Frightening Lives (Day 359)

There was a shift in reality--the way things were. Aisen could not put his finger on it, but something imperceptible had changed. There was a white noise that he could not hear before. His vision, indistinct and hazy, was just then beginning to come into focus. A confusing swirl of colors painstakingly rearranged themselves into a pattern that made something approaching sense. He could make out spindly trees and parched earth before him, but the ever present fog was now gone. He could hear the faint sounds of tiny creatures skittering around the outskirts of the wood and felt humid air filling his lungs. 

"Wh--where am I?" Aisen asked no one in particular. The words, despite being delivered by parched and disused vocal words, clung to the air and stayed there. They resonated and danced in the air instead of being swallowed up, never to be heard again. It made Aisen feel somewhat self-conscious, but he was willing to suffer the emotion if it meant he had made it out of the forest. Wherever he might be at that moment, it had to be a better place. 

Aisen chanced a wary glance back at the tangle of woods behind him only to behold a thin cover of scraggly trees, just barely clinging to life. The grass below him was browned and pockmarked by large patches of soil. This was no forest; that much was certain. 

The main in the piriol cloak felt strongly he'd escaped a terrible maze. He thought that perhaps it was against his best interests to assume Lakara had deposited him into a place of safety, but there just had to be more to the situation than that. It was probably foolish to assume the forest itself was sentient. Nature's dangers do not discriminate on who they befall, even if those dangers had been somehow warped by foul magic. It could very well be a fluke that Aisen had ended up here in this arid land, but he wasn't yet ready to question it.

Shaking off the weariness of an overlong sleep, Aisen set off toward what he believed to be the east, if the still climbing sun was any indication. Although he readily admitted he was as lost as he had ever been, having a frame of reference sparked a surge of motivation in the man. No more would he wander aimlessly through a thick fog, knowing full well he was likely only traveling in circles. Now he would march forward in one direction and at least take comfort in the fact that he was covering some kind of distance. 

Aisen felt a sharp pain in his stomach and absentmindedly retrieved a bean from his pouch. The hunger gradually subsided, but the pain continued to gnaw at him. As the sun made its journey to the other horizon, he only felt his trepidation grow. Still he marched on, until the ghostly strand of trees was well behind him and only an expanse of flat and exhausted ground could be seen for miles around.

Broke Me Up (Day 358)

I'm pretty deep into just about all the games I'm playing right now but not particularly close to finishing any of them. I've played Divinity for roughly 45 hours now but I feel I have a decent way to go. I'm not sure how much content Dissidia has after completing all of the characters' various chapters, but I'm finished with the majority of those. I'm on chapter 16x of 25 in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, but some of those chapters have historically taken me several days to complete, mostly because I generally only work on them on lunch breaks and many take a significant amount of trial and error before I can complete them.

Still, I feel like I'll be finishing several games pretty soon and I'll have a whole new wave of games on the horizon to replace them. I'm not sure what else my co-op partner and I could play, but we might figure something out. I think I'll probably continue playing PSP games from my backlog as well. I have a few options there, including Persona 2: Innocent Sin and Gungnir. There's even Final Fantasy Tactics if I wanted to do that. I've played the original PlayStation version many times, but for some reason I've never finished the PSP remake.

I also have a few options for stuff I could play on my phone (through emulation) even though I'm reasonably sure I won't be finishing Fire Emblem all that soon. If I'm restricting myself to games in my backlog (and let's be honest, I should), there's a couple DS games like Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and then some SNES games like Dragon Quest III or Lufia 2. Any of these sound okay to me, but it seems like Dual Strike would be the easiest to play with pure touch screen controls.

I'm actually going to play a little League of Legends tonight. A quick look at my match history reveals that I haven't played a match since the 9th--21 days ago. This is pretty unreal considering how often I have played the game in the past. It has been uncommon to go more than a few days in a row without playing, but now it's been about three weeks. The game irritates me on a lot of different levels but I still find it pretty consistently engaging to play--and I have the night off, so why not?

Underneath the Skin (Day 357)

Man, I woke up way too early today considering I have the day off. It turned out for the best though, as I had no food in the house and it seemed like a pretty good opportunity to go pick up some breakfast. After gorging myself on Hardees biscuits, drowsiness almost overwhelmed me--but I didn't let it happen and instead tried to make some more progress on Dissidia. I completed Terra and Cecil's chapters today. Terra is really not my playstyle, but Cecil is pretty fun. I'm not sure I'll be using him as much as I did in the original Dissidia, but I'm certain he'll find a place in my final party, if such a thing even exists.

Cecil is interesting because of his ability to transform from dark knight to paladin and vice versa through the usage of HP attacks. HP attacks on the ground transform him into a dark knight, where he possesses a variety of hard-hitting combo-oriented ground attacks and dark magic. HP attacks in the air will transform him into a paladin, an agile form focused primarily on aerial combat as well as some light magic. Dark Knight attacks in the air typically focus on bringing the enemy to the ground, whereas paladin attacks on the ground focus on knocking the enemy into the air. It is the balance between these two forms that make Cecil such an interesting character to me. It also helps that I like Final Fantasy IV a lot.

Square-Enix (or whatever internal dev team was responsible) took a lot of liberties with Cecil's combat capabilities. Although the spirit of his character is definitely preserved from Final Fantasy IV, a lot of that game was about his quest to overcome his dark knight side and in fact he is a paladin for a good three quarters of the game and can never go back to what he was. He also used pretty traditional Western swords instead of the stylish lance sword he wields in Dissidia. Truth be told, if they were to ever remake Final Fantasy IV (and let's be honest, they've done this too many times already) I wouldn't mind if Cecil's weapon had this unique design. It's apparently inherited from Yoshitaka Amano's original artwork. His art was often pretty bizarre and it's clear he had a thing for draping his pale, slender characters in as many colorful extraneous lengths of cloth as possible. It does make his style very unique and recognizable, though.

It's pretty interesting what Dissidia has done with these early Final Fantasy characters. In many cases, there was little to no personality to draw on and only the barest of gameplay elements to translate into a moveset. Firion from Final Fantasy II, for instance, is one of the first named characters in the Final Fantasy series, but I would be lying if I said he had any kind of defining personality traits. Characters from that game also had no defining gameplay traits, because it was all determined by how they were used in combat, how their stats were developed, and what spells they were taught. In this case, the developers decided to go with the "jack-of-all-trades" approach and again drew on Yoshitaka Amano's original artwork, resulting in what is essentially a new character, but an interesting one.

The same is true for Warrior of Light and Onion Knight,  representatives from the first and third games in the series, both class-based Final Fantasy titles with no actual named characters (barring the Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy III, of course). These characters are both really fun and definitely draw inspiration from Amano artwork, but for the most part, their combat styles are designed from scratch. One notable exception is Onion Knight's EX Burst, which has him doing a Class Change into either a Ninja or Sage depending on the spell used to initiate the attack. To execute the attack properly, you'll have to cast Holy or throw a Shuriken through a traditional Final Fantasy menu. I thought this was a really nice touch.

Baby, You're In Luck (Day 356)

I'm pretty impressed with the amount of content that Dissidia 012 has to offer. I've only completed what might be considered the prologue scenario so far, which introduces all of the new characters and concludes with a chapter in which those characters form a party together. Even just that took me about 10-11 hours to complete--and now I have chapters for each of the characters returning from the original game to do. I would assume that once that's all done, I'll be able to play yet another chapter where I'll be able to assemble a party of my choosing.

My favorite character from the original Dissidia was definitely Cecil Harvey of Final Fantasy IV, whose HP attacks would change him between his paladin and dark knight forms depending on whether or not he used them in the air or on the ground. After completing all of the characters' chapters in that game, I focused primarily on leveling him up for the final encounters of the game. In 012, I'll likely have to rotate between a few different characters to achieve the same goal, but I imagine I'll definitely be using Cecil again. Out of the new characters, Vaan seems really appealing--but many of the returning characters have also been tweaked in some way. As overrated a game as Final Fantasy VII is, I have to admit that Cloud is quite fun to play.

I really love that the characters in Dissidia 012 level up and acquire new moves over time. I've already swapped out a couple of moves to better suit my playstyle on Vaan, for instance. His moveset focuses primarily on switching through a large variety of different weaponry--an homage, no doubt, to Final Fantasy XII's License Board system, which allowed any character to use any weapon, provided they had the right licenses unlocked. Vaan's attacks have a primary effect that is static and then a secondary effect that only occurs if you're swapping weapons. For instance, if you use your Katana attack in mid air and then follow up with Sword and Shield, you'll throw out a block right before executing a flip attack.

I have to admit I never cared much for Vaan as a character. Even though he was the protagonist of Final Fantasy XII, he was largely irrelevant to the game's overall plot. I've heard rumors that Vaan (and his friend Penelo) were only included in the game in an effort to appeal to a younger demographic. Other playable characters in the game are integral to the plot and--perhaps more importantly--are noticeably older. I would have been much happier with having Basch as a playable character in Dissidia 012, but it wouldn't have been right to include a secondary character over a protagonist when no other characters from Final Fantasy XII have appeared before him. Still, his playstyle ended up being really fun, so I suppose it's all for the best.

Energy of Death (Day 355)

I woke up at 2 in the afternoon today. I can only imagine the continuous lack of sleep I've been experiencing lately has finally caught up to me. I woke up feeling reasonably refreshed though, so at least there's that. The only problem is that it's likely going to translate into me staying up pretty late tonight. That's okay though, because I don't have to go in until noon tomorrow. Even if I ended up staying up until 4 in the morning, I'll probably still be fine.

My co-op partner and I are still playing quite a bit of Divinity, but our sessions haven't been as long these past couple of days as they have been in the past due to circumstances beyond our control. Last night I was tired and had a pretty massive headache. Today, he got called into work unexpectedly. We've still gotten in several hours on both days. It seems like we're closing in on the latter half of the game, but I hope we still have a decent way to go as I'm still quite enjoying it!

I haven't had many opportunities to play Dissidia lately, although I would like to get back to it. Now that I have some time to myself, I might just do that now while catching up on the LCS. The LCS is something I haven't been devoting any time at all to lately--partially because I've somewhat lost interest in League of Legends, but I'd probably still be watching it if not for my fervency in completing games lately. I still really enjoy watching the game being playing competitively, even if I have relatively little interest in playing it myself at the moment.

It certainly has been an odd couple of days. It's weird how a disruption of my normal routine can put me so off-balance. It's been rainy and gloomy outside but the heat is as oppressive as ever. I would be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to a break from the temperature. I'll be more comfortable and I'll spend less on my electricity bill. I'd rather not think about the circumstances surrounding the cold of winter, though. That's a bit too far away to even think about right now, anyway.

Farewell to the Pressure Kids (Day 354)

Today was yet another long and stressful day. For the first time in a long time, I didn't get hope until around 9:30. It reminds me of the days I worked at Walmart and never got off before 11 o'clock. Getting home that late is pretty depressing. People who get off during the daytime take it for granted, I think. There's something about driving home in the sunlight that makes me feel better about the remainder of my day--even if I know full well that I'll have to get up early in the morning.

I don't like driving in the dark. I have terrible night vision and I'm always paranoid that I'm going to get into some kind of accident. Driving in the dark tonight made me nervous because I haven't done it in months. I pulled out in front of someone awkwardly because I had invested so much in just. . . second-guessing myself. Thankfully I managed to self-correct, but it was still went a long way toward heightening my anxiety. I'm lucky that it didn't start raining until I got home, because that would have greatly compounded my worries.

It's weird--I drove home in the dark for probably four years when I was working at Walmart, but I feel like I never really got used to it. I have poor night vision. I think I honestly just have poor vision in general (I do wear glasses, after all) but in the dark I feel particularly vulnerable. It's always been a concern of mine. Working at a job that allows me to leave earlier in the day has gone a long way in preserving my peace of mind. As stressful as this job can be, I really do like it for the most part. It's not my dream job and I can't say it's intensely fulfilling--but it's so much better than a lot of my other options. I could certainly have it so much worse. I hope things continue to go well there.

I don't like to think about it, but being fired (or pressured to resign, I guess) would be pretty devastating to me. I've held the job for maybe two and a half months now and I feel like I'm pretty good at it. It's a position for which I feel I have considerable aptitude. My numbers aren't earthshatteringly impressive but I do feel like I hold my own--and I think I have a knack in particular for insuring my customers are extensively informed about the products they have available to them.

Phew. Alright, I'm going to go play some Divinity. One of these days pretty soon I'm going to vomit out another mega-entry on that game. I enjoy it a lot! It's one of my favorite games in some time.

Safety Bricks (Day 353)

I really need to do something about my money situation. I'm spending way too much on food, I think. I end up spending so much of my extra money on stuff like Red Bull and fast food when I could be buying stuff like rice and chicken breast that would last me a lot longer and cost me less in the long run. Of course, this also means I'd have to put more effort into actually preparing my food instead of just popping it in the microwave. I do tend to be more satisfied with meals I've prepared myself, but it's the motivation that kills me.

It's a moot point for right now anyway, because I literally have no money to buy food at the moment. I'll have to work something out so I can last until the first of the month. I suspect I'll be subsisting almost entirely on coffee and nasty frozen burritos (of which I only have a few remaining) until that point. I wouldn't get into these situations if I planned out my budget more carefully, but I never seem to want to make the time.

Assuming I can find a way to survive over the next few days, I'm going to try to make some kind of budget when I get paid again. I know what bills I have and generally when they're due, but I still somehow manage to get blindsided by things like this simply because I don't account for all the little things I spend money on. I'll take things like gas and my car insurance bill into account but not multiple trips to  Taco Bell or expensive energy drinks. I'm not in a place in my life right now where I can give up caffeine, but I do have other options. For some reason I stopped making coffee while I'm at work and I'm not sure why. I could easily continue doing that. I think maybe I wasn't comfortable with using their coffeemaker, but I could probably just go ahead and get over that.

I think I have this bad habit of getting complacent and settling into toxic routines. I am a victim of convenience. It's easy for me to pick up fast food after work instead of coming home and cooking something. It takes less time, but I generally have plenty of time to do these things--but I'm very greedy. I'm greedy with my time because I like to fill it with things that I feel are important. I don't prioritize things that in all honestly should probably get done. As a result I end up with a messy house and go weeks at a time without cooking a real meal.

It's certainly a frustrating aspect of my personality but it's difficult to overcome without significant self-motivation. There are certain things I can definitely motivate myself to do. This blog is a major example of that. I'm proud of what I've accomplished here, even if no one else ever reads it. It's something I challenged myself to do and I lived up to it. In less than two weeks, I will have been updating this blog every day for a year. That's a pretty cool thing.

When It Begins (Day 352)

After playing a series of tactical or otherwise turn-based RPGs, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to play something a little more action-oriented. Borderlands 2 was great, but I haven't played a good single-player action game in quite some time. After spending some time trying to decide what game I'd like to tackle next from my backlog, I came across Dissidia 012, the second in a series of fighting/action games based on the Final Fantasy series. As is evidenced on many previous entries of this blog, I'm a big Final Fantasy fan even if I am quick to acknowledge the series' many flaws. I really enjoyed the first Dissidia game because of its unique combat system and fast pace. In that regard, Dissidia 012 is much the same--with several new characters to boot.

New character Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII, then a new release

 Like Dissidia before it, 012 is a fighting/action RPG hybrid that features a skeletal storyline supported by some minor exploration--as well as a puzzle game board system that allows your selected character to encounter opponents. Most opponents are mannequin copies of other playable characters from the game, of which there are many. Winning battles will award you KP, which can be used to purchase equipment from the moogle-owned shop. Defeating opponents in sequence will award additional KP, but this can only be done if your character is adjacent to multiple enemies on the game board or through using an item like Cross Chain or Round Chain which allows you to engage multiple enemies in a certain pattern.

Yuna from Final Fantasy X on the game board

The combat system is very fast paced and non-traditional for the genre. Like Super Smash Bros, opponents cannot be defeated simply through reducing a life bar to 0--or rather, they can, but there's more to it than that. There are two types of attacks in Dissidia 012: Bravery attacks and HP attacks. Bravery attacks are typically quicker and can be woven into combos, whereas HP attacks generally have a large windup and can be dodged easily. Bravery attacks steal the opponent's Bravery and the higher one's Bravery, the more damage an HP attack deals. It is frequently possible to build up enough Bravery to defeat an enemy with only one HP attack.

Yuna in combat

The main draw of the game for me is the fact that there are so many RPG elements included, none of which detract from the experience. I can think of a few games in which RPG elements are shoehorned in for no real extra value. Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy--a game in which those elements are completely superfluous--comes to mind here. In Dissidia 012, all playable characters level up and acquire new skills. A character can possess six Bravery skills and six HP attack skills, three apiece on the ground and in the air. These skills can be set to whichever buttons you choose, allowing you to customize your character to your personal preferences.

Chapter select screen

As has been the case in many of the games I've played recently, my primary attraction to Dissidia 012 is the gameplay--but that's not all the game has to offer. There is actually a fairly extensive plot attached to this game that intertwines the plots of all the various characters together--but let's be honest. The story is kind of terrible and I tend to zone out during just about every cutscene. Don't get me wrong--I love several of these characters--but I'm not in love with how many of them are portrayed. Terra from Final Fantasy VI in particular is portrayed as a weak damsel-in-distress kind of character and I've never felt that's what she was.

As I said before, I've beaten the original Dissidia game and my primary character of choice was Cecil Harvey from Final Fantasy IV. This was not accomplished before defeating the game's final boss, who was hellishly difficult. I'm not sure I've ever faced a final boss as difficult as that one and I've played a lot of video games in my time. I'm a little worried that I'll eventually hit a brick wall in this game and not be able to progress any further--which would be quite the detriment to my plan to complete as many games in my backlog as possible this year.

National Anthem of Nowhere (Day 351)

Front Mission 3 has been finished and my PlayStation backlog has been eliminated! Well, for now, anyway. If I'm being completely honest, there are still a lot of PS1 games I could think of to play sometime in the future--but not now! For now I must track down other games I've started and not finished. If it seems like they're worthy of finishing, I'll do it! For some reason, I keep buying new games to make this a more difficult task, but the number of games I've tackled that had before been languishing in my backlog for years makes up for that somewhat.

The PlayStation definitely has a ton of games that are worth playing. I've now beaten 21 of them and I can still think of several I'd like to play, like Breath of Fire III, Wild Arms, and Xenogears. At some point in the future, I may well do that--but for now, I'm moving on to another console. I think I'd had my heart set on PlayStation 2 since I have quite a bit of work to do there, but I'm going to take a little time today to think about it. In a couple hours I'm going to start playing some more Divinity: Original Sin, a game I believe I'll be playing for several weeks, even if we keep up with the marathon sessions on weekends.

Let's take a step back, though, and talk about Front Mission 3 a little bit. I really enjoy the series and of course I'm a big fan of giant robots. Front Mission is definitely more on the pseudo-realistic military end of the spectrum when it comes to robots, whereas Super Robot Wars is as big, flashy, and unrealistic as possible. If I were to be perfectly honest, I'd have to admit preferring the latter, but that doesn't mean that I find Front Mission to be boring. I really do enjoy the series, but some of the mechanics are a tad frustrating for me.

The most engaging part of Front Mission 3 (and indeed for other games in the series as well) lies in the wanzer customization. Constructing a robot from the available parts, upgrading these parts, allocating battle skills, and choosing which weapons to equip is a highly involved and interesting process. Shotguns deal Impact damage and deal an equal amount of damage to all parts--at the expense of lowered accuracy and shorter range. Some leg parts will ignore terrain but only move a few spaces per turn. The accuracy of arm parts is generally proportional to weight. If you want a highly accurate wanzer arm you'll likely need to prepare to carry more weight, meaning you'll be more limited in what other parts and weapons you can equip. The strategy involved in this portion of the game is what keeps me coming back to the series.

Ryogo vs Lukav

I also really like the battle skills and when they activate, it's typically really fun, especially when you chain several skills in a row. Decimating an enemy with three ROFUP1 (120% fired rounds) skill activations in a row is a blast to see in action. Unfortunately, all of these skills are completely random. Skills are inherited from specific wanzer parts. This aspect of the gameplay I can get behind. It gives you an incentive beyond simple statistical upgrades to switch out wanzer parts frequently. However, instead of learning these skills by gaining experience or performing certain actions in combats, these skills are learned completely randomly. You'll just have to keep attacking with that specific part loaded onto your wanzer until it happens. I've gone several battles without ever getting any kind of skill to activate at all. It's very unsatisfying to be so at mercy to a random number generator.

The randomness with which skills activate and are acquired is the primary issue I have with this game. Although I don't personally find the plot or characters to be interesting, I do recognize that they have merit and they don't necessarily detract from the experience at all. Crossing my fingers in every fight and hoping a skill goes off was not necessary as enjoyable. Front Mission 4 handled skills like this a little differently. Although skills had an activation rate in combat and occasionally would not go off, they were not learned randomly. In that case, you spent points acquired through gaining experience to unlock new skills--and you could even purchase them in some cases. I feel this system was an improvement, although I'd prefer if as many elements of randomness could be eliminated from the gameplay as possible.

That's 71 missions!

Despite my frustrations with how skills work in Front Mission 3, I can say with some confidence that it is a game worth playing, particularly if you enjoy strategy RPGs and giant robots, like myself. It lacks the charm and whimsy of a Super Robot Wars game but it does feature a lot more customization. Although I still haven't played FM2 or FM5, I feel the primary draw is always going to be the setup menu, whereas the combat ends up being just an exercise in going through the motions.

Folkloric Feel (Day 350)

I have the next two days off! For the first time in what seems like forever, I have two consecutive days off. It seems like a really privileged and silly thing to whine about, but I really dislike only having one day off, even if I never work two days consecutively. I feel like I can't sit down and really enjoy my free time--at least not as much as I otherwise would. I don't mind working several days in a row if it means I get consecutive days off at the end of it. I feel like it really helps me to relax.

It's happening now though, and for that I am grateful. I'm worried about a lot of things in my life right now such as the status of my job, my health, and my social life, but for the next two days, I feel like I can just shove that stuff aside and concentrate on the things in my life that make me happy. Tonight I'm going to try to make a lot of progress on Front Mission 3 and maybe even finish it if all goes well. If not, I should have plenty of times to do so over the next couple of days, even if a fair chunk of those days will be devoted to Divinity: Original Sin, a game that I find I quite enjoy! I'm eager to return to it after taking a couple of days off and I think my co-op partner is as well.

If I manage to finish Front Mission 3, there's still Fire Emblem left to be completed, but I'm not sure how long that's going to take me. I technically have in the neighborhood of ten missions to go. Judging by the difficulty of some of the missions I've completed so far, they could take me a lot of time. On the other hand, I feel I've already gotten past the hard part. Most of my units are promoted and the majority of the important plot-related items have been gathered. The most difficult thing at this point is going to be training Est, the final pegasus knight sister. Without her, I can't perform the pegasus knight triangle attack. Unforunately, she's level 5 unpromoted on a team full of characters a good 20 levels higher than that. I'll probably stick her with the Starsphere to boost her stats and abuse the Drill Grounds to get her up to speed, because I'd really like to use her.

I haven't thought a lot about what handheld game I'll be playing after I finish Fire Emblem. Bravely Default is an option, but that game's length is intimidating to say the least, even if I have already logged quite a few hours on it. It might be my best best though, since my other primary option is another strategy RPG, a genre that I feel I may be overdoing it on lately. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is a game I've been wanting to finish for years but I've just never found the right time. In fact, the only game in the whole series I've finished is Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber. Considering how much I love that game, it's baffling why I haven't finished any of the others. All of them honestly seem like pretty good games.

I'll figure that out when the time comes. For now, I'm going to dive into Front Mission 3 and watch The Office. I decided on a whim that I'd start a rewatch of the series while playing FM3 because I did something very similar when I played Front Mission 4. Now the show will forever remind me of giant robots.

Hyracotherium (Day 349)

Holy crap, I learned today just how much I rely on coffee in the mornings. I ran out of coffee this morning due to some poor planning (and lack of willpower on my part, to be frank) and as a result I was completely out of it for the better part of the day. An emergency extra large dose of Red Bull at around 11 o'clock was not even close to enough to help me recover. I feel like I'm very reliant on caffeine and in the past, energy drinks were my caffeine delivery system of choice. I still drink them occasionally, but they don't seem to have as positive an effect on me as coffee does and I'm not sure why that is. They have similar levels of caffeine. I'm convinced the heat of coffee has something to do with it, although I couldn't even begin to explain why it makes such an important difference.

Logically, I should be attempting to go through life without having to rely on caffeine. I've tried it a few times and I've just found that I'm listless and lack energy. I think if I was more active in general that might be less of a problem, but I currently have a very low activity job and I spend most of my free time playing video games. I could spend more of my free time running or exercising in other ways but I just don't find that to be a very fun thing to do! I'd like to find the time to exercise, but I almost feel I don't have enough time for writing and gaming as it is. I have a lot of free time and I try to use all of it in as productive a fashion as possible--at least when it comes to my hobbies, that is. It's not like I do anything traditionally productive, like cleaning my house or thinking about what I want to do with my life.

I guess if I'm being honest with myself, this is what I'm doing with my life right now. I'm working a job that for the most part I like. I'm a little worried that I'll lose it in a month or two, but if not, I have a pretty decent setup. If I become a full status employee, I'll have commission checks to look forward to as well as maintaining a really reasonable amount of free time. I have time to write these entries every day while still playing a lot of video games. There are other things I'd like to do as well, but I'm pretty happy with how things are going for the moment. I'd like to start going on runs for real again but plopping down in front of my computer and systematically completing my backlog of games is just such a more attractive option for me.

This situation raises a question for me. What fulfills me? What makes me happy? I guess in the end it's a pretty simple question. I like to write, I like to consume media from different sources, whether that be video games, television, movies, music, or whatever else I get my hands on--I like to experience these creations and discuss them. Video games are the form of art that resonates with me most. Does it come from childhood nostalgia or is there something intrinsic to me that makes me predisposed towards immersing myself in these interactive adventures? I don't know, but I doubt I'll stop playing games anytime soon.

One Very Important Thought (Day 348)

Divinity: Original Sin is a story driven Western-style CRPG that echoes Baldur's Gate in many ways--although its battle system differentiates itself by being turn-based and tactical instead of real time with the ability to pause to issue commands. The Divinity series seems to be markedly different in every entry and Original Sin is apparently no exception. Although I haven't played any other Divinity title, it seems that other games in the series are variously action RPGs, RTSes, and free-roam RPGs in the style of The Elder Scrolls. Although trying these games is not off the table, none of them sound nearly as interesting to me as what Original Sin has to offer.

Battles can get a little hairy

I've put about 16 hours into Divinity over the course of two days, so it's safe to say I've been playing it a lot. During the week, my co-op partner and I will have a lot less time to play it, so we decided to get in as much playitme as possible while we could. The vast majority of this time has been spent on exploration and dialogue--and while these are certainly elements of a game I appreciate, it's unclear whether or not they're compelling in a cooperative game. I think Divinity does a pretty good job at making both players feel included by having the two characters converse. This allows you to inject a little of your own personality (or a personality of your choosing) into the character you've created. When a player initiates a conversation with an NPC, the other player is free to move and do as they wish, including initiating conversations with other NPCs.

This is a really interesting mechanic because it allows two players to cooperatively gather information faster than one player would. However, it might result in one player not experiencing as much of the dialogue as they otherwise might. I'll generally skim conversations recorded in the log but I would have read every word had I initiated the conversation myself. I'm not sure if this can really be considered a slight against the game because I appreciate that the developers chose to give the players that level of freedom in exploration. It does, however, lead to some weird situations with very important plot-related NPCs. Whichever player initiates a conversation sees the dialogue pop up on their screen and the other player must read it in the tiny text box in the corner. At least it's still available to be read, but it's certainly not as convenient an experience.

Original Sin is the first game I've played in awhile in which the plot isn't completely irrelevant to me. Although the storyline isn't what I'd describe as earth-shatteringly compelling, I do find it to be reasonably well-written and enjoyable. It is filled with classic fantasy tropes executed effectively. Ghouls and zombies wander the countryside, spectres mourn their lost loves, fearsome orcs do battle against the town guard, and perhaps most interestingly, the townspeople spread rumors regarding the culprit responsible for a vile murder. A quest early on in the game has you exploring every nook and cranny of the town and questioning every NPC available--including a few animals--to uncover the person responsible for the murder of a local man.

Although I touched on it a little in the last entry, the battle system is tactical and turn-based--and what attracted me to the game in the first place. It is definitely interesting and fun for the most part, but also very frustrating at times, especially when it comes to effects that obscure characters' line of sight. The controls are also not always incredibly responsive, but the basic principles are certainly sound and very interesting strategically. I'll probably go over this a little bit more tomorrow unless I think of something else to talk about!

Magpie (Day 347)

Although it's probably a little too early to tell, I think I've finally found a new game in which I can become engrossed--and the name of that game is Divinity: Original Sin. Although I know little to nothing about the Divinity series, a lot of aspects of Original Sin's gameplay jumped out at me right away. Battles are tactical and make heavy use of elemental and terrain effects, features which I feel are far underutilized in the genre. Not only that, but the dialogue and exploration bring to mind titles like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. We are essentially left with a traditional Western CRPG with strategy RPG combat. There is little in this equation that I find I don't like.

I am feverishly typing out these initial impressions in the midst of a marathon co-op session. Yes, a game like this with such heavy reliance on dialogue as a means of exposition and with turn-based strategic battles--it's co-op. A strange but intriguing design decision on the part of the developers, but one that I very much appreciate. Cooperative RPGs are notoriously difficult to find and good ones are very rare as well. The fact that Divinity allows two players to take control of created characters and assume roles of their own devising is equally appreciated, even if the moral choices presented to you in the game are often very black or white.

Even after only investing a few short hours into the game, I feel I already have quite a bit to say about it. I am impressed by the level of detail present in the game, not only through dialogue, but also through the polish and charm found in segments of the game that many players may miss entirely. There is a book you find early in the game as part of a quest that is essentially a fantasy murder mystery. It is not required by the game or plot to read this book but doing so significantly enriched my enjoyment of the game because it gave me a deeper understanding of the plot--and more appreciation for the talent and humor demonstrated by Larian Studios' writing staff.

As intrigued as I was by the combat system of Divinity, I am thus far just as impressed by the plot and characters. Though no characters have jumped out at me as supremely developed and relatable, I have come across a fairly wide variety of colorful and often humorous characters--many of which are animals the protagonist can choose to communicate with through the use of an in game talent. A clairvoyant bull aptly named Bull is particularly entertaining.

It will take some time for me to completely understand the combat system, which follows in the tradition of western strategy RPGs like XCOM or perhaps Fallout. I can't help but be reminded of Front Mission which I've been playing recently, though their only real similarities lies in their use of Ability Points for movement and actions. Divinity has much more focus on the interaction between different spells and the terrain and so far I find it really interesting.

Aquarius (Day 346)

I've been considering lately that I've been doing nothing but writing about video games. There's nothing inherently wrong with this because I like video games a lot and I can generally always think of a lot to say about them--but unfortunately my entries as of late have been little more than halfhearted progress updates. I've become a lot more interested in the systematic completion of games in my backlog than absorbing nuances of these games and coming up with actual insightful things to say. I've become somewhat obsessed with the idea of completing as many games as I can in as short a time period as possible. As a result, I don't feel nearly as engrossed in these games as I should and I don't absorb as much about them. I couldn't tell you much at all about Front Mission 3's storyline, for instance, despite having devoted a good 25 hours to the game.

I remember when I first started this blog, I was playing a lot of Baldur's Gate. I was unemployed at the time, so take that with a grain of salt--but I invested a lot of myself into that playthrough. I wanted to play the game to completion and remark on it in just about every meaningful way I could think of. I'm not sure I succeeded at that goal, but I really enjoyed playing it and I definitely allowed myself to become engrossed in the storyline. Granted, not every game will be as story-driven and in fact many of the games I've played recently have focused much more on the gameplay. I feel this is not much more than a feeble excuse on my part, though.

Vagrant Story had well-written dialogue and intriguing characters--as well as a hodgepodge of strange mechanics that made for a fun and unique (though frustrating) game. I did not find the meandering dungeons and cryptic puzzles to be particularly enthralling and for the most part I was mentally checked out for the majority of the storyline. I have no reason to suspect the storyline was poor, but I quite simply did not make it a priority to understand it. Why is this? Why have I begun to treat games in this way? Every game I play is done while doing something else, whether it be listening to music or watching Netflix. I frequently don't listen to a lot of the game's music and dialogue goes in one ear and out the other. I don't skip any of it, but it wouldn't be fair to say that I absorb it.

It's possible I'm overthinking this. Some games just don't deserve that level of scrutiny--but what is this exercise for, if not for analysis? I spend a lot of my free time playing video games and for the most part I only analyze the gameplay. I don't spend a lot of time discussing plot, characterization, or even music--not because these are elements of a game that I devalue, but because I haven't been paying enough attention to them. Vagrant Story has an excellent understated score by Hitoshi Sakimoto, a composer who I greatly admire, but I barely touched on it. On the other hand, I've listened to very little of Front Mission 3's soundtrack, so on it I can comment very little. As for the storyline, I couldn't even begin to tell you what's going on there. . .

Still, I'm not going to be enthralled by the storyline or aesthetics of every game. Front Mission 3 is a very gritty, unadorned game about nothing more ludicrous than giant walking robots. The gameplay is superb (although certainly not without its flaws)--but nothing about its storyline, characters, or general aesthetics jumps out at me as special or interesting. I'm sure a more dedicated fan of the series could explain in detail the complexities of the plot to me, but I doubt very seriously they could make it sound exciting for me.

Dilaudid (Day 345)

I think once I finish Front Mission 3 I'm going to go ahead and move on to PlayStation 2 as my next console. I have five or six games left still to complete on the platform and I expect I'll enjoy most of them pretty well. My new video card should make emulating these games a lot easier than before. Since I've played so many strategy RPGs recently, I feel I'll probably play something more traditional, which leaves me with the option of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne or Digital Devil Saga. Of the two, Nocturne definitely seems more intimidating, but I also think I could probably think of a lot to say about it.

Other than the two Digital Devil Saga games and Nocturne, I also have a slew of Nippon Ichi strategy RPGs left to complete on the PS2. I think I lost interest in them initially because they weren't really all that different than Disgaea and there's only so much I can play a game like that without getting burned out. I've never successfully played two Disgaea titles in sequence and the same is also true for any two games by the developer. Actually, I've never finished any of their games except for those in the Disgaea series. I've actually finished all four of the main games in that series, although I haven't yet played Disgaea D2.

It's possible I may write some of those games off if I revisit them and decide they're not for me, but there are few strategy RPGs that I can't at least give a playthrough. La Pucelle: Tactics predates Disgaea and therefore features some prototypical elements that would later become refined and expanded upon in later NIS titles but it still seems valuable as a frame of reference. Still, after juggling Front Mission 3 and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, I'm ready to move on to a slightly different genre.

I'm told that Nocturne is a very long and difficult game. The last time I played it, I struggled with my sense of direction. I had a hard time actually figuring out where it was I had to go. I expect this time I"ll keep a walkthrough close at hand so as to avoid losing interest as I progress. I love the art style and atmosphere of the game and have historically enjoyed Shin Megami Tensei games--though admittedly I've only finished games in the Persona series. I've heard from multiple sources that Nocturne is one of the best in the main SMT series so it would likely be a great game for me to invest seriously into finishing.

I've definitely been splitting my focus lately though, and my progress on my backlog has suffered as a result. I have complete confidence that I will finish both Fire Emblem and Front Mission 3, but I'll be doing so a lot later than I'd originally planned. Fire Emblem in particular is taking a tremendous amount of time because of my questionable decision to play the game on hard mode. I haven't hit any huge roadbumps in FM3 and to be honest the pace is a lot faster than FM4, so hopefully that'll be done in the next few days.

You or Your Memory (Day 344)

I have a massive headache! Today was stressful and I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. The latter is mostly my fault, but being told that my schedule was changed at the last minute so I couldn't come in until noon when I'd already arrived by 8:45 AM was a little disconcerting. I didn't want to waste any money on gas, so just hung out in the break room and played Fire Emblem until it was time for me to clock in. Once I actually started working, I was assaulted for the rest of my shift by problem after problem--and no less than four warranty exchanges, three of which were the same model of phone.

The only thing moderately positive to come out of this day so far is the progress I've made in Fire Emblem, though it's still going very slow. I've begun to regret my commitment to play the game on hard mode, if I'm being honest. Every mission requires intense preparation and foresight and the smallest of mistakes frequently results in a restart. I should probably just cut my losses and focus on strengthening a small core of units. It's far too late to try to coddle the weaker members of my team and wait for them to develop.

I'd thought originally that New Mystery wouldn't take me very long. I've only racked up 11 or so in-game hours (over the course of about 12 missions, not including prologue chapters) but the amount of time spent on restarting missions and blankly staring at my screen thinking of a way to proceed adds an immeasurable amount of invisible hours. I've had to claw my way to where I am now and even though I'm starting to promote some of my units, the difficulty hasn't necessarily let up. I still find it difficult to one-shot most enemy units, especially when it comes to powerful foes like wyverns and ice dragons.

I think part of my problem is that my most developed characters are pegasus knights--all of which have tremendously high stats, mind you. However, now that I've promoted a couple of them, it's become pretty clear that their stat caps are actually quite low. Palla ended up capping her unpromoted strength at 20. Only 4 levels into her promotion, she's capped her strength for good at 26. How much more powerful could she possibly get with 16 more levels to grow? It is conceivable that she could cap every stat except for Res, as Dracoknights have awful growths for that stat.

My avatar character (Brea) is also a swordmaster whose strength is quite low. Even after acquiring a couple of promoted levels, her strength is sitting at a miserable 12. The Swordmaster  cap is probably around 23 and I just don't see her hitting that given her previous track record, even with almost 20 levels to grow. Barst on the other hand could promote to a Berserker or Warrior, whose strength stat caps at 30. He has a chance to hit that cap and he could end up being one of my most powerful fighters--if I could actually get him some levels, that is. I might have to reclass him to pirate for the speed bonus so he doubles foes more often and secures those kill that gets him the XP he desperately needs.

This Year (Day 343)

I have finished Borderlands 2! Next on the agenda for co-op will be Divinity: Original Sin but I won't be able to buy that until Friday. Until then we'll probably continue to play Borderlands 2 here and there. I don't expect to hit the level cap or anything, but maybe I'll still jump on from time to time to progress. I like the game a lot, but I can't see investing too much more time into it. I'm in the mood to go out and conquer as many games as possible, as should be patently obvious from the content of this blog over the past few months.

That still leaves me with the two single-player games I'm currently playing to finish. I made some progress on Front Mission 3 today and I played a bit of Fire Emblem last night. FM3 is going smoothly for the most part, but they did just throw a mission at me that requires me to split my eight-man roster into two different squads. Since I've only been using the same four characters for the majority of the game, this prospect is a little troublesome. Some of those characters have really outdated equipment and not a lot of proficiency in their weapons. If this becomes a common trend in the game, I might have to invest a lot more time into training, which will certainly lengthen the game.

In the case of Fire Emblem, I'm regretting more and more my decision to play the game on hard mode. It has been a nightmare just to get to Chapter 10x, where I am now. I've had to sacrifice a couple of playable characters that I otherwise might have ended up using until the end of the game. This is the kind of gameplay decision I do not relish being forced to make, but the difficulty made it close to impossible to go any other way. Combine this with a series of missable items that are required to make it pass chapter 20 and you have a recipe for frustration.

Still, I think that once I start promoting some of my units, things will start to go a lot more smoothly. Many of my higher level first-tier units have several capped stats already. Once they reach the next tier and get those stat bonuses, they'll become quite formidable. I'm hoping that my myrmidon avatar will gain a lot of strength as a swordmaster, because she is actually lagging behind in that department despite possessing incredibly high skill and speed.

I probably won't be able to start playing Divinity for real until Saturday night, although I"ll probably buy it the day before. I've heard some really good things about it and I'm excited to give it a try--but we've committed to playing the game co-op, so I'll have to wait on him before I really dive in.

Apprentice of the Universe (Day 342)

Borderlands 2 is much like its predecessor in that it takes place in a pseudo futuristic wild west kind of settings. A series of corporations produce droves of wildly varying types of guns, though all fall under umbrella categories like shotgun, assault rifle, pistol, and what have you. I'm no expert on guns by any stretch of the imagination, but Borderlands 2 spices up what I typically would find to be somewhat boring gameplay by adding various fantastical effects to these guns. Rounds fired from these guns will often electrocute, burn, or corrode enemies. There are many reasons to consider the usage of specific types of elemental weaponry.

Heavily armored opponents will often be a pain to take down, but corrosive weaponry goes a long way towards chewing through their thick hides. By the same token, humanoid opponents of flesh are very weak to being burned, so fire-elemental weapons will be very effective against them. Electrical weapons, on the other hand, are not necessarily especially effective against certain types of enemies, but they are very handy for almost instantly removing shields from enemies that might have them. Explosive weaponry will generally cause a great deal of splash damage and is strong against just about anything in the game.

There is only one other type of elemental weaponry that I know of and that is the "slag" element. I'm not certain what it's supposed to represent but it is quite useful. Once an opponent is slagged--and you can tell by the bright purplish hue--an enemy will become more susceptible to other types of damage. This adds an extra layer of strategy and encourages the player to switch weapons for optimal damage. Slag can be applied by many different weapons, but also from grenades and some abilities.

One frustration I have with the game so far is the fact that I spend so much time reloading. I've lost count of how many times I've died while trying to stall during an extremely long reload animation. I suppose this is more my fault for electing to choose weapons that typically have long reload times--particularly shotguns and assault rifles--but it's still annoying and I wish there were better ways to circumvent the problem. My class (Mechromancer) has a talent that significantly reduces reload time, but the delay is still very noticeable and bothersome.

I do have the option of using melee attacks during this reload period and I'm grateful for that. It's helpful when an opponent only has a little health left. However, using melee attacks does interrupt the reload animation, so it's generally pointless to do when I need to continue outputting good damage.

I think a lot of my problems with the game stem from my inexperience with first person shooters. I've sunk quite a few hours into it (and into the first Borderlands game) so I feel like I've definitely gotten the hang of it for the most part, but certain of the finer points of the genre continue to elude me. I'm particularly helpless when it comes to successfully landing shots on moving targets, especially when they're airborne--and for extra difficulty, when I'm moving as well. It ends up being just about impossible, even with an accurate weapon like a sniper rifle.

The specialization I've chosen for Mechromancer thrives on high damage and low accuracy. I figured shotgun would be the optimal choice for this spec and so far it has been working out pretty well. Unfortunately, this means to put out good damage I need to get pretty close and this means I end up dying a lot. I think I need to learn to pick my battles and have more awareness of what's going on around me to be successful in the future. I think once I acquire my ultimate skill things will get a lot easier. It's a melee attack that deals a lot of damage and heals me. I think things will start going a lot more smoothly at that point.

Blindsided (Day 341)

I'm really not a big fan of my schedule this week. On the bright side, I don't have to work any two consecutive days in a row. However, this also means I don't have any consecutive days off, which makes me enjoy any day off less because I just have the thought of going in to work the next day in the back of my mind. It's more of a mental problem than anything else but I can't seem to deal with the annoyance this situation causes. Maybe that last three day weekend spoiled me.

I've already put a good 18 hours into Borderlands 2 and I'm only at level 23--and the cap is 61. Granted, I'm pretty sure you don't need to be at the level cap to finish the game, but it still means I have quite a ways to go. I enjoy the game a lot but I have this urge to get it over with sooner rather than later so I could get back to my original goal of clearing out my backlog. Every new game I play means it takes longer to get this done. Some small part of me wishes I could just relax and enjoy playing games without worrying about every finishing them, but to be honest, that's just not how my personality works.

Over the past couple of years I have derived an immense amount of satisfaction from systematically completing as many games as I possibly could. Years of impulsively playing games had put me in a situation where I have a mountain of older games left still to complete and perhaps more importantly to discuss. I think it's really interesting to look back at these old games and compare them to other games from that time and to determine how well they've held up over time. In some cases they haven't held up so well, but many of them are still really fun. Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3, for instance, make me long for more games in that same style. Co-op RPGs are very rare. Borderlands 2 or Diablo 3 are sort of in that same vein, but they're still not quite what I'm looking for.

Still, it's a sure thing that Borderlands 2 will be finished, so at the very least it'll add another title to the "beaten" pile even if it wasn't already in my backlog. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have a whole lot to say about it! I've played it for such a long time already but I"m having a hard time coming up with compelling commentary about the game. I think I probably will do so soon, but I'll need a little time to collect my thoughts. Even though the game is essentially an action RPG, its gameplay is very much that of a first-person shooter, a genre with which I have very little experience. It's difficult for me to draw conclusions and make comparisons when the format of the game is so alien to me, even despite having playing the original Borderlands as well.

I'm probably going to jump on Steam and play a few more hours tonight, but my co-op partner will have to be in bed pretty early--and so do I, actually. Unlike him, I'll have some days off during the week so I'll use those times to hit Front Mission 3 as hard as I can. If I had to guess I'd say I'm a pretty decent amount under halfway through, but it can be hard to tell considering the fact that the missions aren't numbered. If I could finish the game sometime in the next week, that would be pretty great.

Edit: Whoops, forgot to post this earlier.

A Will Remains in the Ashes (Day 340)

Saturday night is finally here and I'm going to go ahead and do what I do every Saturday night: play video games. I am probably going to play Borderlands 2 all night and I'm going to start right after I finish scarfing down some entirely unnecessary Taco Bell and writing this entry. It's a really fun game, but I don't have much more to say about it than what I said last time!

I've also been making slow progress on New Mystery of the Emblem on work lunch breaks, but I haven't played Front Mission 3 in a few days. I haven't lost interest, but I just haven't had a moment to continue it! I'll probably play it some tomorrow assuming my co-op partner isn't around. If he is though, I'll most likely just play even more Borderlands 2. I don't expect to finish it very soon because there's quite a lot left to do. We may even try a second playthrough if we're not level capped yet--and I don't expect that we will be.

I really do need to finish a game pretty soon though, because I'm starting to get that itchy feeling. I'm making really good progress on the games I'm playing (okay, not really Fire Emblem) but I'm spread out a little more than I would like. I'm having a lot of fun, so I guess that's really the more important part, but man, I want to clean out that backlog. . .

I've thought a little about what I'm going to do once I finish Front Mission 3, but it seems premature to think about it considering how distracted I am by Borderlands 2 and the fact that I'm only about 14 hours into the game anyway. Once FM3 is taken care of, my PlayStation backlog will be gone and I"ll have to choose a new console. The obvious answer would be SNES, but I'm not sure I'm quite ready to jump back into Dragon Quest III, even if I really feel like it needs to be done. It's honestly the most sensible option, since jumping into PlayStation 2 would be quite the ordeal when you look at the monstrous games I have yet to complete on that console.

This entry has been pretty devoid of content and mostly covers things I've already talked about recently! That sucks! But hopefully a marathon session of Borderlands 2 tonight will yield more interesting topics of discussion for tomorrow. I guess we'll just wait and see!

List of Demands (Reparations) (Day 339)

I am most likely going to be playing Borderlands 2 for a pretty long period of time tonight, so I may not get another chance to post this entry! I really need to get back to Front Mission 3 before I lose motivation, but there'll be plenty of time for that over the next week. I don't really like how my schedule is laid out because I'm working every other day. This means I frequently have days off but they're never consecutive. It's a very disorienting and uncomfortable schedule, but I guess it'll still leave me with plenty of time to make progress. Until then, I'm going to try to sync up with my friend who has a busier schedule than me and try to make as much progress on Borderlands 2 as possible.

I'm also trying to inch my way through New Mystery of the Emblem on lunch breaks at work, but the amount of preparation required to advance is pretty insane. I should have known it would be like this if I went with hard mode because I do have a lot of experience with the series. Every movement must be painstakingly calculated. To be honest, I could make things a lot easier if I was more restrictive with my character choices, but I want to buff up some of my weaker characters just because I really like them. That's half of the fun of a Fire Emblem game--babysitting your weaker characters until they turn into unstoppable monsters. I'm hoping this will be the case with some of my lower leveled characters like Norne the archer and Cecile the cavalier.

Some of my characters are already monstrous either due to their natural stat growths or a considerable amount of luck on my part. Palla the pegasus knight, for instance, has a whopping 17 strength at level 17 unpromoted. This is insane for a pegasus knight because they generally are a lot weaker to compensate for their sky high speed and mobility--and the fact that they use spears which have high damage and accuracy. She is by far my strongest character, but Marth is progressing quite well also. Fire Emblem protagonists can sometimes be very weak. I'm thinking of characters like Roy and Eliwood in particular. I'll admit I don't really remember how strong he was in Shadow Dragon, but it looks like his stats are going to end up being really solid here, even though I doubt he'll be anywhere near as strong as Ike from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn.

My avatar character (whom I've named Brea) is a myrmidon and the only sword user in my current roster aside from Marth himself and Cecile the cavalier who more commonly uses lances. Her skill and speed are monstrously high but her strength is really lagging behind. This is really common for the class but I'd feel a lot better if it was a few points higher. I think of classic Fire Emblem myrmidon/swordmasters like Guy, Rutger, and Joshua and I feel like their strength was generally quite a bit higher than that. If anything, her growths remind me a lot of Mia from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn. I did like her a lot, but her strength was lacking. I'm hoping I'll get a pretty nice bonus to her strength when she promotes--and a passive bonus to crit would be great too. I know Swordmasters get that in later games but I'm not sure about New Mystery of the Emblem.

Sentimental X's (Day 338)

I feel like it's been really difficult to find the time to write these entries over the past few days--which is not to say that I haven't had plenty of free time, because I have. I have to be at work by 8 AM tomorrow, but even that's not all that restrictive when you consider I got off work at 5 PM today. However, I did some grocery shopping and had a conversation with my cousin once I'd gotten home. After that, I played Borderlands 2 with a friend for a few hours. It's the same guy that I played several co-op games with earlier this year like Seiken Densetsu 3 and Path of Exile.

In case it wasn't obvious by the content of this blog, I'm not really a shooter aficionado. For the most part, I find them pretty boring. Admittedly though, I've never given them an honest chance. I find console shooters hopelessly unplayable, but games like Borderlands on PC feel very natural to control with a mouse and keyboard. Years of playing WoW have made me more than comfortable with the WASD style of movement and the aiming comes with some practice. I'm still not a great shot, but I'm good enough that I can somewhat fend for myself.

What differentiates Borderlands 2 (and the original game) from other shooters is that extra element of progression. It's very heavy on RPG elements. Your characters level up and you acquire gear from slain opponents, shops, and your environment. Skill points can be allocated to talent trees to further customize your character. This is what gives me the incentive to keep playing. Don't get me wrong--the gameplay itself is quite fun. Even just that alone would probably be enough to get me to play it for a little while. However, I doubt I'd be motivated to finish the game if there wasn't that aspect of customization and progression present.

We kept trying to figure out what that weapon looked like

Borderlands 2 is very much akin to traditional computer action RPGs like Diablo in that there is a heavy emphasis on level grinding and sorting through endless piles of loot to determine the exact right item to upgrade your DPS by 1.2%. Fortunately, many weapons you encounter in your journeys will have interesting and occasionally hilarious effects that have tangible effects on your gameplay. You might find weapons by certain manufacturers that can be thrown like a grenade once the magazine is emptied--only to magically rematerialize in your hands after the explosion. You'll find scopes on shotguns and bullets that discharge electricity in all directions. All of these elements were present in the original game as well, so if Borderlands 2 loses anything, it's that it so far doesn't get any points in originality.

The sequel does introduce some new classes to the mix, though. Although the Siren returns, she's not quite like her old self--and along with her she brings the Commando, the Assassin, the Gunzerker, the Mechromancer, and the Psycho. Unlike Diablo 3 or Path of Exile, each class is associated with a unique character in the Borderlands universe. I like this aspect of the game because the characters pack a lot of personality, as evidenced by the off-the-cuff remarks they'll lob during combat and while exploring the world.

Although Borderlands 2 does feature a lot of elements that I'm familiar and comfortable with, the gameplay is more or less completely alien to me--or at least it would be had I not played the first game in the series. As it is, it seems like more of the same, but it's so polished and downright fun that I can easily forgive that. I've also only put in a few hours so far so there may well be gameplay elements that drastically expand on its predecessor that I just don't know about yet. Even if not, though, I think it'll still be a really solid and enjoyable game.

Coltrane Sundia (Day 337)

I had a great day at work today and my video card came in! Today could not get any better! Ok, I could find out that I don't have to work tomorrow for some bizarre reason. That would be pretty cool. But it also won't happen. I'm going to spend the rest of tonight playing League of Legends and probably testing a few games I have installed to see how they look on high settings. I might also see if multitasking is any easier--as far as watching videos in VLC while playing games or watching Netflix while playing games goes.

Truth be told, I'm a little scatterbrained today! I had a great day and felt really good about myself. This really surprised me because I was feeling pretty apprehensive about starting up work again after my three-day absence. It went well, though. I was very personable and I sold a lot of phones. It's still not guaranteed that I'm going to meet my monthly quota but I'm feeling a lot more confident about it than before. I'd really like to keep this job because I genuinely like it. I don't like everything about it, but I think that would be a little unrealistic to shoot for.

It's already 9 PM as I'm writing this and I've gotten very little of note accomplished--but that's okay, because I had some fun with some friends, my video card came in, and I'm pleased that my day went well. My desktop looks nice with a higher resolution and an HDMI connection, but it's still going to take some getting used to. It feels squished to me, but I think it would be more accurate to describe the resolution I was previously using as squished. It's just something I'll have to get accustomed to.

For the next few hours, I'm going to give a few games I haven't touched in awhile a spin. I might briefly play Diablo III, Rift, Torchlight 2, and also load up Borderlands 2 and see what it's like. There are other games I'd definitely like to try, but I have to remember I have a backlog that I still need to get through. I'm still pretty focused on that. I'll always make time for co-op games, but I definitely shouldn't be buying any  new single player games right now. I have over 30 of those waiting in reserve.

Yikes. I'll have a much more coherent entry tomorrow.

Kohntarkosz Anteria (Day 336)

"No, man, I'm telling you--I haven't seen her. I haven't seen anyone else. No one but you. You're the first human being I've laid eyes on. For all I know, maybe ever."

"You don't know anything, " retorted the bearded man to the lanky dark-haired young man before him. "You can't even remember your own name! Maybe you just don't remember seeing her. Maybe she was here. She had to have been here."

The other man, his wavy hair and soft features surprisingly unblemished considering the circumstances, shot him a sympathetic look. 

"You don't know your name either."

The bearded man grimaced. 

"You don't remember anything. We're the same. We both ended up here. We ended up here alone."

"But I remember her," the bearded man insisted, kneading his brow vigorously. 

The dark-haired man shrugged. "Maybe you do. It's not my place to say. I remember bits and pieces from before, but it's all blurry. You know what I mean? It all fades in and out and it all blurs together. It's like if you flashed a bunch of brightly colored lights in front of your eyes and you squeezed your eyes shut tight and you stared into that afterimage. That glowing, indistinct light that you can still see through the darkness. It's like that, I guess. But I can't remember people or places or anything really important like that."

"We don't have to be the same."

"You're right. We don't. But I have to wonder, friend, if you're just trying to separate us. Maybe you just don't want to believe what I'm saying."

"Why would I do that?" asked the bearded man. "You're the first person I've found. I've come across what was left behind and I've walked a long way. . .but you're the first person I've found, alive or dead. I don't understand what that means, but shouldn't I be happy to see you? Shouldn't I be happy to share our common experience?"

"I dunno, man. Are you?"

"Yeah," the bearded man replied, but he didn't sound convinced. "Yeah, I am. I mean, as happy as I can be, given the circumstances. I don't know what's going on here, man--but I just know I've gotta find her. I have a feeling she's. . .still okay. I just have a feeling."

"I wish I remembered someone," said the dark-haired man. "Maybe I'd feel like I had something to hold on to. Maybe I'd feel like I wasn't falling."

"Falling?"

"Yeah. Somebody cut the ropes and I'm falling off the mountain. It's only a matter of time until I hit the bottom."

"That sounds dramatic."

"Yeah. Sometimes dramatic is pretty true to life, though."

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

The bearded man's mind was swimming with thoughts. He'd just met this stranger on what was ostensibly an abandoned playground. Had it really been abandoned or did some unforeseen phenomenon whisk all of its inhabitants away suddenly? As little credence as the man was prone to give to supernatural events under normal circumstances, his faith in the natural order of things was certainly currently being put to the test. Where was everyone? Where was she? 

"I can't remember anything from before, at least not with the clarity that you claim to remember this girl," said the dark-haired man. "Tell me, what was her name?"

The bearded man hesitated before answering.

"You don't know it, do you?"

"It was Ashley," the bearded man replied with some confidence. "Her name is Ashley."

"I see. It's a nice name. I hope you find her."

Kobaia Is de Hundin (Day 335)

ANOTHER GAMEPLAY VIDEO?!

Front Mission 3 is next on the agenda and I've already clocked about 4 hours of gameplay. I've played a pretty significant amount of it before but for reasons that I can't recall at the moment I completely stopped playing it and ended up eventually losing the save data. I'm surprised that I didn't finish it the first time because so far I'm taken aback by just how fast paced the gameplay is, especially for a strategy RPG and especially for a Front Mission game.

My favorite part

 I loved Front Mission 4 (and liked the original game a lot too) but if there was one thing that frustrated me about it, it was its relentlessly sludgy pace. Missions were very long and laborious and combat animations were slow and needlessly lengthy. In addition to this, the combat preparation phase was incredibly involved and time consuming. I can forgive that aspect of the game though, because that was a big part of what I found so engrossing about the game. The level of strategy present in choosing the right parts, weapons, pilot skills, and computers was intense. Unfortunately these parts and components were quite expensive and the funds acquired from standard missions was seldom enough to cover them--which meant I had to do simulation missions to acquire additional funds before I could move on. These simulation missions were often just as long as standard missions.

Kazuki's wanzer in all its purple majesty

In Front Mission 3, missions are very short and focused, at least so far. Animations are concise, effective, and satisfying. Destroying enemy wanzer parts awards you medals which contribute to upgrading the proficiency of your weapons. You'll also frequently learn new combat abilities while in combat. I like this method of learning new abilities because you get to see the effect of the ability just as soon as you learn it. It's exciting when something new activates in combat because it strengthens your pilot's options in combat immediately.

As far as I can tell, Front Mission 3 doesn't have traditional levels and instead determines the strength of your wanzers based on parts, upgrades, pilot weapon proficiencies, and combat skills. I have to wonder why Front Mission 4 returned to the traditional level system. It really did introduce some cool new mechanics (I particularly liked pilot links) but I sort of wish it had retained some of the features introduced in its immediate predecessor..

I'm not far into the game just yet so I've probably displayed some ignorance on its mechanics, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I expect it'll take me some time to get through it, but I don't imagine I'll hit any roadblocks since I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

It'5! (Day 334)

In only a few days and with a feverish pace, I've managed to claw my way through Tales of Destiny, but my overall opinion on it has not changed much. It is overcrowded with dungeon after tedious dungeon crammed full of esoteric and confusing puzzles and features a cast of mostly unremarkable characters. I can at the very least say that no one from the cast struck me as particularly annoying, and the relationship between Stahn and Rutee is cute, even if the game refuses to explore it further. Some of the more interesting characters will leave your party before the final stages of the game, as well. 

What you're left with is a mostly unremarkable RPG with an excellent battle system. It seems right at home in the Tales series, but I definitely can't say I'd recommend it to someone looking to try the series themselves. Truth be told, I'm a relative neophyte to the series as well, having only completed this title, Phantasia, Symphonia, and Abyss. I've got my sights set on Eternia sometime in the future, but after that, I'd be more than happy to tackle Legendia, Vesperia, Graces, and/or Xillia. I figure I really only have up to go from here. Destiny, although not a terrible game per se, is definitely relegated down to the bottom of my initial rankings for the series, right there with Abyss.

Why did I power through the game even though there were many things about it that I did not like? Well, I had an interesting conversation about that with a friend of mine recently. I've challenged myself over the past year or so to make a concerted effort to finish every game that I start, regardless of how I feel about it. I'll generally find something about these games that I enjoy but even if I don't, it's a challenge that I've set for myself to overcome. I'm not going to say that I have completely stuck my ground on this principle because there may have been a few games I started and abandoned because I really wasn't feeling it--but for the most part,  I finish what I start, especially where RPGs are concerned. And if I don't, I add it to the backlog and I get to it eventually. . .

What's this?!

One thing I decided to do for this game is record the final encounter. After some research, I decided on using Open Broadcaster, the streaming program, to record my game. It uses a lot fewer resources than Fraps and doesn't take up nearly as much hard drive space once the recording is finished. I think it came out really well, even if the final battle depicted in said video is a little sad to watch. Seriously, after such a grueling series of dungeons, they pit me up against three alarmingly weak bosses in a row and then the game is over. What an anticlimax.

As for what's next, I haven't decided yet! I technically only have one game left in my PlayStation backlog, but my obsessive tendencies are making it difficult for me to confidently move right on to it. I'm going to look into my options and maybe play a few minutes of a few games to get an idea of where I'm going. This is a decidedly different strategy than what I've employed for the past few weeks in that I've launched myself wholeheartedly into each new game right away--but that's fine. I like to switch things up every now and then so I don't get bored!

Bye bye, Tales of Destiny

Cosmic Powers (Day 333)

I have the next three days off and my video card is on its way. Unfortunately, I have no reason to suspect that I'l be receiving it any sooner than Wednesday. That's okay, though. I should still have plenty of time to finish Tales of Destiny and move on to something else. In fact, I might go ahead and do that tonight if I manage to motivate myself enough. I'd also like to make a little more progress on New Mystery of the Emblem but the mission I'm on right now is really difficult. I've been stuck in one spot for probably a week now.

Even though I've been hyper focused on clearing out my backlog lately, that doesn't mean that I haven't considered some new game purchases. Playing all of these RPGs in a row has made me sort of crave something more action-oriented. I think I'd like to eventually purchase Dragon's Crown and Persona 4: Arena. Vanillaware's Muramasa was really enjoyable and Dragon's Crown looks like a lot of fun, especially if I managed to snag a co-op partner. In the case of Arena, I haven't played any fighting games in a really long time and I think I'd like to give it a shot. It helps that it's a spinoff of one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

My friend has already purchased Borderlands 2 for me so I'll definitely be playing that some once my card comes in. Normally I'd be skeptical that I could complete a game like that, but I"m sure playing it cooperatively will be more than enough motivation to power through it. I did enjoy the original Borderlands but I doubt I would have found it engaging enough on my own to play through the whole thing.

Having three games on my radar to play makes me a little itchy because I've made so much progress recently. My aspiration is to get to the point where the only games going into my backlog are new games that I just purchased. It's a difficult task and it will be very time consuming, but my progress so far this year has been really encouraging. I think I've beaten something like seventeen games, some of which where games I'd been meaning to finish for years and years. For the most part it's been really fun revisiting these games and analyzing why I stopped playing them in the first place--as well as writing about what's also very strong about them.

If I could hit 30 games finished this year, that'd be pretty amazing--but that's probably unrealistic. The highest I've ever gotten was 22 and I was probably unemployed for a lot of that year. Then again, I haven't been as determined to eradicate my Backlog in a long time--so we'll see what happens.