This board actually took multiple takes as well, like
... more attempts than normal. But at least it wasn't really my fault!
...you see, one of the most crushing things to experience in online play is an arbitrary disconnect just as a game is getting good, and I don't think I need to explain that to anybody, especially if you've experienced it personally. Now imagine that applied to a game that can get underway and reach a nail-biting climax in about 90 minutes... and then suddenly the connection is lost.
Granted,
Fortune Street is one of the least connection-intensive games possible, and it doesn't happen very often (although there are frequently some close scrapes and scares and false positives for what you might think is a disconnection) ...but the sheer duration of sessions is like constantly tempting it to happen. I'm frankly impressed that the game doesn't disconnect every single game. And it really drives home the reason why individual committed online outings almost always have a fairly hard upper bounds time limit, the vast majority of which also tend to be on the rather short side. (The former cake-taker in this regard for console online multiplayer was
Monster Hunter's 50-minute quests... and you really have to be trying hard at dragging your heels to use up the full quest time in most cases.)
But that's enough about that, now we must money-fight! We're also joined this time by thebakkat instead of by Lombardi88! (
Phew, what a relief that guy is extra scary at financial dominance, y'know? ...but
Katie's been known to tear me a new one just for the heck of it, too... ... ...financial meltdowns are imminent!)
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I really like
Delfino Plaza... in basically every instance of showing up in anything ever. Which is weird, because it's basically just a glorified hub world from a generally-dismissed (and grossly underrated... but possessed of its own awkward quirks that would understandably not agree with many) successor to
Super Mario 64 and predecessor to the absolutely all-around incomparable
Super Mario Galaxy. I think there's just something to like about an idyllic tropical paradise populated by unusual, intriguing, and goofy natives... and the music! (So catchy.) No wonder it shows up whenever possible in crossovers.
Anyway, the board itself is a bit of an underutilized quirk that might seem underwhelming at first... but it really completely changes the entire game in several significant ways just by having its layout tweaked into a pretzel.
Unfortunately, the
Easy Rules version is much more standard and actually veers more towards a "long circuit" paradigm... making it somewhat similar to the likes of Slimenia, just minus the parts that make Slimenia interesting... so it was frankly a no-brainer to make a visit to
Standard Delfino Plaza a high priority.
So, what do I mean about its particular personal characteristics that completely turn the game on its head? Well, for starters, you're going to be passing the bank an awful lot. Generally three times more often than you actually get a promotion. This means that there's going to be a
LOT of stock being bought, which also means there could be a bunch of stock being sold, which really means you can get into some crazy market battles...
Although the simplest ultimate meaning of stock warring is ...well, it's easy to "destroy" money (in proportion to stock holdings and values... that didn't rightly exist to begin with, since stock prices are purely speculative until you actually sell them) by selling stocks, but it's a real gymnastic mental pretzel to actually get used to and grow comfortable with how to best do it without hurting yourself more in the process. So... more straightforwardly, it means that you'll have a lot of opportunity for coattail riders getting in on the ground floor of opportunities that didn't exist until just one or a previously lucrative investment turning into nothing special because all the intersection action allows for movements that enable choice buyouts before you can actually act on the new status quo before it becomes outmoded. (
Confused? You betcha!)
Of more basic concerns... we have three lopsided circuits that you can't backtrack onto and absolutely NEED to traverse... two of which have insane potential to turn into player-killers if they fall sufficiently into one player's hands. The invisible hand help you if more than one should do so, because you can't possibly avoid passing by something unsavory if that happens. Then it's up to scrounging along on what little free will at forks and luck with cannons you can scrape by on.
This board is VERY hard not to turn into a runaway by one or two players, and that can really only be averted by cavalierly buying out before things get much worse...
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Vaycay!
Katie (thebakkat)
youtube.com/bakkatshow
twitch.tv/thebakkat
twitter.com/thebakkat
Waaario (WhiteKhakis)
twitch.tv/whitekhakis
youtube.com/whitekhakis
B-Squared
youtube.com/strategist9
twitter.com/strategist9
- published: 10 Aug 2014
- views: 68