Octopath Traveler

My family got a Switch for Christmas two years ago. It's been monopolized primarily by my kids and my husband, but I recently picked up Octopath Traveler to play on it. I loved Bravely Default, and Octopath Traveler seems to be cut from the same mold--I'm a big fan of old-style RPG games. I never transitioned well to the 3-D environments, so I appreciate games like these that are throwbacks to older graphical styles. I had high expectations for Octopath Traveler, and this post is going to be my opinion on the game, at least as far as I've played.

I have played through each character's first chapter. I have been struggling through the second chapters and side quests. I'm not sure if the combat system just didn't click--I mean, I understand the break system with the weapon/elemental weaknesses, but there also seems to be bias toward certain characters in certain parts of the game. For example, I played through Tressa's second chapter. Clearly Tressa is required, but my impression was that the other three character slots could be filled with whoever I wanted (true) and it would be decently effective (false). In this example, you cannot complete this chapter without Ophilia. I am getting the idea I will be wanting Ophilia in most of my parties in this game. That frustrates me because I don't particularly like playing with that character. 

I've also found some of the side quests frustrating because the recommended level does not seem to match the actual difficulty of the quest. Or maybe this goes back to not understanding how the characters work together, and I need to be playing with a different group. I think I've gotten decent equipment for my party, but maybe not. I feel like I'm missing something with it, and it shouldn't be this frustrating. 

I'm going to put it down for a little bit, but I do plan on eventually trying to finish it. Another potential problem is that I do tend to play the game around 3 a.m., which is probably not the best time to do anything that requires any amount of coherence. =P Maybe I'll have better luck when I have a little more time to play the game.

What I'm Playing - Final Fantasy VI

I recently picked up a copy of Final Fantasy VI off of Steam. I have a copy of this game for Play Station and somewhere I have the Super Nintendo version--you know, the one released under the title Final Fantasy III. It felt weird getting another copy of a game I already owned. However, it made some sense because my laptop is way more portable than either the Play Station or Super Nintendo. For example, I spend a little bit of time during quieter times at work at night playing. I can do this because I can bring my laptop to work. Although I would probably get no complaints if I tried to bring a TV and Play Station in, it wouldn't exactly fit in my little cubical work space. So, anyways.

I've been playing Final Fantasy VI. It has always been my favorite Final Fantasy title. A bit of history and yes, this will make me look old; don't judge: My first Final Fantasy was FF IV. I remember renting it as Final Fantasy II for Super Nintendo from the video rental store down the street. I fell in love with that game. After purchasing and beating FF IV, I scoured flea markets for FF I--this was also before Amazon, Ebay, or really any form of internet anything. I was super excited for FF VI (III), and purchased it as soon as it was released. I played through it several times until I went off to college, where my ability to play games like that diminished significantly due to the fact that the Super Nintendo belonged to my brother and I didn't own a TV. Anyways...

As far as Final Fantasy games go, the mechanics are pretty much standard classic jRPG mechanics. Each character has a special ability. Magic revolves around Espers and after a certain point in the game, you can equip Espers on characters. Some people may find this dull, but these are my kinds of game. This is probably why I latched onto Bravely Default and enjoyed it as much as I did. That game was a real throwback to games like Final Fantasy VI. As far as FF VI goes, I loved the story and the characters. It's been a treat to play through it again. I don't get a lot of time for games anymore due to, you know, working full time, being a full time homeschooling mom, and stuff like that. This is part of why having a portable system is good because that gives me more flexibility. So, on quieter evenings, I do get to play at work. I'm moving through the game super slowly. I'm posting periodically during my play on Twitter. Mostly, it's things like "Hey, I'm at this part of the game now." Sometimes I'll post commentary. It's usually only a couple of tweets a night because I am moving at a snail's pace through the game. I'm also sharing FF VI (among other things) related stuff on Tumblr.

Fantasy Life

Since I finished Bravely Default, I have picked up Fantasy Life. This was a game my oldest son (Ty) had gotten a while ago. My husband had been playing it, but I confiscated it from him. I'll give it back eventually.

Fantasy Life is a fairly standard RPG game. There are times where it almost seems like it's parodying the genre. As far as game play goes, it is pretty easy, at least so far. I'll admit I'm not very far in the game--following my standard style, I'm moving through it at a snail's pace. It almost feels like a game designed for younger children, except for the vocabulary. It periodically throws in words that are probably not in most adults' repertoire.

My favorite part about the game is the different classes or lives as they are called in this game. I especially like the crafting jobs. There are 12 different jobs to choose from: four combat related (Paladin, Mercenary, Hunter, and Wizard), three gathering professions (Woodcutter, Miner, and Angler), and five crafting jobs (Cook, Carpenter, Blacksmith, Tailor, and Alchemist). My favorite within those is the Tailor (no surprise there). I like that you are encouraged to play several different jobs, and I especially like that you can craft from outside your profession as long as you've started it at some point. So, if my character is currently a Blacksmith, I can go to the tailoring area and craft fabric. This is very convenient as several of the recipes require items from other crafts. I could go buy those craft items, but I'd prefer to make them myself. If I had to change jobs every time I wanted to access a particular craft, it would get very cumbersome.

I would have to say my least favorite part of the game is the main story line, which, so far, seems pretty weak. Again though, I am not very far into it, so maybe it'll improve. I also dislike the Butterfly that is the driving force behind the story, which may also tie into why I dislike the story. I guess I have a thing against small annoying sidekick-like characters (Navi from Legend of Zelda being the most well known character of this type). Incidentally, although Bravely Default has one of these characters as well, [spoiler]I at least got to kill her in the end![/spoiler]

The overall design of Fantasy Life is very cutesy, which I like. So far, I'm enjoying it. I'll pass judgment on the game as a whole once I finish it... assuming I finish it, which could be next month, next year, or never. =P I'm fairly notorious about picking up games and never quite finishing them.

Turning a New Leaf?

So, last week I broke down and let my mom buy Animal Crossing: New Leaf for me. My mom plays this game. Kid #1 and Kid #2 play this game. At least half my friends play this game. This is my first experience with this particular title, so I can't say how it relates to previous editions, but I will give my impressions on it.

First off, for those who haven't played the game--they might exist, right?--this is ACNL in a nutshell. You are the mayor of a town. Your aren't supposed to be mayor, but when you get off the train in this town, everyone says that you're the mayor, and they don't even have the decency to provide you with a house. No, you get a tent, and you have to pay to upgrade it to an actual house. My first impression was that the main character (me) must be more gullible than Fluttershy because you protest, but everyone's like you're mental, this is how things are; deal with it. Of course, if there was a way to back out of the job, it would be a pretty short game. XD (Don't get me wrong, I like the game.) Anyways. So, ACNL plays like a cross between a sandbox game and a sim game. The whole purpose is to build up your town with public works projects, build up your house, collect lots of stuff ranging from clothes to furniture, and that's about it. This version has the ability to connect to other players and visit their towns or vice versa. I'm discovering that this is the only way to actually collect all the things (or maybe I'm wrong because I don't know everything about this game). You spend your day in game (which progresses real time) building stuff, catching bugs, fishing, collecting items, talking to people, shopping, and so on. At least, that's what I've figured out so far.

I'm not sure if there's an ultimate goal to this game. I know you can unlock a variety of upgrades to the town, to the shops, and to your house, stuff like that, but as far as a way to "win" the game... I'm not sure if there is one. Any thoughts on this are welcome. It is a fun game to just sit and play--no purpose, just for the sake of playing. The world is what you make of it. There are a wide variety of activities to focus on, so things can progress however you want them. You can decorate however you want--go with themes, be eclectic, be whatever you want. The custom design feature is awesome--probably one of the most awesome features in my opinion. The sky really is the limit. So yeah. I actually started the game with some concept of turning it into a steampunk world inspired by a writing project I've been working on with my husband. I named my main character Abigail after the main character in the project. Unfortunately the main town name was too long to use; I named it Aelyria because I couldn't think of anything clever at the time. Right now my town is not steampunk at all; it's half pony and half goth and half-does-not-match-anything-because-the-housing-store-won't-get-in-the-roof-color-I-want--yeah I'm just as distractable in these games as I am in real life. XD So yeah, if you play and want to exchange friend codes, leave a comment or whatever. I probably won't open my gates though until I get a better roof color for my house. =P

Video Games on the Brain

I love playing video games, always have--since the first NES system came out. I never had much exposure to earlier systems, but my Uncle (only 13-14 years my senior) bought the NES system and the Super Mario Bros. game system. It lived at my grandmother's house during my elementary school years, and my brother and I would play whenever we got to visit. We begged my parents for one, and eventually they caved, and thus began my addiction. I won't go into the long and boring history of what games I played, liked, or my favorite systems growing up. I will say that as I've gotten older there are certain types of games that appeal to me more than others: I like RPGs and strategy games. I like games that require less hand-eye coordination. I prefer games with fantasy themes over modern or sci-fi.

The game that kicked off this blog topic was Heroes of Might and Magic V. I was playing on the internet last night, and I saw an ad for one of the many browser based strategy/war games. Suddenly I really wanted to play a game like that. However, I learned after a couple of rounds of Travian that browser games are bad for me, so my solution was to pull out the giant CD case of old PC games. I wanted to play one of the Heroes games--we have the first 5; I'm pretty sure there's a 6 out, but it was released during the Dark Ages of my gaming life (i.e., husband was in grad school which does not pay enough to support a gaming habit). I randomly pulled out 5 (i.e., it was the first one I found), stuck it in and spent most of last night playing it--instead of sleeping, which I am now regretting. XD It was fun though; I started a new profile and campaign--ran through the first couple of missions for the side that gets angels, griffons, and your standard medieval European selection. Doing this opened up a whole can of worms though; flipping through our PC game collection reminded me of all the fun awesome games we have that I either haven't played or haven't finished but would really like to look back on.

One game in particular that I saw last night was Baldur's Gate. I remember this being a really excellent game. I never finished it (do we see a theme here?). This is one of those instances where life and other distractions happened until I forgot I was even playing this game. Maybe I'll pick Baldur's Gate up again at some point and give it another try. I'm already trying to play through 3 games right now, 4 if I want to include a run through the Heroes 5 campaign settings, so I should probably try to put a stop to the "I didn't finish it" trend before starting any other new ones. It is fun to dig up old games again, even if just for the sake of nostalgia.

What Would ____ Do?

The concept idea for this set came while driving up to Anime USA last fall with my husband and a couple of friends. We were brainstorming ideas for things I could make for Magfest, a gaming convention that takes place in early January. We spent most of the trip trying to come up with a variety of character types from a variety of different gaming platforms. I had decided from the beginning that there would be 12 characters in the set... Anyone familiar with my gallery will see a theme there. I can't honestly say where that came from but I like to do sets of 12.

Since I play primarily Play Station games personally, and older ones at that, coming up with characters for Nintendo and X-Box (in particular) were somewhat difficult. Coming up with some characters from newer games was also a challenge since I'm stuck in the gaming world of the mid to late 1990s. This is why I'm always posting that I'm open to suggestions, and why I listen to what everyone who stops by my art tables has to say. There's a lot of stuff out there that I'm not familiar with in both video games and anime. It's worth noting that I don't always follow everyone's advice, but most the time I'll give a series or game a chance. In most cases, I've been glad I did: I can thank con-goers who stopped to chat at my table for introducing me to both Soul Eater and Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) and a fellow artist for recommending Gurren Lagan.

So, the current What Would ____ Do? set includes: Black Mage, Etna, Felicia, GlaDOS, Kratos, Lara Croft, Leon, Mario, Master Chief, Sam & Max, Solid Snake, and Yuna. I'm considering adding 4 new ones for Animazement or Otakon, maybe the guy from Assassin's Creed or Megaman. I've considered Link, but I'm not sure I honestly want to draw him again--he's in the Nintendo Noir set and in the Anime Tarot set, plus I've made 4 cosplay versions of him and I've got a stand-alone print (o.O yes I do things that aren't part of sets every once in a while) with Link and Navi. To reiterate my point from above, I'm always looking for ideas and suggestions; feel free to comment or message me on Twitter or Etsy if you have any game characters you'd like to see in this set.