So my siblings and I played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy tonight. It was somewhat amusing; I was kinda sorta napping, because of exhaustion, then heard the famous cry of, "So...". In my family, that word carries an ABUNDANCE of meaning, usually, about what to do, though it can be applied in other contexts. Everyone knows what the speaker means from just the one word, though. In this case, it was in fact about what to do. So I snapped awake instantly, at the ready.
We asked our older sister, who you might recall was not involved before, and she said she was alright. Since we can't do Age of Empires II anymore, the only four-player option left was our go-to game of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which we have a save file on from last year. We decided to do a refresher on the forest levels, noted how our supply of gold was steadily decreasing, then decided to risk taking on the Spider Queen...where we discovered (though in hindsight, for me, it was a rediscovery) that she is a ridiculously good farm, both for coins AND levels, with us gaining 2-4 levels per run and also gaining a massive surplus of coins, while not losing that much health--she wasn't that tough.
With this boost in power, we resumed from where we left off: the third level of the Desert Realm/Wizard's home realm, which we had previously found to be troublesome. This time through, though, we found it to be passable, albeit still a huge resource drain. The Genie proved to be a tough fight, since we didn't have the item for him (I thought we did, but it's either on a later level or we missed it when we had the chance to get it), so we took a beating there, but it was still a fight we could win.
Next, we did the first ice level, though that's all we had time for, and, as we're leaving tomorrow, that's all we could do for this year. Ah, well. It was good to advance.
To describe it, if you don't remember: I'm the Gauntlet expert in the family. While I might not have obsessed over the original (though I DID make it pretty far), for Dark Legacy, I played it so many times that I virtually memorized the single-player layout of every level, because I had the time to go through them multiple times. Sometimes I did so with cheats, even. Other times I played fair, but through farming, was so ridiculously overpowered that it was a cakewalk anyway. Unfortunately, this was years ago, multiplayer alters the levels somewhat, AND alters the dynamic, as you're constantly rushing to get things, avoid things, and struggling with the camera division. Given those three factors, it's no surprise that I've lost my edge.
My brother is always 1-3 levels above me, currently at 61 (I believe) while I'm at 60. (We started the night at like 45/47 me/him respectively.) I'm the Jester, so I can usually be up at the front, though occasionally I get my avatar confused with other players, particularly my older sister since we share colors. I also can get stuck behind my siblings, or obstacles I failed to properly navigate, or I can be choosing a route my siblings don't pursue, which means I typically take a lot of damage, don't get the most reward, but I do get a fairly large amount of front line action: I'm the only one who knows how to use combo attacks, which I use to melee minibosses. I'm faster than anyone else, and use it, but I'm not always hogging everything, even when I try.
My brother should be the slowest, as the wizard, but his level advantage makes him the second-fastest. He cruises through, uses very powerful magic (he's our designated potion-user), and deals strong turbos too. (Though I've noticed my turbo's faster: even if I launch my turbo after his, mine will be sent towards the target before his is, meaning mine impacts enemies first and I get the kills/experience from it.)
He might lack Gauntlet: Dark Legacy experience (though he did play, and was the second-most-frequent player behind me), but he played the original Gauntlet Legends extensively, to the point where while he may not know the levels, he knows how the game operates, and as a result, is very good at getting everything he needs. Though, in spite of our cash surplus, he refuses to buy potions or keys. (I spend money to max mine out. I also tend to not use my keys, letting others use theirs instead, and a result of this is that I often let them claim the rewards.)
My younger sister is the archer, so she theoretically has the talent to keep up with me, but she lacks the skill necessary to stay where she needs to be. She's much lower in level as a result, though she still contributes a fair amount. My older sister, as the slow Valkyrie, is underpowered. Her lack of aggression only furthered the gap, making her rather weak in comparison to us, but she survives.
Soyeah. That's our group. Anyway, I've mostly packed my stuff.
There are a few things I'm leaving out. Pills, because I'm not sure I have the room to take them. Shoes, because I need to wear them. My phone (and its charger), because its battery drained MUCH faster than it should have (it can normally last 48 hours and still be at least above 20% in power; this time it went less than 24 hours and was at 10% and shrinking), not to mention was mysteriously overheating in spite of lack of use. Then, there are things like my blankets (using them tonight), my pillow (same), and my laptop, because I want to blog in the morning before we leave. Similarly, the laptop bed thingy (which I blogged about before) is being left out because it's being used to support my laptop, but once I've got my blog all written for tomorrow, I'll store it away.
Anyway, probably missed a ton of interesting things to talk about (sorry, memory only so good), but this will have to do; I'm tired, and need to go to bed.
We asked our older sister, who you might recall was not involved before, and she said she was alright. Since we can't do Age of Empires II anymore, the only four-player option left was our go-to game of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, which we have a save file on from last year. We decided to do a refresher on the forest levels, noted how our supply of gold was steadily decreasing, then decided to risk taking on the Spider Queen...where we discovered (though in hindsight, for me, it was a rediscovery) that she is a ridiculously good farm, both for coins AND levels, with us gaining 2-4 levels per run and also gaining a massive surplus of coins, while not losing that much health--she wasn't that tough.
With this boost in power, we resumed from where we left off: the third level of the Desert Realm/Wizard's home realm, which we had previously found to be troublesome. This time through, though, we found it to be passable, albeit still a huge resource drain. The Genie proved to be a tough fight, since we didn't have the item for him (I thought we did, but it's either on a later level or we missed it when we had the chance to get it), so we took a beating there, but it was still a fight we could win.
Next, we did the first ice level, though that's all we had time for, and, as we're leaving tomorrow, that's all we could do for this year. Ah, well. It was good to advance.
To describe it, if you don't remember: I'm the Gauntlet expert in the family. While I might not have obsessed over the original (though I DID make it pretty far), for Dark Legacy, I played it so many times that I virtually memorized the single-player layout of every level, because I had the time to go through them multiple times. Sometimes I did so with cheats, even. Other times I played fair, but through farming, was so ridiculously overpowered that it was a cakewalk anyway. Unfortunately, this was years ago, multiplayer alters the levels somewhat, AND alters the dynamic, as you're constantly rushing to get things, avoid things, and struggling with the camera division. Given those three factors, it's no surprise that I've lost my edge.
My brother is always 1-3 levels above me, currently at 61 (I believe) while I'm at 60. (We started the night at like 45/47 me/him respectively.) I'm the Jester, so I can usually be up at the front, though occasionally I get my avatar confused with other players, particularly my older sister since we share colors. I also can get stuck behind my siblings, or obstacles I failed to properly navigate, or I can be choosing a route my siblings don't pursue, which means I typically take a lot of damage, don't get the most reward, but I do get a fairly large amount of front line action: I'm the only one who knows how to use combo attacks, which I use to melee minibosses. I'm faster than anyone else, and use it, but I'm not always hogging everything, even when I try.
My brother should be the slowest, as the wizard, but his level advantage makes him the second-fastest. He cruises through, uses very powerful magic (he's our designated potion-user), and deals strong turbos too. (Though I've noticed my turbo's faster: even if I launch my turbo after his, mine will be sent towards the target before his is, meaning mine impacts enemies first and I get the kills/experience from it.)
He might lack Gauntlet: Dark Legacy experience (though he did play, and was the second-most-frequent player behind me), but he played the original Gauntlet Legends extensively, to the point where while he may not know the levels, he knows how the game operates, and as a result, is very good at getting everything he needs. Though, in spite of our cash surplus, he refuses to buy potions or keys. (I spend money to max mine out. I also tend to not use my keys, letting others use theirs instead, and a result of this is that I often let them claim the rewards.)
My younger sister is the archer, so she theoretically has the talent to keep up with me, but she lacks the skill necessary to stay where she needs to be. She's much lower in level as a result, though she still contributes a fair amount. My older sister, as the slow Valkyrie, is underpowered. Her lack of aggression only furthered the gap, making her rather weak in comparison to us, but she survives.
Soyeah. That's our group. Anyway, I've mostly packed my stuff.
There are a few things I'm leaving out. Pills, because I'm not sure I have the room to take them. Shoes, because I need to wear them. My phone (and its charger), because its battery drained MUCH faster than it should have (it can normally last 48 hours and still be at least above 20% in power; this time it went less than 24 hours and was at 10% and shrinking), not to mention was mysteriously overheating in spite of lack of use. Then, there are things like my blankets (using them tonight), my pillow (same), and my laptop, because I want to blog in the morning before we leave. Similarly, the laptop bed thingy (which I blogged about before) is being left out because it's being used to support my laptop, but once I've got my blog all written for tomorrow, I'll store it away.
Anyway, probably missed a ton of interesting things to talk about (sorry, memory only so good), but this will have to do; I'm tired, and need to go to bed.
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