Castaway 2

Today I'm going to start what I hope will be a regular occurance on my blog. I shall pick a game and just talk about it. For right now, this is what I've got.

I got on my favorite game site today, and one of the featured games was "Castaway 2". I'm going to review it as I play it. This should be interesting. :)

I started it up, and it came up with my character walking across the screen. And then it hit. A protagonist with amnesia. He says his "mind is empty". Great.

As instructed, I keep moving along the map. So far, so good. After entering a second sort of "room", I'm presented with my first puzzle: the path ahead is blocked by thick undergrowth. I can't get through. Following along the only path available, I locate my first weapon: a stick. Wow, that'll be really helpful.

For the record, I just spent the last five minutes hacking at bushes. There are a lot of bushes that I unnecessarily hacked to pieces. It's an addiction. And way more fun than I make it sound.

Into the third room, I find myself face to face with the MOST HORRIFIC MONSTER I HAVE EVER SEEN! A beetle. My first monster of the game!

It and its nearby friends are easily dispatched by the might of my stick. A quick few presses of the space-bar and they're gone. Of course, then I see an EVEN BETTER MONSTER:

That would be a snake. Most of the time they ran away from me. It's really annoying to fight a fleeing snake with a stick. :) After about 15 of these monsters, (I wasn't really counting) I level up! W00t! LEVEL 2!

In the next room... OMG, WhAt Is ThAt?!?!? 15h 4 fuzzy li77l3 d09! (For those of you who are not 1337 literate, I said "Ish a fuzzy little dog!")

I got me a pet! You cannot possibly understand how happy that makes me. :)

Here's the thing. I'm going to take a bunch of screen shots and stop talking for a little while. I feel like I'm babbling about nothing right now. And I want to focus on the game. I'll come back in on level ups and new weapons and pets. Let's do this.

Still in the room where I got the dog. Both myself and my pet leveled up! I'm 3, Castaway is 2!

Ooh, this seems important:

This statue just talked to me... Her name is Sigil. And she just told me I'm on the Isle of the Titans. Glad we got that straightened out.

Oh, and while I'm in the mindset of writing, I'd like to say this about the game mechanic: Half the time, I walk away from items that fall out of the carcasses of my enemies because I kill them, and they fade and I walk away, and then I look at the little map in the corner, and it shows an item. >.<

So the statue lady gave me two quests. One to make armor, and one to make a new weapon. Here's how they look equipped:

For completing the quests, I got a key to move on to the next room. And I did. I'm level 4 now, but so are the monsters. I plan to train up to level 5 or 6 before I move on to the next one.

Holy crud! Before I could move on to the next room, this happened:

I got swarmed. There were four of them all at once, all level four! It was mildly insane.

Speaking of... I flew through the next few rooms, not really fighting anything... 

Holy shiz. It's the first boss. I'm so pumped!! Imma use my newly acquired skills and my modified stick! FEAR ME, BIG BLUE!

He goes down without much trouble... And then I experience my first game over. Battling big blue dropped my HP a lot more than I thought it did... And then I had to battle my way to the next door. :( I didn't see it till it was too late.

I just got to the city of Bastion. It's the first city, and once again I'm greeted by Sigil. Sigil is everywhere. It's so weird.

The next step on my journey seems to be to seek out a monster by the name of "Sister Pedro"... Onward and upwards, I suppose.

After a whole lot of searching aimlessly... And a few game overs, I've found her.

Two things absolutely blow about this silly little snake. 1) She can poison you, so your health depletes while you aren't paying attention, and 2) she spawns little helper snakes to destroy you and distract you.

I must say that this is the most frustrating fight I've ever been in. This is too complicated for a flash game. I'm done.

And yes, seriously, I'm completely done playing the game for today, perhaps forever.

So... What did I think about it? 

I think the concepts are there, and pretty well done. There were some flaws in the background of the entire game, and there were a few mechanical issues I would've personally fixed, but all in all it's a good game.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, yes I would. It's a good way to waste about two hours, at least that's how long I spent on the parts I did. The art is pretty, and as far as I could see, it had a decent plot line.

And where can you find it to play it?

It's called Castaway II (2). You could probably just google it, or search for it on whatever site you play games on. I personally play on Kongregate, because it isn't blocked by my school's web filters... I mean because they have quality games. >_>

On a lighter note, I think I'm going to steal my brother's old PC so I can run Ubuntu. I'm so pumped for this!

Castaway 2 courtesy of Likwid Games, hosted on Kongregate.com. All pictures are screenshots from this game which I took myself.