I am now a college graduate everyone. Since I have a little bit more time on my hands with that section of life behind me, I thought I would try to write about games a bit more. So I will do my usual and write about what I am currently playing. As always, leave a comment if you have thoughts or opinions.

Final Fantasy XIV is having the Christmas celebration dubbed, "The Starlight Festival". This year has you doing a set of daily quests answering children's letters put under a tree. Depending on the color of the tree you get a colored fallen star which you can use to cash in for festive items. There is a lot of furniture and a minion of "Hoary the Snowman". I still haven't purchased any housing so I'm only in it for the snowman. I'm doing my best to not let the events distract me from clearing content and raising my item level.

The other primary gaming focus I have is Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil. Klonoa is a charming 2D (maybe 2.5D?) platformer. I'm only on the third level but it already the game has plenty of color and some interesting design. Since the game focuses on 2D platforming there is not a lot of room for exploration. You move in and out of the depth of field through cannons, similar to Donkey Kong Country, and occasionally you have to throw an enemy that way too. In order to double jump you have to hold an enemy, which means when you kill an enemy it automatically respawns. The game seems pretty simple but it is interesting to me because it is out of my wheelhouse. For a 2D platformer I think it holds up very well.

That's all for now

-Chemystery

I've been thinking about different versions of video games a lot lately. In this stage of gaming we are no strangers to re-releases, HD improvements, package deals, DLC, and of course patches. It is a fact of life at this point but I've been thinking about it especially hard. A friend of mine collects books and one thing in particular he tries to do is collect every print of a book. He finds it interesting to see the different forewords, translations, and cover art on each edition.

I took this concept and applied it games. I now believe it is a bigger rabbit hole in games than books. At first I applied the logic to a single game. Let's say Final Fantasy V. Originally made in Japanese and produced for the Super-Famicom system, this game has seen several iterations for multiple consoles. It has been ported to the Playstation (with two new full motion vidoes) in Japan, Ported to the Playstation in English (which received changes like accents for characters and different names), Ported to the GameBoy Advance (new Jobs, graphics, and a new boss) and released on iOS.

All of that is just counting definite hard differences, changes in the code. None of this discusses differences in hardware like sound output or the feel of an Super-Famicom controller over a Playstation.

For something we don't think about often it runs very deep. I'm trying to write a more in depth piece on it, mostly for fun and because I like to contribute to the community, but it is not a frequently discussed topic. I don't really have a thesis or topic yet besides this generic idea, I'm just gathering information for now. If anyone has thoughts, ideas, particular games I should look into, or links talking about this kind of thing I would appreciate it. You guys are the best video game resource I've seen so far. Let's keep it up.

Video game literature recently had an addition to its ranks, a book titled Console Wars by Blake Harris. It was mentioned briefly on the Bombcast, but you may also know of it because Seth Rogen purchased the movie rights to it. The latter has given the book a modest amount of publicity in circles beyond the diehard game players. The book itself is a historical outlook on the competition created by Sega and Nintendo during the formative years of the industry. Console Wars does its best to recreate conversations and memos through hundreds of interviews with employees who were there. Overall it is a very scholarly outlook on the industry and is clearly one of the best researched books in the field.

The field of video game history needed this book frankly. I do my best to study the history of video games but the literature is very limited. In fact I have learned more from listening to Jeff Gerstmann talk than most of the books I have read. If you are lucky enough to find a book about the topic, it might not be the most well written piece out there.

We are at a point now that the industry is bursting open with stories. Stories of programming games on the C64 are up for grabs in several special interest magazines and soon valuable employees will be retiring and willing to tell all without fear of being fired. We can fill shelves about the history of the industry but there seems to be a lack of interest in doing it. I'm not a writer (look at this post for example) so I don't understand everything it takes to craft a proper book, but I don't think the problem lies with authors. I think it lies in an old stereotype. Why write a book about video games when the people who care are busy playing games? Would you pay twenty dollars for a book or a used game if they were next to each other? If you don't believe this stereotype exists look at Barnes and Noble. Console Wars, a legitimate book about the biggest entertainment industry in the world, is shelved between the game guides for Dark Souls II and Minecraft. People who aren't gamers were excited about this book, I saw it on the news even, and it still cannot get out of the game guide section.

Regardless of how the world treats the history of video games, I think it is interesting. I'm enjoying the book so far and highly recommend it if you are interested. You can still get the First Edition Hardcovers at stores for no extra charge, it is worth it.

Finally, a chance to actually play some quality games. When I am home on break I like to play more multiplayer games with my friends. So rather than trying to finish the many games on my back list I play a little more competitively with my friends.

We always start with Civilization V. We have all of the DLC and we all agree it makes the game that much better. This week we haven't all gotten together so I've been playing a game with two of my friends with no AI. It is pretty much the best game of Civ I have ever played. One guy started on his own continent so he got the advantage but I formed a quick alliance with my other friend. Our economies basically depend on each other now so we are attempting a naval barricade followed by an invasion on to the continent. Unfortunately we timed it poorly and he got musketmen just as we landed. He is attempting to win through world congress (he is Alexander) so we are doing everything we can to destroy city states as fast as possible. It's always a good time but this game is working out just perfectly.

Also on the multiplayer side of things I have been playing Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate on my 3DS with the same group of guys. I knew that game was good, but I didn't understand how good until I tried multiplayer. The hunts are a lot more satisfying and interesting with multiple people. In solo hunts your strategy is to make sure you have enough stuff on you to survive. In multiplayer you actually have to form strategies of what you want people to do. It helped the experience to have someone who understands the in depth mechanics of the game to help us out too. I had so much fun that I started playing it solo now too. I want that full set of Jaggi armor!

On my own I have been playing Bravely Default and Lightning Returns. I'll talk about them more in depth later this week but I enjoy both games. I hear a lot of negativity about Lightning Returns but try it for yourself, I'm finding it quite enjoyable. I recently beat Final Fantasy XIII-2 so expect a review of that soon as well.

Also, my apologies for having such a huge gap in writing. College makes fools of us all. If anyone has cool monster hunting tips or great Civ V mod suggestions please comment. I'd love to check them out!

Spring Breakers,

-Chemystery

Today's date is February 17, 2014. Had this been 10 years ago, I would have a much different number for .Hack//Infection. I like history, I have a very high respect for where the world has been and where we have come from. As much as I hate to think that age impacts things negatively, some things just don't age well. This game is one of them.

Right from your first log in to "The World" the game starts to show its age. An early PS2 game does not hold up well graphically in this day and age. Models are all polygonal and jagged while the textures are muddy and dark. The graphics are ugly but perfectly serviceable though. You are capable of seeing everything you need to see, so this is merely a cosmetic issue. Be aware that you if go down this road you are playing an old game and this is how it will look.

Unfortunately, the menus handle as poorly as they look. Equipping party members requires at least 3 menus, more if you want to see the stats of their items before you swap them out. You have to do this a lot too. For an active combat RPG you will be spending a very large portion of your time in menus. Attacks are selected through menus, group tactics are selected through menus, if it needs done, it has a menu. This interface is ridiculous to have when most of the buttons on the controller aren't really mapped to anything. Clunky and boring are not a good combination for a game going for fast paced combat.

The concept of the game should be praised for its uniqueness. Playing a character who is playing an MMO to solve the mystery of his comatose friend makes for an amusing story. Over the course of .Hack you will be using email and forum boards to discover your next clue, make friends by questing, and trade with players in HUB towns just like a real MMO. Combat takes place in "fields" that you create by entering three random code words. Each word provides it's own attributes to the field so you can mix and match to your content. This randomly generated world has a field area where you start and a single dungeon that you enter and explore. Every dungeon ends with a treasure chest that gives you loot better than what you would normally see. This style of play is fun for a little bit, but you quickly find out that going through basically the same dungeons re-skinned is not the most fun.

There is not much of a sense of character progression as skills are tied to your equipment and not your character's level. Often you will be choosing between having helpful skills or have better stats. The same goes for your party members that you keep equipped as you play. At most it's a lot to consider, at least it is a nuisance to see your most used skill lost to progression.

You can always sell your extra items which you will be doing a lot of since that is the primary monster drop. This money doesn't really have a use besides buying healing items in the game. You will need a lot of money to keep your party stocked up with these since everyone in your party can carry up to 99 of each. You need to personally trade these items to your NPC party members too and good luck trying to figure out how many each of them already have.

To the game's credit the story is engrossing. The characters you play with seem real and you will be bringing people into your group just to continue their email dialog. For a series that spans four discs you can tell that this game is merely building the foundation of the game world but it even does that in an interesting way. I went the whole way through the game for the purpose of seeing the story to the end. It is a powerful goal and you will feel accomplished once you have beaten the game.

.Hack//Infection has been left in the dust by video game evolution. It is an interesting game with a genuine concept but the execution was I suspect mediocre in its time and even worse now. If you are a true fan of the series or JRPGs it may be worth going back for. Otherwise do not come back for this one. Your time is better spent elsewhere.

-Chemystery

I hit that spot in Final Fantasy XIV, the very first dungeon. In that moment I instantly learn what I think of any MMO. It's one of the first major milestones and it sets the tone for the rest of your experience. In the first dungeon you see the beginnings of raid mechanics, how your class really plays, and get a small sense of the community.

In the case of XIV the first dungeon is a pirates' cove called Sastasha. My first time through as a level 17 white mage took about 40 minutes. My tank was a good friend from school so I had the benefit of being walked through the dungeon.. The rest of the group was a pug but they were all very consistent in their play, no wipes or deaths. My friend made sure we did all of the fights, apparently most groups that grind this instance just run past a few of the boss fights. Overall, the instance wasn't very different from any other MMO. The raid was solid, most bosses were tank and spank but that is expected in the first dungeon. The last boss was an exception, you had to run around and stop water ripples from summoning extra enemies. Pretty plain but solid all the same. I enjoyed how the groups worked, it was nice to see some synergy between classes rather than each one doing their own things. Also queuing up for the dungeon was simple and super fast, a rare thing for too many games. This dungeon just furthered my current belief in the game. A good game but you've seen it all before.

I'm well beyond the first dungeon in Bravely Default however. It is amazingly addictive, it just pulls you in and keeps you there. It has such a strong sense of progression that every level feels like a big deal. I'm always super excited to see what ability the next job level will unlock. That feeling has let me down more than once though. some of the earlier abilities just suck. The Norende mini game also keeps me coming back to the game. My 3DS hasn't actually been shut off in a week. I keep it in sleep mode to get more Streetpasses and more shop levels. I worry though that the shop items from Norende break the game. I've bought some of the higher tier pieces and I feel like my characters are burning through the early game content faster than they should. This is compounded by the fact that I have set my encounter rate to +50% so I'm fighting more things then I am supposed to. For the curious readers my party is White mage, Knight, Monk, and Black Mage. I'm doing something pretty dumb and keeping them those classes until they max out the jobs. I know it is not efficient, but it's fun to me. If I looked more into it, I bet the systems are really easy to manipulate. There is just enough "extra" social stuff in it that I think your party could become excessively strong extremely fast.

Also this week I did a little more grinding in .Hack//Infection. I'm hoping to wrap that game up this weekend. Expect a full review soon!

Happy Valentines Day!,

Chemystery

I have sitting next to me, Bravely Default, resting in my 3DSXL as minutes casually tick by. Although I am typing this now, I am gaining levels in the game, and it feels good.

Bravely Default at it's core is a solid RPG. It has the staples that you want and have come to expect from the genre. You control four charming characters as they tramp about the world trying to save it. I don't want to go too deep into the story as it is still new, but it is interesting and well pieced together. The game has voice acting, AR integration, and an in game encyclopedia to keep you up on all of your lore. It crafts a beautiful world that you will be happy to spend your time in.

Your characters gain levels and job levels as you play so meters are always being filled. I haven't unlocked all of the jobs yet but there are plenty to choose from and they each level up to level 14. Each job level gives you a new type of ability to use so every number feels important. Experience points are gained through your standard turn based combat. Bravely Default begins forging it's own path here as the combat comes with a twist. Your characters have a set number of turn points that you can spend or save. You can have one character take four turns immediately if you want to spend their points but then they have to wait a few turns until they get their points back to the starting 0 point. Defaulting defends your character and lets them store up an extra point to use later.

The real gem is the use of social aspects in the game. Over the course of the game you are rebuilding a village that will give you access to certain items depending on what you have built in it. You start off with one citizen building a store and that chore takes an hour, but with 2 people it takes half and hour and so on. This time ticks down as your DS is in sleep mode too. You increase citizens by street passing other players which gives you a bunch of other things to do with streetpasses as well. People you pass can be summoned into your game and you can use abilities they have as well. It actually makes me want to carry my 3DS with me so I can get more done faster. Brilliant use of the features if you ask me.

There is a slightly seedier part to the game though. You can buy these "Sleep Points" that let you take turns in between enemy turns. These points can be purchased or you can leave your DS on sleep mode for 8 hours to get one point. This feature doesn't seem particularly useful to me so I think it will be a part of the game that I ignore. I mention it just because I worry what sort of thing Square Enix will get itself into if it keeps following ideas like that.

Before I acquired Bravely Default I was still playing FF XIV pretty hard. I just hit level 15 and did I pretty large quest line. Pretty soon I'll be able to start doing dungeons. I already read up on the first one so I know how to heal through it. It seems really easy though. My big worry is that playing with the controller will make going through the dungeons harder. I wish I had the money to build a proper gaming computer. Despite my shortcomings that game awesome. I'm working on figuring out how to take screenshots so I can post them. I've been looking into that for a lot of games and it seems like quite the task to figure out. If you anyone has suggestions I'm willing to listen!

Games, Games, Games,

Chemystery

Sorry about missing last week's post. I had to adjust to the new school schedule I have going for me. I'll try to make up for it this post.

I made it to the last boss, Skeith in .Hack//Infection. The last dungeon in the game is a breeze to get through and when you reach the end, you get totally destroyed. I mean the boss battles ramp up the difficulty in the game 10 fold out of no where. This makes grinding worse than normal because you have to grind things that are super weak and easy so you can battle something that seems to be ridiculously leveled. I only tried to fight him once before choosing to go back to grinding. I definitely need to have maximum healing items on myself and my party members. Maybe I'll do some more grunty farming or try to get all of the unlocks in the books of ryu. I want to beat the game soon but I'm not sure how likely it will be since I have a new game on the block.

After much convincing and looking at sale prices, I picked up Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn for the PS3. This is the second (or third if you get technical) MMO in the FF franchise. I'm a total sucker for the series and an MMO seemed like a fun way to fill my time so I loaded it up. It took some doing though, I had to clear a bunch of space off of my PS3 hard drive (Deleted Gran Turismo 5) and bought myself a USB keyboard so I could type in the game.

The game controls very well on the PS3, a feat that I did not believe could be accomplished. It assigns a hot bar to each d-pad and button so you switch hot bars by holding R1. The skills on the hot bars are accessed by holding R2 or L2 and then hitting a d-pad direction or button. It establishes a nice symmetry and feels very intuitive. Switching between targets can be a little strange but mostly it is done by hitting directions on the d-pad while targeting something. The only thing that does not control well is the map. The map is quite difficult to navigate and I often find myself struggling to tell where I need to go. When a quest is in a different area from where you are, they just put it out in this gray blob. It could be that I haven't explored the map a lot yet or it could be the PS3 navigation for the map. I wonder if it's any better on the computer.

I'm hoping to make a white mage character but first I need to level up my conjurer class before I can get the specific job of white mage. It's an interesting system especially since you can freely switch between classes just by changing your weapon. Your level is not an overall number but linked to whatever class you are at the time. Final Fantasy 14 definitely has some different mechanics than the standard MMO and I hope they pay off later in the game. Right now though I am really amused with it. I fully expect most of my gaming time to be with this now. But we shall see! Bravely Default will be coming out soon and I can't wait for it.

For those interested my character is Thail Ashlain, I play on the Ultros server and I am a level 10 conjurer.

Play Safe,

Chemystery

College has really murdered my game time, but I am still doing my best to get through .Hack Infection and Final Fantasy 6.

I'm 9 hours into Final Fantasy 6 and I'm starting to warm up to it. Terra went all super sayian and now I'm trying to rescue and/or find her. My party is Locke, Cyan, Edgar, and Celes. One of my big worries is that I am going to miss out on a bunch of characters because I didn't explore enough or something. Hopefully the other characters that haven't been introduced yet are in mandatory cut-scenes or found in painfully obvious places. I've reached the city of Zozo and I think it is an awesome area for a Final Fantasy game. A derelict town full of enemies, jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, and a cool puzzle with clocks just feels right in this game. Also Edgar's auto crossbow is an amazing ability and should be used without discretion.

Where Final Fantasy 6 has been constantly improving in my mind, .Hack Infection has been maintaining the status-quo. Gardenia joined my group so now I have a long arm that I can recruit to my party. I definitely need to stop and do some grinding though. A friend warned me that if I don't farm the early virus cores now it will be hard to get them later. I'm also plagued with constant feeling that some party members are way under leveled (I'm looking at you Natsume). I should probably raise some more grunties as well but I keep getting noble grunties. For that matter, I don't understand what grunties even do. I can trade with them for some okay stuff but that's about it right? Add to the .Hack chore list Trading with NPC's as well. Somebody must want those Golden Axes I have. .Hack has a lot of nuances that I need to work on.

The real sleeper hit was the random games of Spelunky my girlfriend and I have been playing. After watching so much Spelunkin' with Scoops I looked up some streams on Twitch. One late night I found a stream with an exceptional Spelunky player Latedog. In his stream were a few other top tier players and just generally nice fellows. These guys and gals were a delight to talk to and answered any and every question I had about the game. I actually bought the game because the community seemed so nice.

Most of the Spelunky I have seen is single player, but let me tell you, if you haven't tried the multiplayer you are missing out. My girlfriend and I play with each other and we have a blast. We aren't too good yet, but we always laugh and carry on. The best part is that even when you are dead you can control a ghost that floats around setting off traps and pushing treasures down to a more accessible area for your partner to grab. That small touch makes the game consistently engaging for every player. It's a rare game that leads to multiplayer laughs and not multiplayer fights.

Comments are always welcome,

-Chemystery

Everybody has tasks they want to do that they never got around to the first time. Chores to complete, movies to see, books to read, and games to play. These undone tasks pile up fast and they form a monstrous beast known as the backlog. One of the hardest backlogs to tackle is the one of a gamer.

Almost every gamer has a backlog made of games they own and need to beat and/or games they don't own but want to play. Every steam sale, Black Friday door buster, flea market, and Humble Bundle, adds to the pile a little more. As games proliferate life more and more video games are becoming easier and easier to acquire. It is so out of hand that having games you will never play on Steam is an ongoing joke. If you were to add up the average time it takes to complete the games in my current backlog it would be thousands of hours, easily. It still keeps growing.

The worst part is that the completionist in me craves the history of games. I can't just play Splinter Cell: Blacklist. I want to see the whole series, so that's another four games to play. It is not just modern consoles either, I have NES cartridges sitting on my shelf taunting me. "Do you really understand video games if you've never beat the original Mario?" they whisper in the night. These games don't have saves either, If I want to beat these old timers I really need to hone my skills. Or I can cheat and use the save states on the virtual console. Then that leads to the whole mess of how many copies do I need of these games? This one has an expansion pack for it, this one is HD, this one is on the handheld, but there is something to say about playing the original format. If you appreciate where games have come from and want to see it with your own eyes, prepare for the list of games you will "need" to play. It still keeps growing.

At the end of the day though I think backlogs are amazing. It says something very personal about you and your hobby. What you like, what you want to experience and how you play, it is all contained in that nice list of games you may never play. Whether you play them or not, it is a piece of your collection or what you want to be your collection. I'm excited to work through my game collection and beat as many games as I can. Before you start that new game, check your backlog for a moment and see if there is something you'd like to do first. Never forget. It still keeps growing.

Happy Weekend,

-Chemystery