Candyfloss & Dreams

Tag: Video Games

  • The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy

    The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy

    The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy has been a surprisingly enjoyable visual novel style game with tower defense combat to jump in and out of over the last couple of weeks. I’ve got around 60 hours of playtime with one full playthrough and I am currently making my way through NG+ to unlock some of the various endings and reveal more of the truth of what is going on.

    I didn’t actively follow this game but instead saw a tweet from Sandfall Interactive (the team behind Expedition 33) recommending it and you know what seeing smaller developers recommending other smaller developers games is a pretty nice thing to do.

    So I looked into it a bit more and found out that The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy was a collaboration creation from two directors; one of which Kotaro Uchikoshi I was familiar with having played (two of) the Zero Escape games and AI: The Somnium Files. So from that, whilst this was an original IP I had some familiarity with the type of gameplay to expect. Being a fan of the Persona series and also having played 13 Sentinels visual novel style gameplay is something I’ve enjoyed a lot in the last couple of years mostly thanks to having some excellent recommendations to start in this genre with.

    The Hundred Line takes place in an academy that you are tasked with defending from Invaders for the next 100 days. You play mostly as Takumi Sumino who has a very mundane life until one day he gets jump scared by a dog and it turns his life around. For the better, or worse? Well, it takes 100 (in game) days to really figure that out. The first full playthrough of The Hundred Line has you following a series of events in the Last Defense Academy alongside a group of unique characters who are there to fight alongside with you. At first, not everyone wants to fight, and its up to the protagonist to convince everyone to work together. This is dotted in with a mix of visual novel style cutscenes, bonding events to raise stats, exploration for materials to upgrade things like weapons or create gifts for your classmates and tower defense style battles where you defend the academy from an onslaught of invaders.

    The game really opens up with the New Game+ feature which allows the player to use Chapter Select in order to alter decisions made for different outcomes. Each decision made slightly alters the timeline the player experiences and allows you to uncover mysteries and secrets. Supposedly the game has 100 endings but you’re not required to do all of them to find out the truth of what is going on. I believe there are achievements for around 20 unique endings. I intend to try and get as many of them as I possibly can.

    The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy has been fun to play. It is quite gore-graphic with blood so that’s something to be aware of if you’re uncomfortable with that. The characters unlock hemoanima to access their powers which includes stabbing themselves and going into a blood cocoon before each fight so they can access their Class Weapons. Each character has unique abilities, some are great for support, others good for building up voltage (lets you access your superpower moves and buffs) and some make excellent tanks, alongside your heavy hitters. I found the combat engaging enough and subsequent playthroughs allow the player to skip battles they’ve already completed in alternative playthroughs of the game which does make getting a few routes easier than others. Each battle gives you rewards for upgrading your Class weapons and skills to make you stronger in combat or increase the amount of power ups and traps you can lay around the grid in each round.

    My favourite character is Hiruko Shizuhara because she acts like a complete badass and has a massive axe to one shot enemies in combat. I found her one of the more intriguing characters for *story reasons* that I wont spoil and because there is still, even for me, some mystery there as I too am trying to avoid spoilers for potential endings and circumstances. Plenty of other characters have something interesting to add to the story. Some are, as can be expected with a large cast, more annoying than others.

    Its a game I can see myself going in and out of still over the next few weeks as I navigate other paths and choices. Being a visual novel I find it easy to dip in and out of when I feel like it but the first playthrough really was pretty engaging enough to get me hooked in through those first 100 days. The Hundred Line – Last Defense Academy is available to play on Switch and PC. I’ve been playing through Steam.

  • Trails Through Daybreak II Character Builds and Quartz Sets

    Trails Through Daybreak II Character Builds and Quartz Sets

    Trails through Daybreak II finally got it’s English localised release on 14th February 2025 and since then I have been all consumed by the latest installment of the trails series. I’ll be honest and say this was far from my favourite game of the series but I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. There will be spoilers in this post, but I’ll try and stay relatively on topic. It took me 86 hours and 3 playthroughs to get the PS5 platinum trophy for Trails through Daybreak 2.

    Maybe I’ll finish the nightmare playthrough for Trails through Daybreak I so I can get that last trophy but…eh

    I play these games on easy mode, sometimes very easy, because I just want to enjoy the story but the combat was altered and quartz set ups were changed with both Daybreak games. The first one I paid absolutely no attention to what I was doing when it came to holo cores and quartz. I just didn’t change much and really had no idea how shard skills worked until I replayed Trails through Daybreak in anticipation for the 2nd game’s release. When I attempted to up the difficulty, I had a pretty difficult time with it until I read up on it. However, my ADHD brain really likes it when things are super easy and obvious. I did not find explanations in Trails through Daybreak easy and obvious especially when it came to trying to have a relatively optimized character builds.

    When I played Trails into Reverie I found an amazingly helpful online resource full of character builds which helped me power through Nightmare difficulty in that game but with combat changes for Trails through Daybreak previous experience wasn’t that helpful. I like the way orbments are setup in both Daybreak games now I have somewhat of an understanding of how to get certain skills and found the things that worked best for me and tried to get those on as many characters as I could. I looked for Trails through Daybreak 2 character builds but struggled to find anything and so I thought perhaps I would write up a post about how I built my characters and how these got me through Nightmare difficulty.

    Trails through Daybreak II - Agnes reaction to Van releasing someone ate his favourite dessert.
    The real enemy of the trails series; sweet stealers

    There will be other players that no doubt have a better understanding than me and find Nightmare too easy I’m sure, but I am a self-proclaimed idiot and don’t usually find Nightmare mode in the Trails games easy. I find it pretty intimidating and honestly first play throughs of these games I’ve had trouble playing on ‘Normal’ difficulty. I like being completely overpowered and killing things very fast. I don’t mind grinding for levels if its possible to do, I like having the upper hand and I like feeling like I probably won’t die.

    I completed Nightmare difficulty on my third playthrough of Trails through Daybreak 2 and this is what my characters looked like at the end of the game. My first playthrough I spent going through the story and experiencing everything as blind as I could and trying to take my time with things, the second playthrough I cleaned up achievements and finished the Marchen Garten additional floors and the 3rd playthrough I virtually skipped everything story related just for the final trophies for the platinum.

    Characters I Used the Most

    My ‘main’ team was Van as a sort of evasion tank and then Renne, Agnes and Shizuna for damage, Arts and healing. I used Risette a lot too when I could, or didn’t have the option of using the above four, but she was not really optimised. None of the characters were really and even my main four was only losely so because I get distracted and find setting up characters frustrating and tedious. So every other character was pretty much auto-equipped with quartz/gear. I did have everyone’s Onyx Steel weapons but not all of them were fully upgraded.

    Van – Evasion Tank (kind of)

    I didn’t really intend for Van to have such high evasion but he did so it worked well. For more challenging fights I just had Van stand sort of away from people and use coin bullets and then follow up after a high chain with Vandalise Raid S-Craft. I’d sometimes use a craft to impede an attack but he was there to draw emnity away from others mostly. His evasion was high enough that shielding him wasn’t really an issue because he dodged a lot of attacks. I mostly used Mare – Chaos for his holocore but ended the game with Lapis and didn’t notice much difference. If he had an AT Bonus for Zero Arts I tried to use the new Cetus Phantasma which is new for Trails through Daybreak II. Van’s quartz set up had him using Deadly Lance shard skill which was a follow up finisher for low HP enemies. His attacks would regularly cancel or delay enemies.

    Renne – Because I Love Her

    Renne was just my non-negotiable character. If I could have her in the party she was going to be there. She has great arts damage, I love her S-Craft ugrade, and used the ‘Hospitable Hostess’ craft for a stat boost as often as I could. She was mostly there for support but that doesn’t discount the damage she could do. I love her. I will always choose Renne. Renne would join in the Cetus Phantasma spam for high chain and high arts damage, had Guardian and Ark Feather/Judgement Feather to follow up with magic attacks.

    Agnes – Arts Damage and Healing

    Agnes S-Craft can get you out of a pinch, her shield/heal/regen regular crafts are excellent and she does great arts damage. I used Loray to increase arts power and reduce cast time. Her EP Regen craft helped keep her topped up. Basically, just use Cetus Phantasma on all your arts users for high chain and high damage then follow up with a big multihit S-Craft.

    Shizuna – Strong, lots of delay, and because she was funny

    Shizuna really was there because I am curious about her more than anything, her lines throughout both games were enjoyable and she’s pretty strong. She just kills things. She worked well as a balanced physical damage and arts user, I used her crafts a lot and just kept her doing damage. It was great having her as a playable character for longer in Trails through Daybreak 2.

  • FFXIV UWU: My First Ultimate Raid

    FFXIV UWU: My First Ultimate Raid

    FFXIV UWU – The Weapon’s Refrain Ultima Weapon has been cleared by your local Lizard Lady. I did it! I cleared an ultimate raid in Final Fantasy XIV and I am feeling pretty damn proud of myself. It may not be the current or even a recent FFXIV Ultimate but it’s still an Ultimate. My experience of progressing this fight and eventually getting that all important first kill is a pretty positive experience all around. I am super grateful for the team that had me join them and come along despite the many memes and deaths along the way. I did manage to film the clear and have uploaded that onto YouTube.

    The Weapon’s Refrain: Ultima Weapon

    Currently there are six Ultimate raids in FFXIV and The Weapon’s Refrain: Ultima Weapon (frequently shortened to UWU) was launched in the Stormblood expansion with patch 4.31. It’s an eight player raid that is level and gear synched to level 70. You need to first clear the Savage Sigmascape V4.0: Kefka (which you can do these days unrestricted for very low effort) to be able to unlock Ultimacy in Kugane via The Wandering Minstrel. You can then recruit other players via Party Finder or form a static group of 7 other people that also want to progress, clear and potentially farm the fight. As a reward you get the achievement Ultimatum which grants you The Ultimate Legend title, and with every kill you get an Ultima totem which can be exchanged in Rhalgr’s Reach or Kugane for a weapon. There are a total of 15 weapons available for UWU, so to have them all, you need 15 kills.

    Once you’ve found a committed group of people that want to go for it or if you feel confident to clear in party finder with randoms it’s just a case of planning time to go and do it. For some people this could be a few hours and for others it can be weeks. There’s no real time to say exactly how long it will take you to clear. The group I was progressing with got their first clear during week 9 after 2 or 3 weekly 2 ish hour sessions. The two biggest blocks were Titan Gaols and getting the positioning for those right alongside Ultimate Suppression which is a non-dps mechanic of the fight close to the end which requires each player to do their thing consistently well, but it’s RNG based so knowing what to do with which debuff, marker and dealing with all of the AOE chaos at the same time is a lot. I really struggled with this mechanic in particular so I’m very grateful for the patience of the party I cleared with. These two guides are particularly helpful to see the entire fight and each phase. I referenced them a lot to help me learn the fight.

    Gear and Party Composition for UWU

    I didn’t have BiS gear for a Machinist during this fight because I couldn’t be bothered to farm it. I used Dawntrail raid buffs such as Grade 8 Tinctures of Dexterity for my potions and Moqueca raid food because that is what I had available to use. I used potions twice in the fight I think, at the start of Ifrit and at the start of Ultima. You can probably line these up more but I didn’t really care to do that. Those two phases were the easiest to use potions for.

    Below is a picture of my current MCH Dawntrail gear which is not BiS for anything because I’m not currently doing savage raiding. These were my MCH stats and attributes of the gear I used at the time of my first clear on 16th December 2024. The Balance discord probably has the BiS gear if you want to go for that. I read that the BiS weapon was the Shadowbringers relic with your chosen jobs optimal substats but I didn’t use it. I started progression with the Skyruin Extreme trial weapon and then changed to the tome weapon when I could buy it. You are synched down to 375 for the level 70 raid and it helps to know your jobs level 70 rotation very well. The level 70 alliance raids are a good way to practice this because, despite their being some downtime between boss fights, the length of the alliance raid and the level sync will solidify that rotation in your mind. Also they are without a doubt the best alliance raids in FFXIV with no exceptions.

    In terms of party composition you need one player per job and you absolutely must have a caster DPS and a Melee DPS for the beyond limits LB phase. This is for the caster to take care of magitek bits with Caster LB3 and for the Melee to take care of Lahabrea when he appears. It is helpful to have a second ranged player to deal with certain mechanics like eruptions during Ifrit and Ultima phases of the fight. I played Physical Ranged DPS because that is what I have played in most difficult content and is the job I am most comfortable with at level 70. Red Mage would have been the other DPS I might have considered playing but I enjoy playing MCH a lot more so it made more sense. I can’t say what the most optimal jobs are for UWU because I don’t really pay much attention to it (Its not going to be MCH) but having two different tanks offering their unique partywide mitigations – Shake it Off from WAR is a very nice help for healers and giving shields to avoid Vulcan Burst knockback during Ifrit phases and two unique healers – A Regen and a Shield healer will just help keep the party protected and alive during heavy hitting raidwides. That is pretty standard practice for most raids in FFXIV anyway.

    Is UWU an easy fight?

    This is completely dependent on personal experience and what you, as a player, find easy or challenging. I’m sure when it was current it was much tougher and trickier and took a while to clear and clearing in 7.1 is likely a very different experience. UWU is still an ultimate raid so whilst it may be the ‘easiest’ of the six ultimate raids currently available in FFXIV mechanics still need to be respected. Raidwides and mistakes will kill you. It is a very fast fight and takes alot of mental energy to learn, progress and eventually clear. As I said above for some players this will likely be done in just a few sessions depending on how confident you are at your job, your ability to determine safe spots fast and retain mechanic information for the entire fight. For others it will take longer. The fight itself mechanically, I think, feels more like an extreme, but faster. The difficulty for me came from the length of the encounter with no down time. It is more a test of endurance, and, your reflexes, you might say, than having the absolute best DPS. I would know, because I play a job with considerably weak DPS and no ability to buff anyone. I am selfish and I will continue to be selfish in FFXIV until I unsubscribe.

    Doing an Ultimate raid was never really something I planned to do, it was on the off chance that other people were going to try it and they needed an 8th person to fill in. I wasn’t sure if I would last but I did and I have two lovely new weapon glamours to show off.

  • Balders Gate 3 – The Dark Urge Playthrough

    Balders Gate 3 – The Dark Urge Playthrough

    Committing myself to evil atrocities in my second full playthrough as The Dark Urge origin character was pretty fun and something I really recommend for a second playthrough. I also used it as a chance to do things I had missed out on in my first playthrough of Balders Gate 3 where I did mostly play a good character. Now I’m considering could I actually try and play in a harder difficulty and see just what else I’ve missed because honestly I’m pretty sure there is a lot. This will contain plot spoilers for Balders Gate 3 and some choices I made for companion quests.

    My Dark Urge Character

    The Dark Urge is a really interesting way to play Balders Gate 3 as it adds such an interesting origin story. I wanted to commit to an evil playthrough to see some different choices not only for my own character but how much I could corrupt my companions too. Having already played through Balders Gate 3 and completing the game, as well as reading the PSN trophy list I did know where that was going to go but the ride along the way was very fun and had some unexpected surprises. I really liked that the character still had a choice to try and repress their evil nature but I completely basked in the blood of my enemies, and friends in some cases. Ending the game in the name of Bhaal, the god of murder and seeing my character sitting there in Orin’s clothes on a throne watching the world end was pretty glorious.

    I mean, she looks pretty evil. Both playthroughs I’ve completed now have been playing a magic caster, first as a warlock and this time I was a sorcerer. The wild magic surges certainly added to the chaos from time to time which was sometimes to my benefit but not always. I am pretty sure I put all 12 levels into sorcerer as well but I’m pretty interested in trying a multiclass build to see how that works out. I did this playthrough as a Lolth-Sworn Drow as I thought it would give me an edge with intimidation checks and helped me pass through some encounters without combat.

    Corrupting Companions to do Evil Things

    My party for most of the playthrough was Astarion as a Rogue Assassin, Shadowheart as a Life Domain Cleric and Lae’zel as a Battlemaster Fighter. I did switch in Minthara for a lot of Act 2 because she seemed pretty at home in the Shadowcursed lands and felt for story reasons she was a great choice. However, in my first playthrough of BG3 I accidentally shot and killed Lae’zel early on and missed all of the Githyanki plot so I wanted to do that this time around. Will left the party after the raid on the emerald grove and Karlach attacked me on sight for my atrocities. Gale was there. I did use him a little bit but as I was playing a magic character I didn’t have much need for him but I did see more of his companion quest this time around which I kind of failed to do previously. This playthrough I had Astarion commit to becoming an Ascended vampire and Shadowheart become a Dark Justiciar. It was pretty brutal but actually made some combat encounters a lot easier than on a good playthrough. I’d like to say some of that is because I learned a lot in my first playthrough of BG3 and kind of know what I’m doing now but it also helps that I wasn’t completely and utterly outnumbered. I did do one redeeming thing though and that is to pet the dog.

    How Would I Play Again?

    Balders Gate 3 has a lot of replayability value because you can’t see everything in one playthrough and because there are some interactions you can get locked out off based on if you’re good or evil. Or you end up making mistakes, and there are plenty of options to make mistakes, and so can’t see certain things through to the end. There is so much content available in Balders Gate 3 that makes playing a second or third playthrough desirable with more challenging difficulties, different classes to try and play and character companion quests to enjoy. Not to mention the opportunity to play as an Origin character and see how things are different in comparison to how they are as a companion.

    I think if I were to play again I would probably go for a ‘good’ character approach again and try completing some of the quests I’ve still not managed to solve. I would like to try and complete the game on tactician difficulty although it’s a little intimidating but now I kind of know what I’m doing, what I can get away with and how to make things more challenging or easier on myself I feel I would be able to do most of a playthrough in this mode. There are some legendary weapons, gear and items I’d like to try and get. I think if I were to play again I’d try playing a physical class more than a magic one. I did start a ranger character playthrough but I feel like I’ve made too many mistakes on that one or missed way too much to be able to make the most of the playthrough. I’ve tried to learn more about D&D in general too which has helped me understand some of the rules a bit better like advantage, concentration spells and just how much you should/can do between each long rest as well as how character stats work.

  • Kinda Like a Dragon (Quest)?

    Kinda Like a Dragon (Quest)?

    Having never played any Yakuza game in my life, picking up Yakuza: Like A Dragon with very little context on the series was a choice, largely dictated by the availability on Game Pass, seeing two odd screenshots in a discord server and exactly one commendation of someone saying they liked it. I remember seeing many memes following release footage of Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth including a trailer full of random features that did intrigue me but probably more along the lines of ‘that looks like a weird game’ rather than ‘hey I should play that sometime’. Here I am, just short of 55 hours of playtime later, having finished Like A Dragon and actually being quite surprised with how much I liked it.

    I did read a few mostly spoiler-free reviews which gave me the impression that Like A Dragon is new-to-the-series friendly, and it is but also had some pretty scathing comments about combat. Not an issue for me, I like turn based combat, so it didn’t really affect my opinion when starting the game. One issue I’ve had playing, which is more of a performance problem rather than gameplay is that the game did keep shutting down, sometimes at very frustrating moments when I wasn’t able to save, so a lot of repeat progress had to be made. It was not an issue with my PC, my specs are more than capable of running Like A Dragon and I made a few adjustments that did prevent that from happening too much. I was, however, going through the very last chapter with no where to save and kind of wanting cutscenes and things to speed up so I could save my clear data and not have to do the end for the second time.

    I played Yakuza: Like A Dragon subbed with Japanese voice acting which I liked. All the emotion came through incredibly well. It isn’t unusual for me to play JRPG’s like this, I’m used to enjoying Japanese voice acting and reading subtitles when playing games although I’m not a purist either, and have enjoyed English voice acting just as much. I managed 43 achievements which was pretty good going for a first playthrough and think I managed to beat the game with my party around level 58 without too much level grinding. It was challenging enough but not rage inducing.

    There were times during the main story that I was a bit lost but not because I didn’t understand what was going on or didn’t have much context due to a lack of knowledge from previous games in the series. I just felt there were some points where the plot was a bit weak or didn’t really get full explanations as to why things happened. Perhaps that’s me being a bit picky or I missed something but overall I did enjoy playing. Like a Dragon’s charm is in it’s characters and their interactions with each other. Ichiban Kasuga became a pretty easy to love protagonist with unwavering optimism, loyalty and kindness to others he interacted with. He was charming, goofy and wasn’t afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve or show what he was really feeling. There were some interesting opinions I’ve read about him being the inverse of Kiryu, with his choice of suit representing that most obviously.

    Kasuga’s dialogue options were a good mix of heartwarmingly wholesome, goofy and maybe a little outrageous at times. His delivery was usually pretty charming and I just found him incredibly likeable. He draws people to him pretty effortlessly. His way of seeing the world like an RPG and getting to play the Hero, and all of his Dragon Quest references made his character feel fun to play. Other party members where just as engaging and offered fun dialogue and what really felt like strong friendships developing between them all. I particularly liked Saeko, who made for a great female party member which an interesting range of jobs to choose from. She was a constant in my party. She was cute, headstrong, funny and completely on par with the rest of the characters, rather than just there solely to fuel the main protagonist’s ego. In fact, her introduction is that of her shutting a conversation down about a particularly unsavory character which made me like her instantly.

    There are so many minigames to choose from when you want a break from fighting and I found some of them really fun. The business management minigame was something I did really quite enjoy, because I like making money, and it gave me a lot of satisfaction shutting down shareholders because my sales and net worth wasn’t as high as it could be because I was paying employees a fair wage, giving them bonuses, pay rises and promotions all the time to keep morale high. Who doesn’t want to run a business with a chicken called ‘Omelette’ as it’s mascot though? I also did all of the quizzes at the vocational school for many academic achievements and watched a few of the movies. I even tried my hand at Dragon Kart racing which was pretty fun. Too much of my time was spent not winning cats at claw machines much like how my time is spent in actual arcades in real life.

    For someone like me, not just unfamiliar to the series but someone that does tend to gravitate towards more cutesy animation, cozy games or quite high fantasy RPG’s this was pretty fun. I hard my reservations, not everything was to my taste, there were plenty of cringe moments with some more lewd and crude content but overall Yakuza: Like a Dragon was engaging, fun and full of emotion. There were a fair few moments I had chills and felt myself tearing up. I’m glad I gave it a chance.