Life is for the living

I enjoy video games.
I've been flakier than ever lately. Of course, it's related to this, which means, for those of you too lazy to click links, I'm talking about DS games now. (Also, I was very lucky to find both Pikmin games fairly easily as I'd hoped; haven't done much in the second yet. I think there should be some sort of special trophy for managing to kill over a hundred Pikmin in a day, and that's all I need to say about that right now.)

I haven't finished Etrian Odyssey 2. On the whole it's better than the first one, though not in every way, I think. As far as balance goes, it's no longer dominated by a couple particular skills, which means there's more viability in a wider range of possible party builds (obviously moreso with the new classes added in) and that's an extremely good thing. On the other hand, it feels a lot more luck-driven to me, since reliable defensive maneuvers are harder to come by and also everyone misses a lot more. I never really had to grind in the first game, but I'm doing it for bosses in this one to buy myself a few more turns of praying that my bindings land. That sort of thing, you know.

Also, I don't like the aesthetics as much. (Except the music, which is fantastic.) I dunno, the scenery isn't purely nature anymore, and the monsters look less like animals too, and the NPCs are mostly way less appealing. Except for the Trauma Center cameos, those are improved. Who ever cared about Dr. Hoffman anyway? Not me! Whereas Derek and Angie moving to fantasyland and becoming environmentalists is totally amusing. You even get to save Angie from getting herself eaten by monsters like an idiot. Quality.

But most of all, it's probably just that I can never quite duplicate the sense of wonder and discovery and excitement I got from Etrian Odyssey when it was new. Ah well, this is still a good game. You should play it.

Of course, it was interrupted by FFTA2, a much less ambivalent upgrade to a much more mediocre game. I think I like it. If nothing more, the writing is definitely miles better in that characters have personalities which are engaging and likeable, which is an improvement so dramatic it's nearly tangible. Where I am, the main character has even made fun of Vaan at one point, and I think that's something we can all get behind. The thing that annoys me is having to advance the plot to unlock classes; in some cases, it's a very long wait. I mean that sort of unlocking's perfectly fine in general principle, but this is the internet age where everyone already knows what all the jobs are and is planning their parties from the start. In other words, I'm impatient for my badass dragon-girls. Well, it's a fairly minor inconvenience.

Incidentally, I've also picked up My Pokémon Ranch (my first download to the wii, whee) which hardly qualifies as a game, but I guess it's sort of DS-related. See, the thing about this is... in Pearl, once I beat the Elite Four I got fairly heavily into breeding and EV training, which means that the Pokés I ran through the game with are terribly obsolete. Even my loyal starter! So now it makes me retardedly happy to give these forgotten friends a nice little field where they can frolic and make friends. EMOTIONAL MATURITY WHAT IS THAT. Also they occasionally poison each other. And my mii rode around on a Lopunny, which seems kinda kinky.

At this rate I'm SERIOUSLY TORN on whether to go for Trauma Center 2 right when it comes out, but I'm pretty sure I'll hold off on FF4. Yikes, games.

Current Mood: enjoying self

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