To Make a Mark in History

I know, I know. I haven't updated anything lately. But I have an excuse! Listen to me, now, I have an excuse!

(Hint: the video is my excuse!)

So, while my gaming hasn't been spectacular whatsoever, I have been making perler art. Yeah, so what there's a billion geeky craft blogs now? That's not what my blog is about. I'm just telling you that I've been making them. Well, if you ever went to my deviantART (I don't know why you would, since it's connected to this very page at the bottom), you'd see my later stuff, too.

What have I been playing? A little of this, little of that. A friend of my husband donated a fully functional NES to us, and I demanded some RPG for it so I could make use of it, too. The RPG chosen? Only the very first console style RPG in the history of gaming, Dragon Warrior! You know, that game is actually slow, the action is all text based, and you have to spend days grinding to do anything, but holy crap on a stick, I love this game.

Wait a Tantagel minute, though. I covered Dragon Warrior before, right? Yeah, the GBC version, and on a ROM no less. This is an actual cart - that keeps saves all these years later. Playing it with that square controller that will put bumps on your hands after a while, pressing that A button almost all the time, never having enough gold to buy all the equipment you find in the last town until you have to buy something three times as much to survive the grind to get the gold for the current equipment. You want that Magic Armor? Well, you're gonna earn it. In fact, you're gonna earn everything in this game, including a marriage you may or may not want.

This is where it all started, ladies and gentleman. This is where the entire subgenre of "JRPG" or "console style RPG" was born. That has quite a bit of power behind it, considering the industry giant that the RPG genre has become in today's gaming. In my attempt to study the History of the Evolution of the console style RPG, I'm compelled to play and beat this game in its original format on a TV set to channel 4 with a square controller. Not doing so is... well, it's just something my Gamer's Heart won't let me get away with. If I'm gonna make it a point to study these things, I have to bury myself in the history by playing what was made back then, since there's no way to travel to that time period and experience the rush of these games coming out as they were brand new. My husband tells me of the days when he believed that Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior were going to be cutting at each other's throat for dominance in our hearts, that it would be as epic as Star Trek vs Star Wars with the nerds, that each and every game would only try to up its competitor and we'd all relish in the awesomeness that was now available for play. I would love to journey to an alternate world where that is the case. It would be better than Square and Enix merging, putting Dragon Quest on the back burner, and dumping all of its money into a dying franchise. The two epic companies behind greatness like Chrono Trigger on one side, and Robotrek on the other. My personal opinion of this merge isn't exactly the best, since all Squeenix has managed to produce is things like Unlimited Saga, Kingdom Hearts 2, and The Bouncer. Every now and then, they manage to eek out a glimpse of hope, like Dragon Quest IX, but when you put the vast amount of crap on the scale against the games that Squeenix has managed to make that is actually worth playing... I think you see where I'm going with this.

Enough of my rant. Dragon Warrior was made before all of that. Before Final Fantasy even was conceived in Hironobu Sakaguchi's mind. It inspired a whole genre. A whole genre that has captured the hearts of millions around the world, be they casual or hardcore. Hard to believe that when Final Fantasy was in creation, they thought "we have to be better than Dragon Quest. we want more characters in a party, more weapons, more spells, more armor, more monsters, more dungeons", isn't it? While Sakaguchi wanted to tell a story, he did make a great game and people everywhere thought so, too. There have been numerous sequels and spinoffs of Final Fantasy. Dragon Quest hasn't the same amount of sequels, however, it's my opinion that there's a greater number of better Dragon Quest games and spinoffs that are great games, as opposed to what's got the Final Fantasy name slapped onto it just to boost sales from fan-twats.

I'm gonna be bold here for a minute, gamers, and tell you right now that if you claim to be an RPG fan, you need to do the same. I understand not all of us have NES consoles anymore, and we may have too modern of a TV to even play with one anyway. Then play it on the GBC or even on emulator, the way it was meant to be played. No save-states, no fast-forwarding. Experience the game the way it was meant to so that you, too, may experience a piece of gaming history.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go kill some Goldman enemies to get some gold for my magic armor. If I can survive that area of the continent, that is!

Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Suzuri

Suzuri's Thoughts: Gaming of Today

Gaming friends, I must apologize for holding out on you for so long. No, I haven't forgotten about angelslime.blogspot.com, after all, I only tell everyone I know repeatedly to come and check it out. Turns out that either no one gives a random two shits about my gaming adventures in games that are over a decade old, or I'm horrible at being a gaming columnist, or some other criteria I haven't noticed yet that seems to keep people from being actually engaged by what I write here. Not like I do it for anyone else, right? I thought it was just going to be for myself - but since I realized my readership was so low, I haven't wanted to show back up here at all lately. Not like I've made any discoveries in the world of gaming these last few months anyway. I've had things to do, like celebrating my daughter's second birthday.

Instead of reporting on the gaming I've done the last few months, I'll instead go into stuff that I'm looking forward to finally getting a chance to play. I'm broke (it happens when you have kids) and so I haven't had a new game since... since... my copy of HeartGold I got a few years ago. Wonderful, right? I'll admit that there's nothing on a current gen system that I want to bite my teeth into, save Tales of Vesperia (I know, I haven't played that one EITHER). That game's a few years old.

No, right now, I want to play very few games that are brand spanking new. Give me Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon Black, Golden Sun DS, or Tales of the Abyss' remake on the 3DS. On my "list to be played" that's about it. I want my JRPGs, and I freakin' want them now. No Call of Duty, no Resident Evil, just some straight up anime lookin' characters leveling up to beat bosses that eventually save the world. I'm stuck in my little gaming niche, and I like it in here. I've spent most of my life either slashing my sword in a Legend of Zelda title or level grinding to beat a boss in Final Fantasy so long that I don't mind. And while there's a heaping lot of it out there today, damn it, there's so little I want to invest my time in.

New games come out every damn day, and I still want to only play six games (I didn't mention that I actually want to try Final Fantasy Dissidia for some stupid reason, did I?) - some of which are a few years old all ready. What's happened to the state of gaming lately? The more I think about it, the more I want to go to Japan and curb stomp some developers. Even people who don't follow the same stuff I do (mainly Pokemon, Dragon Quest, and Tales of) complain about the lack of originality, creativity, and even COLOR in a lot of games. Who the hell takes colors away from gaming? Apparently, people who play FPS titles only like seeing worlds made of shitty brown, boring gray, and various hues of those two colors with a splash of red blood every now and then, unless you're German, then you'll see green. What happened? It was Mario who saved the industry from taking a nose dive into just being a fad instead of actually being a mainstay within the media, and my girls are still dazzled over how colorful the game is now. The shiny cold coins, the glowing Starman, the fireworks at the end of a level... things used to be so simple, and now, it seems like things have changed. Even for the genres I love.

Okay, I've written about my love affair with Final Fantasy that took place during my junior high years here on this blog before, and I'll be honest, I still like the series quite a bit. FFIX is my favorite of the numbered installments, Tactics is my favorite overall, and the Crystal Chronicles series always makes me come back and see what else they're up to. Well, now, this year they put out both Final Fantasy XIII and XIV. You'd think that I'd jump on that like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat, and if the games were anything like they were on the PSX days, yes, I would be. Even with FFVIII's numerous flaws. I accept them and move on with with my life. But FFXIII took the series in a whole new direction. What's this "if your one character dies in battle it's game over" bullshit? How come that dipshit Snow can't use a phoenix down on Lightning like I would have Tifa use on Cloud if he got KO'd, for example? Does no one see all of the changes made, as if it were being... dumbed down? No? FFXII made me believe that after the travesty that was FFX, the series could recover and we'd go back to lighting the crystals with no problems whatsoever. Something's missing both from gameplay and narrative of the new FF games and people keep buying them hand over fucking foot. Why? Well, the game's graphics are stunning to say the least. I won't deny that at all. But there is a problem with that.

Here's a little thing to think about. We consumers tell the media what we want when we buy things, and whatever sells is what will be mass produced. If we want more dumbed down, shiny graphic-y games, then we put money in the hands of developers and let them make more of it. If we want more colorless, bland, generic FPS titles, then we should just keep buying them. I don't like what I see, save a handful of titles, out of the entire industry, and I don't like to think I'm being picky - I like to think that I'm being honest with myself. If games I like stop being made, will I cease to be a gamer? Hardly, I have tons of games from over 10 years ago that will keep me happily entertained as I have been the last few years being broke and all. I'll just have to be retro-exclusive, though I don't believe that you can call a PSX title retro no matter how old it gets. Tell me that Star Ocean 2 is retro, and I'll tell you to go look at freakin' "Ultima Exodus: The Quest for the Avatar" on the NES for a retro RPG, okay?

I have so little income to work with that I have to know whether I'll like a game before I buy it, and I can't afford to plop down $40 to see if I'll like something new. When I spend, it has to be something that will give me tons of replayability, or a very long ass quest, or something to keep me engaged for months. I guess that's why each time a Pokemon game comes out, I'll slap down the money to get it. I'll play it for a year without getting tired of it, and now with bonuses like trading online or even voice chatting. I'm even more interested...

*sigh*

Thanks for reading,
Much love,
Suzuri

Whisked away to Expel

You wouldn't believe the gaming festivities I've had since the turn of the new year. No, I haven't had any new games bought for me, however, I seem to have a new symbiotic relationship with the website www.emuparadise.org with all of their available titles for download. Sure, my state-of-the-art (last year) computer isn't capable of running Tales of Symphonia or any other Gamecube title, however, it is fully able to emulate Playstation titles, which may very well be the finest generation in all of gaming history.

I say this because of the wide variety of games available for the Playstation, especially in the RPG category. I can't really call myself a gamer completely as there are some genres I don't play at all and avoid with a passion - FPS and survival horror in particular. But if a game stars a blue haired hero stranded on a new world with a sword then damn straight I'll give it a shot. I don't promise it'll be good (I'm looking at you, Star Ocean: Til the End of Time), but I'll give it a shot.

This brings me to a title that I wish I had the chance to play when I was a kid. Star Ocean: The Second Story. In the very start of the game, you choose to play one of two main characters. Claude Kenni is a boy from Earth who is a student at a Space-based Military Academy. Rena Lanford is our blue haired heroine who lives on the planet Expel gifted with the ability of healing. I know what you're thinking, that this is going to be one of those anime-based games where all the characters are very cliche. Actually, it's not that bad on the cliches. You just have to keep an open mind, really.

The story is different based on the hero you decide to play as, coming down to which characters may or may not permanently join your group.  When I played recently, I chose Rena, so I didn't get to see how Claude was whisked away to the world of Expel or the kind of technologically advanced society he comes from.

Rena lives in a little country village called Arlia on the fantasy-like world of Expel with her mother, every day going into the nearby Shingo Forest for a walk. One particularly average sunny day, Rena goes for a walk and she's attacked by a demonic ape of some sort, and Claude rushes in with his space-age technology to save her after being blasted from a planet far on the other side of the galaxy to there. Seeing the beams of light from his gun and the alien clothing he wears, Rena believes that Claude is a "Warrior of Legend" who has come to save their world from all its ails. She decides to lead him to town, wondering about the place called Urth that Claude says he's from, and telling everyone important in her life about how he saved her with his "sword of light". Claude doesn't buy it for a minute, of course, and the mayor of Arlia tells Claude about the Sorcery Globe which crash-landed on the faraway continent of El. This ball of technology seems to have made all the animals turn to monsters, caused stress among leaders of the world leading to wars, and has destroyed the lives of countless citizens. The people of Expel have no way of understanding it, as they are still in the times of swords and sorcery. After saving Rena from a possessed childhood friend, the pair set out in the world to discover what exactly the Sorcery Globe is as Claude believes it may be his only chance to get home.

After this, the game opens up to the player. What would you like to do? Level grind? Explore some dungeons? Cook up some tasty meals? Pick the pockets of every person you find? Gain affection points with characters? Look for new characters to add to your party? Build your own weapons and armor? Yep. While linear in narrative, you can stop that narrative pretty much any time you want to do whatever you feel like doing. You can walk out of a dungeon you're fed up with and spend the day having your characters write books that will affect the relationships between themselves and other characters if you feel like it, provided you have the talent and the skills you need to do it.

Skill points come to a character every single time they level up, which you can spend on various skills learned by reading text books or buying books from the nearby skill guild. You might not think that the skills "Kitchen Knife", "Good Eye", and "Recipe" would be handy for going on a world saving adventure, but if you learn all of these skills, you open up the command "Cooking" and if you have ingredients on you, you can attempt to cook. While you may have cooking available to you, however, if you do not have the talent "Sense of Taste" then your cooking will always remain unsuccessful and you won't be able to make anything edible - however, if you keep trying, the talent can open up for you, depending on how well the character is able to adapt to that sort of talent. (This isn't just for cooking, but for any other talent based skill, too.) Cooking is not only useful to sell your dishes to stores for a profit, but each and every character has a favorite food that acts as a personal elixir for them outside of battle. It also increases their mood, so if you feed a character their favorite food, then do a private action with them, more than likely you'll get positive affection points between those two characters. This is just one of the many options open to the player at any time he or she feels like going about it.

Another is building your eight character party the way you want it to be. Out of the cast of eleven playable characters, you can only have eight. Aside from Claude and Rena, the rest of them are completely up to you. Do you want Ashton, the dual sword wielding gentleman with two dragons on his back; or do you want the busty blonde alien chick, Opera, who uses a bazooka? If you go get Opera, do you also go and get her handsome whip-slashing boyfriend Ernest, or do you want to win her heart for your own? Do you want to have the family-oriented herbalist Bowman, or the teenage mechanical genius Precis? Sometimes when you get a character, you can't go and get others. If you play as Rena, you have a chance to get her childhood friend Dias, but if you play as Claude, he will not join the group at all. Instead you'll get the little boy who invented the Lacour Hope, Leon, who looks up to Claude like a brother. To see all of the story, you have to play a multitude of times, which really adds to this game's replayability. My last playthrough, I had the party of Rena, Claude, Celine, Opera, Ernest, Bowman, Dias, and Chisato. When I play again, however, I want to have Ashton instead of Opera, Precis instead of Bowman, and Noel instead of Chisato. Just to see what those characters can do and how they affect the character development.

Oh, and one other thing, this game has an astounding 87 obtainable endings. Personally, I don't know any other game with that many endings. By doing private actions and increasing affection points, you can have any character get with any other character. Some are much harder than others, but if you want to have an ending where Ernest marries Rena instead of Opera, for example, it's possible. But if you want to have an ending where Ernest and Bowman get together, that's also an option. It's very open-minded and progressive that way, out to please every single type of fan who might pick this game up.

Simply put, Star Ocean: The Second Story may not be perfect, but it's easy to get lost in. The character development as the story progresses is very nice, and all the things you can do in between dungeons can take up so much of your game time, you'll be surprised. If you like games that have a lot of options for the player, then this is one for you, even if you don't like RPGs. And the combat system is NOT Final Fantasy-esque turn-based combat either. It plays like Tales of Destiny but on a completely 3D battlefield. It's fast, it's intense. It doesn't completely bog you down.

Trust me. I highly recommend this title for anyone who likes RPGs, or customization. Though it may be hard to get a hold of without getting it via emulator. Last I checked it went for $110 on Amazon. However the game was remade for PSP as Star Ocean: The Second Evolution, which contains much of the same features and some added extras.

Play it. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri