Running the mercenary unit Militaires Sans Frontières like a Big Boss

I’m not sure where I first heard this–or if it is even true–but Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was originally supposed to be the real Metal Gear Solid V. And Hideo Kojima’s last game. I’m glad neither of those came to be, and while I don’t know too much about The Phantom Pain–I’ve avoided listening to countless podcasts over the last month or so, as well as skipped any and all coverage at Giant Bomb to remain as spoiler-free as possible–I do know that the newest game involves taking on individual missions to recruit members to your main base and grow its power and potential. Well, Peace Walker does that too, but on a much smaller scale.

Set in 1974 in Costa Rica, Peace Walker follows the exploits of returning protagonist Big Boss–you might remember him as Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater–as he runs the mercenary unit Militaires Sans Frontières (Soldiers Without Borders). A mysterious group called the Peace Sentinels have been deployed in-country. Unfortunately, the Costa Rica government cannot do anything about them because the country’s constitution does not allow the creation of armed forces. The presence of the Peace Sentinels threatens to endanger the balance of power between the East and West, forcing Snake to intervene. Plus, he wants to build up his Mother Base.

Peace Walker is broken up into two primary modes: “Mission” and “Mother Base.” Missions are the traditional action/sneaking scenarios of the previous games, with Snake creeping through a jungle or occupied building to either kill a certain someone, rescue somebody or somebodies, or gather some intel. It’s the expected mix of sneaking, fighting, and watching. Mother Base is a crew managing simulation where you assign people to different work areas to strengthen your soldiers, upgrade your items and weapons, or keep everybody healthy, happy, and fed.

For missions, you can play either as Snake or a male or female MSF soldier, though some missions will only be available for one or the other. Your score is penalized with a lower rank and reduced heroism for the excessive murdering of soldiers or frequently being discovered, which works fine for me as I’m all about stealth pistols, stun grenades, and using the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system to send knocked-out enemies to Mother Base to switch sides. Also, using items and weapons results in leveling them up at the end of a successful mission, which means Snake is only going to get better and better at making grown men fall asleep where they stand. Peace Walker is designed for co-op play, but I’ve been doing fine so far going at it solo.

In terms of story, so far, Peace Walker is fairly traditional. Shocking, right? I mean, I’m fighting straight up tanks for boss battles at the moment, not psychics that can read my memory card save data. That said, I expect this to go from sane to insane in a short span of time, and I’m really digging the comic book style to the cutscenes, drawn by Ashley Wood, especially when they are interactive. Peace Walker was originally a PSP game, and it shows, but boy is its style on fleek. On the fleck? I don’t know how the kids talk these days.

Not all is amazing though. Camouflage, while still being there and a collectible factor in terms of different outfits for Naked Snake, seems to be completely inessential. You also cannot crawl, and I will never remember this as it is my go to when almost being spotted–to drop to the ground as swiftly as possible and lay prone. I’m not sure going forward what the bosses are like, but I’ve only taken on a tank currently and am looking to more supernatural elements to intervene. Lastly, the whole Mother Base simulation side can be extremely daunting at first, to the point that I simply relied on auto-assignment to place captured soldiers; thankfully, Mother Base opens slowly, which means it is not overwhelming immediately.

It certainly seems like there’s a lot of missions–both main story-wise and side objectives–to go for Peace Walker, so I’ve got some time still before I can load up Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes and see how the newest franchise plays. Surely Naked Snake will be able to crawl on his stomach. Surely.

Turn LEGO Marvel’s post-game grind into power

When I beat LEGO Marvel Super Heroes over the weekend–and by beat I mean finished all the mainline story levels and watched the credits roll–I was around the 17% completion ratio. Yowza. I’ve since then been plugging away at all the miscellaneous tasks in the hub world, finding new side levels to unlock, as well as replayed a level or two to get all its minikits or save that Stan Lee in peril I missed on the first attempt. I’m now around the 34% completion ratio–double yowza–and that’s after several hours of doing my thing. Yeah, these LEGO games are becoming more bloated with each new release.

Let me list everything out that I need to complete for LEGO Marvel Super Heroes in terms of collectibles to convince myself that I’m not a crazy fella:

• 150 Minikits
• 50 Stan Lee in Peril
• 11 Deadpool Red Bricks
• 250 Gold Bricks
• 156 Character Tokens
• 40 Vehicle Tokens
• 11 Hub Missions

Triple yowza. Yeah, this, as far as I can tell, is the largest LEGO game to date. If you’ll recall, I really struggled with hitting the 100% mark in LEGO Lord of the Rings, and I only just topped off LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean recently after keeping my distance for four whole years. At times, it can feel overwhelming or simply frustrating, as finding where the collectible is and gathering it are often two very different things. Here, it requires constantly finding the right character to use and then switching to another and then maybe even to a third. Also, I ran into a problem before completing all the story levels where, if you had Spider-Man or the Hulk in play and tried to hold the “change character” button, instead, they would perform a transformation animation. Which meant the only way to change characters then was to find a blue machine via the map; thankfully, this doesn’t seem to happen anymore now that I’ve kicked Galactus’ butt.

Replaying the story levels in Free Play mode continues to feel like the developers are stretching the content a little thin, especially when the only goal of going back is to get a few items previously locked off. Now that hub worlds are a bigger focus for these LEGO games, all collectibles should be kept there so that you only need to experience the story levels once. It’s not like the critical path changes because you bring in Absorbing Man or The Blob instead of the traditional heroes. Look, when I’m president, whether of this country or the Republic of Videogames, I’ll make this happen–I swear it.

All that said, I can’t stay away from these games. They are silly and fun and not terribly punishing in the moment-to-moment action sequences, though I did look up a cryptic puzzle solution or two. You can sort of pick back up where you left off and, so long as you’re gathering studs and got some multipliers on, you are making progress. Slow, but steady. Plus, while I don’t know every single character making an appearance here, I do have a deep fondness for all things X-Men, which means I’m constantly using Cyclops to destroy gold statues, Jean Grey to mind-control innocents, and Wolverine to dig up junk. Characters that fly or hover a foot off the ground can be tricky to use, especially since some like to speed up in the air on their own or never want to touch terra firma ever again.

Even now, as I’m grumbling about trying to finish off my current LEGO logjam endeavor, I’m still thinking about getting LEGO Jurassic World for the home console, as the 3DS version really did not do it for me. Plus, though I only saw the first of the three Hobbit films–talk about bloated, Peter Jackson–and didn’t much care for it, there’s also LEGO The Hobbit to consider. Let me look up what other ones I’ve missed out on in the last few years: there’s two other LEGO Batmans, The LEGO Movie Videogame, and a couple from the Star Wars universe that I’m not really foaming at the mouth for. Toss in the inevitable LEGO Ghostbusters for good measure. Yeah, I should have enough block-building, stud-collecting grinding for years to come. Join me.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #54 – LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

Loki desires
The Earth to be eaten up
Build a better world

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.

All actions in The Sims FreePlay take time

Life is strange, and I’m not actually referring to the episodic adventure game about angst-fueled teens and time rewinding from Remember Me developer Dontnod Entertainment, which is definitely somewhere on my mental really-must-play list. Life is Strange, that is–I’ve already enjoyed the heck out of Remember Me. Anyways, when I started playing The Sims FreePlay, I was a married man. In fact, I named my first Sim’s dog after my then wife’s family’s dog. Still with me? At some point, I probably had intentions to recreate my true-to-life family, giving everybody their own house and fashion style. By the time I got back to it, all that had changed. Now I just hit the randomize button and go from there, though I did create and name one woman to resemble Joan Cusack.

Over the years, I’ve dabbled with a few games in The Sims franchise. My favorite was probably The Sims Social, which you experienced via Facebook and had all the annoying hooks of a social media site-driven gaming experience by pestering friends for stuff, but still let you do whacky things like plants full-grown trees inside your house. I have not yet tried planting an entire forest inside my home in The Sims FreePlay, but I suspect it can get just as zany, considering it doesn’t mind that I send both parents off to work for eight hours straight and leave a baby alone in its crib, unsupervised.

The Sims FreePlay, which is not the greatest of names, is yet another strategic life simulation game in the franchise, developed by EA Mobile and Firemonkeys Studios. Basically, it’s a freemium version of the The Sims for mobile devices, with some restrictions and other differences. You begin adding people to your town, decorating their houses, finding them jobs and hobbies, and building relationships. It’s up to you to develop them and create stories, like the one I’m slowing working towards where it is just a single woman living in a drab, non-decorated house full of cats. There’s also a Sim called Oscar Skinner who may or may not be a serial killer from a Criminal Minds episode.

Unlike console or PC versions of The Sims, your actions aren’t roadblocked by simple concepts like money. Instead, everything in The Sims FreePlay takes time. Real-life time, as the games follows the clock á la Animal Crossing: New Leaf, which means you can’t send somebody to their day job at ten at night. Trust me, I’ve tried. Actually, other than that, it’s not terribly restricting. However, this sort of mechanic is perfect for a mobile game–I’m playing on my legendary Windows 8 phone–wherein I can log in, give everybody a task to do for the next seven or eight hours, and then check back later to receive experience points and money, which we all know is stupidly called Simoleons. As you add more Sims and level up, extra houses and construction jobs cost more to perform.

There’s some other currencies to keep in mind as this naturally is a free-to-play game. Say hi to Life Points and Social Points. Both of these currencies go up much slower and in more specific intervals–like through leveling up–and you can use Life Points to help complete tasks instantly that one might feel are taking too long. Personally, I’ve only used them to bake a birthday cake to help an infant become a toddler. Life Points can be earned by completing goals, hobbies, driving around town, or can be dug up in your lawn by pets, and I don’t know exactly their purpose yet, but I have a few saved up.

I am enjoying the actions in real time element of The Sims FreePlay except for when it comes to a bunch of small tasks, like grabbing a snack, using the toilet, washing your hands, and then calling a friend for a quick chat. All of these tasks take about seven to thirty seconds each to complete and help keep your Sim’s attributes high and healthy. However, you can’t stack these actions up to happen one after another; instead, you have to hang around or remember to check in to assign the next task, which can be tedious, especially once your number of Sims begins to grow higher than four. Currently, the majority of my Sims are at work, so I don’t need to check back for several hours, though a good tip is to always leave one Sim available for miscellaneous tasks.

Besides Achievements to unlock (I’ve gotten 10 out of 20), there are a bunch of in-game goals to complete. Actually, there’s an Achievement for finishing 1,000 goals, so everything is circular. Many are easy, like “bake some cookies” or “be romantic with another Sim.” Right now, there’s even a Halloween-themed quest line involving ghosts and purple monsters, though it is timed, which is unfortunate as I doubt I’ll get it all done. These at least give you something to focus on when you can’t decide what to do with an adult Sim or it is too late to send them to work. The Sims FreePlay does allow you to spend real money on Simoleons and other thingies, but it’s not pushy about it nor have I felt constricted for not dropping some cold cash. I hope that never changes; if it does, I always have my disc copy of the original The Sims coupled with a print-out of cheat codes to sate my appetite.

Also, I’ll report back if I’m successful with my crazy cat woman mission. Don’t want to leave y’all hanging.

Back-tracking with purpose in Cuckoo Castle

I’m not exactly sure what it is about these GameBoy Jams that brings about games involving animals and mysterious castles, but Cuckoo Castle is now the second I’ve encountered. The previous one was Meowgical Tower. It’s not that I’m anti-animals or mysterious castles, but I’d like to see a castle exploring a mysterious animal next year to mix things up when the inevitable GameBoy Jam 5 drops.

That said, the protagonist of Cuckoo Castle isn’t ultimately an animal, but the castle you explore is filled with an assortment of antagonistic critters, like sewer rats and swooping bats, as well as spirits of the undead. Eventually, you get to decide between controlling three different adventurers: a lonely knight with a massively huge sword, a fireball-tossing witch accompanied by the cutest pixel kitty cat ever, and some kind of bug thing that likes to dig. Overall, it’s a bite-sized Metroidvania that, when it comes to the boss battles, can be difficult in spots, but moves like hot butter off bread and feels massive despite being relatively contained.

Gameplay is as follows: leave the empty village and enter the castle in search of villagers while also killing monsters and opening up more of the map. You can recover your HP at pig statues, as well as teleport back to the village to speak with those you saved. Some will offer clues, and you can also switch between protagonists in the village. The lonely knight reminds me greatly of how your warrior moved in Rogue Legacy, with his mighty sword held aloft. The witch can jump higher, but her attacks deal less damage and it takes some learning to grok how her fireballs move with a curved trajectory. I did not try out the bug thing. As you get further through the castle, you can hit levers to open up shortcuts, which makes back-tracking to the village not so bad.

Once again, I’m astounded at the tech here. I don’t remember actual GameBoy games looking this good, moving this fast, and that might be because nothing back then is as solid as the stuff being produced these days to resemble the age-old adventures. The animations in Cuckoo Castle–which I’ve seen hilariously mispronounced in a few YouTube vids–are clean and full of character, and the lighting, much like with The Night That Speaks, helps hide things in the shadows like how things in shadows should be hidden. Plus, pixel kitty cats abound back in the village. But seriously, give it up for the developers, especially when you consider the time-crunch this was produced under

I was hoping to kick Cuckoo Castle‘s butt and put it on my growing list of games completed for the year, but alas, no. The second boss–or it could be the last boss for all I know–is Dracula, and I just couldn’t best him. Granted, I only tried with the kitty-loving witch and not the warrior, but I already removed the game from my laptop. Oops. I tried looking up online to see if anyone gotten further than me in video form, but it’s fairly barren out there. In the end, I rescued six villagers and eviscerated a giant sewer rat. You can try and do better than me by grabbing a free copy of Cuckoo Castle or playing it in your browser over this way.

A day in The Stanley Parable’s life is hilariously sad

My first run through The Stanley Parable–er, more like slow walk–was pretty straightforward. I simply listened to the narrator’s instructions and followed them exactly, never questioning a single demand. I was a good, obedient lab rat, and for that, I received an ending that rewarded my mind-controlled actions with a glimpse at freedom, of blue sky, billowing trees, and a cool breeze. Sure, there were puzzles still left unanswered, like where had all of Stanley’s coworkers disappeared to, but I liked it nonetheless and immediately dived back in to see what I could do differently; maybe inaction was the key.

The Stanley Parable tells the story of, well, Stanley — an everyman office drone whose mundane existence is interrupted one day when he discovers that all of his coworkers have mysteriously vanished. As you take control of the protagonist and begin exploring the abandoned office building, a snarky British narrator (voiced by the wonderful Kevan Brighting) explains each of your decisions before you make them. Or talks at length if you simply stand around for too long, admiring a waiting room or well-watered plant. Either way, the narration drives the plot, and it is up to you to decide whether you want to follow along or rebel.

The Stanley Parable plays from the first-person perspective, similar to Gone Home and Dear Esther. The player is able move around and perform interactions with certain elements of the environment, like pressing buttons or opening doors, but has no other controls. You can’t even jump, though I do suggest everyone tries at least once. It’s a game about choice and choices, and you can follow along with the narrator or discover your own path through the game. You might think that something as minor as taking the door on the right instead of the left wouldn’t have a great impact on things, but it does. Everything matters, and, in a sick sense of mind, nothing matters.

Have you ever been in a large office space all by yourself? I have. Let me tell you–the feeling is strange. Walking around, seeing empty desks and lights off in certain areas. Yet you are still there, existing, interacting with the world, and everyone else is gone. While I hated seeing all the spilled coffee at the Picus Communications headquarters in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I loved walking around looking at everything before baddies showed up. There’s voyeurism, and there’s a general curiosity about examining how other people decorate their home-away-from-home workspace. This is the my favorite part of The Stanley Parable, going through those first few rooms, looking for clues on the cleanest desks ever created.

I discovered a few of the endings myself, but looked up the remainder of the ones I missed. Spoilers: there’s many ways to conclude Stanley’s journey. It’s not that I don’t mind replaying the same short experience again and again, it’s just that I wasn’t sure I was performing the right actions to see a different conclusion. In fact, I ended up stumbling into the “freedom” ending once or twice by getting locked inside Stanley’s boss’ office with no other way out. Either way, they are all neat and amusing, if depressing in tone. The Stanley Parable isn’t a happy game, especially when I look at myself, a cubicle-dwelling working stiff just like Stanley save for the voice in his head, but it is fascinating to see unfold and peek behind the curtains. It starts out perfunctory, it ends in ridicule.

Exploration is the name of The Legend of Legacy’s game

Yesterday, during my lunch break, I did two things: one, I picked up a copy of The Legend of Legacy, which is a new JRPG from Atlus, and two, I put down some cash money on a pre-order of the forthcoming Xbox One bundle for Fallout 4. Now, of those two, one is certainly more exciting than the other, but I’ll talk about my decision to go with an Xbox One as my entryway into the current generation of videogaming at a later date. For now, it’s all about mapping and grinding, sometimes simultaneously.

Some of you might remember a wee unassuming game back on the PlayStation 1 called SaGa Frontier. In fact, I used to own a copy. Anyways, despite not sharing the franchise name or even having a unique, catchy title of its own, The Legend of Legacy is a spiritual successor from Furyu, in conjunction with former staff members for Square Enix and Level-5. Namely illustrator Tomomi Kobayashi and designer Kyoji Koizumi of the SaGa series, Masato Kato, writer of Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Masashi Hamauzu, Final Fantasy XIII‘s composer, as well as ex-Level-5 staffer Masataka Matsuura as its director. Yup, it’s got quite a pedigree of creatives behind the wheel.

I’m going to hit you with a truth bomb right from the start: I don’t know the plot. I might not ever know the plot. It’s seemingly going to be told through poetry and over-dramatic descriptions of things done in the ancient past. At the start of The Legend of Legacy, you get to pick one of seven characters to play as, and I went with the default swordsman Meurs, though there are a bunch of other traditional tropes like the girl with amnesia or the ambitious, smarmy treasure hunter. After that, stuff happens, and the fellow who first discovered the island of Avalon and now goes by the uninteresting title of King of Adventurers has sent you and two others off to discover…um, I have no idea. There’s a rock that sang to my party of heroes, and then I filled in a map of a forest. Yeah.

The Legend of Legacy‘s combat is turn-based, which means it has to have more to it than just that to stand out in the crowd. Bravely Default allowed you to either burn later turns or store them up for extra actions at the risk of not being able to do anything later on if you didn’t kill the monsters right away. Paper Mario: Sticker Star requires precise button presses to deal extra damage or survive a bit longer. Some games can get by on simple turn-based combat, but not all. Anyways, The Legend of Legacy takes its leveling system from the classic SaGa games of old, which means characters don’t gain levels per se, but rather parameters and abilities based on how they acted in a fight. Ideally, this means that your sword skill levels up the more you attack with it, you gain more HP by taking damage more often, and so on, though it can feel random as it dishes out these upgrades. One nice touch is that your party is automatically fully healed after each fight.

I will say, while I abhorred filling in maps for the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV, it seems kind of fun here. Heck, I suspect that if one is fast enough they could fill in the maps quickly while still avoiding on-screen enemies in pursuit. I’ve not done this yet, but once you complete a map and all its sub-areas, you can return to town and sell it for big money, which is st in The Legend of Legacy. I know not what st stands for–stitches, perhaps–but it is an acceptable currency, and that’s enough for me.

Visually, The Legend of Legacy is pretty. It has a pop-up storybook element to its dungeons, with trees and rocks and strange, singing structures lifting up from the ground as you get closer, filling in the world around you. Not quite to the snuff of Bastion, but the idea is the same. Back in town, the game uses that zoomed out trick from Bravely Default, pulling the camera in closer as you move around and explore the inn, shops, and local inhabitants. The character designs are neat, and I almost selected the strange frog warrior because, c’mon, it’s a frog warrior, but decided to go with Meurs, which the game defaults to. Either way, I managed to recruit the frog warrior to my team in town later on, so I guess it doesn’t ultimately matter who you start with if they all team up in the end.

I’ve only put an hour and a half into The Legend of Legacy, and I’m seeing a lot of reviews call it a slow grindfest with no incentives, which is worrying, but we’ll see how things progress from here. As one knows, I’m okay with a game heavy on grinding, though I do like to be constantly working towards something in the end. If it’s just more singing rocks, then this legacy might not last very long.

Money will create success as you venture through Coin Crypt

I don’t know about you, but in this day and age, it sure seems like coins–otherwise known as disc-shaped metal or alloy that can be used to purchase goods–matter less and less with each rotation of the Earth. Not even paper bills are highly visible anymore. It’s all about the plastic or, if you have a cooler phone than myself, you can just show people your screen at Starbucks to order that triple, venti, half sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato via your gift card credit line and never have to do more than flick your wrist. Still, coins are an age-old staple of videogames, and, more to the point, your direct means of attacking enemies in Coin Crypt.

This aptly named Coin Crypt arrived in my Steam library back in August 2015 via the Humble Jumbo Bundle 4, which also contained–deep breath–the following:

• Space Engineers
• The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing II
• Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes
• The Stanley Parable
• Outland – Special Edition
• Mercenary Kings
• Endless Space – Emperor Edition
• Screencheat
• Freedom Planet

Whew. Naturally, of all those, I’ve only tried one other at this point, namely The Stanley Parable. I do occasionally glance at Mercenary Kings and Outland and think hmmm maybe, though I’ve yet to flex my finger muscle and press play on either. Perhaps sometime in 2016. Perhaps. Or maybe if I can figure out my recording stuff I can feature them on an upcoming streaming event thingy. Yeah, the less I commit to, the better for now.

Anyways, Coin Crypt is fairly neat. It’s a rogue-like adventure game that borrows its combat system from collectible card games where you use different spells to deal damage and cast other effects on an opponent. A bit of Magic: The Gathering, a pinch of Hearthstone. Actually, I haven’t played Hearthstone, so that’s really a wild guess. There’s also randomly generated worlds and permadeath if you want to get to the heart of the matter. At the start, you select a bouncy, rectangular cube-like adventurer and go off into the world, navigating them via a top-down perspective. You must collect coins, fight enemies, and advance further. Coins are life, as they are how you attack your opponent, purchase additional character classes after you buy the farm, and unlock gated parts of the level, so managing them is vital. You also need to ensure you have a good balance of offensive and defensive coins, so you’re not stuck on your turn with nothing but three shield coins to use.

I really dig Coin Crypt‘s stylized graphics. The tall, rectangle adventurers hop about like pod people or Mii avatars, but contain enough detail to have personality from one to another. The thick outlines around everything give off a cel-shaded look, which I can always get behind, and the bright colors help keep everything bright and bubbly, even when the challenge turns it up a notch and you begin scraping by in fights. At this point, I’ve only seen the forest and the world after it, which is themed around a graveyard; I suspect there are a few more areas to discover as well, and I’m working towards unlocking the monkey class, as we all should be working towards always, no matter the scenario.

Similar to Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac, I pop into Coin Crypt rather infrequently, but when I do, I give it all my attention. I’ve gotten a few levels deep, but always meet my maker because I run out of strong attack coins or am simply not fast enough to take down my opponent. The combat is not exactly turn-based, as if you sit still too long you’ll get smacked in the face. There’s a lot to pay attention to, to plan ahead for. That said, it takes some time to read what all the coins do and figure out which to pick or whether I should reshuffle them into my bag and try again with a new set of three.

With many roguelike titles, one can only get better through persistence. I’ll keep at Coin Crypt for sure, though I wonder and worry if I’ll ever reach its conclusion. If there’s a conclusion to be reached. Money can’t buy that.

Final Fantasy IX’s middle ground really drags

I am freaking out. Not in a way that anyone would know by looking at me, but on the inside, and the inside of my insides, I am freaking out. It’s October 2015, and I’ve still not completed Final Fantasy IX, a game I set out to take down in 2013 and then, upon failing that, put in the crosshairs once more for this stretch of three hundred and sixty-five days. I could present y’all with a list of excuses, of things that got in the way and stole my limited attention span away, but it doesn’t matter. I’m in charge of this ship, and I have two months and change left to see Final Fantasy IX‘s credits roll, as well as every Active Time Event unfold.

Unfortunately, after an epic finish to Final Fantasy IX‘s second disc, which saw the ragtag group of adventurers battling the Soulcage at the Iifa Tree and then witnessing the power of Bahamut, the start to the third disc really drags. It’s got a ton of great stuff in it, but it’s all turtle-pace storytelling and character development, for nearly every character, and there’s little freedom put in the player’s hands, which means a lot of reading, watching, and doing as whoever is in charge currently says.

There’s some playful–and Broadway play-like–silliness involving a found love letter, wherein everyone who comes across it misinterprets its meaning. Next, you travel to Treno to participate in a card tournament; since I’m terrible at Tetra Master, I found myself nervously saving a lot and reloading when I’d lose a rare card to an opponent. After that, there’s the fall of Alexandria, and one could get through this seeing little action, but I did at least discover a bookshelf and hidden Tantarian in it, which awards everyone with lots of AP upon defeat; it’s a tough, long-winded battle, but worth it in the end. Lastly, there’s some action and cutscenes and rebuilding of Alexandria, with the plot pushing forward to have everyone go after Kuja with a smoldering passion, but not before trying to restore Regent Cid to human form. Spoilers: it doesn’t work.

After all that, I’m back to actively controlling my party–all members, too, even Quina–and exploring the world of Final Fantasy IX. Plot-wise, we’re off to the Black Mage Village. However, I can’t head directly there just yet. I mean, technically, yes, I totally can, now that I’m riding the ocean in style on the Blue Narciss, but my brain won’t let me. See, there’s abilities to be earned for all these party members by equipping all sorts of gear, and that means a whole lot of easy, but mindless grinding to do. I can’t not do it, I’m sorry. I need for every party member to have as many options as possible when it comes to abilities and spells to cast. Sometimes this means equipping weaker armor or weapons just to permanently learn these things. I’m sure there’s a saying that relates wells here, like to go forward, one must tumble backwards for a bit.

I think what I need to do is put aside Super Mario Maker, Fantasy Life, and Pokémon Shuffle as my late night, pre-bed gaming fix this week and focus squarely–pun intended–on getting my team up to snuff so that they can move and do actual story stuff. I care about these people and what trouble concerns their land, but I also care about earning enough AP for Steiner to learn Level Up so he can constantly level up faster, as well as Dagger to get every summon locked under her belt. You never know when you’ll need to cast that Odin or Ifrit, but you’ll be glad you can when the moment arises.

Final Fantasy IX‘s credits or bust.

2015 Game Review Haiku, #53 – Kung Fu Rabbit

Wall-jumping rabbit
Challenge does not carrot all
Muzzle those spitters

–

From 2012 all through 2013, I wrote little haikus here at Grinding Down about every game I beat or completed, totaling 104 in the end. I took a break from this format last year in an attempt to get more artsy, only to realize that I missed doing it dearly. So, we’re back. Or rather, I am. Hope you enjoy my continued take on videogame-inspired Japanese poetry in three phases of 5, 7, and 5, respectively.