BFW and TWEWY

Two games, because I know the readers of this blag do so love reading video game reviews. I can't help it, dear readers! I write what I love.


BATTLE FOR WESNOTH: Free, open-source, turn-based hex fun. Sort of like Fire Emblem crossed with Advance Wars crossed with, um, Tactics II. Comes with a number of (varying-quality) single-player campaigns, has multiplayer capabilities of some sort (haven't experimented yet), and you can doubtless download loads more stuff from the Internet, because it is, my brother informs me, 'extensible.'


Basically: hire units, have them slaughter other chaps in a turn-based battlefield, try to control villages to get more cash, and, this is the delicious bit for me, promote units into different types of units as they get kills (this is the Fire Emblem bit; well, that and the fantasy setting). So nifty. There are something like six races, without getting stuff from the 'wobs; each of them have about fiveish non-hero units, each of which promote into one to three different types of higher-level units. And then those promote too, if you manage to stuff 'em full of enough XP. Units persist throughout campaigns, if you keep them alive... it's enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Oh! And each unit has its own name, in addition to a class. So that's nifty.

THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU: The chaps who are anywhere near me have seen me playing this rather a lot lately. Short description: It's a JRPG.
Long description: You play as a chap called Niku, who finds himself in quite a pinch; trapped in a place called the UG, sort of a shadow-world superimposed on the fashion district of Tokyo (called Shibuya), and forced to play a deadly sport known as the "Reapers' Game." Alongside a number of companions, you fight many enemies ("Noise") in a frantic, insanely fast-paced real-time battle system. Your attacks are determined by what pins you're wearing - pins which gain experience, level up, evolve (if you give them the right sort of XP, mind...). Money is gained by getting various yen-value pins from monsters, some of which can themselves evolve into higher-value pins. (I am not making this up.) Equipment (hats, tops and bottoms, shoes, accessories...) and pins alike are "branded" with one of thirteen labels, which give them bonuses or penalties based on the popularity of that label in the region you're fighting in - which you can influence by fighting battles with a lot of clothes/pins of a particular label on. You can also buy food, which gives you various benefits if eaten, but takes time to digest, and eventually your stomach gets full...

Look. It's insanely deep and really awesome and there are no random encounters (the thing I hate most about JRPGs, sooner or later), difficulty is configurable on-the-fly, you can lower your HP intentionally to increase the drop rate of valuable items... I'm rambling again. But the essential point: there are various benefits for wirelessly interacting with online chaps, especially (though not exclusively) those playing TWEWY. So: for those who are elsewhere (yo, Devin!), you should probably buy it if any of that sounds interesting, because it's pretty rad. For those who are nearby: buy it buy it I want super secret awesome stuff

Hmm. That might've gone a little off-track.

P.S.: TWEWY has nothing to do with the newest blagoseries. I just liked the title; it means something rather different in the game, and there's no connection plotwise or themewise. It was, perhaps, a poor choice of a name; but so it is.

Anyway, these games are cool, this author approves. Two stars out of a possible one.