Ugh. Yesterday was the very definition of a complete write-off. I woke up in the morning suffering the excruciating pain my hernia occasionally causes me, requiring me to call in sick to work (and almost certainly have to "explain" on my return why this day off sick just happened to be immediately before the weekend and two holiday days… I hate Policy and Procedure) and causing me to desire nothing more than to return to bed.

Andie went out early to go to the doctors, then, likewise not feeling all that well (albeit for different reasons) also returned to bed. This was at about 9am or so. When we awoke, it was 4.30 in the afternoon.

Normally when I have a lie-in, my body naturally doesn't let me laze around any longer than about midday at the latest. Yes, that's still pretty lazy, but sometimes it's just nice to not have to deal with the morning. 4.30, though? I haven't slept in that late since the very depths of my 2010 depression shortly after my first wife left me and I wasn't really sure how to deal with… well, anything, really.

Thankfully, today has been marginally more normal in terms of bodily timekeeping and I haven't been suffering in pain, so I haven't messed up my body clock any more than it undoubtedly already is, but still. It threw my schedule right off, hence the lack of post yesterday. Apologies! But here we are.

Anyway. I hope you had a better Friday than I did, and that your Saturday has been pleasantly refreshing so far.

I've seen a bit of complaining and cynicism over the upcoming release of Persona 5 Royal recently, and honestly, I can't get on board with it. Why? Because I'd much rather expanded, enhanced versions of games were done this way than via DLC.

Those of you who have been following me for a while will know that I'm becoming increasingly interested in the topic of game preservation, and a significant obstacle to that is the culture of "post-launch support" that has developed over the course of the latter half of last generation and all of this generation. To put it simply, if you buy a physical copy of a game today, in a significant number of cases, that disc becomes mostly worthless after a while thanks to the sheer volume of patches, additional content and DLC added after release.

Post-launch support is seen as a good thing by the broader gaming community today, with people praising companies like Capcom for adding in Bloody Palace mode to the new Devil May Cry, or Sony for adding a new "Survival Mode" and challenges to Days Gone. (In the latter case, this additional content was announced before the release of the game!) And in some respects, it's good to see companies wanting to make their game the best it possibly can be.

But… shouldn't that be done before launch? Particularly when we're talking about game modes that have been an established part of the series for a while now (Devil May Cry) or what essentially amounts to difficulty settings (Days Gone)? This may not seem relevant right now, but consider a few years down the line when the PS4 is a "retro" system. Will Sony's servers still be up and serving these patches and DLC? If not, you'll be stuck with a disc that doesn't contain the "full" game as people experienced it today.

In some cases, this is worse than others. Probably the most worthless physical edition out there right now is the original release of Final Fantasy XV, which has undergone such radical changes and additions since its original launch that it is almost unrecognisable. Not only that, but the version on the disc was buggy as shit, requiring a large Day One patch to even make the damn thing work properly in the first place. In this instance, the release of the later Royal Edition made perfect sense… though I've still held fire on that, since at the same time as announcing that, they also announced that there would be more DLC. Hopefully we'll get a proper "Ultimate Edition" at some point that includes absolutely everything.

And this is why I'm not mad at Persona 5 Royal. Everything I've heard about it suggests that it adds a significant amount to the base game, much as Persona 3 FES did for Persona 3, or Persona 4 The Golden did for Persona 4. That additional content hasn't been released piecemeal; it's all being provided in one big lump, and on a disc to boot. This means that said additional content won't be lost in the great digital void; it can be archived and preserved. And that's important.

If you don't want to support this model, that's absolutely fine. Persona 5 in its base form still exists, and looks like it may well be coming to Switch. Once Persona 5 Royal releases, OG Persona 5 will probably be pretty cheap, for PS4 at least. And it's still a great game. But for those who enjoyed it and want more, I'd much rather companies take the P5R approach than piecemeal DLC and Season Passes.

I realise I'm in the minority on this right now, but I think some people need to consider the bigger, more long-term picture.

I think I'm going to do it: I'm going to "run" a Final Fantasy marathon. And unlike most marathons, I'm going to include the MMOs. I already have experience of XIV and know that the main storyline for that is beatable in about the same amount of time as a "normal" RPG, but XI is a bit of a dark spot for me. I've played it several times over the years but never really got very far; I do know that its incarnation today is considerably easier and quicker than it was back when I played semi-actively, so it shouldn't be nearly as much of a timesink as it used to be.

I've actually wanted to see XI's story through for the longest time, because it's apparently really very good, especially once you get into Rise of the Zilart and beyond. It seemed a bit impractical for the longest time, however, what with how party-centric the game used to be. It was built after the Everquest rather than World of Warcraft mould, after all, so there was a strong focus on parties fighting things that would absolutely flatten a solo player.

Now, however, probably the biggest benefit to solo players is the addition of the "Trust" system. Using this, you can cast spells to summon "alter egos" — effectively copies of NPCs from throughout the main story — and they can be your party members. Most people seem to think that you can solo 99% of FFXI as it exists today using only Trusts, with only the "grand finale" to the storyline — the final battle of the Rhapsodies of Vana'Diel storyline — proving difficult for some.

As such, this means you can effectively now play FFXI like a "normal" RPG, with the fact that the Trust characters are all characters you meet and interact with in the game world only adding to this feeling. With this in mind, it's my intention to include a playthrough of FFXI's storyline up to at the very least the conclusion of the Chains of Promathia storyline, which seems to be pretty widely regarded as a particular high point. I'm not going to get involved in endgame stuff or heavily grind-heavy content — though the nature of the game means that there'll be a certain amount of grinding along the way anyhow — but I would like to see why people say the story is so good.

The reason I'm mentioning this now is that I'm conscious how old FFXI is. I know it's still enjoying a surprisingly healthy player base for a game of its age, but one day it won't exist any more. And if I haven't seen it through by then, I know I will regret it. So I'm going to make a start on recording this sooner rather than later; I won't publish it until the appropriate point in my complete marathon, however long that takes, but I'm going to get started now so there's no chance of Vana'Diel going up in smoke while I'm still pootling around Final Fantasy V or so.

If you lovely Patrons are interested, I can always put the videos up as Unlisted so you can watch them well ahead of when they'll actually be released; let me know if you're curious to see FFXI in 2019 in action! Otherwise, I'll simply start "banking" episodes and put them out at the appropriate point in the complete marathon.

I'm excited! This is an endeavour I've been meaning to undertake for many years now, and with the game in its current state, it feels like it might finally be practical. Watch this space for updates… and in the meantime I'm thinking about kicking off the marathon proper with Final Fantasy I (likely the PSP version) very soon.

I've brought this up on the podcast a few times, but I thought I'd attempt to compile a list of some of the minor, largely incidental things in gaming that I have found inexplicably pleasing over the years — and primarily in my early years. Why? Because I still have half an hour of work and I'm bored.

• Lives displays that say "[name] x [number]" – I don't know why this really caught my attention back in the 16-bit days, but I really liked it, actually specifically seeking out games (usually platformers) that had this as a UI convention. I think it stemmed from the first time I played Sonic the Hedgehog, and I saw it as one of the things that distinguished Japanese console games from the Western computer games I'd typically been playing up until that point.

• Health bars that change colour then "drain" – For example, a health bar that starts yellow and indicates damage by a chunk of it turning red, then draining to its lower current level. Probably the most commonly seen example of this is in fighting games, with Street Fighter II probably being the first time I saw it. I particularly like it in non-fighting game contexts, however.

• Health bars that animate smoothly – Related to the above, only this time when I think about this, I'm specifically thinking about City of Heroes (RIP) and its lovely, smoothly animating, sparkling HP, MP and XP bars in the corner of the screen.

image via MMOs.com, obviously

• Health bars with coloured layers – I apparently have a thing for health bars. I first saw this back at university in Shining Force II, which I was playing vicariously through my friend Sam, who was obsessed with it and delighted to discover he could re-enjoy it through emulation. I was especially pleased to see Kingdom Hearts make use of it, too.

• Boss health bars that say "BOSS" in big letters – See above.

• Constantly visible XP bars – If you're making an action RPG or MMO and you don't have a gradually filling XP bar on screen at all times keeping the player motivated, what on Earth are you doing?

• Stripy skies – Another holdover from my having home computers at home rather than consoles. The graphical trickery required to produce a background with a gradient effect was something i respected and appreciated, and thus I tended to "like" games with stripy skies more than those without. MiG-29M Superfulcrum was better than its predecessor because it added a stripy sky. And was also a better game.

• 2D platform games with hills – I've discussed this on Atari A to Z before. This was another "computer vs console" thing for a while, though later Atari ST platformers started incorporating smooth hills rather than "steps".

• Racing games with hills – Apparently I also have a thing for hills. But when you'd grown up with resolutely flat "vanishing point" racers such as Pole Position and The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, you too would be excited when something like Continental Circus or OutRun took you on a veritable roller-coaster ride.

• Use of "1P" and "2P" instead of "Player 1" and "Player 2" or "1up" and "2up" – This stems from the fact that I didn't get a lot of chances to visit arcades in my youth, since here in the UK they're very much a seaside thing. The computer games I played at the time, if they included a "player marker" at all, tended to say "Player 1" or "1up", whereas arcade games (I'm typically thinking of Konami beat 'em ups) would use "1P". I automatically liked any computer or console game that used "1P" slightly more than one that did not.

• Ridiculously elaborate status panels that take up half the screen – Today, I understand why these were typically incorporated into home computer versions of arcade and console games — to keep the frame-rate up by only requiring a smaller "viewport" for the action to unfold in — and, by extension, why we don't see them today… but I kind of miss them. They were an opportunity for the game's graphic designer to let rip with a bit of creativity, even when all you really needed was a score and lives display.

• Games that have dramatic, pounding music while you're setting options – G-LOC. I'm thinking of G-LOC. Part of the reason I liked that game in the arcades was simply the music that played while you were choosing your difficulty level. It really got you in the mood!

• Games that have some sort of time-of-day mechanic, particularly if it's quasi real-time – I'm primarily thinking of Rise of the Dragon here, which I really liked the time management aspect of, but I've always had a soft spot for any game that has a clock prominently on screen for some reason.

I'm sure there's plenty more, but these are the ones that spring immediately to mind. In most cases, I'm not sure why I like these aspects… I just know that I did back then, and I still do!

Good morning! Sorry I missed last night, I was up until 1am finishing off Sonic Lost World, which I will be writing about later today. Yes, I know this isn't really an excuse, given that I had the whole rest of the day to potentially write something, but, well, I didn't. So here we are!

It's another four day week at the day job from today. Yesterday was a bank holiday here in the UK, as was last Friday, so we had a thoroughly pleasant four-day weekend. Well, it wasn't complete rest and relaxation, as my mother-in-law was visiting, as I noted in the previous post, but she's not really a hassle to have around and she often tends to do helpful and productive things around the house and garden for us, so her visits are always appreciated. Now our "catio" has some very nice-looking plants in pots!

Andie also fitted a cat flap to the back of our house so the cats can come and go from the house to the catio as they please. Patti, being a cat who clearly hasn't really been outside before we had her, is still extremely nervous of not being in the house, so she hasn't made use of it yet, but I was surprised and delighted to see Meg immediately knowing what to do with it, and over the course of the day clearly making use of it several times without prompting. Evidently she's had one before, presumably at the house she lived in before we had her.

Having the cat flap in will be good for Meg, as I always felt a bit guilty leaving her shut in the house while we're both out, but it's been necessary for her safety and our own peace of mind ever since we lost Ruby last November. I still miss her so much and don't want anything to happen to either Meg or Patti if we can possibly prevent it. Meg still likes to try and sneak out of the front door occasionally, but she seems to have mostly accepted how things are, and even seems to like the catio now it's a bit sunnier. Patti, meanwhile, as I say, doesn't really "get" outside just yet, but she's always curious to follow Meg whenever she goes out.

After this week, I have a three day work week next week, as I have both Monday and Tuesday off for both my birthday and my employment anniversary. It's going to be weird going back to "full-time" at this rate!

My cat Meg is a tsundere. I've always suspected this to a certain degree, but the last couple of days have proven it beyond all measure.

My mother-in-law is presently visiting, and this has caused our newer cat Patti to spend the last day and a half hiding. She's very confident with me and Andie now, but she's not very good with strangers and tends to try and stay out of sight.

Longstanding readers will recall that Meg and Patti have been having a somewhat strained but vaguely tolerant relationship up until this point, with sightings of one another usually accompanied by a bit of hissing and occasionally one launching themselves at the other (usually Patti launching herself at Meg). This would, naturally, suggest to the casual observer that they do not like one another.

However, Patti has a tendency to follow Meg around at a distance, particularly if she goes outside, so it's quite clear that she wants to try and be friends. And for the last day and a half, while Patti has been in hiding, Meg has very obviously been looking for Patti and been a bit out of sorts.

In other words, Meg is putting up a grumpy front but clearly actually holds some sort of feelings of vague affection for Patti. Further evidence of her tsundereness can be seen in her behaviour towards us — sometimes she just likes to go and sit somewhere quiet where she won't be bothered, while at others she'll come and demand affection or simply appreciate a bit of attention.

I know that what I'm describing here is not unusual at all for cat behaviour, but I just find it quite amusing that Meg's tsundere tendencies have been at an all-time high over the course of the past couple of days. Maybe there's hope for the pair of them yet.

I'm having one of those times where there are lots of things I think I'd really like to do, and I'm not sure I have time to do all of them!

Well, no, that's not quite accurate. I probably do have time to do them, but it's more a matter of scheduling things so I don't end up spreading myself too thin either in terms of workload or actually distributing the things that I create!

One of the things I'd like to do — and in fact have been meaning to do for probably a decade or more at this point — is a Final Fantasy marathon. I've been enjoying ProJared's Let's Plays of Final Fantasy I and III just recently, and it's making me want to go back and revisit the old games — and finally finish the ones I've never finished, like V and VI! I also think it'd be a fun long-term project, but at present I already have a number of those on the go and don't want to overload either myself or my audience.

What I might end up doing is actually make a start on recording for this, but not publish it immediately. That way when I find myself wanting for content, I can kick it off and hopefully have a bunch of episodes in the bank ready to go. Or maybe one day I'll just say "fuck it" and start it anyway. Seriously, I have got the Final Fantasy fever right now.

Another thing which might be a little more practical and less long-term (well… kinda) is a twist on an old video series I used to do called Bearded Backlog. In that series, I used to pick something I'd never played from my Steam library, give it a shot for about half an hour or so and decide whether or not I felt like continuing with it. I'm thinking I might return to that… only with PS2 games. I have a whole bunch of PS2 games in my collection that I'm yet to give a go, and this might be a fun way of tackling them.

Oh, so many ideas, so little time. I'm just kicking around thoughts at the moment; neither of these are necessarily going to happen (at least not immediately!) but if you're especially interested in either one of them then I can probably look into making them happen sooner rather than later!

The PS2 is my favourite console of all time.

I've gone back and forth on whether I really think this, because for sure there are lots of games I absolutely love on other platforms. The PSP-Vita-PS4-Switch era has been pretty consistently strong for RPGs, for example, so those platforms will always have a special place in my heart… but there's just something absolutely magical about the PlayStation 2 that I love, making it my favourite console to collect games for, and my favourite to bust out and play something on.

I think a big part of that is its simplicity compared to that which came after. There's no online fluff, no user profiles, no downloadable content… it's just a simple device for playing games. You put in a disc, you play a game. That's it.

What's more, the lack of digitally downloadable content meant that there were less obvious "strata" of games than there are now. I mean, sure, you could still tell the difference between a game from a big, affluent studio and something made on the cheap by a group of enthusiasts, but there was less of a feeling of… I don't know if I want to use the word "inferiority" to refer to cheap, digital-only games because there are many out there that are absolutely magnificent games, but the fact that every game was, in effect, treated "equally" on the PS2 in terms of packaging and physical presence is something I like very much indeed.

While the PS2 was part of the last generation where PAL vs NTSC made a difference — with NTSC inevitably being superior in most cases — one thing from PlayStation Europe that I like more than the American approach is the uniformity to game spines. For those unfamiliar, PS2 game spines over here are all the same: white background, black text in a clear, sans-serif font. (Platinum rereleases are the exception; they have a black background with silver text.)

A lot of people seem to dislike this, from a casual Google search, but I absolutely love it. It gives the PS2 library a look of classy consistency — and is part of how I consider all "tiers" of games from the era to have had equal treatment. A low-budget Simple Series release looks the same on a shelf as a bigger budget title; everything has an equal opportunity to grab your attention.

I've been talking about "tiers" a bit here, but another nice thing about the PS2 era is that there was much less disparity between what we now know as "triple-A" and lower-budget games. Sure, there was still a difference — particularly later in the console's lifespan — but it was less obvious. EA, for example, tended to flex its financial muscles with licensed soundtracks more than anything — making them a copyright nightmare to record and stream these days, incidentally — but the other aspects of their games' presentation wasn't necessarily significantly superior to something put out by a quirky little Japanese studio.

Basically, the long and short of it is that I can walk up to my PS2 shelf, pick pretty much anything at random and know I'm going to have an enjoyable time. I can walk into a CEX and happily wander out a few minutes later with an armful of random stuff that cost me pocket change to acquire. And even the more exciting, expensive and rare stuff doesn't break the bank to get hold of — Rule of Rose aside, of course.

The only thing I wish were different about this wonderful platform is its region-locking. There are a number of games that didn't come to Europe that I'd really like to play, but right now it's a case of hooking up an NTSC PS2 (which I thankfully have one of), emulating or getting hold of a chipped system. I haven't taken the plunge with the latter option as yet, but it's quite appealing, if only so I can play all of Xenosaga without having to swap cables around!

Anyway. I love ya, PS2; you've provided good times for nearly 20 years now, and I suspect there are many more still yet to come. I salute you.

I got an early birthday present today: a Deluxe Mini Monster Retro Gaming Joystick. This is essentially an arcade stick made from Sanwa parts (which are good) which hooks up to retro systems that use the old-school 9-pin "Atari" joystick ports. That means pretty much any '80s home computer, be it Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Atari 2600, C64, Spectrum (with Kempston interface), Amiga, Sega Master System and probably plenty of others.

In other words, it's a modern joystick for old computers and consoles, allowing you to enjoy the latter without wondering whether or not your 30+ year old joysticks are going to remember how a fire button works this time you plug them in. Well, after you've put it together, anyway. (Or got your more technically minded wife to put it together for you!)

I spent about 10-15 minutes with it earlier just to make sure it worked and, aside from the 9-pin extension cable they provided being rubbish (it kept popping out from the stick's interface port on the back — thankfully I had another cable that remains secure) it is a glorious piece of kit for retro gaming.

As those in the know might expect, the Sanwa parts for the stick make for an incredibly responsive control device with a lovely "click" to it, and the small size of the unit makes it suitable for either having on the desk in traditional arcade stick style, or held in your lap like an old-school joystick — though you will need both hands owing to the buttons and stick being separate, arcade-style.

One of the most interesting things about it — besides its very existence! — is that it has two buttons. Those of you who know your retro systems will be aware that your standard Atari-style joystick only has a single fire button, so what's with that second one? Well, it works in conjunction with a little switch on the back of the unit — turn this on and "up" on the stick gets mapped to that second button, allowing you to use it as a jump button in old-school platform games that require you to push up to jump, perhaps because they have something like "shoot" or "use item" mapped to the fire button.

Pushing up to jump isn't a massive problem on a stick that is already nicely responsive, but having the option to use a button instead is absolutely marvellous, and I'm looking forward to trying it out with some games that, historically, I've found a bit awkward due to their "up to jump" controls.

I'll post some more thoughts and perhaps a video in the near future, but suffice to say for now that if you're into your retro home computers (and some consoles), this is a very worthwhile investment.

If you're planning to play the board game Pandemic Legacy Season One and don't want to be spoiled, you may want to skip this post! 🙂 You have been warned.

I'm mildly impressed with the group of friends I occasionally have the opportunity to play board games with — and I mean occasionally now that two of them have kids and have, in the process, become the most boring and/or tired people in the world. The reason I'm impressed is that we've managed to stick with a single game for several sessions and consistently finish playthroughs of it on a weeknight, which with previous campaign-based titles has always been a bit of a challenge.

Anyway. The game in question is Pandemic Legacy, Season One, a game I've had on my shelf for a long time, but which up until recently I had only played the first scenario through with my wife. At the time of writing, we've now finished the first five "months" of the game and are looking forward to seeing the rest of the campaign through to its conclusion.

If you've never played Pandemic, it's a cooperative strategy game in which a team of players, each controlling a character with a unique ability that benefits the entire group in some way, work together to try and discover cures for four deadly diseases that are sweeping the globe. The way in which this is done is treated in a rather abstract manner — it's about collecting sets of coloured cards — but aside from this aspect, the game is heavily thematic, with the majority of its mechanics depicting how the team fights back against the diseases… and how the diseases resist attempts to defeat them.

If you've never played a legacy game, meanwhile, the gist is that you're supposed to play a complete campaign of multiple games — between 12 and 24 in the case of Pandemic Legacy. Over the course of this campaign, permanent changes are made to the game. New rules are added to the book, new mechanics are added to the possible actions players can take, new pieces are added to the available components and new objectives are added.

Some of these additions are fixed according to what point in the campaign you're at; others are only added according to your actions, either positive or negative. For example, successfully eradicating a disease in a single play session allows you to apply a positive mutation to it in all future sessions, making it easier to deal with; conversely, allow a city to outbreak because it has too much disease in it and it will begin to panic, with increasingly negative consequences occurring as the panic level rises.

So far, the basic mechanics of Pandemic have evolved gradually, initially with one of the four diseases that could not be "cured" like the other three. From here, this continued to mutate so that it couldn't be treated, only quarantined, and in our most recent missions it has evolved further so that its victims become "Faded" — essentially zombies — who pose a serious threat to any players who start their turn in the same location as these unfortunate individuals.

As the disease mutated, so too did the array of available actions we had on offer, as well as the characters we could put in our team. Initially we gained the ability to quarantine areas to temporarily prevent the disease intensifying or causing an outbreak in an area, and subsequently we have gained the opportunity to build military bases and set up roadblocks to help minimise the impact of any outbreaks which might occur, increasingly likely as they seem.

The nice thing about the additions so far is that the game doesn't feel like it's become more complicated as such, there's just more for you to do — and because the "zombie" disease behaves a bit differently to the others, we have to adjust our strategies a bit accordingly, too. Whereas once we could leave the Medic character in a heavily disease-stricken area to clean up a bit when his turn rolled around, now it's unsafe to do so if Faded are around, since it is indeed possible for characters to be permanently "Lost" if they're caught in the wrong place at the wrong time once too many — and before that, they suffer permanent "scars" that have a negative impact on their game mechanics!

Thus far things haven't been too difficult — we've only lost one game in the campaign to date, and that was mostly down to a seriously unfortunate run of bad luck — but it's clear the challenge factor is ramping up gradually. I feel like now we're roughly around the halfway point of the campaign, things are going to get a lot more difficult — but there's still a lot of boxes, envelopes and flaps to open so I'm very intrigued to see what happens in the coming missions.

And when we get to the end, there's apparently a second "season", too! I'm definitely on board. Pun genuinely not intended.