<–The State of the Gamer: 9/9/21 The State of the Gamer: 10/7/21–>
A weekly post updated every other Thursday detailing my current gaming projects. I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!
What I Purchased
- Tales of Berseria (Tales) – $9.99 for PlayStation 4 @ PlayStation Store
- The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Ace Attorney) – $39.99 @ Nintendo eShop
- Cross the Moon – $4.99 @ Nintendo eShop
Total: $54.97
What I Demoed
- Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan (Etrian Odyssey) on Nintendo 3DS – There’s a mechanic in this one I’ve never seen before with the airship, so you actually have to deal with FOEs (really strong enemies) on a world map, as well as tornadoes. There aren’t random enemies, but there are those obstacles, and since you need to travel like this to get from dungeon to dungeon it could make it more challenging. I’m not sure if I’m going to get this one. I don’t know how I feel about the gimmicks. It’s bad enough you have to avoid FOEs in the labyrinths, but now there’s a world map with them AND weather obstacles. Also, I just heard about a dragon that appears there, too. I wonder if this is why there’s a casual setting to make it easier. As of right now, this isn’t high on my list of purchases, but I’ll keep it on my backlog. It’s not as expensive as the newest EO game Nexus, which sadly doesn’t have a demo (yet).
- Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology on Nintendo 3DS – This is made by the same people who did Etrian Odyssey and Shin Megami Tensei (which I also looked into but ultimately decided against after rewatching a bit of a Let’s Play), but it’s quite a bit different from both. Anyway, I’m as into this as I wasn’t into Legend of the Titans lol. Like I am definitely buying this at some point just not right now because I’m already playing three other games and it’s like $40. This version appears to be a remaster of the original game released in 2010, and I’m living for it. Aspects remind me of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, the book I’m currently writing a review for; the whole idea of “true history” makes me think of “the campaign for real time,” which I want to say was Douglas Adams. There are also aspects of Final Fantasy IX, which is never a bad thing. There is a lot of intrigue and a great deal at stake considering the world is facing desertification in the latter case, which has led to wars for resources (as is expected; spoiler alert – climate change is already causing this, though I guess you could say “desertification” is a type of climate change as well, so…). I really like the grid battle system, and how each fight is like a puzzle of sorts. I may continue playing the demo if I get the chance. The way 3DS demos work is you have 30 times you can boot the game up, and I’ve only done so twice out of that. You can also transfer your save data over, which is really convenient, so I don’t have to worry about losing hours of play time and needing to redo it. I’ve already taken a lot of notes on the game, so I’m going to save those for when I do get around to playing it.
What I’m Playing
Title: Tales of Berseria
Series: Tales
System: PlayStation 4 (PlayStation Vita)
Date Started: September 17, 2021
Whew…this game. I’ve played for maybe five hours and I’m already completely impressed. It’s…intense. Like the opening is wild and then you have this sense of calm in between. Thinking about it…it’s almost like the beginning of The Last of Us where you play as Sarah, and I know that sounds really fucking weird, so I’ll try to explain. Playing as Sarah and playing as Joel are completely different experiences, and I’m going off what people have said since I’ve only watched the game and not played myself. Based on how they explain it, I get the same sense with playing as Velvet before the “incident” and Velvet after. She is a completely different person in a multitude of ways. Also, hilarious, the “incident” (or rather the event that precipitates the “incident”) is called The Advent, which is a word I’m hearing a lot of lately. The Sinking City has a section in Oakmont called Advent, and YouTube keeps suggesting I rent Advent Children.
Anyway, Before Velvet is just a regular teenage girl living with her younger brother and brother-in-law in a sleepy village. Her sister died seven years ago and her parents died prior to that. Their brother-in-law takes care of them. Then later we “meet” After Velvet and she’s an entirely different person who is kept alive only by hatred and a burning need for vengeance, so in a very shor time you’ve played as “two” disparate characters, which is where I’m getting the TLOU comparison.
I love when stories tell you something without “telling” you and it gives a ton of information. There are graves outside of the MC’s house, and to be blunt, they kind of are the explanation for everything that happens. JRPGs really love the “despair turns to ‘madness'” motif, and I’m honestly here for it. There is no discourse in villains who just do it For the Evulz, and Tales of Berseria is another example of a story where I know what’s going to happen, but I’m totally okay with that because the story is set up to inform you of its events if you’re paying attention and understand how these things go. It’s almost cathartic in a way to see things play out as you expected if they’re done well, which they absolutely are. I think what maintains the quality is the fact that the majority of the questions still remain unanswered. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I’m still not entirely sure why. I know ONE “why,” but there are so many others that require explanation.
Just looking at Velvet on the title screen it’s obvious “happy times in the village” is the prologue even though the game opens with her, her little brother, and her brother-in-law escaping a Destroyed Hometown.
I’ve been trying to play this remotely on my Vita, but it’s been dicey. I really wish these games were available on handheld devices, but the only one on the Vita is Tales of Hearts R, and Tales of Vesperia just was released on the Nintendo Switch, so yeah, it might be a while.
Oh and there are malak/malakhim, which I (being an angel obsessive) know is the Hebrew term for “angel/angels.”
Title: The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles
Series: Ace Attorney
System: Nintendo Switch
Date Started: September 12, 2021
I only found out about this because one of the Let’s Players I follow (Olizandri) started playing this on YouTube. I had no clue another Ace Attorney game was even in the works, though I’d hoped the seventh would be released in the US. This one was originally created for the 3DS, and it’s the first time it’s been published outside of Japan. I’ll take any AA goodness I can get, especially consdiering (prepare to sigh in resignation at my nonsense, y’all…)
AHHHHHH ♥♥♥
It should be illegal for them to make even a fictional character this beautiful like OMG ♥♥♥
So now I’m simping for another prosecutor because that’s just the way this works, and he’s a sad boi with silver hair and cold, cold eyes and he’s kind of racist (or maybe he’s just acting that way because he’s a silver haired sad boi that has DEEP ISSUES and a PERSONA to uphold), because he’s an early 20th century British lord so OF COURSE HE’S FUCKING RACIST/CLASSIST and my simple ass doesn’t care why am I such a terrible person D:
*ahem* I have taken so many screen captures of literally every pose this man has had so far. Like…I think he might be a close second with Sephiroth for whom I’d sell my soul to. I want him to “prosecute” me to the fullest extent of the law.
Title: The Lost Child
Series: El Shaddai
System: Nintendo Switch
Date Started: July 31, 2021
I am also playing this game lol. I think I’m in the home stretch. There’s a meteor or something hanging over Tokyo idk it sounds kind of serial *shrug*
What I Watched
- CJUGames
- The Sinking City – I finished up watching this, and I like that he goes through all of the endings. None of them are particularly good for the MC, but they were all great for discussion. I kind of want to review this one, the narrative at least. I think I’d like to wait until I’ve read more of HPL though, particularly the stories this takes from. There’s a Sinking City Wiki I can reference to find out which ones in particular. There were some less than stellar reviews for it though. Some people thought the way Lovecraft was used was trite and/or thrown together, but I’d have to disagree with that because that’s what The Lost Child does lol. I think TSC just sort of throws around characters and concepts from Lovecraft, Egyptian Mythology, and Biblical lore arbitrarily whereas The Sinking City had a cohesive and intriguing narrative. I’m not sure how much was HPL’s and how much the game added, but I thought it was well done.
- Baron Wittard: Nemesis of Ragnarok – I can definitely see the similarities between this and Barrow Hill. I swear if someone gets killed by a moving rock I will lose my shit lol.
- Olizandri
- Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars – He’s played all of the other Mario RPG games except for the one that started them all lol. I’ve seen this played before, but it’s fun to watch it again.
- Ys 1 Chronicles – (Copied straight from my notes so apologies for the randomness.) The fortune teller looks like Aeris lol. Omg the way the enemies explode in blood. Ahhhh so Sara the fortune teller was murdered. Now I feel like an asshole for saying she looked like Aeris lolsob. I fucking knew the man in the black cape killed the Aeris lookalike! I fucking knew it lol. Damn the music in this game SLAPS. Wait…the bad guy’s name is Dark Fact. DARK. FACT. What LOL. I think it was Dulk Dect in the original game or some odd translation.
- Ys 2 Chronicles – I’ve just been on a bit of an Ys kick. The music in this one slaps, too. There’s this one town song on the guitar that is amazing. The pikkards look like guinea pigs; they even sound like them, too. There was literally a reference to The Room film that threw Oliz for a loop lol. I love the demon names in this game. There was a Constantly-Lost-Chaarles and an Oedipus, too. Then of course there’s good demon Keith whom we finally get to see. I wonder if we ever find out why he’s not a bad guy.
The plan was to start using this post as my “what shows am I watching” update, as well, but that’s not starting this week. It’s already Friday when I’m posting this as of Thursday, because Thursday was rough. It took me nearly three hours to get this one out. I was supposed to go out for my auntie’s birthday, but I don’t feel well and didn’t get any sleep last night. I’m just happy it’s the weekend and I’m one of those lucky people who gets them off.
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