I do not own a next generation system. Or a current generation system. Whatever you want to call the Xbox One and PS4 in the year 2015, I do not happen to own either. I've tasked myself with trying to play through as many of over 600 games I happen to have in my collection. Maybe I'll play through them all to completion (hahahahah no), but what's more likely is that I will try to extract exactly what I want from each one before saying to myself, "Yeah. Yeah I think I'm good." With that in mind, here are some of the games I've been playing and my thoughts on each.

Dragon Quest IX

Dragon Quest is a series that has always been near and dear to my heart. From the early beginnings on the NES wandering Assaram in Dragon Warrior Quest III to exploring the wilderness of Dragon Quest VIII on the PS2, I've never strayed too far from my love of DQ. Therefore it's somewhat surprising that I completely glossed over Dragon Quest IX when it was originally released. It was released in the middle of my college days, when the Nintendo DS was my primary system for gaming and I even remember picking it up a year or two later from a GameStop bargain bin, never taking the time to actually fire it up and enjoy its wonderful charms. I suppose I thought I couldn't be bothered with a more multiplayer-focused DQ game.

How wrong and foolish I was. While the WiFi enabled shop and special quests are infuriatingly locked away, playing DQIX after the fact makes me realize just how much of a powerhouse this game truly was. Epic, sprawling, randomized grottos that you can share with your friends? Fantastic. Fighting all of the old bosses from the first eight Dragon Quest games? Awesome. A huge class changing system that allows you to make your characters ridiculous powerful, and an extremely powerful character customizer that allows you to recreate all the protagonists from Dragon Quest? Fucking sweet. Dragon Quest IX absolutely rocks and I kick my old self for not giving it a fair shake in its day. So far I've put in about 25 hours and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

Asura's Wrath

Asura's Wrath might be one of the greatest anime power fantasies I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The beat-em-up gameplay was lackluster, but what it allowed you to do and see was far beyond my greatest imagination. Asura embodies the shonen protagonist who never gives up, but in a much more mature (and infinitely angrier) way. The story was also surprisingly gripping, leading me to care intensely about the outcome of Asura's wrath.

I'm not sorry for that pun.

In short, it was great. I absolutely adored it. Though of course I bought a physical disc a week before it went on sale for half that price. Of course.

That's all I've played recently, but I'm looking forward to brighter and witchier horizons.