kjorteo: Endless Ocean + Playlist

That weird Kjorteo-like thing (

kjorteo) wrote,
@ 2008-04-16 22:21:00

Endless Ocean + Playlist
I was complaining to

slither about games like Persona 3, Radiata Stories, and Bully, where they present you with what appears at first glance to be a vast and sprawling environment you can explore and interact with, but then impose restrictions that prevent you from really realizing that. (Bully has a huge school where you can find stuff to see everywhere except no you can't or you'll be late to class; Radiata Stories has a huge sprawling town filled with interesting non-generic/cloned NPCs who all have their own schedules and everything--the atmosphere is alive enough that I'm actually slightly excited/nervous to be in the seedy part of town at night--only every time you go to bed it furthers the plot and kicks you out of town and you can't go back until way later; Persona 3 has a town you can explore and people you can talk to everywhere, only you can only do one thing per day and you have an imposed maximum of one game year to beat the game.) Basically, nothing irritates me more than games that give you vast explorable environments and then don't let you explore them.

So, no sooner did I figure out that that's what I disliked and explained it to Slither like that than I suddenly realized, "Hey, I wonder if Endless Ocean is any good." Since, you know, that's basically the entire point of the game.

So yes. I'm only about 30 minutes in now so I'm sure this is premature, but it seems pretty cool in that regard so far. It's also relaxing to the point of being hypnotic. One problem I have, though, is that the music is beautiful but it doesn't seem to play underwater, which is more or less the entire point of the game, isn't it? D: I don't want to spend hours and hours ~~masturbating~~ petting sharks and stuff if all I get to hear is my own SCUBA sound effects like 2001 or 7 Days a Skeptic or something.

Fortunately, the game claims to be able to play MP3s off an SD card. I am certainly capable of putting a playlist together, if that's what it's going to take. You know I love power metal, but the point of this game seems to be soothing casual exploration, so I think the ballads and slower, more melodic "pretty" songs are the way to go. So, how does this look to you as far as playlists go?

Also, if there's anything here you haven't heard before, I highly recommend checking the links out, as they are all super pretty. I think it's almost completely impossible to dislike pretty power metal ballads--the closest to a negative I've ever heard was "Normally I go for the harder stuff, but these are certainly nice as well" and some particular song-specific criticisms (Windmill is absolutely nothing like Helloween has done before or since and is just too out there, Last Drop Falls has some rather uncomfortable lyrics, etc.)

And if any of you know more good tunes along these lines, let me know, of course.

Anyway, the list:

Angra -- Sprouts of Time (Temple of Shadows)
Avantasia -- Cry Just a Littla (The Scarecrow)
Avantasia -- Farewell (The Metal Opera, Part I)
Avantasia -- What Kind of Love (The Scarecrow)
Blind Guardian -- The Bard's Song (in the Forest) (Somewhere Far Beyond)
Blind Guardian -- A Past and Future Secret (Imaginations From the Other Side)
Blind Guardian -- Skalds and Shadows (A Twist in the Myth)
Edguy -- Painting on the Wall (Mandrake)
Hammerfall -- Never, Ever (Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken) (I don't know why the video has a picture of Glory to the Brave for the visual. The song is really from Chapter V.)
Helloween -- Windmill (Chameleon)
Kamelot -- Abandoned (The Black Halo)
Kamelot -- Don't You Cry (Karma)
Rhapsody of Fire feat. Christopher Lee -- Magic of the Wizard's Dream (Magic of the Wizard's Dream [single])
Sonata Arctica -- Last Drop Falls (Silence)
Sonata Arctica -- The Misery (Winterheart's Guild)
Sonata Arctica -- Tallulah (Silence)
Symphony X -- Candlelight Fantasia (The Divine Wings of Tragedy)
Symphony X -- Communion and the Oracle (V - The New Mythology Suite)
Symphony X -- Paradise Lost (Paradise Lost)

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ravenworks
2008-04-17 11:30 am UTC (link)

That's crazy, the music totally plays underwater D:

I decided to stick with the game's soundtrack, just because I found it relaxing, but I could certainly understand someone getting tired of it, and I've heard reviewers saying the MP3 support adds a lot, so you might wind up getting use of this list anyway ;) But maybe (I can't quite remember) they don't play music during the first mission while you're still learning the controls..

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	kjorteo 2008-04-17 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	I'd have no problem at all sticking with the game's soundtrack if it actually played! As it stands, it's one of the reasons I actually really like the boat part. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ravenworks 2008-04-17 08:13 pm UTC (link)
	That's really bizarre o.o Maybe you've got a defective disc or something. See if there's still no music a few missions in.. (and take note of what it says at the bottom of the loading screen, the part that changes when you tap left/right on the D-pad) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ravenworks 2008-04-17 11:44 am UTC (link)
	and just in advance; I think there are something like five or six songs in the game's soundtrack, but they 'unlock' when you reach the region they play in for the first time, following which you can choose them whenever you like, using the D pad on the loading screen. (Reply to this)

mike_woolman
2008-04-17 02:17 pm UTC (link)

I've recently gotten into Oblivion, and I really enjoy how much freedom the player has. "What? Give this amulet to some guy? No way: I'm going to go climb this mountain, and then steal all the food in someone's kitchen."

It's too bad that I don't have the time to be playing these video games anymore: I remember hearing about Forever Blue some time ago, and now that I know it's out in America, I want to get it.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

kjorteo
2008-04-17 08:00 pm UTC (link)

Oh, man, I miss Oblivion so much. I beat the game already and everything, but I just loved the atmosphere. Maybe I should reinstall it and see if I can go find one of those completely random on-the-side-of-the-road dungeons that don't really have anything in them and clear it out, just for fun. Naked. Because my armor was actually too awesome and kind of broke the game easiness-wise.

Or maybe I should go see if I could clean up the absolutely unholy pile of armaments I'm keeping in my house, since I learned that abusing the "this container has no item limit" feature to put thousands of things in there kind of makes them glitch out and makes some disappear, but I have yet to empty it out and move the stuff elsewhere.

Or maybe I just feel like randomly running around the town ~~on a market day and everyone will look at me and say "he's got a mouth full of crabs"~~ and being my awesome sexy Argonian self.

Oh, man, I'm totally reinstalling Oblivion now, and maybe picking up Shivering Isles if this idea works out.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mike_woolman 2008-04-17 10:34 pm UTC (link)
	I know of some awesome armours that are possible, such as 100% chameleon armour, but I can never get anything nearly powerful enough. I always find that I level up very quickly, and find weapons and armours far too rarely to be able to keep up with the ever growing monsters. So I'm interested to hear how you've survived, and what kind of armour you've gotten. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kjorteo
2008-04-17 11:45 pm UTC (link)

My equipment at this point:

Melee weapon: None--I went Hand-to-Hand. Master-level Hand-to-Hand is awesome, though, and does all the cool stuff that high-tier weapons can do, like hit ghosts and everything.

Ranged weapon: Harvester Bow
* Soul Trap for 2 seconds
* Fire/Ice/Shock damage 9 points for 2 seconds each

Arrow poison (I only have two of these left and forgot the recipe as it's been so long, so these are only for extreme emergencies and endbosses and stuff): Poison of the Icy Tomb
* Damage Health 6 points for 24 seconds
* Damage Magica 12 points for 48 seconds
* Paralyze for 3 seconds
* Frost Damage 7 points for 30 seconds
* Silence for 20 seconds

Neck: Amulet of Axes
* Reflect Damage 33% on Self
* Fortify Blunt 25 on Self

Ring: Mundane Ring
* Reflect Spell 35% on Self
* Resist Magic 50% on Self

Other ring: Ring of the Iron Fist
* Fortify Hand to Hand 25 points
* Reflect Damage 33% on Self

All my armor is enchanted glass armor, so just assume glass for the base stats and then add the neat bonuses to it. It's also at 125 health because I have master armorcrafting.

Chest: Champion Monk's Cuirass
* Detect Life 180 feet on Self

Arms: Champion Monk's Gloves
* Resist Magic 20% on Self

Legs: Champion Monk's Greaves
* Resist Magic 20% on Self

Boots: Champion Monk's Boots
* Frost Shield 25% on Self

Helm: Fin Gleam
* Water Breathing on Self
* Night-Eye on Self
* Detect Life 20 feet on Self
(For an Argonian who could breathe water anyway and who already has 180' Detect Life from the Cuirass, Fin Gleam is pretty useless, but the Night-Eye is neat and they just absolutely were not dropping blank glass helmets for me to enchant with anything else anywhere.)

Add all my armor up (and only mention the stuff I actually use, and not the things like the +25 to Blunt even though I'm exclusively Hand-to-Hand) and you get:
* Easily more armor defense than the cap of 85. My defense is 82 when not wearing everything except Fin Gleam, which claims to have a base defense of 5 and that's probably before the bonus from being at 125 health. So, basically, let's just say my defense rests comfortably at the 85 cap.
* +25 Hand-to-Hand
* 66% Reflect Damage
* 35% Reflect Spell
* 90% Resist Magic
* 25% Resist Frost (Frost Shield is resist frost and a defense buff at the same time. The latter is reflected in that 85 defense I mentioned before.)
* 180' Detect Life
* Night-Eye
* (I guess Water Breathing is worth mentioning as it's a pretty neat trick, though I would have had it anyway since I'm Argonian.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

kjorteo
2008-04-17 11:45 pm UTC (link)

Yay character limits. Also, last post should say "My defense is 82 when wearing everything except Fin Gleam." The extra "not" in there shouldn't be.

Anyway, so I'm not even remotely stealthy, but I'm pretty much a nigh-unkillable death-dealing machine. If you try to use melee attacks against me, I have 85 defense and 66% damage reflection, so you will almost (and depending on HP, I've seen a few enemies that actually have) hurt yourself more than me. If you try spells, I'm 90% resistant and 35% is reflected, so you're definitely hurting yourself more than me. So I pretty much run around punching out everything that moves without worry. I've never tried it because I'm not evil, but I could probably wipe out an entire city's guard force and be in that weird state where I'm wanted but no one's after me because there are no guards left.

If for whatever reason there's something I can't punch out, the Harvester Bow kills things pretty quickly and recharges itself thanks to the Soul Trap on top of the ridiculous damage output. You don't even need to be good at bows for it. (I'm certainly not.) There have only been two occasions in the game where something was scary enough that I needed a Poison of the Icy Tomb, and neither withstood it particularly well, so it's safe to say at this point that that's pretty much the end of the discussion if it reaches that point.

As for how I got all that cool stuff, all the Champion Monk's gear is blank glass armor + one of those gems you get from closing Oblivion gates (stealing them is what makes the gate collapse in the first place, and then you get to keep them and merge them with armor if they're neat.) Fin Gleam is something I found via exploring (there's a random dead body at the bottom of a lake near one of the towns who has Fin Gleam and some treasure on him.) The Amulet of Axes and Ring of the Iron Fist were random high-level loot I think just dropped from enemies inside Oblivion Gates. The Mundane Ring is a reward for a certain quest in the main story and is about that awesome if you wait long enough to actually further the plot so you're high-level when you get it. Poisons of the Icy Tomb were things I made myself through alchemy. Expert level, Harrada Root + Spiddal Stick + Milk Thistle Seeds + (any one of Frost Salts, Refined Frost Salts, or Vampire Dust). The Harvester Bow I made via enchanting weapons in the Mage's Guild. I think it used to be an ebony bow.

Edited at 2008-04-18 12:12 am UTC

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	davidn 2008-04-18 08:07 pm UTC (link)
	I haven't played the game, nor do I have any suggestions, but I have to say I'm pleased to hear that you've discovered at least some use for The Song That Makes You Want To Kill Yourself. (Reply to this)(Thread)

kjorteo
2008-04-18 08:15 pm UTC (link)

The thing is that it really is a nice, pleasant song, and there's nothing wrong with it in and of itself. It's pretty, and the lyrics are nice. The only problem comes from the unlikelihood of the source: asking the other members of Helloween to play something like that was more than a little much, and the subsequent expulsion of Michael Kiske and realignment of the rest of the band was more than justified, but it would have been an excellent unquestioned part of Kiske's solo career had he only waited a little.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

davidn
2008-04-18 08:32 pm UTC (link)

You inspired me to look at his home page again, and I was surprised to find that he'd released a new album last month. I was even more surprised to look at the track names - it looks like it's all the Helloween songs that he wrote, as he wanted them to be. Mellow.

http://kiske.homelinux.com/mp3/past/09.mp3 is an example of the level of surreality we're discussing here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kjorteo 2008-04-18 08:38 pm UTC (link)
	...Oh my. Now I almost want to see him do I Want Out just out of sheer morbid curiosity, though he very obviously didn't write that. Edited at 2008-04-18 10:02 pm UTC (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dr_dos 2008-04-18 10:43 pm UTC (link)
	http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2826286&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 I hope the Let's Play subforum is public right now. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Let's Play. The guy doing it has done good LPs before. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	kjorteo 2008-04-19 02:58 am UTC (link)
	Meowth + Hugs? Oh hell yes. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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