As I love both Diablo 2/3 and Torchlight 2, I decided to give Torchlight Infinite another try. And it squandered it.
One annoying mechanic is timed boss battles. You have 5 minutes to kill a boss, otherwise, you have to try again. You also have a limited number of retries: around 10, I think. This wasn’t a problem until level 38, when I faced Keegan. This one can kill a character in a couple of hits, and I was barely doing any damage. Managed to kill it after a few tries, but that was a major difficulty spike there out of nowhere.
Then I went to a guide and respected (luckily it’s free), and after that, it was much easier. But it’s not fun to play ARPG that you need a leveling guide for.
So, in the end, out of all mobile Diablo clones, only Diablo Immortal is worth any attention, despite all the hate it got when it released (and probably still gets).
Category: Mobile Gaming
О мобильных устройствах и играх для них
Tacticus
Unlocked Forcas in his release event. Supposed to be good, but I didn’t manage to confirm this yet.
Unlocked Lucien from Blessed Scrolls pull. Reddit tells me that I was actually lucky, since Lucius can’t be farmed. All I can say, he’s rather fun, as you can turn on berserk mode, and the guy will be running killing things off by himself.
Unlocked Nauseous Rotbine from Guild War tokens. This one is actually useful, as it’s the only Chaos healer in the game.
Unlocked Aesoth from his release event. One of the easiest unlocks, as it requires just 100 shards.
Tacticus
Unlocked Tarvakh in his release event. Regular release events are doable, unlike Legendary Release Events, that are just look doable, but aren’t.
Unlocked Sarquel from requisitions. Don’t really need Dark Angels, but whatever.
Completed Indomitus Mirror campaign. This open Indomitus Mirror Elite campaign, that brings more rewards.
Completed Octarius campaign. Last fight was a bit tricky, as orcs are squishy. Again, opens Elite campaign, and more resources.
Did two “Blessed” pulls, first with the scrolls I accumulated, then with blackstone, and got… basically nothing. Okay, not true. Now I have tons of Thadeus Noble shards, I guess?
Tacticus
Unlocked Plagueburst Crawler from it’s Incursion event.
Unlocked Roswitha from requisitions.
Unlocked Sword Brother Godswyl from leveling up Orks and grinding his battle. Important as he’s needed for Octarius Mirror.
By this point I started to get tired of the game, as the progress is very slow and not very rewarding.
Unlocked Abraxas from grinding his campaign battle. This is important, as now I have Saim Hann Mirror campaign unlocked.
Unlocked Thaddeus Noble, also from grinding, and also important, as it unlocks Fall of Cadia Mirror. Now, I have just one more Mirror campaign to unlock, which is Octarius Mirror.
Unlocked Brother Burchard by grinding. Just one more Black Templar character to grind through to unlock the final Mirror Campaign.
Tacticus
Unlocked Yazaghor, from grinding the campaign battle. Needed for Saim Han Mirror campaign.
Unlocked Sy-Gex, also known as “gay sex” from it’s event. The easiest event unlock yet.
Unlocked Toth, again from grinding the campaign, second character for Saim Han Mirror.
Unlocked Gulgortz on the same day from Guild Raids. This is actually big, because this finally opens the Ork Octarius campaign.
Unlocks have obviously slowing down, as the game wants you to pay 20GBP for a single character. But maybe Ork campaign will help out a little, as you should get 10 scrolls from each campaign.
Tacticus
Eldrion is indeed a game changer, literally. The damage out is now x2 if not x3
Eldar campaign seems to be much easier than others, that have steep difficulty spikes. And it also has much more lore embedded in it.
Unlocked Forgefiend through guaranteed requisition. As I mentioned multiple times, war machines are not very useful.
Then through another requisition unlocked both Abaddon and Anuphet. One one hand, this is incredible, as both are very expensive characters to unlock. And Anuphet is very useful, as there’s a Necron campaign that allows to farm Ultramarine characters. On the other hand Abaddon… Not so much.
From requisition milestone rewards got Wrask. Not very useful.
Unlocked Isaak during his release event. He isn’t that great, as you need other Genestealers and Genestealers in general aren’t worth getting. But I grab what I can.
Warhammer 40K Tacticus
Unlocked Kut from “guaranteed” requisition. This isn’t great, as he’s a cheap character, but also not too bad, as he’s useful in Fall of Cadia Mirror campaign.
And from guaranteed milestone reward also unlocked Azrael. Epic character sounds great, but I’m investing into characters needed for the campaigns.
Unlocked Sybill from grinding her encounter. Now I need just Thadeous for the Fall of Cadia Mirror, but it’s a big “just”, as we are talking 100 shards there.
Finally, unlocked Eldryon. This is a huge one, as he’s considered one of the most useful characters in the game, amplifying damage for other characters, and unlocks the Eldar campaign.
Warhammer 40K Tacticus
I’m making slow progress. Unlocked Snappawrecka from the arena battles. This means I have just one more orc character to open for their campaign.
Unlocked Tutmose from slowly grinding his battle. The character is supposed to be extremely bad, but it’s 4th Necron character, so battles that allow up to 5 should be easier.
In a last ditch effort in a event I also managed to unlock Nicodemus. I already have 5 Imperial characters, but Ultramarines Apothecary isn’t very good, and Nicodemus is available to unlock only once in a while.
Unlocked Snotflogga from Salvage Run. This isn’t as good as I thought it to be, because Snotflogga isn’t a campaign character for Orcs, so I’m still missing Boss Gulgortz, and missing it by some 125/250 shards.
Unlocked Tsonji in an Incursion event. As I mentioned, Machines of War are not very useful, but I still use every opportunity to unlock new characters. And I love Tau. Who doesn’t love huge mechs?
And I finally completed Indominus campaign, with 3 stars, unlocking Indominus Elite.
Tacticus
I opened both Maleus Rocket and Dreaudnough a couple of days from each other. Both aren’t very useful, as you can’t deploy them in campaigns, only Arena or Guild Raids.
But from Guild Raids I got my 3rd mandatory Chaos character, Archimatos. So now the Fall of Cadia campaign is open.
This is good, because campaigns are the best way to open new characters.
Warhammer 40K Tacticus
Paywall hits on Mission 70 of the first campaign and Mission 12 of the First Mirror Campaign. Enemies that previously wouldn’t do much start one-shoting your characters suddenly. And all you can do is grind. The game turns into a “clicker”. To level up your characters you need 6 pieces of equipment for each. Some of those pieces are also broken into separate subpieces, spread across different missions. You can just roll for the equipment if you completed the mission at least once, 10 rolls per day. You roll, then you roll some more.
A week at that pace, and I’ve opened my second Chaos character and second Eldar character:
Now I have just Makotep from the Indominus campaign to beat:
I also started working towards first support character, either the Maleus Rocket Launcher or Dreadnought.
Warhammer 40K Tacticus
In a way, W40K is ideal for mobile games. You already have some fabulous character designs that are distinct and easily recognizable. And they all speak in cliche phrases anyway, so nobody will notice your lack of writing skills. Speaking of which, your story can be “space marines are fighting xenos because crashed and artifact”, and everyone would be perfectly happy.
The gameplay is rather solid: hexes, different terraint types, one move one action per turn, one unique skill per character that can be used once per battle. Where it all breaks, of course, is the monetisation and the “numbers game”. No matter how good a tactian you are, you won’t be able to progress if your units are damaging enemies for 1HP. To level them, you need not only EXP, but also coins, which you get by completing missions. And to do missions there is another resource, which I don’t even care what it’s called, that recovers with real time, but also can be bought with very real money. Then the new characters are farmes through a gacha system.
Reacher S01
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Reacher. And it’s okay. Which means it’s probably better than 90% of the stuff out there. The actors are actually good. The fights are good. Reacher is interestingly compared to Frankestein’s Monster: he’s huge, and everyone is afraid of him. It’s funny how the gun he gets is a Desert Eagle. Fitting his size.
It is also impressive that they didn’t neglect to make a point of how big of a exit wound a .50 caliber bullet leaves.
Also, they did the Georgia accent well: Roscoe is asking this “wa” instead of “why”. “Why did you lie?” becomes “wajuly?”. Willa Fitzgerald is very good.
Syberia
На удивление хорошо портированый на Android квест. Картинка приятная, текст читаем, pixelhunting сведен к минимуму. Единственное нарекание – очень странный резкий переход между экранами. Может там должна была быть какая-то подгрузка, которую выпилили.
Что удивило – тут есть экраны кажется вообще без смысловой нагрузки. Это просто дворик. Тут нет персонажей или квестовых предметов. Идем дальше. Или тот же уборщик на вокзале, с которым даже поговорить нельзя.
Fire Emblem Heroes
Прекрасные арты. И даже нельзя сказать, что они понатасканы из разных частей серии. Большинство честно перерисованы, причем перерисованы хорошо. Как раз оригинальные арты зачастую рисовались еще в начале 90ых, и особой детализацией не страдали.
iPhone 5S
Hearthstone
Clash of Heroes
Быть может я чего то не понял, но битва с двумя wraith’ами у меня заняла битый час. Любое их прикосновение к герою смертельно, а атакую они раньше практически любого другого юнита. Пришлось закидать их толпой зомби. Но проблема в том, что вражескому герою зомби вреда практически не наносят. Ладно, прошел Некромантов. Дальше Ад. В смысле, полнейший ад. Атаковать стенами – это додуматься надо было. Самая бесполезная геройская способность ever. Некроманты nuke’ают. Эльфы – чуть похуже, но тоже ничего. У людей есть immune. У демонов есть… это.
Clash of Heroes
Вся тактика некромантов в кампании построена на артефактах. В отличие от людей, у которых просто очень сильные mid tier всадники, у нежити юниты слабые и очень уж узко специализированные. Те же призраки хороши, чтобы блокировать другие юниты, но для атаки не слишком полезны. По настоящему мощь undead’ов раскрывается только с top tier’ом из Death Knight’ов. Вот пара таких действительно меняет ход битвы.
И по артефактам. Один отнимает по немногу здоровья у героя противника. Дешево и сердито. Можно уйти в глухую оборону, и все равно победить. Второй полезный артефакт под чистую срубает здоровье своего героя, но неприлично усиливает все формации.
Clash of Heroes
Прошел второй эпизод, людской. В целом, у людей хорошо работают всадники. Их легко “пускать”, и вреда они наносят немерянно. Не важно, что у противника есть более крупные юниты, если он уже мертв.
Зачем-то прикрутили random encounters. Что в головоломке весьма раздражает.
В сражении с боссом меня спасли архангелы. Лучшая стена – из архангелов. Они выдерживают удар, который ни одна стена не стерпит.
Desktop Dungeons
Открыл паладинов. Паладины офигенны, поскольку умеют лечится. В игре, которая по сути построена вокруг resource management’а способность конвертировать один ресурс в другой незаменима. К примеру, больше не надо опасаться ядовитых тварей, блокирующих регенерацию до следующего level up’а.
Так же легко играть warlord’ом. Этот может избегать смертельного удара. Крайне полезно.
Очень важно открывать храмы. Тот, который открывается после четырех големов дает кучу крутой экипировки практически просто так.
И насколько я понял, подземелья тут проходимы далеко не всегда. Порой магом можно напороться на босса с 75% magical resist, к примеру. И делай с этим что хочешь.