As I stated in my forum intro, I’m a little interested in going back to some of the “masterpieces” of gaming that I never engaged with or were before my time.
Although I engage with gaming media a lot, I haven’t played too great a variety of games. The J-est RPG I ever played was Pokemon, even though I thought Final Fantasy was really cool! I did play FF XIII and got into it, but eventually walked away before finishing.
I tried to play FF VII on Game Pass but bounced off the polygons and random battles pretty quick.
I finally got a rudimentary emulator setup on a laptop and started Chrono Trigger. I’ve actually made decent progress! When I was playing every day I was really into it. But playing with a Switch Pro Controller on a laptop at the dining room table is not the ideal entertainment setup. I did put in several hours on a cross country flight recently, after falling off for a few weeks.
Last year I played Dragon Quest XI and loved it. (I still haven’t completed the postgame but I’m afraid too much has fallen out of my head). It really did play out like a journey with my buds - story beats came totally organically, callbacks from minor characters came just on the brink of memory to tug at heartstrings. But once I started looking at a guide and getting distracted by rare drops that I should be farming for, I really lost that organic feeling and drive! Whoops!
I grew up with 3d games on PS1 and Gamecube, so the artistically thorough pixelarity of Chrono Trigger is new for me. But I can definitely understand its timeless qualities already! It’s probably pretty weird to play this with a DQ11 lens. I was shocked when I figured out you could use healing spells outside battle! Just like DQ11! How forward thinking! Or wait, is DQ11 backward thinking.. So I’m into the story of Chrono Trigger, but there are some barriers to having fun while playing it. And I also can’t help but think while playing it.. Man I’d rather play Mario Odyssey and just jump around feeling perfect jumps, lol. So it’s a real mixed bag. I can tell why it’s important, but is it fun… enough? My gut instinct is that DQXI was just a love letter to the old JRPGs that is modern enough to play, and that I should look forward and not back. Just give me Dragon Quest XI-II, man.
Anyway, any gaming at current time is verboten due to studying for my engineering licensure exam! Man, I thought once you were an adult there was no homework! Lame!