[Game Journal] (Playing Age of Mythology: Retold, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia) On the Origin of Genres

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 6/32: I Hope This Works

Having arrived at Agamemnon's base, we found it in a state of disrepair, with not enough troops left to siege the Trojan gates in a conventional fight. Arkantos and Odysseus hatched a plan, which may be familiar to most of you... the Trojan Horse! We had to collect wood quickly, then build it as fast as possible so that the Trojans wouldn't know our plan. Then, we'd give the Trojan Horse to them as a gift, with our soldiers hidden within, and open the gates to the city from the inside. I didn't bother building up, just using all my starting food on Villagers, and gathering wood as fast as possible, then building the Trojan Horse as fast as possible. We faced one group of Trojan cavalry scouts, which we beat with our starting force of units, plus the Bronze god power from Dionysus (like last mission, we started off Zeus->Athena->Dionysus). Once the Trojan Horse was complete, we left and executed our plan.

At night, Arkantos, Odysseus, and Ajax snuck out of the Trojan Horse, got us line-of-sight to Bolt a Colossus, then killed a Cyclops and stole four Helepoleis from the Trojans. The game doesn't show us who's piloting these siege weapons, but it's presumably the other 27 soldiers within the horse who weren't represented in-game. We used them to take down the gate, and let Agamemnon's army of Hoplites and Colossi into the city, and we got our objective to destroy Troy's three Fortresses, which were a bit stronger than ours have been since they're worshipping Hades again. The Gods gave us two Meteor god powers, which we used to destroy two of them, and our army rushed to take down the third, ignoring everything else because we won the scenario after its destruction.

With the Trojan War won, it's time for Arkantos to return home to Atlantis. Our ships are too damaged to make the journey, so we're going to the port of Ioklos to get them fixed. Odysseus and Agamemnon leave our party now, as both of them have other places they need to be. We will visit Odysseus once more on a trip to the island of Aeaea later in the campaign, but not Agamemnon since he's about to die when he gets home. Ajax, however, is coming with us. Not exactly what happened in the original myths, where Ajax committed suicide over Odysseus getting awarded Achilles's magical armor instead of him, but that was an undignified, embarrassing, and just plain stupid death, so I can forgive the writers for a little mythological inaccuracy here.

Spoiler: Our heroes leave the Trojan Horse to open the gates from the inside.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 7/32: More Bandits

We arrived at Ioklos, only to find that the port has fallen to bandits! We start with only Arkantos and Ajax, but fought our way past a few Egyptian units to rescue some Centaurs, and then further on liberated more prisoners and our first military buildings, a Temple and some Military Academies. We don't have any villagers or town centers in this mission, but we get quite a lot of resources, and we're already in the Heroic Age under Zeus->Hermes->Dionysus, while our bandit enemies are in the Heroic Age as well, worshiping Set. I'm not sure what Classical Age minor god they had since they had both Wadjets (Ptah's myth unit) and Anubites (Anubis's myth unit) and used both their god powers, but they had Scorpion Men and not Scarabs so it's pretty clear that they had Nephthys as their Heroic Age minor god.

I started training Hydrai and got more Centaurs and, oddly enough, Poseidon's Militia (even though both us and Ioklos are Zeus) as rescued prisoners, and used them to take the center of the city, rescuing more prisoners and giving us more buildings. I used the Armory here to upgrade everyone to Bronze equipment, trained some Toxotes at the Archery Ranges to use my excess Wood and Gold, and moved east to recapture the acropolis. This fell quite easily thanks to the Helepoleis siege weapons I rescued in the city center, and I got yet more resources and spent time building my army up to the population cap, first building Hydrai until I ran out of food and favor, then Toxotes and a few Petroboloi to help take down walls and buildings. I then razed the bandit base, rescuing the Centaur hero Chiron from the Migdol Stronghold.

Chiron, like Ajax, is a real mythological figure, unlike Arkantos. He is the wisest of all centaurs, and a mentor to many Greek heroes. Also, he's supposed to be dead right now. In the original myths, Chiron was accidentally killed by a poison arrow shot by Heracles, who himself died before the Trojan War started. (For that matter, Jason, Bellerophon, Theseus, Atalanta, and Hippolyta are all also supposed to be dead right now, even though we can train the first two and Hercules as Zeus and were able to train the latter three as Poseidon in earlier scenarios.) In any case, we found out that the Ioklos villagers were taken as slaves by the bandits, and forced to work on a project to the north by a man named Kemsyt. We will head north now to rescue them.

And I realized that I forgot to explain the basics of how buildings work in earlier scenarios, which I really should have done sooner. First off, we have several buildings that all or most civilizations use. The first are Town Centers, which you use to construct villager units and advance ages, and can only be built on Settlements. They also have a ranged attack and can garrison villagers to keep them safe from raids. Next, we have Houses, which increase your population cap, but you can only build a limited number of them. Next we have Walls, which just block off areas, and have upgrades that increase their HP. Everyone starts with Wooden Walls and can advance to Stone Walls, while Greeks and Egyptians can advance them to Fortified Walls, and Egyptians get unique Citadel Walls. The Atlanteans get unique wall upgrades of their own which I'll explain when I get to them, while the Norse are stuck with Stone Walls.

Next up are Docks, which train all naval units and serve as a drop-off point for fishing boats. Temples train all land myth units and research many mythical upgrades, and are necessary to advance to the Classical Age, and Greeks also gain favor by having villagers worship at a temple. Towers are defensive structures that can also garrison a few villagers, and can be upgraded into several types. All civilizations start with Sentry Towers, which can't attack, and can upgrade them into Watch Towers, which can attack. Greeks, Egyptians, and Atlanteans can upgrade their towers into Guard Towers, and Egyptians can upgrade them further into Ballista Towers. Armories research unit upgrades, and Markets buy or sell resources and train caravans, and you need one of these two to advance to the Heroic Age. Farms can be used as slow, but infinite sources of food, farmed by a single villager each. Finally, Wonders, which we can't build in most of the Campaign, advance us to the Wonder Age which I'll explain in the final scenario when I can build one.

Each civilization has unique buildings, too, mostly for military unit production or resource gathering or dropoff. The Greeks have the Granary (technically shared with the Egyptians) for dropping off food and the Storehouse for dropping off both wood and gold. We also have the Military Academy, which trains our Hoplites and Hypaspists and upgrades our Infantry, the Archery Range, which trains Toxotes and Peltasts and upgrades our Archers, and the Stable, which trains Hippeis and Prodromoi and upgrades our Cavalry. Finally, we have the Fortress, which is both a strong defensive structure and produces our Petroboloi and Helepoleis siege weapons, and is required for Greeks to advance to the Mythic Age. The Fortress can also train our heroes just like a Town Center, and trains each Major God's unique unit in the Mythic Age.

Spoiler: Chiron is trapped behind the Migdol Stronghold.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 5/27: Alpha Labs Sector 1: Union Aerospace Science Division

Back to Doom 3 for a mission. Sergeant Kelly radioed me and urged me to find Bravo Team, and I fought my way through the first level of the nearly-deserted Alpha Labs. I fought my way through to the Elemental Phase Deconstructor chamber against a few Zombies, Z-Sec, and Imps. This was a prototype of a wonderous technological device that could separate iron atoms into subatomic particles that could be reassembled into other elements... but unfortunately it was still active and blocking my path with a deadly laser. I had to open a maintenance tunnel while it was still firing, duck under it as it fired, and quickly move through to a maintenance duct to escape to the next area.

Once that was done, I fought my way further into the facility, to a separate system called the Hydrocon, which produced pure hydrogen fuel and pure water from Mars's ample supply of iron oxide. Here, I found the level's new enemy, the Maggot. This is a two-headed, five-legged demon that runs at me fast and hits with melee attacks, but they're much more fragile than the Pinky and thus easy to kill. Moving forward, I met up with a survivor, the only one in this level, who was keeping the Hydrocon stable so it didn't explode and kill us all*.

*He also had the third of four unobtainable-except-through-murder glitched PDAs, so I killed him for it. That is non-canon to this playthrough, however. He doesn't show up after this level either way.

I went further into the Hydrocon, found a PDA that had security codes for the main Hydrocon chamber, and carefully avoided shooting the tanks so they wouldn't explode and blow up the entire Alpha Labs. Then, I finally reached the exit elevator, which ended the level.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 6/27: Alpha Labs Sector 2: Union Aerospace Science Division

I fought through the second sector of Alpha Labs, which housed the Molecular Fuel Storage Compactor, a machine that compressed hydrogen fuel for spaceships. Some doors were broken so I had to take a detour through a ventilation duct in the restroom. I managed to find Bravo Team, but there was a glass window and a pit separating us so we couldn't actually join forces, and we decided to move forward to the next levels on different paths.

I went down a lift and found Dr. Edwards, this level's sole survivor of the demonic invasion, and he helped light my way with a lantern while I escorted him down the path. I intentionally got hit by a few Imp fireballs to stop them from hitting Edwards, but I unfortunately couldn't save him at the end of the path, when an Imp jumped down and killed him from the ceiling. Afterwards, I made my way up the ladder and was attacked by a swarm of Trites, a new enemy that's basically a small demonic spider. These jumped at me and hit me with weak melee attacks, and were quite fragile, but there were a lot of them so I took a bunch of damage, especially when I had to reload my Machine Gun.

Thankfully, there was a healing station here, so once I killed all the Trites I was able to leave the level with full health and almost-full armor.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 7/27: Alpha Labs Sector 3: Union Aerospace Science Division

Still in the Alpha Labs, I fought my way through the Molecular Fuel Storage Compactor's waste disposal and coolant systems. There was one tricky part where I had to use a crane to dispose of two toxic barrels, and it took me a few minutes to figure out the controls. Once that was done, I proceeded to the rest of the facility, and it was a straightforward path to the floor's exit. No new enemies this time, but I found a Plasma Rifle hidden on a pipe near the ceiling of the Coolant Monitoring room. At the very end, I was stuck, but then some cleaning supplies hurled themselves at me through a window and opened up a path, inadvertently allowing me to proceed to the next level.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 8/27: Alpha Labs Sector 4: Union Aerospace Science Division

For my last level in Alpha Labs, I started off by finding a scientist trapped in a reactor chamber, and freed him. He opened up a storage room for me which had some supplies. I left the room, he locked himself inside*, and then made my way to the main level.

*Well, technically in-game I shot him because he had the fourth and final only-accessible-through-murder PDA, but I'm not treating that as canon since it makes no sense in-universe.

This level has two mutually-exclusive paths, so I played through it twice. First off, I could either activate the EFR system (no, I don't know what it stands for either), which created moving platforms that I had to jump across, but would fight less enemies. Or, I could extend the service bridges, fight off more enemies, and avoid all the platforming segments. I did the former first, and the latter second, and carried over the latter playthrough into the next level.

At the end, both times, I saw Swann and Campbell run into the Enpro Plant facility, firing a super-powerful gun called the BFG 9000 to cover their tracks. I made it to the room they were in, and was attacked by the game's first boss monster, the Vagary. This is a demon with the upper body of a human and lower body of a spider, so basically a drider from D&D, and she went down pretty easily to Plasma Rifle fire. She did managed to wound me to about half HP with her telekinetic strikes and melee attacks before I killed her.

There are only three more Vagaries in this game, two in the base game's penultimate level, and one in The Lost Mission's first Hell level, so we won't see any more like her for quite a while. Once I killed her, I called the elevator and took it all the way to the Enpro Plant, the game's next level.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 9/27: Enpro Plant: Energy Processing and Storage

I entered the Enpro Plant, only to hear Bravo Team being ambushed by demons from a lower level in the facility. Most of them were killed, and a stray shot damaged a coolant pipe that caused the Enpro Plant's reactor to start overheating. Two of them survived, one knocked unconscious and mistaken for dead for the demons; he's irrelevant for now but will be our protagonist in the Lost Mission campaign.

I fought my way down, following a Sentry Bot until its destruction by Imps, and fixed the reactor. A camera showed me that Swann was searching for a transmission card for the Communications Tower, which is the only thing that would let us send a distress signal off-world... but he doesn't want us to do that, and wants to stop Kelly from doing so. In any case, I used the lift to go back upstairs, and found the other Bravo Team survivor, who had the transmission card on him and gave it to me, before being killed by a Wraith.

Speaking of Wraiths, these are a humanoid melee demon that can teleport short distances, and about as tough as an Imp. I also fought Lost Souls for the first time; these are basically demonic floating heads that charge at me and try and bite me. They're very fragile. There were no Z-Secs and only a few Zombies in this level, it was mostly the new enemies, Maggots, and a lot of Imps. Despite the enemies not being that hard here, I did have some trouble with the level because of the scarcity of health/armor pickups, though I was fully healed when was time to end the level. I'm on my way to the Communications Tower myself, which will be in two levels.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 10/27: Communications Transfer: Maintenance and Transfer Station

I ran through the exterior of Mars to the Communications Transfer Station, fighting one of this level's two new enemies, the Cacodemon, along the way. This is a big, flying, spherical demon that shoots projectiles at me, but unlike most enemies in this game, it's actually more fragile than those from classic Doom. I made it inside, found a chainsaw, which is an infinite-ammo melee weapon, and was attacked by Chainsaw Zombies, this level's other new enemy. They went down easily since they're slow and have no ranged attack, and as it happens will only appear in one other level.

I activated a moving cargo lift, and was stuck on how to use it to unlock the door I needed to for several minutes, but eventually I got through. Once through the security door, I found a Berserk artifact taken from Hell that made me invulnerable and massively-increased my attack power for thirty seconds, and I used it to punch some Zombies to death. There's only one other Berserk in the game, and no other single-player powerups except it and the Adrenaline, which gives me infinite stamina for running for a minute.

After the Berserk wore off, I went outside again, killed a couple more Cacodemons, and made it to the next level.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 8/32: Bad News

Back to Age of Mythology, now. We traveled north to rescue the enslaved villagers of Ioklos, and were split into two separate bases. We're still following Zeus, and start in the Classical Age with Athena as our minor god. The Bandits are now Poseidon-worshipping Greeks, who start an age ahead of us with Ares and Aphrodite as their minor gods. We also were split into two bases, one on each side of the map, and to win this scenario we needed to destroy the two Fortresses on the northern corner of the map, near a giant pit the bandits had been making the slaves dig. I fortified the western base with a wall, towers, and Fortress at a chokepoint, and focused my military development on the east.

I picked Apollo for my Heroic Age minor god for the critical Underworld Passage god power, which allows me to create a passage between any two spots on the map where I had line of sight to. The passage functions like a building, so I put both ends behind my walls so they wouldn't be destroyed if worst came to worst. Apollo's myth unit is the Manticore, which is a ranged myth unit that can hit groups of enemies. He also has valuable technology that boost our Archer attack, and our unit's line of sight, and His third technology, Temple of Healing, allows our Temples to heal units. This isn't quite as important since we already have Restoration from Athena, but it's still a valuable source of healing, which Greeks don't have the best access to. Finally, Apollo's last technology upgrades our Pentekonters, which were useless this mission since we are in a landlocked area of Greece.

For the Mythic Age, I picked Hephaestus since I already had an archer myth unit and didn't need any Medusae. Hephaestus has the Plenty Vault god power, which creates a building that automatically generates resources, but can be captured by enemies if I lose the location it's in. His myth unit is the Colossus, a powerful melee myth unit that's excellent against buildings, and his technologies decrease our Armory tech cost and increase our Major God's unique unit's attack power, which would be Myrmidons in our case.

I built up a bunch of Manticores and Colossi until I ran out of favor, then focused on Toxotes and Myrmidons. I then went up the eastern path and razed most of the buildings in my way until I reached the two Fortresses, which I destroyed. The bandits still had some buildings left, but I razed the whole map in my previous playthrough so I thought I'd just get it over with now. This won us the scenario, and we were treated to a cutscene where the bandit leader, a cyclops hero named Gargarensis, threatened Arkantos's home and family if he didn't give up and stop pursuing them. When Arkantos refused, Gargarensis invoked the Meteor god power and went down a passage to the underworld, and Arkantos followed him with some troops. Gargarensis is another original character for this game; like Arkantos, he's a creation of the game's writers and isn't in any myths.

This is our last full base-building mission as the Greeks for now. We have two more short baseless missions, and then it's on to the Egyptian third of Fall of the Trident. We will still have four Greek missions left, one in the middle of the Egyptian segment, one in-between the Egyptian and Norse segments, and two at the very end.

Spoiler: Two Fortresses overlook the tunnel to the Underworld.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 9/32: Revelation

In what is usually, by far, this game's shortest mission, I sent my troops down to Erebus, the Greek underworld, in pursuit of Gargarensis, where he had built a giant battering ram to open a gate to Tartarus. We, naturally, want that thing to stay closed, so we rushed in and destroyed the Ram. We don't have a base, but we did have a full compliment of God Powers, with Bolt from Zeus, Restoration from Athena, Bronze from Dionysus, and Lightning Storm from Hera, all of which we used when destroying the ram. Gargarensis inexplicably worships Hades as his major god now, not that it matters much in this scenario. He and his allies will go on to follow every single one of the Egyptian Major Gods as well as Odin and Loki across the campaign. The only gods he never follows are Zeus, Thor, and all the gods added in expansion packs and DLC after the original game's release. All in all, he's a proper polytheist just like our protagonist Arkantos, who will follow every original major god at least once*. After we destroyed the ram, Gargarensis invoked an Earthquake that collapsed the cave and cut off our escape route, and decided to find a different route to Tartarus.

*Hades's mission is technically only a dream/vision, though.

Spoiler: The Ram threatens to open the Gate.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 10/32: Strangers

Our heroes traveled through the underworld, fighting Greek and Egyptian myth units along the way. The remake added some trapped units I could rescue, and I completed the whole mission without using Hades Shades for anything except scouting. We recovered three relics, crossed the River Styx, and brought them to a set of three temples. Arkantos prayed to Poseidon for help, but didn't get a response, then tried praying to Zeus. This time, the prayer worked, and Zeus created a staircase to lead our surviving heroes, Centaurs, Toxotes, and one Hoplite out of Erebus, and into Egypt. All in all, a short and uneventful mission.

Spoiler: Charon's Ferries battle a Kraken along the River Styx.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 11/32: The Lost Relic

Now, it's time to kick off the Egyptian section of the campaign. Like the last two missions, this one was pretty short. Our party found itself in an oasis held by the hero Amanra, who's excavating a large sword from a dig site here. This oasis is besieged by worshippers of Set, who I'll explain when we first play as Set, but they don't have any actual bases, they just send small waves of troops to attack us. We're in the Classical Age, worshipping Isis as our Major God and... Ptah... as our minor god? This is weird since Isis can't pick Ptah as a minor god under normal circumstances; Her two Classical Age minor gods are Anubis and Bast. I researched what technology I could, spent my remaining resources on infantry units, and then tasked every one of my Laborers to excavate the sword, and finished the mission quickly.

Amanra, like Arkantos and Gargarensis, is an original character created by the writers. At this point, my knowledge of Egyptian and Norse mythology is less than that of Greek mythology, so I'm going to have less to say about mythological stuff for these segments. I'll still generally know who everyone is and what's going on, unlike the upcoming Chinese expansion pack, of whose mythology I know virtually nothing.

Since I didn't have full access to the Egyptian tech tree this level, I'll just explain the new stuff I had access to. The Egyptians don't use wood to build buildings. Many of their buildings are free, but their build times are significantly increased compared to other civilizations to balance it out, and the remaining buildings cost gold. They also have one dropoff building for each resource. The Granary, shared with the Greeks, collects food, the Lumber Camp collects wood, and the Mining Camp collects gold. Their footsoldiers are trained at the Barracks. And they have a fragile, no-attack tower called an Obelisk that can be constructed by Priests for scouting.

Speaking of Priests, they're the Egyptian's primary hero unit. Unlike Greek heroes, Egyptians can produce as many Priests as they have the resources and population for, just like any other unit. Priests can heal other units, and deal lots of damage to myth units, but they're terrible against human soldiers even by the standards of other heroes. We also have access to the three units from the Barracks, the Spearman, Axeman, and Slinger. Spearmen and Axemen are both infantry units, and Spearmen focus on countering Cavalry, while Axemen are best against other Infantry. Slingers are ranged units that specialize in fighting against other ranged units. And that's all the units we have this scenario. I'll explain more about Egyptians next scenario, where we can build a proper Egyptian base.

Spoiler: Our army overlooks the dig site as our Laborers excavate the Sword.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Mission 11/27: Communications: Central Communications Tower

Back to Doom 3 for a mission. I made my way into the Central Communications Tower, and fought my way to the Control Room where I saw Swann and his bodyguard destroy it with a shot from the BFG9000. Sergeant Kelly called me and informed me that the main invasion came from a portal at Delta Labs, and then I activated a Sentry Bot who escorted me to the third floor where I could actually send a distress signal.

However, Swann called me at the last minute and ordered me not to send it, on the grounds that the demons could hijack the rescue fleet and use it to invade Earth as well. I agreed with him, so I chose not to send the transmission, and Kelly was angry that I obeyed Swann instead of him. I then fought my way back to the monorail, where I'll take it to a couple levels to reach Delta Labs, where the portal to Hell is.

There was only one new enemy here, the Riot Shield Z-Sec, which is a zombie trooper that holds a shield that blocks all non-explosive attacks. Thankfully, there are only four of them in this campaign, all in this level, so I won't have to fight any more until the Lost Mission expansion, where they also appear only in one level. Apart from them, there were also Shotgun and Machine Gun Z-Secs, regular Zombies, Imps, Wraiths, and Cacodemons to fight here.

 

[Explorer of Time]

I'm going to stop making posts for each Doom 3 level. I'm not having much fun writing them since it's a very linear game where there aren't any major decisions to make.

I'll still make a full post for Doom 3 and its expansions when they're done, but going forward I'm primarily going to make mid-game posts for strategy games and RPGs.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Carrion

This game, which I played for November's gaming challenge, is a metroidvania where you play as a giant tentacle blob monster, and rampage around a 2d laboratory facility, eating scientists to regain health, and solving puzzles with your abilities. Despite being a metroidvania, there isn't any platforming, as the monster can effectively fly by using its tentacles to pull it to the walls or ceiling, so it was on the easy side for a metroidvania. There were only a couple encounters where I had trouble, and weren't any boss battles, which are the part I normally have a hard time with in metroidvanias. It was very much a power fantasy rather than an actually challenging game, and I very much needed something like that since I was recovering from Covid while playing it. It was also very short, only taking me nine hours, and even then that's counting the times I had left it on while doing real life stuff, plus I'm a slow player in the first place. Someone faster than I could likely finish the game in six hours or so.

I've 100%ed the game, found all nine Containment Chambers, and also completed the DLC level. There isn't much replay value here since the game has no character builds, so I'm done with the game completely, for now. I don't expect to replay it.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Doom 3
Final Update

I've finished every level in Doom 3 now, including both The Lost Mission and Resurrection of Evil, the latter of which I also played on the original version instead of the BFG edition. Overall, this game had amazing atmospheres and graphic design, with the Hell levels being standouts in particular. That being said, the combat was somewhat lackluster and didn't quite measure up to the other games in the Doom series. The two DLC campaigns had two new protagonists, and I named them Qiao Hanying for The Lost Mission and Rikkert van der Haar for Resurrection of Evil, but I didn't give the former a backstory, and the latter just a vague one as a demonic cultist who used to work with Betruger, but wanted to claim the Artifact for himself.

The game had great enemy variety and its enemy designs were top notch, and the enemies were well-designed, but the real flaw in Doom 3's combat was its guns. All of them were either quite weak (Pistol, Shotgun, Machine Gun), had serious drawbacks (super shotgun, grenades), or were overpowered, but with ammo too scarce to rely on (Plasma Rifle, Rocket Launcher, Chaingun, BFG9000, Soul Cube, Artifact). The player also has access to the game's entire arsenal most of the time in the late game, so there's often too many options to deal with encounters and it doesn't end up being as hard as it should, while the early game is too difficult because the player's stuck with the Shotgun a lot of the time. It's a bit of a shame, since the monsters in this game would be really fun to fight with a more balanced arsenal.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Chex Quest Trilogy

This game was, originally, a Doom 1 total conversion made to be kid-friendly and placed in Chex cereal boxes as a promotional item. In it, you play as the Chex Warrior, a giant piece of cereal with arms, legs, and a head, and fight aliens called Flemoids who are invading a pair of planets inhabited by other breakfast cereal people. Since the developers didn't want it to be violent, the weapons are "Zorchers", teleporters that banish the Flemoids back to their home dimension. It's a very weird premise, but it actually has a lot of effort put into it, and it does a great job of keeping Doom's great gameplay while not being disturbing for small children. The levels all have unique graphics and the game's setting has a lot more detail put into it than most Doom levels do. There's a lot of unique graphical assets used all over the place, like paintings in a museum, and most levels have completely unique textures for their surfaces.

That being said, on the gameplay front, the game has one glaring issue; It doesn't have enough ammo on pistol starts. The enemies are not that difficult playing this as an adult since most are melee-only, and the rest fire projectiles rather than being hitscanners, and the projectiles they do fire are all based off of Doom 1 monsters. There's nothing like Doom 2's Revenants, Arachnotrons, or Mancubi, which is good for a game targeted at young audiences. But in many levels, especially in E2M5 and Episode 3, there's not enough ammo to actually zorch all the flemoids, and you'll be stuck fighting with a very weak melee weapon against enemies that can easily kill you in melee. The double ammo on the lowest difficulty is enough on most levels, but E3M4 forgets to add a Large Zorcher (basically a shotgun), when the ammo it gives you is mostly for the Large Zorcher, so it has the same issue even on easy mode.

But if you do play this game, don't let it sucker you into buying actual Chex cereal. I have tried it a couple times before playing this game, and it's not very good. There's a reason they had to pack this thing into cereal boxes to sell them.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 12/32: Light Sleeper

Alright, because of Archipelago, it's been a month since I last played AoM, and now that I'm recovered from Covid I'm feeling well enough to play more RTS games. This level, we're playing with Ra as our major god. Our mission, is to bring the giant sword we recovered last mission and bring it to the Guardian, a statue in a city occupied by Set worshippers led by a man called Kemsyt. Kemsyt is an ally of Gargarensis, but he's not personally here at the city, so we freed some slaves from a mining camp, brought them to a neutral village, which flipped to our control, and gave us a full Egyptian base, with access up to the Heroic Age, but no naval warships since the only water on this map is a tiny river. Then, we got word that Kemsyt's army, currently pillaging neutral villages in the countryside, was slowly returning to the main base, so we had to quickly build up an army to awaken the Guardian before they got there.

Now, to give a more detailed explanation of the Egyptian civilization. First, they have a Pharaoh, a hero unit that can empower buildings to make everything they do better, faster training times, faster construction times, and even better resource gathering. Normally, a Pharaoh can only empower a single building, but Ra's Priests can also empower at 70% efficiency compared to a Pharaoh. If a Pharaoh dies, another one spawns for free at a Town Center soon after. Next, Egyptians gain favor through building Monuments. There are five different monuments, built in order, each more expensive and better at generating favor than the last. Each Egyptian Major God has a unique bonus for their monuments, in an area of effect, so it's usually best to spread them out across your base. Ra's monument bonus is that if a Monument is empowered by a Pharaoh, everything near it is empowered at 70% efficiency, like it's being empowered by a Priest.

For Ra's other abilities, His Migdol Stronghold units have more hit points, His Laborers (the Egyptian worker unit) gather from berry bushes faster, His unique tech increases Laborer armor, and His God Power, Rain, increases your farming speed for a minute or so. He's a very economic-focused Major God.

The Egyptian Town Center isn't very different from any of the other factions, but it can train Mercenaries, and later Mercenary Cavalry in the Heroic Age. These are basically temporary units that train really fast, but they cost a lot of gold so it's best to only use them in emergencies, and even then, if you need them, you probably screwed up and are going to lose anyway. It can also train Laborers and Priests, and Priests can also be trained at the Temple. Egyptian Towers, like the Greeks', upgrade to Watch and Guard Towers, but have an additional upgrade on top of that, the Ballista Tower in the Mythic Age. Likewise, their Walls start as Wooden Walls, and are upgraded to Stone and Fortified Walls like the Greek walls, but can be upgraded to Citadel Walls, unique to the Egyptians.

I've already detailed the Barracks units and Egyptian resource buildings last mission, so just a couple more things to detail. Egyptians train both their Siege Units at the Siege Works. They get the Siege Tower, a moving tower with a battering ram that can garrison units, and shoot arrows at enemy units, in the Heroic Age. The Siege Tower gets stronger for each unit garrisoned within, up to five units. In the Mythic Age, they get the Catapult, which is basically a more expensive (in both wood and population) Petrobolos that deals more damage. The Catapult can also be trained in the Heroic Age by a tech from the Minor God Sekhmet, which is why I'm detailing it now.

Finally, the Egyptian fort building is the Migdol Stronghold, which trains the Egyptian cavalry units: Camel Riders, Chariot Archers, and War Elephants, all in the Heroic Age. Like the Barracks units, Egyptians upgrade all these units individually rather than a per-unit-type upgrade like the Greeks and the Norse. Camel Riders are the main Egyptian cavalry unit, good against not only archers like regular cavalry, but also other cavalry units, but they are countered by infantry. Chariot Archers are both archers and cavalry, great for raiding infantry and worker units, but they suffer the weaknesses of both cavalry and archer units. Finally, War Elephants are slow, expensive, and very tough melee units that are basically living siege weapons. They're great against buildings.

For Minor God choices this scenario, Ra has access to both Bast and Ptah in the Classical Age, and Sobek and Sekhmet in the Heroic Age. For the Classical Age, I picked Ptah, and I picked Sekhmet in the Heroic Age, mostly for their myth units. Ptah's myth unit, the Wadjet, is a poison-spitting winged snake, but more importantly, it only costs Wood and Favor, both of which I had in abundance, and I trained a lot of them while teching up. Ptah's god power is Shifting Sands, which transports units from one spot to another, but sadly doesn't work on the Sword Bearers. His technologies improve Barracks units, mostly. His Axemen and Slingers do more damage, and His Spearmen are more resistant to pierce attacks like arrows. He also gets a tech to make Farms cheaper and faster to construct.

Sekhmet's myth units are Scarabs, giant siege weapon beetles that damage enemies with poisonous blood when killed, and cost Food and Favor, which I also had a significant amount of compared to the Gold-heavy siege weapons from the Siege Works. Her God Power is Citadel, which transforms a Town Center into a Citadel Center, making it tougher, shoot stronger arrows, and train units and research tech faster. It also increases population cap by 10 compared to a normal Town Center. Sekhmet also gets a lot of useful technologies, with Slingers getting bonus damage against infantry, all Myth Units getting life-draining attacks with Scarabs getting extra life drain, and Chariot Archers getting better line of sight and range. Sekhmet's last technology, Force of the West Wind, increases the anti-building attack of all siege weapons and any myth units that can deal crush damage, these being Her own Scarabs, any major god's War Turtles, and possibly either Sphinxes (Ra->Bast->Sekhmet) or Phoenixes (Set->(any)->Sekhmet->Thoth). The tech also makes Catapults buildable in the Heroic Age, the main reason I picked Sekhmet in the first place.

Using my new siege weapons, I broke through the walls of Kemsyt's city before the army got there, and brought the sword to the Guardian, who became a nearly invincible giant walking statue that slaughtered everything my opponent had to send at me, and they surrendered soon after. I also found a large box near the guardian, containing a piece of Age of Mythology's biggest plothole, which I will rant about in the next mission's summary. The Guardian, for its part, fell dormant after the battle. We won't awaken it again in the Fall of the Trident campaign.

Spoiler: The Guardian awaits its sword in the center of Kemsyt's base.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 13/32: Tug of War

We're now taking the box we found to one of our cities, where Amanra explained that the box contains a piece of the god Osiris, slain by Set. Kemsyt was trying (and failing) to destroy this piece, but if we can bring all four boxes together, Osiris will live again. Unfortunately, our troops are ambushed in a cutscene and Kemsyt's army took the Osiris Piece Cart. Thankfully, the box is being dragged by two, very slow, camels, and we have plenty of time to get it... of course, since I'm playing on the easiest difficulty, I can just immediately take it with my god powers.

This mission, I'm playing as Set, with Anubis and Nephthys as my minor gods. (Set can also pick Ptah and Sekhmet in skirmishes, but we start in the Heroic Age in this scenario with a very large base.) Set can get me line of sight to anywhere on the map with the Vision god power, Anubis can give us Plague of Serpents, which summons an uncontrollable horde of snakes that attack any enemies that enter the general area where they're summoned, and Nephthys gives us Ancestors, which summons temporary undead Minions for a short period of time to fight for us. Combined, the Serpents and Minions were just tough enough to beat the ambush and take back the Osiris Piece long before I'm supposed to have it, and I brought it back to my base before Kemsyt even had time to send troops to take it back.

I didn't have a chance to use them much, and there's only one other campaign scenario as Set, but I'm going to explain His bonuses now anyway since I'm going to spend a lot of time fighting Set worshipers in this campaign. In addition to His god power, Vision, which he can recast for free with his unique technology, Set's Pharaoh can summon Animals of Set. These animals cost favor and population only, and are very bad at fighting, but can be killed and used for food gathering just like wild animals can. Set also gets free animals when aging up. Set's Priests can also convert wild animals into Animals of Set, giving them slightly less food, but allowing them to be moved towards your own Granaries to be hunted and eaten. Set's Barracks units are all slightly faster, His Barracks, Siege Works, and Migdol Strongholds cost less gold, and His Monuments reduce the cost of Barracks and Migdol Stronghold units. Where Ra was focused on the economy, Set's bonuses are focused on military buildings, especially the Barracks.

As for the new minor gods we have this mission, Anubis gives us the Anubite myth unit, which is a jackal-headed fast melee unit that can jump to quickly enter melee. Anubites can even jump over walls to raid villagers, though they're unlikely to survive for long without backup. Anubis's techs also give Spearmen poison damage over time with their attacks, increases Monument favor generation, and upgrades Anubites into the stronger Guardian Anubites.

Nepthys's myth unit is the Scorpion Man, basically a scorpion centaur with claws for hands. Scorpion men are melee units that can poison enemies with damage over time. Nepthys's techs also increase Priest/Pharaoh healing rates and damage against myth units, and make Priests cheaper. Another tech gives back a tiny amount of gold whenever a human soldier or hero dies, and Her final tech, which we can't use this scenario, gives a chance to spawn a Leviathan when a War Barge dies. I'll explain what these two are two scenarios from now, when we finally get to build an Egyptian navy.

We also get to advance to the Mythic Age this scenario, which doesn't give us any new units except the Catapult, which I already explained last time since Sekhmet gets it earlier, but we do get a new building, the Lighthouse. This doesn't actually produce anything, but it gives us a massive line of sight increase, like a super-Obelisk. Set's minor god picks available to us are Thoth... and Horus?!

This is the plothole I mentioned earlier. The myth we're playing through in the Egyptian part of Fall of the Trident is the story of the death and resurrection of Osiris. Set killed Osiris, and Isis found all the pieces of His body and reassembled them, bringing Osiris back for one night where They conceived the god Horus, after which Osiris died again and became the ruler of the afterlife. If Osiris has not yet been resurrected, Horus should not exist yet. For that matter, Osiris Himself is a minor god who can be picked as one of Isis and Ra's mythic age minor gods in later scenarios, while dead, but that is more justifiable as at that point the party is carrying around at least a quarter of His body in close proximity to them.

In any case, I picked Horus as my mythic age minor god just in case the enemy got close to the piece cart, which they didn't, since His god power is better against them and His upgrades would improve my already-large infantry force. His god power, Tornado, creates a randomly-moving tornado that is great against anything in its path, even buildings, but it's unpredictable in its movements. His myth unit, the Avenger, is a falcon-headed melee unit that can spin around and hit everything next to it in melee. His technologies increase infantry HP and speed, Spearman damage, especially against cavalry, Axeman anti-building damage, and finally increases the attack of wounded Axemen.

My forces brought the piece cart to the base easily, where the scenario ends. This ended up being a really easy mission. Normally I'd play this on Standard or Moderate difficulty, where I couldn't cheese the Osiris Piece Cart guards with my god powers, but this is a campaign I've already played before several times and I'd rather just get through the game faster.

Spoiler: The initial battle for the Osiris Piece Cart

 

[Explorer of Time]

Age of Mythology: Retold
Fall of the Trident 14/32: Isis Hear My Plea

We brought the Osiris Piece Cart to Abydos, the site where, once we have all four pieces, he can be resurrected. Unfortunately, Arkantos and Ajax were ambushed by Kemsyt, working with Gargarensis, who imprisoned them and took the Osiris Piece from us. Amanra prayed to Isis in our base in the northwest, and was rewarded with a large army of myth units, even ones we can't build this mission like Scorpion Men and Scarabs.

We start this scenario in the Heroic Age, with Isis->Bast->Sobek, though we have Ancestors, normally Nepthys's god power, instead of Sobek's actual god power, Locust Swarm. By the way, Ancestors, and Plague of Serpents (which we had last mission) can be cast on water too, spawning Lost Ships or Sea Snakes, respectively. We are stuck in the Heroic Age and cannot advance to the Mythic Age this mission. Gargarensis and Kemsyt both worship Set, with Gargarensis picking Nepthys as a Heroic Age minor god, but I'm not sure about his Classical Age minor god.

Isis's main strength is Her fast technological advancement. All of Her upgrades get a 10% discount, and her god power, Prosperity, causes gold to be mined 80% faster for 50 seconds. Her Town Centers support an additional five population, giving Her slightly larger armies than everyone else, though this is offset by Sekhmet's Citadel Centers, which Isis can't get and Ra and Set can, which gives a larger increase. Her Obelisks cost slightly less gold and are built 60% faster, and her unique technology provides 1 free food per second. Finally, Monuments to Isis block enemy god power usage, and when empowered their god-power-blocking radius increases, they generate favor even faster, and they heal nearby units.

Bast has a very strong god power, Eclipse, which gives large bonuses to all my myth units for 80 seconds, and also increases my favor generation rate by 50% during that time. It's especially strong when combined with the Ancestors god power, since Minions are technically Myth Units, and only Isis can use this combo. Bast's myth unit is the Sphinx, which can be upgraded to the ram-headed Criosphinx or the falcon-headed Hieracosphinx. The Sphinx can turn into a whirlwind of sand for a special attack, to hurt all enemies around it, and it's good against buildings too. Overall, it's my favorite Egyptian myth unit. Finally, Her techs also increase food and wood gathering rates, especially great for Isis because She has Prosperity to help out with gold.

Sobek technically replaces Hathor from the previous version of the game, but all Her techs and units fit Sobek much better so I completely understand why they made the change. His god power, which we don't have access to this mission, is Locust Swarm, which summons a roaming swarm of locusts that eats any food sources in an area near it, and does damage to anything they touch, especially worker units. Sobek gets two myth units, first the Petsuchos, which is a crocodile that can shoot very long range beams of sunlight, and can be upgraded to the even longer-range Petsobek. Second is the Roc, a giant bird carrying a basket that can hold units. It has no attack and it's purely just an aerial transport. Sobek's technologies increase Camel Rider and Caravan HP and give them slowly-regenerating HP, increase building HP, decrease building gold cost and build time, and allows Kebenits to rarely spawn Sea Snakes.

Speaking of Kebenits, this is the first mission where I can build an Egyptian navy. Kebenits are the Egyptian Arrow Ship, Ramming Galleys are the Egyptian Hammer Ship, and War Barges are the Egyptian Siege Ship. They're more or less identical to the Greek Trireme, Pentekonter, and Juggernaut, but slightly cheaper and with slightly less HP. The Egyptian naval myth units are the Leviathan in the Heroic Age, and the War Turtle in the Mythic Age. The Leviathan is a massive living transport that has lots of HP and a strong melee attack, and the War Turtle is an even tougher giant turtle that can fling nearby ships around with its melee attack. We do get a single War Turtle this scenario even though we can't build them yet.

Anyway, back to the actual mission. We got a ton of free Monuments from our allies in Abydos, way more than the five we usually get, giving us a massive amount of Favor. The only myth units we can construct on land are Hieracophinxes and Petsobeks, which are really all we need to win this mission. So, I built nothing but them, then sent my massive myth unit army to raze Gargarensis's Migdol Stronghold and force Kemsyt's army to retreat, so I could send Amanra to a transport ship and get a navy. But before that, I already had a huge army, so I just slew the entire retreating army and razed both their bases to the ground.

When Amanra reached the transport ship, she sailed north to the Abydos docks and they all converted, giving me a navy. I built it up, with a couple of each ship, and sailed west to take down the prison guards and free the other Heroes. In a cutscene, Gargarensis interrogated Arkantos asking him which gods favored him, to which he replied Poseidon, which Gargarensis thought was ludicrous, presumably because he worshipped Poseidon back in mission 8, and Arkantos has had different major gods in every mission after that, whether Zeus, Ra, Isis, or even Set that one time (though there can be a case made that the Set worshippers last mission were double-agents). Then, Amanra broke down the wall behind him, and Gargarensis fled the area while our heroes make their escape from Abydos.

Spoiler: We start off this mission with an very large base, and many more monuments than the five we can usually build.