Fire Emblem: Awakening Unit Info Hubs Published at Hubpages!

Hello there! I realize I haven't posted in this blog in ages, but life sort of happened:

• Fire Emblem: Awakening was released in early February and I got myself a copy of the game, wrote up a review on it and have been writing hubs for each of the recruitable units, as well as one meta-hub for the child units.
• My oldest dog, a white with black spots chihuahua, passed away on February 20th, that is to say: three days before my birthday.
• Had to do my taxes.

Amidst all of that, I've been really busy getting these Fire Emblem: Awakening hubs out, and I really haven't had much energy to do much of anything else. In any case, I'm writing this up for those of you who follow this hub and are wondering whether I'm still alive (the answer being yes).

So, what else can I say?

• Almost done with Final Fantasy 4 DS. Bit peeved that a lot of the Augments require you to have given temporary party members Augments during their time in the party. Sounds counter-intuitive and punishes people that have pattern recognition as related to the FF franchise (stack most bonuses on the protagonist since the rest of the party can be variable).
• Pretty much stopped playing Pokemon Conquest. Can't be bothered to play it anymore as the gameplay is way too repetitive. A greater variety of missions and objectives would have greatly increased the game's replayability.
• Started playing Kingdom Hearts: ReCoded yesterday. For the small amount of time that I've been playing it, I have to say that I like it. We'll see if my opinion holds up during the next few days.
• Beat Path of Exile on Normal with a Tank Marauder build (you can see a fair amount of my tips for such a build by clicking on any part of this sentence). I have to say that I think Piety is a bit ridiculous in terms of overall DPS. I nearly died a few times and I have a lot of life, natural health regeneration through some passives, five health flasks, the healing totem (Rejuvenation?), and Enduring Cry to build up Endurance Charges. Of course, I'm sure some people would counter-argue that it is fine precisely because I didn't die, but it does make the game feel like it's more about clutch reflexes at times.

Not much else to say. I've done a lot gaming-wise, but I'm still not in the best mood, as you can probably imagine. No matter what some may say, dogs do become part of the family, and he will be sorely missed. Still, I'm still actively writing over at Hubpages, so feel free to drop by and leave some comments if you wish.

Thanks for reading.

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate

Path of Exile now in Open Beta!

For those of you in the crowd who haven't played a good action RPG in ages, Path of Exile may be for you. Developed by Grinding Gear Games (a New Zealand company), I feel PoE has the potential to dethrone Diablo 3 as the best ARPG of the world. Seriously, it has many features that Diablo 3 should have had, and people have been calling it a spiritual successor to Diablo 2 for quite a while. Here's some of the things that Path of Exile has that are unique among ARPGs:

• A passive skill tree with 1350 passive skills!
• A barter system for currency. You're not going to be grinding for gold. The items you grind for have inherent value since they can be used!
• Linked sockets and skill gems, meaning that your active skills are a function of the gems you have equipped, and support gems can modify said abilities. Contrast with nearly every other ARPG where classes get skills based on their job.
• Maps allow the player to create additional randomized dungeons with special enemies you won't be able to find in the main game.

I could go on, but you should check out my review at Hubpages: http://winterfate.hubpages.com/hub/Path-of-Exile-A-Review

If you're already playing Path of Exile, then perhaps you are better served by this link: http://winterfate.hubpages.com/hub/Path-of-Exile-Tips-and-Tricks-Helpful-Resources-for-the-Starting-Player

In any case, comments and feedback are appreciated!

In other news, 13 days until I can get Fire Emblem: Awakening! (12 days for the actual release; I'll be getting it a day late because of delivery/shipping date discrepancies in GameStop Puerto Rico...boo!)

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate

New article published at Hubpages: League of Legends (lol) - Tips and Tricks for Playing Vi

I wrote up a new hub related to League of Legends about a day ago. It is called League of Legends (lol) - Tips and Tricks for Playing Vi. As the name suggests, it talks about Vi and how you can use her to great effect. I haven't seen her get played as much as I expected (this in spite of the QoL buffs she got in the last patch to both her Q and her E), so I assumed it was because people didn't know what to expect with her. Hence, my new hub. http://winterfate.hubpages.com/hub/League-of-Legends-lol-Tips-and-Tricks-for-Playing-Vi

Besides that, I'm eagerly counting down the days until Fire Emblem: Awakening is released in North America. Ahh, the anxiety is killing me! If you haven't played the demo, go do so. It is so much better than Radiant Dawn that it is almost criminal. Although, to be fair, Radiant Dawn has gotten mixed reviews by many, so there is that as well. I'm still on the Endgame of the first arc of Radiant Dawn (there are four)...but Awakening had me hooked with just the demo! :o

So, that's about it from me for now. Go read that article I linked to if you're considering playing Vi and make sure to stay tuned! ;)

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate

Played the Fire Emblem: Awakening Demo!

Well, the demo technically came out on the 17th of January, but I hadn't had time to play it until yesterday. The demo contains the prologue and the first chapter of the full game, and you are forced to use the default avatar for your My Unit. In a curious choice, you are allowed to play on any of the game's three difficulties (Normal, Hard and Lunatic). I beat the demo on Normal, and then tried Lunatic for the sake of it. I'd just like to say that Lunatic is HARD. Brutally much so. The only saving grace is that you can play on Casual Mode (in fact, for the demo you have to), and there is no permadeath in Casual Mode. So, you can have certain units wall for your other units and get through the missions that way as well (even so, my best attempt on Lunaticwas me losing Chapter 1 on turn three). I'm predicting that the most hardcore players will have quite the monumental task ahead trying to do a Classic Lunatic run.

Besides that, I decided to write the first of (what I hope to be) many Fire Emblem: Awakening articles. You may be wondering what I could talk about when the game isn't even out in most of the world. Well, I can still give my own helpful tips and tricks on building your My Unit for the campaign that will await him/her next month. After all, Fire Emblem is a series with a relatively stable mechanics foundation, and a lot of them translate to this newest 3DS iteration.

So, please stop by at: http://winterfate.hubpages.com/hub/My-Unit-Tips-and-Tricks-for-Fire-Emblem-Awakening

Until the next time, take care and have fun! ;)

-Winterfate