<–The State of the Gamer: 6/13/17          The State of the Gamer: 6/27/17–>

A weekly post updated every Tuesday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have quite a backlog of games to either play or watch, and I’m hoping a weekly article will assist with my progress as my other accountable posts have done with reading and writing.

I have an account at Grouvee, which is a essentially Goodreads for gamers, so please feel free to friend me there!

Original source of the banner art is located here.

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Currently Playing: 4

Title: Final Fantasy Type-0
Series: Final Fantasy/Fabula Nova Crystallis
Genre: Action RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release Date: October 27, 2011
Date Purchased: May 18, 2017
Date Started: June 18, 2017

I was really excited to start this, and holy shit, is the opening dark.  I know there are other games that properly portray the reality of war, but I’ve never seen it done by Final Fantasy, even though nearly all of them center around it.  Squeenix pulled no punches in showing how horrible war is with bleeding bodies on the street, the city burning, and *spoiler* a boy who can’t be more than 15 dying besides his mortally wounded chocobo *end spoiler*  This is not your little sibling’s Final Fantasy.

I was also  happy that they offered the Japanese with English subtitles option, and I’m hoping Squeenix continues this trend with all of their future games (hint hint: FFVII Remake), but unfortunately my delight didn’t last.  Type-0 is an action RPG, so the battles aren’t turn based   While it doesn’t seem to be that difficult so far, I’m a little bummed out, because as is widely known, I’m more of a turn based fan, despite some peoples’ opinions that turn based is dead (thanks Evil Wizard!).  I’m not going to abandon the game over this, and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of the battle system soon enough.  I have the tutorials on, but I’m still not that great at it.  I only played until I reached the first save point and haven’t finished the first chapter yet. If the battle system really grates on me, I’ll just wind up watching a Let’s Play of it.

Have any of you played Type-0?  What’s your impression of it?  Is the title supposed to be a pun on the word “typo?”  Would you tell me if it was?

Title: Final Fantasy V
Series: Final Fantasy
Genre: RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square
Platform: PlayStation
Release Date: December 6, 1992
Date Purchased: Unknown
Date Started: June 17, 2017

I finally started playing this this weekend on my PS3, which works like a dream.  I still have to figure out a few things with the system, but I’ve downloaded Netflix, Hulu, and I browsed the PSN, but didn’t buy anything.

V so far is exactly what I’d expect a Final Fantasy to be, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t without its surprises.  I didn’t know the catalyst for this story is also a meteor!  Rather than dampening my spirits in the fear that FFVII isn’t unique (it…isn’t; that’s never been in up for debate nor a strike against it in my book), I’m overjoyed to have more evidence for my overarching Final Fantasy theory.

FFV is immediately engaging; the music is fantastic, and the difficulty level seems more akin to FFVI than FFIV (so far).  I like that you start off the game with a chocobo since he comes with the main character Bartz Klauser (holy German sounding name, Batman).  This is the first one I’ve played where this is the case.  Even though the games aren’t unique  with respect to familiar fantasy motifs and others in the series, they still all contain unique elements.  V returns to the Job System, which I’m too early in to understand or have to utilize, but I’m sure I’ll learn.

On a final note, the scene in the inn with Bartz, Galuf, and Faris is absolutely hilarious.  I know the pirate captain’s secret already, but I am enjoying the hints the game’s dropping, and I have a feeling I know how it’s going to be revealed.

Have you played Final Fantasy V?  Do you have any tips for me before I delve deeper in?

Title: Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius
Series: Final Fantasy
Genre: RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square Enix
Platform(s): iOS, Android
Release Date: June 29, 2016
Date Purchased: March 21, 2017
Date Started: March 27, 2017

While this is still on my Currently Playing list, this week is probably its last hurrah.  I’m not going to stop playing it, but I don’t see the point in updating a freemium game that never ends, especially since I’ve cut back a lot on my playing to concentrate on other games/Final Fantasies.

I’m probably not going to write a review, because I believe LightningEllen is planning one, and I’ll just piggyback some of my thoughts on her post when it comes out 🙂  Am I being lazy?  Yup.  I’m just going to wait for Lightning to strike *runs away*

Title: The Room Three
Genre: Puzzle, Mystery
Developer: Fireproof Games
Platform(s): iOS, Android
Release Date: 2015
Date Purchased: May 28, 2017
Date Started: May 28, 2017

No Room for me tonight (I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that pie).  I’m home alone right now, and soon it will be dark D:

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Games Currently Watching

Title: Phantasy Star
Series: Phantasy Star
Genre: RPG – Fantasy/Science Fiction
Developer: Sega
Original Platforms: Sega Master System
Other Platforms: Sega Genesis, Wii Virtual Console
Original Release Date: December 20, 1987
Let’s Player: Hungry Goriya
Date Started: March 24, 2017

I forgot to delete the email notification that told me part 15 was up, so I kept clicking on it to watch part 15 then I realized I’d already seen it lol.  I’m hoping I catch one of HG’s livestreams.  They’re always so much fun 😀

Title: Mass Effect III
Series: Mass Effect
Genre: Action RPG – Sci-Fi
Developer: BioWare
Original Platform(s): Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3
Original Release Date: March 6, 2012
Let’s Player: Olizandri
Date Started: January 23, 2017

Thessia has fallen 😦  Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t seen/played ME3, but yeah.  That part was the equivalent of the scene in a Disney movie where it seems like the villain has won.  Things are at their worst; the heroes are at their lowest, but Shepherd is not one to just quit, and I hope she kicks Kai Leng’s thieving, taunting butt.

This is what I don’t get about these scenarios.  The Reapers are going to kill everybody.  Why would Cerberus re: The Illusive Man think that he could control them??  Why would you hinder the one person who has the best if not only chance to save the galaxy from an ancient eldritch horror and (literal) existential threat?  The Reapers cannot be reasoned with!  The same as the Brethren Moons of Dead Space , Jenova of Final Fantasy VII., or the old gods of Lovecraft’s mythos who provided a basis for them all.  You can’t reason with an eldritch abomination, because human life doesn’t matter to them, and I don’t mean it doesn’t matter to them because they’re purposely malicious; I mean it doesn’t matter to them because they see it as insignificant, less than how we view flies and worms.  I suppose the need for power can become so strong that you wind up seeking the very thing you created your organization to fight against.  The whole point of Cerberus was the further humanity’s interests in the galaxy, but ironically, the Illusive Man is doing the exact opposite in hindering Shepherd from defeating the very beings that would destroy us all.

Title: Out of This World/Another World & Heart of the Alien
Series: N/A
Genre: Cinematic platformer, action-adventure
Developer: Delphine Software
Original Platform(s): Various
Original Release Date: 1991
Let’s Player: MikeNnemonic
Date Started: May 13, 2017

I’ve watched three videos this week, and I’ll probably be finished before next!  Take that 🙂

I could not play this game.  One, it has a creepy atmosphere due to it being set in an alien world, and two, it’s hard as fuck.  Some of the things you have to do are either counter-intuitive or impossible to figure out, and the Let’s Player has had to utilize a guide numerous times to figure out what to do next.  It’s almost like an action-puzzle game, but if you mess up, it ends in death and the game often restarts you quite far back prior to when you completed some other difficult, usually timing based task.  It’s absolutely brutal.

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.Games Added to Playlist: 1

1. The Stanley Parable – Thanks to Falcon Game Reviews for recommending this one through a conversation on one of our blogs.  I don’t specifically remember where, I apologize.  This is apparently a game for gamers, as in it makes fun of gaming jokes and is quite tongue-in-cheek.  It’s a PC game, so I should have no problem finding it.

Total Games in Backlog: 114
Change from Last Week: -1

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Games Added to Watch List: 0

Total Games on Watch List: 27
Change from Last Week: 0

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Games Purchased This Week: 0

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Miscellaneous

I now have an Xbox 360, which I obtained entirely for free!

A few months ago, I discovered one of my sort of coworkers (and I say “sort of,” because we’re in different departments) was also a gamer who liked RPGs, hooray!  I wound up lending him my Eternal Eyes, because he said his daughter liked games like that.  His son makes these amazing origami creations, and I now have a ton of those on my desk.  He’s into other nerd stuff like comic books, which I’m starting to get into due to Saga, something else we were talking about today.

So I’d been talking about how I wanted to play Lost Odyssey, but needed an Xbox 360 or Xbone in order to do so, though I’d decided to go with the former since it’s cheaper and has more exclusive RPGs out for it.  It turns out he happened to have one he didn’t use any more, and despite my offers of monetary compensation, he said I could just have it.  It had a few minor issues, and I would’ve had to have bought a controller, memory card, and extra space, but I’m not going to complain about a free system.  Well, it turns out a friend of his also had an Xbox 360 that was just gathering dust in his basement.  He’d tried to sell it on eBay, but the person who won the bidding never paid, and instead of hunting the deadbeat down, he decided to give the system to his friend (my coworker) who’d mentioned he knew someone who was looking for one.

Long story story, I have a brand new 250G Xbox 360 with two controllers, a memory card and Call of Duty  for the cost of being a nice geek, which I do all the time anyway.  I still need to set it up, which means cleaning the bedroom (the HORROR), but I’m hoping to do that this weekend so I can try out the pinata game.  My brother and a few of my friends have Xbox Live accounts so I’ll be able to do that, too, plus now I can be apart of Microsoft’s world as well as Sony’s.  I pretty much go where the good (J)RPGs are.  The more the merrier!  If you have an Xbox Live account, and you want to be friends, just let me know!

Also, I think I’m going to change my banner cover for these posts in the near future.  I love that it’s a Nintendo controller, but it’s not as aesthetically pleasing as I’d like.  I might see if I can find a nice banner with a bunch of controllers or systems, since I’m not exclusively a retro gamer.

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What are you currently playing and/or watching? Is it something new or old?  Is it a first time run or a replay?  What’s the genre?  Would you recommend it?  What’s on your radar to play next?

<–The State of the Gamer: 6/13/17          The State of the Gamer: 6/27/17–>

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