Stella Glow - Impressions

What is it: Stella glow is an SRPG from developer Imageepoch and published by Atlus. It was released in the US and Japan last year and recently made it to Australian shores.


What do I need to know: The premise of the game is that an evil witch is attempting to crystallize the world using a cursed song. The only way to stop it is to find and unite four 'good' witches, to counter the evil witches song. The game takes place in areans reminiscent of Final Fantasy tactics. 

The gameplay is centred around battles in these arenas and interspersed with plentiful story sequences and character development. On the battlefield you need to coordinate the various strengths and weaknesses of your squad to succeed. You'll have characters that can move and strike quickly, ranged characters, witches who can use powerful spells, but are vulnerable to enemy attacks. Other characters can serve as protectors for the group, through the guardian ability which stops enemies from passing through adjacent spaces. These characters typically have plenty of hitpoints and are good in close quarters.

Being able to flank the enemy and get in behind is important, but you must also be careful to not leave your own fighters too exposed. 


What do I think: The game has a pretty typical JRPG setup - kid with amnesia etc... But its setting and the background of the world is actually interesting. The game has a great art style, which is complemented by an excellent soundtrack and voice acting.

There's plenty of dialogue between characters and the the overall tone of the story is quite reminiscent of a Saturday morning cartoon (in a good way).

The battle system is easy to pick up, but has enough strategy to be enjoyable. Between battles you'll spend your time at the capital  where you split your time between support conversations with your squad, doing jobs for money or exploring for items.

After 10 hours I'm really enjoying the game and can recommend it to SRPG fans.

Collateral Damage - Acceptable victims in the name of political ideology

I actually thought of this concept yesterday before the attacks in Brussels in relation to the issues of illegal immigration in the US.  This article on The Blaze addresses the impact of illegal immigration:

Illegal immigration is absolutely not a victimless crime

In a period of 4 years from 2010 over 100 illegal immigrants subject to deportation orders, but released into the community were charged with homicide. One man was deported 5 times, before murdering a woman in San Francisco. It also applies to the attacks on Women in Europe and the compromised security as a result of EU border policies.

Missing is the outrage and condemnation we should expect to find, because its something our leaders have accepted as part of the multicultural, open borders political ideology. Obama made no public statements toward the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle, because it would be inconvenient to the political narrative to address her victimhood at the hands of authorities who have failed in their duty to protect the border and the US citizens.

Its the same in Europe where they are more concerned with maintaining political correctness than actually doing something about the threat of Islamic extremism. Now we come to yet another attack, this time in Brussels, a breeding ground of Islamic extremism. Leaders will make the same hand wringing statements about solidarity, yet do nothing about the security and policies that allowed the attack in the first place.

Since 9/11 the right have warned about the threat of Islamism, yet inspite of this Angela Merkel and co. conspired to import Islam on mass, even with no go zones already well known in Sweden. Those who have already become victims will not find the justice they deserve, for they are acceptable collateral damage in the quest to overthrow national identity across the EU.

There are some countries that have resisted, mostly those in Eastern Europe, like Hungary. Inspite of bullying from the EU, they chose to maintain the safety and security of their country in the face of Merkels orchestrated migrant crisis. Here's a great speech made just days ago:
Orban's historic speech

Who now would criticize Hungary for erecting a fence and controlling its borders? How many ISIS members are in Europe now, ready to strike.

This is why Trump is so far ahead in the primaries in the US: people are sick of being considered acceptable collateral.


Enough

The Division looks to be following in the footsteps of Destiny

The Division Year One

I played the beta, and decided I'd wait to see how the dust settles before buying the game. With players already hitting the level cap and having the best gear and The Darkzone with a number of short-comings, I'll continue to hold out.


The Division finds itself on the same trajectory as Destiny. It'll be the game that everyone bitches about in the comments in 2016, because it'll take a year to get it right. I reckon I'll be holding out for the Taken King equivalent version of The Division. By then they will have optimised the loot economy, added more content and fixed the darkzone.

Here's some thoughts I had on the DZ in particular in a few tweets:

Whilst the game handles matchmaking better than Destiny - its easy to find a team to do missions, raids etc the lack of true PVP could hurt it. Fortunately an easy fix would be to have a strictly PVP area where the concept of going Rogue is removed.