Nicknames

First update of 2020

There’s no better way for a gamer to start the new year than playing some games! This time I played 2 games (which only one was finished, the other one was dropped harder than the beat in this track). Let’s start with the former

12 Labours of Hercules III: Girl Power

14.3 hours, 18 of 22 achievements

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There’s barely any difference in its mechanics between this game and its previous installment (aside of controlling Megara instead of Hercules of course). Of course it’s as enjoyable as ever (except if you’re as dumb as me and play it on Relaxed mode, just to realize halfway into the game that you’d miss about 4 achievements if you don’t play every level in normal or expert mode).

As much as I liked this game I think I’ll take a break from Time Management games before I burn out.


As for the latter, I have a lot of things to say about it, and most of them aren’t nice

3 Stars of Destiny

20.9 hours, 20 of 50 achievements

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This one was included in one of the first bundles I ever bought (IIRC it was in a Groupees Bundle back in 2015) and any hope I had for this game was shattered after the first hour. At the start of the game we see witch who warns the big bad that she saw in one of her prophecies that a trio of heroes will defeat him and he has to take action to prevent it. What does the big bad do? kill her before she tells him who these heroes are because HURR DURR I’M SO EVULZ!. Fast-forward a bit and you’re in control of Random (yes, that’s his name and no, you can’t change it), a kid who thinks he’s hot shit and he’s just a immature brat who later meets Sarah and they spent most of the time bickering for the stupidest reasons ever (it doesn’t help Sarah has the maturity of a fifth-grader). As the story progresses the characters take more and more stupid decisions to the point it makes you wonder how much thought was put into the story. It was an absolutely awful experience but I gritted my teeth and kept going. Maybe, just maybe, it improved radically like Windchild did.

Later on I found that you need to backtrace a lot in this game (especially if you try to do as many side-quests as possible) and there’s not a way to make travelling faster, so you spend most of the time walking back and forth from one way to another. It was annoying but still better than hearing random and Sarah argue for the 239346th time, so I pulled through.

Then there were the battles. Being able to get extra exp and/or buffs from teammates if you fight with them long enough was very original, but counter-attacks being able to be countered was a very terrible decision. You’d end up with one of your characters and an enemy attacking each other until one of them dies and you’re unable to do anything to avoid it (you can go and make yourself a coffee while you wait for them to finish if you want tho). I was already at my limit, but I decided to keep going even though the most sensible thing was to call it quits.

Then there was a very sudden “difficulty” spike which could only be solved by grinding incessantly. Why? Because there’s a mob that can wipe out your entire party in one hit and there’s no way to prevent it (aside of dumb luck). That was when I decided to stop playing and regret the hours I spent on it.

There were a few positive things in this game. For example there was a decent variety of side-quests, hidden secret rooms with lots of loot, and the game itself is a good guide on what you should never do if you ever decide to make a game


Until the next update!

Trent

I’ve only played one of the Labours of Hercules games (the first one), but I liked it. I have a few of the others, but haven’t played.
It appears that I removed 3 Stars of Destiny from my Steam library at some point. Looks like I made the right choice. ;-)

Nicknames

I recommend you playing the second 12 Labours of Hercules game. It adds a few new mechanics that makes it even better than the first one (+2 really hard achievements)

Cece09

I dont normally read reviews but seeing how much time you put into 3 stars just interested me. To bad it sucked so much considering all that time and effort you put into it

Nicknames

To be fair about 6 hours were spent idling for cards so it wasn’t as bad as it looks like. I still wish I was smarter back then and abandoned it as soon as I saw how unbearable the main cast was

Arbiter Libera

I put some five hours or so into 3 Stars of Destiny, but at the end of the day I think it just comes off as a representative of that particular RPG Maker scene. Someone has things they like in commercial JRPG and they implement them in their own game. Lack of that pro polish and coherency in general seems to follow these titles, especially when they’re sold. Writing always reveals it for me.