Super Robot Wars MX and my impulsive decision to learn Japanese in my mid-30s

"You can't run away... You can't run away...! You can't run away!!"

I occasionally read back through some old entries on this blog. About 10 years ago, I went through an exercise where I updated every single day and I maintained that for well over a year. Because I wrote so frequently during this period, there's an unusually detailed record of my thoughts and feelings during that time period between 2013 and 2014. In one particular entry, I lamented the fact that so many entries in the Super Robot Wars series were essentially unavailable to me because fans had not yet translated them into English. Now, so many years later, there aren't really that many more fan-translated titles out there and I've finally gotten to the point where I've played them all. I got a chuckle out of one line from this entry from when I first played Super Robot Wars J: "...but I'm eager to see if they produce another polished fan translation for Super Robot Wars D or F because at this point I'd love to play them. I'm starting to wonder if it would be faster just to learn Japanese, though."

It genuinely would have been. In fact, if I'd started learning in earnest right at that moment, I'd probably be fluent right now. In fact, Super Robot Wars was indirectly responsible for catalyzing my desire to learn Japanese, combined with an offhand comment on a podcast and a YouTube video I happened to stumble on many months ago. I can't even precisely recall the sequence of events anymore, but I know I'd decided to try playing one of the games in Japanese with only the assistance of a translated menu patch. At some point during that exercise, I learned that I could quickly translate on-screen text with Google Lens and I was so enamored with that possibility that the sheer novelty of it blew me away. This game was Super Robot Wars R for GBA. Soon after, I played Super Robot Wars D as well, which I namedropped in that entry from about ten years ago as a pie-in-the-sky "maybe I'll try this" option.

I really enjoy Super Robot Wars because I love robots, I love strategy RPGs, and I love flashy 2D animation. But now, I have another reason to keep playing these games. It's good practice. I'm not going to say I sit here and analyze every line of the (considerable) dialogue in these games, but I do pick out lines here and there and it's a true joy when I can read them without assistance. It's truly not something I ever thought I'd be capable of. Ten years ago, I thought "there's no way I'd ever go through the trouble of learning a new language or trying to play through a game in Japanese—it's just too overwhelming." It's true that it is overwhelming to learn a new language, but it's also very rewarding. I spend hours on Japanese every day, but I get a little better at it every day. I hope in a few years (before I'm 40, hopefully) that I'll be something I can call "proficient." Maybe that will even open up new opportunities for me. We'll see.

I sent this hastily snapped photo to a friend because I was so pumped that I'd puzzled out that this means "the pilot's in danger!"

As for the game itself, it does a few cool things that I haven't seen that often in other games in the series. First of all, it has a Mission Select system that allows you to take on missions in whatever order you like, much like the very recent Super Robot Wars 30. This rarely affected me much, though, since I just kind of did them in the order they were provided in the list. What it does mean is that missions are much more tailored to specific groups of units than other games in the series, meaning it wasn't always possible just to stick with my favorites. I often found that I was saddled with a group of units I wasn't planning on using or upgrading in the long term, which made those missions a bit more difficult or tedious than they needed to be.

There's also a bit more traversal in MX than usual. In fact, I'm not sure I can recall any other games off the top of my head in which it's possible to navigate between different maps within the same mission. Many missions involve entering a battleship or going into a sub-level, possibly while multitasking with units on another level. Your ships can't enter these sub-levels either, which had the side effect of making the Nadesico crew or Evangelion units less useful on those maps as well, since they're so tethered to the ships for energy purposes.

Some enemies guard the entrance to an interior area.

I do feel like I'm kind of in the "sweet spot" era for Super Robot Wars in that the graphical fidelity is good and the systems are good as well. Although I miss not having Ace Bonuses (special perks for getting 50 or 60 kills), there's a robust skill system with appropriate limitations much like Super Robot Wars Original Generations. More recent titles have gone overboard with the skill system and completely removed any limitations, meaning you can make everyone as absurdly powerful as you want. MX has a pretty good balance in that the game never feels difficult to the point of being unfair, but there's enough friction to keep the game engaging beyond the surface. 

I'm torn on where to go next with this series because I have a lot of options. I haven't even discussed the rabbit hole I went down recently with setting up a Japanese PSN account, but maybe we'll discuss that later!

Terminus Blaster! Discharge! (ta--minasu burasuta-- deisucha--ji)

Octopath Traveler II is my favorite game in a long time.

Octopath Traveler had a lot of flaws but ultimately, I loved the game because of what it tried to do. I love Octopath Traveler II for succeeding at it. Every shortcoming from the first game is addressed in this excellent sequel, which features superior storytelling, deeper combat, better character interactions, and even a better soundtrack. This is no small feat, given how excellent the first game's music was.

I love RPGs that focus heavily on individual characters and how they interact and cross over. I am very much invested in the lineage of games that sprung from Live a Live and Dragon Quest IV and Final Fantasy VI. Octopath Traveler II is likely the best of them all.

So many times have I played a game of this type and found myself so invested in the concept that I was able to overcome their shortcomings. In Octopath Traveler II, I never had to. This is a game of 8 protagonists that I feel I will not soon forget. Each of their stories has a weight and depth that help them stand alone and each has a dimension of character that effortlessly differentiates them from each other. Although I was very fond of the initial Octopath, I found myself struggling to recall the individual character's stories. I can't tell the future, but I don't envision myself soon forgetting Throné's quest for her freedom and the dark secrets she uncovers along the way. I don't see myself forgetting Osvald's prison break and subsequent journey of revenge, Castti's pursuit of her lost memories, or Partitio's ambition to eradicate poverty from the world. I don't see myself forgetting Temenos's investigation into a series of mysterious murders, Agnea's journey to become a star, Hikari's reclamation of his kingdom, or Ochette's hunt for a series of nigh mythical creatures to help save her island from the Night of the Scarlet Moon.

Octopath Traveler was very formulaic. Each character's story was 4 chapters long and for the vast majority of those chapters, the character would visit a town, use their Path Action on an important NPC, and then fight a boss. The specifics of those stories varied, of course, but the formula remained very much the same. Octopath Traveler II shakes up the format in several important ways. Not every character's story is four chapters long. Some chapters are split into multiple parts. Some chapters feature dungeons, some don't. Some feature bosses, but some don't. Path Actions are still important parts of the story, but there are two important distinctions compared to the first game. Path Actions are split into Day and Night actions, so the variety of abilities your party has access to it at any given time is much more nuanced than before. If you need to get an item from an NPC, you could buy it from them or steal it from them. You could even mug them at nighttime or use Agnea's inimitable charisma to Entreat them for their items. Each of these abilities has its strengths and weaknesses. Maybe Agnea isn't high enough level to successfully Entreat, so you'll take your chances with Throné, who has at least a chance for a successful steal no matter the level. Alternatively, maybe the NPC in question isn't around during the day, so you're going to have to Mug them with Osvald instead, but let's hope you can win the solo fight that ensues.

Octopath Traveler II is all about these choices. Many of the game's sidequests have a variety of different possible solutions based on your Path Actions. Maybe you could Guide a particular NPC with Temenos to talk to another NPC to resolve a quest—but maybe there's a more unorthodox solution that involves knocking out an NPC with Throné. You could even accomplish the same thing by soothing them with medicine with Castti or simply dueling them with Hikari during the daytime. There were many times when I looked up the solution to a quest only to figure out that I had resolved it a completely different way than what the guide suggested.

The first game already had an excellent combat system, but Octopath Traveler II fleshes it out further by adding Latent Abilities to every character, serving to further differentiate each character's unique strengths. There are even unique EX Skills you can find for each character that only they can use, even after the ability to mix and match subclasses is unlocked. Hidden classes return as well, one of which you can stumble across in the game's opening hours. Instead of gating these hidden classes behind even more grinding, only two of them require Job Points. The others have skills unlocked through a series of sidequests.

Aside from an excellent soundtrack, a series of incredible stories, characters, and moments, Octopath Traveler II also has some great visuals. Opinions vary on the HD-2D style but I'm personally a big fan. I'll close this with a showcase of a few of the screenshots I've taken along the way.

Fire Emblem Engage, Elden Ring, and stubborn acts of perseverance

 I've been thinking a lot lately about how I approach video games, about how I bend them to my will so that I can create the "right" kind of experience. It brings to mind my first playthrough of Elden Ring, where I had a very particular idea of how the game was supposed to be played and stuck to that ideal slavishly, even as the game heaped more and more options upon me. It also applies to my recent 200+ hour playthrough of Fire Emblem Engage, which I have now—mercifully—finished as of tonight. 

As soon as Engage presented me with a list of difficulty options, I knew that I was going to go for the hardest difficulty. I'm a veteran, after all. I have played and finished a version of every Fire Emblem in the main series aside from the fourth and fifth entries, which only have limited fan translations. I have expressed on many occasions that Fire Emblem is at its best when adhering to its classic formula of limited resources and permanent deaths for your fallen allies. Every decision means something. Every movement carries tension. At any moment, you could lose one of your trusted allies and you have to make the choice of whether or not you try again, or you carry on. Of course, for me, the choice is always simple. I won't let anyone die. Well, not yet, at least.

Fire Emblem Engage has some of the best gameplay and strategy in the entire series. I don't say this lightly. Reception for this game has been mixed, especially by those expecting more of the simulation aspects and political machinations of Fire Emblem Three Houses. This is certainly not that. Engage is much more silly, more colorful. Despite that, its gameplay is significantly more complex. Whereas Three Houses focused intensely on customization and the development of your characters through the training they received at Garreg Mach Monastery, Engage presents you with a series of characters with disparate strategic niches who can be outfitted with Emblem Rings to either enhance their existing strengths or cover their weaknesses. The crucial difference here is that you need to decide which characters get which Emblem Rings—and that choice is a big part of what makes the strategy of Fire Emblem Engage so satisfying.

I played Engage on Maddening difficulty, which proved to be so much more of an ordeal than I ever expected it to be. I had to put every ounce of strategic knowhow to use and even then, found myself spending multiple hours on just about every mission past the first few. It was exhausting enough that even though I found myself enjoying the game immensely, I had to take breaks after each session because it wasn't what I'd call a relaxing experience. Fulfilling, sure, but not relaxing. 

In between sessions, I regularly played Elden Ring for the second time since it came out a little over a year ago. This time felt so much more exciting for me because I was playing it in relay fashion with a friend. We would assign each other weapons and spells and take turns conquering various bosses. Some sessions were very short and some took several hours. Some weapons ended up being a lot more fun and powerful than we expected, but of course, others didn't quite live up to our expectations. We also had to reconcile our different approaches to the game. I tend to prefer forgoing a shield for two-handing or dual-wielding weapons and tend not to put too much stock in armor at all since I'd rather just be able to dodge more effectively. My friend, on the other hand, is a much safer player, and focused on getting a shield with as much stability as possible during his first playthrough.

In the early stages of our relay run, we focused on assigning each other play styles that might be new and unusual to us, but we naturally started to shift toward our preferred methods over time, especially as bosses got harder and harder. The joy of exploration and experimentation in the early- to mid-game gave way to some brutally grueling sessions that were mostly just hours of slamming into a brick wall of a tough boss with a weapon that one of us just wasn't that comfortable with. Again, these sessions were often fulfilling, but not usually relaxing. 

So it was that over the past month or so, I relegated a lot of my free time to playing games that were stressing me out. I didn't go into either of these experiences with the intent of this happening, but once I was in, I certainly wasn't going to shut it down. In the past week or so, most of our Elden Ring sessions were taking yet another stab at the gauntlet of difficult bosses at the end of game. At the same time, I was making attempts at the final two missions of Fire Emblem Engage, both of which clocked in at around four hours.  

The thing is, I could have made both of these experiences significantly less stressful for me. I could have lowered the difficulty of Fire Emblem at any time. I could have loosened the limitations I was setting on our Elden Ring run as well, but I'm always so concerned about preserving the purity of the experience. It's hard to say if it's worth it. I'm very glad that I've finished both of these games, but I'm absolutely going to be taking it easy for a little while going forward. I don't want to spend 200 hours on the next game I play, no matter how much I like it.

I have done some reading from time to time

I've been meaning to chronicle the books I've been reading for a long time, but I've never really gotten around to it. I think a big part of why I haven't so far is because I just don't feel qualified to evaluate them on a meaningful level compared to something like video games, for which I have incomparable amounts of context. Having said that, though, I've always enjoyed reading and have seldom made it a big priority after high school. Over the past year or so, I've mostly read a bunch of Stephen King, but I have interspersed my King marathon with a couple of other titles as well. I'm going to take this opportunity to get us up to speed and maybe I'll write about each book I read going forward as well.

Although I read a few books here and there before starting my Stephen King marathon, I definitely hold it responsible for rekindling my interest in reading in general. The idea to do it at all came directly from a podcast called Just King Things, which discusses all the works of the author in chronological order. I'm a big fan of this kind of thing in general. I've watched some TV shows I wouldn't have otherwise rewatched if not for podcasts popping up about them, so why not do that for books as well? Also, Stephen King is absurdly relevant culturally. As I've made my way through his catalog, I'm continuously shocked to learn "oh, wow, so he wrote that too, huh?" So far, I've read Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Rage, Night Shift, and The Stand. After that last one, I had to take a break for a while.

I haven't loved every single book of his I've read, but I've gotten a lot out of a few of them. I liked Carrie a lot more than I expected to—and actually found that I generally preferred it to the movie. Two moments in the book are much more gripping than in the film and those are the climactic encounter Carrie has with her mother and the chilling ending. Since King is popularly known for not knowing how to end his stories, it's interesting that I loved how he ended his first popular work.

'Salem's Lot didn't always hold my attention, but I was surprised to learn that after all these years, I never knew it was a vampire story. It's much less about the vampires and more about the town and its population of stock characters. This will come to define King's work as a whole, I'm coming to find out. Even so, there is something highly readable about this kind of story, even if it's not necessarily what I'd always prefer. The Shining has somewhat more developed characters, which makes sense given Jack Torrance's descent into madness. I watched the Kubrick film as a companion piece and very much enjoyed it too, although they tackle the story from fairly different angles.

Rage is a sophomoric school shooter story that has mercifully become unpublished at King's own request. He wrote it in his teen years and this is clear from the text. There is a sense of morbid wish fulfillment as the protagonist holds his high school class hostage. It's clear King imagined a scenario in which this might happen and then simply wrote to it, with no clear end goal in mind for what it means thematically beyond nihilism. 

Night Shift is a massive collection of short stories that I can't even begin to summarize here, but I'll note that it's staggering how many idea fragments King had and how many of them have now been developed into bigger pieces. One of these short stories eventually became The Stand. Another is Children of the Corn. Even among these relatively inconsequential pieces, I found I recognized a lot of them, like Lawnmower Man. Despite not all of these being classics, I found most of them fairly enjoyable. I'm curious to see how I end up feeling about his other short story collections.

I also read The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition, because it's now the only version you can buy. At a staggering 1200 pages, it was quite the ordeal to get through, especially since I never got to a point where I could say I loved it. At times, I liked it just fine, but at many other points, I was pretty disinterested—occasionally, I didn't like it much at all. I've heard that the story was pitched initially as an American Lord of the Rings. I can't say I agree. It's a weird hodgepodge of elements that don't necessarily work all that well together. It works best in its initial phase as a terrifying pandemic story. Given recent events, I wasn't super thrilled to start the book in the first place, but it effectively captures the mounting dread of a mysterious plague. After this all happens, it seems like King isn't super sure where to go with the story and starts implanting visions into the minds of his characters to get them to travel across the country to ally with The Dark Man or an ancient woman named Mother Abigail. This is the part of the story that's supposed to be like modern fantasy, but it just never really worked for me, especially once the survivors make their way to their destinations and start "rebuilding civilization." No one's motivations make a lot of sense and the story just kind of falls apart in the end.

I'll put together a post of the non-Stephen King stuff I've read in a future update.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line and the mountain of other games I'm working on

 

It's been a slow month for completing games. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but I have to admit I always start to feel a little antsy when I'm juggling multiple titles and not making meaningful progress toward finishing any of them. I always like to move on to the next thing, but my habits have shifted a little in the last year or so. I've really become enamored with replaying games I enjoyed a few years ago. Part of this was spurred on by the Steam Deck, but it's more than that. Since a bit before Elden Ring came out, I've really gotten into the Souls speed-running and challenge-running community. I replayed Sekiro and I replayed Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. Much more recently, I've been replaying Elden Ring remotely with a friend. We've been swapping back and forth, assigning each other new weapons and spells after every boss kill. That's been a ton of fun. On top of that, I started a Sorcery-only playthrough in my own time.

This is all to say that I'm doing it to myself. I'm sabotaging my progress. It's not because I feel like I need to complete an arbitrary number of games or anything, but more just that I want to move on to new games that are waiting in the wings. There's Octopath Traveler II and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty waiting for me. Trails to Azure just came out. Meanwhile, I'm deep into a playthrough of Fre Emblem Engage on Maddening, a difficulty level that absolutely lives up to its name. Although I'm close to the end, there's no telling just how many more sessions that will take to finish. Every stage is a protracted military campaign.

Because I felt like I didn't have enough of these titles to manage all at once, I decided impulsively to pick up Dead Cells again due to the new Castlevania DLC. I've had a really good time with that because I can just pick it up and play a run in less than an hour. I think that's something I've been craving in between these epic-length RPGs I've been playing.

Theatrhythm is accessible and can be played in short bursts too, but the catch is that it has a ton of content in it. By my count, there are over 300 songs in this thing and more coming in DLC all the time. I've now finished every song in the base roster on Ultimate difficulty. I originally had ambitions to start tackling them on Supreme as well, but that may have to wait. Whittling down my hefty Now Playing list is kind of my priority at the moment, especially since I'm reaching the conclusion on a few of these.

Final Bar Line isn't exactly radically different from previous entries in the series despite now appearing on a platform without a touch screen, but it's a lovely revisit to a whole pile of games that have fantastic soundtracks. I was pleased to see Final Fantasy Tactics and even more niche titles like Final Fantasy Record Keeper or Mystic Quest, even if I have PTSD from how addicted I was to the former title about six years ago. 

I bought the Season Pass for the game, so I'm definitely going to keep returning to it to play the DLC as it arrives. I may even give Supreme a legitimate shot once I feel like I don't have so many other games to try.

The House in Fata Morgana: A Requiem for Innocence

I think part of the reason it took me a long time to finish Requiem for Innocence had a lot to do with my dread at doing a writeup for it. I've been having a rough time with mental (and perhaps physical) health recently and haven't felt like doing much of anything at all. On top of that, Requiem for Innocence is a brutally depressing narrative. I'm not sure I should have expected anything less, considering it fleshes out what was already impossibly bleak even in broad strokes in the original House in Fata Morgana. 

It also lingers on the budding affection our "hero" Jacopo has for the titular Morgana, who is 11 years old when he meets her as something like a 20-year-old man. I know this story is set literally a thousand years ago, but it's still a truly uncomfortable thing to base a story around, even if the text is clear that Jacopo intends to wait until Morgana is older to act on his feelings. I suppose we'd call that grooming these days. Jacopo is certainly not a good guy and that becomes very clear later, but it's impossible to avoid the fact that he is painted sympathetically in those early chapters. His longtime friend and confidant, Maria, even dismisses his misgivings about the age difference by hearkening back to her early days as a child prostitute. I know this is a meditation on brutal, darker times, but it's still ultimately a scenario that we are invited to see as cute, as harmless, and to even understand and legitimize the depth of Jacopo's feelings. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth, despite the care with which the story is told.

By the time I finished the main story, I was left with a resounding feeling of "that's it?" because it was really just a retelling of a story I'd already read. Sure, it contains plenty of new details not present in the original and even new characters that were either never mentioned or only briefly alluded to. There's Ceren, for instance, a new recruit at the brothel Maria works at and where Morgana stays after escaping Lord Barnier's torture. She initially feels like a filler character but becomes more important later on not only because of her unique psychology but because she inadvertently sets the wheels of the plot in motion.

There's also Gratien, a musclebound brute who helps Jacopo escape a life of slavery. He exists as an early companion that we know we must come to odds with later in the narrative based on what we already know about Jacopo's arc. This character, too, was briefly alluded to in the text of the main game, as we learn in the extras. 

Despite the details of this story being fleshed out, I still always knew what was going to happen. The achingly sad finale of the story was almost identical to how it was told previously. Although I enjoyed many aspects of the story along the way, I didn't feel as if I felt more sympathetic toward Jacopo or had a better understanding of the tragedy of the story. It all felt a little superfluous. On top of that, I resented any attempt at humanizing this adult man who had feelings for a child. Before this story, you could contextualize Jacopo's feelings as the misplaced emotions of a deeply disturbed person. In Requiem for Innocence, we're led to believe that Jacopo's dark turn doesn't happen until he becomes the Lord of the Land and that his feelings for Morgana were playful and perhaps embarrassing, but nonetheless appropriate. I just can't swallow that, so we're left with a story that is not only unnecessary but deeply uncomfortable.

On the other hand, there are a handful of Sub-Episodes that are generally lovely. Assento Dele details the story of a sick man visiting Michel (and the Witch) in the mansion and establishing an unlikely friendship before his untimely death. This is a very pretty story that fleshes out an offhand remark from the original story in a fantastic way. We also see a series of snippets that tell the events of the three doors from another's perspective, which didn't strike me as exactly essential, but quite enjoyable all the same. Finally, there's Happily Ever After, which just strikes me as absolute fanservice—but kind of in a wonderful way. After hours of tragedy porn in the main story, it was pretty nice to see Michel and Giselle meeting up again, one thousand years after the events of the first game and just having a nice time. It's not a dramatic love affair; it's really just about a simple date. After the main storyline left me feeling quite uncomfortable, it was a great note to end on.

I played this game because I've really been in the mood for Visual Novels, but for most, I'd say absolutely read The House in Fata Morgana, but this one can easily be skipped. Feel free to give it a try if you're really curious, but it's absolutely inessential. The story of the original game absolutely stands alone.

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: An intricate mystery narrative

As a diehard fan of the Nintendo DS during its heyday (and well, I'm still a big fan of it now), I'd certainly heard of 999. It's not clear why I never played it around its original release in 2010. I even have a history of playing visual novels and point-and-click adventure-adjacent games like Ace Attorney and even stuff like Hotel Dusk. Having played the remaster now, I acknowledge I was definitely missing out, even though it's nice to play a version of the game with more modern amenities, including full voiceover for all dialogue in the game. I elected to play with Japanese voice acting in an effort to incorporate more Japanese immersion into my normal routine. It definitely made me look up a lot of words that kept reappearing—and it was always a joy to notice how many words I recognized already.

999 is a story with many branching pathways, though, and one excellent feature included with this version of the game is a detailed flowchart that affords the player the opportunity to quickly move to previously unlocked scenes to make different choices. This feature, combined with the ability to quickly zip through previously read dialogue, makes exploring each narrative path a breeze. I was shocked to read that the original version of the game had no such feature, meaning that if you wanted to see all the game had to offer, you had to play through the entire game again, over and over. If you happened to make a mistake and pick the wrong option? Well, I hope you saved recently, or you're playing it all over again.

Because of the flow chart in this game, I really didn't have to look that much up to unlock all the endings. Every time I reached a bad ending, I'd go back and make different choices to see how that affected the way things progressed. It felt much more organic than having to meticulously hit a number of flags to get the desired outcome. Incidentally, this is exactly what I had to do in Steins;Gate. Although I enjoyed that game, I would have infinitely preferred a flow chart system like this one.

999 is a bit like a less wacky Danganronpa. There're no trials here, but of course, there's a lot of intrigue, mystery, and vividly described violence. Instead of densely plotted group discussions, 999's primary conceit lay in its puzzles, which range from relatively simple to fiendishly complex. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the strongest puzzler out there. I was confounded at one point in the story that the game seemed to expect me to just know Morse code in order to proceed. Of course, I happened to miss that there was a handy guide hidden nearby, and was jumping to conclusions, but still. In another puzzle, I was tasked with completing a 3x3 grid in which all lines added up to 15. I spent about an hour on this before giving up in disgust. It's no fault of the game, mind you, but this puzzle made me feel pretty stupid. I eventually discovered what "magic squares" were and learned there were many ways you could solve such a puzzle.

There's probably nothing important in there.

Even so, many of the puzzles left me with a satisfying feeling after I'd conquered them. It often felt my ability to solve one of these puzzles had more to do with my level of patience at that time than any particular skill on my part. My skill for such a task is nonexistent, but my persistence can sometimes override that. Frequently, in the case of puzzles that require shifting or moving things in a pattern, my method of attack has very little to do with tactics and much more to do with brute forcing a solution until the pieces fall into place. I'm not great at keeping multiple steps ahead in my mind, so working through it is the best way for me to figure things out. The best example I can think of there is a puzzle in which you're required to maneuver boxes around each other so that they all occupy a specific position on the side of a room. Instead of thinking about how best these could be arranged, I simply kept moving them in different patterns, observing which paths took me less time. Eventually, I found the path that could be done in the allocated number of moves through sheer trial and error.

I can't help but compare the way I tackle these puzzles to Into the Breach, which features combat encounters that frequently feel like puzzles of their own. My first instinct in that game was to go through the motions so I could internalize the outcome of my actions. Frequently, I would move too far ahead and complete moves that couldn't be undone—for which the game features a handy Reset Turn feature. Unfortunately, that game only allows you to do this once per combat, which often wasn't enough for me.

I've often thought of puzzles as something that just isn't for me, or that I just don't like them at all. I don't think this is actually true. I think I do like puzzles, but it's helpful when the way to solve a puzzle caters to the way I think. If I can move within a puzzle and operate within it, experiment with possible solutions within the framework it provides—that gives me something to work with. If the puzzle wants me to plan out something, memorize it, visualize the steps ahead in my mind—then that's just not going to work for me. I'm going to feel frustrated and entirely unable to progress. In the case of 999, this isn't often what the game asks you to do. It generally gives you room to experiment, so I found I enjoyed most of the puzzles in the game, even when some of the answers seemed frustratingly out of reach.

Ultimately, though, the narrative is what kept me interested. It's a mystery story, after all, and I've always liked mysteries. It's what kept me going in Danganronpa even as my distaste for so many of those characters grew. Comparatively, I like the characters in 999 pretty well, even though I cringe a little at how sexualized Lotus's design is. You learn more about each character as you go, in bits and pieces. The decisions you make along the way determine who you get to know on that particular path. As each character is assigned a number and each door has a number as well, there's some pretty simple math—a digital root—that determines which group of 3 to 5 contestants in this game can go through a particular door. Get through the door in time and deactivate your bracelets or you'll get exploded, so says Zero, the game's mysterious antagonist. During the game's opening, you're given a brutal demonstration of the veracity of those words.

Verifying at the RED to unlock one of the game's doors.

As you solve puzzles and uncover little items and artifacts that allow you access to other parts of the ship you're on, you'll also have the opportunity to make various choices, both in terms of where you'll be going, but also in what you'll say to other characters. These choices are important because it determines what these characters will tell you. Once you've gathered certain crucial pieces of information, you'll be able to use that meta-knowledge in order to make informed decisions in other paths of the game. You know what's behind Door #1 now, so let's try Door #2 next time. Each of the paths you take fills in the story of what's happening to you and your fellow participants in the Nonary Game, as well as what led them there.

I really enjoyed the game and felt like I couldn't put it down for the entire time I was playing it. I didn't get all the answers I was looking for in the end and I also feel like there's a plothole or two there, but I'm scared to look up any more specific answers because I think future entries in this series connect pretty specifically to this one, much like Danganronpa. Maybe once I've played them all, I'll meditate on the connections between these stories and try to piece it all together. I'm looking forward to it!