Wow. My last post was five days ago? Really??
I guess I shouldn't be that surprised--I haven't had a ton of time to play Dragon Quest VIII, much less write about it. As I recall, I had two sessions of maybe 90 minutes each.
The first session was a deliberate goof-off thing: I had captured a new creature that seemed pretty powerful and thought I'd have a run at the Level C Monster Arena championship.
And now it occurs to me I haven't told you anything about the Monster Arena yet, which is probably for the best, but alas unavoidable now. The Monster Arena mini-game is this area you stumble across after you've been playing for a while; when you do, a surprisingly hairy-chested man gives you bounties on three monsters, one of which you've probably already encountered, one of which you're about to encounter and the final one you run across about four or five hours down the road. If you capture all three, you open up the Monster Arena miniquest where you pit a team of those three monsters against three teams of three monsters in rapid succession. If your team beats those three teams, you get a price and you're allowed to compete at the next highest, more difficult, level. Because the three creatures you're given bounties for are pretty wimpy, you're encouraged to go find other monsters wandering the countryside. If you can beat them, you'll recruit them to your team.
This, plus the assorted treasure chests, provides more incentive for you to wander the countryside, and, timed where it is in the game, retrack your steps looking for monsters you'd encountered in the landscape. (In DQ8, the majority of your monster fights are randomly generated, but there are a number of monsters wandering around by themselves that you can avoid or attack, and it's these that you can recruit for your team.)
Me being me, I completely misunderstood the location of one of those three monsters so I didn't unlock the Monster Arena minigame until much later in the game than I'm sure the designers had calculated. This was good thing because by the time I'd opened it, I knew the location of two or three strong recruitable monsters and had a pretty powerful team right out of the gate. My group battled their way up from G to E without any trouble, and barely squeaked through D which hairy chested Mario assured me was the hardest group to beat. Actually, C went on to kick my ass and so I put the monster quest aside until I encountered a wandering dragon early in my Wednesday session... It was good enough to soundly beat Round C, but Round B, the penultimate set, was a bunch of mean bastards, and I barely made it to the second team in Round B before savagely beaten.
This set up the situation for the rest of that Wednesday session--wandering around the landscape on a sabrecat, fighting random monsters, finding treasure chests, and looking for recruitable monsters. It was only another thirty minutes of play or so, but it was pretty breezy and I finally turned it off as much out of annoyance at my own laziness as anything.
The second session on Thursday was, alas, more serious as I decided to go back into the Dark Ruins where my characters got killed. To my surprise, I battled to the bottom of the dungeon without too much trouble, mainly because I was willing to have all my characters throw out their top spells and bring the beatdown. I was hoping the bottom of the dungeon, which promised a showdown with the Big Bad, would just be a coattail of a level--the kind of thing that had happened twice in the past where my party confronts the villain, he mocks them and then teleports away laughing, and some new area of the map is opened up.
Nope. It's probably not the end of the game (I'm right at fifty hours, which is how long it takes people on the Internet to finish Dragong Quest VIII, but if there's one thing I've learned about my ultra-tard playing abilities is however long it takes people on the Internet--I call them "liars" for short--to finish, that's about two-thirds of the time it takes me to finish. If DQ8 is really fifty hours on a relatively quick play, I'll finish the game at about the 75 hour mark) but goddamned if I wasn't stuck fighting a laughing, annoying uber-boss who could split into three and fuck my party up big time. Remarkably enough, right as I was running out of everything, I beat his first incarnation, and the next two within five minutes later. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but I knew better: I don't recall encountering this in American games--I'm sure it happens--but Japanese game developers love the two-stage end boss. Sure enough, the dude rises up, says more stuff, laughs some more (I gotta give it up to the designers of Dragon Quest VIII; you have to push a button to move past each box of dialogue, which is handy if you have to run for a pee or a sandwich or something. In this scene the villain laughs at you for a solid minute at which point you have to push a button, then he continues to laugh some more, and then you push a button, and then he laughs even longer and heartier and more annoyingly. It was so in-your-face I had to laugh.) and then, as is the Japanese end-boss want, turned into a giant winged demon and proceeded to beat me stupid. Because he got two insanely powerful attacks per round, one of which would shock half my party, and the other of which would brutalize any given party member, I was mincemeat in about eight minutes.
And then, thanks to the generous nature of DQ8, I was reborn in a church having lost no more than half my gold and having gained several thousand experience points. Unfortunately, I was out of time for the day, to say nothing of all the rare one-use only magic items I broke out in my attempt to beat his ass.
So that's where things stand. I haven't played since Thursday; I doubt I'll play until Wednesday; and once I do, I'll have to decide what I'm going to do. Currently, I'm leaning toward hitting GameFaqs and really looking in-depth at the stuff I can create with my alchemy pot. I've done a pretty good job avoiding it, and creating various items based on the hints I've found around the game, but there just aren't enough of them and I'm not getting any younger.
I don't like the idea of wandering around having random fights just to level up, but I don't see any other choice since I'm not strong enough to beat that boss in my current state. The main problem is my heroes are leveled up enough that while the fights are quick, the payoff is low, and it's gonna take forever for me to level up. Ideally, there'll be a section of the map I've missed where the monsters are just tough enough that I'll get good XP (yes, that stands for Experience Points) and can have my group bump up a level or two. That, plus manufacturing a rare item or two might make enough of a difference.
I certainly hope so; not only do I still want to play Yakuza, but those copies of Front Mission 4 came in and Mr. No-Willpower ordered GTA: Vice City Stories from Amazon today. This puts my to-play list at NINETEEN games. If I can get three or four of those games before God of War II goes on sale (hell, before it becomes a Greatest Hits title), that'll be a remarkable triumph of willlpower on my part.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Nobody To Blame But....
Myself, of course. After posting on Saturday about how I felt relatively ahead of the curve on Dragon Quest VIII, I went and got my party killed in the dark ruins yesterday.
Dying in DQ8 isn't a big deal, other than if it happens it's usually because you deserved it. There's several ways to get out of any particular fight, and for a mere pittance you can buy an item that'll jet you back to a place where you can safely heal up. Yesterday, I noticed that my party was running kinda low on health and magic points but thought, "Ehhh, I'll make my way to the stairs at the end of the screen and then transport back." Sure enough, exactly twenty seconds later, a group of dog riding skeletons, orchid-headed priests, and a blood mummy or two arrived to slaughter me wholesale.
When you do die, you're resurrected in the last temple you visited, and stripped of half your gold: like I said, no big deal, particularly since the game has several banks where you can store your cash and avoid such a penalty if you get taken down. What stings is knowing that if I'd listened to myself, I wouldn't have lost any anything, except the time it would've taken me to retrace my steps. Of course, with video games the only true currency is time.
Which is the source of my ongoing ambivalence about video games in the first place--why do I continue to fritter away a currency which I have in such short supply? Answers like "fun" certainly come to mind, but sometimes I worry it's because while a triumph in a video game is almost as gratifying as a triumph in real life, failure in a video game is hardly as crushing as its real life counterpart. Maybe someday in the future, when people do something stupid and get themselves killed, they'll be able to wake up in a hospital with half their money gone, but that's still not the case today.
Dying in DQ8 isn't a big deal, other than if it happens it's usually because you deserved it. There's several ways to get out of any particular fight, and for a mere pittance you can buy an item that'll jet you back to a place where you can safely heal up. Yesterday, I noticed that my party was running kinda low on health and magic points but thought, "Ehhh, I'll make my way to the stairs at the end of the screen and then transport back." Sure enough, exactly twenty seconds later, a group of dog riding skeletons, orchid-headed priests, and a blood mummy or two arrived to slaughter me wholesale.
When you do die, you're resurrected in the last temple you visited, and stripped of half your gold: like I said, no big deal, particularly since the game has several banks where you can store your cash and avoid such a penalty if you get taken down. What stings is knowing that if I'd listened to myself, I wouldn't have lost any anything, except the time it would've taken me to retrace my steps. Of course, with video games the only true currency is time.
Which is the source of my ongoing ambivalence about video games in the first place--why do I continue to fritter away a currency which I have in such short supply? Answers like "fun" certainly come to mind, but sometimes I worry it's because while a triumph in a video game is almost as gratifying as a triumph in real life, failure in a video game is hardly as crushing as its real life counterpart. Maybe someday in the future, when people do something stupid and get themselves killed, they'll be able to wake up in a hospital with half their money gone, but that's still not the case today.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
I Know What I'm Playing Next.
First: three posts in one day? Yes. My original plan had been to post on the other blog, but work was such an evil, baying, scrote-biting leech I knew I wouldn't have the wherewithal to write anything that required critical faculties. For better or for worse, this is the blog I go to when I just want to write.
Second: I know why there was an underlying thread of anxiety in my previous thread about the length Dragon Quest VIII: I know what game I wanna play next.
I've had the opposite problem over the last several games, with DQ8 coming more or less out of the blue to save me as I looked to the end of Bully with something like panic. Like any good junkie, I fear having a string of the good shit run out, not just because it means I have to go through withdrawal pains but, worse, it means that maybe it's time I seriously think about kicking.
Last week, when Robson returned my copy of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance saying he just wasn't digging it, he mentioned that he threw on Yakuza after taking M:UA out of the playstation and immediately felt better. That and a comment I came across on the message boards while reading critical reception to DQ8 twanged a off-key, but heartfelt, note of desire.
The quote was this:
And it's worth pointing out--to my avaricious heart if no one else--that this review is clearly that of someone who played the original Japanese version. The U.S. release got much more mixed reviews (although looking around again on that message board, it seems a lot of regulars liked the U.S. version just fine).
It's an RPG that's also a fighting game, that's also a modern day Japanese gangster story! I don't know what flipped the little switch in my brain (actually, that's a lie, I do know: before DQ8, the RPG comparison had absolutely no positive heft for me at all) but now it's looking like it may, very soon, be my New Best Friend.
Second: I know why there was an underlying thread of anxiety in my previous thread about the length Dragon Quest VIII: I know what game I wanna play next.
I've had the opposite problem over the last several games, with DQ8 coming more or less out of the blue to save me as I looked to the end of Bully with something like panic. Like any good junkie, I fear having a string of the good shit run out, not just because it means I have to go through withdrawal pains but, worse, it means that maybe it's time I seriously think about kicking.
Last week, when Robson returned my copy of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance saying he just wasn't digging it, he mentioned that he threw on Yakuza after taking M:UA out of the playstation and immediately felt better. That and a comment I came across on the message boards while reading critical reception to DQ8 twanged a off-key, but heartfelt, note of desire.
The quote was this:
Yakuza / Ryu ga Gotoku - Play casino games, try to get the attention of women in hostess bars, go to the batting cages, or the special Sega store, play UFO catcher games, collect all manner of trinkets including stuff like men's cologne to help with the ladies, fight with everything from microphones to sofas to fire extinguishers, each having their own special attacks, help out homeless guys, find keys to coin lockers, shop at convenience stores and restaurants, get involved in any number of dynamic optional stories, etc.. It's like River City Ransom and Final Fight got married and decided to become a full-blooded action RPG with stats, money, dungeons and a battle system.
And it's worth pointing out--to my avaricious heart if no one else--that this review is clearly that of someone who played the original Japanese version. The U.S. release got much more mixed reviews (although looking around again on that message board, it seems a lot of regulars liked the U.S. version just fine).
It's an RPG that's also a fighting game, that's also a modern day Japanese gangster story! I don't know what flipped the little switch in my brain (actually, that's a lie, I do know: before DQ8, the RPG comparison had absolutely no positive heft for me at all) but now it's looking like it may, very soon, be my New Best Friend.
More of Everything: Dragon Quest VIII
I'm just about to pass the fifty hour mark on Dragon Quest VIII, meaning I've played it for longer than Bully and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance combined. I wish I could tell you how much longer I'm going to be playing it, but I honestly have no idea how much plot is left to the game. I could be on the last leg of a fetch quest right before I go to fight the final boss, but there's a whole other island/continent I haven't even begun to explore.
I could've shaved at least five hours off those fifty if I didn't keep bucking against the game design: although the game frequently sends you out into the world with vague directions (like, "there's an old man in the Western Woods who can help you") the roads and landmarks are designed to lead you there if you don't run off in the woods and act like a 'tard. Unfortunately, I was raised to run off in the woods and act like a 'tard (only upon typing this did I realize how true it was) and so, whether through impatience or insecurity, I've struck out repeatedly for the corner of Fuck-All and Nowhere, despite knowing better: it was after I failed to find the proper entrance to the Western Continent, and had to consult a FAQ, that I grokked to the handholding via landmark layout approach. And I still went on to fuck it up and, in fact, feel confident I will go home after writing this and fuck it up all over again.
Y'see, there's this cat chapel that I came across right after leaving the casino town in mourning to get the magic mirror at, uh, Avignon? Avalon? Richard Avedon?, and, after asking a question or two and realizing that this wasn't the town I was looking for, I split.
Now, this cat chapel was placed there for a reason. Even a dumbshit like me knows that. But I assumed it was some later quest I would do on my way back, or maybe just a bit of lovely local color that would tie in with someone's backstory.
Nope. This chapel exists so that, if you do the subquest it's tied to, you get a nifty little beastmount that'll make your land travel go two to three times as fast. If I hadn't been a dumbass, my quest to the far-flung of town of Richard Avedon would've been markedly shorter and, since this game relies of random monster encounters for most of its action, markedly easier.
And how did I find all this out? By going back to that FAQ when, after completing the giant lizard hunting ground subquest you get in Richard Avedon, I was unable to find the above-mentioned Western Woods, the next step in my quest. Lemme tell you, I really worked my ass off trying to find this Western Woods--I have a fucking boat, mind you, and I sailed around the Western edge of that continent looking for a forest. And when I found it, I wandered through the ass-end of it, getting in 'tarded random monster fights and getting nothing for my trouble but some paltry gold and a painful leaking of my players' Magic Points. So, yeah. When I asked the rhetorical question that opened this paragraph, I originally was going to type, "I took the easy way out--I looked at a FAQ." But, really, I did it the hard way--running off in the woods and acting like a 'tard, but only after fucking sailng--and still had to check a FAQ. That's how I found out where to find the Western Woods and how to get a Sabrecat mount to get your ass around. Fuck.
FAQs probably deserve a post all their own in this blog of mine. Like most video gamers, I have a strong love/hate relationship with them: the only thing worse than not discovering something awesome in a video game because a FAQ tells you first, is being stuck forever on some god-damned stupid puzzle, design flaw, or misunderstanding between you and the designer *without* a FAQ to save your ass. Game designers, of course, know this, which is why the difficulty of puzzles have diminished over time and the number of cool, hidden easter eggs have grown. I expect that's only going to continue as video game playing demographic gets older and has less and less time on its hands but still wants cool, unexpected shit to pop up and surprise it. (Remind me to write about the Monster Arena sometime.)
And yet, that approach is also, to an extent, the antipathy of the old-school RPG from which Dragon Quest VIII is descended. Like a pen and paper RPG, the random monster battle is a vital component of the game. Sure, I'm wandering around like the map like a like an idiot, but I'm also gaining crucial experience points, leveling up, and finding the occasional valuable treasure out in the middle of nowhere. If the giant lizard hunt is any indication, I'm comfortably ahead of the level curve because I beat those lizards down without breaking a sweat.
And that's another reason why I suspect that the plot isn't over yet--I've heard this game has about 50 to 100 hours of gameplay to it. Since I'm not exactly doing a speedrun, I bet I'm going to clock in closer to 100 hours, even without doing the "make every item/beat every monster/open every treasure chest" route. That worries me becuase I like all the little sidegames, sub-quests and mini-what-have-yous but I don't want the game to become a chore. Unless it's structured well, that happens with games more often than not--I think they prefer to leave you oversaturated than leave you wanting more--and I worry that could really be the case with Dragon Quest VIII, since I'm already 50 hours into it and have no idea how much more they're going to string the story along. (Considering I haven't even finished the subquest that'll let me play roulette--or anything else--at the big casino, I'm thinking: a lot.)
On the other hand, they were smart enough to throw in the Sabrecats...even if I wasn't smart enough to discover them. Maybe there'll be the chance for me to actually have more of everything, without it feeling like too much of nothing.
I could've shaved at least five hours off those fifty if I didn't keep bucking against the game design: although the game frequently sends you out into the world with vague directions (like, "there's an old man in the Western Woods who can help you") the roads and landmarks are designed to lead you there if you don't run off in the woods and act like a 'tard. Unfortunately, I was raised to run off in the woods and act like a 'tard (only upon typing this did I realize how true it was) and so, whether through impatience or insecurity, I've struck out repeatedly for the corner of Fuck-All and Nowhere, despite knowing better: it was after I failed to find the proper entrance to the Western Continent, and had to consult a FAQ, that I grokked to the handholding via landmark layout approach. And I still went on to fuck it up and, in fact, feel confident I will go home after writing this and fuck it up all over again.
Y'see, there's this cat chapel that I came across right after leaving the casino town in mourning to get the magic mirror at, uh, Avignon? Avalon? Richard Avedon?, and, after asking a question or two and realizing that this wasn't the town I was looking for, I split.
Now, this cat chapel was placed there for a reason. Even a dumbshit like me knows that. But I assumed it was some later quest I would do on my way back, or maybe just a bit of lovely local color that would tie in with someone's backstory.
Nope. This chapel exists so that, if you do the subquest it's tied to, you get a nifty little beastmount that'll make your land travel go two to three times as fast. If I hadn't been a dumbass, my quest to the far-flung of town of Richard Avedon would've been markedly shorter and, since this game relies of random monster encounters for most of its action, markedly easier.
And how did I find all this out? By going back to that FAQ when, after completing the giant lizard hunting ground subquest you get in Richard Avedon, I was unable to find the above-mentioned Western Woods, the next step in my quest. Lemme tell you, I really worked my ass off trying to find this Western Woods--I have a fucking boat, mind you, and I sailed around the Western edge of that continent looking for a forest. And when I found it, I wandered through the ass-end of it, getting in 'tarded random monster fights and getting nothing for my trouble but some paltry gold and a painful leaking of my players' Magic Points. So, yeah. When I asked the rhetorical question that opened this paragraph, I originally was going to type, "I took the easy way out--I looked at a FAQ." But, really, I did it the hard way--running off in the woods and acting like a 'tard, but only after fucking sailng--and still had to check a FAQ. That's how I found out where to find the Western Woods and how to get a Sabrecat mount to get your ass around. Fuck.
FAQs probably deserve a post all their own in this blog of mine. Like most video gamers, I have a strong love/hate relationship with them: the only thing worse than not discovering something awesome in a video game because a FAQ tells you first, is being stuck forever on some god-damned stupid puzzle, design flaw, or misunderstanding between you and the designer *without* a FAQ to save your ass. Game designers, of course, know this, which is why the difficulty of puzzles have diminished over time and the number of cool, hidden easter eggs have grown. I expect that's only going to continue as video game playing demographic gets older and has less and less time on its hands but still wants cool, unexpected shit to pop up and surprise it. (Remind me to write about the Monster Arena sometime.)
And yet, that approach is also, to an extent, the antipathy of the old-school RPG from which Dragon Quest VIII is descended. Like a pen and paper RPG, the random monster battle is a vital component of the game. Sure, I'm wandering around like the map like a like an idiot, but I'm also gaining crucial experience points, leveling up, and finding the occasional valuable treasure out in the middle of nowhere. If the giant lizard hunt is any indication, I'm comfortably ahead of the level curve because I beat those lizards down without breaking a sweat.
And that's another reason why I suspect that the plot isn't over yet--I've heard this game has about 50 to 100 hours of gameplay to it. Since I'm not exactly doing a speedrun, I bet I'm going to clock in closer to 100 hours, even without doing the "make every item/beat every monster/open every treasure chest" route. That worries me becuase I like all the little sidegames, sub-quests and mini-what-have-yous but I don't want the game to become a chore. Unless it's structured well, that happens with games more often than not--I think they prefer to leave you oversaturated than leave you wanting more--and I worry that could really be the case with Dragon Quest VIII, since I'm already 50 hours into it and have no idea how much more they're going to string the story along. (Considering I haven't even finished the subquest that'll let me play roulette--or anything else--at the big casino, I'm thinking: a lot.)
On the other hand, they were smart enough to throw in the Sabrecats...even if I wasn't smart enough to discover them. Maybe there'll be the chance for me to actually have more of everything, without it feeling like too much of nothing.
Stronger Than Fiction.
If you think my previous post, in which I spent several thousand years bemoaning my inability to cheaply buy games I will never have time to play, was a cry for help, consider this: about five minutes after I hit publish, I bought a new copy of Front Mission 4 off Ebay for nine bucks. Actually, to be fully honest, it was a dutch auction so I bought two copies.
(Why two? I... don't... know? I had some idea that I could flip the other purportedly new copy, either on Amazon, Ebay or at some shop that it might cover the money I spent on both games. This seems really, really unlikely, I know, but nothing screws up my inner compass like success: I flipped my second copy of the limited edition of Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence for enough money that it covered both copies and gave me a $50 profit. Weirdly, for a guy who's been buying comic books for over thirty years, I can count the number of times I engaged in such speculation in that market on the fingers of a single hand, and have enough fingers left over to flash the peace sign. If only such sound judgment would guide me with video games!)
Then, three days later, I found a used copy of God Hand for $11.95 at Streetlight Records. Provided that the scuffs seem as minor as they appeared in the store, this is a good deal. Even if I don't take to the high difficulty level of the game (I've read it's awesome but hard), I could flip it for a small profit on Ebay now. I suspect I may be able to flip it for a larger one later...
So, yeah. That's how Video Game Player: The RPG is going. I defeated dutch auction and it monster dropped two copies of Front Mission 4, and I completed the record store sub-quest for a God Hand reward. I've gained a +2 to Avarice and opened up the Difficult Fighting Game skill tree.
Next: some actual fucking talk about playing actual fucking video games.
(Why two? I... don't... know? I had some idea that I could flip the other purportedly new copy, either on Amazon, Ebay or at some shop that it might cover the money I spent on both games. This seems really, really unlikely, I know, but nothing screws up my inner compass like success: I flipped my second copy of the limited edition of Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence for enough money that it covered both copies and gave me a $50 profit. Weirdly, for a guy who's been buying comic books for over thirty years, I can count the number of times I engaged in such speculation in that market on the fingers of a single hand, and have enough fingers left over to flash the peace sign. If only such sound judgment would guide me with video games!)
Then, three days later, I found a used copy of God Hand for $11.95 at Streetlight Records. Provided that the scuffs seem as minor as they appeared in the store, this is a good deal. Even if I don't take to the high difficulty level of the game (I've read it's awesome but hard), I could flip it for a small profit on Ebay now. I suspect I may be able to flip it for a larger one later...
So, yeah. That's how Video Game Player: The RPG is going. I defeated dutch auction and it monster dropped two copies of Front Mission 4, and I completed the record store sub-quest for a God Hand reward. I've gained a +2 to Avarice and opened up the Difficult Fighting Game skill tree.
Next: some actual fucking talk about playing actual fucking video games.
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