don't got game

[nickjong]

I beat a video game for the first time in years, but this belated progress on my game queue mostly taught me that I need to blow the queue up and start over. The game I finished is Shadow Hearts, released in 2001 for the PS2. The game's setting, early 20th-century Asia and Europe but infused with mystical elements, provided a nice change of pace

Comments

[dr4b]

I have to tell you that, being as I work in one, Japanese high schools are infact quite alien. :)

[nickjong]

No kidding. What, do all Japanese schools have class on Saturdays?! Those guys are nuts!

:-)

[arashink]

I was gonna say, usually you have less time before you finish your thesis. The friend of mine who got his PhD about a year ago, he wasn't doing a whole lot of anything before, and when he finally finished I think I was watching his XBL Gamerscore explode.

JRPGs are pretty time consuming. A lot of them have weird ancillary side games to them, like that social bond aspect you just mentioned in P4. Depending on how psycho you are about it, you could spend the entire game with a FAQ or guidebook in your lap, spending countless hours optimizing every little bit. I'm trying to not do that, as a change of pace. I'm playing Fallout 3 without a FAQ, and finding that I'm less worried about getting everything "right" vs. just enjoying the game. (Even though I suspect bludgeoning my best friend's father to death with a baseball bat right in front of her will come back to haunt me at some point. But hey, he started it!)

[nickjong]

I weaned myself off of strategy guides, walkthroughs, and FAQs a while ago. I think it was after I dodged 192 (but not 193) consecutive bolts of lightning on the Thunder Plains in FFX, trying to get some secret weapon. I find I enjoy JRPGs much more now when I just play though them at my own pace and my own level of thoroughness.

In short, I have certainly figured out that I can't afford to be a completist anymore!

[nickjong]

Okay, you talked me into it. :-)

[quindo]

arrrgh!

[richgreen01]

Agreed, FFXII is pretty cool, although we got nowhere near finishing it. In, fact the only game I've actually finished in the last few years in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - great game, ideal length.