i listened to the voices of wisdom in There are too many videogames. A thread of polls for the indecisive. - #272 by MoH and played cave story followed by smt 4.
in cave story, i made it all the way to the final run of bosses. i learned that you need to beat them all in a row with minimal healing, so after a few tries i decided the game was over for me. that’s okay, because i had a really good time. i understand cave story is a classic so what i’m about to say is a little silly, but since i first played max and mini, a ufo 50 stand-out, that was on my mind as i played it, perhaps because it was a simple concept that nonethelss continued to surprise me over the course of a play through.
i then played a little smt4. i got as far as defeating xi wangmu with the cult type thing before deciding i had enough. perhaps this is because “normal” difficulty was too tedious but “easy” difficulty was too predictable, or perhaps because i like smt more in theory than in practice. i love the goofy, “philosophy-first” way of storytelling, i love the demon designs, i love the music (a key standout in smt4), and i love the overall tone, but since all of those things remain pretty static throughout a long game, i feel satisfied early on. what would be a good analogy for this….perhaps fernet or a thick stick of grass-fed butter?
for some reason it feels sad to abandon my old 3ds for the comparatively monstrous steam deck right now, so i guess i’ll keep poking around the library. i hesitate to jump into dragon quest given what i’ve said above, so i don’t know what to play next. fire emblem? zelda? etrian odyssey? EARTHBOUND??