Friday, April 29, 2016

When Bad Guys Have Mommy Issues

Well, Atelier Iris 2 was beat fairly handily a night ago, and overall it wound up being a lot of fun.  The final battle actually managed to be tense without forcing out copious amounts of cheese on either side.  The world is saved and the Harvest must turn aside to root out more of the unworthy.

More or less for the hell of it, I pulled out another old friend, and jumped back into a playthrough for it.

Do you remember the old days, when one game effectively turned JPRGs from niche games for geeks into mainstream masterpieces?  When most problems were solved by hunting down the nearest bishie prettyboy and knocking the crap out of him?  A time when racing giant chickens for hours on end was something almost respectable, since it was the key to the grandaddy of badass summon spells?

I remember.  Final Fantasy VII.  I can sit there like a hipster tool and go on about how I loved RPGs long before I encountered this one (mostly because it's true), and dig myself deeper by going on about how I still go out of my way to nab new ones (if you didn't notice that already, than this blog is totally pointless).

But I won't.  I will tell you about how I spent the night at a buddy's house way back in the day, who happened to have a Playstation and a copy of FF7.  Him and some acquaintances kindly fired it up and let me take it for a spin; got to Wall Market before I had to turn it off and do something else.  I will tell you about how I went out and got my own copy and a guide from Best Buy, and then proceeded to connive and hoard and outright steal lunch money so I can afford the damn console too.   I came close to turning into a nasty little monster back then.  Thank God it didn't turn out worse.

But you know what?  FF7 is still a fine game, and thanks to a bit of luck and a very good friend, I still have that original copy in my stack.  I admit that there's some nostalgia influencing me, but it's still a nerdy joy to fire it up and fiddle with your Materia collection and wreck corporate douchebags and watch Cloud randomly trip out.  I still say that Cloud's biggest issue is that he got so close to nailing Aerith, but he couldn't go through with it so Sephiroth whips out his blade and does the deed himself.  Double entendre ahoy!

I'm really just going ahead and fooling around with some sidequests for the moment, mostly because I'm between new games and a bit undecided.  There's only so much chocobo racing I can stand, but I want Knights of the Round (if you played this game, you know why), so I'll be shooting up and inbreeding chickens for a bit.  Still not quite sure what game to try next, but I'm thinking space pirates are in the near future now.  We shall see.

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