Week of 12 Feb 2023
Sitting down and actually playing through Disney’s Bolt was definitely an exercise in patience. It was just so dull and I had zero motivation to get it completed, so of course it took a tad longer than it should have and I was playing it into Monday. It’s overall a pretty standard kids’ licensed title, with nothing special or noteworthy, though that’s why it’s one of those seminal achievement-hunter classics from back in the good old days when an “easy 1000g” was a much rarer occurrence. Just happy to have this one knocked out finally after it was handed to me back in October of 2019 as a Games with Gold! I’m actually getting low on these easy games from back on the Xbox 360.
Achievements unlocked: 37 (+27) | Completed
When operating a motor vehicle, always be on the lookout for indestructible superdogs in your path.
So, while Quantum Conundrum was the big, scary game I had started for my 2022 Dive, Jump Force was the scary one I’d started because the servers were shutting down soon (though they later adjusted the achievements to account for this). Now, I’m not a fan of fighting games as it is, so I definitely expected this to be a huge pain. And back when I started it, it sure seemed like that would end up being the case. But, that all changed when I started digging in this week, as I quickly found that almost every AI fighter will quickly fall victim to a 3-5 hit combo from a Type A fighter, followed by an Ability to pile on the damage. Then you just block until you get another opening! Course, to block all of the assaults the opponent will launch at you, you’ll need to obtain and upgrade the “Father...is right here!” J-Skill obtained from the “Surpassing One’s Father” Normal Free Mission, which at level 5 blocks all chip damage! This means that as long as you can toss up a block in time most attacks won’t hurt your score for the S-ranks. Which, when I started, I totally thought you had to S-rank every single free mission, but it turns out you only need 10 such scores. You can even play the same mission ten times to earn each difficulty achievement! But…well, I S-ranked them all anyway. For the lulz. And, besides Freiza’s penchant for grabbing or Dio’s insistence on starting each match with an unblockable attack, you’ll easily be able to earn the scores you need. I made sure to keep my initial combo to only 3 hits to stop the higher-level enemies from having a chance at countering me, too. If they DO hit you, you’ll want Kurapika as your follow-up support character to allow for healing any damage you take. This strategy allowed me to clear all the Free Missions at S-rank (that I have unlocked at level 83) and the story mode, though they really through a massive difficulty spike at the end boss. I really only have grinding left to do, so this is going to be a far easier completion than I’d expected. It’s a shame that everything around the gameplay is pretty generic and boring.
Achievements unlocked: 43 (+31) | Completion: 86%
Don’t worry, Mr. Piccolo. I got this.
Highest ratio: 12.26
Apex Fighter (Jump Force)
Lowest ratio: 1.53
Welcome to the Jungle (Disney’s Bolt)
Time to increase recruiting (Disney’s Bolt)
