PixlBit

I've been making slow progress on Dragon Quest VII on 3DS during the week. I just got to Alltrades Abbey after 26 hours of gameplay. So far I haven't been mightily challenged by the game but there's been a few moments when things got tense, and I nearly lost my party. Be prepared, when doing seemingly mundane things, like searching rooms and opening chests, a rare surprise might have you fighting for your life when you least expect it. 

This weekend, I tried to continue in DQ Builders and was successful for a time. I created some rooms and got to level 4, which allowed me to go on a quest for materials to build bombs and start a multiwave battle with monsters who attack the town. I got several waves in and then kept blowing myself up with the bombs. You place it in front of knights and large golems that you can't hurt with your sword. Thing is, bombs have a very short fuse, and they make the ground a cratered mess. I'd get myself trapped, and then killed, by the blast. It really annoyed me. Then I thought I'd better raise my town to level five so I could create the armory and get my villagers kitted out. Well, I tried to keep within the boundaries of what I was pretty sure was the original town, but I couldn't get a barbeque kitchen to register for points. Then I moved a doorway to my stonemasons workspace and suddenly that wouldn't register either. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I really got fed up and just stopped.

So I switched to XBO and tried to play Minecraft with Mark, but I kept losing the connection because maybe there was some issues on Xbox live today.

That's when I returned to Skylanders: Trap Team and stayed with that the rest of the day. I got my Krypt King figure to the level cap of 20 and found his soul gem to unlock his ultimate upgrade. Then I switched to Wallop, whose soul gem I'd already found. I raised him to level 5. Along the way, I unlocked the rhythm game where your figure takes the stage with a band and you play a simplified Guitar Hero style game. I was able to play on Expert without too much trouble, but as I unlocked more band leaders, it got harder; nothing like Guitar Hero hard, though. I also unlocked the Skystones Smash card game. After playing the Superchargers version, this was even simpler, but just as fun. I'm really loving the environments in Trap Team, very colorful and charming. I'm playing on Medium difficulty right now, but I'm thinking of switching it to Hard again. Certain bosses are a pain at the level though, so I may just leave it be. I've been sticking to the one figure until I max out its upgrades, but I'm thinking now I should play the game as it wants you to, which is to switch figures often. I think tomorrow I'll use that method because I know it will be essential to beating the game on Nightmare difficulty. Plus I want to see more figures in action. Their special moves are really interesting and fun to use in battle, not to mention the wonderful voice work. 

That's a day. Bye.