Thank the Maker it's Friday! It's been kind of a grueling week, to say the least. Between some issues with my bipolar, and some weird news that I got, it's been tough. But, the weekend is here now, and it's time to relax!
It now feels odd to not have a loot shooter beta/demo this weekend, after three consecutive weekends with either Anthem or The Division 2. I guess I'll have to play actual released games.
I'd like to finish Resident Evil 2 this weekend, at least one playthrough, but I'm chafing at the backtracking and fetch-quest aspects of the game a bit. I'm overall really enjoying it, but my heart sinks every time I see that I need to find six different plugs based on chess pieces, and I have no fucking clue where to go to find the rest of them. Sigh ...
... I've also been contemplating jumping back into Pathfinder: Kingmaker and finishing it off. I dearly love a lot of things about that game, and then clench my teeth at other parts. I dig the story, characters, combat, and appreciate what Owlcat intended with the kingdom management bits, but I actually get angry at how 'hardcore' this game wants to be, and I hate that the game can set you on the path toward a fail state hours before you realize it. That shit's just lame.
I don't understand the crowd that wants brutally unfair and 'hardcore' cRPGs, but I won't look down on them, either. People find their bliss in different things, and that's part of what makes games great. The diversity in gaming is fantastic.
That being said, I'm not someone that a) enjoys being punched in the teeth by a game, and b) has the time to be overly challenged. I like having to think my way through things, but I need actual clues to work with, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker fails hard in this regard at times.
When I finish the game, I think it'll be the most hours I've ever put into a game that I somewhat hated (and liked at the same time.) Dragon Quest XI will be just behind it.
Confession time. Actually, I've confessed this before, but it still needs to be reviewed and analyzed, so whatever.
I started gaming in the 80s, and very quickly took to RPGs. There's always been something about living a great novel that has always appealed to me. I love my real life, but I also love the escapism and investing myself in another world that comes with a great RPG. I love the lore, the compelling narrative, the rich characters, the deep systems, all of it. It's really about all I play. I'm at a point now in which, if I venture into another genre, it feels shallow and almost pointless. There have been a few remarkable exceptions, but nearly every non-RPG game feels like something in which I cannot find something to invest myself. 2D platformers feel like me just pressing buttons while getting aggravated. Even a lot of the old classics feel like little more than nostalgic diversions that ring utterly hollow.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN I JUDGE YOU FOR LIKING WHAT YOU LIKE, SO TAKE A GODDAM BREATH.
However, that atrocity is not what I am here to confess.
My early RPGs were things like Ultima and ... Ultima, maybe? And some really primitive shit on Atari of which I can't remember the name.
All that got blown out of the water, though, by the first Final Fantasy. I remember reading about it in a Nintendo Power strategy guide. NP briefly went to a weird format in which every other issue was a strat guide for a game. I wanna say the others were Ninja Gaiden II (one of the great non-RPGs of all time) and some other shit. SMB3, maybe?
Anyway, I read the guide in advance of the game, fell in love with all the numbers and huge land masses, saved up my allowance, and then walked down to the local Wal-Mart and bought it. And fell madly in love. That was potentially the single-most life-changing gaming experience I've ever had. It really altered not only what kind of games I knew I loved, but solidified that I wanted to be a creative person for the rest of my life.
And I pretty much stuck with JRPGs through the 90s (Final Fantasy was released in the US in 1990.)
I did have a time in which I didn't play much. I took a break from gaming to have sex with girls, smoke weed, and get drunk, before I realized I could combine all that with my love of gaming.
Side note - of any man I know, I have the highest ratio of taste in great games to hot chicks I bedded in the 90s. I know that Final Fantasy VI was the best console game of the 90s AND I slept with a model in the 90s. Just sayin'.
As the turn of the century hit, JRPGs tanked. Or I outgrew them. Or both. Or I dunno. It all kinda peaked for me with Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross. They're both amazing games, and signal, for me, the end of an era. I've played great JRPGs since then, most notably Final Fantasy XII and Lost Odyssey, but the PS2/Xbox era was where I made a pretty drastic transition.
I can point at two games that caused this major disruption for me. First, Final Fantasy X, despite the great battle system, was a bad game, at least for what I need from a game. The characters, the story, the tone, and the world were all off-putting. The lack of a world map grated on me, but I accepted that Squenix was trying to on-board new fans, and I guess that was a thing or whatever. I actually really enjoyed FFX-2 a LOT more. Gone was the melodrama and incessant whining, replaced with a hilarious and lighthearted tone, which was vastly appreciated.
So, FFX was the first incident. The second was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I remember reading about it, probably in EGM, and thinking 'oh, it's not turn-based, so I don't give a fuck.' Then, I was over at a buddy's place in St. Louis, pulling bong hits, while he explained to me this amazing 'KoOR' game that his other buddy had, and how there were all these different choices that you could make, and it sounded pretty cool. So, a few nights later, I hooked up with this hot Puerto Rican gal in Chicago, and as we were stumbling down a street, I saw we were going past an EB Games, and decided 'fuck it,' and ducked in with her. I snagged an Xbox and a used copy of KotOR. We went back to my place, and proceeded to get loaded while I set up my Xbox and KotOR. I ended up stopping because I could tell I was gonna miss out on my first Latina if I didn't refocus. We went upstairs, had our fun, and then, afterward, when she was asleep, I snuck back down to start playing.
In my defense, I did have breakfast made for her, since I'd been up all night trying to find Bastila.
And KotOR really tipped the scales. From there, I got into Jade Empire, KotOR II, The Elder Scrolls, and then I shifted over to PC gaming during the PS360 era, and discovered the wonderful Piranha Bytes games, The Witcher, and more. I still buy every Final Fantasy that comes out. I played through X, X-2, XII, XIII, but haven't finished one since. I'm pretty lukewarm on FFXV. Honestly, most of it is that it's only on console (I play almost exclusively on a pretty spiffy laptop that I can take anywhere), and the characters are BLAH.
Looking back, though, it's funny, because I missed out on some of the best PC gaming ever. I wasn't on PC at the time that Baldur's Gate, Torment, Arcanum, NWN, and others were hitting.
And that's more or less my confession. I can't decide if I'm a fraud or not. I'm a nearly-40 PC gamer that has never played through a BioWare game that came out before KotOR. I'm sure some snide neckbeard is sneering at me as he reads this, but just remember. I had a better 90s than you did. I guarantee it.
Looking back over the years, I think my greatest RPG gaming experiences, and this is really another post for another time, are probably Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VII, KotOR, Dragon Age: Origins, The Witcher, SWTOR, Pillars of Eternity, and probably something amazing that I'm not thinking of at the moment.
What about you? Have you swung both ways, in terms of JRPGs and cRPGs? What do you prefer? What are your favorites?
Videos
Here's some cool shit about video games from today.
Also, I am streaming today at 1630 and 2000 (central time) over on my Twitch channel. Not sure what we're gonna at 1630, maybe some Divinity: Original Sin 2, and then 2000 will be the resumption of The Road to Andromeda: Mass Effect 3. See ya tonight!
