Choose Your Own Adventure, the game: Radiant Historia

Sometimes, less is more.

In the context of this post, that has a dual meaning:  Radiant Historia, which recently saw a reprint, is a game that, in spite of utilizing time-travel as a central story mechanic, does not try to beat you over the head with overly complex combat systems, or a robust cast of characters with overly complicated storylines, daddy issues, or focus on vengeance.  In trying to do less than many of the RPGs out there do, it manages to be a thoroughly engrossing game from start to finish that feels like one of the old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

The other meaning?  Rather than spend an entire post telling you about how much I loved the game and my experience with it, I'll put it this way:

This blog is about decent, and even excellent games that are pushed into the abyss of unfinished games for a variety of reasons.

Radiant Historia is a game that never made it to my backlog.  I picked it up, and within a week, clocked about 40 hours and completed it.

Go order the reprint now.  Then play it.

And keep playing.

On to the next. . .

After months of picking at it and finishing a quest here and there, I've finally finished Final Fantasy Tactics A2:  Grimoire of the Rift.  This post isn't focusing on my experiences with that game (which deserves a lengthy -- and mostly positive -- entry on its own) but rather the crossroads that I'm at.

See, FFTA2 occupied my DS for so long that it kind of became like that one friend that crashes on your couch for what's initially 'a few days', but a few days become a few months, and before long, is one of those regular fixtures in your home that just always seemed to have been there.

Given how long my DS stays in standby mode, this is pretty accurate.

But like any houseguest (at least ideally), FFTA2 eventually left.  Unbelievably enough, my DS backlog is down to a mere 5 games.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure which of the following I should tackle:  Dragon Quest VI, Dragon Quest IX, Hotel Dusk:  Room 215, or  Megaman Zero Collection.  Yes, I know I said 5.  The fifth is Shin Megami Tensei:  Strange Journey.  I popped that game in for a few moments the other day, had my ass handed to me by some random pseudo boss fight that I died to last time and promptly remembered why I put it down in the first place.

Asshole.

So I'm at a bit of an impasse.  I have a choice between action, visual novel/mystery, and grind-happy RPGs.  While admittedly, the prospect of listening to this over and over again has me leaning towards Dragon Quest IX, I haven't made a definitive decision yet.  While David and my best friend, Nick, may help me come to a decision on this, if you have any suggestions, leave them in the comments.

Preferably before the Pub Polka theme sways me more than it already has.

 

Odyssey in the Truest Sense: Etrian Odyssey

A funny thing happened on the way to the Nocturne.

I haven't forgotten about the reader poll which voted Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne the next game for me to remove from my Backlog. It's just that since that poll went up, several things have happened which stymied my progress. A few were legitimate - planning out my second anniversary, preparing for an upcoming move - a few others - replaying Tales of the Abyss, watching every episode of House starting from Season One - maybe less so.

But I have to find out if it's lupus.

However, just because I wasn't playing the games I wanted to play doesn't mean there wasn't some backlogging going on. Following Ayn's post on the concept of Bridge Games it felt only appropriate to bring up this little-title-that-could which has been kicking around in my DS for the past few months.

Like most of my handheld games, this one alternated between sitting idle on my shelf or idle in the DS itself. Unlike the others, there was a little more story to how I obtained it than "saw it on the shelf, bought it on a whim." Late last year, a member of the  BlueGartr community with a veritable warehouse of video games to choose from decided he wanted a little extra spending money. So from his great throne, he deigned to let a few of us mere collectors bid on items from the vast trove in his personal arcade.

An arcade which actually exists and has this painting in it.

I ended up getting about a dozen games from him, but when I ordered the first two Etrian Odyssey games, he told me that his assistant - because he owns so many games he needs an assistant to keep track of them - had already sold off one of them. No big deal, I figured, since my local GameStop had the one he had sold. I told him to just switch my order for another game on his list, only to find out he'd made a mistake - the one I'd just bought was the one he still had available, the other was the one he'd just shipped out. Well, now I was determined. Three GameStops later and one 18-mile walk later, I'd gotten my hands on the original Etrian Odyssey.

I went through a lot worse to get Luminous Arc.