Sir Leopold has waited way too many years for a whomping

Right now, I’m only concentrating on a handful of videogames while I wait for the remainder of 2012 to fill in. Namely, these babies: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked, The Sword of Hope II, Metroid Fusion, and Borderlands. And, strangely, we can add…Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King to the list. Yeah, that one Level-5 RPG from way back in the day, circa 2005. Let me explain.

Well, as readers of Grinding Down already know from yesterday’s post, I’ve been immersing myself in another PlayStation 2 RPG via the Persona 4 Endurance Run over at Giant Bomb. This has been a constant reminder of the numerous great RPG/JRPGs that live on that system, many of which I still need to play some more or even ultimately finish. I won’t name them all just now–lucky you–but DQVIII, a game that I ate up like endless bowls of shrimp-flavored Ramen during my first few months in a new, Internet-less apartment in Clifton, NJ, suddenly called back to me. Like a sailor to a siren, and I went wide-eyed and mumbling, not sure what was to unfold.

Loading up my last save from six or seven years ago was downright disorienting. I mean, yeah, there was some immediate familiarity thanks to the 150+ hours I’ve dumped into Dragon Quest IX, opening back up in a church to that unchanging churchy tunes, with Akira Toriyama’s art style bright and clear and a colorful world as far as the silent hero’s eyes could see. My quiet guy’s name is Taurust_ with a bonus blank space at the end because I remember not knowing then what the confirm button was and accidentally adding an empty space at the end. Oh wells. It’s not like I played the game for that lo…oh wait, my save slot says 82 hours. Dang it.

And throwing caution to the wind, I immediately went to the spot where I guess I last stopped at, and that place involved a boss battle fight with an evil winged dog named Sir Leopold. Hmm…yeah. If there’s one thing I struggle with remembering about Dragon Quest VIII, it’s the story stuff. I mean, I know that I’m a mute, and that the king is Yoda, and the horse is his daughter, and that fat dude has a funny accent, but that’s really it. It might be beneficial to read a wiki or even the back of the box at some point, but whatever–fight turn-based style first, ask questions second. Except no, that didn’t work out. Sir Leopold wiped the floor with my team of four, and we woke anew back at a church with half our money gone.

So I’ve been wandering a bit and re-learning the ins and outs of the world, as well as the menus and other systems at play (casino, monster team, mini medals, item creation, and so on). I completely forgot I could summon a sabertooth tiger to ride. I’ve grinded a little bit, raising all four team members up a single level, so that’s good, but probably not good enough to take on Sir Leopold again just yet. I think I need better armor and weapons first, but to get those…I need gold, and I need a lot of it. Trying to see if I can earn a decent amount with casino BINGO, but that probably is a super slow process.

But I’m okay with dipping back into Dragon Quest VIII, even if it’s only to grind a bit and ultimately get nowhere. That Sir Leopold boss fight seems nearly impossible from where I stand, and it’s not even the final fight of the game. Not sure. I’d love to see how it all ends, considering I definitely wanted to see how it ended back in 2005, but somehow got distracted with shiny things like Final Fantasy XII and Rogue Galaxy. The music is, no surprise, gorgeous, and the battle system remains simple yet addicting. Unlike IX, you do not get to see what skill you’ll get when leveling up and assigning points, which is frustrating, but definitely keeps you guessing and crossing your fingers for something stellar. Between these two games, I’ve collectively used up over 250 hours of my life. Blimey, gov!

I’d rather watch Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 than play it

If it’s not terribly obvious, I’m a big fan of the Giant Bomb website. It’s a place that prefers to present things within the videogames industry raw and honestly, as well as welcomes everyone to contribute to its ever-growing wiki. For myself, I’ve done some decent wiki work on Game of Thrones: The Game, The Sword of Hope II, and Musashi: Samurai Legend. I go there every day to read and watch and interact sporadically on the forums.

But I’ve only recently taken it upon myself to experience one of the biggest things the website is known for–their lengthy tackle of playing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, the critically acclaimed event where the term Endurance Run got dubbed. It’s 155 episodes of varying length, with Vinny playing and Jeff constantly adding colorful commentary, and I’m just under halfway through it on episode 71. Strangely, I’m hooked, and it has a lot to do with the ridiculousness of the game itself, as well as the GB duo’s reactions to these moments. Otherwise, it looks like the kind of JRPG I used to play, but no longer have the time and dedication to handle now.

Persona 4 is an odd story, and I can only imagine it gets more odd later on. Nay, I predict it. The main character and his friends from school form an investigation team to unearth the answers to recent murders in Inaba, Japan. There’s a strange connection between these murders and a TV-world they can enter to fight shadow demons. During the time you are not fighting monsters, you can work on increasing relationships with your friends and family by doing social activities, such as getting jobs, attempting beef bowl challenges, and going to camp. Also, since you’re in school, you have to study occasionally for midterms and finals. And, when certain stars align, you can pursue romantic relationships. Oh man, that’s a lot of systems to juggle.

The First Hour‘s Greg Noe absolutely hated Persona 3, and I have to suspect he’d not like Persona 4 much more, considering that they share the whole “grind in a dungeon and then spend a lot of time socializing with friends and foes” thing; one big difference between the two is that, during battle, you can control everyone’s actions. But yeah, grinding and socializing–that doesn’t sound delicious to me either. But from a watching perspective, hey…it’s quite engrossing despite its slow gameplay. A lot of menu manipulation and a constant pausing when a list of decisions pop up; the greatest part is that it’s not me making these choices or dealing with items and switching Personas in battle and so on. That’s up to Vinny and Jeff, and they can make some silly mistakes, which might normally be frustrating on my own playthrough, but are now hilarious to witness. No, really…keep casting Bufu on enemies that heal from ice spells.

A bonus from watching this Endurance Run inspired me to pick up my bereaved copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Surviver Overclocked again for the 3DS–with triumphant success, too. Though these both come from the same franchise, they are not entirely alike. The Social Linking stuff is gone or mostly diluted in Overclocked, as I have had to make a few relationshippy decisions, but otherwise you just watch a few different plot-driving scenes before going into a battle. Fights are more RTS-based than RPG-based, with character placement and the available number of moves vital to how a battle begins and ends. Individual battles are turn-based, with an importance placed on using the correct elemental spell to earn extra turns; I’m still learning the ins and outs of this, but I’m getting there, I swear. Just finishing up Day 3 after a whomping from the immortal demon Beldr…

So, while I’m not playing Overclocked, I’m watching Persona 4. It’s a nice way to stay within the game’s solar system, even if they aren’t exactly similar. All right. About seventy-plus more episodes to go until I see how Persona 4 ends. I’m contemplating adding it to my 2012 Games Completed list once I’m finished watching because…well, by that point, I will have invested a whole bunch of hours, and that should count for something.

Crono and the gang help Lavos with his “destroy the world” Kickstarter

My head absolutely hated me yesterday. I blame it on a combination of sitting in morning traffic as the sunrise burned out my eyes, a severe lack of substantial foodstuffs, a lot of staring and straining, and then another drive, this time into the blazing sunset. Either way, once home for the night, I was drained, and I’m not afraid to admit I was curled up in bed by like 8:30 PM, my 3DS in hand. I figured I had some time before Mr. Sandman came, and a recent reminder in Grinding Down‘s comments section nudged me to pop out the cartridge for Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked and drop in Chrono Trigger.

Now, I’ve not touched this game in almost a year. Shocking, sure, but unfortunately, sometimes I forget about games. Or, y’know, get distracted by…getting married around said time. Anyways, having no memory as to what I was supposed to do next, I took Greg Noe’s ancient advice and went under the ocean through a cave, popping up…kinda back where I started, with the Millennial Fair still happening and all the weird monster-people no longer running the shops and living in the houses. Hmm…all right.

I traveled around a bit more, fought some monsters back in dinosaur-time land, got Crono up a level, purchased a new sword for him and a new set of armor for Lucca, and then found myself unsure of where to go. Not feeling up to getting out of bed and abandoning my blankety cocoon of warmth and good feelings, I headed back to the hub known as the End of Time to see if anyone there could steer me in the right direction. Nope, but there was this one interactive section that asked if I’d like to go fight Lavos. Um, as in Lavos, the main villain of Chrono Trigger? Yeah, sure…why not. He’s the bad guy, we’re the good guys–I don’t see any reason to put this off for another dozen hours or so.

Crono, Robo, and Marle travel through time to…a desolate and wasteland-like scrap of ground. Looming before them is a giant, uh, tick monster, presumably Lavos. For some reason, Lavos made me think of a lava-based beast. Oh well. We do battle, and all seems fine for a while, with Lavos changing battle plans every now and then. But then our trio’s attacks begin to do less and less damage, and I missed an opportunity to have Marle combo-heal everyone back to full health. She quickly falls, then Crono, and then Robo. Curses. I figured that was it then, game over. Nope, instead it fades to a cutscene of some scientists monitoring the world map, now freaking out over the coming destruction. One man doesn’t escape the building in time, and a list of razed places are rattled off. Then the world faded with color, telling me this:

Dang. I guess that’s just one of the many endings in Chrono Trigger. Probably considered a bad one. Maybe I’m not meant to fight Lavos just yet (though a part of me feels like I still could’ve put up a decent fight if I hadn’t brainfarted out on keeping Marle ready for healing the team).

Well, that was that. Tara came upstairs and it was now time for more episodes of Cheers and then some good ol’ sleepy sleep. I promise to look up an online walkthrough later on and get our gang going in the right direction; I do like this game, especially its music and combat system and the way battles just happen on the same screen, and I don’t want it all to end with the destruction of Earth. I promise, I don’t.

World will end in seven days so let’s listen to Atsurou and Yuzu talk about it

So far, after two hours and some change, I’ve listened way more than I’ve played in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, as I enjoy talky games and there’s some good writing here and occasionally good voicework, but the first real battle you get to openly involve yourself in is so hideously unbalanced that it nearly ruins everything building up to it. First, some backstory.

Without warning, demons start showing up in and around modern day Tokyo. The three main teenage characters, Atsurou Kihara, Yuzu Tanikawa, and our nameless hero who I dubbed P-San, all come to obtain mysterious Communication Player devices, called COMPs, which also look strikingly similar to Nintendo DS Lites. These little portable bits of wonder allow them to interact with the demons–fighting, contracting, or buying them from an auction–as well as visually see how long people have left to live. This is represented as a number over there heads, indicating their days remaining. Creepy. And a bit like the severely under-appreciated Jackson flick The Frighteners.

Right. So, this trio learns about an incoming demon invasion and the fact that they have zeroes above their heads–which, if you’ve been paying attention, means they are gonna bite it real soon–and…well, they talk a lot. Mull things over. It is a JRPG after all; am I right? The original DS version did not have full voice-acting, but here on the 3DS, it does, and it is used fully. Granted, it does help with immersion, as well as remind me why I can’t stand a lot of anime these days (whiny voices). Peppered around these lengthy cutscenes are a couple of tutorial battles; here, we learn how to move around the grid, battle, earn Mecca (?), and strengthen our teams. All well and good. Easy to understand. Strong pacing.

And then we get to a part where we can “free battle” until our hearts content or continue the story, which results in a main story battle unlike any of the tutorials prior. Here, a solid six or seven monsters swarm our reluctant trio, ganging up on a single character until they are merely folded bits of flesh and fluid on the sidewalk. The minute one character and his or her team falls, the others go quickly after. I’ve popped the FATAL KERNEL ERROR screen twice now. Looks like the free battle option is there for players to grind on until we can at least put up a decent fight.

I guess I’m just confused as to why. Why such a tough battle after so few chances to fight other monsters and enhance our teams? Why so many demons at once? Why the gang up mentality too?

I dunno. Maybe I’m just atrocious at strategy-based RPGs. I never did get to grind my skills early on with revered titles like Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre. Maybe that’s it. Or maybe Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner Overclocked is broken, unbalanced, and I’ll never get to know what happens to the world when time runs out.

Hurricane Irene, the weekend, and gaming

Well, we all knew she was coming ahead of time, and thankfully many of us paid heed to the warnings, but things were still pretty rough this weekend. In terms of things hitting close to home, the house we literally just moved into on Friday…well, it’s currently without power and hot water and the basement had about two to three inches of water in it. Plus, branches of deadly size were breaking off and dropping on the back deck:

Ugh. Yeah…don’t even know what’s going on in our other place–the Leaky Cauldron–but most likely not much, just power loss. Or extensive leakage. Trying not to think that way. Won’t be able to check on that for a little bit though. Pray that the remainder of our stuff remains dry and safe and…dry. Dry is the important factor here.

Tara and I spent the entire weekend at her parents’ place in Sparta, NJ, which still got hit with a lot of rain, heavy winds, and power loss. Honestly, prior, I thought that there was too much media hype about Hurricane Irene–my mother would’ve called me days ago and told me to pay attention and be prepared and that there was no hype, that this was a major storm rolling up the East Coast–and I probably would’ve just carried on as business as usual. Thankfully, everyone else freaking out began freaking me out and we smarted up, moved as much as we could into the new home, and then hunkered down elsewhere.

Before the storm rolled in, I made a quick swing by GameStop, interested in picking up a “get me through the hurricane” game, as well as rewarding myself for all that heavy lifting and stress that comes with physically moving from one place to another. I figured that if the power went out, I’d at least have my fully charged 3DS for a few hours of distraction/entertainment. I had a slight interest in Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked, the first true Japanese RPG for the Nintendo 3DS since its launch, and that’s interesting, considering the DS was always playing host to this JRPG and that JRPG. So I grabbed it, looking forlornly at the numerous copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the shelves behind the counter. My friend Greg had ordered me a copy, and I was hoping to get it in time for some weekend gaming, but Amazon was late shipping it, and then factor in the slim chance of being at the house to actually play it…wah.

But then DE:HR arrived on Saturday! I have read the game’s manual twice. That’s kind of like playing it, right?

Other than that, I played some Braid, VVVVVV, and more The Sims Social to help pass time as we *ahem* weathered the storm. Will probably have some posts up this week about these games, as well as some other goodies. Stay tuned. And please, please…stay away from falling branches.