, basically you need to choose the skills that depend (mostly) on Chain Action, according to this Gunslinger skill simulator. If you’re choosing a Shotgun / Grenade Launcher build, you need to choose the skills that depend on the “Tracking” and “Dust” skills.

If you choose Guns / Chain Guns, you get superb Attack Speed and damage per time.

If you choose Shotguns / Grenade Launcher you get superb Damage, and great weapons for mobbing (killing various monsters at the same time).

For guns, Rapid Shower and Desperado are the most important skills. For shotgun, there are similar ones on the bottom line, but since I don’t have access to their descriptions right now I can’t really give you a better detail on which ones.

Stats

As for the stats you should choose, the most important ones are AGI and DEX for Guns / Chainguns, and for Shotguns / Grenade Launchers they are DEX, LUK and AGI more or less in that order of preference, depending on what you want to achieve.

If this article becomes popular enough I might do a sequel for Shotgun builds, and the various equipments you can choose for a Gunslinger, but, right now, my time is short so I must leave it at this. I hope you find it helpful in any case.

[tags]Ragnarok Online, Ragnarok Gunslinger, Gunslinger, RO Gunslinger[/tags]

One of the games I’ve been playing again lately is Ragnarok Online. Ever since a new job (class) came out for it, that I had been waiting for, I’ve found myself playing the game 2, or more, hours per day.

What’s funny, and fun, about this new class, is that when you think of Ragnarok you think of anime-style graphics, some would even call them childish. But with this character, it seems like the game is more violent somewhat… because you use real fire arms to kill them. As an example, here is my Gunslinger character: ClintEastwood snipping a monster in the middle of a bush.