Week of 12 Mar 2023
“Omega opponent power!”
Achievements Earned In:
- Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords
- Mensa Academy
- Wrestle Kingdom
When I wrapped up the prior week, I didn’t think I had all that much left of Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. But, man, does this game like to drag on! That second-to-last mission had me running all over Etheria trying to find pieces of some ancient minotaur god. And then the chore to find a way into the final dungeon was also a multi-part quest. Once I stopped trying to follow the TA walkthrough’s suggestions for my character, I also started doing a LOT more damage, especially when chaining the purple star gems as a Knight. Course, this meant any combat was just a formality at that point and a massive chore, but at least I wasn’t losing, I guess? Really, the whole game is pretty easy, and there’s only one annoying achievement: the one for forging a Godlike item. The key to that one is to, well, first collect the necessary runes; also try and keep matching gems at the top of the board and keeping a match near the bottom for if you get stuck. I managed it on my first try! Wasn’t long until I had everything else wrapped up, too, even reaching level 50 without any grinding needed. Woo!
Achievements unlocked: 15 (+5) | Completed
I…have no words. Maybe see a gastroenterologist.
On Tuesday, I decided I’d hookup my NTSC-J Xbox 360 console and start working on some of the import Japanese titles I’d accumulated the past couple years. I had a hard time choosing, starting one game before switching to another (more on the latter in a second). The problem is that both of these games don’t give you the first achievement easily, so the night was nearing the end and I didn’t have anything to extend my streak. Figured I’d use another Xbox 360 backlog title, so I loaded up Mensa Academy. I’d avoided this for a while because, even though it’s a fairly simple completion, it’s going to be a bit of a bore and more than a little annoying to pause and capture the screen to solve the puzzles. I had to use it again on Wednesday, but now I’ve run out of easy achievements in this game, too! I may have to start putting actual effort into it… The puzzles aren’t too bad, though there’s a mathematics one (Number Relations) that is pretty tough; I think I managed to develop a spreadsheet that’ll solve it for me, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. Here’s hoping, as I tried the Test mode and these problems quickly had me stuck.
Achievements unlocked: 3 (+3) | Completion: 25%
This is too much math for achievements!
Speaking of that Japanese game I decided to go with, Wrestle Kingdom is a game I’d picked up a while ago but just hadn’t gotten around to. I decided to finally jump in. With only seven achievements and a 20-ish hour completion time, it is obviously very stingy with the pops. The gameplay is just like every Xbox 360 WWE game since 2007, so it wasn’t hard to slip back into it, though I hadn’t played one of these games since 2010. The completion entails winning every title in Drama mode, completing 30 rounds in Survival, earning 50 wins in Exhibition, and completing Drama mode under a few restrictions. The Exhibition wins were easy enough after creating a weak custom wrestler, turning off disqualifications, and pounding their head in with a ring bell. For Drama, you have to complete six playthroughs, which is where most of the completion time sits. Even worse, you have to do each playthrough with a different Create-a-Wrestler, so you’re starting at square one every time and have to work your stats back up. The longest playthrough will be when you’re going for the no-loss run, since you have to take the time to actually win each match. This is simple enough if you turn the game to Easy and use weapons to weaken your opponent outside the ring (you get about 15 hits in before being DQ’d) until they are too weak to make it back in before being counted out. This strategy works until the final couple matches, where your opponent will have the resilience of a superhero and pop up after each strike no matter how many times you hit them. Even worse, many times I felt the referee was working against me, counting to around 18 or 19 then taking their sweet time counting to 20! For these matches, I’d actually start by weakening them with normal moves first, follow them back into the ring to reset the count, then do my normal strategy. Even then, it was usually a close call! You wanna get this method down, though, because even in subsequent runs you’re still gonna have to at least win all the matches after Week 21 to get the title you need for the final achievement. The second longest playthrough (that could also be wrapped into your first, though I failed to do so) is to finish with full Charisma, which is accomplished by taunting your butt off in every match. After you have these two achievements, the runs become much shorter since you can lose about 2/3 of the matches. I usually used these initial weeks to do intense workouts on my wrestler, injuring him but giving a large boost to his stats for the final matches. All-in-all, I managed to reach my fifth playthrough before the week ended, so I don’t think it’ll be much longer.
Achievements unlocked: 5 (+5) | Completion: 71%
Who spilled this jam on my forehead?!
Highest ratio: 1.90
Master Craftsman (Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords)
Lowest ratio: 1.01
3 is the Magic Number (Mensa Academy)
