A Duller Darkness

There must be something that keeps me coming back to the Disgaea series, game after game. I've finished five of them now, and I must confess to a very real sense of weariness with the format, even as I gear up to start Disgaea 5. I think there is this core of quite addictive gameplay central to the series, but the focus on grinding and utterly tasteless and boring humor tends to detract from the experience. Of course, that is not to say that these elements are always bad. It's sometimes fun to level up your characters and unlock new skills and classes--and sometimes certain pieces of dialogue or descriptive text will make me laugh--but it can be difficult to remain invested in a game that is essentially a retread of previous titles. Disgaea D2 is fun, but it contains very few features that differentiate it from the first two games of the series.

Every class and every monster available in Disgaea D2 is a repeat of classes available in previous games, save for one or two. (Comparatively, Disgaea 5 evidently has about 12 more.) Similarly, many of the game's special skills are copied directly from the previous games in the series. Leveling up weapons and unlocking their unique skills is a large part of what makes the series interesting to me, but it's not so much fun when everything is so familiar. On top of all that, there are only three or four playable "hero" characters, principal of which are the returning characters from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness--Laharl, Etna, and Flonne. No mention is even made of Captain Gordon--the Defender of Earth--and his companions Jennifer and Thursday from the first game.

Disgaea has never been a series of games with a lot of focus on plot, but main series titles have frequently flown by on charm and a cutting sense of humor. D2's plot focuses primarily on Laharl proving himself as the Netherworld's Overlord while dealing with a criminally uninteresting estranged little sister named Sicily. Much of the early game consists of demonstrations of Laharl's leadership to unconvinced underlings until it is revealed that the game's primary conflict is that the Netherworld is being overrun by flowers from the angelic city of Celestia. Of course, the demons loyal to the previous Overlord (Laharl's father) jump to blame Laharl for these flowers, as they believe it to be retaliation from the angels due to the events in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness.

I found myself supremely uninvested in the game's plot--but that's okay because the Disgaea series is mostly about gameplay. It is a solid entry in the series in that respect, but it introduces very little in the way of new content. Even as a direct sequel, I would expect more new gameplay elements, but it does nothing but introduce the disappointing Mounting mechanic. Riding Disgaea D2's various monsters around was a lot of fun--until I found out how it actually worked. In previous Disgaea titles, it is possible to transform monsters into weapons using the hilarious and fun Magichange mechanic. A flying moth might turn into a bow or a zombie into a bizarre, fleshy sword. Each of these transformations had unique skills associated with it. In this respect, mounting is very similar. However, no transformation takes place while mounting and only one skill is ever associated with the mechanic. I was hoping the monsters would eventually learn more, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Magichange combines the stats of both the monster and the humanoid character. For this reason, it's more worth it to have two characters on the field. In the case of mounting, the monster is treated more as a shield for the humanoid character. The monster takes the hits on the field but is incapable of attacking. The humanoid can attack and his or her stats are considered when doing so. In fact, the monster's stats don't matter at all. A level 1 zombie's special attack would be just as effective as a level 100 zombie's attack assuming he's being mounted by the same humanoid character. The only purpose the monster's stats serve in this case is to insure that it survives. For this reason, most monster characters I used over the course of Disgaea D2 had nothing but defensive items equipped. I very rarely felt the need to attack with them in an unmounted state.

Honestly, Disgaea D2 is a game in the series I could have comfortably skipped--and I only completed it out of sheer stubbornness. It's not a bad game by any means, but lacks the depth and progression of main series titles. It also brought back the honestly pretty dire Weapon Mastery mechanic, which requires you to grind endlessly to unlock new weapon skills--which, as mentioned previously, mostly consisted of skills with which I was already familiar. I very much preferred the systems adopted in Disgaea 3 and 4, which both enabled the purchase of new skills with mana. This meant that I could complete missions in whatever way I pleased, so long as I was defeating enemies (and therefore acquiring mana.) In the case of Disgaea D2, I frequently felt pigeonholed into attacking physically to even hope to unlock somewhat powerful skills. It was not a good system in the first two Disgaea games, so I'm not sure why they revisited it.

As bad of an idea as I know it is, I'll probably move on and play Disgaea 5 right away, so expect me to complain about it in about a month's time.

Glittering Prizes

Etrian Mystery Dungeon is the result of a collaboration between Atlus, responsible for the Etrian Odyssey series, and Chunsoft, developer of such titles as Shiren the Wanderer and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. It is a turn-based roguelike set in the Etrian Odyssey universe and features several classes lifted straight from main entries in the series. The skill tree system returns from Etrian Odyssey IV, but subclassing is noticeably absent, ostensibly for the sake of simplicity. 

Gameplay is not altogether too different from Etrian Odyssey, when it comes down to it. Players are tasked with plumbing the depths of various dungeons, acquiring gold, items, and experience as they do so. It is possible through repetitive journeys into these dungeons to progess further down where a boss will frequently await. Of course, conversely to the main Etrian Odyssey series, the dungeons in EMD are mostly randomized. Each trip will likely be very different from the last. There also isn't much in the way of puzzles or unique exploration mechanics. The ninja class can walk on water to subvert certain obstacles, but it's seldom necessary to think outside the box to progress.

Etrian Mystery Dungeon almost feels like an arcade game with heavy RPG elements. Each of the four characters in your party has a fatigue gauge that gradually drains as you walk around--but it can be replenished with food and by walking over some suspiciously-colored amber tiles scattered throughout the dungeons. These tiles also restore 1 TP apiece, meaning it is possible to sustain very long journeys into the labyrinths. This is good, because the series staple item Ariadne Thread--an item which allows instant return to town--is much more rare this time around. It is only infrequently available to purchase and drops seldom from slain monsters. Combine this issue with the fact that you'll lose all items upon death and you'll run into plenty of frustrating situations and lost progress.

The Etrian Odyssey series has always been punishingly diffcult, but Etrian Mystery Dungeon really ramps it up as far as penalties are concerned. Losing equipped items upon being vanquished is insanely frustrating, particularly when you have gear you've wasted precious armory scrolls on to upgrade. There's no way to restore a previous save to try again, either--because the game automatically saves your progress upon death. You can choose to call your party back and lose precious items, or send a rescue party (comprised of characters you'll also have to have leveled up prevously) to bring them back. Now, assuming your rescue fails, those party members will lose items too. I can't imagine why anyone thought this was a good gameplay concept.

The base game is actually pretty fun, even if the options for character building are thin in comparison to the third and fourth games of the series. The Protector class invalidates most other available strategies due to the game-warping power of Provoke--a taunt that works without fail and consistently protects party members from harm. I couldn't help but be reminded of the imbalanced power of the Protector and Medic classes from the original Etrian Odyssey. I wanted to try the ninja as my "tank"of choice instead, but it would have made the game a lot harder and by a certain point I just wanted to be done with it.

I have mixed feelings about Etrian Mystery Dungeon. I really enjoy the concept--and I do think Etrian Odyssey works in roguelike format--but I think the classes could have been a little more interesting and the dungeons themselves more inventive. I'd jump to try a more polished sequel, though.

The Etrian Countdown

Sometime early last year, I read an article previewing a game called Etrian Mystery Dungeon, a spin-off of Etrian Odyssey, a series of dungeon crawlers featuring random encounters, turn-based combat, and mapmaking. I'd already decided to tackle the EO series by this point after successfully completing (and greatly enjoying) Persona Q, another spin-off/crossover with Persona 3/4. I wrote about this game at length at the very beginning of the year. Sometime shortly after that, I started Etrian Odyssey, with the goal in mind to complete all four of the principal entries of the series and then follow with Etrian Mystery Dungeon. I had no idea what I was getting into.

I completed the first three games of the Etrian Odyssey series sequentially without really playing anything else in between. Each took me about a month to plow through due to their unparalleled difficulty and complexity. Although I found the games to be immensely frustrating, they were also quite rewarding. I was already familiar with the gameplay thanks to Persona Q, but found it somewhat difficult to adjust to the lack of frills by comparison. Persona Q had a wealth of Etrian Odyssey titles to draw on to streamline the experience--and unlike the main entries in the series, Persona Q featured no classes or complex skill trees to navigate. Most of that side of the gameplay came from the Persona series. Etran Odyssey is brutal and unforgiving by comparison, but I found it quite satisfying to conquer the game's challenges as I plumbed the depths of the games' respective labyrinths.

What I found compelling most of all about Etrian Odyssey has nothing to do with the dungeon design or mapmaking. To be honest, I mostly found these aspects pretty frustrating, especially in comparison with later entries in the series. What interests me most of all about each successive Etian Odyssey entry is the amount of gameplay to be found in putting an adventuring party together. There are a number of classes available in each of these games, all with a series of unique abilities with woefully vague descriptions. I found myself doing a ton of research on classes, builds, and party compositions as I played through these games--but I still derived a lot of satisfaction from exercising creativity in putting my party together.

The first two games in the series were host to several glaringly broken mechanics, most notably the ridiculous power of the Medic's Immunize in the first game, and the entire Dark Hunter class in the second. And you'd better believe I abused them both--because even with access to these powerful mechanics, these games are hard. When I got around to playing Etrian Odyssey III, I discovered there weren't very many especially powerful mechanics to abuse and so I felt I made slower progress. Fortunately, it was also the first game in the series to introduce dual-classing, a mechanic that vastly increased the complexity of the party composition process. Each character could effectively be two classes at once with surprisingly few restrictions. More restrictions were inevitably put in place by Etrian Odyssey IV--which I didn't end up playing until several months later.

After playing three Etrian Odyssey games straight, I was beyond burnt out. I saw dungeons and maps in my dreams. I was intrigued by the pretty 3D graphics of Etrian Odyssey IV and curious about how it would take the sublcass mechanic and sailing mechanics from EOIII and expand on them--but I knew at the time that I just didn't have the heart for it. My original goal was to blaze through the EO series and be ready to play Etrian Mystery Dungeon around release day, but that certainly didn't happen. I finished the third game almost a month after EMD's release, so I left it to languish while I played a lot of other games. It wasn't until probably four months later that I finally did get around to it.

I found Etrian Odyssey IV pretty refreshing after a break from the series. The graphics were massively improved and the gameplay and interface significantly streamlined. Sailing became flying (with an airship) and was integrated more into the main gameplay instead of being separated into its own thing. The dungeons are separate and have distinct identities instead of being interconnected into one giant Tartarus-esque super labyrinth. The classes are interesting and distinct. It is probably the most solid entry into the series so far, even if there are certain aspects from Etrian Odyssey III that I prefer. I missed creative classes like Ninja and Wilder--but was pleased with new additions like the Imperial and Nightseeker. As with all Etrian Odyssey games, it did eventually become a bit of a chore what with the endless grinding and soul-crushing repetition of venturing ever deeper into the game's deepest dungeons--but I still felt immensely satisfied when I finally completed it.

At this point I decided to take another break. Earlier in the year it had been no big deal to play several Etrian games in succession, but I think that wore me down for good. I worked on other things for a month and then I finally started Etrian Mystery Dungeon, a full seven months after it was released. I finished it last night, but now that I've written so much about the events leading up to it, I think I'd rather talk about it in my next entry.

Saviors of Orience

I discussed at length the possibility of buying a PlayStation 4 several months back on this blog but I didn't follow through on those plans until relatively recently. Final Fantasy Type 0 HD was my only game purchase at the time, but I have since also acquired Disgaea 5. I've finished Type 0 (after a month of playing in short bursts) but won't be able to play Disgaea 5 until I've finished Disgaea D2 for the PS3. Of course, I've been a lot busier lately, so there's no telling just how long it's going to take me to work through my current round of games. I may be a bit burned out by the time Disgaea 5 comes into the rotation--and then of course there's Final Fantasy XV and Persona 5 on the horizon.

Of course, Type 0 is not a straight up PS4 game. It's an enhanced port of a game originally only released in Japanese on the PSP. In some cases, this is blindingly apparent. While the game's main cast of 14 playable characters received a massive graphical overhaul, the game's host of NPCs are noticeably blurry and indistinct on my 46" HD display. The graphical inconsistency isn't a dealbreaker of course, because the gameplay itself is quite fun. Unlike many main series Final Fantasy games, Type 0 is structured more like an action game, with an emphasis on controlling a single character at a time--although it is simple to quickly switch between different characters.

Each of Type 0's 14 playable characters have distinct gameplay from each other, although I definitely enjoyed some more than others. The characters, 12 of which feature numeral-themed names such as Ace, Cinque, and Seven, fall into a few loosely defined roles such as melee damage dealers, ranged attackers, and supports. Sice wields a scythe and gains power from slaying opponents without taking damage. Cater uses a chargeable magicite pistol capable of discharging elemental blasts. Deuce batters her opponents with bubbles emitted from a flute, of all things, and ends up being surprisingly powerful once she's acquired enough experience.

The game is story-driven, but broken up into missions separated by stretches of "free time," during which the player is afforded the opportunity to undergo some frankly pretty menial and pointless quests and acquire information about the game world. I found myself utterly bored by the game's lore and many of the characters, even if I did think a few of them were well designed. Nine's brash personality and voice acting are particularly questionable, but I did enjoy hearing from Matt Mercer (as Trey) and the newcomer providing the voice of the card-slinging Ace. Regardless, plot is not the game's strong point--I found myself glazing over in disinterest on multiple occasions as the game's text washed over me. Type 0's sole non-numeral playable characters, Machina and Rem, play a pivotal role in the trajectory of the plot but I couldn't begin to even summarize their importance.

Combat missions make up the bulk of Type 0's gameplay and in most cases these are really fun. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses. Queen has a strong aptitude for lightning magic, for instance, but this doesn't mean she's pigeonholed into using a particular type of lightning sgapell. In keeping with the game's decidedly military theme, most elemental spells mimic the function of weapons such as rockets, missiles, and rifles. Thunder-ROK allows the player to aim with a crosshair, for instance, and Fire-SG explodes out at close range. These elemental spells are available to all characters, but aptitude determines their strength. Of course, each character also has access to an array of unique skills and spells, such as Queen's wide-area life-draining spell and Sice's target-seeking whirlwind attack.

I did find myself having to grind for experience a pretty excessive amount in the game's latter half, and I found myself more and more disinterested at the trajectory of the plot. The final dungeon was fairly long and involved, but the final encounter itself disappointing. In fact, it seemed the game was playing itself more than anything. I wouldn't say that Type 0 is an essential entry into the Final Fantasy series, but I had fun with it an it tided me over until I could get another PS4 game. It also somewhat satisfies my completionist tendencies--it's one more Final Fantasy game stricken from the list. Now, if only I could finally get around to finishing Final Fantasy X. . . 

Little Infinities

I don't have a particularly good reason for not updating recently, but I do have a short list of flimsy excuses, including but not limited to being busy, being tired, and not feeling inspired. Of course, there's no shortage of things on which I could write and in fact I've been maintaining an informal list of topics to discuss. I feel these things fading from my memory even as I type this, unfortunately. I don't generally like to write blog entries that summarize the things I've been doing recently because I feel it really squanders a lot of the potential of some of the subjects about which I choose to write. I may be left with no other choice, however, since very few of these subjects are still fresh in my mind.

Some weeks ago, I attended a showing of The Martian, a science fiction film starring Matt Damon. I don't go to a lot of movies, but it's a fun thing to do if you have a special person to accompany you. The film seems to have received a lot of critical acclaim so I assumed I would enjoy it--and I did, to a point. I feel it really only explored the idea of being isolated on an uninhabitable planet on a very shallow level. The whole movie was a bit saccharine and overly feelgood in a Hollywood way, which  is not what I was expecting after reading reviews of the film. Maybe I'm cynical about this kind of thing, but I was really craving something a tad grittier--which is not to say that humor is entirely out of place, but it felt a little forced and unnecessary in the case of The Martian. I'll have to read the book sometime to see if the tone is similar. Even if that's the case, it still might be an interesting read, and after all, I have been reading a lot more recently.

Speaking of investigating a film's source material--I watched both the film version of The Fault in Our Stars and the book of the same name recently. Of course, I did this in what would probably be considered backwards order since I read the book after watching the movie, but it was interesting to note the differences between the two. It's definitely a book targeted towards young adults, but the material had more than enough depth to appeal to me. Although I enjoyed the film, I did feel it was a tad sentimental in tone--and this is a trait from which the book itself does not suffer. The Fault in Our Stars is a refreshingly straightforward glimpse into the life of a teenage girl by the name of Hazel Lancaster with terminal cancer and her relationship with Augustus Waters, a boy she meets in a support group who has recovered from a milder case of the life-threatening disease. Cancer did succeed in taking his leg, but not his life. For Hazel, her days are perpetually numbered, a fact that gives her a substantially different outlook on life than her former peers.

In my previous entry, I wrote about Norwegian Wood, a book I very much enjoyed. Before moving on to The Fault in Our Stars, I read a French children's story from the 1940s by the name of The Little Prince. Although short and relatively simplistic, it's a wonderful book packed to the brim with allusions and symbolism. The titular prince himself lives on an asteroid floating in space beyond the earth, tending to his best friend--a rose encased in glass. He maintains his miniature volcanoes--he rakes the coals--and wonders what lies beyond his home. On his journeys he meets other asteroid residents and eventually makes his way to the earth itself, where he meets an airplane pilot who has crashed his plane. Technically, it is through this pilot's eyes that the story is told. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of Le Petit Prince, was a pilot himself and in fact lost his life flying shortly after the book was released. He left behind an impressive final work.

On Sundays I don't wind my spring.

Life has been pretty interesting lately; I've broken from a lot of my normal routines in some important ways. I've frequently lamented the fact that I never read anymore over the past couple of years even as I contributed volumes upon volumes of text to this blog. I felt myself improving as a writer just by turning it into a routine, but it's an accepted fact that reading the work of others is one of the best ways to improve. I'm not sure why I neglected that for so long or why I've had a number of false starts. My last honest attempt was Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a book I very much enjoyed--until stopping about 3/4ths of the way through it for reasons I cannot articulate.

I think one of the more wonderful things about relationships is that they tend to encourage you to try new things and to broaden your horizons in order to make yourself into a better person. There is something beautiful about sharing those things that you're most passionate about with someone for whom you care for. I'm now more comfortable driving an hour away to the marginally bigger town neighboring mine, for instance--and I'm more comfortable doing it on a regular basis. I've spent a lot of time cleaning my house and scrubbing away the dust of neglect that has settled over my home like some implacable cloud. I've spent more time watching movies, of course, and as I hinted, I've started to more seriously make an effort to read, starting with another Murakami classic, Norwegian Wood, a book I happened to come across as Barnes & Noble. I remembered it being recommended to me sometime ago--and I already knew I enjoyed Murakami's writing, so I decided to give it a shot.

Norwegian Wood is evidently more straightforward and simply told than other books in Murakami's catalogue. What I read of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle certainly bordered on surreal, whereas Norwegian Wood strikes me more as a memoir of sorts, a tale of the protagonist's experiences throughout college, told through the voice of his older self, who remembers the events of those days with startling clarity. It is a story of love, of loss, of a stoic loner who has difficulty opening up to others but will listen intently to what they have to say. I was stunned by the effortless beauty and tragedy of many of these stories, particularly when it came to the stories of Naoko and Reiko, two principal characters with which the protagonist, Toru Watanabe, interacts.

Watanabe recounts his experiences with an anal roommate nicknamed Storm Trooper, whose rigid adherence to routine and cleanliness earned him the moniker. He is a source of laughter (and not a small amount of ridicule) for Watanabe and others with which he converses throughout the story, but he finds himself struggling with a dull emptiness when he disappears without a trace. Nagasawa is a charismatic womanizer who nonetheless finds himself drawn to classic literature like Watanabe himself and thus strikes up a friendship and drags him into his various hijinks. Norwegian Wood features several colorful characters like these that all have their own unique perspectives and connect with Watanabe in their own ways. I found myself identifying with him as an introvert, as he so frequently found himself in situations where he spent times with others in intimate one-on-one situations. It seemed clear that this is with what he found himself most comfortable--and always he is more content to listen and consider the words of others before contributing his own.

There is a tragic beauty to Norwegian Wood and how it handles issues of love and loss, and the depths it plumbs in discussing the sickness with which one's heart finds itself stricken when those one loves and cares for are taken from them. Murakami is frequently startlingly frank with his approach toward intimacy and sexuality--refreshingly so. I found myself affected with a not insignificant level of melancholy upon finishing the book, although not out of dissatisfaction. I found myself drawn to the struggles of Watanabe and Naoko, of their shared love and their conflicts, and how in some way they were never resolved. Just like real life, there is frequently never a solid and final answer for some problems--and even when things seem to be getting better, it is never certain things are going to work out. Watanabe and Naoko are connected by their love for a fallen friend, Kizuki, whose death reverberated through their lives in unpredictable ways. For Naoko, who loved Kizuki, it caused a wound that might never fully heal.

Sometimes, I think it would have been better if we never met.

I think it's safe to say the past few days have been incredibly emotional for me. Things have been exciting and in many ways wonderful, but I have also experienced a great deal of anxiety as a result. Because of the things that have been going on in my life, I feel like I've been experiencing just about everything more keenly. Everything seems to pack a greater emotional punch than perhaps it would under normal circumstances. I've been revisiting some of my favorite music and dabbling in some new stuff and really connecting with music on a level that I haven't in some time. I've also just finished The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky some two months and change after starting it and find myself blown away by how my reaction to the game has evolved over the course of its playtime.

Trails in the Sky is a PSP (and PC) RPG developed by Nihon Falcom, the company I'm led to believe is also responsible for the Ys series of games, none of which I've yet played. Trails in particular seems to be a labor of love as the level of detail in the dialogue is extensive. Based on what I've read, the North American localization team found themselves saddled with a tremendous workload in sifting through the colossal script and translating it to English. I've only recently learned that this team (XSeed, I want to say) have taken on what must be an equally monumental task of translating Trails in the Sky Second Chapter, which predictably picks up right where this one leaves off. Having just completed the game, I can scarcely wait for the sequel's North American release.

The bulk of Trails proceeds in a very low-key fashion as main characters Estelle and Joshua travel between the various cities of the nation of Liberl, completing tasks (mundane and otherwise) posted on the local mission boards in pursuit of their training as bracers. Bracers could be described as mercenaries for hire, but are also often tasked with jobs not requiring combat in any way. In order to be considered full bracers, Estelle and Joshua, children of legendary S-class bracer, Cassius Bright, must travel to the five cities of Liberl and attain letters of recommendation after proving their worth. Of course, as is so often the case, there's a more complex plot lurking beneath the surface, but there are only hints of what may be to come early on in the game.

Estelle and Joshua find themselves coming into contact with a variety of different characters in their travels over the span of a remarkably long playtime. For me, I finished at right around fifty hours after having been reasonably thorough completing sidequests. I didn't do every single one, but I did all the ones I felt I could realistically accomplish at the time without sacrificing a lot of time. I almost wonder if I would have enjoyed the middle sections of the game more if I'd skipped more of those sidequests. I found myself much more drawn into the arc of the game by the time I hit the fifth and final city of Liberl and was pulled directly into the main plot. The number of available sidequests during this part of the game dwindled dramatically and I think the game's pace improved for it.

For a sizable portion of the game, Trails in the Sky feels very much like a slice-of-life anime about the hijinks of a couple of teenagers who can't seem to locate their father, but as more and more details about these characters emerge, the tone becomes more serious and the plot comes to the forefront. I really enjoyed the contrast because it went a long way toward fleshing out the principle characters--even if a few of the companions encountered along the way might not feel as three-dimensional. I couldn't help but be reminded of the format of the anime Full Metal Panic, which begins very light and comedic before the layers are peeled back and the plot comes to the forefront. I could definitely draw a couple of parallels between Sousuke Sagara and Joshua.

Of course, while I did enjoy Trails in the Sky's ending, it did leave a lot of loose ends to be tied up. There's still a lot I'd like to know about Joshua and what Estelle is going to do in the wake of the events of the ending. I'm really hoping the Second Chapter localization doesn't get stuck in development hell, because I'm really looking forward to playing it.

As long as there's at least one person in life that understands me, I'll be okay

I've settled into a kind of melancholy over the past few days not necessarily due to events in my own life (although I'm sure those play a part) but instead due to a profound emptiness from finishing the anime series Toradora! I don't watch anime often but I've definitely warmed up to the idea over the past couple of years, as a number of scattered entries on this blog will attest. I wouldn't say I've been profoundly affected by any of those that I've watched, aside from being immensely entertained by Nichijou and drawn in by the drama and action of Attack on Titan. 

Toradora! is exactly the kind of anime I've always (subconsciously) been looking for. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it's not about saving the world--it concerns itself primarily with every day life and the relationships between a group of friends. These same elements are what draw me to the Persona series and to visual novels. The dialogue and interactions between characters are more important than the overall arc of the plot. The friendship between Ryuji and Taiga, their shared hardships and idiosyncrasies--they're so funny and poignant, and so entertaining.

I think I'd watch a lot more anime in general if I weren't so obsessed with multitasking. Toradora! has an excellent dub so I was able to watch it while playing Etrian Odyssey IV. I'll admit, however, that there were many occasions where I was drawn in enough that I found myself ignoring the game and paying close attention to what I was watching. I found something to like in all of the anime's principal characters. Ryuji is kind and driven despite being dismissed for his startling features. Taiga is extremely short both in temper and figure but hopes desperately that she'll find the courage to let herself have what she wants. Minori is immensely motivated and cheerful despite being beset by setbacks at every turn. Kitamura (voiced by the ubiquitous Johnny Yong Bosch) is almost comically well-adjusted but still grapples with his own personal demons.

Ryuji and Taiga form a friendship in order to help each other achieve their goals. Ryuji likes Minori. Taiga likes Kitamura. They both resolve to help the other impress their crushes and a lot of hijinks result. The setup could easily become a very formulaic story but I was so impressed by the amount of respect each character was given in the situation. Minori and Kitamura are never treated as idyllic unobtainable avatars of perfection. They are revealed to be characters just as fleshed out as any other--and I came to root for them just as much as I was rooting for Ryuji and Taiga.

So, now, I do feel some emptiness from having finished Toradora! not just because I miss watching these characters grow and evolve--but also because the resolution left me feeling a little unsatisfied. The last couple of episodes are very cathartic in some ways but I can't help but feel that a couple of the principal characters were left with no particular resolution. My heart breaks in particular for my favorite character, even if I know instinctively that this character is definitely going to be fine in the long run.

The Titan of Repetition

Alright, I feel I've remained silent on this blog for far too long. When did I decide I could only write entries after completing a video game? I think I might have originally had the idea when I stopped updating on a daily basis and thought that I might switch to long-form reviews every few weeks. Well, that didn't pan out. I wrote about two of them and was appalled at the amount of research and preparation they required to write! I did enjoy writing them, but it made actually playing the games more of a chore than I'd really prefer. Of course, the game on which I'm currently spending most of my time is becoming a chore all on its own.

I have mixed feelings about the Etrian Odyssey series. Obviously there is something engaging and addictive about these games because I've plowed my way through three of them already--and I'm well on my way to conquering a fourth. They are also a great source of irritation and frustration, however, mostly due, I think, to the games' emphasis on repetition. Exploring these games' labyrinths is an exercise in trial and error. Venture as far as you dare--until you feel you've reached the limits of your endurance or skill--and then return to town. Heal up, resupply your characters, and venture out once again, only to retrace your steps. Shortcuts will frequently get you to your destination a little faster than the last time, but you'll still find yourself spending a great deal of time retreading your steps.

One could make the argument that Etrian Odyssey IV has come a long way in advancing the series' overall format. The game's main mazes are generally shorter and more focused than the sprawling labyrinths of games past. Each of these dungeons only have three floors after all, even if these floors are generally quite large and convoluted. To flesh out the game's content, there are several one-floor caves scattered throughout the game's world. In many cases, these caves are entirely optional.

Still, I can't help but feel frustrated at the amount of times I've had to traverse the second and third floors of the game's fourth main labyrinth--the Echoing Library. It is an exercise in soul-crushing repetition that has somewhat soured my appreciation for an otherwise excellent game. I'm happy with the classes and diversity in builds available to me--even if I don't think they're quite up to par with those of Etrian Odyssey III--but I'm not as pleased with dungeon design in many cases. At least I'm never in a situation where I'm forced to walk over literally 20 damage tiles to access an essential part of the labyrinth, ala the original Etrian Odyssey. It's easy to forget the root of this series, even if I did play it for the first time earlier this year.

A fallen angel is an enemy of God

Let's shift gears for a moment and take a look at a game that until recently had been languishing in my backlog for several years. That game is Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis, the lone Game Boy Advance game on my list still left to complete. I'd originally decided to tackle the game so many years ago for two reasons: one, I'm a huge strategy RPG fan; and two, I'm a tremendous fan of Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly caliber, one of the best games on the N64 and one of the few RPG representatives on the console. Of course, despite the two games being entries into the same series, their gameplay is very different.

Knight of Lodis is a strategy RPG more in the tradition of Final Fantasy Tactics--but it is perhaps more accurate to say it follows the tradition of its direct predecessor, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together from the Super Famicom. This game of course predated Final Fantasy Tactics and was perhaps unfairly unrecognized (at least in the West) for its influence on Japanese SRPGs. I haven't played LUCT extensively so I feel unqualified to comment, but it seems impossible to deny just how heavily it influenced Final Fantasy Tactics. Due to my inexperience, I can only really compare it to other SRPGs I've played. I do plan to play through Let Us Cling Together, but it'll definitely be the PSP version.

Knight of Lodis is an SRPG featuring a class system and many unique story characters as well as playable monsters, demihumans, and undead creatures. Like many games in the genre, positioning and terrain are both very important to succeed in combat. In fact, its almost impossible to successfully attack opponents from the front. It's an even worse idea in melee since all attacks made from the front will be met with automatic counterattacks. It's entirely possible to whiff an attack and then get countered for fatal damage. For this reason, units with high mobility are very useful on the battlefield, increasing the value of flying units like hawkmen and angel knights.

Because accuracy is such an issue, I found myself prioritizing magic attacks that hit without fail and melee units that could easily get behind opponents. Early on, I made a lot of use of the ninja class with its ability to walk on water and travel long distances. Wizards and sirens, with their ability to cast elemental magic with 100% success rates, were also a staple of my early strategy. Later on, I equipped a couple of my characters (including the protagonist as a swordmaster) with items that allowed them to teleport around the battlefield, ignoring terrain.

Knight of Lodis is not a game that features stunning class variety (at least not in comparison to Final Fantasy Tactics) but it does make your choices important. Unlocking new classes requires a certain set of minimum stats and frequently a specific Emblem. Emblems are obtained through performing special actions in combat. Most Emblems benefit characters by imparting statistical bonuses, but others only serve to unlock new classes. The Lancer Emblem is obtained by striking two foes in a line with a spear, for instance, and is required to unlock the Valkyrie class, with its balanced stat growths and propensity for spears and magic. Each class in Knight of Lodis has its own stat growths. Planning out the chain of classes a certain character will use as they level up will determine how quickly you unlock more powerful classes. Some of the game's most powerful classes can only be unlocked by dying in combat!

Still, each of the game's classes essentially boils down to a bundle of stats combined with possibly one or two special abilities. Many non-wizard classes can also equip magic, of which there is a decent variety, ranging from low-accuracy projectiles, accurate area-of-effect spells, and devastating multi-hit summons. Many of the game's unique characters can equip these summons and to be honest they made up the bulk of my army by the end of the game.

Overall, I really enjoyed Knight of Lodis despite longing for a little more complexity and variety of choices. The plot, which is largely political until rumblings of an ancient sacred spear come into play, is also well done but admittedly not something I became very invested in. The soundtrack is also very good and echoes themes from Ogre Battle 64. I'm not at all surprised that Hitoshi Sakimoto (of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story) fame had a hand in it. It's definitely one of the best games in the Game Boy Advance library. It makes me want to revisit some games I never got around to--which primarily consists of Golden Sun 2, honestly.

Another dimension of Final Fantasy

I've been compiling documents at work in hopes that I would cobble together some of those notes to write some actual entries for this blog. So far, that hasn't really happened for the most part. It might make more sense to just straight up write blog entries from work and maybe finish them when I get home. On really slow days, I might just get them completely done while I'm there, even if the productivity of such an action is extremely questionable.

I've been meaning to write about Final Fantasy Dimensions for some time now even though I completed it pretty early this month. I played through it pretty quickly considering the length of the game. This was at least partially because I was eager to be done with it, if I'm being honest. Dimensions comes from the same developer as the Final Fantasy III and IV enhanced remakes as well as Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, an immensely flawed (but still often enjoyable) episodic RPG. Dimensions is also episodic, but instead of focusing on individual characters in their own chapters, Dimensions jumps back and forth between two sets of parties composed of characters split up near the beginning of the game. These are the Warriors of Light and the Warriors of Darkness.

I'm generally a fan of games in which a group of separated characters deal with conflicts on the way to an ultimate objective in which the groups unite their powers. It's been done time and time again in different ways over the years, but I'm generally excited by working towards that point where my characters come together. Games like Dragon Quest IV and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn come to mind. Of course, those games mostly consist of static characters that learn abilities at predetermined levels. In each playthrough, they'll mostly be the same characters. Replay value comes from experimenting with different combinations of the characters available. In the case of Final Fantasy Dimensions, the abilities and strengths of the characters are left almost entirely up to the player.

What makes this take on the format interesting is the fact that the Warriors of Light and Warriors of Darkness have access to a different pool of classes. They share the basic classes like warrior, monk, white mage, and black mage--but the light warriors get jobs like paladin and memorist, whereas the dark warriors get ninja and dark knights. Once the two parties reunite, it's left entirely up to the player how to combine the light and dark warriors into a unified party and which classes to take into the final encounters.

Conceptually, all of this is very sound and it seems like it should come together to make a truly excellent game. However, it's not all good. The plot and characters are almost entirely forgettable and the combat is not always exciting. The random encounter rate in just about every location it exists is unforgivably high--and it's often the case that an immense amount of grinding is required to progress to the next location. I found myself relying on Auto Battle more often than not to slog my way through most of the game's dungeons. I can at least say that Naoshi Mizuta's soundtrack is solid, although certainly derivative of the Final Fantasy series as a whole. Whether an intentional homage or not, the boss battle theme echoes Final Fantasy VIII's "Force Your Way" pretty clearly.

Although the game does feature a nice variety of job classes with which to experiment, it doesn't seem to offer a lot of variety in terms of strategy. Negative status effects are almost universally ineffective against bosses (a trait shared by Bravely Default, if I recall correctly), whereas Final Fantasy IV bosses were almost always susceptible to being slowed, at the very least. Almost every tough boss fight eventually boils down to pooping out as much damage as possible while healing the party to full with 1-2 characters per turn. Buffing the party is, at the very least, an effective strategy, but interacting with the enemy in any other way but damage is pointless. This renders spells like Slow, Poison, Bio, Stop, and Silence to be almost completely useless outside of random encounters. Of course, this is not an uncommon thing in Final Fantasy games, but I posit that this should not be the case.

If there's anything about Final Fantasy Dimensions that really made me enjoy it in the end, it was that feeling in the final dungeon of having reached my "end game fantasy." I really chase that feeling at the end of a lot of RPGs in which you've unlocked the most powerful upgrades, abilities, and weapons, and can conceivably tear through anything the game has to offer. That feeling of being powerful after building up for a long period of time is a feeling I look for in just about every RPG I play. Dimensions did at least deliver in that aspect.

The Legend of the Doughy Weakling

I've found that I frequently lose motivation to write when I get home either due to being tired after a day of work or something more psychological than that. I associate being at home with unwinding and resting and writing frequently feels like work--even though it should not. If I could more easily organize my thoughts into something coherent then I think I could start enjoying it again, but I've gotten out of practice. Writing every day was fantastic for keeping me self aware and organized in my thoughts. The skills I built up over that year and a half have certainly atrophied. I wonder frequently if I should begin the process anew because my original plan to produce entries of much higher quality on an occasional basis has failed.

I've not been entirely unproductive in the time I've spent avoiding writing. I've gotten stricter with my diet. I'm consuming more protein and fewer carbs, I'm riding my bike every day, and I'm trying to lift free weights every other day or so. My body aches with even this very minor effort but my ambitions to lift heavy were thwarted quite dramatically at the gym a couple of days ago. It was. . .actually pretty embarrassing.

I'd managed to get myself thoroughly pumped up to embark on a new workout plan as laid out for me on Bodybuilding.com. The routine was heralded as an effective way to lose body fat. I was intrigued by this idea because even though I've lost a surprising amount of weight this year, I still can't help but feel I'm very pudgy and doughy. The first day of the plan involved the bench press, chin ups, and a lot of other scary stuff. I had to admit it sounded like exercise a little outside my fitness level but I was determined to try anyway.

I got up absurdly early on Sunday morning (at around 6:30) and fully intended to ride my bike for about a mile and a half--and I'm sure I would have, too, but it started to rain and I didn't want to get my bike too wet. I called it quits after only a couple minutes. This was a setback for the first day of my new routine but I was determined not to give up! I returned my bike to my living room and made myself a protein-packed meal of a pile of eggs and parmesan cheese. (I'm still a vegetarian, even though eggs feel questionable to me.) My energy newly renewed, I headed to the gym feeling pretty confident.

Since it was an early Sunday morning, there were very few other gym-goers around. I headed straight for the bench without considering the fact I'd done very little research on the exercise beforehand. It seemed pretty simple to me--lift the barbell off the thing, bring it down, and lift it back up. Do that until you're done. Simple. I laid down on the bench and extended my arms to the barbell and exerted a pretty significant amount of force on it, or so I thought. It didn't budge. It did not move an inch. Well, I thought, maybe one hundred pounds is a little too much for a beginner. (I didn't know at the time that the bar itself probably weighed 40-50 pounds alone.)

I decided fifty pounds might be more my speed (although fifty pounds of weight results in a much higher total, I didn't know this at the time) and removed a couple of the twenty-five pound weights and tried again. Success! I lifted the bar from its receptacle and felt confident I could do this! Unfortunately, I dropped the bar immediately to my chest and found I could no longer lift it. Momentarily panicking, I awkwardly rolled the bar down to my waist and sat up with a colossal effort. Summoning forth what meager strength I had left, I reversed my grip on the bar and managed to gently lower it to the floor while scanning the gym to see who might be laughing at my weakness. No one was paying attention, of course--or at least they were doing a good job of hiding their mirth.

I managed to--just barely--return the bar to the lower receptacle and I hastily removed myself from the area. I pretended to look at my phone for a period of about five minutes, did some crunches (on a machine that offered me one hundred pounds of resistance) and made a beeline for the exit, bewildered and defeated. Am I really that weak, I wondered? Granted, sitting at home and playing video games all day doesn't go a long way toward building strength. I decided that maybe I was going to have to build up some strength before I tackled those tougher exercises--so I came home and did some military presses with much lighter free weights. Of course, even the amount of force required to lift that barbell in the gym had sapped my strength, so I found the free weights very difficult as well. I'm still aching from that three days later, although I dismissed my pain and did some curls today. I'm determined to keep up with some kind of routine. It's just a matter of what I can actually accomplish.

By the way, I was 193 at my last weigh-in. I never did write about the milestone of going below 200, even though I was really excited about it at the time. I had originally intended to write about fitness every week, but I became disillusioned with the idea after experiencing so much dissatisfaction with my body and the way I look. I'm glad I've finally decided to ramp things up. I've managed to easily stick to my diet for pretty much this entire year, but since that's become easy, I have to add in regular exercise. When that becomes easy, I'll dial up the intensity. It's a process. Let's hope I eventually reach a point of which I can feel proud.

Infinity

Let's discuss for a moment how I've been spending my time over the past month or so. I discussed briefly in a previous entry that I'd been playing the enhanced edition of Icewind Dale (released by Beamdog last year) with a co-op partner. We played through the game in its entirety, including the Heart of Winter expansion and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. Unlike the Baldur's Gate series which is very plot and character-driven, Icewind Dale is much more about gameplay and atmosphere. There is much in the way of lore that serves as a backdrop for the game but it is not its driving force. For me, it is a game primarily about slaying zombies, trolls, and frost giants while acquiring levels--and it does that quite well. The strategic gameplay and large variety of spells inherent to the series are in full display in Icewind Dale, but I definitely noticed a lot of abilities unique to the game. Bards and druids are less interesting in the Baldur's Gate series by comparison, for instance.

Still, I have to say I was drawn in by the game's wintry setting, its ancient castles and caves, its snowy mountains and mysterious caverns. Castle Maldurek from the expansion was particularly impressive in scope with its many puzzles and tough enemies. I'm immensely grateful for Beamdog for having created an enhanced edition of the game because I doubt I would have powered through the game's original version with its set of decidedly vanilla classes. The sequel, on the other hand--that I may well play, enhanced edition or no. I'm intrigued by the changes it introduced by adopting 3rd edition D&D rules. I'd definitely like to play it before attempting Neverwinter Nights, which of course was the first of the Forgotten Realms RPGs since the original Baldur's Gate to not be built in the classic Infinity Engine.

Speaking of Baldur's Gate, I've also completed Beamdog's enhanced edition of it with a different co-op partner (the one with whom I play games on a regular basis, in fact) and was as usual very pleased with it. Sadly, I didn't get the opportunity to experience a lot of the game's added content save for a sidequest involving Neera the wild mage. I may well go back to it and play through content I missed at a later time. Of course, playing through the original saga in my mind served only to prepare us for playing the Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Edition which for some reason I had not yet played.

As I have discussed previously on this blog (admittedly, probably close to two years ago now), Baldur's Gate II is possibly my favorite game of all time. This most recent playthrough is only reinforcing that opinion. Particularly pleasing is the fact that I no longer have to deal with the inconvenience of attempting to get the original version of the game to run on modern hardware. Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition works right out of the box and seems optimized well for modern PCs, although it is of course not without its fair share of bugs.

Although I really enjoyed playing Icewind Dale, replaying Baldur's Gate II really drives home what it is about the game that keeps me coming back over and over. I've always been intensely engaged by games driven by an ensemble cast of characters. Baldur's Gate II's myriad character sidequests keep me endlessly entertained--and these characters are mostly pretty interesting and occasionally hilarious. The game's emphasis on creating a likable cast of characters combined with an excellent combat system and a healthy amount of exploration and quests really melds together to create an engaging, memorable, and endlessly replayable experience. For this particular playthrough, I'm playing a half-elf skald. I've never done that before and it's working out great.

I could easily become burned out on the Infinity Engine if I keep this up, but for now I feel pretty ready to finally play through Throne of Bhaal.

The After

After I finished Final Fantasy IV for Android, I decided it was high time I finally played through Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. I think it was a game worth playing as a longtime fan of FFIV and its characters, but it's definitely an immensely flawed experience that smacks of some combination of laziness and/or a low budget. I hesitate to call The After Years a cash-in but I may grudgingly have to admit its true, especially as it pertains to the game's original episodic release. It is a game in which the player is tasked with taking control of many of Final Fantasy IV's various heroes, as well as a number of new characters. In these characters' individual chapters, they traverse two or three repetitive dungeons, backtrack, and get perspective on an unfolding threat.

In some cases, this sort of gameplay is not too bad. Palom's chapter, in which he takes on an apprentice from Troia named Leonora, is sweet and interesting. The prologue chapter featuring Cecil's son Ceodore is cool because it introduces the concept of Bands (the game's combination attacks system) and a mysterious hooded man who is clearly Kain. Edward's chapter is unforgivably bad as it tasks the player with traveling through the waterway north of Kaipo probably three times with a party consisting of Edward only. If that wasn't frustrating enough, the chapter introduces only one other character (by the name of Harley) who is quite possibly even more useless than Edward himself.

An uncomfortably high percentage of these early chapters are an absolute slog to play through, but I felt the game redeemed itself somewhat by the time you reach the game's final chapter--The Crystals. It is at this point that all of the game's characters come together to combat the ultimate threat. After an introductory period in which the party is static, the player is finally given free reign over which characters can be placed into the active party. With a roster of characters pushing 30, this really opens up the player's options for party compositions. There are fewer things I enjoy more than composing parties of characters, be they predefined or not. Bands add a huge amount of variety to these team compositions, as all of the game's characters can perform unique combination attacks with 2-4 of the game's other characters.

The final dungeon consists of parts of the original game's Lunar Subterrane spliced with sections of other FFIV dungeons. Bosses like Baigan, Lugae, and the Magus Sisters return once more and must be fought to advance further into the dungeon. I would say the dungeon took me anywhere from ten to fifteen hours to get through, but I really enjoyed doing so. There weren't puzzles or much in the way of interesting design, admittedly, but fighting my way through all those classic bosses was a real treat in a way I will freely identify as fanservice. I've heard that 2D versions of the game also include bosses from other games in the Final Fantasy series--but the 3D version instead includes the horrifyingly difficult Lunar Dragon, Leviathan, and Bahamut.

I think The After Years had a lot of potential as a game. I love almost any game that features characters that adventure separately until reuniting much later in the game. I like many of the updated character designs, particularly Yang and Golbez. New characters like Leonora and Ursula are really interesting, whereas others (Calca and Brina) are pretty terrible. The gameplay is virtually identical to FFIV, apart from the excellent Band system--which may have been the primary thing keeping me playing. I'm glad that I played (and finished!) the game, but it has a lot of problems and I doubt I'd recommend it to most.

Birthed from Womb of Dragon's Maw

After a ridiculously grueling play session that ended at about 6 AM this morning (at which point I abruptly fell asleep), I finally finished the Android version of Final Fantasy IV. It really is no wonder that my initial playthrough of Final Fantasy IV for DS stalled out right around when I got to the moon. The difficulty level really ramps up on a level that can't adequately be compared to other versions of the game. For comparison, I've generally finished my runs of Final Fantasy IV on other platforms at anywhere from level 45 to 50 with 16 to 21 hours of playtime. On the DS and Android versions of the game, my playtime is closer to 30 hours with levels in the mid to high 60s. I've never considered FFIV an easy game (barring the initial North American release), but the Matrix Software versions of the game really take it to a new level. Of course, this makes the final battle even more satisfying to complete, even if the laborious trek leading up to it might have been a little much.

I've always really enjoyed Final Fantasy IV's combat system because even though it consists primarily of selecting options from a menu, it manages to feel stressful and frenetic. Enemies make decisions in real time, meaning that the player must think quickly to decide the appropriate course of action. It's important to stay on top of keeping the party healed and buffed while dishing out the appropriate amount of damage. I've always found this challenging playstyle addictive since the very first time I played one of the game's many versions. There are many completely turn-based games that somewhat replicate this feel, but none really replicate the intensity that I'm looking for. For whatever reason, Active Time Battle is a relatively rare thing outside the main Final Fantasy series, and of course it's a concept that even that series eventually abandoned.

Games like Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne are punishingly difficult, but they also give you an adequate amount of time to consider your actions in combat. In Final Fantasy IV, it is important you execute your actions as quickly as possible lest you are struck down by the enemy's frequently powerful attacks. Bosses often employ spells capable of destroying the party in a single blow if the right strategy isn't executed. The final boss in particular casts the dreaded Big Bang attack which will generally wipe out the party if everyone doesn't Defend just beforehand. Fortunately, he rumbles ominously to forecast the attack.

The Android and DS versions of Final Fantasy IV distinguish themselves from other versions of the game both graphically and through gameplay. Although the trajectory of the game is largely identical to other versions, the game's graphics are completely redesigned and rendered in 3D--albeit primitively, since it was designed to take advantage of the Nintendo DS's limited hardware. The Android version's textures are noticeably improved, but it's still pretty apparent the game is a port from a technologically weaker device. Final Fantasy IV for DS and Android also distinguishes itself from other versions with its interesting Augment system.

Final Fantasy IV is well known for its large cast of mostly temporary characters. Cecil encounters a number of allies over the course of the game and eventually settles on a motley band of adventurers in the game's latter half and sticks with them for the game's remainder. Some versions of the game (like the WonderSwan Color and Game Boy Advance versions) addressed this issue by allowing the player to field a party of whatever characters they wished for the game's final sections. I found this to be a fun and satisfying twist on the original game's mechanics and gladly tossed Cid into my final party after acquiring his ultimate hammer in an optional dungeon added just for the Game Boy Advance version's release. In the case of the DS and Android versions, Matrix elected to instead scrap the modular party and use the Augment system instead, a mechanic in which various temporary party member abilities could be transferred to other characters. It became possible for Cecil to use Kick and for Kain to use Darkness. A variety of new abilities were introduced with this system as well, such as Phoenix (a passive ability that sacrifices MP to revive all party members when slain), Dualcasting (cast two spells per turn), and Omnicasting (cast single target spells on all targets).

Final Fantasy IV for Android is the fifth version of the game I've completed, the others being the North American SNES release (FF2 Easytype), the fan translation of the Super Famicom version, the Game Boy Advance version, and the DS version. I have no interest in the WonderSwan Color of PlayStation versions of the game, but I am interested in the PlayStation Portable Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection. Unlike the DS and Android versions, it's completely 2D--and gorgeous, too. I've been meaning to try it out for a long time but never got around to it for some reason. If I ever buy a Vita, I'll definitely download it and give it a play. I've heard that it restores the ability to switch party members like the GBA and WSC versions of the game--a feature I've always enjoyed despite it breaking from convention.

Of course, there's also Final Fantasy IV: The After Years to consider, which I've never really played. I played the first episode the game when it initially released on WiiWare, but never got back to it, despite willing to give it a try. It always struck me as a fangame that somehow got an official release, since it so liberally reuses artwork and music from Final Fantasy IV. Of course, Matrix released a 3D remake of the game on Android/iOS and it's included in the Final Fantasy IV Complete Collection so there's a good chance I'll be playing it. I've heard some pretty mixed things about it, but I'd be happy to form my own opinions.

RPG Bliss

I'm playing a lot of different games right now, but I don't find it stressful or overwhelming. In fact, I'm pretty happy with the situation because I'm really enjoying just about all of them--particularly because two of them I'm playing cooperatively with different people. There's something so satisfying about socializing while playing a game. It's such a wonderful hobby to share with others, particularly when it comes to story-driven RPGs. When both players are working toward a goal and planning and strategizing together--it's really rewarding. I'd previously lamented what I'd identified as "RPG burnout" but I think really what I was dealing with was several games in a row that were lengthy and insanely difficult. That's what happens when you play three Etrian Odyssey titles back to back. Fortunately, games like Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition and (on the complete opposite end of the RPG spectrum) Tales of Xillia have gone a long way toward allaying my frustrations with the genre.

Don't get me wrong--I loved the first three Etrian Odyssey games, but there's no denying that they're tremendously time consuming and unforgiving. I think I made a wise decision not to jump right into Etrian Odyssey IV despite having purchased it at the same time as EOIII. I'm healthily enthralled in the games I'm playing now in a way that I was afraid I wouldn't be. I felt I might have needed to cleanse my palate with a game of a completely different genre, whether it be action, adventure, or otherwise. Of course, I'm still open to those games and I may well move on to them after this batch of games is done. Crypt of the Necrodancer is a fiendishly addictive rhythm-based roguelike that I find I quite enjoy, for instance--and the recently fan-translated Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path scratches that adventure game itch. It could easily convince me to revisit such games as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Monkey Island 2.

For now, I'm enormously excited to be playing Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, as it more or less eradicates any issues I had with the original version of the game. It's important to have variety when creating a party of six characters, and IWD: EE delivers by importing all of the new and fleshed out classes and subclasses from Baldur's Gate II as well as what I can only assume are a few new ones added just for Beamdog's Enhanced Edition. The amount of diversity in classes is really refreshing. I'm having a lot of fun with it and I can't wait to move on to the enhanced editions of both Baldur's Gate games, having worshiped the original versions for many years. We have tentative plans to play them in three-man co-op, but we'll see how that works out. And then, maybe Neverwinter Nights on down the line? Icewind Dale II? Who knows?

I'm also playing Final Fantasy IV for Android because it's one of the few versions of the game I haven't yet played. I have tentative plans to follow up by playing Final Fantasy IV: The After Years despite some decidedly negative reviews. I think I'd like to give it a try and form my own opinion on it. If it's only useful as fanservice then I'm probably the right audience for it since FFIV was a pretty important part of my childhood and I never really tire of replaying the game.

Hopefully I'll have more fleshed out entries on individual games coming up soon, but considering my bizarre mood swings lately it's difficult to say just when they'll come!

Checking in

Let's take a moment, shall we, to discuss what pitiful reasons I might have to have entirely skipped the month of April for updating this blog. I have no good reasons to share other than my dreadful tendency toward laziness. I've continued to play games and I've continued to adhere strictly to my diet--if not my exercise plan. I've made a few trips to the gym but I haven't been going nearly as often as I'd originally planned. Some of this has to do with social anxiety, but far more of it has to do with simply being lazy.

Laziness is such an insidious and depressing vice of mine that I feel I am doomed to struggle against on a daily basis. It is fueled by but separate from my depression. If I were happier I'd find myself with better tools to combat my laziness but I feel pretty strongly that it'd always be there. Whether I like it or not, it seems to be an irrevocable part of my personality. On good days, I'll be able to overcome or even ignore my lazy tendencies, but unfortunately, I've found it very difficult to want to get off the couch lately unless I'm absolutely required to do so.

Despite my poor track record at the gym, my weight loss continues to progress at a satisfying rate. I weighed in at 213 on Saturday, which is roughly 40 pounds from my starting weight. My body shape has visually changed and I've gone down a couple of pants sizes and I feel pretty comfortable wearing a large shirt--but my discomfort with my body and anxiety about my body have not gone away. In some ways, I feel more stressed out about it than before because I'm now less complacent about the state of my health. Because I'm no longer in denial I find myself forced to confront the way I really am and just how out of shape I was and continue to be. I can only hope that my feelings will improve as I continue to shed more weight--and perhaps more importantly that I will overcome my sloth and get my ass to the gym on a regular basis. I went recently and pushed myself really hard and that felt good after the ache subsided. Now that the pain is almost completely gone I feel like a slob! If I don't remain in constant motion I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I'm failing a lot.

It would have been so easy for me with my vast amounts of free time to visit this blog and write entries, most likely about the games I've been playing. I certainly have things to say about them. I've started to feel a little weird, however, about writing about my fitness journey. I almost feel like I'm jinxing myself even though I haven't yet plateaued. I'm continue to lose weight at a steady pace but I'm afraid that I'll stop and start gaining it back at any minute. Those fears aren't completely without a basis even though I have been very consistent with my diet. I have to exercise. It's important. Even if I do maintain the diet and continue to lose weight, I'll still be flabby and unappealing.

Self loathing and anxiety aren't typically great motivators, but when I'm sinking I'll grab anything that seems like it'll keep me afloat. I'm just worried that even if I do chisel my body into something much more appealing, my anxieties will remain--except this time it'll be called body dysmorphia because in reality I'll have nothing with which I should be concerned. That would be better than my current situation, I guess.

Honestly, I have a whole world of thought I'd like to explore, but it's late and the caffeine I've consumd is really doing a great job of blocking my thoughts from getting out. I have games to talk about and more to discuss on my current mental state--but that'll have to wait for another entry. Let's hope I follow up in less than a month this time.

Only one of us shall escape this domain alive.

I'm really glad that I decided to finally start playing Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne for real recently, because it's a fantastic game. My co-op partner and I have been making steady progress on it for the past couple of weeks. A large percentage of our playtime is spent deliberating on which demons we should fuse and what movesets they should have. We disagree a lot on what abilities are most useful, but that's part of what makes playing through the game collaboratively interesting. Still, these discussions do tend to add a lot of artificial time to our playthrough. We're at something like 45 hours into the game and I'm not quite sure how much more we have to go. I think it's safe to say we're a little over half the way through, but I'm sure the last couple of dungeons are going to be daunting--and the optional content will be even more time consuming if we choose to attempt it.

Nocturne features demons, spirits, and beasts that I've already seen in the Persona series but this time in a much different context. Persona is about the human characters. The demons themselves are generally secondary and serve merely as sources of power for the game's characters. In Nocturne, the demons are integral to the plot and to the theme and atmosphere of the game. Demons like Matador, Daisoujou, and Mizuchi feel impactful and memorable not just because of the mythological beings they represent, but because they exist in the game as characters, as powerful entities which the demonic protagonist must defeat. When the demi-fiend (the aforementioned protagonist) encounters Matador by surprise in a darkened hallway, as he grasps him by the legs and drags him into some hellish dimension--it is chilling. It is memorable. And the twisted music that accompanies this encounter (and future fiend counters) is positively spine-tingling.

The demi-fiend wanders a post apocalyptic world populated only by the souls of the dead, demons, and bizarre sentient manikins that move and twitch unnaturally as they speak to you. The only remaining living humans are those that were fortunate enough to be inside Shinjuku Hospital at the very beginning of the game before the Conception occurred. The demi-fiend will encounter these humans--some of whom were friends before the world changed--and will discover that each has different ideas about how the world should be reborn. And it is up to the demi-fiend to decide, ultimately, how that will happen.

Although Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne doesn't contain some of the features I loved about the Persona series, it more than makes up for it with atmosphere, challenge, and variety. There are tons of demons to fuse and try in Nocturne, all of which can be placed into your active or reserve party. Reserve party members can contribute outside of battle with healing and utility spells like Estoma, which reduces the encounter rate--or Liftoma, which nullifies the effect of damaging floor tiles. The demi-fiend himself learns skills through Magatama, strange parasites that can be ingested. They also impart resistances (and frequently weaknesses) to various elements, as well as bonuses to certain stats. It is in this way that the player can customize the protagonist to their liking with up to 8 total skills. There isn't as much diversity in the protagonist's playstyle as in Persona 3 and 4, but considering the variety available in party members, I can't fault the game for this.

Suffice to say, it's a wonderful game and I can't wait to play other titles in the main series. I just might backtrack and start from the very first one.

Sunday Fitness Rant #3

Okay, well, I think, I've resigned myself to writing these fitness entries on Sundays instead of Saturdays. It's becoming routine for me to stay out pretty late on Saturday nights (for video game purposes, of course) and I find I'm frequently too tired to return home and write out an entry! That's okay though, because I don't feel the need to write an entry every day--just every day that I feel it's warranted. I can only hope that I can maintain a pace that results in 5-6 entries per week, but we'll have to see how that goes!

Anyhow, I am happy to report that I have reached the 220s on the weight scale, coming in narrowly at 229 for this week. Additionally, I made it to the gym this morning and had a legitimate workout. I hadn't been for about a week and a half because of things that kept getting in my way (and of course me making excuses) but I feel much better now that I've gone. Like I've mentioned previously, I'd love to be able to go at least three times a week, but more would be even better. I pushed myself pretty hard today and actually felt a little queasy after getting off the treadmill. I was worried for a bit that I'd maybe overdone it, but I feel fine now. I think that level of cardio is just going to take some getting used to. I'm confident I'll be be able to increase my pace and endurance considerably over the next few months.

I spoke with my uncle briefly today about my progress and he warned me that I shouldn't try to lose weight too quickly or I might run into issues with loose skin. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm terrified that might happen--but at this point I feel like there's little I can do to stop it. I'm so accustomed to this diet and so comfortable with it that the pounds are melting off without me doing any exercise at all. I want to actually get in shape while I'm losing all this weight, though, so these gym visits will hopefully help with that. I'd be really bummed if I lost a lot of weight and still had saggy skin, but I guess I'll have to deal with that when I come to it. At the very least, there's nothing stopping me from getting in shape and I know I'm going to feel better, even if my body shape doesn't end up exactly where I want it to be.

An old coworker of mine commented today on how much weight I've lost. That felt really good to hear, because it's not something I've heard much yet. I can see the progress I've made--a little bit, anyway. And of course I have the scale to prove it, but the validation from hearing it from others--it's tremendously gratifying. I know I still have a long way to go, but knowing that my efforts have not gone unnoticed is a huge boost to my motivation.

Insomniac Daze

I've been trying to focus a lot more on my health lately, particularly with my diet and activity levels--but one thing I haven't made much of an effort to change is my sleep schedule. I'm not getting very much sleep, and it's having a pronounced effect on my mood and willingness to accomplish tasks that need to be completed. It's hitting me harder lately because I've been getting scheduled more hours at work. Longer hours means two things for me: one, I need to be alert for a long period of time, and two, I have this overwhelming urge once I get off work to somehow make up for having less free time. I stay up later than I should.

At this point, it's not really an issue of insomnia. If I made a concerted effort to go to sleep, I probably would. I'm always so perfectly willing to invest in the short term over the long term. I've learned time and time again that although I can function on low sleep, it's not something that's sustainable over the long term and it gets worse and worse on subsequent days of work. It's just not a wise policy to adopt, no matter how much I want to finish the games I'm playing now before the month is over.

When it comes down to it, coffee is just not serving as quite as effective a substitute for sleep lately. It helps in the short term, of course, but I find myself flagging in the latter hours of the day and my attitude suffers. I find myself lacking tolerance for others and becoming quickly irritated by things that might otherwise not faze me. As someone in a sales position, it's not great to be in a position where you cannot communicate effectively with customers. Beyond that, though, it's laudable to be courteous to others regardless of the relationship. That's something I'd like to be able to do but when I'm running so low on sleep it's difficult. But that's not an excuse, either, particularly because I feel I could be getting more sleep if I could convince myself it's important.

I'm scheduled until close tomorrow night, but I'll probably have to help move some things into a trailer outside our building while it's being remodeled, so it's likely I'll be there until well after 7. Even so, I'd really like to get in a good Nocturne play session because the amount of time I've been able to play it lately is really not enough! I'm really enjoying my sessions with my co-op partner on that game, particularly when it comes to our unnecessarily detailed theorycrafting and planning for party compositions. I'm afraid if I don't buckle down we'll never finish it. Of course, I'd love to be able to finish it this month but that may not be realistic. I'm pained to say I've still only finished one game this month. I'm being productive, I swear.

Etrian Toolbox

Despite my mixed feelings on the Etrian Odyssey series, I went ahead and ordered the third and fourth games. Etrian Odyssey II is really fun once it gets going. You have to invest a lot of time into making your characters strong and into planning your strategy. There are many strategies that are effective in the early parts of the game and others that are only effective later on. Fortunately, Etrian Odyssey allows you to respec your skills at any point after reaching level 30--at the steep cost of losing 10 levels, of course. Once your party is at a certain point, farming the stratum bosses is really a simple matter, though, and as a result it's not incredibly tough to get those levels back.

I really like that EO allows you to field a huge number of adventurers and switch them out at will when returning to town. It gives me plenty of room to experiment and to explore different strategies. Some of my characters serve no more of a purpose than harvesting resource points in the dungeon. I trained my Dark Hunter initially so I'd be able to use the instant kill skill Climax to meet the requirement for the second stratum boss's conditional drop--but I ended up liking the class so much that I drafted him into my permanent lineup. I'd actually used a Dark Hunter briefly early in the game, but I'd had a really hard time making him useful. He was frail and did very little damage. It wasn't until I'd pumped quite a few levels into the guy and maxed out Climax and Bait that he really started to become useful. This requires a good 25-30 levels, mind you. Now he's a master of counterattacking and finishing off enemies at 55% health or less.

I think in order to greatly minimize my frustration in Etrian Odyssey III (and IV I suppose) I'll need to figure out the best strategy for the early game. This is by far the most frustrating aspect of these games so far, but once I'm at a point where I can easily acquire experience and money, I can experiment with team compositions as much as I want. If the early part of the game goes more smoothly, then I get to the juicy part faster and I get a much better impression of the game.

I've also considered going full out and ordering the remakes of Etrian Odyssey I and II when I'm done with some of the others. I've read that they're different enough from the original versions to be considered brand new games in their own rights. If they include many of the new classes from later games in the series then I don't see why I wouldn't want to try them out. Evidently they also contain new story-heavy modes with predetermined characters. I have mixed feelings about that, but it does sound like something I'd like to try at any rate. Also coming up is Etrian Mystery Dungeon, a fascinating hybrid of EO's gameplay and that of the Mystery Dungeon series, of which I've only played Chocobo's Dungeon. I like that game a lot but sadly I have not finished it. I'd like to set a tentative goal of completing Chocobo's Dungeon and at least the rest of the contiguous EO series before I tackle Etrian Mystery Dungeon, but I have to say I find the concept very intriguing.

Quashing the tedium in Etrian Odyssey II

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Etrian Odyssey series so far. It is simultaneously punishing, tedious, difficult, broken, and when things work well, rewarding. When I started the first game of the series I had a very rough time in the beginning. Despite doing my fair share of research, I found myself getting trounced by the labyrinth's dangers over and over. I knew what was strong because I'd read about it but I wanted to try my best to try out my own strategies and play to my own tastes. In the end, I did decide to rely on the game-breakingly powerful Immunize skill wielded by the Medic class in an effort to make the game bearable! And after a fashion, it became a lot more fun. Each foray into the labyrinth was longer and there was less tension in exploring. Having to return to town over and over again, spending my hard earned funds on healing--and often running out of gold prematurely--it's disheartening! Etrian Odyssey punishes suboptimal strategies rather harshly.

When I started Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard, I thought I knew better, thought I knew enough about the game's mechanics to make it on my own with only a minimal amount of research. Of course, these games aren't very forthcoming with ability descriptions, as it turns out, and trying out different builds for characters is a time consuming (and expensive) process. My initial party composition was hilariously unsuccessful. Each new floor to which I ascended was like hitting a brick wall. I wanted to try a party very much unlike the heavy damage party I used in the first game. I wanted something with a lot of utility and control, primarily geared toward taking down the game's many bosses. This is an okay idea in theory, but it completely disregards the bulk of the game--dungeon crawling.

Etrian Odyssey II's bosses can be tough, but in my book it's frequently more challenging just to traverse the maze floors leading up to them. Even some of the most common enemies can be quite troublesome to defeat. In one of the early floors, an odd ostrich-like enemy called a Moa can decimate unprepared parties singlehandedly. Occasionally, the Moa will be accompanied by allies that compound this problem. Of course, there are strategies that make dealing with enemies like this much easier, but these strategies may not necessarily be appropriate for bosses or for other enemies in the dungeon. For this reason it is important to have a party that is well balanced for a variety of purposes. Alternatively, you can run a flexible party with members that be switched out at will. This is more difficult to maintain and requires more commitment from the player, of course, but it is a game that rewards those who put forth that commitment.

The very first boss of Etrian Odyssey II is a chimera. It's very weak to ice so logically a Gunner with Iceshot/Riskice or an Alchemist with Ice/Freeze would assist tremendously with defeating it. Poisoning it is also a highly effective strategy, but unfortunately it's very resistant to poison. The kicker here is that if the player poisons this particular boss and defeats it while it is afflicted by that ailment, it will drop a specific item worth 30,000 EN at the shop. Each boss has a conditional drop like this. If the player is willing to put forth the commitment to training characters tailored specifically to employing these strategies, he'll be rewarded with far more money than could be easily obtained otherwise.

Of course, there's really only two viable ways to poison in Etrian Odyssey II. There's the Dark Hunter's Viper skill, which deals damage and has a 45% (or so) chance to poison before resistances. This isn't very likely to work considering the Chimera's resistance to the ailment, so the better option is to employ a Hexer with maxed out Poison, points in Luck, and gear with bonuses to Luck if you can lay your hands on it. Even then, it might take four or five turns to successfully land the ailment. Meanwhile, the Chimera is hitting hard every turn and his allies are encroaching on the party. Let's not forget that leveling a Hexer can be a challenging process early in the game because Poison is very unlikely to successfully land before maxed, their physical attacks are pitiful, and they are ridiculously frail.

Once you meet the requirements for a highly accurate Poison skill, it is possible to repeatedly defeat the boss with this method and get access to its conditional drop. Not only does it sell for 30,000 EN, but it also unlocks a very powerful (possibly the most powerful?) bow. It was for this reason that I decided to train a Survivalist (bow user) and run that boss several more times. I was eager to make the game go more smoothly for me. It's not clear to me if this is a "cheap" strategy or akin to breaking the game and I honestly don't care. What it has done is make the game a lot more fun to play. I've since defeated the boss of the second stratum and made my way through about half of the third with fewer problems than I might have otherwise had--and I haven't trivialized the difficulty, either. There are still plenty of fearsome FOEs roaming around capable of annihilating my party. But I no longer feel hopeless and frustrated.

PS4 Woes

Final Fantasy Type-0 HD released in NA today and with it comes the one somewhat compelling reason I've discovered so far to purchase a PS4. Critical reception seems relatively positive so far, but if I'm being honest with myself I've been looking for some kind of excuse to buy the console lately. With titles like Final Fantasy XV, Disgaea V, and Persona V on the (distant?) horizon, it's a console I'll most definitely have to purchase at some point. Why not now when I have some extra cash lying around? Of course, I have somewhat of a poor history of effectively managing my funds--and that's the only reason I'm hesitant. The other reason is that I just purchased the Samsung Galaxy Tab S tablet. I'm immensely pleased with it, but it did set me back a few bucks. Returning it is not outside the realm of possibility, but I'm finding myself becoming more attached to it by the day.

Also weighing against me is the fact that I have so many games in my backlog to work through! My tentative goal for game completion was five per month for this year, and here I am over halfway through March and I've only completed Etrian Odyssey. I'm still playing the games I'm working on quite frequently, but they're all very long and in some cases quite difficult. Etrian Odyssey II has been quite the slog and only after a very recent grinding session have I begun to find the game tolerable to actually play. Fortunately, I'm beginning to make progress on it. Similarly, Tales of Graces f and Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne are quite long RPGs on which I'm struggling to make progress. I've been neglecting Graces for EOII not because I prefer the latter but because it strikes me as a puzzle that I must solve and overcome. Now that I've gotten over that crucial hump, it might behoove me to focus more on Graces since I must be approaching a spot that is 2/3rds of the way through the game, at least.

I am not without patience when it comes to these games I want to play, of course, but I'm afraid of what might happen to this sum of cash I've built up. What if the time comes when I find I need the PS4 and all of my funds have mysteriously disappeared? This is not outside the realm of possibility, sad as that may be to admit. Still, this doesn't strike me as a particularly compelling reason to march out and purchase the console before I miss my chance.

I continue to find ways to rationalize my potential purchase. Final Fantasy Type-0 HD is a game I'd very much like to play, but aside from several upcoming titles, it's the only one. A small argument could be made for Infamous: Second Son despite its lukewarm critical reception. It is a game I would probably purchase because I enjoyed the previous games in the series, but it shouldn't be considered as a legitimate console-seller--for me, anyway. And what else is there for me on that console? Not a thing that I can think of. There's still a whole world of PS3 games that I haven't played, actually--precisely because I've focused so much on retro games in the past couple of years. I have a small library of PS3 games that I like but there are tons of likely solid RPGs that I haven't had the chance to experience. It's tempting to move on to the biggest and newest titles, but let's be honest here--Final Fantasy Type 0 HD is not that game. It's an enhanced port of a Japan-only PSP game. I'm sure it looks prettier than the original, but from what I've heard the content is largely unchanged. Should I really purchase a PS4 just for that?

Everything All of the Time

As I sat down to write this entry, Blogger notified me of a number of domains that were available for purchase. Any of these could be applied to this blog if I so choose, and all of the sample domains on that list are variations of this blog's title--Everything All of the Time. I'd never put a lot of thought on the title, but I did happen to nab it from a song I was enjoying at the time by a group called Jakob. The song in question is, of course, "Everything All of the Time."

Jakob - "Everything All of the Time"

Of course, when those domain options popped up in front of me, I was momentarily taken aback. Buying one of those domains was an immediate consideration for me because "dalkaen.blogspot.com" is certainly a domain without a lot of personality. Is "Everything All of the Time" really the perfect name for my blog, though? It's ridiculously general and clearly doesn't have anything to do with video games and that's what I discuss most. Of course, it's not the only thing I write about. Maybe that's really what this all is, then. It's a place I come to write about whatever it is that's on my mind, whether it be my obsession with video games or any of my numerous soul-eroding neuroses. It fits quite well with my tireless need to categorize and to document the world around me. 

And hey, as it turns out, it's also a line from one of my favorite Radiohead songs, "Idioteque."

Radiohead - "Idioteque"

Really, it doesn't seem like such a bad name. Maybe I should buy that domain. I think www.everythingallofthetime.com is available, even. It really wouldn't affect much considering the laughably small reader base I have (if it can even be considered as such), but I think it would be nice. I haven't had my own domain name in years and I'm not completely sure why that is. I've always wanted to have some kind of internet presence and now that I've cordoned off my own meager corner of the web, I might as well make its moniker official.

I guess I could also consider sprucing up the place a bit. The layout is very vanilla, but I kind of like it that way. It's clear and easy to read with few distractions. Still, I could probably toss in a link here and there or whip up some kind of banner image with my meager Photoshop skills. It seems pretty clear at this point that this blog's here to stay for awhile, so I should at least consider making it more my own.