I had been under the impression that I was nearing the end of Final Fantasy XIII. At twenty hours, something in my muddled mind said the end was only hours away. Then, as I wondered what the third disc in my game set might hold if this alleged culmination of my fumbling use of Paradigm Shifts was within my grasp, I remembered:

The tutorial aspect of the game ends after twenty hours.



Still, I am enjoying the game quite a bit. I would gladly throw two of the main characters off a cliff and sleep well that night, though. Vanille is a horror show of cutesy, and Hope is a whining emo bastard who needs two weeks of solid ditch digging to knock the mewling out of him. Yet the main character of Lightning--seen above kicking government ass--and Fang (who I always think would smell of clove cigarettes) are some of the most engaging characters I've seen in awhile.



I've also been rocking Pokemon Heartgold, with now two Gym badges under my belt. I stand alone in my appreciation of this RPG with my more hardcore, heavy drinking gamer companions. The level of detail that is crammed into this game is a cheerful celebration of OCD. The Pokewalker is one of those rare gimmicks that is actually fun in and of itself. I'm not sure how much of a pedometer it actually is, but carrying it around with me surreptitiously throughout the day has won me some very nice loot drops and at least two caught Pokemon.

I have made it a point to follow some of the more, shall we say, involved Pokemon threads on sites like NeoGaf and Penny Arcade, and the level of dedication and complexity in this game still makes me smile.

I also have been playing Etrian Odyssey 2 on the DS.



This has been on my wishlist for awhile. I first heard about it on Active Time Babble, the superb RPG podcast on 1up.com. Etrian is said to be one of the toughest RPGs in the current generation, so of course I have to throw myself against it to see for myself. The hardcore element lies in the expected level of grinding, but also in the map-making you have to do as you traverse the dungeons. You draw the map on the lower screen of the DS, and if you make a mistake--like not putting a door where there is one, you can well and truly screw yourself over if you try to escape. It appeals to my nature to have to go over every single detail as I move my party through the dungeon, nerdily writing down everything I see, leaving the correct icons and making notes to myself. On top of that, healing seems to become more expensive the more times you make use of it. I think if the technology were available, Etrian would also shock you every time you died fighting, just to drive home the point that you suck.

It reminds me of 1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons, with that same feeling of 'You can die around any one of these corners' I remember from my sessions back in the Eighties. And I miss that degree of gaming sadism.