#oneaday Day 186: Alpha male

One of the reasons I was quite keen to get my hands on Evercade Alpha, the latest product from my place of work, was to give Getting Into Fighting Games an honest go. I’ve attempted to do this a few times — I even bought Street Fighter 6 on launch — but have always ended up bouncing off for one reason or another, and the notoriously impenetrable nature of the genre hasn’t helped matters.

This evening, I sat down and had a few goes at Street Fighter Alpha. And I actually had a good time! I won’t say I was especially “good” at it, and the intricacies of the genre still elude me somewhat, but playing with good quality arcade controls on the Evercade Alpha made the whole experience feel a lot more accessible and intuitive than ever before.

I think one of the things that confuses me most of all about fighting games is how each character has an absolute shit-ton of moves that you can perform: with six buttons and an eight-directional joystick, that’s already a lot of possible moves, and then add command inputs or charge moves into the mix and you have an overwhelming variety of possibilities. My biggest question when pondering fighting games from afar has always been “how the hell do you decide what to do when?”

I don’t have an answer to that just yet, but even with just a few games of Street Fighter Alpha I started to feel things becoming a bit more intuitive. I moved away from my SNES-era strategy of only ever using the heavy attack buttons, and found success with some speedy jabs and good use of projectiles — which are much, much easier to pull off with an arcade stick, if anyone were still in any doubt about that. I felt like I had a reasonable grasp of “the basics” with Ryu, and I gave Rose a bit of a go, too. She’s rather more complicated to use, from the looks of things, but I actually had my overall best performance out of several shots at the game using Rose. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to “main” her just yet — I’m nowhere near the level where I even contemplate having a “main” — but I’m definitely intrigued to try her out a bit more and get to grips with what some of her moves actually do.

Because I think the answer to my earlier question — “how the hell do you decide what to do when?” — comes with experience. The more you play a character, the more you understand what each combination of button and direction does, and that, in turn, gives you a better idea of what might work well in different scenarios. You’ll get a feel for the different moves’ reach, power level and vulnerability to countering, and, over time, you’ll (theoretically) be able to make snap tactical decisions in the middle of a match.

I’m nowhere near there, yet. But I’m actually looking forward to spending some time learning. I don’t have any grand designs on being a competitive player or anything like that, but it would be nice to be able to play at least a couple of fighting games to a level beyond basic button-mashing. And, so far, Street Fighter Alpha has felt surprisingly accessible, with its relatively limited roster and fairly straightforward mechanics. Plus the art style is great — and only gets better later in the series. (But the later Alpha games also get considerably more complicated!)

So yeah. That’s what I’ve spent my evening doing. I was going to play some Super Mario RPG, but by the time I’d finished wrapping Christmas presents earlier, the amount of time before “I should probably go to bed” had elapsed to such a degree that playing some short-form arcade stuff was probably a more sensible idea. So that’s what I did.

And now, I should probably go to bed.

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.

#oneaday Day 185: ‘Tis the season for Nintendo

As I alluded to the other day, I’ve been spending my time playing Super Mario RPG on Switch for the past few days. I rolled credits on it this evening and am very happy I took the time to play this. (There’s a surprisingly extensive postgame that has been added to the Switch version, but I will be waiting until tomorrow to check that out, as it’s getting late.)

One of the reasons I decided to start playing this is that the holiday season, for me, will always be associated with Nintendo. I’m not exactly sure why, as there was only one Christmas where I actually received something Nintendo-related under the tree — a Super NES with Super Mario World — but I’ve continued to make that association ever since. I think it goes along with how I associate Disney movies (the good ones) and Star Wars (ditto) with the holidays, too; fond memories of times gone by spent with family.

And Nintendo, it can be argued, has a fair amount in common with the House of Mouse. They’re both gigantic corporations that absolutely dominate a particular industry. They both do business in a way that the particularly anti-capitalist people really don’t like. And they have both, over the years, put out some absolutely magical pieces of work for people to enjoy: pieces of work that don’t necessarily require you to engage your brain too heavily, but which are nonetheless extremely memorable and enjoyable.

Take Super Mario RPG. By console RPG standards, it’s short, simple and very easy. You can roll credits on it within 12 hours. But every bit of the game feels like it’s there for a good reason. There’s no filler, no grinding, nothing that feels unnecessary; sure, there are some minigames you can engage with to a frankly obsessive degree that reward you with some optional items that aren’t at all necessary to beat the game, but if you’re just playing the game through to enjoy it, nothing feels out of place, nothing feels like it’s actively getting in the way of your enjoyment.

And the presentation is wonderful, too. Sure, the Switch may be creaking a bit in its old age, but after a few minutes with something like Super Mario RPG it just doesn’t matter. The music, in particular, is astounding. I hadn’t realised it was the work of Yoko Shimomura, but in retrospect it makes a lot of sense — particularly with the newly orchestrated arrangements found in the Switch remake. The ending theme, in particular, was beautiful; it was like a full-on orchestral finale to something you’d watched in the theatre — with a touch of honouring the original by starting with the SNES mix of the music, then bursting into full orchestra by the conclusion.

(Don’t ask why the creator of that video felt the need to brag about it being “4K” when the Switch only outputs 1080p, and a significant proportion of that end sequence is deliberately heavily pixelated.)

Anyway, I had a lovely time with Super Mario RPG, and I will be taking a look at the postgame stuff tomorrow. I’m happy I’ve finally played this — even if it wasn’t in its original form, which, let’s not forget, never came out in Europe back in the day — and now I feel suitably equipped to take on the Paper Mario games without feeling like I haven’t played “the original”. (I know Paper Mario is a distinct series from Super Mario RPG, but both it and the Mario and Luigi games count it as a common ancestor, so I’ve always wanted to give it a go.)

So that’s that. If you’re in a holiday funk, fire up a Nintendo game. I can guarantee it’ll put a smile on your face remarkably quickly.

#oneaday Day 183: Plague day with Mario

Felt particularly rough this morning when I woke up with a raging headache and a cough that could wake the dead. I was hoping to get some The Dagger of Amon Ra recorded this weekend, but I rather wisely decided against doing any today; we’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow.

Instead, I spent a significant chunk of today playing the Super Mario RPG remake for Switch. I’ve never played Super Mario RPG in any form, so I’ve been curious to try this for a long time, and something in my head makes an inextricable association between the holiday season and Nintendo games, so I thought I’d start it up and see how I got on with it. After all, what was originally a collaboration between Squaresoft and Nintendo was sure to be fun, right? And people always seem to be making references to both the game and some of its unique characters.

I’ve been very impressed so far. It’s a lot of fun, and it moves at a brisk old pace, as RPGs that originated in the 16-bit era tend to, but that doesn’t mean it feels like it’s rushing things. Rather, it’s paced well so that you’re constantly moving forwards, exploring new areas, meeting new allies and discovering new items. And, pleasingly, the game is a lot more than just running from story trigger to story trigger; there are some actual puzzles along the way to solve, too, along with some light platforming. The only thing I’m not a super fan of is the Hidden Treasure system, where equipping a particular accessory just tells you that there is a Hidden Treasure somewhere in the room you’re in, and then you just have to flail around hoping you headbutt it by chance.

As one would expect for a modern Nintendo title, the soundtrack is fantastic. I don’t know the original Super Mario RPG soundtrack all that well — aside from a couple of MIDIs I downloaded in the late ’90s to use in Klik and Play projects — but we have a fully reorchestrated version of the full soundtrack to go along with the updated visuals and the re-translated script. No speech, of course — it still doesn’t feel quite right to have a talkie Nintendo game — but the writing so far has been concise and pretty witty. Perhaps not to the same degree as Paper Mario, which is a series that essentially built off the back of Super Mario RPG, but I wanted to play this one first before I jumped into the Paper Mario titles for the first time. Yes, believe it or not I’ve never played one; my wife Andie has played most of them, however.

Anyway, Super Mario RPG helped make an otherwise fairly unpleasant day — the weather has been awful here today, too — fairly tolerable. And I even made some time to get all my Christmas shopping done earlier, too. So that’s good. But now it’s probably a good idea for me to go back to bed, and here’s hoping I feel a tad better in the morning. Not only do I want to record that The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough, but I have the work Christmas do in the week, and I’d rather not still be coughing my guts up and feeling like a roasted dog turd by the time that rolls around.

#oneaday Day 182: Unpopular gaming opinions

As a veritable old fart of video games, I am, of course, fairly set in my ways, as older folks are wont to be. And as such, I have come to hold certain opinions that appear to deviate from “the norm” among younger folks. You are not “wrong” to think differently to what I am about to describe below, but know that you are not going to convince me to change my viewpoint, because I have felt this way about all these things for years now.

So why am I writing this? I dunno. Something to write about, innit? Plus there might be some of you out there who actually agree with some of these. It doesn’t really matter. Let’s just start, shall we?

Games don’t “need” updates for months or years after their release

Baldur’s Gate 3 happened to drift across some form of feed that I was looking at the other day, and the thumbnail image that came with it proudly boasted something along the lines of “Community update 30”.

Now, whether this was just the 30th blog post for the community or the 30th actual update for the game I don’t actually know, but both are equally offputting to me. I haven’t even considered touching Baldur’s Gate 3 yet because it launched unfinished and apparently is still getting bits and pieces bolted onto it after the fact.

I hear it’s very good. I believe that it’s very good, as Larian has a good track record. But I have precisely zero desire to play it until it’s finished, because when a game as big as this gets significant updates after I’ve already ploughed a significant number of hours into it, I feel a bit hard done by. Worse, if I’ve already finished it by the time a significant update shows up, I feel very hard done by, because I should just have waited to play it.

Unfortunately, regular updates to games are expected by a certain class of The Gamers™, particularly those on PC. Look at the Steam reviews for any game that hasn’t had an update for a month or two and you’ll see people complaining about “devs abandoning the game” and it being a “dead game”.

No. Sometimes it’s just finished, and sometimes the devs would like either 1) a break or 2) to go and work on something else. I am, sadly, in the minority on this, but few things make me lose interest in a game faster than if it launches with a “roadmap”. Just delay the thing a few months and finish the fucking thing. Then I will play it.

DLC is worthless

As an extension to the above, if a game releases and then immediately announces that it is getting a bunch of DLC, I will also immediately lose interest. Not only does it make me feel like stuff has been cut out of the base game to make the DLC — and don’t throw the “well actually it’s developed at a different rate to the main game” argument at me, that is an easy problem to solve — but I am struggling to think of a piece of DLC that I have genuinely thought was actually worth the money.

I remember being particularly disappointed with the DLC chapters for stuff like Dragon Age and Mass Effect back in the day, and I haven’t seen much to change my opinion ever since those days. And, at the other end of the spectrum, you have games like Stellaris, where there is now so much DLC that it’s impossible to know what the “best” way to get started with the game is. So I just… don’t.

Mods are vandalism

“You should play games on PC!” the PC gamers say. “Because of mods!”

Fuck mods. I hate mods. A significant portion of them are outright vandalism to both the artistic and mechanical design of the teams that worked on a game. I saw someone on Bluesky earlier sharing an image of someone who had installed a “QoL” (“Quality of Life”) mod to STALKER 2 to remove all encumbrance mechanics from the game. STALKER 2 is a game about survival in difficult circumstances, and the encumbrance mechanics force you to determine whether you really need to carry various things around with you. By removing it, you’re stripping out part of the game.

Likewise, graphical mods can get in the bin, too. Games are designed with both a particular artistic vision in mind and are a reflection of the era in which they were designed, and I don’t really give a toss if you can add ray-tracing to something that didn’t have it before, or if you can make a game look like Generic Photorealistic Open World Game #927.

And I’m sure I don’t need to say anything about nude mods. I say this as someone who enjoys a good sexy game.

“But I need 357 mods to make Skyrim fun!” Then Skyrim isn’t a very good game, is it? Maybe play something else.

My only begrudging exception to this is in the case of games where extensibility is designed to be part of the game — stuff like Doom/Quake/Duke/whatever levels are fine with me, because those games were designed to be extendible. Although I must confess, when I play any of those games, I tend to stick to their official campaigns. And in some cases, mods for a game specifically designed to be mod-friendly inevitably remain perpetually unfinished and not as good as the stuff built-in to the game: most stuff for the excellent driving sim BeamNG.drive falls into this category, to name just one example.

I don’t want to join your Discord

I use Discord when I absolutely have to, for work and for the few groups of friends who are only reachable there. But I do not want to join a fucking Discord for every single game I play, and I don’t want to be bugged to join your Discord on the title screen for your game. Go away, leave me alone, and if I decide I want to engage in the official community for your game, I will seek out your Discord myself.

I absolutely do not want to have to join your Discord to read documentation or download helpful files. Host that shit on your website like a normal person.

I want your game to end

It’s all very well offering “potentially limitless replayability”, but I do actually want to be able to finish your game. If I can’t finish your game, I almost certainly won’t start it, because the way my brain works means that I will get annoyed by the fact I’m playing something that doesn’t have a “point”.

This is one of numerous reasons I think idle games and incremental games are dumb. Sure, numbers get big to a point that they become largely meaningless… but that’s it. There’s no sense of having achieved anything there. And I strongly suspect that a significant number of idle game fans have no idea that the genre largely stems from a pisstake at the expense of people who grind their way through mobile games with no conclusion.

Anyway, that’ll do for now, because I’m sure I’ve pissed someone off with at least one of the above. As noted at the beginning, though, I don’t care. I am an old man, I have things I like and things I dislike. And all of the above can get in the bin. A good evening to you!

#oneaday Day 181: Hanging in there

I’m still ill. I have just about survived today, with only a little nap after finishing work, but I am feeling pretty rough now. It is not fun, because I have work to do, I have things I want to enjoy, and coughing and spluttering through the day does not make any of those processes more enjoyable.

Still, at least we had a reasonably fun thing to do at work today: tease something for next year! If you happened to miss it, here:

That’s right! We’re doing the Neo Geo! That’s all I can say on the subject for the moment because we’re not revealing the details of this deal with SNK beyond the fact that it involves Neo Geo stuff until early next year, but this is something people have been asking about for a while, so it’s great to finally be able to say “yep, we doin’ it”.

Naturally, because no-one on the Internet is ever unconditionally happy any more, we had our fair share of people moaning about things we hadn’t actually said, but for the most part, the response has been great. Neo Geo games are top-tier retro, and having a bunch of them in the pipeline is great.

Like I say, that’s really all I can talk about on the subject for the moment, because Marketing. Looking more broadly, though, signing an agreement like this only shows how Evercade is going from strength to strength. We’ve got a couple of other big agreements waiting in the sidelines, too, but we’re not even teasing them just yet (although I guess I just did) — you’ll find out more about them next year. All I’ll say on the subject is that between these deals, we should be making a fair ol’ chunk of people happy, and that’s always a nice feeling. As for the people who immediately assume the worst when receiving what should be a highly positive announcement? Balls to them, I say. It’s really not my problem if someone is unable to find happiness in something specifically designed to bring people happiness.

Right. I’m off to bed to try and shake off this cold. I would like it gone by the weekend, as I have another Laura Bow mystery to play — and work Christmas do next week, too!

Shit, that reminds me, I probably better get my Secret Santa pressie sorted, I guess…

#oneaday Day 176: Take a Bow

Today, I played through all of the first Laura Bow game, The Colonel’s Bequest. I enjoyed it a lot! You can read more about my thoughts on the subject right here, and a full Let’s Play of the game will kick off on my YouTube channel from tomorrow. It’s just three (long) episodes rather than a lot of 30-minute episodes like I did with The Case of the Serrated Scalpel last year, as I felt that fit the format of the game a bit better, and the overall structure of The Colonel’s Bequest is… well, quite different from pretty much any adventure game I’ve played.

But enough of that. What’s next? The Dagger of Amon Ra, of course! This is the follow-up to The Colonel’s Bequest, and I’m going to do my best to play it through and record it tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s longer, shorter, easier, harder… the only thing I do know is that it uses point-and-click controls instead of The Colonel’s Bequest’s text parser, and it quizzes you on what happened at the end, so you need to make notes, just like Laura herself.

Then after that, I’ll start having a look at The Crimson Diamond. Plus alongside all this, I might do something similar to what I did last year (“3 interesting DOS discoveries”, “5 DOS games I always wanted to play” and “5 of the best early FPSes”) if I can figure out what I might want to cover for videos in that style. I haven’t started looking yet. Racing games is a possibility — a good excuse to bust out the Screamer series, perhaps? — or flight sims. Space combat sims? I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet. Looking at shareware stuff I used to like is also a distinct possibility, perhaps from the perspective of “shareware games I always wanted to try the Registered version of”, since the only Registered shareware game I had back in the day was Wolfenstein 3-D, which I got for free after making some levels that were included in the official “Super Upgrades” expansion pack.

I’ve probably told this story at least once on this blog before, right? Well, regardless, I’ll tell it again, ’cause you might be new around here. It’s a story of delightfully happy coincidence.

Back at the time I was playing Wolfenstein 3-D on the family PC, I was involved with a local shareware library. I did a bit of part time work helping them out at local computer fairs, writing their catalogues and that sort of thing. I don’t remember getting paid for this, but it was decent experience and I got lots of freebies from the shareware library, which was nice.

Among those disks that I got for free were numerous Wolfenstein 3-D editors, and they worked with the shareware version. So I made a bunch of levels.

I forget the exact circumstances of how the next bit came about, but I was browsing the GAMERS forum on CompuServe one day, when I found myself in contact with a gentleman called, as I recall, Carlton somethingorother. He was a representative from Apogee, and he was looking for new Wolfenstein 3-D levels to include in the upcoming data disk for the game. There was money on offer for anyone whose levels were included. After consulting with my parents — online safety and all that — I submitted my pack of ten levels to him, expecting never to hear from him ever again.

Imagine my surprise when a few months later, I got a package from the United States containing a cheque for $200, plus a registered copy of Wolfenstein 3-D and the new Super Upgrades pack, which included my levels, along with a bunch of other community contributions. So technically I’m a professional game designer.

But anyway. Yeah. That copy of Wolfenstein 3-D was the only Registered shareware game I had, because it was the early days of the Internet (in fact, via CompuServe, our “ISP” at the time, you couldn’t even access the Web, and had to append “INTERNET:” to any email addresses you were sending messages to outside of the CompuServe service) and my parents weren’t super-into the idea of sending $40 overseas in the hope of getting a video game back, and they absolutely weren’t going to share their credit card information online. As such, I became intimately familiar with a lot of “Episode 1s” and not a lot else… so exploring the “Episode 2s” and beyond for some games I liked back in the day might be interesting, for sure.

I’ll think of something. For now, I think it’s time to just play something fun for a bit without thinking about how to turn it into an article or video. Come to me, Donut Dodo…!

#oneaday Day 175: I picked what to play for #DOScember

As you will know if you’ve been reading for the past few days, I’ve been mulling over what to do for “DOScember” this year on my YouTube channel. I was fairly firmly set on doing another full adventure game playthrough, but hadn’t quite settled on what.

Well, after being recommended the excellent looking The Crimson Diamond, I’m… not going to play that right away. Instead, I’m going to play at least one of the games it cribs extensively from, and a series of adventure games I’ve always wanted to check out but never got around to: the Laura Bow mysteries from Sierra.

I’ve spent a little time familiarising myself with the first game The Colonel’s Bequest this evening, and I think I’ve got a feel for what to expect now. This was a highly experimental game for creator Roberta Williams, and modern commentators tend to agree that it doesn’t quite succeed at what it’s trying to do, but it’s a thoroughly interesting game nonetheless. That sounds like ideal fodder to play, talk about and discuss. Plus, like I say, I’ve wanted to play both Laura Bow games for ages and never made the time to do so.

For the unfamiliar, The Colonel’s Bequest is a mystery-themed adventure game in which you play the 1920s journalism student Laura Bow, who has come along to provide moral support for her friend Lillian while she attends a family reunion of sorts. Said reunion is taking place on the plantation of Colonel Henri Dijon, a former war hero, and is, for maximum creepiness, in the very depths of a bayou in the southern United States.

Upon arriving at the mansion, Laura notes that despite the Colonel announcing that he has left an equal share of his fortune to everyone present (except Laura, obviously), all the family members immediately start being absolute dickheads to one another, and it’s clear that mischief is about to be afoot. What then follows is a curious twist on the usual adventure game formula, where you, as Laura, must wander through the mansion and its grounds, attempting to gather pieces of evidence and knowledge that will allow you to leave the situation 1) alive and 2) with a full understanding of what happened.

The Colonel’s Bequest mostly lacks conventional puzzles, aside from a couple of instances. Instead, the game is mostly about being in the right place at the right time to witness or discover things; the game is split into hour-long Acts, which in turn are split into 15-minute time blocks, and discovering something significant causes time to advance. It’s possible to advance time before gathering important items or speaking with certain characters; indeed, it’s possible to “finish” the game with almost complete obliviousness to what happened around Laura, and you are not penalised for doing so, other than receiving a low “Sleuth” rating in the finale.

What this effectively means is that The Colonel’s Bequest is a game in which taking notes of what happens when, where, how and why is quite important, particularly if you plan to replay the whole thing. Having pieces of evidence or knowledge to ask or tell people about can lead to learning more about what’s going on, and you’ll need to follow all these threads to their various conclusions as much as possible to get the best rating.

I stopped playing for this evening because I don’t want to spoil too much for myself. I suspect my playthrough won’t conclude with me getting the elusive “Super Sleuth” rating at the conclusion of the playthrough, but I’m looking forward to giving it a go anyway. In typical Sierra style, there are some delightful characters involved, along with some fun narration, and this is what I’m really looking forward to: having an excuse to do some silly voices.

Anyway, yeah. So that’s the plan. The Colonel’s Bequest, at the very least. And if I get through that fairly quickly, on to The Dagger of Amon Ra. And if I beat that before December is through, then I’ll look at The Crimson Diamond. After all, I felt like I should probably familiarise myself with the “source material” before jumping into something that is a direct and unashamed homage to it, right?

#oneaday Day 173: Staring down the barrel of #DOScember

#DOScember is the annual celebration of DOS gaming and computing on YouTube and surrounding environments (not to be confused with #DOSember, which is a Twitch thing) and, even though many of the original participants and organisers have become somewhat disillusioned with the whole thing for various reasons, it’s still a fun excuse to bust out some classic MS-DOS games and remind yourself of how good early ’90s PC gaming was.

I did a few videos last #DOScember that I not only enjoyed making, they also performed rather well on my channel. So I’m likely going to spend this December doing primarily DOS gaming stuff on my YouTube channel.

I’m thinking a few things at this point. Firstly, I’m quite keen to do another full adventure game playthrough similar to my The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated Scalpel runthrough from last year. (This wasn’t a #DOScember thing, it was just something I felt like doing at the time.) I haven’t yet decided what I should do as yet; on the one hand, playing something I’m already familiar with should mean that I can get through it without getting stuck, but on the other, this might be a prime opportunity to explore a game I’ve never tried for the first time.

The temptation when thinking “I want to play an adventure game” is to jump straight to Sierra and LucasArts, and for sure, they are all solid choices. But there were other folks making adventures at the time, too, and I think the stuff from them is worth celebrating, too. At present, I’m leaning towards something from Access Software, as these are games I’ve never tried, and I know at least some of them (the Tex Murphy games and Countdown spring immediately to mind) are fondly regarded.

When considering that I probably want to play these games as a Let’s Play, I’d also prefer a game that isn’t “talkie”, so I can narrate and do the voices myself. It’s a silly little thing, but I do very much enjoy doing this, so it’s something I’m particularly looking for.

The other thing that I’ll probably do is at least a few “pre-scripted” videos like I did last year. Last time around, I looked at early first-person shooters, games I’d always wanted to try but never had the chance to, and interesting discoveries I’d stumbled across by chance. Those are solid formats, and all of those videos performed well; I’m thinking I might do something other than first-person shooters for the first bit though. Perhaps space sims or flight sims? Those are ripe for exploration, and they’re both genres I used to absolutely love.

Anyway, that’s the plan for #DOScember on the YouTube channel. If you have any good DOS adventure game suggestions (preferably of the point-and-click variety, and preferably not “talkie”, as outlined above) then I’d love to hear ’em. Otherwise, I’ll see you on the channel!

#oneaday Day 171: The End of Grisaia

I’ve finally finished The Eden of Grisaia, and, aside from the prologue/after stories and gratuitous H-scenes, which I will probably save for tomorrow given it’s getting late, that means I’ve finally brought this amazing trilogy to a close. Back when I first backed it on Kickstarter, I had been led to believe that it was one (well, three) of the best visual novels ever produced, and having now read the whole thing through from start to finish, I have to concur.

It’s a long read, to be sure — the first game alone is somewhere in the region of 50+ hours, though the subsequent two are closer to the 25-30 hour mark — but it’s one of those instances where the sheer length is kind of important to your sense of involvement with the whole thing; by the time you’ve reached Eden’s dramatic finale, a big part of it all feeling so satisfying is because you’ve previously spent so much time with these characters.

And it’s really interesting how the whole thing is handled. I won’t go into specific details in this post as I’ll probably do a more substantial writeup on MoeGamer in the very near future, but I will talk in general terms.

The Fruit of Grisaia, the first entry in the series, is set up in a typical “bishoujo game” format, where you make a few choices in a common route, then end up on a specific girl’s route to see their story and endings.

The Labyrinth of Grisaia, the second entry, follows this up with a series of non-canonical “After Stories” which assume you’re continuing from the good endings of each girl’s individual route from The Fruit of Grisaia. But then it presents you with what it calls its “Grand Route”, which, very unusually for what has up until this point seemed mostly like a fairly conventional romance visual novel, focuses very much on the protagonist.

Then The Eden of Grisaia picks up where the cliffhanger of Labyrinth left off, only unlocking its “After Story” and a short “Prologue” to the entire shebang after you’ve read the conclusion of the protagonist’s tale.

Grisaia’s protagonist is no ordinary man, you see. He’s not a self-insert for the player, and you are not supposed to “inhabit his role” as you are in some other games. Yuuji, as he is known, is a complex, thoroughly fascinating character, and the way the trilogy gradually drip-feeds you the truth of Yuuji’s full identity and background makes it consistently compelling. At the start of The Fruit of Grisaia, you think he’s a bit of a weirdo who is starting a new life at a school that is also inhabited by a bunch of other weirdoes. Throughout The Labyrinth of Grisaia, you learn a lot about his past life that made him the way he was. And in The Eden of Grisaia, things build to a dramatic conclusion that sees Yuuji confronting his oldest and most feared foe in scenes that would make a Metal Gear game proud.

Yes, y’see, Grisaia’s big secret, if it even is one at this point, is that it’s not a standard school romance series at all, despite what The Fruit of Grisaia might initially lead you to believe. Mind you, with the high drama that occurs in each and every character route in The Fruit of Grisaia — which ranges from violent yakuza shenanigans to the post-traumatic consequences of having survived through a situation that involved, among other things, cannibalism — you’ll barely be halfway through a route before you realise that there is definitely more going on here than might have initially appeared.

The series moves from being a tale about coping and moving on from trauma to some rather thought-provoking ruminations on war and terrorism in the information age. And it does so gradually and naturally; The Eden of Grisaia ends up in a very different place to where The Fruit of Grisaia started, but that just makes the journey feel thoroughly worthwhile. I can highly recommend the experience of reading through the trilogy, and I’ll have more to say on the subject when I’m a little more awake.

#oneaday Day 169: Analysis paralysis strikes again

I’m having a bit of a “moment” this evening. I want to play something, but my brain is bouncing every which way while I try and actually settle on something to spend some time with. Part of the issue is that I’ve started several things, and when this happens I find myself feeling “obliged” to try and finish those off, but part of me also wants to experience something brand new.

To clarify: all the things I’ve started I absolutely want to finish. But I think I may have inadvertently overwhelmed myself with everything I have on the go already. So indulge me a moment, if you please, while I attempt to make some sense of what my brain is thinking.

Games I have started but not finished (and which I want to finish): Mon-Yu, The Eden of Grisaia, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, Yakuza 5, Trails in the Sky Second Chapter, Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings, Little Busters!, Rance Quest Magnum

Games I am considering replaying for New Game+/DLC etc: Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy XV, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, Blue Reflection: Second Light

Games I quite fancy starting: Loop8: Summer of Gods (yes, I know it’s supposedly pump but I want to try it anyway), Rhapsody II, Kowloon High School Chronicle, Collar x Malice, Nights of Azure 2: Bride of the New Moon

Games I feel like I “should” start at some point but which seem to get knocked down the priority pile regularly: Final Fantasy IV/V/VI Pixel Remaster

You can hopefully see the issue I have presented myself with: a veritable horde of long RPGs and visual novels, all of which I want to play and finish. And I’ve rather stupidly gone and actually started a bunch of them and left them half-finished, which is where my analysis paralysis is primarily stemming from.

So let’s take those “games in progress” and look a little closer.

Mon-Yu: Dungeon crawler that I started on stream, but have subsequently been playing off-stream, because I’m not sure it’s the best game to “build an audience” with. Has the advantage of being extremely light on the narrative, so it’s a game that, in theory, can be dipped in and out of as mood dictates. Its main disadvantage is that it’s quite tough, so rewards protracted sessions. It’s not super-long, though: I believe there are seven main dungeons and I’m on the fourth. So a bit of determination can probably bash this one out before too long.

The Eden of Grisaia: Visual novel that I’m really enjoying and have been wanting to see the conclusion to for nearly ten years. This is easy enough to fit in whenever, since it requires no decision-making, just concentrating on the unfolding narrative. I am presently about 50% through its main storyline, though there are some other stories that unlock after that is completed. This is something that, perhaps, I can play over lunch instead of watching videos, since I can just stick it on auto and watch it unfold.

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana: I love Ys, but I started this at the behest of one of my wife’s friends, who was drunk at the time and wanted to see it. This means I’m not particularly invested in my current playthrough, so it’s pretty much at the bottom of my priority list, and I might even just start it over when I come to play it “properly”.

Yakuza 5: I also love Yakuza and am keen to get up to date with the series, but doing so feels a tad overwhelming right now. I am fairly early in this and haven’t gone through much of the plot, but I have been enjoying the side activities, as is the law with Yakuza games.

Trails in the Sky Second Chapter: I had bold plans to play through “all of Trails“, which was a silly thing to promise myself. I enjoyed revisiting the first Trails in the Sky, but Second Chapter’s similarity to it made me feel a little burnt out going straight into it. I’m not far into this at all, but I’m far enough that I’m not sure I’d want to start over.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle: I was doing great on the Atelier MegaFeature over on MoeGamer, but I kind of ground to a halt with this game, not because I wasn’t enjoying it, but at least partly because I started working on Rice Digital and thus didn’t have time to commit to personal projects like this. It has been long enough that I think I can probably start this over when I want to come back to it.

Little Busters!: I took this with me on an overnight trip to work to play out of curiosity, and enjoyed the few chapters I played through, but again, haven’t got far. Again, I think I would probably start this over when the time comes.

Rance Quest Magnum: Another game with Yakuza syndrome: I want to catch up on the series, but doing so is a daunting prospect. This game at least has the benefit that its early hours are relatively light on plot, and its quests are bite-sized, making it a game that you don’t necessarily have to devote hours to in order to get the best out of it.

I’ll also say it’s worth noting that recently I finished Silent Hope, which was one of those games that had been looming over my head for ages, and it felt good to finally knock that one on the head. I also played through 1000xRESIST the other day, and enjoyed that a lot.

Thinking about things sensibly, then, the thing that would make the most sense would be to play The Eden of Grisaia when my brain is alert enough to read, Mon-Yu when I fancy bopping things until numbers come out. I drop Ys VIII, Atelier Lydie & Suelle and Little Busters! without guilt for now, and come back to them fresh and from the beginning when I’m not so overwhelmed. I review how I’m feeling after finishing either Mon-Yu or The Eden of Grisaia (or both) and consider whether to pick up where I left off in either Yakuza 5 or Trails in the Sky Second Chapter at that point — in other words, defer that decision until one or two things are checked off.

That sounds good, right? Okay, The Eden of Grisaia it is for now, then.