Well, shit.

As happens with damn near every blog series I write, something went hilariously off the rails. Fortunately, this time, that's a good thing - an amazing thing, because my brother gifted me a digital copy of MGSV. For those not familiar, that game's kind of popular at the moment.

I fully intended on buying MGS either during Black Friday or early next year. I didn't think it would appeal to me. Here I am, quickly approaching nearly twenty hours of gameplay after just a couple of days and I'm hopelessly addicted to it. So Backlogtoberganza took a little tiny bit of a backseat for a few days.

That being said, I did manage to put a monster of a start into Dragon Quest V and played a good chunk of Hitman Go. Other games will be examined too. Just... lemme put a few more hours into gathering resources and fultoning some machine guns, okay?

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

I had a chance earlier this week to bust out the 3DS and play a game that's been sitting on my shelf for the better part of two years. Dragon Quest IV-VI were games I bought solely as investments when they came out. They're the sort of thing that will someday sell for bonkers amounts of money on eBay or Amazon, and I wanted my mitts on 'em. After digging through my stacks of DS and 3DS games to find something juicy to play while housesitting, I came across DQV and decided in a fit of randomness to start it. I'm very happy I did - this game, so far, has been a breath of recycled-but-still-oh-so-good-and-life-giving air.

I say "recycled" because this is still very much a remake of a classic RPG, with a lot of the same warts. You'll still have random encounters in the field, which will no doubt annoy some. I didn't find them at all troublesome, and wound up enjoying the biting difficulty that can come from being unprepared for a Dragon Quest game.

That's the other "wart," if you can't look past it. The beginning is pretty difficult. That said, the game eliminates the game over screen in favor of automatically respawning you at the nearest church,, with a measly half your gold as a slap on the wrist for dying. Compared to the sheer brutality of DQVIII, this is child's play, but it does feel like a much better game for it. Instead of something aggravating that punishes you in the last few minutes of a dungeon, you instead have a chance to make a run back through with all the experience and equipment you gained in your previous run. In that regard, it's not so dissimilar to something like Rogue Legacy. That's a fantastic thing.

So if the warts aren't really warts at all, what's left is pretty damned amazing so far. I've greatly enjoyed the story, but mind you, even at five hours in, I'm still in the early stages. My main character seems to have a mysterious past as an infant which he only vaguely remembers, but now he lives a life with his father both on the road and in their adopted town. As the game introduces a childhood friend and various townspeople who've helped them throughout the years, bits and pieces of a larger story are being hinted at. I've progressed only tot he end of said childhood phase, but that means I'm still five hours into the game. It would seem this is a heck of an undertaking, one I really plan on digging into.

As far as gameplay is concerned, this is classic Dragon Quest. The combat is turn-based, you learn skills like Frizzle and Heal, and you square off against delightfully named monsters like the combatterpillar, the bona constrictor (a skeletal snake - seriously, how good is that? It's @mento tier), and the funky ferret.

It's not a game that takes its gameplay lightly, but it's a gentle, smiling sort of thing that creates a world I adore. I'm really, really looking forward to spending more time with this when I have a lull. I cannot recommend it enough.

Also, bombshell here, but I think this game kicks Final Fantasy VI's ass all over the place. It's that good.

Completed? Hahahahahaha. No.

Time Spent - Roughly five hours or so, all of which were spent with a surprised, half goofy grin on my face.

Percentage finished - I imagine a fraction of it. These games are freakin' huge.

Play Again? Absolutely, yes. Just a fantastic gem.

Hitman Go

This was on sale at some point on iOS for a measly buck, and I snapped it up without much thought. Months later, I still hadn't touched it until a few nights ago.

Hitman Go isn't a bad little puzzler, but don't walk into it expecting to find much more than that. It's really a game based around the idea of turn-based timing, not entirely unlike something like Chinese Checkers. Each level (of which I think there are roughly eighty ish?) is laid out in the same fashion as any number of turn-based board games. Your goal is to make it to the end of the level, usually with some smaller objectives along the way, like offing a certain target or avoiding taking out anyone at all.

The challenge comes from learning the particulars of each enemy unit's movements and patterns. That doesn't sound hard at all, and it mostly isn't. Some levels require a bit of trial and error until you see what the developers are going to throw at you, and then it's a matter of just breezing through. It gets more and more complicated as the game goes on, but that's the basic gist of it.

I like it so far. I'm not sure if I could recommend it for more thana couple of bucks, but it's a nice diversion. Hey, any smartly designed puzzler is always worth a look, right?

Completed? No.

Time Spent - I'd say about two hours or so, spread out over a week's time.

Percentage Finished - Looks like I'm about thirty levels deep. Something just under halfway I think.

Play Again? Sure. It's not a bad game, just not one I want to play for hours on end. Unlike our next contestant...

Metal Gear Solid V

Look. This is the game that's been talked about ad nauseam. I'm not going to talk your ear off about it, but I will say this. If you're on the fence about it, don't watch the first couple of episodes of MG Scanlon. Instead, aim for something towards episode four or five, where the real guts of the game are shown. That beginning does not do the game justice, particularly as most of the game is relatively light on story. That's definitely not a bad thing in some regards, but going into this expecting it to be a typical Hideo Kojima talkie is not at all the right way to go at it.

Holy crap, I'm addicted. In fact, I'm gonna go play some more right now. Probably until dawn. Or noon. Whichever.

Completed? No.

Time Spent - Uh. Ahem. Probably twelve hours at least just in the last few days. I know, I have problems.

Percentage Finished - Says I'm at nine percent.

Play Again? Oh God yes.

That's it for this time. Tune in again in a few days for my initial thoughts on Disgaea 5. I don't know what or if I'll be playing any older games until I've had a lot more of my fill with MGSV, but we'll see what I can do. And this is a reminder that all thanks for the blog go to Dan Kempster, who came up with this crazy idea and whose blog on here you really should be reading.