#oneaday Day 708: Proper adventuring

One of the things I suspect is incredibly divisive about Final Fantasy XI is that everything takes a lot of effort.

I suspect these four know one another. Or, more likely, are one person multiboxing.

You get a quest, it will inevitably involve finding some object that is a relatively low-chance drop from a very specific monster that is deep in part of a dungeon that is exceedingly inconvenient to get to.

You reach the level cap, you have to complete one of these quests every five levels until you reach 99 — though thankfully you only have to do this once per character, not once per job.

You get your "subjob", to add abilities from a second job to your main one, you have to level that as well as your main job — though only half as much, since it caps at half the level of your main job.

There are times when all this feels a bit wearisome, particularly when compared to Final Fantasy XIV, which at times feels like it's keen to take as much "friction" out of the entire process as possible. But if you think about Final Fantasy XI in different terms — not as a "theme park"-style MMO, but simply as a more traditional RPG — it makes a lot more sense, particularly now you don't have to be dependent on other people for a lot of the "main scenario" side of things.

Dungeons in Final Fantasy XIV are spectacular affairs, but they are theme park rides — completely linear, the same every time. Dungeons in Final Fantasy XI are much more elaborate: maze-like structures filled with dead ends, hidden secrets and varied encounters with monsters. The complete lack of signposting for quest-critical items — usually this involves finding something marked "???" when you target it — means that you have to actually explore these places thoroughly… or look at a guide, of course. But the longer I play, the more interesting the prospect of just exploring becomes. And the more I feel like the game has been designed around this.

If you look at a lot of Final Fantasy XI guides online, you will inevitably see a focus on levelling as fast as possible, then steamrollering your way through all the content. But the way I've been playing, it feels a lot more natural and a lot more like it's the way it was intended to be played. I've had a couple of instances where I've had to sneak around monsters much tougher than me to find a useful item, but for the most part I've found that if I treat the game like a regular, offline RPG — that is to say, fighting my way through monsters as I proceed through a field area or dungeon rather than avoiding as many as possible — it means that progress comes naturally and without you feeling like you're having to make an inordinate amount of effort to achieve that progress. As a result, the game is fun rather than a chore.

There are still points where it feels like you are "roadblocked" in certain ways — right now I'm dealing with a particularly complicated main scenario mission that involves finding specific items in three specific dungeons, along with a level cap quest that is demanding much the same sort of thing — but only in terms of the ongoing narrative. In terms of actually playing the game and engaging with its mechanics, I feel like I'm constantly doing interesting stuff and seeing new places rather than just going through the motions.

I'm going to make it through this game! I'm excited to see where it goes! Now, if I can just find an Orcish Crest, a Quadav Crest and a Yagudo Crest, plus pieces of Magicite from their three respective bases, I should be good to go and beat up the Shadow Lord. So that's what I'm going to do today, I think.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 706: The Garlean Territorial Anthem goes with everything

One extremely private habit that I have developed which I have not really admitted to anyone before is a tendency to sing stupid shit when I am in the house by myself. By "stupid shit" I usually mean "narrating what I am doing at the time to the tune of something unrelated". And, over the years of doing this — it's an uncontrollable impulse at this point — I have determined that The Garlean Territorial Anthem for Gyr Abania and Surrounding States: The Measure of our Reach from Final Fantasy XIV is absolutely ideal to put stupid words to.

If you are unfamiliar with this stirring piece of music, here is the original:

The original lyrics run thus:

Beyond majestic mountains
Across the emerald dale
On march the ivory standard
United we prevail

From distant shores of Othard
To lakes of Aldenard
The light of mighty Garlemald
For e'er our guiding star

It continues in similarly "patriotic but built on stolen land" fashion after that. It's a whole thing. What you can hopefully tell from listening to the above, however, is that it's a song with a relatively simple melody line, and fairly simple rhythms. This makes it absolutely ideal for use when you are singing about something stupid and/or disgusting.

Please feel free to replay the above video, while singing the below words to it.

I'm going to take a dump now
I'm going to have a shit
I'm going to shoot poo out my arse
And fill the toilet up

I'm going to take a shit now
I'm going to have a dump
The poo will come right out my bum
And God, it really stinks

I laugh in the face of rhyming schemes. But there's something innately satisfying about having a big ol' dump and bellowing that at the top of your lungs in a deep baritone. I recommend you try it. Even if you have a high voice. I suspect a glass-shattering, vibrato-filled soprano will also fit the bill nicely.

I don't remember exactly when I discovered that The Garlean Territorial Anthem for Gyr Abania and Surrounding States: The Measure of our Reach was ideal for this purpose, but I find it very difficult to stop myself from doing this any time I am in the house by myself. I don't even have to actually be taking a shit to want to sing it. It just sort of comes out. There are other versions of the lyrics, too, mostly relating to bodily functions and/or ablutions, but I will keep those to myself. A girl's got to have a bit of mystery.

Naturally I do not do this when anyone else is present, because I would be absolutely mortified if anyone heard what I was doing and the words I was singing. And not just because I've always been rather self-conscious about my singing voice. I also generally make sure the windows are shut.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I'm admitting this right now. I just thought you might find it amusing.

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#oneaday Day 704: Vana'diel progress report

I am pleased to report that I have reached level 50 in Final Fantasy XI. This is not the level cap, but it is a significant milestone, as it was, I believe, the original level cap when the game first released. As time went on and various expansions released, players got the opportunity to increase their personal level cap in increments of 5 levels at a time, though each one of these milestones requires you to complete a tricky and/or time-consuming quest. I'm in the middle of one of those now, which will allow me to level up to 55 when I'm done.

I'm enjoying the game a lot, though my desire to attempt it without a guide was a foolhardy endeavour. Final Fantasy XI was always designed with "community" in mind, and built on the assumption that said community would share information with one another and help each other out, and as such there are a lot of things it just doesn't tell you. It's a lot better in this regard than it used to be, primarily thanks to the "Records of Eminence" feature, which gives you a series of objectives to accomplish that can guide your progression, but you'll still often be given a mission that tells you to go to a particular zone and find something in that zone, with absolutely no indication whatsoever of exactly whereabouts in that zone the thing is to be found. There is no minimap and no quest marker feature in Final Fantasy XI, so you're either off to find a needle in a haystack yourself, or consult the community (which now, of course, also includes comprehensive wikis) and be able to focus your efforts a bit more.

There are still one or two roadblocks that require actual interaction with a human being. One of the missions for Windurst requires that you get through a door called the "Sealed Portal", which is colloquially known by the community as "Three Mage Gate". The reason for this is that the originally intended method of opening this door was to gather a party containing a white mage, a black mage and a red mage and get them to stand on the appropriate marks on the floor, which would open the door. This was subsequently updated to only require someone with the "Portal Charm" key item — which, naturally, you get just after the mission in which you would first need it — to make things marginally easier and less dependent on wrangling an entire group.

These aspects aside, though, the game has been eminently soloable so far, thanks to the Trust system. You're given some decent Trusts right from the get-go, and more are unlockable quite easily. There are some borderline overpowered ones available without too much difficulty, too, but with the number you get to add to your arsenal very quickly, you can pretty much build a party however you like to play, and use the characters you find most appealing. My only slight beef with the system is a narrative one; many of the Trusts you get early on are characters that you probably won't have met yet, and this makes it tricky to feel a sense of attachment to them. Because, in the context of Final Fantasy XI's story, Trust magic is dependent on you having a strong bond with a particular person, this feels a bit dissonant, but you soon learn to deal with it — and after a while, you'll be able to get together a party that feels like it consists entirely of "story" characters anyway.

It's definitely a very different sort of game to Final Fantasy XIV. It's not actually turn-based, but with its pacing it might as well be. It's not a game where you attacking requires you to be constantly pressing buttons to unleash combos, unlike its follow-up; instead, it's more about equipping your character well, ensuring they have good training in the skills they need to succeed at the challenges ahead of them, and approaching combat encounters carefully and thoughtfully. Sure, you "do less" on a moment-to-moment basis, but it's a different kind of satisfying to successfully clearing difficult encounters in Final Fantasy XIV; it's less about skill with the buttons and more about traditional RPG-style number crunching. I'm not saying either way is "better" — both games are very good at what they do — but it is interesting to note quite how different they are from one another now I'm deeper into XI than I've ever been.

My next big milestones for Final Fantasy XI will be breaking a couple of level cap barriers, and then completing the base story from the original game, which culminates in a big fight against the dreaded Shadow Lord. There's still a lot to do after that, though, and most folks seem to agree that things start getting really good story-wise after you've got through the base game's material. I'm looking forward to it — and at the rate I'm going, I should be getting through it at a decent pace, too.

I'm glad I finally decided to do this. Final Fantasy XI has kind of been a "white whale" for me in terms of completion, so I knew I just had to make the time to play it and do it properly. Now that I'm doing that, I'm having a really good time. I doubt I'll get too hardcore into its "endgame" stuff — my main priority is to beat the story, and after that I will probably return to XIV — but there is plenty to do just on the journey from 1 to 99. And that's absolutely fine with me!

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#oneaday Day 702: Overcoming burnout and guilt

After I wrote all that yesterday, I then promptly went and recorded four videos. They're casual, breezy, fairly low-effort videos, but videos they are nonetheless. The first one went live today:

Yes, it's H.E.R.O. by Activision! I was super-excited to help bring the Activision Collection cartridges to Evercade, as these are some of my all-time favourite 2600 games, and H.E.R.O. is a real classic. With this kind-of-sort-of series, I'm just gonna play whatever I damn well feel like on Evercade and just chat freeform and see what happens. Evercade and Chill, you see.

This is definitely the kind of video I enjoy making the most, because in some ways it helps me to feel a bit less lonely. I know that I'm talking "to myself" while I'm playing, but I'm also talking to anyone who's watching, and I've always said that my intention for this style of video is to provide an experience roughly akin to sitting down with a friend and playing something together. Consequently, I do my best to try and include the viewer in the things that I'm saying — and also not to assume knowledge, for those who are new to this stuff. Which, as time goes on, there are more and more people who fall into that category.

I've been wanting to get back to doing Evercade videos for a while, but it didn't feel quite "right" to be doing them while I was also handling the company's social media and stuff. Now I've thankfully left that side of my job in the dust, I feel I can get back to doing this sort of thing — which in its own way will hopefully benefit the community and the product, too. I mean, I have a miniscule audience, yes, but if just a few of those folks see something I cover and the fact it's on Evercade, then that's pretty cool.

The four videos I recorded yesterday are all Activision-related, because that's what I felt like playing at the time. As I say, this "series" will have no particular set structure or format aside from "I'm going to play whatever the hell I feel like from the Evercade library as it exists at the time of recording". I will have to be a teensy bit careful not to accidentally reveal any new carts before they're announced — I already have the next two cartridges that are being announced on the 15th, for example — but given that there's 80-something cartridges altogether and nearly 800 games on Evercade at this point, I'm not going to be running out of material any time soon.

So I hope you enjoy this series! It will hopefully be a fun, casual, laid-back, relaxing sort of series, both for me as a creator, and for you as someone watching this stuff. (I recommend falling asleep to my videos. I do it quite frequently.)

On that note, the weekend is almost over, so I think it's probably time for bed.

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#oneaday Day 699: Final Fantasy XI and the art of patience

As… promised? threatened? recently, I've started playing Final Fantasy XI again. And I am reminded, once again, for the umpteenth time, that I really like this game, particularly in its current form. I'm sure there are plenty out there who will bemoan how "dumbed down" its 2026 incarnation is compared to what it was like 20 years ago, but man, c'mon. You can play most stuff solo now; some might say that misses the point of an MMO, but there's still a markedly different vibe existing in a world knowing there are other players around. You see other people going about their business; you participate in the economy; you contribute to asynchronous team activities.

I am also reminded that Final Fantasy XI is not a game for everyone. Specifically, it is not a game for the impatient, because there is a lot to do, and it takes quite a long time to do pretty much anything… except level up, now, which goes at a significantly more brisk pace than it did the first time I played it all those years ago.

But we're talking about a game where the ability to run slightly faster than normal is dependent on someone completing a long and difficult quest, it rolling a random chance of the "Swift Shoes" effect coming up, and then you healing to full and having a nice sit down for a couple of minutes to "charge" the slightly-faster-than-normal movement speed — which, of course, immediately fades away the moment you either attack something or get attacked.

We're also talking about a game whose original implementation of "fast travel" required you to fight your way to a huge "crag" two zones away from your starting city and collect a crystal from it, all for the privilege of being able to teleport an inconveniently long distance away from any of the game's towns.

We're talking about a game where, when you want to cross the sea, you have to physically stand and wait for a ship, and when you're on the ship, you have to wait for the voyage to complete. (Sometimes monsters attack. A lot of the time you just have to enjoy the ride.)

If those descriptions make you smile, even a little bit, you are probably someone who will enjoy Final Fantasy XI.

The fact the game demands so much patience makes it feel very rewarding, though. When you achieve something, you feel like you've bloody well earned it. This is not a game where you are a super-special Warrior of Light pretty much from the get-go; this is a game where you are a relatively normal person — albeit one with, arguably, extraordinary combat abilities compared to your "peers" among the NPCs — just trying to make their way in the world. Make a bit of cash, get a bit of training in, visit some new places.

It's this rather open-ended feel that I really like about Final Fantasy XI. In many ways, it feels like a very pure reflection of what I call the old "world RPG" formula exemplified by titles like the early Ultima games. There is a long-term goal to go and complete, but the vast majority of your playtime will be spent doing rather freeform activities to build up your character in a way that you see fit.

Some of the best things that have been added to Final Fantasy XI since its original release are designed to make it more than just grinding monsters for hours at a time. The "Records of Eminence" quests do a great job of giving you things to do and acting as a sort of guide to what it is possible to do in the game, without having to spend half your playtime looking at a wiki. The "Field Guide" and "Grounds Tome" books at the entrances to field and dungeon areas respectively provide you with focused sets of monster targets to down in exchange for generous experience bonuses. And of course there's plenty of quests, the main storyline missions and, once you get later into the game, lots and lots of side activities. I don't yet know how "important" some of these things are — or indeed what 90% of them are at this point — but I'm intrigued to find out.

Thus far I'm up to level 25 on the job I started with — Warrior this time around — and I'm levelling Monk as a subjob for now. I'm on the "rank 2" missions for my home nation, and making good progress. I've also kicked off the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel storyline that was added much later than the other main stories, and acts as another kind of "guide" through what the game offers, with its own narrative to follow — and plenty of extremely helpful benefits as rewards along the way.

I'm enjoying myself a lot. I don't know how long it's going to take me to get through the various storylines, but levelling has been going at a brisk pace, and I'm feeling good about how things are going so far. I'm looking forward to finally doing things like taking down the Shadow Lord, which I've never done before, and particularly getting into the well-regarded Chains of Promathia expansion storyline, which longstanding FFXI players have been banging on about the quality of for years.

So yeah. It's a good time. You just need patience. And if there's one thing I have developed over the years, it is a very strong sense of patience.

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#oneaday Day 698: Star Fox is back... again!

Nintendo surprised everyone with an out-of-the-blue Star Fox Direct earlier today, announcing a reboot of Star Fox for Switch 2. This is, I think, the third time they've "redone" the original Star Fox at this point, as it went Star Fox/Starwing (SNES), Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars (N64), Star Fox Zero (Wii U) and now this, which, in the tradition of all good reboots, is just called the name of the original thing it's rebooting. Star Fox. At least it won't be confusing in Europe.

I love Star Fox. It's probably one of my favourite Nintendo series. Specifically, I love the Super NES original, because while it's perhaps not the most technically impressive game when looking back on it retrospectively, it's still a great game that I enjoy a lot — and it has an amazing soundtrack. I rate the original Star Fox's soundtrack light years ahead of its 64-bit counterpart, because Star Fox 64 hailed from that age where Nintendo games had music that was beautifully composed, but played back on one of the worst MIDI synths a console has ever had. The new one takes what sounds like the music from Star Fox 64 and fully orchestrates it, which is just lovely.

The new game looks like it's going to be mostly keeping to Star Fox's roots as an arcade-style game with a level-based structure, and branching paths through the complete sequence of levels depending on the things you do and your overall performance. I'm interested to see how this will be received in the modern age, since the vast majority of big-budget games that come out today are designed to be huge, sprawling timesinks that take hundreds of hours for a single playthrough. Making a game that is short but highly replayable feels like it's a ballsy thing to do these days — and it really shouldn't, but it does.

It does look like the new Star Fox will be highly replayable, too. As well as the main story mode with its branching paths, it looks like there's a "Challenge" mode where you play a single level and attempt to complete specific objectives in it. This could either be great fun or extremely annoying, but I think it's the right decision to separate it out into its own mode rather than integrate it into the main story.

There's also what looks like a really fun multiplayer mode, too, with 4v4 battles between Star Fox and Star Wolf. It doesn't look like any of the three modes on offer are a simple deathmatch, either; there are different objectives to complete on each one, which will reward fancy flying as well as keeping the enemy off your back.

All in all, I'm excited and pleased to see Star Fox get yet another chance. Part of me wishes they'd let the story, such as it is, move on a bit instead of continually remaking the same one over and over again, but ultimately this is a gameplay-centric experience — at least previous installments have been — and so the reason you're blasting everything out of the sky doesn't matter too much. It does look like the whole thing is much more "cinematic" now thanks to the advances in technology we've seen over the last few console generations. It's nice to see Fox and company be able to chat with one another as fully modelled characters rather than just avatars chattering away during gameplay.

So I guess that's a Switch 2 game I'll be adding to my library when it arrives, although if it's on a Game Key Card, we are going to have words, Nintendo.

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#oneaday Day 697: Another post!

How about another post? I've already fired off my Final Fantasy XI shot in the previous post, so what to write about now, I wonder?

Perhaps I can tell you a bit about the Evercade Game of the Month game which came out today. I made a video about it and everything, like, for my actual job:

The Game of the Month programme, if you're unfamiliar, is a thing we do every so often where we give folks the opportunity to download and play a game on a sort of "trial" basis for a month or so, then all the games we've featured in a particular year get bundled together onto an Indie Heroes cartridge the following year, along with some cartridge-exclusive games.

It's a fun way to give some attention and love to the "homebrew" scene, and it effectively means that we get one of the first cartridges of next year up and running well ahead of schedule, which helps take a bit of the pressure off. And with the ambitious projects we've been doing recently, any opportunity to take a bit of the pressure off is very welcome indeed!

Last month, we had a special "shareware" version of BioMenace Remastered, which I'm thrilled we're bringing to Evercade, as I used to love BioMenace when I was a kid. I only ever had the shareware version, as many of us did, so it will be very exciting to play through the full thing when we eventually have it. (I also bought a copy on PC to support the chap behind it, who is a thoroughly lovely person.)

This month, we have Inspector Waffles: Early Days, which is an adventure game built in GB Studio, the tool of choice for seemingly 95% of Game Boy homebrewers these days. It's a flexible little engine, clearly primarily designed for top-down role-playing game-type experiences, and Inspector Waffles: Early Days makes good use of it to create an adventure game featuring not only top-down exploration and examining things, but also first-person point-and-click sequences, dialogue puzzles and a bunch of secrets. You can probably blast through it pretty quickly if you know what you're doing, like most adventure games, but it's an enjoyable ride with the whole "everyone is cats" thing being a fun gimmick.

We're actually still assembling the list of Game of the Month titles for the coming months, so if you happen to be reading this and you have something that will work on Evercade — generally speaking, an game built on any of the platforms we've previously emulated games for is a solid bet — then be sure to drop developer@evercade.co.uk a line and we'll see what we can do.

An hour and a half left to go on the Final Fantasy XI patch. Maybe a bit of NEOGEO while I wait, then…

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#oneaday Day 696: The missing day

I apparently missed yesterday! Whoops. Oh well. It was a bank holiday. Let's just say I was having the day off. Better yet, let me point you in the direction of something I did write yesterday, which was a thorough write-up of Capcom's Pragmata.

And then indulge me while I write two things today, because I feel like I "should". I'm just like that. Also I have just reinstalled Final Fantasy XI and it has to go through its whole many-hours patching process, so I may as well do something to fill the time.

I've decided to give Final Fantasy XI another honest go because I've always enjoyed it when I've played it in the past, I have been wanting to play through its story for more than 20 years (and there's a lot more of it now than when I first wanted to play it!) and I'm sort of "between games" right now. This time around, I want to make a proper effort to get through the main scenario. I know there's a lot of other stuff in Final Fantasy XI, but we'll see if I feel the need to jump into any of that as I work my way through; my priority is just seeing what the main storylines are.

The reason I say this is because I've pretty much made a decision: I'm going to head back into Final Fantasy XIV at some point before the new expansion drops — likely when the new "Beastmaster" job is added in the next main "part" of the Dawntrail finale patch, which is looking like July. Before that happens, I'd like to have had a good crack at Final Fantasy XI, so I'm going to treat it as my "main" game for the immediate future. I think it's going to be interesting — particularly as, for several years now, the game has been in a state where much of it is eminently soloable thanks to the fact you can bring recruitable NPC "Trusts" along with you for pretty much everything in the game, not just instanced dungeons like in Final Fantasy XIV.

As I say, I don't know how much into the weeds I'm going to get, because my main priorities are 1) getting to the level cap of 99 and 2) getting through the main storylines of the base game and all the expansions. The two will likely intertwine somewhat, and gearing up, particularly once at level 99, will likely involve dipping into some of the activities outside of the main story, but we'll see. I'm going to try and minimise guide usage as much as possible, too, because I think that will be much more interesting. I'm also curious to see if it's even possible to play that way — and if it isn't, well, there are 20+ years worth of FAQs, wikis and all manner of other resources out there to follow along with.

I'm excited! I'm also aware that I've fallen off Final Fantasy XI multiple times in the past, not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because something else came along that occupied my attention. Hopefully that won't happen this time around — because I'm increasingly conscious that, because of the game's age, there is likely only so much more time I have to be able to actually do this quest.

So Vana'Diel awaits! In about two hours' time, according to the PlayOnline Viewer, anyway. So how should I occupy myself in the meantime… hmmm?

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#oneaday Day 695: Final Fantasy VIII was fine

I don't know what it is, but just recently there seems to have been a huge upswing in the number of people who feel the need to go off on a long, long diatribe about how much they hate Final Fantasy VIII. And those people tend to get weirdly aggressive about it. I've stopped posting on one forum completely because of one such discussion where people were getting very dickish about it, and it is, to be honest, getting a little tiresome. Particularly when it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion with someone about it if you, like me, happen to hold an opposing viewpoint.

I love Final Fantasy VIII! I played it at a particularly formative point in my life — my first year of university — and it left a significant impact on me. It's a game I played with someone who was very important to me, it's a game that I shared some good times with friends over, and it's a game that I legitimately enjoyed from start to finish.

The typical argument from the Final Fantasy VIII haters is that it's a "bad" game because "the best way to play it is not to engage with its systems". Bollocks. I beat the game, including its superbosses, precisely because I engaged with its systems. Junction up a bunch of Aura, Ultima and other high-level spells to your important stats, cast Aura on yourself to get your special attacks rolling as often as possible, and watch the damage fly. Immensely satisfying. And, as "game-breaking" as it felt to do that, it is 1) what the game is designed to allow you to do and 2) really no different to what you do in any number of other RPGs; one of the most fun things about them as a genre is that there is usually a way to "break" them beyond their usual limits and start dealing astronomical levels of damage. Certain games even design themselves around this philosophy; titles like Disgaea, Omega Quintet and Trillion: God of Destruction very much fall into this category.

But I've learned that it's not worth even attempting to have this discussion when someone has decided to start yelling about how much they hate this twenty-seven year old game. I don't know if it's a weird form of clout-chasing, algorithm baiting or what, but it just seems bizarre to me how often I've been seeing this come up, usually completely unprompted, just recently. Perhaps I'm just Baader-Meinhofing myself, but I don't think it's that; I mean, it's weird, right? That game came out twenty-seven years ago, and people have suddenly decided that they're mad about it? I really don't get it.

I especially don't get it because back when Final Fantasy VIII was current, everyone I knew loved it. We had a running joke among our friendship group that every time we went to visit the local independent computer shop, at least one of us would ask when Final Fantasy VIII was coming out. This was such a running joke that my friend Woody even incorporated it into his unfinished (barely started, really) Klik and Play project called Resident Evil EX, in which Agent Wesley Wilson infiltrated a zombie-infested mall, where one of the survivors was cheery ol' Richie, proprietor of First Compute, and, indeed, walking in there would prompt a conversation (voice acted by us) about exactly when Final Fantasy VIII would be coming out.

Final Fantasy in general seems to attract these sorts of passionate haters for some reason. People really hate the fact that the series has been constantly reinventing itself over the years — despite a stated, explicit philosophy of the creators being "if it's not new, it's not Final Fantasy". And this, in turn, leads to people just… making shit up about the various games that, for one reason or another, are perceived as unpopular. It seems that it is Final Fantasy VIII's turn right now, since Final Fantasy XIII hatred appears to have died down a lot just recently.

But I mean it! I don't remember seeing anything anywhere near this level of hatred for, just to remind you, this twenty-seven year old game, prior to this year. Perhaps it was out there. Perhaps I just didn't see it. But I find that a bit difficult to believe. It just seems to be nothing more than the fashionable thing to crack wise about right now — just another meaningless, pointless social media trend that takes away from the possibility of ever having a real, sincere, meaningful discussion with anyone online any more.

Anyway. I just felt like saying that today. This is not an invitation for you (yes, you) to come into my comments and start rabbiting on about how much you hate Final Fantasy VIII. I honestly absolutely do not care. Or, perhaps more accurately, I'm not interested. Put a bit of that energy into telling me about something you do like — perhaps something I've never heard of! That's much more fun. Believe me. I've been making that the basis of what I write about games online for quite some time now, and it's far more rewarding than just hate, hate hate.

But I guess it was forever thus. The "funny" bad reviews in games magazines were always the ones people remember the most. The bad reviews on today's websites are scientifically designed to maximise "engagement". And someone blurting out, completely unprompted, how much they hate a twenty-seven year old game that isn't even that bad? I don't know what that is, but I don't think I want to be part of it.

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#oneaday Day 694: The joy of hyperfixations

I've done a lot of work on my Secret Creative Project over the course of the last few days. I am feeling a strong amount of Autistic Hyperfixation Energy on it right now — even if I do often have to juggle this with the equally autistic tendencies to fiddle around with the bits I've already created over and over rather than continuing to make new bits.

Thus far the project is standing at 16,826 words. I anticipate that by the time I finish this — which will be a pretty long time from now — that number will be in the high six digits at the very least. There's a lot of work still to do, but I feel good about this; I feel like this is a worthwhile undertaking, and one that I'm enjoying doing.

It's not something I plan to make any money from; it's not something I plan to plaster ads all over; it's not something I'm doing to "be famous" or anything like that. It's just a project based on something I enjoy that I think will help others to enjoy said thing as much as I do. Plus it's an excuse for me to dive down some thoroughly interesting research rabbit-holes.

Doing this is reminding me that I love writing, particularly about the things I'm passionate about. (Go on then; I'll give you a little hint as to what the project is about: it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, about games.) I love the little journeys that bits of research take you on; I love trying to craft a narrative from those nuggets of information you find; I love trying to get my enthusiasm across in a way that is hopefully enjoyable for the reader to engage with.

I don't know if I'll ever finish this. I would certainly like to, and while I'm feeling the strong Autistic Hyperfixation Energy, I intend to keep taking advantage of it as much as possible. I reached what I consider to be the first major milestone in the project this evening… out of many milestones along the way, yes, but a significant one, nonetheless. It feels like finally cresting a particularly steep hill, so I am going to "reward" myself with some nice relaxing time tomorrow. I haven't played Pragmata for a few days and need to get back on that, but this has been taking priority while I've been feeling very much in the mood for it.

On that note, though, it's after midnight, and I think I should probably get some sleep now.

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