Rushing and meandering

Day 420

Today I bought Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and soon I will spend some time playing it. I lucked out and received some preorder bonuses from purchasing the game even though I did not preorder it. These bonuses include an oversized set of ten tarot cards featuring arcana illustrations from the Persona series. There are others past ten so I'm not sure why they stopped there. Then again, I know very little about traditional tarot cards, so perhaps there's some other significant I'm missing. The other bonus that came with the game was an inflatable "bop bag" of Persona 4's Teddie that I evidently do not have the lung capacity to blow up. It's cool to have but I doubt I'll ever get it to stand up.

I really enjoy having little collectibles like that but I'm at a loss as to what to actually do with them. Eventually I'd like to be able to somehow display memorabilia from some of my favorite games (and other media) but I don't feel like I'm in the right place for that right now. Maybe once I move out again and feel like I'm in a more stable place, I'll work on that. Of course, my current living space seems pretty damn set in stone for the moment, regardless of how much money I'm making. I wouldn't feel comfortable moving out without some kind of roommate, anyway. I don't trust myself to shoulder the responsibility alone.

I feel I should concentrate more on maintaining this house as if it were really my own. I need to keep it clean and make it feel more like my place instead of just a place I'm staying for the time being. It's kind of a bummer to be relegated to what is essentially the place I grew up. I've lived outside of this house a lot and it doesn't make me particularly happy to be here again. Of course, circumstances tend to conspire against me time and again to cause me to end up here. I feel like there's nothing I can do about it at this point. 

There are perks to living in the middle of nowhere, of course. I never have to worry about how loud my TV and/or music is because my nearest neighbor is in the woods to the south of me. Even if she did occasionally hear my music, she's my cousin and doesn't really care. I certainly wasn't afforded that same luxury when I lived with my ex. Still, there was a certain freedom that came along with that that I greatly enjoyed. And it's not as if I'm not free where I live now, but this place does have a lot of history attached to it--and I feel it does little to help release me from my apathy. It's a tired old place full of clutter and old stuff I can't do anything with. It's never going to feel like it's mine and I don't really want it to, now that I think of it. I don't want to just resign myself to living here indefinitely. I want a place that's mine.

Ember Hammer

Day 419

Much of Torchlight 2's gameplay consists of running around and mindlessly clicking on things until they are dead. This pattern persists until the inevitable point at which your character will instantly die for unknown reasons. It's possible I have significant issues with being observant, but I really do die unexpectedly a lot. Unfortunately, I can't say this is all my fault. I find myself battling the game's interface more often than not, especially when surrounded on all sides by large groups of enemies. It's frequently difficult to communicate whether I want to click to move out of the crowd or click to attack an enemy. This has been in problem in action RPGs in the Diablo vein for as long as I can remember, but targeting is particularly sticky in Torchlight 2--and there's no way to click to move only as far as I know.

It's also quite upsetting that every ability has some sort of delay or cast time attached to it. It's possible this is an inclusion for balance purposes, but I'm used to League of Legends where casting multiple skills in sequence is a very smooth and streamlined process. There's a queue that detects when you've input multiple actions and they'll generally activate no matter what. In the case of Torchlight 2, I find myself repeatedly hammering the R key to activate my Force Field skill--a skill that I've found necessary to even survive. So often my Engineer will fall to the hordes of enemies surrounding her because that invaluable skill has refused to go off because I had the audacity to attempt to cast it during a swing of her hammer or during some invisible global cooldown. Even World of Warcraft has a reasonably intelligent ability queue in place that allows the player to cast multiple abilities in sequence despite the very noticeable cooldown between abilities.

I can't say this is a problem unique to Torchlight 2 but it's annoying all the same. I'd much rather be able to smoothly move, attack, and activate abilities without worrying about those annoying pauses. Even if this meant that many abilities without cooldowns would now require cooldowns I'd be all for it. I feel it significantly smooths out the gameplay, but I guess Runic Games never considered something like this a priority. Maybe I'm being picky but it's something that continues to annoy me. 

I find myself becoming overly negative about the game not because I dislike it but because I've played it a lot already and I'm beyond eager to be done with it. Although it's a decent game, there are other action RPGs out there I prefer, such as Path of Exile. It's probably an uglier game to look at but I find its mechanics more interesting--even if I prefer Torchlight 2's class system approach. Even Diablo 3 has more variety in class builds as well as more classes to choose from. I'd still be interested to see what Runic Games comes up with for Torchlight 3, but this particular entry has not necessarily impressed me. It is a game that mostly has the feel right, except for a series of minor annoyances that go a long way towards diluting the gameplay experience for me. I'd also like more unique and varied abilities. This is a front where Diablo III prevails. Even though it is not a perfect game, it has a ton of really fun abilities to use, at least for Witch Doctor, my class of choice.

I expect we'll be done with the game in a few more nights. After that, I probably won't play another Diablo style RPG until a big new game comes out--such as Torchlight 3 (which I've not heard is even in development) or possibly Grim Dawn. The latter is probably in development hell, but I'd be interested in trying it out if it ever did get released. It's from the developers of Titan Quest, another flawed game that still had some really cool ideas.

Blinding light

Day 418

I am indescribably exhausted and I haven't had as severe a headache as this one for quite some time. A combination of a spur of the moment road trip, sleeping on some guy's floor for a period of three and a half hours and then getting back up to do it all over again has taken its toll on my mood and physical well-being. As much as I'd like to sit here and make some progress on some of my games, it is now dawning on me that it would be much wiser just to give in to sleep. I might lose some time, but I'll (hopefully) feel a lot better once I get up. This is the kind of headache prompted by exhaustion, extreme heat (my car air conditioning seems to be acting up) as well as stuffing my face at new restaurants on consecutive days. I'm probably lucky I didn't decide to do any drinking, because that likely would have made things far worse.

I really don't like being in this kind of mood because it colors my perceptions of everything in such a negative way. I'm finding it very difficult to even concentrate, much less actually enjoy doing anything I'm doing. I had originally planned to catch up on the League of Legends World Championship games but I don't have the patience to sit through them. I ended up looking up the results instead. I'm sure I would have enjoyed watching them live but the magic is gone at this point. I also tried making some more progress on Torchlight II, but my co-op partner seems to no longer be interested in playing the game without mods. I can't in good conscience call the game beaten if I do so by abusing a 10x experience mode to breeze through the game's content. I imagine I'll be playing it alone from now on, which means I'll probably be making progress more slowly. Oh well.

I'd briefly considered the option of playing more Theatrhythm or Lufia 2 but my throbbing headache cannot take the kind of exacerbation staring at those small screens would provoke. I'm not left with a lot of options in the end as it turns out. Hopefully I'll wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning feeling reasonable refreshed and I can get back to my normal routine. I might even finish out the remaining story modes in Persona 4 Arena, since I only have about four of them left. The game is technically beaten, but I'd feel better if I'd seen all of the story, as repetitive as it tends to be.

I don't necessarily regret my decision to go to Louisville (I got some pretty decent food out of it) but I'm feeling pretty miserable at the moment. I have a hard time sleeping as it is, but napping on a hard floor in an unfamiliar apartment is not exactly what I'd call the pinnacle of comfort. To top it all off, it was unseasonably warm and unpleasant today. I would be very pleased if it started raining really heavily and didn't stop for awhile. A dip in the temperature would go a long way toward improving my mood--because for right now my air conditioning unit is putting up a very feeble struggle against the heat. I'm being dramatic, of course. It's not really that hot but considering the circumstances it's not surprising I'm predisposed towards negativity at the moment. Hopefully some rest will cure that.

Sent from my HTC One M8

Day 417

I am currently typing today's entry from my phone, which is as difficult a task as one could probably imagine. The Google Keyboard is a more than serviceable smartphone keyboard but as with any smartphone, typing long swathes of text is challenging. Predictive text and gesture typing go a long way toward expediting the process, however. Although I'll never be able to replicate the speed at which I can type on a physical keyboard, I'm reasonably surprised at just how quickly I can compose a paragraph with a little help. 

I worked a very short shift today so I decided to call up a friend of mine to see what he was up to. Turns out he was thinking about driving up to Louisville to visit a mutual friend so we agreed it would be cool for me to come along and hang out. I really do need to get out of the house more often, so it's a pretty decent opportunity for me. I'll bit use that as an excuse to skip out on updating my blog, however. 

I also haven't been out to eat at a decent restaurant in some time, so we decided to stop by a Japanese steakhouse in Elizabethtown on the way to Louisville. I felt kind of pressured to order quickly since we got there late, so I ended up ordering some tempura as well as some kind of tofu. The shrimp was really good but I was ambivalent about breaded, fried carrots. 

I'm most likely going to spend the night in Louisville and then come back tomorrow sometime. It'd be cool to eat at a semi-nice restaurant although maybe not as cool for my wallet. I'll have to make a decision on that tomorrow. I didn't really bring a change of clothes or anything.

Bullet points

Day 416

• I worked 11 hours today after only getting 4-5 hours of sleep. I stayed up all night watching A Very Potter Sequel, second in a series of comical unofficial Harry Potter musicals on YouTube. I'm really only a casual fan of the series (despite owning most of the books and movies) but the musicals are really funny and feature some awesome performances.

• The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus came out today (a full week after major providers received it) and it's probably an understatement to say it was a success. Our meager supply of 6 Plus units were sold out within the first two hours. At 5.5", it's a massive smartphone that I'm not afraid to say I felt a little awkward holding. I wouldn't say I'm a huge iPhone fan at this point but I am intrigued by the potential of smartphones with much larger screens. My HTC One M8 has a 5" screen but I definitely wouldn't mind something bigger. The LG G3 (an Android phone with a 5.5" screen) looks more like my style, but it'll be a long time before I'm in the market for another phone.

• I bought a 3DS XL after work today because I'd really like to have one for when Persona Q comes out. I also still have Bravely Default to play through and of course I'll need to spend a little more time on Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call before I can call it beaten. I don't regret the purchase at all because  Nintendo has an excellent reputation as far as handheld game catalogs are concerned. There's at least a dozen DS games I'd say are excellent and I really enjoy most of the 3DS games I own as well.

• Persona 4 Arena is technically beaten, but I'm a little ambivalent about leaving it as it is. I'd like to play through all the other storylines but I can already tell they end in basically the same way. Although it pains me to say it, I may be done with it. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax comes out in a few days so I might as well just move on to that. Wikipedia confirms that it actually comes out only four days from now.

• I should probably be careful about spending my money over the next couple weeks. I just got a pretty big paycheck but I need to resist the temptation to blow through it all immediately. I'd like a Wii U, a Vita, an airplane, and a pony. But I should try to stick to one big purchase per pay period, regardless of whether or not I've received a commission check. I think that would be the safest thing to do. I've already bought a 3DS XL, so that should be my big purchase for this pay period. I might make an exception for Ultimax since that's coming out soon. . .

Paranoid android

Day 415

The cell phone store I work for is releasing the iPhone 6 tomorrow and for many of the inhabitants of my sleepy town it'll be their first change to get their hands on it. AT&T and other major providers have had the 6 for a week now, but their coverage in this area is spotty at best. I predict our stock will be gone within a few hours and I can't imagine we won't be very busy. I have the option of going in at 8 AM and staying until close--and I'm understandably hesitant to do so. I don't want to come off as lazy or anything, but I've already met my numbers for the month. It's extremely unlikely I'll hit my renewal quota regardless of what I do so coming in early would only marginally increase the number of hours I have for the week. Either way you look at it, it results in a larger paycheck for me, but I feel like I'd rather just get home earlier.

Anyway, I've beaten the main story mode of Persona 4 Arena, although I still have a lot more individual character story modes to finish. The credits rolled though, so that's good enough for me. I'm not necessarily shooting for 100% completion, although I probably will try to go through and finish the other story modes--unless I decide I'm just not feeling up to it or I'm feeling desperate to play a different game. Torchlight 2 should be finished in just a few days, so that just leaves Theatrhythm and Lufia 2 to contend with .I've read the credits roll for Theatrhythm as soon as you hit 20,000 Ryhthmia so that's what I'm going to try to work on next.

I like a lot of the story elements in Persona 4 Arena but I don't necessarily agree with the way they were presented. Maybe it's just because I tend to play through games in marathon sessions, but playing the different characters' story modes back to back is highly repetitive because things play out roughly identically each time with only the primary character of interest changing each time. Sure, there are different conversations and interactions, but the general events don't change. Particularly after you unlock the final scenes of each character's story in which you'll find yourself repeating the same ending sequence ten or eleven times in a row if you played through the characters in the order I did.

I don't have much in the way of suggestions as far as how to better handle this in a game like Arena. The characters in question all know each other and for the most part hang out with each other more than anyone else. Their backstories are all inextricably tied together due to attending the same high school--except of course for the Persona 3 characters on the roster. Unlike Dissidia, it is difficult to focus on what makes each character different. Their personalities and backstories were all fairly well established in Persona 4--and in many ways their personal conflicts were resolved. Arena attempts to dredge up old conflicts in. For this reason, much of the story mode feels a little played out. The most interesting part of it involves Labrys, the new character introduced just for the game. Unfortunately, since the game centers around her, it's not difficult to become tired of seeing her pop up in every single scene.

The gameplay itself seems a little shallow as well--although I'm definitely not an expert on fighting games. It's possible it's less shallow than I imagine, but it's certainly much easier to exploit that I realized initially. It's possible to pull off very serviceable combos just by mashing Square over and over. I tested once whether or not I could defeat the AI by pressing nothing but Square--and much to my dismay I was able to do so easily. I'd prefer not to game the system like this--and I usually don't because the AI is not particularly challenging in the first place--but it's troubling that it's so easy to do.

Closing in

Day 414

Tonight I restarted Torchlight II with my usual co-op partner. This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time and I'm glad I finally talked him into it. After just one play session, we managed to get to Act 2 in Veteran difficulty. I don't imagine it'll take very long to beat the game at all. Finally, I'll be rid of it from my backlog. That kind of game doesn't deserve to be filed away for a such a long period of time--but what can I say? I made a mistake initially by committing to playing the game on Elite difficulty. I got a point of the game I could not pass through without help and by then everyone had stopped playing.

This also brings the number of games I'm currently playing up to four. Once I finish all of them, I will finally reach my 30 game goal. This might be happening before this month is even over, to be honest. I'm going to make an attempt to finish Persona 4 Arena tonight--but I'm really only 50% of the way through the story mode. It's possible a lot of that percentage comes from optional content because I've played through every character's storyline except for Labrys--and possibly Elizabeth, if she indeed has a storyline to play through. Still, I can't have too much more to go.

Once that's done, I'll pick back up on Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call and try to figure out what it is I have to do to actually consider the game beaten. If the game doesn't give me an out, then I'll just have to play every song in the game, of which there are over 200. Last I checked, I'd played about 60 of them, so I definitely have some work to do there. 

As for Lufia 2, I'd have to estimate I'm a little under halfway through the game. My progress is currently very slow, but once those other games are done, it'll be very soon to follow. It's a really good game, but I decided some weeks ago to relegate it to my lunch break game. Once that's done, I'll have something ready to take its place even if I have accomplished my 30 game goal. It'll probably be Dragon Quest III, since that's the only SNES game left on my backlog. I left off of it for reasons that are unknown to me since I was enjoying it. I wrote about it a little when I first started playing it many months ago. I had just finished Dragon Quest I and II of course, so maybe I was just on the verge of getting burned out.

I'm considering staying up really late to watch the continuation of the League of Legends World Championship. Perhaps I could try to finish Arena simultaneously?

Midday slumber

Day 413

Hey, it's the pi entry. This makes me think of pie, circles, and the webcomic Homestuck, a series I enjoy despite its rabid and frequently annoying fanbase. Of course, it's nowhere near the actual pi day, so I guess this is somewhat irrelevant. Never mind the fact the comic hasn't been updating for nearly a year now. 

My point is that I randomly fell asleep! I was really tired because I haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately. Unfortunately, I only got about three hours of sleep even this time. It wasn't like I woke up to an alarm or anything, either. I just woke up with no external stimulus whatsoever. That is annoying  and it happens to me a lot. Granted, I don't have great sleeping conditions and I should really work on that considering that I know how big a contributor that is to one's mood. As usual though, I'm far too lazy to be proactive.

I'm almost done with the individual story chapters in Persona 4 Arena but it looks like my playthrough will only be 50% complete once I do that. I'm not sure exactly what's next. I almost wonder if it'll have me play a second chapter of each of those character's stories to continue the overall plot of the game. Every single character I've played so far has ended with To Be Continued after all, with most of them not elaborating much on events past that point. Teddie's storyline has so far gone the farthest in that it reveals exactly what Labrys' shadow transforms into--but it ended right there.

To be honest, the constant repetition in the story elements of Persona 4 Arena is getting pretty tiring to deal with. Every single fight in the game so far has been between members of the Investigation Team (or with some Persona 3 characters) and it generally plays out the same way every time. Some unknown entity is orchestrating it from behind the scenes. He or she is deceiving the characters' minds into believing their friends are saying hurtful things and attempting to incite them to fight. Every time, the characters slowly come to the conclusion that they are being duped and only after fighting each other can they come to terms. Other characters take it more in stride than others, but it's still very repetitive. I say this as someone who quite enjoyed the plot of Persona 4 despite its flaws.

I can only hope the second half of the Arena story mode is more fluid and less repetitive--if it even exists! "To Be Continued" could easily mean the plot won't be continued until Ultimax, the sequel--but I don't think that's what's going on. I would think the overall story in Arena would have more resolution than that, even if it was acknowledged there would be a sequel.It's hard to say , though. I'm on Aigis's story mode right now and I only have two more to go after that--unless there are secret characters with their own story modes. I already know that Elizabeth from Persona 3 is in the game but so far she has not been shown to be playable.

Shut up and take my money

Day 412

This is actually the first time in awhile I've sat down to write something and I've felt sort of at a loss! I know I'm going to spend most of tonight playing Persona 4 Arena because I'm starting to get into it a lot more. I'm still somewhat concerned with the pacing of the game but I can easily get over it. The story is interesting and the combat is fun--and of course it features characters from some of my favorite games. What's not to like? I'm sort of dreading the inevitable increase in difficulty once I get to the later stages of the story mode, but I'm sure I'll be able to handle it, regardless.

I think I've also pretty much decided that I'm going to start playing Torchlight 2 again since my usual co-op partner has agreed to play through it with me. If I finish it and all the games I'm playing now, I should hit 30 for the year. I imagine it won't be at all difficult to do so before I'm even halfway through the next month. I could probably easily play through a few more games before the year's over, but 30 is my primary goal. Anything else is just icing on the cake--but of course I'm still painfully cognizant of my obsessive desire to completely clean out my backlog.

I'm getting a pretty sizable paycheck this Friday and my mind has irresponsibly been swimming with thoughts of what I should blow all of it on. My first thought is always the Wii U because I know I'll need one for the new Super Smash Bros game--and I definitely wouldn't mind playing Bayonetta 2 either. There are also a few Wii games I haven't finished yet that I could easily play on a Wii U in the meantime, such as Super Mario Galaxy and Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon. I'm not sure how good of an investment it would be in the long run, but for only $250, I guess I can't really complain. There's a remarkably small pool of exclusive games I enjoyed for the Xbox 360 and I paid more for it at launch.

Of course,  I'm also reasonably interested in the PlayStation 4, but it doesn't seem like an essential purchase as of right now. Persona 5 will be available on PS3 and Disgaea 5 is likely not enough to convince me to buy the console alone. I do enjoy the series, but it's not as essential for me as some other games might be. Final Fantasy XV will be showing up on both the PS4 and Xbox One. I have no interest in the latter so that's a fairly compelling reason to grab a PS4 at some point as well. Still, both of these games are probably pretty far down the line, whereas Super Smash Bros is on its way very soon.

I've also had the PS Vita and new 3DS model on my mind lately. Having a larger screen for my 3DS would be fantastic, because the small screen I have now is a huge bummer on certain games. I still need to play through Bravely Default and it's very likely a whole lineup of excellent games will continue to show up on the 3DS over time, so I can only assume this would be a great investment. The Vita is more questionable, but I would at the very least be able to enjoy Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden. Both are ports, though--I would definitely need to find out if there were some quality original Vita games before making a decision on that handheld.

The visual novel fighting game

Day 411

Persona 4 Arena is without a doubt the most plot-heavy fighting game I've played--which is saying something considering the fact I just recently played through Dissidia 012. That was a game in which plot featured heavily, but it is at its heart a crossover fighter mixing characters from different games (within the same series) and featuring plot elements from each of those games. None of the events of those games were meant to fit into anything but an alternate universe canon. I get the impression that Persona 4 Arena is entirely canonical to the Persona timeline--which evidentlly contains Persona 3 as well. It's difficult to say if the first two (three?) games of the series fit into that storyline at all.

In Arena, Yu Narukami comes back to visit Inaba two months after the events of Persona 4. Right before he returns, the Midnight Channel starts broadcasting once again, but this time things are different. The broadcast features all of the members of the Investigation Squad and in perfect clarity--although none of them are inside the TV world as of yet. A heretofore unknown individual is behind it this time, although you're led to believe that Teddie himself has orchestrated some kind of fighting tournament and is manipulating and/or brainwashing the members of the Investigation Squad to fight each other.

I've played through the storylines of Yu himself as well as Yosuke Hanamura because it seemed to make the most sense to play the storylines in the order the characters were recruited in Persona 4. Even though I've only played two characters so far, I've probably spent over two hours on the game--and only about 10 or 11 actual matches. There is a lot of text in this game and a lot of dialogue, all of which is fully voiced. I find the plot interesting, but the balance between story and gameplay is significantly different from what I was expecting. I would have at least preferred for the story battles themselves to take more time. They're all one-round fights that take thirty seconds or less. The mechanics of the game are much more traditional than something like Dissidia, but the controls seem reasonably fluid and although I'm not great at fighting games, I feel I'm getting the hang of it and I enjoy it. The story mode doesn't give you a lot of time to practice, though.

I guess from now on I'll attempt to play a character a little bit in the practice mode to get a hang of their style before tackling their story mode. The characters in Arena don't have pages and pages of moves like in some fighters but the mechanics are still a little more complicated than what I'm used to. On the surface, the gameplay is fairly simple. You have a light attack and heavy attack and so too does the character's Persona. These attacks can be weaved together in combos--in ways that require experimentation on the part of the player. Other mechanics are more difficult for me to understand, like One More Cancels and Furious Actions. Pressing multiple buttons simultaneously on the PS3 controller seems a lot more difficult than it should be--and far more suitable for an arcade stick, something I'm certainly not willing to buy.

Pretzel bread stupor

Day 410

I have made a dreadful mistake by eating a large pretzel bread pizza from Little Caesar's. This is a mistake I won't be repeating soon--except for the fact I purchased two of the pizzas and will probably east the second one tomorrow. I can't let it go to waste! However, I do feel terrible and lethargic as I often do directly after making poor food decisions. Is it my own stupidity that causes this or an overabundance of enthusiasm for food in general? I drove home at unsafe speeds in anticipation of the pretzel bread pizza--and I was burned in such an epic way.

I'm not sure I've written about it yet, but I have finished Persona 2: Innocent Sin, clocking in at roughly 50 hours. It's one of the longer games I've played this year, but it didn't feel that long possibly because I'm accustomed to how ridiculously lengthy Persona 3 and Persona 4 are, both of which have a good 30-40 hours on that one. My reaction to Persona 2 was mixed, but I liked it overall. I'd like to jump right into Eternal Punishment, but I can predict myself swiftly losing motivation on that one considering the fact that I already feel burned out on Persona. It is for that reason that I'm going to wait awhile before I tackle the PS2 games in my backlog since there are no fewer than three Shin Megami Tensei titles there left for me to complete.

I'm sitting at 26 completed games right now and I'm currently juggling three different games, none of which should take me an extremely long time to finish. I could be mistaken about Persona 4 Arena. It could be a lot harder than I realize and there could be a lot more content to take care of before the game can be considered beaten, but I'll worry about that later. Beating Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call is only a matter of time because it's an absurdly addictive and fun game. If the game doesn't give me some criteria for completion I'll just have to complete all the songs at least once or unlock all of the characters. That's still something I can accomplish in a week or so--probably less if I really concentrate on it.

I have 8 or 9 hours logged on Lufia 2 which is really not bad considering how short my play sessions tend to be. If there comes a time when it's the last game left to hit 30 games for this year, I'll start playing it exclusively to get it out of the way more quickly. This is exactly what I did with Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, although I must admit in that case my eagerness to get it over with was equally motivated by my sagging motivation for actually playing the game. It was very frustrating in a lot of ways!

I still need to start up one more game if I plan on hitting my 30 game goal. Monkey Island 2 is still an option, but I'm of the opinion that I still have plenty of time to start up a lengthy RPG if I wanted to. If I'm saving PS2 games for later (and I'd rather do PS3 games even after that), I'm only left with a few options. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis is my only GBA option--but I think I've played a lot of strategy RPGs recently. Throne of Bhaal is a game I desperately want to finish and the expansion to the game that got me to start writing this blog in the first place! It has a lot of sentimental value and I'm frequently baffled as to why I haven't finished it yet. I might just start that for real tonight or tomorrow.

A strange set of circumstances

Day 409

I need to figure out exactly how to be a high functioning human being. I have written at length on this blog about how I struggle with daily social interactions. Some days are more difficult than others, of course--but today was surprisingly easy. I don't have a concrete explanation for why this is, but sometimes I'll have really good ideas. I'll experience a surge of confidence from an unknown source and I'll attempt to vainly recreate that feeling in the following days. The only way I've been able to somewhat recreate this feeling is by consuming mass quantities of caffeine--but of course there are multiple downsides to that.

Despite the surge of confidence I experienced today, it was ultimately not enough for me to conquer my fear and speak a brief line on the radio. A local radio station dropped by the store today and asked me and my fellow co-workers to recite some brief lines over the phone to promote the store. I started strong but didn't take a single breath through the whole thing. I felt like my stomach was going to explode and I was going to break into tears. It was terrible and stressful and terrifying. For someone who doesn't deal with social anxiety, it's difficult to explain exactly why this kind of thing is so horrifying.

It's also extremely frustrating because I feel I'm an excellent speaker if the situation calls for it. My anxiety is a barrier which I find impossible to break through. It prevents me from being the kind of person I want to be. It forces me to make illogical decisions--and I understand that will happen sometimes but I'd very much like to find a way to be more at peace with myself in general. I've gone a long way over the past few years of maturing emotionally and becoming more comfortable with my state of mind, but I still have massive issues with how I'm perceived by others and how I perceive myself, particularly when it comes to my body image.

I'm proud of the progress I've made in some areas, but sometimes I feel I'm very far away from reaching that level I want. What needs to change? Do I need to start exercising again? Of course I do, but it's not an easy thing to start or to maintain. I'm a broken record as far as this is concerned and that itself is frustrating. I can at least take solace in the fact that I'm not sitting around doing nothing. Even if I spend most of my time playing video games, I still take the time to write about them--and in entries like this, I write about how I feel about myself and my life. Is it enough? Is it enough to feel fulfilled? I wish there were more hours in the day because I would find something to do with every one of them.

Exercising on a daily basis would do wonders for my confidence and energy level, but I'm afraid to start because I don't want to disappoint myself by not keeping it up. I've kept this up and I'm not overly concerned I'll stop any time soon. I have to consider that an end must be in sight, but I'm certainly not having difficulty updating on a daily basis at this point. I think I have this desire to pile on more responsibilities for myself--but at the same time I have tremendous difficulty just keeping up with things like cleaning the house. It's a weird set of circumstances for me. I'm lazy--no doubt about that. But at the same time I'm tremendously driven. It could be said I strive to be productive in exactly the wrong ways.

The last vestiges

Day 408

I never feel great when it's the night before I have to work. As it turns out, this continues to be a problem even when I get the two days off I've been looking forward to for weeks. Do I dread going to work because I hate my job? I don't really think so. This job is a lot better than a lot of my other alternatives and there are things about it that I genuinely like. I'm not sure I'd be happy at any job right now and it has very little to do with the responsibilities of the job itself. 

No matter how much I try and no matter how much I repeatedly put myself out there, I can't seem to become comfortable with the idea of being out in public. I worry on a daily basis about how others react to me and what they think of me. And it's not that I think I'm being judged and ridiculed behind my back, necessarily. I'm not worried about that. It's more a side effect of my latent narcissism. I instinctively make everything about me. I'd like to think I've done a great job in recent years of curbing that desire but it still pops up in unfortunate places. Subconsciously, I assume that since I'm so hyper-focused on myself, so too is everyone else in the room. They too are disgusted by my body and see every little imperfection on my face, on my clothes.

I know that's not true. 

But it doesn't change the fact that it's very difficult for me to dismiss these neuroses. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. I dreaded going to school because of that walk through the hallway in the morning where I earnestly tried to minimize myself in a vain effort to escape notice. I'd walk into class and take a seat as far in the back as possible because I knew if I felt others behind me were concentrating their attention on me, I wouldn't be able to focus. 

I worked at Walmart for four years and dealt with the public every single day. I worked there long enough that I became a very familiar face for a lot of people. I was still never comfortable with it. Some days were better than others, but many days were a struggle to cope. I felt uncomfortable and itchy because I felt the eyes of others on me. I'd stress out about things like the way my navy blue t-shirt looked or the fact that occasionally when I bent over a bit of my backside was exposed. I made a habit of literally sitting down next to the display cases when I unlocked them for customers due in no small part to these neuroses.

I have no illusions that these neuroses don't have any basis in fact. I'm an overweight and awkward dude. If I were to get in shape and gain confidence in myself, some of these anxieties might lessen somewhat--but I know they'd never disappear. Every day is a struggle to deal with my insecurities. It's probably true that the six months I spent unemployed (a period of time in which I very rarely left the house) exacerbated these issues, but four months working have done little to help so far. 

I wish I didn't dread working so much. I really don't have it bad at all. I'm finally at a place in my life where I'm managing. I'm making enough money to live and to buy things for myself as well. But it's getting to the point where I'm having a hard time even enjoying my time off because I'm always dreading going back to work. It's not an issue of getting a different job because things would be the same regardless of what job I had--unless for some reason I was able to land a job that wasn't demanding physically and required very little in the way of social interaction. I've had something like that before and it was also quite depressing.

Digging deeper

Day 407

Although I fully acknowledge that it's against my better judgment, I purchased two new games today. This is the first time I've purchased physical games in several months--although I did buy Borderlands 2 and Divinity: Original Sin digitally through Steam somewhat recently. I don't feel guilty for doing that though because I completed both of them--and they were co-op. That might imply I'm guilty about my purchases today, but that's only half true. I've had my eye on these games for some time and I'm sure it won't take me long to finish them--and I also fully intend to make Innocent Sin my first priority for the moment. Right after I finish writing this entry, I'm going to get back to it!

Anyway, the two titles I purchased today were Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call for Nintendo 3DS and Persona 4 Arena for PlayStation 3. I'm obviously a huge fan of both franchises and I've been craving some games that aren't just straight up RPGs. Playing so many back to back has been particularly exhausting. Theatrhythm is pretty much exactly as I expected. Not much has changed since the first game of the series but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm a tremendous fan of music from the Final Fantasy series and I'm thrilled to see that Square Enix has decided to include music and characters from less popular titles as well--like Final Fantasy Tactics! Maybe this means they'll make another Dissidia title sometime down the line in which Ramza (or Marche? or Luso) appears. 

It hardly seems necessary to clarify at this point, but Curtain Call is a rhythm game in the vein of Elite Beat Agents or Osu. I'm not familiar with the former but I've heard the comparison made for games that follow the format of tapping circles and following patterns to the beat of music. It's evidently a reasonably popular subgenre of rhythm game, but I've only played Osu! and the aforementioned Theatrhytthm titles. They're quite fun but Curtain Call has the added benefit of being endorsed by Square Enix and having the rights to all of the Final Fantasy characters. The game allows you to assemble a party of characters from the games and vanquish mighty foes and travel across the world, all of which is rendered in an adorable chibi art style. The RPG elements present in the game seem to be little more than background noise for the rhythm game itself, however. I was hoping Curtain Call would have made these elements more relevant, but I suppose I can't render a judgment so quickly since I've only played it for an hour or so.

Persona 4 Arena on the other hand is a reasonably straightforward fighting game at least as far as my expertise on the subject would suggest. What is unusual about Arena is the extreme emphasis on plot in the story mode. I've played several traditional fighters over the years, most of which feature skeletal story modes that treat the player with little more than brief blurbs to suggest that things are indeed going on in the background. Arena structures its plot in much the same way as the main series RPGs do--with a lot of dialogue and exposition. In fact, it's a little overwhelming just how much emphasis there is on that plot especially when one considers the fights themselves generally span 30 seconds or so. I've played the game for probably two hours now and I've been in four or five fights. The balance seems to be a little off but I can't say I mind since I am genuinely interested in the plot of the game.

Yes, this is a photo of my television

Persona 4 Arena strikes me as nothing so much as a visual novel combined with a fighting game. It's a strange hybrid but so far I feel it works for me. I enjoy the Persona series mythos and I'm relieved to find that Atlus hasn't skimped on their storytelling in a genre that typically places less emphasis on plot. I can only hope I'll grow accustomed enough to the game that I won't feel I'm button-mashing my way through every fight. I'm certainly not the best at traditional fighters even if I find them really interesting.

Gaming apocalypse

Day 406

Every time I get two days off, I plop down on the couch and stare vacantly into my TV screen in preparation for what will surely be two days full of fun and productivity--and then proceed to get absolutely nothing done on what is technically the first night of my time off. I think this is a poor idea on my part and I should probably try to get out of that habit. I'm closing in on what I can only assume is the latter stages of Persona 2: Innocent Sin and I should really try to get that finished during my time off. I still have a lot of games left in my backlog and I'd still like to make a concerted effort to hit the 30 mark for games completed this year. After Innocent Sin is done, I'll only have four games left to go.

If I continue to adhere to my plans, the next two games I play will be Monkey Island 2 and Torchlight 2, both games from my Steam backlog. I'm also playing Lufia II at work. None of these games should take a very long time to finish, but that still leaves one more game to complete. If I really buckled down, I could finish Lufia II in a couple of evenings, but I'm not currently at the stage where I'd need to do that. If at any point I only need one more game to hit 30, I'll blow through the rest of Lufia II. I have plenty of other games I could potentially play at work.

Technically, the shortest game in my backlog would be Mega Man 9, which I own for Xbox Live Arcade. I haven't hooked up my Xbox 360 for well over half a year. The last game I played was Lost Odyssey and even then only briefly. I listened the game on my backlog for quite some time, but after trying to play through it again, I realized I didn't have much interest in finishing it. It seems like quite the hassle to dig out that console just to play Mega Man 9. I wish it were available in other ways aside from the PlayStation Network and WiiWare. I don't have any of those consoles hooked up right now! I will of course need to hook them both up at various points to play games from my backlog--although I may well purchase a Wii U before it's necessary to drag out the Wii.

I wouldn't be entirely opposed to purchasing both Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10 for WiiWare or on the PlayStation Network because I enjoy the classic series a lot. Honestly, the only reason I never finished MM9 in the first place was because it's so hard! I'ts definitely a game I could finish with some dedication and practice, though. If I can get through Dissidia 012, I can get through anything. That's not really a fair comparison, but I'm going to go with that story anyway. The point is that MM9 is only short in theory. I'm sure it would still take me quite some time to get through it.

I've been thinking a lot lately about games I'd like to play outside of the games in my backlog--and it's certainly a valid concern with games like Super Smash Bros coming out soon. So far, I've only bypassed the rules of my Backlog Eradication Marathon to play cooperative games--specifically Borderlands 2 and Divinity: Original Sin. I enjoyed both games a lot, but they're not the only newer games I've really had an interest to play. I'd love to play Persona 4: Arena, for instance, and the as of yet unreleased Persona Q looks like it's going to be right up my alley. There are a number of other games that have come out semi-recently that I'd love to try as well, such as Xenoblade Chronicles and Disgaea D2. I think I might work on compiling a wishlist so I don't forget about these games. As if I would ever run out of games to play. . .

Innocent Sin wackiness

Day 405

Persona 2: Innocent Sin is a great game, but it's significantly more bizarre than other entries in the series I've played. Case in point is the dubious choice to include Hitler in the game's plot. Granted, he's referred to only as "Fuhrer," but the Nazi imagery (including Nazi robots apparently?) is pretty blatant. In the world of Innocent Sin, rumors have a nasty habit of coming true. Who exactly chose to spread a rumor that Hitler and an army of Nazi robots were invading Sumaru City remains to be seen. I can only assume the individual responsible is as unstable as they come.

It's difficult for me to ascertain just how close I am to the end at this point. I've definitely reached a part of the game where shit has started to hit the fan. Like the shift between Final Fantasy VI's World of Balance and World of Ruin, the world has fundamentally changed due to the "rise of Xibalba," whatever that is. The only other time I've heard of Xibalba is from the film, The Fountain, which featured a plot possibly just as incomprehensible as Innocent Sin. I have no idea what it is or what it means, but it seems to signify that some serious stuff is going on and the party needs to kick it into high gear--with the assistance of newcomer Jun, who evidently knew the gang all along.

There's a plot point at about the halfway point of the game (and I'm estimating on that) that reminds me a lot of the oft-maligned orphanage plot from Final Fantasy VIII, complete with an included explanation for why the crew of teenagers' memories weren't intact. VIII's hamfisted approach to storytelling in general soured my appreciation of the game so it's somewhat worrisome to see a similar story in Innocent Sin. For what it's worth though, I think it's handled better here, since there's a pretty concrete reason why things are not happening as they should, even if I don't personally know the root cause. 

Will everything make sense by the end of the game? It's possible. I'm historically pretty terrible at internalizing all of a game's plot points and making sense of them and Innocent Sin is certainly not making it easy on me with its wacky themes. This is part of the reason I really prefer more intimate, character-driven stories, even in video games. This also ties into why I hate silent protagonists so much even when they're used so consistently in a series I greatly enjoy like Persona. I still like a lot of the characters, but we'll have to see how I feel about Jun. It's a big adjustment to make after 30 some odd hours of Yukino being in my party.

A seductive stare

Day 404

Kuzonoha Detective Agency

 I've spent the vast majority of the last two days feverishly playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin. The whole experience has reminded me just how much I love the series as a whole. The first game of the series might have given me a bad impression and made me expect less from Innocent Sin, but I shouldn't have let it color my judgment. It's a great game and has a lot of merits that differentiate it from the games that followed it. Of course, it's not all good, but it's a rare game that entices me to play in extremely long marathon sessions for more than just gameplay purposes. I really enjoy grinding to unlock new personas, abilities, and combo attacks, but I'm also interested in the plot, as strange as it might be.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 are full of fun and interesting characters, but Innocent Sin is no slouch in that regard either. Although a significant portion of the time I've spent on this has been dungeon crawling and leveling up personas, I'm glad there's a thread of plot that keeps me interested in playing just to find out what happens. The dynamic between the party's characters is interesting. It very much makes me wish there existed an enhanced remake of this game that featured Social Links in some way--one of my favorite features of both Persona 3 and 4. Like support conversations from the Fire Emblem series, Social Links go a long way in fleshing out characters and delving into the relationships between these characters and the protagonist. In Innocent Sin, Tatsuya has little to no personality. He's a mute protagonist, as is traditional for the series. I really dislike this JRPG trope and can't discern any particular reason why it should exist. I've been saying the same thing since way before Chrono Trigger came out. I'm hoping Atlus will choose to diverge from this trend with Persona 4. I don't have much confidence this will happen, even if Yu Narukami from Persona 4 has been given a personality in other media like the anime and fighting game spinoffs of the game.

Although Tatsuya is intertwined with the backstory of the other playable characters, his part in it is much less interesting because--of course--he has nothing to say. Maya, Lisa (Ginko), and Eikichi (Michel) are all interesting because of their perspective on the things that have happened to them as well as their personalities in general. There's certainly not as much dialogue as in Persona 3 and Persona 4, but there's definitely still enough for me to get a good idea of what these characters are like and how they interact. No one feels underdeveloped or underused in any way, except of course for Tatsuya himself, who is supposed to be serve as a sort of surrogate for the player. Again, I really don't think it's necessary for a game like this. Leave silent protagonists to first-person western RPGs that allow you to create your character in ridiculous detail, I say. It's far more appropriate there.


Every Persona title seems to have some kind of underlying theme on which the plot is based. In Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, the plot centered around the Persona Game, a supernatural game said to have the capability to reveal the players' futures. In the original game and in Innocent Sin, a being known as Philemon grants the characters the ability to summon persona. His existence is only alluded to in future Persona titles, where other explanations are given for the phenomenon. It's hard to say whether all the game exist in the same canon or of it's more of a Final Fantasy kind of situation. It's worth noting that Innocent Sin features many characters from the original Persona title--and Persona 4 features at least one cameo of a Persona 3 character. In spin-offs, Persona 3 and 4 characters coexist, but it's doubtful these games can be considered canonical additions to the series.

Demonic beatdown

Day 403

I'ts interesting to take a look at the mechanics in Persona 2: Innocent Sin and compare them to those in Persona 3 and Persona 4. I have to wonder why the combination attacks from Persona 2 were abandoned for future titles. I personally felt it was a really fun mechanic. Granted, the Press Turn combat system introduced in later Shin Megami Tensei is one of the better mechanics I've seen in RPGs. Still, I imagine it could have coexisted with combo attacks. Persona 3 and 4 don't feature five-person parties either, which might make combo attacks more difficult to implement. That's another thing I wonder about--why did Atlus decide to cut the party roster from five to four? This is something that JRPGs over the past 10-15 years have been doing and I'm not sure why. Larger parties are really fun, as games like Final Fantasy IV, Persona 2, and Lunar 2 can attest.

I'm not sure it can be boiled down to an issue of too much micromanagement. Persona 3 and 4 both feature robust and complex persona fusion systems and more than enough characters to support a party of five. In fact, I would have loved to be able to use more of these games' characters. Naoto and Kanji were frequently left out of my party in Persona 4, whereas characters like Koromaru and Ken rarely entered my roster in Persona 3. These are some of my absolute favorite JRPGs, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize areas where they could be improved. Both titles delivered admirably on increased levels of difficulty and graphical fidelity.

I suppose it's good though, that these earlier Persona titles feature traits that set them apart. It gives me more of a reason to play them and enjoy them in different ways. Although I'm ambivalent about the demon negotiation system, I have to admit there are some things I like about it--and it's fun to read through all the silly dialogue choices the demons offer to you. At first I found it pretty strange that such a mechanic was so ingrained with the gameplay, but I'm certainly getting used to it. In fact, I will generally bypass most battles with negotiation rather than fighting. 

I was pretty disappointed to learn that the PSP remake of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment was unavailable in English, but I'm definitely considering giving the PS1 version a try all the same. It looks to be a passable version of the game, even if the interface is jarringly plain--especially for a Persona title. I'm sure it's something I could become accustomed to--and I'm sure I'd enjoy it just for the gameplay and storyline, even if the polish I'd prefer is not quite there. 

Some thoughts on my direction

Day 402

I'm going to choose to blame the state of lethargy I've sunken into on a variety of small factors. I haven't been drinking as much caffeine while at home, although I've certainly not abstained from it. I find the pattern of days I've been given off to be disorienting and uncomfortable. It's hard to enjoy your day off when it's always followed up by another working day. It's a silly thing to complain or whine about, but it honestly gets to me. Other than these two things, there's a reasonably long list of minor annoyances and things with which I'm unhappy--none of which have changed recently. My house isn't particularly clean and I spend 100% of my free time alone. This is not such a bad thing in many ways, but I could certainly due with the occasional interaction, provided it takes no effort from me whatsoever, of course. . .

I'm still playing games. I'm making reasonable progress--but as I've discussed at length recently, I don't have the same fervor or passion for it as I have in the past. I can sense it there beneath the surface, but I find myself becoming easily bored. It's not the fault of the game. Persona 2 is not my favorite game I've ever played but it's a considerably better game than several I've played this year and I couldn't begin to assign blame to it for provoking depression. That would be silly. 

If I lay all the cards upon the table then, I can only come to the conclusion that a lack of coffee and an unusual work schedule are to blame for my recent depression. It's probably not a great sign that I feel so dependent upon caffeine to keep myself elevated and alert, but it's been true for many years. Increasing my activity level would likely do wonders here but then I run into problems associated with both laziness and boredom. I dread exercise not only because it causes physical main and weariness but because it's generally not particularly fun. I like to walk, but it's not particularly exciting when I'm not doing something along with it. I haven't been nearly as excited about music in recent months, so that's not really a viable option for me either. 

I hate to fill this blog with entry after entry bemoaning my discontent--but I can think of no other way to resolve the issue. The reality is that while I do have problems with my life, there is nothing quite so severe that would provoke me into acting this way. I can feel the person that I really am beneath the surface, that part of myself that I admire. That part of myself that is enthusiastic, optimistic, and eager to experience new things, to open himself up to the world. I feel I've been losing that part of myself lately and I'd very much prefer to keep it! I have had immense problems with apathy in the past and it's not something to which I look forward to giving in. 

Is it possible I need some kind of change of pace? I've been so obsessed with this blog and my various projects that I haven't had time to really do anything else--or at least that's been my (likely wrong) perception. I think I am at my happiest when I feel I'm filling my day with things that are productive in some way. The word "productive" is pretty subjective in this case, because playing a video game is productive to me, especially if I'm going to be finishing it. It's something I can experience and something I can write about. Something I can analyze. 

Unfortunately, I haven't been productive in other ways. I need to clean the house and I need to do things on the broader scale like planning for my future. The only plans I've made are plans regarding video games I'm going to play. That's all well and good and it's something I'm really passionate about--but could it be that I'm in danger of burning out. Has that already happened? Would it not be a good idea to take a break and focus on something else for awhile like reading, learning to play an instrument, or even drawing? I love to be creative but this writing outlet is the only thing I have at the moment. And it's great! I'm proud of what I've accomplished here. But I think I want more.

I think some anal part of me would feel unfulfilled if I didn't make as valiant an effort as possible to attempt to beat 30 games this year. It's a silly thing to even prioritize, but it makes sense to me. After this year, I might try to change up my patterns. I'll continue to play games pretty frequently, most likely, but I won't do so attempting to meet some kind of quota. I have to meet enough quotas as it is without worrying about self-imposed ones.

Things are likely going to progress as usual for the rest of this year, but afterward I may look into restructuring what I do here at Everything All the Time. Video games are still going to feature prominently as a subject of discussion on this blog because it's something I'm pretty much always going to be doing. But there should be more. It shouldn't be the only thing that I do.

Some video game plans

Day 401

Time to start writing. I'm getting into this habit of spending several hours after work watching streams on Twitch.tv, posting on a message board, and spending time in an IRC channel. This is similar to the kind of thing I used to do several years ago and I can't say I'm sad I've reverted to these patterns. However, it is taking somewhat of a toll on my progress on the Backlog Eradication Marathon. I'm still determined to hit 25 games this year too, even if that means I tackle a few shorter games closer to the end. I've definitely got my eye on Monkey Island 2 and Torchlight 2, neither of which should take more than a couple of days to complete.

But first, I've gotta finish Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Lufia II is an optional completion for me at this point because regardless of what happens, I need something to play at work. I know I can easily move right on to Dragon Quest III afterward though, so maybe I'll try to rush through the rest of it after I finish Innocent Sin. I can't imagine that Lufia II features much more than 20 hours of gameplay, though its immediate predecessor was surprisingly lengthy. Lufia II seems to be a much better game in general, so maybe the developers chose not to pad the playtime.

Playing through Innocent Sin has of course put the thought of playing Persona 2: Eternal Punishment in mind. I'd always hoped I could play the PSP version, but Atlus chose not to localize it for North America. This is really disheartening. I can only hope that the fan translation community elects to resolve this grave injustice--but I can understand why it wouldn't be made a priority, considering an officially localized version already exists on the PlayStation. Unfortunately, that particular translation respects the terms and mistranslations from the original North American release of Revelations: Persona, a horrifyingly botched 90s localization. I've heard that Eternal Punishment's translation is at the very least superior to it, but not as good as the much newer PSP version of Innocent Sin.

It's not something I should probably worry about right now. I would of course like to play it eventually, but I'm still pretty committed to working through my backlog. There are a number of sequels I skipped that I would like to go back to someday, including Front Mission 2 and Tales of Eternia. There's also the matter of the entire remaining Dragon Quest series that I'd rather not consider. That is a lot of potential playtime.

Going through the motions

Day 400

This is day 400 on Everything  All of the Time but I don't have anything special planned. Honestly, I probably won't do another themed entry until the end of the year or the beginning of the next. If I was in higher spirits, I might do them more frequently. As it is, I haven't felt much in the mood for this project. I don't dislike writing these entries but I find I don't have as much passion for it. I'd very much like to reclaim that passion. I'm not certain what I'm doing differently than before.

I really enjoy a lot of aspects of Persona 2: Innocent Sin, but I don't care for others. The demon negotiation system is interesting, but the most irritating aspect of it is that it doesn't save what techniques were successful in the past when negotiating with certain demons. I either have to make some note of it or consult a walkthrough online. This would be fine if demon negotiation was a puzzling optional diversion, but it's actually quite important for progression in the game. Unlike Persona 3 and Persona 4 where new personas can be collected from cards randomly obtained after battles (and then subsequently fusing said personas), personas in this particular entry must be created from tarot cards belonging to certain types. These cards are collected through demon negotation. As far as I know, there's no other way to get them.

Creating and fusion personas is a big part of any Persona game and that's a big part of the reason they're fun. Although both the original title and this sequel feature persona fusion (in which multiple personas can be combined to create something new), Persona 3 and Persona 4 expanded on the mechanic greatly and made it a primary focus. For the most part, I prefer that system--although I would take much less issue with the mechanic on display in Innocent Sin if the process involved in collecting them wasn't so tedious. On the other hand, creating new personas with the cards you've collected is still fun and interesting.

I'm also a fan of the fact that each of your five person party is capable of adopting any persona--although they'll have varying compatibilities with them. This does require more micromanagement on the part of the player, but I can't say that's something I mind. It would have been interesting if I could have completely switched out which personas my party members had access to in the later games in the series--although I did enjoy being able to cycle through a whole list of different beasts on my main character.

I get the feeling it's going to take me a long time to trek through Persona 2 which is not in and of itself a bad thing--but I've played a lot of long games recently. I wouldn't mind tackling a few shorter ones before I move onto the PS2 as my primary backlog eradication console. Games like Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga are likely even longer than this game. It might not be a bad idea for me to consider finishing up my Steam library next. That shouldn't be too tough, since there's only two games left unfinished for me on that front, both of which wouldn't take me very long. I think I might do just that.

The crucial moment

Day 399

I had a rough day today for a number of reasons--but none of them were particularly valid ones. They were valid in that depression is never something that should be dismissed but under normal circumstances I wouldn't have considered it that much different from a normal day. It was very slow and uneventful for the most part. I did learn that my day off was changed so I'm not getting two consecutive days off as I'd originally hoped. That's enough to provoke some mild irritation, but not enough to spend me spiraling into depression like I did. 

At a certain point of the day, I felt incredibly vulnerable and sick. It was bizarre. It was like the weight of all of the little things I've been worrying about it crashed down on me all at once--in public, in a place where I was expected to interact sociably with a number of customers throughout the day. Compounding the severity of the situation was the fact that our district manager showed up to hang out for the day. I felt as if I was being studied and judged throughout the day, which made it impossible to relax and tell myself that things were going to be okay. He's actually a pretty nice guy, but I just couldn't calm down.

I frequently deal with depression, but its effects are often subtle or mild. I seldom have attacks like I did today and I can't really pinpoint why it happened. Frustratingly, I don't know hot best to address the issue. I'm attempting to work on a few of the things that have contributed to my general unhappiness of late, but they're all pretty small and unimportant things, at least when considered separately. I need to clean my house. I need to buy new clothes and take better care of myself in general. There are a lot of little lifestyle changes that I really need to make in order for me to be happy, I feel. 

I also need to get back to making progress on my games every night. I didn't make any progress at all on Persona 2 last night and I'm just now writing this entry at 11 PM after having continued to not play it. I've been absentmindedly watching the NA LCS promotion matches to find out if CLG is staying in. It'd be pretty surprising if they got eliminated, but that's a story for another entry, I guess. I don't talk about League of Legends all that much these days but I still try to keep up with it when I can.

On the bright side, I"ve been watching a lot of the show Hannibal and it's really great. It's been quite some time since I watched a drama and got really absorbed in it. It's a shame there's only two seasons. I may discuss it a little more in another entry, although I've been having some chats about it on Fool's Gold lately.

Some screenshots breaking up walls of text

Day 398

My blog has been lacking severely in the picture department lately--not because I haven't been taking screenshots, but because I've been too lazy or busy to upload them! Here are a few to tide you (me) over.

I've been playing Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals in 30-45 minute sessions during lunch breaks at work, but I think I do like it a lot. It is positively chock full of well-trod RPG tropes, but it does distinguish itself from the pack by featuring a wide variety of different puzzles, some of which are quite challenging. This kind of thing isn't normally my forte, but I do enjoy experiencing something a little different from the norm. It reminds me of Golden Sun in some ways, although Lufia II thankfully does not feature its pages and pages of tedious dialogue.

Of course I also finished up Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions after becoming fed up with how much time I was spending grinding out level after level and unlocking every single class and special item in the game. I should know from experience that his kind of thing will quickly burn me out on a game unless it features ridiculous amounts of content to explore. The War of the Lions does feature a decent amount of content, but much of it I've seen many times before. For that reason, I just ended up rushing it there at the end.

Next on the agenda is Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 2: Innocent Sin, a game of many subtitles. I think it's safe to say I prefer it to its immediate predecessor, but I'll be the first to admit that I miss being always accompanied by a Shoji Meguro soundtrack. The game's opening theme was a composition of his (unless I very much miss my guess) but the remainder of the soundtrack seems to be a remixed variant of the original PlayStation version. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but Shoji Meguro has a flare that really distinguishes him from other video game composers.

Like Shin Megami Tensei: Persona before it, this game allows you to assume control of a five person party of youngsters capable of communing with demons and unleashing their powers on unsuspecting enemy high school students--as well as a whole host of other demons. It is a formula I'm very familiar with by now, having played and finished three of the games in the series, but there's a vocal minority among SMT fans that hail Innocent Sin as the best Persona game. I liked Persona 3 and Persona 4 a lot, so it has some pretty high expectations to live up to. I'll say right away that I don't necessarily dig the demon negotiation system. It is largely unchanged from the first game in the series except for the fact that this game features new characters and therefore new negotiation options.

Very true.

Out with a whimper

Day 397

Well, War of the Lions is finished, but now that I'm done with it I don't have a great deal to say about it. I feel pretty strongly that I ruined my reaction to the game by grinding excessively. My intent was to unlock as much content as possible and I was relatively successful on that front--but because the new content was relatively minor, it felt like quite extensively retreading old footsteps. I still think it's a great game and War of the Lions is undoubtedly the superior version, but I can't say I enjoyed myself a great deal after about halfway through the chapter 4. My lack of enjoyment is definitely my fault, but I wanted to unlock the Dark Knight class and that takes a lot of effort to do.

I think I would have had a lot more tolerance for that level of grinding if all of the enemies in the game continued to scale with me. This already happens for random encounters, but story missions feature enemies with preset levels. By the time I reached the final encounters, my characters were pushing level 60, probably 7-10 levels higher than the enemy's average. I was able to defeat the final boss before she could execute a single action. There was some level of satisfaction gained from being so ridiculously powerful, but I definitely think I overdid it. I wish there had been a way to unlock all of those abilities I had without also leveling up much higher than my foes. I know there are ways to delevel to get around these things, but it seems like a really unnecessary process to have to go through.

I'm glad that it's done now, but I definitely rushed it once I reached the end of the game. I was originally planning to conquer the Midlight's Deep optional dungeon with my super powerful characters but I found that I just didn't have it in me. I didn't even end up unlocking the rest of the Dark Knight's skills--because it was unnecessary and because I was quickly becoming bored with the game. I was not becoming bored with it because it's a bad game, but I was becoming bored with the way I was playing it. I think I'd have infinitely more fun if I had chosen to put some kind of restriction on myself during the game--Straight Character Class Challenges or even maybe a solo run. I wanted to experience all the content the new version of the game had to offer, though, and I guess I'm glad I did. If I ever play the game again, I'll have to do some kind of themed playthrough for it to keep my interest.

Next on the agenda is Persona 2: Innocent Sin. This will be the final PSP game on my backlog, after which I may tackle the PS2 since there are a quite of few games there left to complete, including no less than three Shin Megami Tensei titles. I started Innocent Sin shortly after completing the PSP version of the original Persona title but quickly stalled out due primarily to emulation issues. Those don't seem to be a problem anymore so I should hopefully have no issues completing it. I'd also like to eventually play Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, but that is a game that will have to wait until I've gone through everything else! I should start making a list of all the games I'd like to play to make my backlog even longer. . .

League of Orcs

Day 396

I fully intend to finish War of the Lions tonight or sometime tomorrow, but for now I've gotten caught up in playing Orcs Must Die! 2 again. The more I play it, the more I'm filling with anticipation for Orcs Must Die! Unchained although I must admit a great deal of ambivalence with where Robot Entertainment is taking the franchise. The ability to cooperate with a squad of players to siege or defend a fortress using a variety of traps and gadgets sounds amazing of course, but the complete absence of any kind of single player mode is a definite bummer. Even Dungeon Defenders, as riddled with flaws as it is, features a very playable and enjoyable single-player campaign.

From what little information I've been able to glean from beta footage and teasers from Robot Entertainment, Orcs Must Die! Unchained features the majority of traps introduced in the two preceding games--and presumably quite a few more. If the League of Legends style "hero" model works the way I think it does, then each hero will have a couple of traps unique only to them. At least I hope this is how it works because I think that would actually be quite fun. The Sorceress and War Mage in Orcs Must Die! 2 only have 2 or 3 traps/weapons exclusive to them, but this results in wildly different play styles. I can only imagine the level of variety if each hero in the game follows this paradigm.

I can only hope Unchained will feature a wide variety of maps because the map design is a cornerstone of the series thus far. The fact that it's free-to-play is infinitely worrisome because it introduces the possibility of shady microtransactions. I can deal with paying to unlock cosmetic changes to heroes but being forced to buy tiny pieces of the game in order to compete sounds basically terrible in every way. And as much as I've played League of Legends over the years, I desperately hope they're not choosing to adhere to the leveling model they've established. In that game, an immense amount of grinding is required to simply be on a level playing field with level 30 players. 

I guess I'm just a little bitter because I would have much preferred an Orcs Must Die! 3 in the vein of the first two games, perhaps with support of up to four player co-op and of course a whole host of new traps and weapons with which to experiment. I can only assume (and hope) that Unchained delivers on some of this experience, but I'm unfortunately expecting some of the free-to-play genre's oft maligned trappings to leave a bad taste in my mouth.I'm certainly going to try it because I love Orcs Must Die to death but I'm prepared to be disappointed.