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

Nostalgia Gamer? ...I don't think so.

Alas, yet another period of spotty gaming to be had with me lately, until I finally got a hold of one of those games that drives fandoms wild. The type that splits fans apart, y'see. This game was talked about by the mega-popular V-blogger TheSpoonyOne. Yeah, you know which one I'm talking about. Final Fantasy VIII.

You must be asking "why the hell were you playing that god-awful piece of crap?" Because when I first played this game back when it first came out, I loved it to death! I must have been, what, 13 years old. My raging hormones, fangirlism for Sephiroth, and daily watchings of Digimon had yet to be stopped - and when my dad realized I loved FFVII completely, he brought home FFVIII.

We all know the story here. Squall Leonhart is a student at a military academy called Garden, where he's not very talkative and only really does things to get by. He gets into a training battle with his rival, Seifer, and they both get scars across their respective noses. Squall is preparing to take a test - and passes the test, obviously. He goes to a party, dances with some chick he's never met before, tells his teacher to talk to a wall, and gets assigned to go on a mission with his other new SeeD graduates to help said chick liberate some town out in the middle of nowhere, they get thrown out of town there, end up in another Garden, told to assassinate the sorceress but they fail. And that's all of disc one. Yeah, I know.

One thing I noticed while replaying this game is that I liked the supporting cast. Zell Dincht is a very passionate young man who knows many things, but he's seen as annoying because he tends to over-react to things. Quistis Trepe, once an instructor of Squall's, is an intelligent woman who is very afraid to expressing her emotions openly and hides that at one point she thought she was in love with Squall. Selphie Tilmitt transferred to their Garden right before the story started and is in Squall's homeroom class. She seems so ditzy, but she expresses exactly what's on her mind and when she gets to meet the children she used to take care of in her old Garden, she reveals how supportive she really is. Irvine Kinneas seems to be an annoying playboy on the outside but he puts up a front that hides his deep, quiet nature. He falls in love with Selphie early on and is always there to support her in the end. I liked these characters. I really liked Laguna, Kiros, and Ward more than the main group, Laguna's loyalty and charm really pulled me in. His sense of humor and sense of justice are both on key, and Kiros and Ward are great supporters to him.

That leaves the two main characters, Squall and Rinoa. I have to admit it. I hate them both. I understand where Squall is coming from, but I hate how he goes about it. He's just a jerk to everyone at first, especially the chick he seemingly falls in love with when she falls into a coma. Then when he realizes that the one person in his life who actually tried to be nice to him is isn't there, he all of a sudden turns into a nice guy and does anything he can to bring her back to her true loving nature. Even though she admits early on in the game that she was in love with Seifer at one point, and every time Seifer's name is brought up she acts like she still wants to be with him until she understands that now Seifer is a bad guy and Squall is the good guy. Does this sound like a real romance? Do you see why I can't stand either of them? The romance feels so forced, and that's supposed to be the focus of this story.

....Now the romance between Laguna and Raine seemed more plausible.

Here's a Final Fantasy love story comparison for you. Did the romance between Celes and Locke make much sense to you? I think it made plenty of sense. Celes, beaten and locked away both physically and emotionally, is unlocked through Locke's caring. Celes supports Locke through his quest to revive the lady he once loved. The two of them grow with each other gradually. Or, hey, what about Dagger and Zidane? Zidane "kidnaps" her on a whirlwind of an adventure where Dagger learns how life is for normal people and the attachment grows little by little from the time they meet until the end of the game. The writers at Square can write love in a way that feels natural. (Cecil and Rosa, while they weren't falling love but were together before the story started, doesn't count in this instance.)

The junction system seemed like a great idea, with a way to control each and every single stat a character has without the use of equipment, but comes across as a micromanaging frenzy that must be meticulously set correctly to get the best possible stats. If you're really into games where you manage each and every single detail about your characters, then it might be for you. If not, then it certainly is not. It's very complicated, and as with other Final Fantasy games, there are many diverse spells and items to work with, so you literally have to go through each and every option to see what works for you. When compared to the very simple systems of yesteryear, it seems very overbearing, but it does allow for complete customization of your characters of you're willing to devote time into it. It certainly is not my favorite of the FF character development systems, however it is not the one I hate the most. Sphere Grids in FFX made even less sense to me than this!

As for battles, they all revolve around how your characters are junctioned. Like in Pokemon, you can only have four battle commands at a time, based on which Guardian Forces you have junctioned to you. The only problem with that is it doesn't seem like the humans have any unique powers of their own. They can't even use items without needing a GF to help them. It's a lot like FFVII that way, where you need to have what you want equipped on you, however, at least in FFVII you could play without materia equipped and be able to use items at least... >.> It's nothing like earlier games like FFVI where each character had the magic they learned through the help of the Magicite, and their unique ability. Setzer's slot machine, Locke's steal, Edgar's tools, etc. etc. In FFVIII, none of the abilities are unique to the characters except their limit breaks. That was also a complaint about FFVII I had, too, but it felt less obvious there than in this game.

I loved this game when I was a teenager because I was a teenager. That's who this game was targeted to, the age group that would want a story not about a couple that's been together for years like Rosa and Cecil, but one that's just started as they would be experiencing themselves. Changing emotions, not understanding who they are, graduating school and moving on with one's life... those kinds of things are very typical for kids that age to identify with. Now that I'm over the whole "in love" stuff and I've moved on with my life, I see how juvenile the overall story is. I think if the characters were, one, more around 13 than 17 it would make more for the emotional turmoil they all seem to be in. I don't see the story in the light I used to, but I still wanted to play it again. I don't know if I wanted to visit that time in my life again, as it seems I've done a lot lately with watching Digimon Adventure and listening to Robyn again. Either way, it was a good way to reflect and see how much I have changed since then.

It also opened up my eyes to how well my gaming memory can be, as I hadn't touched FFVIII since at least four years ago until three days ago when I decided to give it a go again. There are things I didn't know I still knew and remembered, secrets and sidequests and everything just stuck with me in a corner of my brain until I decided to use it again, I suppose... I surprised myself with how much I remembered - even coming down to what monsters where carried what spells for drawing, where all the hidden draw points were without needing the ability to see them. Then I wonder if/when I finally get to play my beloved Tales of Symphonia ever again, if by some chance I'll be able to do that with it.

I have no idea what I'll be playing next. So I can't give you a heads up.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

My gaming as of late

Before I start my newest entry, I want to thank the few of you who follow this blog. The whole four of you. I realize I'm not writing really to an audience yet, I'm more writing to practice writing for an audience. xD Thanks either way, though.

Well, I promised last time that I would continue my exploration of the Digiworld with the Digimon World PSX video game series. Truth is, I played very little of Digimon World 2 - only enough to learn that it's just a Digimon-themed Mystery Dungeon copy ala Chocobo's Magical Dungeon and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. When I realized that, I kinda just facepalm'd and left it alone. I have, however, spent quite a bit of time working on Digimon World 3, but nowhere near the hardcore hours I'd put into a game that I've really got my heart into. I guess what I'm saying is that the DW series really hasn't done it for me, making the anime much better than any of the games I've had contact with. If I could recommend a game, I would tell you to play Digimon World 3 for its fun and immersive leveling system. I do love the sprite based graphics, and the training scenes are cute. Does it deserve a whole post on my blog, though? Hardly. I doubt I'll ever finish it, and that makes me sad. However, I have never played Digimon World 4 on Gamecube OR the Digimon games for DS, as I've heard they have good reviews. Also I have Digimon racing on VBA, which is just a Mario-kart wannabe with Digimon characters which makes Patamon suck. D:

As for my gaming lately, it's been kind of spotty. It's been hard to stick to just one game because it seems like Chime has something against me. Every time I play FF5 Advance, which I've really learned to love, after a few hours it'll freeze and throw me back three hours worth of playtime, no matter how much I saved to the battery or savestated. This pissed me off. I had to leave the game alone. I was like, okay fine, you proved your damn point all ready.

So I went to go and pick up a childhood favorite, Legend of Dragoon, which would freeze in each and every bossfight if I went into Dragoon mode, which is the ENTIRE POINT of that game! I managed to play around it until the final boss on the first disk, Dragoon Doel, and the bastard now freezes regardless of WHAT I do. There's still three more disks, and I swear if I find out they play perfectly I'm going to kill someone. I had to walk away from that, too.

I thought about it for a few days. What was I going to play? I ended up reading one of my little brother's status updates on Facebook about him playing Lunar 2 Eternal Blue, which I have to admit is one of my favorite games ever.

AND NOW, Just for your reference!
My most favorite games ever...
in no particular order!!
-Tales of Symphonia
-Grandia 2
-Lunar 2 Eternal Blue
-Dragon Warrior 3
-Zelda Link to the Past
-Pokemon Crystal
-Final Fantasy Tactics
-Suikoden
-Shining Force: Legacy of Great Intention

I was looking at that, and going through my ROM folders to find I had Lunar Legend downloaded. I owned Lunar Legend in high school, and for the life of me I can't remember why I got rid of it. It's actually a remake of the original Lunar: Silver Star Story on the PSX and the Sega Saturn before that. Either way, I decided to go back to the world of Lunar. I loved it too much, and I was feeling nostalgic for it. I love that world as much as I love Alefgard, Sylvarant or Hyrule.

The game's main protagonist is Alex, a young man wishing for adventure like his deceased hero, Dragonmaster Dyne. He is followed by his constant companion, a white flying cat looking creature named Nall and the girl his family adopted when she was found in the village named Luna. One day, Nash comes from Vane on a mission to look around for something and Alex decides to lead him through the nearby woods to show him around. In the woods close to home, Luna and Alex solve a puzzle when they come to a wall which is adorned with a picture of the Goddess Althena, and they find the cave that the White Dragon Quark lives in. There Nash reveals he wishes to be a Dragonmaster and wants to take the trial. Alex, since he's there, also says he wants to take the trial. Quark takes them both to the room of their souls and interviews them both, but in the end, neither become a Dragonmaster, and Nash leaves to report to his guild. Alex decides to leave home to meet the other four dragons and Luna admits she wants to accompany him. Thus the next morning, they leave to the port town and continue their adventure.

The battles are very simple and usually come completely at random while in any map that isn't a city. Each character can attack with their equipped weapon, use skills unique to them, defend, use items in the party's bag, or try to run away. The turn begins with the player putting in commands for each character present, and the actions go in order of the highest speed stat down for both the heroes and the monsters. Each character is very unique, not in just how he or she looks, but with their skills, also. Luna is the only character who can use songs in battle, while Alex flings out flashy but cool sword skills, but Mia has very powerful magics like Blizzard. Nall is a part of the battle by being the cursor that the player uses to pick options, and throwing out free revivals out of the goodness of his heart.

This game is very level based, and you must be a certain level to learn certain skills. Bosses can be very hard or very easy depending on your levels, which makes for level grinding sometimes. Some people love the grind, as I mentioned with my trek through the beginning Dragon Warrior games, but some people, especially the modern new crop of gamers, do not. I believe the level grind is not as terrible as many older games, however, the grind does exist if you aren't careful enough. If you don't run away from monsters in normal fights, you should level just enough to make it without difficulty, so be careful about how you chose to play.

As for an old school RPG, this game is solid, with lots of equipment and accessories to play around with to see how they affect the characters in battle. The sprite based graphics are lovely at all times, and the every-now-and-then anime cut are pleasant. They aren't animated as they were in the PSX games, which is to be expected. Lunar Legend was one of the GBA's first releases (as in it was the 808th game to come out for a library which would have eventually thousands) and I think it was really under loved.

My only real complaint about this game is the music. God, this music sounds nothing like the epic tunes I heard playing Lunar on the PSX. It doesn't catch my ear or hold my attention like the games on the PSX, and that is disappointing. However, it's such a minor complaint that I wouldn't worry about it very much. For the most part, you might want to provide your own soundtrack while playing the GBA version.

The characters are fun, even if the story is cliched, and if you don't mind a twenty hour romp in a classic gaming world, this is a good title for you. I started it night before last, and I'm about eight hours into it. I haven't had many complaints thus far.

I would tell you where my gaming travels would take me next, but right now, I have no idea.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

Hey, Digimon! Hey, Digimon! Monster friends to the boys and girls!

Ah.

Nostalgia is one of those feelings we all get, especially once we've grown up and become adults that have to take care of bigger things than just playing around and going to school in our daytime. I have come into contact again with a series that has always been near and dear to my heart: Digimon.

I hear what you're saying now. "DIGIMON?! SERIOUSLY?!" Yep! When I was in my pre-teen years, Digimon was almost my entire life. It was the first anime that I'd seen, and coupled with the game Final Fantasy VII, I started taking a real interest in anime at the time. Well, no, the very first anime I'd ever seen was actually Dragon Warrior: Legend of the Hero Abel when I was extremely little back before any of us outside of Japan even knew what anime was. But I wasn't at a very coherent age at the time, so Digimon feels more like my first anime.

I hopped along for the ride watching Digimon Adventure O1, starring Tai and his friends on their quest to save the Digital World from the Dark Masters and Apocylamon. Then, I watched Digimon Adventure 02, set four years after the first one, starring Davis and a newer crop getting advice and help from the older kids. I always thought that the game would make a great setup for an RPG. You've seen it all before. Get sucked into a strange world, gather party members, and battle your way home. Along the way you get power-ups, new abilities, new characters, new places, hell, Digimon Adventure both 01 and 02 was perfect. So when I ran into the Digimon World video game series, of course, I was excited!

I originally found the Digimon Adventure title on the PSX at my local K-mart. That's how you know it's old, ha! It wasn't as pricey as most games out there, which worked in my 13 year old favor. The game stars a hero being sucked into one of those toy digivices after having a very small personality test to determine your starting partner. If you like the daytime, you start with Agumon and if you like the nightime, you start with Gabumon. From here, based on how they are trained, they can literally digivolve into anything. Not that it makes a lot of sense.

Digimon Adventure didn't feel anything like the show. You weren't a Digidestined. It was like a pixel on polygon pseudo 3D version of the old box-shaped Digimon keychain toys, complete with feeding, scolding, praising, and even taking your pet to the local potty. Sometimes it feels more like babysitting than a game about battling monsters, and beware, if you poop outside of the potty, your virus contamination will go up and you'll end up turning into a digimon made of poo named Numemon. Especially if you are playing data types, which are weak to viruses and virus type digimon. However, even if your digimon is a virus-type, this still happens to it, and there are nowhere near enough outhouses in the game to warrant such torture.

If you're asking if I like Digimon World as a game, I can't lie. It's a frustrating mess most of the time. How do you predict without a walkthrough how your Digimon will Digivolve when it comes time? Yes, it's timed. Each Digimon has a lifespan based on the game's internal clock. A baby digimon will digivolve to an in-training digimon after 6 in-game hours. Not real life hours, but in-game hours. It takes about a day for a rookie to go to a champion, and during that time, if you aren't bulking your stats just perfectly, then you don't know what you'll digivolve into. My favorite digimon from the show was Patamon. Of course, I wanted one in my game to have for my very own. But as many times as I played this in my youth, I never got one, ever. I never knew how. And that made me a very sad fangirl. Eventually even if you get the digimon you want, they will "die" and get reconfigured into a brand new digimon for ya instantly, making you having to start ALL OVER.

Now that the internet has all these walkthrough databases like GameFAQs, there are walkthroughs for every type of game out there, this game included. I bet if I really followed one of those guides I could have a Patamon in my game, and maybe even then get an Angemon! Hold on, though - any legitimate gamer out there would be insulted even considering that kind of offer. You know that, right? Well, I'm here to confirm that is the truth with me. I want to be able to figure it out on my own, both as a fan of Digimon and as a gamer. The digivolution path for Digimon World is just outrageous and confusing, plus the game won't tell you how to get any of it.

When I was a kid, I ended up trading this game in after a few months of trying to figure it out. I put the trade credit with Game Exchange to getting my own copy of Final Fantasy VII, as I had been playing on my grandpa's shop's copy for a while. I had given up hope on that game. Just this week, I picked it up again for my PSXfin on my computer in hopes of finding something that would make this game appeal to me as an older gamer with more experience. It's true that I find many games much easier now than when I was a kid, so I thought I'd give it another go out of my undisputed, unrivaled love for the Digiworld. Sadly, the copy I downloaded freezes up whenever money is obtained after a battle, so it looks like I'll never be able to find out.

However, this week has also been the first times I have tried playing both Digimon World 2 and 3, and I have to say that the first game gave me so much to desire that I'm bound to love either one of these in comparison.

I'll get to going to Digital City with my Digi-Buggy next time in Digimon World 2.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri

PS: I am very sorry about not continuing the Dragon Warrior part of my gamer's blog. I have only played part 4 of the Zenithian Saga, and until I can get my hands on parts 5 and 6, I won't go into them. I don't want to break apart the look at the whole saga in general. Alefgard may be safe now, but there's another world for heroes to save in the World of Dragon Warrior.

Smile Slime PART FIVE

Part Five: Loto and His... err... Her? Merry Men
Started: October 20, 2010

Considered by many a fan to be the finest hour in the entire Dragon Warrior saga, the third game details the story of Loto, the first Dragon Warrior, as he conquered over the Demon Lord Baramos and started a lineage of heroes that would continue saving the world, as detailed in DWI and II. Of course, by now, I've heard quite a bit about this Loto. When I found out that Loto was the hero of III and would start the entire story that I'd been experiencing thus far in my Dragon Warrior venture, I was excited. Here I was going to meet the hero who started a great legacy...

Booting up my Visualboy Advance, the game presents a nice intro about the hero Ortega having to leave to defeat the Demon Lord right after the birth of his baby. Poor kid. Poor Mama, too. Anyway, Ortega is given a special horned helmet, then the King's men give him a great send off, and he ventures into a volcano where it seems he had cornered the Big Bad after all. In an over-the-top battle, Ortega manages to take him down - but falls into the mouth of the volcano with his nemesis.

On the eve of the hero's sixteenth birthday, he is treated to a strange dream where a voice is asking him a series of questions to figure out what kind of person he's talking to. Here is where the player takes over. You play as Loto him... or herself. Yep. You could come all this way and learn that Loto was a girl, should you decide to play as a girl. The way that I see it in my head, yeah, Loto could very well have been female, but legends of great warriors that pass down generations turned her male in the imaginations of all the descendants. And, as we all know, I'm female myself - so my experience is that way. Excuse me. But the mysterious voice asks you several questions to figure out who you are, and all of the questions lead to a different scenario, depending on how you answered. Once the man in the sky tells you what kind of personality you have, then you find yourself waking up to your sixteenth birthday.

For your awesome sweet sixteen, you get to go meet the king and tell him that you want to finish the job your father Ortega started. The King says that's an awesome idea, hands you some gold pieces (referred from now on as G), some weapons and some basic armor - telling you to go to Rudia's Tavern and find some companions. So just a hop, skip, and a jump away, the hero goes to the tavern and can make his own friends upstairs. I don't know if that guy up there is God himself, but if you give him specs on a party member you want, he'll just write them down for you, and then you can go to Rudia and have them summoned to join your party. Those are some cool scrolls! There are a nice number of classes you can make your members into, and you can choose male or female for any of the classes available. Once you distribute the stat seeds to a character, God will give them a personality also. I decided to go with a fun combination: myself, a warrior, a dealer, and a cleric. After creating friends out of nothing, the player can go out into the world!!

Dragon Warrior III doesn't seem very linear, as you can take the game at your pace, but things do have to be done in certain orders before other things open up. For example, your first task is to get the Thief's Key from Najimi Tower. Without it, you cannot get the Magic Bomb which will open the Traveler's Gate which will take you to Romaly. Why do you want to go there? That's the direction Ortega went, and our hero is trying to find Papa's nemesis, that's why.

After getting to Romaly, a whole new continent opens up to you, but you have to be wary of where you walk at all times. If you cross a bridge, the enemies will get significantly harder than on the side you were on before. That tends to be a Dragon Warrior staple as a warning for players to keep an eye on their levels. There's a host of problems over here to solve. The crown of the King was stolen by bandits, there's an entire town cursed to sleep forever, the elven princess seems to have vanished... and it's up to you to solve each of these smaller problems of the world to get experience in battle and artifacts which will further your main purpose.

Eventually, our hero and his... her party will find the Demon Lord Baramos and defeat him, but... wait a minute. There's more shit to do. Looks like Daddy wasn't after the true enemy. Zoma has stepped up to the plate causing a ruckus, and since you're still the appointed hero, guess what?

While the story may seem cliched and overdone, the GBC Dragon Warrior III is a joy to play if you don't mind it. The character creation system makes the game more than replayable, as every player gets to have their own experiences while playing it. When I talk to my friends who play this game about how the game went for them, they tell me of their unique cast of characters and their ways of having to defeat the enemies which differ from my own. Unlike a lot of other JRPGs out there, both good and bad, the only character set in stone for this game is your hero, and using the personality system, even that could be very different. Once I played where the hero was a better spellcaster than a swordswoman, and I've got a friend who's hero is the strongest person in their party overall. There are lot of games, such as Final Fantasy IV, where the party at any given time is always set in stone. At the end of FF4, you always have Cecil, Rosa, Kain, Edge, and Rydia. That's all. Cecil attacks, Rosa heals, Kain jumps, Edge throws crap, and Rydia summons. No matter what version of FF4 you play, Rydia will always learn Meteo at level 68. This isn't the case with DWIII, and I love it for that. My hero can be whatever I built her to be, my partners are what I made them. Yes, each class will learn spells at set levels, however, using them may be a different story based on the personality types that your characters will have throughout the game. Yeah, that Cleric has healing spells, but what if her INT isn't high enough to heal as well as the hero, for example? What if the Cleric has more Vitality than anyone else in the group, and can act as a tank better than a Warrior? It's achievable here! While your story is set, your characters are not, and this is more than wonderful.

What really gets me is how your created characters will also have a great impact on the story. Your dealer will leave to start his or her own town. A member of your group will willingly give up their life to help the hero's party when stuck in a trap. Who will it be? Who knows?

Sadly, Dragon Warrior III was the last chapter set in this world I'd grown to love. Loto's saga is now at rest. When we look at the many chapters of DW4 next time, the new Zenithian Saga will begin.

Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Suzuri