Some Kinda Natural Flow

With the spring semester in full swing now, I don’t have much time to be messin’ around in video games. Not that I’m using the phrase “messin’ around” to imply my gaming is a waste of time, I’m just tryin’ to say that homework takes up a lot of my efforts. The hilarious detail that comes with complaining about a lack of time on a blog is that this blogging is using up time; amusing, no? Anyway, onto my life.

As it seems to go with me, I’ve come upon a new “natural” way of doing things for myself, which is to say I go to school, I contribute when I feel able, I come home, then I get to my two favorite pastimes: reading and gaming. The reading usually has to do with my schooling, but the gaming is always for pleasure. I’m going to contradict myself immediately by saying that I still make a concerted effort to read for pleasure (I dropped something like fifteen bucks on an interesting-sounding book by Mark Twain when I went to a local bookstore – this book has nothing to do with my classes, at least not directly) and I’m still plugging away at the stack of books that Ellen lent to me. I’ve only got one of those “free-reading” books to go, actually, and the greatest pleasure of being a “big-picture” person is noticing that despite my categorization and separation (school books versus pleasure books) I still find that most of the stuff I read can be analyzed and critiqued and connected in an academic fashion. That’s my roundabout way of saying I dig academia and I look forward to turning just about everything I consume into a point for essays in the future.

But what does this have to do with, you know, games? The thing I’m supposed to be blogging about most of the time? Well, I’ll let you folks in on a secret: it’s my most fervent wish to become some kind of lecturer or teacher one day and to research the literary themes and merits of video games. I’m developing an all-inclusive and all-encompassing perspective of the media and entertainments in my life and I’m realizing that just about anything can be connected if you look hard enough. I love reading, I love thinking, and I love gaming – why shouldn’t I try to mix all my interests together in my own wacky way and develop my purpose?

To that end, I’ve been getting in some video game time when I’m not absolutely pressed to do homework. I’m still following my daily Animal Crossing regimen, which, luckily, should be shortening soon since I’ve collected all the ski resort furniture (no more snowperson bingo, huzzah!). I’ve decided to dedicate myself to 100% completion of Devil Survivor Overclocked and I’ve got two more endings to earn as well as the big-ass superboss to defeat/fuse before I can say I’ve done everything in the game. Those are my two biggest gaming concerns right now, although I have to admit that I’m eagerly awaiting February 13th because I’ve loved Majora’s Mask ever since it was first released on the N64 and I’m way stoked for Majora’s Mask 3D on that good ol’ 3DS. All this homework and my dedication to games means I’ve got a goal: I need to complete Devil Survivor Overclocked before Majora’s Mask is out for the 3DS. I will continue working toward that goal while I keep up with college and enjoy myself in my own deliberate fashion.

So there you have it – things are different but all in all they’re just about the same. I’m still reading, learning, and gaming; they’re the things I love to do when I’ve got time and they keep me feeling fulfilled. Here’s to the coming months and the great games they’ll bring! Keep on gaming, folks.

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Just Grindin’ Games

It’s December 23rd and I’ve got something like four and a half weeks before I head back to school. That means I’ve really gotta step up my leisure game, because I’ve still got Wario Land to finish and I’ve only added a whole new dimension to my load by starting Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked. More on that in a later post, but for now I’ll say that I’ve hardly played any SRPGs before and I’m having a pretty good time.

Anyway, about the Wario Land Series …

But why not 100%?

So there’s a weird route one must take in order to get 100% in Wario Land II: you’ve gotta beat the game once before you can go back and replay levels and snag the treasure you may have missed the first time around. This means that the best you can do the first time around is 50% across the board; as you fine folks can see, I missed two pieces of treasure due to my initial misunderstanding of the game’s flow. So, now I’ve got to use this handy dandy screen:

Ooh, such pretty colors! Thanks, GameBoy Color!

And this little beauty:

But what’s the picture gonna be?

To keep track of my overall progress. Now, these screens are actually available while you’re playing the game the first time through, but the problem arises when you realize that you can’t go to a level-select screen and try to grab the stuff you missed in any levels you just finished. This option only becomes available when you’ve finished the game, and it’s a beautiful option because there are some levels with secret exits. Wait, what?!

Yeah, Wario Land II has this thing going on where some levels have hidden doors or alternate goals, and if you finish the level in the alternate way you go on a different path. This wouldn’t be such an annoying thing if the level select screen was there from the start, but I get what the designers intended: they wanted players to figure out the secret exit dealio on their own and then search for the other paths once they beat the game. You see, a lot of older games didn’t go for the instant gratification a lot of us enjoy nowadays, and instead opted to let players figure things out for themselves. I know I seem really mad about the level-select being withheld until the end of the game, but really, it’s a pretty nifty mechanic: it lets players who don’t care about completion enjoy the story and the game and move on, while giving the completionists like myself the option to keep on playing and go for that golden 100%.

So that’s what I plan on doing for the next few days when I’m not grinding in Animal Crossing, making life-or-death decisions in Devil Survivor Overclocked, and/or celebrating the holidays. My Animal Crossing sessions are actually lengthening because I’m trying to complete a long-term project, and, as most Atlus games go, Devil Survivor Overclocked is a lengthy undertaking. I dig it though, so I’m pretty jazzed on Atlus right now.

Keep on gaming, folks, and keep on enjoying yourselves. I’m gonna do just those things, while I tinker with my idea for a big Atlus-themed post. Hee-ho!

Winter Relaxation: Sweaters, Jackets, and Coffee

I haven’t sworn with such vehement disdain at my television in a long time, but one of the event matches in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is pissing me off.

Betcha didn’t expect a post about relaxation to begin that way, did ya? I just wanted to highlight one of my habits: when a game becomes too frustrating, I take a little break from it and return later to see if my luck has changed. This works sometimes, I swear.

Being a man of many hobbies makes this sort of distracted relaxation simple, for I always have some other entertainment to which I may turn my attention; a stack of books, a list of games, and a queue of tv shows makes flitting from one medium to the next as easy and calm as a leaf floating on a breeze.

Seeing as how my winter break from college officially began last night after I took my final final exam of the fall semester, I’m going to have a lot of time to enjoy myself and live as I want, which means I’m gonna take things nice and slow and progress at a natural, languid pace. I was made for long winters and desert nights, always ready to bundle up and get comfy with a book or a game. I’m going to do a lot of that over the next month before the spring semester begins. A quick revelation: I just realized that, according to most college types, winter is only about a month long. Ha! A lot of cities beg to differ, but I digress.

As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, Wario Land II is the next handheld game on my list, and I’m still going strong in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I’m considering going along with the changing seasons again and switching my house from a haunted mansion to a festive collection of snowy, icy, and holiday furniture. Even if I don’t redecorate, I’m probably gonna get off my lazy ass and post some pictures of my town. It’s about time you fine reading folks saw the fruits of my slow labor.

Aside from the usual Animal Crossing grind, I’m still plinking away at the trophy collection in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and things are coming along nicely. I’ve got nearly 600 of the 716 or so trophies in the game and I feel pretty good. I’ve got to enjoy that as much as I can today because as of tonight I’ll be watching my girlfriend’s sister’s house with my girlfriend for a week and I won’t be bringing my Wii U along – I leave it at home and enjoy my handheld games when I go places. Yay normalcy?!

This whole “watch a family member’s house” thing is becoming a winter tradition for me, and it works well because I get to laze about without fretting over school or work or what-have-you. I can just relax and enjoy my games, my books, and my own calm way of living.

So I’ll probably be doing a lot of 3DS gaming over the next week. I expect to finish Wario Land II in that time, while I continue crossing animals in New Leaf, and maybe even throwing some Etrian Odyssey IV in there. Or I could start playing Devil Survivor Overclocked. I downloaded it a while back after I’d gotten around to playing Shin Megami Tensei IV and digging it. Damn, my list of games to play gets longer by the day – I gotta take care of that. Winter, ahoy!

P.S. Atlus rules. Some games were announced a little while back that got me super excited for next year, and I haven’t posted anything about those yet. I’m thinking a big-ass post about Atlus and some of their awesome games may be in order for the very near future. Happy gaming, folks!

School’s out for winter!

Okay, technically, it’s not out since I still have two exams to complete, but I still have a good few days’ worth of relaxing to enjoy. Yesterday I washed the dishes, washed and dried two loads of laundry, read a bit, and played some games. All in all, it was a good day.

Speaking of devoting my winter to playing games, I’ve got that little backlog I want to shrink a bit. Remember how I mentioned I bought a few games during Nintendo’s Cyber Deals event following good ol’ Turkey Time? Y’know, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Wario Land 3, and Wario Land 4? I’ve decided that over this winter break dealio, I’m gonna finish them. All of them. That’s a taller order than it first appears because I also need to play Metroid and Wario Land 2. Damn it. Actually, I’ve been doing a bit of planetary exploration, and I’m happy to announce I’VE FINALLY FINISHED METROID!

It feels so good, it truly does. I have a few confessions to make, however: I did not play Metroid the old-school way. I enjoy the challenge of older games that require one to play it all in one sitting or use fiendishly long passwords to save one’s progress, but damn, I just couldn’t handle it with Metroid – writing down passwords and trying to blast through the game just didn’t work for me. That’s why I’m glad that the 3DS Virtual Console has the “Restore Point” feature.

What is that feature, you ask? It’s a feature that allows you, the player, to save the game exactly where you’ve stopped and continue at any point in the future. Is there a tough room up ahead that may result in your death? Create a restore point just in case you mess up! All you have to do in case of failure is go to the Virtual Console menu and continue from your restore point – you’ll appear where you set your restore point and have another chance at success. It’s almost like cheating! So, yeah, I definitely took advantage of that glorious modern system. I don’t have all the time in the world, folks – if I mess up or miss a jump, I don’t want to loop around to get to the room I was in when I fell, I want to try again immediately and get it right. Also, I don’t want to forget how the hell to get back to the place I messed up, and this leads me to the second way I cheated the system:

I used a map. That’s right, I looked at a map online while I played. Look, a good number of rooms in Metroid are the same or so similar you can barely tell the difference, and I didn’t want to spend hours memorizing paths and drawing my own damn map. Not that I dislike cartography, I just wish there was a map built into the game – but hey, it was 1986 and technology hadn’t yet advanced that far. So, in lieu of fucking up repeatedly just to advance a few tiny steps, I looked at a map and optimized my travel path as best I could.

I know what you’re probably thinking: you didn’t beat Metroid at all, man! And, well, I sort of agree with you. Metroid really beat me, as I’d tried for a few years to finish it and every time I started the game anew I got frustrated and gave up. I’m tired of giving up, so if I had to use a few extra tools to win, well, I think I can forgive myself. After all, I still had to figure out how to deal with the enemies and obstacles. Still, I look forward to the day when I can boot up Metroid again, with only spare memories of its long halls and dangerous caverns, and try to get through it without a map or restore points. That’s a challenge for the future!

So, as it stands, I’m on my way to playing Metroid II: Return of Samus, because it’s the next game in the Metroid series and, as far as I know, the only game in the series I’ve yet to play. I started with Metroid Prime back in middle school and I’ve loved the series ever since. A friend let me borrow his copy of Metroid Fusion, and a few months back when it was released on the Wii U Virtual Console, I bought it for myself. I own Metroid: Zero Mission for the GBA, and love it. I bought Super Metroid on the Wii Virtual Console a few Christmases back, then, after switching Wiis and moving on to the Wii U, decided I should just get the game on the Wii U. Yeah, I even played Other M, and despite enjoying the gameplay I was not impressed with the story. Still, the point of this lengthy and rambling paragraph is to say that I’ve played all the mainline Metroid games of which I’m aware, except for Metroid II. So when I get tired of trying to better my Samus game in Super Smash Bros. on the Wii U, I’m gonna turn on Metroid II and show some parasites who’s boss.

Yeah, this winter ought to be good.

Thank the Maker, Some Sweet Release

Have you ever sat down a few hours before a deadline and rushed through whatever project is due in a short amount of time? Yeah, that’s what final papers do to me. I’ve got about a week or so (okay, eight days to be exact) left before I can officially kiss this semester goodbye, and I’ve been freaking out because as of three days ago I had two long essays to write before tonight.

But then, tonight – oh, tonight. I got home after driving my car home from Pep Boys and proceeded to eat my dinner as fast as I could stomach so I could begin a mad dash to the end of a seven-page paper. Okay, seven pages really isn’t that many, but to me it’s a lot – I come from a community college, where the longest paper was about five pages long and most professors are more lax than ex-Ex-lax. That stuff don’t need to work no more!

Anywho, I started the slow process of getting the damn ball rolling, and I thought I’d barely beat the deadline – when I filled out my seventh page around nine o’clock. My paper is due at eleven o’clock. Holy mother of mercy, I managed to turn it in with two hours to spare!

Do you know what that means, good readers? Do you know what wonderful things that entails?

This thing!

And this thing!

Even this thing!

Arnold Palmer is confused by his can prison, but I’m not.

To top all my sweet gaming freedom off, I also have a good drank. Ya gotta have good dranks when you sit down for a relaxing gaming session.

My 3DS, my Wii U, my beautifully-sized tv – these are a few of my favorite things, and now that I’m mostly done with my schoolwork for this semester I may enjoy them to the fullest. What’s that, you say? I said I’m only “mostly done”? Yeah, that’s the bummer of it all; despite finishing the two big ol’ papers and presenting/talking to one of my classes about Felicia Day, I’ve still got one more assignment to complete and two final exams with which to contend. Studies never end for a college student! Not that studying should ever end, we’re all on this wondrous Earth for a good chunk of time so we may as well learn about it and its people.

So there you have it: I’m just about done with school for the nonce and I’ll be able to fully enjoy the wintry nights. I’ll bundle up in a few layers of clothing every night, turn the heat up a li’l, and sit back with a controller in my hand. Things ain’t over, of course – this is just a lull in the persistent cycle of college/adult life – but I’m taking my time to enjoy myself when I can. I hope you folks enjoy yourselves too. Happy gaming!