PixlBit

Got myself this remake of the original PS2 Odin Sphere for PS4 today. I love Vanillaware games, especially their art style which is very Japanese, colorful, and zany all at the same time. Plus they usually do game genre's I really dig like strategy, rpg, or some mix of the two. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie, I say. Here's a pic:

One last try this Monday to get to summoning The Wither again and then building the beacon but it didn't happen. I got as far as enchantment of two diamond swords, neither of which produced a Loot boost. This last playthrough handed Mark and I some lucky finds, but it still took too long. We found the Stronghold really quickly and we got enough diamond to do what we needed in short order. We even got lucky in that the Nether Portal dropped us right inside the Fortress. But by the time I grinded for levels enough to get the highest enchantment and apply it to the swords, it was time to stop. I am finally exhausted by this game and will be taking a long break from it. 

I don't know if it's the beginning of summer or it's just me being burned out from working, but I played hookie from all my usual projects during the week to cruise over to Mark's place and play Minecraft. I feel like I just want the whole summer off to play games and eat picnic food. Anyhow, here's a recount of what's gone on in Minecraft for me all week and weekend.

On Monday Mark and I finished the last achievement in Minecraft. It's called The Beaconator and is all about getting the beacon to maximum power. The beacon at maximum power throws a beam of light into the sky so you can find your way back home easily and gives you special powers within a certain radius of its placement. I had to go find the beacon piece, which I had left in a chest deep in some cave. I found it, put it on top of the pyramid of iron, activated it, and both of us got the achievement. Phew! What a grind! Well, I thought I'd be done with Minecraft after that, but read on and discover what other stuff kept me going the rest of the day. 

Saturday Mark and I beat The Wither in Minecraft, but it took some failures. We summoned it in the front yard of Mark's house. It was probably a bad idea. The yard became cratered like it was hit by a barrage of WWI artillery. I got The Wither's health down about half way with arrows, but then it killed me. By the time I got my equipment back and attacked it again, it had regenerated its health back to full. So we reset to a save point and built a cage for it out of obsidian (hardest material in the game) and summoned it in there. That worked for all of a minute before it blasted its way out with its exploding skulls. I ran into one of our mines to hide from it and it didn't follow me. That got me thinking. We reset again and summoned it underground surrounded by a cobblestone barrier, then, before it could blast its way out, Mark hit it with his diamond sword, and I shot if full of arrows  That worked and we both got the achievement for defeating it.

I spent another day chasing achievements in Minecraft with Mark. This time I joined his world and we got really close to finishing the tasks required. 

My friend Mark told me about these six new achievements added to Minecraft this week and so I dumped all my other gaming plans and got back into it. I thought it would go quick but it sure hasn't. I got half of them done after 15 hours of gameplay and I'll be at it again on Monday to try and get the last three, which are much harder. 

Yesterday I picked up some things at Gamestop. First was the Disney Infinity figure Fear for the Inside Out playset. It was on sale for $10, cheaper than the used figures. I think I can start the Inside Out playset with Fear, but we'll see. I couldn't start the Force Awakens playset with Darth Maul, but that's a character not in that story, so that makes sense..Here's a picture of Fear and the rest:

I was so worried about rumors of online shutdown for Disney Infinity that I didn't play my backlog game today - today being Monday - so that I could try and get the online required achievements. There were only two. One was for knocking out another player, so Mark and I jumped in a predesigned arena map and killed each other once each for the achievement. The other was for playing 10 matches in any game in Flynn's Arcade. I didn't get that one because all the games there require four online players and there were no randoms to be found. I may try one more time on a Saturday or Sunday next week just to see if there are more players those days, but I have a feeling I'm just not going to get that one - and it'll be the last one I need. As it stands now, I have all but two achievements left: the one I just mentioned and the one for getting 75 Feats. Feats are like achievements just within Disney Infinity. I'm not sure how many I have yet but after playing almost three full playsets and all the Hub tutorials, I should be close. 

I didn't have time to blog on Saturday so this is really about the whole weekend. Saturday I played Episode 5 of Tales from the Borderlands finally. I had the season pass and played ep. 1-4 as they came out, but with almost six months to wait for ep. 5, I kind of lost interest. Well I finally finished it. Great story, predictable, but still very entertaining. My big gripe with it was the way it chugged almost constantly on my Xbox 360. Load times were long but worse than that was very regular slowdown that came near to ruining the experience for me. I'm not sure what the issue was. Maybe this runs better on XBO or PS4. I'd be tempted to get it again to play it without hiccups.