A Grand Old Time

Ahhh...

I've been playing serious, near-grimdark RPGs for so damn long now, it's good to get back to basics.

Since the Amalur campaign proved to be a disaster, I bumped up some things in the queue and started playing Grandia.  It's unashamed, cheerful adventure.  Sure, some bad stuff is going to happen; things will darken, plots will thicken.  But it's very refreshing to be back with some fresh-faced JRPG characters, ready to take on the polygonal world.

For the uninitiated, Grandia is an old-school PS1 RPG, from that special era when Eastern-style role-playing goodness was all the rage.  You've probably heard it before:  When this stuff was new, we had to walk fifteen miles to the Best Buy or Babbage's (or the odd Wal-Mart) in the snow to be able to play good RPGs.  No DLC, no patches, no fancy-pants online stuff.  Oh, and pony shows sucked back then too (any shows about bears that flashed people to death with happy rays did not exist and certainly weren't surprisingly enjoyable; any rumors to the contrary should be reported to the Ponyquisition for purgation and lulz).

Anyway, its good to be able to play some of the lost gems of the Golden Age of RPGs again.  I've made some nerdy life choices, and decided that it was high time that I reassembled my old stash and more.  The Harvest never rests, after all, and I needed the break.

Here's to high adventure and spunk and all that!