Happy New Year! 2018 seems to have whizzed by amazingly fast. Even faster than usual, maybe because I didn’t do much or go anywhere interesting last year. I still managed to play a lot of games but those don’t really count.
Actually, I was flirting with the idea of making 2019 a No Game year. Just packing all my games into a box and putting them away until 2020. There are lots of things I want/have to do this year and every hour spent gaming is an hour spent not achieving them. Escapist fantasy is all good and nice, but when the credits roll, that mountain of work you were avoiding is still waiting for you.
The only reason I’m not going to is because of my siblings. Specifically the ones who are married with kids and have no time to play games any more. They’re not complaining, mind you, but when I think that a day might come when I can’t even play Candy Crush Soda because my phone has been taken over by “Baby Shark” and “Daddy Finger” then I realize I’ve gotta make hay and kill bosses while the sun shines. So here are my six gaming targets for 2019:
1. Atelier Ayesha Plus (VITA) – I started it briefly after finishing Meruru because I was curious but Atelier is still Atelier in the end so it’s best to leave some months in between games. Is she just pretending or is Ayesha really that ditzy? It’s not cute at all.
2. Atelier Escha & Logy Plus (VITA) – I’ll be playing Ayesha quite early in the year so by the time the second half of the year rolls around, I’ll be craving more Atelier. It sounds like it’ll be really interesting to play first as Logy and then as Escha to see different events or endings. Assuming I have the energy to play twice, that is.
3. One of the Ys action-RPGs (PC) – Any Ys will do. Except Ys DS. I happen to like the words “Felghana” and “Celceta” so I’m fixing to play either one of those first. It’s all because I really like the combat in Tokyo Xanadu eX+ but there just isn’t enough of it. Since the combat is (supposedly) Ys-inspired, I might as well go to the source and check it out.
4. La Corda d’oro 3 (VITA) – It will be hard to let go of my old crew, but I’ve done almost everything worth doing in LC1 and LC2 so it’s time to move on. New settings! New music! New bishies! This should be good. After that I just have to play LC4 and the new Octave game and I’m done with the series. I hope to play one of the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de games as well.
5. Final Fantasy XV (PC) – a.k.a. FF Boyband Edition. I like to play series in release order so I’ll give FFXIII one last, honest try. Especially now that I can use a PS4 controller to play the game. I just can’t get into keyboard controls. So honest try for FFXIII, then FFXV. Even though I’ve heard it’s bad I still want to play it.
6. Sakura Wars 5 (Wii) – Still haven’t played Sakura Taisen 4, but I’m going to prioritize it because it was on last year’s list. Then I can get SW5 out of the way in time for the next game in the series which Sega will eventually release someday, hopefully while I’m still young enough to play it.
That’s it, nothing too ambitious this year because I still have leftovers from last year’s resolutions. Though I did pretty well last year and almost everything I tried was good. The same guiding principle applies: “It’s enough to play just a little bit of a game.” It helped me stay stress-free last year so I think I’ll keep it and apply it to other things like books and movies and the like.
Well that’s enough from me. Enjoy your day and Happy New Year again!
Happy New Year! Glad to hear you’re sticking with gaming still. As for Ys, the latest one, 8, was actually very good and probably plays most similarly to Tokyo Xanadu so I’d highly recommend that. Only problem is the the performance & loading time issues it has on PSV.
Many happy returns! The bigger issue with playing Ys 8 is that if you play the more polished installments first then it’s hard to go back to the earlier ones. So if you plan to play them all eventually – and I do – then it’s best to start as early chronologically as possible. This means discarding the early bump system games and starting with Napishtim -> Felghana -> Origin -> Seven -> Celceta -> 8.
Ah, that makes sense. I’ve played everything up to 8 except for Celceta and I enjoyed all of them. Hope you end up enjoying them as well, unlike the Kiseki games. 😀
At this point it’s up to Falcom to make me NOT enjoy them. The only potential snafu is that they might be too hard for me. But I’ll do my best!
I wouldn’t necessarily say Celceta and later are more polished than Felghana, but gameplay is a bit different (and indeed more like Tokyo Xanadu in Seven/Celceta/VIII). Though Felghana really is a great way to start, it is arguably one of the best games of the franchise, and a nice bite sized snack – Felghana/Origins can both be done and over it in 10 hours or less, while Seven and on are more in the 20+ hours ballpark.
You had me at 10 hours. The perfect length. I’m sold.