I took a break from console and handheld games for about 3 weeks in May. I have to specify ‘console and handheld’ because I was still dabbling in casual fare like Candy Crush and Shepherd’s Crossing Online from time to time. I can’t blame casual gamers any more – ‘proper’ games just require too much of a money, time and energy investment and the payoff for the games I played most recently was quite low. It’s good to take a break from an activity sometimes, just to get some perspective. I learned quite a bit from the experience, chief among them being:
– I’m not a baby. I don’t need to be constantly entertained.
– I can quit gaming when I’m ready. In the past I used to wonder what I would do with my spare time, but the answer is “Plenty.” There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the things I want to do in one lifetime.
– That said, I still LOVE RPGs and want to play lots more of them.
– The problem is that a lot of RPGs are crap. Or sometimes they’re not crap, but they’re just not for me. I need to learn when to cut my losses.
So what happens now? Nothing, it’s business as usual on this blog, just with a new set of games because the old ones were stressing me out. I really, really need to develop the mental fortitude to drop games quickly when they just aren’t working out. Now that I think about it, in the whole lifetime of this blog there have only been a few times where I thought “I want to drop this game” but forced myself to continue and ended up enjoying myself. At best I get a “Okay that wasn’t so bad” feeling, but that’s not good enough any more. So for the games I was working on before the break:
Adventure Bar Story = dropped. Sorry, it was just no fun to play any more.
Ao no Kiseki = shelved. Way too much talking, with all four party members constantly chiming in over every single issue in the name of ‘immersion’ or ‘character exploration’. It just makes every scene in the game take 4 times as long as it normally would. I dread what will happen when the last 2 party members return. And yet I still don’t want to drop Ao completely so… shelf. Mental fortitude, mental fortitude, mental fortitude…
Coded Soul = shelved. Right before the break I spent 30 minutes in a special dungeon where I couldn’t save or retreat, only to get totaled by the dungeon boss – right when I was about to defeat him too! On one hand it’s my fault for relaxing my guard when I thought he was almost dead. On the other hand what if I spend another 30 minutes getting there only to die again? My ARPG reflexes has probably dulled in the meantime so it’s a very real possibility. DO NOT WANT. So shelved for now. I’ll see if I find myself missing it and if I do, I’ll be back. I really like the game world, at least.
Harvest Moon: A New Beginning = dropped until the 3DS circle pad is repaired. I’ve also put plans to get other 3DS games on hold while I thoroughly investigate their control systems. I hope to get things sorted out before Stella Glow and Luminous Arc Infinity come out in English.
Tales of Hearts = definitely dropped for good. I thought I would change my mind over the break, but I didn’t, so *toss*
I tried to weed out the ‘Don’t really wanna play’ games from my backlog while I was at it, but just about everything stubbornly refused to budge. They’ll all get their fair chance in due time. For this month I’m going to play Tsurugi no Machi no Ihoujin (Stranger of the Village of the Sword) and 7th Dragon 2020-II (already started but can’t decide between a Psychic and an Idol for my initial party) because I’m in the mood for a nice dungeon crawler and one of these two is bound to be good. And that’s that.
You’ve got some nice games lined up! Not surprised you dropped Ao no Kiseki though, at this point I think it’s pretty safe to say that Falcom’s Trial series slow pacing just isn’t doing it for you. Any thought on the recent bankruptcy of Imageepoch? Not sure how you feel about them, but I’ve had this long love-hate relationship with Imageepoch for awhile now. While none of their games are outright amazing and many are complete and total crap, they still put out enough fun games that I consider them a somewhat respectable developer. Really quite sad to see them go. That said, their latest game on the 3DS, Stella Glow, is an SRPG and they seem to have put some of their best effort into it. It’s very reminiscent of Luminous Arc and Summon Night. (minus the summoning) Since you still have access to a 3DS, thought you might be interested.
Imageepoch reminds me of the old nursery rhyme:
When they were good, they were very, very good,
But when they were bad, they were horrid!
I too had a love-hate relationship with them, but overall I enjoyed more of their games than I hated. I’m playing 7th Dragon 2020-II right now and it makes me sad to think there won’t be any more. No Last Ranker 2, no Criminal Boys, no more Sol Trigger to hate on.
Stella Glow is very much on my radar, just waiting for Atlus to release it in English (though I’ve heard about an easy regionfree exploit). I also want to play Luminous Arc Infinity if/when it comes out, since LA3 was a really good game. ;____; Imageepoooch!!!!
Sounds like you had a productive break! 🙂 Welcome back, though. You’re one of my favorite blogs so I look forward to each post. On the other hand, taking time off to experience other things is awesome too. I tried to play Tales of Hearts on 3DS and I’m glad I didn’t get the new version. So far, Xillia is the only Tales I ever finished.
*Tales of Hearts for DS, I mean.
So far Tales of Tempest is the only one I’ve finished. I came close with Hearts, but just lost steam near the end. It’s actually pretty good if you have a lot of patience for length-padding, patience that I unfortunately lack these days.