Been playing lots of games and not finishing lots of them either it seems.

Crystalis

This little RPG is awesome.  Sadly, I got near the end of the game and due to a mistake on my part with savestates I ended up taking on a boss when my level was too low and the only solution was utter failure.  So sadly, I didn’t finish.  I’m disappointed so it’ll be a while before I try again.

Faria: A World of Mystery & Danger!

I like the premise of this game.  It’s a mish mash of many old school RPG elements that I think create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.  The most notable similarities are Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and The Legend of Zelda.  There are random battles, but they are fought in Zelda style, but in a separate area from the overworld map.  The biggest problem was the difficulty.  The game is brutal.  I gave up on it for now.  It’s going to require a walkthrough I think.  I spent hours walking through the first dungeon.  I then sketched out a map of the first dungeon to help myself.  It was huge and there ultimately were several one way doors to a single area that I just couldn’t figure out how to enter.  I could see myself enjoying it later when I have some more free time.

Kid Icarus

I’m trying to play this one now.  It’s a classic that I’ve only dabbled at.  Finally playing it I’ve found it pretty enjoyable.

Slowing down a bit on my retro binge and will probably see it come to an end soon.

-Adventure Island II

I finally got back to this game.  It’s been nagging at me for a while.  While it’s significant improvement on the first AI, it seems like these games just aren’t my cup of tea.  During the NES era when there just weren’t that many great games this would’ve been a clear standout.  It’s good.  It’s fun.  It’s only moderately frustrating, but I just don’t love it.  I did enjoy some of the hidden bits to skip levels and such.  I think if you were actually playing as a kid and found these on accident it would be exciting and you could slow find the warps (Mario style) to get you to later levels to finish them up without having to play the whole game.

The game is incredibly robust and long. The levels are reasonably short.  There are certainly some places that blow my mind with their need to memorize and the very difficult platforming.  I still think a normal person could beat this game (which I certainly wouldn’t say for Adventure Island).  The art is simple, colorful and pretty good.  It’s a good game, but I just don’t care enough for it.  I’ll undoubtedly still play the third installment and probably event the fourth (JP onry).

-Ninja Gaiden III

This game started reasonably but got ridiculous at the end.  I found at least one point where you literally must die at least one time to finish the game.  You can’t finish it otherwise for a reason I’ll elaborate on a bit later.  Surprisingly the final few battles were considerably simpler than the ones from the first two NG games.  It’s good to have them so simple at the end of such a difficult section of the game, though I still think it would difficult under normal circumstances.  The new setting of the game still doesn’t sit right with me.  Technology mixed with NG doesn’t feel quite right.

-Bionic Commando

Certain one of the classics that I missed during its time period.  I’m playing it now and enjoying it pretty well.  At first the inability to jump was a little jarring, but the bionic arm controls are amazingly smooth for NES.  It really almost compares to the grapple beam from Super Metroid which came significantly later.  I also find it rewarding to get new weapons and stuff as I go.  Truly an impressive game.  I’m looking forward to finishing it up.

Rant

Arbitrary time limits are bullshit.  This was my biggest beef with all of the NG games (III in particular) and with AI2.  In NG III the final level cannot be completed in a single go.  I’ve learned to go absolute top speed because of the problems with these so far in the NG series and even at top speed with save states I cannot even get to the final boss room without being required to die and start a somewhat closer checkpoint.  Even with that checkpoint I had under 50 seconds on the clock when I finished the last boss.  Unlike the other bosses, the final 3 bosses (in a row) didn’t get a new timer.  I didn’t die on them so I’m not sure if I’d get to restart right at the boss with a free timer or not.  If not, I’d put this game at right next to unbeatable under normal conditions.

The same problem comes up in AI2 (and AI for that matter).  There are too many spots where your literally have to have been pressing ahead on the most efficient route without getting hit only to get a piece of fruit (to bump the timer) at the last possible second.  There are many levels I finished with only a single tic left on the timer.  This is infuriating game design.  This is not fun for anyone.

Time limits aren’t all bad.  It’s only the arbitrary ones that are bad.  At least give me a plot device like a bomb to create urgency.  Having a countdown for no reason just makes the game frustrating.  I guess it’s just a holdover from an era where you needed to have lots of challenge in a game.  Timers and high score where the flavor and the idea of simply having something else make the game worth playing (like a narrative) were less important.  This is especially bad with NG since the story is told really well for the time.  There was no need to put arbitrary time limits in the game.

Grand Theft Auto IV

I don’t know what to say really.  It’s fantastic.  I’m sad it took me so long to discover this game.  I really haven’t playing many open world games aside from Oblivion.  I think the GTA IV world is much better realized simply because there’s actually stuff out there.  I’ve gotten a little frustrated with the whole McReary clan.  They just aren’t as interesting to me as some of the other characters so it’s too bad they monopolize so much of the game.

I’ve had a handful of situations that really just got me bent.  Some missions are quite difficult and not having mid-mission checkpoints is agitating when you have to restart, hail a cab, drive to get some body armor, hail another cab, drive to the place, wait/follow or whatever and then execute the mission perfectly.  If not… repeat it all.  Luckily there have only been a few really terrible sticking spots of that type.

This game almost uniquely has a quality to it that makes me enjoy playing it while accomplishing nothing substantial.  I think when it’s all over I might enjoy trophy hunting a tad.  I suspect the trophy search will lead me to see a lot of things I might miss in the normal play of the game.

Upcoming

So Amazon had a deal on Red Dead Redemption.  It looked interesting a while back despite my distaste for anything with a western theme.  But the jury was still out for me and my wife was totally uninterested.  Well, the Amazon deal made me take a second look.  Me and my wife checked out some trailers and such.  By the end we were both pretty convinced we should grab it.  Especially after playing GTA IV and seeing the potential of that formula combined with how cool it might actually be, RDR seems an obvious grab.

-Asterix

This is a cute little platformer.   Apparently it’s a PAL only.  There’s really nothing special to say about it.  It’s pretty short.  It gets a tad difficult toward the end, but never as bad as Adventure Island.

-Duck Tales 2

It’s been a good while since I played the first DT game and I really enjoyed it.  This one was also enjoyable.  It seemed a bit easier than the first one, but that might just be my age.  It was fun and another licensed game that did it right.

-Ninja Gaiden

This game is a classic.  The cutscene storytelling is amazing for the time.  Problem is, it gets ridiculously difficult toward the end.  This is the only of the NG games I played as a kid and I did make it pretty far, but ended up just shutting it off.  It’s very frustrating to the point of impossibility.  The way enemies respawn is just ludicrous.  AVGN covered this crap pretty well.

-Ninja Gaiden 2

Even worse… much worse.  This game just gets absolutely ridiculous toward the end.  Even with savestates and rewind the game has some impossbily brutal moments.  The final battles are just absurd considering you have to defeat 3 bosses in a row with a single life bar.  That said, it’s more polished than the first.  The addition of being able to climb all walls up and down was great.  The multiple-shadow-images thing is extremely useful too.  It would be overpowered if the game wasn’t ridiculously hard.  Problem is you loose them if you die and the game would be even harder if I didn’t savestate my way to constant triple images.

-Ninja Gaiden 3

I’m in the middle of this one.  Supposedly the US version is harder than the JP version (which is unusual).  You lose double health, though with rewind I’m not noticing obviously.  The game throws a lot of enemies at you like in NG2, but I finding it a little better developed.  The respawning problem is no longer and issue.  Even without the shadow images the game’s not too bad.  Despite these improvements the game doesn’t feel the same as the first two.    The story has certainly jumped the shark and being largely technological seems quite out of place.

The thing that made me want to blog right this minute was an amazing cutscene.  I think it’s the one after the Act V title screen.  It’s the most amazing thing I’ve seen on the NES.  Basically it’s a scene of Ryu in the foreground on a precipice, a castle in the background, and mountains and clouds even more in the background.  There are multiple layers of parallax scrolling as well as a Ken Burns effect panning  Ryu into the shot.  It’s nothing by today’s standards, but it’s absolutely breathtaking  for NES.

Retro

So my wife has been playing a good deal of Patapon on the PSP so I’ve be relegated to playing the DS while she’s bogarting the PSP.  As a result, I’ve gotten back to playing some more old games.  I’m trying to pick back up some games from /v/’s Recommended Games Wiki.  I filled up the R4 with several games and will see how it goes.

-Battletoads

I’ve attempted before to finish this game.  Even with an emulator and use of save states I failed when I got to the Clinger Winger stage and gave up.  I tried again and much like my last attempt I nearly threw the DS while doing Rat Race even with a rewind function.  Eventually I had to find a trick to make it work (by headbutting the rat on long stretches to keep him even with me.  On Clinger Winger I actually had to pause at every turn to make it as efficient as possible.

The final stage, which I got to see in action for the first time is a technical marvel of the time… as is most of the game.  The brilliant way that a circular pedestal is emulated to be 3D just blows my mind.  It’s similar to a stage in Super Ghosts ‘n Ghouls, but that was done on the SNES and not nearly as well.  The game is so ahead of its time from a technological standpoint, but the difficulty is too much.

When I put it down I just thought, “Fuck this game.”  It’s so infuriatingly difficult.  The fact that even with an emulator it’s near impossible and requires constant, inhuman perfection just mars what could otherwise be one of the best games of all time.  The vast majority of gamers will never make it past the 3rd level (the one with the speeder bikes).

-Recca

I like shmups, but I suck at them.  This one is always hailed as the definitive shmup of the NES generation (and was Famicom only).  I really enjoyed it.  It seems very close to impossible, but is relatively short.  It seems a bit less impossible than games like The Guardian Legend due to the repetition of bits, but still is a mind blowing bullet-hell shooter.

This one is also a technical marvel.  There are no dropped frames or lag despite the game moving impossibly fast and having dozens of sprites on the screen at a single time.

-Darkwing Duck

This is pretty solid for a licensed game.  By itself it would be a decent platform shooter.  I think the Darkwing Duck property is just well suited for this type of game, which probably saved it from the curse of licensed game suckdom.  I haven’t finished it yet and actually made a mistake of losing some save progress, but I plan to finish it sometime soon.  I remembered playing it as a kid and making it to the last boss (but not being able to defeat him) on a rental.

It’s not too difficult, and that’s probably good and especially so considering the demographic (I remember Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers be far more difficult).  Overall though, the game feels largely bland and uninspired, but I will give some credit for the hanging mechanic that makes it more than a Mega Man clone.

God of War

So following my completion of GoW III I was still enjoying the gameplay.  I considered giving it a trophy run, but instead gaving GoW I a trophy run.  The game is dated, but still stands out for the time.  The trophy run was largely painless and fetched me my first platinum.

Grand Theft Auto IV

My wife and I grabbed this because the kids we work with mention it quite often.  It bothers me, of course, that kids far too young (some as young as 6) are playing any of these games, but at the least I can be a little more familiar with how bad it is.

The game itself is absolutely incredible.  The polish put on the game is stunning.  There are so many small details taken care of and such.  It’s so fun to play and even the stuff that’s repetitive is fun.  All actions fall on a spectrum between fun and holy-shit fun.

I’m really glad there are games out there like this that cater to the adult audience, but I wish parents would be aware enough to not let their kids have access to these games.

Patchwork Heroes

This was a cheap pick off of the Playstation Store.  I got tipped off by Destructoid about it and easily could’ve completely missed it.   The game is set in an odd world and has a very unique art style.  The gameplay involves sawing apart warships while on them until they go down.  Sounds a little odd, but the gameplay is addictive and the game makes you want to play perfectly to up your score and percentage.

Upcoming

Lot of games coming up that I’m pretty excited about.  Not sure when I’ll be grabbing them all.  I’ve already pre-ordered Mario Galaxy 2 because I got a great deal on it through Amazon.  I’m very interested in 3D Dot Game Heroes and fairly interested in Alan Wake as well.  May wait to see reviews on the latter and maybe even wait a few months for it.  I think I’ll probably order Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Ghouls for PSP sometime soon.  I’ve been itching to play it for a good while.

Recap

I’d begun playing White Knight Chronicles, but was interrupted by a music educator’s convention.  It was the first RPG I’d let myself play in a while and those are hard to jump back on.  I still plan to do so.  I was actually enjoying the game despite its flaws.  I also recently finished Dante’s Inferno, which I liked a lot.  I really feel like it got shat on for the wrong reasons in reviews.  Sure GoW is more polished, but DI was an enjoyable game.

Heavy Rain

I finished this a while back, but I have more to say than an abridged recap.  This game was great for me and also for my wife.  The QTEs look silly when you’re watching and I was dubious, but they feel fantastic.  I really liked connecting with the characters and empathizing with their situations.  There are people who tear apart the game for its plot holes, but most of these so called holes are just people being hyper-judgmental.  While some might take a stretch to make sense, most of the things people complain about just require you to not look for something you dislike.  Some complain about Madison and Ethan getting together and say it makes no sense for various reasons.  To me they are both people who needed something more.  They were vulnerable and in need and that makes sense to me.  I can understand the argument that it would be out of character for Ethan, who is so single-mindedly after his son, but I have to make myself think of it that way (which you could opt to do by not kissing back) to be bothered, and I’m not.

An odd thing happened.  My ending was not so happy, but upon playing back through the ending I found that it felt like my ending was the ending.  The story that I’d told was the story that will stick with me.  I’ll probably play back for some different scenarios like I did with the ending, but I doubt it will even feel right.  Although, it is interesting to get different tidbits from the story.

On a second trip to Ethan’s sad apartment and his time with his apparently detached son, I at least knew that Shaun loved him.  But beyond that, something different I did actually brought some extra dialogue in which Shaun told him it wasn’t his fault.  This made a world of difference in the way I perceived Shaun as having felt on my first playthrough where I never seemed to connect and he was eternally distant.  I really though maybe he didn’t love me as much and it was heart tearing.

God of War III

I’m certainly enjoying this final installment in the trilogy.  It’s obviously very polished  the game looks gorgeous.  Combats is fluid and responsive and I’m just enjoying myself.  One gripe I have is with the double jump which seems to have a small gap in execution.  I could understand if it didn’t go off if I hit the second jump too early or too late, but the fail spot is in the middle rather than on the ends.  This has caused numerous frustrating deaths.  I’d have to say that’s one area where I felt Dante’s Inferno was clearly superior because I never felt out of control with Dante and could time my second jump whenever to make the platforming work.

The game is surprisingly brutal even for GoW.  The bit with Hermes really made me feel like I was watching one of the later Saw movies.  I was a bit disturbed.  My wife says Hercules was more disturbing, but Hermes really got to me.  Speaking of Hermes, I loved how much the game made me hate him.  He’s so fay and it’s humorous, but he’s such a douche in the way he taunts Kratos.

My wife was not that interested in this title, though she was in Dante’s Inferno.  Through a deal I convinced her to watch.  She begrudgingly has done so and has watched back through most of the GoW I &II cut scenes to get a good grasp on the story.  Today she actually seemed eager to play.  At one point she let out one of her little mangasms and excitedly goaded me to “step on his face!!” while fighting Hercules.  She even played a little with the Cestus while I cooked.  She was enjoying tearing shit up.

Patapon 2

I finished the first Patapon absolutely loving it.  It wasn’t very forthcoming about what to do with materials though and often they were wasted and farming was a chore.  Due primarily to the fact that I heard you couldn’t loose caps in Patapon 2 (losing 2 Barsala is not fun), I decided to move quickly to it.  If only all sequels could be like this. It removes absolutely nothing about what made the first one fantastic, yet adds so much.  It’s a significant improvement in so many ways as far as farming being more efficient and less grindy, never being at potential to lose significant progress, way more weapons and gear, actually enough materials and reasons to use special Patapons like Kibapons and Dekapons, etc.

My wife started the first game recently and now we’re both heavily addicted.  I can see myself easily being tempted to play long beyond the game’s completion just because improving my Patapons is so fun.

Upcoming

I’m really looking forward to so many upcoming titles.  Nintendo dropped the bomb about Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M coming out way sooner than I’d expected.  I was looking forward to Monster Hunter Tri for so long, but now that it’s here, I’m just not sure if it will mesh with my life.  It if weren’t for the almost necessity of buying extra controllers (for my wife to join me) then I’d be more on top of it, but we decided to skip it even though we’ve wanted something with local co-op of that sort for a while.  A game at the top of my current list is 3D Dot Game Heroes which is also coming out fairly soon.  Looking quite forward to that.

Torchlight

Been playing a lot of Torchlight lately.  It’s a good deal of mindless fun.  It’s not exactly something you can say much about though.  I’ve gotten a few nice unique pieces and I feel awesome as a result.  I finally went ahead and attached some gems to my gear after hoarding many of them for far too long.  The game provides excellent filler.  It’s so easy to just sit at my computer and go play a little Torchlight especially while my wife is playing something on the TV.

Metal Gear Solid

So I’ve got a boss who is kicking my ass.  It’s partly shitty controls and partly just me sucking.  I had him figured out for a bit and got very close several times and died at the last second due to pure stupidity.  Then my frustration just led to harder failing.  I’m sure I’ll be able to go back soon enough and finish him with much of a headache.  The story still intrigues me.  He, this Cyborg Ninja, seems to know me, but I don’t know from where.  I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be me feeling it as the player alone or also as Snake.  Snake does seem a little confused.  I really can’t wait to beat him so all will be revealed.

Half-Minute Hero

I’m in the absolute final hour with this game.  I’ve got 100% on all of the modes.  My Goddess Room is some very health percentage… I’m wanting to think in 95% range.  I really just need to finish up ‘Another Goddess’ to get 100% on Hero 30 and then do some house cleaning on the remaining things for the Goddess Room.  At worst I may need to go do a little more of Princess 30 to get a better average rating.  That may be the pre-req for making certain monsters appear in Hero 300.

Other

My wife is playing Phoenix Wright and enjoying it quite a bit from what I can tell.  She just finished the second trial and I’m anxious to see her move onto the next one.  I’m personally really looking forward to White Knight Chronicles a ridiculous amount at this point.  A blend of FFXI and Monster Hunter is right up my alley.  I’m at least as excited as I was about Demon’s Souls which is a pretty high standard.  I’m really hoping to polish off MGS before that hits.

Metal Gear Solid

This is a big step.  There are tons of old franchises that I missed out on when I was younger due to too much MMOing, not having a PS1 (N64 instead), and generally not having the money to jump on things that were less interesting at the time.  I keep telling myself I’m gonna catch up and by golly, I’m on the road to it now.  I not only ordered Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection, but I actually start playing the first MGS.

-Controls

Hah, controls are awkward.  We forget how good we have it these days.  PS1 was that first bit of publishers working in 3D and trying to figure out not only how it would play and look, but how it would control.  The switching view from overhead to first person is simple enough, but the way the camera pans from top-down to 3rd person when you press against a wall can distort your perspective of where any given direction the pad will go when you release from the wall. During this time they hadn’t figured out what is now the standard – left stick to move, right stick for camera.  Aiming to shoot things while in the top-down is pretty odd.

-Gameplay

The top down is a little too close.  Additionally, when running in a given direction you are sometimes actually standing closer to the side of the screen you’re moving toward which can leave you surprised if something pops up there.  Inventory control is remarkably well done for a game of this era.  I’ve heard people say “enjoy the movie” in response to someone talking about playing any MGS game.  I can definitely see that.  There are little bits of action followed by in-engine cutscenes which can get quite long.  I don’t really think that takes much away though.  What’s really important is the story from what I’ve heard and what I can tell personally.  The story didn’t grab me right off and I had to deal with awkward play for a bit, but since the Revolver Ocelot fight and the following cutscene it seems like things might be picking up.

-Impressions

So far I’m enjoying it.  I’ll probably play it a bit when I’m done typing this all up.  I did have to look up Meryl’s frequency considering the case it came in was different than the original.  I’m anxious to see what happens with the story and I have to admit this generally isn’t my type of game.  Espionage doesn’t get me hot and bothered, but I am enjoying the character development above all.  The game can be quite agitating when you fail the same section several times and have to watch a cutscene  or listen to a lot of radio dialogue before attempting it again, but that’s endemic to that period of gaming.

Half-Minute Hero

I’m making some serious headway toward polishing this one off.  I went back to do Hero 3 and found that I hadn’t actually saved my completion of Hero 300.  Sadness.  I did it again and did far better anyway.  I then finished Hero 3 without too much trouble and even got the ‘Wonderful Hero’ title.  I also got all special titles in Hero 30.  Luckily I found a nice Japanese wiki that I’m using with Google translator to finish of my Goddess Room.  It seems like a much more reasonable task now that I have that as support.  I still haven’t unlocked the “Another Goddess” quest in Hero 30, but I’m sure I’m close.

Other

I played a bit of Mad World, though I’m not sure if I’ve decided to give it a real go or not.  I played it a bit on a whim while waiting for MGS to arrive and with its arrive I’m not sure if I’ve got when is needed to invest.  I played some Little Big Planet with my wife.  We both enjoyed it very much and I think we’ll enjoy playing it over time.  We also did the first episode of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for WiiWare.  She seemed to like it well enough and as much as people complain, I think it looks fine on a giant TV.  Steam was having another sale (damn them!!).  They were selling Psychonauts for 2 bucks.  I couldn’t not get it.  It may be a while before I play it, but I’ve heard so much good about the game and didn’t want to miss the chance to get it on the cheap.

As I ramble all of this out it feels like I’ve started too many things and not finished enough.  That’s frustrating coming on the heels of finishing Muramasa and feeling so accomplished.  I guess I should go play some MGS.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

So I kept playing this in tiny chunks which just didn’t work.  I finally just went balls to the wall out of nowhere.  I seriously picked it up one evening with Momohime still around level 20 and by the next day I’d finished the game the first time with Momohime (42) and gotten through Kisuke’s story to the point that he was 36.  The very next day I had finished Kisuke’s (76) first and second ending and gotten Momohime to 99, finished all three of her endings, acquired all blades.  I saved the first last bit of leveling on Kisuke and his final ending until the day after.  All totaled my game game to around 28 hours and I believe a large quantity of that was getting up and walking around while leaving the game on and cleaning the house as well as just running around and doing silly side things in the game.

The game was fun.  It was simple and straight forward as well as being gorgeous.  I could just tune out and sit down to play.  The story started out convoluted but began to make sense and by the time I’d gotten all of the endings that made good sense to me and I think I grasped their importance.  I also found several of them moving which says something about the character attachment even to NPCs.

The Beatles: Rock Band

Played a good bit of this the other night with my wife.  Drums as so fun.  The big story is that my wife’s parents (as well as my mother) were in town to look at the house we were planning to buy.  My mom’s not a stick in the mud, but her parents are.  They just don’t like games, but we managed to get them to play this.  They had a good deal of fun.  Her dad even exclaimed how cool it all was and he was having a heck of a time playing and singing everything.  Definitely a victory on the front of making people of their sort not despise all video games so much.

Half-Minute Hero

I’ve nearly completely finished this one.  I’m not so sure if I’m gonna finish out the Goddess Room or not, but basically all I have left is a few left over levels on Hero 30 (92%) as well as actually finishing Hero 3, which I’m fairly certain I can do without much trouble.  If I feel up to it after that I might try gathering the last bits to get my Goddess Room (80%) finished out completely just to feel good about saying I completed the game.

On the Shelf

Haven’t played nearly enough Bayonetta lately.  I have the feeling that will pick up eventually though.  Currently not a lot going on in gaming.  My backloggery lists a record low number of games on my “Now Playing” list.  I figure by the time I finish up Half-Minute Hero my wife will have grabbed me another PSP game.  Aside from that, I’m really trying to hold off on too much purchasing.  I definitely feel caught up in a very special way after finishing Muramasa.  The influx of games, especially older games, has slowed down.  There’s less to buy even though there’s plenty to catch up on.  With White Knight Chronicles, BioShock 2, and Dante’s Inferno right around the corner I’m sure I’ll get busy again pretty soon, but I feel like in the remainder of January I can actually just catch up on some currently owned games and may tackle something in my Wii collection.

BioShock

So my wife and I finished this in a bit of a marathon session over the last weekend.  We probably did the last half of the game in nearly one sitting.  Overall she just hasn’t given a shit about the game.  Playing it right after Dead Space actually has left me in awe of how bad the pacing really is in that game.  Dead Space was decent pacing with some lag near the end and a decent end boss.  BioShock was terrible pacing in the beginning with a huge surge near the end but a lame final boss.  Also, in discussing Deus Ex tonight I realized just how much BioShock pales in comparison to both that and System Shock 2 in terms of true flexibility.  There’s really not that much variety in how you build your character nor in the gameplay compared to these predecessors.

Anyway, back to the topic.  My wife went from not giving a shit to actually giving many shits (…erm?) about the game and Rapture overall.  She’s currently looking forward to BioShock 2.  While most people are predicting that it can’t possibly live up to the original, I honestly hope it’s better.

Bayonetta

Still chipping away at this.  My wife is at the start of chapter IV I think.  I just finished chapter II and somewhat making a point of not passing her.  I’m also playing it on normal mode just to hold myself back and I have to admit I’m some sort of pussy.  The game kicks my ass on normal and I hear people talking about looking forward to playing it on hard.  There’s not much to say.  What story there might be I’ve yet to encounter in a deep way, though I’m sure some will come and being standard fare.  The gameplay is fun and exciting and sucking so bad has forced me to actually… suck less just to progress.

Half-Minute Hero

This has been what’s really been consuming the majority of my time lately since I have a bit of time when I’m in bed.  I finished Hero 30 and have slowly worked on getting titles and such as I go.  In the meantime I finished EvilLord 30 with all but one level at max rank and 100% completion.  I’ve finished Princess 30 to 100% completion, but hit and miss rankings.  I’m currently working on Knight 30 which is terribly easy, but still good fun.  Hero 30 is at 92% and I’m looking forward to inching the number up and it definite seems best that I decided to leave the min-maxing for the end.

BTW… Quest 29 made me cry.  I think it’s easily the best mission I’ve done so far.  It’s a simple and silly story.  I’m looking for the evil lord’s castle, can’t find it.  People are weird and I meet one chick who goes on a date with me and shows me around, but she’s always protective of a monument in a suspicious way.    Finally she confesses to me that she is actually a monster as are the other people in the village.  She’s in human form to fool me and hide the evil lord’s secret castle.  Spending time with made her decide what she was doing was wrong and she told me to destroy the monument to unveil the castle, but also revert all of the human impostors back to monsters…. including her.  She asks if, even after this, I will consider her a friend forever, even when she can’t talk to me as a semi-mindless zombie-monster.  I said yes.

I destroyed the monument and charged through a village on the way to the castle.  It was populated by monsters.  I killed several and it was noted that there was something odd about the particular one in the back.  “……Grhg….,” said she.  I turned to run rather than slaughter her… but I couldn’t.  I had equipped my Duelist Boots which didn’t allow me to run from battles.  I slaughtered her and in her dying breath she said, “….Li…. ar……”  I was seriously heart broken and horrified at what I’d just done.

I had to play the stage again and rectify the mistake.  Of course, doing so turned some rusty sword into the Hero’s Sword that only someone who’d done what I’d done could wield.  She got to speak to me for brief, final time.  What is it with me and things like this.  I’m moved to tears so easily by such things.

On the Shelf

So my wife’s gonna play Bayonetta here and there as a game where she can turn her brain off and just blow shit up.  We’re done with BioShock and sorta looking for another narrative game.  Twice she’s tried to sit through Deus Ex and failed.  She’s a different type of gamer now and actually suggested it.  Well try picking it up again, which will be even easier because I have it on Steam now.

20/20 hindsight

I suppose if I look back I may have seen the earliest hints of where my gaming was going with Final Fantasy X. If you wanted to do everything you’d easily spend over 100 hours doing so.  It may have been the fist time I attempted such a thing and actually didn’t have it in me to finish it.  I just ran out of attention span or something.  This wasn’t like just not maxing every character in an RPG to 99.   These were more obtainable goals like getting ultimate weapons and the such.  I’m not sure what appealed to me so much about RPGs when I was younger.  I’m sure there was a bit of the fact that I could only get a handful of games in a given year.  After discovering Final Fantasy VI I was able to spend insane amounts of time playing one game without getting very bored and without trying to make up silly things to do to improve the life of the game.  MMOs (Final Fantasy XI in particular) happened between X and XII.  Final Fantasy XII offered an amazing amount of stuff to do and I still want to go back and do it sometime.  It’s incredibly fun to play and achieve in, but I failed royally to do this.  This went beyond last-dungeon syndrome (where you get to the end and either start a fresh game based on your knowledge or end up abandoning the game all together).  Of course, I was otherwise occupied when XII came out.

-MMOs

Maybe it was MMOs that largely taught me some level of futility, though in an MMO such efforts are less futile since you at least have bragging rights and people to actively show your awesome gear to as well as uses for it other than some arbitrary super boss put in the game just for those who wanted to max things out.  At the same time, MMOs changed my gaming in another way.  They made me miss years of gaming.  They made me miss countless classics and franchises and I’m not in a mode of eternal catch up.

Trophies and Achievements

The idea of achievements  has always been pleasant to my completionist mind.  They let you feel like you’ve really seen all the game can offer.  If you’re bored they add shelf life to the game.  I would’ve loved to have had these as a kid when I would arbitrarily set a limit on a game mechanic just to give myself something new to do.  Even if you’re not bored they can offer a means of getting you to play outside of your box and maybe find out something new about yourself while trying new things in the game.

I got super gung-ho over trophies in World of Warcraft but it bothered me to know that getting them all would be impossible.  When I finally got a PS3 and 360 I relished (and still do) the idea of being able to actually get 100% completion of trophies and feel truly done with all the game has to offer.

-Trophies can wait

As I recently finished Demon’s Souls and Dead Space I certainly wanted all of their trophies.  However, I also have a ton of games rotting on my shelf and still plenty more I want to buy and play.  I was working hard for a while at getting trophies for both games.  The task wasn’t too arduous, but as I was working on the ADS Cannon trophy in Dead Space I started thing how silly it was when I could be playing and finishing Muramasa: The Demon Blade. My fear of forever shelfing a game and not finishing it was turning me into a monster where I needed to complete a game far beyond completion to be satisfied.  This was a mistake.  Trophies should be aimed at lightly and gotten where they can be.  Harder trophies should not be for immediately 2nd, 3rd and 4th play-throughs, but for a time when you really just feel like picking that game up again, or you’re bored and have little else to do in your game life.  This certainly isn’t my case as I have tons of games I want to at least give a cursory run through.

Killing completionism

I don’t know that I need to totally do away with my completionism, but I need to put it way lower on my list when I’m playing.  With Half-Minute Hero I finally caught myself making the game less fun because I was looking for an efficient way to play it rather than a fun one.  It was still fun, but I was certainly hurting the enjoyment for myself by obsessing with the wrong thing.  Being a completionist on my first run through of a game just makes it likely that I’ll stop short of the ending just because I wore myself out.  Often the goals ca be gotten at later.  This is certainly the case for Half-Minute Hero.

Age

I don’t think being older necessarily has any bearing on anything directly.  However, I can afford more games and I’m also interested in a lot of games that I’ve missed.  That is coupled with the fact that I don’t have as much potential time overall to spend gaming.  It’s still quite a lot and I’m so grateful for the amount of time I do have to play, but I definitely have to be more time conscious and budget my gaming time more appropriately.  I think my natural instinct needs to be avoided.  I don’t need to rush through games just to get through with them, but I also need to not spend inordinate amounts of time with anyone game on or near its first run.