This game sure does show its age.
Man, I had such plans for things I was going to do with my holiday weekend, and then Sunday was the day of the horrendous migraine and I pretty much lost all of it, with the result that I spent yesterday racing to get things done that I'd meant to spread out over the weekend. Seven loads of laundry, some big cooking projects, and a housecleaning adventure that involved husband and I tag-teaming the entire house to try to get under all the furniture and things.
We didn't go out to see fireworks, as we were both kind of tired and mostly we didn't feel like dragging ourselves back from fireworks only to fall into bed and try to fall asleep (which...didn't work anyway because of fuckheads in my neighborhood setting off LOUD fireworks until half past two, and then Zelda discovered a toy mouse that had been liberated from the couches during the Great Vacuuming and carried it around the house yowling her joy to the skies at 5 am....I have not slept well the last few days, is what I'm saying.)
Anyway, the other thing I did yesterday was play a chunk of Star Ocean 2. This was one of the earliest video games I bought for myself with my own money; I remember that I bought it senior year of high school because right after, I met some school friends at the Lone Star near the mall for dinner (also from that shopping trip: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete.) I started the game my freshman year of college, and then I got...bored? Distracted? Who knows. Anyway, I put it aside and never thought much of it, and it kept getting pushed back on my backlog, and then this year I decided I was Going To Beat Old Games, Dammit, and so I pulled it off the shelf and started it up.
I'm playing Rena's path, and I've just gotten to Lacour. Spoilers follow for a game old enough to vote.
So I've been sort of half-assedly looking at a walkthrough from time to time, and I clearly have not been looking enough because I have already waltzed past the starting point for recruiting Opera so I'm gonna have to go back and do that, because badass ladies, get in my party, please and thank you.
This is really interesting to play in the sense that I am now familiar enough with JRPG conventions and translation antics to have a pretty good idea of where the gaps are between the Japanese text, the English translation as presented in the game, and how I think it would be translated if the same translation were to be done today. (Of course I may be flattering myself that I'm smarter than I am and pulling things out of my ass, but. There are very distinct cadences and linguistic patterns happening here.) So far I'm not terribly invested in any of the characters except that Dias pings me, because of course he does. Granted, so far I only have Claude, Rena, and Celine.
In the dim recesses of my memory, I recalled that the first time I played this game, someone advised me to grind in the Heraldry Forest until I had enough Fol for the Bandit's Gloves, and accordingly that is just what I did. (Grinding is a thing I can do with a post-migraine hangover.) So now I have those, though I've not yet learnt Pickpocketing, but I also hadn't been spending my SP until I could consult
samuraiter so I can go after that now.
I am reminded anew of the default difficulty setting of 1990s JRPGs, that being "fuck you." (To think I used to love this and seek it out. Younger!Rina, you were a dumbfuck. Or alternately Younger!Rina just had a lot more time to devote to grinding, which is at least as likely an explanation.) Fortunately my money grind in the forest also gave me a shit ton of levels, so there's that. But I definitely spent my third try of the boss fight in Cross Cave running in frantic circles so Rena would stay out of range of attacks while Claude did whatever he did.
Have I mentioned that I am often really not into games with party AI? FF12 was OK because I could control it very precisely, but let me tell you about the tears of blood I cried over Persona 3 the first time, and while SO2 has a lot of good features like being able to turn off specific spells/actions, I am still Not Thrilled at my overall lack of precision control. Yes, I am a control freak. Fight me.
Speaking of the difficulty setting, I thought I was doing quite well sticking my nose into all the corners and talking to all the people and yet glancing at a walkthrough tells me I am missing so much. I didn't really want to play this with a walkthrough because I wanted to muddle through on my own, but I'm starting to think that may have been a less than ideal goal. (Fortunately I'm still quite early enough to fix that.)
The sound effects and music keep throwing me for a loop because they sound too familiar; I think it's from having gotten rather farther in Valkyrie Profile though I also didn't finish that one. But yeah, very similar. And I'm also getting vibes very like Infinite Undiscovery, which is. Well. It's a thing, that's what it is.
So that's where I am with SO2, making slow progress against the tides of the backlog. We'll see how long I stick with it.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1150608.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.
We didn't go out to see fireworks, as we were both kind of tired and mostly we didn't feel like dragging ourselves back from fireworks only to fall into bed and try to fall asleep (which...didn't work anyway because of fuckheads in my neighborhood setting off LOUD fireworks until half past two, and then Zelda discovered a toy mouse that had been liberated from the couches during the Great Vacuuming and carried it around the house yowling her joy to the skies at 5 am....I have not slept well the last few days, is what I'm saying.)
Anyway, the other thing I did yesterday was play a chunk of Star Ocean 2. This was one of the earliest video games I bought for myself with my own money; I remember that I bought it senior year of high school because right after, I met some school friends at the Lone Star near the mall for dinner (also from that shopping trip: Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete.) I started the game my freshman year of college, and then I got...bored? Distracted? Who knows. Anyway, I put it aside and never thought much of it, and it kept getting pushed back on my backlog, and then this year I decided I was Going To Beat Old Games, Dammit, and so I pulled it off the shelf and started it up.
I'm playing Rena's path, and I've just gotten to Lacour. Spoilers follow for a game old enough to vote.
So I've been sort of half-assedly looking at a walkthrough from time to time, and I clearly have not been looking enough because I have already waltzed past the starting point for recruiting Opera so I'm gonna have to go back and do that, because badass ladies, get in my party, please and thank you.
This is really interesting to play in the sense that I am now familiar enough with JRPG conventions and translation antics to have a pretty good idea of where the gaps are between the Japanese text, the English translation as presented in the game, and how I think it would be translated if the same translation were to be done today. (Of course I may be flattering myself that I'm smarter than I am and pulling things out of my ass, but. There are very distinct cadences and linguistic patterns happening here.) So far I'm not terribly invested in any of the characters except that Dias pings me, because of course he does. Granted, so far I only have Claude, Rena, and Celine.
In the dim recesses of my memory, I recalled that the first time I played this game, someone advised me to grind in the Heraldry Forest until I had enough Fol for the Bandit's Gloves, and accordingly that is just what I did. (Grinding is a thing I can do with a post-migraine hangover.) So now I have those, though I've not yet learnt Pickpocketing, but I also hadn't been spending my SP until I could consult
samuraiter so I can go after that now.
I am reminded anew of the default difficulty setting of 1990s JRPGs, that being "fuck you." (To think I used to love this and seek it out. Younger!Rina, you were a dumbfuck. Or alternately Younger!Rina just had a lot more time to devote to grinding, which is at least as likely an explanation.) Fortunately my money grind in the forest also gave me a shit ton of levels, so there's that. But I definitely spent my third try of the boss fight in Cross Cave running in frantic circles so Rena would stay out of range of attacks while Claude did whatever he did.
Have I mentioned that I am often really not into games with party AI? FF12 was OK because I could control it very precisely, but let me tell you about the tears of blood I cried over Persona 3 the first time, and while SO2 has a lot of good features like being able to turn off specific spells/actions, I am still Not Thrilled at my overall lack of precision control. Yes, I am a control freak. Fight me.
Speaking of the difficulty setting, I thought I was doing quite well sticking my nose into all the corners and talking to all the people and yet glancing at a walkthrough tells me I am missing so much. I didn't really want to play this with a walkthrough because I wanted to muddle through on my own, but I'm starting to think that may have been a less than ideal goal. (Fortunately I'm still quite early enough to fix that.)
The sound effects and music keep throwing me for a loop because they sound too familiar; I think it's from having gotten rather farther in Valkyrie Profile though I also didn't finish that one. But yeah, very similar. And I'm also getting vibes very like Infinite Undiscovery, which is. Well. It's a thing, that's what it is.
So that's where I am with SO2, making slow progress against the tides of the backlog. We'll see how long I stick with it.
I've posted this at http://lassarina.dreamwidth.org/1150608.html and you may comment there or here. On Dreamwidth, this entry has
comments.