42 hours and 49 minutes. That’s roughly 9.2 dragons per hour, for anyone keeping score. I spent the past weekend in a state of mild addiction, but I’m all better now. *twitch* Yeah.

I ended up like this because shortly after I made my last post, 7th Dragon gave me a ship and set me loose on the world to do whatever I wanted in whatever order I wanted to. Walk around, sail around, fight whichever dragon I want, take whichever sidequest I want, rest when I want, it feels sooo good. Of course the game does provide some guidance about what I should be doing, but they’re just that: guidelines. It’s up to me to choose when to follow them and when to go my own way.

There was a bit of story progression when I reached 333 dragons, which got me a bit worried that they’d try to force me back on the rails. Luckily my fears are unfounded, and I still having a blast roaming the world in search of dragons to murder. It really helps that they’re so ugly and unsympathetic.

Now, about the factors I mentions in the previous post that might prevent me from finishing the game, well… Some of them have improved and some haven’t but I’ve learned to live with them.

1. Damage floors – Yeah, they still suck. But they did introduce an item that reduces the damage you take. The catch is that you have to keep opening the menu to check if it’s still effective, ‘cos they don’t tell you when it wears off. Plus it doesn’t last that long. Thankfully I have lots of money so I can afford lots of them as well as all the healing items and mana-refilling potions I care to buy.

2. The encounter rate – It gotten a lot better, now that my Samurai has an ability that prevents lower-level enemies from approaching me 90% of the time. The stores also stock items that supposedly reduce encounters, but they do diddly and squat. As with the damage floor item, I need to check my menu every couple of steps to make sure the ability is still in effect (really hope they fixed that in the sequel). Still I’ll take that any day over random battles with level 1 weaklings.

3. Low-level enemies attacking – Yeah, they still show up if I let my guard down. And my Samurai’s ability has no effect on those worthless loser mobs that are higher-level statistically speaking but still drop jack all in terms of EXP. I really, really hate them.

4. Poor EXP and item drops – Gotten used to it. It probably has something to do with me being over-leveled almost from the get-go. Now I kill dragons for the fun of it, not because I expect anything in return. I’m like a charity or something.

5. Useless skills – They fixed this with an item that allows you to reset your skill points in exchange for losing 5 levels. A worthy trade-off, obviously. If you redistribute those skill points effectively you’ll end up just as strong as before, if not stronger.

6. Boring sidequests – I don’t do them, for the most part. I might be missing out on some really great rewards as a result (I highly doubt it) but it’s not worth the aggravation.

And there you have my progress report. I’m still not 100% sure I’ll be able to finish 7th Dragon, but now I’ll admit it: I’m having a great time. Not in the heart-pounding excitement kind of way, but more in the “Okay I’ll go here, and then I’ll take care of this, and I should probably stop by there, and I mustn’t forget to do that, and…hmm, this room is getting kinda bright GAAAAH THE SUN IS RISING I’M SUPPOSED TO BE UP AT 7!!!!” kind of way. I should finish this quickly so I can get some sleep.