So I figured out it’s not a wise idea to have both Xfire and Raptr running in the background when trying to record videos with the former, so there was only one lengthy audio/visual hiccup this time around.
SPOILER ALERT: I die at the end, just as I reached the boss of the dungeon, which I really should have seen coming. Just…just see for yourself.
I ran into some problems with this second video… My computer froze up for some unknown reason at three separate points during recording, so I had to cut out a few parts of the video to get rid of some “dead air”. After that, I found out that Xfire only allows uploaded videos to run under 10 minutes (although you can record for any length of time), so I’m pretty much restricted to putting everything up on YouTube. I suppose I can live with that.
Anyway, Willy the Engineer has leveled up from 3 to 5, and acquired a somewhat useful Shield Bash ability while traipsing around the skeleton-infested Path of the Honored Dead. Had to send my pet back to town a couple of times, since I forgot to stop up on potions while I was in the Enclave.
There seems to be a side quest dungeon nearby. What could be inside…?
After finishing off my playthrough of Hyperdimension Neptunia, I figured I’d start off 2013 by testing out the video recorder on Xfire to take some gameplay footage. Torchlight II seemed like the perfect candidate for my first “real” YouTube video, and as a challenge to myself, I’m going to try playing through as much of the game as I can on Elite difficulty using a “hardcore” character (in gaming parlance, “hardcore” means that once your character is killed, you don’t get revived, and you can never use that character again).
Note that this isn’t a traditional “Let’s Play” video, as I didn’t record any audio commentary for it, and don’t plan on doing so for any of the others. I’d rather let my skills (or lack thereof) do the talking for me…though I will probably add annotations in the future, because some of this stuff can be hard to read at times.
This first video starts off easy enough, as my engineer (unimaginatively named “Willy”) plows through Echo Pass to deliver a message to the Estherian refugee camp, all while slaughtering hordes of vicious Ratlins. Why they want to kill me, I have no idea.
At long last, the saga of Neptune and her bid to end the console wars draws to a close. With Black Heart and Green Heart already agreeing to join her in the fight against Arfoire, Neptune spends about an hour grinding for enough levels and Shares to get White Heart on her side. It’s quite fitting that Lowee’s recruitment took the longest since White Heart is notoriously stubborn about everything and (almost) everyone, even standing steadfast in her refusal to have anything to do with Nep-Nep after getting her butt kicked in their last boss battle until Histoire tricks her into joining.
The gang now consists of all four CPUs, two “maker” characters who joined Neptune at the beginning of the game, and four more who are only available for play with corresponding DLC packages…more than large enough of a party to take on the final boss of an RPG. Three stages of boss evolution and about an hour of cutscenes later, Neptune’s party wins, and the story is over.
Chapter 33 can be read here, and Chapter 34 can be read here. (Side note/fair warning: The “true ending” of the game pretty much destroys any possibility of Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 being a direct sequel.)
The final battle for Celestia draws ever closer, and Neptune is still trying to get help from the other goddesses. In Chapter 32 of our story, Neptune and friends take off for the green land of Leanbox in order to get Green Heart on the team. It’s almost as easy as it sounds, especially since there are still plenty of Shares in that land still left over from their journey in Lastation. All that remains now is to go to Lowee to recruit White Heart.
NOTE: I made a few small alterations to Chapter 31 to include some new 5pb and RED skits I missed the first time around.
NOTE 2: It is perfectly possible to try to beat the game without getting all three of the other CPUs on your side, and evidently it’s advisable to do so if you’re shooting for 100% completion. Of course, you do still get to continue the game after the ending, which gives you access to several more high-level dungeons and skits between the other characters. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to leave that portion out of this story for future chapters.